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

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Prashar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the proposed new clause in Amendment 60, which has cross-party support and is sponsored by the noble Baronesses, Lady Fookes, Lady Garden of Frognal, and Lady Morris of Yardley, is largely self-explanatory. If accepted, it would continue allowing minors to travel from the European Union, other European Economic Area states and Switzerland to the UK on identity cards rather than passports beyond 31 December 2020.

Large numbers of junior nationals from these jurisdictions travel to the UK every year for school exchange visits, English language courses, adventure holidays and a range of sporting and cultural activities. Last year over 150,000 European Economic Area juniors travelled to the UK for English language courses alone, many of them travelling in groups for study programmes that lasted for less than two weeks. This is an invaluable cultural and educational exchange that builds friendships and fosters good will between the UK and other nations. Most of these students currently travel on identity cards. Many do not own passports but travel freely on identity cards throughout the EU and EEA states with no need for passports.

A survey last year by English UK, the trade association for English schools, showed that, in 2019, 90% of under-18 EU students who came to this country did so on an identity card to study at colleges accredited by the British Council, an organisation on which I served as a deputy chair for six years. The parents of these under-18s do not want to go through additional bureaucracy or incur the cost of getting a passport, having saved for the cost of the trip itself. Furthermore, if just one junior due to travel in a school exchange group is without a passport, the viability of the whole visit could be put in jeopardy. If this travel on identity cards ceases, the UK will lose out to other countries and its position as a popular destination could decline. This new clause would help to rectify the situation and sustain the UK’s position as a popular destination. I emphasise that the proposed extension of identity card-based entry for under-18s coming to the UK for a single stay of no longer than 30 days in any calendar year means that this concession would be available only to those presenting little or no border security issues or risk of abuse.

Some may object that allowing the continuation of ID card travel presents the UK with an unacceptable security risk. EU citizens with settled status will be allowed to continue to travel on ID cards, so why not children coming for short-stay trips, largely travelling in large managed groups?

Furthermore, the EU passed a regulation last year to increase the security of ID cards issued in EU states. The regulation requires that within two years of June 2019, all new ID cards need to be machine-readable biometric cards. Existing cards will be phased out by 2023 if they are not machine readable. This will bring the security features of ID cards into line with those of passports.

As this small exception would be a continuation of an existing procedure, I do not believe it will be very complex to administer. If the clause is accepted, it will be welcomed by our European partners as a significant gesture of good will. It is also worth noting that Iceland, Norway and Switzerland allow travel for EU nationals on an ID card, so I urge the Government to accept this amendment.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB) [V]]

This is rather a mixed bag of amendments. I would like to return to Amendment 1, on enforcement; a very useful amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. As she so clearly described, enforcement has long been one of the weakest points in our immigration system. Indeed, enforced returns have been in steady decline for years. They fell from 16,000 in 2010 to just under 7,000 in 2020—that is more than half—and that was the lowest level since records began. Voluntary returns have also fallen since 2015. Partly as a result of these failures, we now have 90,000 immigration offenders living in the community; that is somewhat more than the size of the British Army. Furthermore, more than half of them—about 55,000—no longer even bother to report to the Home Office as they are supposed to do: they have simply disappeared.

I shall make three brief suggestions about how this could be tackled. First, we should adopt a much tougher approach towards those countries that take an unreasonable attitude to taking back their own citizens—India, Pakistan and Iran come to mind, but there are a number of others. As noble Lords will know, illegal immigrants frequently destroy their documents, and these countries usually refuse to accept the biometric identity documents that the British Government produce for them. I think that our willingness to issue visas for the UK should take this attitude into account.

Secondly, we also need to retain—indeed, restore—the detained fast-track system for asylum claims that are obviously very weak. It was very effective for some years, but was quietly dropped by the Government quite recently after several years in a legal morass. Thirdly, we should be much more effective in enforcing the laws on illegal working. It is clear that this is a major pull factor for illegal immigration.

Finally, a particular difficulty facing the new immigration system is that of preventing EU visitors and other non-visa nationals working while in this country. A report to Parliament on enforcement, as proposed in this amendment, would be a valuable first step.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, has withdrawn from the debate, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford.

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[Lord Green of Deddington (CB) [V]]

I had intended to withdraw from the debate, but having heard the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, I have to say that I agree very strongly with what he said. The debate so far has covered the case for a short-term arrangement to make sure that our failure to train in recent years can be made up for, but there is no justification in the medium term for taking doctors and nurses to look after people here from countries that need them far more than we do. That is our responsibility; it is time we trained our own and got a grip on it.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Hunt’s amendment and the brief, excellent speech he made at the beginning of this debate. I also want to reinforce points that have been made by the majority of your Lordships, with the exceptions of the noble Lords, Lord Lilley and Lord Green. Although I do not dispute for a minute that both noble Lords have a point, they have highlighted what I hope to put across this evening, which is the complete contradictions that exist in this debate.

I shall start by picking up those points made by the noble Lords, Lord Lilley and Lord Green. I am presuming that, when we reach Report, they will be moving amendments that will remove the so-called health and social care route announced in July, because under that route doctors and nurses could be recruited from across the world to fill vacancies at that level.

One of the contradictions that I want to highlight relates to young people. Young people who cannot find a job anywhere else due to the aftermath of Covid-19—the 20% drop in GDP and the knock-on effect on unemployment—might decide to go into social care. Most young people I speak to want a career and to be able to progress, and there is progression in both residential and social care. However, as things stand with the proposals by the Government, the area from which we would allow people to be brought in from overseas would be at that higher level, whereas at the lower level the vacancies that have been mentioned—122,000 in England alone—would not be fillable from outside the country. I do not know whether the Government believe that, given the crisis in unemployment that is about to accelerate, people will just take up those vacancies even if they are not emotionally and physically suitable to take up caring duties. As has been made clear in this debate, you have to be a particular type of person to take up some of the less attractive duties of caring for someone who is severely disabled or frail and has dementia.

The contradictions, also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, abound. We all want to see improved wages in this sector. That would not only reward people morally for what they do but help fill vacancies. But the danger of simply putting money into the sector, given the level of private equity ownership, might well be that it gets creamed off, rather than helping to fill vacancies. Or, they will simply close the homes if the money is not provided, which will cause an even bigger problem—as part of the contradictions, we would end up with older, frailer and more severely disabled people in hospital settings, which are more expensive but would allow for staffing to be brought in from outside this country. We saw that in March and April, when people who should have been in different settings in the first place were cascaded out into the residential sector unchecked for Covid-19 and ill-prepared in terms of PPE to be able to deal with it. The consequences, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, are obvious for all of us to see.

The biggest contradiction of all—and I put this to the noble Lords, Lord Lilley and Lord Green—is that, on the centre-left in politics, people are generally suspicious of markets and, on the right, people generally embrace markets. But as I said on Second Reading, in the case of the labour market, the situation is reversed, and those who believe vehemently in markets are against a labour market and against being able to draw in from across the world those who have something to offer the area we are talking about this evening.

We need to sort out the contradictions. That includes the issue of austerity, which led to a bigger downturn in funding for local government services and those funded by local government than any other public service area in the country, with the result that local government has been struggling both with its own direct health provision and with funding in the market and the ability to sustain services.

I have one question—I have learned over the Covid-19 period that you do not get an answer from the Minister unless you ask them a question. My question is simple, and the Minister might be able to answer it tonight: we know what the vacancy level is, but do we have an up-to-date picture of the turnover level in the social care sector? The turnover gives you an idea of how long people can stand working in this challenging but often rewarding setting. What steps might have to be taken if the Government’s hope is that the downward pressure on job availability will help fill, in the short term, the vacancies that we have talked about?

At the end of the day, what we are talking about is the care of human beings. We are not talking about markets or political or economic theory; we are talking about the reality of caring for people in their own homes and stopping them, therefore, having to move into hospital, residential care or residential settings that are dealing with people at very difficult times of their lives. In the end, we have to care enough to get it right.

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The explanation given by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for Amendment 11 is that it limits the use of regulation-making powers to matters for which Her Majesty’s Government have indicated that they are intended. In this area—in every area, as we soon will be talking about the Agriculture Bill, which is crucial for our environment and society—but particularly when we are making crucial decisions about people’s lives, there has to be legal clarity. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said, for people to be able to follow the rules, they have to know what the rules are, the intentions behind them, and that Parliament has been able to scrutinise them democratically.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am glad to support Amendment 32, which is an important amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. As she indicated, this amendment bears directly on the anomaly that lies at the heart of the Bill. It purports to deal with aspects of our withdrawal from the EU, so one would expect it to deal with the consequences for citizens of the EU and the EEA only. However, in its report of 2 September the Constitution Committee stressed that this Bill effectively changes significant areas of immigration law from primary to secondary legislation.

I expect the Government to argue that changes to Immigration Rules have long been dealt with by a process similar to that for statutory instruments, but to introduce an entirely new system in this way is a very different matter. Furthermore, in its report of 25 August, the Delegated Powers Committee, from which we will hear very shortly, pointed out that the “made affirmative” procedure that the Government have chosen will mean that the new regulations will come into force before they are debated in Parliament.

Finally, as I understand the position, the Home Office is working on a complete revision of the Immigration Rules which might run to several hundred pages. They could be put through Parliament with no serious examination before they come into force. I think the Minister mentioned something to this effect earlier. Will she clarify the position? Is this indeed what is likely to happen?

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. As a member of the Delegated Powers Committee I strongly support all the points made in our report and, along with other noble Lords, I very much look forward to hearing from our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra.

I am aware that part 6A of the Immigration Rules sets out the points-based system which applies to migrants from the rest of the world. EEA citizens will move from a position of free movement to having to find their way through a thicket of literally hundreds of pages of rules and guidance currently applying to the rest of the world. Will the points-based system be adjusted for EEA citizens? If so, in what ways will the EEA rules diverge from the current system set up in part 6A? The framework should surely be in the Bill.

Clause 4 has potentially life-changing consequences for a large number of people—an issue raised by the Delegated Powers Committee report. Ministers are given the power to modify primary legislation or to modify retained EU legislation, which has a similar status to primary legislation, as noble Lords know. These provisions, together with the power for Ministers to introduce regulations on any subject in connection with Part I of the Bill, provide incredibly wide powers for Ministers.

I want to take just one example of an issue which needs to be dealt with in the Bill and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, will raise a number of others. Tier 3 of the PBS which applies to unskilled workers has never been opened. We know that the UK is likely to face severe shortages of so-called unskilled workers in some sectors, most particularly health and social care but a number of others as well. Can the Minister press her colleagues to spell out in the Bill the key changes envisaged to the PBS, at least for the short to medium term, to keep the UK economy functioning adequately? Then, of course, Ministers could have the powers to introduce regulations to adjust the system over time. I fully recognise that there would be a need for that.

We all understand the need for Ministers to be able to introduce consequential amendments through secondary legislation, such as removing the references to free movement scattered across the statute book. Typically, however, most consequential amendments are put in the Bill and then regulations are used to tidy up the bits and pieces that were somehow missed during its passage.

We are invited by counsel to the Delegated Powers Committee to consider whether Ministers’ powers to make consequential amendments through regulations should be restricted by a test of necessity. Can the Minister convince the Committee that the wide powers to make consequential amendments to this Bill are in fact necessary? It would be very interesting to hear the Minister’s defence, if you like, of the breadth of those consequential amendments left to regulations. Why cannot most such amendments be included in the Bill before Report? I am sure colleagues would support a short delay before Report to allow that to be done.

Even more serious than the power to make unlimited consequential amendments is the power to make regulations in connection with Part I of the Bill, as other noble Lords have mentioned. I strongly support the amendment from the Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to deal with that issue. This would of course become redundant if Clause 4 were replaced with a string of substantive clauses.

Can the Minister provide an adequate justification for the broad discretion given to Ministers to levy fees or charges on anyone seeking leave to enter or remain in the UK who until the end of the transition period would have had free movement rights under EU law? If not, then these matters must surely be in the Bill with provision for Ministers to adjust the fees or charges over time. As others have said, transitional protections for EEA nationals who are resident in the UK before the end of the transition period are surely known. Why are they not in the Bill? Perhaps the Minister could explain that.

Finally, I had understood that Brexit was all about restoring the sovereignty of the UK Parliament. This is just one of a series of Bills transferring powers from the EU not to the UK Parliament but to Ministers. We know that even where the affirmative procedure will be used, Parliament has no real power to influence the shape of those regulations. I hope the Minister will do all she can to achieve a more democratic outcome to this Bill, even at this late stage, by replacing Clause 4 with a series of clauses spelling out the Government’s policies, or at least the framework of those policies, to adjust the points-based system to meet the needs of the UK economy in the post-Brexit world.