Non-UK Armed Forces Personnel: Immigration Requirements

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in the debate, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Members are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. This can be done either at the testing centre in the House or at home. Please give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the Chamber.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered immigration requirements for non-UK armed forces personnel.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I know there is a lot going on today, so I am grateful to see Members here and the shadow Minister and Minister in their places. I also thank the Petitions Committee for its help and the many thousands of people who have added their name to petitions in support of this campaign.

Pay up or pack up. That is the message given by the Government to those who make the journey—often from halfway around the world—to protect our national security. The aim of this long-running and, I am pleased to say, hugely popular campaign is simple: to relieve foreign and Commonwealth-born service personnel and their families of the exorbitant costs they face to make a home in the country for which they risked their lives.

This injustice has gained significant attention in recent times, following the unsuccessful efforts of eight Fijian British Army veterans to bring legal action against the Government. All of them were left fearing destitution and deportation despite the huge sacrifices they made on our behalf. One of the claimants, Taitusi Ratucaucau, a veteran of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, was handed a £30,000 bill following emergency brain surgery after he was deemed ineligible for free NHS care—a story I did not believe the first time I read it. The veterans lost the legal argument, but make no mistake: it is the Government who lost the moral one.

This issue is by no means a new phenomenon. In 2013, Filimone Lacanivalu, a veteran of the campaigns in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Afghanistan was given an 11th hour reprieve after spending weeks in a detention centre awaiting removal. That amnesty was only granted following a personal appeal to the Prime Minister and subsequent media pressure. It should not need to be said that landing veterans with massive debts and threatening them with deportation is not the appropriate way to recognise their service.

I am aware that these are exceptional episodes. The Minister will no doubt say, as is rightly the case, that the vast majority of service personnel comply with Home Office requirements. That is not enough.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I have one of the most mixed constituencies in the country, with a lot of Commonwealth- born constituents, many of whom have served. I have had cases of constituents who have been unable to access benefits because their immigration status is not sorted out, and that is after serving for years in the armed forces. At the very least, it seems deeply ungrateful to people who have travelled halfway across the world, as my hon. Friend says, to serve in the armed forces that they then face destitution because their immigration status is not resolved.

[Dan Jarvis]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. These people have come here in good faith. They have risked all in the service of our country. They have exposed themselves to extraordinary risks. This is not the way to repay the extraordinary service they have offered our country. I hope that the Government in the near future will take the opportunity to close what is essentially a loophole. It would be relatively inexpensive to do so. Morally, it is the right thing to do.

I think it is only fair to say that I am aware of some of the efforts that are being made to update guidance and to increase the length of time that an application can be made in advance of discharge, as well as the ongoing work with the Joining Forces credit union, but we must ensure that the experiences of Taitusi, Filimone and countless others are not repeated.

It is also simply wrong for the Government to profit off the backs of the service of those men and women. Indefinite leave to remain costs each person who applies £2,389. However, the latest available Government data shows that the estimated cost of each application is only £243. That means that a soldier with a partner and two children will be asked to cough up nearly £10,000, £8,500 of which goes straight into the Treasury coffers.

In Afghanistan, foreign and Commonwealth-born soldiers, just like their UK-born comrades, spent months in check points in the blistering heat, surviving on minimal sleep. They were responsible for clearing safe routes with metal detectors. They were shot at while patrolling with back-breaking loads. All the while, families at home were hoping never to receive a knock at the door, though tragically some of them did. They have paid their dues 100 times over. Aged just 19, Pa Njie, a Gambian-born member of the Cheshires, was struck by an improvised explosive device and suffered terrible, life-changing injuries. Pa lost two limbs in the service of our country. Seemingly, that is not enough for the Home Office, which still wants its two grand.

It is worth remembering that this bill lands on the doorstep right at the moment that the person is transitioning to civilian life. It is much needed cash at a crucial time that could have gone on a deposit for a home or an education course.

Whenever this campaign is raised of late, Ministers are quick to highlight the consultation that was launched back in May, which is worth examining further. The response to it, I might add, is already more than three months overdue.

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon Member on securing the debate, in which I hope to be called to speak. The consultation has been leaned on very heavily by the Government. Unfortunately for them, I was in the Department when the consultation started, so I know how it came about and what it is about, which is essentially people serving around 12 years before they get a right to remain. Does he agree that that is extraordinarily stingy to our foreign and Commonwealth personnel and totally out of sync with requirements around indefinite leave to remain, and that a serious, hard look needs to be taken at it if we are to tackle this problem?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for that intervention. He is exactly right: it is, at best, very stingy. I recall that in the debate before Christmas he said that the 12-year threshold

“was plucked out of the air.”—[Official Report, 7 December 2021; Vol. 705, c. 300.]

Whether it was, or whether it was designed to affect the minimum number of people possible, it cannot be the right way forward. We should also reflect on the fact that in addition to the 12-year proposal there was nothing for families or for the unknown number of veterans currently living in limbo, who have effectively been thrown under a bus. This was the Government’s chance to right a historical wrong; instead they chose to introduce something that is, as he just outlined, virtually pointless. Only meaningful reform will deliver the justice that our veterans and their families deserve.

Whatever metric is used, I think—at least, I hope—that the Minister is fully aware that the bar has been set so high that practically no one will benefit as a consequence. Surely a fairer option would be to look at the benchmarks at which service personnel qualify for settlement and citizenship: four and five years respectively. When Government Whips were convincing their MPs to vote down new clause 52, which the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) and I tabled to the Nationality and Borders Bill last month, one of the arguments provided was around a lack of fairness.

That brings me neatly to the serious matter of consideration of families, because if we want to debate a lack of fairness, we should look no further than the minimum income requirement that our service personnel must meet before they can bring their loved ones to the UK. That is a cruel policy that has resulted in members of the armed forces either leaving their families thousands of miles away or taking second jobs to reach the affordability criteria. In return for their protecting our national security, the Government rip their families apart. That practice is immoral, indefensible and inexcusable.

The Government have committed to making the UK the best country in the world to be a veteran; that is a noble ambition, on which we can all unite. However, there is no better place to begin than with the treatment of our service people who are foreign or Commonwealth-born. Our campaign has huge support right across the board from the Royal British Legion, Help for Heroes, all Opposition MPs, many Conservative MPs, England rugby stars, and many more people and organisations besides. We do not need primary legislation; Ministers can fix this problem with the stroke of a pen by updating regulations. They just have to show some of their stated ambition.

We are not asking for the world; all we are asking for is a fair deal for service personnel, for families to be treated with dignity, and justice for those veterans who are living in limbo. That is because no matter where someone comes from or whatever their background is, once they choose to put on a uniform and protect our country, they have made a life-changing commitment. It should shame all of us that our people are being treated with such little respect.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate lasts until 2.30 pm. I am obliged to call the Front Benchers no later than 2.07 pm and the guideline limits will be five minutes for the Scottish National party, five minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition and 10 minutes for the Minister. Then Dan Jarvis will have three minutes at the end to wind up the debate.

Until 2.07 pm, there are three very distinguished Back Benchers seeking to contribute to the debate. If they could limit their remarks to no more than eight minutes each, all three of them will get in. We start off with Johnny Mercer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Jarvis]

This has been a very useful debate and I am grateful for all the contributions from Members and for the Minister’s response.

What this issue comes down to, when we strip everything back, is whether it is right to charge someone who has come here and served our country £2,389—£10,000 for their family—to stay in the country that they have risked their life to protect. I do not think that we can square the commitment that we as a country make to those who serve and to our veterans with the way that we treat our foreign and Commonwealth-born service personnel. Morally, I just cannot fathom how we can justify using people who have risked their lives for our country as cash cows to generate revenue for the Treasury coffers. It is just wrong, and for me it undermines the very fabric of our military covenant.

However, this issue can be fixed very easily; there is an open goal here for the Government. I very much hope that they will take the opportunity in the near future to kick the ball into the net, and I very much hope to see a response to the consultation in the near future. The Minister has said on a number of occasions that the Government will publish their response “shortly”. I hope that when they do so, it will show that they have listened to the representations that have been made by hon. Members in this place and to the voices of the service charities.

The Minister has been good enough to agree to meet me, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), and the director general of the Royal British Legion later today for a further conversation about this matter. However, when the Government publish their response to the consultation, I hope that they will reflect on the limitations of the initial proposals and consider lowering the threshold and including veterans and their families.

I hope that the Minister and the Government will act to right this wrong. If they do so, that will be warmly welcomed, but if they do not, they should know that the hon. Gentleman and I, and many others besides, will keep going until we get this matter sorted.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered immigration requirements for non-UK armed forces personnel.