Immigration Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, it is about time that this country had a sensible, calm and balanced approach to discussing immigration and asylum. We seem over recent years to have indulged in hysteria, false facts and scaremongering. That does not help us as a country to make sensible decisions.

Perhaps I may share a little experience and give this issue a lighter touch. Recently, I was in a café-restaurant with some friends and, from her accent, the waitress was clearly not British—she was from somewhere in eastern Europe. As I usually do, I asked, just out of interest, “Where are you from?”. She said that she was from the Czech Republic. We asked, “What are you doing here? Are you here to work, study or what?”. “No”, she said, “I am here to have fun. That’s all. When I have had fun, I am going back to the Czech Republic”. I thought that that just about put it in the right perspective, when compared with all the hysteria about these people coming here. She just wanted to have fun because she saw London as a place where she could do so, perhaps more fun than in her own country.

On the whole, however, this debate does not have much fun to it. It is gloomy and the climate of opinion on migration and migrants has been generally hostile. There are, of course, problems. None of us believes in sham marriages. We should deal with illegal immigration, provided there is evidence, not just accusations. As my noble friend said, we have to have a basis for any policy so we know what we are doing and why we are doing it. We know that immigration has been of overall benefit to this country. The difficulty is the imbalance between the contribution made by immigration to Britain and the economy, compared with the local areas where people settle and where there may be more pressure on services. Although the country as a whole benefits, the areas where migrants—or some of them—tend to settle need a bit more help with housing, health, education and transport. If there was no such imbalance, the whole thing could be managed better. A lot of the skill in immigration policy is in dealing with this imbalance so that we go on benefiting, as a country, but local communities are given the help to which they are entitled, given that they are contributing to benefits for the whole country. That should be the basis of a policy followed by any British Government.

I turn to some details of the Bill. I am concerned that some policies may be intensive in staff time at the Home Office and elsewhere and there may well be problems with the adequacy of resources. Other noble Lords have mentioned rights of appeal. There must be a concern that cuts in legal aid will make these less effective or meaningful. The Joint Committee on Human Rights talked, in its report, about constraints to the right of a tribunal to consider a new matter. That constraint has been applied, in Clause 11, so that the Secretary of State decides whether any new matter can be dealt with by a tribunal. Why can the tribunals not decide themselves what is sensible in relation to cases before them? The Bill will also increase the potential for judicial reviews, some of which may have to take place on behalf of people who are no longer in the country. That is virtually impossible to do. In any case, the Government are increasing the likelihood of judicial reviews at a time when the Lord Chancellor has protested that there are already too many.

Many references have been made to difficulties with Clause 15 and later clauses dealing with residential tenancies. It is very unpleasant for individuals to have to check on others and say: “Produce the evidence so I can let my flat to you”. This is neither the topic of the Bill nor a popular cause, but I sometimes wonder—without advocating them—whether ID cards might have dealt with a lot of these things painlessly, fairly and sensibly. However, the country has moved away from that, although ID cards would have helped on this and a number of other things too. Anybody coming to the country could have been given a temporary ID card to cover them while the basis of their stay was being resolved. There is a difficulty with residential tenancies and I fear that some of the policies might lead to more homelessness, especially for children.

In his very nice opening speech, the Minister made the Bill seem much blander and nicer than it actually is. This is a skill on his part but does not help us very much. He said it was the Government’s aim not to have children in detention. I cannot remember what the position is at the moment. Some of us have campaigned for years, both under the previous Government and this one, arguing that children should not be detained under immigration powers. What is the position and, if it continues, when will it be phased out?

I turn to the subject of health. As has already been mentioned, the prospect of charging for maternity care is alien to the best principles of decent healthcare. It would, surely, be right to exempt all pregnant women and children from charges. Starting antenatal care after 20 weeks is a risk factor, as is not attending antenatal appointments and screening. There is also a risk to the health of the child and an increased chance of infant mortality. Should not all pregnant women and new mothers have a GP and other primary care services for free, including access to prescriptions and whatever else is necessary? I think that it would be right to exempt from charges asylum seekers, refugees, children in local authority care and victims of trafficking. What will the position be as regards refused asylum seekers and undocumented migrants? Will they face NHS charges, including for primary care and A&E treatment?

I turn to the question of victims of trafficking. Admittedly, if they have been recognised as victims of trafficking, they may be helped by the Bill, but of course we know that quite a number of such victims are afraid to present themselves lest they be treated as illegal immigrants. I have heard this from NGOs and others in all parts of the country. There is a real concern about this. If we are to deal with victims of trafficking, we must not allow the authorities or the powers-that-be to make them criminals. They should be seen as victims and not as criminals. Therefore, the registration system for assessing eligibility for NHS treatment must not be linked to the Home Office in such a way that accessing treatment can be used as a means of immigration enforcement. The danger is that that will happen.

We know that it is hard for a homeless person to register with a GP. The result is that homeless people attend A&E six times more often than the general population and they stay in hospital for three times as long. This is at a time when everybody is trying to find ways of reducing pressure on A&E departments, yet the consequence will be to increase it.

Of course, there are problems with charging systems. The chair of the BMA council regarded the proposed charges as “impractical, uneconomic and inefficient”. I understand that the Department of Health did a piece of qualitative research among health professionals last year, and there is a concern that,

“the cost of setting up a new complex infrastructure may outweigh any increase in income”.

If that is not enough, the headline on page 24 of today’s Evening Standard—I am not sure how authoritative this is—reads: “GPs turning away refugees to avoid ‘staggering’ task of registering them”. That bears out the point that I have just made.

I turn briefly to the question of work. I think that it would be right to allow asylum seekers to work if an initial decision in their case was not made within six months. It seems to me that letting people hang on unemployed, unable to work and in very poor circumstances is not sensible either for them or for the country. My suggestion is limited to those whose cases are not decided initially within six months. If they worked, there would be a lesser burden on taxpayers and a route out of poverty for asylum seekers. I understand that at the moment 5,500 asylum seekers have been waiting for more than six months for an initial decision and are still unable to work. It would also avoid the negative consequences of prolonged economic exclusion and forced inactivity. Those would all be bonuses. Surely it would be more sensible to let asylum seekers work in the circumstances that I have described.

Before I finish, I want to say a word about the deprivation of citizenship. I understand that this should be strictly limited to instances where a person can immediately gain another nationality, but, as I understand it, nothing in the Bill would prevent deprivation of citizenship taking place. Sometimes, citizenship can be taken from a person while that person is not in the country. There have been instances of that—not many but a few. It seems to me that it would be quite wrong if we took away citizenship from an individual, who would be left high and dry and effectively stateless.

The way that we deal with vulnerable people, immigrants and asylum seekers is a test of what sort of country we are. It is a test of our commitment to human rights and it is how we are judged on the international stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I do not think that there is, my Lords. My noble friend misunderstands the degree to which the appeal process has tended to be used to consider new evidence and new material that has been produced by applicants, which could be dealt with through an administrative process much more efficiently that would avoid the late delivery of papers and documentation, which has complicated many cases and prolonged their proper consideration.

The courts will still play an important role in cases that engage fundamental rights. I assure noble Lords on that. However, if an applicant does not qualify and their application is refused, an appeal should not be a way of prolonging their stay in the United Kingdom for months and, as noble Lords will know, in some cases for years. Many noble Lords have cited statistics on allowed appeals. My noble friend Lord Avebury did so, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and my noble friend Lady Manzoor, who cited that as evidence of poor decision-making on the part of the Home Office. We believe that just over half the appeals are allowed because of casework error, and administrative review will resolve that. After casework errors, most appeals succeed on Article 8 grounds. When someone believes that they should be allowed to stay in the UK on human rights grounds, they should make a claim on that basis to the Secretary of State. Refusal of that claim will give a right of appeal protected by this Bill. We also need to keep the appeal statistics in perspective. Some 89% of applications from students and workers seeking to extend their stay in 2012 were granted rather than refused.

The evil of statelessness is well understood and that is why, in the shadow of the two world wars of the 20th century, so much work was done to reduce it. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, made that clear. We have heard impassioned contributions from her as well as from the noble Lords, Lord Ahmed and Lord Rosser, on that subject. The proposal in the Bill on deprivation of citizenship is an important measure, one that we anticipate will be used in very few cases but which we consider to be necessary to protect the vital interests of the United Kingdom. The measure is very tightly drafted; it falls within the scope of our declaration under the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and goes no further. Where the power will be used is in the anticipation that the majority of persons concerned can acquire another nationality. The Bill will return our legislation in this area to the position that the United Kingdom held as recently as 2003. There are safeguards, and I know these will be further examined by the House in due course.

[Lord Dubs]

The Minister said “the majority”, but what about the others? It means that some will miss out on this, does it not?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I think that we can take it that we will discuss this matter in some detail in Committee. The views expressed in Second Reading here this evening have given us at least the scope of the measure. Our assessment is that this is likely to be very rarely used, but it is for situations which present a threat to the vital interests of the country. I think that people might want the Government to be in a position to exercise that, which is why the proposal is in the Bill. But let us discuss it. As ever, when the noble Lord debates issues he makes a good point, and I shall seek to satisfy him before we get into Committee.

If I may say so, I am looking forward to debating this Bill, which is an important part of the coalition’s legislative agenda. I welcome the engagement that we have already had on the Bill, and I think that we have established, even in this Second Reading debate, a sense of dialogue that I hope we will be able to continue. I should like to think that we will have a number of meetings before we meet again in Committee, and I look forward to continuing these discussions. In the mean time, I commend the Bill to the House and ask it to give the Bill a Second Reading.