Windrush Review

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) for securing this timely debate. It has been a pleasure to hear from all those Members whose families have been impacted by this scandal or come from the Windrush generation.

The Windrush scandal is surely one of the most sickening episodes in recent Home Office history, so it is important that we carefully examine what progress has been made on the lessons learned review. The report concludes that there has been some progress in certain areas, such as training in the Equality Act 2010 and the history of immigration legislation. However, it is horrifying that little or no progress has been made on the future risk areas identified in Wendy Williams’ review. The failure to appoint a migrant commissioner, the lack of engagement with the publics affected by the scandal, and the absence of a formal training and development programme are all cause for concern.

Following the revelations of the scandal, Amber Rudd, the now former Home Secretary and former Member for Hastings and Rye, said that the Department had become

“too concerned with policy and strategy and sometimes loses sight of the individual.”

Centring the voices of individuals affected by Home Office policy, and ensuring that staff have a deep and continued engagement with the issues at stake, is integral to building a just and humane immigration system. I agree with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) about the need for representation within the workforce and an independent process. It is therefore disappointing that there has been no forward movement on the risk areas highlighted in the report.

I am also worried that the former Home Secretary’s observation about the Department being too concerned with policy and strategy is a mistake that the Government are continuing to repeat, such as by sending Afghan young people back home last summer, just before the crisis in that country struck. That is “home” in quotation marks, because those young people were brought up here from as far back as 2003 or 2004. In the original lessons learned report, Williams said that

“the political focus from ministers on demonstrating a system ‘getting a grip’ on the ‘immigration problem’ drove internal targets, priorities and behaviour in the Home Office immigration system”.

When I read that, I could not help but think of the truly worrying debates we have just had on the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.

Recommendation 13 of the lessons learned review rings in my ears:

“Ministers should ensure that all policies and proposals for legislation on immigration and nationality are subjected to rigorous impact assessments in line with Treasury guidelines. Officials should avoid putting forward options on the binary ‘do this or do nothing’ basis, but instead should consider a range of options. The assessments must always consider whether there is a risk of an adverse impact on racial groups who are legitimately in the country.”

I have lost count of the number of times I have raised the policy impacts that will affect individuals, such as those making legitimate asylum claims, only to hear Government Members intone that their policy is the only way to deal with the illegal immigration problem, and that anyone who disagrees is in favour of doing nothing. The Nationality and Borders Act was subject to an impact assessment that said explicitly that it risked indirectly disadvantaging protected groups, but that impact assessment was ignored by Ministers. The same problems and the same ineffective decision making are happening again and again.

Matters of policy and legislation do not fall within the terms of reference of either the lessons learned review or the report on progress. That is why it is so important that we are discussing them today as lawmakers, because those matters also contribute to the picture. The political focus on a hostile environment strategy designed to discourage people from coming to this country was at the heart of the Windrush scandal. To avoid future scandals and make good on the apologies that have been issued, that focus—one could even call it an obsession—needs to change, and we need to see that change manifest in the lived experience of the Windrush generation and in the compensation scheme.

Miners Strike 1984-85: UK-wide Inquiry

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for the second time today, Ms McVey. I thank the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for securing this debate, which comes after the Miners’ Strike (Pardons) (Scotland) Bill. Finally, Scottish miners who were wrongly convicted for defending their livelihoods during the strike will have some form of justice. Justice delayed is better than justice denied, but we should all be clear that the damage caused by this delay has been huge.

As a Sheffield MP with a constituency only a few miles over from the site of the Orgreave coking plant, I understand just how deep this runs. I have heard directly from miners and their families about the ordeal they were put through during the strike. That is why I am proud to join the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign in its annual rally every 18 June to call for justice for the 95 miners who wrongly faced charges for what happened at Orgreave. Many potentially faced life imprisonment; the seriousness of the claims against them was huge. The farce of their trials, the speed at which the prosecutions fell apart and the obviously false testimony given by the police is a stain on our justice system and South Yorkshire’s policing. The policing on that day not only inflicted great physical injury to people at the picket but left long-term scars on individuals and communities, which no one has answered for.

The survivors of Orgreave deserve a full inquiry into what happened and why. This is not about digging up history; it is about understanding the role the police played on that day and why, who was involved in making decisions, and how far to the heart of Government those decisions went. Those are important questions not just for the miners who suffered directly; they are the concern of every single citizen in this country. There is an unbroken line between the police violence at Orgreave and the cost of living crisis today. It laid the foundations for the low-paid, zero-hours economy that we currently live in. It meant defeating and demoralising the trade union movement. The idea that the police were used to that end should chill the bones of everyone in this Chamber. We are already seeing the chilling effect of the anti-protest legislation on street protest. The prosecution of the Scottish miners and those at Orgreave raises questions about the relationship between politics, policing and the justice system. Those questions will be increasingly relevant as we head into what looks like a summer of industrial action, with people rightly seeking to defend their pay and conditions while profits soar.

The need for an inquiry is pressing. It must have the power to require that all the relevant information and evidence is produced and presented to it. Everyone with an interest must be able to participate fully and get their voices heard. The panel should be independent and objective and should have the skills to understand all the issues at stake. It should be transparent, open and not overly long. After the Miners’ Strike (Pardons) (Scotland) Bill, that is the next step in righting the historical wrong that was done to communities up and down the country during the strike.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

We move now to the Front Benchers. Once the Minister has spoken, we will go back to Owen Thompson, who will do the wind-up.

Asylum Seekers: Removal to Rwanda

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend can be reassured that Ministers believe the law must be upheld and that individuals with no right to be here should be able to be removed from our country without any barriers to that happening.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

The human beings who are on the flight tomorrow have, as the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), said, been through torture, abuse and horrific trauma. They deserve our compassion. What has the Department done to assess the needs and mental wellbeing of those being deported? Does the Minister regret that the joint partnership monitoring committee has not yet been set up and that there is no oversight of what is happening so far?

Ukraine Refugee Visas

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

As touched on, we are now seeing the rate of visa grants accelerating and we should continue to see that over the next week. We would expect to see the majority of current cases being decided fairly shortly. We are very conscious that people do want to get settled. It is great to see the community in Glasgow standing up on this scheme in the way that it has on every other refugee resettlement scheme and supporting those claiming asylum here in the UK.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I want to question the Minister on the capacity in the system at the moment. If 200,000-odd people have come forward through the Homes for Ukraine scheme and only roughly a quarter of applications have been processed so far, what is he going to do to make sure that there is enough capacity in the system to allow everyone who wants to come here to do so? What conversations has he been having with the Treasury to ensure that we have the resources to do this?

[Kevin Foster]

The scheme is uncapped from a visa point of view. I suspect that the issue of conversations with the Treasury may be more for the next UQ about the funding that will be provided to local communities where people are sponsoring. We are clear: it is an uncapped scheme with no restrictions. If very large numbers of people want to sponsor individuals, we welcome that. One of the reasons we have gone down the path of appealing directly to the public is that it has proved, first, to deliver far more spaces much more quickly; and secondly, to be much better value for money than more traditional schemes, as, sadly, we have seen with Afghanistan. When a large number of people arrived, offers via local councils from communities did not come forward to the necessary level and therefore we ended up having to pay for people to stay in hotels.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that offer, which I accept with alacrity. I would like to bring colleagues such as the noble Baroness Stroud, who did so much work on this issue, to meet him and officials to look into the detail of the volunteering question in particular. While we encourage asylum seekers to volunteer and they get reasonable expenses, even payments in kind for the volunteering they do are prohibited. There is a real issue there that is preventing many people from making a contribution to the local community, as I have seen for myself in Swindon.

We know the reality that many people under that pressure go off the radar. They end up being exploited, or even bound into modern-day slavery, and we lose them from the entire system. The effect of creating a right to work could deal a hammer blow to that type of exploitation.

I therefore welcome the comments of my hon. Friend the Minister and urge the Government, in the spirit of co-operation, to look carefully at how we can do what other countries such as Denmark have started to do in allowing some asylum seekers the right to work. The Migration Advisory Committee has said there is no meaningful evidence to suggest that doing so would create a pull factor. The question is begged: if that is a pull factor, why do we have small boats now?

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have help from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project for my work in this area.

I have said throughout the debates in Parliament that this Bill is divisive. As my constituents reach across borders to help and house those fleeing the war in Ukraine, this Government are sowing division by making an insidious distinction between “good” and “bad” refugees—a division that we should all completely reject. That is why I rise today to support amendments 4 to 9, especially amendment 6.

Clause 11 makes a totally spurious division between group 1 and group 2 refugees that flies in the face of the 1951 refugee convention. The convention clearly states that refugees, wherever they come from,

“shall enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms without discrimination.”

The Government know that there are no visa or pre-entry clearances for someone wishing to claim refuge. There is no such thing as an illegal refugee in international law, yet that is exactly what the new group 2 category attempts to establish. All clause 11 seeks to do is lazily turn far-right talking points about asylum seekers and refugees into legislation, without seriously thinking through any of the consequences for the people involved.

For example, currently people fleeing war can apply for humanitarian protection leave. The protection grants them five years in the UK, access to the NHS and other public funds, an option to apply later for indefinite leave to remain and the right to work. However, the Government are scrapping humanitarian protection as we know it and aligning it instead with the new group 2 status, meaning regular visa reviews every two and a half years compared with every five, no recourse to public funds, no right to work, restricted family visa rights and no route to indefinite leave to remain. That is something I think many in this House have missed, and I hope they will reflect on it.

It is remarkable that in the middle of the Ukraine crisis, as thousands of people join the effort to support people from Ukraine, the Government are actually proposing that people running from the horrors of war should have fewer rights to come here. Those rights were brought in through an EU directive that became British law, and now the Government are using the smokescreen of this Bill to remove them, all by aligning them with a faulty two-tier refugee system.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very interesting speech. Does she agree that the UN refugee convention was about our common humanity? I have heard a lot of talk about a “great country”, but what we see now from this Government is an attempt to split humanity into two tiers. That undermines the concept of human rights and of there being one, sole, universal understanding of what it is to be a human being. This Government are putting humanity into categories, and history tells us that that is a slippery slope and fundamentally wrong.

[Olivia Blake]

I agree—it is fundamentally wrong. That is why we should ensure that clause 11 is not included in this Bill. Clause 11 is out of tune with the hundreds of thousands of people who have come forward to help Ukrainian refugees. It is an affront to the 1951 refugee convention, and I urge hon. Members to reject it and to reject this Bill.

Ukrainian Refugees

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for opening the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee in such a strong way. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because I have received help from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project for my work in this area.

I will start by saying a couple of things about the Homes for Ukraine scheme that is being announced in the Chamber at the moment. I have a number of concerns about this scheme. I welcome it and I am glad that the Government have taken the opportunity to recognise the generosity of the people of this country, but I share the concerns of the Refugee Council. Enver Solomon is quoted in The Guardian as saying, effectively, that this is a managed migration route that is not a suitable response to a humanitarian crisis. Another comment was that this sounds a bit like fostering without a social worker, so I want to hear from the Minister that adequate support for every family who comes through the scheme will be given to the local authorities and partner organisations that will have to support those people through a critical, traumatic time. It is also right that we should state very clearly that every family with a child should have a safeguarding assessment before they are placed. [Interruption.] The Minister nods his head, but that is not commonplace for other Home Office schemes, and it is really important that we recognise that. We need to go back to the fact that this scheme is not as broad as it could be. It will not provide the opportunity for a right to work and access to benefits, and it does not grant an emergency protection visa.

As a city of sanctuary, Sheffield has a proud history of supporting refugees and asylum seekers, and we are keen to do whatever we can. Hundreds of my constituents have signed the petition and many more will be involved in the solidarity efforts in other ways, whether that is through donating money to emergency services, organising collections such as that of Crookes social club or writing to me to express their concerns about the Government’s approach. There has been a huge outpouring of support for Ukrainians in my city.

The other great thing about my city is our universities, which are offering support to their students and staff alike, but more needs to be done to allow family reunion for those individuals. It is not right that a nurse in the UK cannot bring over their family if they are on the wrong type of visa, and more needs to be done on that. There is also more that universities could do to help to change the lives of thousands of young people in Ukraine who have had their university teaching cut short, so I hope the Minister is talking to the Minister for Higher and Further Education about potential avenues of support for students in Ukraine.

Last week, the Home Secretary announced her plans to allow Ukrainians with passports to apply for visas online. Of course, I welcome any steps to make it easier for people to come here, but the UK response remains inadequate compared with that of our European partners. I have several concerns about the family scheme, many of which have been raised by hon. Members. I particularly want to highlight the fact that the new online application will be accessible only to those with the right type of passport, yet some of the most vulnerable people are least likely to own one. How can we expect people who have never travelled outside Ukraine to complete such applications, especially as they are in English? My heart goes out to those families. There have been 4,000 births in bomb shelters. Caesareans have been done in the dark, for fear of bombing. These are very vulnerable people and we should be making it as easy as possible for people who are going through the worst ordeal to get here.

Ministers have also acknowledged that most Ukrainians do not have a passport, making most potential applicants ineligible to apply online. That is why it is hard to square this with the Government’s claim that the scheme will free up appointments in visa centres for the most vulnerable people and the most complex cases. I asked last week what assessment has been done to understand who will benefit from the online move. As the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) mentioned, we do not even know whether people should keep their appointments or free up those appointments, and it is unclear from those who are providing information what people should do.

Much more must be done to remove barriers that prevent people from getting here safely, and we should think about the long term, too. We cannot forget the cruel Nationality and Borders Bill, which will see the UK abandon its obligations not only to Ukrainians, but to all refugees. The latest polling by British Future shows that three in four people agree with the principle that those fleeing war and persecution should be able to take refuge in other countries, including the UK. That clearly shows that the Government are misjudging the public’s desire to help and the public mood. It is time that Ministers caught up with the public mood and stretched every sinew to help those fleeing the violence in Ukraine and provide the support that they and all refugees urgently need.

Refugees from Ukraine

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have surged our visa application centre capacity across the region. There are sites in France, with work in Calais and in Lille, and we are looking to expand our capacity in France based on working with the French Government, who are effectively identifying, right now, the various routes that people are using to travel through France to the United Kingdom.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

My constituents have been in touch with me about this issue on many occasions, and I think that they will think it perverse that those who are considered vulnerable will still have to make these journeys to the centres. Has the Secretary of State done an assessment of how many of the people they are seeing fit into the vulnerable category, how many people this change will actually help, and what more can be done to help the vulnerable?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. It is important to restate that about 90% of Ukrainian nationals do not have chip passports, for example, whereby the digital scheme would automatically apply to them to make it easier. The reason we are clearing the VAC system now is to help those in the vulnerable people abroad category, including the elderly and those who have not travelled previously. A frequent theme that comes back from members of the diaspora community here is that many are still reluctant to leave Ukraine—they are still in Lviv and thinking about coming. We are encouraging them to engage with their family members here so that we can give them support. We do not yet have a full assessment. That is why we are working with the Ukrainian community in this country for them to share as much information with us as they possibly can.

Nationality and Borders Bill: LGBTQ+ People

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind hon. Members to observe social distancing and wear masks.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential effect of provisions in the Nationality and Borders Bill on LGBTQ+ people.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Sharma. Before I begin, I would like to refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for the support I receive from the excellent Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project. I also pay tribute to the organisations in my constituency and across Yorkshire—such as the South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group, City of Sanctuary Sheffield, ASSIST Sheffield, Time to be Out and so many more—that do such vital work supporting asylum seekers and refugees in my region.

The Nationality and Borders Bill is a wide-ranging piece of legislation. There are so many problems with it that it has been difficult for Members to address them all as it has passed through Parliament. Today, I want to shed some light on the potentially devastating impact this legislation will have on LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and refugees.

I have spoken to many campaigners advocating on behalf of LGBTQ+ communities, and every organisation I have contacted is appalled by the Bill. They are appalled because LGBTQ+ people seeking sanctuary are already met with a system full of obstacles and challenges.

In a world where homosexuality is still illegal in 70 countries and punishable by death in 11, it is shocking that across Europe, one in three applications from LGBTQ+ asylum seekers is refused because officials simply do not believe the applicant. According to the University of Sussex, four in 10 people report being rejected because decision makers did not consider them to be persecuted or at risk of persecution in their home country, while more than a third felt interviewers did not listen to their story or ask relevant questions.

In the UK, the story is no less bleak. Around 2,000 people fleeing persecution because of their sexual orientation seek asylum here every year, with only about a quarter of those applications granted by the Home Office. However, when those decisions are challenged, almost half of those who have been refused win their appeals. Those numbers alone suggest that something is very wrong at the Home Office. They speak to what researchers at the University of Sussex have described as a “culture of disbelief” that is a symptom of a wider hostile environment for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. As ever, it is the most vulnerable who suffer the most. Ministers should put themselves in the shoes of someone running from violence and abuse for their sexuality or gender identity to truly understand what that is like to go through.

Currently, under UK law, to be granted asylum, a person must demonstrate that if they were forced to return to their country of origin, there is a reasonable degree of likelihood they would be persecuted. They are compelled to prove their sexual orientation to Home Office officials who, as I have said, have been told to be intensely suspicious of anything said to them.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I had a constituent who was from Venezuela. He was told to return. He had married a British person. He was told that he could be more discreet in Venezuela and have no problem, and then return via the marriage route—he had no problem and should not worry. Is there not a problem in the Home Office looking at technical processes rather than at human beings? It expects people to be able to fit into boxes that are just not them.

[Olivia Blake]

I completely agree. I have huge sympathy with my hon. Friend’s constituent. I am sure that story has been told many times before.

Imagine being an LGBTQ+ person who lives in one of those countries where homosexuality is illegal, or where it is punishable by death: you live in a constant fear of being outed. Every day is a struggle to erase any evidence of your identity. If you fail or slip up, or accidentally reveal that you are gay or bisexual or do not feel at home in the gender that society has assigned you, you will face horrific consequences. You finally manage to escape, and after what has probably been a very traumatic journey, you find yourself in an interview room in the UK. What will you say when you sit down with Home Office officials and they ask you to produce evidence of your identity—the same evidence that you have been erasing your entire life? How can you prove anything to them? You might think of contacting a former romantic partner from your country of origin, but what if they are unwilling to provide the evidence, for fear of being outed too? Or, even worse, what if they have already been imprisoned or even killed for their gender identity or sexuality? You cannot even rely on family members, who often do not feel safe enough to write a statement for the Home Office. They may even have disowned you for your identity.

Instead of seeking to right those wrongs and to address this impossible situation, the Nationality and Borders Bill increases the burden of proof for asylum applications. Clause 31 says that instead of a reasonable degree of likelihood, the threshold should be far higher and should be based on the balance of probabilities that a person will face persecution if they return.

What if someone does not even have the language to describe their own sexuality and gender identity? What if they come from a culture that describes them in very different terms? I recently heard from a woman who had been accused of witchcraft in her home country for having relationships with other women. After violence and intimidation, she fled to the UK, where she said to officials that she faced persecution for witchcraft. They simply did not understand. They looked on in confusion and denied her application. Only after living here for some months did she have the words to describe herself as a lesbian.

These are not isolated stories. The people who come here have been brutalised and traumatised. They often cannot immediately find the words to describe what they have been through and why. In many cases, they are explaining those difficult and complex experiences in a language that is not their own and that does not easily translate.

Proposals in this Bill make life for people such as that woman and countless others much harder. Under new measures, people could be forced to produce relevant evidence by a fixed date. If they miss that deadline, the Bill allows for the evidence to be given minimal weight.

Evidence is evidence. A person does not stop being LGBTQ+ over time, nor does the threat to someone’s wellbeing in their country of origin diminish. Any legal pretence that it does will have devastating impacts on the most vulnerable LGBTQ+ people. For them, it is already a challenge to gather evidence. For many, proving their sexual orientation or gender identity is impossible. For some, explaining it is difficult. There are also so many reasons why a person simply would not want to disclose their sexuality or gender identity to people they do not know and do not trust.

The asylum system is not a hospitable place at the moment for someone who is openly LGBTQ+. As we process asylum applications, it is bitterly and cruelly ironic that we often incarcerate people who, in their country of origin, face prison sentences for their identity and sexuality.

LGBTQ+ people already face disproportionate levels of abuse in the asylum centre system. Detaining more people who make asylum claims will only make those statistics worse. The new rules for the so-called group 2 refugees also discourage LGBTQ+ people from telling their stories with their genuine claims for asylum. The UN has already said that the distinction in the Bill between group 1 and group 2 refugees undermines the 1951 refugee convention.

I am worried that giving one group of refugees lesser temporary rights and ratcheting up the uncertainty they face could also force LGBTQ+ refugees to continue to hide their identify, for fear of being returned to their home country. After all, why would anyone disclose their sexuality and gender ID if they knew they could be deported? It could be used to press charges against them once they are sent home and put them at further risk.

I know the Government are aware of some of these issues. Organisations such as Rainbow Migration, a group fighting for LGBTQ+ people in the UK immigration system, have been loudly sounding the alarm. In September 2021, the equality impact assessment for the Bill admitted that it risked indirectly disadvantaging protected groups, including LGBTQ+ people. Six days after the publication of that assessment, I questioned the Minister in Parliament. Back then, he said he was new to his role and had to get up to speed before he could comment in full. Now that he has had time to do his homework, I look forward to hearing what he will do. He told me then that he fully expects the Government to be sympathetic in taking proper account of the issues that I raised.

I would like to reach out to all hon. Members here today. The Nationality and Borders Bill will soon return to the House. When we draft and debate such legislation, we write the future stories of countless thousands fleeing the worst of circumstances. Every pen stroke of every amendment can make a difference to some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

Every day, LGBTQ+ people flee from violence, threats and abuse, but they cannot flee from who they are. As legislators, we can choose. We can either allow those horrific experiences to follow them here, inscribing yet another chapter of trauma into the lives of people who have already suffered enough, or we can turn the page and write something new. I hope that is what every hon. Member here chooses to do as the Bill comes back to the House in the coming weeks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Olivia Blake]

I will use the last two minutes, if colleagues do not mind. Everyone gave such strong and meaningful speeches in the debate, and I am thankful to those who have taken part.

I want to respond with the words of refugees in Stonewall’s 2016 report, “No Safe Refuge”, which is about the current system. One asylum seeker said:

“The interviewing officer was surprised to see a person like me talking about these things. He doesn’t believe I am transgender. ‘You don’t look transgender!’”

Another said:

“I had my head rammed through a door. I was bullied. The guy they put me with was a nightmare, the guy was a bully. I reported that but nothing was done about it.”

Another said:

“The officer didn’t approach the heterosexual couple, she approached the lesbian couple straight away. She didn’t even say to them excuse me. She said: ‘There are different religions in here and different cultures in here I ask you to respect that and there are also children in here.’”

The comments about mental health are probably the most concerning. One asylum seeker said:

“I tried to commit suicide twice. I didn’t know how to do it but I had that urge in me to do it. I broke the mirrors and tried to cut myself.”

Another said:

“I am having very difficult moments. I get flashbacks of exactly what happened—

Nationality and Borders Bill

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham]

With the greatest respect, what I am talking about is a specific aspect of the revocation of nationality for appalling behaviour against the interests of the country to which we all belong and of which we are all nationals—a very specific point—so I will not follow the hon. Member into that debate, I am afraid.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

To clarify, in reference to the very eloquent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) drew an association between terrorism and the fees for children seeking to get nationality here. That is what has just happened. I think he should revoke those comments.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful for the hon. Member’s comments. I specifically quoted two words that the hon. Member for Streatham used in relation to the clause—she spoke about this “horrible” Bill and this “hostile” Bill. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) will recognise that the clause has been used by Opposition Members, notably the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), to stir up concerns—which, bluntly speaking, I regard as scaremongering—among members of different ethnic communities in our country. To my way of thinking, that is deeply inappropriate.

What we are talking about is the notification of revocation of British nationality to a tiny, tiny number of people who have chosen to behave in a way that is totally against the interests of our country and who have allied themselves with the enemies of this country. All the clause will do is allow for the absence of physical notification where those individuals are either unreachable or in a war zone. So far, so good.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Olivia Blake Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab) [V]]

I am proud to represent Sheffield, Hallam. Sheffield was the first place to call itself a city of sanctuary, and I pay tribute to all the great organisations, such as City of Sanctuary Sheffield, the South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group, ASSIST Sheffield and many more, that do such good work in my city—my home—to make it as welcoming a place as possible to people fleeing war, persecution and violence.

It is in that spirit of humanity, compassion and genuine internationalism that I completely reject the divisiveness written into nearly every clause and line of this Bill. The Bill is divisive—in the way it pits so-called group 1, or “good” asylum seekers against so-called group 2, or “bad” asylum seekers; in the way that it stacks our legal system against some of the most vulnerable people coming to the UK; and in the way that it criminalises altruism and basic acts of compassion.

Every line of the Bill strains to break the human bonds that hold us all together. It is an affront to the spirit of the 1951 refugee convention. The convention clearly states that refugees

“shall enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms without discrimination,”

yet discrimination seems to be at the heart of the Bill.

The Government know that there are no visa or pre-entry clearances for someone wishing to claim asylum—there is no such thing as an “illegal asylum seeker”—but the most vulnerable asylum seekers are those who rely on illegal methods to get into the country. The distinction between group 1 and group 2 asylum seekers is a completely bogus differentiation which will introduce more legal hurdles for some of the most traumatised and brutalised people on our planet. It is also chilling that there are no restrictions to prevent the Home Secretary from treating group 2 asylum seekers differently. Those people are already under huge amounts of pressure to provide evidence of their cases, often when they have had to leave their homes behind very quickly. There are massive barriers to their submitting coherent evidence on arrival in the UK. The proposal for decision makers to doubt applications on the basis of late evidence is a wilful misunderstanding of the challenges, the horrors and the deep trauma that asylum applicants have faced to be here, as well as the lack of legal advice.

One of the most appalling aspects of the Bill is the criminalisation of anyone who helps someone seeking asylum to enter the country. What does that mean in practice? For example, how is it compatible with the duty of a ship to attempt to rescue people who are in danger at sea?

This Bill is discriminatory, a violation of our international treaty obligations, inhumane, spiteful, and badly thought through. I suspect that it is more about appealing to a subset of ugly populist opinion than about addressing the real problems in the system, such as the lack of safe and legal routes into the UK to claim asylum. Today I will be upholding the best traditions of my constituency, and voting firmly against it.