Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Diane Abbott and Bell Ribeiro-Addy

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

I wish to speak to new clause 8 about child citizenship fees, which I am grateful has been signed by a number of Members. The children in question are not migrants. I repeat that they are not migrants, because every time this issue is raised, there is some suggestion that there is something slightly illegal behind this, which is disgraceful. On the contrary, the large majority are exactly like me and the Prime Minister, and have every right to British citizenship. This Government, and all successive Governments, accept that, but the issue is that they are being priced out.

We in this country charge British children—children!—up to 10 times more to claim their citizenship rights than their counterparts in Spain, France, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. The fee is the most expensive in Europe. If the £35 fee introduced back in 1983 had risen in line with inflation, it would be only £120 today. Instead, we charge £1,012—a fee that has doubled in the past decade, and which the Government have the ability to increase at will. It is a fee that far too many cannot afford, and a fee the level of which neither I nor the Prime Minister had to pay.

Why do I keep mentioning myself and the Prime Minister? It is because the circumstances of our births are no different to those of the children in question today. Indeed, many Members across the House were not born here or were born to migrants, and none of us faced such barriers to claiming our citizenship. No one questions our rights, and our British citizenship gives us the right to sit as Members of this House. I repeatedly mention myself and the Prime Minister because I believe that neither of us should be in a position to make things difficult for those children born after us. I certainly did not come to this House to do that.

Like the Windrush generation, through no fault of their own, and often with no idea of what is to come, these children go on to face real difficulties with everyday life and with things that we take for granted, such as travelling, getting a job, renting a home or going to university without being asked to pay international fees. That is in the country they were born in or have lived in their whole lives. Make that make sense.

Citizens UK, Amnesty International, and the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens, which has led on this campaign, have estimated that between 85,000 and 215,000 children with a legal entitlement to British citizenship have ended up undocumented due to the extortionate registration fee. Imagine how many children have never had the opportunity to reach their full potential because they spent the end of their childhood, and the beginning of their adulthood, fighting to prove that they have rights in their own country, or fighting to prove that they belong in the only place they have ever called home. It is exactly what happened with the Windrush generation.

We must understand that the harm of being denied citizenship rights in the only country you know cannot be overstated. It is not just about societal barriers; it is the psychological impact of being constantly treated like a second-class citizen. Why do I continually compare them to the Windrush generation? That is because, just like the Windrush generation, a piece of legislation or policy that attempted to dissuade migrants and make the environment more hostile for them is impacting on a group of people who have every right to be here. Just like the Windrush generation, this policy disproportionately affects those of black, Asian, and minority ethnic heritage.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that to make children bear the burden of this Government’s hostile environment policy must be wrong?

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend, and I am sure she will agree with me that, clearly, no lessons have been learned.

New clause 8 does not even ask the Government to scrap the fee, which is my personal preference; it just asks them to reduce it to cost and examine its impact on the rights of children. The new clause does, however, ask for the fee to be scrapped for children in care, for the obvious reason that children in care are the responsibility of the state. As we approach Christmas and we are thinking about families and home, with all the disadvantages that children in care face, the Government seem all too at ease with telling these children that they have no country to call home unless their local authority is willing to pay for it.

I spoke to children who were Lambeth care leavers and they told me horrific tales of threats of deportation to countries they have never been to because they cannot prove their link to their citizenship due to issues with their relations with their parents. Our cash-strapped local authorities cannot afford to keep paying these fees, and they are not border guards or immigration specialists who understand exactly what is happening.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) is absolutely right that there are parts of the citizenship section of the Bill that we appreciate, and things have been corrected. I spoke to the Immigration Minister earlier this week, and I was grateful for his time—I promised I would say something nice, and I did. If we are correcting all these other things, why would we not correct this policy now? We know exactly what the issue is. We know that the courts ruled, the Government appealed, and the courts ruled again that these fees are not in the best interests of children. This Bill is so horrible in so many other areas; is there not just one thing that we can all agree on? Just like with the Windrush scandal, why do the Government want to be dragged screaming into submission on something that they know is absolutely right?

I am glad to be standing here today, because I get to keep the promise that I made just before my election to a group of students from St Gabriel’s College who, along with Lambeth Citizens, explained to me their plight as children who were suffering in this way. I am proud to be a governor at their school, because they are what I call citizens. They are affected by this issue. Some of them have moved on, but they continue to fight for others in their place. I promised that I would stand up in the House and try to show that these young people are valued by their country—because this is their country. I hope that, when new clause 8—hopefully—goes to a vote, every other Member of this House will walk through the Lobby with me and show those young people that they have every single right to be here, that we will not continue to price them out, and that they should be able to access every single right, just like myself and the Prime Minister have been able to do.

Black History Month

Debate between Diane Abbott and Bell Ribeiro-Addy

Thursday 28th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we had gone down that road, perhaps we would not be having the discussions that we are having today.

We need to think about what that report said, when it decided that there was no institutional or systemic racism, and how that discounts years of lived experience and the things that people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds have experienced in this country. What I could not understand at the time was whether the Government believed they would get any buy-in for a report that was so widely discredited across our communities or to what extent, given how discredited it has been, it was actually for our communities, even though it was very much about them.

The idea that institutional racism does not exist means that there is no action for the state to take, because it is not an institutional problem. As far as I am concerned, the Government appear to be absolving themselves of responsibility to take action on institutions that fail to deliver racial equality. We did not need that report; we needed action on reports gone by. We certainly did not need a new story about slavery and colonialism, when the one that we have at the moment is not even being widely taught.

My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) pointed to the recommendations of reports gone by that have not been implemented, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) reminded me that the Government continue to stall on implementing fully his Lammy review. In the meantime, BAME youth custody now sits at 51%, which is an increase of 10% on when he was asked to do the review just five years ago.

The Windrush lessons learned review by Wendy Williams was also commissioned by the Government. Even the author of the report has said how woeful it is that, again, the Government continue not to act on the recommendations. Furthermore, the scandal continues, because many people caught up in it have not yet received compensation or their proper status of leave to remain in this country.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. When we talk about unimplemented reports and inquiries, we could go all the way back to the early ’80s and the Scarman inquiry. If everything that Scarman spoke about had been addressed, we would not be in the situation we are in today.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is what we want to bring to an end. We have to stop this cycle whereby something bad happens, we have a report or inquiry, and the Government—successive Governments—just push it under the carpet and wait until the next disaster in which racial inequality is raised. Part of why we are not making headway is that the bodies that are meant to protect us and to apply checks and balances on the Government simply do not have the ability to do so.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights report, “Black people, racism and human rights”, said that overall there was a very damning picture of structural racism right across society, such as in health, immigration, policing, the justice system and electoral participation. It also mentioned, in a key way, the failures of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is tasked with policing equality and, potentially, enforcing such targets. However, it is not fit for purpose in its current form. How could it be? It is supposed to be an independent arm’s length body, but its major appointments are still made by the Government. That must make it difficult to take action when Government policies lead to inequality or human rights breaches. That has been highlighted in many court cases over the past few years. The EHRC also appears to have rarely used and limited investigation and enforcement powers, and it has an ever-dwindling budget. In practice, it has become a body with no teeth.

In my work on the Women and Equalities Committee, we have found that when people—the Government included—refuse to comply with what they are meant to do under equalities legislation, the Equality and Human Rights Commission appears to be able to do very little. Key to that, given that our main purpose here every day is to pass legislation, is that the Government do not produce equality impact assessments of various pieces of legislation. When they do, at times they refuse to publish them. How on earth are we meant to hold the Government to account and ensure that they are complying with our equalities law? Why does our equalities law always have to be an add-on?

Frankly, black communities need fewer champions and more enforcement of what are supposed to be the rights that protect us. Report after report has reinforced not only the issues, but the recommendations that we need to bring about systemic change. If we were clear about our equalities legislation and the guidance, we would be moving forward.

When we discuss racial inequality and call on the Government to introduce policy to change things, we are not asking for anything beyond equality; we are simply asking the Government to recognise how we are treated as a community in this country and to take meaningful action to change it. Likewise, when we ask the Government for black histories to be taught as part of the curriculum, we are not asking for that to be done over other aspects of British history; we are asking them to recognise that black history is British history—it is a part of that history—but that it is not taught widely, as it should be. They should take those key steps to ensure that that is done.

If racism is ignorance, and education is the absence of ignorance, there is an obvious answer to dealing with racial inequality; it is simple and it costs the Government nothing to start just there—with education.