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

Lord Faulkner of Worcester 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 Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 26 in this group, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee will speak to the other amendments in the group. I too am sceptical about the Government’s ability to enforce immigration law in general and the end of free movement in particular. Indeed, as I have previously argued, there is evidence that, rather than “taking back control”, the Government have made the UK border more porous.

At previous stages of this Bill, I have raised the issue of EEA and Swiss nationals, who will continue to be able to enter the UK using airport e-passport gates and who will benefit from visa-free entry to the UK, officially for six months at the end of the transition period, along with the nationals of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the USA—the so-called B5JSSK countries.

I am very grateful to the Minister for meeting me face to face—a rare treat—along with several officials, who joined us virtually. The point of raising this issue now is to have on the record the fact that the Government’s approach to immigration contains significant loopholes, which are as follows.

First, there will be no digital record of the immigration status of EEA and Swiss nationals, or those of the other B5JSSK countries that I have listed, visiting the UK under the six-month visa-free arrangements. This can be checked—for example, by landlords, in order to fulfil their right-to-rent obligations to ensure that they do not rent property to those who are in the UK illegally. The Government have no plans to change this situation other than an ambition that this will happen at some time in the future.

Secondly, there will be no way of tracking EEA, Swiss or other B5JSSK nationals once they have arrived in the UK, as no information will be recorded as to where they are going to be staying, there will be no stamp in their passport and there will be no way of establishing whether they have left the UK when or before the six-month limit has been reached.

Thirdly, in order to comply with the law—even though there is no way of enforcing it—all an EEA or Swiss national, or a national of one of the other B5JSSK countries, needs to do is take a day trip on the Eurostar to Lille, for example, in order to be legally eligible to stay for another six months. In their UK Points-Based Immigration System: Further Details Statement, the Government claim that EEA and Swiss nationals should not

“in effect live in the UK by means of repeat or continuous visits.”

However, in reality, there is no way of checking or enforcing this.

Fourthly, with the leeway provided to landlords under the right to rent scheme, landlords can rent a property for up to 12 months to an EEA or Swiss national, or to other B5JSSK nationals—even though they are legally allowed to stay in the country for only six months—without any sanction, civil or criminal. At the end of that period, the landlord can continue to rent the property to the EEA or Swiss national, or to one of these other nationals, provided they produce another ticket, boarding pass, travel booking or

“Any other documentary evidence which establishes the date of arrival in the UK in the last six months.”


Fifthly, the Government cannot provide any details of the electronic travel authorisations, or ETAs, mentioned in the Government’s immigration plans under the heading “The border of the future”, or of how that system will operate. The Government claim that it will

“allow security checks to be conducted and more informed decisions taken on information obtained at an earlier stage, as to whether individuals should be allowed to travel to the UK.”

In the meantime, and for the foreseeable future, the UK could be vulnerable to such individuals entering the UK—without checks or a visa—through the e-passport gates.

Every national of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea or the USA used to hand in a landing card and be questioned by a Border Force officer at the UK border to establish where they were going to stay, how long they were staying and whether they had the means to sustain themselves without working illegally. I am told that about 3,000 US nationals a year used to be turned away at the border, but these individuals can now use the e-passport gates, almost always unchallenged. I understand that the reason the B5JSSK nationals were added to those who could use the e-passport gates was to better manage the queues at the UK border. Allowing people through the UK border more quickly by not checking whether they are entering the UK legitimately does not seem to be “taking back control” of our borders.

From 1 January, EEA and Swiss nationals will be able to enter the UK in the same way, even though free movement is supposed to be at an end. Can the Minister please confirm on the record that these loopholes do indeed exist and that there are no immediate plans to close them? Can she also repudiate the explanation offered by a lawyer friend of mine—who, when I discussed this issue with him, described the B5JSSK countries as “white” countries—by explaining how the B5JSSK countries were chosen?

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, has withdrawn from the debate, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Naseby.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I speak as someone who served on the Public Accounts Committee for 12 years in another place. The first thing that comes to mind is that the National Audit Office is principally in charge of the investigations there, sometimes prompted by the committee and sometimes by issues that are at the forefront of politicians’ and other parties’ interests. Those reports are always produced when there is a case to be looked at. The reports are taken very seriously and are of great substance. I was particularly pleased—this is the reason I am taking part in the debate on this amendment— to see that there was this PAC report on a subject that is likely to come before your Lordships’ House. That report gives cause for considerable concern—that is probably a huge understatement. I hope my noble friend on the Front Bench, for whom I have a great deal of time, and those who are advising her will look at this very seriously. I think they need to go back also to the National Audit Office and look at some of the data, because it cannot all be reproduced in a report.

A couple of other issues come to my mind. My noble friend mentioned the 5,000 boat people. I sat on the Council of Europe for eight years—it is not just a talking shop; it does some valuable work. This is the sort of issue where two countries are involved in something that is not acceptable to either country but nobody has managed to bang the heads of the head of states together to ensure that a solution is found.

I am a great lover of France; for years, I had a mobile home in the south of France and I love going there. But this is not in the interests of France; I know our Prime Minister is pretty busy, but it is time for someone in a very senior position to talk to the Prime Minister of France, so that we can stop these huge numbers. Maybe we will have to take a share of the very small proportion who are genuine asylum seekers but, for the rest, an answer has to be found.

As the House knows, I also specialise in south Asia. I lived and worked there for a number of years and—dare I mention?—I have written a book about Sri Lanka. There is a problem about asylum seeking from not only Sri Lanka but other parts of south Asia. Self-harming is not something that many people in the Chamber or elsewhere know too much about, but it is not as unusual in south Asia and south-east Asia as it would be in the western world. Self-harming is then transcribed into “torture”, so when the individual presents themselves as an asylum seeker here, with an analysis from a UK doctor who of course has no idea about self-harming, it is pretty strong evidence that there has been torture—but there has not; there has been self-harming. That is something people should be particularly alert about.

We are being prompted daily to have an app on this and an app on that—track and trace is now the issue of the day. I do not know whether this happens, but it occurs to me that, given that the one piece of luggage that most migrants have with them is a mobile phone—or someone within their group has a mobile phone—those going into the reception area should have a track and trace system of their whereabouts, for a limited period, on some sort of app.

I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, with particular interest. He has put some genuine questions that I hope my noble friend on the Front Bench will take away, if she is not able to answer them today. There is clearly something not right in the areas that he has picked up.

I spent a great many hours recently on the Agriculture Bill, which has a section dealing with temporary agricultural workers. It is a fact that, in the UK at this point in time, there is not enough part-time or spare labour and ability in agricultural matters to bring in the harvest, particularly in Lincolnshire and the surrounding counties. I come from Bedfordshire; we are on the fringe, but there is a great deal of horticulture. We must not have another harvest next spring where we in the UK are short of people to harvest the crops. I just want to put that on the record.

Finally, as some will know, I am a former RAF pilot and still take a great interest in aviation. I unearthed, some years ago now, a manoeuvre that was being done with light aircraft out of small airports; they were basically flying out of the UK and, on the flight plan, there was no requirement to record who the people on the aircraft really were. Even where the people were recorded, there was no checking done on the way back as to whether the number who went out came back, whether they were the same people, or even whether they went back to the original airport they had started from. I still believe that that is a problem and should be looked at.

This is an important amendment. I am sorry to get a little technical, but the amendment says, “within six months”. Having sat in the Chair down the other end, I would have to say that “within six months” suggests less than six months, and what I think my noble friend will be pushing for is that it should be done at six months or immediately after six months. If I am right, I hope that the Minister can ensure that that minor change can be implemented. I wish my noble friend all success with this very important amendment.

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[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Rosser very much for moving this crucial amendment in such a powerful and forceful way. I should declare an interest because my grandson, who is very close to me, took the opportunity of the longer summer break for schools after the public examinations to go and work on the front line in a care home. He is intelligent, perceptive and caring, so I learned a great deal from what he told me.

What troubles me in our considerations is this: just how many of us would have thought of using some of our available time working in a care home? Would the noble Lord, Lord Horam, for example? We expect all sorts of other people to do it but we are not prepared to commit ourselves. Of course, this is also coupled with the extraordinary way in which we are so sentimental about workers in the care sector. We clap our hands and celebrate—I have done it—but where is the recognisable esteem in which we hold these people? We all know that they are grotesquely underpaid. We talk about them and how we will find sufficient numbers and all the rest of it; perhaps we should have at the top of our list proper remuneration for this highly demanding work.

A lot has been said about workers from outside Britain. It was quite insensitive because some of the most dedicated, loving care for those with serious conditions has come from those workers. Why can we not talk about them as people—fellow members of the human race—rather than as immigrants?

The amendment is important because we all know that the past summer—goodness knows what will happen this winter—has demonstrated an interesting contradiction. On the one hand, dedicated staff, against all the odds, have been doing their best in so many places to help those in great need, while we have failed to accord proper status in our social order to the people doing such work. It is surely because we have become a society in which success is regarded as a matter of how much money you make and how quickly you make it, rather than a society in which care, support and service to the community are regarded as of the highest order and significance. We have had a terrible crisis in the care sector this past year. May it not be repeated. Let us look at some of the underlying issues and put them right at once. The amendment will help us to introduce the necessary disciplines if we are to approach issues of this kind.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has clearly passed on to his grandson the importance of contributing to service in its widest sense. I very much agree with his analysis but then I almost always do.

By definition, members of the largest cohort in the social care sector do not fall within paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 but are very much affected. They are certainly part of the social care workforce and are impacted by the availability of social care workers employed in the sector. I mean, of course, the many people who support and care for someone older, disabled or seriously ill at home. According to Carers UK, one in eight adults—6.5 million people—are so engaged. The carer’s allowance is around £67 a week. I could go on but I do not get the impression that noble Lords need to be convinced of the importance of the sector, including those who do not have formal, paid-for care at home or in a care home. The informal carers and those for whom they care are impacted as well as those in public or private employment. The number of those in private employment is considerable. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, referred to the NHS.

That is not the only reason we support the amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, in Committee, reminded us that there are 115,000 European nationals in the social care workforce, despite high vacancy rates. It is, as other noble Lords, have said, a skilled profession with some skills that cannot be trained into a person and come from one’s personality and often culture, and include physical fitness, as we were reminded by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. At a previous stage of the Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, said that he would have supported similar amendments but for the absence of a reference to training, which is now included in the amendment—rightly so—because training in practical and technical matters is important. However, that does not detract from my observations about personality.

The need for carers will not diminish. My noble friend Lady Barker reminded us, although I do not need reminding, that many of us are ageing and do not have children to shoulder the work—and it is work —done by families, however lovingly. She gave us the figure of 1 million but one should add families with a disabled child, for instance.

Like my noble friend Lady Smith, I have a lot of sympathy with Amendment 30 and many of my comments apply to it. In Committee, the Minister relied on the MAC having licence to consider any aspect of migration policy. However, when prompted by yesterday’s report, I looked at the website—it may have been changed now—which referred only to commissions by the Home Secretary. However, the committee’s pursuit of the matter is welcome. The noble Lord, Lord Horam, will note that in quoting the chair’s reference to the

“struggle to recruit the necessary staff if wages do not increase as a matter of urgency”,

I am relying on a press release, not the 600 pages of the report.

As regards the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, it is right that the assessment should be commissioned by the Home Secretary, because she should own the work. We are not “incurious”, as the right reverend Prelate said, and will support the amendment.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

In that case, I agree with the noble Baroness. However, the main part of my point was related to the issue on which my noble friend Lady McIntosh challenged me. She asked whether, given my background, I could see the problems to which noble Lords are referring. I can absolutely see them. In fact, in 2005, when I was a new leader of a council, and David Cameron a new leader of the Opposition, he asked me what the biggest challenge was for local authorities. Straight off, I said social care, and, 15 years later, that remains the case. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, referenced those who care voluntarily. There are so many that they save the state billions of pounds a year for the work that they do without being paid. I therefore join noble Lords in paying tribute to this sector, which has done so much, particularly during the pandemic. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, people in social care have given and lost their lives to the fight against the disease.

I turn next to points about the Migration Advisory Committee. First, I turn to the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, which he has made before, about the contradictory nature of what we are debating. In one sense, we highly value our social care workers and in another, as someone else said, they earn less, in some cases, than retail workers. That is the challenge at the heart of this: social care needs to be paid decently and seen as a decent career path for people to want to go into it.

I could stand at this Dispatch Box and give my view on the silver bullet that would sort this all out, but I am afraid that I cannot. It is not that it is above my pay grade but, as my noble friend Lord Horam said, this is a challenge for every department and government —and, actually, every one of us. I had a chat with my noble friend Lord Hodgson before this debate; he is probably sitting there very frustrated because he did not put his name down to speak, and I know that he would have wanted to talk about the report that the MAC issued yesterday on the review of the shortage occupation list. One of its key findings is that senior care workers, nursing auxiliaries and nursing assistants should be added to the UK-wide shortage occupation list. The Government want to take time to consider carefully what the MAC has said—as noble Lords I have said, it is a 650- page document—before we take any final decisions, and we will of course respond in due course.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, challenged me for a timescale, and “in due course” is about as far as I can go at this stage. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, talked about the devolved Administrations’ part in all this. Of course, it is a reserved matter. The new system will work for the whole of the UK and we have a national advisory group, with which we are engaged on the proposals, but it includes the Welsh NHS Confederation, Social Care Wales, NHS Scotland and Scottish social carers.

I turn to the amendments at hand. Amendment 3 returns to issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, in Committee, but it also incorporates a requirement to report on immigration routes for social care workers, which was raised during Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and goes to the essence of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in Committee, about a specific route for the social care sector. During our debate in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, rightly highlighted the significant shortages in the social care sector, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, amounting to around 120,000 vacancies. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, also talked about the high turnover, which I think I said was 31%, but he thinks might be even higher.

We must keep it in mind that that is the situation despite the fact that EEA and Swiss citizens have had, and continue to have, free movement rights up to the end of this year. The noble Lord also highlighted the fact that the social care workforce is made up of approximately 83% British citizens, 7% from the EEA countries and about 9% from non-EEA countries. What struck me as interesting about those figures is that a higher percentage of people from non-EEA countries than from EEA countries are working in social care, even though they have no dedicated route to do so. Currently, while social care workers do not meet the skills threshold, a range of other immigration routes are available to them which provide a general right to work, such as dependants, those on family routes or youth mobility.

As part of the UK’s new points-based immigration system, we are expanding the skills threshold, which will bring jobs such as senior care workers within scope of the skilled worker route. Increasingly, people of all nationalities will be able to benefit from this offer providing they meet the other requirements, such as salary threshold. However, I want to be clear that, as my noble friend Lord Horam points out, the Government do not see the immigration system as the solution to all issues in the social care sector. I think there is now general acceptance across your Lordships’ House that that is the case.

With that in mind, we are working alongside the sector to ensure that the workforce has the right number of people to meet increasing demands, with the right skills, knowledge and approach to deliver quality, compassionate care. The Department of Health and Social Care has launched a new national recruitment campaign called Every Day Is Different to run across broadcast, digital and social media. The campaign highlights the vital role that the social care workforce is playing during this pandemic, along with the longer-term opportunities of working in care.

The Government have also commissioned Skills for Care to scale up capacity for digital induction training provided free of charge under DHSC’s workforce development fund. This training is available for redeployees, new starters, existing staff and volunteers through 12 of Skills for Care’s endorsed training providers. The Government are committing record investment to the NHS, including the NHS long-term funding settlement, which has now been enshrined in law. At the Budget, the Chancellor outlined over £6 billion of further new spending in this Parliament to support the NHS. This includes £5.4 billion to meet our manifesto commitments of 50,000 more nurses, 50 million additional appointments in primary care, more funding for hospital car parking and establishing a learning disability and autism community discharge grant to support discharges into the community.

As my noble friend Lord Horam pointed out, we are also investing in social care. DHSC is providing councils with access to an additional £1.5 billion for adult and children’s social care in 2021. We have also announced £2.9 billion to help local authorities in response to the coronavirus crisis. The Department of Health and Social Care is also working closely with Skills for Care to help employers train new recruits and volunteers and to refresh the skills of its current workforce.

In Committee, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Masham of Ilton, highlighted that working in social care, especially when caring for people who have severe disabilities, requires much more than just technical skills. I totally agree. Social care jobs will not be for everyone. However, it is a sad consequence of the current pandemic that many people have lost their jobs. While not all of them will have the necessary caring skills, I think there are many people in the UK who really do care, and it is vital that we take the opportunity to emphasise the importance of social care work and ensure that it is a rewarding job for people.

The view that migration is not the solution to the challenges faced by the care sector is supported by the Migration Advisory Committee. My noble friends Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Lilley referred to that in Committee. We need to make changes to the way we train, recruit , attract and, crucially, retain staff in health and social care, but without making changes, the immigration system will continue to be used as a failsafe to maintain a broken system that relies on bringing people in on minimum wage and holding down wages.

The Government continue to commission and fund a range of training opportunities to help recruit people into the sector and develop leadership within social care. This includes the Think Ahead programme, which has taken on more than 400 applicants since it was launched in 2015. It trains graduates to become mental health social workers. There is also the workforce development fund, which helped nearly 2,800 establishments to support nearly 14,500 learners in 2018-19. This fund will continue to focus on key priorities in future.

Turning to the specifics of the amendment, it is of course sensible that policies are kept under review—something the Government stand by in the current system and will ensure continues under new arrangements. We already have the MAC, and its advice has been accepted by all types of Government over many years. I know that some noble Lords do not share my views on the expert advice provided by the MAC, but surely there cannot be disagreement that the MAC has repeatedly considered the needs of the social care sector, as referenced by the report yesterday.

We should not take for granted the Government’s own extensive engagement with stakeholders across the whole of the UK, and indeed the critical role that this House plays in scrutinising policies and intentions. So I do understand the intent of the noble Lord’s amendment to ensure the protection of a vital sector. We already have a world-class independent body with new autonomy to review any part of our immigration system, as referenced today, in the last 24 hours. I hope the noble Lord will therefore feel that Amendment 3 is not necessary and will be happy to withdraw it.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

I have received no requests from noble Lords wishing to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to reply.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

First, I share the views that the Minister expressed about the quality and value of this debate. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken and I thank the Minister for her response.

I think that there is a general acceptance that the social care sector is in crisis, with low-paid and undervalued skilled work, a very high staff turnover rate and a very high level of vacancies. On top of that, the crisis could well be exacerbated by abruptly closing down a significant source of labour from abroad in three months’ time. In response to my amendment, the Minister referred to the role of the Migration Advisory Committee. But the MAC is not a specialist committee on the social care sector, as, frankly, was indicated very clearly by its recent 650-page report, Review of the Shortage Occupation List: 2020, which simply indicates that it covers a wide breadth of sectors and occupations within those sectors and is looking at migration issues.

However, it is clear from the MAC’s recent report that it feels that the views it has expressed in the past have not had much impact, because it has made reference to “again” expressing concern about the social care sector, and to issues that it has been pressing “for some years”. I think this means that, while the work that has been done by the MAC over a number of years is to be welcomed, clearly it does not feel that that it has had much impact. Perhaps that is because it is not a specialist committee on the social care sector; it is a committee that looks at migration across the board.

I think that that makes the case that, in view of the crisis in the social care sector, which may well get worse at the end of this year in light of the changes to the immigration system, there is a clear-cut case for a stand -alone, in-depth, specialist report on the social care sector and the impact of the provisions of the Bill, as provided for in the amendment, and that it is needed now if the goals that have been set for the sector—goals relating to better pay, training, professionalism, a reduction in turnover and a reduction in vacancies—are to be achieved. We badly need this in-depth specialist assessment to be made, as called for in the amendment, and I do wish to test the opinion of the House.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

The Question is that Amendment 3 be agreed to. The Question will be decided by a remote Division. I instruct the clerk to start a remote Division.