Nationality and Borders Bill

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

With 20,000 Syrians, 18,000 Afghans, 100,000 Hongkongers and an unlimited number of Ukrainians—probably upwards of 100,000 are expected—it is just not the case, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali) just said, that there is not an ounce of compassion in this country for supporting refugees fleeing from conflict. It is simply not the case.

Of course there are difficulties, and there is too much bureaucracy in many cases, and we are all familiar with that. I do not think there is any individual to blame, whether Ministers or officials. The fact is that systems are often clunky and bureaucratic, and we need to improve that, but there is a factor that applies when we consider mass migration and asylum in our times. We are trying to manage hard borders in an age of free trade and mass migration. We are facing enormous pressures on our borders.

Beyond the remit of this Bill is our foreign engagement. We need to be more engaged. In other debates, we have discussed the need for further investment in our defences, in development spending and in our diplomatic corps. I also think we need to accept more refugees into this country in the years ahead—not more economic migrants, except for those who are highly skilled and able to make a significant contribution, but certainly more refugees.

I want to speak briefly in support of the sponsorship scheme that the Government have introduced, which is so good as a model. Rather than Government and councils being responsible for identifying migrants and admitting them into this country, we are inviting communities themselves to take the lead, and I find it surprising that Opposition Members, who object so strenuously to bureaucracy and faceless systems, want the Government to match refugees with sponsors. They think councils should be responsible for organising where people come and live. I think we have a better system that is self-organising. Members around the House will have noticed the inspiring example in eastern Europe of communities reaching out to refugees, which is all self-organising and shows that it does not need Government to match people.

How do we do this securely? It is totally wrong to say that anyone who breaks into the UK has a right to live here. It is a terrible incentive for people to take dangerous trips across the channel, it is unjust to legal migrants and refugees, and it is wrong for the citizens who live here. It is the essence of sovereignty that people cannot just decide to move here on their own initiative. We have a moral obligation to illegal migrants to save their lives if they undertake these dangerous journeys, to treat them with absolute decency when they get here and then to return them to the back of the queue. If possible, that means back to the last safe country they were in, and if necessary to a third country. The effect will be to deter this dangerous and illegal crossing.

We must do more to deter people smuggling, which is why I support the measures in the Bill to introduce stronger penalties for people who break into this country, much stronger penalties against the smugglers who bring them over, more power and resources for our Border Force, including opportunities to return to France if that can be done safely, and more power to remove illegal immigrants.

I will finish with two quick conclusions. First, I think we need more use of the community sponsorship route as the default model for refugee resettlement. I echo the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) earlier. I believe in the generosity and compassion of local communities in this country, and I believe that community sponsorship is the most effective way to accommodate refugees and asylum seekers in our country. Secondly, to ensure the security of our borders, I wonder whether we should consider a new Department for borders that looks after visas, asylum and security. A smaller and more effective operation might be better.

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

The Bill is anti-refugee to its core. It lacks basic humanity and represents an acceleration of the Government’s deeply damaging demonisation of refugees and asylum seekers. Its callousness has been further illuminated by the situation in Ukraine. The Government must provide safe passage and refuge for displaced people, refugees and asylum seekers arriving from Ukraine and all theatres of conflict around the globe.

The outpouring of compassion and solidarity for people fleeing Ukraine has been inspiring, yet when we contrast that to how asylum seekers from non-European and non-majority white countries are treated by the Government, a worrying picture emerges of the inherent racism in how crises are reported, discussed and responded to. The sorrow and despair that we all feel for Ukraine should be identical to the sorrow and despair that we feel for Yemen, Palestine and Syria. The media class and the Government must recognise that every conflict is deserving of our solidarity and our compassion, so the UK must not only rapidly extend its support for people fleeing Ukraine but abandon its unbelievably callous refugee and asylum policy—starting by ripping up this Bill.

Many of the Lords amendments would improve the Bill. I especially support Lords amendment 4, which removes the licence given to the Home Secretary to deprive British people of their citizenship without informing them. I also support Lords amendment 5, which seeks to ensure that the Bill does not violate the UK’s shared international obligations under the refugee convention. Lords amendment 6, which removes from the Bill the power given to the Home Secretary to treat people differently according to the way that they arrive and claim asylum, must also be adopted to prevent a two-tier system that would limit protection for refugees due not to their need but to their method of travel.

I also support Lords amendment 7 on permission to work, yet I believe the six-month limit should be lifted and that people claiming asylum should be able to work regardless of how long they have been in our country. Lords amendments 8 and 9 are steps in the right direction, yet they do not go far enough to prevent asylum seekers from being transferred to other countries and processed offshore. Lords amendment 10, which would introduce a family reunion provision, is important, yet we must accept all people fleeing war, persecution and other horrors, not only those with family ties in the UK. I wholeheartedly support Lords amendment 54, which prohibits the use of new maritime powers contained in schedule 6 in ways that would endanger life at sea. That is an abhorrent proposal and we must fight tooth and nail against its ever being implemented.

Overall, although the Lords amendments improve important aspects, they do not go nearly far enough to rectify this irredeemable Bill. Time and again, the Government have chosen to turn their back on those seeking protection from war, torture or other awful acts. The Bill will compound the misery of people fleeing intolerable conditions. It must be scrapped.

[Tim Loughton]

I welcome the Bill, although not without reservation. The ridiculous caricature that we just heard from the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) and from other Opposition Members helps absolutely nobody.

I very much welcome the offer to meet the Minister on my issue of family reunion. I welcome the flexibility that he and other Ministers have shown on the We Belong campaign by young people who have been in this country for many years and whose wish to become officially British will at last be speeded up. I do not welcome the litany of constant carping from Opposition Members, who have not offered a single practical solution to the serious problems that we are facing, particularly in the channel. They have had every opportunity to do so and they have failed on every occasion.

I support Lords amendment 7—I said that my support for the Bill was not without reservation—and I think there is merit in the six-month campaign. There is a waste of talent that is left in limbo in this country that we could put to good use. I also welcome Lords amendment 12—the genocide amendment—and the good work done on it by Lord Alton. As somebody who has been sanctioned by China for my support of the recognition of genocide, I would be expected to support that.

I will concentrate on Lords amendment 10—the so-called Dubs amendment. I have form in this area, and I am afraid that the family reunion scheme needs to be much better. The Minister said that there is already generous provision in our rules for refugee family reunion, and 40,000 people have benefited from that, but only since 2015 or over seven years. The Home Secretary did say some time ago that she wanted to see a generous equivalent replacement for Dublin III as we came beyond Brexit. I want to hold her to that promise, but I fear what is contained in the Bill does not hold water.

The Dubs amendment would expand family reunion so that unaccompanied children in Europe can easily join family members in the UK, such as their grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings. At the moment, however, the UK’s refugee family reunion rules only cover children trying to reunite with their parents in the UK as long as a parent has refugee status or humanitarian protection, and the child was born before their parents fled the country of origin. This rule is limited so that it excludes most unaccompanied children and prevents them from uniting with family.

For some children, these are their closest surviving relatives. They may be aunts and uncles because they have lost their parents in a place of war. Refugees may have lost their parents before they left their country or on their journey to sanctuary, and siblings in this country may be the only link they have. We have seen the horrendous pictures from Lesbos of the camps there containing many unaccompanied children, where there are fires, predators and other dangers, and those are the young people we really should be concentrating on rescuing. In refusing one case, the Home Office said:

“You currently live in a shelter for unaccompanied minors… I note you have provided no evidence why this arrangement cannot continue”.

That is not a permanent solution.

The Government have also argued that there is discretion to allow family reunion outside the rules in certain circumstances, but it is not right that children who had a clear official route to safety and family reunion under the EU’s Dublin III regulation are now reliant on Government discretion. This discretion is rarely exercised, and the very few cases actually granted outside the rules are mainly done so only on appeal, which requires legal assistance. At best, children are left waiting months alone and separated from family, and at worst, they are prevented from safely joining loved ones at all.

I call on the Government to make good on the promises given by the Home Secretary as we moved out of the Dublin III regulation post Brexit. There has been a long hiatus, but we need to put that right and that is why I support Lords amendment 10 in doing that.