Immigration Bill

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I, too, congratulate the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) on his new role. I agree with much of what he said. We on the SNP Benches acknowledge, are proud of the fact and prefer to emphasise that people who choose this country as their new home make a tremendous contribution to our public services, our economy, our culture and, most importantly for many of our citizens, our family lives.

From our point of view, the Bill does not deserve a Second Reading because—it is important to put this on the record—we regard the Government’s net migration target of tens of thousands as entirely unhelpful, as well as utterly unrealistic, and the Bill will bring its realisation not a second closer. Indeed, I genuinely doubt whether any member of the Government thinks that that target is achievable. That is why it is fundamentally dishonest to continue to go through the motions of pursuing it. A target that is virtually impossible for the Government to deliver can only further undermine public confidence in government and in immigration control. A Bill designed to pursue a bad target is likely to lead to bad law, and so it is with this Immigration Bill. In a sense, this is immigration theatre: the Government want to be seen to be doing something, so they go through the motions of yet another Immigration Bill—and to hell with the consequences.

That is our starting point in considering the Bill, and although that is clearly one of the key issues we need to address, the other issue that all hon. Members must consider, regardless of whether they agree with us about the net migration target, is different. For even those in the Chamber who want immigration to be cut back need to ask themselves: what will the Bill achieve in reality, where is the evidence for that and what will the cost be in terms of civil liberties, human rights, the rule of law, community cohesion and the other aspects of life in this country that we hold dear? Regardless of one’s starting point in this debate, when those simple tests are applied, the Bill fails them utterly. It therefore does not deserve a Second Reading.

The Bill fails those simple tests because if it is to be effective and achieve anything, it requires effective Government agencies. Is there any area of policy where the Government have proven less effective, reliable and up to the job than immigration? John Reid described the immigration directorate as “not fit for purpose” in 2006. Just two years ago, the Home Secretary said that

“the performance of what remains of UKBA is still not good enough.”

She described it as a “troubled organisation” that

“struggles with the volume of its casework”.

She criticised its IT systems and its reliance on manual data entry and paper files. She said:

“The agency is often caught up in a vicious cycle of complex law and poor enforcement of its own policies”.—[Official Report, 26 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 1500-1501.]

She abolished the UK Border Agency.

Are we really to believe that UK Visas and Immigration is now so well organised that we can feel comfortable providing it and its officers with swathes of new powers and responsibilities, while sweeping away its accountability to courts and tribunals? The Home Secretary may be formidable but, with respect, she is not a miracle worker. Another round of viciously complex legislation is the last thing we need, as anyone who deals with UK Visas and Immigration, including hon. Members, will surely understand.

The Bill also fails the tests because to be effective it will rely on civilians, including landlords and landladies. We are setting off down a road of amateur immigration control, as if we are to become a nation of immigration officers. Again, anyone who deals regularly with immigration work, including hon. Members, will be well aware of what a complex issue this is. It is not one in which it is appropriate for amateurs to be involved in enforcement. As with decisions of the Home Office, we search in vain in the Bill for proper rights of appeal and redress against amateur enforcement decisions. Indeed, judicial scrutiny of evictions is torn apart.

The Bill fails because it is not based on evidence of what is effective in ensuring that immigration rules are complied with, as the shadow Home Secretary said. The clearest example, which he set out, is the so-called right to rent provisions. The House was assured by Ministers that the right to rent legislation would remain light touch and be tested thoroughly, with the results of the tests being used to inform further development. Yet here we are, several months after the Prime Minister announced its roll-out, with proposals to move away from the soft-touch approach envisaged by hon. Members. The House is yet to see the results of the Government’s pilot scheme. I agree with the shadow Secretary of State that that is a most unacceptable way of treating the House.

What was the point of the Government consulting on asylum support, when the Bill was published just a week after the consultation closed, without any Government analysis of the responses, let alone a reaction? Much of the evidence that is available on employment, right to rent and asylum support suggests that the Bill will, in some respects, make immigration control more difficult by driving people and families away from regular contact with immigration authorities. This is a politically motivated, rather than evidence-led, piece of legislation.

The Bill not only fails the tests but becomes dangerous when we consider the costs that will come with it. Even if it might somehow shave a pitiful few thousand off the net migration figure, what price are we paying to do that? The effects of the Bill should appal traditional Conservatives. It will tie up landlords and landladies in immigration red tape and put them at risk of prison sentences. It will arm immigration officers with broad new powers. Most fundamentally, it will strike a significant blow against community cohesion.

The Home Secretary spoke about community cohesion last week, yet her Government’s explicit and almost dystopian goal is to create a “hostile climate”, as if we can hermetically seal off the bad migrants, while the rest of the multicultural UK goes about its business as usual. That approach reached its lowest ebb with the horrendous “go home” vans, which illustrated the key point that the hostile climate that the Government seek to create affects all of us who live in it.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in commending the work of the integration networks in cities and communities across Scotland? During the recess, I visited the Maryhill integration network, which does a huge job in helping people to adapt to Scottish society. The stories that I heard from immigrants and asylum seekers there would be enough to make anyone weep. Ministers ought to meet the integration networks to experience at first hand the issues that face asylum seekers in our country.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

That is precisely the sort of work that the Government should support, rather than going through the motions of pursuing their impossible net migration target.

[Andy Burnham]

I am grateful for the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman has introduced his remarks and for what he has said. He talked about right to rent. Does he agree that, in the absence of any evidence from the Government on the pilot, we have to accept what has been produced by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants? As I said in my speech, its findings are extremely troubling. If we accept those findings, it is impossible to support the Bill tonight because of its potential to cause widespread discrimination against British citizens too.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I, too, have read the JCWI report and will refer to its findings shortly.

In summary, the Bill pursues the wrong goals by the wrong methods and at tremendous cost, so we should decline to give it a Second Reading.

I shall outline briefly our views on the key clauses and my hon. Friends will expand on those views in the course of the debate. Not wishing to be relentlessly negative, let me turn first to one part of the Bill that is positive. We welcome the provisions at the start of the Bill that will establish a director of labour market enforcement. We have questions about resourcing, powers and whether all the necessary agencies will be involved, but the principle has our support. We agree that the focus of our attention should be on employers who exploit undocumented labour to the detriment not just of undocumented workers, but resident workers who are competing for jobs and businesses that comply with the rules.

[Drew Hendry]

The Government say that they want to tackle slavery and exploitation. Does my hon. Friend agree that these measures will drive more people into vulnerable situations and put them at risk of being exploited in the labour market?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the Bill holds that risk. I will turn in a moment to the criminalisation of working, which might cause that problem.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The SNP spokesman is right that there should be a greater emphasis on employers who employ illegal immigrants, but does he accept that even the powers that the Government have at present are not being used against employers? Looking at civil penalty notices, less than half have been paid, a third have been written off and the rest remain unpaid. There does not seem to be enforcement against employers even under the legislation that is available.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Once again, I agree absolutely with the hon. Gentleman. It has been a habit in the field of immigration to take the approach that if at first you don’t succeed, legislate and legislate again. We need not constant legislation but to use the powers that the Government already have.

The Government must focus on enforcement. We agree that we should look again at further sanctions for those who exploit undocumented labour. We will therefore look sympathetically but carefully at the wording of the proposed amended criminal offence for employers.

We have significant concern about the proposals to criminalise undocumented workers contained in clause 8. The notion of criminalising a person for working is controversial, especially given that prosecutions are already possible for breaches of immigration law under section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971, as the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) said. The problem is an absence not of criminal sanctions but of proper enforcement measures by Government agencies. We believe strongly that the speculative possibility of shaving a small amount off the net migration target will be outweighed by the significant danger highlighted by organisations that work with victims of trafficking, and that some of the most vulnerable workers will be put in an even more vulnerable position. The Home Secretary and the Government have done good work on trafficking, slavery and exploitation, and it would be sad if that were to be undone by pushing exploited workers even further underground because of the fear of criminalisation. If that is the effect, such measures will make immigration and labour market enforcement harder rather than easier.

Another area where dangers outweigh speculative benefits concerns the right to rent provisions. The shadow Secretary of State referred to the helpful study by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. Its findings are absolutely stark, and include poor compliance and widespread ignorance among the unfortunate landlords and landladies who are supposed to police the right to rent. More significantly, those findings suggest that landlords are—perhaps understandably—less likely to consider someone who does not have a British passport, which includes more than one in six of the UK population. There were also increased feelings of discrimination among people who have been refused a tenancy. We therefore object strongly to these proposals as they can only exacerbate such problems. We are equally opposed to the fact that the new more punitive measures—and indeed other measures on licensing—can be extended to Scotland by subordinate legislation without full parliamentary scrutiny in this Chamber, and without the consent of the Scottish Parliament, where decisions on housing should be made.

We have serious concerns about part 3 of the Bill which, in combination with other measures, would deliver a stunning extension of powers to immigration officers and others who are not part of the police force, and not trained or supervised accordingly. Although we intend to support the reasoned amendment, we have some difficulties with this area, and it would be useful if, when winding up the debate, the spokesperson for the official Opposition said a little more about what new enforcement powers they want.

The Bill provides immigration officers with significant new powers to enter premises, search, seize, retain and arrest, and all in the face of serious reported abuses and evidence of the inefficient exercise of existing powers. We agree with Amnesty International that

“the Home Office should be concentrating on improving its performance with the powers it already possesses rather than being handed still more powers”

and we would require the Government to make a strong case for each new power before we could support them.

Equally troubling new powers are provided to the Home Secretary on bail conditions, which we believe undermine the authority of the independent tribunal. We saw in September that there is widespread cross-party support in this Chamber for changes to immigration detention, but those are not the changes in the Bill. That cross-party support included demand for a 28-day time limit for immigration detention. If the Bill receives a Second Reading, we look forward to tabling an amendment that will include such a time limit, and we will happily work with others to secure that.

Continuing the trend towards a limitation of appeal rights, part 4 of the Bill provides for a sweeping extension of powers to require people to leave and appeal from abroad should an application for an extension of leave be rejected. Let us remember that huge numbers of these appeals are successful, yet they will become infinitely more difficult if appellants are moved hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from their lawyers and their appeal hearing—an unfair immigration trial in absentia. UK citizens will be affected, because if this issue principally concerns family life appeal rights, that disruption will be to family life with those British citizens—families will be split apart; valuable jobs and support will be lost.

Finally, we object to the fact that “destitution” is once more the immigration policy of choice in part 5 of the Bill. We share the concerns of British Red Cross that the provisions in this Bill, including an end to section 95 support for families with children who have exhausted their appeal rights, will force families with children into destitution and put them at risk of harm. Such a measure will also increase the risk of families absconding, and pass a significant increase in costs to local authorities who will still have a duty to prevent children from becoming destitute. The shadow Secretary of State rightly acknowledged a similar pilot project by a previous Labour Government, which found that 35 out of 116 families had disappeared, losing all contact with immigration services. Such measures make immigration control harder, not easier. Again, when the evidence is considered, it tends not to support the Bill.

These are not our only concerns with the Bill, and my hon. Friends will add to my criticisms. Declining the Bill a Second Reading is just a starting point, and the Scottish National party believes that we should be rolling back from the mistakes made by the coalition Government. We should go back to the drawing board to consider how we measure a successful immigration system. At the very least we should recognise that it is utterly inappropriate to include refugees, people’s husbands, wives and children, as well as bright young talent and the leaders of tomorrow who want to come here to study. We should get rid of the so-called right to rent provisions, not back them up with criminal sanctions. We should roll back the financial thresholds imposed on spouse and partner visas that are driving couples apart and creating what the Children’s Commissioner for England has called “Skype families”, and we should end the routine use of immigration detention.

We should address the concerns and challenges that can be caused by migration trends, and instead of scrapping schemes such as the migration impacts fund we should look at improved versions. We should consider schemes that encourage new arrivals to live in those parts of the UK that require them and will benefit from them most, including Scotland. Let devolved nations and regions have powers on immigration.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

On that point, I note there is a skills shortage occupation list for Scotland. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there should be a skills shortage occupation list for Wales, too?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I fully support such measures.

Finally, we must listen to the hugely influential legal figures who told us yesterday that the Government have got it wrong on the refugee crisis. We must introduce safe and legal routes to the UK, as well as to the EU, through broader and more humane family reunion rules, humanitarian visas and relocation schemes for those already in Europe, as well as resettlement schemes for those still in the crisis area. Those are the steps that we would want an honest, bold and forward-thinking Government to take. Instead, we have a regressive, illiberal, ill-considered and inhumane Immigration Bill that should be denied a Second Reading.