Easter Adjournment

Mark Williams Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for securing this debate, particularly the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). I am especially grateful that this is a general debate, if only because we did not hear at Christmas the canter around Southend West and elsewhere from the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), of whom I am reminded almost every week when I cross my constituency and pass the Croes Lan post office, run by his excellent cousin, Ms Janice Pocock. The hon. Gentleman spoke on many issues, but I am going to speak about just one, an issue of concern to me and to one particular constituent of mine, Mr Michael Affonso. It concerns his dealings with the UK Border Agency and my dealings, on his behalf, with the Home Office. It is a personal, unresolved story and I shall use my time to tell it.

Mr Affonso was born in Tanzania, has lived in this country for more than 30 years, is married to a British national and has had protracted concerns over the status of his citizenship, which are, as yet, not satisfactorily resolved. I believe there are other cases of British nationals with spouses from overseas who have been seeking British citizenship for many years and perhaps do not fit into the conventional mould of immigration cases.

Michael Affonso was born in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania in 1969. Not long after his birth, he was taken in by a lady who brought him up as her own child and he lived happily with her and her family for the first 15 years of his life in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. In 1984, his biological mother visited him, their relationship was rekindled and they came to Britain. She was married to a British citizen. Michael remembers his arrival in the UK and being questioned by Border Agency officials at the airport. He then moved to Kettering and was established with his biological mother’s family and with her new husband, though the adoption by his new stepfather seems never to have taken place.

Despite the challenges of moving to a new country he settled in, but around 1986 problems emerged in the family and through no fault of his own he was taken into care under Northamptonshire social services. He recalls telling the court at the time that he wanted to return to Tanzania to be with the lady he saw as his real mother, but the court said that as he had never been legally adopted he had to stay in the country of his biological mother—that is, this country—despite being removed from her care.

Michael then spent some time at a children’s home in Kettering and was subsequently sent to foster care. At the age of 18 he moved out and spent several years living independently, starting college, gaining an NVQ in painting and decorating, and living in that area for many years. Some years later, the lady who had brought him up in Tanzania moved to the UK and settled in Wales, where he moved, settling in the village of Llanwnnen in my constituency. By 2008 he had met his future wife Sîan, and they set up home together in Aberarth, also in the Ceredigion constituency.

The troubles arose when the couple decided to get married. As Michael had entered the UK from Tanzania as a minor, he held no official paperwork himself. He recalled a birth certificate and a Tanzanian passport, but while living in Kettering, many years before the move to Wales, a fire at his flat had destroyed any paperwork, including his passport. Sîan and Michael were unable to get married without proof of his nationality, and that is where I first became involved in his case.

We struggled to find any information from anywhere—any official documentation about Michael’s life. We made inquiries of Nottinghamshire social services to find out whether anything had been done, or not done, about citizenship under their care. We spoke to the Tanzanian embassy to inquire about his passport. We used various freedom of information requests, but kept hitting brick wall after brick wall. There is little, if any, information about Michael. There was an account of his being taken into care in Northamptonshire, but no information as to the date or where he was sent. That lack of information was subsequently acknowledged by the Home Office.

It seemed as if the couple’s aspiration for marriage would not be realised, but rules did mercifully change, with an EU ruling that made it against one’s human rights to be denied a marriage, so in October 2011 the couple were married. All seemed well. Life settled down in the village of Aberarth; the couple bought a home. Michael became heavily involved in our community—a very much valued member of the community, now an elected community councillor. Indeed he is, I would suggest, the identikit community activist.

Michael pursued a change of career and became manager of the British Red Cross shop, first in Cardigan, then in Aberaeron and then Carmarthen. At that point problems emerged as, not unreasonably, he started to get requests from the human resources department to prove his eligibility to work within the UK—something he had not come across in all the previous years. As a non-British citizen, he requires a biometric residency card. He contacted the Home Office and was told that he needed proof that he had resided in the UK with no lengthy times away. Of course, he had not been away because he had no passport, although for someone who was unaware of that stipulation it was very difficult to prove. However, we had some successes in finding some information from the health board in Northamptonshire and my local health board, the Hywel Dda health board, in Ceredigion, and Michael had been assiduous in keeping records—P45s and P60s.

Michael then set about the process of application for a no time limit application. The couple paid to go to a premium service centre, the nearest one being in Cardiff, on 5 November 2014, having spent £104 on the form and a further £400 for the privilege of a priority centre meeting. The couple really thought they were on the cusp of securing British citizenship for Michael. Despite the gathering of what documentation they had, including at long last a notice of care proceedings when he had been removed from his biological mother’s care, they were told that because he himself had no proof of entering the country, he was in fact an illegal immigrant. Mercifully, subsequent events meant that that accusation was retracted. Despite the fact that he had resided in the UK for more than 30 years, had paid his taxes and national insurance contributions and was a valued member of the community and was married to a British national, he faced that allegation.

The couple met with some sympathy from the UK Border Agency when they showed the UKBA copies of letters that I wrote on their behalf in 2009 on their wish to be married—proof that the couple had sought to resolve the issue. They were offered an alternative to the full naturalisation process: Michael would have to reapply for leave to remain every two and a half years—the next occasion being in 2017—at a cost of £500 each time, until he had 10 years’ worth of visas. After 10 years, in 2024, he might be entitled to apply for British citizenship. However, he would be unable to have any recourse to public funds, which was confirmed to me in a letter from the Minister for Immigration in July 2015.

This man has paid national insurance contributions and tax for 30 years. He has been entitled to jobseeker’s allowance in the past. He is now denied an automatic right to benefit unless special circumstances emerge. I have to say that Mr Affonso feels incredibly let down by this state of affairs and it has taken a serious toll on his health, compounded by the fact that despite being seriously ill and so unable to work, his biometric residency card states that he has no automatic recourse to public funds. The Home Office to date has been reluctant to look into this matter in great depth and seems intent on sticking by its original decision that Mr Affonso may have to wait until 2024 to achieve full citizenship.

Much of the debate on immigration these days is, not unreasonably, about people needing to come to this country. We have all worked on many such cases in our constituencies, but this case is different. It is about an injustice that has been perpetrated against someone who is already here and who, through no fault of his own, has faced many challenges. He came here as a minor, and the various agencies that were charged with his care did not address the issue of citizenship. He is a highly valued member of the community and now in adulthood he is trying to right a wrong, and aspires to do the right thing, but has faced a real problem in trying to trace his own identity.

The letter I had from the Immigration Minister last year said:

“I am sure you will understand that it is not possible”

to agree to indefinite leave to remain for somebody who does not hold the necessary documentation. The Minister refused to meet me to discuss the matter further. I understand what the Minister said and I think it represents a great injustice.

In this case the lack of documentation has not been the responsibility of my constituent, the aggrieved individual. I implore the Deputy Leader of the House, on my behalf and on behalf of Mr Affonso, to pursue this matter with the Home Office and to ask it to look again at this case, not just at the issue of the recourse to public funds in the case of illness, but at Mr Affonso’s right to remain in the United Kingdom.