Illegal Migration Bill

Ian Byrne Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—it is an unexpected pleasure.

I will be voting against the Bill today. I am proud to support the reasoned amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) to stop the Bill in its tracks. This pernicious Bill fails to protect children and other victims from trafficking, fails to ensure safe routes for refugees and fails to treat people with humanity. It disgracefully expands the Government’s hostile environment. If enacted, it will mean that anyone who has been put in the desperate situation of having to arrive in the UK on a small boat because of this Government’s failure to facilitate safe routes will have their asylum claim deemed inadmissible. The Home Office will not even consider their claim, no matter how strong their application may be.

Clause 2 will enable the Government to seek to remove anyone who does not arrive via a specific route or with specific documentation. Those are requirements that the Government know it is next to impossible for somebody fleeing violence and persecution to meet. The 1951 United Nations refugee convention, to which the UK is a signatory, states explicitly that refugees shall not be penalised solely by reason of unlawful entry or because, being in need of refuge and protection, they remain illegally in a country. As the United Nations points out:

“Most people fleeing war and persecution are simply unable to access the required passports and visas. There are no safe and ‘legal’ routes available to them. Denying them access to asylum on this basis undermines the very purpose for which the Refugee Convention was established.”

Trade unions and human rights campaigners have rightly condemned the Bill, under which everyone who is subject to the new removal duty can also potentially be detained. The House should be doing everything in its power to ensure that people fleeing persecution and violence are given the safety, care and support that they need, not inflicting further trauma and harm on them. Is this really what we have become? It shames those who have gone before us in the House.

This anti-refugee Bill must be voted down. It is inhumane and immoral, and if I were a betting man I would also say it is illegal. The TUC has said that the

“Government’s proposal and the language used to describe it are divisive and will stoke tension.”

We saw evidence of that on the border of my constituency in Knowsley last month. The language used is so dangerous and damaging to our communities.

Let me end by making an observation. It is not the people in boats we should fear coming to our shores, but the elite in the private jets who, along with this Government, are responsible for the unequal, broken society in which we live, where millions shiver and starve in their own homes, seeing no future for themselves and their families. I urge the House to reject the politics of division, and reject a Bill that shames this place and everything that it is supposed to stand for.

Knowsley Incident

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I think the right hon. Gentleman has answered his own question, in that some of this content is vile and quite probably criminal, and in those instances the police should take action using the laws that are available to them. When we at the Home Office find such content we raise it with the police, and the police then raise it with the social media companies; but if the police feel that it meets the threshold for prosecution, they can and should be prosecuting.

The right hon. Gentleman is also right in saying that there are a small number of cases of so-called citizen journalists visiting hotels. Of course we all respect the right to protest and the right to free speech, but these individuals need to be careful to ensure that their actions do not stir up community tensions or spread disinformation, as is often the case.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

Like many others, I am heartbroken following the incidents in Knowsley. I stand in this Chamber as a proud product of immigration: my ancestors fled the great hunger in Ireland, as did those of so many of my fellow Scousers, which is why these events have caused such shock in Liverpool.

This is a wake-up call for those of us who want a society in which all are welcome. The words and the tone of hon. Members in this place and the media matter hugely, so will the Government commit themselves to ensuring that there is an end to the hateful rhetoric that demonises and dehumanises people? Will they put resources into communities to foster hope and understanding, and, crucially, will they provide resources for safe, welcoming and suitable community-based accommodation for all people seeking asylum?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am proud that the United Kingdom is one of the most generous and welcoming countries in the world. Since 2015, 440,000 people have come to our country on humanitarian grounds, and last year more humanitarian visas were issued than at any time since the end of the second world war. That is exactly the right approach, and we see it with great schemes such as Homes for Ukraine and the schemes applying to Afghanistan and Syria. It is true that the British public can see the difference between that and those people who are coming here illegally, abusing our generosity and our laws, and it is for that reason that we must take action to ensure that the illegal channel crossings end as swiftly as possible.

Hillsborough Families Report: National Police Response

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the national police response to the Hillsborough families report.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I know this is a subject with profound personal resonance for him. I pay tribute to him and many others for the work they have done and continue to do in memory of the victims of this awful tragedy and to ensure that the lessons are learnt.

The Hillsborough disaster was an awful, devastating tragedy. Its impact continues to be felt to this day, especially by the families and friends of the victims. I am sure the thoughts of the whole House are with them. It is imperative that lessons are learned from the experiences the Hillsborough families have gone through, so I am very grateful to Bishop James Jones for the report he produced, which highlighted a number of points of learning for the Government, the police and other agencies.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said during yesterday’s debate, the Government are fully committed to engaging with the Hillsborough families prior to the publication of the Government’s formal response. Since arriving in the Home Office two or three months ago, I have asked for this work to be sped up, and we are expecting it to come out in the course of this spring. The National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing published their response earlier this week. I welcome their commitment to avoid repeating the mistakes that were made, and I welcome the apology that they gave. They made it clear that strong ethical values and the need for humanity and humility in the police response to public tragedies are critical. One of the commitments they rightly made earlier this week was to substantially strengthen and update their own code of ethics in relation to these issues.

Some important steps have been made by the Government in the past few years, which have addressed a number, but not all, of the points that Bishop James Jones published. For example, in 2020 a suite of police integrity reforms was introduced, on a statutory basis, via the professional standards for policing, which included, crucially, a duty to co-operate with inquiries. Other initiatives have already been taken forward to support bereaved families, including the removal of means-testing for exceptional case funding to cover legal support for families at an inquest, which broadens the scope and access for families; and the refreshing of our “Guide to Coroner Services for Bereaved People” so that it is more tailored to their needs and provides improved guidance for others involved in the inquest process. The Inquiries Act 2005 also provides a statutory process for funding legal representation requests. Last year, the Home Office also established an independent pathology review, and additional consultation with the families is now taking place. A consultation has also taken place on retaining police documents, which was the subject of a recommendation made by the bishop, and the Ministry of Justice has also consulted on establishing an independent public advocate.

Those steps are important. They go a long way to improving the situation, but they do not cover everything that the bishop recommended, which is why we will be responding in full. We intend to do so in the spring, but after, of course, full and deep engagement with the families concerned.

The Government are committed to making sure that these lessons are learned following this awful tragedy and I, as the newly appointed Police Minister, will do everything that I can to work with Members across the House, particularly those representing the affected communities, to make sure that this does now happen quickly.

[Ian Byrne]

Since that awful day on 15 April 1989, 97 people have died directly from the actions of South Yorkshire police and other agencies, including the emergency services, the Football Association and Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, with families destroyed and survivors traumatised—so traumatised that many have since taken their own lives.

The lies and smears from the cover-up by the establishment, which acted with impunity and arrogance because it could, meant that justice was never delivered for all those who have died and suffered since. In 2017, Bishop Jones delivered the report “The patronising disposition of unaccountable power: A report to ensure the pain and suffering of the Hillsborough families is not repeated.” Shamefully, we have not yet had a Government response to his recommendations in the report commissioned by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May).

Yesterday, Bishop Jones said that the delay was intolerable. His recommendations are, in essence, the Hillsborough law, which so many in this place and outside have since campaigned for. We must always remember that these recommendations are to ensure that no other community goes through the suffering that we have endured since 1989. They will hopefully futureproof the ability to gain justice.

Yesterday, we finally had the response to the report from the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council. This was the first apology from the police force for its actions since the disaster 33 years ago. For so many, including myself, it is far too little and far too late.

Yesterday’s recommendations from the police did not go anywhere near far enough to change the culture that we came up against in our quest for justice. I ask the Minister whether this Government will do the right thing for future generations in our nation and implement a Hillsborough law containing Bishop Jones’s recommendations with immediate effect. The families and survivors of so many disasters and consequent state cover-ups deserve nothing less, and these injustices must never again be allowed. If a Hillsborough law had existed in 1989, we would have had a chance of justice for the 97; without it we had none.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I commend my hon. Friend on the initiative that she has shown through this twinning arrangement. It is incredibly important, and the House should pay tribute to our friends in Poland, and the Polish Government in particular, for everything that they have been doing to support Ukrainians.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

T5. In 2017, the UK Government introduced a visa concession for offshore wind farm workers, which was extended for one year in July 2021. That visa concession effectively allows offshore wind farm companies to undercut the pay and conditions of British seafarers and exploit overseas workers. A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister committed to expanding offshore wind farms. In the light of the disgraceful decision by P&O Ferries to sack 786 British seafarers and replace them with exploited foreign labour, will the Home Office commit to ending the offshore wind farm worker concession to ensure that UK seafarers can compete fairly for these jobs?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman makes very important points. I am happy to pick that up directly with him. I do not have time to give him a full answer now, but I will happily speak to him about it.

Youth Crime and Antisocial Behaviour

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Robertson. I thank the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for securing this incredibly important debate.

I start by paying tribute to constituents, families and young people in Liverpool, West Derby who are living through the real-life consequences of austerity. It has decimated the provision of youth clubs, youth workers and the services that helped to shape my life experiences, and those of so many others like me, growing up in Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980s. I owe such a debt of gratitude to the youth workers who guided me and so many others through such a difficult period in our city’s history. The relationships we formed with those youth workers, and their guidance and wise counsel, are the reason I can stand here today participating in this debate. It was interesting to listen to Ian Wright say something extremely similar on TV on Saturday.

That crucial safety net has now been removed, and our communities are living through the consequences. Youth provision is almost non-existent, with vulnerable children roaming the streets, getting into gangs and trouble. We have recently seen fatalities in Liverpool due to knife crime, with children killing children, devasting whole communities and families. Youth centres are shut, and sometimes the only sporting facilities available in my constituency are privatised facilities that charge £70 an hour to families struggling through austerity and now a cost-of-living crisis. Many of our children have not got a chance if opportunities and facilities are not available to all.

I place on the record my thanks to all the service staff, teachers, parents, community groups and police across West Derby, especially Anfield Sports and Community Centre, Action for Children, the Young Person’s Advisory Service and Alder Hey staff, and I acknowledge the work being done by the No More Knives and Real Men Don’t Carry Knives campaigns. These people are doing so much across our city to support young people through such difficult times.

There is a massive effort being made across Liverpool to support and nurture our young children, but we desperately need funding and policy changes from central Government. Since austerity began in 2010 under the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition, Liverpool City Council has seen its funding reduced by 65%. Despite the Government declaring that the age of austerity is over, the cuts to our funding continue, and the consequences for our young people, and the youth services and facilities they need, continue to be felt.

According to research by the trade union Unison, between 2010 and 2019, youth services in the UK suffered cuts of £400 million. That will have meant the loss of 4,500 youth work jobs and the closure of more than 760 youth centres since 2012. It is shameful. According to a February 2021 survey by UK Youth on the impact of covid-19 on youth services, 66% of the 1,759 organisations surveyed said there had been an increase in demand. Despite the greater need for their services, 83% reported that their funding had decreased, while 64% said they were at risk of closure in the next 12 months. Research by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy found that 80% of young people say that their mental health has worsened during the covid-19 outbreak.

As I have said, we desperately need the funding and policies from the Government to support, nurture and invest in our young people. In her response, will the Minister commit to providing the vital funding that councils need to invest in youth services and facilities for our young people? As I have mentioned, so many facilities have been lost in the last decade, and I do not doubt the positive outcomes they would have had for so many young people had they remained open.

Will the Minister explain the Government’s strategy to support pupils and schools so that young people do not face exclusion and the lifelong damage that can cause? Will she also commit to funding young people’s mental health services, as well as early intervention mentoring programmes and specialist children’s services? This should not be a postcode lottery. We need provisions for our youth and preventive measures put in place as an investment to ensure that all our children have a level playing field and a bright future.

I hear the words “levelling up” a lot from Government Members. Let us put it into practice and restore the youth provision we have lost to all, so that the phrase actually means something to our children.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

We need to leave a couple of minutes at the end for the mover of the motion to respond. I call Sarah Jones.

Protection of Retail Workers

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab) [V]]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for introducing the debate on this petition.

I pay tribute to all the retail workers in Liverpool, West Derby for everything that they have done for our community, especially during the pandemic. There are many examples of how, during the height of lockdown, retail workers went over and above the call of duty to ensure that there was a service to the local community. Despite the shortages of personal protective equipment across the sector and the fear of the unknown consequences of covid-19, retail workers were at the coalface, ensuring that services stayed open, and played a vital role in pulling the country through this period.

I often hear the words “retail work” and “low skilled” in the same sentence. That term must be consigned to the dustbin of history. It devalues the workers in roles that are vital to our communities; the people in those roles should be acknowledged as such. The term also plays into a perception of a lesser worth, which may lead some to try to justify the behaviours that people have been speaking about. Some 164 people in my constituency signed USDAW’s petition to protect retail workers from abuse, threats and violence, and many also wrote to me directly.

Even before the pandemic, threatening behaviour towards retail workers was increasing; USDAW’s annual survey showed an increase of a third in workers threatened during the course of their duties between 2015 and 2019. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the situation has got even worse, with USDAW’s 2020 survey finding that 88% of workers experienced verbal abuse, 61% were threatened by a customer and 9% were assaulted. Those experiences can be especially traumatic as retail staff usually have to work every day in the same situation in which they were attacked. Staff have reported anxiety and panic attacks on returning to the workplace after an assault and the constant worry that they will be attacked again, leading some to leave the profession entirely, losing their livelihood as a result.

The signatories to the petition and USDAW demand specific legislation to tackle this. Action from the Government cannot wait when there are an estimated 455 violent or abusive incidents in retail workplaces every single day of the year. Will the Government listen to my constituents; will the Minister work with the trade unions and others to bring about this legislation; and will the Minister commit to taking the words “low skilled” out of any future literature?

Immigration and Nationality Application Fees

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab) [V]]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) for securing this hugely important debate today.

The current system of nationality application fees is deeply unjust. The 10-year route to leave to remain costs £12,771 per person and requires five separate applications over that time. The cost of leave to remain fees over the past six years has increased by 331%. It is a shame that our NHS staff pay rises are not set on that ratio by the Home Office.

As is clear from the Library’s briefing and We Belong’s report, the administrative cost to the Home Office of processing each application is a fraction of what it charges in fees. As much as 86% in profit is made by the Minister’s Department from every single application, from a process that, as many in this debate today have described, has a devastating impact on the wellbeing and livelihoods of those faced with the costs, and which also creates barriers to work, healthcare, renting a home, opening a bank account or going to university.

As Members have mentioned in their speeches, those affected include young people who have also been disproportionately hit in the pandemic. Youth unemployment has risen by more than 100% in my constituency of Liverpool, West Derby, so these fees are becoming even more devastating. Added to that is the Department’s complex waiver system, which rejects a high proportion of applications and leaves some individuals needing to pay for legal representation. With the shutting down of many law centres and advice centres in our communities, the ability to access justice in some areas is near impossible. As We Belong highlights, many young people will undoubtedly be driven into poverty or will lose their lawful status as a result of those high costs.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) set out in her question to the Prime Minister last month, hundreds of thousands of children who were born or raised in the UK are priced out by the fees. A recent report from the Children’s Society found that almost half of the children with foreign-born parents live in poverty, with parents reporting that they are unable to meet even their children’s most basic needs.

The impact of the costs concurs with the evidence that I have heard from across the country as I have collected evidence for the Right to Food campaign that I am spearheading in Parliament. I, and many across our communities, see the system of fees as morally bankrupt. It plunges many into abject misery, as outlined today.

In response to a petition to Parliament on this subject, the Government acknowledged that they are overcharging. Their response stated:

“The principle of charging at above cost has been in place for over a decade”.

Will the Minister commit today to at the very least ending that shameful practice?

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

What a joy it is to hear a Conservative voice for Darlington once again! You will be interested to know, Mr Speaker, that in my very first general election in 1987, I fought in Darlington for the then young and fresh-faced Michael Fallon, who was the successful MP in that election.

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. When deciding about the disposition of custody suites in police stations across a particular force area, chiefs must have in mind the amount of time that will be spent by police officers in ferrying miscreants to and from those custody suites. I applaud him for pushing his temporary police and crime commissioner, and I hope there is soon to be a Conservative one—George Jabbour is a fantastic candidate—who will make a sensible decision in favour of all the people of Durham.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

What support her Department has provided to people with no recourse to public funds since the start of the covid-19 lockdown announced in January 2021.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

The Government remain committed to supporting everyone through this pandemic. Many of the wide-ranging covid-19 measures the Government have put in place are available to migrants with NRPF, including the coronavirus job retention scheme, statutory sick pay and discretionary hardship payments for those who have to self-isolate. In addition, migrants with leave under family and human rights routes can also apply to have the NRPF condition lifted, something that is successful now in 85% of cases, in just 17 days.

[Ian Byrne [V]]

After hearing evidence at the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on homelessness, I know that the unwillingness of the Home Office to suspend no recourse to public funds and a lack of clarity over support have had devastating consequences during this pandemic for many. Despite being over a month into this lockdown, policy is still opaque around section 4 eligibility for individuals with no recourse to public funds. Will the Minister provide an update on this as a matter of urgency?

[Chris Philp]

There is absolute clarity about the benefits. I have mentioned things like the coronavirus job retention scheme already, and I have mentioned how people on family and human rights routes can get the NRPF condition lifted, but I did not mention the over £8 billion available via local authorities for NRPF-eligible migrants to apply for. In addition, the hon. Member asked about section 4: people on section 4 support do get accommodation provided by the Home Office. We currently now have, I think, about 61,000 people in accommodation. That is up from about 48,000 before the pandemic, precisely because we are looking after the people most in need.