Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

As the Member of Parliament for North East Bedfordshire, with Yarl’s Wood in my constituency, I can attest to the human tragedies that have occurred in detention over the past decades. When I became a Member of Parliament in 2010, the last Labour Government were imprisoning children, and I am quite clear that the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on the Opposition Front Bench would find that unconscionable today. We have been making progress over the years, and a time limit on detention now is the next change that we should make. I say to the Minister that if he cannot reform the process—if he cannot today say he is going to reform that process—the time is up on what this Conservative Government are doing on detention.

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I am afraid that this Bill fails on every conceivable measure of a humane and just immigration policy, and I am concerned that my constituents are particularly vulnerable to the predatory aspects of this legislation. Some 43% of Leicester East residents were born outside the UK, as opposed to 10% nationally, and our citizens hail from over 50 countries around the globe. This diversity is what makes our city special, yet with a two-week lockdown extension announced in my home city, this Bill fails to protect its most vulnerable citizens. To ensure that every Leicester resident can seek the medical help they need during this increase in coronavirus, it is vital for full citizenship rights to be extended to undocumented workers, those with no recourse to public funds and people with no indefinite leave to remain, yet the Bill fails to provide the necessary protections.

Under most visa categories, migrants who are legally in the UK working and paying tax cannot access publicly funded support. The Migration Observatory estimates that nearly 1.5 million people currently have no recourse to public funds, including those with children who were born in the UK. For people who already face uncommonly difficult challenges in their daily lives, this pandemic has only deepened fears over how to maintain an income, remain healthy or even stay alive. Citizens Advice has recorded a 110% increase in people seeking advice about having no recourse to public funds during the pandemic, and a recent report from the Children’s Society found that almost half of children whose parents were born abroad live in poverty. The Government must introduce an amnesty for all migrants, including residency rights, for the duration of this pandemic and end the callous policy of no recourse to public funds.

An estimated 1 million undocumented workers lack any entitlement to support from the state. Many of these people are destitute and living in the shadows, unable to access healthcare and fearful of what will happen to them if they identify themselves. In nearly all cases, undocumented people are not criminals but simply those who have fallen through the cracks of the Government’s callous hostile environment policies. For people forced to endure this level of insecurity, it is impossible to comply with Government guidance on self-isolation and social distancing. With the overwhelming rise in coronavirus cases in my constituency and with a rate of infection that is beyond acceptable, it is imperative and in the best interests of everyone in our country that the basic needs of all our residents are met, especially given the disproportionate impact of covid-19.

The tragic irony is that many undocumented people, or those with no recourse to public funds who are living in constant fear of the state, work in the frontline services that the Government have been at pains the praise during this crisis. We must ensure that all frontline workers, regardless of their immigration status, are valued and protected as we rebuild our economy and society. It is vital that we repay the extraordinary contribution of frontline workers during the pandemic with a permanent extension of migrant rights. That means an end to the hostile environment, shutting detention centres and granting indefinite leave to remain for anyone living in the UK. In Leicester, the coronavirus pandemic has caused widespread suffering for too many individuals and communities, with widespread job losses—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am sorry but we have to move on.