Immigration: Pausing the Hostile Environment

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He and the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) have been right to pay tribute to the immigrants who have come to this country and contributed so much to our society and way of life, giving us the multicultural Britain that we enjoy today. However, my right hon. Friend is right to point out that this Government continue to be determined to take action against people who are here illegally, and the suite of measures that enables us to do that remains in place.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Opposition welcome the limited measures that have been announced, including the temporary end to data sharing and further advice for employers and landlords. However, I have met with a number of members of the Windrush generation who have been caught up in the Government’s net, both at meetings that I have organised and at meetings organised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), and Ministers do not understand that many of them have got into considerable debt because they did not get the benefits to which they are entitled and found themselves paying for medical treatment.

If the Government are serious about at least helping the Windrush generation, I urge them to look again at setting up a hardship fund. After all, we are talking about people in their 60s and over who have had to borrow or be lent money by relatives. If the Government want to be seen to be acting in good faith, they must review their decision not to have a proper hardship fund and set one up as a matter of urgency.

I welcome the limited measures announced, but the Opposition believe that there needs to be a total review of the hostile environment. I am not pretending that some elements of it—particularly in relation to the NHS—were not introduced by a Labour Government, but, unless we review it in total, the Windrush generation will not be the end of it in terms of unfairness and cruelty. We have to review it and see what is necessary to stop people abusing public services, but take out those elements that have caused so much misery to people who are actually British citizens. Ministers have to understand that this will not stop with the current cohort of largely West Indians. As time goes on, there will be cohorts from all over the Commonwealth, including south Asia and west Africa, caught up in the net of the hostile environment.

Finally, I repeat my request for more information: figures on deportations, on Windrush generation persons in immigration detention and on members of the Windrush generation who went back to the Caribbean—for a funeral or a holiday—and then were refused re-entry. Until we have the figures and the Minister sets up a proper hardship fund, members of the Windrush generation will be entitled to think that this is words, not action.

[Caroline Nokes]

As the right hon. Lady will know, Martin Forde QC has been appointed as the independent adviser to the compensation scheme. His call for evidence has closed and has greatly informed the shape of the consultation, which will be forthcoming very soon. She raised the compliant environment controls, which have been introduced over many years: right to work checks in 1997; controls on benefits in 1999 and on social care in 2002; civil penalties for employers of illegal workers in 2008; and more recent measures, including on the private rented sector, bank accounts and driving licences in the Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016.

The right hon. Lady raised the issue of people who have been in detention and those who may have been removed from the country. The Home Secretary provided information when he appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee and confirmed that current indications were that 63 people had been removed, but those figures are subject to the independent oversight that we will put in place in due course, and that will of course be properly independent. As I said in my answer to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), we will not come forward with the numbers of people detained until we are confident, through the manual review of all cases, that we have the right numbers.