Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 11th May 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Marlesford]

Clause 1, page 1, line 4, leave out “one or more” and insert “up to two”

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[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I move this amendment for two reasons. First, I believe that legislation and the privilege that we have in introducing Private Member’s Bills should be taken very seriously. By this I mean that legislation is something that requires precision for implementing the intention. From that, it follows that the intention should be reasonably clear and realistic. In this, legislation is crucially different from debate on resolutions, propositions or aspirations. One can, for example, debate the need for a settlement of the Middle East conflict, but to put forward legislation for that is unlikely to be helpful. It is perfectly reasonable to debate all sorts of views on immigration but proposals to uncap it in an unmeasurable way are really not suited to a declaration of policy, let alone legislation.

I remember as a journalist when I had to attend all the party conferences, in 1976 at the Liberal Party conference—the first conference that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, had when he was leader of the Liberal Party—the Young Liberals, who are always inclined to anarchism, had a resolution that there should be completely free immigration into the UK. The noble Lord rebuked them, saying that if they wanted the party to have those sorts of policies they should find another leader. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was a Young Liberal at that time.

The second reason why I am moving the amendment is to probe into the actual figures. Clause 1 specifies nine categories of family members of an individual who have been granted refugee status whose application to enter or remain in the UK the Secretary of State would be obliged to grant unless the refusal was in the interests of national security. Immigration statistics are always complicated, but at its simplest I would point out that the number of people who have been granted asylum over the 10 years up to 2017—and this is the lowest figure—is 56,921. Each, I suggest, would be likely on average to apply for entry for more than one person. In the ninth category of people in Clause 1(2) are included,

“any dependent relative not otherwise listed in this subsection”,

so it is really pretty open wording. No limit is really envisaged.

I believe that any Government are obliged to limit immigration to a number that can be absorbed into the community. My definition of “absorbed” in this context is for the basic state provision of housing, health services generally and education to be able to be provided without diluting, to an extent that is democratically unacceptable, the standard of living of those already resident in the UK. I recognise at once that my own amendment of up to two family members could well amount to over 100,000, and that would probably be over my own measure of “absorbed”. In that context, I remind your Lordships that the latest 12-month figure for net migration into the UK is 244,000.

In practice the Bill would open the door to large numbers of economic migrants. We know that the potential number of those from Africa alone is measured in the millions and it is not really possible to estimate it. All that can be said is that market forces suggest that migration would continue until the standard of living in the receiving country was no longer high enough to attract economic migrants—thus, the only way of limiting those who want to come is by restricting numbers.

I must mention one other deeply worrying aspect of immigration control in the UK: the capacity of the Home Office to administer it. It is now 12 years since the then Home Secretary, now the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan, famously declared on 4 May 2006 that the Home Office was “not fit for purpose”. It is sad and deeply worrying that this is clearly still the case, and I am not talking about the deplorable incompetence over the “Empire Windrush”. On that matter, I am wholly on the side of the migrants. In my 20s I was lucky enough, in my first job working for a British chemical company, to be posted for over a year to the Caribbean, living out of a suitcase and travelling from island to island, selling pharmaceuticals to doctors in what was then the British West Indies. I got to know many West Indians and learnt that they have the best sense of humour of any people in the world, and I like and respect them enormously.

I am talking about the fact that it seems that the Home Office immigration service is systemically corrupt. In a Written Answer on 10 January 2012, the Home Office revealed that over the previous five years there had been,

“29 convictions of Home Office staff in connection with their official activities”.—[Official Report, 10/1/12; col. WA36.]

The great majority, nearly all from the immigration department, resulted in prison sentences, two of them for nine years. I fear that that is continuing. As recently as 5 April the Times carried a report of a Home Office official, Mr Shamsu Iqbal, who had been found guilty of falsifying the records of over 400 people, amounting to some £6 million of profit to him and his colleagues. Surely one must ask why the Home Office recruitment and vetting procedure has not been tightened up between the previous figure and today.

At any rate, this Bill is aspirationally attractive, and all of us who have any liberal sensibilities like the idea of families being able to be joined together, although it may well be that better facilities are needed for that purpose. However, the Bill as drafted would make immigration an open season for doubtful and corrupt activities, leaving Ministers little opportunity for questioning what was happening. My amendment would be a small, though probably still too large, step in enabling a practical limit to be imposed. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak at this stage. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for the opportunity to return to the Bill, especially because it enables me to give a plaudit to the Government. The Minister would not have expected that.

We have debated the subject of family reunion on previous occasions, but I think the most recent was during the course of the EU withdrawal Bill, when the Minister responding to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and resisting his amendment, did not mention the pull factor, which on every other occasion that I can remember the Government have included in their argument. I do not subscribe to the pull factor, described by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, as implausible. I hope that that was a significant omission.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the Home Office often comes in for negative comments, so it is always nice to hear noble Lords pay tribute to the dedicated staff who work tirelessly for the right reasons and for the right outcomes for the people who apply. I look forward to the analysis of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I think we all agree that underlying the Bill are the humane intentions which we all support. Every example given was fully valid and I support them all. However, the fact remains that the Bill removes from the Home Office the powers and opportunities to control the total number of people who come into the country. I have indicated that I have a pretty low opinion of the Home Office’s capacity in this respect, but the right reverend Prelate put his finger on this point, which I mentioned in my speech: the only ground on which an application can be stopped by the Secretary of State is that of national security.

As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, applications are available, but if there is no government check—the Bill explicitly and deliberately removes the government check—and if the Government do not have the ability to make the final decision, which of course is subject to every sort of lobbying and debate and all the rest of it, you are abrogating the overall control of immigration which I believe the people of this country would always insist upon. That is the fundamental error of the Bill.

My amendment was merely intended to draw attention to this and to reduce the possible number. I have said already that I thought 100,000 would probably be too many to be allowed in, but the Government must take on more clearly a policy on how many people and in what circumstances because I am by no means sure. The Government have always said that they want the brightest and the best, and that must be right for the country. None the less, there are strong humanitarian arguments for individual refugees to be able to be reunited in this country with their families. But it is about the way in which that is done and the avoidance of it being sidetracked by those with less creditable motives. It is important that we safeguard against that, and the only people who can do so are the Government and the Home Secretary.

There is a deep flaw in the Bill, but, equally, it has been worth while, and I hope that this has been a worthwhile debate. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.