Draft Immigration Act 2014 (Current Accounts) (Excluded Accounts and Notification Requirements) Regulations 2016

Simon Kirby Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 General Committees

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Simon Kirby)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Immigration Act 2014 (Current Accounts) (Excluded Accounts and Notification Requirements) Regulations 2016.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. Effective immigration controls require responsibility to be shared. Recognising that shared responsibility, the Immigration Act 2014 took action to limit the services available to known illegal migrants. That included prohibiting firms from opening current accounts for a disqualified person—an illegal migrant liable for removal or deportation who the Home Secretary considers should be denied access to a current account.

The Immigration Act 2016 builds on those measures, targeting already open accounts that were either opened before the 2014 Act came into force or opened legally by a person who later became disqualified because of a change in their immigration status. The 2016 Act requires firms to check details of their current account holders against the details of disqualified persons provided to them via CIFAS, a specified anti-fraud organisation. They are then required to report the results of the checks to the Home Office and, if instructed by the Home Office, to close accounts or prevent continued access to them.

The 2016 Act delegated power to the Treasury—hence my appearance here today—to make regulations that detail how the regime should work. This negative statutory instrument should be read alongside the Immigration Act 2014 (Current Accounts) (Compliance &c) Regulations 2016, which were made on 7 November. It prescribes that firms carry out quarterly immigration checks, and it sets out the Home Office’s response to notifications from firms, and a requirement for firms to inform the Home Office of steps they have taken to comply with the duty to close accounts.

I will now take each of the three main areas of the statutory instrument in turn. The first is the types of account on which firms must make immigration checks. The 2016 Act requires firms to make checks on current accounts and the statutory instrument specifies that not all current accounts are within scope of that requirement. Firms are not required to extend checks to all existing current accounts. They are required to conduct checks on existing personal current accounts only, and not on corporate or business accounts. That reflects the Government’s ongoing view that current accounts are the gateway product to other financial services and a settled life in the UK. It also takes into account existing prohibitions, which are in the 2014 Act, meaning that a disqualified person cannot evade the legislation by closing a current account and opening a business account as a sole trader or a charity.

At this point, I should confirm that the Government’s intention in relation to the term “current account” has not changed from that outlined in the debates on the 2014 regulations. My colleague, the previous Economic Secretary, set out that intention on 10 November 2014.

On notifications, if a firm makes an immigration check on a personal current account and finds a match, the bank is required to notify the Home Office using a secure Home Office portal. The statutory instrument requires firms to provide certain information in that notification, including details of any other accounts that the firm holds for the disqualified person and the balances held in them. Information about regular payments into accounts above a threshold of £200 has been included in the requirements, to allow the Home Office to identify patterns of payments that might constitute evidence of illegal working. The requirement to provide information is limited to what firms hold and can retrieve; it does not require further investigation of data not held. The Home Office will then confirm the match, based on its data, and instruct the firm on the next steps. Depending on the information provided, and the details of the disqualified person’s case, the Home Office may apply to court for a freezing order, or notify the firm that it is under a duty to close any accounts it holds for that person. The Committee might be interested to know that the Home Office is preparing a code of practice on freezing orders, which will be laid in Parliament in advance of implementation.

When a firm is notified of its duty to close accounts, the 2016 Act allows it to delay closure for a reasonable period to recover debt or to manage the effect on third parties. Firms will also be able to comply with the duty without closing an account, if they are able to take steps to prevent the account from being operated by the disqualified person. Firms are required to provide the Home Office with information about the steps they have taken to comply with the duty. Finally, the instrument enables the Financial Conduct Authority—the FCA—to monitor and enforce firms’ compliance. That mirrors the FCA’s existing role for the purposes of the 2014 Act.

The regulations come into force on 30 October 2017, with firms making their first check in the first quarter of 2018. I take this opportunity to thank firms for their constructive engagement with my officials regarding the regulations and I hope that members of the Committee will agree that they strike an appropriate balance. On the one hand, they create requirements on firms that are appropriately targeted and proportionate and, on the other, they achieve the policy intention of preventing continued access to banking services, and encourage those here illegally to leave the UK or to regularise their stay. I commend the statutory instrument to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Kirby]

It has been clear this morning that Members have considered this important issue in full, and clearly there are differences of opinion. I thank members of the Committee for their points—I will do my best to respond to many of them. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde mentioned rhetoric about migrants, scapegoating of migrants, and the rights of all citizens. I want to state clearly that the UK is very much open for business: it is globally facing and outward-looking and I am sure that will continue—it is one of our great strengths.

The hon. Gentleman asked about vulnerable disqualified people. Let me be clear: those with outstanding asylum applications or appeals with not be affected, nor will those who have been granted leave to be here. That is a very important point. He asked about the accuracy of data. I can assure him that the data are subject to rigorous checks at the Home Office before they are shared with anyone. It is also important to say that this will not affect anyone’s ability, within the usual rules and with the usual checks and balances, to open a bank account. There will be no de-risking by the banks. This is a quarterly exercise, a matching exercise, and it is targeted at a group of people who have no right to remain in this country.

The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East also asked about data quality. I have said that the data are subject to rigorous checks. The current account is reported to the Home Office only if there is a clear data match. The Home Office will then carry out a secondary check, and if an individual still thinks there has been a mistake, they can contact the Home Office for remedy.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse also mentioned data quality. It is always important to get these things right, and not to make mistakes. The Home Office is developing a data quality strategy intended to improve data quality. It is also important to know that this is not about stealing people’s money. Money will be returned to the account holder in the normal manner if the balance is in credit, in line with standard bank account practice.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central raised the possibility of families being forced out of their homes. Disqualified people are known illegal migrants who are liable for removal or deportation. They have exhausted all appeal rights, and the Home Secretary must consider that they should be denied access to banking services. Such people have no right to be in the UK. I will come to the important point made about that by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central also asked about living expenses. If an account is simply closed, any credit balance can be returned to the account holder as usual, in line with individual banks’ terms and conditions. If an account is frozen, it will be unfrozen when the illegal migrant leaves the UK, subject to any action related to the proceeds of crime. The purpose of the provisions is to make it difficult to live a settled life in the UK in order to encourage voluntary departure, not to confiscate assets. It is not about taking money away from people.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes raised the concept of discretion. The Home Office can exercise discretion about who should be permitted to hold an account. It is intended that that discretion should be used in exceptional circumstances—it is possible that her case might be one of them—to avoid unduly harsh consequences for vulnerable people who face a genuine obstacle to leaving the UK.

I am not sure that I have persuaded anyone to change their mind, but this is an important issue. This balanced measure is a small part of a huge tool kit of measures and encouragements, on the other side of the coin, that I have not mentioned.

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the Minister for his reassurance. He says that “exceptional circumstances” will refer to vulnerable people who face an obstacle to leaving the UK. Can he clarify that that could include exceptional circumstances involving child dependants?

[Simon Kirby]

My understanding is that the Home Office can consider any exceptional circumstances. If I have heard correctly, my hon. Friend’s case involved an appeal. Someone appealing a decision would not be subject to this legislation in the first case. I reiterate that only those people who have no right to remain and who have exhausted all the avenues available to them will be subject to it.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My point is that I have had a number of constituents over the years who have exhausted, or apparently exhausted, those avenues and been declared illegal, who have then found—to pick up on the comment made by the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield—another route to challenge the decision. Sometimes they are straightforwardly delaying until such time as they can succeed; in some instances, they are not delaying, and genuinely new evidence has come to light, or an error has been identified.

The period between being declared illegal and winning that particular point of law or correcting data that the Home Office has got wrong can be years. What the Minister is saying is that during the course of those years, they will not be able to access what little money they might have in a bank account, and will rely on the charity of friends and family, churches, food banks and mosques. To reply to the point made by the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, we are on this planet; we just disagree with the points that he is putting forward.

[Simon Kirby]

The hon. Gentleman raises a valuable point. My understanding is that if that were the case, the Home Office would be open to argument. The instrument is a small piece of legislation in a wide range of tools. I feel obliged to mention the £140 million announced at the Conservative party conference for a controlling migration fund specifically designed to ease the pressures on public services in areas of high immigration.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey raised an alternative perspective. It is about getting the balance right and providing the welcome that the UK is famous for—not putting up barriers, being outward-facing and globally-looking—while, at the same time, providing a degree of fairness when it comes to people who should not remain in this country.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

This is a genuine question. The only other issue I have with the proposed regulations is the intention to exclude a whole series of accounts from the operation of the rules, including accounts used by an individual

“for the purposes of a trade, business or profession.”

All the Minister said in that regard was that the measures are in line with earlier regulations, but I still do not quite understand the rationale for that. If that happens, surely we will be going after—for want of a better expression—the little people, whereas people with business accounts and so on are being excluded from the force of the rules altogether. I would appreciate some explanation of the rationale for that.

[Simon Kirby]

I need to be clear on this. The rationale and scope of the legislation is personal current accounts because that is felt to be the area where the legislation can have the most effect. Businesses of all sizes are unaffected. Businesses are only mentioned should someone have a current account that falls foul of the matching process, when the banks are obliged to provide all the information about the other accounts that that individual may hold. However, it does not stop any business accounts—large or small. [Official Report, Vol 618, 6 December 2016; c. 1-2MC.]

I have done my best to provide assurances on the many points made by Committee members. I know that we all share a desire for a targeted and proportionate system. I am confident that the statutory instrument represents a balanced and sensible approach to continued access to banking services by disqualified persons. I hope that hon. Members support the regulations.

Question put.