Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sajid Javid
On the hon. and learned Lady’s first question, it sounds as though she has not read the White Paper yet because it talks about increasing post-study work permits. On the question about detention, we have a comprehensive and detailed policy on adults at risk; we constantly keep it under review, and when there are specific cases we will look at them very carefully.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)
Operational decisions are for each fire and rescue authority to make as part of their work to assess local risk and manage and allocate resources according to their integrated risk management planning process. What we have done is reintroduce independent inspection by asking HMICFRS—Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services—to assess how effective each fire and rescue service is in responding to fires.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister for his response, but the reality is that Government cuts are having a dangerous impact on safety. If Tyne and Wear’s fire and rescue service funding does not increase, this year we could see overnight cover cut by 50% in South Tyneside, putting my constituents and our local firefighters’ lives at risk. When will the Government increase funding to protect our lives?
Mr Hurd
I know there are strong feelings about the funding of Tyne and Wear fire service because we had a debate in Westminster Hall, and I have subsequently met Chris Lowther, the chief, to discuss that. Our view is that the fire service has the resources it needs to continue providing what is acknowledged to be a good service underpinned by very high levels of reserves, but we are approaching a comprehensive spending review in which we will be looking to continue to make sure that the fire service has the resources it needs to do its very difficult job.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I do not recall a time when the fractured state of our politics so accurately mirrored that of our nation. Brexit demanded so much more of us in this place. It was brand-new territory, and for it we needed a brand-new approach to how we did our debating and politics, but these proposals for consensus building across party boundaries were rejected by the Government. The vacuum left in British politics, as MPs and parties have struggled to respond, has been filled by a racist and divisive rhetoric that is creating an inward, nationalist and isolationist environment.
We have been left with an angry country. People are angry because we are leaving the EU or because they want out and it is taking too long, but most of all they are angry with us, even though, in large part, regardless of what political party we are in, whether we are leavers or remainers, we are genuinely trying to do the right thing by our constituents and our country. I campaigned for remain, believing it to be in the best interests of my constituents and my country, but neither agreed with me. In the initial aftermath, I was in denial. I fell into the trap of repeating the mantra that people did not know what they were voting for, they were lied to and they misunderstood the implications of their decisions. While there was some element of truth in that, it was far more nuanced, because complex decisions and human motivation are never so simplistic.
I knew that from people such as my dad—a decent, kind and hard-working man, a retired welder from the shipyards. He and his mates were not angry at economic migrants who had crossed the channel from Europe to work alongside them; they were angry with the Government and institutions that exploited those migrants by allowing the undercutting of wages. That led to him and thousands of others losing their jobs. None of us should ever underestimate the impact that unemployment on this scale can have on individuals, their families and their communities. These scars are irrevocable. That was when disillusion set in. Freedom of movement and the single market were not problems for my dad and his mates. It was about Governments that allowed unemployment to shatter families and communities, Governments that used the EU as a handy repository for blame whenever they failed people; Governments that for decades made no effort to tell anybody the ways in which the EU was a “good thing” and then wondered why they could not get across the message in a few weeks; and Governments that left people behind and created chasms in our communities. These are the people constituents such as mine had in mind when they voted to leave.
I trust the people who sent me to Parliament. In a representative democracy, it is my job to do what I think is best for the people who elected me, unless they have already made their opinions on the subject perfectly plain. They have and over the past two years they have not changed their minds about leaving, so it is now up to me to see that they get what they want. It is my job to thrash these things out in Parliament. That is why I voted to trigger article 50 and why I stood on a manifesto that promised to respect the outcome. We should leave, but I do not want us to leave in this way—not with this deal. I am not convinced that a second referendum would solve the impasse. My constituents tell me that they find it a strange concept: a democratic way of overturning a previous and also democratic decision, which in turn supplanted the democratic decision taken 40 years earlier. I also fear that such a referendum will delay the inevitable and we will be right back to where we are now, trying to find a deal that works for all. I do not accept that the choices on offer are as binary as accepting this deal or crashing out. There is another option: an extension to article 50, giving us the space, albeit a small timeframe, to do our politics differently, to restore our country’s faith in this place and to show people that we really are working together. Crucially, for that to happen there needs to be a marked difference in the rhetoric and actions coming from this Government and the Prime Minister. If we continue to fail to deliver the mandate we have been given by the British people, what little trust remains in politics and politicians will surely evaporate.
Police Funding, Crime and Community Safety
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Many of my hon. Friends have spoken about the cuts to their local police force areas. Since 2010, the Northumbria police force has suffered some of the worst financial cuts of any force in the UK. I want to use what little time I have to share some of my personal stories, which show just how fantastic our police really are.
In my previous career as a child protection social worker, I was followed home by violent clients and, as a result, had security measures in my home. I was placed on high alert with the local police station and taken to and from work under secure guard.
I remember being pinned against the wall by an angry father while holding his screaming child in my arms. I remember being jumped on, attacked and punched in the face by another parent. I remember the terror of being in a house filled with more than 20 men, all drunk and high on drugs, as I was trying to rescue a young baby who was crawling around the floor, unclothed, among the broken glass, alcohol, ash and drug remnants. Her mother and all of the men were in my face shouting at me, making threats and blocking my exit from the home.
I remember vividly—I wish that I did not—every child and adult who ever disclosed emotional, physical and sexual abuse to me. The one constant in all of those situations was the police. For anyone who has ever been in a dangerous or frightening situation, the relief felt at the sound and sight of police arriving on the scene is almost impossible to put into words. That is often the unseen side of our police force, a side that many of us, thankfully, will never have to encounter. Every day, officers are doing that work, making our communities safer, protecting children and adults from harm and working collaboratively with other agencies.
In our area we have lost 762 officers, against the backdrop of a 60% increase in sexual offences and a 29% increase in violent crime. Our excellent police and crime commissioner, Vera Baird, and her team of officers are doing a sterling job of managing the cuts and protecting our communities, but they desperately need a fairer settlement. If I was in my old job, that level of cuts would worry me. Response times and capacity were vital in the stories that I have just briefly shared with the House, and I know better than most that I can always rely on our police. It is a shame that the police cannot rely on this Government.
Paris Terrorist Attacks
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs May
A group of counter forces has come together in coalition in a whole variety of ways in respect of these matters, including carrying out work to counter the narrative given by Daesh. Our Foreign and Commonwealth Office is playing its part in the coalition of states with that single aim of ensuring that we can defeat Daesh.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Michael O’Connor from South Shields lay on top of his girlfriend in the Bataclan; as shots fired around him and bodies fell, he lay there still, pretending to be dead. Michael’s actions saved both of their lives, and I am sure that the Home Secretary will join me in commending his brave actions. I welcome what she said about the support that the Government are offering to British citizens caught up in the aftermath of the attacks. I would like some confirmation that such support will be extended to those who are temporarily resident in Paris, such as my constituent Michael.
Mrs May
I join the hon. Lady in commending her constituent Michael O’Connor for the action that he took. It is unimaginable to have been in that situation, with the shots all around and so many people being killed; the presence of mind that he showed was considerable. As the hon. Lady said, it saved two lives.
I can confirm that the support available to British nationals who have been caught up in this extends to those who are temporarily resident in France.
Immigration Bill (Thirteenth sitting)
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Anne McLaughlin
The hon. Lady raises an important point, and I gave the justification I did because in this Committee I think I am getting to the stage when I can read the minds of some of the Conservative Members. As they did not intervene I explained how Zara managed to get on a bus.
I want to make it clear that I appreciate how uncomfortable people in this room might feel at hearing me talk about bleeding and sanitary towels. I would not normally do that; I am normally discreet, easily embarrassed and notoriously squeamish. I feel extremely uncomfortable standing here forcing myself to talk about periods, bleeding and sanitary towels, and repeating myself again and again. I am doing it because I want everyone to feel uncomfortable; I want us all to feel that discomfort, because we need to realise that whatever we feel now is a minuscule fraction of what the women I am talking about experience.
To continue reading minds, some Members might think that there are charities and good Samaritans, and ask whether help could not be got from them; but it was so painful for Zara to ask for that help. There are charities that go out to offer help, but they are primarily focused on putting a roof over someone’s head, and, if they cannot do that, on feeding them, because food is essential and hygiene products are not. They are essential only to someone’s mental wellbeing, and the charities obviously must concentrate on keeping people alive.
Again, to use telepathy—it is working well—Conservative Members may be thinking that the simple solution would be just to go home. That is all very well, but as we have heard so many times, a significant proportion of the decisions made about people are wrong. It may therefore be assumed that a significant proportion of the people who some Members may think choose to stay here and humiliate themselves with having to ask for sanitary products have no choice.
I cringe when I talk and think about Zara. I do not imagine that anyone in the room is not cringing, and I understand that, but we can do something about it. In this amendment, we are not asking for money for fripperies; we are asking for money for absolute essentials, so that people can, first, stay alive; and secondly, and just as important, are allowed their dignity. Anyone who votes against this amendment today must be honest with themselves and know that they are consciously and deliberately denying that dignity to these women and to many others. I appeal to the Minister and to Government Members to defy their Whip and vote aye—vote in favour of dignity for everyone.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone.
I apologise to the Committee if I repeat some of the comments that have already been made by my hon. Friends, but I feel we can never hammer home enough the points that we are trying to make today.
I will mainly speak to amendments 226 and 227. Amendment 226 would provide a very basic level of support—just over £5 a day—for destitute families who have been refused asylum. These amendments have three aims: to make sure that vulnerable children are not left destitute; to ensure that families continue to engage with the Home Office; and to head off the danger that the removal of asylum support will in practice see a massive transfer of responsibilities and duties of care from central to local government.
The first point is the most simple and in some ways the most powerful. To be entirely blunt, cutting support will mean that innocent families and their children will go without food or shelter. The Minister noted last week the importance of considering the best interests of children. As a civilised and compassionate nation, we cannot ignore the impact that withdrawing support would have on children’s welfare, health and wellbeing, or the very real dangers that they could be exposed to as a result of their family’s destitution. Without a safety net, families will resort to extreme measures, often turning to illegal work that drives them into the embrace of criminal gangs.
Removing support is also entirely counterproductive, in that it does not have the desired effect of encouraging families to leave the UK. Witnesses at the Committee’s evidence sessions told us the same thing time and time again—you do not get people to leave the country by cutting off their only means of support. All it does is give them every incentive to disappear and to stop engaging with the Home Office. Families will do that because given a choice between destitution in the UK or returning to a homeland where they believe they may be killed or tortured, they will choose the former as the least worst option. When we consider some of the absolutely desperate steps that people have taken to reach the UK to begin with, and that they have risked their lives to make the journey to Britain, we should not underestimate what they will do to stay here.
Removing support forces these families to find other ways to survive, and makes them easy prey for criminal gangs who will ruthlessly exploit their vulnerability for profit. One of the aims of the Bill is to tackle illegal employment, and the very welcome Modern Slavery Act in the last Parliament was intended to help to fight terrible crimes such as human trafficking. By removing support for failed asylum seekers, the Government may undermine both those aims, by gifting the criminals who prey on desperation a new group of people to target and exploit.
The Government seem to think that by encouraging people to leave the UK they can make savings, but their approach just will not have the effect that they intend. If they want to save money, they will do it by engaging people in the process of return. Some 40% of returns are voluntary, and even those that are not voluntary are made much easier when we have records on people and consequently know where to find them. Keeping people on the books costs money, but nothing compared to the alternative. The best way to save money is to conclude cases as quickly as possible, and encouraging people to drop off the radar by removing their support does the exact opposite.
Last week, the Solicitor General stated that he would write to me with full details of how judicial reviews would be funded. Obviously, I am yet to receive such details and I wonder if he could provide them today or before the end of the week.
The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)
I will write to the hon. Lady this week.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Solicitor General for that.
There is a further cost issue to consider, which is the impact the proposed change would have on local authorities. Last week, the Minister and I had a long discussion about the ongoing dialogue with local authorities. I stand by what I said last week. I am not convinced that discussing with local authorities the impact of these burdens that will be placed on them once the Bill is already in place is the right way to do things.
Asylum seekers who find themselves destitute will be scooped up by local authority services—statutory homelessness services, child protection services under the Children Act 1989, mental health services, adult social care services and so on.
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)
I wonder whether it would be helpful if we were clear about our language. The hon. Lady used the phrase “asylum seekers”, and said that they will be forced to turn to the services she listed, but we are talking about failed asylum seekers—people who have exhausted their appeal rights. By that process, they have been deemed not to be refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said:
“National asylum systems are there to decide which asylum-seekers actually qualify for international protection.”
We have a system for a reason, and the hon. Lady’s use of the phrase “asylum seekers” in that sentence is not accurate.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I made that error last week, too. I apologise again; I should have said “failed asylum seekers”, but what I am saying still stands.
Can the Minister clarify something? We had a long discussion last week, but I am still not entirely sure—this may be my fault, and I may be missing something—how the Bill fits with the ethos of other legislation in this country, which protects vulnerable people. I hope that the Minister can explain for my benefit—I am quite a simple character, and I like things in straightforward terms—how the Bill fits with the ethos of other legislation.
I feel strongly that this measure will potentially be a disaster for local authorities, which are already overwhelmed by funding pressures and will soon have a duty of care for other people as well. Asylum seekers are generally more concentrated in urban areas and areas of higher deprivation—the places where local authority budgets have been most dramatically cut in recent years. I do not need to remind the Committee that in the top 10 most deprived areas, the cost is 18 times higher per resident than in the 10 least deprived. If the Bill is passed, those local authorities will face a big surge in demand for such services. How will they pay for that? Will the Minister let us know whether he is going to offer them any funds?
Section 95 support cost the Home Office £45 million in 2014-15. Given that councils will have to process failed asylum seekers, assess their needs and so on, the process is likely to become much more expensive. The people concerned are spread across dozens of local authorities, which will entail duplication of work. What options do local authorities have? Should they cut services elsewhere, put up council tax or abandon their legal duties? The Bill’s lasting legacy may be to effect a massive transfer of responsibilities from the Home Office to local authorities, with no accompanying transfer of services or resources. On top of all the challenges that councils face, they will now be asked to do the Home Office’s job. The Government are washing their hands of failed asylum seekers and passing the buck to somebody else.
We must think of the human cost of causing families to live in the most dreadful poverty and separating children from their parents. When a family cannot feed their children, it is considered neglect. Children’s services will have to step in and take those children into care. I do not know what will happen when the time comes for the family to return. Will the child or children get returned to their family’s care? I have worked in child protection with a large number of families who have fled war and persecution, and I cannot stress enough the long-term damage that the separation of a child or children from their family can do to their and their parents’ mental health and emotional wellbeing. At the end of the day, it is the migrants who will suffer, and our constituents will too, with public services pushed beyond breaking point as their local authority is forced to clean up the Home Office’s mess.
The Home Office must know that that is about to happen. When the section 9 pilots were trialled a decade ago, the Home Office said that they placed “significant demands” on local authority resources. I believe strongly that the Government are on the brink of making a terrible mistake that will simultaneously undermine efforts to process asylum seekers quickly and heap unmanageable new duties on some of our country’s most deprived local authorities. I urge Government Members to accept our amendments to avoid this disaster.
Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting)
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
James Brokenshire
Obviously we are looking at schedule 6 provisions and the changes under the new section 95A support mechanism within schedule 6. The regulatory impact assessment sets out our best analysis of the overall savings to the public purse, and it would be invidious for me to try to provide percentage assumption rates.
This is about departures and encouraging people to leave. It is also about section 95A support where there are barriers to removal. That is likely to be where there is no documentation or difficulty in obtaining it to facilitate departure, or medical issues. Let us not forget that, in conducting its duties, the Home Office will have obligations under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 which it will need to factor in when taking decisions.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
When referring to the impact assessment, the Minister said the cost was around £32 million. Is that not a drastic underestimation? I do not believe that takes into account the local authorities’ statutory duties under homelessness legislation, the Children Act 1989 or the principles of the Care Act 2014. Will the Minister please clarify?
James Brokenshire
I think the hon. Lady is alluding to some of the points I discussed concerning schedule 3 of the 2002 Act: the Human Rights Act assessments that local authorities need to undertake. We seek to continue our engagement with local authorities about the new burdens assessment.
The published impact assessment will be revisited and republished, if required, in relation to further analysis of the new burdens work. Although we have published our regulatory impact assessment based on the evidence provided at the date of the Bill’s publication, it will continue to be reviewed in the light of further discussions with local authorities.
It is not that our minds are closed on that. Rather, having given the best assessment of the savings that the hon. Lady has identified, we will keep this matter under examination. If the measures led to, or risked leading to, migrants being supported by local authorities when they would previously have been supported by the Home Office, we have made it clear through the consultation that we would wish to discuss and address those impacts and their financial implications with local authorities and the devolved Administrations in accordance with the new burdens doctrine.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I think what the Minister is saying is that the £32 million is an underestimate.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I am struggling with this. The Minister says that conversations are going on with local authorities, but should those conversations not have happened before the legislation was put in place? It seems a bit back to front to me.
James Brokenshire
No. As always with legislation, we have to have it in place and, as a result, that sometimes provokes further discussion. We have been running a consultation, which we published earlier this week, and the hon. Lady will find in it the response and the feedback, as well as some of the points that we have said we will reflect on further. That is the right and appropriate way in which to deal with the matter. We judge the provisions to be appropriate to the policy intent that I have outlined, so the clause should stand part of the Bill.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I will speak briefly to amendment 222, which would grant a right of appeal to those who are refused support by the Home Office, or whose support is discontinued. The right to appeal is important both for the individual concerned and because of the difficulties that the withdrawal of support for failed asylum seekers will create for local authorities, about which hon. Friends and I have already spoken.
It is necessary to set out the effect of clause 34 and schedule 6, to underline exactly why it is vital to have a right of appeal. The schedule as it stands will inflict destitution on families with children. Whereas in the past the Secretary of State could provide accommodation and support to help families survive, the new mechanism will impose a burden of proof on asylum seekers. They will need to show that they are destitute and that there is a genuine obstacle preventing them from leaving the country.
James Brokenshire
The hon. Lady has just said that the schedule will have an impact on asylum seekers; it will not. The mechanism in it relates to those whose asylum applications have been determined and have been found to have no grounds. I make that distinction because I want to underline that support is there for those who are having their asylum claims assessed.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister and apologise for my semantics.
We do not know what the “genuine obstacle” that must be preventing people from leaving the country means, because it has yet to be defined in regulations. We are potentially talking about denying support to extremely vulnerable families, so the House should be able to discuss and vote on that in primary legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham made that point well in our evidence sessions. That definition will effectively define the scope of support given to people, and it could leave families homeless and destitute. We should be debating that definition now. It is not something to be nodded through the House at the whim of the Secretary of State.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I do not know whether the hon. Lady was as struck as I was by the evidence sessions. There was only one organisation—I cannot for the life of me remember which it was—that actually prepared people who had gone to see it for a potential answer of no to their application. Everybody else just seemed to be keeping people’s hope alive and burning brightly. Does she agree that if more organisations prepared people for a no, people would be able to plan ahead and think about that, rather than wake up one morning and find, “Gosh, that’s a bit of a surprise”?
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I think we have different recollections of the evidence sessions. I do not recall just one organisation doing that.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I agree with my hon. Friend; I did not hear only one organisation say that. I will say that I used to run a children’s hospice and, even when people were told the reality of what was going to happen, they always had hope. Even if it is to someone through the entire process, not everyone listens to reality.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I believe it is clear that whatever happens, the Government intend to introduce stricter conditions than currently exist for supporting failed asylum seekers, to try to encourage people to leave the UK more quickly once an asylum claim has failed. There is one obvious problem with that approach, which is that the evidence shows that it simply does not work. I will return to that when we discuss later amendments, but for the moment it is enough to say that cutting off support will make families less, not more, likely to engage with the Home Office and leave the UK voluntarily. Denying people support will be counterproductive if the Government aim to increase the number of voluntary returns. If those are the consequences of withdrawing support, having a proper right of appeal becomes even important.
The reason to support the amendment is simple. The right of appeal is needed because on far too many occasions, initial decisions are incorrect. Nearly two thirds of appeals are successful, and that amounts each year to hundreds of cases or, to put it another way, hundreds of people and families. When new section 95A comes into force, those people will be wrongly deprived of food and shelter.
The Home Office’s assessments of destitution are very poor. The asylum support tribunal overturns a high proportion of decisions; in 2011, the figure was an incredible 82%. If those people had not had a right of appeal, how would they have accessed the support that they were entitled to? How will they be able to do so in future? Without a right of appeal, the only recourse for those individuals would be judicial review, which is no substitute for a proper right of appeal. Judicial review, as we all know, requires time and money, which are things that people whose asylum claim has failed simply do not have.
Inevitably, hundreds of people who will have every right to support under new section 95A will be unable to access it. I cannot accept that the Minister and the Government are comfortable knowing that hundreds of people who are legally entitled to support will be left with nothing, but that will be the effect of schedule 6 if it is not amended. Ultimately, the debate is about the quality of decision making. Are the Government prepared to accept poor decision making and the injustices that stem from it? If they are not, they should accept our amendment.
Sarah Champion
I, too, want to speak in support of amendment 222. Throughout the Bill, the Government propose various measures to remove the right to appeal against Home Office decisions. Reading the Bill, one cannot but conclude that the Government are fundamentally opposed to their decisions being challenged in anything approaching an independent manner.
The consequences of the decision to deny support are potentially catastrophic. A migrant who is denied support has no right to work and no right to rent. Their bank account is closed and their assets are frozen. The choices that people in that position face are bleak. The Bill acknowledges the need to support refused migrants who have genuine obstacles to leaving the UK, but it has not been made clear what a genuine obstacle will be, even though my Opposition colleagues have been pushing for clarity. My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields has just raised the matter yet again. What is clear, however, is who decides whether the obstacle exists. It is the Home Office, without scrutiny, oversight or effective challenge. That is bad practice in any process, but in the light of the Home Office’s frankly miserable record of making the correct decision the first time, it will be disastrous.
There is currently a right of appeal on decisions made about section 4 support. Statistics from the asylum support tribunal should make for uncomfortable reading for the Government, because 62% of appeals between September 2014 and August 2015 were successful. The claims were allowed, sent back to the Home Office for a fresh decision or withdrawn in acknowledgement of a flawed decision.
The Home Office has a similarly poor record in assessing destitution. In 2014-15, the Asylum Support Appeals Project represented 168 asylum seekers whom the Home Office had denied support on the grounds that it did not believe that they were destitute. Of those decisions, 70% were overturned on appeal. Such figures cannot but lead us to the conclusion that there is a serious problem with Home Office decision making. During the Committee’s evidence sessions, witnesses offered various explanations for those failings, from inadequate training to overly complex immigration regulations, and Ministers have given other examples. Whatever the reasons, however, when nearly two thirds of decisions are being overturned on appeal, something needs to be done to address the problem.
The Government’s solution in the Bill and in previous immigration legislation is indeed novel: simply abolish the right to appeal. That will certainly result in far fewer Home Office decisions being reversed, but it is hardly a solution that will in any way contribute to better decision making. Children and families will be badly affected by the loss of appeal rights. Section 95 support will no longer continue for families with children at the end of the asylum process. That poses a serious risk of leaving children destitute with no judicial oversight, as was clearly detailed by my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields.
Given the high proportion of Home Office decisions that will be overturned by the tribunal, the lack of appeal rights will inevitably transfer the responsibility for supporting destitute children to local authorities. We have heard from the Minister that the Department is in good consultation with local authorities, which is great, but the reality is that children who should be being supported by the Home Office will instead have to rely on overstretched local authority budgets to meet those most basic needs.
Much has been said of the need to ensure that our immigration system is one in which the public can have confidence. However, the way to achieve that confidence is not to pander to sensationalist headlines, but to ensure that most of the time the Home Office gets it right first time. Abolishing the right to challenge poor decisions and forcing people into the most abject poverty will not in any way contribute to achieving a goal that I am sure we all share.
Immigration Bill (Eighth sitting)
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)
Just before lunch, I was responding to the amendments tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras, and I had reached amendment 88. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central raised a point about co-tenants, and I said that I would reflect over the luncheon period and see whether I could respond to him. Where a landlord takes on a tenant and accepts rent from them, that landlord takes responsibility for carrying out the checks. That is the fundamental starting point. The tenant is responsible for right to rent checks only if they sub-let, unless they agree otherwise with the landlord. Only where an agent is acting in the course of a business under section 25(2)(a) of the Immigration Act 2014 can an offence arise. That was the point I was trying to elucidate, without the agency provisions in the 2014 Act in front of me.
To take the hon. Gentleman’s example of students, in the circumstances that he outlined they would not be acting as an agent in the course of their business, so the provisions would not apply. The provisions could operate only if there was a formal sub-letting arrangement, which is, I believe, different from the arrangement that he was describing. The luncheon adjournment has enabled me to respond to his question, and I hope that that answer is helpful.
I turn to amendment 88. New section 33E was introduced to provide a means by which a landlord could pursue eviction where a tenancy is not an assured shorthold tenancy—in other words, a common-law tenancy—even if that was not set out in a tenancy agreement by making it an implied term. Removing that would create uncertainty for landlords about when they could terminate the tenancy if they discovered that they were renting to an illegal immigrant. The hon. and learned Gentleman’s amendment would create difficulty and uncertainty for landlords and tenants, and we judge it to be unnecessary.
On amendment 89, the clause makes it clear that action could be taken only after the Home Office served a notice or notices on a landlord. Those will be issued only when the Home Office is clear that the occupiers are illegal immigrants, that they do not have the right to rent and that there is no bar to their leaving the United Kingdom. I suspect that we may have further discussion on clause 14 later on, but for now I will say that in conducting its duties, the Home Office would have to consider its responsibilities in relation to children when determining whether a notice should be issued. It is our judgment, therefore, that the system contains that safeguard and check, but I have no doubt that we will discuss that in more detail when we come on to the provisions concerning the operation of the eviction arrangements, because of the way in which the amendments have been grouped.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I wonder whether the Minister can clear up something that I am a bit curious about. My hon. and learned Friend touched on a local authority’s duties under the Children Act 1989. If a family are evicted, will they be entitled to local authority help under homelessness legislation as well?
James Brokenshire
In response to the hon. Gentleman’s point about the tenant surveys, if we had simply done online surveys, there might be an issue, but there were also 10 separate focus groups that involved landlords, letting agents and tenants. If we were trying to base this on a single source of evidence, he might view it in that way, but the evaluation was based on multiple sources of evidence.
As the analysis highlights, there were multiple research methods, including online surveys, interviews and focus groups, as well as mystery shoppers and other steps. The evaluation did not find evidence of discrimination as a result of the scheme. Because multiple methods were used and in view of the results of the findings, the evaluation does not give me pause for thought. Rather, it indicates to me that the first phase of the scheme has produced the results that we hoped for and expected, and that we can move on to national roll-out.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I want to explore this a little. Does the Minister not accept the evidence that we heard from David Smith of the Residential Landlords Association? He said that landlords would become risk averse and that, as a result, we would see discrimination against people whom landlords perceive as non-British? Often, there will not be evidence of discrimination, because it is far more subtle than that. People who are discriminated against often do not come forward to say so, and landlords themselves are not going to say, “Yes, we’re being risk averse. We’re discriminating.” Is it worth the risk of introducing this part of the legislation, or is it better not to introduce it at all?
James Brokenshire
In fairness to the hon. Lady, she focuses on an important point that reflects a comment made on Second Reading by the Scottish National party Member—unfortunately, I cannot remember her constituency name off the top of my head.
Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 55, in clause 1, page 1, line 6, after subsection (1) insert—
‘(1A) The primary purpose of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement is to secure the enforcement of labour market legislation, as defined in Section 3(3) of this Act.”
To ensure that the functions of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement are exercised for the purpose of protecting those vulnerable to labour market exploitation and to make this explicit on the face of the Bill.
I preface my remarks on amendment 55 by indicating that Labour supports a director of labour market enforcement, provided that the purpose of the director is effective enforcement of labour standards and that the relevant agencies are properly resourced to that end. That is the in principle position. With that, there should be no overlap with or merging into inspectorate or immigration enforcement functions. Part of the Bill and the Government’s associated consultation document suggests that the role is a director of labour market enforcement in name but not in design. The aim of amendment 55 is to resolve that issue.
The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the functions of the director of labour market enforcement are exercised for the purpose of protecting those vulnerable to labour market exploitation and to make that explicit in the Bill. I will not go through the wording unless that is necessary. It is proposed that the director will report to the Home Secretary and to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. That is welcome, but the position is being created via an Immigration Bill sponsored by the Home Office. Therefore, that concern, and particularly the overlap between immigration enforcement and labour market enforcement, gives rise to the amendment.
Immigration enforcement threatens the success of labour inspection. A better approach to reducing illegal working is effectively to enforce labour standards, thereby reducing the demand for illegal workers, who are more vulnerable to being exploited due to their irregular immigration status. The OSCE has said:
“A rising challenge to effective labour inspection is an increasingly widespread imposition of measures that compel labour inspectors to conduct immigration enforcement activity as part of their workplace inspection agenda.”
That is the concern that we have about the Bill—hence, amendment 55.
The International Labour Organisation said:
“the primary duty of labour inspectors is to protect workers and not to enforce immigration law.”
Other countries have experienced the dangers of merging those two functions. For example, research in the Netherlands shows that dual labour inspection priorities to identify, on the one hand, undocumented workers, and, on the other hand, victims of trafficking have negative impacts on the uncovering of trafficking cases. There are two reasons for that. One is that victims of trafficking are too scared to come forward and the second is that labour inspectors fail to identify them. In the Dutch research, there is a classic example of that, involving an individual who was trafficked into commercial cleaning in the Netherlands. Labour inspectors came to his workplace on many occasions, but he did not come forward; in fact, he claimed not to work in the establishment rather than come forward and be identified as an employee. For that reason, he was missed by the inspectors. As I say, this is a classic example of its type.
It is not just in the Netherlands where there is such evidence. In the USA, there is now a memorandum of understanding between the Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security, the purpose of which is to ensure that immigration control does not interfere with the protection of workers’ rights. For example, when the Wages and Hours Directorate investigates a case of unpaid wages, its officials must not ask for immigration documents. So there is a clear separation of roles, and the fact that workers’ rights are protected in the USA regardless of immigration status prevents retaliation and intimidation by employers, who could otherwise threaten to report undocumented workers if they exercised their labour rights. Our position is that in order to tackle labour exploitation effectively, there must be a strict firewall between immigration control and labour inspection. That offers the best prospect of success for this director of labour market enforcement.
We have some questions for the Minister, and I will just run quickly through them; he may be able to pick up on them in his remarks. First, how will the director of labour market enforcement prioritise non-compliance in the labour market when non-compliance constitutes a range of offences in relation to requirements set out under the labour market legislation, and what assurances are in place to ensure that the work of the director will prioritise the protection of vulnerable workers from abuse and exploitation? Secondly, what overlap will the director’s consideration of non-compliance have with the work of the Home Office to control immigration and identify undocumented workers? Thirdly, what is the intended overlap between the twin aims of tackling the undercutting of British workers by undocumented workers and addressing worker exploitation, and how does the Minister see those two aims being achieved in unison?
I have set out the principal reasons why we have tabled the amendment. It may be helpful at this stage, Mr Bone, if I indicate that although we will not push a number of amendments to a vote, we will push this one to a vote. I hope that is helpful.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone.
I will speak briefly about amendment 55, which has the modest aim of making it explicit that the new director of labour market enforcement should have a duty to stand up for those who are at risk of exploitation. This amendment has been tabled because Labour Members believe that if such a position is going to exist, whoever holds it should be responsible for enforcing all aspects of labour market law and not just some of them.
If they accept this amendment, the Government will signal that part 1 of the Bill is truly about improving labour market enforcement and not simply about grabbing headlines to bolster their credentials of being tough on immigration. If the Government are willing to make that commitment, I think we will all welcome the creation of the new director.
The amendment is important because without it there would be a worrying ambiguity in the new role of the director, which could see the resources allocated to the director directed primarily at illegal migrants in work rather than at those who employ them.
There is a tonal shift in the Bill towards criminalising the employee over the employer, which is concerning because it seems to focus on the symptom rather than the cause; the focus appears to be on the workers rather than on the organised gangs who traffic and exploit them. That approach will not have a lasting impact on illegal labour market activity in Britain. The reason is simple: if workers are arrested and deported, employers will find others to take their place. If you strike at employers, however, that market soon disappears. There is even a risk, as witnesses told us last week, that an emphasis on criminalising workers will actually be counterproductive in fighting illegal working. If people fear that they will be harshly punished if their immigration status is discovered, that can be used by their employers as a threat, driving them even further underground and opening them up to worse forms of exploitation.
The Government therefore need to make it explicit that the new director will have powers and duties that allow them to act in all areas of the labour market and that the role will be used to tackle exploitation at its source. Without that commitment, the director is unlikely to be an effective office because it will be limited to clearing up the symptoms, rather than the root causes, of labour market exploitation. Such an approach might bring some great headlines for the Home Secretary, but it will do little to prevent trafficking and abuse or to reduce the number of illegal migrants working in this country. I am sure that the Minister will agree that if public money is going to be spent establishing a new agency, we need to be sure that it is going to get results, and that is why he and his colleagues should back this amendment today.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee with you in the Chair, Mr Bone. I echo the comments made by my hon. Friends, save that I have one caveat in relation to the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the shadow Minister. I hope that we do not need to push the amendment to the vote. I hope that there can be agreement, because we are on the same page on several of these issues, in the wider sense in relation to an effectively managed immigration system, and particularly on labour market enforcement. Many Opposition Members commended the Government on their work on the Modern Slavery Act 2015. We had differences on points of detail, but very much agreed with the main thrust of that legislation. There is strong support for the principle of more effective labour market enforcement. The Prime Minister spoke powerfully about that when he spoke, at that stage, not about a director but about the establishment of a labour market enforcement agency. Clearly, the Bill has a slightly different, but nevertheless welcome, approach to seek to co-ordinate the efforts of those agencies dealing with more effective enforcement in the labour market.
However, it does not sit comfortably that our debate about labour market enforcement is in the context of an immigration Bill—so there is perhaps a point of confusion. At the heart of this clarificatory amendment is the desire to be absolutely clear on the role of the director of labour market enforcement. The post—the function—should do what it says on the tin: it should be focused on labour market enforcement. My hon. and learned Friend the shadow Minister has cited international examples. It is useful to learn from other countries, though we do not do it as often as we might. There are powerful examples of where confusion between labour market enforcement and immigration control and enforcement is counterproductive. It neither supports effective immigration enforcement—because it drives undocumented workers underground and out of the way of the authorities—and does not help with labour market enforcement either.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I have also listened carefully to the Minister, but I am confused and puzzled. If the purpose of the measure is to tackle labour market exploitation across the board, why did the Government see fit to include it in the Immigration Bill?
James Brokenshire
I have already responded to that point by mentioning the vulnerability faced by people who are here through immigration. Equally, the measure can be a means of ensuring that we have a good, regulated labour market that therefore does not add to exploitation, nor encourages people to come here illegally or through trafficking, which is why it sits in the overall framework of an immigration Bill. I hope that I have explained that the purpose and remit of the director is labour market enforcement. The provision is not intended to stray into the separate issues of immigration enforcement, but if cases of people who are here illegally are highlighted, the director would be duty-bound to report that and to pass on intelligence through the hub that is being created. We will no doubt have a separate debate about that when we reach the relevant provisions.
Keir Starmer
Finally, amendment 62 touches on the annual report and is intended to ensure that the director of labour market enforcement’s annual report links with his or her assessment about non-compliance in the labour market and the remedies secured by victims and threats and obstacles to effective enforcement. The bullet point is this: as drafted, the director’s strategy does not link with his or her assessment of non-compliance in the labour market and his or her annual report does not link back to the assessment of non-compliance as a baseline. The amendment aims to ensure that the strategy covers everything that it should and that the annual report is tied into the same process.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I rise to support the Opposition amendments, which will be helpful in clarifying the role and duties of the director of labour market enforcement. I will also echo some of the comments made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras.
The creation of the role is welcome, as my hon. Friends have said, but if the director is to have real influence and impact, they need to be involved across enforcement of labour market standards and not confined to a narrow area. The director should be able to take the lead on issues of labour market enforcement, to command respect from employers and be a strong advocate for compliance and tougher enforcement. The Opposition amendments are designed to make that happen. Amendment 56, for example, would require the new director to set out the resources that are needed for effective labour market enforcement.
Witnesses told the Committee that the problems with the immigration system are due not to a lack of powers but to a lack of resources, which undermines enforcement. The Government can introduce all the legislation they like, but criminal employers will not bat an eyelid unless they believe that there is an actual chance of their door being kicked down. That chance is incredibly low right now. The UK has less than one inspector per 100,000 workers, which is one of the worst ratios in Europe. The director should be able to tell the Government when they are not doing enough, and amendment 57 would introduce a clear duty to examine and identify where enforcement is failing and where there are obstacles to effective enforcement, thereby helping to identify where further resources are needed. There are currently too few data on the scale of labour market exploitation, and the director could and should be able to fill that gap.
Immigration Bill (First sitting)
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before we move on, let me say that seven Members want to ask questions so perhaps the witnesses could try to keep their answers a little bit shorter.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Q 14 I have a quick question for Judith, going back to something that you said earlier with regard to the Children Act. Obviously, you have to have valid reasons for removing children, but most children get removed because of neglect, and if a family is left destitute they cannot feed and clothe their child. So do you not envisage child protection departments removing children on that basis if support has been withdrawn?
Judith Dennis: It would not usually be the first step. A social worker will try to resolve the issues that arise out of the family’s situation, depending on the causes and the actors who are playing each part. We have seen, from their recourse to public funds, families who are supported by local authorities. Often social workers will engage with the family to try to help them to resolve their situation. We certainly would not expect social workers to be stepping in and taking people’s children away in the first instance.
Social work ethics mean that you have to resolve the situation and try to keep families together where possible. Most of the social workers we speak to would not feel comfortable about taking people’s children away on the basis that the Government have made the family destitute and forced them to neglect the needs of their children.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Q 15 I used to be a child protection social worker myself, so I totally get what you are saying, but social services departments are overstretched and are really sinking because the resources are not there. If they cannot fill the gap and help that family, that child will go hungry and will be neglected, and it is easier to pay for a child than to pay for the entire family, so could we see some perverse outcomes, with children being removed from their families? Is that a risk at all, do you think?
Judith Dennis: It could be, further down the line. I hope that it would not be. My understanding is that it is much more difficult and costly to take a child into care than to provide basic support such as the asylum support regime does, as has been mentioned before. The support is basic and is to avoid destitution. Taking the child into care means that you have to pay another carer to look after that child when the family are perfectly able to do so. The ethical argument and the economic argument mean that we hope we would not see that, but it is—
Mrs Lewell-Buck
There is a chance, down the line, that that could be the case. I just wanted to clear that up. Thank you.
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)
Q 16 Two quick questions from me. The first is on what happens at present to engage with these families. Mr Kaye, you were just saying that the longer we do not engage with them, the more there is a problem; yet, as I have just heard it, Ms Dennis, you were outlining the current process and saying that it was chock full of engagement. Will the panel comment on the ways in which current engagement is different from what happened under the 2005 process, which I understand hinged largely on corresponding with people rather than engaging with them, perhaps as happens at present?
Judith Dennis: The 2005 pilot took away support, or threatened people with taking away their support if they were not taking steps to remove themselves. Partly as a result of the lack of success of that programme, and of hearing from some families in parliamentary work done by various agencies about the complexity of the situation, this programme was established. There are several stages at which family conferences take place, and specialist family engagement managers who understand the process invite the families—parents and sometimes children—to meetings. They are invited to think about whether or not they want to go and they visit the family, and those kind of things. There are lots of steps. Most of the process is designed to help people think about voluntary return, because there are fewer barriers to removal if someone agrees to go rather than being forced to go. So measures that just take away support, rather than put in more support, have been found not to work, and those that put in more support have some more success.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
6. What assessment she has made of the potential effect of reductions in local authority funding on police forces.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
Funding for local authorities is a matter for the Communities Secretary. The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 puts in place two related, reciprocal duties for police and crime commissioners to co-operate with partners. These duties ensure that local leaders work together to achieve the most effective outcomes for their areas. PCCs are already working with local partners to ensure that they provide the services the public needs, and we encourage them to continue do so.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Secretary of State for her response, but the fact remains that people across Northumbria are being unfairly hit with savage reductions in local authority budgets and a loss of nearly 400 front- line police officers, which has resulted in an increase in violent crime. With this toxic combination stretching the fabric of partnership working and community policing to breaking point, what steps is the right hon. Lady taking to stem the rise in violent crime and reassure our communities and my constituents across Northumbria?
Mrs May
I am pleased to say that crime survey figures show overall across the country that violent crime is down by some 13%, but I refer the hon. Lady to the answer that I gave earlier to her hon. Friend the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) about Northumbria. The PCC and the chief constable in Northumbria are looking to use technology to work more effectively and looking at ensuring that they collaborate with local partners so that they continue to provide the effective police service that her constituents and the PCC’s constituents want in Northumbria.