Draft Immigration Act 2014 (Current Accounts) (Excluded Accounts and Notification Requirements) Regulations 2016

Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 General Committees

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank you for calling me, Mr Nuttall, and I thank the Minister for his opening speech.

The Government have said that it is their intention to create what the Prime Minister herself has called “a hostile environment”. A whole package of measures, many of which came into force on 1 December 2016, deny undocumented migrants in the UK basic rights. When I see footage of desperate people loading their children into dinghies in the Mediterranean or paying traffickers thousands of pounds to risk death by being loaded into lorries in conditions worse than those faced by cattle, I am not sure we will ever create an environment more hostile than the one those people seek to leave. But what measures such as these can succeed in doing—undoubtedly very successfully—is to further debase the language, the discourse and the tone we use to talk about migration.

Having access to a bank account is a fundamental part of modern living, but the hostile environment includes prohibiting banks from opening current accounts for migrants who fail to pass an immigration check. Banks will be forced to check current accounts against migrant databases and notify the Home Office if checks confirm that an account holder no longer has permission to remain in the UK. That could lead to the freezing or closure of bank accounts and have huge consequences for people who might not be able to provide evidence of their leave to remain, potentially through no fault of their own. It will also leave vulnerable migrants at the mercy of banks that might have little understanding of how the immigration system works.

The regulations prescribe on accounts that are excluded by the current regulations, including those opened by migrants before the 2014 Act came into force in December of that year, as the Minister explained. People who had leave to remain at some point and legitimately saved up funds for their future will be particularly affected.

The Opposition therefore oppose the measures because we oppose the rhetoric of hostility and its practical side effects. We do not accept the scapegoating of migrants as a smokescreen for the Government’s austerity programme. If the NHS, social care and other public services are under strain—they certainly are in my constituency—it is because of the policies pursued by the Government and we should never forget or ignore the huge contribution of migrants to making those public services work.

Colleagues will be aware that serious concerns have been expressed about the effect the measures could have on individuals and communities. They are part of a worrying extension of powers that will further reduce the rights of all citizens and fly against the core British values of fairness, compassion and decency. The explicitly hard-line approach risks making the UK a more hostile environment for everyone, and in particular for all migrants and black and minority ethnic communities. There is a danger that bank workers, in fear of breaching the regulations, will end up making the wrong decisions, making judgments on ethnicity, surname and/or nationality that will disproportionately affect some groups. It has already been confirmed that several hundred people wrongly had their driving licences revoked by parallel measures. How many people will wrongly have their bank accounts frozen by this order? It will not be none.

Making it harder for people to get access to a bank account may also ultimately put people in danger. It will drive them further into the underworld in which they have no choice about whom they deal with, and what they have to do to gain the essentials of life. I do not want that for people who have the right to live here; nor do I want it for people who do not have that right. I do not want to compel anyone into that desperation.

The fact this Government have chosen to parade phrases like “hostile environment” embodies a dangerous and irresponsible opportunism. If they raise the temperature, create a certain political climate and appear to be licensing discrimination, that will have consequences which will be paid for by some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Is immigration to the UK too high? In my view, it is. There have to be reasonable limits on immigration in any society. But these measures will make no difference to that. The Prime Minister has had six years as Home Secretary doing exactly this sort of gesture politics, yet immigration has hit record highs. We will see reductions in immigration only when we acknowledge that skills shortages at home will always drive immigration, and when we address the severe inequality found just beyond our borders.

As for a hostile environment, we are already a country where an MP can be been murdered while doing their job by someone who perversely has come to believe that his actions are the work of a patriot. The Government are not making a hostile environment, but they are making a toxic one. I therefore oppose the order and intend to divide the Committee.