Immigration Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and put on record how impressed I have been with all the other speeches so far in support of the amendment. I will focus my remarks on looking in a little more detail at the court case that the noble Lord briefly mentioned.

On 18 January, the Upper Tribunal ruled that three unaccompanied minors and a vulnerable young man with mental health problems from the camp in Calais had a bona fide case to be allowed to join relatives already resident in the UK. This case is important because it follows a legal challenge co-ordinated by Citizens UK, which cited a little-known provision in the Dublin III regulations that allows an asylum seeker to join their relative in Britain if they have already applied for asylum in France. The Upper Tribunal ruled that the Home Office should immediately allow the three children and one adult to join their families.

Although the Government had argued until then that, under Dublin III, applications for asylum must be made and processed in France, the court accepted that the reality is very different and that the French system is, indeed, broken. Applications from asylum seekers with family already resident in the UK are not being processed and passed on to the UK. In effect, the safe and legal route has been denied to asylum seekers who have done all that has been asked of them.

In this ground-breaking ruling, the court accepted that evidence of a written claim to asylum in France was sufficient to prove that the children had initially sought safety there. Therefore, the court subsequently ruled that, instead of waiting for the French Government to ask, the British Government must act. It will now be up to Britain to examine the claims of these specific cases under the Dublin regulations. This changes the nature of the debate: the Government can no longer hide behind what can be described only as a broken system. Or can they? Will the Minister confirm whether the Government are planning to, or have already, appealed this decision? If so, why?

With the release of the dreadful figures from Europol citing 10,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children having gone missing, probably into the hands of human traffickers, surely the Government should now capitulate and accept the moral and legal case for accepting the relatively small number of the 3,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children into Britain that we, the Liberal Democrats, other politicians of a variety of different parties and numerous NGOs have been asking for. Citizens UK has identified several hundred children in Calais and Dunkirk alone who have a bone fide case for being brought to Britain. I saw some of them when I was in Dunkirk this Sunday, just as Storm Imogen was gathering pace. There is little justification for leaving anyone to suffer those conditions, let alone the young people who have every legal right to come to Britain. Surely the time has come to get on with it. The unaccompanied children we are talking about have relatives already resident in Britain, so there would be no burden on any of the local authorities.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to inject a note of caution into the debate, which has been a little one-sided. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is right in suggesting that there is widespread support for refugees, and especially children. Nobody is more qualified to say that than he is. The question is how to do it, and that needs a little bit of thought. The proposal is to relocate 3,000 unaccompanied children from Europe, and that is entirely understandable. It is entirely right to offer refuge where that is in the best interests of the children. However, I think I have a slight difficulty over the suggestion that these children should be selected from those already in Europe. The reason for that is this: there is some risk that it would encourage families to send their children in advance in the hope that that would later open the door, as it were, for the rest of the family to claim asylum.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, did not seem to think that there was very much in that, but there is some evidence from Sweden that that has been the case, and we have had some experience with Albania, when a very large number of families got the idea that, if the children went first, they could follow. We need to be careful of that, and conscious that this could become a selling point for people smugglers in the camps around Syria itself.

Let us take orphan children, by all means, but I rather think it might be better to take them from the camps around Syria and to do so on UNHCR advice. We are doing that already with families, and I do not see why we should not extend that—indeed, I believe we should extend it—to orphan children in those camps. The UNHCR could provide an objective account of those children’s circumstances and take a view as to whether there was perhaps a better solution involving the child’s extended family. Remember, extended families in Syria are very close, very strong and very important. I suggest that we would do better to reinforce our work with the UNHCR. By all means increase the numbers, but let us be quite sure that we do it in a way that does not have a downside attached to it.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, am I to understand from what the noble Lord said that his concern is about where the children may be coming from rather than the numbers? It would be encouraging to hear him say that he thinks that 3,000 is not wrong.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My concern is that, if we are not careful about this, we might encourage families to send children on ahead. We need to look at that very carefully because those children would be at exactly the same risk as those already in Europe now. It is a very difficult and sensitive area. There are almost instant communications between child refugees and the adults in their families. If you open a door and give the impression that, “Get your kids as far as Rome and the Brits will have them”, then the risk is that we will make a bad situation worse, if that were possible.

[Lord Judd]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I thought the noble Lord put his view very morally and I do not believe that it can be dismissed out of hand. However, the question I want to put to him is what would he do about the children who are already in Europe? That is the point: they are already there. As my noble friend said, we are where we are. Although there may be intellectual logic and force in his argument, we have a real situation.

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[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, eventually I will be allowed to sit down. There are some very serious points here. There is a large number of destitute children in Europe. The issue is how we suggest our Government respond to that. Suppose we take 3,000 children in the UK as part as what I think has been described as our share. So 30,000 or 40,000 children are taken into care in Europe. Do we seriously think that none of the families who are refugees from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan will deduce from that that the best way forward, particularly as the borders close and the Turks get more difficult and so on, is to send a child ahead? I think that they might well. I cannot be definitive about this—we need the evidence and we need to think about it very carefully. But there has to be a risk that if you say, “Right, we’ll have the kids”, other family members will follow and we simply make the situation continue and possibly even get worse. Whatever we do, there is a dreadful situation. Let us be really careful that we do not make it any worse.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, we could probably spend four hours going backwards and forwards on this obviously important subject, but it might be useful, given that we have a number of things to get through, to hear the views of the Front Benches.

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[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

The noble Lord, Lord Green, spoke earlier. Is he a grandfather or a father? Has he children? Would he trust his children to leave Syria to walk across Europe to reach the temptations of Italy and Greece and to meet the deprivations on the way? Would he really think that his child could manage unaccompanied? Is it not really a fantasy to think that these kids are not going to suffer in this way? I would not have thought of putting my children or grandchildren on that trek, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Green, would not either.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

I am a father and a grandfather and of course I would do nothing of the kind, but then I am not in the situation of families in Syria. It is almost unimaginable to do that, but the question is whether there is a serious risk that it could happen. There is some evidence that that is exactly what has happened in relation to Sweden and Albania—Albania is different because that is a peaceful country. I raise the question. We need to be careful. If it was done through the UNHCR, we would be saving the same number of children, but we would not run the risk of encouraging further children to get into serious difficulty.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

Before I address the remarks relating to this amendment, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, to the chair. I understand it is her first Committee outing as a Deputy Chairman. As an alumnus of that role, I know the fear and intimidation of being faced with the Marshalled List in a very difficult Committee. I am sure all members of the Committee will be very sympathetic to her on her first day.

No one can be unmoved by the quality of the contributions to this debate—I declare myself a father and a grandfather. We identify absolutely with the pain and suffering which people are feeling at this time. I agree with the UN Secretary-General that this particular migration crisis is one of the greatest since the formation of the United Nations. He was right in talking about the scale of the problem.

It might help the Committee if I set out the rationale behind the Government’s current approach and set that in context of the fact that we are dealing with a very fast-moving situation. There is quite a lot of pressure which, rightly, comes from people who are trying to nail the Government down and ask, “Where are you with this particular Statement?” It is very fast moving. A significant number of discussions took place on the margins of the Supporting Syria conference a week last Thursday. Some 35 countries were there discussing these issues. On Thursday, James Brokenshire will be hosting a round table with Save the Children, UNHCR and UNICEF to discuss the specific statements on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children made by the Government on 28 January. This issue was raised by Save the Children and underscored by the DfID Select Committee. There is also the ongoing International Syria Support Group meeting in Munich on Thursday which will be attended by the Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary. I am trying to set this in context: it is very fast moving.

If I was standing here in this capacity last year, I would have been facing questions—I was standing here last year and I did face questions—from noble Lords who asked me repeatedly to tell them how many people had currently arrived. Officials would tell me to avoid putting a number on it, because it was not very impressive. It was fewer than 100, then 120 and 130: complaints came that it was derisory. Then came the Prime Minister’s announcement in September that it would be 20,000 over the period of this Parliament. So far, 50% of those have now arrived. He said it would be 1,000 before Christmas and I then got repeated questions asking whether they would all be here by Christmas. More than 1,000 arrived by Christmas. That process is continuing. Last year we might have talked about £500 million of aid committed to the region, particularly to help Syrian refugees. That figure went up to £1.1 billion and last week it was doubled to £2.3 billion.

It is right that we are moved by the terrible situation which people are facing but, outside this Committee, it would be unfair to present a picture to the many organisations who are doing incredible work in this area that the Government, and particularly the Prime Minister, are unmoved by this. He is deeply moved by it and the Government are trying to work their way through.

As to the approach we are taking, the crisis we identified was that people were undertaking a perilous journey. I understand the arguments made about “we are where we are” or “they are where they are”, but that was the context in which we began this policy. The European Union’s policy at that point was relocation: in other words, people arrive and then you simply move them around different countries. We felt that simply having the same policy was not the right approach. The total number it aspired to move around was 160,000; currently some 340 have actually been moved. I do not want to start from the premise that we have somehow just plucked this approach from the air and that it has been proved to be fundamentally wrong.

We said that we needed to stop them undertaking that journey, because we knew that they would then immediately fall prey to the criminal gangs—we know the figure of 90%. These gangs are making vast fortunes from trafficking individuals. In fact there was one particular gang which was broken up by the National Crime Agency, working with Europol on 2 December, when 23 people were arrested. This one gang was responsible for 100 Syrian migrants a day coming into Greece and was making estimated earnings of €10 million in the process. This is a very lucrative business. Our first principle is to say that everything we need to do is to stop people making that journey. You then say, “How do you stop them making that journey if you are just giving them humanitarian aid?” They need some hope that they can potentially get out of that area through a safe route—and therefore the Syria Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme was expanded. We worked with the International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR to identify the most deserving people, based on established international UNHCR criteria—namely, those who had been victims of torture or persecution; women and girls at risk of violence; and those in acute medical need. Those were the priorities. When they were identified, they could be brought out not as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children but in family units. They are put on a plane with papers; they come to Glasgow, London or wherever it is, and they have a house. They have social workers around them; the children have a place in a school prepared for them when they arrive, they are able to work immediately when they arrive, and they get language support.

So while noble Lords say that we are not doing enough, it is perhaps wrong to say that there is no logic underpinning our approach. In fact, all the way through this process, we have worked very closely with the UNHCR, which believes that it is best to keep families together, particularly for children. That is why we have been following that approach. Of course, there are many more things that need to be done. In terms of how the amendment is worded, to come to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, it talks about unaccompanied asylum-seeking children without designating a specific country. That is one of the things that we have discovered is a real issue. Under humanitarian law, to designate the specific country is very difficult, because you are then differentiating between people on the basis of geography rather than need. So the wording of the amendment is correct.

In the year to September 2015, 1,570 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children arrived in the UK, and 61% of those children were 16 or over. Only 7% were 14 and under. I have to say that those figures surprised me when I read them, because when I thought of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children I thought of my grandson, who is five or six. As we have discussed in Questions before, a large number of that particular group come from certain areas such as Eritrea, which is not to say that Eritrea is not a country that people would want to leave because of their conscription and national service in an open-ended way. They also come from Albania and other countries. At the moment, Albania forms 632 while Eritrea forms 460 of the total unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, while Afghanistan forms 179 and Syria 118. I present that as simply an expansion on the designation and the general term of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. In other words, are we actually helping those whom we want to help the most?

[Lord Green of Deddington]

On that very point, is the Minister aware that something like 40% of these unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are involved in an age dispute? Quite often, those who claim to be 16 are found to be 18. The point is that many of them are older than one might think.

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[Lord Dubs]

I am enormously grateful to all Members of the Committee who have spoken. With two exceptions, the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Green, they have all been in support of the amendment, and I am grateful for that. Even the noble Lord, Lord Green, and the Minister qualified their opposition by making sympathetic and reasonably supportive comments.

Briefly, I will say one or two things in reply to the debate. First of all, of course we all welcome the government money that is going into the refugee camps in the region and of course we welcome the vulnerable persons relocation scheme—it has a lot of merit. I think some of us think that the numbers are very small in relation to the number of people in the camps in the region, but we all think that it is a good scheme. We also think that the principle of keeping families together is desirable. The difficulty is that, if there were only people in the camps, and not a million or so more in various European countries, the principle would be easier to apply and we could persuade other EU countries to do the same as we are and take in the vulnerable families. The trouble is that that is not the situation as it is.

We are dealing with a very large number of people who have fled the region—and victims of people trafficking certainly—and are now scattered across many EU countries. It is from among those people that we have identified that there are 24,000 or so unaccompanied children, who are in a particularly desperate situation. In the camps, at least there is support from the various agencies and the United Nations to enable them to live in not wonderful conditions but at least to get food, water and some shelter. But for some of those in Europe, heaven knows whether they have any safety at all. That is the point of the amendment.

Three thousand is a very small number. The Minister talked about the Dublin convention and I wonder whether he is seeking refuge behind that when other EU countries are not necessarily adhering to it either. That may be for another day.

We have an urgent problem. I understand that there is a concern that some of this might provide pull factors for the families. However, as far as we know, these children are, at the moment, on their own. Honestly, if a handful of them had been pushed out of the region in order to attract family members, it would not be a large number and I am pretty convinced that the majority of these unaccompanied children have not been pushed out as a way of enabling their families to follow them. These are children who are vulnerable in their own right.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

I am not suggesting that any significant proportion of those now in Europe have been sent ahead. It is the future that I am concerned about: that taking 20,000 or 30,000 might in future lead to children being sent ahead.

[Lord Dubs]

That is a situation that we would have to consider if and when it happened. At the moment, we are talking about a group of very vulnerable children. For all the caveats that have been expressed, I think it right that the Government should do something clear and positive by supporting this amendment.

I think that we have covered all the arguments. There was one quote—I forget which Member of the Committee said it—that I wrote down: “The least we can do”. Whoever said it, I welcome the phrase. It summarises the feeling of the Committee. Yes, there may be other children in the future, but let us for the moment deal with the problem as we see it in various European countries. Let us say that this is the least we can do and that we have a moral responsibility to do it. We have had a good debate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I say with some confidence that Report beckons.

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[Lord Rosser]

We have an amendment in this group that calls for the Secretary of State to undertake a review of border security. Part of that review would be to consider the adequacy of resources currently available at all points of entry to the United Kingdom; it also provides for the review to be laid before both Houses of Parliament within one year of the passing of this Act. I do not want to make many points, since concerns about border security have been expressed already, but I do not think that the Government know how many people are coming in and out of our country and who they are. They do not, for example, have any idea what the net migration figure will be each year. It seems to come as much a surprise to the Government as to anyone else.

We really have got to the stage when we have to get a grip on our borders. After all, it was only recently—it may have been last month—that a terror suspect on bail departed at a major sea port. We have also had an instance of a terror suspect from the continent coming in through the same route. It would appear that some of those whom we regard as extremists perceive the ferry borders to be a weak link—and it looks as though they have some reason and justification for feeling that way, unfortunately. The Home Secretary really must conduct an urgent review of border security at ferry and other terminals and provide urgent reassurance that passports are properly checked on exit and arrival in the UK.

I think that it is the case that more than two years ago the Government were warned by the National Audit Office that there were worrying gaps in the new Border Force. A recent report from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration suggests that those gaps are still there and that potential terrorists can also enter our country unchecked—for example, as has already been mentioned, via private planes and boats—as well as there being some evidence that they can come in and out of the country through major ports. Even if the Government do not feel inclined to accept my amendment—naturally, I hope that they will—I hope that we will hear in the Minister’s response that some steps are being taken to tighten up on our borders so that we know who is coming and going, not only the numbers but who they are. I hope that it will be an end to reports, whether from the National Audit Office or from the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, that there are gaps, and quite serious ones, that need plugging.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, I support Amendment 240. The sheer scale of immigration is a major public concern. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that we need to get a grip, and part of that is a matter of reorganisation, which I think is at hand. Another part is to have a legal framework, and we are doing that today. But none of that is any use at all unless it is enforced. I am increasingly of the view that the lack of resources is becoming a serious constraint; it really does need to be looked at, and the Government should explain how they think they can achieve their objectives on the resources that they have so allocated.

Lastly, I offer qualified support to Amendment 241A. Illegal immigration is a very important subject that is often ducked. We have looked at this, and it is very difficult to get beyond merely ballpark estimates, but it is worth having a shot at and I think that the Government should do it—not annually, because there is just not enough information for that, but it should be done and it would be worth doing.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I shall be brief if I can, because—if I can make a pitch wearing my Whip’s hat—we have six more groups of amendments to debate.

It may help if I speak first to government Amendment 239C, which I hope will be uncontroversial. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for his support on this amendment. This makes a minor change to extend the maritime powers in the Bill to Northern Ireland port police by altering the definition of “Northern Ireland constable” in new Section 28Q of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, as inserted by paragraph 7 of Schedule 11 to the Bill.

The two harbour police forces in Northern Ireland, the Belfast Harbour Police and Larne Harbour Police, were not initially included in the Bill as the categories of officers listed are modelled on the maritime powers in the Modern Slavery Act 2015. However, we have listened to points made by Northern Irish Members in another place and agree that a consistent approach should be taken across the UK with the enforcement of immigration control. Therefore, this amendment aligns the position of port police forces in Northern Ireland with those port police forces elsewhere in the UK which are already included in the Bill. It will be a matter for individual port police forces to consider whether they wish to use the powers or rely on the relevant territorial force—for example, the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Amendment 239BA would extend our penalties for misdirected passengers to general aviation sites, private landing strips and helipads. It is the Government’s intention to operate the misdirected flights penalties only at sites where there is a designated control zone to which arriving passengers must be directed for border checks by the Border Force. I shall come on to the points that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, made in a moment. Given the large number of general aviation sites, landing strips and helipads in the UK that do not have a permanent Border Force presence, this amendment is unnecessary and unworkable. It would place a disproportionate burden on those sites. Border Force officers attend such sites only when they need to check specific arrivals.

On what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, was saying about the potential loophole, I should quickly mention how border authorities handle general aviation flights. The Border Force and police take an intelligence-led approach to general aviation, which strikes a balance between securing our borders and best managing resources. Flights are risk-assessed in advance and, when appropriate, border authorities will physically examine crew, passengers and goods. There are in excess of 3,000 private air fields nationwide, and it would be unfeasible for the Border Force and police routinely to meet all arriving flights. It was noted by the independent inspection report published in January that the Border Force has made a number of significant recent interventions in the general aviation environment. I confirm that all those travelling via general aviation are subject to the same immigration and visa requirements as those using scheduled services. The noble Lord asks whether we are doing something about it. The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 includes enabling provisions for a stronger legislative framework for advanced notification for general aviation. Regulations will bring greater clarity to what is needed from the sector but also provide for appropriate sanctions to enforce compliance by the small minority that do not provide advanced notification under the current arrangements.

Amendment 240 seeks to include provision for a statutory review of border security in the United Kingdom. The Border Force operates a control regime which is predicated on checking 100% of scheduled arrivals. Our collection of advanced passenger information from carriers enables us to identify known subjects of interest to law enforcement agencies before they travel, allowing us to intervene and direct airlines and ferry companies not to carry certain passengers so that they never even set foot in the UK. The Border Force adopts an intelligence-led approach in combination with its partners to identify and intercept contraband goods which have the potential to cause harm to the public. Our visa regime provides another vital way by which we are able to manage the threats from crime, terrorism, illegal migration, and espionage.

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration regularly reviews Home Office immigration functions, including our management of border security. Most significantly, following the independent chief inspector’s critical review of the then UK Border Agency, Border Force was established as a separate law enforcement body. The Home Office also works with a range of other partners, including port operators, carriers and road hauliers. This allows us to review processes and security interventions to make border security work efficiently, and to work together to intercept threats while keeping the flow of law-abiding passengers and freight moving as smoothly as possible. I assure the Committee that the Government keep the UK’s border security arrangements under constant review and these arrangements are subject to rigorous scrutiny by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration—as I have said—and by the Home Affairs Select Committee. The reports and publications of both of these are laid before Parliament. On this basis, we do not consider there is any need to introduce a further statutory review process.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord must clearly be too young to remember who abolished exit controls. It was indeed Margaret Thatcher, when Prime Minister, as an economy measure. She thought that they were unnecessary and cut the number of people employed by the border service. That was some time ago.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Perhaps I may correct the noble Lord. Exit checks to Europe were abolished by the Conservative Government in 1994 and exit checks to the rest of the world were abolished by the Labour Government in 1998. Both decisions were wrong.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

They were amended by this Government.

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[Lord Swinfen (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of Lord Marlesford. I have relatives with dual Australian and British citizenship. Going in and out of Australia, they use their Australian passports; going in and out of Britain, they use their British ones. Even when flying from one to the other, they change their passports over because it is much quicker for them to get through immigration in both countries by using the passport of the country in which they land. However, there is then no record of the journey in the other passport. The passports of both countries should have a note that they have dual citizenship and, possibly, give the passport number of the other country. My noble friend’s suggestion is eminently sensible.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Will the Minister ask his officials whether this apparent gap makes nonsense of the net migration figures? It could confuse them.

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[Lord Green of Deddington]

I think the important word is “essential”—operationally essential. If you ask that question, you will get the answer that you would hope for. But would it be operationally valuable? Were they asked that question and, if so, what was the answer?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I shall turn the question round. If you ask any law enforcement agency if it would like some information, it will always say yes. The question is whether it is nice to have something or it is an essential tool, and that is the advice that we have received at the moment.

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[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, in relation to skills, I draw the Committee’s attention to the report by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, on training in the private sector. Her report found that there had been a substantial fall in what she described as “serious” training—that is off-site training—since 2008. It is clearly necessary that action should be taken and encouragement should be provided by the Government to tackle that. That said, I do not think I have any comment on this. I listened with interest to the introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace.

[Lord Rosser]

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has made some very interesting points on this issue. I wait with interest to see what the Minister has to say in response. I would be grateful if he would respond on the point that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, raised about consultation on the implications for the public sector.

He mentioned the health service and universities. It will obviously be no secret that representations have been received from universities and health service organisations about the implications of this proposal. Indeed, I understand that some universities have taken it up directly with government. Will the Minister set out the extent to which the consultation covered public sector organisations and say what responses were received? Clearly, their line is over the additional costs it is likely to cause the service in question. Indeed, universities will say that it is causing additional costs which might lead to them not necessarily being able to recruit the best people, and obviously part of the role of a university is to train people and increase their skills through higher education. It would seem a bit distorted if the purpose of the levy was to enable money to be provided for apprenticeships but, in so doing, it managed to weaken the ability of universities to provide the best people to provide the education which in itself is raising the skills of people who will be needed in the labour market in the future.

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[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for proposing this new clause. I am a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption. Like the noble Lord, I have had the opportunity to examine the statistics in the report from Transparency International UK which he mentioned. I find them extremely concerning.

It would appear that, under the tier 1 investment visa scheme, we are operating a charter for money laundering. An individual is required to invest only £2 million in government bonds, or the share or loan capital of a business trading in the United Kingdom, and after five years they can have indefinite right to remain. As the noble Lord mentioned, there is a tariff on this. If they are happy to invest £5 million over three years or £10 million over two years they get a faster track to the right to remain. It is a pretty cheap ticket for them to come in. Large amounts of money have been brought in— £3.15 billion since 2006—by this route. I am advised that golden investor visa approvals have risen from 153 in 2009 to 1,173 in 2014. The largest number are Chinese, followed by the Russians. At the same time, the Chinese and Russian authorities are telling the world that they are very alarmed about the export of corruptly gained capital from their countries. The Government inveigh against corruption across the world. They propose themselves as international leaders in campaigning against corruption, yet it would appear that the right of potentially corrupt individuals—and there is good reason to think they are actually corrupt—to come, take up residence and remain in this country can be bought remarkably cheaply.

I have some questions for the Minister. Will he advise the Committee what precautions the Government are taking to ensure that those who benefit from these tier 1 visas are not corrupt? What investigations are undertaken? What requirements are there on people to declare their wealth and the sources of their wealth? What due diligence is pursued to ensure that those answers are honest, accurate and comprehensive? Do the Government maintain a list of those who are suspected by police authorities or intelligence sources internationally to be criminals or money launderers? Do they ensure that people who are on that list do not obtain visas? What proportion of applications for tier 1 visas is turned down? Do the Government intend to undertake any retrospective scrutiny of individuals who have already been granted visas under this scheme?

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, referred to things that have been said by the chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee, Professor Sir David Metcalf. Those of us who know him know that he is a man of very great experience and wisdom. He told the Home Affairs Select Committee that the tier 1 scheme is,

“absolutely not fit for purpose”.

Indeed, that could be said to be an understatement. It is worse than unfit for purpose if it pollutes our national life. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, alluded to the effects on the housing market. That alone must be a matter of very great concern. There is a cascade of misery that derives from the ability of wealthy individuals to force up prices of houses and apartments in London, and if they are doing that through the use of ill-gotten money, it is even more intolerable, as I am sure the Committee would agree. If this is a scheme to enable people who may be participants in organised crime or actively investing in it, it runs absolutely counter to what should be the main strategic purpose of the Home Office in any case.

Sir David said that the scheme brings “absolutely no gain” to the United Kingdom. It may be that the Government disagree, in which case the Minister will tell us, but it seems a reasonable proposition. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will tell us that he will accept the new clause that has been tabled, but if he intends to keep tier 1 visas, what is he going to do to ensure that there is not the abuse that Transparency International and many others believe there is in consequence of the availability of this scheme?

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, I speak in firm support of this amendment. We have had two very powerful contributions, and I will not repeat what was said. Listening to them and looking at the study, this is bizarre. It is really quite extraordinary. You can see why it is attractive. There is no need for a job offer or a sponsor, and the visa applies not just to the main applicant but to all his immediate family members. There are no language requirements and, since 2011, the residence requirement has been only 180 days. Talk about an offer. What do we get? We get nothing because these sums of a few million, which are evidently nothing to these applicants, are given back to them after a few years. They can put them in gilts and get their money back. It is absolutely bizarre. I suppose it is intended to give the impression that Britain is open to investors, and investors are a good thing, but we really should not give the impression that we are really quite as naive and foolish as that.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has already quoted some very effective remarks from Sir David Metcalf, as has the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, so I shall not repeat them, but coming from someone of his stature, they should certainly be taken into consideration.

It is hardly too cynical to describe this as a scheme for selling British passports to the very wealthy. There is absolutely no justification for that and this scheme needs to be scrubbed, frankly. It may be that it could be replaced by a more effective scheme that actually brought serious investment and jobs to this country. That is for another day but this has got hopelessly out of hand. It is a useless system and should be abolished.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

My speech begins with the line that I have listened carefully to the arguments. I think the arguments have been well made. I will try to set out for the benefit of the Committee the rationale behind this and then answer some of the specific questions. I underline the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the United Kingdom remains an attractive destination for legitimate international investors. The tier 1 investor visa route allows migrants to make a significant financial contribution to the UK, either through the purchase of share or loan capital in UK businesses, or through UK government bonds. The route does not recognise the purchase of property as a qualifying investment.

The proposed amendment would not only result in the immediate loss of millions of pounds of capital inflow, but deliver a powerful global message that foreign investors are no longer welcome in the UK. This is a message the Government have no desire to send. The Government are clear in their commitment to ensuring that the investor route delivers benefits to UK taxpayers and it remains an important component of the UK’s visa offer for high value migrants.

Acting on an independent Migration Advisory Committee review of the tier 1 investor category, the Government introduced a package of reforms in November 2014. These included taking additional powers to refuse applications where the funds have been obtained unlawfully, where the applicant is not in control of the funds and where the granting of the application would not be conducive to the public good. The Government also raised the investment threshold from £1 million to £2 million and removed a provision which allowed investments to be funded through a loan. Since April last year the immigration rules have also required that prospective tier 1 applicants must open a UK bank account before their application for a visa is allowed. This ensures they have undergone financial due diligence checks before they are granted an investor visa.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for raising his concerns that visas of this nature have no place in a sovereign nation and that this may be the preserve of tax havens. It would be correct to observe that some so-called tax havens operate citizenship-by-investment schemes, whereby wealthy individuals may be able to effectively purchase a second nationality in return for a sizeable donation, often paid directly to the host Government. I make it absolutely clear that the UK’s tier 1 investor visa is not such a scheme. The UK’s investor visa offers no guarantee of an extension, beyond the initial two or three-year term, let alone settlement, or citizenship. At each of these points, applicants must not only demonstrate that they have continued to hold the appropriate qualifying investments, but are also subjected to further robust checks.

Let me deal with some of the points that have been raised and provide a bit of additional information. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, asked about precautions. I think my answer addressed some of the points he raised about due diligence, which is carried out in the process of securing the bank account. Also, the United Kingdom maintains some of the toughest anti-money laundering laws in the world and is respected as such. The general grounds for refusal in immigration rules enable the Government to refuse investor visas where the applicant’s presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good, which means that we carry out checks on their criminal background. Under a pilot scheme, investor visa applicants are required to provide criminal record checks from their country of residence as a condition of applying for the visa.

As a result of all the changes that we have introduced, and which significantly toughen up the approach—this may speak to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, raised—in the last quarter for which figures are available we granted only 46 such visas compared to 274 in the corresponding period in the previous year. That is a reduction of 83%. Before the noble Lord, Lord Green, gets to his feet, let me say that some of that may have something to do with the general economic situation in some of the key countries from which people would normally apply for these visas. However, it might also reflect that the toughening of the rules is having the desired effect.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Exactly so. The collapse in the numbers is very good news. It illustrates just how bad the scheme has been. Is it not the case that if you invest £10 million, you get indefinite leave to remain after two years?

[Lord Bates]

That is the case.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

After that, it is only a matter of time before you get your passport. This is, in effect, selling passports, as the Minister has just acknowledged, and, sometimes, in cases where it may not have been entirely advantageous. But they can also take their money out of gilts. Are we really persuading people to invest in a serious and useful manner in Britain by a scheme like this? I rather doubt it.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord, Lord Green, makes some very good points. I was looking behind me for some inspiration that would enable me to provide a brilliant argument as to why that is not the case. In fact, there were just nods, as if to say, “Yes, that is about right”. This is something that we need to keep under very careful review, and we do. When we get advice from the Migration Advisory Committee that there are problems with the scheme, we have, in the past, shown that we will take action.

On some of the points that were raised about property, there is no suggestion from anyone that people would not be able to own property in any part of the world. The housing issues that were raised are not linked to the scheme. Under the coalition Government, we significantly raised the stamp duty to about 12% on larger homes at that level. In a similar vein, the Chancellor announced in the Autumn Statement that there would be a further levy of an additional 3% for people coming in and purchasing a home in the UK as a second home. That was on top of the increase to 12%. Significant things are happening, but it is about how we maintain an offering on the international stage which ensures that we can attract people with exceptional talent, people who want to come and invest here, and people who want to study, visit or work here so that they can contribute to the public good of this country. We need to keep that under review. That is something that the Government continue to do. I am sure that we will want to take note of the comments made in the course of the debate ahead of Report. I am sure we will revisit it then, but until that point I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment, temporarily.