Amnesty for Undocumented Migrants

Sarah Owen Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hosie.

Human beings are not illegal; first and foremost, they are humans. For me, that has to be the starting point of this debate and any debate about immigration. Over the last few days, I have been contacted by dozens of people from across Luton North asking me to speak in this debate, and I was glad to see that 446 people from across my constituency had signed this petition online. That shows the strength of feeling among many of my constituents, and our unifying belief in human rights, in particular for women and children who are fleeing from some of the most horrific circumstances across the world.

When someone is locked out of the system and shut out of safe and legal routes through the immigration system, they are unable to get a job, rent a home, open a bank account or obtain a driver’s licence. It is not an easy life. People living here who have come from abroad are considered temporary for a decade and must reapply for the right to remain in their homes and jobs every two and a half years. As we have heard already, each application costs thousands of pounds per person. At present, a migrant on the 10-year route to settlement will have paid £12,937 in application fees by the time they are granted indefinite leave to remain.

I am sure most Members here will have seen in their inboxes and casework the impact that this situation has on people’s family life and wellbeing. The 10-year route to settlement is the default rate for most categories of visa holders. If at any point during the 10-year period the visa holder is unable to submit the right application at the right time, they will be classified as undocumented. Research by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants found that that can happen for a variety of reasons, including relationship breakdown, domestic violence, poor legal advice, a physical or mental health crisis—for the applicant or one of their relatives—an inability to pay extremely high fees, or just a simple, honest mistake.

In this pandemic, we are currently seeing how the ability for everyone in this country to access healthcare is crucial to our country’s collective wellbeing. As a principle, healthcare should be free at the point of use in our country. This virus does not care what someone looks like or where they come from. If someone is living in poor conditions, or is too scared to get the vaccine because of what might happen to them or because they might leave a paper trail for the NHS, this virus will catch up with them. I pay tribute to all the vaccination hubs that are reaching out specifically to these overlooked groups.

In my role as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hate crime, I and Lord Sheikh have been taking up the difficulties that undocumented people have faced during this pandemic, specifically around vaccination. I welcome the early announcement by the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment that people will not need an NHS number or a fixed address to get a vaccine. However, those are not the only barriers for people reaching out for help. I wrote to him in March to ask how his Department was actively reaching out to that incredibly hard-to-reach group. I am still waiting for a response, but perhaps the Minister can shed some light on that. I appreciate that everybody is busy, but from March is a long time to wait for a response to a letter from an APPG.

This debate is ultimately about our values as a country. I am not a fully-fledged football fan, but I am a fan of our England team because of who they are and what they represent—the kind of England that stands up for and alongside one another. But do our Government reflect that? Do our leaders treat other human beings as equals? Over the last 11 years we have seen a hostile environment for people from overseas grow in our country—a hostile environment where vans were driven around neighbourhoods, where people’s aunts, nans, grandads and uncles have lived for years, telling them to go home or face prosecution; a hostile environment where as many as 170,000 NHS heroes from overseas are still waiting for the refunds they were promised by the Prime Minister for the charges they have to pay to use the NHS that they work in and support; and a hostile environment where a person from overseas whose first language is not English is more likely to have contracted covid and more likely to have ended up in hospital over the last year.

Even today, a Bill being debated in the main Chamber would see our country turn its back on some of the most vulnerable people in the world. It risks breaching international law and lowering our global standard as a country even further, and it undermines global efforts to support victims of war and persecution, while criminalising even the Royal National Lifeboat Institution for saving people from drowning in the English channel. What have we become? A human being is a human being, and our responsibility to others is not determined by what passport somebody holds.

One of Luton’s strengths is its diversity. One can visit the whole world in one street. A dear friend of mine coined a phrase: “One town, many voices”. That is very true of where I live now. Our Government could learn a lot from Luton. It is time the Government stopped the divide-and-rule style of politics, because we are all the poorer for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for having opened this debate—opening a petition debate is always quite a challenge, compared with others. It has been an interesting debate, and I will attempt to respond to the points that have been raised. However, I hope colleagues will appreciate that with eight minutes in which to speak, it is unlikely that I am going to cover the full gamut of our immigration rules and our position in this area.

My first point is to reflect on comments I made at the Dispatch Box last year at the start of the pandemic. I made very clear that for those approaching the NHS in relation to covid-19—either exhibiting symptoms and therefore looking for treatment, or looking for vaccination —the information they give will not be used for the purposes of immigration enforcement. Their status will not be checked: that is not a relevant consideration if they are approaching the NHS for treatment. We not only encourage people to come forward for vaccination, but have facilitated those who have arrived irregularly to access vaccination services. Given some of the stuff that exists on the internet about this, and given some of the comments we have heard throughout the debate, I want to make very clear that such treatment is in line with how those people would have been able to access vaccinations if they had been a UK national, now that vaccination is available to everyone over 18. From a Home Office perspective, the NHS’s operations to tackle the pandemic are not items that we will look to use for any purpose of immigration enforcement.

It might be helpful if I set out some of the background on the issue we have been debating today. First, it should be noted that the definition and coverage of this group is complex: the term “undocumented migrants” often interchanges with “illegal” or “irregular” migrants. As evidenced in this debate, it can include illegal entrants, who have perhaps arrived in the back of a lorry; overstayers who have stayed beyond the term of their visa; failed asylum seekers whose claims have been declined; those not adhering to the conditions of their stay; and even those who remain in the UK without status, but whose situation is temporary and who intend to leave in short order. For today, I will include all of those groups in our definition.

Secondly, there is no current, reliable and accurate estimate of the number of those without status who are resident in the UK. As my shadow, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), touched on, the last official Government estimate was made in the mid-2000s, when the population was believed to be around 430,000. In 2009, a report by the London School of Economics estimated that the number of irregular migrants was around 618,000. An obvious part of the problem in formulating an accurate estimate is not just calculating and agreeing on the different groups this population involves but the fact that, for obvious reasons, many of them will not come into contact with the Home Office or make their presence known here in the UK. The petition proposes an immediate amnesty for all those groups provided that they do not have a criminal record.

[Sarah Owen]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kevin Foster]

I will not, as I have less than five minutes and this has been a lengthy debate.

The Government remain committed to an immigration policy that welcomes and celebrates people who are here legally but also deters illegal immigration. We want to encourage people with skills and potential from around the world to make the UK their home and help make the UK a dynamic global economy, but we must not reward those who exploit the system and break the rules. We must also prevent the abuse of benefits and services paid for by UK taxpayers and disrupt the criminals who exploit and profit from the vulnerable, who will be tempted to use dangerous and irregular routes to get here if they can see a clear reward at the end of it. That is right both for the British public who pay for welfare services and for those wishing to visit and settle in the UK who played by the rules.

The Government recognise that we have a responsibility to help the vulnerable and have established several schemes and programmes to assist those most in need. One example is the work that we have done to resettle genuine refugees fleeing directly from regions of conflict and instability and to provide the necessary support to help them build a life in the UK and integrate as self-sufficient members of our society. In the past six years, the Government have offered protection to 25,000 people in this way—more than any other country in Europe in that period—through a planned resettlement scheme. That is in addition to welcoming a further 29,000 people through refugee family reunion between 2015 and 2019. We have also recently introduced a new pathway to citizenship for British national overseas status holders and their family members facing draconian new security laws in Hong Kong, with an estimated 5.4 million people potentially being eligible for the scheme.

We believe that a fair and balanced system is about guaranteeing integrity in the UK’s immigration system. We must support those in need, but we must also make sure that there is a cost for those who intend to break the rules, as have Governments of all colours since the introduction of our modern immigration system, despite some of the comments we have heard today.

The proposal to offer amnesty to all those without permission to be in the UK undermines the integrity and effective working of the UK immigration system. To recognise the stay of those who have wilfully and deliberately broken our laws is first and foremost an affront to those who have done the right thing and migrated here lawfully and contributed by paying visa fees and the immigration surcharge. An amnesty for those not playing by the rules could prove divisive for those groups who feel an injustice when they have complied with our policies, and it is safe to say that it is unlikely to build public confidence in the migration system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich said, it would certainly be interesting to see the public reaction if such a policy were included in an election manifesto.

The debate is about not just the impact of those ignoring our migration rules and refusing to leave but making sure that the public feel that there is confidence in the system. Why would someone bother to apply for status or renew their visa if they knew that they could just stay and be granted that status anyway? A point ignored by the petition and by some Members is the fact that the immigration routes already provide for undocumented migrants who have not broken the law except for by remaining in the UK without lawful immigration status.