Nationality and Borders Bill

David Linden Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

Indeed; they may take a long time, and may not have the language, to disclose that very traumatic experience. Those who were held in this quasi-detention system were not necessarily even provided with notice of their substantive interview. It was sprung on them, in many cases with very little notice. Let us imagine someone being woken up in the morning by somebody saying, “Today’s the big day—your substantive interview. Spill your guts”, and their not having the capacity to explain what happened to them, having not processed the trauma that they have been through, yet if they do not do so there and then, their case may fall apart completely. That is a brutal system, but not only do the Government have that system just now, they want to roll it out yet further.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I am grateful to my constituency neighbour for giving way. She is absolutely right, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), to place on record the fact that many women, for example, who have experienced sexual violence, will not feel comfortable declaring that in the first interview. Does she agree—we see this in our cases in Glasgow—that one of the common concerns that we get from constituents is that quite often when they go to these interviews, the person interviewing them does not have any qualifications or knowledge on these matters, and that therefore these constituents of ours, who she is right to say are incredibly vulnerable, pick up very quickly that even if they try to explain the situation to somebody, that person will not actually understand?

[Alison Thewliss]

Yes. I am sure that like me my hon. Friend has read through the transcripts of people’s substantive interviews, including some of the ludicrous questions that people have been asked by Home Office officials. There is just a lack of understanding of the trauma that people have been through. There is no way by which people are understood; rather, the Home Office is trying to catch people out at every turn. It is a game that people are not equipped to participate in.

The Government are failing victims of trafficking, both male and female. As difficult as it is for many women to explain how they have been trafficked, men who have been trafficked for sexual purposes will also find that very difficult to explain, particularly those who have been housed in mass accommodation such as Napier barracks; they will find it difficult to live among other men and to deal with that trauma there as well.

There was no privacy in Napier, Penally and the other facilities. Those men were asked to give their substantive interview and to speak to their lawyers without any privacy whatever, in common spaces such as kitchens. To explain their cases in earshot of other people, without having the privacy and the dignity that they should have, retraumatises people all over again. The Government should be ashamed of treating people this way. It is inhumane.

I want briefly to mention the work of the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance, based in my constituency in Glasgow, which does amazing work to support women who have been trafficked. In my experience, the Home Office is not doing its bit. A woman came to speak to me at a surgery in 2017. She had limited English and had clearly been through traumatic experiences. She had first been encountered by the police in 2014, three years prior to coming to me, but did not receive her substantive interview until 2017, and my office was still working on her case two years after that. How is somebody supposed to get on with their lives, heal, move on and make a new life for themselves away from trauma, when they are reminded of that trauma every day when they wake up in the morning—if they manage to wake up in the morning, because many also suffer lack of sleep and other symptoms of trauma?

The Home Office is not doing its bit. Although people should not be rushed into making disclosures, once they have done so and the case is under way, the Home Office should ensure that it is not delayed by petty bureaucracy. A lot of the bureaucracy in the case that I mentioned was as simple as getting the woman’s name and date of birth right, but we were going back and forth for months. The Home Office comes to lecture all of us on the asylum system being broken in this country, and I agree that it is certainly broken, but what the Government are proposing is certainly not the way to fix it.

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[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that explanation. Clearly his amendment is better than no amendment, but I would want us to go a lot further, because if we do not give support to people who are complete victims, they will suffer in the most abominable circumstances. I therefore hope that the Bill can be strengthened.

This Bill is an appalling piece of legislation. It does not bring safety or humanity to people around the world. It will result in more people being put in danger. It will create a more draconian attitude towards refugees. There are 70 million refugees around the world. They are victims of war, human rights abuse and poverty. Some of them are victims of wars that we ourselves have been involved in. We need to reset the dial and work globally towards reducing the need for people to seek refuge or asylum by dealing with the issues at source. That is a more positive method than the incredibly draconian measures included in the Bill.

There are many victims around the world in refugee camps and many other places. Having met many people in refugee camps and those who are victims of trafficking and modern slavery, I know they have a thirst to live a life and make a contribution to our world and our society. This Bill does not give them those chances. It further criminalises people who, out of desperation, put themselves in the most terrible danger. Sadly, 27 died in the channel, while thousands have died in the Mediterranean, and many more around the world. We need a global call for humanity, not repression.

[David Linden]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). I remarked to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) at the beginning of the debate that it was significant that both a former Leader of the Opposition and a former Prime Minister were still in the Chamber. We owe them a huge amount of respect for sticking around and informing the debate, even if our politics often differ from theirs and we do not agree with absolutely everything they say.

The Bill is hostile towards refugees, flies in the face of the refugee convention, and goes against the advice of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, non-governmental organisations and human rights lawyers. Put simply, the Bill takes some of the most vulnerable people in the world and exacerbates their risk of poverty, exploitation, and family separation. In speaking to this group of amendments and new clauses, I wish to offer my support for amendment 128, which would remove clause 58, and a number of other amendments and new clauses, but in the interests of brevity I will focus on part 5 of the Bill, which deals with modem slavery.

Slavery is not yet a thing of the past. For so many people, slavery does not exist simply in the history books but is the horrific reality they face every day. From human trafficking victims to those undertaking involuntary labour and those in forced marriage, modern slavery impacts countless lives, and it is a sad but inescapable reality that it happens in many of our constituencies. Its scale is unknown, but the International Labour Organisation has estimated that more than 40 million people worldwide are victims of modern slavery.

I pay tribute to Restore Glasgow in my constituency and the great work that it does to raise awareness of human trafficking, particularly teaching people to spot the signs of trafficking. Many of us wrongly assume that human trafficking and slavery occurs behind closed doors, but in some cases—indeed, far too many—it is hiding in plain sight on our high streets and in our shop fronts. I want to particularly raise this form of exploitation and highlight the forced labour of people who work in industries that are less regulated, such as car washes and nail bars. Many of us will walk past these shops every day and think nothing of the low prices or the long hours worked. I am asking not just hon. Members in this House but everyone watching this debate to really consider their purchasing power. We need to stop and think about that £5 car wash and that £10 set of nails. Bluntly, if four or five guys in flip-flops are washing your car for a few quid, then the alarm bells should be ringing loud and clear.

There should be greater regulation in these industries to help prevent cases of human trafficking and slavery occurring in the first place, and that is where I would challenge governments both local and national, and all across these islands, to go further. In 2020, the chief executive of the British Beauty Council, Millie Kendall, said of the nail salon industry that

“we are very under regulated and that’s a real problem for us.”

Ms Kendall asked the British Government to move to license the industry. As far as I can see, there is very little provision in legislation to deal with that aspect of modern slavery. The situation for so many victims and survivors is desperate, which only makes the Government’s failure on this worse. Figures released in 2020 highlight that any efforts to crack down on slavery have been weak and slow, with only 42 convictions on slavery and human trafficking in 2018, down from 59 in 2017 and 69 in 2016.

I have outlined aspects of modern slavery that I feel need to be further addressed, and I hope that the Minister will address some of those points in the wind-ups. However, I also ask the Minister and the Home Office to reflect on the fact that at least four Members representing the seven seats in the city of Glasgow have taken part in this debate. We so often hear from Conservative Members about their views on immigration and asylum. However, I would be willing to wager a safe amount of money that the amount of cases that I, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) have ongoing at the moment is probably more than every single Conservative Member has dealt with in the course of this year. That is because, as MPs who rightly welcome people to our city and take up asylum casework, we far too often see the significant failings of an asylum and immigration system that is utterly broken, making it so difficult for those we represent.

This Bill and much of what it represents is not what Scotland wants or voted for. Scotland is a welcoming country to refugees and asylum seekers. They are part of the rich tartan tapestry that makes up our communities. Indeed, they are our friends and our families with whom we break bread at community meals in places such as my native Cranhill. Earlier this year, my home city united and sent a clear message to the Home Office with the Kenmure Street protest, proving that once again all people, including refugees and asylum seekers, make Glasgow. Glasgow rejects this Bill and looks forward to a day when Westminster’s right-wing immigration policies and dangerous anti-refugee rhetoric has no territorial application on our citizens, and instead we can form borders and nationality policy that is based on dignity, not on dog-whistle politics.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

It is an absolute pleasure to follow my hon. Friend, and neighbour, the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden).

I have said repeatedly how disgusted I am with this Bill in its entirety, so I will not go over that again, and I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you would not let me. It is hard not to do it, but it is all on the record. In any case, whatever I say today is unlikely to change anybody’s vote, and that is what is so depressing about this. Today I will focus on what you want me to focus on, Madam Deputy Speaker, which is modern slavery and human trafficking. I will highlight two aspects of the many that I find greatly disturbing.

First, there is late disclosure. I am deeply concerned by the measures in the Bill that aim to damage the credibility of victims of modern slavery or human trafficking. Using late disclosure as a reason to damage their credibility only serves to create barriers to effective and vital identification and engagement with those victims. The Government, of course, in their usual, cynical way, believe that claimants are abusing the system and attempting to frustrate removal. They point to the rise in the number of trafficking claims, but that is down to a range of factors, including greater awareness of modern slavery among detention workers and others and an improved ability to recognise vulnerability, as a leading Hibiscus report highlighted. All the awareness-raising campaigns, supported by all the Governments on these islands, including this Government, were always going to increase those numbers—that is what we were looking for, surely. To use that increase as a reason to now cynically attack people is just despicable.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Will the Serjeant at Arms please go and clear the Lobby?

[David Linden]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Does the hon. Gentleman’s point of order relate to the Division?

[David Linden]

It does, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given that it is taking quite a lot of time to get through the votes, I wonder whether it might be possible to investigate the idea of introducing this thing called electronic voting, which would speed things up a little bit.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

If the hon. Gentleman had been behaving properly, I might have taken his point of order seriously. I have to say to him and to the House that a very serious piece of legislation is going through the House today. There has been genuine debate and disagreement about it, but it is legislation that will affect a lot of people in this country and it deserves to be properly considered. The antics that have been reported to me—the way in which certain Members have behaved, very obviously delaying and lengthening the time that the Divisions are taking—are, as I said a few moments ago, contrary to good democratic practice. I deplore the actions of those people who have delayed the Divisions, and who indeed are doing so now. Will they please cast their votes, come back into the Chamber and allow the Third Reading to take place?

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[Priti Patel]

I will not give way, because I want to leave some time for the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford. The hon. Gentleman would have had time to contribute from the Back Benches during the debate on Report.

Families and young children have lost their lives at sea and in lorries and containers because they put their trust in the people traffickers. The challenge is not unique to the United Kingdom, but we as a Government are seeking to address these issues in a responsible way, because they have been neglected for far too long. Let us not forget that the British public are angered by what they see. The British people are fair and generous when it comes to helping those in need—[Interruption.]

If I may, hon. Members have had hours to debate this Bill. They are screaming and using delaying tactics because they lack the solutions to these problems, and we are going to put fundamental reforms into statute.

The reality is that the system is broken. It has been open to gaming and criminal exploitation, and we are compelled to act with the simple principle of fairness. We are the only Government who will bring forward a balanced Bill. We are bringing forward a legislative framework that is firm and fair, prioritising those in genuine need. We will have powers to stop illegal entry and to break the business model of the evil people smugglers, who will face life in prison, which is something all Opposition Members have opposed completely.

We will bring in tough new sentences—maximum life sentences—for people smugglers and facilitators. There will be new rules to stop unscrupulous people posing as children, and there will be stronger enforcement powers for Border Force. Importantly, those who travel through a safe country should claim asylum in that safe country, rather than asylum shopping in the way we see right now.

[David Linden]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Sit down. The Home Secretary does not have time to take interventions, neither will the shadow Home Secretary, because time has been wasted by the Members on the SNP Benches. Stay in your seat.