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

Debate between Lord Bishop of Southwark and Lord Kerr of Kinlochard

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

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, although he is also a bit of a pain because he has made such a powerful case that there is nothing really left to add. My speech should be seen as a footnote to his.

I declare my interest as a trustee of the Refugee Council. I followed the noble Lord there too; for a long time, he was the driving force and inspiration behind the Refugee Council. I want to get my revenge on him for stealing all the arguments that I was going to make by embarrassing him in telling the House that the Refugee Council now meets in its new headquarters in Alf Dubs House in east Stratford. I want to get that on the record just to embarrass the noble Lord.

At the end of the Committee stage, the Minister kindly wrote us a letter to pick up on some of our points. In relation to this issue, the Minister confirmed that it remains the Government’s goal to negotiate new arrangements for family reunion for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. I should hope so, because we will fall out of the Dublin III regime at the end of the year and new arrangements will be needed if we are to fulfil our responsibility for these vulnerable children, stuck on their own in continental Europe, and unite them with their families here.

As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said and as my Refugee Council experience confirms, there is considerable evidence that the country would like to see us do so. Of all the asylum issues on which there is considerable public interest and support, family reunion is the one where public opinion is most strongly in favour of us doing our job.

I have to tell the Minister that her letter reads a little disingenuously. It repeats our government line, which has lost all credibility because there is no relevant ongoing discussion about new arrangements. There is no negotiation on this subject with the EU 27; the issue was not addressed in the first Frost-Barnier negotiations, which led to the withdrawal agreement; and it is not being addressed in the current negotiations, which might lead to a free trade agreement, and it now cannot be—Monsieur Barnier has no mandate to discuss it because our Government failed to include it in the joint political declaration a year ago.

The joint political declaration was, understandably, taken by the EU as the basis for the mandate for the present negotiations. We tore up the political declaration. We decided that on foreign policy, governance and, notoriously, on the level playing field, we no longer meant what we had subscribed to, but the other side took it as defining the negotiation that is now going on. Also, there was nothing about replacing the Dublin regulation in it.

So there can now be no bilateral UK-EU arrangement from January; nor can there be UK bilateral agreements with individual EU member states, because this is a subject on which we and they decided some time ago to empower the Commission to act on our behalf. Therefore, what will be needed is a new free-standing, EU-UK negotiating track. That does not exist now and will have to be established. We could of course have sought to establish it at any time but we did not, presumably because the subject was not particularly high on the list of the Government’s priorities. The amendment would change that, but we too can change it: we can put it on the Government’s priority list, bypassing this amendment, and I very much hope that we will.

Because the Minister would be very disappointed if I did not raise it, I shall say a word about the camp on Greece and the 400 unaccompanied children sleeping rough because the camp burned down. The Government’s line, as set out in the Minister’s letter, is that we are in regular touch with EU member states, including Greece, which are responsible for arranging transfers. That is the standard line, relying on the Dublin regulation, from which we are pulling out, and there is nothing proactive at all. There is nothing about going to find those of the 400 who would like to join their families here. It really is shaming when one thinks of what the Germans are doing, and it really is extraordinary given British public opinion on family reunion.

I strongly support the amendment and I hope that, when she speaks to it, the Minister will at last be able to tell us that we will do something about the unaccompanied children who are vulnerable and sleeping rough on the island of Lesbos.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, it had been the intention of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham to speak to this amendment, tabled in his name as well as that of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, and but for the hiatus in the voting technology when the House last considered the Bill on Report, he would have done so. He regrets that he is unable to attend today’s proceedings.

When we previously considered this amendment, in Committee, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham reminded us of the story of the good Samaritan. It is not just, or principally, a story of instinctiveness goodness, or we would soon tire of hearing of it. It recounts several characters, including a person who needs help, those who do harm and those who have choices about their actions in response—doubtless all individuals who paid their taxes, counted their accomplishments, did well by their families and friends, and obeyed the law. It was the victim’s instinctive enemy who did right by him in showing compassion. Sometimes the choice we all face is whether or not to exercise generosity of heart.

We read in the helpful letter from the Minister of 30 September about the scale of refuge granted to vulnerable children proportionate to the European Union. Such welcome, especially to the most vulnerable, is to be acknowledged, as is the Government’s attempt to reach an agreement with the EU on post-transition arrangements. However, given the sheer scale of raw human need that exists in the area of vulnerable children and family reunification, will the Minister please explain to the House what she believes the disadvantages would be of importing into our domestic law the very wholesome provisions of Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013? The regulation is entirely sensible and reasonable in requiring the Government to consider the best interests of the child.