Immigration Bill

Gerald Howarth Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I will come on to the issue of registration, which has been highlighted by a number of people, in a moment. To be clear, we are not seeking to impose an over-burdensome or legalistic requirement on children to prove that they have been formally registered, but we will need to see some evidence that they were present in Europe before 20 March. This will avoid creating a new and perverse incentive for families to entrust their children to people traffickers. Our focus will be on reunifying children with families in the UK, but we will also consider cases of children at risk of exploitation or abuse.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I understand that the Government are in a difficult position, although I supported the Prime Minister’s original stance on the matter. Are these children not already in safe countries? Are the Minister and the amendment’s supporters suggesting that France, Germany and Greece are not safe?

[James Brokenshire]

We certainly recognise the pressures that Greece and Italy, for example, have been under, and I will come on to talk about that more specifically. Equally, on children who are looking to be reunited with family here, the measure will provide a further mechanism to support the best interests of the child, which is what the Government have said. Reconnecting children with family here in the UK underpins that important message.

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[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention. The fact remains that only last week the Government voted against the Lord Alf Dubs amendment, as it was then put in the other place, which was a change from the position the last time we saw it in this House. I welcome this change of position, which is a step in the right direction, but I wish to pay tribute to those who have got us this far. I pay particular tribute to Lord Alf Dubs and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who has raised this matter on so many occasions, both in this House and elsewhere. I also thank Save the Children and the other charities and non-governmental organisations that have given their support. I pay tribute to those on the Conservative Benches who have urged the Government to reconsider their position. They have done so over several weeks and months and played an important part in getting us to where we are today.

It is important that actions match words. Citizens UK has identified 157 children in Calais with family connections here. Obviously, there are many children in equally appalling conditions in Greece and Italy. Although the Minister does not want to put numbers and a timetable to the proposed change to the resettlement scheme, the challenge for the Government is surely to take all those in Calais with valid legal claims for reunification notwithstanding the fact that they are in France—

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Reunification in France?

[Keir Starmer]

Reunification with their family here under the Dublin arrangements. The Minister has made it clear on a number of occasions that he is seeking to improve the reunification rules under the Dublin arrangements. Some 157 children have been identified as falling into that category. This is the time for action, not words. We also challenge the Government to take 300 children most at risk in Greece and Italy before the start of the next school term. There is an urgency to this situation. The debate two weeks ago was dominated by a real and genuine concern about the missing children—those who are at risk of exploitation, trafficking and various other aspects of mischief. That is the challenge. I ask the Minister to say a little more to the House about the numbers and the timetable.

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[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention. On vulnerable individuals as described, I agree. I state again that our position, particularly in relation to pregnant women, is that they should not be in immigration detention at all. However, this is a move in the right direction by the Government, and the limit proposed is better than no limit at all.

Unfortunately, the amendment in lieu undoes a lot of the good work, because it seeks to remove the overriding principle that there should be detention only in the most exceptional circumstances, and seems to remove the provision relating to medical facilities. For those reasons, we will not support the amendment in lieu, but will support the Lords amendment.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I quite understand the difficulty that the Government face. As I am sure that my hon. Friends will agree, the British Government have done more than any other Government apart from that of the United States of America to help those fleeing the torment in Syria and other parts of the middle east. I warmly welcome that part of the Department for International Development budget; that is a good use of its budget, though I may disagree with other parts of it. I accept that the Government face some opposition to their policy from Conservative Members, but the Government’s original policy was absolutely right. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), representing the new champions of the premier league—he is not wearing his scarf today; clearly he has deserted his—[Interruption.] Ah! The scarf is under there! He said that he hoped that the amendment would not exacerbate the pull factor, but I am afraid that all reasonable opinion in this country will conclude that it will do precisely that. If we agree to this amendment, we are sending out the message that Britain is a soft touch. Also, it is a cruel policy, as I have said to the Aldershot News & Mail—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) is being facetious about the Aldershot News & Mail; it is a very important organ of communication.

The policy is cruel because it will encourage desperate, tragic parents to send their children across the inhospitable seas of the Mediterranean in search of a better life. Who can blame them for wanting to do that? However, they are parents and their responsibility is to their children. It is not our first responsibility; it is that of the parents, and they will be encouraged by this measure to send their children across that dangerous sea and put them at risk in the hope that they will be able to get not just to other safe countries—France, Greece or Italy—but to the United Kingdom.

If this House is saying, in the middle of a debate on whether Britain should remain a member of the EU, that—[Interruption.] Members on the Opposition Benches should not sneer. If this House is saying that Italy, France and Greece are not safe countries, why on earth are we members of that organisation?

[Anne McLaughlin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

If the Scottish National party would like to intervene, of course I accept that intervention, but if the SNP feels so strongly about this, it should not ask the British Government for money. Put up your own money to cover the costs.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Does the hon. Gentleman understand that in Calais tonight there are children sleeping in containers that sleep 12 people? They are sleeping alongside adults, strangers to them, and there is nobody supervising. Does he think that is safe?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The whole point is that they are in safe countries. The criticism should be levelled not at the British Government, but at other Governments. If the Scottish nationalists wish to take the children in and they have the capacity in Scotland, they should pay for it themselves and not ask the Minister to go to the British Treasury to fund it. Put your money where your mouth is.

I fear that the Lords amendment will send out a very dangerous message. It is also an insulting message to our continental partners, whom we all know, because we see it night after night on our television screens, are wrestling with the consequences of this tragic migration flow into Europe. The Lords amendment sends out a damning message to them that they cannot cope and that their conditions are inadequate to look after vulnerable people.

That is my first point. My second point is this: my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) rightly asked the sanctimonious hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who is parading his compassion—[Interruption.] We have free speech in this country. My hon. Friend made the point that there is a shortage of 10,000 foster carers in our country to look after our own children in need of foster care.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

No, I will not. The hon. Gentleman does not spend enough time in this Chamber for me to give way to him.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham is right that there is already a demand to look after our own children. As I have told the Prime Minister, in my constituency we do not have the capacity to take any more people and I will not give priority to those from overseas, however tragic, when my own constituents are suffering homelessness and vulnerable children cannot be catered for.

I quite understand the difficult position that my right hon. Friend the Minister has been put in, I suspect by some of my hon. Friends who have felt it necessary to parade their compassion. I do not believe the amendment to be a compassionate move. It sends out a very dangerous signal, encouraging parents to dispose of their children and put them at risk on the high seas, which is deeply dangerous.

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

Along with many others, we in the SNP have been arguing for months that the UK should take a fair share of refugees and asylum seekers from Europe in the face of the ongoing humanitarian crisis. We are therefore glad that the Government have now apparently accepted that principle, albeit up to a point. They have finally listened to the arguments from the different parties and from a host of campaign groups and charities, and we cautiously welcome that change of heart.

Indeed, last week, in Westminster Hall, the Minister himself made a persuasive case for a fairer distribution of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. That was in the context of a debate on children already in the UK and was a call for solidarity with the citizens of Kent, where many unaccompanied children have arrived. We on these Benches support that call for responsibility to be shared across the UK, but we want the same logic applied on a European level.

Like others across the House, we will monitor progress carefully to ensure that the new policy is implemented in the spirit of the amendment from Lord Dubs. For example, it is vital, as others have said, that the cut-off date does not rule out protection for the many children who have been in Europe since before that date but who have never been registered, and I welcome the reassurances the Minister has given this evening. Equally, as others have said, the support offered to local authorities must be sufficient to allow them to feel able to become involved in the new programme, so that the numbers taken on represent a genuine attempt to play our part. We will also look for the Scottish Government to be closely involved in overseeing the necessary processes in Scotland and for the Scottish Guardianship Service to have the support it needs to play its part.

However, as the Opposition spokesperson said—this is probably most important of all—it is essential that action is fast. As all hon. Members who have visited camps across Europe will know, the conditions these children are living in are horrendous. We need the Immigration Minister back in the House to update us within weeks, rather than months.

If implemented properly and generously, the Government’s decision will be looked back on warmly and, indeed, even as a matter of pride—people will only wonder, “Why the delay?” However, there is a long way to go before we reach that point.

On the remaining, unresolved issues, the Government have come up short again. On amendment 84, their lordships are absolutely right to insist on a general rule that immigration detention should not last longer than 28 days. This is a modest amendment; as I said when the Bill was last here, it moves us towards a time limit, rather than creating an absolute limit, because of various exceptions. However, their lordships’ reasoning for insisting on the amendment is absolutely right, because the Government’s alternative is even further from being a proper time limit on immigration detention—it simply adds an automatic bail hearing after four months.

Every now and then, we have hints from the Government that they are waking up to the fact that policy and practice on immigration detention in the UK is draconian, unnecessary and expensive. There are occasional suggestions of a change in approach, but proposed reform is simply far too slow. Far from representing a brave new policy dawn, what the Government are asking us to put into legislation barely even reflects what is supposed to already be their policy—a presumption in favour of temporary admission or release and the use, wherever possible, of alternatives to detention.

In short, the right to liberty continues to be badly undermined—all for the administrative convenience of the Home Office. The Government have failed each time to explain why, in contrast to every single other EU country, the UK cannot operate within the confines of a proper time limit. We will continue to support the Lords amendment as a step in the right direction.

On amendment 85C, we are perhaps getting closer to a result we can live with. My colleagues and I continue to believe that the Government should implement in full Stephen Shaw’s recommendation of an absolute prohibition on the detention of pregnant women. Such a policy would not put immigration control in peril; it would ensure that some pretty barbaric practices in UK detention facilities are brought to an end.

It is frustrating that we are still having this debate without the full facts at our disposal. When will the Minister tell us exactly how many pregnant women are detained, how long they are detained, whether they were released and whether they were removed? What information we do have does not impress. For example, we know that 90 out of 99 pregnant women detained in Yarl’s Wood in 2014 were eventually released back into the community.

Lords amendment 85C does incorporate the 72 hours or one-week limit suggested by the Government, but it also contains alternative protections. Its inclusion of a general principle against the detention of pregnant women mirrors provisions on the detention of children in families set out in the Immigration Act 2014. As well as retaining that overriding principle, it sets standards for accommodation, for providing notice and for shorter journey times. If we have to compromise on our belief that there should be an absolute ban, then we are absolutely determined to see the full range of protections retained within the Bill. We cannot support what the Government propose in terms of amending amendment 85C and thereby watering down many of those protections. We will not support dawn raids on pregnant women, long journeys to detention centres, or inadequate facilities at those centres. If there is not to be the absolute ban recommended by Sir Stephen Shaw, then we must have the safeguards that prioritise antenatal care over Home Office convenience. The Government have their priorities absolutely wrong.

Amid all the gloom of this Bill, at least let us properly safeguard the right to liberty, and at least take action to properly protect pregnant women. That really is not very much to ask.

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[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a lot of support and interest in this amendment, and we should be drawing on that. The Government have talked about working with the LGA, but I hope that they will also work with all sorts of other organisations. For example, I had an email only this morning from an independent boarding school local to my constituency that wants to offer two free places from September for child refugees. I will pass that offer on to Ministers, who I hope will take up not only that offer, but those of about 80 places from independent boarding schools across the country, as well as others from other community groups and organisations that want to do their bit to help—from faith groups to Home for Good, which wants to work with the Government to bring forward more places—

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will not give way because there is very little time and other Members want to speak.

Home for Good wants to involve foster parents who would be prepared to sign up and work with local authorities.