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

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB) [V]]

My Lords, on 15 July, the Minister told me that the Home Office is unable to state how many applications from asylum seekers for refugee status are currently being assessed or how long it takes on average to resolve each application. Data collection and the adequate staffing of care homes have both been mentioned during this debate by other noble Lords. Those are questions to which, along with others, I hope to return at later stages. At this point, I want briefly to ask about trafficking, exploitation, family visas, child refugees and indefinite detention.

I am a trustee of the Arise Foundation, which combats human trafficking and modern slavery. Alongside the new points-based system, the Government are considering an extension of their pilot scheme for strict six-month visas for seasonal agricultural workers. The system gives people limited opportunities to change their employer or to challenge abusive practices, and it is therefore essential to ensure that proper safeguards against exploitation are in place.

More widely, we know that traffickers will seek every chance to abuse new immigration policies. We also know that fear of prosecution currently deters many people from escaping abusive employment practices or presenting themselves to the police. Repealing the offence of illegal working so that no victim is at risk of being punished would be an important step towards protecting people from exploitation. I hope that the Government will take this opportunity to do that.

Under any new or extended scheme for seasonal agricultural workers, what steps will the Government take to inspect recruiters, working practices and living conditions, as well as ensuring that seasonal agricultural workers are aware of their rights and know how to challenge exploitation?

For those who are here legally but who miss the June 2021 deadline for the settlement scheme, what steps will the Government take to ensure that access to healthcare, housing or employment is not lost? Have they made any assessment of older and more vulnerable people who may not yet have applied to the settlement scheme and therefore will be at risk of losing their rights?

The UK remains the only European country without a time limit on detention. Last year, the longest detention stood at a shocking 1,002 days. Covid-19 has led to speedier and more humane decisions. Will the Government build on that and end indefinite immigration detention by replacing it with a 28-day time limit and robust judicial oversight, and amend the Bill to introduce a time limit on such detention? Simultaneously, it would be humane to examine the family visa system to prevent prolonged separations that are detrimental to family life, and to help families to stay together by reforming the minimum income threshold for family visas.

Can the Minister say what steps will be taken under the new rules to ensure that child refugees have access to family reunion with relatives in the UK? More than 1,600 unaccompanied refugee children are stranded on islands in the Aegean. Surely in the context of this Bill, we can do more to help people like them.

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

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I speak against the backdrop of a story I read over the weekend in the Universe newspaper. It concerned a Ugandan refugee, Mercy Baguma, who in August was left to die in a Glasgow flat. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that the account left her “consumed with sadness and anger”. A representative of the Positive Action in Housing charity said that Ms Baguma’s one year-old son was found crying beside his mother’s body, weakened from several days of starvation. I know that my support for Amendments 29 and 31 would not have saved her life, and I know, too, that if these amendments are passed, they will not help everyone who is a refugee or seeking asylum. However, we must do what we can to help whoever we can whenever we can; that is surely our job and I do not think anyone in the Chamber would disagree with that.

I will speak in favour of Amendment 29 on work rights, tabled by my noble friend Lady Meacher, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. I support also Amendment 31 on the displaced talent visa, tabled by the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and to which I am a signatory. It addresses the widely held view that, whatever our differences about the nature of migration and the humanitarian duty, as some of us see it—and I do—to respond to people forcibly displaced from their homes and countries, this country will always have a need of skilled labour, and that where sponsorship is available from an employer, this win-win situation should at least be provided for by the creation of a new visa. The Government have said that they intend that this legislation and the new immigration system to be set out in subsequent Immigration Rules will attract the “brightest and the best” from overseas to work here.

The United Nations estimates that there are over 70 million forcibly displaced people in the world. While we clearly cannot help them all, an amendment such as this would enable us to help some of them. Many people displaced by conflict or persecution have valuable professional skills in areas such as medicine and engineering, but they are stuck in refugee camps like the one I visited a few months ago in northern Iraq, and I know that my noble friend Lord Hylton, who is in his place, has visited camps in Syria. These people have been displaced and are unable to use their skills to support their families and rebuild their lives. At the same time, for this country to fulfil the Prime Minister’s ambition to be “Global Britain”, we require an immigration system that is open, fair and allows those with much-needed skills to come here with their families to work and to build a future with us. It is easy to make slogans about attracting the brightest and the best, but how can we ensure that those with skills whose lives have been blown off course by conflict or persecution can still access labour market mobility?

Through its work in Jordan and Lebanon especially, Talent Beyond Boundaries has found that there are particular barriers under the current UK tier 2 regime that make it difficult for a displaced Syrian in Jordan, for example, to have the same opportunity to come to the UK to work as someone with the same skills from Australia, India or the United States. They are required to provide the identity documents specified by the Home Office when these can be provided only by a hostile regime. We all know that that would be an impossibility. Amendment 31 therefore urges the Government to create a displaced talent visa specifically to address such barriers and pave the way to eventually put in place a global scheme.

Events in this pandemic year have once again underlined the necessity to deal with the fragile and unsustainable nature of the world in which we live. In considering what a new immigration system for the UK should look like, we have a duty to construct models that take account of the complexities caused by conflict and persecution and to devise an immigration system that genuinely enables those who want to offer us their skills to do so, and to do much more to tackle the root causes that lead to 37,000 people being forced to flee their homes every day due to conflict or persecution, joining 70 million others. None of this should close our eyes to the importance of constructing, along with other nations, a humane and fair system for resettling refugees and others who need a place of sanctuary.

Turning to Amendment 29, I begin by saying that it is substantively different from the displaced talent visa being proposed in Amendment 31, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, pointed out. It and others in the group address the right of asylum seekers already in the UK to work after a certain period while they are waiting for their cases to be decided. In contrast, the displaced talent visa facilitates the arrival of forcibly displaced persons through labour market mobility; that is, they will have a sponsoring employer and a job offer already in place, and they are not seeking humanitarian protection as UNHCR-defined refugees. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who said that the Government should not offer the same argument in response to these very different amendments. When he comes to reply, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, will differentiate between them.

The displaced talent visa is concerned with widening access to labour market mobility, not substituting for humanitarian resettlement or as an alternative to enabling access to asylum for those who require it. Where there are similarities between the amendments, they involve the freedom to work to support yourself and your family, and the dignity, alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, of being allowed to do so, as well as providing benefits to the UK through meeting labour shortages, tax revenue, avoiding reliance on public funds and the better integration of people into the community. Research has shown that bans on working result in poorer integration outcomes because work helps people to learn English and meet other people.

Amendment 29 returns to an issue I have repeatedly raised with Ministers and in your Lordships’ House: the right to work. Indeed, it was the subject of a meeting some years ago that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and I attended with the then Minister, Brandon Lewis. I hope that the Minister will see this as a precedent for reforming the current work-banning arrangements. It would be good to know what stage the review we were told about at Second Reading, which was begun in 2018, has reached, and when we might see the outcome.

As the Minister has been told, the Lift the Ban coalition, which supports the amendment, is made up of over 240 organisations and individuals across the country calling for the restoration of the right to work for people seeking asylum and their adult dependants, if they have been waiting for a decision on their asylum claim for six months. That broad coalition includes the CBI, the Adam Smith Institute, the TUC, UNISON and the Church of England, and is supported by grass-roots organisations, national charities, think tanks, faith groups and businesses, demonstrating wide- spread support for this common-sense proposal.

I am a patron of Asylum Link Merseyside. Through its wonderful work, and that of groups in Lancashire with whom my wife volunteers as an English language teacher, as well as organisations such as Refugee Action, I have heard first-hand accounts of asylum seekers who, having been effectively prohibited from working, must subsist, as my noble friend Lady Meacher told us earlier on the derisory sum of £5.56 per day in asylum support. I repeat: £5.56 per day. Imagine for a moment trying to make ends meet on that and the effect on your human dignity and self-respect, especially when you are then denied the fundamental right to work. This is a right enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 23 insists:

“We all have the right to employment, to be free to choose our work, and to be paid a fair salary that allows us to live and support our family.”


We have heard about the benefits to the economy of allowing people to work. We were told about the survey showing that businesses overwhelmingly support this call. In denying the right to work, we damage people personally, we impede social integration, we deny the value of the work ethic, we entrench poverty and we emasculate self-sufficiency. The contribution that work makes to social integration is spelled out in terms in the Government’s own immigration White Paper, and I applaud that.

I end by saying this. The coalition has drawn my attention to the story of one young Afghan woman denied the right to work. She says, “I want to work because it gives me the feeling of being someone. I want to work because I don’t want to look back after five or 10 years and realise that I did little except sit in a room and wait for a decision on my asylum claim. I could have been doing something positive for people’s health by putting my knowledge and expertise into practice.” Those words and the story of Mercy Baguma, which I referred to at the outset of my remarks, should stir us into taking action in this Bill. I hope that the noble Lord will agree to meet representatives of the Lift the Ban coalition and consider these amendments carefully between now and Report so that it will not be necessary to call a Division.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation.

We have heard some excellent speeches so far, and I find that I cannot disagree with anything that has been said. Although many identified victims of modern slavery are also asylum seekers—and those numbers may be swelled by EU citizens after freedom of movement has ended—these amendments, which I support, relate to potential asylum seekers from EEA countries or Switzerland. Of course, they will be in scope of the Bill, but it does not cover those from other countries. I guess that they will be the overriding majority, and while I would welcome the relaxation of the regulations regarding paid work for asylum seekers, I am afraid that it would be invidious to discriminate between non-EEA and EEA countries.

I am aware that, just over 100 years ago, a large number of Belgian citizens arrived in this country as a result of the conflict in their own country during the First World War. I have seen historical documents that show how well they were received. For a relatively brief time, they made their home here, and many worked here. Indeed, the presence of so many Belgians became the norm, so much so that no one batted an eyelid when Agatha Christie created Monsieur Poirot, a Belgian detective, as one of her heroes.

As I understand it, the rules regarding paid work for asylum seekers were strengthened back in 2010. I can only guess why it was decided to implement them, but I suspect that the huge backlog of cases awaiting decision made the Home Office nervous that if an asylum seeker worked, they would inevitably become an integrated part of the local community, making ties and making friends with fellow workers. As cases took so long—regrettably they still do, to which I can attest from my previous experience as a constituency MP—there would inevitably be more complications if a negative decision was received and removal was initiated.

I understand that some will say that to allow those applying for asylum to work will act as a pull. However, I am not sure whether there are any figures or statistics to back that up. In fact, regularising work for these people would be beneficial, as we have heard. I also know that Her Majesty’s Government are currently renewing the regulations. I sincerely hope that this country will have the courage to fully utilise the undoubted skills of these people, which I suggest would be a huge economic benefit in many ways. In the meantime, I believe that we should be encouraging more asylum seekers to be able to undertake voluntary work, and if noble Lords will indulge me a short while, I will give an example of what can be achieved.

Through my work with the Human Trafficking Foundation—and with its indefatigable chairman, Anthony Steen, a long-serving and dedicated Member of the House of Commons—I have become involved with a scheme that is just getting started after Covid-19 somewhat delayed it getting off the ground. Action Asylum by the Task Force Trust is offering opportunities to asylum seekers to make life better by volunteering alongside local people, so that the community is made better with their help, particularly in environmental matters. Pioneering projects are advanced in Merseyside, where there are currently over 3,000 asylum seekers. One example is of Iranians, Sudanese and Syrians growing vegetables alongside local people on an allotments project. Another project has brought together a dozen or so local cyclists and invited asylum seekers to join them on a community cycle ride. Working in conjunction with the Marine Conservation Society, asylum seekers will undertake a beach clean shortly on two beaches, at Southport and Hoylake, all of course properly socially distanced and within Covid-19 rules. It is not just to clear the detritus on the beach after high tides but to collate the data on what they find. This follows a pilot earlier in the year. There is a huge opportunity, with many NGOs looking to take part.

I have seen at first hand the benefits of such schemes, not only for asylum seekers and their families but for the local people, who understand that these people are individuals. As we have heard, they are not scroungers; they want to work. In view of the fact that there are currently 40,000 asylum seekers in the UK, it is a drop in the ocean, but it could be an example of a nationwide operation involving the Home Office, where asylum seekers waiting for permissions and papers to come through could do something useful in the country in which they wish to settle, to relieve boredom and loneliness and to help with mental health issues, which is a great problem. When you see how keen they are to do work, you cannot but be convinced that we should change our rules for all asylum seekers.

I thank noble Lords for their patience. I am unashamedly passionate about this cause and I support the amendments that have been spoken to. However, the first matter we should address is that of processing these claims within the shortest practicable time, while allowing all asylum seekers to take up meaningful work after a shorter period—perhaps three or six months. It would be a mutually beneficial measure for those people and for this country.

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[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am very happy to be part of the infantry supporting the arguments and the amendments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, as we have done on previous occasions. It is a tragedy that we even have to revisit this issue, because it ought to have been resolved by now. I know the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, well enough to know that she cannot be happy that this has not been resolved, not least because of the High Court judgment that we witnessed in December. It is not worthy of this country, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has just said. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, was pointing to, there is a sort of shabbiness of generating income through fees above the administrative cost of the registration system. The sheer inappropriateness of applying this charge to children—as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham said, to children even in the care of local authorities—is something we surely have to rectify.

The noble Baroness will recall the exchanges we had via correspondence and Parliamentary Questions following the High Court ruling on 19 December. I listened to what my noble friend Lord Russell of Liverpool said about these issues coming around: I provided a witness statement to the court based on my participation in the proceedings on the British Nationality Act 1981, when I was a young Member of another place. In my witness statement, I cited the stated intention of Parliament in 1981: that children who were born here and grew up here but were without parents would be entitled to be registered as British citizens. I told the court that I had no doubt that it was Parliament’s intention that this should be done via a straightforward and accessible process. There was no discussion at the time about a revenue generator or profitability or any of the other phrases people want to use. I am sure that the Government did not set out to say, “We want to make a profit”, but this is way above the amount necessary to be spent to process these applications. Whatever we call it, it does not seem right to me that this surplus should be placed on these vulnerable people. I am not alone in thinking that this is a disproportionate amount of money. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, concluded her remarks by reminding us that it was the former Home Secretary Sajid Javid himself who said that this was a “huge amount of money”.

It my witness statement, I also referred to our duties under the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In fact, in 1981 it was of course against a backdrop of riots in Toxteth in Liverpool and Brixton. The main focus of our debate was expressed in a statement by the Minister of the day, who said that we had to encourage a greater sense of having a stake in society and promote British identity and citizenship, especially as some children were losing the automatic right to citizenship as a result of the 1981 Act. This entitlement was not to be made dependent on a child satisfying the Secretary of State that they met the relevant conditions of the Act. This is a point eloquently made, and insisted upon, in a statement to your Lordships’ House on 6 October 1981 —it can be found at col. 36 in Hansard—by the then Lord Advocate, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern.

In December last, on the day of the High Court ruling by Mr Justice Jay, I tabled two Questions to the noble Baroness. One was on

“what assessment they have made of the ruling of the High Court on 19 December in the case brought by the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens that there is a ‘mass of evidence’ that the fee charged to children registering for British citizenship prevents many such children from registering British citizenship, leaving them feeling ‘alienated, excluded, ‘second-best’, insecure and not fully assimilated into the culture and social fabric of the UK.’”

The second Question was on

“when they intend to remove the fee charged by the Home Office to register children as British citizens; and whether they intend to refund those who paid such fees before the High Court ruling on 19 December.”

The noble Baroness replied to me, as she always courteously and efficiently does, and I was grateful for that. On 7 January, she said:

“The judgment was handed down on 19 December, and we are carefully considering its implications, and next steps.”


I know your Lordships’ House will want to hear this evening what care has gone into that process, where we are up to and what the next steps will be. Today, she has the chance to outline those steps.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Jay said that:

“British citizenship is a status aspired to and cherished by many, conferring benefits on the holder which are both tangible and intangible.”


Mr Justice Jay confirmed the details which we in our debate have laid before the Committee of the rising costs of these fees: children entitled to be registered under the British Nationality Act 1981 must pay a fee of £1,012—with a higher amount of £1,206 for adults—together with £80 for the citizenship ceremony. He confirmed the Secretary of State’s admission that

“only £372 of that fee is attributed to the administrative cost of processing the application; the remainder effectively cross-subsidises other functions in connection with immigration and nationality.”

In his judgment, Mr Justice Jay said that:

“The evidence before me is that for a substantial number of children a fee of £1,012 is simply unaffordable.”


He cited earlier judgments that

“the fact of belonging to a country fundamentally affects the manner of exercise of a child’s family and private life, during childhood and well beyond.”

He quoted with approval the Secretary of State’s own guidance documents. At paragraph 20, Mr Justice Jay stated what noble Lords have repeated in your Lordships’ House today:

“there is a mass of evidence supporting the proposition that a significant number of children, and no doubt the majority growing up in households on low or middle incomes, could only pay the fee by those acting on their behalf being required to make unreasonable sacrifices.”

Mr Justice Jay also found a mass of evidence to support our arguments that children who are unable to attain such citizenship

“feel alienated, excluded, isolated, ‘second-best’, insecure and not fully assimilated into the culture and social fabric of the UK.”

The judgment reminded the Government that they have a paramount duty to consider a child’s best interests. Evidence was laid before the High Court demonstrating that a disproportionality in this policy, inevitably hitting the poorest and most disadvantaged, needs to be addressed. Put simply, it is discriminatory and unfair. In his conclusion, he said:

“My conclusion that the Secretary of State has violated the section means that the 2018 Regulations are unlawful in that respect to the extent that they set the fee for registration applications brought by children at £1,012.”


Basic are the human rights at stake here. Being mindful of the Windrush scandal, which has been referred to, and the arguments about inclusivity, integration and the promotion of British citizenship, we must surely support amendments that rectify this arrangement and fly in the face of all these things. We must reassert the principles enshrined in legislation enacted by the Conservative Government of the day in 1981, and hope that the Home Office will not only carefully consider the implications of Mr Justice Jay’s judgment but use the opportunities of this Bill to rectify the injustices that undoubtedly exist.

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

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 14th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Primarolo (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I hesitate to speak in this debate having heard the eloquent and dedicated contribution of my noble friend Lord Dubs, and from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, about the humanitarian imperative to act now in this terrible crisis that we are seeing unfold, both in Greece and France, of unaccompanied children and families. As pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, we see proposals from the Government that appear to prepare to weaken our commitment to reuniting unaccompanied children with their families—at a time that strikes at the heart of what we believe are British values of caring and standing up for those who are less well off than us and taking our share and burden in helping those in greatest need.

Amendment 48, which I support, would provide the basis on which this country could have rules that offered a safe route for children to join their family members in the UK. Having such clear rules offers a path forward. The Minister has to tell the Committee why the Government find themselves in a position in which the EU has rejected the proposals that they put forward in the negotiations on the basis that they were not part of the mandate. They were never part of the mandate. It looks unlikely that we will be able to negotiate bilateral agreements with the other member states. If the EU has overall competence for this matter, that route will be closed off for ever.

On 3 September, a Home Office official appearing before the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee confirmed that at the end of December 2020 the UK will not be bound by the Dublin arrangements. So we have no route through negotiations; we think that bilateral arrangements are unlikely, and we know we will not have Dublin III, according to the Government. Can the Minister tell the Committee, if she is going to reject amendment, what plans the Government have to ensure that we have a mechanism in place at the end of the transition period to provide a replacement for Dublin III? Can she explain how unaccompanied children in desperate need of clarity and certainty will receive speedy action so that they can be reunited with their families? Will she detail how, if she will not accept the amendment, she intends to insert rights into the Bill that protect children with relatives in the UK who are willing to take responsibility for those children?

The Government are being offered a clear and simple way forward to meet these obligations by the brilliant work of my noble friend Lord Dubs. I urge the Minister to accept the principles enshrined in the amendment. I hope she will respond positively to all the comments that have been made thus far in this very important debate.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, with the Children’s Society saying that child refugees worldwide now number some 13 million, surely the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was right to say that this is one of the gravest crises facing the world. The Minister will no doubt remind the Committee what the Government have done. They have done much to try to help children caught up in this terrible spiral of violence—I do not think that anyone in the Committee would not want to respond in some way to try to deal with many of the issues raised during the debate so far. However, she will understand from the cri de coeur she has heard from noble Lords across the Committee that just because we have helped some, that is not a reason not to try to help others as well. Just because we cannot solve the problems of everyone is not a reason not to try to solve the problems of anyone.

Given his own personal story, there is no one better equipped or able than the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, to put the case. I also wholeheartedly associate myself with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, and with what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham said about the sanctity of every human life and our particular duty to the most vulnerable. I make common cause with all those who have spoken in the debate so far.

Amendment 48 takes us back to the well-worn road to Dublin, although, as the Irish would say, if you wanted to get to Dublin you wouldn’t start from here. Over the months, the Minister has had to respond to my repeated questions, along with those of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and other noble Lords, about the Dublin regulations—those European Union protocols concerning the identification and transfer of people, especially unaccompanied children who have submitted a claim for asylum from one member state to another where the applicant has family. Of course, the issue of unaccompanied children was also the subject of the Dubs amendment, which was referred to by the noble Lord earlier in the debate. That amendment was passed by your Lordships’ House and I was very happy to be one of the signatories to it.

Amendment 48 has become necessary because Ministers have yet to create new arrangements post December 2020, when the transitional arrangements elapse. The amendment would provide some legal framework to enable those who would have been able to come here under the Dublin regulations to enter the UK and make their asylum claim.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I am the first person who signed Amendment 51 to speak on this group. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for providing such a clear introduction to both the need for a physical document and the difference between these two amendments. Amendment 51, which I signed with the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, calls for the automatic provision of the document, as the noble Lord, Lord Oates said, and Amendment 49 would provide one on request. I would argue that Amendment 51 is stronger because “on request” requires people seeing into the future and predicting when things might not work. It would be simpler and easier for the department to administer, but either one of these amendments would be a significant improvement on the situation we have now.

As the noble Lord, Lord Oates, said, both the3million and Britons in Europe have done a great deal of work to spread the information about the need for this document. I was at a briefing earlier with the Children’s Society and the3million, focusing on the situation of the 260,000 children who have acquired settled status and the 150,000 who now have pre-settled status. If we think about the situation where—in about 10 or 15 years’ hence—one of those young children has to suddenly prove their status, recovering all the emails, the phone numbers and all the other information they might need to do that is likely to be far from simple.

I also want to address the situation for adults. Can the Minister confirm my understanding of what the process would be? My understanding is, for example, if someone wants to prove their right to work—as we were discussing in an earlier amendment—they will need to access their status via a website, providing the passport or ID card they applied with and their date of birth; they will then have a choice of getting a code with either email or phone; that code will need to be entered on the website; if that is successful, their status will appear on the screen and there will be an option to prove their status. They will then have to fill in the employer’s email address; the system will attempt to email a code to the employer, who will then need to find the correct website, enter the code along with some security information and finally see a screen with a photograph and proof that the person has the right to work. Does the Minister acknowledge that this has many moving parts? If any one of these fails, then it all fails.

We were talking before about landlords being reluctant to go through the extra hassle. We can also imagine plenty of employers who might be similarly reluctant—if they are choosing between two nearly equal applicants—and thinking, “Well, let’s just go for the simpler option.” We saw research from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants that showed that only three in 150 landlords said they were prepared to do those digital checks. Perhaps employers might not be quite so prepared—if they are concerned about discrimination legislation—to talk about their reluctance to do it, but you have to wonder if it would be there.

Of course, as other speakers have already said, this is really very frightening; it makes people feel very insecure. It is estimated that 22% of people do not have the essential digital skills to complete this process. It might be that they rely on someone else—such as the small child that I started off by talking about—but what happens when that person is no longer accessible or available to them or in contact with them? Physical back-up would provide people with certainty and security. It would be good if everyone had it, but either way it should certainly be available. Therefore, I commend both of these amendments, but particularly Amendment 51, to your Lordships.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to support Amendments 49 and 51. I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Oates, said in introducing them so cogently and reasonably, and I had the advantage of being able to have had a conversation with him last week where he explained the generalities of the amendments to me. I thought the arguments were compelling; the noble Lord, Lord Polak, put it well when he said this was a practical and sensible option. All three speeches that we have heard so far have underlined why this is not one of those ragged political debates that require us to take positions; it is something about which we can do something useful this evening in Committee.

I will turn, if I may, from the generalities to something specific, a particular case of people who will be especially disadvantaged by the impact of digital-only status: the Roma community. On 2 August, Roma Holocaust Memorial Day commemorated the shocking liquidation of Roma in August 1944 at the so-called Gypsy family camp at Auschwitz- Birkenau. On that infamous day, 2,897 men, women and children of Roma or Sinti origin were murdered by the Nazis. Of around 23,000 Roma taken to Auschwitz—and hundreds of thousands more perished during the Holocaust—an estimated 20,000 were murdered there. At the time of the liberation of Auschwitz, only four Roma remained alive.

Now, 76 years later, Roma people still face discrimination and liquidation. I especially commend the work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Roma in ensuring that Parliament understands the horrors that this community has experienced and the special circumstances and challenges which it faces today.

In debates like this, I miss the voice of Lord Avebury, a good and long-standing friend and the author of the Caravan Sites Act 1968. At the memorial event celebrating his life, Damian Le Bas, a Roma who wrote The Stopping Places: A Journey Through Gypsy Britain—a remarkable insight into the world of Travelling people—spoke powerfully about how parliamentarians such as Lord Avebury can act to ensure that the UK’s 200,000 Roma can lead lives of dignity.

Lord Avebury would have been the first on his feet to support these amendments, pointing to the lack of awareness within the Roma community of digital immigration status and the way in which digital exclusion simply builds on the other exclusions which Roma historically have experienced. The Roma Support Group says that only 3% of Roma are able independently to complete online applications such as those required by the European Union settlement scheme. Very little data exists about how many Roma have applied to the EUSS so far and been given settled or pre-settled status. As the debate proceeds, I will hand the Minister a copy of the Roma Support Group’s briefing on this so that she can read some of the cases illustrating this point. I would be grateful if the Minister could say how this problem can be addressed, especially as the Home Office data does not include a breakdown of ethnicity.

Enabling those who need it to receive physical evidence of their status in the UK would certainly be a start, and enabling programmes to be developed which could address the issue of digital exclusion, on which this debate has helped us to focus, would be a very good outcome.

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that we all cherish the memory of the much-missed Lord Avebury, who was a champion for human rights globally.

I will speak to Amendments 49 and 51 on the need for documented proof of settled status, and commend the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for his compelling speech, and the crisp speech—notably from the Government Benches—from the noble Lord, Lord Polak. The ending of free movement, which this Bill implements, is nothing less than a tragedy. We should not be severing our links with our nearest neighbours, with whom we have the most in common. This seismic change in our freedom impacts all UK citizens, as we will lose our rights to live, work and study in the EU and EEA countries. For EU nationals living here—many of whom are our family members, friends and colleagues—and for UK citizens living in EU member states, the changes will also be profound, bringing a potential loss of security and life choices in the future.

The aim of the Government’s Brexit project of ending free movement to and from the EU and replacing it with the future global points-based immigration system was supposedly to deliver on their aim of reducing net migration. This policy is not supported by the evidence. In 2019, despite free movement, net migration from the EU fell to less than 50,000, but net migration from outside the EU, where there is no free movement, increased to its highest level for 45 years, above 280,000. Is this what “taking back control” was supposed to be about?

Those EU nationals who for whatever reason do not acquire settled status by the deadline of the end of June 2021 will move from an immigration system that currently works to the same unreformed system that currently applies to non-EU nationals, which is inhumane, dysfunctional and, frankly, chaotic. Even those who succeed in registering under the EU settled status scheme will receive no physical documentation as proof of their status; their rights will not be guaranteed in primary legislation and will potentially be subject to alteration by Ministers under the very considerable Henry VIII powers that this Bill bestows on them.

The Financial Times reported in July that the number of EU migrants who have applied for the right to stay in the UK after Brexit already considerably exceeds official estimates of the Europeans who are eligible to remain, raising further questions over the effectiveness of the Government’s scheme. Home Office statistics up to July show that 3.8 million applications have been made, far more than the official estimate of 3.4 million EU citizens living in the UK that was produced by the Office for National Statistics. In fact, the Financial Times survey of EU embassies discovered that the UK Government might have underestimated the EU-born population of the UK by more than half a million people. By the end of July more than 3.5 million grants of status had been made. However, around 40% of those applicants had been granted only pre-settled status, leaving them in a kind of limbo with their status still unresolved for the long term, while many more applications are still anticipated.

Experts warn that the confusion over the real number of EU citizens living in the UK will make it almost impossible to assess how many eligible people will fail to secure settled status by the time the process closes on 30 June next year. However, it is likely that tens of thousands will suddenly become unlawfully resident in the country that they have legally made their own and be left facing the full force of the Home Office’s “hostile environment”—namely, criminalisation and the threat of deportation.

The groups most affected are likely to include many from the age groups under 18 years and over 65 years, who have had worryingly low application rates. For example, there are 9,000 eligible children and young people in the care system in the UK, for whom only 500 applications have so far been made by local authorities. Non-EU-national family members of EU nationals, rural farm workers, those in isolated communities, those with limited English-language skills, those who are homeless, victims of domestic abuse, those without relevant or up-to-date documents and those who are not digitally literate—often the elderly—are all potentially at risk. That last problem has been exacerbated by the pandemic as the support services normally available to such groups have been forced to move online.

For those groups and others, such as full-time students, full-time parents and those who have previously left the UK temporarily for more than six months, providing the required proof of continuous residence for five years to the Home Office can be very challenging, if not impossible. This means that people with a rightful claim to British residence may lose their legal status overnight. It is another Windrush in the making.

The other main impact of the Bill is of course that, as a direct consequence of the abolition of EEA free movement for UK citizens, we, our children and our grandchildren will from January 2021 lose our rights to live, work and study in the 27 member states of the EU plus the three EEA countries and Switzerland—the biggest diminution in value of a country’s citizenship in history. Therefore, at the same time as the UK Government are opening up higher-paid jobs in the UK to the whole world under the points-based system, the brightest and best UK citizens seeking international career opportunities in the biggest, richest market on our doorstep, the EU, will be second-class citizens in their own country.

In addition, the multiple impacts of the Bill on the estimated 1.5 million UK citizens already resident in European Union member states, who will also become second-class citizens within the EU, should not be forgotten. For example, those with non-British spouses and family members will not have an automatic right to return to the UK with their family after 31 December 2020. Frankly, the Bill is an inhumane, reactionary mess and these amendments try to ameliorate that. I stress that they are not party political; they are simply about humanity. That is why I hope the Minister will accept them when she replies.

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

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Dundee (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I support the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on protecting rights to British citizenship. We have already debated her first one, Amendment 68. This urges that applicants should not be disadvantaged just because registration costs might become too much for them to afford. We are now considering her Amendment 67, which advises that our system should set out to be proactive, helpful and encouraging towards applicants. Correspondingly, Amendment 63, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, correctly argues that in the first place, steps should be taken to raise awareness of available British citizenship rights under the British Nationality Act 1981. I hope the Minister is able to endorse these recommendations.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 67, to which I am a signatory, returns to the issue of citizenship. It is a pleasure to follow both the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I was particularly pleased that she referenced the position of the Roma, an issue I raised earlier this week in our previous debates. I hope the Minister will be able to answer the question put to her by the noble Baroness. I also strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said in the context of Amendment 63, but let me add in parenthesis that I think it unfortunate that citizenship is so often viewed through the lens of immigration policy.

Amendment 67 was originally coupled with Amendment 68, which focused on the issue of citizenship fees, as referred to by the noble Earl a moment ago, and which we debated last week. At the conclusion of that debate, the Minister said the Government intended to appeal the decision of the High Court in the case, Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens v the Secretary of State for the Home Department—a case in which, as she knows, I provided a witness statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to support Amendment 81 in the name of my noble friend Lord Morrow. During our consideration of the Bill we have heard a great deal about the impact of the shape of immigration rules on confirmed victims of modern slavery. I share the concerns articulated by other noble Lords about not permitting the changes to the immigration system to leave victims with fewer rights to remain, or more restricted access to services and support than is currently available.

This country has a proud history of providing asylum, refuge and protection to vulnerable people, and ending freedom of movement is not meant to pull the rug out from underneath vulnerable victims of modern slavery. That is not what the public voted for, and I urge the Minister to reflect urgently with colleagues on what can be put in place before the end of the year to ensure that rights to remain in the UK for a minimum of 12 months to receive support beyond the NRM, including the opportunity to engage in work and study, will be made available to victims of modern slavery from EEA countries.

In the specific context of Amendment 81, in July the Government published a 130-page document called UK Points-Based Immigration System: Further Details Statement. Paragraph 3 on page 11, under the heading “Principles of the Points-Based System”, says:

“As we replace freedom of movement with the Points-Based System, we remain committed to protecting individuals from modern slavery and exploitation by criminal traffickers and unscrupulous employers.”


That is a noble commitment, but it rings rather hollow in the absence of a delivery mechanism, which is why Amendment 81 is, as I will argue, of such strategic importance.

The need for a delivery mechanism is highlighted by the implication of the 2018 figures from Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, which show that one-fifth of agricultural workers in the Province are from countries outside the UK and Ireland, and most come from the EU. Some 15% of the agriculture businesses surveyed employ seasonal migrant workers. Agriculture is, unfortunately, already well known to be a risk sector for human trafficking, and the combination of a change to the rules around recruiting migrant workers with those existing risks cannot be ignored.

A report published by the International Organization for Migration last year, Migrants and their Vulnerability to Human Trafficking, Modern Slavery and Forced Labour, found that:

“Restrictive immigration policies (such as restrictions applied to certain visas or arbitrary changes to asylum procedures for nationals from certain countries) and weak migration governance structures are frequently noted as major causes of vulnerability to modern slavery, especially when combined with low-wage migration”,


and that,

“migrants whose visas are tied to a specific employer are also at higher risk of exploitation”.

In this context, it comes as no surprise to me that the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, who has huge experience in dealing with modern slavery issues, having developed, introduced and successfully taken through Stormont what is now known as the human trafficking and exploitation Act, has brought forward the amendment to provide the requisite delivery mechanism. I very much hope that the Government will accept it.

I urge the Government, further to this debate and that on Amendment 7, to prevent the integrity of the Brexit protocols being tarnished by allowing 1 January 2021 to become a day on which the rights of victims of modern slavery and some of the most vulnerable members of our society are eroded. The best way in which to get ahead of the game and demonstrate that, far from being about a race to the bottom, Brexit is about using our sovereignty to generate better laws, would be to adopt the Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and the right honourable Sir Iain Duncan Smith. I urge the Government to adopt not merely the amendment but that Bill without delay.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, who has done such heroic work, both here and in the Northern Ireland Assembly, in championing the rights of people who are being trafficked. I endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown, has said.

I should declare that I am a trustee of the anti-trafficking charity the Arise Foundation, which focuses on prevention of trafficking in source countries and has seen a huge increase in vulnerability, due to lack of available work during the Covid pandemic. When ready for publication, I suspect that we will see a substantial increase in trafficking numbers. Has the Minister seen any harbingers or indicators of that?

Undoubtedly, from the reports being received by Arise, Covid has had a devastating effect on heightening vulnerability in source countries, making it more likely that people will be at risk of making unsafe journeys. That is even more reason to incorporate the amendment. I also remind the Minister of the remarks I read into Hansard last week from the former independent commissioner on human trafficking, Kevin Hyland.

I am greatly concerned that, as things stand, when proposed changes to immigration law come into effect on 1 January 2021, they will diminish the rights of victims of modern slavery, and the amendment would help to prevent that from happening. Whereas today EEA nationals who are victims of modern slavery are able to remain in the UK, accessing a variety of publicly funded benefits and employment opportunities to help them recover, they will lose this in the same way as EEA nationals who are not victims of modern slavery. Nothing comparable is being put in its place. Their only hope is to apply for discretionary leave to remain, but we know that in practice very few victims receive such grants of leave—about 12%. Perhaps the noble Baroness can confirm that.

Then I see from reading the Government’s response to Amendment 7 that, although they have committed not to, in effect, directly knock out rights from the EU anti-trafficking directive that are part of EU retained law, they cannot tell us whether all the rights currently available to victims will be part of EU retained law. The Government have a chance again to do that this evening. Unless they do so, this will continue to engender fear that 1 January 2021 will usher in the end of some effective rights of victims of modern slavery.

That would be particularly tragic for the Government because they can take great credit for passing the Modern Slavery Act 2015. I was happy to have been a participant in those proceedings. Of course, that legislation came forward only because of the work of the then Home Secretary, Theresa May. It is a permanent and lasting legacy and achievement of hers and of both Houses, working with one another across the political divide. I would be deeply saddened if I thought that anything we were doing now would in any way diminish the importance and effectiveness of that legislation.

As the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, has said, one of the arguments advanced by those in favour of leaving the European Union, was that the UK would now have the option of not merely maintaining EU standards but going beyond them. Here is an opportunity to test that proposition. The Government could and should go further by urgently adopting the Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill sponsored by the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, and the former Conservative Party leader, Iain Duncan Smith.

In the time available to me, however, I want particularly to comment on the value of the amendment from the perspective of preventing human trafficking. I should like to pursue a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, about ensuring that the arrangements not only for the skilled worker visa but other migration routes will clearly set out how the Government intend to prevent human trafficking and exploitation and contain appropriate safeguards to avoid those routes being manipulated by traffickers.

I welcome the Government’s inclusion of protecting people from modern slavery in the three guiding principles for the points-based system set out in the further details statement published in July. The fact that the whole approach to immigration is underpinned by three foundational principles, and that one of those principles is concerned with combating trafficking, suggests that combating trafficking is important. But where is the delivery mechanism? That was a point made effectively by the two noble Lords who preceded me. I commend the amendment to the Minister as an example of the sort of mechanism that needs to be put in place in order to fulfil the aspirations of that principle.

Of course, not all migrant workers are vulnerable to modern slavery—a point made by the Minister rightly made from the Dispatch Box. Indeed, those who are the most highly paid are unlikely to be caught in exploitation; but even for skilled and well paid migrants it is important that checks and processes are put in place to ensure that those recruiting people from overseas are reputable, subject to scrutiny and abide by all labour regulations. The noble Baroness rightly reinforced that in our earlier debates.

Most at risk, though, are likely to be those who fall outside the skilled worker points-based programme—those who will participate in other temporary migration routes such as youth mobility schemes or seasonal worker schemes or those who may be recruited to work illegally spring to mind. The Government’s policy statement about the points-based system in February said:

“We will not introduce a general low-skilled or temporary work route. We need to shift the focus of our economy away from a reliance on cheap labour from Europe and instead concentrate on investment in technology and automation. Employers will need to adjust.”


I am very concerned that some of the ways in which unscrupulous employers will adjust will include the exploitation of undocumented workers and it is worrying that that the Government do not seem to have taken account of that risk. I look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness says on that in her reply.

I support the amendment because it will mean that, as the building blocks of the new immigration system are put in place through regulations under Clause 4, the Government will be required to assess the impact of that system on victims of modern slavery, and I hope, the way in which the system can prevent modern slavery from happening at all.

I was struck by research published in 2019 by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, which looked at labour exploitation of adult migrants in eight European Union states and found that

“vulnerability linked to residence status is the most important risk factor causing or contributing to labour exploitation”.

--- Later in debate ---

All in all, Clause 5 makes us very nervous. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell me that, at the minimum, she accepts the amendments constraining the Clause 5 powers and, preferably, that she totally agrees with me that the clause should be deleted and primary legislation in this important area brought forward instead.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Committee will be relieved to know that I can be mercifully brief. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, that Clause 5 is not something we should be happy about. It brings to mind the debates in recent weeks on matters such as the medicines Bill, where the same concerns have been raised about the use of things such as skeleton Bills. I do not want this to become a skeleton Parliament. Under the cover of Covid and Brexit, we are seeing the emasculation of many of Parliament’s powers, which we should cherish. The noble Baroness is, therefore, right that the overuse of statutory instruments—Ministers taking powers, reputable and decent as individual Ministers may be—is not a safeguard for this House. Ministers change; Parliament changes, but the legislation we pass is almost cast in stone. It is right to raise these concerns about accountability and scrutiny, the need for checks and balances, and why we should cherish the rights and privileges that parliamentarians enjoy. The noble Baroness is right to remind the Minister of what the committees of our own House have said about the overuse of these powers.

[Baroness Janke (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendments 84 and 85 and of Clause 5 being deleted from the Bill. As other noble Lords have said, the amendments in this group seek to restrain the Government in their objective of transferring wide-scale powers to Ministers to take action that could have a major impact on the lives of UK citizens living in EEA countries and on EEA citizens living in the UK.

Amendment 84 would restrict the Secretary of State’s power to make regulations to the powers listed in Clause 5(3). These powers enable the social security co-ordination regulations to be amended and policy to be changed. The social security regulations co-ordinate access to social security for people moving between EEA countries and they are widely accepted and understood across those countries. They ensure clarity about where payments and contributions are made. These payments are essential income to UK citizens living in the EEA and EEA citizens living in the UK. As other noble Lords have said, it is important for all citizens to have confidence in the continuation of these complex regulations and in the withdrawal agreement itself. The Government’s explanation is that the clause allows them to make regulations to implement any new policies regarding co-ordination of social security. The clause is intended to be used to implement new policies, subject to the outcome of future negotiations with the EU. As the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has warned, there has been no adequate justification for the transfer of these powers to Ministers. The Constitution Committee also recommends that Clause 5 be deleted from the Bill and says:

“Any further modification of the Social Security Co-ordination Regulations that might be required could be achieved using the power in section 8 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.”


Amendment 85 seeks to preclude the power of the Secretary of State to distinguish between recipients of pensions and other benefits on the basis of their nationality or residence in a particular state. This takes no account of other circumstances and would lead to arbitrary and unjust decisions that would have a huge impact on the lives of the people they relate to.

Further, I wish to oppose that Clause 5 stand part of the Bill. If successful, this would see Clause 5 as an inappropriate delegation of power, as recommended by the DPRR Committee in its 46th report. How can it be right or proper that the regulations governing the crucial payment of social security, such as disability benefit and unemployment benefit, to large numbers of people can be radically changed, even to their extreme disadvantage, without consultation, without proper scrutiny and with little accountability? This is a licence to penalise large numbers of citizens arbitrarily without proper justification or democratic safeguards. If this clause goes through, public consideration of changes to the regulations will be so limited that the people affected will have no opportunity to question or make representations as to their impact.

I support these amendments and strongly oppose Clause 5 standing part of the Bill. As the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee said:

“We remain of the view, expressed in our earlier Report, that the Government have provided an inadequate justification for a wholesale transfer to Ministers of power to legislate in a field that could have a major impact on large numbers of UK citizens resident in EEA countries, and EEA citizens resident in the UK, who currently rely upon reciprocal arrangements.”


I support my noble friend Lady Ludford in saying that such changes should be the subject of primary legislation and not as is suggested in Clause 5.

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

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 30th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I agree, as I usually do, with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. She mentioned the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. There was also a report on this subject by your Lordships’ Constitution Committee, of which I am a member. We issued a report on 2 September, our 11th report of the session. At paragraph 22, we said:

“We agree with the conclusions of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee about the powers in clause 4. A Henry VIII clause that is subject to such a permissive test as ‘appropriateness’, and which may be used to do anything ‘in connection with’ in relation to so broad and important an issue as free movement, is constitutionally unacceptable. Such vague and subjective language undermine fundamental elements of the rule of law.”


That is the view of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee, in a unanimous report from Members from around the House. I am very disappointed that the Government have been so far unwilling to engage with that advice—and certainly to accept it.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee noted, in paragraphs 18 to 19 of its excellent report, the exceptional breadth of Clause 4(1). What it does is empower the Secretary of State not merely to make regulations “in consequence of” this legislation but “in connection with” this legislation. As the committee explained, that would confer on Ministers the power to make whatever regulations they think appropriate, provided they have some connection with the legislation, “however tenuous”. Given the exceptional breadth of the delegated powers in Clause 4, I also support Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, which would impose a sunset clause on these powers.

I have one further point. This Bill is far from unique in seeking to confer excessively broad powers on Ministers. The Constitution Committee has repeatedly drawn attention to the need for effective limits on delegated legislation, to ensure ministerial accountability to Parliament. I am pleased that Members of the House of Commons, in the last few days, have begun to recognise the dangers of such legislation, not least because, when regulations are brought forward, they are unamendable. Your Lordships’ Constitution Committee has regularly made this point in reports over the last few years. The unacceptable breadth of provisions such as Clause 4 in the Bill is, I regret to say, typical of a Government who, too often, see Parliament as an inconvenience rather than the constitutional authority to which the Government are accountable.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, first of all, I would like to apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for missing, in these rather disrupted circumstances, the very beginning of her speech today. But I am very pleased to be able to support her amendment and the others that are grouped with it.

In Committee, we had a discussion about some of the powers contained in this Bill, and I am pleased to be a signatory to Amendment 4. But I would also like to support Amendment 5 and, for the reasons my noble friend Lord Pannick has just advanced, Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, which is about a sunset clause. Amendment 5 seeks to narrow the powers of the Secretary of State, and in a way that is at the heart also of Amendment 4, which is what I want to address this afternoon.

All these amendments seek to rein in some of the powers which Ministers are taking. It is a particular pleasure to be able to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and my noble friend Lord Pannick. He referred to the Constitution Committee and its work, and I entirely agree that the substitution of the word “necessary” for “appropriate” places a higher threshold into the Bill—but you might wonder why on earth we would be spending so much time on just two words. Why does that really matter?

Yesterday in Grand Committee, in the context of the Trade Bill, I questioned, yet again, the Government’s overuse of secondary legislation and their unconvincing assertion that this amounts to effective parliamentary scrutiny and accountability. I recall that the last time the House of Commons failed to pass an affirmative action Motion was in 1978, the year before I was elected to the House of Commons. The chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, has rightly warned of the dangers of the Government taking a whole range of powers that effectively neuter due parliamentary process, and I agree with him.

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

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 16, to which I am a signatory. I wholeheartedly endorse the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who has become the terrier-in-chief on this issue, and I am grateful to the Minister for making time to discuss this issue with me last Thursday in advance of today’s debate.

Amendment 16, as we have just heard in the noble Baroness’s speech, is modest in its aim, merely requiring the Secretary of State to consult and report to the House upon both awareness of British citizenship and the exercise of the rights that such citizenship confers. I said a lot about citizenship in Committee and why it is a completely separate matter from issues such as immigration and naturalisation. I will not rehearse all those arguments all over again today; suffice it to say that the amendment does nothing to affect those contested issues.

This thoughtful, moderate, reasonable new amendment simply tries to take the debate forward in a constructive and helpful way. It is also in sync and compatible with the rights to British citizenship that were enacted in Part 1 of the British Nationality Act 1981. I shall summarise what the amendment does. Its new clause contains six subsections. Subsection (1) requires the Secretary of State to lay a report. The people who report concerns are the people defined as “relevant persons” in subsection (6)—that is, in summary, people with rights to British citizenship who are losing EU free movement rights in the UK.

Subsection (2) sets out what that report must contain. It must contain an assessment by the Secretary of State of two matters: the level of awareness among people of their rights to British citizenship and the level of exercise of these rights. In making those assessments, the Secretary of State must have regard to several factors identified within subsection (2)(c), each of which concerns barriers to people being able to exercise their statutory rights to British citizenship.

Subsection (3) requires the Secretary of State to pay particular regard to her equalities duties in producing this report and to make some comparison of the situation of two groups of people with rights to British citizenship: the group of people with rights to British citizenship who are losing EU free movement rights in the UK—this group is the focus of the report required by the amendment—and the group of people with rights to British citizenship who do not have EU free movement rights.

Subsection (4) requires the Secretary of State to undertake consultation in the preparation of her report. Subsection (5) requires the Secretary of State to give particular attention to the situation of various groups of particularly marginalised children and young people, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister; Appendix B provides some case studies relating to those groups of children and young people, similar to those outlined by the noble Baroness; and Subsection (6), which contains definitions, defines children and young people as people under the age of 25.

I shall unpack the amendment in a little more detail. Subsection (2)(c)(i) touches on the impact that fees can have on the rights of citizenship. I appreciate that the Minister cannot comment on the court case in which the High Court found against the Home Office. In earlier proceedings, I mentioned that I had given a witness statement. The Royal Courts of Justice will hear the department’s appeal on 5-7 October, and I understand that the case will be livestreamed.

However, what the Minister can comment on is a reply that she gave me to a Written Question on 10 September. I had asked her about the costs of mounting an appeal, and she replied:

“The information that you have requested on legal and administrative costs is not available”,


and added that

“we are not able to provide an accurate assessment of legal costs.”

I will repeat that:

“we are not able to provide an accurate assessment of legal costs.”

This inability to establish what the legal taximeter is clocking up contrasts starkly with the ability of the Home Office to work out how much it costs to operate this system of fee collection, and which, at over £1,000, the former Home Secretary Sajid Javid rightly said is a prohibitively expensive system. Why is it that we are able to work out how much we can generate in fees above the administrative costs, but cannot work out the costs of fighting legal actions which simply compound one mistaken decision with another? What other litigant would embark on a major legal action without any idea of what it could cost? I am sure that the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which keeps a weather eye on how taxpayers’ money is used, will have something to say about that.

Even more serious, however, is the principle of putting a major financial roadblock in the path of those who need to feel that they belong, that they are part of the web and weave of British society, and that they are true citizens of what is a truly great country. The importance of knowing you belong is something that I know is close to the heart of the Minister; we are at one on that. This amendment would seek an examination of such barriers.

Throughout preceding debates, noble Lords have repeatedly pressed the Government about children’s rights, especially those of looked-after children. Surely their vulnerable and special position alone should justify at least an examination of their special circumstances. Let us recall, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has done, that the High Court said that fees cause many children caught up in this fee-generating arrangement to feel

“alienated, excluded, isolated, ‘second best’, insecure and not fully assimilated into the culture and social fabric of the UK”.

We have a duty to address the implications of those words.

To that group I would add another, which is covered in proposed new subsection 3(a) of the amendment: those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. The House will recall that in Committee I raised the position of the Roma—something to which the noble Baroness also referred in her remarks. I would especially draw the Minister’s attention to the position of Roma children, who have been cited by the European Children’s Rights Unit as being especially disadvantaged and at risk.

I truly hope that the Minister will feel able to accept this amendment. I am sure that even if, in the first instance, it was confined to the most at-risk categories, it would represent a good start. Seeking a consultation and a review is not an unreasonable ask. I commend this amendment to the House.

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on her persistence and dedication to this issue. Her passionate advocacy, particularly for vulnerable children, has always been impressive. I share her concerns.

I must admit that I truly cannot understand why the Government are resisting this extremely modest amendment. Indeed, the problem has been going on for so long, and this amendment is so reasonable in wanting to encourage the Government to agree at least to look at this issue carefully, seriously and thoroughly, that it would seem almost impossible to reject it. Perhaps we will hear from my noble friend the Minister that the Government are indeed minded to look at this more seriously and accept it after all.

The wording could clearly have been much stronger. The strength of feeling across the House at previous stages of the Bill has been clear. Children who have been born here and have the right to citizenship but then have to register to obtain this right, perhaps having to pay significant amounts that they cannot afford, seems to undermine some of the principles on which we base our country and citizenship.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, have described the details of this lengthy amendment. I will not repeat them, but the principles referred to are so important to many individuals in this country, and to their rights as granted to them by Parliament. I find it puzzling, as well as disappointing, to see the Government so far refusing to agree to this.

Indeed, the Public Accounts Committee in the other place, in its report laid last month entitled Immigration Enforcement, has criticised the inadequacy of information available to my noble friend’s department and called for an urgent report to be carried out. Accepting this amendment could indeed assist the Government in that regard. For example, in one of its recommendations, the Public Accounts Committee says:

“Building on its response to the Windrush lessons learned review, the department should mobilise its evidence base and evaluations to challenge its own assumptions and beliefs about the user experience within the immigration system.”


That is part of what this amendment is attempting to do.

If my noble friend the Minister could accept the thrust of this amendment, and announce this at Third Reading, I believe that many of us on these Benches would be delighted and that there would be support from every side of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

As the noble Lord, Lord Oates, has pointed out, it is discriminatory. Non-EU/EEA immigrants will have physical proof. Why should we discriminate? Why can we not let EU/EEA citizens, if they ask for it, have physical proof too? It is what they want. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, has said, the costs would be negligible. It is a very modest measure. As the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, pointed out, we are asking only for physical proof to be available on demand. Some people may not ask for it, but supposing they do. Why must we make so many people so unhappy? Let us go with Mill and with liberty. Let us carry this amendment.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Oates, and the noble Lord, Lord Polak, on the manner in which they introduced this important Amendment 18. The noble Lord, Lord Polak, grew up in what was my Liverpool constituency; on a day when Liverpool has been licking its wounds, it is especially good to hear a Liverpool voice speaking such common sense, particularly from the Government Benches.

I spoke in Committee in support of the principles outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, which underpin Amendment 18. This evening, he has again eloquently reminded us of some of those who will be disadvantaged and worse—as my noble friend Lady Bull has reminded us—should they not be able to access physical documentation. The noble Lords, Lord Oates and Lord Polak, also reminded us that digital systems are far from being infallible. What of those who simply do not have access to the technology, or have never been given access to the skills required to be able to use it? The noble Lord, Lord McNicol, made some telling points, especially about the reasonableness of this very moderate amendment.

In Committee, I specifically referred to the difficulties being faced by Roma travelling people with the digital requirements to which they will be subjected. I was disappointed at earlier stages that more was not said in response. I once again urge the Minister to address the Equality Act requirements to counter the discriminatory disadvantage that Roma will inevitably experience if this option of physical documentation is not made available. However, it is not only Roma. As other noble Lords have said, all of us have received correspondence from people anxious to retain physical documentation.

That brings to my mind a personal experience. My late mother was from a Gaeltacht area, or Irish-speaking area, in the west of Ireland, where, until their early deaths, her parents had worked a small hill farm. When they died, their children were scattered, and my mother emigrated. Her first language was Irish, she had little schooling and no documentation, and she was doing domestic jobs to make a living. Years later, my late father, a Desert Rat, wanted to take her on her first foreign holiday. Obtaining physical documentation was a challenge, although not insuperable. In the course of it, I was surprised by a revealing comment she made: that despite the specific freedoms enjoyed by the English and the Irish in those days to travel freely between both jurisdictions, she had always been worried about having no physical documentation. Happily, that was resolved, and her documents provided me, my children, and now my grandchildren, with the right to Irish as well as British passports—both of which I am proud to have.

I tell this story to illustrate the importance of physical documents to establish who you are and affirm your identity. The noble Lords, Lord Oates and Lord Polak, as well as other noble Lords, are right to have persisted with their amendment. I hope that, if we have to divide, we will support this amendment. However, I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that the Government will give it further thought and perhaps come back with their own amendment at Third Reading.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

I support the amendment, which was so well introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, and ably supported by those following him, particularly my noble friend Lord Polak.

I would like to tell the story of somebody who would not be affected by this measure, because she is not an EEA citizen. However, she was a victim of modern slavery and got indefinite leave to remain. She applied for British nationality and sent off her passport. That was two years ago, and the Home Office is still trying to make a decision about her case. I am not sure what the problem is, but she was not told about the need for a biometric card, so she does not have one. She cannot get one at the moment because her passport and all her other details are with the Home Office. Despite her status, she is finding it impossible to get a job because employers want to see that biometric card.

As others have said, we have talked about systems being down and about people not having the technology. The technology could be just an iPhone, but not everybody has a mobile phone—I know that pretty much all of us do but not everybody does. If a number is sent by text to a telephone, there are still far too many places in this country where the signal is not strong enough for the message to come through. As a Member of this House, from time to time when I log in, a number is sent to my phone with which I can verify that I am exactly who I say I am, and I can then get on to the Outlook system. Quite recently, I have been in situations in this country where I cannot do that because the telephone signal is not strong enough. Those are all things that we have to bear in mind.

Of course, the human angle is very important. One thing that has not been mentioned, but which I read about, is that one reason the Government do not want to accede to this modest requirement is that it is not secure. I can understand that there is always concern about counterfeiting and so forth, but there are so many things that we issue with physical proof that it should not be beyond the wit of a Government to produce something that is pretty difficult to counterfeit.

If there are concerns about the cost, although this amendment precludes charging, I suggest that a modest charge of £10 or £20 might go towards that. I think that the people who have contacted us would be happy to pay that sort of amount and maybe even a bit more. However, I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government are being so resolute—I could say “obstinate”—on this point, and I am afraid that I have to say to my noble friends on the Front Bench that if, as I hope, the amendment is taken to a Division, I will support it, and I think that it will pass with a very large majority.

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

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Amendment 27 addresses the immediate situation after this Bill becomes law for EU nationals who have experienced being trafficked or exploited. I urge noble Lords to support it, but I will continue to advocate for my Bill as the longer-term solution for all victims of modern slavery. I beg to move.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am very happy to be a co-signatory to Amendment 27, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, along with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I remind the House of my non-pecuniary interest as a trustee of the anti-trafficking charity, Arise Foundation.

Characteristically, at midnight last night, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, who is in his 88th year, was waiting to move this amendment. If he had been required to, he would have stayed all night, such is his commitment to this cause. I admire him greatly for that. Over several decades, I have been truly fortunate to get to know the noble Lord. I have often found myself on the same side of arguments and deeply admire him on many fronts, not least in the use of his skills as a surgeon in life-saving and life-changing work on the Mercy Ships and his indefatigable efforts to raise in the House the plight of victims of modern slavery. It was also good to see the article on PoliticsHome yesterday by the noble Lord and the right honourable Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP setting out the case for this amendment.

In 2015, I participated along with many other noble Lords throughout the debates on the Modern Slavery Act and warmly congratulated the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, on pioneering with great skill and determination world-class legislation, a rarity in enjoying bipartisan and bicameral support. Following our debate in Committee on 16 September, I sent our debate on the noble Lord’s earlier amendment to Lady May, as she now is, and received a warm response encouraging us all to continue to champion and speak up for victims of modern slavery.

It has been deeply shocking for us all to see the way in which human traffickers have been fuelling the migrant crisis in Calais, Dunkirk and Zeebrugge. We have heard in our debates on amendments to this Bill about how young children have been exploited, used as pawns in a lucrative and sometimes deadly trade. The House will recall that it is less than 12 months since the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people trafficked into Tilbury. I was particularly pleased to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, said yesterday in your Lordships’ House about what she and the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, are determined to do to end this murderous trade in human misery.

No one can doubt the vulnerability of victims of trafficking and modern slavery by those who manipulate and exploit them. The Government are right to accept that other vulnerable groups such as refugees have conferred upon them an immigration status that recognises their vulnerability. When someone is recognised as a refugee in the UK, they are offered an initial period of five years’ leave to remain. That is not the case for victims of trafficking. Confirmed non-EU victims of modern slavery are able to apply for asylum, but for completely understandable reasons this option has not been open to EU nationals. That is what this amendment addresses.

After 1 January, EU victims who are trafficked into the UK will not have any free movement rights and, unless the rules change, will not be able to apply for asylum. Their immigration options are therefore slim. I am sure that the Minister will respond by confirming that victims of modern slavery are able to apply for discretionary leave to remain. Currently, non-EU nationals are automatically considered for this discretionary option if no other immigration path is available; EU nationals are not.

Looking into the background for discretionary leave to remain, I realised that the facts of who the individuals are who get such leave, and why, are opaque—to put it mildly. The Home Office has published guidance on when a victim of trafficking can be granted leave to remain. The guidance is totally discretionary and sets out three criteria on which leave to remain can be given. A person may get leave to remain, first, if they are seeking compensation for their exploitation or, secondly, if they are assisting police with criminal investigations. The third criterion is defined as “personal circumstances”. The data on how many individuals receive such discretionary leave and under which of those criteria is far from clear.

In 2017, the then Home Office Minister wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Field, when he was Member of Parliament for Birkenhead. What a pleasure it was to be here today when the noble Lord took his seat; I know that he will bring great commitment to the fight against human trafficking during his time in your Lordships’ House. In that letter, the Minister made some clear statements that DLR was the last resort and given only when there are “exceptional or compelling reasons”. Since then, no DLR data has been published in response to multiple Parliamentary Questions. This point is raised in the report of the organisation, After Exploitation, entitled Hidden Futures, published on 27 September. The report demonstrates that the Government have multiple opportunities to provide the data on the immigration outcomes of victims of trafficking. Only last week, on 29 September, the Government responded to a Parliamentary Question in another place by the Member of Parliament for Nottingham North, saying:

“Numbers and reasons for grants of discretionary leave to remain to victims of modern slavery do not currently form part of modern slavery published statistics.”


Less than a week earlier, on 24 September, the Government said that the data was not held in a reportable format. It begs the question: why not? There is considerable confusion about the immigration outcomes for victims of modern slavery and even about whether there is any data that would give such clarity.

Notwithstanding the Government’s failure to be forthcoming and transparent on this issue, in 2019 the British Red Cross was able to get information through freedom of information requests about the grants of discretionary leave to remain and it published in its report, Hope for the Future, some of its findings. These suggest that between just 8% and 9% of all victims of modern slavery were granted leave to remain between 2015 and 2017. Given the small numbers granted DLR, which the noble Lord, Lord McColl, referred to, and the fact that the individuals who are vulnerable enough to be subject to trafficking are unlikely to be those who meet the requirements of the new points-based immigration system, it is clear to me that Parliament should now act.

Without Amendment 27, European Union nationals who are victims of trafficking will find themselves significantly disadvantaged compared to the status quo. Ending free movement must not be associated with an increase in exploitation. Given that, unlike non-EEA nationals, who are considered automatically, EU nationals will have to apply for discretionary leave to remain and given that so few grants are made, EU nationals who are unable to claim residency and the benefits associated with that immigration status are more likely to find themselves destitute and subject to potential retrafficking.

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

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, the Bill is about ending free movement. From these Benches, we are no more enthusiastic about that than when the Bill started; if anything, perhaps less so, particularly because the debates have vividly demonstrated the impact on UK citizens resident in the EU and EU citizens living in the UK.

In our view, it is not surprising that the opportunity has been taken to pursue issues relating to the ending of free movement that have a wider context—a rather softer way of describing the various amendments that all sailed through the Public Bill Office, which is particularly careful in that regard. All the amendments have been very people-focused, which shows that there is a view of a fair and firm asylum system that is very different from the Government’s.

This is not the moment for long speeches, nor to rehearse the arguments on the amendments that were agreed by our House with such notable support. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, bore with good humour all that was thrown at them, although I do not know whether they took it out on the cat when they got home.

I express my thanks to our colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches and elsewhere in the House; to the Bill team for all their work; and, since the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has paved the way, to Elizabeth Plummer in our whips’ office, whose assistance on the Bill has been magnificent.

We would like to think that we will not be discussing the various amendments again but I realise that we may well do so. In the meantime, with the obvious caveats, we support the Motion that the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to have been asked to make the concluding Cross-Bench speech at the end of our consideration of the immigration Bill. I thank not only the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, for their unfailing courtesy and diligence but also the unsung heroes, the Bill team.

During one of my interventions I drew the attention of the House to the tragic story of a Ugandan refugee, Mercy Baguma, who in August was found dead in a Glasgow flat while her one year-old son was found crying beside his mother’s body, weakened from several days of starvation. Stories such as hers and of those caught up in the underlying themes of this Bill—from the vast displacement arising from movement of refugees, to the criminal gangs who profiteer from this tide of human misery and the consequences of the so-called hostile environment—have provided the backdrop to our proceedings.

Last week, by a majority of 101, the House supported the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, on human trafficking. The Commons will now have the opportunity to reconsider that issue and other changes, such as the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Oates, on physical documentation, which we have incorporated into the Bill. Although the primary purpose, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has said, is to end the exercise of EU rights of free movement in this country, noble Lords have focused again and again on the position of children and young people of European parentage who were born here or who have grown up here.

In conclusion, I remember what the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, said from the government Benches: that it would be deeply upsetting for any of us to find our children or grandchildren experiencing this exclusion from their rights to British citizenship. Thanks to the amendments we are sending back down the Corridor, the House of Commons now has the opportunity to correct this profound and damaging injustice, but also to improve the legislation. I hope it will seize the opportunity to do so.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

As the Member who was lucky enough to speak first on this Bill, both in Committee and on Report, I thank those involved with its passage through our House. Indeed, I have spoken on nearly all the Bills that have followed from our exit from the EU, in my position as a former Minister and as a current member of the European Union Committee.

I particularly congratulate my noble friend Lady Williams on her handling of the Bill. It is possibly the most challenging of the EU exit Bills, involving very divided opinions across the House; yet, thanks to her good humour and diplomacy, shown again on Amendment 1 today, it has been progressed in a timely and very courteous manner. Thanks are also due to another Minister, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott, our social security Minister on this Bill; to our Whip, my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay; to all those on these Benches who have spoken and to others across the House; and of course to the excellent Bill team.

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

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 9th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

Does any other noble Lord in the Chamber wish to speak? No. In which case, I shall call the speakers listed, the first of whom is the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark. When we travel on the London Tube, there is a warning to “mind the gap”. In their contributions, the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, have said that there is potentially a gap in provision between Dublin III and whatever is brought forward for January of next year. It is right that we should mind that gap.

On 21 March 2016, by a margin of 306 votes to 204, your Lordships carried an amendment on unaccompanied child refugees. Four years later, the noble lord, Lord Dubs, valiantly keeps us focused on the plight of refugee children. Four years ago, the noble Lord asked me to be a signatory to what in shorthand became known as the Dubs amendment. I readily agreed. I said at that time that the repeated use of the argument about the so-called pull factors—some of which were mentioned earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe—cannot, in the case of children, outweigh our duty to do all in our power to safeguard and save any child at risk. Not to do so would leave a lasting stain on our reputation.

In the four years since we first considered the Dubs amendment, we have seen shocking reports of children dying, abandoned, disappearing, trafficked or exploited during perilous journeys. The recent death of two little children in the English Channel, after their boat capsized, simply underlines yet again why it is crucial that we find these safe and legal routes, and long-term solutions that hit hard the criminal gangs that profiteer and exploit desperation, while tackling the root causes that create such phenomenal displacement.

In 2015, we were all deeply affected by the harrowing picture of a little Syrian toddler, washed up like so much flotsam and jetsam on a beach near Bodrum. The tragic deaths of a five year-old and an eight year-old in the English Channel starkly remind us that little has changed since then.

The Dubs amendment will not save the life of every child. Family reunions provided for in the Dublin III regulation are, at best, a safety net. But its absence after 31 December—the gap mentioned—could make a bad and tragic situation even worse.

Against this background, the House of Commons has once again returned this amendment to your Lordships House. I know that the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, believes that the plight of children should be a top-tier priority for the Government—in her remarks a few moments ago, she used the phrase “a fundamental tenet”. She is justifiably proud of the help we have given. Thanks to parliamentary pressure, the Government have been able to tell a better story today than might otherwise have been the case. Surely that shows the importance of parliamentary debates such as this. However, she must also accept that the talk and rhetoric from others of nets and water canon to disable or push back boats and of the use of oil rigs or remote islands to lock up migrants, and the absence of any international initiative—ideally led by the United Kingdom—to tackle the root causes, are deeply dispiriting.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, of the 79.5 million people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes, nearly 26 million are refugees. The UNHCR estimates that 40% are children and 68% come from just five countries. It cannot be beyond our wit—our collective genius—to drive this issue to the top of Governments’ agendas. Even if they do not accept that there are altruistic and humanitarian reasons to act, there are plenty of self-interested reasons why they should do so.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, reminded us, today we commemorate the anniversary of Kristallnacht—the night of broken glass—which included the destruction of 267 synagogues. Eleanor Rathbone MP established the Parliamentary Committee on Refugees. Two years later, on 10 July 1940, in a six-hour debate, she intervened on no fewer than 20 occasions to insist that Britain had a duty of care to the refugees being hunted down by the Nazis. She said that a nation had an obligation to give succour to those fleeing persecution—in her words,

“not only in the interests of humanity and of the refugees, but in the interests of security itself”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/7/1940; col. 1212.]

She said that discussions about asylum seekers and refugees

“always begin with an acknowledgement of the terrible nature of the problem and expressions of sympathy with the victims. Then comes a tribute to the work of the voluntary organisations. Then some account of the small leisurely steps taken by the Government. Next, a recital of the obstacles—fear of anti-semitism, or the jealousy of the unemployed, or of encouraging other nations to offload their Jews on to us”.

In 2020, nothing much has changed, and it is hard not to see the parallels.

The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was one of the few rescued by Kindertransport, and his commendable determination for us to remain focused on the needs of refugee children was born in those shocking times.

The clock is ticking towards 31 December. The Government’s amendment legislates for a review on safe and legal routes in the new year, including specifically on family reunion. I welcome that, but, on 1 January, children will potentially have impaired access to family reunion, and many may be left stranded alone in Europe. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, adds a requirement that current family reunion laws are kept until the review and report are complete, so that no child loses out from accessing this vital safe and legal route.

Like the noble Lord, I am pleased by the spirt and tone of everything which the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has said this afternoon. However, I would prefer to see this written in the Bill, and I will follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs—metaphorically anyway—into the Lobby and vote to send this back to the Commons one final time if he does not believe that the Government’s assurances go far enough.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, as other noble Lords have said, safe routes are needed now. We know that people will not and cannot wait. And who can blame them?

I want to question the Minister about the review, particularly to seek an assurance about one aspect. Proposed new subsection (1) in the amendment refers to the review of ways in which protection claimants can enter the UK lawfully. This suggests that the review is to be limited to considering existing ways, when what is needed are proposals to enable safe mechanisms for family reunion without the current hurdles and restrictions. Siblings must be able to reunite and close family members—not only parents—able to sponsor entry without having to find fees or demonstrate that they have the means to look after the child.

I am concerned that there is no stated objective for the review; that seems to be missing. Also missing, as the right reverend Prelate has said, is a timetable for the completion of the review. The three months mentioned is the period within which the Government are to give further details. Can the Minister help us with the wider timetable and consultation, which surely needs to be wider than just unaccompanied children?

Reference has been made to the use of guidance. Can guidance achieve what is proposed? It cannot override the rules. I endorse and support the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, about the importance of seeing drafts both of rules and guidance. Parliamentarians can then have input and amendments can be gently suggested, if not formally proposed. We cannot do this with unamendable rules.

It is beyond me that what is necessary now is to show

“serious and compelling family or other considerations which make exclusion of the child undesirable”,

in the words of the rules. Putting it that way round, rather than the converse, has always seemed perverse to me. So, too, is the policy that an application under Article 8 of the European convention, on the right to family life, will not succeed unless there are “exceptional circumstances” with refusal resulting in “unjustifiably harsh consequences”.

On the timetable again, one of the government amendments refers to two months from the date of commencement, which is beyond the end of the year. Can the Minister assure the House that there will be no lacuna as a result and that work on plugging the gap, as it were, will start immediately and apply notwithstanding the commencement date? If there needs to be a change, can it be made in the Commons? I appreciate that that would require the Bill to go back to the Commons.

In practice, it is very difficult to show that a child is in an unsafe environment. Other current problems that need to be considered are getting a child to a visa application centre to make an application under the rules, and the fees which, under one of the paragraphs of the rules, are well over £3,000. I make these perhaps slightly random points because, alone, they show the importance of consultation on the whole situation.

The Minister in the Commons referred to

“dangerous, illegal and unnecessary crossings”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/9/20; col. 182.]

I stress “unnecessary”. Would the crossings be made if they were? And was it appropriate to refer to lives lost and profit made by criminals as if they were of equal weight?

The noble Baroness referred to bilaterals. If she can give us an update, it would be welcome, but I appreciate that it may be difficult to refer to negotiations with the EU at the moment. Bilaterals would have to come after the end of the year, but we should not depend on them being in place for some time yet.

I realise that I am not taking my cue from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, as I should, who always succeeds in using the most moderate language. He started by welcoming Amendment 4C, so I will end by confirming that these Benches are pleased that he has again pointed the way forward. We support him. If he decides to divide, we will certainly go with him. In any event, like him, we will continue to seek a much more satisfactory arrangement for asylum seekers, who want the most natural thing in the world: to be with their family.