Immigration Bill
Simon Hoare Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Stuart C. McDonald
I am unashamedly moving lots of amendments, and there are several others that we on these Benches support too, which I will come to in due course. The large number of changes that we want reflects our hostility to this Bill, which we oppose outright and will vote against this evening as ill-conceived and regressive, and which will do little to move the country towards the Government’s increasingly ludicrous-looking net migration target. If the Bill passes, perhaps one or two of these amendments might provide a little comfort in an otherwise bleak piece of legislation.
New clauses 16 and 17 seek to rectify two provisions that exemplify for us where fundamental problems lie with this Bill. New clause 16 would put in place some restriction on one of the many significant, inappropriate and untrammelled powers that the Bill passes to immigration officers and other officials. A large part of the Bill seems to be a wish list of powers from UK immigration staff, which the Government unquestioningly want to hand over to them.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
If I heard the hon. Gentleman correctly he does not like the Bill, and his amendments and new clauses might make it a little more likeable. If they were all passed, would he be in the Aye Lobby this evening?
Stuart C. McDonald
We have done our best to make the Bill slightly more palatable, but even with all our amendments I regret to say that we would still find the damage that the Bill will cause unacceptable. Regardless of what happens today, therefore, we will be voting against Third Reading.
New clause 17, would repeal the right-to-rent provisions introduced by the Immigration Act 2014, provisions which, like their successor provisions in this Bill, will have limited effect on the Government’s pretend net migration target, but are none the less deemed necessary to make the Government look tough on immigration. As I said on Second Reading, it is in reality immigration theatre—acting out the part of immigration enforcer. But while there is little evidence that it will achieve much in terms of immigration control, its consequences on cohesion could be significant.
Keir Starmer
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. There is the fact of detention in the first place, covering a wide range of individuals detained for different reasons, and then there is its indefinite nature, which adds to the anxiety, because most terms of detention are for a fixed period that allows the individual to know when they may regain their liberty.
As I say, there will be debates about what the precise time limit should be, but sustaining a position of indefinite detention is no longer acceptable in the 21st century. It is not the position in almost all other countries in Europe, and it should not be so in this country.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
As somebody who served with the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) and others on the Bill Committee, there is a terrible sense of déjà vu, to put it politely, or “Groundhog Day”, not so politely, about this debate. We had a lot of these debates and discussions in Committee. I hope that those who did not join me in voting as I did in Committee would at least recognise that it was a very thoughtful process in which we went through the whole Bill in great depth and a great raft of amendments were tabled and debated. However, even the Opposition parties managed to run out of steam, allowing the usual channels to pull stumps some little time before the Committee stage was scheduled to finish. I hope that that in no way suggests that we cantered with unseemly haste through the important issues that the Bill seeks to address.
My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), who is no longer in her place, hit the nail on the head, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) in Committee. This is probably one of the most important issues that this House and this Parliament will deal with. If we get it right, we will engender a sense of an understanding of fair play and that this place “gets it”. If we get it wrong, we will seem to be even more disengaged from the communities that we seek to serve.
I am lucky to represent a predominantly rural constituency where even a casual glance at the census returns would suggest that immigration was not an issue that would be raised on the doorstep or in meetings. However, even in rural North Dorset, it has been, and continues to be, such an issue.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I represent a constituency that has a significant proportion of people who have come from other countries, and immigration was raised with me on the doorstep once in the course of a year. Parties such as the United Kingdom Independence party tend to do well in areas where there are few immigrants, so it is perception that is causing people to have a problem with immigration rather than reality.
Simon Hoare
This is noteworthy for Hansard—the hon. Lady and I have found something on which we agree. What we are seeking to do—this sits at the kernel of the Bill—is to shoot UKIP’s fox: the idea that the country, the Government, Parliament, Westminster or Whitehall has become rather soft and flabby on this issue and needs to—
Simon Hoare
Let me address the hon. Lady’s first intervention and then I will be happy to give way to her again.
Although I represent North Dorset, I have the most enormous pleasure—the first prize in the lottery of life—to be a Welshman. I was hoping for some supportive comments there, but no. I come from Cardiff—a very mixed, culturally diverse city, which, thank God, has hitherto had very little tension between the communities. However, it was becoming an issue back in the 2010 election, and people are very keen, irrespective of the immigrant make-up of a community, to address it. That is what this Bill is all about, and what all these amendments—
Simon Hoare
Before I give way to my hon. Friend I must first take the intervention from the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin).
Anne McLaughlin
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that rather than shooting UKIP’s fox with this Bill, the Government are allowing the party that has one single MP in this place to make the rules and are pandering to what it calls for?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. We are venturing into much broader aspects of the principles of the Bill rather than the amendments before us. I am happy for the hon. Gentleman to respond to the hon. Lady’s point, but then I would be very grateful if we moved back on to the amendments.
Simon Hoare
I have fallen into my usual trap, Madam Deputy Speaker. I always like to set a backdrop to my remarks, and I am trying to explain the kernel of the Bill, why it has come about, and why the amendments and new clauses are, in my judgment, fundamentally wrong.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North East has taken me neatly on to my second point—the amendments in her name and the names of her hon. Friends. The position of the separatists is entirely disingenuous on this issue. The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) told us that they would be unable to support the Bill not only if new clause 16 were not passed, but if the whole raft of other SNP amendments were not passed as well. We should not be unduly surprised by that, because in Committee we were able to tease out from their questioning of our witnesses that Members representing Scottish seats in the SNP interest believe in uncontrolled and unfettered immigration—an open-door policy. Moreover, they seek, on behalf of their friends in the Scottish Parliament, to assume to themselves powers and privileges reserved to this House with regard to the control of immigration, and suddenly, via the back door, to see it as a new devolved power. Anybody with a strand of Unionism and common sense in their body should seek to resist that, and that is why I will vote against the amendments.
In essence, at the heart of these amendments, SNP Members are seeking to encourage further devolution—further separation—and to have a greater tension between the regions and the countries of the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow North East says, with her customary self-deprecatory humour, “Us?” Yes, I do mean the SNP. Government Members will seek to resist the devolution of power over the control of immigration into, let us be frank, a small island with incredibly porous borders, given our coastal and island nature. It would be folly to open a Pandora’s box of devolution with regard to immigration issues. This affects the whole of the United Kingdom.
Stuart C. McDonald
I rather think the hon. Gentleman is missing the point about the amendments and new clauses. The Bill has very detailed provisions for England and Wales, and in some cases for Northern Ireland, but it just provides the Secretary of State with a broad, sweeping power to do the same for Scotland, without any scrutiny in Parliament or in the Scottish Parliament. Even if the hon. Gentleman does not agree with us about getting approval from the Scottish Parliament, he should at least agree about getting rid of the regulatory powers so that this would have to be done in primary legislation, with full scrutiny in this House, rather than by a Henry VIII clause.
Simon Hoare
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. All I would say to him in reply is that the Bill has been brought forward in the United Kingdom Parliament and has had full and forensic discussion both on Second Reading and in Committee, as it will today on Report and, doubtless, on Third Reading. I suggest he should say to his friends holding ministerial office and other positions of power in Scotland and the Scottish Parliament that, when they are in effect carrying out duties passed to them under a devolved settlement, they should ensure that how they deliver such policies and put them in place on the ground always reflects the national law of the land.
When I gave way to the hon. Gentleman, I was simply concluding that if the new clauses and amendments, which would in effect devolve immigration to Holyrood, were agreed to, the United Kingdom Government would by definition need to find ways of controlling the movement of people from Scotland south into England, and very possibly people going from the south to the north as well. As I have said, we teased out in Committee—both in the evidence sessions and the other sittings—the SNP’s firm commitment to have an open-door policy and no fetters on immigration. My constituents in the south of England will be grossly alarmed by that.
Anne McLaughlin
Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House anything that any SNP Member said that leads him to believe we support an open-door, open-borders policy? I cannot think of anything, and I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) cannot do so. What is the hon. Gentleman referring to?
Simon Hoare
Unlike Lord Green, I had no difficulty understanding what she and the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), who knows precisely what I am referring to, said at any time in Committee. However, the tone and the tenor, the winks and the nods, and the direction of travel of the questions and the amendments in Committee—and, indeed, of the amendments today—can only lead one to assume that SNP Members, for reasons that are entirely respectable for them to deploy, do not believe in having any control of immigration at all. That is the narrative arising from the heartland of the hon. Lady’s speeches. The hon. Gentleman, who was also a member of the Public Bill Committee, told us that nobody raised with him the issue of immigration on the doorstep during the election campaign.
Mims Davies
I want to go back to our thoughtful discussions in Committee, in which the issues were well debated. I agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) and for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who said that immigration was the No. 1 issue on the doorstep. In Eastleigh post the by-election—we were third, before moving into second place and then absolutely came first—we had to reflect that fact in our deliberations. It was disingenuous to hear about one lawyer who represented a freedom of movement blog. Immigration was the No. 1 issue, and the caseload left us by the Labour party—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. The hon. Lady is hoping to catch my eye later in the debate. I suggest that she saves her very full intervention for then.
Simon Hoare
The good folk of Eastleigh, many of whom I got to know during the by-election, will no doubt breathe a huge sigh of relief at having a doughty champion in the form of my hon. Friend. She absolutely gets the point that if we are to have a sensible, vibrant and vivacious debate about politics and public affairs in this country, it is absolutely right for this House to address such issues through legislation—hence the Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration.
Richard Fuller
In defending the pivotal role of immigration detention centres, will my hon. Friend defend the detention of pregnant women or the victims of human trafficking, torture or sexual violence? If not, will he support my new clause 8?
Simon Hoare
To answer my hon. Friend’s questions in reverse order, no and yes. Whether or not a woman is pregnant is immaterial. The issue is about the environment in which people are detained and the care and attention they are given, rather than about their status. I know the proximity of Yarl’s Wood to my hon. Friend’s constituency—from memory, it is in his constituency—but I would tell him that I heard, both from staff and from those detained, that they had seen people destroy their papers or hide their child under the bed, where they cannot be touched, when an aeroplane was on the tarmac waiting to take off to take them away. In my judgment and experience, which is all I can speak from, the staff approach such problems with huge sensitivity, often in very difficult circumstances.
Richard Fuller
I, too, think that the people we ask to manage detention centres do a good job in general. On a point of clarification, my concern arises not from my constituency’s proximity to a detention centre, but from the proximity of the rules to my ethical code. My hon. Friend mentions that the issue is about the care of people in detention centres. Is he aware of the case of PA, a pregnant woman detained in Yarl’s Wood? The Home Office has recently had to admit that she was not given proper antenatal care. Is not the issue that if we detain pregnant women, mistakes will be made, and we therefore need to protect ourselves and our ethics from such mistakes by exempting those people from the rules?
Simon Hoare
I do not wish to test your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, or indeed that of the House, by straying too far, but my hon. Friend has made a valid point. I certainly am aware of that case, but I never think it is right to build a policy on the basis of one incident. Terrible things happen when women are pregnant, whether they are detained or just going about their ordinary business. Medical negligence can happen even to those outside prisons or detention centres. Nasty, upsetting and tragic things happen. He is absolutely right to say that such things should raise questions, and right hon. and hon. Members should continually ensure that those detained can access a range of care that is wide, deep, qualitative and professional. My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but I do not believe that one isolated incident should force us to say that immigration removal centres and the principle of detention are inherently wrong or unethical. As a practising Christian, I find no difficulty in reconciling good quality care in detention with my faith and ethical basis.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
My hon. Friend said that the Bill was about fair play. The question of fair play is also at the heart of the amendments relating to pregnant women. I shall cite not an individual case but the Home Office guidance, which states that pregnant women are normally considered to be suitable for detention only in very exceptional circumstances. The issue is whether that guidance is being properly applied or whether it needs further legislative attention. We are concerned about having proper fair play for those people. I am sure that my hon. Friend’s constituents, and mine, are concerned about fair play for those in detention centres as well as about controlling our borders.
Simon Hoare
My hon. Friend makes an apposite point. This must all be about fairness, about robust regulations, about proper ministerial oversight and about the scrutiny of ministerial duties by this place. That is absolutely the right chain of command. We all know that things go wrong, whether in the healthcare system, in education, in the police or in the armed forces. Regulations are not necessarily followed to the letter, but—this is a horrible phrase that we all trot out and it sounds frightfully trite—lessons will be learned. I do not say this to be sycophantic, but my right hon. Friend the Minister has humanity and compassion at his core, and he will always ensure that those regulations are fair and that they are applied fairly.
On the subject of fairness, I want to say a few words about workers, employees, employers, landlords and housing. The hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras and I have discussed the fact that a survey might produce results that suggest x, y and z, and that we can extrapolate data from that, however small or large the sample pool is. The rules and regulations that now govern access to the private rental property market—certainly those that apply to affordable housing—are pretty strict and robust. In conjunction with the clauses in the Bill that introduce new responsibilities for employees and employers, one is tempted to say, not as a cheap, knocking political point, that the quantum has become so large due to the rather shy—nay, potentially deleterious—attitude of Labour when in government.
The Government and their agencies cannot seek to solve all these problems. That is why it is perfectly proper to expect a landlord who is just about to enter into a rental agreement, and his or her agent, to carry out the most forensic tests possible to ensure the legitimacy and qualification of the individual or family seeking accommodation. That will not place a particular onus on them. In order to avoid the scenario that the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras has raised, the advice given by the Residential Landlords Association to its members and the advice given to the residential letting agencies will have to make it clear what their duties are. It will be important to stress to both that they are helping the Government and the country by playing an important role in addressing this issue.
That takes me from the right of access to housing to the question of access to work, from the point of view of the employee and the employer. The Bill is absolutely right to address these issues, and the amendments are at best mischievous and at worst devious as they attempt fundamentally to undermine the provisions. I have little doubt that employers, whether large or small, usually seek to kick back from any new regulations or guidance under which they will have to operate, but that should not fetter our need to impose such regulations if we are convinced of their efficacy. I am convinced of the efficacy of the measures in the Bill, and I believe that the amendments would undermine them.
There is no point in hon. Members, irrespective of which side of the political divide they might fall, wringing their hands about trafficking, slavery or forced labour, if, when an opportunity arises to augment previous legislation such as the rules in the Act governing gangmasters, they then say, “Oh no, this is a step too far. This will place too great an onus on the employer. We must seek to resist this.” That sends a mixed and confusing message to those evil individuals who are now benefiting in labour and cash terms from forced and indentured labour. I stress that this is just my judgment of the matter, but if the Bill as amended in Committee does not prevail, it will be holed below the waterline. That is why, if and when the official Opposition or Scottish National party Members press any of their new clauses or amendments to a Division, I shall be trotting into the No Lobby, where I hope many of my hon. and right hon. Friends will join me.
Anne McLaughlin
I spent five long weeks on the Immigration Bill Committee. It was an interesting experience, but unfortunately I found very little I could agree with. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) and I, and hon. colleagues on the Labour Benches, did some pretty forensic questioning. The conclusion I certainly reached from the responses that we got was that the motivation behind much of the Bill was not as stated. It cannot be, because it is clear that much of it will not work, and that it will not do what it apparently sets out to do. What it will do, however, is impact negatively on anyone who does not look, sound or even seem to be British.
Anne McLaughlin
There are a number of countries across the world, if the hon. Gentleman cares to read up on this, that do not make much use of detention, but use other ways of enabling people. Indeed, the family returns process in this country works very successfully to return a number of families when there is no other option for them. It is not essential to always detain people.
If our amendments to get rid of right to rent are unsuccessful, I ask the Government to accept amendment 46, which relates to something that I cannot believe is anything other than an oversight. In Committee, I asked for a bit more detail on when someone who provides a roof over a destitute person’s head becomes liable to criminal prosecution. There are many people who already do that as volunteers in an act of compassion or, if we want to bring the Christian faith into it, as other Members have done, as good Samaritans. I want clarity that those people will not find themselves facing court or even prison simply for showing kindness to another person.
I have received only partial reassurance from the Minister, thus amendment 46. Getting full reassurance on this matter is more important than it has ever been, because more people will need this kindness than ever before if the Bill goes through as it is. There will also be more people offering such support. One of the greatest reactions to the refugee crisis that escalated over the summer months was people, in their thousands, asking how they could help. Members on both sides of the House said how proud we were of those people. “Let them in,” they said, “and we will house them.” Thousands of people right across these islands offered to open their homes to house those in desperate need.
At that time, the offer was in response to the mainly Syrian refugees. Of course, refugees who have been granted leave to remain will not be affected—at least, not directly—by the Bill because accommodation will be provided for them. However, now that the debate has started, people are looking at the asylum seekers who are already in the UK with fresh eyes. Charities are saying to the people who offered help, “We have many refused asylum seekers who are currently destitute. Why not house them instead?” However, if they do so and the Bill goes through unamended, those kind, compassionate, generous people could be criminalised.
I said that the Minister has given me partial reassurance and I will explain why. If no money changes hands, there is no issue. People are allowed to let a refused asylum seeker—or failed asylum seeker, as Government Members like to say—stay at their home as long as no money is exchanged. That was welcome news to organisations in my city of Glasgow, such as Unity and Positive Action in Housing, which both do an incredible job in keeping vulnerable people off the streets with very little funding.
However, what if a householder cannot afford to do that? What if they are rich in compassion, but poor in finances? It costs money to let another person live in one’s home. There are heating costs, lighting costs and food costs. Even if it is not part of the agreement, people will hardly sit down to dinner knowing that another person under their roof is going hungry. Some charities therefore pay a nominal sum to the householder—not a profit-making amount or a commercial rent, but a nominal sum to cover their costs. I have had no reassurance about where those people stand. In response to that question, the Minister said that exemptions had been made for refuges that house victims of trafficking. Why not exempt anyone who houses a refused asylum seeker because otherwise they would have to live on the street? Are the Government really going to make criminals of those people, who are still volunteers because they are not making any money out of it? Will the Minister criminalise them for having the decency to share what they have with a stranger in trouble and for not being wealthy enough to cover the increased costs themselves?
What about the charities? There are charities, such as the Action Foundation in Newcastle, that seek out philanthropic landlords who will make the houses that they own available for refused asylum seekers to rent at a heavily discounted rate that is paid by the charity. Those philanthropic landlords will now be committing a criminal offence, but will the charities also be committing an offence? They need to know. Do the Government really intend for that to happen? Other groups, such as Abigail Housing in Leeds and Open Doors Hull, provide accommodation not in family homes, but in houses that are lent by their owners, empty vicarages and church buildings. Abigail Housing raises funds in order to pay a nominal rent, not a commercial rent. Nobody is making a profit.
Dozens of charities, individuals and church groups across these islands are carrying out this kind of work. Will they be committing an offence? It certainly seems that those who support their charitable aims by providing the accommodation will be. Are men and women of God to be prosecuted for doing as the Bible asks them to do and not turning the other cheek? Are the Government comfortable with potentially having to imprison faith leaders for up to five years? I urge the Government to think again, otherwise they are saying to the thousands of people who responded to the refugee crisis in a manner that we were all rightly proud of, “No, you can’t help. Yes, there is a need and we are going to increase that need by making more refused asylum seekers homeless, but if you dare to help, we will criminalise you.”
Simon Hoare
The hon. Lady makes her points with the same eloquence and passion that she showed in Committee. She asked me to evidence what I said about the open-door policy and what I perceive the SNP’s position to be, but she has effectively just done that. She is talking about refused asylum seekers, and those who have no right to be here, being allowed to stay for as long as they like, based on the philanthropy of individuals. Such philanthropy is to be championed and supported, but when people have gone through the whole process and their claim has been refused, surely she will admit that it is time for them to go home.
Anne McLaughlin
The hon. Gentleman, and his Government, know full well that some people simply cannot go home. Indeed, people in such circumstances are often sent not home but to detention centres, where they languish for a long time because they cannot be sent home. I am not talking about every asylum seeker, or about keeping people here indefinitely; I am saying that we should not criminalise people who open their homes to those in desperate need. To be clear, I oppose the right to rent in its entirety, and I question the British Government’s right to override the wishes of the Scottish Parliament. I hope that this particular topical issue will turn out to be simply an anomaly that the Government will put right.
Immigration Bill (Thirteenth sitting)
Simon Hoare Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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James Brokenshire
The hon. Lady says that if parents who are deliberately trying to frustrate the system have children, the state should automatically continue to support them. The point of the measures is that, on the basis of remaining obstacles, support will continue for all of the family in that situation.
That is why we have the family returns process. We have assisted return, where families are actively encouraged and assisted to leave while we put the family returns process in place, which has the humane nature of supporting people to see that they return. Obviously, where there are barriers to removal, support will remain, as I have already indicated.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
We have heard the hon. Member for Glasgow North East, but she has a topsy-turvy way of looking at the issue. Surely, parents have the primary duty of care for their children. The hon. Lady and the amendment seem to suggest that parents can abdicate that responsibility but expect the state to step in to have a greater level of care and concern for their children. That is loco parentis gone bonkers.
James Brokenshire
My hon. Friend makes a clear point on where support should be provided. We do have duties in respect of section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. Under section 55, child welfare does not require—if a failed asylum-seeker family decides to remain here unlawfully when they could and should leave the UK—that they should automatically and indefinitely continue to receive support simply because they have made a failed asylum claim. That is the nub of the argument. I appreciate that there is a fundamental difference in the Committee. I note that hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye to give way. That is the nub of the argument and it seems there is a difference on that principle.
Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting)
Simon Hoare Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister and apologise for my semantics.
We do not know what the “genuine obstacle” that must be preventing people from leaving the country means, because it has yet to be defined in regulations. We are potentially talking about denying support to extremely vulnerable families, so the House should be able to discuss and vote on that in primary legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham made that point well in our evidence sessions. That definition will effectively define the scope of support given to people, and it could leave families homeless and destitute. We should be debating that definition now. It is not something to be nodded through the House at the whim of the Secretary of State.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I do not know whether the hon. Lady was as struck as I was by the evidence sessions. There was only one organisation—I cannot for the life of me remember which it was—that actually prepared people who had gone to see it for a potential answer of no to their application. Everybody else just seemed to be keeping people’s hope alive and burning brightly. Does she agree that if more organisations prepared people for a no, people would be able to plan ahead and think about that, rather than wake up one morning and find, “Gosh, that’s a bit of a surprise”?
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I think we have different recollections of the evidence sessions. I do not recall just one organisation doing that.
James Brokenshire
The issues that we are dealing with are specific matters of fact, and it remains open to the individual concerned to draw their circumstances to the Home Office’s attention. I take the hon. and learned Gentleman back to how we intend to operate these arrangements. We are not doing this by correspondence; it is being worked through as part of an overall process towards the removal of that individual. The judgment has effectively been taken, and contact is therefore being maintained with the individual, so it is more of the joined-up approach on which I have already responded. That is why, in our judgment, it is a question of looking at the simple elements and at what will be the barriers to removal.
Simon Hoare
I do not want to add an unnecessarily acid tone to the debate—[Interruption.] I do not necessarily want to do it, but that does not mean that I will stop myself. I hear what Opposition Members are saying about fairness, but was it fair to those who were making applications and appeals, and so on, who discovered post-2010 that the Home Office had shoved all their paperwork down the lift chutes of abandoned offices? The Home Office had let the whole damned business get so out of control and had become so overwhelmed that it decided that putting the paperwork into the “too hard to deal with” tray was the best option.
James Brokenshire
I know this message might not be appreciated by some members of the Committee, some of whom were not here when we experienced some of those practices after coming into government in 2010. I heard, and continue to hear, some extraordinary stories about some of the practices that existed before some of the arrangements that we have now put in place, which is why it is right to focus on some of the administration issues. That is why I referenced the chief inspector’s report. Yes, there is still work to do, and we have been clear on the change and reform that we seek to make to the effective operation of the immigration system. The situation that we picked up was pretty bad. My hon. Friend makes the point clearly and firmly on why some—
Simon Hoare
My right hon. Friend is being terribly kind and generous in saying that the situation was not very good. I thought that “not fit for purpose” was the description by the noble Lord Reid when he was Home Secretary of the situation that he discovered.
Simon Hoare
I too will oppose the amendment. I think that the hon. Lady has put her finger on the problem of why immigration has become such a huge issue in our constituencies, especially when juxtaposed with what we hear in the House and in Committee about councils’ central funding being reduced, and an overall cap on Government expenditure. I think that most ordinary folk in our constituencies, irrespective of their political affiliation, conclude on the basis of common sense that once a fair system has been tried, tested and exhausted, there must be a point at which the state, centrally or locally, withdraws.
Anne McLaughlin
The hon. Gentleman speaks about when rights have been exhausted, but the example I gave was not of someone who had exhausted his rights; it was someone who did not have the legal support to make a proper appeal, which is why he lost. When he managed to get the help of a charity it was found that he was entitled to support here. We are not talking only about people who have exhausted all appeal rights but about people who have had poor decisions or poor representation, or no representation.
Simon Hoare
I hear what the hon. Lady says, but I have to say I find it slightly surprising, given the quantum of those bodies that came to give evidence during our witness sessions. Most of those organisations—indeed, the lion’s share—were clearly focused, on either a regional or national basis, on providing advice, help and support to people who were seeking to make an application. I am not doubting the veracity of what she says, but I would be rather surprised if the problem she mentioned was large scale. Clearly, even the individual to whom she referred was ultimately able to find professional advice and support, and the response that they were looking for.
The nub of the issue is this: the British taxpayer—the council tax payer and income tax payer—cannot be expected to keep signing blank cheques to continue to support people to reside in this country when all of the systems have been tried and tested and their right to remain has not been proved or accepted. Just a few months ago, I am sure all of us heard on the doorsteps—
Simon Hoare
The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. There must be some very eccentric voters in his constituency. Every constituency will have had people—on the doorstep, in the market square or wherever—who will have said that this is a problem about which political correctness has become just a little too wayward.
Simon Hoare
I am trying to explain why, like the Minister, I oppose the amendment, Mr Owen. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood is absolutely right. During our evidence sessions we were all concerned to try to ensure that the measures in the Bill helped community cohesion. When one section of the community feels that it is losing the local services, to which it has contributed through its taxes, in order to support the funding requirements of people who should not be here, people start to get annoyed and we start to see some of the rather ugly scenes we saw in Burnley and other areas where that little bit of racial tension became a little too hot and too heavy.
Simon Hoare
I think you are keen for me to finish, Mr Owen, so if the hon. Lady does not mind, I will not give way.
The Chair
Order. I am keen for you to address the amendment directly and not have a general discussion on immigration.
Simon Hoare
I am bringing in my generic thinking on the issue to explain why we should oppose the amendment. The amendment flies in the face of the common-sense approach that the British people want to see and that underpins the Bill.
In conclusion, the Minister made the apposite point that unless a clear message goes out to say that we are not a “soft touch”—I use that in inverted commas, because I appreciate that it could be inflammatory—or an easy target just because someone is a minor, far too many vulnerable youngsters will, I fear, be trafficked across the channel and elsewhere to come into the UK. This is all about signals and messages. That is why I oppose the amendment—argued for in a heartfelt manner, but fundamentally wrong—backed by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East.
Keir Starmer
I will be brief. We are talking about children coming out of care. It has been proposed that a message needs to go out to other countries—to be picked up by and to influence those coming to this country—that we treat those coming out of care unfairly. That proposition beggars belief. I will press the amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Policing
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Kit Malthouse
I do accept the “golden thread” argument, but what I am trying to illustrate is that in February and March of every single year of my tenure that argument was waved in front of me, and it never came true.
I have some observations to offer on some of the arguments we have heard today. First, on the connection between police numbers and crime, I can say from experience that there is absolutely no direct connection between the two. The best illustration of that I can give is the apprehension of Delroy Grant, a night stalker in south-east London. That man terrorised and raped elderly people over a period of 17 years. The operation to catch him was the largest and most complex the Met had ever mounted and it cost millions and millions of pounds. They did not catch him for 17 years because they were trying to catch a rapist. They appointed a new investigating officer who realised that they were trying to catch a burglar, and then they caught him within two weeks. Millions of pounds was spent on the wrong investigative method. If they had adopted the right method earlier, they might have prevented a lot more crime. Homicide in London fell from 211 in 2005 to 101 in 2012—happily at the end of my tenure. Is anyone saying that we should have the same number of police officers investigating murder as we had back in 2005? Of course not. There is no direct connection between the two.
Those Members who are complaining about a rise in crime types in their constituencies would do better to ask serious questions of their police forces about performance, technology, targeting and skill. Let us look at two similar police forces, Warwickshire and Cleveland. Cleveland currently attracts a lot more funding than Warwickshire, despite the fact that they have similar populations. Warwickshire’s performance, however, is excellent. Cleveland has just been criticised for not handling antisocial behaviour correctly. Performance—skill, leadership and focus—has much more of an impact on crime types in any particular area than money does. I recommend that Members go and ask some of those testing questions. Most of the time, police officers know where, when and by whom crimes will be committed, and using intelligence better will be much more effective.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making his point in a typically powerful way. Does he agree—this might be a cynical point—that there are some who will say that we should not be playing ball as we have been doing in trying to reduce our budgets, in order to make political capital? That might make good political press releases; it does not make good policing.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. When I say I want short interventions, I do not mean, “Then carry on and make long interventions.” [Interruption.] No, I decide whether it is short. I am sure, Mr Hoare, you can find something else to do rather than challenging the Chair. I am sure that is not your intention. I want to get everybody else in, and the only way I am going to do that is to have fewer interventions. I want to allow the right amount of time for the closing speeches.
Draft Investigatory Powers Bill
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Mrs May
I am not sure that I recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s description of references to modern technology. I was clear in the statement that I gave to the House less than two weeks ago that the Wilson doctrine still exists. We are putting the third lock of consultation with the Prime Minister in the legislation. Over time a mythology has grown up around what the Wilson doctrine meant. Many Members of the House felt that it meant that no communication by MPs would ever be intercepted, but that is not what the doctrine said.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
If the first duty of the Government is the protection of the realm, their second duty is to ensure that those protections are fit for purpose—my right hon. Friend the Secretary and the Minister for Security have passed that test with flying colours and are to be congratulated. The Home Secretary mentioned in passing the benefits that her proposals will bring when clamping down on paedophiles and child sexual exploitation, and as a father of three young children I welcome that, as do all my constituents. Will she flesh out a little further what benefits she sees for the services that are involved in clamping down on such pernicious activity? What benefits will her proposals actually deliver?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend has raised an important issue. Let me give him just one example. Following a recent survey of more than 6,000 cases, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre determined that more than 860 paedophiles could not be identified precisely because it did not have the internet connection records power that we are introducing in the Bill. With that power, it would have been able to identify them.
Immigration Bill (Ninth sitting)
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Anne McLaughlin
Do you want me to sit down and take interventions? I think that we have hit a sore spot, because the Minister is well aware that the measures will have a significant impact on—
Simon Hoare
It might help to know that we on the Government side see my right hon. Friend as a swan gracefully gliding over the surface of the legislative lake: paddling energetically underneath, but always maintaining a calm veneer.
Immigration Bill (Seventh sitting)
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Keir Starmer
I accept that, but the original intervention was to ask on what basis there had been a U-turn. My response to that is that the 2014 provisions proceeded on the basis that there would be a pilot and there would be no roll-out until the pilot was evaluated. [Interruption.] I will get to my remarks about the pilot in a minute. We have obviously had the opportunity to take a closer look at the evaluation that we were given, I think, last Tuesday, and I have some observations to make about it.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
As is often the case in this place, we seem to be straying into process versus principle. I think that I heard the Minister say that the principle we are discussing had been accepted by the Labour party during the passage of the 2014 Act. Is it simply the process that the hon. and learned Gentleman is now quibbling about, or are his remarks a reversal of that acceptance of the principle?
Keir Starmer
I am not sure that the distinction between process and principle helps here. What led to the pilot was concern from landlords as to whether the scheme was going to be workable. They were concerned that they were going to be asked to carry out checks that they did not understand, with the possibility of a penalty if they got it wrong—at least, so far as they saw it. I appreciate that that is not how the scheme works, but that was their concern.
The deeper concern, across the House and among other groups, was that in such circumstances, as a matter of principle, the scheme might lead to discrimination. The in-principle position is that if what is otherwise a good scheme brings discrimination with it, it is not a good scheme and some other scheme needs to be devised. That is the principle; it is not a process point. That is probably common ground—I do not think that anyone would want to support a scheme that was discriminatory in its effect. Therefore, whether it is, or whether that has been properly evaluated, becomes a matter of real principle, and is not one of process.
Simon Hoare
Correct me if I am wrong—the hon. and learned Gentleman has much greater understanding of these matters than I do—but nothing in the Bill in any way resiles from or seeks to revoke the cadre of legislation that deals with discrimination.
Keir Starmer
I accept that proposition, but it does not take us much further. There are different forms of discrimination. Some measures are directly discriminatory, but can be justified in certain circumstances; others are not intended to be discriminatory and do not cut across other protections against discrimination, but have a discriminatory effect. Concern about that was one reason for setting up the pilot and for making an assessment of discrimination in the evaluation.
We are dancing around the issue. Everyone accepts that if the scheme has a discriminatory effect it should not be rolled out. That was part of the reason why there was an evaluation—there were others, of course. However, that is why all the evaluations of the scheme have focused on whether it has had any discriminatory effect.
Keir Starmer
I agree with my hon. Friend.
There have been two evaluations of the scheme, one by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and one by the Home Office.
Keir Starmer
I will give way again, although I do not seem to be able to get beyond about a sentence at the moment.
Simon Hoare
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way again. I hope I am not delaying the Committee, but I am trying to curtail the debate. He is right that there have been two evaluations, including one by the Home Office. I have little or no doubt that he will have noted the fourth bullet point on page five of that evaluation, which states that, despite the differences during rental inquiries, there was no evidence of discrimination. As for the other evaluation, on which he seems to be relying, my understanding on probing is that only 30 people responded to the survey, all of whom had already declared themselves opposed to the proposal.
Keir Starmer
There is no need for any show of surprise on the Government’s Benches. If Members read the transcript of my contribution on Second Reading, they will see that I qualified reliance on the JCWI evaluation by saying that I accepted that it was a small survey. This is not new. I have always accepted that qualification.
I have some remarks to make about Home Office evaluation, and I will come to them in a moment. To put the issue in context in terms of numbers, broadly speaking, one in four families in England rent in the private sector. According to the 2011 census, 16.5% of tenants in the private rented sector did not have a passport. As Richard Lambert told us last week in response to a question from the hon. Member for Norwich North about numbers, he would expect 1 million to 1.5 million new tenancies to be created each year, so a huge number of cases will be affected, before we even get to the extension or retrospective effects that we will consider later. Both the evaluations must be seen in that context. I am not making the case that the evaluation by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants involved big numbers, but it was carried out.
Simon Hoare
It is my understanding as well that not only is the sample incredibly small, and therefore not to be relied on in any sensible way, but that the question was asked of people who had already declared themselves opposed to the proposal. If one asks people who are already opposed to something, by definition they will answer in only one particular way. Not only was the sample base tiny, it was skewed and prejudiced, maybe even discriminatory against itself.
Keir Starmer
The sample was small, and the findings in that evaluation—I will move on to the Home Office evaluation in a minute—are clear: 42% of landlords said that the right to rent requirements made them less likely to consider someone who does not have a British passport. More than 25% said that they would be less likely to rent to someone with a foreign name or foreign accent, and checks were not being carried out uniformly across all tenants. Opposition was uniform, in the sense that 69% of landlords surveyed said that they did not feel that they should be required to undertake the checks, and 77% said that they were not in favour. They were the landlords surveyed in that evaluation.
Before we move on to the Home Office evaluation, as I said, Richard Lambert told us that he anticipated 1 million to 1.5 million new tenancies a year. The Home Office sample was based on 114 responses from landlords in the pilot area, which is a very small sample, given that more than 1 million new tenancies are created each year. It is a tiny sample. In addition, 67 responses came from tenants, but 60 of those 67 were students, so it is difficult to argue that it is a representative sample. That percentage does not in any way reflect a cross-section of the sorts of tenancy that will be caught by the provisions. It is predominantly student tenants.
Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)
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Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
The Scottish National party tabled the amendment with Labour because we believe that the primary purpose of the director of labour market enforcement should be to enforce the rights of workers and protect people from exploitation. Indeed, the Government’s background briefing states that the new labour market enforcement agency will be established to protect people against being exploited or coerced into work. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association has said:
“Where those working or living in very poor conditions are deterred from accessing assistance because of their immigration status”—
this will clearly make it harder for them—
“or because of their vulnerability to threats by unscrupulous employers in relation to their immigration status, agencies will be restricted in their ability to gather the intelligence needed to exercise their regulatory functions and protect against labour market exploitation. A lack of clarity over the protective function of the labour market enforcement agency may therefore undermine its aims.”
It would be good to have a little more clarity.
Last week, one of the Conservative Members really shocked me with a statement about illegal workers. On reflection, I wonder whether there is a genuine, fundamental misunderstanding about some of these people that might need to be addressed. The comment was that if people knew that the Bill was being introduced and that it was going be so much harder to work here illegally, they would be less likely to allow themselves to be trafficked. That really shocked me. We are talking about the most vulnerable people, who are taken from other countries against their will. They do not choose or allow themselves to be trafficked. They are used and abused. The Bill will make it so much worse for them. Does the Minister believe that people are trafficked here because they choose to be or not? If there is a belief that there is an element of choice to trafficking, I understand where the measures come from. I would like to know that the Minister intends to protect the most vulnerable people.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
If the hon. Lady accepts the premise that the trafficker is the conduit for the individual to go from A to B, does she accept that if the individual understands that entry to B is now harder and tougher, it is likely that they will not be sought to be trafficked in the first place or that they will ask the traffickers to traffic them elsewhere? It is all about signal and message.
Anne McLaughlin
So there is the answer to my question. I really would love the Minister to respond and to understand that people do not choose to be trafficked. They do not say, “Please kidnap me, tie me up, bundle me into a van, and take me to a country that I’ve never been to where I can’t speak the language.”
Simon Hoare
That is kidnapping; it is not trafficking. Trafficking, in my judgment, is when somebody goes to somebody else who is providing that service and says, “I want to get from A to B. Will you get me there?” That might be in a private motorcraft, an aeroplane or whatever it might happen to be. When I talk about trafficking, that is what I am talking about, not about kidnap, which is illegal.
Anne McLaughlin
In legal terms, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. That is not what trafficking is. He needs to look up the legal definition of trafficking because trafficking happens against somebody’s will. We have to protect those people. Now that the hon. Gentleman understands, perhaps he will support this amendment.
Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)
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Kelly Tolhurst
Q 267 Do you feel, at the moment, particularly in the south-east—and perhaps if you have knowledge of the whole of the country—that the pressure we are currently seeing with unaccompanied minors is greater than the perceived pressure that may come due to some of the measures in the Bill?
Paul Greenhalgh: My sense of that is no. Kent is currently the authority with the largest number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. It currently has 800. Croydon is the—[Interruption.] Okay, I think it is 800, but David has a different view. It is somewhere between 800 and 1,200. Croydon is the next biggest authority in terms of the number of unaccompanied asylum seekers. We have 370. I think that those figures are small compared with the impact that the Bill would have with regard to removing support from families with that status.
Councillor Simmonds: It is important to be clear, though, that because the Children Act 1989 makes the local authority at the port of authority the responsible body, it falls disproportionately on a small number of places. If you are a port, or indeed, a local authority such as Leicestershire, with motorway services where lorries travelling from ports tend to deposit people, you may end up with a significant population, and their rights derive from the fact that they are unaccompanied children, so their asylum status is not strictly relevant to that. They gain those rights by virtue of the fact that they are unaccompanied, at which point the Children Act and Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 kick in.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Q 268 Is the natural corollary of quite a lot of the discussion about the pressure on local government finance to see some change in the Children Act?
Councillor Simmonds: Paul will have a professional view about that. Clearly, what is not sustainable is to say that people have a portfolio of rights, but there is no funding available to fulfil any of those obligations. So it would be possible—I think the provisions in the Bill could conceivably do it—to say that certain individuals are removed from any consideration under the Children Act. The issue that we would have, of course, is that other avenues will then generally be pursued. One of the common problems for local authorities—I speak from a lot of personal experience—is that as one avenue is closed, another one opens up, so we would need to make sure that any provisions that were envisaged of that nature were extremely comprehensive. It would be a challenge for parliamentarians collectively to say that we are going to walk through the Lobby and say, “We are determined to remove a group of children who are in the UK from being considered as children and view them simply as illegal immigrants, and therefore, not entitled to support.” I suspect that, on a cross-party basis, Parliament would have a challenge in getting that through and finding that it could be supported easily.
Simon Hoare
Q 269 We heard in earlier evidence that, when the final refusal comes, virtually everyone, it has been suggested, suddenly goes underground, beneath the radar. Clearly, that is not the case because a lot of people turn up at the doors of town halls across the country. What percentage of those who are refused do you reckon the Government deal with?
Councillor Simmonds: Almost all, but in various different categories. In the last year for which we have figures, about 12,500 people were removed by the Home Office and processes of immigration control. The rest will, under one category or another, by and large, be entitled to some form of support. It is quite common. There is a case that my authority is involved in: a young man applies for asylum, is refused, appeals, is refused, is taken to the removal centre and then says, “Actually, I’m a child. I’m not an adult. According to the passport I presented when I applied for asylum, I am a child.” He has now been released, via the Home Office, into the care of my local authority.
The Chair
I will ask Mr Hoare to come in in a minute. I should have said at the beginning to the witnesses that we will finish at 4 pm, not 4.30 pm as you may have been told originally. We want to get through as many questions as possible.
The other thing is, when it gets to 4 pm, there will be bells ringing. It is not the fire alarm; we will have to go and vote. You will see us all rush off at that time, so please do not be offended by that.
Simon Hoare
Q 297 Ms Robinson, has Liberty ever welcomed an immigration Bill?
Rachel Robinson: I am afraid that I have not been there long enough to give you an accurate analysis of that. What I can tell you is that we have seen the same failed approach tried and pushed in many immigration Bills, so inevitably we raise many of the same concerns. What we see in parallel is a failure time and time again to address problems in the Department that are identified time and time again in various reports.
Simon Hoare
Q 298 I think we will take that as a no.
Let me ask you another question; it may come out crudely, but it is not intended to be crudely phrased. A phrase you used in your answer to Sir Keir struck me: “members of our society”. That was a phrase that you used once or twice in your opening remarks. We are talking here about those who have failed a process—a fair process. That could be debated, but let us say for argument’s sake that it is a fair process. Therefore, by definition, one can presume that the people for whom permission has been refused have not welcomed that decision, but in point of fact and without being rude about it they are not “members of our society”; they are members of the societies of other countries. Where does our duty end in those circumstances?
Rachel Robinson: Liberty would certainly argue that while people remain in this country, they should be treated with the basics of dignity and respect; they should have the human rights framework applied to them. That does not mean that enforcement action should not be taken against them—this is not an argument about not having a functioning immigration system. This is how we treat people who remain in our country. We would argue that the provisions set out in this Bill will lead to an increase in destitution, including among children, because this Bill specifically targets children and families with young children. In addition to provisions that cut asylum support for families with young children, we now see the removal of mainstream support for those individuals, and that is deeply worrying.
Simon Hoare
Q 299 And that assertion can be evidentially substantiated?
Rachel Robinson: I am sorry—what assertion?
Simon Hoare
Q 300 The assertion that you have just given us.
Rachel Robinson: That this is specifically targeted at children? Well, the provisions in the Bill would lead to the automatic removal of section 95 support for families with minor children, who are currently covered by an exception to the current scheme, so yes, it is targeted at children.
Simon Hoare
Q 301 Chair, may I just ask a general question? If all members of the panel wish to answer it, that is entirely up to them. I am certainly taking Ms McLaughlin’s line, which I thought slightly pinched my earlier line of questioning this morning. In the ideal world and you have a blank sheet of paper in front of you, would you prefer to see an amnesty for those who are here today illegally and effectively start from scratch, or would you just prefer to see an open borders process and let the market decide how full the country can and cannot be?
Rachel Robinson: This is entirely outside the remit of Liberty’s work. Liberty comments on human rights and human rights protections, and whether they are available to people in this country. We do not take a view on how immigration works; we do not take a view on immigration more broadly than that.
The Chair
Shall we just go down the panel? There are five people; four organisations. Perhaps one from each organisation.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: I certainly agree that that is not within my remit to comment on, but I would say, and I started off by saying—
Simon Hoare
Your personal view.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: Well, I started off by saying that we support the idea of tackling illegal working and particularly protecting those who are exploited because of their status. But to consider, for example, the question of those who have failed in their application for asylum, I do not think that the commission or I would argue for one moment that they should not leave the country. We are simply debating the period between the failure of the application and the exit.
What the Bill says is that in order to be able to claim for support when you have children and are without the right of appeal, you have to be both destitute and able to fulfil a requirement, where the burden of proof is on you, to show that there is a genuine obstacle to your leaving the country. That suggests that being genuinely destitute is not sufficient, but in fact the European convention on human rights says that being destitute ought to be sufficient. The convention on the rights of the child also requires the Government to put the rights of the child at the heart of their policy making. We are looking simply at that window of destitution between failure in the application to remain and exit from the country. We do not debate in the slightest that the failure should implemented by removal.
Steve Symonds: Perhaps I can comment on the first question that you asked. It is important that the Committee understands that it is not just people who have been failed through a process that the Bill will have an impact on. There are children born in this country without any status. There are children who come here when they are very young and remain in this country without any status, many of whom are entitled to British citizenship but do not have access to be able to get it. There are people who have leave quite legitimately and wrongly have their leave curtailed, and who, because of the previous Act, have had their appeal rights withdrawn—no administrative review remedy was set up when those rights were withdrawn. Also, as Saira mentioned, there are British citizens who may be impacted because their children or their spouses are removed from the country, or cannot be reunited with them. There are British citizens who do not have passports and are not able to satisfy a landlord that they are, indeed, entitled to be here and therefore entitled to rent.
There are many aspects of the Bill that have an impact on people who should not be going through any process, those who may be entitled to a process but have had it curtailed or wrongly ended, or those who would be at the start of any process, if it was available for them, at the very time that the Bill will start to impact them adversely, potentially with human rights consequences.
Saira Grant: Steve has given a few examples that I was going to give. That is the important point. You said at the start that these people are not members of our society, they are at the end of the process, they have failed, but as Steve has just outlined to you, there is a real misunderstanding about the people we are talking about. So many are children who have grown up here, who know no other country but who do not have regularised status, through no fault of their own. So many are family members.
The Office of the Children’s Commissioner recently did an in-depth study on the family migration rules and their impact. It discovered that many people without lawful status are the mother of a British child or the wife of a British husband. We are not talking about those in the backs of lorries, who have failed the process and therefore should now be demonised and exploited. Many measures of this Bill are targeting and creating a hostile environment that is unnecessary and will have so many repercussions on regularised black and minority ethnic community members and British citizens, and it will have an impact on our social cohesion.
Simon Hoare
Q 302 Can I come back very briefly? I was interested in what you were saying because you made that point in an earlier submission. You are right to be worried about the social cohesion perspective. I suppose I look at it from the other end of the telescope. Do you agree that if everybody in society, irrespective of colour or creed—I put that in inverted commas—had safe knowledge that their neighbours and the people who lived in their communities were all bona fide, were all legitimate, were all citizens, or had right to remain in this country, it would ease the growing tension in many communities? That, in fact, of itself eases what in many communities is a growing tension—a tension between the settled, legal immigrant community and the illegal immigrant community. In my judgment, that is causing quite a lot of tensions in towns and cities across the country.
Saira Grant: You raise a very interesting and valid point, but I do not think that the answer is to create more suspicion and mistrust among members of civil society. It goes back to border control at the start; it is the Home Office’s responsibility, not that of civil society to be policing each other’s immigration status. We need to go back to the beginning. If the Home Office was making correct decisions, issuing correct visas and making it easier for people to lawfully go through the process, we would see a reduction in the numbers of those who are now irregularly here.
Sarah Champion
Q 303 Ms Grant, have you or your organisation had time to assess the west midlands pilot on landlords? Are you able to come up with some recommendations of how the pilot could be strengthened or any weaknesses in the Bill?
Saira Grant: Sure. You will be aware—I hope that Members are aware—that our organisation did an independent study of its own as well. We have sent copies of the report around. I have had a chance to go through it, although not in as much detail I would have liked, because it only came out on Tuesday, but looking at the evidence that they provided in the evaluation, it matches and mirrors a lot of the claims we have been making.
The first point to make is that the terms of reference are very different from our evaluation, because the emphasis is not on tenants; it is about landlords and the understanding that landlords have. Discrimination that we found has been alluded to—cases through mystery shoppers of indirect or potential discrimination—but that has not been the focus, and the tenants who are part of the survey are again a very low number, mainly students, so a very different group of people.
Something that really strikes me is to do with whether the reason behind these provisions is to ensure that those who do not have status do not stay in the UK and are encouraged to leave. If enforcement is the aim, look at what the results show: the claim is that 109 people have been “caught”, if you like, as a result of the right to rent checks, but break that down and at best you are looking at 15 people who directly came through the right to rent checks inquiry line and who came to the Home Office’s attention. That in itself is a very interesting statistic, because, of the 109 people, 94 actually had status and the right to remain, but the inquiry was made because landlords could not understand the complexity of immigration status. From the 15, it is really interesting. That is direct, but then we have a breakdown of the 109: 25 people had barriers to removal, 15 were progressing family cases, nine were granted leave by the Home Office and a further four had judicial reviews.
Whichever way you look at it, all of those who have outstanding legal cases need to reside somewhere. Because of the way we have changed our immigration rules, people might not have section 3C leave, which continues their leave, but if they have outstanding legal cases and therefore a barrier to removal, what is supposed to happen to them? Are they now just supposed to be destitute?
Going through their evidence, I would say that there needs to be a longer evaluation period; it needs to be not over the winter period, when no one really moves tenancies; and it needs to look at the impact on tenants, not just landlords. How can we possibly have a roll-out announced on the same day as the publication of this evaluation?
Immigration Bill (Third sitting)
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The Chair
May I just make it clear—I am sure that we have not strayed on this—that we should not be talking about any active appeals? I do not think that we were; I think they were historic appeals. We just need to bear that in mind.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Q 200 On that point, Mr Yeo, I may have misheard you, and if I have, my apologies. The case that you just cited involved a gentleman whom I think you described as a foreign criminal. He had been through the prison system here and he had been deported. Is it, therefore, your assertion that Government should potentially put at risk people on our high streets in all our constituencies, towns and cities for such a person, or that they should allow them to conduct their appeal at least in their country of origin? If it is the former, that would strike me as a rather irresponsible stance for any Government of any colour to take—but I may have misheard you.
Colin Yeo: On my assessment, the gentleman had a reasonable case under the immigration rules that had been set by the Home Office.
Simon Hoare
Q 201 Sorry, I was not asking about the validity of his case; I was merely drawing attention to his status. Okay, his slate was wiped clean, but he had been a criminal, he had been found guilty and he had been jailed. Correct?
Colin Yeo: He had been, yes, but I cannot conduct that balancing exercise for myself about his danger to the public and so on; he never had an opportunity to put his case to an independent judge to prove that either way.
Simon Hoare
Q 202 With respect, Sir, he did, through an appeal post-deportation. Whether he availed himself of that opportunity would have been entirely up to him. Correct?
Colin Yeo: In theory, yes, but in practice I think it would have been rather hard for him to pursue an appeal from a country that he didn’t know, basically.
Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)
Q 218 Am I right in thinking, though, that the Government are reviewing the whole issue of detention in parallel with this Bill?
Jerome Phelps: Yes, we understand that there is an internal review taking place, and the Stephen Shaw review into welfare and detention is reporting around now. In that context, we welcome the decision to announce the closure of Dover immigration removal centre as suggesting a very positive intention to use detention more smartly. I hope that that reflects the overall direction of travel and that the Bill does nothing to get in the way of that.
Simon Hoare
Q 219 I am not quite sure that that last bit was welcome news to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover, but we will wait to see.
May I ask each of you to take up your fantasy job? Close your eyes and pretend you are the Home Secretary. It might be your nightmare job—I do not know—but let us suppose it is your fantasy job. We have heard a lot about something to do with principle, something to do with process and something to do with practicality. Imagine you had a clean sheet of paper. Would it be easier for the Government, effectively, to declare an amnesty for everybody who is here now and to start from scratch? Or could they go still further and have no controls at all—effectively, Schengen, but wider—with people just coming to the country as and when, and no longer coming when the jobs run out? That would seem a lot easier.
Don Flynn: The Migrants Rights Network come at this from the point of view that immigration is part of the world in the 21st century. However it is managed and governed by national authorities—we certainly concede that it needs to be managed and governed by them—it has to be conceded that migrants should have rights and are not simply subject to an authority that can push them from pillar to post, taking executive decisions about providing them with reasonable options about how they advance their life chances, without giving them an opportunity to state their own case. We think it is quite possible to lay down a set of principles to govern that. We know what rights migrants need in order to prosper, to feel a degree of security and to tackle the complex issues of integration and providing for the needs of their families. These have been set out in United Nations and International Labour Organisation conventions. A good starting point for us in terms of addressing immigration policy is to see how we can transpose those into national law and make them effective. That is the discussion we would like to see with Governments: how do we design an immigration system which acknowledges the inevitability, and even the necessity, of migration, and how do we do deals with migrants that are fair and allow them to prosper?
The Chair
For the purpose of Mr Hoare’s question, let us turn to Home Secretary Berry.
Adrian Berry: I represent a membership organisation, in which there is a spread of views on where immigration controls should be. I am not ducking the question when I say—
Simon Hoare
Q 220 What is your personal view?
Adrian Berry: My personal view is that of the organisation: there needs to be a fair, just and equitable system of immigration control, and there are a number of ways of achieving that. It is important not to create a situation where there is not a proper opportunity for people to migrate. Migration is part of the ordinary warp and weft of human society. Whether it is internal migration in a state, or migration across an international border, it is just as much part of the manifestation and optimisation of human fulfilment as leading a settled life. We need to have an appreciation of the fact that, in the current times and the current climate, migration is an ordinary part of life, and we need to design and operate policies which reflect that, taking into account the need for democratic control by states and, equally, the position of individuals. It is interesting that migration is often thought of as being about migrants, but, in the context of family reunion and children’s rights, as Mr Gill has identified, it is about British citizens who are settled in the UK and who may have formed relationships with people who are migrating to the UK. The question of what a good policy should be needs to take into account the fact that it profoundly affects the settled population as well as the cohort of people migrating. That is lost from our political discourse in far too many situations. We need to reinstitute and centralise the idea of it as ordinary and normal rather than abnormal.
Colin Yeo: That is quite a major amendment being proposed to the Bill that the Committee is considering. I am a lawyer, not a politician. I cannot say that I have particularly well-formed views about those issues, but what I do see, as a lawyer dealing with the migrants and their families who are affected by the laws passed by Parliament, is that those laws have human consequences. We meet broken families: children who have lost their parents, parents who have lost their children, spouses who have been separated. They are people whose lives have been ruined or significantly impaired by bad Home Office decisions, and by rules that are excessively complicated and that separate people rather than bringing them together.
Jerome Phelps: It would certainly be a nightmare scenario from my point of view; I do not envy the Minister his job for a moment. I think that I, as Immigration Minister, would face the inevitable dilemma of weighing the very strong public support for effective immigration control against the need to respect the rights of migrants, and to get some element of trust in the system among migrants. That is often a very difficult balance to strike.
On detention, actually, those two needs are often mutually supportive. I think that there are benefits to both migrants and to effective immigration control in having safeguards on the use of detention—having a time limit on detention conveys to migrants that it is a reasonable and proportionate power—and in developing alternatives to detention that resolve cases without the expense of detention wherever possible, so that it can be used genuinely as a last resort in exceptional circumstances where voluntary return and far cheaper and more humane alternatives are not possible.
Manjit Gill: The questions whether there should be a no-borders policy or an amnesty are, I think, better directed to social scientists. I do not really feel qualified to comment on those.
Simon Hoare
Q 221 That has to be the first time that a Queen’s Counsel has not felt qualified to comment on something.
Manjit Gill: I am not qualified to comment on many things, and I often say so candidly. As far as the practicalities and policies are concerned, all that I would ask, if I were occupying that unenviable position, is to ensure, in common with what has just been said, that policies that promote cohesion and human rights are developed. All immigration policy must consider, at the end of the day, how to respect the people who will actually be affected by it. How will their human rights be respected, and how will we build a more cohesive society? It is easy to say that, but actually doing it is much harder. I am not sure that I can say anything more concrete than that.
Simon Hoare
Q 222 Just to come back to Mr Gill, prior to my election in my present constituency, I fought Cardiff South and Penarth, which is my home city. Cardiff has always been a calm city, with lots of nationalities and no racial tension at all, but it was very evident in the 2010 campaign, when I stood there, that a number of the elders of very stable communities—Somali, Sikh, Hindu and so on—were saying, “The Government have to get a handle on this.” This is on your cohesion point. There was growing anxiety among people who had been here for a very long time, who had been accepted and who had an absolute right to be here. They were starting to feel uneasy that, because the problem had got slightly out of control, everybody was being put in the same bracket. Those struck me as interesting comments, coming from a community from which one might not have expected them. It certainly was not leading in any way to a more cohesive and calm society.
Manjit Gill: The questions of cohesion and support for communities are complex, as you imply. I recognise that, and I recognise that controls will probably need to be imposed. Those are questions for others. All I am saying is that in the imposition of those controls, you have to respect the individuals who are going to be affected and the human rights of those individuals, and do it in accordance with certain principles of law and policies that you have signed up to. That is all, and you can still build a cohesive society.
The Chair
Six Members are trying to get in, so just bear that in mind—we have 35 minutes to go.
Kelly Tolhurst
Q 234 Can I make a comment? Thank you for that. I would say one thing. Every day, people in this country break the law, intentionally or unintentionally, and cause death, and it wrecks their lives—British citizens, who have a legal right to be here. I was not really comfortable with the way you tried to make a death caused by road accident a lower-level activity, because—
Manjit Gill: I’m sorry, that is not what I was saying. Death by dangerous driving is serious. I am not seeking to diminish the offence; please do not misunderstand me. What I am seeking to point to is the fact that sometimes these offences occur, for which someone is rightly sentenced, but that does not mean necessarily that they are to be thrown out of the country. People know that that is the position but they tend to be forced into a certain decision making.
The Chair
Thank you, Mr Hoare. Gosh, I am surrounded by a lot of lawyers, which is not good for an accountant. There are two Members who have been patiently waiting. With the permission of the Committee, I will call them and see what time we have over for the rest. Mims Davies.