Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Hylton Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I cannot welcome the Bill. It does not deal with the protection and care that people urgently need when forced to leave their country. I will speak about the context of the Bill, reuniting families, and humanising our policy on refugees.

This country is relatively sheltered against the consequences of wars and persecution elsewhere. In 2020, Germany received four times as many asylum applications as we did. The great bulk of displaced people and refugees remains in poor countries.

Since we left the European Union, over 1 million people have left the UK, so that we now have serious shortages of HGV drivers, builders, and health, hospitality and care workers. One might think that there was now a little scope for cautiously relaxing migration and asylum policy, but no. The Bill is restrictive and discriminatory. It does not open new safe and legal routes for entry. However, I give the Government credit for proposing the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme.

Recently, the UK resettled some 5,000 refugees each year, mainly through the vulnerable persons scheme. In the year to September 2021, that figure fell to 1,171. We should note that the United States and Canada have both increased their resettlement targets for 2022.

Since 1999, I have called for family reunion to guide our approach. It is an all-round winner for the families, and for their integration into work and communities here. It helps the Government through savings on benefits, health and policing. Such thoughts have perhaps begun to sink in, because it is claimed that family reunions have helped 35,000 people over the past five years. If that is true, I warmly welcome it. Refugee children, as well as adults, who are already here should be enabled to sponsor their close relatives to come here. They should be allowed legal aid to deal with access to visas and similar matters. It would be a flexible way of helping small numbers of urgent cases that would otherwise go unaided.

Her Majesty’s Government could do more to improve the system. For example, they should tackle the backlog of undecided asylum cases, as several speakers have mentioned. It is currently about 72,000 or more. Long ago, I suggested a review panel with an independent majority to speed up work on the cases that have been outstanding the longest.

The period during which asylum applications may not take paid work should be reduced to six months, in line with other comparable states. Destitution should be reduced among unsuccessful asylum applicants by allowing them to work until such time as they can be removed. The length of time that any person can remain in immigration detention should at long last be limited. The details are, of course, complicated. However, they are not insuperable.

Old army barracks and other unsuitable places should not be used as reception centres for new arrivals. As we heard from my noble friend Lady Hollins, these have already harmed the mental and physical health of inmates.

Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, I have tried to pinpoint ways our system can be made more humane. We thought that the infamous hostile environment had ended in this country. Will the Minister confirm that this is so? I go further and call for an end to the automatic culture of disbelief when assessing refugees.

Blaming others, such as the French authorities or the traffickers, has been tried and failed. We should put our own house in order by adopting a humane policy. All agencies in Britain must work together. As has been said, we need international co-operation to close supposedly temporary refugee camps and to achieve resettlement.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, I support this as a probing amendment and support everything that has been said. If I was to add anything, I would say that this could apply equally to some people who are facing religious persecution: so Sikhs, Hindus and Christians in Afghanistan would say that they are under serious threat at the moment, for example. I wonder whether I can put some words in the Minister’s mouth. Without delay, can she undertake that the guidance that is to come states categorically that it will be from a trauma-informed basis rather than simply circumstantial?

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, in very few words I would like to welcome and support Amendment 40, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I do so from the experience of asylum and immigration Bills over the last 20 or 30 years, and for the reason that what used to be known as the Medical Foundation, and is now called simply Freedom from Torture, has repeatedly pointed out the necessary delay before people who pass through traumatic experiences are willing to reveal what has happened to them. To do so, they need relationships of trust and confidence with those with whom they are dealing. So if, perchance, Clause 11 survives in some form or other, I hope that the principles of the noble Baroness’s amendment will be somehow incorporated.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, this will not be the last time we talk about the need for a trauma-informed approach. I think the expression “necessary delay”, used by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, is very useful and applies much better to this situation than “without delay”, which is what we are faced with.

Even without the background and experiences referred to in this amendment, I cannot imagine undertaking the sort of journey that most people fleeing from the situations they are in will have undertaken. Any asylum seeker will be in a pretty awful state. Many will be anxious about authority figures. It is incumbent on us to ensure that they are not retraumatised. We should not require them to present a coherent explanation and make a claim so quickly.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, talked about the possible survival of Clause 11. I would add Clause 36 to that. I do not think this provision can be read without looking at Clause 36, which deals with Article 31 of the convention. Clause 36(2) says:

“A refugee is not to be taken to have presented themselves without delay”—


“presented themselves” is the phrase used in Clause 11—

“unless … they made a claim for asylum as soon as reasonably practicable after their arrival in the United Kingdom.”

I do not think it is necessary to read the whole clause.

I hope the Minister can explain how, in practical terms, given the life experiences that we are suggesting, “present” and “make a claim” relate to one another. Does making a claim

“as soon as reasonably practicable”

mean presenting the substance of a claim? If I read these two clauses correctly, we now have “presenting oneself” and “making a claim”. Failure, under Clause 11, to present not just oneself but one’s claim takes one straight into the territory of late evidence and all the horrors of criminality and second-class status.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

On behalf of my noble friend Lord Paddick, I will move Amendment 112 and speak to Amendments 113 and 117, which I have co-signed. The reason I have been given the honour of moving Amendment 112 is that it reproduces my Private Member’s Bill, which in fact has its origins with my noble friend Lady Hamwee and will have its Committee stage just after recess.

The Conservative Party likes to call itself the party of the family; I believe it needs to demonstrate this. Amendment 112 would build on existing safe routes for family reunion to enable a wider range of family members to reach the UK without undertaking unsafe journeys. This is the real way to stop most of the dangerous channel crossings and put the smugglers out of business.

In the letter and attached chart that the Minister sent to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and kindly made available to us all, the Government set out the current safe routes. Even under part 11 of the Immigration Rules, while adult refugees do not have to pay a fee for the visa they do have to pay for travel to the UK, and the integration loan cannot be used for that. Legal aid is also not available, at least not in England and Wales—I do not know about Scotland or Northern Ireland—and they can bring in only their spouse and their under-18 children.

As in my Private Member’s Bill, Amendment 112 would permit dependent children up to the age of 25, as well as adopted children. Crucially, it would permit children recognised as refugees to sponsor their parents and siblings to join them. Although sibling reunion is in theory possible under paragraph 319X of the Immigration Rules, in practice the barriers are often insurmountable. Not only does the visa cost almost £400 but the young sponsor has to show that they can financially support and accommodate their sibling without recourse to public funds, and that the justification for reunion is “serious and compelling”. All these are tough tests to fulfil. Paragraph 297, which governs whether children can join parents or non-parent relatives who have settlement status imposes a fee of £1,500, and then the same serious and compelling test.

Despite promising in a response to the consultation on the New Plan for Immigration to give creator clarity, no guidance has been forthcoming. Can the Minister tell us in her response when that guidance will be forthcoming, and how many visas have been issued under paragraphs 319X or 297 over the last five years?

I reaffirm my support for Amendment 113 from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and Amendment 117 from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. These both aim to boost family reunion opportunities for unaccompanied minors and for entry to seek asylum, in part substituting for the loss of the Dublin regulation. I also support other amendments in this group. I beg to move.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to three amendments in this group. I note that they are all new clauses. New clauses are necessary to improve this Bill, and they are essential to humanising our present systems, let alone what may emerge from the Bill once it becomes an Act.

Reuniting families split by wars and persecution brings huge benefits; I think we can all agree on that. Amendment 112 enfranchises both children and their parents. It also empowers the Secretary of State to add new kinds of relationships. Amendment 113 should, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, has just mentioned, reduce dangerous crossings of the channel.

On Amendment 114, we all know that the neighbours of Syria and Iraq have been subjected to and have accepted huge influxes of people. The same is also true of southern European states. For these reasons, there is an urgent need for equitable burden sharing. This, in turn, will require much greater international co-operation. We can do our part in this country by using family reunion. Our neighbours and allies are entitled to know what our intentions and proposals are in this respect.

The wording of all three amendments can, I expect, be improved. Will the Government accept at least their principles, take them away and bring them back in pristine condition?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Going through the amendments this morning in preparation for this evening, I got quite tearful when I read these amendments because my family is incredibly important to me—every single one of them. I love them and I do not want to lose them or break up in any way from them. The thought that we in Britain could be the cause of families separating made me very upset.

I have signed two of these amendments, but they are all good amendments. The Government really ought to look into their own hearts and think about how they would feel if their families were broken up, through no fault of their own, because of despotic powers or other reasons. It is time to be a little bit kinder in this Bill, so please will the Government accept these amendments?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I hate to go over the past, but the whole point of having the Dublin III treaty in the 2017 Act—which was taken out in the 2019 Act, as I said—is that it has to be based on reciprocity. That was a sensible way forward; it is why we wanted to go down that path. That was the path blocked by the Government in the 2019 Act.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

The noble Baroness has twice in my hearing given the figure of 39,000 humanitarian visas for family reunion. Between Second Reading and Committee, I asked a Written Question on how many of those had been taken up, because I foresaw that force majeure, poverty or some other reason would prevent many of them actually being used. I got one of those answers saying, “We really cannot find or give you any figures.” Can the noble Baroness be a little more helpful on the real results of those visas?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Going back to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, first, I did not disagree with his point about reciprocity but I made it clear at the time that we were of course leaving the European Union. I have consistently said, and repeat now, that we will try to negotiate with the EU on UASC family reunion, whether that is across the EU or bilaterally with states. I cannot go any further on the negotiations, but we continue to try to do that. I hope that answers his question.

On family reunion visas, we can grant them, but the noble Lord asked about tracking whether people use them or not. I assume people apply for the visas because they need them and want to reunite with family in the UK, and whether they use them or not—I have just received an answer: all 39,000 have been taken up, so I hope that satisfies the noble Lord. I was just wondering how we could track whether someone had used a visa or not, which might be quite difficult.

I move to Amendment 114, on returns. Once again, we have a number of safe and legal routes to the UK that did not require a negotiating mandate. Our resettlement schemes have provided safe and legal routes for tens of thousands of people to start new lives in the UK. In particular, the mandate resettlement scheme recognises refugees who have a close family member in the UK who is willing to accommodate them. This is a global scheme and there is no annual quota. These routes work alongside the UK Government’s commitment to increasing co-operation internationally, and we continue to seek to negotiate on returns with EU member states, as I have just said to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 10th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in his intention to oppose Clauses 57 and 58 standing part of the Bill. I have a speech but I am not going to deliver it, because the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in particular, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and many others have been so powerfully put that they are simply irrefutable. I have been in the House now for 15 years or so and have heard thousands of good arguments as to why a Government should not do this, that or the other, but I have never heard such powerful arguments for a part of a Bill to be removed.

I am going to ask something that I have never asked before. Will the Minister invite the Home Secretary to come to a meeting with representatives from all sides of this House to hear the arguments first-hand from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and others? It is not good enough for our poor Minister, if I may refer to the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, in that way, to hear all these arguments, to go back and say whatever he is going to say—I do not know what it will be—and then to have to come back here and say, “Sorry, guys, it’s all going to stay there”. That is not good enough. The case is so incredibly powerful. The wickedness of Part 5 should not be allowed to go by without the Home Secretary facing noble Lords directly.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I notice that my noble friend Lady Hollins cannot be in her place today, but I urge the Minister to consider her wealth of medical, psychological and therapeutic experience, as she has her name to Amendment 154. That will strengthen the case for him taking back this group.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, Dame Sara Thornton, wrote to the Home Secretary about this Bill on 7 September last year. I should declare an interest: I know Sara Thornton very well. We were police officers together and spent six months together on a residential course. She is extremely able and fiercely independent, and, in my opinion, the best commissioner the Metropolitan Police never had.

In relation to trafficking information notices, Sara said in her letter that trauma suffered by victims of modern slavery can result in delayed disclosure, difficulty recalling facts or symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. She went on to say that evidence from the Salvation Army pointed to the fact that many victims initially recall their experiences with contradictions and inconsistencies, and it can often take a considerable time before they feel comfortable to disclose fully what has happened to them, as many other noble Lords have said. Her conclusion was that to place a deadline on when they can submit evidence and to interpret late compliance as damaging to credibility fails to take account of the severe trauma suffered by victims. For those reasons alone, Clauses 57 and 58 should not stand part of the Bill.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I invite the noble Baroness who moved this amendment and her supporter to consider the actual conditions of refugees who have passed through Europe and managed to get somewhere near our shores. They usually face closed frontiers. They probably live rough over a considerable period, being chased, for example, by the French police and the garde républicaine de sûreté. They are tear gassed, pepper sprayed and so on. Can they always be expected to have retained their correct documentation?

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been following this Bill since its inception. I have not spoken up to this point, but I have been increasingly concerned about the effect of this particular legislative initiative and its potential impact on our reputation internationally, which had been very good in this area up to now, largely because of our role as one of the founding signatories of the refugee convention.

The present situation is one about which the Government are clearly not being frank with the public and the House. My noble friend Lord Rosser quoted chapter and verse very effectively just now when he quoted the Minister saying that at one point she was in favour of, and at another point against, having reciprocal return agreements with other countries. If she wants me to give way to her, I am happy to do so. We should know the answer to that. We should know the answers to things we do not know the answer to. For example, in this country, are we committed to not breaking up families? Can we assume it is a guiding and regular principle that we will not break up families? If we do break up families of asylum seekers or otherwise, we shall be acting completely outside the pale of civilised behaviour. That would be extremely worrying to an awful lot of us.

The Government are known, in international rumour, to be in negotiation with a number of African countries—Rwanda, for example—on establishing some sort of camp or facility to take failed asylum seekers from this country, but we do not know what the terms of such an arrangement would be. The Government have not been frank enough to tell us. There are a lot of rumours going around, most of which are very unattractive. I hope the Government might do something about that.

There is a fundamental weakness at the root of what the Government are trying to structure here. People who have come in small boats and hidden in lorries have been accused of coming here illegally. Logically, one can see the reason for that accusation, but there is no way in which they can come legally, as far as I can see. The Government should think about setting up an office in, say, Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer so that there will be some direct contact with these potential illegal immigrants. It would not cost that much. They could make some progress in filling out forms and getting an initial reaction from the bureaucracy to their claim. That might be helpful all round.

The fact is that the Government are proceeding in their own way and have not always been very straight- forward with us. I hope that changes. I think all of us remember from our school days the Spartans in ancient Greece. They led a terrible life and were third-class citizens.

--- Later in debate ---

What was needed was emergency visas. She could have gone to our embassy, secured a visa for her son and got out within days. Instead, weeks passed and she ended up dead. We must have ways of responding to these situations rapidly. My Amendment 50 allows that kind of visa to exist for those facing imminent risk of death, and it should apply to people who, perhaps for reasons of religion, or reasons to do with their personal characteristics, might be in the same mortal danger. I hope that the House will support this amendment too.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, we have heard some very moving speeches. Because I have consistently spoken over the years in favour of family reunion, I will say something about Amendments 47 and 48, which I support. I urge the Government to take them away and combine the best points from both of them into something workable, practical and possible to implement.

It is most important that children and young people who are already here should be able to sponsor their close relatives, and, conversely, older people here should be able to sponsor their younger next of kin.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I offer just a sentence on some of these amendments.

On Amendment 48, we need to bear in mind the risk that if we set up what is now proposed, children who are not yet in Europe will feel obliged to take quite serious risks to get into Europe to take advantage of it. With regard to Amendment 49, Syria is a good example. We decided that something needed to be done. We chose a target that, if you like, was doable—5,000 a year—and we did it. I take some encouragement from that. However, we need to be careful about the numbers, because we are already taking 40,000 a year, and if the Channel gets any worse that could be 70,000. We need to be careful not to lose the public’s support, which underlies all this.

Lastly, on Amendment 51, I have a good deal of sympathy with the comments of my noble friend Lord Alton on the Yazidis and others in Iraq. It may be that we should aim to do something similar to what was done over Syria, but again with a cap, in case the numbers run out of control. That has, indeed, been included in subsection (4) of the amendment, I think.

I mentioned public opinion, which changes from time to time. There is certainly very strong opposition to what is happening in the Channel; there is widespread public feeling that the Government, having promised to reduce immigration, have in fact lost control of the Channel. That, indeed, is the case. We cannot really expect the public to distinguish very clearly between asylum and other kinds of immigration. They are very uneasy, and in taking policy forward we need to keep that well in mind.