Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend pre-empts the point that I am about to come to. A few are villains, and I would be the first to concede that, along with him. Predictably, as the Home Office always does when it has a weak case, it trotted out the gory details this morning—it listed 29 rapists, 52 violent offenders, 27 child sex offenders and 43 other sex offenders—designed, no doubt, to make our blood curdle.

That brings me to the other point of these new clauses. My question to the Minister, which I hope he will answer when he winds up the debate, is: when precisely did the Government start deportation proceedings on all those serious cases? Did they start the day that those people went into prison or sufficiently far in advance that those serious villains could go straight from prison to plane, with no stop at the detention centre? No, they did not, I am sure, but I would like to hear whether the Minister thinks they did the right thing on that.

The fact is that, to borrow a phrase from a former Home Secretary, the Home Office is not fit for purpose in managing deportations. Part of the point of these new clauses is to force the Home Office to get its act together, deal with the villains and stop punishing the innocent. That is why there is a six-month delay built into the new clauses—to give it time to get a grip.

I have one simple thing to say to the House. I have long been proud of our British justice system, but I am ashamed of what our incompetent deportation system does to people who arrived on our shores already badly damaged by human trafficking and modern slavery. It is time we put it right with new clauses 7, 8, 9 and 10.

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

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I am in the unusual position of agreeing with pretty much everything that has been said by all four speakers so far, which I do not get to say very often, particularly in relation to my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara).

We in the SNP believe that this is a bad Bill—bad for families and bad for businesses—that sells EU nationals short and extends the scope of the hostile environment. Meanwhile, we have seen the Home Office move from disinterest in specific solutions for devolved nations to disdain bordering sometimes on contempt. It has been made clear during the passage of the Bill that there is to be no remote areas pilot scheme, despite that being a recommendation of the Migration Advisory Committee and an earlier Home Office commitment. Our amendments give Parliament a last chance to remedy these defects, and we will support other amendments that seek to find a silver lining to this Bill, such as amendments on putting a time limit on immigration detention, protecting care leavers, and protecting family reunion rights.

Turning first to the issue of family, sadly, this Bill will destroy more families by extending the scope of some of the most anti-family migration rules on earth. The degree of complacency that there is in Parliament about the damage these rules do to families and children surprises me. Five years ago, just three years after the rules were introduced, England’s Children’s Commissioner estimated there were nearly 15,000 Skype families in the UK—kids separated from a parent overseas because of these ludicrous financial thresholds. These rules do not even take into account the prospective income of the persons applying to come into the country. The commissioner said at the time:

“Many of the children interviewed for this research suffer from stress and anxiety, affecting their well-being and development. It is also likely to have an impact on their educational attainment and outcomes because they have been separated from a parent, due to these inflexible rules which take little account of regional income levels or family support available.”

Amendment 33 puts a brake on extension of these rules and, as the commissioner recommended, starts putting the heart back into the policy.

A second group of families that are being put in an impossible position by this Bill are those formed by UK citizens living across the EEA who may in future want to come back here with their family. These are UK nationals who would have had no reason to doubt that if they had a family while abroad, they would have derived rights to return here with their family members to the UK without having to jump the impossible hurdles of the UK’s domestic family migration rules; they could not have predicted Brexit, and applying the UK family rules to them, denying many a right to return here with their family, would seem incredibly unfair.

To be fair to the Minister, he has acknowledged that there is an issue here and has provided a grace period until 2022, during which such families can return, but this is essentially just kicking the can a little bit further down the road. It still leaves many with horrible decisions to make: do they uproot their families now, just in case they do not qualify to return later on? None of these families could have predicted that they would be in this position, so why not remove the cut-off point altogether, as amendment 38 seeks to ensure?

Finally on the issue of family, we are 100% behind the cross-party amendment on family reunion. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) will say much more about that shortly, and we fully support what the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has already said, but it is plain to see that, despite talking a good game, the Government’s proposals mean they are backsliding on earlier commitments made to the House; they mean fewer safe legal routes for children to get to family here, and that means more children risking dangerous, unsafe routes. The Government’s stance is a boon for traffickers and people smugglers and a disaster for children and families, and that is why we must support new clause 29.

This Bill is not just anti-family; it is anti-business. I have spoken enough at previous stages about the huge problems that salary and skills thresholds will cause when the new system is brought into force, but today I want to focus briefly on the problems that the Bill will cause even if a job qualifies for a visa under the tier 2 system. Our system will make it unbelievably difficult and expensive to bring workers in, and will make this country an eye-wateringly unattractive place for people to come to. Figures from the international immigration law firm Fragomen show that under the future immigration system a tier 2 worker who enters the UK to work for five years with a partner and three kids could potentially involve a total payment to the Home Office of £27,000 upfront from October, once costs such as sponsorship licence fees and the immigration health surcharge are included. That is over 12 times as much as the equivalent for Canada and over 17 times as much as Germany, and it is similarly uncompetitive for other family arrangements.

Of course, skilled workers from the EEA are able to work in any other EEA country without paying a penny and with no need for the stress and uncertainty of a visa application. So if there is a skilled and sought-after French worker, that person can go to Dublin without paying a penny, no questions asked, but to get to Belfast they will need to pay many thousands of pounds and endure a Home Office visa process. It is a perfect incentive for skilled workers to go elsewhere, and it is a perfect incentive for key employers to move their businesses elsewhere. That is why we have tabled new clause 17, so that the Government have to be upfront and open with Parliament about the costs they are imposing on businesses and unskilled workers.

It is also why we have introduced new clause 16, a first step to removing the ridiculous immigration health surcharge, which makes up most of these humungous fees—a nonsensical double poll tax on workers, which is set to increase to £624 per person per year, all of which needs to be paid upfront.

So this Bill risks making it very hard to attract European workers to come to the UK in future, but what of the EU workers who are already here and other EU nationals? Amendment 32 would ensure that all EU citizens who are already here have automatic rights to remain and physical proof of their status. We support new clause 2, which would put in place that same right for looked-after children. Assuming, with regret, that the Government are not about to do that, they need to tell us much more about how they will respond when we wake up on 1 July next year to find an extra few hundred thousand undocumented EU migrants, without rights and potentially subject to removal. What will the Home Office do when a 70-year-old French woman writes to say: “I had permanent residence under the old scheme. I didn’t think I needed to apply, but now the DVLA have refused my driving licence and they say I’m here illegally.” What is the Home Office going to do in such circumstances?

The Government say that they will be “reasonable”, but what exactly does that mean? In Committee, the Minister helpfully explained that he will publish guidance for caseworkers with a non-exhaustive list of examples in which late applications will be allowed. That would be welcome and useful, but the key point is that I want to see it—and I want to see it before we close the EU settlement scheme to applications. Parliament should know precisely how late applications are to be treated before it allows the scheme to close. That is what new clause 34 would ensure.

Two other new clauses seek to push the Government towards fairer treatment of EEA nationals. New clause 36 flags up a new problem relating to EEA nationals who seek to become UK citizens. In fairness to previous Home Office Ministers, when the settlement scheme was established, the Home Office did not insist, as it could have done, on proof of comprehensive sickness insurance in deciding who had been legitimately exercising free movement rights. For some reason known only to itself, the Home Office has now decided to insist on that when it comes to applications for citizenship. That seems an awful miserly approach to take, and I urge the Minister to revisit it.

New clause 21 flags up the issue of those EEA nationals who have a right in law to register as British citizens, and I am grateful for the cross-party support for the clause. We are talking not about adults who have made a proactive choice to come here but about children and young people who were born here or who have been here since they were young, whose parents have subsequently settled or who have lived the first 10 years of their life here. In short, they are children and young people who had no choice over the fact that this is their home country. In law they have just as much right to British citizenship as you, Madam Deputy Speaker, or me; the only difference is that they have to register. When Parliament passed the relevant careful laws, the fee for the process was set simply at the cost of processing, but it has now rocketed to over £1,000—just to access British citizenship. That is profiteering on the backs of children and it has to stop.

Finally, I turn to the issue of the devolved nations. The end of free movement will have drastic implications for Scotland, and if anything the challenges for Northern Ireland will be even more extreme. Home Office disinterest in any notion of a differentiated system has transformed into hostility. New clause 33, which has cross-party support, simply makes the modest proposal that, instead of its usual dismissive attitude, the Home Office looks seriously at the options for addressing issues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. With the Government refusing to look at any regional variation, some in Scotland had at least taken comfort from the MAC recommendation of a remote areas pilot scheme to encourage migration to areas that have a very small labour market. Originally, the Home Office accepted that recommendation, yet in Committee the Government said it had been abandoned. New clause 24 would restore that provision, and I certainly hope that MPs from all parties who represent constituencies with remote areas will insist that the Home Office thinks again.

It is clearer than ever that the only way we will have an immigration system that remotely reflects our needs and circumstances and fixes the injustices that it contains is if we design one ourselves but, given the Home Office intransigence, I have no problem making the case that control over migration will be a key advantage of independence.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

There is no doubt that the Bill represents an important milestone in both the restructuring of the UK outside the European Union and the fulfilment of the promise that we made to, and that was endorsed by, the British people at the 2019 general election to end free movement. As an overarching policy, it is one that I endorse but, as with any wholesale reform to a national system—in this case immigration—there will be people caught up in the shifting sands created around them who, because of their own personal circumstances, will need specific understanding, attention and support to prevent them from being pushed to the very edges of society. Those people include, as we have heard, children in care and care leavers entitled to ongoing support. To that end, as a former Children’s Minister, I instinctively have sympathy for new clause 2, which proposes the provision of automatic settled status for all children in care and care leavers. In the short time available to me, I shall confine my remarks to new clause 2.

As we transition to a new legal framework for our immigration system, it is only right that, as my hon. Friend the Minister has said previously, we help to ensure that no one is left behind. As I understand it, new clause 2 is an attempt to put that principle into practice for children in care and care leavers, rather than leave it to chance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dehenna Davison]

One could certainly argue that; I would argue the opposite, but I thank my hon. Friend for his point. Let me give a tangible example. Had a 28-day limit been in place in December, it would have resulted in the immediate release of some foreign nationals who were awaiting deportation, including 29 rapists, 27 child sex offenders and 52 violent offenders, including a number of murderers, and more.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The hon. Lady is doing a good job of regurgitating what the Government put out this morning—

[Steve Brine]

Patronising.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Well, it is, almost literally. All of these points can be rebutted. This series of amendments provides for a six-month process in which the Government could transition, so it is not an overnight thing. There would be six months for the Government to deal with foreign national offenders and to have them removed.

[Dehenna Davison]

The point I make is that these are some of the most serious offenders, and, as I said, my constituents would not accept something along those lines. Furthermore, when we look at statistics on current detention times, we see that for the majority those are very short, with 74% detained for less than 29 days. For those held for substantial time periods, there must be a compelling reason, such as public safety. For example, we have the example of a man who gang-raped a 16-year-old, has a history of absconding and has delayed his own removal with five unsuccessful judicial reviews. Lawful immigration detention is needed to keep the public safe, so I cannot support these amendments. My constituents want a fair immigration system but they also rightly expect that system to keep them safe.

Turning to new clause 2—

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bowie]

If that is indeed the case, it is shameful. They should be doing everything in their power, from the position of responsibility they hold, to help and support those in this country who may be unsure about their future status here. They should urge them to apply for settled status, so that they can remain, and contribute to our country as we move forward.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman may rest assured that the Scottish Government are investing a lot of time and resources in encouraging people to take part in the EU settlement scheme. We have our differences on immigration, but will he join me in encouraging the Home Office to think again about having abandoned the remote areas pilot scheme, which would be of huge benefit to lots of constituencies around Scotland—such as his, I suspect?

[Andrew Bowie]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s views on that issue. In fact, I will come to the seasonal agricultural workers scheme briefly in my speech—if I get that far this afternoon.

In Scotland we have a problem—as I said in my speech on 11 February in this place, we are, as a country, simply not attracting enough people to live, work or invest. The Office for National Statistics estimates that Scotland attracted only 8% of immigrants to the United Kingdom between 2016 and 2018. That is fewer than the north-west of England, Yorkshire and Humber, the west midlands, the east of England, the south-east, London or the south-west. We now have a growing population in Scotland and we need it to continue to grow, but even with freedom of movement we are not attracting enough people to make up for what will soon become a declining population, with deaths already outnumbering births. In 2019, there were 7,000 more deaths than births in Scotland and the problem is even starker in rural communities, as the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) was just saying.

In speaking to new clause 1 the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute was right to draw attention to the effects that the changes to our immigration system will have on the health and social care sector. Although I do not support new clause 1, I urge the Government here and the Government in Edinburgh to work together to find imaginative and creative solutions to the issue, and to work with all stakeholders to see what can be done through the UK-wide immigration system to support and continue to grow the Scottish population, particularly with regard to the health and social care sector on which we rely so much.

Before I move on, it would be remiss of me not to use the opportunity of a debate on immigration to talk about seasonal agricultural workers. I know that I am at risk of sounding like a broken record, as the Minister has heard representations from Scottish Members of Parliament on this issue a few times before, but the fact remains that Scottish agriculture relies on, and therefore simply needs, seasonal labour. A farm in my constituency saw a 15% shortage of seasonal labour last year, which led to an estimated loss of over 100 tonnes of produce. Although I welcome the quadrupling of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme from 2,500 to 10,000 workers—a very welcome first step in this direction of travel—the needs of Scottish agriculture for seasonal labour are, in fact, considerably higher.

Numerous amendments and new clauses have been tabled to the Bill, and no doubt they all have a good intention behind them: Members want to create an immigration system that is fair, humane and understandable. I say in particular to my hon. and right hon. Friends who tabled new clause 29 that although the intent is good, we must allow the negotiations with the European Union time to play out. We have presented an offer to the EU on the future reunion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, where it is in the child’s best interests. For the UK to act unilaterally now—as the amendments seek us to do—would undermine the negotiations and make it less likely that we would secure a reciprocal arrangement, which might mean that the number of children we could help would be reduced.

We in this country are rightly proud of the steps that we have taken over the years to provide shelter to refugees fleeing war and persecution from around the world. We have been a beacon of light to the poor and oppressed of the world for generations, and we continue to be that country. We are rightly proud that so many people across the world seek to call the United Kingdom—this country—their home, and I am proud that in moving the Bill forward today we will be taking one more step towards making our immigration system fairer, non-discriminatory and fit for the 21st century.