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

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

In my experience, human beings are able to put up with very difficult conditions if there is some hope at the end of the road for them, but where is no hope, there is only despair. Refugees and people wanting to claim asylum will do very dangerous things to find safety. If passed—I hope that it will be—this amendment will give hope to many child refugees in Europe. I beg to move.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, although he is also a bit of a pain because he has made such a powerful case that there is nothing really left to add. My speech should be seen as a footnote to his.

I declare my interest as a trustee of the Refugee Council. I followed the noble Lord there too; for a long time, he was the driving force and inspiration behind the Refugee Council. I want to get my revenge on him for stealing all the arguments that I was going to make by embarrassing him in telling the House that the Refugee Council now meets in its new headquarters in Alf Dubs House in east Stratford. I want to get that on the record just to embarrass the noble Lord.

At the end of the Committee stage, the Minister kindly wrote us a letter to pick up on some of our points. In relation to this issue, the Minister confirmed that it remains the Government’s goal to negotiate new arrangements for family reunion for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. I should hope so, because we will fall out of the Dublin III regime at the end of the year and new arrangements will be needed if we are to fulfil our responsibility for these vulnerable children, stuck on their own in continental Europe, and unite them with their families here.

As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said and as my Refugee Council experience confirms, there is considerable evidence that the country would like to see us do so. Of all the asylum issues on which there is considerable public interest and support, family reunion is the one where public opinion is most strongly in favour of us doing our job.

I have to tell the Minister that her letter reads a little disingenuously. It repeats our government line, which has lost all credibility because there is no relevant ongoing discussion about new arrangements. There is no negotiation on this subject with the EU 27; the issue was not addressed in the first Frost-Barnier negotiations, which led to the withdrawal agreement; and it is not being addressed in the current negotiations, which might lead to a free trade agreement, and it now cannot be—Monsieur Barnier has no mandate to discuss it because our Government failed to include it in the joint political declaration a year ago.

The joint political declaration was, understandably, taken by the EU as the basis for the mandate for the present negotiations. We tore up the political declaration. We decided that on foreign policy, governance and, notoriously, on the level playing field, we no longer meant what we had subscribed to, but the other side took it as defining the negotiation that is now going on. Also, there was nothing about replacing the Dublin regulation in it.

So there can now be no bilateral UK-EU arrangement from January; nor can there be UK bilateral agreements with individual EU member states, because this is a subject on which we and they decided some time ago to empower the Commission to act on our behalf. Therefore, what will be needed is a new free-standing, EU-UK negotiating track. That does not exist now and will have to be established. We could of course have sought to establish it at any time but we did not, presumably because the subject was not particularly high on the list of the Government’s priorities. The amendment would change that, but we too can change it: we can put it on the Government’s priority list, bypassing this amendment, and I very much hope that we will.

Because the Minister would be very disappointed if I did not raise it, I shall say a word about the camp on Greece and the 400 unaccompanied children sleeping rough because the camp burned down. The Government’s line, as set out in the Minister’s letter, is that we are in regular touch with EU member states, including Greece, which are responsible for arranging transfers. That is the standard line, relying on the Dublin regulation, from which we are pulling out, and there is nothing proactive at all. There is nothing about going to find those of the 400 who would like to join their families here. It really is shaming when one thinks of what the Germans are doing, and it really is extraordinary given British public opinion on family reunion.

I strongly support the amendment and I hope that, when she speaks to it, the Minister will at last be able to tell us that we will do something about the unaccompanied children who are vulnerable and sleeping rough on the island of Lesbos.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, it had been the intention of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham to speak to this amendment, tabled in his name as well as that of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, and but for the hiatus in the voting technology when the House last considered the Bill on Report, he would have done so. He regrets that he is unable to attend today’s proceedings.

When we previously considered this amendment, in Committee, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham reminded us of the story of the good Samaritan. It is not just, or principally, a story of instinctiveness goodness, or we would soon tire of hearing of it. It recounts several characters, including a person who needs help, those who do harm and those who have choices about their actions in response—doubtless all individuals who paid their taxes, counted their accomplishments, did well by their families and friends, and obeyed the law. It was the victim’s instinctive enemy who did right by him in showing compassion. Sometimes the choice we all face is whether or not to exercise generosity of heart.

We read in the helpful letter from the Minister of 30 September about the scale of refuge granted to vulnerable children proportionate to the European Union. Such welcome, especially to the most vulnerable, is to be acknowledged, as is the Government’s attempt to reach an agreement with the EU on post-transition arrangements. However, given the sheer scale of raw human need that exists in the area of vulnerable children and family reunification, will the Minister please explain to the House what she believes the disadvantages would be of importing into our domestic law the very wholesome provisions of Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013? The regulation is entirely sensible and reasonable in requiring the Government to consider the best interests of the child.

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[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

I am very grateful to the Minister for her courtesy in responding to my point. I want to make sure that there is no misunderstanding between us. I did not challenge the statement in her letter that

“it remains our goal to negotiate”

new arrangements. I said that there is no current negotiation of these new arrangements. I recall the proposal the Government made before the summer; my view of it was similar to that expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in this debate. However, the important point is that the EU had no mandate to discuss it and it is not being discussed.

I have two questions. First, does the Minister agree that there is now no negotiation of Dublin III successor arrangements for the United Kingdom? Secondly, does that mean that there will be no family reunion arrangements on 1 January unless we pass this amendment?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think I quoted the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, saying that he did not think it was a priority for the Government. He made a point about there being no mandate. I cannot comment on the minutiae of negotiations; all I can say is that there is a sincere and genuine offer on the table, and we stand ready to progress those negotiations.

The noble Lord asked me to confirm that there will not be a successor to Dublin III. We are not trying to create Dublin; we are trying to create a system in which we can bilaterally—by which I mean between us and the EU—ensure the transfers of people.

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[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, I fully support all the points so eloquently argued, once again, by the noble Lord, Lord Oates. I will speak briefly only to reiterate the points I raised in Committee, which were not fully addressed by the Minister in her response.

My first point relates to people in abusive and coercive relationships. I pointed out then, and remind the House now, that a common strategy in coercive control cases is to deprive the victim of access to phone and internet use. This raises the question of how someone who escapes a relationship with a coercive partner will be able to prove their status in future if, as is likely, it was the abusive partner who managed the process of claiming settled status in the first place. In seeking to rent a safe place to live, or to get a job in order to pay the rent, they would be obliged to contact the partner they are likely to have struggled so hard to leave. This is not a sidebar issue. Coercive control is now, quite rightly, a criminal offence in the UK. In the year to March last year, there were 17,616 offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. Can the Minister explain what protection there will be for victims of coercive control or abuse, so that they are not forced back into contact with their abuser in order to prove their immigration status?

My second concern is for people with impaired mental capacity, who are unlikely to have been able to navigate the application system alone, or to have been able to enter into mobile and internet accounts in their own names. Given the fluidity of the social care workforce, there is no guarantee that, at a later point in life when they are applying for a job or to rent a home, they will still be connected with the carer or caseworker who provided assistance. Mental capacity changes over time. Someone who has mental capacity when they apply may lack it at a later date, without the moment at which this change takes place being immediately clear. Can the Minister explain how people who lack mental capacity, now or in the future, are to be protected?

In response to these concerns, which I articulated in Committee, the Minister reiterated the Government’s commitment to

“delivering a service that reflects the diverse needs of all users.”—[Official Report, 14/9/20; col. 1094.]

Given everything that noble Lords have argued on this question, this evening and previously, does she not agree that delivering a service that reflects the diverse needs of all users will include, first, an assessment of which members of society would be disadvantaged by the lack of a physical document; and, secondly, an assessment of the impact of accessibility issues on all potential service users?

I know that the Minister will agree that equality of access should be at the heart of every government policy. This tiny amendment—a simple slip of paper and only if requested—does nothing more than ensure that this is the case. For this reason, it has my support.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Oates, on his rather brilliant introduction of this amendment, which I strongly support. The case for it would be made very succinctly were John Stuart Mill or Jeremy Bentham with us. The task of government is to engender the greatest happiness for the greatest number. People want physical proof and, as the noble Lord, Lord Polak, said, our inboxes demonstrate how unhappy so many are at the prospect of being denied it. I can understand why.

We are talking about people—some are vulnerable, some short of digital skills—who are now all already facing a period of unexpected but inevitable uncertainty. Every time they want to apply for a job, rent a place to live, seek medical help, or board a plane home, they, and the potential employer, landlord, healthcare provider or foreign airport employee, will have to go through a multistep process involving passport, date of birth, a unique, one-off, code sent to a phone, and the email address and business details of the employer, landlord, doctor or airport employee. They will both, separately, have to access the Government’s website, relying on having all the relevant information to hand, the wi-fi signal being good and the website not going down. It is hardly surprising that some of these people worry that the employer or the landlord would prefer to skip the hassle and instead take on someone who has physical proof of their status.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope the Government do not want to put these visits, exchanges and language schools in jeopardy, which clearly is the fate that will befall them unless the Government are prepared to give this further consideration. I hope the Minister will agree to take this back to give it one further look.

On the question of security—I know he commented on this in Committee—he should note that this amendment allows juniors to travel for single short-stay visits of less than 30 days. We know many of these juniors will receive new ID cards in the coming years, with added security features such as biometric information. The aspiration of the EU countries is for all new ID cards of this kind to be made available by 2021. Most of these young people will be travelling in groups co-ordinated by one or more passport-carrying teachers or group leaders and will remain part of this group for the duration of their time here.

On the other point raised in Committee, which was the Minister’s suggestion that collective passports be used, I understand, from those who travel from the UK using collective passports, that this can be a very bureaucratic and cumbersome procedure. Collective passports have not been used in many EU countries in recent years, so this is not a practical solution.

At the end of the day, this is a very valuable business in the UK, with so many language schools, and we have huge benefits from young people going from the UK to EU countries and vice versa. Surely the Home Office would want to do what it could to help this. I hope the Minister will just agree to give this some further consideration.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

I too will be very brief, given the hour. This is a very modest amendment, admirably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar. What she proposes is cost free and risk free. Children coming in in school parties and on exchange visits for no more than 30 days and no more than once a year are not a substantial threat to the sceptred isle. The amendment will also do a lot of good. Free movement, Schengen and identity cards mean that large numbers of continental children do not have passports. If schools considering bringing them here face the prospect of insisting that they first get passports or go to the considerable trouble of getting a group passport, a significant proportion of schools will prefer to take the class somewhere else. The amendment would prevent that happening.

More generally, losing free movement inevitably means a diminution of personal contacts. We and our continental friends will be further apart. That is a great pity. Any cost-free, risk-free measure to limit this continental drift should be welcomed, so I welcome the amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Naseby and Lord Blunkett, have withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

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[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

What a privilege it is to share these arguments with people some of whom have been here for many years. I must say how much I appreciate the work that my noble friend Lady Hamwee has done over the years in leading the Liberal Democrat camp.

What sort of world are we aiming for? When we look at what the present Home Secretary proposes, it is even more harsh. She does not propose any end to detention—it is indefinite. Instead she is leading a discussion—I hope it does not come to more than that—on transporting or deporting people to distant islands. The whole thing breaks the spirit of all those people who for some reason or another have found themselves in this detainee situation. The UK should be the leader in building a humanitarian approach to what will be an increasingly difficult situation as climate change and other things affect the areas of Africa that grow the grain and feed the people. The people will move. They will want a new home. Should the UK not join other nations in leading to try to find an honourable way, not one that is so heart-breaking to so many people? I ask the Government to take another look. Let it be a humanitarian look and let us go on to be rather proud not of what we have done in hostility but of what we have done in caring and hospitality.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

I support Amendment 20 and will address the asylum angle. Ms Patel is quite right that the asylum system is broken, but the repairs that are required need not—must not—mean recourse to water cannons or wave machines, disused oil rigs or ferries, Ascension Island or Papua New Guinea, all of which would mean further breaches of international law, this time the refugee convention.

The problem is not the one that Ms Patel addressed yesterday. The realm is not at risk from the summer surge in small boat arrivals. Although as a proportion more are coming that way, overall numbers of asylum applications are sharply down—by 40% compared to one year ago. No doubt that is partly related to Covid-19, but it shows how absurd is talk of invasion. The real problem is how to make the system more efficient and more humane. Ms Patel does not need to think outside the box. The tools are in her hands now. Making it more efficient means putting more resources into tackling the backlog and reducing the queue and providing better guidance to those who have to take the decisions.