Nationality and Borders Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The one that I was citing was Nauru, not Papua New Guinea, which turned it down itself and refused to take any more. That is the actual fact of it. By the way, I talked to Tony Abbott about this issue last week and will recount a bit of that discussion in a moment. Since that centre was closed, there were 92,000 asylum applications, so it is not as though the story went away.

There is also a major practical problem: where is this facility going to be? Will it be in Ghana, which referred to the policy as “Operation Dead Meat”? Rwanda? We have heard more on Rwanda today, and I will leave it to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) to talk about Rwanda, as he knows more about it than I do. Albania? Moldova? Gibraltar? All these places have all been talked about—none has said yes. Even if we do find somewhere, we will have to pay it a spectacular bribe to get it to take in our dirty washing; that is what it is, in effect. The Government are simply proposing shifting responsibility for our problems to another country. That does not fit with the behaviour of the great country that I believe we are.

Given the time limit, I will finish on this point. I spoke last week to Tony Abbott, who was Prime Minister of Australia for some of the time we are discussing. We did not talk primarily about this policy, but I asked him what was most effective. I am afraid that he rather agreed with what the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) said—that the really effective policy was pushback.

Frankly, what we have to deal with, in the Home Office and with our French allies, is a series of practical problems, alongside the legalities of how we handle the channel, which is not yet resolved either. What we cannot do is put aside ethical standards in order to drive people away from our shores.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

When people look back on this debate, I think it will be in the same way that we look back on debates around the Poor Law. They tried to solve poverty in those times by being cruel to the poor; I think that is what we are trying to do here. We are not addressing the real issues we face.

I fully concur with everything the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said. I find it bizarre that we are even considering offshoring at this point in time; I think we all know that, practically, it is never going to come off—it is never going to happen—and this is a wasted debate.

I want to concentrate on employment rights. In my constituency, I have two detention centres, which house nearly 1,000 people. Most of them will be detained, but will then come into the community, and will eventually be allowed to remain. There are 1,700 asylum seekers in hotels in my constituency as well. They are not a burden—I welcome them. They may be a financial burden on local authorities and others—central Government need to support them—but, socially and emotionally, I welcome them completely.

The problem that these people have is that, most of the time, they are trapped in the system. Hon. Members just need to look at the figures from their own casework. Cases take at least six months or a year; I have dealt with cases that have been waiting for four or five years before there is a result. In the meantime, people are denied the right to earn a living. They are told to live off £5.40 a day, and that means they live in poverty.

Someone mentioned Syrian asylum seekers; those I have met are some of the most qualified people I have ever met. They have gone through universities and training; they have skills that they could use to give the country so much, and yet they are trapped in the system, living in poverty. And, tragically, what does living in poverty do, in some instances? People try different angles. Sometimes, unfortunately, they end up in criminality. This system, which refuses to allow people to exercise their skills and devote their talents to our community, forces them into poverty and, in some instances, criminality. All Lords amendment 7 said was, “Just allow these people to work—allow them to support themselves and their families, and to give something back to this country.”

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

As my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend will be aware of the number of asylum seekers in Feltham and Heston who face the challenges that he has outlined. As well as being more humane, allowing people to work would also allow them to make a financial contribution. He will have heard stories similar to those I have—of young people with degrees, who have been tortured, who have fled for their lives, and want nothing more than to start their lives again in a country that they want to call home.

[John McDonnell]

More recently, a calculation was made of the sort of financial contribution that would be made to the country if we allowed people to work six months after they applied for asylum. At least £200 million would be put into our economy. We are denying ourselves these people’s ability to create wealth. I went through the same process when refugee Ugandan families turned up here in the time of Idi Amin; hon. Members may remember that. I have to tell the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) that Hillingdon, then under the leadership of Terry Dicks, whom the hon. Gentleman will recall, was not kind to those refugees at the time. However, eventually those Ugandan Asians settled, and they made a huge contribution to this society, including a massive economic contribution, because we allowed them to use their talents and take up employment. Often, they created businesses. They made a great contribution, certainly in west London, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) can tell us.

I cannot understand the rationale for the Government’s approach. There is an argument that allowing employment will somehow add to the pull factor, but having to live off £5.40 a day is not the sort of pull factor that will attract millions to this country. We should look at the issue rationally, and recognise that the large number of people trapped in this poverty trap could contribute so much. That is why Lords amendment 7 needs to be looked at more rationally. Suffering cannot be part of our policy for dealing with the world refugee crisis—a crisis that will, as a result of climate change and other matters, become worse. We have to recognise that there will be movements of people. We have to accommodate that, and that is partly about making sure that those people are welcomed in a way that allows them to make an effective contribution to our society.

[Janet Daby]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making such a moving and significant speech about the plight of Afghan people. Why, in his view, are the Government not allowing Afghan refugees to make an economic contribution, although they absolutely could?

[John McDonnell]

I do not want to go over this too much, because other people want to come in on this debate, but there is a contradiction in our allowing Ukrainians, but not others, to work immediately. People can draw their own inferences from that. Inferences can be drawn from it that people in this House might not like. I ask hon. Members to contemplate that, to look at Lords amendment 7, and to think again. It is a beneficent amendment that will assist not only the individuals concerned but our wider community and economy.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Briefly, I have three points. First, this Bill is not an acceptable piece of legislation—it is an appalling piece of legislation. There is a refugee crisis, all around the world. We should recognise that and be more humane in our approach. I absolutely support Ukrainian refugees being able to find safety wherever they want to go and absolutely support any measures to welcome them to this country, because of the trauma they have suffered and because of this awful war; the same should apply to victims of wars in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq or elsewhere. Those people are just as traumatised and their lives are just as damaged.

Secondly, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) made a number of points on the 12-month rule that is apparently being introduced for victims of modern slavery. I hope the Minister can clarify that he is serious in what he says on this subject and that we are going to open the route for people who are victims of modern slavery to get permanent residence in this country as a place of safety. They have suffered grievously, from huge levels of abuse. As the right hon. Gentleman also pointed out, the numbers involved are not very large.

I am conscious of the time, but the third point that I want to make is about the new clause inserted by Lords amendment 36, subsection (2) of which refers to

“Visa penalties for countries posing risk to international peace and security”.

I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to my earlier intervention and that of other colleagues on the definition of who poses risk. There is no definition of which countries the measure refers to or how it will play out.

An activist for peace in a country which the Minister feels is a risk is clearly at double risk. The Minister said they can seek an application—of course they can, but how do they practically make that application? In addition, those who are not activists and who do not have any particular political views, but who are caught up in an international conflict, such as a married couple where one person is from this country and the other is from another country—it does not have to be Russia—also deserve a right to come to this country. I hope that this new clause does not make it even more difficult for them to come home when they want to.

[John McDonnell]

I am grateful to be called to speak again, as I spoke in the earlier debate. I think I have less than a minute and a half, so I will be brief. I want to speak to Lords amendment 22.

Those of us who have dealt with children who have gone through the age assessment process recognise just how traumatising it is for those children, many of whom are already suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. That is why it is important that we minimise the numbers going through the process and make sure that it causes the least harm possible. I cannot fully understand why the Government object to this amendment, which, in my view, sets out the best practice we have been arguing for over a number of years.

The new clause introduced by Lords amendment 22 would reduce the number of people who go through the process by making sure that there is a “significant reason” to doubt the age. It would also ensure that the assessment is carried out by a local authority social worker, because—we have to be honest—Home Office social workers have been found lacking. That is not my judgment—it is the judgment of the courts. There is a difference of culture. The Home Office is about enforcement; the local authority is about supporting those who have been traumatised.

The new clause also introduces an element of best practice by making sure that the Association of Directors of Children’s Services draws health and other professionals into multidisciplinary teams, which we have been arguing for, so that we get the best possible and most objective assessment. There would also be an objectivity in the process that we doubt would be the case under the Home Office.