Nationality and Borders Bill

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend puts it better than I could. He has stated with crystal clarity the nature of the change, which I believe is enhanced and improved by accepting the sensible and pragmatic amendments tabled by Lord Anderson. It is also worth saying for the benefit of the House that taking out of the equation the issue of citizenship being obtained by fraud, the provision relates to 19 cases a year on average, and the changes we are making through the Bill do not alter the qualification, so no additional individuals will be brought into scope. The changes relate purely to the matter of notification.

On a procedural note, I should say that although Lord Anderson’s amendments were agreed in the other place, they were deleted when peers agreed to remove the substantive deprivation of citizenship clause from the Bill. The Government are therefore retabling the substantive clause, as amended by peers to include Lord Anderson’s amendments. I hope that meets with the favour of the House. It acts on and reflects the desire expressed for greater safeguards and greater clarity on these measures.

Amendment 5 inserts a clause specifying that nothing in the part of the Bill to which it applies authorises any policies or decisions that are incompatible with the 1951 refugee convention or the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees. It is the clear position of this Government that everything we are doing is compatible with all our obligations under international law. We do not think it is necessary to set that out on the face of the Bill. The Government therefore do not agree to the amendment.

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

The Minister will be aware that there is a massive range of legal opinion and that the opinion of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is that that is not the case at all when a lot of what is going on in part two of the Bill is in flagrant breach of the refugee convention. If the Minister is so certain that the powers do not breach the refugee convention, what is the harm to him of accepting the amendment?

[Tom Pursglove]

We do not see a need to augment the Bill in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests. A plethora of opinions are expressed in the House and more generally when we debate the nature of what is proposed and whether people think it is the right thing to do. We are clear as a Government that we think that the package of measures we are introducing through the Bill is a proportionate response to the issues we face and will fix the broken asylum system in particular. We are also clear—and I have been clear on many occasions in this House and through the various iterations of the Bill—that we will at all times live up to our international obligations.

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[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He talked about unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, but that means he is not ruling out other children being placed in awful offshore detention facilities. Will he publish an economic impact assessment on how many billions of pounds this will cost the taxpayer? It has been promised for months.

[Tom Pursglove]

I am not going to get drawn into listing all other possible exemptions to removal in that way, but I set out on Report that, for example, family groups would not be separated, because that would clearly not be in accordance with our international obligations. Clearly, much will depend on the particular circumstances of the countries we are working with. We always work in the asylum system and in the immigration space on a case-by-case basis, but I want to assure hon. Members that we will continue to uphold our international obligations and ensure that any removal is compliant with our obligations under the refugee convention and article 3 of the European convention on human rights, which protects against torture and inhuman and degrading treatment.

I am aware that there has been speculation recently about the potential costs of, and possible locations for, overseas asylum claim processing. I cannot give a running commentary on negotiations, nor share information that could tie the hands of the negotiators. I only say again that the provisions are an essential part of the suite of measures that we are introducing to deliver our objective of discouraging unwanted behaviours, such as making unnecessary and dangerous journeys, and we therefore cannot agree to the amendments.

Amendment 10 creates a more generous approach on family reunion for those who are already in Europe, which we do not consider fair. There is already generous provision in our rules for family reunion, under which more than 40,000 people have been reunited with family members in the UK since 2015. This is a single global approach to family reunion, which does not encourage what are often dangerous journeys into Europe, facilitated by smugglers and traffickers. We therefore cannot support the amendment. Similarly, amendment 11 would commit the UK to resettling at least 10,000 refugees each year.

Our view has long been that the number of refugees and people in need of protection that we resettle each year must be based on our capacity, our assessment of the international situation and our ability to care for people properly when they come to the UK. I understand that hon. Members are seeking assurances that our doors will remain open to those in need, but I respectfully suggest that what is really needed to deliver refugee resettlement is not a number but an approach—an approach that is compassionate and flexible. That is exactly what the Government are delivering through our new plan for immigration.

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[Tom Pursglove]

Let me be very clear: there is absolutely no reason why any Ukrainian should pay an evil people smuggler to come to be safe in the United Kingdom. I have set out the detail of our two generous schemes, which are uncapped and wide in capturing people’s many and varied circumstances. I would not want anybody—this applies to any group—to put their life in the hands of evil criminal gangs who have only one regard, which is to turn a profit, putting those individuals in great danger. We have had many debates about the nature and construction of the Ukrainian scheme and I am confident that there is no reason why people should resort to that means of travelling to the United Kingdom. Nobody should encourage Ukrainians, or anybody else for that matter, to make those perilous journeys.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Will the Minister give way?

[Tom Pursglove]

I have given way to the hon. Gentleman a few times and I want to conclude my remarks.

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We have all heard people say often, “Britain has a proud tradition of accepting refugees”, and indeed the Minister did not fail in this duty in his opening remarks. We all use that phrase a lot and it is largely true, if we perhaps look at history at bit sporadically. Let us take this opportunity to put ourselves in that proud tradition and show that this House can live up to the generosity of spirit that the British people are showing to Ukrainian refugees today. In that spirit, I ask the House to support Lords amendment 11.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), with whom I agree entirely. Let me start by echoing the comments of both the Minister and shadow Minister on PC Keith Palmer, whose incredibly bravery we should never forget.

It is appropriate to recognise that one or two slivers of progress have been made, for example, on BNO visas and Chagossians, but the fundamental problem is that the core idea at the heart of this Bill, which was appalling from its outset last July, remains at its heart: the idea that we should punish and dehumanise certain refugees so as to disincentivise others from coming here, all on the basis that they should stay in the first country they come to. I thought that that was a horrible idea at the time, but the subsequent events in Afghanistan and the further invasion of Ukraine highlight as never before how utterly misconceived and nonsensical the Government’s thinking was, because although most refugees do seek protection in the first country they enter, some will not, for a host of perfectly understandable reasons. The Government have recognised that, rightly, in their family scheme for Ukrainians. Of course it makes sense for Ukrainians to come to join a brother, aunt or grandparent here in the UK and not to stop in Poland or France, but this Bill will criminalise and undermine recognised refugees from Afghanistan or anywhere else who seek protection here motivated by precisely the same reasons. The Bill represents nothing less than this Government resiling from the refugee convention. The Tories are ripping up a 70-year-old convention exactly when we see that it is as crucial as ever; the Bill’s incompatibility, to lawyers out there and most people in here, is as clear as day. The Government know it as well, which is why they cannot even accept Lords amendment 5, a simple amendment that would require powers in part 2 to be exercised in accordance with the refugee convention. If the Minister is right and everything is absolutely consistent with the convention, no harm is done and there is absolutely no reason for the Government to oppose that amendment.

The House of Lords has done its best to make this Bill barely tolerable, but the Government are seeking to reverse almost every one of its eminently sensible proposals. The Government are not listening, whether to parliamentarians, international authorities or the public. Through their motions to disagree, the Government want to take us back to a Bill and a system that will see refugees criminalised with an offence punishable with up to four years in prison, conceivably with people who rescued them next to them in the dock. It is a system that would see people subject to offshoring while their claim is heard and processed. There is the ludicrous inadmissibility procedure that means nothing can happen while the Government pretend they are going to remove a person to a country they have passed through, despite having no returns agreement in place with it. Even once recognised as a refugee, an Afghan, Syrian or persecuted Christian convert, or whoever else, is going to be treated as a sub-class of refugee, with limits on recourse to public funds, no prospect of settlement and limited family reunion rights. In short, they will be unable to rebuild their life here at all, which is exactly the purpose of the Bill: deliberately making the asylum process awful. Those are just some of the most appalling aspects of the Bill that the Lords have sought to fix.

Let us consider this proposition: up to four years in prison for an Afghan or anyone else who takes an unauthorised route to get here. It is outrageous, so Lords amendment 13 and all the consequential ones should remain in place. What about this: penalising those who charitably seek to assist refugees? That is absolutely absurd, so we support Lords amendments 20 and 54 , which ensure that push-back powers are not exercised in a manner that endangers life. It is incredible that these things are even up for debate. We should not be ripping up the convention by making the unauthorised Afghan or Ukrainian arrivals second-tier citizens, deliberately destroying their prospects of rebuilding their lives. So Lords amendment 6, which deletes clause 11, must be left in place. It is hard to overstate how significant this is. As former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, the provisions of clause 11 would

“threaten the integrity of the global asylum system”.

This is about denying recognised refugees their rights under the refugee convention and it is totally unacceptable.

Where is the Government’s draft guidance about how they will use these sweeping powers? Apparently it exists, but, like so much else in relation to this Bill, they have kept it to themselves. How will decision makers decide when to use powers to strip recognised refugees of many of their rights? Who will face the burden of proof as to whether the provisions should apply? What will the standard of proof be? Will decisions take into account the individual circumstances of the refugee, in the context of the particular countries they passed through? How much discretion will decision makers have not to treat recognised refugees in this frankly disgusting manner? Any exercise of these powers will be abhorrent, but we have little idea about how these sweeping powers will be used. That is another reason we should not be providing them to the Home Secretary.

The utterly obscene idea of offshoring asylum claims must be kicked into touch. All sorts of myths have been perpetuated about how this was successful—it was not; it has been abandoned by the Australians. It did not stop—it did not exceed 300 people— because message got out that it was not worth trying to get to Australia; it stopped because the whole process was at capacity within weeks of its being launched. So we support Lords amendments 9, 52 and 53. Frankly, if Members are still thinking of resisting these amendments, they are either not interested or are utterly indifferent to the grotesque suffering it has caused those caught up in the Australian scheme. We are talking about children self-harming; suicides and suicide attempts; a mental health catastrophe; and sexual assaults. If that is not enough, perhaps Members should consider the billions of pounds such a system will cost, while achieving nothing. Yet the Home Secretary, who is now paying salaries to people responsible for the Australian disgrace, will not even publish her assessment of the costs. We have been promised the economic impact assessment repeatedly. The Home Affairs Committee was told it was to be published shortly, and that was last autumn. Here we are at ping-pong and it has been kept hidden. There must be a reason for that.

[Tom Hunt]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that when this was introduced in Australia the number of individuals who lost their lives at sea dramatically decreased, to almost zero? Surely that ought to be taken into account when assessing its effectiveness.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I take into account all the evidence we heard on this matter in the Bill Committee—all the written submissions and the oral evidence we heard. Any assessment by anyone independent of the Government behind that scheme says that none of that was attributable to the offshoring and it was actually attributable to something else I do not like, which was push-backs, but push-backs in a completely different context to those—

[Jonathan Gullis]

We both served on the Bill Committee but we seem to have a very different recollection. George Brandis, the Australian high commissioner, talked about a three-part effect, with push-back, offshoring and deterring by having tougher sanctions for those who enter illegally all having worked in tandem with one another to deter people from making the journey. That is unlike what the hon. Gentleman is trying to portray, which is that one silver bullet was the magic answer—it simply was not. It is just a shame that only two local authorities in the entirety of Scotland take part in the asylum dispersal scheme, unlike Stoke-on-Trent, which is the fifth largest contributor.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Conservative Members can continue to try to upset local authorities in Scotland and achieve absolutely nothing in doing so, but on the more substantive—

[Jonathan Gullis]

It is fact—[Interruption.]

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman has made his intervention, so I am going to try to—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Members should not make interventions when they are sitting down—end of story.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Let me answer the intervention the hon. Gentleman made while he was standing up. As I said in response to the original intervention, other than what we heard from the politician who gave evidence to us, all the impartial expert evidence was that offshoring achieved absolutely nothing; it was not anything to do with a decline in the number of drownings. The second point to make, in relation to Scottish local authorities, is exactly the same point as has been made by the Conservative party leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council: the Home Office does not step up to its responsibilities because it does not fund local authorities to undertake this work.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way after mentioning Stoke-on-Trent. The leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council is annoyed about the asylum dispersal scheme because only a third of local authorities are currently part of it. The council is asking for other areas—such as the 30-plus local authority areas in Scotland—to step up and do their bit because our city of Stoke-on-Trent is now at the one in 200 threshold in terms of refugee versus local citizen. Instead of attacking Stoke-on-Trent City Council with some vague quote, let us get into the facts of the matter. If Scotland stepped up to the plate and did its bit, Stoke-on-Trent would not have to carry the burden for the rest of the country.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Stoke-on-Trent City Council is among a group of councils that has taken the Home Office to court, and it protests about how the Home Office handles the scheme. In fairness to the Home Secretary, she agrees with the point I am making, which is that it is outrageous that local authorities have been left without proper funding to do their job. As I have said a million times in the House, once that funding is in place the hon. Gentleman will see other Scottish local authorities step up to the plate, just as every single Scottish local authority did in respect of the Syrian resettlement scheme.

Let us get back to offshoring, because none of what we were just talking about has anything to do with the fact that what offshoring achieved in Australia was self-harm, disastrous mental health consequences and all sorts of appalling torture and degrading treatment for the people there. Offshoring is going to cost billions of pounds, there is no sensible argument in favour of it and we need to get rid of it as soon as we can.

We also support Lords amendment 8, which means the Government cannot delay the consideration of asylum claims in order to attempt removal when in reality there is no prospect of removal happening. In itself, the amendment goes nowhere near far enough in the provision of safeguards against the inappropriate use of inadmissibility procedures, but it is better than nothing at all.

All the Lords amendments I have gone through are designed to prevent the Government from taking the broken asylum system and smashing it to pieces, but there are Lords amendments that also seek to improve the current broken system, which sees people having to wait months even to register their claim, and years to get a decision. Lords amendment 7 is a simple but powerful example. It allows asylum seekers to work after six months. The arguments have been repeated ad infinitum in this place and seem to us to be overwhelming. Nobody can fail to understand the significance of work to tackling poverty, the improvement of mental health and wellbeing and the aiding of integration. If people are left out of work for years—which is how long asylum claims take these days—how can they rebuild their lives?

The Government bang on about pull factors, but that argument is not only morally repugnant—in essence, “Let asylum seekers suffer to disincentivise others from coming”—but empty. The Migration Advisory Committee itself says that there is no evidence to back up what the Government say. Frankly, there is no evidence to back up virtually anything the Government say, which is why very little is ever published. We therefore pay tribute to all the campaigners behind Lords amendment 7.

Lords amendments 10, 11 and 12 represent three different forms of safe route that would enhance our protection system. Lords amendment 10, tabled by Lord Dubs, puts in place a form of family reunion for those in Europe, thereby repairing some of the damage caused by the end of our participation in the Dublin system. The Government recognised that family rules were far too constrained for Ukrainians; Lords amendment 10 is built on the same principle, with a particular benefit for unaccompanied children. With the demise of our participation in Dublin, we see more and more children getting into dinghies to join siblings or other relatives here, and the amendment would help to stop that. The Dublin system was not perfect but it was a lot better than our restrictive family reunion rules, which involve massive fees and impossible legal tests. Lords amendment 10 improves on all that.

Similarly, we support Lords amendment 12, which opens a safe route for people fleeing genocide—I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) will say more on that later—and we fully support Lords amendment 11, which ensures the regular resettlement of 10,000 refugees per year. For too long, the extent to which we have sought to meet our obligations to resettle refugees has been left to the whim of the Home Office. The Syrian scheme was a success, but the infrastructure that made it successful has been left to wither and—to put it politely—the Afghan scheme has barely started, despite the huge responsibility we have for those people. We get lots of rhetoric from the Government on this issue, but little delivery. We need a stable and predictable annual goal with a degree of flexibility, which is exactly what Lords amendment 11 delivers.

Finally, I turn to the one part of the Bill that is largely welcome: part 1. We warmly welcome the progress on the recognition of Chagos islanders as British overseas territory citizens, but questions arise in relation to the amendment in lieu, because unlike the original Lords amendment it does not include an entitlement for Chagos islanders to register as a British citizen at the same time. Were it not for historic injustices, that would have been made an automatic entitlement in May 2002. The Government’s proposals mean there will be only a discretionary route. What is the rationale for that? Will the Minister confirm that that discretion will be used in all cases of this type? Will he ensure that only a restricted fee is charged, as in other cases of historic injustice?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)]

Just to help and to keep this short, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that our intention is to operate in the spirit of the Lords amendment—that is, there will not be a fee for registration—but I am more than happy to outline in some detail at another time exactly how the process will work.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

It is useful to hear that said from the Dispatch Box, so I thank the Minister.

Lastly, the provisions on stripping people of citizenship without notice were introduced at short notice in the Public Bill Committee, without any chance to hear or receive evidence on them. The provisions were frightening, and their lordships have exposed them for the utterly unfit provisions they were. Indeed, the whole episode has cast light on how unfit for purpose nationality laws have become, and in particular the ever-increasing powers of Ministers to strip people of their citizenship.

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[Stuart C. McDonald]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), with whom I agree. I also agreed with pretty much everything said by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), so I can be fairly brief.

The hon. Member for Halifax was right to say at the outset that, again, it is frustrating that the Government do not appear to be listening—not to their Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, anti-slavery charities, medical professionals, social workers or survivors—and that everything is being seen through the prism of migration enforcement. The Government are undermining not just the refugee convention, but other international obligations including the European convention on action against trafficking in human beings.



The Minister said a lot of good things at the Dispatch Box, as he did in the debate on the previous group, but sometimes what he says bears very little resemblance to the provisions that are actually in the Bill. I have a lot of respect for him as a Minister, but he cannot ask us to legislate—to pass a Bill—based on how he wants it implemented. We have to go by what is in the Bill, which too often simply does not live up to what he is trying to sell us.

The SNP supports what their lordships have done to take out some of the most offensive provisions of the Bill and to improve protections for trafficking survivors. We believe that the Government’s motions to disagree will not only take out the positive reforms that their lordships suggested and restore some really regressive provisions that undermine modern slavery legislation across the UK, but reinstate challenges and hurdles for survivors of trafficking and slavery, especially children. The only beneficiaries will be those who perpetrate those awful crimes.