Immigration Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, this Bill is not one that a majority Liberal Democrat Government would have brought forward. We have worked in coalition to improve this Bill and it is clear from what noble Lords have said that more needs to be done.

It is important that this Bill should be put into context. What is it trying to achieve? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that most reasonable people do not believe that there is a danger of this country being overwhelmed by a tsunami of immigrants. We do, however, have to be very careful about the way in which we use statistics in this area. My noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts talked about population growth. Can the Minister confirm that, in 2012-13, only 20% of the population growth in the UK was due to immigration?

My noble friend Lady Hamwee also suggested that we should examine what underlies hostility and fear towards immigrants. Perhaps the most commonly raised issues from those who oppose all further immigration are the claims that immigrants are taking our jobs and homes. As my noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece described in relation to the care sector, there are so many areas of industry and public services that would grind to a halt if it were not for those workers whose origins are overseas—whether they are first or subsequent-generation immigrants. It is not a phenomenon unique to the United Kingdom that immigrants, children and grandchildren of immigrants become the mainstay of the workforce in certain sectors. As my noble friend Lord Dholakia said, one in four NHS doctors is a migrant. Those who oppose immigration do not talk about the many thousands of jobs that immigrant entrepreneurs create by bringing investment and innovation into the country. Not only do immigrants as a whole contribute more to the British economy in taxation and national insurance than they take out in benefits, they also start businesses that employ many thousands of British people from every background.

As far as taking our homes is concerned, I wish there were more homes that immigrants could be accused of taking. The appalling lack of social housing and what, in some areas, is laughingly called affordable housing means that they are effectively out of the reach of hard-working families. Vast swathes of housing—particularly newbuild in London—are snapped up by overseas investors who have no intention of becoming immigrants. These are the real culprits, not immigration. It is much easier and politically expedient to blame immigrants for the housing crisis which successive Governments have created by their failure to build homes, particularly in the social sector.

There is no hope of considering this Bill objectively—as my noble friends Lord Avebury, Lord Taverne and Lord Roberts of Llandudno have said—if it is done against the distorted backdrop painted by UKIP, the Daily Mail and their sympathisers. They may have convinced too many of the electorate that the consequences of the economic recession for the labour market and the failure to build our way out of the housing crisis are the fault of immigration. It is easier to blame others than it is to blame ourselves, but we should not fall into the same trap. Listening to this debate, I am pleased that none of the Members of your Lordships’ House has done this.

We must have sensible, reasonable and practical controls on immigration; these are needed to address real problems with our existing rules and practices. We must, however, not have irrational, draconian and impractical measures to address the fictitious spectres created as scapegoats for the real challenges faced by families in this country.

The large number of noble friends who have spoken has made the depth of feeling and the concerns we have about this Bill very clear. As my noble friend Lord Teverson said, it is not just the measures; it is the damaging message that we are hostile that a Bill such as this sends to the rest of the world. Many in your Lordships’ House today, including my noble friends Lady Benjamin and Lord Clement-Jones, have expressed concerns about the effect of the Bill on overseas students, whose numbers should not be included in overall immigration figures in any event. We have learnt about the practical difficulties, particularly for overseas students seeking accommodation, that would be presented if this Bill goes through as it is.

The most important reform that we wish to see has nothing to do with this Bill. We want the correct immigration decisions made when the application is first considered. The UK Border Agency clearly was not working effectively and we welcome bringing immigration issues back within the Home Office. But, no matter what the grounds for appeal are or the number of appeals that are allowed, if currently 50% of appeals are successful the Home Office is not getting it right first time. Many of the problems with the current system—delays, indefinite detention and the detention of children—are the consequences of not getting it right first time.

Government effort and energy should be focused on improving the current system before implementing some of the changes proposed in this Bill. We want changes that work and, where we do not know whether they will work or not, we want them piloted. That is why the Government have agreed initially to limit the power to require landlords to check a tenant’s immigration status to one pilot area, rather than nationwide, as suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. Over the weekend, we saw how difficult it is to check someone’s immigration status. Clearly that will be a major difficulty and we need to see how it works in practice.

Not much has been said about the fact that this Bill allows immigration officers to use reasonable force in the exercise of any of their powers, not just for removal. Coupled with the ability to take biometric information from those whom they suspect of being illegally in the country, that makes these high-profile raids on businesses run by people from traditional illegal immigration areas such as the Hong Kong Chinese even more worrying.

Detention without trial also is a serious issue, as Parliament has made clear even where terrorism is suspected. Not to allow appeals against detention within 14 days of proposed deportation without the authority of the Secretary of State is a worrying development. Replacing appeal to a judicial tribunal against a refusal to allow entry with an administrative review, when current appeals are running at about a 50% success rate, is again a concern. As my noble friend Lady Manzoor has said, were the decision-making in the Home Office already of a very high quality, we might be more relaxed about this measure. That may be a useful way forward in addition to, but not instead of, a right to appeal.

My noble friend the Minister no doubt will say that, with 87% of applications already being granted, there should be a higher degree of confidence in decision-making in the Home Office. However, the fact is that the 50% of appeals which are granted are the only ones subjected to a rigorous review. We do not know whether the decision-making in the 87% of cases is correct.

While many would support “deport now, appeal later” in relation to foreign criminals, allowing the Home Office, with its current record, to be the sole arbiter of what constitutes,

“a real risk of serious irreversible harm”,

as the only grounds for not going ahead with it, and extending the power to those whose presence the Secretary of State alone considers to be not “conducive to public good”, seems to give powers to a body that currently has a poor record of judgment.

Clearly, the Article 8 right to a family life needs to be balanced against the public interest—it is not an absolute right—but for the courts to be instructed what weight Article 8 rights should be given appears to me to be an interference with the balancing judgment that has previously been the sole responsibility of the courts.

It may be right that some of those from abroad who have not paid national insurance contributions should be charged for treatment under the National Health Service, but surely this should not apply to those who come here legally to work and who will in effect be paying twice through the charge proposed by this Bill and through their own national insurance contributions.

The Liberal Democrats want to support rational and practical steps to ensure that a firm but fair immigration system is in place. We need to be convinced that the measures proposed in this Bill will actually work without unintended and unacceptable consequences.