European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

My Lords, I agree entirely about the lack of urgency. I also feel that there is a lack of enthusiasm for any sort of legislation that would mean more possibilities for people to come to the United Kingdom for sanctuary.

I remember with great sadness the day some years ago when we voted on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I saw the Tory Benches trooping through the Not-Content Lobby. I really felt so sad then. In the years since, I have been quite assiduous in dealing with these matters and the Minister must be tired of my contributions. But in 12 years, the only change I have managed to make is that the Azure card has been changed for the Aspen card. It is just a card giving £35 in one way or another. Asylum seekers still have no right to work until 12 months are up, and even then only from a restricted list. We still have indeterminate detention. In 2005, 17% of Home Office decisions were overturned on appeal, while last year and in the previous years it was about 40%. We still see a tremendous reluctance on the part of the Government to move, which is why I am totally opposed to removing any sort of legislation in the European agreements to protect child asylum seekers.

I will not speak for long because I have talked about this a great deal over the years, but I will make a plea to the Government. There are so many decent people on their Benches and yet, when we had the previous vote on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, some years ago, they voted against the rights of children. There is now an opportunity to strike a new chord: to offer hospitality rather than hostility to arrivals seeking sanctuary in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I share an admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, with almost every Member of this House. He has been determined and dogged on this issue. Perhaps I speak more as a former Home Office Minister in this House than as a former Chief Whip when I say I understand the arguments. I can see where the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is coming from, but this Bill is about providing a framework under which the Government can enter negotiations and withdraw from the European Union on the 31st of this month.

We know what the Government have said all through the period of negotiations: Dublin III will apply. We will be doing what has already put into action. The figures show that since the start of 2010, 41,000 children have found homes in this country. There is a category that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is particularly concerned with: maintaining the rights of unaccompanied children. There too, the numbers have been shared by this Government. I was a Home Office Minister in the coalition Government where noble Lords sitting on the Lib Dem Benches were my partners in maintaining this policy throughout that period. It is important to understand that within this House there is some unanimity of purpose about this Act.

What is worrying to me as former member of this Government, and sitting on these Benches, is the lack of trust that noble Lords have shown in the commitments made by my successor in the Home Office, my noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford. Nobody has worked harder to convince people of the intentions of this Government. Nobody has spoken with greater authority on the subject than her. As my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom said, it is distressing that this House is not prepared to believe what is said on behalf of the Government by a Minister on this issue. This is a problem that this House is going to have to come to terms with. I went to the briefing meeting in room 10A last week, as did an awful lot of people. I think that the truth of the matter is that the room was convinced of the intentions of my noble friend, and by the responses she was able to give.

This withdrawal agreement Bill is not about providing specific negotiating instructions to the Government. It is about providing the Government the authority to enter negotiations. The Government made a manifesto commitment on this matter. It may not be as specific as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, would have liked, but its general application applies. The Government will be not be negotiating in bad faith and trying not to find a long-term solution. We all know that this area of joint activity with our European colleagues needs agreement. It needs to be understood how we are all going to deal with these difficult cases of individual children and migrant refugees in general. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, may well be making a point but is he being effective in helping the Government achieve that objective by seeking to promote his amendment? I think not and that is why I will oppose his amendment and I urge other noble Lords to do the same.

[Lord Woolf (CB)]

Will the noble Lord be good enough to explain to me—who has just been listening to what has been said in this debate—why the Government put this in the Bill if it has nothing to do with what the Government should be doing in the negotiations?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, the Government are not seeking to put in this Bill instructions as to the sort of negotiations they will undertake. That is not the purpose of this Bill. The agreement that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, forced on the Government created that situation.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, the reason why the House is so nervous is not that we in any way do not trust the word of the Minister, but because the Prime Minister has a habit of saying one thing on Europe and then doing another. It is not the Minister but the person at the top of the Government that the trust may not emanate from. Let us be clear and go through what this is about logically, as some noble Lords have done.

The first issue, following what the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has said, is that Section 17 of the 2018 Act is an instruction to negotiate. It gives absolutely no conditions for those negotiations. It is same as Clause 37 before us now. The difference is that Clause 37 gives a two-month period before a new policy will be laid before Parliament. We have no idea what is going to be in that policy. There could be changes so that it may not be as clear, watertight and concise as what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, sought to do with his previous amendments and what he is trying to do in this clause.

Noble Lords—particularly on the Government Benches and some on the Cross Benches—have said the Government have a good track record on this. Let us be clear. The Government have a track record of trying to stop amendments on this from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in 2016 and 2018. The only reason that the British Government have a good record is because the noble Lord has forced both Houses to make sure that we carry out the obligations that we are now carrying out. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has said, on many occasions, Home Secretaries have pulled him in and asked him to withdraw the very obligations that the Government are now trying to claim credit for. That is why trust is not great on this issue as well. Logically, no one’s hands are going to be tied behind their backs if we take the Minister at her word. On 15 January, on day two of Committee, she said:

“Our policy on this has not changed”.—[Official Report, 15/1/20; col. 764.]


Therefore, the policy can be laid before the House now. Why the two-month wait? Is the Minister giving an absolute guarantee that not one word in the policy will change? If it has not changed, those whom we are negotiating with in Europe will have already been told exactly what the policy of the Government will be, in more detail than what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is trying to achieve by making sure that Clause 37 does not go through.

The real issue here is that if Section 17 of the 2018 Act was not in place the only difference is that the Government would negotiate—which the Minister has said they are going to do because they have sent a letter—but there would not be the two-month wait while policy was laid before this House, during which things could change and the guarantees in the policy could be watered down, leaving the most vulnerable children of all more vulnerable than they are now. Those of us who support the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, are doing so because of the potential for watering down the policy during the two-month delay. As I say, the trust issue is not with the Minister, but the Prime Minister says one thing about leaving the European Union to gain favour, and then when he has the chance, he changes his view.