Protest Measures
Deidre Brock Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Tom Tugendhat
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point and if I may, I will build on it in combination with an earlier point. There are many people who served our country in various different ways over two world wars and in conflicts since then, whose memorials are either lost and known only unto God or are many thousands of miles away from their families. Families who have come to share our lives in the United Kingdom may have left behind them the graves of family members who served in those conflicts. I am thinking in particular of the 140,000 or so Muslim servicemen who served and lost their lives in the last two wars, of the many Jewish ex-servicemen who march as well, and of many others from around the world—from Africa, South America and Asia—who served in the pursuit of liberty and the defence of freedom in our country. This is their home now; those memorials remember their relatives and loved ones, and it is absolutely right that, for all communities in this country, we defend those moments of national memorial and the altars to liberty that they represent.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
These measures may impact on those of my constituents who wish to protest outside this place or elsewhere over the border. The Minister says that enforcement actions will be taken by police officers at their discretion. How will the Government ensure that these measures will be applied uniformly, proportionately and appropriately across all of England’s police forces?
Tom Tugendhat
These are police powers, so the enforcement or application of them is operationally independent and down to the discretion of officers and chief constables as appropriate. That is how policing traditionally works. We do not have a national police force through which we can order police officers to arrest or not arrest individuals. We allow individual police officers to apply the law according to the guidelines that chief constables set out, and that is exactly what will happen in this circumstance.
Illegal Immigration
Deidre Brock Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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James Cleverly
A friend of every country except their own, I think.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Home Secretary is clearly under a lot of pressure from his Back Benchers on this, but may I remind him that the ECHR is entwined throughout many years of devolved Parliament legislation, and indeed Scottish case law? What assurances can he give that his Government will not attempt to weaken or change the ECHR without consent from the devolved Administrations?
James Cleverly
With regard to amendments, when I was Foreign Secretary I made the point that if we want to preserve institutions, they need to evolve. Nothing should be caught in aspic or frozen in amber. Ultimately, once again, the hon. Lady asks me to be distracted from our core effort, which is delivering on our multi-strand approach to tackling illegal migration, and I refuse to do so.
Asylum-seeking Children: Hotel Accommodation
Deidre Brock Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the accommodation of asylum-seeking children in hotels.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hollobone.
In preparation for the debate, I spoke to many organisations that support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children day in, day out. It was impossible not to be moved by some of their testimonies. A children’s rights officer at the Scottish Refugee Council shared this:
“All the children I worked with demonstrated little to no knowledge of systems in the UK prior to arrival, they were completely bewildered. They were also terrified, terrified of anyone they perceived to be in a position of authority. At times that included me, until they got to know me. One girl even asked me if I intended to send her back to her village, where she was at risk of female genital mutilation…
Another girl I worked with had been in Scotland for around two months when I received a call from the hospital asking me to attend, as she was very distressed. She was pregnant. As soon as the doctor left us alone, she broke down sobbing, asking me if the Home Office would kill her for being unmarried and pregnant.”
Those are just a couple of anecdotes, but they speak to the reality of life in the hostile environment for many highly vulnerable children who have reached our shores. Those anecdotes should shame UK Ministers who have used degrading language such as “asylum shopping” or “invasion” to describe people risking their lives for safety and refuge in this country. Many have experienced physical and sexual violence, persecution, torture, human rights abuses and extreme poverty. Their perilous journeys to the UK have exposed them to exploitation, human trafficking and modern slavery.
Two years ago, when the Home Office started to house unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in hotels, we were told that it was on a short-term, emergency basis until permanent placements could be found via the national transfer scheme. It should not be forgotten that such hotels are considered to operate unlawfully: under section 20 of the Children Act 1989, children under 16 should be in the care of local authorities, not in unregulated accommodation where they lack the same protections as other looked-after children. Children whom the Refugee Council in England has spoken to say that they feel anxious, frightened and lonely in the hotels, with no phone to communicate and clothes that do not fit them properly.
Since the Home Office took charge of the day-to-day care of unaccompanied children, at least 4,600 of them—some as young as 10—have been placed in such accommodation. We know that the number is rising, but up-to-date and accurate figures have been hard to come by.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady for securing the debate. She is making a powerful speech on an important topic. In January, at Prime Minister’s questions, I asked about the 200 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who were missing from Home Office-run hotels. Two months later, a response to one of my parliamentary questions stated that 186 of those children—some of the most vulnerable young people in the country—were still missing. Does the hon. Lady agree that if we as politicians are not safeguarding the most vulnerable children in the country, we are letting them down severely?
Deidre Brock
I absolutely agree. I will elaborate on this, but it is our moral and legal duty to assume responsibility for those children, and that has been sadly lacking from the Government and the Home Office.
In early April, the Children’s Commissioner for England requested data on the number of children in Home Office hotels since July 2021. I understand—I hope the Minister will bring us up to date—that the Home Office has yet to reply to that statutory data request. I believe that is unprecedented, so I will be very interested in whether the Minister can explain why that information has not been provided and when the Home Secretary will endeavour to do so.
Part of the issue is that the real number of children in the system is obscured by the visual age, or “glance”, assessment process. The Refugee Council report “Identity Crisis” highlights the cases of 233 children that it supported last year, 94% of whom the Home Office wrongly judged to be over 18. They were housed with adults, with no access to support or education and at clear risk of abuse and neglect. On top of that, last year the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration found staff at some hotels without Disclosure and Barring Service checks.
Shockingly, despite repeated warnings by the police that children would be targeted by criminal networks, the Home Office has failed to prevent hundreds from going missing, as the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) referred to. She mentioned the 440 occurrences that we know of and the 186 children who remained missing as of April 2023. Members from across the House have asked time and again about that, but have received little detail on what action is being taken.
The UK Government’s inability or unwillingness to guarantee the safety of those children has been condemned at home and abroad. More than 100 charities wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister in January calling for the Home Office to stop accommodating separated children in hotels, without delay. UN experts echoed that call in April, commenting that the UK is failing
“under international human rights law to…prevent trafficking of children.”
A report published by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration in October last year recommended that a viable and sustainable exit strategy from the use of hotels should be delivered within six months. The Home Office has no exit strategy; instead, Ministers are doubling down. The asylum hotel accommodation system is becoming institutionalised, and the Illegal Migration Bill—or, as it is known by some, the refugee ban Bill—will empower the Home Secretary to accommodate even more children outside the care system.
Under article 22 of the UN convention on the rights of the child, children seeking refugee status must receive appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance, but the Illegal Migration Bill is effectively a ban on the right to claim asylum if the claimant arrived in the UK irregularly, such as through trafficking or modern slavery, regardless of their individual circumstances. It will create a two-tier system where the immigration status of refugee and asylum-seeking children overrides their rights as children in the UK. It has been said to me that, in the eyes of the Home Office, they are seen as illegal migrant first, everything else second.
Analysis by the Refugee Council based on publicly available sources and conservative estimates suggests that 45,000 children could be detained in the UK under the Government’s plans. Both the Children’s Commissioner and the chief inspector have warned about the pressure that that will put on local authorities in England to fulfil their duties under the Children Act.
The Bill also includes an attack on devolution, which is unfortunately becoming customary from the UK Government. Clause 19 gives the Home Secretary the unilateral power to extend the provisions to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on obtaining the debate and doing the research beforehand. What is her experience of the Home Office’s interaction with the devolved Scottish Government and local authorities in Scotland? In Wales, we have found its approach extremely disappointing—riding roughshod over devolution and not taking any notice of the way that we treat children in Wales.
Deidre Brock
I agree entirely. That has certainly been the experience of the many different organisations that I have spoken to in Scotland, and that is what they say to me. As always with this Government, the proposals that Scottish Ministers put to UK Ministers are often either ignored or not taken fully into account. Again, I hope that the Minister can assure us otherwise.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on obtaining the debate. Further to the intervention by the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), whose constituency neighbours mine, we have a specific issue in Carmarthenshire, where a hotel will be used to house asylum seekers without any consultation whatsoever with the local authority. The Welsh Government have a policy that Wales is a nation of sanctuary, and it is beyond my understanding why the UK Government would act unilaterally without discussion with the Welsh Government or Carmarthenshire County Council.
Deidre Brock
I was looking at a contribution by the Local Government Association, which I believe operates only in England, and that seems to be one of its bones of contention too, along with the fact that insufficient moneys are being provided to support the welfare of these children and other asylum seekers. Again, I hope that the Minister will address that point.
The Scottish guardianship scheme, run through the Scottish Refugee Council and the Aberlour charity, provides personal, sustained support for these children, and it is funded by and delivered on behalf of the Scottish Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who will be winding up the debate for the SNP, has urged the UK Government to provide a similar scheme to support, in particular, young people in care in Scotland.
Clause 23 of the Illegal Migration Bill strips Scottish Ministers of their powers under the Scottish Parliament’s Children (Scotland) Act 1995 to support and assist victims of trafficking if those victims meet removal criteria, with very limited exceptions. Given that that clearly encroaches on devolved responsibilities, will the Minister tell us why the legislative consent motion process was not engaged? Scottish local authorities are responsible for caring for these children and treating them as they would other looked-after children. If there are credible indicators of exploitation or other issues, local authorities have obligations under Scots law to intervene. Under the European convention on human rights, Police Scotland and local authorities have a duty to protect, investigate and take people out of a trafficking situation, but that will clash with the requirements on Home Office officials to remove people.
Even if those powers are used sparingly, as the UK Government claim they will be, organisations and charities in Scotland remain terrified about the effect of moving responsibility to the Home Office and away from Guardianship Scotland, the scheme I mentioned that is delivered on behalf of the Scottish Government to all unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and survivors of child trafficking. The Scottish Refugee Council says that some of these children are so afraid of the Home Office that they are up the entire night before their interview, praying that they will not be removed or detained. The possibility of being taken into Home Office care, coupled with the closing down of asylum and trafficking protections, while the prospect of removal looms, will lead only to more children running away. That will be a powerful recruitment tool for traffickers, who might look like a preferable option over being deported to Rwanda or remaining in detention.
We in the SNP have said repeatedly that creating safe and legal routes is the only realistic way to disrupt the human traffickers’ business model. If the Home Office has no interest in creating an asylum system that is based on fairness and dignity, it should devolve the necessary powers to the Scottish Parliament to allow Scotland to do so.
In the meantime, we need answers from the Home Office, so I close with these questions. Will the Minister give us the latest figures on how many unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who went missing from Home Office hotels are still missing? Will the Home Office commit to publishing a written report on the circumstances surrounding those missing children, including immediate steps to prevent similar issues from happening again? Finally, will the Minister advise whether and how an order from the Home Secretary under clause 16 will supersede protective orders issued by the Scottish courts? As a signatory state to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, the UK needs to step up and meet its responsibility to uphold all children’s rights to protection, health and education.
The children’s rights officer from the Scottish Refugee Council whom I mentioned earlier recalled a boy from Afghanistan she had worked with through the guardianship service who was haunted by the image of his inconsolable mother saying goodbye to him. Rather than compounding the fear and trauma of children like him, we have a legal and moral duty to look after them.
Several hon. Members rose—
Deidre Brock
I am glad that I was able to secure the debate. I was outraged to hear about those missing children, and what appeared to be shocking indifference by the UK Government in regard to their going missing. I was very dissatisfied with the inadequate response that the Minister recently gave to a Member about this.
I have seen nothing but an unrepentant, defensive attitude from the Minister today, with no answers to the many questions raised by Members today. I remind him that Glasgow City Council, under an SNP Administration, has consistently taken more asylum seekers than local authorities in most of England, particularly the south-east. [Interruption.] No, it is not. Scotland has taken more arrivals per head of population under the Homes for Ukraine scheme than any of the four UK nations. I remind the Minister that councils across the UK have pointed out that Home Office funding for the dispersal scheme is insufficient and must be looked at again.
The proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”, surely means that all of us are responsible for every child’s wellbeing, and that includes Government Ministers and the UK Government. We want transparency, accountability and responsibility from Ministers on that, and I am sorry to say that I did not hear any of that from the Minister today.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the accommodation of asylum-seeking children in hotels.
Net Migration Figures
Deidre Brock Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I have been clear that we want to reduce the backlog, as part of our 10-point plan to tackle illegal migration. We have put in place a series of measures to reduce bureaucracy, to streamline the process and to double the number of asylum decision makers. Those investments are already paying dividends. We are confident that the legacy backlog will be cleared over the course of the year.
The point I was making, which I am happy to reiterate, is that the faster the process, the more pull factor there is to the United Kingdom. That is not a reason to maintain an inefficient process, but we need a process where deterrence is suffused through every element, else we will never break the business model of the people smugglers.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
My old home state of Western Australia has just announced even further investment in additional support for international students, saying:
“It is important we provide international students…with a safe and welcoming environment for them to flourish in”.
Education is a global market, so can the Minister explain why it is a good thing that international students simply take their money, skills and enthusiasm elsewhere, deterred by this crackdown on their families and the support they offer, rather than choose the UK, where life for them is made ever more difficult?
Robert Jenrick
I presume the hon. Lady will welcome the fact that the Government have met their target of 600,000 international students coming to the UK every year—as set by our international education strategy— 10 years early. Last year, 605,000 international students came, and I suspect the number this year will be higher still. There is absolutely no sense that the Government are reneging on those commitments or creating an environment that is unwelcoming to international students. We want universities to focus on teaching, and not inadvertently create a backdoor to immigration status here in the UK. That is why we have made the changes we have made this week, which have been broadly welcomed by both the public and the sector.
Student Visas
Deidre Brock Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
Alongside the package of measures today, we are, as I said earlier, taking further targeted enforcement activity against unscrupulous education agents who are selling entry to the United Kingdom, rather than education. We will also work closely with universities and the Department for Education to improve communication, to universities and their affiliates, of the immigration rules, so we can clamp down on the kind of poor practices my hon. Friend describes.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Minister avoided this question when my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) asked it, so I will try again. What discussions were there between the UK Government and Scottish Ministers on this matter before the announcement was made?
Robert Jenrick
Immigration is a reserved matter. I would just add that I am seeking a meeting with the relevant Cabinet Secretary in the Scottish Government to discuss illegal migration, but her office has so far not offered a meeting.
Seasonal Worker Visas: Sponsorship Certificates
Deidre Brock Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Minister might want to look at the failed Pick for Britain scheme in reference to those comments. The National Farmers Union’s findings suggest a shocking £60 million-worth of food had been wasted in the first half of the year because of labour shortages. Of course, if the UK Government had listened to the SNP, free movement would be presenting a solution to many of these issues.
Will the Minister now listen to calls from Scotland’s External Affairs Secretary and consider a 24-month temporary visa rather than the short-term sticking plaster approach that we have seen so far? Will he also consider the proposal made by the SNP Government in 2020 through which migrants wanting to work in Scotland could choose to apply for a Scottish visa as well as the Scottish Government’s call for a rural visa pilot to meet the distinct needs of Scotland’s remote rural and island areas? Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland all operate successful visa systems that offer a tailored response to the immigration needs of those countries. Why do UK Ministers insist on such a rigid one-size-fits-all approach?
Robert Jenrick
There is no significant evidence to suggest that the UK labour market varies so greatly between the nations that we need to take different approaches in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. It is better that we remain within the United Kingdom and that we have one single immigration policy covering the whole Union.
On the hon. Lady’s central suggestion that leaving the European Union has led to a diminution of workers available within the economy, that simply is not true. We have just seen figures published showing that net migration was over 500,000 last year and that 1 million people entered the UK last year. They are very substantial numbers. The Home Office issued 350,000 work visas last year. We are ultimately a small country with finite resources, limited housing and pressure on public services. It is right that the Government take their responsibilities seriously, take decisions in the round and try, over time, to bring down net migration.
The seasonal agricultural worker scheme exists to fill in some gaps. The choice of 40,000 does appear to have been broadly borne out by the evidence that we are close to the end of the year and there are still 1,400 places outstanding, so the decision made by my predecessors has been broadly correct. We are in the process of analysing whether we need to continue or expand it next year, and I will make a statement on that very soon.
Oral Answers to Questions
Deidre Brock Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He is correct that over the summer the majority of arrivals in small boats from France—about 60%—have been Albanian nationals. He will be delighted to hear about the work that I have led on reform of the national referral mechanism, a key component of the reforms to the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which has been committed to within this Session of Parliament.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
Our United Kingdom has a proud history of providing sanctuary to those in need through our resettlement schemes. The new plan for immigration will ensure that our resources can be focused on those in most need of resettlement around the world, including in Afghanistan, rather than on those who can pay a people smuggler.
Deidre Brock
Does the Minister share my concern regarding the findings of nine expert groups last month, including Humans Rights Watch, which found the UK Government’s resettlement schemes to be “unjustifiably restrictive”, and that it is deeply concerning that the UK Government are not offering a safe route for many Afghan women and girls, or to oppressed minority groups?
Kevin Foster
Well, I look at our record, which includes last year’s evacuation—the largest since the war—to bring people to safety here in the United Kingdom, and at the work we are doing week in, week out with colleagues, particularly in the Ministry of Defence, to bring more people to safety. We need to focus our efforts on those who need resettlement and safety and are under threat in Afghanistan, rather than on those who prefer to be here than in another safe and democratic country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Deidre Brock Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Kevin Foster
As we saw last week, those who have nothing to offer by way of policy like to go personal. To help the hon. Member, the question was about the proportion of passport applications received. He got an answer to it, but his supplementary makes it clear that he has no ideas of his own to offer.
Deidre Brock
The Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents the staff at Her Majesty’s Passport Office, has commented that the backlog is due to a number of issues including
“lack of staff, poor management and failures”
on the part of contractors. Rather than blaming staff or suggesting more privatisation, will the UK Government meet union representatives in order to learn what action is needed to ensure that the Passport Office is properly funded and staffed?
Kevin Foster
We are certainly grateful for the hard work that staff are putting in, and, as I said last week, it is a pity that we are seeing their efforts being rubbished for political ends. We have been recruiting more staff at the Passport Office and investing in the modernisation of processes, and we engage regularly with senior HMPO officials, as well as ensuring that union officials can have their say. We should bear in mind the current record output from the Passport Office, which is dealing with a surge of applications. I must say that it is striking to note the sudden interest expressed by Opposition Members who said very little about this last year.
Homes for Ukraine: Visa Application Centres
Deidre Brock Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Kevin Foster
We have already done step-by-step guidance for the form in both Ukrainian and Russian, which makes it much simpler to follow. One of the issues with translating the form into other languages is that it means we would need to have decision makers who can speak the particular language. We are clear that sponsors and others can assist with filling in the form to make for a better experience for those needing to apply. As already shown, we have now granted nearly 90,000 visas, which speaks for itself and the performance that is being achieved.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I understand the pressure that officials are working under, but visa application centres are giving conflicting advice to applicants and to my constituents who are part of the Homes for Ukraine scheme. In one instance, we were told that a child’s visa was granted and that travel documents should be with them within a couple of days, and then that the child’s mother had been phoned by mistake, as it was in fact someone else’s visa that had been granted and it would take around another two weeks for the right visa to come through. These folk are in effect homeless, and time is of the essence. In another case, a constituent’s fiancé and daughter were told that a decision had been made on 13 April, but two weeks later, they still have not been told to go and collect the documents. A mother and two daughters are still trapped in Ukraine, 22 days since applications were submitted. As my constituent who would like to host those three when they finally arrive says, each day the message that they are welcome in the UK fades a little more. Those are just a few of the cases that my team and I are dealing with at the moment. The Minister offered to look at a colleague’s case. Will he be prepared to take a look at these cases when I send them through to him?
Kevin Foster
Yes, I am very happy to look at them. If incorrect or confusing advice is being given by a visa application centre, we certainly want the details of that so that we can intervene and engage to ensure the centre is fully conversant with what it should be doing and how the process should work. For example, we have made clear with carriers that if people have a form for affixing the vignette, they do not also need permission to travel letters. That was one issue we encountered. We made clear that the form is their permission to travel once they have it. I am very happy to look at individual cases if forwarded to me.
Refugees from Ukraine
Deidre Brock Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Priti Patel
This is the theme that we hear constantly throughout the community—a recognition that, of course, people will want to go home. It is their country; it is the place of their birth; it is where they have lived their lives. There is no question about that. That is why we are taking a consistent approach across all schemes to the leave period that people can come here for, even those on temporary leave.
The point about ethnic cleansing is so valid. There are still people of Ukrainian origin in Russia who are subject to appalling persecution. Those people are also in our thoughts, and we want to consider how we can help them, too.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Yesterday, I spoke to a senior member of the Ukrainian community in my constituency. He wanted to know what sorts of resettlement schemes are being looked at to support orphans and unaccompanied children arriving here, and whether the Home Secretary would consider waiving all visa requirements for them.