Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

Second Reading

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I must inform the House, as I have just done in the previous item of business, that Mr Speaker has not selected any of the reasoned amendments. I am delighted to call the Home Secretary to move Second Reading. The Home Secretary is asked to speak for no more than 20 minutes.

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The Bill is a simple one that delivers on the promise we made to the British people. It ends free movement. It takes back control of our borders. It gives the Government the powers needed to deliver an immigration system that is firm, fair and fit for the future: the points-based system the public voted for; a system that will support our economic recovery by prioritising jobs for people here in the UK while continuing to attract the brightest and best in terms of global talent; a system that will make it cheaper, easier and quicker for global medical professionals to work in our brilliant NHS; and, as we come through coronavirus, a system that will send a message to the world that global Britain is once again open for business. I commend the Bill to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Nick Thomas-Symonds, who is asked to speak for no more than 15 minutes.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to start by thanking the Home Secretary for our briefings in recent weeks, which have been very important throughout this crisis. I look forward to them continuing in the weeks and months ahead. We meet today during a public health emergency that has shone a light on deep inequality and unfairness in our society, and that has shown the extraordinary value of what so many workers do for our families and our communities.

The Bill fell at the general election and has now been brought back to the House for the second time. Looking at the text of the Bill, we see that little has changed—it now has nine clauses rather than seven—but what has changed dramatically are the circumstances in which we debate it.

On a Thursday evening at 8 o’clock, we clap for our carers. Millions of people come to their doorsteps to say thank you. Quite rightly, we are showing our appreciation for our NHS workers, our care workers and all our frontline workers—police, fire, all our emergency services, those in our shops and those out on our roads driving supplies up and down the country—who are putting themselves in harm’s way day after day to keep us safe. They are making sacrifices in order to help others. We are rightly proud of them and we honour their bravery and courage, yet in the midst of this crisis, the Government are putting forward an immigration system containing a salary threshold of £25,600. That sends a signal and tells people that anyone earning less than that is unskilled and unwelcome in our country.

We on the Opposition Benches know that people are not being paid the value of what they do, and that what our frontline workers earn does not reflect what they contribute to our society. Many of us did not need reminding of that, but it seems that the Government do need reminding. Those who clapped on Thursday are only too happy to vote through a Bill today that will send a powerful message to those same people that they are not considered by this Government to be skilled workers. Are our shop workers unskilled? Our refuse collectors? Our local government workers? Our NHS staff? Our care workers? Of course they are not. Government Ministers who were out clapping for the 180,000 EU nationals in the NHS and the care sector on Thursday night are sending a message tonight that they are no longer welcome. That is not fair, and it is not in the national interest.

A labour force survey by the Institute for Public Policy Research found that 69% of EU migrants who currently work in the UK would not be eligible for a visa under the Government’s new immigration system. It found that 66% of EU workers in the whole health and social work sector and 90% of EU workers in transport and storage would be ineligible—the very people who are keeping this country running right now. Four in five EEA employees working full time in social care would be ineligible to work in the UK under the skills and salary threshold the Government want to impose. The average salary for care workers is £19,104, leaving many short of the cap, and there are 115,000 workers in our care system who are EU nationals.

I will give Members an example. This is somebody who did not want her name mentioned, but these are her details. She is an EU migrant, and she is 62. She came to the UK in 2013 and has been working as a live-in carer ever since. She is a 24-hour live-in carer for a 96-year-old lady with dementia. On her earnings last year, she would have no chance of coming to the country under the Government’s new rules. Are we to believe that a 24-hour live-in carer is in low-skilled work? That is what the Government want us to believe.

The care sector in England was not properly prepared going into this crisis and it seems that no lessons are being learnt from that lack of resilience and that lack of proper preparation before the crisis began. One would think the Government would have learned the lesson about not leaving people vulnerable in our care homes, but it seems they have not. Indeed, they want to create conditions where the situation could become even worse. In England alone, 66,000 NHS workers are EU nationals and there are 40,000 nursing vacancies, which will be exacerbated by the income threshold.

The Home Secretary talks about a fast-track visa, but it is not on the face of the Bill and, in any event, it does not include social care. No wonder the Royal College of Nursing says that the Government’s current proposals for the immigration system will exclude some health and care workers from entering the UK, primarily social care staff, and will have a devastating impact on the health and social care sector. No wonder the British Medical Association says:

“Any changes to the UK immigration system, which could deter those who may want to work in the UK, risks having significant implications for the staffing of health and social care services, quality of care and patient safety in the future.”

The truth is that the Government have not won the trust of our most vital service at this crucial time, yet rather than reflect on that they are attempting to rush this through Parliament and ask that we trust they will do the right thing by the health service. We all know that you cannot trust the Conservatives with the NHS. When it comes to the health service, if asked to choose between the RCN, the BMA and Unison on the one hand, and the Conservatives on the other, I know who I would choose every time.

Let us be clear: the Bill allows the Government to create a new system through statutory instrument. Ministers are asking this House for a blank cheque, for the trust of Members to go away and implement a new system, and for an Executive power grab that reduces the role of this House in shaping it. The Lords’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report on the 2017-19 Bill expressed concerns about the wide scope of the powers:

“We are frankly disturbed that the Government should consider it appropriate to include the words ‘in connection with’. This would confer permanent powers on Ministers to make whatever legislation they considered appropriate, provided there was at least some connection with part 1, however tenuous”.

The words “in connection with” are in the new version of the Bill and the situation is unchanged.

In recent weeks, we have seen the confusion and chaos caused when the Government act like they are giving Executive orders outside Parliament without proper scrutiny. The Government should not make the same mistake again when it comes to an issue as important as our future immigration system. Scrutiny makes for better Government decisions and should be welcomed, not shunned.

Let me take this opportunity to say that the 1.2 million British-born people living in the EU27 should be protected and that the 3 million EU citizens living in this country are welcome and are valued here: our families, our friends, our neighbours. They are a central part of our communities and our society. They have brought great benefits and make us a richer, more diverse society. But I am only too aware that warm words are not enough. The deadline for the EU settlement scheme will fast approach. The default position is that anyone who has not applied by the deadline will lose their legal residence status here in the UK unless they have a good reason not to have applied. The Government must act, be open on the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the system, and do all they can to ensure that those who are eligible for the scheme apply and have their applications swiftly processed.

The Government plan for the future immigration system was first set out in the White Paper published in December 2018. How different things were then. The Government talk of a points-based system; what they actually propose is an income-based system. Salary is not a proxy for the level of skill and a salary-based system will not work for incentivising high-skilled migration.



The Government have deliberately held down public sector wages for a decade, and if they do so again, the gap between what people are paid and the value of their contribution to our society will only widen. This does not reward work and is unfair. Try telling the careworkers in my constituency or, indeed, any in the land that their work is unskilled.

Fairness will be at the heart of the amendments that the Opposition will press in Committee. We know what happens when a Government lose sight of fairness and the national interest in our immigration system. Wendy Williams’s “Windrush Lessons Learned Review” was published only a short time ago. The Home Secretary referenced the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). That review makes for sobering reading, saying:

“Members of the Windrush generation and their children have been poorly served by this country. They had every right to be here and should never have been caught in the immigration net. The many stories of injustice and hardship are heartbreaking, with jobs lost, lives uprooted and untold damage done to so many individuals and families.”

Never should we let something like that happen again. Indeed, there is such mistrust that the3million and other campaign groups want physical proof of settled status for EU citizens because they simply do not trust the Government’s assurances about everything being digital.

Where the system is not working as it should, the Government must act. Take, for example, looked-after children in local authority care. Currently, there have to be applications for pre-settled or settled status on behalf of eligible children by hard-pressed local authorities that are dealing with the coronavirus crisis. Given those pressures, the Government should just do that automatically, and I urge the Home Secretary to consider that. On immigration detention, we will be putting forward proposals for fairness, including an all-important time limit of 28 days.

In my first letter to the Home Secretary last month, I raised the issue of the injustice of continuing with the policy of no recourse to public funds during the coronavirus crisis for victims of domestic abuse. The Government must look at the issue of those left with no recourse to public funds. We are in a public health emergency—it is in the interests of all of us that people get the help they need.

There are also issues around NHS charges during this crisis. Nobody should have barriers placed in front of them when their work is essential in helping us all. I was appalled by the revelation over the weekend that, after all, NHS staff will not be exempt from these charges, despite their hopes having been raised by the Home Secretary, who mentioned a review. The issue has been mishandled by this Government from the start of the crisis. Additional fees for NHS staff to access the very healthcare that we are thanking them for providing is no way to mark their extraordinary service throughout this crisis. I ask the Home Secretary to think again about that review.

Having left the EU, and with the transition period coming to an end, we must have an immigration system that is fair and in the national interest. Handing over sweeping powers to the Government to create a system that labels so many of those workers who are keeping our country running day by day as unskilled is the wrong thing to do. If the Government are confident in their arguments, they should not be afraid of parliamentary scrutiny of their proposed new system. If they truly value what our frontline workers do, they will not send out a powerful signal that those who earn below £25,600 are unskilled and unwelcome. Instead, they should think again, and that is why we will vote against the Bill tonight.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Caroline Nokes, who has five minutes.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to be able to speak in this debate from a more nuanced perspective than I would have been permitted just 12 months ago. I welcome the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) to his new role. The last time he and I debated immigration, it was in a debate on the previous iteration of this Bill, when he had the opportunity to intervene on me frequently—an opportunity denied to him today.

The hon. Gentleman said that we are rushing the Bill but also pointed out that it is just two clauses different from the previous Bill, which we well debated. I argue that we are not rushing the Bill. It is something that we must complete before the end of the transition period on 31 December this year. He also commented on the use of statutory instrument to change the immigration rules. That has ever been the case and often can be used for good; I highlight the example of Afghan interpreters, on which I remind my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary there is still more to be done.

Returning to the iteration of the Bill in front of us, there is no doubt that we must turn off free movement. We must uphold the outcome of the 2016 referendum, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary rightly pointed out, but I would argue that we must do that with caution, and a phased approach might give us more flexibility. This time last year, matters were very different. I was an immigration Minister seeking to find a route through a minefield at a time of record employment. I have grave fears that my right hon. Friend will find herself doing it at a time of record unemployment. Perhaps those roles that British workers have been able to choose not to do over the past 10 years will be more attractive than they were, but the omens do not look good.

We heard calls for a British land army that were repeated yesterday by Waitrose, and many thousands have responded, but few have chosen to pursue the option. One in six of the brave care workers on the frontline of the battle against coronavirus are non-UK nationals. I commend the Home Secretary on her commitment to extend visas to doctors and nurses, but what of care workers? Are they to be the Cinderella service, forgotten once again? What of ancillary staff in our hospitals, who are crucial in a war against the virus in which repeated deep cleaning is an absolute imperative. We cannot open hospitals if we cannot clean the loos.

Many in the House have experience of the Home Office —I think that no fewer than six immigration Ministers since 2016 have had a hand in trying to introduce a Bill to end free movement—but it is a machine that moves slowly. Sometimes the best laid plans to revolutionise our immigration system do not work well when introduced in a big-bang style. That is in the best of times; we are not in the best of times. We know from Home Office press releases that there are backlogs in the settled status scheme; that visa application centres are closed; and if someone wishes to renew their indefinite leave to remain, or obtain a new biometric residence card they cannot do so currently. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) responded to me on 16 March that the Home Office was planning an engagement programme for employers that would start that month, explaining that those who were not already tier 2 sponsors should consider “applying now”.

Small businesses that have no experience of the visa system need to become registered sponsors by January, or they will not be able to sponsor the visas of new employees. That includes care homes—the people on the frontline of this crisis. I wonder whether that engagement programme, which was supposed to begin in March, did indeed do so, or has it understandably been delayed? We know from news emanating from the Home Office that it is very much not business as usual, so can care-home owners, freight transporters, retailers, food processors, au pairs and childcare providers have confidence that their applications will be processed, even if they know that they need to apply “now”—that is the Minister’s word, not mine?

I hope that the Home Office has in place the resources needed to process the many thousands of applications to become sponsors that may be made by businesses that have never had any previous contact with the system whatsoever, but I would ask what bandwidth the care-home manager, frantically trying to put a ring round her home to keep residents and staff safe, has suddenly to think, “I had better apply to become a sponsor—just in case.” This is a crucial Bill, but I would like more than two words from the immigration Minister on how it can be delivered in a big-bang fashion in just seven months’ time, when history has proved that that is perhaps not the best way to deliver bold, new immigration systems.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

We now go to Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East and Stuart McDonald, speaking for the SNP, who has 10 minutes.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP) [V]]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am afraid to say that this is a dreadful Bill that will destroy opportunities for future generations and will split even more families apart. It will result in many thousands of EU nationals losing their rights in this country overnight; it will extend the reach of the hostile environment still further; it will drown thousands of businesses and key industries in red tape and massive fees; and it will deprive our public services of talented and desperately needed workers. It will push different nations and regions of the United Kingdom towards depopulation and drive a wedge between us and our European neighbours. In short, it brings to an end the one part of the UK migration system that works well—the free movement of people. Instead, it expands the reach of the UK’s domestic rules—a complicated mess of burning injustice and bureaucracy—and that is why the SNP, without any hesitation, will be voting against this awful Bill. But this awful Bill was made even worse by its appalling timing. Pushing ahead with it in the midst of a public health and economic crisis, and without paying heed to the recent Windrush review, is spectacularly misjudged and shows that the Home Office remains totally out of touch with reality, and completely out of touch with public opinion.

I turn first to the coronavirus pandemic and I join others in paying tribute to those on the frontline. I pay particular tribute to the migrant workers who are there, including too many who have lost their lives—consultants from Sudan, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Uganda and Pakistan, a hospital porter from the Philippines, doctors from Germany and Iraq, nurses from Zimbabwe, Trinidad and South Africa, support workers from India and Ghana, and many, many more. Each and every one deserves our tributes and our gratitude, but the more fitting tribute would be a coherent and robust response to the crisis—one that genuinely seeks to ensure that we are all in this together and doing whatever it takes, but that is not what the Bill provides.

We should have had a Bill that makes it easier, instead of harder, to recruit the NHS, social care and other staff we need, and not one that uses an ill-considered financial threshold as a poor proxy for skill, talent or contribution. It is right that the Home Office has ditched its earlier rhetoric about cheap, low-skilled labour, but it is now time to drop the accompanying policies, too. We should have had a Bill setting out a comprehensive and generous system of visa extensions for those frontline workers and their families, not the piecemeal, back-of-the-envelope scheme that the Home Office has so far cobbled together.

We need a Bill that scraps the minimum income requirements for family visas and suspends other financial thresholds, acknowledging that migrant families and workers have had their incomes slashed, just like too many others. More than 100,000 NHS workers and a huge percentage of care workers are prevented by Home Office financial requirements from being able to sponsor their husbands, wives and children to join them here in the UK. Is it not quite outrageous for the Home Office to say, “Thank you for your hard work, but no thanks to bringing your family”? There is absolutely nothing fair about that.

We need a Bill that uprates the pitiful sums of money that we are providing to asylum seekers in this time of crisis and which ensures that, whatever stage of their asylum journey they are at, they can be properly protected. We need a Bill that ensures that all migrants have at least some form of temporary status and which ends the no recourse to public funds rules that deprive people of the support and accommodation they need to get through this crisis. It is impossible for someone to self-isolate if they do not have a roof over their head or food to eat.

We need a Bill that automatically protects all who are at risk of accidental overstaying until coronavirus is over, that gets people out of immigration detention, and that ends data sharing with the Home Office so that the NHS and other vital services are not places that people in need are afraid to attend. We need a Bill that recognises the absurdity of the NHS surcharge and scraps it for good. We need a Bill that postpones any new immigration system until this pandemic is over and we know the reality of the huge economic challenges ahead.

Employers are justifiably aghast at the fact that the Home Office is attempting to foist a whole new bureaucracy on them now, in the middle of a public health and economic crisis. The Government took four years to finalise their immigration proposals, yet they are giving employers little more than four months to adapt—four of the most difficult months imaginable. The Bill undermines, rather than helps, our response to the coronavirus.

However, it is not just the public health crisis that the Home Office has totally ignored in the Bill—staggeringly, it pays no heed to Windrush either. The Windrush lessons learned review is an incredible indictment of the Department. It talks of Ministers failing to “sufficiently question unintended consequences.” It refers to

“an institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the issue of race”

that reveals a Department that does not listen to contrary opinions or learn lessons, and where the political culture and pressure to be tough has caused harsh treatment, poor decisions and an absence of empathy for individuals. The Windrush case studies presented by Wendy Williams are enough to make people shake with anger, yet the Bill has not a single trace of recognition of Windrush in it and there are alarming signs that the Department has failed to learn lessons. Its crass and insensitive defence of the discriminatory right-to-rent policy almost makes me wonder whether the review has actually been read. Meanwhile, many of the same voices that warned about Windrush are warning about the fate of tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of EU citizens—old people, young people, looked-after children, care leavers and others—who may not appreciate the need to apply for settled status.

If they truly have learned the lessons of Windrush, the Government should protect EEA nationals properly. They should provide them with automatic rights, not rights contingent on their applying by a certain date; they should provide all with fully settled status and abandon the precarious pre-settled status; they should provide EEA citizens with a physical document as proof of their rights, and they must scrap the right to rent and other discriminatory hostile environment policies. Just as before, the Government seem to be ignoring the warnings; instead, the Bill seeks to give Ministers a blank cheque on future immigration policies. The last thing we should do is give the Home Office any more powers until the lessons of Windrush are properly learned.

There are so many other areas of immigration, asylum and nationality laws that need fixing. There is nothing in the Bill to address the injustices of nationality law, such as the disgraceful fees charged to children who simply want to register their British citizenship, to which they are entitled. There is nothing to fix our broken asylum system —the poverty support rates, the chaotic accommodation contracts, the shambolic move-on period, the ban on work, the restricted family reunion rights, and the loss of Dublin III participation. There is nothing here to address our addiction to immigration detention and the shame of being the only country in Europe without a time limit on detention. There is nothing to address the decimation of appeal rights and legal aid, which has contributed to many injustices, including Windrush.

Time and again, the Home Office has shown that it is so obsessed with numbers that it has totally lost sight of individual workers, students and family members, and the contributions that they make. More and more people will be asking, “Why did we leave immigration policy to the Home Office at all?”

Of course, on the question of who should make migration policy, with every single day of Home Office incompetence and injustice, the case for migration policy for Scotland being made in Scotland grows stronger. We have been reasonable, pragmatic and thorough in building the case, publishing papers and pointing to international best practice, but the Government simply refuse to engage in a grown-up discussion about migration policy being tailored for Scotland.

The risk of population decline and a shrinking labour force and tax base are real and grave issues for Scotland. The future system that this Government have designed is nothing short of a disaster for health and social care, tourism and hospitality, food and drink, agriculture, our universities, and many other key sectors of the Scottish economy. I recognise that it is not just Scotland that the Home Office is throwing under the bus, but other nations and regions of the UK too.

Instead of issuing soundbites and slogans about a system working for all, the Home Office must engage seriously. It must recognise that any system that has the express aim of reducing migration does not just fail to work for Scotland but actively works against Scotland’s interests. This is a rotten Bill, introduced with rotten timing. It is beyond repair and it does not deserve a Second Reading.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I now have to introduce a formal time limit of five minutes on Back-Bench speeches. I should remind hon. Members who are speaking from home to have some way of ensuring that they do not exceed five minutes in case they cannot see the time on their computer or device while they are speaking, because I will have to enforce the five-minute limit very strictly.

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[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

Today, with this Bill, the Government are seeking to grant themselves powers to reshape our immigration system, with little scrutiny and with little regard for the rights of people who, sadly, they dismiss as low-skilled simply because they do not earn a high salary. These Government plans are built on the right-wing neo-liberal myth that people’s salary determines their skills and their value. Well, the coronavirus crisis has shown all of us whose work actually is essential to keeping our society running, and many of those workers earn far less than the Government’s proposed salary threshold of £25,600. Let us be clear: workers earning under the threshold are not low-skilled; they are low-paid. All of us have a moral responsibility to recognise their contribution, and not to introduce rules that restrict the rights of low-paid workers even further, because it will be our communities, and often the most vulnerable members of our communities, who will pay the price for this.

Our care system is facing an unprecedented crisis, and our Government, shamefully, are seeking to make it harder for careworkers to come to this country to contribute. The founder of our national health service, Aneurin Bevan, once remarked that we could manage without stockbrokers, but we would find it harder to do without miners, steelworkers and those who cultivate the land. The 21st-century equivalent is that our society could cope a lot longer without hedge fund managers, fat-cat landlords and billionaire tax avoiders and tax evaders than we could without bus drivers, bin collectors, supermarket workers, carers and other low-paid workers who under these rules will face tougher restrictions than the top earners.

Our approach to the Bill today cannot be divorced from the record of this Government over the past decade. This Government, with their hostile environment, have used their narrative on immigration as a way to scapegoat one part of the working class for problems the working-class as a whole face due to austerity, cuts and free market fundamentalism. This Government are wilfully scapegoating migrants to let off the hook those who are really responsible for the economic failings of the past decade.

Just the other week, an NHS physician in my constituency who came here from Egypt wrote to me distraught because, as he put it to me, if he were to die in service of our NHS due to coronavirus, his dependent family would be booted out of this country. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said, the Government have shifted on this, but they should not have had to be asked in the first place—and why can they not extend that change in position to careworkers?

How can we trust a Government who oversaw the hostile environment? How can we hand over powers to the Government to create a new immigration system with far less scrutiny than previously? How can we trust that there will not be a second Windrush crisis affecting many thousands of EU citizens who came to make their life here but have not yet been granted settled status? How can we trust that, under political pressure, the Home Secretary and this Government will not make immigration policy that is designed not to serve the interests of working-class communities or diversity, but to chase headlines in the right-wing newspapers?



I was one of the sponsors of a reasoned amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy). It was not selected, but I nevertheless want to reiterate demands made in it. I want the Government to think again about this immigration Bill. We need the Government to think again and to protect the rights of British citizens to live, work and study in other EEA member states. We need the Government to think again and grant EEA citizens currently living here in the UK automatic permanent settled status. We need the Government to reflect long and hard on the history of the Windrush scandal and of “Go Home” vans touring estates, making a hostile environment for people in our communities. The Government need to reflect on that. They need to reflect on who really contributes to our society.

The Government also need to reflect on the need to end the scandal of indefinite detention, which makes us, in a very shameful way, stick out like a sore thumb in Europe—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has exceeded his five minutes. We now go to Dr Jamie Wallis in Bridgend.

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[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con) [V]]

I welcome the opportunity to speak in these proceedings, as they represent another important step in this Government delivering on what people in Crewe and Nantwich voted for, and that is for us to take back control. That is why the Bill is important. I relish the fact that we are now once again having a full and healthy debate about the details of our immigration policy—not just a yes or no to the freedom of movement. We are having these debates because our Government are once again fully accountable for immigration policy. The Opposition have every right to scrutinise and propose alternative approaches—that is how our democracy functions.

How did we ever think that on such a complicated issue we could simply tick a box saying yes? Deciding who can visit, work in and live in our country is a matter of fundamental importance that should never have been simplified to such an unsophisticated approach as freedom of movement. There are so many different factors that we need to balance—the needs of business in the short and long term; the goal of providing the best possible job opportunities for British citizens; the obligations we have to provide safe refuge to individuals in need; the impact on our housing market; and the effect of large-scale immigration on social cohesion. Those are just a few of the things we have to think about.

All of those factors will ebb and flow in importance over time, and any effective immigration system needs to be able to ebb and flow along with them. Instead, we have had a fixed policy, direct accountability for which sat offshore. A multifactorial issue became a binary one. People were either pro freedom of movement or against it. I am afraid that that did not work, and was never going to work. It became a touchstone issue in relation to our EU membership, because voters could sense it was not right. That is fundamentally why I want freedom of movement abolished. It is policy making on the cheap, decision making without decisions—the multitude of views on all the different ways in which we should change our policy that we will hear in the Chamber today are a testimony to that.

I want to talk about what I think has been a shameless attempt to distort the meaning of the term “low-skilled”—a phrase that has been used cross-party across multiple Governments for many years. The last Labour Home Secretary referred on a number of occasions in this House to the low-skilled, and I cannot believe anybody would ascribe to him any disrespect to those he was referring to in his use of that term. The current shadow Home Secretary has spoken about high-skilled jobs in the House, and I do not imagine that anyone would argue that we can talk about high-skilled jobs without having to acknowledge the existence of low-skilled jobs. I do not in any way seek to diminish the prominence of the current post holder, but in 2014 the previous long-serving shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) asked the then Business Secretary what steps were being taken to address the exploitation of low-skilled workers. In 2018, the right hon. Lady also agreed that it was logical to distinguish between high and low-skilled migrants when making immigration decisions. I find the deliberate attempt to inject disrespect into the current use of that term extremely distasteful, because it is an attempt to gain some short-term political advantage by hurting the feelings of people who at this minute are working hard for this nation. However, perhaps it would do no harm to review our language in this regard so that in future it cannot be exploited.

What do we really mean when we use the term “low-skilled”? What we are actually talking about is how readily a skill can be acquired. The person who cleans a cubicle so that I can see a patient is just as vital a member of the team as I am when it comes to looking after patients. If they were not doing their job, I could not do mine. But we can more readily train someone to do that job than we can train someone to be a doctor or nurse. That is a simple fact. It does not in any way demean the importance of the role or contribution of those whose skills are more easily acquired than others. Opposition Members know that full well, and that is part of the discussion we will have about salaries and how that works when we decide roles and who we want to come here.

When we consider whether we should allow people to come here to live and work, we inevitably prioritise individuals with skillsets that are not readily or easily acquired. That is what we are talking about when we talk about high and low-skilled jobs. Going forward, perhaps we could consider changing our approach to talk about readily acquired and non-readily acquired skills, so that we are saying exactly what we mean and there can be no doubt.

Of course, I expect the Government to look closely at how their policy approach will translate in the real world so that our public services have the staff who are needed and our economy is well resourced. We need to find a way to recognise the important and valuable contribution that immigrant workers have made to the NHS during this crisis, but it is absolutely right that we should grow our home skill base whenever possible. I have felt very uncomfortable with our reliance on the immigration of healthcare professionals to this country over many decades, because we are sometimes taking staff who are desperately needed in their countries of origin, particularly outside the EU. That cannot be right—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Thank you. The hon. Gentleman has exceeded his five minutes.

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[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con) [V]]

Importantly for this country, which has always welcomed immigrants, the Bill will enable the alignment of treatment of EU and non-EU citizens as part of our future immigration system. The Bill reflects the concerns of the British people and ends free movement, giving everyone the same opportunity to come to the UK, regardless of where they come from. In line with our manifesto commitments, there will be no automatic route into the UK for foreign workers with few formal qualifications. We can attract the talent and skills from around the world that our economy needs as we emerge from coronavirus. The new, fair immigration system will be flexible and in line with advice from the Migration Advisory Committee, which will keep the occupation shortage list under regular review to ensure that it reflects the needs of our labour market.

Immigration will no longer be used as a replacement for investment in the domestic British workforce. We have an abundance of talent and skills in this country, which must be developed and utilised. Most of us, except for those who support open borders, believe that countries should have an unalienable right to decide who gets to enter their land for work. To seek and strive for such a right does not make us anti-immigrant—quite the opposite. The UK is made up of a rich tapestry of people, and as a country we are the better for it. It is right that people from all over the world are treated fairly and equally, so far as immigration into this country is concerned, under our rule of law. We have a rule of law allowing legal immigration from non-EU countries, but it has far too often been exploited by illegal immigrants and people smugglers and traffickers. It is not right that those who have arrived here illegally are seen by some to have a presumptive right. People who avoid the law are not acting within the law, and are therefore acting illegally.

I welcome the introduction, from the end of the transition period, of a single, consistent and firmer approach to criminality across the immigration system. In my constituency of beautiful Hastings and Rye, we have seen hundreds of migrants land on our shores in small boats from France, most recently at Pett Level at the weekend. They are not refugees, as some insist on calling them. They are migrants, who move for a variety of reasons but who generally make a conscious choice to leave their country to seek a better life elsewhere. They are free to return at any time if things do not work out as they had hoped or if they wish to visit family members and friends left behind.

Refugees are forced to leave their country because they are at risk of, or have experienced, persecution. Their concerns are of safety and human rights, not economic advantage, and as such they seek asylum in the first safe country that they arrive in. Many have experienced trauma or have been tortured, causing them to risk their lives in search of protection. They are not free to return to their homelands unless the situation that forced them to leave improves.

Worryingly, we have seen unaccompanied children arrive who are thought to be victims of trafficking. The people who have been landing on our beaches are coming over from France via unauthorised, illegal crossings, having paid thousands of pounds to a criminal—a people smuggler—to do so. I want to be clear: we must press down hard on those exploiting the vulnerable and using them as part of their human trafficking system. Those making the perilous journey across the English channel are risking their lives by doing so, and we must discourage these journeys. We must ensure that those caught up in human trafficking gangs and smuggling rackets are protected and that those orchestrating the journeys are stopped.

France is a safe country. They are not fleeing persecution. Under EU law—the Dublin regulation—asylum must be sought in the first country people arrive in. Furthermore, many have travelled through a number of safe European countries before arriving in France and then going on to UK. If we do not emphasise the difference between migrants and those seeking asylum or refuge, it promulgates misconceptions about the most vulnerable—the refugees, for whom we need to provide the best possible sanctuary. We need to safeguard and expand refugees’ rights and protect them.

Ultimately, we need to ensure that the British public have trust in our immigration system and remain welcoming of legal immigrants and refugees. That can be achieved with the new, robust, fair and independent migration system controlled by the United Kingdom, making sure that illegal migrants do not have not a presumptive right to stay—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady has exceeded her five minutes.

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[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab) [V]]

I find it extraordinary that, even in the midst of the current pandemic, the Government have not recognised, or do not care about, the implications of the Bill for those who are out there working to keep us alive, keeping the country moving, looking after our vulnerable people and supporting every aspect of our much-changed lives. Some on the Government Benches would like us to think of those people as low-skilled and low-value, but to be deemed low-skilled is in itself insulting. To value a person’s worth based on the amount of money they earn is offensive. It is particularly indecent now, when we see these key workers keeping Britain going. This is not what we teach our children in schools, and these are not the values of the communities of Gower that I represent.

The Home Secretary has said that the new points system will be a

“firmer, fairer and simpler system that will attract the people we need to drive our country forward…laying the foundation for a high-wage, high-skill, productive economy”.

In theory, it all sounds rather sensible, but the proposed system is more of an income-based system, and it is a blunt tool that masks the other skills and qualities that immigrants bring to the UK. George Bernard Shaw said:

“Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything.”

But this is not just about the value of these workers at this time. Immigration should be valued and celebrated at all times. I said in my maiden speech nearly three years ago:

“The freedom of movement and opportunities afforded to my forefathers is close to my heart. I will fight for those rights to continue, not just for my child but for the children of Gower and Wales.”—[Official Report, 29 June 2017; Vol. 626, c. 817.]

By ending free movement, the UK will become less accessible to highly skilled EEA migrants who can work or study elsewhere in Europe without a visa. If the cost and burden of entering the UK become too high, it will be other countries that benefit from the transfer of knowledge, expertise, investment and culture.

The Government are ploughing through with the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill while the public are distracted. They continue to make meaningless gestures to the key workers such as carers, shop workers and those in public services who are keeping the economy and society going throughout these really troubled times. A significant pay rise is what all key workers need, not another Thursday evening photo opportunity. If there was ever a time to recognise the contribution of immigrant workers in the NHS and other vital jobs, it is now, during this crisis. The Labour party stands up for all the people who have chosen to make the UK their home and who now find themselves, as essential workers, putting their lives on the line to keep the rest of us going.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cancer, I share the concerns of cancer charities and others about the Bill undermining many of our already stretched public services. Analysis by Macmillan shows that the Government’s plan for a points-based immigration system will have a real detrimental effect on our health and social care system, which is already under record pressure. To mitigate this, Macmillan is calling for a separate migration route for social care, and asking for social care workers to be included on the shortage occupation list and exempt from the visa salary threshold. Workers and employers need clarity about what specific measures will be put in place to protect the NHS and social care workforces, and they especially need further details of what the NHS visa and an equivalent social care visa would involve. The Home Secretary needs to set out what specific protections a specialist visa would afford, which staff are eligible to apply, and how and when they should apply.

More urgently, will the Home Secretary clarify why the Government have not offered to extend the visas of those working in social care in the same way that they have for those working in the NHS as a result of the coronavirus? The shortage occupation list is nowhere near dynamic enough to respond to workplace shortages within the desired timeframe, so what measures will the Government take to support the already dilapidated social care sector if this new immigration policy deters vital migrant workers from joining the sector? All this uncertainty is—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady has exceeded her five minutes. We now go to Sir John Hayes in South Holland and The Deepings.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con) [V]]

Migration is a feature of all advanced economies and free societies; some people come and others leave, and it has always been so. For the period from the 1930s—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I do not want to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but the sound quality is a bit of a problem. We are just seeing whether it can be improved. Let us try again. Sir John Hayes.

[Sir John Hayes]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Migration is a feature of all advanced economies and free societies; people come and they leave, and that has always been so in our country. From the 1930s to the 1980s, migration was essentially in balance—some years, more people left the country; others, more people arrived—but from the mid-2000s, that changed dramatically. The level of net migration that this country has endured since that time is unprecedented.

Last year, about 640,000 immigrants arrived in Britain. That is 100,000 more than the populations of Manchester and Sheffield. When we take into account the number of people who left, the net figure was around 200,000, as it has been, year on year, for a considerable time. I just do not think that is tenable or practical. It clearly places immense demands on all kinds of services, particularly housing, and, frankly, the British people are not satisfied that that is the right way forward, which essentially is what they broadcast in the referendum. Of course that was about more than immigration, but for many, our inability to control our borders, and the consequent effects of large-scale net migration, was a salient factor in why they voted to leave the European Union and end free movement, which is what the Bill does.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that too few people in the political establishment are prepared to face up to the sentiments I just described, which are widely felt by British people. Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, put it this way. He said that mass migration risks igniting the “flames” of racial conflict because of “liberal self-delusion” over its impact by leaders too “touchy”, “smug” and “complacent” or “squeamish” to talk about the issue.

Of course it is true that people who come to this country do much good—we have heard a lot about that, and I could obviously quote examples from my own constituency—but there are other effects of migration of people into low-skilled occupations. When we say “low-skilled”, it is not a pejorative remark; it is a statement of fact. Some jobs are more skilled than others.

The effects of large-scale migration into those jobs have been fivefold. It has displaced investment in technology, particularly in automation; it has held down wage levels, which has been undesirable both from the migrants’ point of view and for people already here; it has encouraged under-investment in training and skills, and it has built an economy that is increasingly ossified by a dependence on relatively low-cost labour rather than the high-tech, high-skilled economy that we need to compete and thrive. But more than that, the unwillingness of successive Governments to tackle this issue has undermined public faith in the efficacy of Government and the willingness of Ministers to face the facts. Now we have a Home Secretary, the Minister on the Front Bench—who I see there now—and a Prime Minister who are willing to face the facts and take decisive action, which is what this Bill does.

I simply end by saying this: in the words of G. K. Chesterton, we should not take a fence down until we know the reason it was put up. The reason we have borders is because it is right that the British people and those they elect to represent them should decide who comes to our country, in what number and why. This Bill is a start, but I finish with these remarks, and a challenge to the Minster. First, we must deport more illegal immigrants. It is extraordinary that the recent Governments, the coalition and the Conservatives, are deporting fewer illegal immigrants than previous Labour Governments were. Secondly, we must be careful about the number of work visas issued. Thirdly, we must keep a watch on net migration as we go forward, so that what we do is in tune with what the British people are prepared to warrant.

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[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Ending freedom of movement has become the loudest answer to everything we hear on the doorstep. No jobs? End freedom of movement. No housing, no doctor’s appointment, no parking? Blame freedom of movement. In that noise, it is hard to talk about this issue without being called either a racist or a bleeding heart liberal, but the truth is that EU migration has benefited our economy. EU migrants contribute £2,300 more to the public purse each year than the average adult—and that is including the cost of their children being here, too. They are also less likely to use our public services, although they work in them. We are more likely to meet an EU migrant helping us in our hospitals than standing in front of us in a queue.

Over the past 20 years, immigration has been on a much larger scale than we have had in the previous 200 years, but, truthfully, however many people have come, this country has never been good at making it work. With every new wave of people, the UK has always been unwelcoming and always regretted it. Indeed, it was the same with the Huguenots, the wave of refugees that brought both my family and Nigel Farage’s family here. When the Windrush generation came, they were met with “no blacks, no Irish, no dogs”. Now we rightly honour their contribution to our communities. We have demonised those who have come from Europe for years. Now, as we clap for those who are saving our lives with one set of hands, this proposed legislation asks us to abandon them with another.

The problem here is not immigration; it is politicians talking about what we do not want, rather than what we need. This Bill is that problem written down: bringing to an end freedom of movement without providing for what comes next, because in our toxic political culture ending freedom of movement has been sold as a solution in itself. The only answer the Government are offering us about what replaces it is to expose everyone to the dysfunction that is the current immigration system—the same system that gave us the hostile environment, the Windrush scandal and the legacy system.

The former Home Secretary and former Member for Blackburn once told me there are two divides in Parliament: left and right; and those who have to deal with the UK Border Agency and those who do not. The truth is that the UKBA has been a fiasco for Governments of all colours. It makes us all hypocrites: locking up victims of torture and rape in Yarl’s Wood, while claiming to be defenders of human rights. It is a system where, unlike in other countries in Europe, when we see refugee children, we do not seek to reunite them with their family members or provide them with safe passage to stop them being targeted by traffickers. Above all, it is a system that is just not very good at making decisions. Of the 25,000 people we locked in detention without any limit for how long, only 37% were eventually deported and yet we expect them to deal with this mess without any legal support. The only people who would be helped by this Bill will be us, because it absolves us of dealing with the problems it creates. It gives the Government Henry VIII powers to write immigration legislation without having to bring them back to this place and force us to address the damage that has been done. We already have a points-based system, so the question Ministers should be answering is: what do we award points for? We know that skilled or valued worker does not necessarily mean well-paid worker.

We know 3 million of our EU citizens, who are our friends, our family and our neighbours, are now struggling with the paperwork that pre-settled status entails. There are 1 million Brits in Europe who need a good deal, too. So ask yourselves if you want your children to be able to work for companies who have offices in Berlin or Rome without them being penalised because they cannot travel there, or one that gives points out so that if you fall in love with your French exchange partner you can move to Paris or they can come to you in Barnsley. The benefits that came with freedom of movement mean that when you do not have it, you will end up wanting to invent it. Such freedoms will become more important, not less, in the coming years.

If we are to have a better quality of legislation, we need a better quality of debate about who is coming in and why. Take, for example, the immigrant who came to us having failed his exams with a patchy work history and no ties to the UK. His name was Albert Einstein. Even then, in the 1930s, the UK border authorities misplaced his papers. His landing card was only found in a trawl of old paperwork in Heathrow in 2011. Back then, the Daily Mail urged readers to avoid him and boycott his lectures raising money for other refugees from Nazi Europe. Back then, another MP, Oliver Locker-Lampson, tried to sponsor his British citizenship and help Jews fleeing the Nazis. Back then, we said no and we lost Einstein to America.

When it comes to immigration, our policies all too often meet Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. I will not be voting for the Bill, because it is another example of that phenomenon and my constituents —former, current and future—deserve better from us all. All the while, we as politicians continue to behave like this and debate like this. The problem is not immigrants, it is us.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I suspend the House for 15 minutes until 7.14 pm precisely.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O'Hara]

Very briefly, I thank all Members who have contributed to the debate. I thank Robert McGeachy of Camphill Scotland on a personal level for all the help he has given me, and I thank the Minister for replying to the debate, although I am very disappointed he has refused to accept new clause 1. It is beyond me why a Government would refuse an opportunity to say to the health and social care sector and its users that they understand the concerns, they have a plan, they know what they are doing and they would welcome transparency.

New clause 1 gives the Government the opportunity to make up for not having done a proper impact assessment and not having put in place any mechanism whatever for this House and other Parliaments across these islands to be able to assess and measure the effectiveness or otherwise of the Bill. For that reason, I will test the will of the House this evening and press new clause 1 to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before I put the Question, I have to remind Members who are proxy voting that they need to email the Public Bill Office after each Division and that they need to specify which Division they are voting in each time. I also remind Members that I will lock the doors after 15 minutes for this Division and, if possible—if Members move fairly quickly—after 12 minutes for any subsequent successive Division.

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The list of Members currently certified as eligible for a proxy vote, and of the Members nominated as their proxy, is published at the end of today’s debates.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Under Standing Order No. 9(3) and the Order of the House of 18 May, I must now put the Questions necessary to dispose of the new clauses selected for separate decision. Before I put the Question on new clause 7, I must inform the House that there is an error in the text published on the amendment paper. Lines 4 and 5 of new clause 7—the 11 words beginning with “(a)”—are duplicate text and should not have appeared. I do not think that that will make much difference to Members’ judgment as to whether they intend to support the new clause.

The Deputy Speaker then put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83E).

New Clause 7

Time limit on immigration detention for EEA and Swiss nationals

‘(1) For the purpose of this section, a person (“P”) is defined as any person who, immediately before the commencement of Schedule 1, was—

(a) any person who, immediately before the commencement of Schedule 1, was—

(i) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016;

(ii) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with a right conferred by or under any of the other instruments which is repealed by Schedule 1; or

(iii) otherwise residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with any right derived from European Union law which continues, by virtue of section 4 of the EU Withdrawal Act 2018, to be recognised and available in domestic law after exit day.

(2) The Secretary of State may not detain any person (“P”) as defined in subsection(1) under a relevant detention power for a period of more than 28 days from the relevant time.

(3) If “P” remains detained under a relevant detention power at the expiry of the period of 28 days then—

(a) the Secretary of State shall release P forthwith; and

(b) the Secretary of State may not re-detain P under a relevant detention power thereafter, unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that there has been a material change of circumstances since “P’s” release and that the criteria in section [Initial detention: criteria and duration (No. 2)] are met.

(4) In this Act, “relevant detention power” means a power to detain under—

(a) paragraph 16(2) of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 (detention of persons liable to examination or removal);

(b) paragraph 2(1), (2) or (3) of Schedule 3 to that Act (detention pending deportation);

(c) section 62 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (detention of persons liable to examination or removal); or

(d) section 36(1) of UK Borders Act 2007 (detention pending deportation).

(5) In this Act, “relevant time” means the time at which “P” is first detained under a relevant detention power.

(6) This section does not apply to a person in respect of whom the Secretary of State has certified that the decision to detain is or was taken in the interests of national security.’—(Mr Davis.)

Brought up.

Question put, That the clause be added to the Bill.

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The House proceeded to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. In the exceptional circumstances that have just been reported to me about an error made in the way in which Members were guided through St Stephen’s Hall and into Members Lobby, it has come to my attention that some Members were, correctly and in an orderly fashion, in the queue to vote and have been unable to do so. Fortunately, this matter has been reported to me before the Tellers have reported the numbers. I am therefore going to unlock the doors in order that the Members who have not already voted in the Division on new clause 29 and who are now present in the Division Lobby ready to vote may very swiftly and immediately do so.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. We need to ensure that there is documentation, because we have seen the failings of other IT systems in the past and cannot allow that to happen again, especially on an issue as important as people’s rights.

Although we are open to the Government’s aspiration to move towards a digitally-focused system for all UK immigration, we are also aware of the internal failings that prevail within the Home Office. With that in mind, we urge the Government to think again about adopting Lords amendment 5.

Lords amendment 9 would give EEA and Swiss nationals who are victims of trafficking at least 12 months’ leave to remain and access to benefits during their period of recovery after being confirmed as victims of modern slavery. I thank Lord McColl for all his work on this issue and congratulate him on garnering considerable cross-party support. There is an unfortunate absence of domestic statutory provision in England and Wales for confirmed victims of human trafficking on their rights to support and assistance. Over the years, that deficiency has been filled by EU law.

As things stand, following the end of the UK-EU transition period on 31 December, human trafficking victims will be left in an undefined legal vacuum. Following the end of the EU settlement scheme, victims of human trafficking who are EEA or Swiss nationals will be able to apply only for discretionary leave to remain. The criteria for that are very narrow and it is unclear whether the same treatment as that for non-EEA nationals will apply.

Lords amendment 9 would provide much needed refuge and support to people who have suffered unimaginable uncertainty and abuse. We hope that the Government will support it. We must tackle the systemic factors that lead to modern slavery, provide support to those who are affected, and encourage more people to come forward to end the perpetual cycle of abuse and crime. I heard what the Minister said, and we wait with interest to see what the Government will come up with, particularly in respect of support for victims of modern day slavery.

To conclude, this is a bad Bill: it is reckless and ignores the evidence. The Lords amendments, many of which have cross-party support, are a genuine attempt to address those failings. If passed unamended, the Bill will lead to staff shortages in our care system at a time when it is perilously close to collapse; encourage dangerous crossings, as it fails to address safe family reunion routes after Dublin III; and lead to a lack of safeguarding and support for victims of modern day slavery. The amendments have been well debated both here and in the other place, and I urge the Minister to accept them.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We now have a time limit of six minutes.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am grateful to be called to speak at this particular point, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was the Centre for Social Justice, which I set up and had the fortune to chair, that published the original document that pushed the Government into passing the first modern-day slavery legislation, a matter of which they are rightly very proud, and that made the UK the first country in the world to bring forward such legislation. That legislation now needs overhauling. That has been the case for some time. The recent report, “It still happens here: Fighting UK Slavery in the 2020s” states:

“For many, having no recourse to public funds poses further barriers to moving people on safely, putting victims at risk of homelessness and destitution, and making it more likely that they will fall back into exploitation and trafficking.”

The one thing that we can learn from recent events in places such as Leicester, where we have uncovered the most appalling abuse of individuals who have been victims of slavery, working for a pittance and living in terrible accommodation, is that we really do not want to see that repeated in the UK. That is the point that I want to make in my speech today.

There must be some kind of recourse to public funds for victims of modern slavery, which will make them more secure than they are at the moment. We need to make that case in legislation. I am pleased that the Government have moved on the issue of European economic area nationals and recognised that there was some contradiction in what they were proposing in their guidance. I notice that a paragraph was inserted into the guidance after Lord McColl’s amendment had been passed, which, had it been there originally, might have meant that there would have been no need for this particular amendment. Two contradictions were made but I do not have the time to go through them now, so Members will have to read about them themselves. None the less, I am pleased that the Minister said from the Dispatch Box that the Government have now rectified that matter and that non-EEA and EEA nationals will now be treated the same when it comes to discretionary leave to remain. That is a really important move. Having spoken to the Home Secretary and got that guarantee from her, it is a great pleasure to hear it from the Dispatch Box.

There has always been a problem with discretionary leave to remain and it was made worse by a Minister back in 2017 saying that there must be exceptional or compelling reasons to justify granting it. The bar has been set too high, and it is really important for us to recognise that people who come here having suffered the real persecution of slavery need to have a little more consideration shown for their position. They are not in the same boat as pure asylum seekers. In fact, those people can get a much longer period of time; whereas somebody who has genuine problems and who has been abused finds their time curtailed. That is why we need to look further than just at what the Government are doing here. I recognise that, perhaps today, this Bill is not the right way to try to press this matter forward, but I do say to the Government that there is another way.

I recognise also that the problem on that score is that a confirmed refugee can get five years’ leave to remain, but a confirmed—I repeat “confirmed”—victim of modern slavery gets no leave to remain at all. It seems to me that we have got ourselves in a twisted position, not because the Government—or any Government—want to be there, but because we have an anomaly, which we now need to rectify. That is the point that I really want to make in the short time available.

It is expensive for us to take someone through the national referral mechanism, conclude that they are genuine victims of modern slavery, but not provide adequate care. Those people remain very vulnerable and are quickly re-trafficked. As I said earlier, Leicester is a very good example of that, but there are other cities in the UK where people are drifting into these terrible conditions because they have nowhere else to go, or, for that matter, going into the national referral mechanism but facing uncertainty over ongoing care. They do not have the capacity to give evidence in court against their traffickers and that is the one thing that we want them to do. We need to be able to prosecute the traffickers to make sure that they never do it again. We need to think about this very carefully, so I have an ask of the Government—I said this when I intervened on the Minister. He needs to make sure that the change to the guidance is included and seen in the other place and that, critically, Lord McColl and others recognise that this has been done and that it is not just a gesture.

Secondly, I ask the Minister seriously—he said he was prepared to do this—to bring all this together in a new Bill that deals with the problems that we have now found. This is a good Bill, but we now find problems coming through relating to the abuse of people who are confirmed as having been brought in under modern-day slavery conditions and who we need to give support. I recognise that the Government are worried about people using modern-day slavery provisions as a route in, but the numbers coming in and getting a claim are so tiny that we can surely manage this. I understand the position in respect of failed immigration and people on asylum, but this is a very peculiar group that needs our care. If the Minister can commit to a discussion about future legislation with myself, Lord McColl and others in this place who would wish to be part of that, we may be able to make some progress on that.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. After the next speaker the time limit will be reduced to four minutes. I give that warning in advance so that Members can prepare if necessary.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who made a powerful contribution not only on amendments 3 and 6 but right the way through his comments. It is a testament to the House that almost every contribution thus far has been on the right track and has exuded the compassion that we want to show as a country, and none more so than that of the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley); I was greatly enthralled by what she had to say and agree with the sentiments she expressed.

On amendment 5, the Government have engaged financial privilege. They are asking this House to disagree on the grounds of the financial implications of the proof of status document and for no other reason: engaging financial privilege means that is the rationale for asking us to disagree to amendment 5. I ask the Minister to reflect on that in his comments. If the only issue is finance—if he recognises that a biometric residence permit, for example, is available for less than £20—I hope that, should there be a subsequent attempt in the other place to insert a similar amendment without proposed subsection (2), the Government will agree to it, because the argument is not only about digitalisation and the difficulties associated with online information, but about people’s sincere desire to hold a permit outlining their status. The Government should engage with this issue thoughtfully.

I have spoken on a number of occasions in this House on indefinite detention, and the Minister knows that I have quite a rigid position on the issue. I supported more keenly amendments that were previously before this House that at least gave the opportunity for an extension of an additional 28 days. I thought that gave Government more latitude in exceptional circumstances, but I still believe that indefinite detention is immoral and unjustified. I have not heard a justifiable rationale for it yet; it is unjustifiable.

We hear about the difficult and hard stories and we hear about the excessive cases. If someone breaks the law in this country, then we should arrest them and put them through due process. If somebody is going through an immigration application process, we should not put them in custody without any sense of how long the process will take. We should treat them as we would wish to be treated: humanly and humanely.

I will use the remainder of my speech to touch on amendment 9. I am pleased to speak in support of this amendment, which was supported in the other place through a powerful speech made by my colleague Lord Morrow, who as a private Member in the Northern Ireland Assembly brought through our seminal Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015. To those who talk about the United Kingdom Government bringing forward modern slavery legislation that is the best in the world, I say that it started in Northern Ireland. We are proud of that record. We are the first devolved Administration to bring forward such legislation, and we are proud of what was achieved.

I listened carefully to the opening remarks made by the Minister. I am grateful to him for a telephone conversation we had earlier today, and for the subsequent correspondence that he has shared. I think he knows from the tenor of contributions made by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and others that there is still work to be done on amendment 9, and on changing the terms of the guidance available. I recognise the development that he has brought forward this afternoon, but I am still not sure from what we have heard that we should be convinced that that is a good enough reason for this House to agree with the Government and disagree with the Lords amendment.

The challenge is that any trafficked person from an EEA territory who arrives in the UK after 31 December will only have one long-term route to recovering discretionary leave to remain, whereas today, they have two. While the commitment to automatic consideration is progress, it does not change the fact that the then Government Minister spoke to the Select Committee on Work and Pensions in 2017 as part of that Committee’s inquiry on victims of modern slavery, and said that there must be

“exceptional or compelling reasons to justify a grant”

of discretionary leave to remain. One has to go through freedom of information requests—it should not be so difficult to get this information from the Home Office—to establish that 8% to 9% of applications from those certified as victims of modern slavery get discretionary leave to remain. That is far too low, and it is something that the Government need to consider. I fail to see why confirmed victims losing their right to recovery through treaty rights will be particularly reassured by the commitment that they will automatically be considered for something that, unlike recourse to public funds through their treaty rights, is only given in an exceptional situation.

The other difficulty with the idea that the introduction of automatic assessment for discretionary leave to remain is an effective replacement for recourse to public funds through treaty rights is that discretionary leave to remain is discretionary. It is not a right, but clause 12 makes it a right; Lords amendment 9 makes it a right. If a confirmed victim of modern slavery who is an EEA national meets the criteria in subsection (2), their access to leave to remain will no longer be discretionary, and that is what we should strive to achieve.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The time limit is now reduced to four minutes.

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and to follow the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), who speaks with such compassion. As a child, I remember being told, “Virginia, life just isn’t fair”, but why can life not be fair? I believe in fairly rewarding people for the hard work they do. I believe in using our hard-earned taxpayers’ money fairly and responsibly to honour the effort that has been put into generating it, and I believe we must fairly give our gratitude to those who help others, such as Roy Fyles and the many hidden heroes who do so much for others in my constituency.

While we have been a member of the EU and have been abiding by the principle of free movement of people, we have been unable to make our immigration system fair, but that is now changing. As we near the end of the transition period, we are greeted with many new opportunities: from 1 January, we will give priority to those with the highest skills and the greatest talent—scientists, engineers, academics and other highly skilled workers—so that we are better equipped to deal with the challenges of the 21st century, whether those be the need for increased numbers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics professionals, or of doctors.

As the Member of Parliament for Ynys Môn, I receive many letters and emails from my constituents who simply cannot get an appointment with a doctor in Holyhead. These services are vital for their health and wellbeing. One of my constituents, Mr Barry Smith, wrote in desperation: “There are two GP surgeries in Holyhead, Longford and Cambria, who for some time have not had consistent or regular doctors. Is there anything you can do to bring forward a solution to the dire shortage of GPs in Holyhead?”

What is the solution? Keith Amos, head of service for managed practices, and his team at Betsi Cadwaladr have been working hard to ensure that my constituents can access the healthcare support that they need on the island, whether that is e-consultation, paramedics or occupational therapy, but there is an ongoing struggle to recruit GPs. Today, he told me: “In north Wales we are desperately short of GPs. The key is that we recruit doctors with the right qualifications.” However, a long-term solution is in sight. I am pleased to say that Bangor University’s new four-year graduate entry medical degree with Cardiff University is unique, and the pro vice-chancellor for learning and teaching said that she is delighted to be working with Cardiff on that step change. But what about the here and now? How can I help my Ynys Môn constituents get access to a GP?

Let me conclude by saying that we have one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and I pay tribute to everyone in it. The Bill will give us flexibility to recruit medical professionals from abroad and in specific areas.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

Consideration of Lords message

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is engaged by Lords amendment 4B. If Lords amendment 4B is agreed to, I will cause the customary entry waiving Commons financial privilege to be entered in the Journal.

Lords message considered forthwith (Programme Order, 19 October).