Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Green of Deddington and Baroness Ludford

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group and I ask the Minister to address in her response a couple of issues, particularly in relation to Amendments 57 and 61, about restricting the placing of vulnerable people in accommodation centres—military barracks. When a similar amendment to Amendment 57 was tabled in Committee in the other place, the Home Office Minister, Tom Pursglove, said it was

“unnecessary because there are no plans to place those with children in accommodation centres”.—[Official Report, Commons, Nationality and Borders Bill Committee, 21/10/21; col. 295.]

If the Home Office has no such plans, which is a welcome commitment, why will it not accept a statutory shield against placing at least children in those centres?

Wider than that, I am grateful to the British Red Cross, which has reminded us that there is a Home Office policy document, of which the latest update was in May 2021, called Allocation of Accommodation Policy. It has a section on “Asylum seekers considered unsuitable for Napier”, which starts with the statement:

“Women and dependent children are not suitable to be accommodated at Napier”,


before listing further cases, including potential survivors of modern slavery, people with a disability and those with complex health needs. The tablers of Amendment 57, which I support, say the list should be longer and should include those under Amendment 61. If the Home Office has these policy commitments, it is my contention that it ought to accept the amendments restricting the types of people who would be sent to these accommodation centres. I would be very pleased to hear the Minister agree and therefore accept at least Amendments 57 and 61.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, noble Lords will not be surprised if I strike a somewhat different note; none the less, it is a note that needs to be heard. I think we need to stand back before addressing this group of amendments. We cannot and should not assume that everyone who claims asylum in this country has a case and is a genuine asylum seeker. The Home Secretary said recently that of those crossing the channel, 70% were more likely to be, and were in fact, economic migrants rather than genuine refugees. A historical view, I think, gives a figure of something like 50% of asylum seekers whose cases were rejected after very careful legal procedure. So, I think we have to stand back and not simply assume that all applicants have two wings and a halo.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

I am a bit puzzled. Although the precise numbers vary from year to year, it is quite clear that substantial numbers—30%, 40% or 50%, depending on which year you take—turn out not to have a case for asylum in this country. Surely that should be a factor. Surely the way forward is, as the noble Lord proposed when he first spoke, to speed this situation up so that we can get the answers within the six months, which would be much better for everybody. Surely that should be the centre of their policy.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Can I intervene on an intervention? What is wrong if those people are allowed to work? If it is then determined that they have no right to stay, they would then have to leave—but, in the meantime, they are supporting themselves, perhaps using their skills and contributing tax. If they are then found not to have a legal claim to stay, so be it. I cannot see what the harm is in the meantime.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Green of Deddington and Baroness Ludford

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I rise first of all, briefly, to support Amendment 129, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. It is clear, necessary and relatively simple, at least in principle, so I trust that the Government will consider it very carefully.

Our asylum system is already overwhelmed, with a backlog of cases approaching 125,000, which is, I think, rather more than the British Army. So we have to do everything we can to reduce the inflow of those entering by illegal means. In brackets, I say to the Minister that I hope he will take this opportunity to deny that the Government now intend to bury the statistics and emerge only every three months to tell us what is happening.

That said, I would like to speak briefly about the points that have just been made by other noble Lords about the need for safe routes for asylum seekers wishing to come here. I think we need to be a lot more careful about how we address this. My noble friend has just referred to the 80 million refugees in the world. The numbers are huge, even if these are only a third of those who are actually going to move from one country to another. Is it really being suggested that we have a system whereby any who would like to leave his own country has only to purchase a ticket to London and will then be accommodated, et cetera, and his case will be heard? Is that really what is proposed? What about those who fail? Some 70% of the people now arriving across the Channel are young males. I suspect that they are not, in most cases, the ones who are most in need. If this is not to fly completely out of control and reach a level at which the public will react rather strongly against the sheer size of the inflow, we have to be a lot more careful.

It has been suggested that one way to tackle this would be to have missions overseas to take the applications. I am sure that is being considered very carefully, but I am sure that the outcome of that consideration will be that it just will not work. Those posts—whether embassies or some special posts set up in the third world—would be overwhelmed in a matter of weeks. Then you have to ask the Governments of the countries concerned what will happen to those who turned up, quite often from neighbouring countries, did not get the permission that they were hoping for, and are hanging around the embassy or wherever it is in ever-growing numbers. The host Governments would not care for that at all, and it would not achieve anything as far as we are concerned; it would simply mean that the inflow would become, in principle, pretty unmanageable. I really think we have to be careful about this talk of “safe routes”. We keep hearing it all the time; we never hear what is actually meant. I would like to hear from colleagues in this Committee how they propose to organise 30 million people who would like to come here. It cannot be done; there is no public support for it on that scale, and we really need some clear and logical thought.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Can I just ask the noble Lord about his assumption—it seemed to be a stereotype—that young single men are not at risk? I do not claim to be an expert on the profile of asylum seekers, but one can imagine that, because a young man might be seen to be less vulnerable than a young woman in a dangerous journey towards safety and, perhaps, also vulnerable to recruitment into ISIS, for instance, actually it is not that surprising that it may be young single men who are arriving on our shores in greater numbers than young single women. I just think that it is probably important to avoid prejudicial stereotypes that, somehow, young men are not at any risk and therefore can be locked up—I just looked at the Times article that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, mentioned. It sometimes seems to me that we are at risk of demonising young men.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, it is not demonising; it is common sense. The routes that now exist are dangerous and difficult, and the people who are capable of getting through them are the young. But they are by no means the only people, nor necessarily the most deserving of our help. This is why I ask that we have a little more logic and thinking before we simply rattle off about safe routes for asylum seekers.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

But that is why we need family reunion routes.

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

Debate between Lord Green of Deddington and Baroness Ludford

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, Amendments 77 and 78 contain an interesting and potentially very valuable idea. I pay tribute to the original thinking that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, brings to so many of his contributions to this House. I warmly endorse the arguments that he made, ably supported by the noble Lord, Lord Horam, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. I particularly welcome the wider perspective that these amendments bring to the issues surrounding immigration. The detail is always important, but so is the wider perspective, especially when very significant changes are being proposed.

As noble Lords may be aware, I have been closely involved in immigration policy matters for nearly 20 years. I think I am now on my 10th Home Secretary and my 16th Minister of Immigration. An office for immigration and demographic change, which the noble Lord proposes, would bring together the study of the key elements that cross the boundaries of so many Whitehall departments, most of which have departmental interests in higher immigration, rather than lower.

As the noble Lord mentioned, we already have the OBR, which provides a wider framework for economic policy. The Migration Advisory Committee is focused on immigration but, as has been remarked on a number of times in these debates, it comprises mainly economists and is largely focused on economics. It does not, nor is it asked to, take the longer view of the wider impacts that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is advocating. The reality is that nobody in government is pulling together the demographic, economic, social and, perhaps, climatic elements that set the frame for the whole future development of our society.

Demography has its own uncertainties, of course. Death rates are fairly stable, but birth rates can change quite rapidly, especially for different groups in our society. But immigration has been, for some years, the key variable. Before the full impact of the Covid crisis became clear, immigration remained close to its highest level in our history. It is now the major factor in our demographic future. For the time being, the Covid crisis has distorted the impact of immigration but, if it were allowed to continue at recent levels, it would have huge consequences for education, health, housing and pensions. Nobody is considering that in an organised way. We need close and co-ordinated consideration of all these aspects, and where it is all leading to. We need to decide whether this is where we want to go and, whatever we decide, how best we can prepare for such a future.

So I commend the noble Lord’s valuable contribution to the immigration debate, and I support his amendments.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I concede that these amendments have a sincere purpose, but I am not sure that they really work. In Amendment 77, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, proposes that the Government issue a charter for EU immigration and demographic change, explaining the formulation of their policies on immigration. But the Government can already do this in other ways; indeed, they issued their White Paper on a points-based system a few months ago. The proposed charter would be laid before Parliament, but there is no description of what Parliament would then do. Would it approve, endorse or reject? I also query why the charter would set out demographic objectives only in relation to immigration when other factors are mentioned elsewhere in the two amendments. Of course, the other major factor in demographic change is the birth rate.

Amendment 78 aims to set up a new quango called the office of EU immigration and demographic change. Again, I am not sure why the Government cannot do this work, because it is the Government who issue the charter. It is proposed that the office should report on the impact of the Government’s demographic objectives for EU immigration, but it would be barred from considering the impact of any alternative policies. The noble Lord sought to explain, or justify, that constraint, but it seems to take away something—critiquing the Government’s policy and suggesting alternatives—which could be valuable. Again, no role is specified for Parliament as regards reports from this new office. I cannot in all honesty see the added value of such a body to the duo that we already have—the Migration Advisory Committee and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, mentioned, the Office for National Statistics, which already does population projections. I had a quick look and saw that it did one in October 2019; I do not know when the next one is due. And then there are surely academics on whose work either the MAC or the ONS could draw.

So I will not make the point that these amendments relate to immigration only from the EU, since such an objection would be disingenuous, given that I recognise the constraint imposed by the scope of the Bill. We have been a round that circuit several times in the last few days. I can do no more than say that these amendments, while interesting, do not really fly, for the reasons that I have given.