Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kevin Foster and Bambos Charalambous

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss those women’s cases. Of course, through the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme we are working with groups such as the UNHCR to identify those who would be particularly affected by Taliban rule.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

13. What estimate she has made of the cost to the public purse of the Government’s policy to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Kevin Foster and Bambos Charalambous

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his constructive intervention. Yes, certainly; I am more than happy to engage with him about how we can look at this process. He will realise that it is not just in this area where there has traditionally been a difference, because EEA nationals have freedom of movement rights, so it would be odd to grant them status under immigration rules, but I am certainly happy to have that conversation. I also reassure Members that we would consider someone’s being held as a modern slave as reasonable grounds for a late application to the EU settlement scheme. I say gently that it would be unhelpful to have two very similar sets of criteria, one under the immigration rules and one under policy, so we do not accept Lords amendment 9.

Having been through the more contentious areas, I hope that Members support Lords amendment 11, which was introduced in reaction to feedback in the other place. I hope that Members accept the reasons I have outlined why the Government cannot accept the Lords amendments that we ask the House to disagree with, but I hope that they have a sense of the Government’s commitment to the issues raised.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be at the Dispatch Box for the return of this incredibly important piece of legislation. I thank peers in the other place for their detailed work on the Bill. We welcome the amendments that have been secured, most of them with significant majorities; several of the improvements before us today demonstrate cross-party support.

Lords amendment 1 would require the Secretary of State to commission and publish an independent assessment of the impact of ending free movement on the social care sector. The Government’s intransigence on this matter has been beyond disappointing. This Bill has been an affront to those migrant workers working on the frontline in social care. To have clapped them on a Thursday night and then told them that they are unskilled and therefore not welcome on a Monday is both disrespectful and shameful.

Members on both sides of the House have witnessed the vulnerabilities across our health and social care sector, which, despite the best efforts of its dedicated workforce, has been pushed to the limits over the course of the pandemic. Unison, the UK’s largest trade union, represents our dedicated public sector workers, including social care workers, across the UK. We have worked closely with Unison, which has supported and represented workers throughout the pandemic. With its in-depth knowledge of the sector and foresight, it has articulated its vision of social care in its “care after covid” campaign to address the fault lines that were so exposed throughout the last six months. To propose a Bill that will make radical changes to the recruitment of social care workers without considering the impact is simply negligent and careless governance.

The Minister referred to the Migration Advisory Committee; in its recent report, commissioned at the request of the Home Secretary, it expressed concerns about the social care sector and argued that if necessary funding and pay increases do not materialise urgently, it would expect the end of freedom of movement to increase the pressure on the social care sector. That would be particularly difficult to understand at a time when so many care occupations are central to the covid-19 pandemic frontline response.

These remarks should unsettle the Government and spur them into action, and I fully expect that if the Government do not listen, on the day that the new points-based immigration system is implemented we will still be deeply entrenched in the battle against coronavirus. If we do not do our due diligence by adopting this amendment, the Bill is set to undermine social care recklessly at a time when we can least afford it, so we urge the Government to reconsider their position, commission the impact assessment and understand the impact of the Bill on the social care workforce, on visas and on the consequences for recruitment, training and staff terms and conditions.

Amendment 4 would ensure there are safe refugee family reunion routes after Dublin III ceases to be available in the UK following the end of the UK-EU transition period. I want to place on record my thanks to the brilliant and inspirational Lord Dubs for his tireless work and leadership on this amendment in the other place.

A great deal has been said about immigration over the summer and we on the Labour Benches want in the strongest possible terms to distance ourselves from the Home Secretary’s dangerous rhetoric and to thank those lawyers who play such an important role in ensuring that the UK is upholding its international and legal obligations. The amendment demonstrates the future for one of the safe and legal routes we have all advocated for over the summer.

The Dublin III regulation is for family reunion and represents legal routes to safety from Europe for children seeking to come to the UK. Family reunion under Dublin III is currently the only legal pathway to reach the UK from the EU for the purposes of claiming asylum. It will no longer apply after the transition period. If we do not seek to address this issue, I fear that we will see more images of people making precarious and life-threatening journeys on dinghies across the channel.

The Government will say that they have a draft proposal for family reunion; however, it is apparent that their proposal is woefully inadequate. The proposals remove all mandatory requirements to activate family reunions. They remove the child’s right to appeal against refusal, and some children would not be covered by the narrower definition of family which Parliament passed in a 2017 Act.

Other safeguards have been removed, too, such as deadlines. According to one non-governmental organisation, 95% of people helped by NGOs to obtain a right of passage would fail the test proposed by the Government. Existing immigration rules also fail to cover this specific area, and therefore this amendment gives Parliament a chance to enshrine in law the basic principle of family reunion.

This issue is incredibly salient and our thoughts are still fixed on the suffering and horrors caused by the fire at the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos. The scale of that tragedy could have been minimised.

We all heard the pleas before the incident to the Greek Government for help with numbers at the camp, yet the calls were ignored by the people in power.

It is worth noting that the number of people who have come in under Dublin III has historically been very small. Up to 2014, there were 10 or 11 a year, and since 2016, a little over 500 have come in under it. We hear about the Government’s proposed fairer borders Bill on asylum, but those children cannot wait. We are asking the House to use its power to give transformative opportunities to innocent children who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves fleeing persecution and destitution.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kevin Foster and Bambos Charalambous

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

10. What estimate he has made of the number of non-UK EU citizens living in the UK who were unable to register to vote in the European parliamentary elections.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Kevin Foster)]

The Cabinet Office does not collect or hold information on the number of eligible electors who do not register to vote in any election. The process for EU nationals to register and declare their intention to vote in the UK for these elections was similar to the system used in previous European parliamentary elections.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

I am afraid the timetable is exactly the same legal timetable there has been for previous European parliamentary elections and, ultimately, ensuring compliance with it is the job of the local ERO.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Two campaign groups, the3million and British in Europe, have raised more than £40 million to fund a legal challenge to the parliamentary election process. What assessment have the Government made of whether they took the necessary steps at the European elections to uphold article 3 of protocol 1 of the European convention on human rights, which protects our right to vote?

[Kevin Foster]

As said previously, the Government complied with all legal obligations and followed an almost identical process to what happened for previous European parliamentary elections. The requirement to make this declaration is part of European law, and we have to share such declarations before polling day. Again, while people may not like the outcome of those elections, I suggest they are better engaging with what voters said than trying to argue the process.