Modern-day Slavery

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered modern-day slavery.

It is an honour to be opening this debate on modern slavery. In the four and a half months since I was elected to co-chair the all-party group on human trafficking and modern-day slavery, real progress has been made, and I hope that in this debate we can persuade the Government to make further progress. It was a great honour to be elected co-chair in July with a record turnout of Members of both Houses. I wish to pay tribute to my predecessors as chair, especially Anthony Steen, the group’s founder, who went on to found the Human Trafficking Foundation, which has done so much to raise public awareness about this appalling crime. I genuinely regret that since the change of leadership my immediate predecessor, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who could always be depended upon to bring this shocking abuse of human rights to public and parliamentary attention, has spoken less on this issue than previously, although I was glad that in October he raised the issue of what should be in the modern slavery Bill, because that is the main subject of my remarks today.

May I start by thanking the Government for agreeing to introduce a Bill? It is tempting, but it would be churlish, to make a party political speech where I document the Government’s initial resistance to ideas ranging from signing up to the EU directive to appointing a commissioner, only eventually to change their mind. Ministers deserve praise for realising that more needs to be done and that legislation is necessary, and for consenting to a process of pre-legislative scrutiny that gives us a prospect of a better Bill. But the big question is whether it will be good enough.

In dealing with this issue it is traditional to focus on three P’s: protection, prevention, prosecution. In the announcements so far, it is clear that the Government plan to put emphasis on a fourth P—punishment. I hope that the Minister can confirm today that he intends to make trafficking an aggravating factor in sentencing. Rape sentences, for example, should always be increased when that rape is a feature of a trafficking offence—where someone has been trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

If the Bill emphasises prosecute and punish, it needs also to do more to prevent and protect. I join those two together because there is no doubt that for most successful prosecutions the courts need victims to give evidence. They will do that only if they feel safe and are helped to deal with the traumas they face.

Although I pay tribute to the organisations that care for victims, there are deep flaws in the relationship between them and the Government. I was sent a message by a spokesman from one such body, which is under subcontract to the Salvation Army. He said:

“MoJ officials have directly, robustly and unequivocally told us that we are not to talk about current victim support arrangements in any way whatsoever with anyone. In addition we have been told that we are not to criticise, or talk about in any form, any part of the Government’s current anti-trafficking work or policies. The threat was implicit that to do so would lead to the loss of our contract. In view of this, there is no meaningful way in which I can engage in the proposed evidence giving or consultation exercise. I am”

unbelievably

“forbidden by the Government to speak to you on that matter. If Mr Field”—

I am very glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who joined me in asking for this debate, has been able to rearrange his diary to be in the Chamber today—

“can find a way to offer some form of immunity or indemnity against punitive action by the MoJ should we say something they don’t like then we would be delighted to participate. Otherwise I must decline the offer as I have no doubt that were I to present truthfully the evidence I wish to present the MoJ would remove the contract.”

In response to parliamentary questions, Ministers have reassured me that that would not happen, yet those reassurances have not been sufficient. The independently witnessed threat from officials has silenced not just this organisation but others too. I hope the Minister will agree today to write to all organisations that provide victim services under contract and ask them to share their learning with Government and Parliament without fear of retribution so that we can ensure that the real needs of victims are addressed in our Bill. lf those organisations were able to give evidence, they would tell us that six weeks of accommodation and support is just not long enough for most victims to be ready to disclose what has happened to them, to overcome trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder caused by years of exploitation and to be witnesses in criminal cases. Will the Bill empower organisations to give help for longer?

Better information is a prerequisite for more effective action. The Centre for Social Justice report “It happens here” states:

“There is no consistent grip on the numbers. Agencies are groping in the dark for a sense of scale. The figures used...reflect the small number of cases known about but are a pale reflection of the size of the problem.”

That is evidence. The National Referral Mechanism identified 1,186 victims last year and the UK Human Trafficking Centre 2,265. Four years ago, the Home Affairs Committee identified 4,000 victims. We just do not know the scale of the problem, which is why the all-party group is conducting an inquiry into data on trafficking.

For the past 12 months, MPs have regularly asked Justice Ministers for information about the location of victims. They have not been given any details, on the pretext that they might compromise the victim. There is no evidence to support that claim. Is the information available about where trafficking victims are found and how and if that information is available, why is it all staying so hidden?

In our inquiry into data on trafficking, it is evident that there are widespread concerns about the quality of information and the way in which it is shared to protect victims. As evidence from Bedfordshire police pointed out

“a dedicated role performed by an identifiable individual”—

such as a commissioner—

“will remove the stasis that has developed with the issue falling between many stools: responsibility currently sitting with the Immigration Minister sends out a confusing message to victims and the public alike.”

I congratulate the Government on planning to appoint a commissioner.

[Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend who is making a most important speech. I draw her attention to a case with which I am dealing of a woman who was trafficked here at the age of 13. She was put into prostitution at the age of 15, and taken to an abortion clinic when she was pregnant with twins. She then went underground because of her great fear. Now that she has come to the attention of the immigration authorities, they simply want to deport her, with no mercy and no consideration of her terrible plight and suffering.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Were we to have a commissioner, I hope that they would bring forward such cases and ensure that we show the kind of generosity that our country is capable of to people who have been treated in that vile way.

Other actions could be taken to prevent the growth of modern slavery. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) and I have pressed private Members’ Bills to prevent slavery in supply chains. Will action on that be in the Bill?

The work of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has been significant in agriculture industries. Will the Minister expand its remit to other areas such as care, catering and construction where we know slavery occurs? Will he give it powers to impose civil penalties on companies that might have unwittingly allowed such practice in their supply chain, without having to go through the expensive and burdensome process of criminal prosecution?

In 2008, the Home Affairs Committee reached a unanimous conclusion on the matter. It said:

“To retain the migrant domestic worker visa and the protection it offers to workers is the single most important issue in preventing the forced labour and trafficking of such workers.”

Since it has been abolished, Kalyaan, the voluntary organisation which works with enslaved domestic workers, reports that more than four times as many such workers are now paid nothing at all.

Promises that changes in the visa would be accompanied by better prevention of exploitation overseas have not been fulfilled. Home Office responses to freedom of information requests show carelessness. They recorded negligible numbers of visas issued to nationals of India, and eight to nationals of the Philippines last year compared with 2,879 and 6,010 respectively in the previous year. In case anyone thinks that that is because the new system has brought to an end the visits of overseas domestic workers, let me point out that the equivalent number of visas issued to Qatari nationals is apparently 6,704 compared with two in the previous year. It is clear that even the most basic records are not being kept. If officers do not even know that the nationality of visa applicants is not the same as that of their employers, they are unlikely to have carefully considered the risk of their exploitation.

The Minister knows that there are significant problems in relation to children. At least one child a day is trafficked into Britain; most then go missing. Under the terms of the directive, they should have access, where appropriate, to a guardian. They need love and care. If they do not have access to a guardian, they need a best friend, and that is something the Scottish system appears to offer. Child victims cannot be expected to help the police if they are bewildered, unloved and confused. Others in this debate will outline how the Bill could better protect children, but I find it so sad that children are at risk of re-trafficking because the person who knows most about them and their families is their exploiter. Can we not make progress on giving dedicated support to those victims?

I was the instigator of the provision that became the offence in section 14 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009. I am disappointed by the reluctance of many police forces to prosecute men who pay for sex with a woman who is subject to force and exploitation. If men thought that they faced a criminal conviction in those circumstances, there is compelling evidence that they would be less likely to use trafficked prostitutes. They might even inform the police about women who are exploited in that way.

In that case and in the case of trafficking generally, we need to do more to investigate and prosecute. In their evidence to the all-party group inquiry, Kent police said that they thought a Bill could

“ensure that police forces are mandated to tackle human trafficking.”

Dealing with trafficking is not stated as a priority in the Home Office’s strategic policing requirement. Will the Minister make it a priority? As a hidden crime, it is less likely to cause local pressure and although we should celebrate those local groups that are building up the campaign, such as Croydon Community Against Trafficking and the groups in Bedfordshire and elsewhere, there is not the same public concern as there is about street crime or burglary, so we need national leadership. Only 11 convictions were recorded last year and that is why we need more than tougher punishment—we need better protection, detection and investigation.

I am glad, too, that the Government propose to take action to confiscate the proceeds of trafficking. I hope that today the Minister can confirm that funds obtained from those criminals will be used to compensate victims and perhaps to compensate police forces that have undertaken expensive investigations, too. After William Wilberforce succeeded in ending the transatlantic slave trade more than two centuries ago, the slave owners were compensated. Let us make this a truly modern Bill and compensate instead the victims of trafficking, sexual exploitation and modern-day slavery.

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[Fiona Mactaggart]

I do not think that I did make party political points. I welcomed the cross-party consensus on the issue, and praised the Government for their Bill. I did ask the Minister to go a bit further here and there, but I did that in common with Labour Members, and I do not think it fair to suggest that I made a party political speech.

[Pauline Latham]

Perhaps the hon. Lady feels that she did not do so, but I disagree with her on that.

As I have said, slavery takes a huge number of forms. I do not want to focus on international trafficking, although, having recently returned from Burma, I know that the Burmese fear that, following the opening of their borders, an increasing number of young girls will be taken to Thailand for trafficking. We should bear it in mind that they may end up in this country as well, and I think that the police and border agencies should look out for young girls coming here from Burma. Over the last few years, I have been made aware of slavery, trafficking, and the fact that people are groomed.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), a former Minister, spoke at an event that I organised recently in my constituency, along with Sheila Taylor, an old friend of mine from Derbyshire who set up and used to work for Safe and Sound Derby but is now a member of a committee that advises the Government, and members of CROP —Collective Response of Parents to Child Sexual Exploitation—who work with victims. I also invited the parents of children attending two secondary schools, both of which have between 1,300 and 1,500 pupils. The parents were very white and middle-class; the area that I am talking about is very much a leafy suburb. What shocked me was the small number who turned up to hear those very impressive speakers. Allowing for the fact that each of them might have had two children at one or other of the two schools, I think that there was probably a potential for 1,500 to turn up, but fewer than 20 did so. One or two teachers came along.

I think there is an attitude of, “It doesn’t happen here, does it? It happens in inner cities, it happens abroad, it happens anywhere but in leafy suburbs.” I set up this event because I had spoken to a constituent whose husband had been trafficking some children, particularly her daughter’s best friend. He had been working with these children, grooming them. He has been to prison, but is now out and is still trying to see these children. So this happens all over the world, including on our own back doorstep. I was interested to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) talking about a brothel on the street where he had lived more or less all his life and my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) talking about the terrible problems he had had in his constituency.

Derby was one of the first areas to deal with this issue and it had Operation Retriever. A lot of men were grooming women and taking them off to Birmingham and other places, but these men have all been prosecuted and some have gone to prison. The men were from the inner city, but the children they were trafficking were not—again, they were often from very respectable backgrounds. There is a big problem with parents thinking, as they do about grooming and the internet, that their children are not going to be caught up in this. There is an obligation on every one of us in this House to try to make people aware of what might be happening on their back doorstep.

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[Fiona Mactaggart]

I think that I have had a unique experience today: this is the first time in my 17 years in Parliament that I have agreed with almost every single word of every single speech in a debate. I thank all who have contributed, particularly the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), whose endorsement of the call for the return of the overseas domestic worker visa is, in my view, likely to have much more impact than anything that I might say. I hope that we can work together to ensure that that happens.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) conveyed the voice of victims to us very powerfully. I loved the call from the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) for us all to become, in effect, dropped-kerb vigilantes; I think that if we take up that challenge, we shall be able to find a practical way of preventing modern-day slavery. The call from my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) for specialist foster care for children was echoed by the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), whose reference to the excellent Barnardo’s pilot scheme reminded us of the need for practical action. Strikingly, the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) emphasised, from opposite sides of the House, the importance of action to deal with the international sex trade in children. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) asked specifically whether we could make trafficking and slavery an aggravating factor in sentencing.

I entirely understand why the Minister was not able to answer every question that he was asked, and I thank him for his specific response to the challenge that I issued about victims’ organisations. I hope that during the debate which will carry on he will be able to answer some of the very practical challenges that we have heard during this debate. Specifically, I hope he will address the call by the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) for civil penalties to be part of the suite of actions that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority can take and for more effective actions on houses in multiple occupation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) reminded us that practical—

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to look at the issue of free movement—and it will be possible to do that because the Conservatives have a commitment as a party to renegotiate the treaty and to look at free movement within it. In future, we should consider a number of measures regarding the accession of countries into the EU and into free movement, so that we can protect public and other services that are available to our citizens.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that the police and crime commissioner for the Thames Valley has blamed her 20% cut in spending on the police for the cuts he has made to the community safety funds for local government. My authority of Slough has been cut by £40,000, while the right hon. Lady’s has been cut by nothing. Can that be fair in an era when Slough has already reduced crime by 5% and needs these resources to carry on making progress?

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

I am happy to tell the hon. Lady what is fair. What is fair is that recorded crime in the Slough community safety partnership is down by 26% in the 12 months to June 2013, which is greater than the overall figure for England and Wales. That was between 2012 and 2013, so I am sure the hon. Lady will welcome this improved service to her constituents.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

The Minister for Women and Equalities was asked—

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

1. What recent discussions she has had on increasing the number of successful prosecutions in cases of rape and sexual violence; and if she will make a statement.

[The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)]

The Home Office has chaired a meeting with the Director of Public Prosecutions and national policing leads to consider the fall-off in police referrals and prosecutions. That has led to a six-point plan to support successful outcomes for victims of rape and sexual violence.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The number of women reporting rapes has increased by 4,000, but the percentage of such cases being referred to the Crown Prosecution Service has continued to fall from 50% when Labour was in government to about 30%. The Minister says that he has a six-point plan and the Secretary of State told me on Monday that there had been round-table meetings, but when will we see action for women, or will we continue to see cuts in services for victims of rape and domestic violence?

[Norman Baker]

We all take this issue very seriously in government. I am concerned about the fall in referrals and I think part of that is due to engagement between the police and the CPS, because the fall-off in referrals has not been matched to the same degree by a fall-off in convictions. This is nevertheless an important matter. I am taking a personal interest in it and I am also talking about it to all the chief constables, who are coming into the Home Office this afternoon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Both our constituencies are served by Thames Valley police, and I am pleased that since 2010, crime has fallen by 25% in the Thames Valley police area, including a fall of 30% in my constituency. My hon. Friend is right. Those who said that when police budgets were cut the only thing that would happen would be for crime to go up have been proved wrong. I commend the work of all the police officers and staff who have contributed to those good crime figures.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

There has been a 30% increase in reports of rape, and yet a dramatic fall in the number of rape cases referred for prosecution. What is the Home Secretary doing about that?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to that—we need to look at the matter very seriously. I am happy to say that the Minister for Crime Prevention is doing so. In addition, the Home Office has sat round the table with national policing leads and the Crown Prosecution Service to consider why we are seeing that most recent trend, and to develop a plan for ensuring that cases are referred to the CPS when it is right to do so.

Immigration Bill

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

rose—

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mrs May]

No, I have been very generous in giving way. Let me say to Labour Members and to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) that one of the problems we have seen in some family visit appeals in the past—this is why we removed the family visit appeal process—is that people have introduced new information into the appeals mechanism in the time since the original decision. That means that the decision in an appeal that is won is not necessarily based on the original case but may be based on the case put forward on appeal, which may be different. The hon. Lady needs to be careful when she quotes figures.

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[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather). I shall be doing the same as her at the end of the debate, and I shall make my remarks shorter simply by agreeing with her remarks about children and about bail detention. Those are critical issues that need to be addressed during the debate.

I have campaigned for more than 30 years against injustice in our immigration laws. Indeed, one of the reasons that I stood for election in Slough rather than anywhere else was that I wanted to follow the tradition of Slough Labour MPs who had voted against the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968. That legislation had the effect of making whole groups of people stateless, and I was proud that that injustice was remedied in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002.

I recognise that we can achieve change and get justice even when the debate on immigration is as toxic as it is at the moment. I also recognise that people feel deep anxiety about immigration, particularly in an era of austerity when they are feeling insecure about their jobs, their pensions and about their families’ futures. However, this Bill is operating the worst form of dog-whistle politics in blaming migrants for problems that are not of their construction. I know how much migrants bring to Britain. Slough, a migrant town, is the third most productive wealth-producing town in Britain outside London.

After years of campaigning, I am pretty familiar with issues such as the Wilson committee’s report of 1967, which stated that it was

“fundamentally wrong and inconsistent with the rule of law that power to take decisions affecting a man’s whole future should be vested in officers of the executive, from whose findings there is no appeal.”

Yet that is in effect what the Government are proposing to do in this Bill, 42 years after the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968.

In introducing the Bill, the Home Secretary told us stories about cases of repeat applications by criminals and abuses of the appeals system. I suppose this is why the Home Office loses cases so frequently! We are not talking about a load of radical Trotskyist judges; we are talking about judges who decide that the Home Office is wrong almost half the time. The Home Office is now saying that the judges will not make those decisions in future, and that it will resolve those matters through administrative appeals.

Let me tell the House about the administrative reviews that already exist in parts of the system. A judicial review in the upper tribunal involved a case in which an applicant had given the Home Office their credit card number, and—guess what—the Home Office had typed it out wrongly. The consequence was that the application was not treated as a proper application because it was not accompanied by the full fee. The case had to go as far as the upper tribunal before a judge decided that it was a proper application, and that the Home Office had written down the credit card number wrongly.

Such cases are not rare. I have a constituent whose husband wrote the cheque to accompany her application, but instead of putting £865, he put 865p, because he is a twit. The consequence is that her application is now out of time, and she has no appeal. Another case involved a response from an entry clearance officer who, having stated that the immigration rules require a spouse to have good spoken English and to have passed a speaking and listening test, said that the applicant had passed that test but failed the English writing test and was therefore refused entry. We have asked for reviews of all those cases, but—guess what—we have been told that there will be no review or that the review has upheld the original decision.

Those of us who deal regularly with the Home Office know that it is incapable of doing what it is supposed to do now. Yet through the Bill, it is grabbing a whole lot of work for itself from the appeals system. The result is that it will break. It might have got rid of the UK Border Agency, but the Home Office will break if it tries to do all those things.

We need to heed the words of the Wilson committee report. On decisions as serious as whether someone should be allowed to live with their husband, everyone should have the right to have that decision subjected to an independent review. That is why we need an appeals system. There are groups of people who currently have no right of appeal, but the Home Office admits that it cannot do anything about them. There is a large Zimbabwean community in my constituency, but the Home Office is not returning any of its members to Zimbabwe because of the situation there. They are hard-working people who are desperate to work, yet they are in limbo. In passing responsibility for immigration control from those previously responsible to other bodies such as landlords and the health service, the Home Office is putting those people at greater risk. They are already at horrible risk. I have spoken to constituents who turn to illegal activities or to prostitution in order to feed their children, because they are not allowed to work.

The Government say that it will be easy for landlords to check out the status of applicants, but any of us who deal with employers know that the current Home Office advice service for employers is gummed up: they can never get through on the phone and the process takes ages. Many of my constituents who are allowed to work here perfectly legally have been unable to prove it because of Home Office inefficiency, and therefore lose their jobs. A similar advice service is now going to be offered to landlords. It might be fine in an area where landlords have to try hard to find tenants, but that is not the way competition works in the south of England; it is all the other way. Large numbers of people will therefore be refused housing to which they should be entitled.

That is why the Residential Landlords Association—not noted for its lobbying of Parliament—has written to say that it is

“seriously concerned that the proposal depends on untrained landlords doing the work of UK Border Agency staff without support and with the threat of penalties if they get it wrong.”

A programme on television recently highlighted a number of landlords in London who were already operating a racially discriminatory rental policy. They do not need much encouragement to continue with that, or to do worse. That is the risk that the Bill will create.

On health, the Bill also suggests that there should be a prior payment. People should pay, if they are here temporarily, for health care—there is no problem with that—but the choice optioned in this Bill is the wrong choice. There is a reason why the consultation, the details of which I have been requesting for more than a month, has been published this morning. Let me quote the analysis we heard about in Health questions:

“The analysis is a top-down estimate based on data from the Census 2011, the International Passenger Survey 2012 and Immigration and other statistics from the Office of National Statistics…These are the best available data in the public domain”.

What that means is, “We licked our finger and put it up in the air. We are guessing.”

Many countries have a requirement that migrants should, for example, have an effective health insurance system. That would not be a bad thing to do and is a more popular response in the Home Office consultation than the proposed levy, yet the Home Office has rejected that idea and proposes to introduce a levy that will burden particular nationalities more than others.

The Bill shows the arrogance of the Home Office by refusing to have its decisions appealed. It shows that the Home Office, in an island nation where it is possible to have effective border controls, does not care about the racially divisive consequences of increased internal immigration control. It shows that the Home Office has ignored its lack of capacity for doing this and, shockingly, includes proposals that were not prefigured in the consultation and that will bear down on victims of human trafficking.

The consultation on health payment contained a specific commitment about victims of human trafficking. Until now, overseas domestic workers have not been charged for health care. There is a reason for that—they are vulnerable and exploited. Frankly, the National Crime Agency is not making a priority of tracking down that particular form of human trafficking. We know how hard it is for those people. There are shocking stories of people with chronic, often infectious diseases who are prevented from getting access to health care by their exploiting employers. Under these proposals, they will be more vulnerable than they were before.

I am very glad that the Home Office is planning to introduce a modern day slavery Bill, but I am truly shocked that through this Bill they will reduce even the pathetic rights that modern day slaves have today. We have to chuck it out. There are some good things in it, but as a whole piece of legislation, it is truly unacceptable and we should reject it.

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[Mark Reckless]

The hon. Lady says that such things were very common. I cannot comment on the 19th century, although she did mention cases that were more up to date. Whether during the depths of the worst of the de Valera regime in the ‘30s, or after what we have seen in the past five years with the move to switch away from a link to sterling and experiment on the Irish people through the imposition of the euro, which has destroyed so much of the Irish economy, I feel that this country—England, the United Kingdom—has stood ready to welcome people who have come from Ireland, often in large numbers. It has welcomed them and they have found work here that they were not able to find in Ireland.

Other Members have referred to their experiences, history, or what some of their constituents have said, but I do not believe that my mother experienced that prejudice or discrimination as an Irish citizen and passport holder. She has felt welcome in this country.

I was astonished by what the hon. Lady said. As if a large number of people who are prepared to work harder for less money coming here would have no impact on wages! Other things being equal, it will have a significant impact. The debate has changed in that the most recent large-scale immigration—from central and eastern Europe since 2004—has not been of black, Asian or foreign-looking people, as she described them, but of the white Caucasians. She is so insistent that the immigration debate must be about race but, in a way, that immigration has de-linked race from the debate. It is clear that the debate is not, or largely not, about race.

Whatever the overall costs and benefits of immigration, the fact is that the impacts are different. People who are well off often buy goods and services produced by people who have come to this country. The people who have come here have, at least initially, competed for some of the less-skilled jobs. If wages are lower than they otherwise would be in those categories, that allows better-off people to get a better or cheaper service—they understandably welcome the people providing it. However, it is less understandable and not right for better-off people who benefit from immigration to look down on those who do not have the same view of those coming here and think that it is because they have antediluvian or even racist attitudes.

The reality is that less well-off people are competing with those coming in and it affects their wages or how hard they have to work for their wages. Their situation is less good because they are subjected to a large amount of competition from significant numbers of people who have recently come into the country. Sometimes the competition will be between people with skills, but it is often at the lower-skilled end. They will compete with those who might otherwise have those lower-skilled jobs or receive better pay in those jobs. It is not surprising that people are unhappy with the scale of immigration. It is quite wrong for those who benefit from immigration to look down on those people and suggest that their attitudes are racist when what we are seeing is the economic effect.

One other important context of the Bill is this country’s system of eligibility for benefits, which is different from that in most other EU countries. The UK, Ireland, Estonia, Finland and, importantly, Germany, do not require a significant contributory period prior to eligibility for unemployment benefit. That leads to the possibility of people who do not have a long-term connection with this country benefiting without having paid in. I am not suggesting that that is the most significant part of the immigration pull into this country, but it causes concern among my constituents.

The more significant pull within the benefits system is the possibility of family benefits. The payment of child benefit to children who are resident overseas, be that in Poland or, in greater numbers, in Romania or Bulgaria, is wrong and should be stopped. I believe it could be stopped, even under current EU law, but I am not sure whether Ministers agree. Another pull is child tax credits. Our system of in-work benefits for people in some of the not-so-well-paid jobs is very generous compared with the system prevailing in, for example, Poland, particularly if they have children. That is a significant draw and my constituents are not terribly happy with it. They have paid into a system for a long time and see people who do not have that link with the system immediately taking significant benefits from it.

Those two problems are the basis and context of the debate. The recent large-flow immigration de-links race from the immigration debate, although some people would like to preserve the link. In addition, when more recent immigrants compete for jobs with people from a previous migration, the latter understandably object. We will either have to change our benefit system, or leave the European Union.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Some of the hon. Gentleman’s points make sense. There is a case for ensuring fair competition on wages and that benefits are not paid to children who have never seen the UK and never intend to, but none of those points will be addressed by the Bill. Why is he speaking about them?

[Mark Reckless]

One area within the broad range the hon. Lady describes is the charge for the use of NHS services. If someone comes to this country for a considerable period, say as an overseas student, it is right that they should make a contribution. She is right to say that in many of these areas we are not able to make the changes that I would like within our domestic legal system, because of the European Union. It is right, therefore, that my party has said that it will give the people an in/out referendum so that they can decide whether they want us to be an independent country or whether they want to continue to have these rules set by the European Union.

One impact of the scale of the immigration we have seen to this country is the linking of those issues in a way that people understand. If people want to control immigration and reduce the numbers coming from the European Union, we once again need to be an independent country. Over the next year as people from Romania and Bulgaria gain the ability to come here for employment, rather than self-employment—or purported self-employment—or other reasons, I hope that we do not see a huge influx of people from those two countries, which might get in the way of the very good progress that the Government have made towards our target of cutting immigration from the hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. Were that to happen and to reflect on the Government—perhaps unfairly, given that it was the previous Government who signed up to that treaty of accession—it would be unfortunate if in any way that were to prevent the referendum that we have promised coming to pass in 2017.

The Bill will bear down on several channels for immigration, and some of the issues it addresses are quite technical. The Home Office has looked at all the issues and made progress in many different areas to reduce the overall scale of immigration. Part 2, on restricting the right to appeal, strikes a good balance. I have referred to the NHS charge in part 3, but it also addresses the need to ensure that people have the right to be here before giving them a driving licence. That is clearly a good thing. In the United States, that is a massive political issue, and states have very different policies on it. In this country, it seems to have gone by default, but at last we have a Government who are waking up and ensuring that people get a driving licence only if they have a right to do so by virtue of their eligibility to live in this country.

I welcome the Bill’s approach on article 8. We have heard some excellent proposals recently from my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). I thought that they were very sound and it was a shame that they did not make it into the Crime and Courts Bill, and his approach may have further benefits over and above those in the Bill. Nevertheless, the provisions in the Bill are very sound. For example, and crucially, clause 14 would insert into the 2002 Act a new section 117B(4) that states:

“Little weight should be given to…a private life, or…a relationship formed with a qualifying partner, that is established by a person at a time when the person is in the United Kingdom unlawfully.”

That is overdue. It continues:

“Little weight should be given to a private life established by a person at a time when the person’s immigration status is precarious.”

The fact that that will be in primary legislation will at last give us a real opportunity to rein in the courts and their overly expansive interpretation of article 8. In this instance, it is not so much the European Court in Strasbourg, but our own domestic courts that have had an excessively loose approach to the definition of article 8.

I add one caution. The provisions on article 8, which are good, will act as a restraint—although I look forward to reading them in more detail—but there remains an issue with how section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 has been used. As a general principle of family law, it is right that the interests of the child be paramount—for instance, in a divorce case—but I am much less convinced that it is useful in considering the deportation, following a long prison sentence, of a foreign national, not least because it is not easy for immigration judges to come to a fair and proper assessment of the interests of that child. I suspect that very often the individual concerned will not be a good parental influence on the child, but even where it might have a small impact—if it might become more difficult for that child to see a parent—I am not convinced that it should always be the trump card, which is what section 55 has become. However bad the crime committed, so long as a foreign national can find a UK partner and have a UK nationality child, a reference to section 55 has come close to trumping all other considerations in the eyes of the courts. The article 8 stuff is good, but I am worried that section 55 will still be applied, even when the overall balance, including the public interest, would have individuals deported to their home country.

I congratulate the Home Secretary, the current and former Immigration Ministers and officials in the Home Office, because one thing about the Home Office is that it does respond to a lead. As we saw under the noble Lord Howard, when Ministers have a clear set of objectives and direction of travel, more often than not officials respond, and in many areas the Home Office has done good work that has not been properly sung. For instance, appeals are going a different way because of operating criminal nexus and because judges can now consider information from police short of a conviction. That has largely been upheld as proper and judges have allowed it, and some seriously bad people have left the country who would otherwise have stayed because of the excellent work by Ministers.

I think also of the work on the electoral roll. Previously, Commonwealth citizens would apply to be on the roll even though they had no immigration leave to be here, but now Ministers are insisting on immigration leave and the guidance to electoral registration officers has changed. Rather than people being able to refer to their being on the electoral roll as evidence of their legitimacy, we now have the proper checks and linkages. Those are just two examples, but an awful lot of unsung work goes on in the Home Office. I welcome that, as well as the Bill, which will assist us, at least, in bearing down on immigration, and I give credit to Ministers for their work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Henry Smith]

They are from an independent assessment commissioned by the Department of Health. As I mentioned, I have tried to get information through FOI requests, and the figures from those trusts that hold statistics are quite staggering, but more than three quarters were unable to provide any figures at all, which suggests that the scale of the problem is probably larger than the Department recognises.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Henry Smith]

I need to make progress and other right hon. and hon. Members are yet to speak, so I will not give way.

It is estimated that if we could recover just three quarters of the money spent treating foreign nationals on the NHS, through insurance or reciprocal arrangements such as the European insurance health card scheme, that would be the equivalent of being able to employ an additional 4,000 doctors or 8,500 nurses, so the scale of the issue is quite acute. This is a point of fairness, both to the British taxpayer and to the patients using the health service, whether residents of this country or people visiting it, and it is one that I think this House has taken too long to address properly. That is why I very much support the provisions of the Bill and look forward to its swift passage through the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I am sure the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) did not mean that and will withdraw the comment.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I apologise to you and the House.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

But you do withdraw it?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Of course I do, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Stephen Phillips]

The hon. Lady has a reputation for robust debate. I did not hear what she said, but I am grateful—[Interruption.] I will not ask her to repeat it. Indeed, it is quite unusual in this House not to hear what she has to say from a sedentary position. Be that as it may, when the Government took office in 2010, immigration was an issue that we all knew—having fought the general election—needed to be tackled. The Government have in part attempted to tackle it through secondary legislation, but not always effectively, as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) pointed out. It was therefore clear to many Members—certainly Conservative Members—that primary legislation was needed, and it is to be greatly welcomed that the Government have brought forward this Bill to attempt to deal with many of the problems that the broken immigration system we inherited suffers from.

What are the problems and how can they be described? There are two principal problems. The first is the complexity of the regime and the lucrative industry that has grown up among immigration practitioners, which makes a mockery of both common sense and the law. Most importantly, that has resulted in constituents of Members from across the House paying large fees to achieve precisely nothing in terms of immigration advice. The second problem is that in the minds of many people overseas, this country has become a soft touch and an easy immigration route into the European Union. Even worse, it has become that in the minds of its own citizens —the very people who sent us here to represent their interests. Those of us who have pushed the Government in this area know that those issues must be tackled, which is what the Home Secretary and her team intend to do with this excellent Bill.

I will turn briefly to the Bill, but before that—if I may in the time available, Mr Deputy Speaker—I will make a few other comments. As I have said, tough action was necessary and I am pleased that we are seeing that in the Bill. Of course we want to welcome the brightest and best people to this country—we should always recognise that—and we want all that they offer to our economy and society. We want to recognise the contribution of many of those who have come here in the past and who run our NHS, as the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington observed, and other public services, and who have given so much to this country. It is interesting, however—we did not hear this point from the hon. Lady or any Opposition Member—that it is those who have come to this country during the past 30 years who most resent the open-door immigration policy pursued by the previous Government. That policy saw a number of people come into this country that was equivalent to the population of a major city such as Birmingham.

What does the Bill do and what must we welcome? The Opposition seem to welcome it since, as I understand it, they are not going to divide the House on Second Reading. First, we all know that the appeal system is not only abused but is broken and not fit for purpose. Unmeritorious appeals are used to delay, obfuscate and prevent that which common sense decrees, where people are here unlawfully. All the provisions in the Bill are therefore to be welcomed.

Why on earth—before the Home Secretary rose to explain I suspect few of us knew this—do we currently have a system in which decisions on immigration status and removal are made separately? Are we really so stupid that we think those who come here illegally will always voluntarily leave without a removal decision? If we have been so foolish in the past, thank goodness we are no longer.

Why did the previous Government countenance a system that permitted bail to be applied for again and again by those to be deported, so that they could abscond? Why are abusive bail applications made day in, day out, which tie up immigration judges, and as a result lead to long periods during which those who have legitimate rights of appeal are denied a hearing in court? What on earth—I will not echo all the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton—were the courts doing in the past in interpreting article 8 of the European convention on human rights in a way that made a mockery of common sense and immigration policy, as enshrined in law and passed by this House? This is a good Bill. It is necessary, as those on the Opposition Front Benches recognise, and has certainly not been brought forward in haste. If the House divides I will vote to give the Bill a Second Reading. I hope that all right hon. and hon. Members, wherever in the House they sit, will do the same.

Spousal Visas

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

Indeed. I thank my hon. Friend for that. As her constituency is in central London, the rules probably hit even harder than they do in mine. I know she will be working hard on behalf of her constituent. The point that she makes about the US is relevant. The figures from the Home Office show that the largest decline in family visas has been among applicants from the United States. In the year to March 2013 such visas were down by just under 1,000. In evidence to the all-party parliamentary group, the Migration Observatory points out that 47% of the UK working population last year would not meet the income criterion. In my constituency that figure would be an awful lot higher.

Denying some of those people access to join their family is having a detrimental effect on the UK economy. When they come here their passports are stamped with the words “No recourse to public funds”, but they are often people who, if they were here working, as in the case of my constituent, whose wife has a job offer, would be paying tax and contributing to the UK economy. I make no bones about wanting, as my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) said, a tougher immigration system. The English language testing is problematic for some, but I understand the importance of that in ensuring that people can come here and contribute. My constituent’s wife has a job offer, has a qualification in English, has studied with an Australian college and would be of benefit to our local community. It concerns me that we are affecting in particular immigration from countries that have a lot more in common with us than much of the EU immigration with which it is contrasted.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

One of the things that has distressed me about the many cases that I face in Slough is having to say to one or two of my constituents who are dual nationals from another EU country that it would be in their interests not to use their British citizenship, but to go and work in the country of another EU citizenship—say, Irish—and then bring their spouse here. As an EU citizen this rule would not divide their family. Any EU citizen who is using the free movement of workers privileges can be joined by their spouse.

[Andrew Percy]

I thank the hon. Lady for making it unnecessary for me to read out a paragraph of my speech. I am grateful for that as time is pressing. She made a point that I intended to make myself.

As I said before the intervention, it concerns me that the policy is having an impact on immigration from countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and many other Commonwealth countries, from which immigration to the UK would probably cause the least impact. The people most likely to be able to integrate well here, who bring English language skills and similar levels of education, are excluded. It is timely that a Minister from the Canadian Cabinet is watching the debate. Her country’s citizens would be greatly affected by the rules.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for the opportunity to discuss this issue. He said very clearly at the beginning of his remarks that he very much supports the Government’s general position on the immigration system and the desire to restore some sanity to it after the uncontrolled immigration system that we saw under the Labour party, and I wholeheartedly agree with him.

As my hon. Friend correctly said in his opening remarks, the family rules have three aims. The first, which I know he strongly supports, is to deal with abuse, which is why we have extended from two years to five years the probationary period before partners can apply for settlement, to test the genuineness of the relationship concerned, which should help to deter applications based on sham marriages. Secondly, we are promoting the integration of family migrants by requiring those applying for settlement from 28 October this year to pass the new “Life in the UK” test and demonstrate that they can speak and understand English to the intermediate B1 level. That means that those intending to live permanently in the UK can communicate in the wider community and have a basic understanding of British history, culture and democracy. My hon. Friend said that he supported that as well.

The third issue, about which my hon. Friend has concerns, is the aspect of the rules seeking to prevent burdens on the taxpayer by introducing the minimum income threshold of £18,600 a year to be met by those wishing to sponsor the settlement of a partner. He said that that was an arbitrary number. It was the Migration Advisory Committee, the independent body that advises the Government, that proposed a range of numbers based on its analysis of the problem; we adopted a figure from the lower end.

In talking about regional pay, my hon. Friend touched on the interaction between the welfare and immigration systems. As I said in the Westminster Hall debate, it is interesting that Members who, in the context of this debate, say that £18,600 is a high number, often suggest—I am not suggesting my hon. Friend does—suggest in the context of a welfare debate that it is not high. We selected that number because it is broadly the amount more than which a couple must earn if they are not to be eligible for income-related benefits.

My hon. Friend is right that in the period when the migrant spouse is in the UK before they get indefinite leave to remain, they are not entitled to benefits, but they will be once they are settled and their spouse may be entitled to income-related benefits because of their being here—housing benefit, for example. As he said, we do not have a regional benefit system and that is one of the complexities of the case.

In practice, the previous requirement for adequate maintenance meant that any sponsor earning, after tax and housing costs, more than the equivalent of income support for a couple—about £5,700—was deemed to have sufficient funds to sponsor a partner. That was not an adequate basis for sustainable family migration and did not provide adequate assurance—

[Fiona Mactaggart]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

If the hon. Lady does not mind, I will try to address my hon. Friend, whose Adjournment debate this is. I want to deal with his issues.

The requirement provided little assurance of a sustainable basis over the long term. That is why we came up with the new financial requirement, based principally on the expert advice from the Migration Advisory Committee. It is the level of income at which a couple, once settled in the UK and taking into account children, generally cannot access income-related benefits. My hon. Friend said that his constituent had no intention of claiming benefits, but of course there is no way for us legally to enforce their not claiming benefits once they are in the United Kingdom.

We think that we have set out the right basis. The Migration Advisory Committee looked at whether there was a case for varying the income threshold across the United Kingdom, which is the substance of my hon. Friend’s point—I know that he did not want to make that point, but I will take it as a suggestion floating around that I can comment on. The Migration Advisory Committee looked at that approach but concluded that there was not a clear case for taking it. It would mean that sponsors, for example, could make an application when living in one area and then move around the United Kingdom. It would also penalise a sponsor living in a relatively wealthy part of a poor region; they would have a lower income threshold than a sponsor living in a deprived area of a relatively wealthy region. A single national threshold may not be more acceptable, but it makes things clearer for people than a much more complicated system of regional targets.

As my hon. Friend mentioned, I said in the previous debate that we would continue to monitor the impact of the new rules and make adjustments when appropriate. People who have raised issues with me—I see Members here who came to see me—will have noticed that in the immigration rule changes that I laid before the House on Friday last week, we set out changes in the flexibility of evidence, allowing details of electronic bank statements to be submitted. There will also be flexibility around the cash savings that people can have, to include net proceeds from the sale of a property owned by the applicant and a partner. That has been an issue in some specific cases.

We are also making provision for British sponsors returning from overseas to count future on-target earnings in some circumstances and to allow subcontractors under the HMRC construction industry scheme to evidence their income from that work as if it were from salaried employment. We have made changes.

On the change that my hon. Friend mentioned about taking account of the job offer of the migrant spouse, I have asked officials to look at that. The real challenge is how we could come up with a set of rules that were not liable to massive abuse. He highlighted that risk when he said that we would obviously have to deal with people being able to have fictitious job applications and people abusing those rules. I have asked for work to be done on that, and I will consider it. I know from the work that was done when the rules were introduced that it is not an easy issue to deal with, but we are looking at it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend mentions a case that she has raised extensively with me, including in writing, and I have set out a solution for her constituent. On self-employment, a couple of the changes we have made with regard to evidencing income will be helpful. We will continue to look at the detailed issues that are raised with us and we will, of course, deal with those that make sense and that we do not think are amenable to abuse. The rules have only been in place for a little over a year and we will continue to change them to make them more sensible where we think there are unintended consequences.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I thank the Minister and am grateful for the changes he has made already; I think they are moving in the right direction. He has said that couples require a minimum income of £18,600 before they get benefits, but the problem with that is that the burden is placed on the British resident and citizen, not the couple. Will the Minister do more take into account the capacity of the migrant spouse to earn while they are here?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Lady raises a perfectly good point, which was also raised in the Westminster Hall debate. The difficulty is dealing with the matter in a way that is not easy to abuse and to use as a way of driving a coach and horses through the system. We continue to look at the matter, but I know from the abuse we have seen in other areas of the immigration system that if we simply require, for example, a job offer without any detailed back-up, I am afraid there are plenty of people around who have—

Immigration (Detention of Pregnant Women)

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce this debate and to call for the ending of the detention of pregnant women for immigration purposes. In making my case, I want to challenge my hon. Friend the Minister on the numbers; on the efficacy of current Government policy; and on the ethics of the Government’s policies on the detention of pregnant women for immigration purposes. However, in those challenges, I want to encourage him in making the change; it is an achievable change in the context of the Government’s policies to reduce immigration. Such a change will say more about the morality of the Government and the country and our handling of our immigration policies than any other change within his control as Minister for Immigration.

I am motivated in introducing the debate because I believe profoundly that there is no incompatibility between effective control and limited numbers, and the standards of our behaviour and how we treat people caught in the historical mess of the UK immigration system. I am motivated because of the excellence of the Medical Justice report, “Expecting Change”, which, for the first time, pulls together information that can provide a clear picture of the reality of the situation for pregnant women in detention in the UK.

I am also motivated by news that has come to me today from Yarl’s Wood Befrienders—Yarl’s Wood is a detention centre for women just outside Bedford—that directly contradicts the Government’s stated policy on the detention of pregnant women. Today, a lady who was 28 weeks’ pregnant was released from Yarl’s Wood after six weeks’ detention. That detention was in complete contradiction of the current UK Border Agency policy on the detention of pregnant women. I will point out the reasons for that discrepancy.

This debate is core because of the consequences of the disastrous open-door immigration policies pursued under the previous Labour Government, and the efforts of this coalition Government to deal with them. This debate is often held in the context of people talking about statistics and numbers, or the effectiveness of current Government policies to deal with that open-door policy. It is right that we have a debate about the number of people allowed into this country, the growth of our population and whether public services can manage. That is exactly right; we should be doing that. Equally, it is right that we talk about the efficiency and effectiveness of our border controls, so that we can hear the Minister—as he did yesterday so admirably—explain how we are managing to improve the situation and get our borders under control.

We must also ensure, however, that we do not lose sight of the individual people caught up in this bureaucratic mess, and its impact on them and their children. The Government recognised that when they ended the policy of detaining children for immigration purposes. That was the right thing to do: it was right from the point of view of effectiveness and right from the point of view of morality. It is important that we recognise morality in our immigration policies. Imprisoning children was not only ineffective; it was morally wrong. It should not be seen as just an inconvenience of bureaucratic policy.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He makes a compelling case that, in practice, when it comes to pregnant women, the policy of not detaining is not enforced. Is he aware that the same is true of children, who are also being detained at present, despite Government policy to the contrary?

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. I am sure she would want to welcome the changes the Government have made after the previous Government’s policies on detaining children. There are always things that need to be done to improve policies. The issue here is this: how are our bureaucratic systems harming children, whether they have been born or are being carried by pregnant women?

The report produced by Medical Justice provides the most effective understanding of the current situation for pregnant women, and is why 334 organisations and charities support its recommendation to end the detention of pregnant women. I would also like to point out to the Minister that that position is supported by the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists—the experts in this field. They have set a challenge for the Minister. Ahead of his response, I want to explain that challenge.

Let me start with some statistics. Every year, about 27,000 people are detained for immigration purposes, of whom 4,000 are women. Of those, approximately 100 are pregnant women. One hundred women—that is what this debate is all about. In the grand picture of immigration control, that number barely registers, but in an assessment of what type of people we are, and how we manage and care for those 100 women and the children they are carrying, it matters a great deal.

The reason for detaining pregnant women is to achieve their removal. Home Office policy states that:

“Pregnant women should not normally be detained. The exceptions to this general rule are where removal is imminent and medical advice does not suggest confinement before the due removal date.”

However, the stated policy is not, in my view, and according to the evidence that I have been given, being implemented in practice. In practice, pregnant women are not being detained in exceptional circumstances only. This concern has been raised by Medical Justice and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons, and the pregnant women are not detained for periods of time that would match any description of what an imminent removal would be.

It concerned me that the UK Border Agency was not collecting information on the detention of pregnant women, so questions could not be answered about whether policy was being followed. With no information, how are we to understand whether this important policy relating to vulnerable people is being pursued correctly? I asked Medical Justice to review the 20 cases in its report. It found that the average detention period was 11 weeks, and that in four of the 20 cases the women were detained for 20 weeks or more. By no stretch can that be described as pursuing the stated policy of the UK Border Agency.

A trimester ago, I asked the Minister to ask the UK Border Agency to check its facts. I appreciate his response, but I would like to ask him again today, because collecting information is so important. Does he know how many pregnant women are currently in detention? Can he advise the House what the detention period has been for each of those women and for all other pregnant women detained in the past 12 months? Is he satisfied that the procedures for identifying pregnant women and applying the UK Border Agency’s policies are being implemented fairly? Only 5% of pregnant women who are detained are deported, with 95% released back into the community. I would be interested to hear whether the Minister could confirm those numbers. If he can, what is his assessment of their implications for the efficacy of the UK Border Agency’s policy? Spending more than £700 a week to keep a pregnant woman in detention when we are going to release her, compared with spending £150 a week to keep that lady in the community with people who can support her, is the complete opposite of an efficient and effective policy.

There is another issue: our ethics. In my view, a pregnant woman who is in detention is vulnerable almost by definition. The circumstances that led her to that position will already be associated with heightened vulnerability. She might have been seeking asylum or she might have been trafficked. She might have been left on the streets and made vulnerable in terms of accessing housing, which might then have made her vulnerable to the actions and motivations of people who wanted to provide her with housing. Then, while she is pregnant, she is put in prison—we can use the language of “detention centres” all we like, but it is a prison. That tells us something about how we are treating people.

It seems utterly wrong to ignore the moral and ethical arguments. I am concerned about the response of the UK Border Agency when ethical issues are presented. Let me present two ethical differences and concerns of mine. The first concerns the use of force to remove a pregnant woman, which has now been resolved. In 2012, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons said:

“Force should never be used to effect the removal of pregnant women or…children.”

However, only in February 2013, and only after a High Court case, did the Government yield on that point. I do not understand the ethics of that. That leads to another question. If we have accepted that force cannot be used in the removal—as we have heard, only five out of 100 women are removed—why detain pregnant women at all?

The second ethical question relates to the medical guidelines for pregnant women who are deported to countries with a high risk of malaria. That issue was given particular focus in Medical Justice’s report. The NHS guidelines for British citizens are quite clear: “If you’re pregnant, do not travel to a country with a high risk of malaria.” However, the UK Border Agency guidelines say: “It’s okay to go, but take your tablets”—have pill, will travel. Why the double standard? It is important that the Minister is clear. Do we want to treat the health of those who have come here in that way—I understand that they are here illegally—differently when we deport them to other countries, or do we think that the United Kingdom Government should take the same approach in their treatment of all pregnant women? If he accepts that point, which I hope he does, he must accept it as another strike against the ethics and morality of detaining pregnant women for immigration purposes.

I am no expert on pregnancy and the issues that may arise. The Minister may have more understanding than me—you yourself may have more, Mr Speaker—but I am sure we would all yield to the experts on this issue. Let me quote the director for midwifery at the Royal College of Midwives:

“The very process of being detained interrupts a woman’s fundamental human right to access maternity care. The detention system makes it very difficult for midwives to put women at the centre of their care. We believe that the treatment of pregnant asylum seekers in detention is governed by outmoded and outdated practices that shame us all.”

The previous Government lost control of our immigration system. That has led to major concerns around the country about immigration levels, and this Government are rightly focusing on reducing them and ensuring that we control our borders. However, I urge the Minister to recognise that it is morally wrong for a bureaucracy to act wilfully to harm a child’s prospects when there are superior alternatives available that would reduce or eliminate any such harm. Those alternatives exist.

I urge my hon. Friend to listen to the experts who understand the care of pregnant women, to understand the facts—which we have and he does not—as they are presented, to consider that the ethics involved here are the same as those that motivated this Government to end the detention of children, and to end now the detention of pregnant women for immigration purposes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I do not agree with my hon. Friend, for this reason. The use of statistics was mentioned, but we do not collect statistics on this matter because women are not, of course, obliged to tell the Home Office whether they are pregnant. They may tell us, and if they do, the information will be held on their individual case file and they will be provided with appropriate health care, broadly comparable to what is available from an NHS general practitioner. The women are under no obligation to tell us, and I do not think forcing them to disclose the information would be right. That is an issue about the statistics.

Making decisions about the imminence of removal is clearly based on our best intelligence, but as we know, the people who have no right to be in the United Kingdom and who should leave the country voluntarily often throw all sorts of legal obstacles in the way. We may detain a woman when removal is imminent and she may attempt to secure a last-minute legal challenge to throw a roadblock in the way of her removal, and we have no way of anticipating that before she does so. That provides my hon. Friend with an example.

If we were to do what my hon. Friend suggested and have a blanket policy of not detaining women, first, having read many cases, I fear we would find quite a lot of people saying they were pregnant as another method of delaying their departure from the UK. I have seen people throw many obstacles in the way when they have no right to be here, and I do not want this to be one of them. We are committed to treating pregnant women properly, providing proper health care and treating them well. I do not want this to be an excuse that women who are not pregnant dream up in order to throw a legal obstacle in the way. I fear that that would be the result of adopting the blanket policy suggested by my hon. Friend.

A logical follow-on policy from what my hon. Friend suggests would mean not removing the women from the UK when they were pregnant and allowing them to give birth to their child, but then seeking to remove both the woman and the very young child from the UK to their home country or country of origin—and I am not sure that that would be an improvement. If I anticipate correctly, if we did that, we would then be criticised for trying to remove the mother with her very young child back to their country of origin. As I say, I am not sure that that would be an improvement on the present situation, because the fact remains that these women have no right to be in the UK: they should not be here and they should leave voluntarily. [Interruption.] I cannot quite tell whether the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) is dying to intervene.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I was squeaking—the Minister is right—because I cannot believe that someone is going to get pregnant in order not to be detained. Secondly, it is quite easy to find out whether someone is pregnant, so that bit of the Minister’s excuse proves his hon. Friend’s very powerful argument that this is a moral case. I fear that I hear in the Minister’s response a kind of Home Office “jobsworthness”, which I think he should be above and is usually above.

[Mr Harper]

I am not going to let the hon. Lady put words into my mouth. I did not say—I chose my words very carefully—that women would get pregnant; I said women would say they were pregnant in order to throw a legal challenge. I know it is perfectly easy to test whether women are pregnant, but we do not have the right to do that. The Home Office does not have the right to insist that a women disclose that she is pregnant. We do not have the right forcibly to test people to see whether they are pregnant. If I were to propose that, I doubt whether the hon. Lady would support it. To be clear, I did not say that people would get pregnant; I said that they would say they were to throw a legal obstacle in the way of their removal from the country. I have seen enough cases—and I know the hon. Lady has—to know that there are people who would stoop to doing that to delay their removal from the UK.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

However, the Home Office could easily say, “We will release you if you provide evidence of pregnancy.”

[Mr Harper]

That may be the case, but our objective is not to let the people out of detention, but to remove them from the UK. That it is the point, and it is one I think my hon. Friend is missing, too. The fact is that these women have no right to be in the UK and should leave. I am not sure that a policy that allowed them stay in order to give birth to their child, when we would immediately want to remove both the woman and the child from the UK, would be a better policy than the one we have today.

Border Force

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend has made a sensible point about intelligence. Obviously, as I said in my response, we use it to guide the efforts that we put into freight checking. My hon. Friend has also made the sensible point that there are peaks and troughs in the number of passengers crossing the border. As well as our permanent work force, we have staff on whom we can call at those peak times to ensure that we continue to deliver a secure border, but we are also mindful, of the need to deliver value for money, which the National Audit Office mentions in its report. Of course, all Departments have to deal with the appalling financial legacy that we were left by the Labour party.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Minister has laid much stress on the quality of border checks. As he will know, at the end of the last Session I was privileged to be elected chair of the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking, and in that role I have been meeting groups who work with trafficked people. Kalayaan tells me that it has yet to meet a holder of an overseas domestic worker visa who, under the new visa system, has actually carried his or her own passport through the passport check. The passport is always held by the visa holder’s employer. What will the Minister do about that?

[Mr Harper]

The operating mandate specifies that everyone who crosses the border must have his or her passport checked and must have the necessary documents. On the basis of what I know, I do not think that what the hon. Lady says is correct, but I will make inquiries and then write to her. I think that that is a reasonable way to approach the matter. In the meantime, given her position as chair of the all-party group, I shall be happy to maintain a sensible dialogue with her on human-trafficking issues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

It is, of course, the case that people in the United Kingdom without leave are breaking our laws, but our primary objective for those here without leave is to remove them from the country. It would be self-defeating to prosecute all of them and lock them up in prison, as we would thus be keeping them here for longer and making sure the taxpayer paid a higher cost.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

12. What steps she is taking to make Britain more hostile to traffickers engaged in modern day slavery; and if she will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Government have a strong record in tackling modern slavery. We work closely with partners in priority source countries to stop people from being exploited, and to disrupt the organised criminals engaged in these appalling crimes. Our effective legislation and strong enforcement, in-country and at the border, will be further strengthened through the establishment of the National Crime Agency later this year.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The Government’s human trafficking strategy, published in 2011, pointed out that offenders

“perceive trafficking as a ‘low risk’ crime because of the relatively low risk of being caught”.

Since then, the risk of being caught, successfully prosecuted and convicted has reduced. What is the Home Secretary doing about it?

[Mrs May]

Of course, we disrupt groups involved in human trafficking not only by prosecuting people specifically in relation to human trafficking— sometimes, we use other prosecutions to do that. I recognise the concern in the House about human trafficking, and the excellent work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) in the all-party group on human trafficking has ensured that we keep the issue at the forefront of our consideration. We do make every effort to ensure that we can prosecute people, be it specifically in relation to human trafficking or in other ways that can disrupt groups involved in human trafficking.

Family Migration Rules

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Sharma]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I quite agree with him; he has made a very powerful point. Yes, these rules are keeping families apart, not helping them to unite and support each other, even where uniting them could help them to progress in their family life. Hopefully, the Minister will make a note of that point.

The prior earnings and prospective income in the UK of the non-EEA partner are not taken into consideration at any time, regardless of whether he or she is the main earner in the family. The cash savings source requires sponsors and applicants to take up to £62,500 out of investments in stock and shares, and to place it in a bank account, which is difficult for people whose assets cannot be liquidated. Again, does that not exclude a substantial number of hard-working families from being united in this country, because the income requirement is not a proper reflection of the resources that will be available to those families once they are together in the UK? The great number of colleagues who are present in Westminster Hall shows the interest in this issue, both inside and outside Parliament.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is coming close to the end of his remarks, and there is a particular issue—one that I know he is aware of—that should be highlighted. It is the very significant number of circumstances in which a couple who are living overseas might want to come back to the UK to support and care for a vulnerable family member, thus reducing the cost to the general taxpayer of the care needs of that vulnerable family member, and yet they are not able to get through the hoops that the rules require them to get through. Frankly, that is an example of the state cutting off its nose to spite its face.

[Mr Sharma]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I accept the point that she makes. There are many other areas of concern, which I am sure Members will highlight. I am just making a few points, so that other Members have the opportunity to speak. I know for certain of the interest that was expressed during the inquiry by the all-party group. Members who took part in that inquiry have already raised those points, and I am sure, having listened to what the Minister for Immigration said last week, that he has taken note of them and will reflect on them—hopefully favourably—in his response to the inquiry’s report.

These families are being kept apart; children are kept from living with both parents, and elderly relatives cannot be cared for by their families.