Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Barber of Ainsdale Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I was not going to speak in this bit of the Report stage, but I want to add to what the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said. I speak as chair of both University College London Hospitals and the Whittington Hospital.

This is a real issue for health workers. We have a large number of asylum seekers coming to this country who already have health qualifications, and we are desperately short of workers in our health system. The fact that we do not allow them to work when we need them and our population would benefit from their services is an absolute disgrace. I ask the Minister to think about what the public reaction would be to having asylum seekers allowed to work and be doctors, nurses or whatever it might be. Would they not feel that it was much better than people being served in very short-staffed emergency departments or whatever?

I support all these amendments—but, specifically on the subject of health workers, we should let them work. It is absurd.

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I also support these amendments on the right of asylum seekers to work, and in particular Amendment 45, which makes the eminently reasonable proposal for there to be opportunities to review the evidence, if necessary year on year, on the impact of the current policy and the case for an alternative approach. As we have heard from the right reverend Prelate, there is enormously wide support for this proposal from employers, trade unions and local authorities, which have to deal with the consequences of the current policy.

Asylum seekers, who wait many months and sometimes years for their application to be determined, want the dignity of work and the opportunity to provide for their families and to visibly make their contribution to their communities—and, yes, to use their skills in the health service and in so many other areas too—rather than being stigmatised as a drain on public resources. It would be good for them and for their integration in the community—and it would be good for the Exchequer too, given the tax revenues they would contribute in place of the benefits they would otherwise be reliant on. It would also be bad for the informal, exploitative part of the labour market to which they might otherwise feel the need to turn.

My noble friend the Minister may, I suspect, make reference to the argument about a pull factor, but there is deeply contested evidence on whether the opportunity to work is really a key motivating factor for those making the desperate decision to cross illegally into our country. Let us have a real opportunity to look at that evidence—and I hope that my noble friend the Minister can indicate a recognition of the value that that might be able to contribute in determining our future policy.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 44, which would simply reinstate the rights that the last Labour Government introduced, and I cannot understand what the case is against doing so now. If it is not possible to do that, my noble friend Lady O’Grady has made the very helpful suggestion of a summit to discuss how to take this forward.

I have long argued and voted for the principle of the right of asylum seekers to work, and that should include, once asylum seekers can work, the right to work in any job, not just those on the immigration salary list, such as a ballet dancer or a geophysicist—hardly critical to our economy or our health service. That is something that the Migration Advisory Committee has recommended on a number of occasions. However, when we in this House have voted in support of this principle in the past, it has been on the basis of a right to work after six months, not three months. That is what is being proposed by a lot of organisations, including Lift the Ban, so I think it is unfortunate that the amendments refer to three months, not six months, but the principle is an important one, for all the reasons that have already been given.