Immigration

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I am never happy to have to stand up and make a Statement such as this. I pay tribute to the work that the noble Lord did within the Home Office, and it is interesting that he uses almost identical words to those which my right honourable friend used earlier today, about being,

“fair, humane and fully compliant with the law”.

But the noble Lord was also right to talk about the culture, and it is true to say that when my right honourable friend became Home Secretary he talked about a culture of fairness—about seeing cases as humans and not just as cases, and taking a far more humane approach to everything that we do. The noble Lord was absolutely right to point out that some of the decisions we make can hugely impact the lives of people; we are keenly aware of that. We are undergoing a period of tight resourcing and every department is fully aware of that. I will take the noble Lord’s point back, but he makes absolutely the right points in regard to this.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Government are going to review the structures and processes to make sure that they are fit for the immigration system. Will that review cover all the people who have a family relationship with somebody who is already here? I refer in particular to unaccompanied child refugees, and I very much hope that the governance review will reduce the long delays for children in the camps in Greece and northern France as they wait for the Home Office to get a move on. Can I please have some assurance about that?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord will know through our various conversations that some of the delays in children coming here are because we are awaiting information from other countries. I know he accepts that as a fair assessment of the situation. The full detail of the review being carried out of the structures and processes will be outlined in due course, so I will let him know when its actual terms of reference are ready.