Nationality and Borders Bill

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

I will not take too long in my remarks, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I wish to make a couple of clear points about foreign and Commonwealth service personnel who serve in our armed forces and then have to pay to live in this country afterwards, and to use public services. There has been wide, broad, and deep support for action on this issue over the past few days, including from people who really do not like to get involved in politics. Whether it is the Royal British Legion, Help for Heroes and the veteran community or beyond, in our communities up and down the country, people recognise the morality behind the issue of charging those who serve to live in this country.

I speak to all sorts of people in the veterans community. Last night, I had a conversation with Prince Harry about this. He has contributed hugely to the veterans debate and I wanted his view. He said to me, “It’s not only morally right but would mean so much to those who have given so much.” That is not a political intervention; it demonstrates the moral purpose of this measure. It is an almost “effortless change”, as he said, for this Government to make, for us to finally see through what we have said to these people for so long. We owe it to them. They are our brothers and sisters. They have served with us over many years. I recognise that there are things going around today saying how we should not be doing this in primary legislation, for lots of reasons. I will come to that in a minute, but this has been going on for 20 years for these people, and at some point we have to grasp the nettle and make sure that we look after them.

The money is meaningless. I will address the figures that have been put out by the Government and others. On Monday, I was told that the Government could not do this because it would cost £160 million. That is garbage. Do not take my word for it; look at the Royal British Legion, which has campaigned on this issue for many years. I pay tribute to Members across the House, including those on the Conservative side, who have been Defence Ministers and have tried to deal with this problem but have hit the same issues we are hitting at the moment.

On that £160 million, the Royal British Legion has studied the figures. If someone who served in the military in this country applies for a visa, all their dependants use a special code. Someone can only use that code if they have served or they are a dependant, so we can pull the data between 2016 and 2020. It has never cost more than £1 million a year, so the majority of those fees are profit—a charge on our service personnel to stay here.

Let me address the consultation issue and the 12-year period. I do not want to air dirty linen in public, but I was there when that 12-year figure was decided on. It was done on a visit. It was plucked out of the air. There is no evidence whatsoever to back it up. There is evidence in the Department that someone from a foreign or Commonwealth country who serves in the military is likely to serve between six and seven years. Twelve years is well outside that. It is well beyond what our peer nations do, it is well beyond what our allies do, and it is incredibly unkind to these individuals who have worked and served for so long.

I have given the moral case and the financial case, but ultimately this decision comes down to Conservative Members. The whole country is aligned on this issue, and it has been for a very long time. All the political parties will support new clause 52 except the Conservatives, and we are the ones who made a promise that we would do something about this. That is unconscionable. Colleagues can of course take the calls from the Defence Secretary and others, with these figures that I have demonstrated are not true, or they can think about what they are here to do.

I am here to represent the Fijian family in Plymouth who left the military after nine years having fought in Afghanistan and Iraq; they may have been members of the United Kingdom Special Forces group—a relentless operational tempo. Finally they leave, their kids go to school and they save up for a house, but they have to pay a £10,000 bill to stay in this country that they fought for over so many years. Can colleagues really look that family in the eye and say, “No, you have to pay; we have to make a profit out of you for you to stay in this country, despite the fact that you were prepared to commit so much to the privileges and the freedoms we enjoy”?

Finally, I say to colleagues that the tide changes very quickly in politics. This issue has been around for 20 years now, and the tide changes. I know what it is like when people put the screws on and ask you to vote a certain way, but the tide changes. All we can do is what we think is right on the day. The moral and financial case for this measure has never been clearer, and I urge colleagues to consider it carefully before they cast their vote.

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

Rather than fixing the broken asylum system, the provisions in this part of the Bill risk breaking it all together, endangering, criminalising, delaying, warehousing, offshoring and depriving of their rights those who simply seek our protection. The Uyghur, the Syrian and the persecuted Christian I spoke about on Second Reading, as well as the Afghans who are now in danger because of events subsequent to that debate, all face those bleak impacts despite our best efforts in Committee.

Contrary to the claims that the Bill is about safe routes, it actually does not add a single one, while threatening to restrict vital family reunion rights, pushing more people towards smugglers and dangerous crossings.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his forensic work on the Bill in Committee. He correctly says that the Bill does not propose any new safe legal routes, but there is one provision that does—new clause 10, in the name of the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), of which I am a co-sponsor. It proposes having a humanitarian visa that people could apply for in France so that they could start the process of coming to the United Kingdom there. Can my hon. Friend confirm that SNP MPs will support new clauses 10 and 11?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for her intervention, and I am happy to confirm that the SNP will support them. Indeed, there are a range of new clauses from both sides of the House, from Back Benchers in particular, that seek to add safe routes, and they all have our support. For our part, we have tabled new clause 35, which would expand refugee family reunion in a way that this House supported in 2018 in the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil).

Our other proposals try once more to limit some of the harm that the Bill will do at every stage in the asylum process. However, let me first welcome the amendments from the Joint Committee on Human Rights and others regarding the appalling maritime pushback clauses and the criminalisation of rescuers—provisions that risk serious harm even before an asylum seeker is able to enter the asylum process.

For those seeking asylum in the UK who do get here, is it not outrageous that they will be criminalised under an offence in clause 39 punishable by up to four years in prison? That is why our amendment 116 states clearly and simply that if Afghans, Syrians, Uyghurs, Christian converts or others are at risk of persecution in their countries of nationality, their mere entry or arrival for the purposes of seeking asylum is not a crime. Is it not extraordinary that that very idea has to be debated?

Clause 11 means that, having faced the criminal justice system, our Afghan and his colleagues will be stuck in one of the Government’s asylum warehouses. We say that we should not go down that path—a path that the Irish have just rejected as utterly failed and that brought shocking results at Napier Barracks—and that we should make community dispersal work. Our new clause 36 would ensure that dispersal authorities get the funding they need to undertake their vital role.

Clause 15 means that, stuck in that warehouse, the Syrian and his colleagues will have to wait for months on end before their asylum cases are looked at, because their claims will be deemed inadmissible under a ludicrously broad range of criteria that will allow the Home Secretary to say that another country should take responsibility—even if there is not the remotest chance of that actually happening, there is no real reason why it should happen or there are strong reasons, such as family ties, why the claim should actually be considered here. The Home Secretary could even insist that a human rights-abusing country that pays no more than lip service to the refugee convention should take charge, even when our Syrian or Afghan has absolutely no connection to that country whatever.

Amendments 132 to 142, drafted with advice from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, seek to put the necessary safeguards and restrictions in place. We are not saying that it is never appropriate for other countries to be asked to take over responsibility, but crucial safeguards must exist, and they are absolutely nowhere in this Bill. Already this year, 7,000 or so people have had their claims put on hold through inadmissibility procedures. Just 10 were removed. The remaining 6,990 are either still waiting or have been moved into the asylum process. They have been waiting for absolutely no good reason at all and almost certainly at a cost of tens of millions of pounds to the taxpayer. The whole set-up is absolutely ludicrous.

Having toughed out the additional delays, the Uyghur and his colleagues will find that it is the Home Office that finally considers their asylum claims, but we ask why. Time and again the Home Office has shown itself as not fit for purpose, which is why new clause 37 asks us to look to the Canadian model of an independent asylum decision-making body, to ensure that protection claims no longer suffer from political interference and politically motivated targets. Sadly, far from supporting independent decision making, a whole series of pernicious clauses in the Bill would see this Parliament telling decision makers what inferences to draw about evidence provided as part of a claim. We say, “Leave assessments of evidence to the decision makers who actually see it. We don’t get to see it.” That is why amendments 118 to 120 seek to remove clauses 18, 21 and 25.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

Will my hon. Friend take an intervention?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Very briefly.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I have been told to be very brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is my hon. Friend aware of Dr Nick Martin, a medical doctor who had been in the British Navy for a number of years and worked on Manus Island, one of the offshoring projects in Australia? He describes himself as “right of centre” and not a natural refugee supporter until he saw the vile way people were treated—[Interruption.] Well, we are modelling this on the Australian system. Does my hon. Friend agree we should listen to the voices of the people who have lived through this, rather than the people who tell us it will be all roses?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The evidence about how disgraceful the Australian system was is overwhelming. My hon. Friend adds helpfully to that.

Despite all that, our Syrian, Afghan and Uyghur will almost certainly be recognised as refugees, but let us say that the persecuted Christian convert is refused because the judge is only 49% that he will be murdered on removal. Of those who challenge refusals, around 40% have been successful on appeal in recent years, but in this Bill appeal rights are restricted yet again, and certain appeal processes are accelerated.

Our amendment 121 would delete the Government’s attempt to reinstate the detained fast-track process, which was previously ruled unlawful. Amendment 145 removes another expedited appeal process. It is the Home Office that needs to address delays, not our tribunals. The SNP is also fully behind cross-party attempts to place time limits on the use of detention.

Even if our persecuted Christian, after appeal, joins the others in being recognised as a refugee, the misery this Bill will inflict on them is far from complete. The group will now face all the discriminatory measures heaped on by clause 11, which empowers the Home Secretary to punish recognised refugees through the insecurity of temporary residence, through no recourse to public funds, through limited family reunion and any other form of discrimination or punishment she thinks fit. It is a truly astonishing and outrageous provision. Amendment 114 specifically exempts Afghans, Syrians, Uyghurs, Christian converts and other refugees from such disgraceful treatment, and we fully support amendment 8 to remove the clause altogether.

If our Afghan or any of the others happens to be a young person whose age is challenged, the Bill risks making life especially difficult for them, thanks to the provisions of part 4, rammed into the Bill in Committee against the advice of numerous organisations and experts. The clauses will ramp up the use of age assessments by altering established guidance on when assessments are required, requiring them even when there is no reason to doubt a child’s age. They will allow the Home Office to meddle in an area that should be a matter for child protection and safeguarding teams, and to introduce new, unsupported, inaccurate and unethical scientific methods of assessment. Our amendments 122 to 126 seek to undo the damage of those provisions and leave those with expertise, not an anti-refugee agenda, in charge.

Finally, our new clause 32 simply requires the Bill to be interpreted so far as possible in line with the refugee convention. If the Government maintain there is nothing contrary to the convention in the Bill, surely they will have no problem with that new clause? The reality is, as numerous published legal opinions show, that these provisions are a blatant assault on the refugee convention, and the most vulnerable in the world will suffer. Our amendments seek to ameliorate some of the most outrageous aspects of the Bill, but the truth is that the whole thing needs to be canned.