Nationality and Borders Bill (Seventh sitting)

Robert Goodwill Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 21st October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Stuart C. McDonald]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair again, Ms McDonagh. I will also speak to the other amendments in the group.

We have now come to one of the most fundamental clauses of one of the most fundamental parts of the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East and I set out on Second Reading, we regard both as totally outrageous. In essence, the avowed policy aim is to give the Secretary of State powers to treat certain refugees dreadfully in order to deter others from coming to this country. I find it extraordinary just to be saying that.

Over the course of this debate and the three to follow, we will ask lots of questions in the hope that the Minister will explain a little more what the Government intend to do with these extraordinary powers. We will also challenge the legal policy and, indeed, the ethical basis. We will make the case that in fact the clause will make the asylum system worse, not better. To all intents and purposes, the measure is an attempt to close the asylum system down to a large degree.

There are all sorts of problems with the asylum system: 70,000 asylum applicants were waiting for a decision as of June 2021, more than three quarters of them outstanding for longer than six months. Work has to be done to fix the system, but this measure is not what is required. In fact, as I said, the clause will make it worse.

Most of the broad discussion will take place in the stand part debate; the amendments are designed more to get the Government to flesh out exactly what they want to do with the powers. In doing so, as on Second Reading, I will speak about the implications for a Uyghur asylum seeker, a Syrian asylum seeker and a persecuted Christian seeking asylum, because I want to ensure that the Home Office is tested on its assertion now, and later on Windrush, that it is looking at the face behind the case—it is important to keep in mind who we are talking about. The clause will be particularly disastrous, allowing the Secretary of State almost to punish the individual, to make an example of them, as a form of deterrence.

Of the amendments in the group, amendments 88 and 93 would remove the power to grant so-called group 2 refugees and their families shorter periods of leave to enter or remain. Currently, refugees receive five years’ leave before becoming eligible for settlement. Nothing in the Bill or the explanatory notes tells us what the Government intend to do with the powers. The new plan talks vaguely of no longer than 30 months, with continual assessments thereafter of potential return to a country of origin or of removal to another safe country. My first question is, what is the Government’s proposal? Is it 30 months or, as dreadful as that prospect is, is it worse? Will it be a shorter period?

That is my first question, but the key point is that reducing leave to 30 months or less will have dreadful consequences for our three refugees. Having fled serious persecution, having endured a dreadful journey and having survived six months or more of going through the tortuous inadmissibility procedure—perhaps even an asylum claim—within an accommodation centre, our refugees require stability, a sense of home and the possibility of putting down roots, finding work and rebuilding their lives. All that is being taken away if the powers in the Bill are used as proposed in the new plan.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Would the hon. Gentleman describe a person who has come directly to the UK from France as a person escaping persecution? If so, will he describe the sort of persecution that that person might have experienced in France?

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[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that these amendments play into the business model of the people smugglers in that they would discourage people from claiming asylum in the first safe country they reach, tempting them to make the hazardous journey in a non-seaworthy craft across the channel, feeding into the organised criminals who prey on those poor vulnerable people?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I have absolutely no problem with measures that go after the people smugglers. We all share the goal of disrupting their model. We draw the line at punishing the victims and going after them in an attempt to disrupt and undermine people smuggling. First, I find that morally indefensible. Secondly, as I will come to later, there is no evidence that it will work.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I absolutely agree. The hon. Gentleman makes two points. Yes, safe legal routes can and will make an impact. If people have safe legal routes, they do not need to turn to people smugglers. The Government acknowledge this when they speak about the safe legal routes they support.

There are various other measures we have to take. Our intelligence and police and security forces need to do everything they can to interrupt these networks. It is about international co-operation, including with France, as the Minister alluded to at Home Office questions on Monday. We support those measures, but we do not support deliberately impoverishing the Syrian, the Uyghur and the persecuted Christian and denying them universal credit, homelessness assistance or the child benefit that other citizens in this country get if they need it. I will come back to that in the clause stand part debate.

The Home Office knows this. It did research 20 years ago. If it has done any more since, it is not published. There is no evidence to show that people sit down with a nice table comparing family reunion rights and asylum procedures in all the different countries and then say, “Let’s go for that one.” They come here for a whole host of reasons. Many go to other countries for a whole host of reasons—language, family links, the influence of people smugglers, or they may have a friend or colleague here. Perhaps they just identify with the culture. There are myriad reasons why people end up in France or the United Kingdom, but it is not for these reasons. That is why these provisions will not work.

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the other reasons people come to the UK is that the payment to the people smugglers is only the deposit and the main payment is through modern slavery, forced labour or other ways in which those people are being exploited when they get here? Often, for example, Vietnamese people coming here are put into prostitution or nail bars and that type of work. That is why they want to get here, because that is the business deal. They come here to work in the black economy.

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[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

Thank you, Chair, and good morning, everybody. The Government say they are introducing this Bill because they want people who need our protection to use safe and legal routes, but where are those routes? Where in the world and where in the Bill are they? On several occasions, the Minister has made it sound as if this Bill is all about those safe and legal routes, but it is not, because there is no provision for them and they are barely even mentioned.

I have heard those of us who oppose what the Bill does characterised as wanting people to make those dangerous journeys. Of course we do not want that. Our solution is the safe and legal routes that we keep hearing about but not have. They need to be set up and promoted, and people need to be able to use them. One of the safer legal routes that does exist, and is the most likely to be used, is the family reunion route, but this Bill takes that away from people who do not arrive by the mode of transport or in the way that the Government want them to.

Turning to amendment 91, I want to use the example of somebody from Afghanistan, which will also speak to amendment 15. I am using the examples of people, or their family members or friends, who I represent—I know that we were all inundated with requests from people in our constituencies who needed help for people in Afghanistan.

Mr L worked for a British charity in a programme funded by the UK Government around preventing violence against women. He has made an application for relocation, but he has heard absolutely nothing and I cannot get him any information. He and his wife had to go into hiding because his family was being targeted. The Taliban have already made threats against his wife, who, like him, is just 22 years old. The Taliban got messages to her that she will be raped multiple times if they can find her. His father has already been kidnapped by the Taliban and has been tortured by them. Who knows what will become of him?

Mr L’s wife has had such a severe mental breakdown that he had to make the decision to send her to what he hopes is a safe house in Afghanistan, as he thinks he has more chance of securing relocation for him and his wife if at least one of them can get out of Afghanistan. He is now paying illegal traffickers to get him out because he is so desperate to get this situation resolved and is hearing nothing, and weeks and months have gone by. Of course the traffickers are wrong, but is he wrong? Is he wrong to pay them? If he is wrong, what should he do instead? What options have we given him? I do not want him to do this. As an MP, I am not in a position to give him any kind of legal advice, and I know this is not safe for him to do. Does the Minister want me to go back to him and say that, despite all the promises we made to the people of Afghanistan, I do not have options to offer him?

I want to quote a couple of things that were said by Conservative MPs in August, when everything escalated in Afghanistan. The right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) said:

“There is something we can do right now: cut through bureaucracy and ensure that we look after every single Afghani who took risks for themselves and their families because they believed in a better future and trusted us to deliver it.”—[Official Report, 18 August 2021; Vol. 699, c. 1307.]

I am sure we all agreed with that at the time. The right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) said:

“Like the Home Secretary, let me just say that, as the son of a refugee, I am deeply proud that this Government are continuing the big-hearted tradition of the British people in offering safe haven to those fleeing persecution.”—[Official Report, 18 August 2021; Vol. 699, c. 1370.]

The right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby gave a welcome from the Scarborough community and talked about

“refugees who had left, in many cases with nothing more than the shirts on their backs. They will have gone through a very traumatic process to even get to the airport and now they have arrived in Scarborough. For many people, the consequences of not getting out of the country would be certain death.”

So, I know he completely understands the trauma that people are going through and their desperation.

That was in August and we are now in October. The people I am talking about are no less desperate—they are more desperate—and I do not know what to say to them. I will have to tell Mr L that if he somehow manages to have his wife looked after, while she tries to recover her mental health, and he manages to get here, he could be offshored, sent away or jailed. He may never see his wife again because we will take away the right to family reunion. That cannot be right.

The people of Afghanistan are desperate—I have read out only a few of the quotes, but I know that all members of the Committee understand that. Time is just not on their side, so we must remove the provision—I would remove all of it. I ask the Committee to support amendment 15, at least to remove those consequences for the people coming from Afghanistan, to whom we absolutely owe safe refuge.

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Lady accept that the 242 Afghan refugees who are temporarily in Scarborough before being relocated around the country came here by safe and legal routes? I am sure that when the Minister responds, he will explain how we can set up different, and better, legal routes to get some of those vulnerable people here. That must not be done by feeding into the people-smuggling industry.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I absolutely endorse the ambition for everyone to be able to get here by safe and legal routes, but nothing in the Bill will set up any safe and legal routes. In fact, they will be taken away from some people.

We should be doing that, but we will never be in a position where everybody is able to access safe and legal routes. We will never be in a position where everybody who is entitled to claim asylum can access it, and we should not be punishing them if they cannot. Right now, there are 242 people in Scarborough, but how many thousands more are there in Afghanistan? They need to get out. If they feel that their lives are at risk and they cannot stay any longer, but they can only get here by their own means—I would rather they came by the Government’s means, but nothing is happening there—I could not say to them, hand on heart, that they should just stay where they are.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Absolutely, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of that. For me, it is wider than that: Afghanistan just showed us what is happening throughout the world. It may have been escalated and was very intense at the time, but things like that happen throughout the world. Right now, people from Afghanistan are coming over by boat, and honestly—I am looking at the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby, but I should really be looking at the Minister—I do not think that anyone can morally justify telling those people that they face jail or offshoring, and that they may never see their families again because of new rules that we are introducing.

[Mr Goodwill]

Nobody doubts anyone in this Parliament on their compassion or their feeling for people who are in very vulnerable situations. We should not agree, however, on the route that the hon. Lady is almost advocating—using people smugglers—which is, in effect, means-testing the refugee process so that only those who have the money to pay the people smugglers can come, not the people who are perhaps most vulnerable and most likely to be suffering persecution. Indeed, the gender balance favours men, who seem to be the ones who get here by illegal routes, and not women, who are the most vulnerable people in Afghanistan.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I do not know where to start with that. I take real exception to what the right hon. Gentleman said about my endorsement of people smugglers and those routes. I have been very clear that we do not want anyone to use people smugglers. I have given the Committee an example of somebody’s experience, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can tell me what that man should do. His wife is seriously ill and is being looked after following a mental breakdown, because the Taliban told her that many of them will rape her multiple times if they catch her. How desperate would any of us be in that situation? I am not endorsing people smugglers in any way, and I wish he would take back that remark, because it is very unfair.

Another thing I want to mention, as I have a number of times in this place, is the gender balance. To say that men are not vulnerable is just not true. Often, men seek asylum because they would otherwise be conscripted into the army or tortured. I know many male asylum seekers who faced torture or conscription and had to flee. The other reason that more men come over is that they are coming to safety so they can then send for their family. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East said, all the measure will achieve is that women and children will come with the men and make that dangerous journey as well. He said something else that, if I remember, I will come back to later

[Mr Goodwill]

I was not suggesting that the hon. Lady was advocating people smuggling, but unfortunately the law of unintended consequences comes into play. Taking Syrian families under our vulnerable persons resettlement scheme was the right way to proceed. None of the people I visited in refugee camps in Jordan had the means to pay people smugglers. In many ways, it is a means-tested operation if the route used by people smugglers is perceived to be of equal standing to legal and lawful routes, like those by which we took people from Afghanistan and took the people chosen by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in refugee camps in Syria.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I give way to the hon. Member for Halifax.

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[Tom Pursglove]

I genuinely believe that the policy we are pursuing through the Bill will make a significant difference in deterring dangerous channel crossings, where people pay evil people smugglers to try and get to the United Kingdom. It is right that we prioritise safe and legal routes and make it very clear that they are the way to arrive in this country, and that we deter people from making those very dangerous, irregular journeys. I am confident that the Bill will make a significant difference in tackling that challenge.

[Mr Goodwill]

When I was in Nigeria I heard from the Nigerian Home Secretary that the system often contributed to family break-up rather than reunion. The people smugglers perpetuated the lie that people who could get a teenage child to the UK would be able to follow. In fact, it has always been the principle of family reunion that children must travel to where their families are and not the other way round.

[Tom Pursglove]

In terms of the deceit and the appalling treatment of so many people, I have heard heartbreaking stories of the way that individuals have been treated by these evil people smugglers. That has only redoubled my determination to render their business model redundant.

This point goes to the heart of the intervention a moment ago from the hon. Member for Sheffield Central: the measures in the Bill do not just stand alone—it is not just about these measures. Tackling the problem requires a strong and co-ordinated response that also involves our international partners. For example, the collaboration through the arrangement we have with the French is very important contextually in tackling this issue. Clearly, supporting French law enforcement to try and stop some of the crossings happening in the first place is crucial, and the evidence is clear that that support is having a positive effect in achieving that goal.

Our international diplomacy is also important, because we want to send out a clear message that human rights must be respected and upheld across the world. The measures in the Bill, as important as they are, are not the only element in responding to these huge challenges. That international collaboration is very important as well, as is our diplomatic work.