Lord Judd
Main Page: Lord Judd (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Judd's debates with the Home Office
(11 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness on having introduced the debate. She was right to do so. It is very important that this matter should receive scrutiny and consideration in this House.
I am deeply concerned by the situation in which we find ourselves because it seems to me that when we talk about the kind of society we want to be in—we spend an awful lot of time talking about that—what really matters, and the values which we have as central to that society, should be evident in all aspects of our life. People, however reluctantly, can understand the need for immigration controls and immigration policy. That is true of this country and of our friends abroad. What upsets people is when, within that immigration policy, we do not follow through the logic which we say is vital to maintaining the values and behaviour which we see as being central to our nation.
I am really very disturbed that we are speaking with forked tongues on the issue of family. We keep emphasising the importance of family in our own society, but it does not apply to people who have been allowed through the immigration system to come and join us and make a contribution to our society. Either the family matters or it does not. I found the evidence submitted by the BMA, to which my noble friend Lord Parekh has already referred, very interesting. It talks not just about the personal pressures but about the quality of work undertaken by doctors if they are surrounded by their family or if they are debarred from having their family with them. If we see these doctors as essential to the operation of our health service—and, my God, they make a huge contribution to our health and well-being—it is terribly important that family values should apply, to enable them to perform at their best.
My noble friend, Lord Parekh, in a delightful but telling way, wove together the principle and practicalities of this. We all know, in our own families, how important grandparents are to the operation of the family, enabling mothers to work and running children to school and to their activities. Grandparents have a crucial part to play in the success of the family as part of society. It is shooting ourselves in the foot to say that we want people who are entitled to come through our immigration system, and to welcome them so long as they are making a full, positive contribution to our society, but then to deny those very aspects of life which will enable them to maximise their performance. It just does not make sense.
I also want to pick up on the more difficult, contentious issue of the operation of our penal system. If people have had sentences over a certain period of time they are subject to deportation. I have seen too much evidence that the impact on the children is not taken into account in these decisions. Sometimes there is a quite cynical neglect of any consideration whatever of the children in the paperwork and the rest. We were pioneers—I repeat, pioneers—in the creation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in which, I am glad to say, the Conservative Party played a big part. We won great international esteem for the part we played, as I was saying the other night in our deliberations on the Children and Families Bill. We have a long way to fall and I am afraid we are falling. What people judge us by is not what we said at the time of the convention’s creation but how we actually operate the convention, not only in detail but in spirit, in our own society and the way we go about organising our affairs. I am not going to say there have not been some marginal improvements, and of course there are some very fine people working in this area. However, are we absolutely certain that the child is central to our considerations in all the work of the UK Border Agency and all the work of the Home Office on deportation in connection with crime? That is what the convention, which we helped to draft, demands. Is the child central to our considerations? This needs to be taken very seriously indeed.
In conclusion, all of us, whatever our party differences across the House, want to live in a nation that feels at peace with itself—a nation that is confident in the underlying principles in our society. We all want to be seen as a nation that is not only successful and achieving in materialist terms but whose characters of compassion, care and concern are self-evident in everything that we do and the way that we go about it. I am not denying the need for an immigration policy—of course I am not, it would be nonsense—but those principles, which are admittedly difficult and challenging, have to be seen as applying in the operation of that policy. I am glad that the noble Baroness has given us the opportunity to look at these issues. Some of them need to be examined very carefully indeed.
I thank all noble Lords for contributing to a good debate and in particular my noble friend Lady Hamwee for tabling the Motion. It can but be a proper function of this House to scrutinise government and what it does. In this area, noble Lords have indicated in their speeches today sincere and genuine interest in the application of policy.
As noble Lords know, the Government are determined to reform the immigration system and restore public confidence in it. In that context we implemented in July 2012 a major set of reforms of the requirements to be met by non-European Economic Area nationals seeking to enter or remain in the UK on the basis of family life. The Government welcome the report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration on its inquiry into the impact of the new family migration rules. In monitoring this impact, we will consider carefully the findings of the report.
Many noble Lords have spoken of their concerns about these new rules. The passion of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the challenges from my noble friends Lord Teverson, Lord Avebury and Lord Taylor of Warwick have provided us with a test. I enjoyed the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Parekh and Lord Kilclooney. I am not entirely sure that I enjoy the testing standards of my noble friend Lord Roberts of Llandudno, but I am pleased that in his closing speech the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, demonstrated that we agree on many of the key issues and recognise the heart of them for government. I hope he does not believe that I presume too much.
Perhaps I can start by setting out the background to the changes introduced last year. My noble friend Lord Teverson focused very strongly on his concerns about family life in this country. The Government welcome those who want to make a life in the UK with their families, to work hard and to make a contribution, but family life must not be established here at the taxpayer’s expense. That is fundamental for the income test and is the reasoning behind the income threshold. We expect the new income threshold to prevent burdens on the taxpayer and promote successful integration. Those wishing to establish their family life here must be able to stand on their own feet financially. That is not an unreasonable expectation as the basis of sustainable family migration and good integration outcomes, on which I am sure all noble Lords agree.
The previous requirement for adequate maintenance was not, as it turned out, an adequate basis for sustainable family migration and good integration outcomes. It provided little assurance that UK-based sponsors and their migrant partner could support themselves financially over the long term. One of its considerable downsides was that it involved a complex assessment of the current and prospective employment income of the parties and their other financial means, including current or promised support from third parties. This was not conducive to clear, consistent decision-making.
That is why the Government decided to establish a new financial requirement for sponsoring family migrants. The level of the threshold was based principally on expert advice from the independent Migration Advisory Committee. The levels of income required are those at which a couple, once settled in the UK and taking into account any children, because children can be included in the threshold by an additional threshold sum, generally cannot access income-related benefits. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lord Taylor of Warwick said that a family policy needs to be fair. The Government believe that this is a fair and appropriate basis for family migration. It is right for migrants, local communities and the UK as a whole.
The Government agreed with the Migration Advisory Committee’s conclusion that there is no clear case for varying the income threshold across the UK. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, will understand that it would be impossible to set a threshold for migration to Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales. What would become of freedom of movement within the United Kingdom? It is unreal, and that is the principal reason why it has been ruled out. A requirement that varied by region could lead to sponsors moving to a lower threshold area in order to meet the requirement before returning once a visa was granted. It could also mean that a sponsor living in a wealthy part of a relatively poor region could be subject to a lower income threshold than a sponsor living in a deprived area of a relatively wealthy region. A single national threshold also provides clarity and simplicity for applicants and caseworkers. I think all noble Lords will agree that the Immigration Rules are complex enough. They have been complicated by politicians and lawyers, and we need to make the rules as simple as we can if we want an efficient and effective way of determining outcomes.
We have built significant flexibility into the operation of the threshold allowing for different income sources to be used towards meeting the threshold as well as significant cash savings. Employment overseas is no guarantee of finding work in the UK, and the previous and prospective earnings of the migrant partner are not taken into account in determining whether the threshold is met. If the migrant partner has a suitable job offer in the UK, they can apply under tier 2 of the points-based system.
We have also made significant changes to the adult and elderly dependent relative route, ending the routine expectation of settlement in the UK for parents and grandparents aged 65 or over. A number of noble Lords were concerned about this. The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, made an eloquent speech about it. Close family members are now able to settle in the UK only if they require a level of long-term personal care as a result of their age, illness or disability that can be provided only in the UK by their relative here. The route is now limited to those applying from outside the UK. These changes reflect the significant NHS and social care costs to which these cases can give rise.
The report highlights some cases affected by the changes that we have introduced to this route. The new criteria for adult dependent relatives more clearly reflect the intended thrust of the requirement of the old rules that parents and grandparents aged under 65 and other adult dependent relatives of any age be allowed in the most exceptional compassionate circumstances to settle in the UK.
There should be no expectation that elderly parents and grandparents who are self-sufficient or who can be cared for overseas should be able to join their children or grandchildren in the UK. That is the policy intention and the cases which have been highlighted are not unintended consequences. They demonstrate how the policy is intended to work.
The new family rules are intended to bring a sense of fairness back to our immigration system. The public are rightly concerned that those accessing public services and welfare benefits have contributed to their cost. The changes we have made are having the right impact and they are helping, I hope, to restore public confidence in the immigration system.
The number of partner and other family route entry clearance visas issued in the year ending March 2013 is 37,470. It has fallen by 16% compared with the year ending March 2012. I can assure all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate—the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, approached this with a great deal of understanding of the issues—that we will continue to monitor the impact of the rules. Since last July we have made some adjustments to the rules in response to feedback from customers and caseworkers. These include allowing those in receipt of research grants paid on a tax-free basis to count the amount on a gross basis and counting investments transferred into cash savings within the period of six months before the date of application. My honourable friend Mark Harper has also indicated, in a parallel debate in another place, that he would consider representations made on parts of detail about the operation of other aspects of the rules. I hope noble Lords feel that this debate has been worth while. Certainly the report of the APPG has been worth while.
The Minister, in his usual way, is replying with great courtesy and concern. We all appreciate that. He referred to the complexity in the regulations and the difficulties for caseworkers and, indeed, we might add, border officials and the rest in applying those regulations. Does he not agree that that is why it is so important that certain salient points of guidance should be expressed all the time by Ministers and others, such as the paramount importance of the child, the rights of the child and the situation of the child in the midst of this jungle of complexity?
I would agree with the noble Lord that our policy here within the UK is a strong focus on family—and indeed on children. It could be argued that there is a dichotomy here between an immigration policy that is designed to limit numbers and reduce net migration and the maintenance of family structures.
I was going on to seek to answer the noble Lord’s points on a number of issues because he did ask about the impact on children. We recognise the importance of the duty under Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the UK. The consideration of the welfare and best interests of children is taken into account in immigration policy. The noble Lord came in right on cue even if I have not been able to satisfy him totally.
My noble friend Lord Avebury asked whether any adult dependent relative visas have been issued since October 2012. I can give him an answer to that. In the year ending March 2013, 5,066 visas were issued to other family members according to published Home Office statistics. These figures do not separately identify adult dependent relatives of British citizens and settled persons in the UK.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked what consideration of the impact of policies on boys denied contact with the fathers, and of the impact of policies on both boys and girls, was taken into account in the development and implementation of the new rules. We do not know how many children are affected by the rules. Where the effects of refusal under the rules would be unjustifiably harsh, there is a provision to grant leave outside the rules on a case-by-case basis if there are exceptional circumstances.
I said before that this has been a good debate, not least because there have been three John D Taylors speaking in it. I am grateful to all noble Lords, however, for their contributions. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hamwee for bringing the report to the attention of the House and of the Government. We welcome all contributions to the debate on how best to ensure that family migration is done on a properly sustainable basis. I am grateful to have the chance to hear the views on these issues. I am conscious that I have not replied to every point that has been raised in this debate but, with the leave of noble Lords, I will write a commentary on the debate, covering all points made, addressed to my noble friend Lady Hamwee and copied to all participatory Peers, and place a copy in the Library.