Calais Children and Immigration Act

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Contrary to the bluster from the Opposition Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Minister is working tirelessly on this issue, as indeed did his predecessor. Knowing that we have a severe lack of carers, and particularly foster carers, in our area of Yorkshire, will my hon. Friend explain what the Government are doing to ensure that there is a fair distribution of caring responsibilities for unaccompanied children right across the UK?

[Mr Goodwill]

Some of the bluster we have heard from the Opposition Front Bench is not reflected in the very practical and constructive way that Labour local authorities have been working up and down the country. One aspect of the safeguarding strategy we launched on 1 November was, indeed, looking at the demand for foster care and its availability. Many local authorities have raised concerns that they do not have sufficient capacity for fostering, and they have had to place children out of area, which has incurred additional costs, particularly if agencies are being used. We do need to improve the capacity for fostering, and I would say to anybody out in the country who fancies a career in fostering that it is a very rewarding career and one we would be very pleased to see more people stepping forward to take up.

Child Refugees: Age Checks

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

Absolutely. Home Office officials, working with local government social services officials, will be making sure that we discharge all our responsibilities to protect the children.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Many constituents in the Calder Valley have contacted me wanting to know why, given that we have said that we are going to take children from the jungle in Calais, we are actually taking young men and not young girls. Can the Minister confirm that the only unaccompanied children—that is, those under 18—in the Calais jungle are in fact young men?

[Mr Goodwill]

Some 90% of those in the camps who are children are young men. It is important that, as we move to the next phase, we target the most vulnerable—the younger children and those at most risk.

Policing and Crime Bill (Second sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Q We still have a bit of time left, so it might be helpful to ask whether there are any issues in the Bill that you have concerns about and about which we have not asked any questions. Is there anything you want to raise with us that we have not had the foresight to anticipate?

Cassandra Harrison: I wanted to raise an issue that is not currently in the Bill but is something I would like to be considered. It is in relation to taxi licensing. The Bill clarifies and streamlines the system for the licensing of alcohol premises, and under the Licensing Act 2003 authorities that carry out licensing for premises that sell alcohol are under a duty, when carrying out their functions, to promote objectives that include protecting children from harm. We think there is a strong case for creating an equivalent duty for authorities that license taxis and minicabs.

We know from our direct work with children and young people that taxis often feature in CSE cases, that they are sometimes used to traffic children around towns and around the country. In some cases, taxi drivers have been perpetrators of CSE; the vast majority have not, of course, but they might have seen something. Taxi drivers have real potential to be our eyes and ears in the community but they often do not know exactly what to look for or might not feel that it is their role to intervene.

A lot of taxi licensing is very much down to local discretion, and placing a duty equivalent to the existing one for premises that sell alcohol could drive CSE prevention within taxi licensing, to drive some of the good practice that already exists. For example, in cities such as Oxford they have information when people apply for a taxi licence. When taxi drivers have to sit their local knowledge test they are asked about CSE issues and are given information and procedures. That would really drive that, and hopefully make it much more consistent across the country. It could have real benefit.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Q It seems to me that with all the issues concerning children and young people—CSE and some of the other things you have spoken about—to help to prevent some of the horrific things that happen there is a plethora of things that will form a package. We obviously have the Policing and Crime Bill, which you are here to talk about today, but there is also the Investigatory Powers Bill going through. Do you think that as a package that is good thing, or not?

Alan Wardle: I should say that Ministers Bradley and Penning are both hugely committed to the issue and a huge amount of work has been going on. One of the challenges is that the pace at which things are happening, at which children are living their lives, at which technology is moving and at which some of these horrific things are being uncovered, means that it is a real challenge for Ministers, for law enforcement and for everyone to try to keep up with what is going on. So I suppose I should contextualise what I said earlier with that recognition.

One thing about the Investigatory Powers Bill about which we expressed concerns before but which, I think, has been rectified, is that from our perspective what is vital—putting aside the counter-terrorism aspects and the serious organised crime aspects—is that the police have the capacity fully to investigate the cases and take them where the evidence leads them. Whether it is grooming gangs or people who are trading illegal images of children, we know that they are very complex crimes, most of which are committed online. Blocking off avenues for the police to pursue will have a hugely detrimental effect on vulnerable children.

I would commend the way the Bill is set up at the moment, having gone through pre-legislative scrutiny from the serious organised crime aspect, particularly provisions looking at internet connection records. I think it is vital that that can be done. The NSPCC runs ChildLine and has to protect, on average, about 10 children a day whose lives are in immediate danger. So, selfishly from our perspective, we need to ensure that the police have the capacity to trace IP addresses for children whose lives are in immediate danger.

We think the Bill is fit for purpose to do that. In order to keep children safe it is important not to undermine the police’s ability to investigate fully these crimes that are very complex and often perpetrated by organised criminals.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions, I thank the witnesses for their evidence, which has been really helpful. We do appreciate it. We can now move on to the next panel, the members of which are already here.

Examination of Witnesses

Winston Roddick, David Jamieson, David Lloyd and Vera Baird gave evidence.

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[Jake Berry]

Q I have one final point on this. You said that you were about to publish it. How long after publication will it be until it becomes accepted as practice?

Alex Marshall: It went out to a three-month consultation period that finished about six weeks ago. From memory, we are now adopting the consultation responses, including from charity and voluntary sectors. That will be published by us and then we will put it into the curriculum for everybody joining policing and for their training throughout policing. We will publish it to forces but, of course, we then rely on forces to adopt and use it.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q Dame Anne, could I just come back to you? It was really good to hear that the Government were listening to your ideas and allowed you to get on and do the IPCC work. Could I just touch on what you said? I think that you said that the Bill goes “some way” towards being an effective complaints system. Do I detect that we could have done more?

Dame Anne Owers: The decision was made, and I understand why, to proceed by way of amending current legislation, rather than starting with a blank sheet. There are still a lot of tie-ups between complaints and discipline in a way that you might not do if you started from scratch. To be honest, I am grateful for what there is, so I am not about to say that the exercise should not be done. I understand exactly the pressures of legislative time and so on. There is still quite a considerable tie-up between the two, but I hope that, between us, the police and crime commissioners and ourselves will be able to develop a more effective way of handling complaints in the first instance. You should not start an investigation by saying, “Who dunnit?” You should start an investigation by saying, “What happened?”

[Jack Dromey]

Q May I ask a completely separate question? Alex, I think this goes to you. We heard evidence earlier today—this morning from two of the three police organisations and this afternoon from the National Police Chiefs Council—in respect of the provisions on bail. Sara Thornton, in particular, raised concerns about the sheer scale of the numbers involved because of the trigger that is proposed in the Bill. In her words, because of the bureaucracy that would be attached, large numbers of superintendents would have to supervise the making of the necessary arrangements. Separate concerns were expressed about what we have come to call the Dhar clause, arising out of what happened in relation to the Dhar case.

I have read your evidence, and the final paragraph says that

“in relation to the Bill’s changes to the length and authorisation of pre-charge bail, the College is currently evaluating the outcomes of a pilot study that may provide a clearer indication of costs or benefits to these…changes. Until the evaluation is complete the College will be unable to provide a final view on this issue and we will endeavour to update Parliament”.

I have not seen an impact study prepared by the Government. There may be one in the Department, but I have not seen it. It seems from what has been said here that it is common ground that we need to change the bail arrangements and how they work. Against the background of the reservations that have been expressed, one would hope that you have evidence-based legislation, as opposed to legislation to be followed by an evidence base.

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[Carolyn Harris]

Yes.

Dame Anne Owers: I have a lot of sympathy with that question. We are worried about the inconsistencies that may arise where, in some forces, the PCC will elect to be the person who receives complaints and in another force it may be the force itself. If you imagine, for example, a major public order incident which may involve quite a lot of forces, and we could have people directed to quite different bodies for complaints; or, indeed, forces which share a professional standards department, as some of them do. We would have preferred to see a system where either it is the PCC, or it is the force, under the oversight of the PCC.

However, I do think, as I am sure PCCs will say, that PCCs have developed some really innovative ways of dealing with complaints, some of which have worked very well. It would be useful to extrapolate broad principles and standards from them. I think it will be necessary to do that in regulations and in the statutory guidance we produce, otherwise I think issues of fairness and consistency may arise in those choices. That is one concern that we flagged up about the Bill.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q I want to go back to what you said about putting a time limit on bail. Surely, the current system, where we have no restrictions on bail, must be counterproductive? You said people would have to react more quickly, but surely a time limit focuses minds, makes people react more quickly, becomes much more productive and frees up more time in the long run? Surely, that seems like a common-sense approach?

Alex Marshall: I can see the purpose of a time limit. All I will say is that, so far, from the data we have looked at, the numbers are very high in terms of people who need to be bailed or who are bailed—whether they need to be, of course, becomes an interesting question—for more than 28 days to receive back forensic analysis, phone analysis, computer analysis, doctor statements and victim and witness statements from vulnerable people. Yes, of course, if people are working to a deadline, we might see a better response from all those other parties I have just listed. I just say: be careful about the resourcing consequences of imposing 28 days if that is not achievable by all those other parties. But yes, I get the common sense of your point.

[Mims Davies]

Q I want to pick up a question that I have asked during the day of different witnesses and put it to Alex. It is regarding the requirements around the rank structure, the changes there, how the current structure fulfils the requirements and how you envisage things going forward in terms of your role.

Alex Marshall: Last year, the College of Policing conducted a leadership review, saying, “We know that the nature of police work is changing quite substantially. What, over the next 10 to 15 years, do we need in terms of police leadership?” We have made 10 recommendations, which I think taken together would make quite a positive difference. One of them looks at hierarchy in policing. To put it in very simple terms, in a serious emergency the command structure in the police and other emergency services and other agencies is a very useful way of being clear about who is in charge, what the lines of accountability are and where difficult, critical decisions are made.

Having excessive hierarchy in any organisation, including the police—this is what we learnt during the leadership review—stifles innovation. Also, we want the professional at the front end to be a well educated, well trained, skilled individual who is accountable for the decisions that they make, like the community midwife coming to your house. We want that person to be taking responsibility for their decisions. We do not want hierarchy that stifles that decision making or innovation in the organisation. We think that at the moment the number of ranks in policing is probably too many, and that work is happening at the moment.

Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Friday 11th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hollobone]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I share your sentiments, but at least it is reassuring that the Minister will turn up to the debate. Let us hope that we can ask questions of her later on. Before I take the interventions that I promised, let me say that part of the problem is that foreign national offenders and their deportation, removal, transfer, repatriation, or whatever we want to call it, is a major policy issue that falls between two stools. There are two major Departments of State that are basically responsible for this area, and all too often one blames the other for why the situation is not being tackled. That is why it is the Prime Minister himself who needs to take on board this issue. Indeed, he promised the House that he would, yet six years into his premiership, the problem is not going away. If anything, it is getting worse.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Hollobone]

I give way with a great deal of delight to my hon. Friend.

[Craig Whittaker]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He has obviously done a great deal of research, as he has some impressive figures. I think that he said there are 10,442 foreign national prisoners from more than 160 different nationalities. Can he enlighten the House on the mix between EU and non-EU foreign nationals who are in our prisons?

[Mr Hollobone]

The forensic analysis of my hon. Friend’s brain is illustrated to us all, because that is exactly the question that needs to be addressed. According to the figures that I was sent in response to my parliamentary question at the end of January, the breakdown, continent by continent, is as follows: 20% of foreign national offenders in our country come from Africa; 18% from Asia; 1.5% from Central and South America; a whopping 47% from Europe; 7% from the West Indies; and a negligible percentage from Oceania.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hollobone]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I bow to his huge knowledge and experience of the Council of Europe and its various pronouncements. He is right to highlight the EU prisoner transfer agreement, introduced some years ago, which was meant to be the great panacea for the number of EU citizens in our jails. We were apparently going to be able to send EU prisoners in our jails back to their EU countries.

[Craig Whittaker]

I want to apply a different principle. My hon. Friend has noted that there are 10,442 foreign nationals in our prisoners. Can he tell us how many British nationals there are in prisons around the world? If we applied the same principle to them, how much would it cost us to have them back in our prisons?

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend makes a very helpful intervention; his lateral thinking on the issue demonstrates that he is an assiduous Member of the House. In answer to his question, I believe that each year about 4,000 people with British nationality are imprisoned overseas. I got that figure from Prisoners Abroad, which seems a very worthwhile human rights and welfare charity; it provides those people with humanitarian aid, expert advice and emotional support.

I hope that we will get the official figure from the Home Office or the Foreign Office when the relevant person arrives. Some of those British nationals will be in prison not because they have been convicted of any crime, but because they have been detained by the authorities of whatever country they might be in—and most of those countries will have criminal justice systems that are far less rigorous than our own.

It seems to me that, were we to sort this system out, 4,000 British nationals could be repatriated to serve their time here. I am not suggesting for one moment that all 4,000 would return immediately, but my hon. Friend asked for a figure and that is the one I have. In practice, the number of returnees would be a lot lower. Of course, that number is still a lot lower than the number of foreign nationals convicted and imprisoned in this country.

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[Mr Hollobone]

As ever, my hon. Friend sums it up really rather well. He makes the case that his constituents would make, which is that our membership of these international organisations should work both ways. We are spending a great deal of British taxpayers’ money in defending Lithuanians from the Russian threat, and the very least they could do is to take back their 471 nationals from this country to prisons in their own country. After all, we are supposed to have an EU prisoner transfer agreement, from which Lithuania does not have a derogation, so I do not understand why there is a problem.

I am anxious, as I am sure you are, Madam Deputy Speaker, to complete my list so that I can move on to other aspects of the Bill. There are some important countries at the bottom of the top 10. India, with 458, is No. 8, and I am looking for No. 9 on my list—

[Craig Whittaker]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Hollobone]

Yes. I am grateful to my hon. Friend because while he intervenes, I shall try to find No. 9.

[Craig Whittaker]

Clause 1(1) will exclude

“any foreign national convicted in any court of law of a qualifying offence”.

Will my hon. Friend clarify what would be a qualifying offence? We have trivialised things such as shoplifting as minor offences, but, having been a retailer for 30 years, I can assure him that some of us feel that it should be a qualifying offence. I also point out that a former Minister for Crime Prevention said at the Dispatch Box not too long ago:

“Someone might start with shoplifting, but who knows where they will end up?”—[Official Report, 5 January 2015; Vol. 590, c. 10.]

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend makes a very helpful intervention. He speaks from personal experience and with great knowledge of these matters.

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[Philip Davies]

It is a significant figure. All these things add up; there are many different elements. I want to come on to the cost, which has been one of the issues raised in the debate.

[Craig Whittaker]

On that same point, will my hon. Friend elaborate on what he thinks are the reasons that those awaiting deportation are sent to open prison rather than a closed prison?

[Philip Davies]

It is not for me to answer for the Ministry of Justice, but it seems that the policy it adopts is that foreign national offenders are treated just like any other prisoner and, even if they are subject to a deportation order, will be sent to an open prison if they meet the criteria. One can understand that logic, but clearly there is a flaw in the procedure when somebody has an easy way of avoiding deportation.

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[Philip Davies]

That might well be the case: as I say, I cannot speak for the Ministry of Justice. Perhaps the Minister will be able to clarify.

One of the main reasons the Bill is so necessary is the cost. Interestingly, in its 2015 report the Public Accounts Committee said:

“The Home Office admitted that it did not know the cost of managing foreign national offenders and accepted that its cost data were not robust enough to enable it to make a judgment as to which of its interventions or processes were more cost-effective than others”.

The National Audit Office estimated the costs; I suspect that the Home Office probably could make a very good estimate of them but just does not want to do so, because it would be rather embarrassing for it if it did.

The NAO gave a lower estimate, a higher estimate and a most likely estimate of the cost, and broke it down into the costs before conviction and those after conviction. The lowest estimate was that the costs were £266 million up to conviction and £503 million after conviction, with a total cost of £769 million a year. The high estimate was £536 million up to conviction and £504 million after conviction, giving a total of more than £1 billion a year. The most likely estimate was £346.8 million up to conviction and £503.7 million after conviction, giving a total of £850 million. The interesting part of that information is that the costs after conviction are the same for the lowest, highest and most likely estimates—they are within £1 million of each other. So the costs after conviction are pretty clear. They are the cost of keeping people in prison, the cost of the deportation orders and so on.

[Craig Whittaker]

I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering how many British nationals abroad were sent to prison and the answer was 4,000 per year. That does not tell us how many UK nationals are physically in foreign jails. Does my hon. Friend have a figure for that?

[Philip Davies]

I can do no better than my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) did earlier with his answer. I suspect that that is about as robust as we are going to get. If the Minister has a better answer, we will accept those figures.

The costs up to conviction included police costs, which are shown as £148 million a year for dealing with foreign national offenders, CPS costs of £119 million a year and legal aid costs of £81 million a year. When we are spending £850 million to £1 billion a year on dealing with foreign national offenders, it is clear why the Bill is so important.

One of the complications for the Bill and for the whole subject is the free movement of people. As I have pointed out on many occasions, free movement of people within the EU also means free movement of criminals within the EU. My hon. Friend made a point about how many EU citizens made up the prison population. EU citizens account for about 40% of foreign inmates in England and Wales. The figures are 60% in Northern Ireland and 55% in Scotland. There is a far higher proportion of EU nationals in prisons in those two countries, which is interesting.

My hon. Friend listed by country the number of EU nationals in our prisons today, but he did not give the figures that show the scale of the problem and the fact that it is growing, which means that the Bill is probably more urgent than people give it credit for. He did not point out how many prisoners from those countries were in our prisons 10 years ago. He said that top of the list of countries whose nationals are in our prisons was Poland, and I have no information to contradict that. His figures were more up to date; mine go up to 2014.

In 2014 there were 867 Polish nationals in our prisons. In 2002 there were just 45. If we look down the list of EU countries, the figures are very similar. In 2014 there were 614 Romanian nationals in our prisons, but only 49 in 2002. There were 115 Slovakian nationals in 2014, and just four in 2002. The list goes on. I will not go through the figures for every country. The point is that since we have had the free movement of people, the growth in number of foreign national offenders from other parts of the EU has gone through the roof. That is a direct consequence of being in the European Union and having free movement of people.

Whether people want to argue for staying in or leaving the European Union is a matter for them. There are sincerely held views on both sides, but people must at least be honest about the consequences of our EU membership, and one of those is that the free movement of people has seen a massive growth in the number of foreign criminals coming to the UK.

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[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

I am pleased to be able to contribute to this important debate, which is of course just as important to my constituents as many other debates in this Chamber. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) for bringing the Bill forward and my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) for his excellent presentation today.

The Bill’s purpose is straightforward: if someone came to this country, committed an offence and was given a term of imprisonment, they would be deported to the country from which they came. Furthermore, that person would not be permitted to enter the UK again. Of course, the Government already use a range of measures and powers to remove foreign national offenders from the UK, a point to which I will return shortly. As such, the Bill’s real emphasis relates to countries within the European Union, as made clear in the first line of clause 1. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering said that 40% of the 10,442 foreign nationals in our prison system are actually from the EU.

[Mr Hollobone]

It was some time ago now, but I think I said 47%.

[Craig Whittaker]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I stand corrected if I misheard the figure that was given to the House.

Under the Bill’s provisions, foreign criminals would not have the right to return to the UK once they had been sent back to the European Union. Thus, they would be removed without any reference to human rights legislation, the stipulations of the European Communities Act 1972 or any other enactments.

Britain is a tolerant, welcoming country for those who come here to work hard and to create a better life for themselves. Those who abide by our rules and contribute towards society will always be welcome. However, I appreciate the concerns of my constituents in relation to those foreign nationals who come to this country legally, in receipt of our hospitality, and then go on to commit serious offences.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend says that this matter is of concern to him and to his constituents; it is also of concern to my constituents. Is he not shocked therefore that the Scottish National party and the Green party think that this is not an important issue for debate? They do not care about foreign national offenders who cannot be kicked out of the country.

[Craig Whittaker]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Like many other Members, I receive letters, emails and phone calls from my constituents on many matters. This issue is as important to my constituents as any, so, yes, he is right to make his point.

Such behaviour can undermine the trust that exists in our communities and create tensions that others can exploit. Although I have considerable sympathy with the broad intentions of the Bill, we need to consider what measures are already in place to deal effectively with this matter.

The Government are already able automatically to deport non-European economic area nationals who are convicted in the UK and given a single custodial sentence of 12 months or more for one conviction. I think that that has already been pointed out by several Members in the Chamber today. In circumstances where automatic deportation cannot be applied, the power already exists to seek to deport a foreign national offender on the grounds that it would be in the public interest to do so. When somebody has been removed, they are then prohibited from re-entering the UK while the deportation order against them remains in force. As a deportation order has no expiry date, it remains in force indefinitely unless a decision is taken to revoke it. Those individuals who have been handed a deportation order will be subject to the relevant Border Force checks, which means that, under the existing system, the Government are able to keep out those who have previously been deported.

Members will be aware that the Immigration Act 2014 contains a public interest consideration in relation to deporting foreign nationals. Section 19 clearly states that the law should be on the side of the public and that the starting point is to accept that foreign criminals will be deported. Indeed, it says:

“The more serious the offence…the greater is the public interest in deportation of the criminal.”

In addition, the Government have previously made it clear that article 8 of the European convention on human rights should not be used to allow the private and family life rights of criminals to supersede the rights of ordinary members of the public to be protected from serious criminals.

Section 17 of the Immigration Act also provides for a revised deportation process so that, in cases where there is no real risk of serious irreversible harm to the individual, a foreign national offender can exercise their right of appeal only from outside the UK, thereby allowing for a more timely deportation. That section is particularly relevant when one considers that most foreign national criminals do not appeal once they have returned to their home country. By the end of 2015, more than 2,600 people had been removed under these new “deport first, appeal later” powers since they were introduced in July 2014.

In October 2014, the Government reduced, from 17 to four, the number of criteria on which foreign criminals could appeal against their deportation. That was a welcome reform that was necessary to stop criminals exploiting the system and lodging one appeal after another to avoid deportation. Finally, in situations where the level of the crime committed does not meet the threshold for deportation, the Government can take administrative action to remove offenders who have no legal right to be in the United Kingdom. Subject to certain expectations, foreign national offenders who have received a custodial sentence can be administratively removed from the UK and will face a mandatory refusal under immigration rules of entry clearance or leave to enter the United Kingdom.

The measures that the Government have introduced over the past few years have undoubtedly strengthened our ability to adopt a firm and vigorous approach in protecting the general public, although the management and removal of foreign national offenders will continue to present many challenges, as has been mentioned today. The number of foreign criminals removed from the UK increased last year to 5,277, representing a significant improvement on the 2011-12 numbers.

Of course, when it comes to deportation, there is a distinction between EU and non-EU nationals, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering has made very clear. It is important to remember that the free movement of people is not unqualified, and the existing requirements pertaining to free movement are that a person has to exercise their right to work, study or set up a business. In the event that they fail to exercise any one of those rights and, furthermore, that they abuse our hospitality by committing an offence, they should be removed and kept out of the country. Our existing power of imposing a re-entry ban of one year helps to facilitate that too.

Furthermore, the UK has implemented the free movement directive—that is, the 2006 EEA regulations on immigration. Under the regulations, EEA nationals can be removed from the United Kingdom on the grounds of public policy, public security or public health. All EEA nationals who receive a custodial sentence are considered for deportation or administrative removal. However, it is important to bear in mind that a decision to remove somebody from a country cannot be made solely on the basis of a criminal conviction, as other factors must be taken into account. As it stands, the Bill stipulates that an EEA national who has been convicted of an offence should be deported solely on the basis of that conviction without due consideration being given to a wider range of factors and, indeed, to the individual’s circumstances as required under the regulations.

For that reason, the Bill is incompatible with the freedom of movement directive. In relation to that point, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering will draw my attention to clause 1(1) and argue that it reinstates our national sovereignty and removes the UK from some of our previous obligations under EU migration law. However, I am not convinced that the issue is quite that simple and would in fact suggest that it is far more complex than the Bill acknowledges. As a nation, we are bound by a plethora of European and international obligations, directives and treaties that all require careful consideration as part of the Bill. Indeed, the European immigration regulations to which I referred a few moments ago are only a small part of the wider legislative and regulatory landscape that must be taken into account.

There is also the small matter of a referendum to consider and, depending on the result, many of the issues discussed as part of this debate might need to be approached in a different light. I wonder whether we are being slightly premature in considering these issues now.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am listening closely to my hon. Friend’s interesting remarks, but he seems to imply that the incompatibility of the Bill with the EU freedom of movement directive is a bad thing. I think many of us would say that it is a good thing.

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[Craig Whittaker]

I thank my hon. Friend for his always considered interventions. On this point we may have a slight disagreement. In the Calder Valley we have 1.8% unemployment and I can assure my hon. Friend that without freedom of movement and the labour that that brings to the factories in the Calder Valley, many of the factories would not be there. Perhaps we could have a further discussion about that.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way a second time. He began his remarks by saying that we have freedom of movement in the EU, but that is not without qualification. Would it not seem sensible to those like him who want to stay in the European Union for the EU states to negotiate and agree that freedom of movement does not apply to convicted criminals? I cannot see why there should not be an EU-wide agreement whereby someone convicted of a qualifying offence would not be allowed to cross any of the boundaries within the European Union. If staying in the European Union really does make us safer, which is what my hon. Friend believes and I do not, surely that would be a sensible measure to take.

[Craig Whittaker]

My hon. Friend has a point, but what are qualifying convictions? Many of us and many of our children committed silly crimes in our youth. Would we exclude people from freedom of movement around the EU because of a previous misdemeanour? There would have to be tight and clear criteria for qualifying convictions.

Even if we leave the European Union, we may well find ourselves bound by other international treaties and obligations which restrict our ability to exclude foreign nationals, in much the same way as this Bill suggests the European Union does at present.

The Government already employ a range of powers to remove foreign national offenders from the UK and have legislated over the past few years to strengthen their approach. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering supports the measures that this Government have taken, and was somewhat reassured by the response of the Immigration Minister when my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough presented this Bill only last year.

However, I appreciate that my hon. Friend has genuine concerns about our existing ability to deport foreign prisoners to EU countries, and that those concerns are shared by many people throughout this country. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering for highlighting the challenges that we continue to face in protecting the public from those who come to this country and abuse our hospitality by committing serious offences.

Although I have considerable sympathy with the aim of the Bill, I believe it must be considered alongside an evaluation of our existing international and European obligations and responsibilities. Whether we agree with them or not, the fact remains that those currently exist, and debating these issues in isolation from our pre-existing legal commitments is not the most conducive approach and fails properly to acknowledge the inherent complexity of the subject. It is worthy of detailed discussion and debate in the House and, although I cannot support the Bill in its current form, I hope that Members can explore some of the wider issues at stake in greater detail on other occasions.

Immigration Bill (Ninth sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Starmer]

There is a very serious concern, because as far as I can see there is no ability in the clause for the tenant to appeal the landlord. I am not even sure under these circumstances whether judicial review is available.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

I understand what the hon. and learned Gentleman is trying to put across. However, currently the eviction order is looked at by one person in a court. Surely he must agree that if the order comes from the Secretary of State, a much higher due diligence is gone through in following the eviction process first.

[Keir Starmer]

I accept that the notice will have come from the Secretary of State, but it will have gone to the landlord unbeknownst to the tenant. The first thing the tenant will know is when the notice is served on him or her. At that stage, there is nothing in the clause, as far as I can see, that allows the tenant to appeal or to challenge the order. I can see that some might argue that the Secretary of State could be challenged by judicial review for issuing the order in the first place, but that is a long and very complicated High Court route to deal with eviction, which would normally be dealt with in the county court.

[Craig Whittaker]

Although I accept the point the hon. and learned Gentleman was trying to make, to say that the tenant is not aware that they are illegal immigrants is, even he may agree, a little far-fetched.

[Keir Starmer]

That is why I did not say it. I said that the tenant would not know that the notice had been served. Just to stand back a moment, this issue was taken so seriously by the House because it happens in real life: landlords change locks, they put furniture on the streets and families are in the gutter. That is what happened and everybody thought it was something we could not tolerate in a modern democracy, whatever the rights and wrongs, whether the eviction was justified or not justified. Many evictions, for many other reasons in land law, are justified, but everybody considered that process was important, particularly where families would be put on the street. This is a step back to the dark ages of landlord and tenant law.

[Craig Whittaker]

Again, I see the exaggerated point that the hon. and learned Gentleman is trying to make, but can he explain what currently happens once someone has been to court as a landlord and got an eviction order from the court?

[Keir Starmer]

I will happily do that. Sensibly, the law has been set up in such a way that the landlord gets a High Court enforcement officer with powers of a constable to carry out the eviction if necessary. That is to prevent landlords from resorting to violence in the premises—that is why that change was made. The presupposition is that the eviction is lawful, but in order to regularise the process, the landlord gets a court order and then a High Court enforcement officer exercises the powers of a constable to enforce it. The whole point was to stop families being put on the street without due process and to avoid the violence that was happening when a landlord resorts to self-help and changes the locks and boots someone on to the street. That is why “with the power of a constable” is included. That is what happens now, but what is proposed here is radically different and I have seen nothing to justify it.

Immigration Bill (Seventh sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Starmer]

With that, I will speak to amendment 71, which is designed to give landlords facing criminal prosecution a defence if they act to evict the illegal tenant within two months of becoming aware that the tenant is illegal. The scheme has flaws, which I have attempted to outline. It includes provisions that put landlords in an impossible and unacceptable position because they become criminals on a date when they cannot do anything about that criminality. If it is brought to a landlord’s attention that they have someone in their premises who does not have a right to rent, they are duty-bound. It would be entirely appropriate for them to begin eviction proceedings from the moment they find out about the illegal tenant, but the landlord is already criminalised. They have become a criminal; they simply have not been prosecuted and charged. I cannot see any reason or need for that. This defence simply provides for a space when a reasonable landlord, acting reasonably, would take the necessary measures to ensure that the person who did not have the right to rent was removed. It is difficult to think why that amendment should not be accepted. In other words, I cannot see a logical reason or coherent and principled argument that it is necessary to criminalise a landlord when he or she is trying to act properly, according to what he or she has just been told. Amendment 71 would deal with that situation.

It is probably convenient to deal with amendment 87 at the same time, although it is jumping the grouping, because it deals with the same provision. Landlords raised concerns that they would be committing an offence as soon as they knew a tenant was illegal, even if they were in the process of evicting them. No one can assure them that they will not be prosecuted; in any event, there is no good reason for it. Amendment 87 would provide protection during the process of serving an eviction notice. Amendment 71 would give the landlord slightly more leeway by giving them two months to act before they serve the eviction notice. I can think of no sensible reason why the amendments cannot be accepted.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Could the hon. and learned Gentleman explain this point? If a landlord had done the proper checks in the first place, surely they would be aware, if somebody had a visa, of when it was about to expire. They would be aware that potentially they have someone in the home who does not have the right to remain.

[Keir Starmer]

I accept that may be the case in certain circumstances, but there will be other circumstances in which the landlord will not be aware that the person no longer has the right to rent, until they are told by the Secretary of State that that is the position. That is how it is envisaged it will work. In those circumstances, it is impossible to see why a landlord, who then takes the obvious and reasonable step of doing something about it, is criminalised from that point. What is the mischief in having this defence? What is the mischief in saying that someone does not become a criminal if they immediately move to evict once they know? I cannot see any mischief in that.

There may be limited circumstances in the examples put to me, but in others the provision would be manifestly unfair and unnecessary. There is no good reason not to have the amendment.

[Craig Whittaker]

I wonder whether the hon. and learned Gentleman could give some examples of where that would be the case. I am at a bit of a loss to understand where the landlord would not know, had they been doing the checks as they are supposed to do by law.

[Keir Starmer]

The circumstance where the Secretary of State takes a decision in relation to leave will be known to the Secretary of State and the person renting but not to the landlord. There will be many circumstances where something happens that has an effect on the right or the status of the individual in this country that the landlord will not be privy to. In those circumstances, I cannot see why it could possibly be fair or right not to have a defence such as this.

Amendment 72 is designed to ensure that agents, as defined in the Immigration Act 2014, who are also tenants of the property are not criminally liable for illegal tenants. The central concern is in relation to groups of individuals who house-share. That is not uncommon for students and others. When they rent, each of them usually has a contract with the landlord, but if one individual moves out, it is not uncommon for the remaining housemates to share responsibility for recruiting a new tenant. The classic example would be the notice on the student union board that says “Room available”, which is put up by the other students who want someone to take the place of the student who left. Under the definition in the Immigration Act, they would become agents, would then be subject to the duties to carry out the necessary checks and would face criminal and civil penalties if they failed to do that in the way envisaged under the Act. Amendment 72 is aimed at that.

Amendment 85 would ensure that none of the criminal offences was committed in respect of tenancies entered into—or, in the case of renewed tenancies, first entered into—before the offences came into force and would ensure there was no retrospective element to these criminal penalties. The amendment would ensure that the scheme is forward looking and not retrospective in its effect. Landlords should understand the checks that they have to carry out and carry them out each time they issue a tenancy, but the scheme should not have retrospective effect.

Can I take amendments 88 and 89 in short form because they go to the question of eviction? Amendment 88 is intended to ensure there is no implied term in the tenancy that the tenancy automatically comes to an end, triggered by immigration status. Amendment 89 is intended to give a court discretion when deciding whether individuals should be evicted. The amendments are grouped under clause 12, but I think a substantive part of the discussion will better take place when we get to the eviction provisions, because, to some extent, they are the tail end of the discussion about eviction. Is that acceptable?

Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Anne McLaughlin]

I think the hon. Gentleman is making the decision to do what a lot of today’s media do, which is to focus on people who have an element of choice. Most people who are trafficked—well maybe not most people, but a significant number—are trafficked against their will. They are the most vulnerable people and the people we have to protect. This amendment is asking only that the new director pays attention to the rights of the most vulnerable people. We cannot say that one person has had an element of choice but another person has not, so we will not protect the second person. So no, I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

The premise of the amendment is:

“To ensure that the functions of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement are exercised for the purpose of protecting those vulnerable to labour market exploitation and to make this explicit on the face of the Bill”—

Where in the Bill is that purpose not explicit? Clause 3 refers to non-compliance and the interpretation of it. It specifically refers to the Employment Agencies Act 1973, the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 and anything else prescribed by the Secretary of State.

[Anne McLaughlin]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that it is already explicitly stated, surely he will have no problem supporting this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

I should have said earlier that it is, of course, a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone—better late than never. If it is convenient for hon. Members, I will deal with all the amendments in one go. On the other hand, if that is not the best way forward, I hope that somebody will indicate that.

The amendments address the strategy that it is envisaged that the director will set out. Amendment 57 would ensure that the labour market enforcement strategy would include an assessment of the threats and obstacles to effective labour market enforcement, and the remedies secured by victims of labour rights infringements and labour market offences.

The Bill requires the director to make an assessment of non-compliance in the labour market, but does not require him or her to assess the threats or obstacles to effective enforcement, including, for example, powers and resources, or to examine remedies secured by victims of non-compliance in the labour market. The amendment would oblige the director to incorporate those considerations into his or her strategy—in other words, to add value to what the labour inspectorate is already doing. The director needs to look at how enforcement could be done better, as well as the extent of non-compliance.

We want to build on the victim-focused legacy of the Modern Slavery Act, so we suggest that the director should look at the remedies for victims of labour exploitation as part of his or her strategy. Let me point to some gaps in the data. Recorded data on compensation for infringements of labour market standards are limited. For example, HMRC does not keep data in a format that enables the provision of statistics on the amount of arrears paid or not paid to workers. Data on civil claims brought by victims of trafficking and damages awarded are not available.

During the financial years 2010-11 to 2012-13, no prosecutions by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority resulted in compensation orders for victims of human trafficking. Data on compensation secured through the criminal injuries compensation scheme for victims of human trafficking for non-sexual exploitation, forced labour, slavery and servitude are not being recorded, so there are clear gaps. Why does not the Bill make provision for the director to assess why non-compliance is at its current level, as well as an assessment of non-compliance within the labour standards? How can the Government know whether they are making progress on meeting the needs of victims of exploitation if they are not collecting data on remedies?

[Craig Whittaker]

The hon. and learned Gentleman and I both had lives outside this place before we were elected, and I know that he had a high-profile role. Has he written a strategy for any job he has held that did not take account of threats and obstacles relating to the strategy that he was trying to write?

[Keir Starmer]

The straight answer is no; of course that would be within the strategy. The purpose of the amendment is to make it clear that that has to be part of the strategy for this director. I am sure that members of the Committee share concerns about resources. The amendment is an attempt to ensure that this step forward is as effective as possible, and that touches on strategy and resources. While my answer to the hon. Gentleman is no, I do not think that that is a good enough reason not to support the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Whittaker]

Not just amendment 64, which I shall come to, but all these amendments were perhaps summed up best by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East, who said that they are about the enforcement of employment law. Is not that amendment asking employers to specifically break employment law, which currently excludes them from employing anybody who is not legally allowed to work in this country anyway?

[Paul Blomfield]

No. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention because it allows me the opportunity to clarify that the amendment is seeking to ensure that labour market offences by employers committed against all workers be included within the scope of the director of labour market enforcement’s work. The point is that, as currently drafted—unless the Minister can provide contrary clarification—the measure suggests that undocumented workers will be excluded. Clearly, it is nonsense that a labour market enforcement director who is seeking to challenge all abuse in all parts of the labour market would have excluded from his terms of reference that part of the labour market which, by definition, is most likely to be subject to substantial abuse and exploitation. The Minister might be able to provide clarification that makes the amendment unnecessary.

Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Starmer]

Q 250 I just want to pick up a second point. Evidence has been given that the objective is that people leave, and therefore there is no burden on anyone to provide any support, but the evidence from the 2005 pilot seems to show pretty strongly that if that is the objective, this is not the way to achieve it. The likelihood is, therefore, that local authorities will be picking up the burden of supporting families, particularly those with children—children are children, in this.

You talked about a cost shift. What is the cost increase when asylum support is swapped for putting a child or family who are not going to go voluntarily—a child may not have any choice at all—on local authority support? It seems to me that under these provisions the cost will go up, because you take someone from one regime to a regime for which they have to go through two assessments, which someone has to carry out, and be put on to temporary support and further support. They could have become more destitute and so need more support. Am I right in thinking that this is not just a cost shunt—you are not simply moving cost x from the Home Office to the local authority but shifting and increasing it, so the cost to the taxpayer goes up?

Paul Greenhalgh: Potentially, yes, under how the Bill is currently drafted.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Q 251 I want to drill down on the shift of the cost burden from the Home Office to local authorities. We already know that schedule 3 to the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 broadly limits access to local authority social care for families anyway. Is there not a mechanism between local authorities and the Home Office that is triggered when a family present themselves and it becomes clear that they are in this country unlawfully, so that they get deported and the local authority does not have to shoulder the burden of the cost?

Henry St Clair Miller: I think you are referring to the exclusions from social services support under schedule 3 to the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, whereby if a local authority is working with someone in an excluded group—a failed asylum seeker would likely fall within the excluded groups—the authority is instructed to provide support only if it is necessary for the purpose of avoiding a breach of human rights. It is that exception to the exclusion that gives rise to the human rights assessment, which can be quite time consuming for a local authority.

When you work in this area you have to be quite specific about each client group. It is true that an asylum seeker who has already put in an application has been through the courts, and the courts have decided that there would be no human rights breach in returning the family to the parents’ country of origin. The best interests of the child will have been looked at within that, and the courts will have decided that. It should then be possible for the local authority to follow the same line within the human rights assessment and opt to say that no assistance is required other than a return to the country of origin through assisted voluntary return.

It is a little bit different in our experience, because a lot of the applicants go on to put in further representations under the UK’s immigration rules. That is often on the basis of article 8 human rights and on the basis of there being children. Once the application goes in, there is a legal barrier to that family leaving, and it is impossible to enact schedule 3 to withhold support if the family is destitute.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 252 I am a little confused. Are these families not here unlawfully—has it not been deemed through the court process that they are failed asylum seekers, or whatever category they are in, and so they are staying in the country unlawfully anyway? Are you saying that local authorities traditionally ignore that process and go beyond that? Why would you continue to offer support?

Henry St Clair Miller: At present failed asylum-seeking families are not a group within our cohort. We are usually working with visa overstayers who have been in the UK for many years undetected—possibly with safeguarding concerns about the welfare of children after long periods of forced dependency for the family. In our experience, these people are usually at the beginning of the process of applying for leave once we have come into contact with them. That is quite different from people who have been in the asylum process and all appeal rights have been exhausted. At the moment, we do not see so many of those cases.

So I assume—not I assume—it is the case that if you were looking at schedule 3 and Humans Rights Act assessments, you would have regard primarily for the decisions of the court in that equation.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 253 So the cases that you are primarily dealing with do not apply to the Bill, because the Bill talks about removing support for those who have gone through the process and are deemed to be unlawful immigrants.

Henry St Clair Miller: It is both. Sorry—I will try again and then I will give up. It is both, because you are also looking at measures to tackle illegal migration in the UK such as landlord checking and the rest, which might give rise to more of those.

Paul Greenhalgh: Our concern is about families who have been given that status in terms of how the Bill is currently drafted. The onus will be on the families to leave rather than there being an enforcement to their departure. While they are still in this country, local authorities still have legal duties to them under the legislation that we have previously cited.

Councillor Simmonds: It is probably worth giving you some figures. When we look at the numbers for local authority responsibilities in providing support to irregular migrants, around 80% of those who are supported are those under the section 17 Children Act responsibilities. The remaining group tend to be with care needs under the Mental Health Act and the Care Act, so the vast majority will be entitled to support through their status as families with children, and there will always be further legal avenues by which they can regain that entitlement should one avenue be closed off.

[Sarah Champion]

Q 254 I have just a small question. Currently, when someone has failed their last appeal, what is the average time before they actually get deported? I just want an idea of the timescale in which they would be destitute.

Henry St Clair Miller: I have not learnt of that particular statistic, so I do not have an answer.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Can I butt in? I am really sorry, but we have got about five Members who want to get in, with less time than we expected. If you have not got a remit to talk about it, perhaps we should move on. I guess that no one else on the panel is going to answer that question, are they? No.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 310 I want to challenge Ms Grant, but first I will declare an interest, as I did on Tuesday. You have said that it is not right that landlords have to deal with the complexities of people’s immigration status. In fact, we had Mr Smith on Tuesday from the Residential Landlords Association, who said that the sector was made up of amateurs and accidental landlords. Let me just ask you what is so complex about taking an ID, which the majority take anyway. Do you not think it might enhance the situation for landlords along the way?

Saira Grant: I did not say that it was not right; I said that it was difficult. I will explain, because that is the second part of your question. Taking an ID is not difficult. If you have a passport, it is very easy. You can show your passport, and we do show passports in many situations, including when getting tenancy agreements. The complexities arise when somebody’s immigration status is not clear cut and they do not have a British passport. I was pointing to the evidence that backs that. In the Home Office’s own evaluation, the landlords’ checking service was contacted 109 times, because landlords said, “We do not understand what we are seeing. We do not understand this document, this biometric card or this historic stamp in this passport.” Out of those 109 inquiries, 94 people had the right to remain. That demonstrates that it is not me—

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 311 May I just point out to you that that is no different from anyone else in this country who wants to rent any property? I had the same situation myself only three weeks ago. First, living in Yorkshire, I had to be in London on a particular day, otherwise the property went. Secondly, I had to have all the relevant checks in place. If I did not, the property was given to somebody else. How is that discriminating against somebody, when that situation is already in place?

Saira Grant: That is exactly the point. If you do not have your documents to hand—say you are one of the 17% of British citizens who does not own a British passport, so you cannot show that—what happens is that there will be somebody else ahead of you in that queue, but that is not the discrimination I am talking about. I am talking about the difficulty landlords are having in assessing immigration status, as the evaluation demonstrates. It is not me saying that; it is what the evaluation demonstrates. The discrimination I am talking about and which we found was when landlords said to us—almost a third of landlords who responded to our survey said this—“This is really worrying for us, £3,000 is a hefty civil penalty. We do not really want to rent to anybody who sounds foreign, looks foreign or has a foreign accent. It is just not worth our while.” That is leading to discrimination. That is the problem. The scheme is set up in such a way that you do not need to be a racist landlord; you just need to be a cautious one to say, “If I have a choice, who am I going to rent to? Somebody I am not sure about or somebody who has a British passport.”

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 312 Trust me, as a landlord, you have to be cautious anyway.

Saira Grant: I am sure you do.

[Mims Davies]

Q 313 I just wanted to pick up the line about entitlement, which is running through the conversation this afternoon—people feeling that they will get to a point at which they are entitled to be here. This question is for Ms Grant: does your organisation explain to people that there may be a point at which they feel they are entitled to be here, but they will not be? Do you go through the process of what could happen to them? We heard from the Red Cross earlier that it does that, but some organisations do not and it is adding complexity to complex cases.

Saira Grant: Absolutely. We run an irregular migrants helpline to give legal advice. The best advice we can often give is to say to somebody, “You have to leave the UK.” We spell out their entitlements, their rights and what the process is, and then we refer them to the voluntary returns scheme, to the Red Cross or to whichever organisation is appropriate. Absolutely, it is in nobody’s interest to have people who should not be here remaining here, and it is not in their interest either. The destitution we see is heartbreaking, but if they have come to the end of the legal process, we have to give them fair advice. We are a legal organisation.

Immigration Bill (Third sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before we move on, I think that Craig Whittaker wants to come in on that point.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Q 195 What percentage of those who apply actually go to appeal?

Colin Yeo: I do not think anybody has the statistics for that. There could be reasons why people do not appeal. Sometimes they are simply not realistically able to pursue it, because they do not have legal aid—

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 196 I understand that, but what I am trying to establish is that if it is 40% of those who apply, but the appeal process involves only 5% of all applicants, it is actually a relatively small number. I was just trying to put it into some perspective.

Colin Yeo: I do not have the statistics for that. I have never seen those statistics, either, so I cannot help the Committee. I am sorry.

[Keir Starmer]

Q 197 Let us move on to the question of appeal and the extension of the “remove first, appeal later” provisions, which is in the Immigration Bill. Will you give the Committee an indication of the practical differences between what is involved in appealing in country here and appealing once you have been removed, just in relation to the nuts and bolts of it? Some of us around the room are lawyers. Some of us have been involved in cases, but not everybody has, so will you give us a practical example of what actually happens if you are here, and what is envisaged, or what does happen, if you are removed, so that people get a sense of the difference between the two?

Manjit Gill: May I say something briefly on that? First, insofar as contact with your own lawyer is concerned, here, with or without the difficulties of funding—and there are enormous difficulties, as you have just heard—at least you can go and see your lawyer, and your lawyer can come and see you. You can get the witness statements sorted and give the instructions face to face. If you are having to give all those instructions from abroad, just imagine the practical difficulties and impediments to instructing your lawyer in the first place in order to prepare the case.

In children’s cases, how do you go about the process of getting an independent expert’s report? How is the child expert going to be able to assess the damage that will be caused by the separation—even a short-term separation—if the separation has already occurred? They are simply not going to be able to do it. Instead of having to prepare their reports from the point of view of prevention of harm to the child, they are going to have to do it from a removed location from the point of view of remedial action to remedy the harm that has already been done to the child by taking the father away and making him appeal from abroad.

Even if you manage all that and get to the appeal hearing itself, how are you going to give the oral evidence? A lot depends on how you come across to a court or tribunal. A lot depends on what happens in the courtroom. Here, we can all see each other and what is happening on people’s faces—who is a little bit upset, who is happy and so on. These things just do not come across when you have to do it through a video link.

Moreover, the tribunal does not allow a system of video links unless they have approved the actual source. They do not allow you to walk into an internet café or to use Skype. British embassies and high commissions simply do not provide the service. The Home Office does not pay for that service, nor does the tribunal; you yourself are going to have to pay to put in place a system whereby you can give oral evidence. There are a lot more things that I could say, but I am trying to keep it brief.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

Q 205 If I can take you back to my original question on the legal principles of the operation of the Immigration Act that you were challenging just then, the Court upheld the soundness of the principles in the context of human rights legislation.

Manjit Gill: I accepted, as did my co-counsel, Mr Richard Drabble QC, that you do not need an in-country right of appeal in every case. The Court of Appeal has noted that. There is no dispute about that, and I will tell you why it is accepted. The Strasbourg Court says that it is not imperative that in every case you need an in-country human rights appeal. You will certainly need it in article 2 and article 3 cases, which the Home Office accepts. There is no dispute about that; the issue is about article 8 cases. When the European Court uses the phrase “not imperative”, what it means is that you may well need it in a lot of cases but in some cases you may not.

That gets us back to which types of cases there are in which you can avoid giving people an in-country human rights appeal, and the question that was asked there. Supposing you have someone who is going to be a real danger to people on the streets—not just a low risk of reoffending but an Abu Qatada or someone who is going to immediately threaten to go around committing atrocities and so on. We cannot have that sort of person in the country pending appeal. I entirely accept that. Such a person should have to go abroad to appeal. It would depend on the individual case, of course, but I can see powerful arguments for saying such a person should.

We are not talking about such a person. We are talking about people such as the person Mr Yeo mentioned. To give a practical example, we mean someone who has been here since the age of six or seven, breaks up with his girlfriend, goes back to the flat and breaks the door down, frightens the girl but does not harm her, takes his belongings and goes. Quite properly, he gets locked up for a couple of years. That is a foreign criminal under the legislation. Should such a person, who may have been here for 25 years, and who may have a child from that relationship, then be forced to appeal from abroad? That is not an Abu Qatada-type character.

What is now being proposed is that the out-of-country appeal rights, which in principle can be had in a limited category of cases, should not be limited to that category but should be applied for everybody. That is contrary to a principle.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 206 Just to clarify something you said, Mr Gill: this character broke down the door, scared his girlfriend a little bit but did not harm her, and got two years for that. Is that what you are saying?

Manjit Gill: I am giving you a practical example.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 207 That does not sound practical to me. That is why I am asking the question. Which court in this country would give someone two years in prison for breaking down a door and scaring his girlfriend?

Manjit Gill: Mr Whittaker, I made up the example just now. I do not have a particular case relating to it.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 208 So it is not true?

Manjit Gill: No. I am giving you an example, which I am sure you can add in, Mr Whittaker.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 209 Well, it is a poor example in my opinion, Mr Gill, because actually that is not a relevant case. We are here to take evidence from you. Making stories up along the way is not evidence.

Manjit Gill: With respect, that is completely unfair.

[The Chair]

Order. I know that this goes right to the heart of the issue, but we have four other panel members and we have been speaking for quite a long time on this particular point. Going back to you, Mr Starmer, do you want to move on a bit?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Newlands]

Q 224 My second question is about enforcement. What concerns do you have about the new enforcement powers that immigration officers will be given, particularly in relation to their lack of training compared with police officers, and the lack of judicial oversight?

Colin Yeo: Very concerned. The best evidence base on this is the work of the chief inspector of borders and immigration, formerly John Vine and now David Bolt. In the reports that the chief inspector has put together, he has been very critical of the exercise of enforcement powers by immigration officers. In a couple of reports from March 2014, for example, he found that immigration officers were granted the power to enter business premises without a warrant in two thirds of cases, without justification; he also found unlawful use of power, ineffective management oversight, major variations in local practice and inadequate staff training across all grades—really serious concerns are being raised. Reports on removals and emergency travel documents are, again, very critical of Home Office management of the process and training. The idea that more powers should be given to people who are already exercising them in a very questionable way is somewhat dubious, in my view.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 225 I want to clarify a couple of things that were said a little earlier. Mr Flynn and Mr Berry, you were talking about migrants in general, and I presume you were not talking about the vast majority of migrants who come to this country in a legal position. I just want to clarify that you were talking about potentially illegal immigrants, rather than the vast majority of immigrants, who are legal.

Don Flynn: I was talking about the general effect of migrants in the labour force, which is often cited as having a role in making conditions worse for UK workers. That has been particularly accentuated by what are called illegal migrant workers—there is an added emphasis there that it is causing wages to be forced down and exploitation to flourish.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 226 So we are talking about illegal immigrants, then. I am a little bit confused about what you were talking about. I do not think that anybody questions for one minute that migrants play an incredible role in our country. Just for clarity, I wanted to make sure we knew whether you were talking about illegal immigrants—or potentially illegal immigrants.

Don Flynn: I thought I was addressing the position of people who seem to be vulnerable as far as the Bill is concerned, who will find themselves subject to additional powers of scrutiny and who are at risk of enforcement action being taken against them.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 227 So potentially illegal immigrants, then.

Don Flynn: Yes. I would make the point that any of us who have day-to-day practical experience of this—I am continually coming into contact with people whose designation as illegal immigrants has come about not because of any action on their part, but because of a third party who has been involved in their case, typically a sponsoring employer who has not complied with some aspect of their responsibility to the Home Office.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 228 The point I was trying to make is that it is still a very small part of the overall migration to this country, but that is not my real question. For my real question, I just want to take you back— I think it was you, Mr Yeo, who mentioned abuse within the system when we were talking about detention. I apologise if it was not you, but it was a while ago now. Is there any evidence that there is abuse within the detention centre? I am struggling to find any.

Colin Yeo: I do not think it was me who mentioned that.

[Craig Whittaker]

Do any of you have any evidence that there is any abuse in the detention centre?

Jerome Phelps: The most apposite evidence would be the series of finding by the UK courts of breaches of article 3 in relation to highly vulnerable mentally ill migrants in detention, who should not be detained anywhere except for under exceptional circumstances. Article 3, on inhuman and degrading treatment, is a very high threshold. Until recently there had never been a case of this, but in the past four years there have been six cases of desperately vulnerable people who have had complete psychiatric collapse in detention, to the article 3 breach level.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 229 I do not want to undermine or belittle the six cases by any stretch of the imagination, but from the thousands who have been through the system in the past four years, which is what you mentioned, it is an incredibly small part. It would therefore be very difficult to say that the system is broken. Is that right?

Jerome Phelps: I do not think any of us have suggested that everyone in detention is abused. It is a small part but we have functioning safeguards, such as the bail system. What is concerning about the Bill is that it is removing some of those safeguards.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Q 230 Could I follow up on Mr Newlands’ question about enforcement powers to which Mr Yeo gave a fairly powerful response? The provisions of the Bill give immigration officers what might be described as police-like powers. Could you reflect on the different way in which immigration officers are subject to challenge, scrutiny and oversight in the exercise of their powers in contrast with the police and the exercise of theirs currently?

Adrian Berry: My role in looking at enforcement is largely concerned with policy innovation rather than practice, because a lot of these things are not litigated in court. Immigration officers’ powers have grown piecemeal over the years through a series of legislative innovations, to the point where they now look like a parallel police force in respect of migration issues. In that context, there is not the same culture of scrutiny and oversight that one sees under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and with the Independent Police Complaints Commission and various other bodies. It is a developing situation.

Our concerns—whatever one thinks of the situation of the use of police powers by the police—is that this is a piecemeal accrual of powers without, if you like, a moment where it is recognised that you are dealing with a secondary form of police force. You need to develop not just the legislative framework, but the culture of scrutiny and good behaviour within an institution if you are going to have a police force. This sort of innovation—for example, the ability to enter private homes and search without warrant—can affect all of us. It is not just a situation of powers relating to migrants. Any investigation could come to anybody’s front door. The proper control and scrutiny of those sorts of powers is vital.

Immigration Bill (Second sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Champion]

Q 83 Finally, do you believe that the director has the remit and the resources to prevent this from being a box-ticking exercise? Would they have the authority to make the necessary changes?

Neil Carberry: That remains to be seen. The director clearly has to develop an enforcement plan, which has to be approved by the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. I would hope that that enforcement plan was well grounded in the effective work that some of the agencies are currently doing and would therefore be resourceable from within that. I had discussions last week with the HMRC team who are looking at non-compliance with the minimum wage; they feel that they currently have the resources to continue the good work they are doing.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Q 84 I want to turn back to the evidence given to us this morning by Professor Sir David Metcalf. When he was discussing the CBI, he said that the regulation of the labour market proposed in the Bill would take away the cowboys and help your sector. He went on to say that it would go a long way towards raising the welfare of British residents. Do you think he has applied a risk-based, intelligent approach to his assessment?

Neil Carberry: I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating when it comes to the director. On the existence of a labour market director to do this work, his assessment could well be the case. What worries us is less what is in the Bill as introduced than some of the discussion in the Government’s consultation paper last week, which seems to suggest a broadening of a licensing approach. I think that would ultimately be a doubling up regulation on the compliant and would draw away from kicking down the doors of the non-compliant. From our perspective, there is every chance that the labour market director’s role could be very beneficial to lawful companies and workers.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 85 On the face of the Bill then, it is a good thing.

Neil Carberry: Yes, I think so. We have never been against effective enforcement.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Q 86 You talked about parts of the labour market where abuse happens. I am conscious that many of your members might have had their reputations tarnished by unwitting involvement through supply chains. Can you share your thoughts about the Bill in the context of the most effective way of helping your members to achieve supply chain compliance?

Neil Carberry: Any answer to that question will have to take account of some of the responsibilities that companies will take on under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. I actually had a long discussion last night with some of our members about the challenges of doing that effectively—many of them are currently wrestling with that. Of course, there is a limit to what companies at one end of a supply chain can do and assure themselves of, but there is a duty to do some work, as the Act makes clear.

The most important thing is to ensure that, where companies at the top end of a supply chain suspect that something illegal is happening, they are clear about the route to take to obtain assistance from regulators and enforcers, and also that there are simple routes for enforcers to take towards targeted action. We would see that as one part of the role of the director as set out in the Bill. For instance, we would expect them to look to establish ways in which a major retailor could raise concerns effectively and then feed into an intelligence-led action.

--- Later in debate ---

[Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)]

Q 104 Lord Green, in response to an earlier question, you talked about an effective removal system. Could you expand on that and tell us what you think would be an effective removal system?

Lord Green of Deddington: First, it has to be quick. It has to be fair and it has to not be under the impediment of extremely complex procedures and legislation. I think the proposal in the Bill is right in addressing that. There are other issues, of course. They probably need more resources to do it. They probably need a bigger detention estate. With all those put together, one can work on improving the removals, but, as I say, you cannot remove 1 million people. You have to make sure they want to go themselves.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 105 Lord Green, you have already said there should be a duty on employers. I presume you put into the same category people such as landlords, whom the Bill specifically addresses. How can we better prevent illegal working without imposing additional burdens on business generally?

Lord Green of Deddington: I do not think you can, to be frank. There has to be a duty on employers and they have to fulfil it. They have to recognise that this is a serious matter of great public concern. It is a field in which some unscrupulous employers are making a packet at the expense of honest employers. They have to fulfil it.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q 106 I wonder whether I could follow up on your answer to the Minister, Lord Green. You were saying that the criminalisation of workers would be helpful in achieving labour market compliance.

Lord Green of Deddington: Sorry, I am not saying workers should be criminalised; I am saying that illegal work should be a criminal offence.

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[Anne McLaughlin]

Q 124 I want to talk about potential discrimination under the right to rent aspects of the Bill. Not everyone is as enlightened as Mr Lambert, and so not everyone believes that you cannot tell by a face, a name or an accent whether someone is British. I was very struck by a statement sent out by the Residential Landlords Association, which I am going to read from:

“Whilst the Residential Landlords Association condemns all acts of racism the threat of sanctions will inevitably lead many landlords to err on the side of caution and not rent to anyone whose nationality cannot be easily proved.”

How concerned are you that the Bill will allow some people to use it as an excuse for their racism and that others will inadvertently end up acting in a racist manner, not because they want to but out of fear that they may end up breaking the law if they do not?

Richard Lambert: How concerned am I that some will use it? Very. How concerned am I that some will use it inadvertently? Fairly, but our experience is that most of the concern about the provisions is from people who have not gone into the detail, are worried about what they might have to take on, are concerned that they do not have the expertise or knowledge and are very focused on the penalties, because what has been pushed hardest is not the responsibility or the practicality but the level of penalty for getting it wrong.

Having had a quick look, like my colleague, at the evaluation report that was published this morning—we had a chance to look at it before we came in here—something like 22 of the 26 landlords who responded said that it was actually relatively easy to undertake the checks and that there did not seem to be an obvious level of overt discrimination, although there is still an undertone, and in a few cases that does happen.

It is a real risk, but when I said what I did about awareness of the fact that we live in a multicultural, multiracial, multifaceted society, that was not me speaking—obviously, I believe that—but me recounting what has been said to me by landlords at local meetings around the country. They are very concerned about the practicalities of how you make this work, and they realise that you cannot make assumptions, from looking at somebody, about whether they have the right to rent or whether they are a British national. The only way is to check and to check everyone. I recall anecdotally from my colleagues on the Home Office working group on the evaluation report that the largest level of resentment coming back from tenants was from the indigenous white British population, who did not understand why they were being asked to prove the right to rent. You actually get a counter-intuitive response.

David Smith: People who will discriminate would discriminate anyway, so in a sense people who are going to actively discriminate as a result of the Bill would have been actively discriminating before. Our biggest concern is what we have chosen to call document discrimination. Of the UK indigenous populace—or however you want to describe those people—17% do not have passports. If a landlord has two people walk through his door who want to rent the same property, and one says, “I have a passport and can do the right to rent check right now,” and the other says, “I do not have a passport but will come back tomorrow with two forms of identification off the secondary list,” the landlord is technically not breaking the law by taking the first person, and in practice I am sure that he will take that first person.

Our concern is that there are groups of people who are not in possession of passports and driving licences. As a lawyer, I have many such people as clients, because I have a large client base of elderly people or people who are in care. There are substantial numbers of those people, and a lot of them are renting, increasingly in the private rental sector, as there is a change from social renting to private renting. There is a potential difficulty with providing those people with proper identification.

We have called for a much simpler document for people who are on benefits and would already have been checked to receive benefits. Local authorities could provide a single document—perhaps watermarked or stamped—that landlords could be clearly told was acceptable as a single document. At the moment those people are going to need to produce two separate documents. They may not have them to hand, or it may take time to acquire them. The benefits letter has to be signed by a named official, and named officials may be reluctant to put their names on these documents. Our concern is that groups of people who should have no reason to be concerned by this legislation at all may find themselves being put through checks that they cannot easily meet.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 125 I declare an interest as per my declared interest in the Members’ register. For the record, I am probably what Mr Smith calls one of those in his sector who are amateurs and accidental landlords. One thing I know from experience, although I may be an amateur, is that the eviction process is incredibly burdensome for landlords. It is far too lengthy and hugely costly, and when you are going through the process, you do not get any rent from the tenant who is in your property. That is the current situation, whether they are an illegal immigrant or not. I cannot for the life of me understand, and neither can the members of Calderdale Landlords Association, whom I have spoken to, why on earth as an organisation you would be against something that is far better and makes it far quicker for a landlord to evict a tenant in these circumstances.

David Smith: In what sense?

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 126 You said very clearly that you had some real concerns around the eviction process that was being proposed. You mentioned the 28 days, for example. That is a much quicker process than what is currently in place.

David Smith: I said that my concern was that as soon as the Secretary of State had issued a notice to a landlord, they are committing an offence, and it takes 28 days before they can even begin the eviction process. During those 28 days they are committing the offence of having an illegal immigrant in their property.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 127 But they are already committing an offence as the law currently stands, and the process of evicting a tenant takes much longer. What I would like to know is why on earth you are advising landlords that this element of the Bill is not particularly—

David Smith: I think there is a misunderstanding here. They are not committing an offence as the law is currently drafted, because it has not changed yet. If it were to be changed, what we are after is a situation where, provided that the landlord is proceeding diligently to carry out the eviction, they are deemed not to be committing the offence of having an illegal immigrant in their property—so they have what the Act has termed a statutory excuse. As the situation stands, as soon as the Secretary of State issues the landlord with a notification that the tenant in their property is an illegal immigrant, the landlord is instantly deemed to be committing an offence of having an illegal immigrant in their property, and they can be prosecuted for that.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 128 So the new eviction process in the Bill is a good thing. Is that what you are saying?

David Smith: Yes. I have no concern about that at all.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 129 Okay. Can I just ask you about document checks, which have been mentioned? I just wonder whether you guys actually understand what is going on in your sector. If you try to get accommodation from an agency, for example, as I recently did here in London, first, you have got to be there on the day to secure something, and if you cannot get down to London to physically go and see it, you will lose it. Secondly, if you do not have the checks, whether you are an illegal or a legal resident in this country, it is a very difficult process anyway, because that is what people demand. Have you considered for one minute that for the amateurs and accidental landlords that you refer to, the introduction of some form of check, as is happening in the Bill, will protect them in other ways as well as just against potential illegal immigrants?

David Smith: Well, I suppose there are two answers to that. First, the current guidance would imply that using checks in other ways might well be unlawful discrimination, because the document checks are for establishing the right to rent, so that would depend on the guidance that is issued.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 130 But we have that in place anyway. If I do not have those documents to prove to an agency that I am who I am when I want to rent a property, whoever I am, guess what? I do not get the property.

Richard Lambert: To be fair, I think that that is custom and practice through tenant checking rather than a strict legal requirement. The other difficulty is that in some elements of the private rented market, lower-income people, people on benefits, vulnerable people and people who are very transient simply do not have that kind of documentation to hand.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 131 Okay. Let me just ask one final question, because I think I have made my point on that one. My question is to you, Mr Lambert, because you mentioned an undercurrent of discrimination in the system. May I point out that no evidence at all from the pilot—which, okay, was only published this morning—suggests that there is a discrimination there? You said that you have heard hearsay from people you have spoken to, but may I ask whether you have any physical evidence to suggest that there might be some form of discrimination in the system?

Richard Lambert: If you read the full report, I think it mentions one or two examples in the focus group that refer to what could be interpreted as minor levels of discrimination.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 132 So there is no real evidence—

Richard Lambert: That is what I am saying: there is no strong evidence of discrimination, although there is the potential there, and some minor level of concern may emerge in the focus group.

[Chloe Smith]

Q 133 Will the panel give us their assessment of what numbers might be involved in the area of policy that we are talking about? Do you have any assessment in particular of how many prospective tenants might present themselves to your members, or how many bank accounts in the case of Mr Leenders?

Richard Lambert: We can talk about how many households are in the private rented sector—there are about 4.4 million at the moment—and I think there is a turnover rate of about 25% to 30% a year, so we are looking at just over 1 million to 1.25 million new tenancies a year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Harris]

Thank you.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 160 Mr Gabriel, you mentioned the grey economy of landlords and spoke about more collaborative working. I think you touched on the issuing of notices of compliance and things such as that. Do you feel that you already have sufficient powers to deal with the grey economy? Would you say that the powers in the Bill around the checks that landlords have to do will actually overall enhance your job regarding that particular economy?

Stephen Gabriel: There is more that we can do around trying to understand where the grey economy is, but I think that the Bill and the work that we have been doing go some way to beginning to address that—in particular, the collaborative working between organisations. That is the point to be made here. Previously, it was very difficult for local authority enforcement teams to work with the Home Office and the GLA, but now there is a real impetus for us to work together to deal with some of these enforcement issues, and we are seeing that on the ground.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 161 So the new powers in the Bill, around the landlord checks, for example—will they enhance that role as well?

Stephen Gabriel: That is right, yes.

[Gavin Newlands]

Q 162 Mr Gabriel, the Bill removes support for a majority of failed asylum seekers. Do you have concerns that through this aspect of the Bill, the Government are in effect devolving to local government responsibility for the support of refused asylum-seeking families through its responsibility to accommodate children? At this time of great restraint in local government funding, do you feel that this is an area that might be looked at again?

Stephen Gabriel: It is a challenge. One of my concerns in Sandwell is that we are part of the West Midlands strategic migration partnership and there is the need for local authorities to have parity in numbers in the families whom they are supporting. Yes, in Sandwell our percentage is higher than in some of the other local authorities in the area, so if the Home Office stops supporting those families, that will potentially have a negative impact on the local authority. That could be a challenge for the local authority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

Q 179 I presume that you will continue to campaign and lobby against parts of the Bill. From what you are saying, one of the biggest things for all of you is the inclusion of children in the groups that will not receive support if their or their parents’ asylum claim has been refused. I do not know whether you were watching earlier, but I wanted to alert you to the fact that you have a supporter in Lord Green of Migration Watch UK. I think he is quite a valuable supporter to have, given that he did not seem overly keen on having too many asylum seekers in the country. He seemed quite surprised that children might lose support. He said we have to make a distinction between those who have children and those who do not, and that they would have to be treated differently. If I were you, I would contact him and get him to support any campaigning that you are doing.

I wanted to ask whether you agree with me that rendering families destitute will shift the financial burden not simply on to local authorities and charities, but on to the health service. I am not sure what the situation is in England these days, but I know that in Scotland, those who have had their asylum claims refused can access free healthcare. I do not know whether it is the same here, and I do not know what Wales and Northern Ireland are like. Do you agree that the health of these families will be so significantly impacted that there will be an increased cost for those services that provide healthcare?

Adrian Matthews: And not only to the families. There is a public health issue if you deprive the children of the right or the means to go to hospital or to visit their GP, or if their parents are too scared to do so. That public health issue affects all of us, not just the families.

Ilona Pinter: I agree. This was the subject of the previous Immigration Bill, where issues around health were debated at length. Like immigration control, public health is a public interest, as are child protection and international protection. There needs to be a review of those and more debate, particularly around other public interests.

Costs shift to health services. We already see in families who are awaiting their asylum decisions, particularly where parents have poor mental health because they have suffered trauma already and because of the pressures that the immigration process brings to bear on them, parents being sectioned under mental health provisions and children being taken into temporary foster placements as a result. One of the ways in which costs could shift to local authorities is through children being taken into care. If families are made destitute and parents have to rely on working without permission, provisions in the Bill will mean that the parents will be criminalised, which will again mean that children need to go into care. There are other considerations to take into account.

Adrian Matthews: I understand you are going to be hearing from local authorities and they will evidence the fact that during the section 10 pilots in 2004-05, a number of children were, in fact, taken into care as a result of what the Government were attempting then, which was to withdraw support and accommodation, so it does not work.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 180 I want to come back to the Minister’s earlier point. The point about assessment is that the children’s best interests forms a part and is an integral part of that process. I think it was Kamena—I apologise if it was not—who said children should not be blamed for the actions of the parents. However, they are in this situation because of the parents. For those families who have exhausted their appeals rights, those who could and should leave the UK, how long do you feel we should give support? Do you think it should be indefinite?

Adrian Matthews: It has to be case sensitive and based on the best interests of the child. Take, for example, a child born in this country. If you are going to send them back to another country, they will need to be returned with certain things that can prove their identity—establish or re-establish their identity—so they will need an original birth certificate and their medical records; they will need documentation from the embassy to show that they have legitimately travelled from the UK to the country of return. All these things are case sensitive. A lot of different factors would need to be taken into account. So I do not think there is an answer to your question in terms of a set time or limit. It has be done on a case-by-case basis.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 181 Sorry to cut you short, but the Minister has already made it clear that it will be done on a case-by-case basis. My question to you is: when families that include children get to the point where they should leave the UK, how long do we continue to support them? Indefinitely? Until they decide to go? I am a little confused by what you say.

Adrian Matthews: In the system currently in operation, families are given a lot of opportunities. They are encouraged to take up voluntary return and they go through various stages. If they do not, there is a required return stage where they are given a ticket and are expected to turn up at the airport. If they do not do that, they enter a stage of enforced return, so they will get a visit from the immigration service, who will take them from the house and to the airport, or take them to Cedars, pending their return. So the answer to your question is that we already have structures in place to ensure families get removed if they come to the end of the process.

Ilona Pinter: On the returns process, one helpful point might be that at the moment there are set time limits between family conferences, but information from Barnardo’s, for instance, highlights that for families that go through the returns process, it can take around a year for those families that go through Cedars. There are other estimates for how long it can take.

We do not advocate for families being on asylum support any longer than they need to be. Asylum support is incredibly low at £5 a day per child, and it has been reduced recently through regulations. Children are already living in very difficult circumstances. It makes it very difficult for families to afford food and clothing and be able to take care of their children. Also, parents cannot work on asylum support, so it is in the interests of children to be taken off asylum support as soon as possible either by families having their determination and being able to integrate or move into employment or other benefits, or, if they do not have a right to remain and if there are not risks for them on return, making that process as short as possible.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 182 But if they are going through the returns process, one would presume that it has already been determined that they need to leave the UK.

Ilona Pinter: This is the problem that we have tried to highlight. A lot of the families come to the end of the process, but because they have not had a fair chance to have their claim considered, they have existing fears of return. That is highlighted by the fact that 40% of families that entered the family returns process are actually granted leave to remain. It means that families are not getting proper access to legal advice. They are not having a proper chance to have their claim considered, and more needs to be done on improving the decision-making process in the Home Office.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 183 So it is more about the decision-making process, rather than what is in the Bill, which proposes to remove them or cut off the support once a decision has been taken. Is that correct?

Ilona Pinter: I am not sure what you are asking.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 184 What you are saying to me is that it is more about the robustness of the decision-making process rather than the elements in the Bill that say that once you get to the end of that process, we pull support.

Ilona Pinter: Yes.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 185 If the decision-making process was robust, you would support this process?

Ilona Pinter: We would not support making families destitute, no.

[Craig Whittaker]

But that is not what I am asking; I asked you a specific question.

[The Chair]

Craig, Ms Dorling is trying to respond.

Kamena Dorling: I think it might address the question as well—

[Craig Whittaker]

No, I do not want to adjust the question. I want the question answered; it was very specific.

Adrian Matthews: If we have robust decision-making—

[The Chair]

Order. One at a time, please. Ms Dorling is being patient.

Kamena Dorling: There are two things that need addressing. One, as Ilona has addressed, is the decision-making process at the beginning of the asylum process. The other is how families are engaged with at the end of the process. We are advocating that more energy be put into that family returns process. I appreciate that we do not want a situation whereby families are on asylum support indefinitely, but if they are part of that process and they are being worked with, either through assisted voluntary return—although funding is being cut for that—or through the family returns process, of course, they should be supported within that, and there are timescales as to how long return takes. I suspect you are talking about the families that do not engage with anything at all, which is a very tricky area, and I am not sure that we have cracked it, but given that we know that cutting off support will not encourage those families to return, it seems more practical to think how we would engage with those families.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 186 What I am getting at is that a process is in place, which families will go through. I understand and accept that you are arguing that the process is not robust enough, but the great British public cannot understand, once a decision is made to deport somebody in this country, why it takes forever to do so. Let me just ask this question: what is a reasonable time that people should expect it to take for someone to be deported forcibly?

Kamena Dorling: I do not feel I can answer that, but I do feel it is a question to go back to the Home Office, because there is an enforcement question there, is there not?

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 187 The Home Office has come up with the Bill and that is why I am asking. You do not think the Bill is acceptable.

Kamena Dorling: But we know that the great number of people who are here in the UK, who the Home Office believes should not be here, are not being removed by the Home Office. The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration has already pointed to the fact that that enforcement process is not working well enough. I am not sitting here advocating that families are all removed immediately, but I think there is a question there. We are saying put more energy into the family returns process and assisted voluntary return, but also that there is something for the Government to think about, which is that if you think that more families need to be removed, then address enforcement. Do not just withdraw support in the hope that they will go. That does not answer your time issue, because I do not know how long that should take.

[Craig Whittaker]

Does anyone—

[The Chair]

I am sorry, but we are going to move on now. A number of people are indicating that they want to speak. I have Mims and Kelly down, but the Minister and Sarah want to make a brief intervention on this point.