Draft Immigration (Provision of Physical Data) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I can be very brief, because I share most of the concerns that the shadow Minister has expressed.

I will briefly focus on the scope of the instrument. As long ago as September 2017, there were Home Office assurances that EU citizens would not be fingerprinted after Brexit. In the light of those assurance, the 3 million subsequently issued a statement—with the Home Office’s agreement, as I understand it—that said:

“The Home Office has confirmed in accordance with the Policy Paper (of 26th June 2017) and subsequent negotiations with the Commission on Citizens’ Rights its position that EU citizens…will not have to submit fingerprints”.

The Government then repeated those reassurances in their technical note “Citizens’ rights—administrative procedures in the UK”, published on 8 November 2017. Paragraph 12 said:

“We will verify identity and are considering digital ways to do this in order to make it both secure and user-friendly. We intend to ask applicants to submit a photograph. We will not ask EU citizens for other biometric data such as fingerprints.”

My simple question is: why is the Home Office seeking to help itself to a broader power to do something that it has previously said expressly that it would not do? Are we not in danger of undermining reassurances that have been given to EU citizens, and drawing back on them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about those Commonwealth citizens who have been affected by issues related to Windrush. The key issue for the Windrush generation is that they did not have documentation to evidence their legal immigration status, which is why it is so crucial that EU citizens and their family members apply under this scheme, so that they will be able to evidence their status in future.

We have engaged comprehensively with stakeholders throughout the process.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

On the issue of engagement, as I said earlier, the Home Office has repeatedly said that it will not require fingerprints from EU nationals, but these regulations appear to allow for that to happen. Can the Minister clarify that?

[Caroline Nokes]

For absolute clarity, the regulations allow for the collection of fingerprints from the non-EU family members of EU citizens. We will not collect fingerprints from EU citizens.

We have engaged with EU citizens at every stage of the development process, and will continue to do so. We recently set up a user group specifically for vulnerable users, which has enabled us to draw on important and useful information from organisations such as Age UK. We will continue to expand our communications to ensure that EU citizens are aware of the scheme, how it will operate and what information they will need to provide, and that they are reassured that they will have plenty of time to apply for their new UK immigration status.

The issue of fees was raised. That matter was comprehensively examined last week in front of the Exiting the European Union Committee. It is clear that the fee was agreed with the EU when we were conducting the citizens’ rights part of the withdrawal negotiations and, with a process that will take three years to complete, I absolutely expect that the average family will be able to save up the amount required.

Family Visitor Visas

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Cheryl.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on the way in which she introduced the debate. I was tempted to accuse her of misleading the House, because she said that she was not an expert, but by the sound of her speech, she certainly is now. In fact, we have had four excellent contributions so far.

I also congratulate the petitioners sincerely on securing a parliamentary debate on this important issue. The numbers signing the petitions have been remarkable—the first petition, in particular—and that indicates clearly how strongly the rules impact on people and families and how strongly people feel the need for change.

An important preliminary point to make is that I suspect that one reason why so many have been attracted by the petitions is that, increasingly, many people find that a family visit is the only way they get to see their partners, husbands, wives, children and parents—close family members—as well as distant relatives. Why? The reason is that we have some of the most draconian family immigration rules in the world. Tens of thousands of families are split apart, all in the name of the net migration target.

Almost half our population would not be able to meet the maintenance requirements imposed by the coalition Government, and the rules have a disproportionate impact on young people, women and those living outside London and the south-east. One reassurance that the Minister could give us today is that she has—I hope—ditched the proposals in the Conservative party manifesto to make those rules even more draconian by increasing the thresholds for various family visas.

We should not pretend, however, that improvements to the family visit visa rules would be the big fix or the final outcome that we are looking for. Such improvements would be welcome, but fundamental reform of the family migration rules is needed. Whether we look at the report of the all-party group on migration or of the Children’s Commissioner on the so-called “Skype families”—they included 15,000 children in 2015, according to the commissioner, so how many thousands more are there now?—or various other critiques, the pain that the rules are causing cannot be ignored.

Compared internationally, the UK is an outlier with its severe family immigration policies. One 2014 comparison of 38 western countries on facilitation of family unity put the UK in last place. UK requirements are difficult to meet, not only in the substantive rules but in the impenetrability of the evidence rules that must be met.

Family visits have therefore become even more important. That is not to say, of course, that they were not already important, and they certainly remain important for people who want to visit more distant relatives. As the hon. Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) pointed out, the sense of injustice and heartbreak that many feel in such circumstances would be compounded if the result was missing a special occasion such as a wedding, a special birthday, a baptism or a passing out ceremony.

A number of colleagues have highlighted some very sad individual cases—elected councillors, doctors, transplant donors, charity visitors, long-serving nurses, grandparents and wedding guests all being denied visit visas—and I join the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) in paying tribute to the caseworkers who do so much of the hard work in such cases. I could mention a handful of examples, but I think we have heard enough about the sorts of decisions that are too often being made.

Mistakes happen, and there will always be decisions with which we disagree. I recognise that entry clearance officers have a difficult job, but, as a number of hon. Members pointed out, there are deeper issues. Some of them were touched on in the 2015 inspection by the chief inspector of borders and immigration, which the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston highlighted. Those systemic issues, as she put it, included a lack of proper reasons being kept on file and, too often, the ignoring of positive evidence by decision makers, so that more than 40% of decisions were considered by the inspector to be imbalanced. Requirements were, in essence, made up by individual entry clearance posts. The inspector found quality concerns in 25% of entry clearance management reviews. The hon. Members for Bristol West, for Warrington North and for Stretford and Urmston were also right to highlight the danger of making decisions based on the country of origin alone.

It must be heartbreaking, especially for those who face the double whammy of being excluded from having their loved ones—husbands, wives and partners—join them here permanently, and being excluded from even having their loved ones come to visit on a temporary basis. In response to the points raised in the three petitions, there is a very strong case for arguing that there should be at least a strong presumption in close family cases that in the absence of specific, individual information to the contrary, an applicant who has shown that he or she can afford the visit and has suitable accommodation should be taken to be just that—a visitor, who will leave again in accordance with their visa. There must be an end to the deep-seated culture of disbelief and the failure to take into account things such as positive immigration or visit histories. Too often, decisions have been made because something is not clear or a document is missing. Why not pick up the phone instead of simply reaching straight for the refusal paragraphs?

There is so much we can learn from Canadian immigration laws and policies, which tend to be based on evidence and respect instead of random targets. The hon. Member for Bristol West rightly said that there seems to me to be real merit in providing family members with better access to the country than random tourists would generally get. I note the concerns that the hon. Member for Warrington North raised, and I will have to look at them.

The hon. Member for Warrington North made a persuasive case for a proper appeal right, and I absolutely agree. That would simply recognise the importance of these visits and the challenge that it poses to family relationships if there is no ability to pay short visits. It would also help, as the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said, to concentrate the minds of the decision makers and improve the quality of decision making. Most importantly, it would simply be a way to access justice.

In conclusion, I welcome these petitions and I am happy to provide my broad support to them. However, the Government should be in no doubt that fundamental reform of their outrageous, outdated and inhumane family migration rules is urgently required.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman asks an interesting question, but it is important that visa applications are considered consistently wherever the individual comes from in the world and whether they have family here or not. When we are seeking to attract visitors to the UK, we do not wish to discriminate against people who do not have family members here, which he pointed out was important.

That brings me to the third petition, on appeals. As we heard earlier, family visitor appeals were removed by the Crime and Courts Act 2013. At that point, no other type of entry clearance application, including those involving work or study in the UK, carried a full right of appeal in the event of refusal. The wide-ranging appeals reform introduced by the Immigration Act 2014 means that rights of appeal are now available only in cases involving asylum or humanitarian protection, human rights or rights under EU law. Where someone makes an application for a visitor visa and that application is refused, they will be provided with reasons for that refusal. It is open to those who have been refused to make a fresh application in which they can address any reasons given for the previous refusal.

There are practical reasons why a new application is a better approach than an appeal, both generally and for the individual visitor. Before the removal of the appeal right, such appeals accounted for about a third of all immigration appeals and, because of the volume of such cases in the system, they could take up to eight months to be concluded. Asylum appeals and other appeals on fundamental rights issues were therefore also delayed.

By the time the appeal had been determined, the circumstances might well have changed. For example, a document relevant to the application may have been found. There was also the possibility that the family event for which the visa was needed had already taken place, in which case the visitor, the person being visited and the appeal system—everyone—lost out. By contrast, the service standard for straightforward non-settlement visa applications is 99% processed within 15 days.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I do not think it is fair to say we are asking for an appeal right instead of the ability to put in a second application; it is about having the choice. If there is urgency about it, someone can make a second application. However, if they receive two or three refusals, surely the only way they will ever be able to challenge that is through an appeal.

[Caroline Nokes]

Speed is important, but also when someone receives a refusal the reasons are given and can be addressed in a fresh application.

The removal of the right of appeal for family visitor visas was regarded as a proportionate measure to ensure that a right of appeal was available in the most significant and complex cases and that another avenue—that of making a new application taking into account the reasons for refusal—was available in visitor visa cases. However, I accept that sometimes mistakes are made and I take the distress caused very seriously. I reassure hon. Members that if a customer is unhappy with any aspect of the service they receive, there are routes to provide feedback, request a refund or lodge a complaint. Those are all made clear in the communications that go out to customers at every point of their application. Locally, teams rigorously interrogate complaints data and respond to arising issues.

I reassure Members that the Government are absolutely committed to welcoming genuine visitors to the UK. I take seriously my duty to balance border security and the priority of having a high-performing, customer-focused and continually improving visa service.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

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

On behalf of the Scottish National party, let me welcome the Bill. We certainly support the broad principles behind it and fully support its Second Reading. The Bill will help to reduce the possession and use of weapons, including corrosive substances, so we look forward to engaging with the Secretary of State and his team as it progresses through the House. As is evident from the Bill, there has already been extensive and constructive engagement between the Government here and the Scottish Government, reflecting the fact that these issues are a mixture of devolved and reserved matters.

The dramatic rise in crimes related to noxious or corrosive substances is appalling, with 454 occurring in London alone during 2016. But while London is currently the epicentre of this horrendous new form of crime, gruesome incidents involving the use of such substances have ruined lives right across the UK, including through an attack in my constituency that left three men with life-changing burns. It is extraordinary to think that the UK now has one of the highest rates of acid attacks in the world, and a distinct feature of the issue in the UK seems to be its close connection to gang culture.

We welcome moves to clamp down on how these substances are obtained and used, especially the ban on sales to under-18s of the most concentrated and dangerous corrosive substances, and restrictions on how such substances can be delivered. We particularly welcome the offence of possession in a public place, given concerns that corrosive substances may be becoming more widely used in attacks because they represent a so-called “safe” weapon to carry for those who are looking to commit a violent crime, as opposed to carrying a weapon that already attracts a custodial sentence.

When we debated corrosive substances in Westminster Hall in December last year, I welcomed the interim measures that the Government had implemented while their consultation was under way. During that debate, we also explored the options open to the Government on how best to tackle corrosive substances. As well as the measures that the Government have outlined in the Bill, other possibilities included identifying the most harmful corrosive substances that are currently only considered reportable under the Poisons Act 1972 and reclassifying them as regulated substances. That would mean that members of the public would require a licence to purchase some substances. Assuming that the Bill receives its Second Reading, it would be worth returning to that issue in Committee so that we can explore what role that alternative scheme might still have.

There are other detailed issues that we want to explore, such as whether the Bill properly covers all situations that we would want it to, including the supply of substances that does not involve payment. The Bill currently seems focused on the sale of substances, so I am not sure whether the offence would cover cases in which there is no financial consideration. None the less, the Bill’s broad thrust is certainly welcome.

We also welcome the broad thrust of the changes that are being introduced in relation to knives. Members do not need me to rehearse the tragic consequences that knife crimes are all too often inflicting on our citizens. We particularly welcome moves to put in place further safeguards regarding the purchase of knives remotely so that existing laws against sales to young people can no longer be circumvented. The requirement for adequate age verification checks for online sales could be particularly important. Indeed, the then Justice Secretary in Scotland wrote to the UK Government back in January 2017 to raise concerns about the online sale of knives and the need for a joined-up approach, and that is what is happening through the Bill.

As the Secretary of State said, it is already an offence to sell knives to anyone under the age of 18, including online. The maximum penalty in Scotland for possession of a knife was increased in March 2016 from four years’ imprisonment to five years’ imprisonment. People who are convicted of a crime of violence in Scottish courts are now more likely to receive a custodial sentence than they were 10 years ago. The average length of custodial sentences imposed for knife crimes has more than doubled over the last decade. Ultimately, though, we cannot arrest and imprison our way out of these problems.

The Secretary of State explained some of the new work that the UK Government are undertaking to prevent knife crime and to stop people carrying knives in the first place. We welcome any emphasis on prevention. As the shadow Minister said, evidence-based investment in violence reduction programmes, especially for young people, has long been a key focus for the Scottish Government. They include the No Knives, Better Lives youth engagement programme, the national violence reduction unit, the Mentors in Violence Prevention programme, and the use of community-based officers who engage with and support students and staff in schools as part of the community policing service. That work has thankfully seen the number of young people under 18 in Scotland who are convicted of handling an offensive weapon fall from 430 in 2007-08 all the way down to 91 in 2016-17. But every young person carrying a knife, and every person who is a victim of a knife crime, is one too many; that is why we will support and engage constructively with this Bill.

On firearms, I have listened with interest to the reasoning behind the Government’s proposals to extend the ban on certain firearms and firearms accessories. I am sympathetic to what they say, but we will reserve final judgment until we hear evidence in Committee.

The final word must be with the victims, as ultimately they are who the Bill is all about. Every MP will have known constituents who have been affected by the tragedy of corrosive substance crimes or knife crimes. Clearly, we all want to do everything we can so that the number of victims becomes as close to zero as we can get. Prevention is the best response and it must be our priority. Making it more difficult to obtain these substances and weapons is an important part of that, and we are therefore happy to give our support to the Bill.

EU Settlement Scheme

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

In discussions with the EU, ambassadors and heads of member states, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is reinforcing that message at every point. There has been significant investment in time and resources to make sure that we have a scheme and a process that will work. We need our European friends and neighbours to reciprocate.

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

There was plenty to welcome in this statement, but the Minister ducked the fundamental question about what happens to the tens, if not hundreds of thousands who will inevitably miss the cut-off date. What will their status be and what did she mean when she referred to a proportionate response?

[Caroline Nokes]

We are absolutely determined to work to make sure that as many EU citizens as possible are registered ahead of the deadline, but we will give a reasonable period in which to apply. For those who miss the deadline and have a good reason for doing so, we will of course have a response that is both pragmatic and takes into account individual circumstances, should people have been, for whatever reason—whether through ill health or mental illness—prevented from applying. We will further discuss these issues with stakeholders over coming weeks to make sure that we get it right.

Refugee Family Reunion

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) who made a very eloquent, thoughtful and measured speech. Indeed, I welcome all the speeches that have been made so far in this debate. I congratulate those who secured the debate, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) who has been leading the charge on this issue.

As the UN Declaration of Human Rights states:

“The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.”

As lawmakers, we should do all we can so that we never force anyone to have to choose between living in this place of safety, and living with their family. Most reasonable people looking at the immigration rules now would agree that our refugee family reunion rules are still too narrowly drawn. Most Members in the Chamber will have encountered their own heartbreaking cases—perhaps an 18 or 19-year-old child left stranded in Libya or Lebanon while younger siblings are reunited with parents in the UK. Most strikingly, our rules on recognised child refugees in the UK are both outliers and pretty outrageous. To borrow the word the Home Affairs Committee used, it is “perverse” that unaccompanied children cannot be sponsors for their parents or carers.

In the lead-up to the Second Reading of my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill, there were many excellent articles about divided families, and one I found particularly moving was written by Sarah Temple-Smith, a children’s psychotherapist at the Refugee Council. In that article, she described the utter agony endured by two young child refugees because of separation from their families. One teenager, whose father had been killed, tells her that being apart from his mother and siblings was harder to deal with than the torture and violence suffered in detention in Libya. He was just one of an inbox full of referrals she received every day relating to children suffering from separation. It is incredibly sad, therefore, that other than Denmark, this is the only EU country that refuses to allow children to apply to have close family members join them here, if they can be found.

There cannot be a clearer illustration of why refugee family reunion is a win, win for everybody involved. It is clearly of huge benefit for the refugees here, reunited with their support network and better able to rebuild their lives. It is good for us because it means that the refugees can integrate more easily. It can literally be lifesaving for those who are granted family reunion visas to join their families here, and by providing a safe legal route it stops them turning instead to traffickers and smugglers to find their way to the UK.

In response, the Government tend to turn to two or three arguments. The first is that immigration rules already make provisions for other family members to join refugees here, but in my view the alternative rules are barely worth the paper they are written on. The legal thresholds, costs and complexity make them a poor and pale substitute for proper refugee family reunion rights. It is not unknown even for families to have to sponsor a niece or a nephew but be unable to sponsor both—a horrendous decision for anyone to have to make! I do not regard those rules as fit for purpose. Exceptional grants outside the rules are far too rare.

Secondly, the Government sometimes argue that expanding refugee family reunion rights would somehow incentivise dangerous journeys to the UK—we have heard a bit about that today. The most significant point is that the rules keep too many family members out and so force them to turn to smugglers and traffickers and to make dangerous journeys.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I want to ask the hon. Gentleman about a point I made in my speech. We cannot pretend that there is not a criminal element to this. What would he say to people who suggest, perhaps misguidedly, that changing the rules would bolster this criminal activity?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to flag up the trafficking and criminality. The UK, and the EU generally, have a long way to go to improve their response to that issue, but at the end of the day who are the most desperate to get here? It is the people with close family ties here, who are perhaps the parents of a child who has made it here, or 18 or 19-year-old siblings of children here. They will come here come hell or high water. The issue, then, becomes: are we going to allow them a safe legal route, established under my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill or otherwise, or are we going to leave them having ultimately to use these smugglers, traffickers and criminals? By expanding the safe legal routes, we will undermine and tackle the smuggling.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and one I can back up anecdotally. In the debate on 16 March, I mentioned a young man from Canterbury, Yohannes, who I also highlighted earlier. He is worried that his sister in a camp in Sudan might do exactly that and go to the criminals. If we were to provide, through my private Member’s Bill, a safe legal route and a right for her to come, she could fly here in a couple of hours without the danger of what might happen across the Sahara, which we do not want to speak about.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

That is a perfect example that illustrates the argument very strongly.

If we take the approach that somehow changing the rules will provide an incentive for others to make a dangerous journey, particularly children, we have to examine the ethics of that position. Are we really saying that we are going to do something that is not in a child refugee’s interests—actually harmful to their interests—just to disincentivise other children from making that journey? That is a pretty horrendous ethical argument to propose and dangerous in itself. The key point is that this is about creating safe legal routes that keep people out of the arms of smugglers, rather than forcing them into their arms.

[Neil O'Brien]

The hon. Gentleman is making some really important points, and I do not necessarily disagree with him, but, on the ethics, he says it is not necessarily in the child’s interests. The thought behind the argument is that the child would not be there in the first place—would not have gone through the people smugglers and so on—if that right did not exist. I repeat: the argument is not that people will use children as anchors to cynically get something they should not get; it is that these people, desperate and destitute and with limited funds to give to people smugglers, will be tempted to pay to get just one person, particularly a smaller person, transported. It is not that they are bad people or doing anything unethical; it is that they are desperate people.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly fair point, and we can have this debate when the Bill, I hope, returns, but there is limited evidence to support the proposition that that is what happens in all the other EU countries—as I say, it is only Denmark and this country that do not give children this right. As far as I can see, the Government have not produced any evidence that in other EU countries this has become a phenomenon out of kilter with what happens in Denmark or the UK, but if somebody wants to cite statistics showing that everyone is sending their kids unaccompanied to the other EU countries, I will look at that argument.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Having visited Libya and having been to Italy and seen migrant camps in Sicily and other parts of the south of Italy, I can provide the hon. Gentleman with some assurance on this point. I cannot cite chapter and verse with numbers, but there is a narrative that there are lots of unscrupulous people exploiting children. One need only look at the results of the Italian election. I am not saying it was the sole reason the populist right got into power, but it was a factor.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am not absolutely sure what the hon. Gentleman is getting at. My view is that there is no evidence to back up what the Government are saying about providing an incentive to go to other EU countries as opposed to Denmark and the UK. I struggle with the ethics of that argument as well. We have child refugees here, and we should have rules in place that are in their best interests and which allow them to be reunited with their families, as do these other countries.

I turn to a third argument the Government tend to use in these debates: that they are acting in different ways in response to the refugee and migration crisis. It is only fair to recognise that the Government are doing good things. The Syrian vulnerable persons scheme is making excellent progress, and it is true that the Government have a record they can be proud of in providing aid to the region around Syria in particular. That does not mean, however, that we should not look at how else we can improve our response. Broadening the category of family members, as proposed by my hon. Friend’s Bill, would have limited implications for the Home Office but transformative consequences for the people involved.

Finally, I want to touch on legal aid. I used to be an immigration solicitor, and I can say hand on heart that using legal aid for a family reunion application, which people can still do in Scotland, never remotely struck me as a wasteful use of resources, because of how serious the subject matter is—separation can be both stressful for all involved and dangerous for those who are left behind—and how complex the process is. It is not just a matter of form-filling and box-ticking; there are other questions—what documents does a person need to prove a family relationship, how much credibility will a birth or marriage certificate from a certain country have with the Home Office, should we get expert verification, should a DNA test be done? That is even before we get to barriers of language and culture. Without a doubt, legal aid can make a huge and important difference to ensuring that applications are completed properly and that the Home Office can make the right decision on what are hugely important issues for those involved. For all these reasons, the measures in my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill are well founded, and I hope the money resolution will be tabled very soon.

Cannabis-based Medicines

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Gentleman is right: this is not about the reclassification of cannabis. He makes an important point about the need for law enforcement to work with others, including the many good groups out there, to try to get people off drugs once they have a problem. It is important to do more work on that.

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

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement. Those treating my constituent, Caroline, are firmly of the view that she is alive today and living a good quality of life because her brain tumour has been slowed by the regular use of cannabis oil, but she is having to import that at a cost of hundreds of pounds every month. When can she expect her doctors to be able to prescribe that treatment? Is there anything she should be doing in the meantime to benefit from what the Secretary of State has announced today?

[Sajid Javid]

I do not know all the details of that case, but it might be good to look at the work of the expert panel that I have talked about. As I say, we will set out more details on that. Any changes to the rules will be made after the review and, as the House has heard, we are trying to do that as quickly as possible.

Immigration Detention (Victims of Torture)

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) on securing the debate, on another expert speech and on the work that she has done in recent weeks to challenge Government policy on the detention of vulnerable people. I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate so far. It is fair to say that they all have strong and long track records in championing the cause. We have heard typically eloquent and passionate speeches from the hon. Members for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green).

I also thank the campaigners and campaign groups who do so much to keep the issue on the agenda. The vulnerable detainees we are talking about are kept so far out of sight and out of mind that it would be easy to forget about them. It is a tribute to the campaigners that they continue to work to support those detained individuals and push to keep them on the political agenda.

As in every debate on detention, I begin by repeating the position of the Scottish National party that the large-scale, routine detention of many thousands of people in private prisons for an indeterminate period at the discretion of immigration officers remains a scandal. It is a stain on our democracy and an affront to the rule of law—a matter of shame, as the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston correctly put it.

The current system is unacceptable for a host of reasons: it detains too many people, including people who should never be detained; it detains people for too long and without a defined time limit; and the safeguards against detention are utterly inadequate. If those factors are not enough, we can appeal to the purse strings: it is hugely costly and inefficient, and it does not remotely achieve what the Government want it to do.

Root and branch reform is urgently required; tinkering around the edges is nowhere near enough. Reform is needed not just of the detention system, but of the whole immigration system of targets and the hostile environment, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley argued.

I suspect that the Minister will say, as she has said before, including last week, that the number of people detained is proportionately quite small, but that is just too far removed from reality. The fact that 28,000 people are detained in any given year is absolutely horrendous. The UK’s immigration estate is among the largest in Europe; we detain several times as many people as some of our European neighbours. It has become a matter of routine rather than a last resort.

All those facts and figures were set out in the cross-party report referred to by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). The sheer volume of people involved is one reason that adequate procedures to stop the detention of vulnerable people are almost impossible to operate—the system cannot cope.

The debate is not just about numbers; it is about individual stories. The hon. Members for Birmingham, Yardley and for Stretford and Urmston did us an important service in reminding us of that, and in providing some horrifying examples of what is going on. As Stephen Shaw made clear in his first report,

“detention in and of itself undermines welfare and contributes to vulnerability.”

That vulnerability will vary over the period of detention and has consequences for people long after they are released—as we have heard, 56% of them will be released back into the community—as highlighted in the new British Red Cross report, which has also been referred to.

Despite that, the UK still locks up vulnerable people on a huge scale, including victims of trafficking, torture or sexual violence, people with mental health conditions, and pregnant women. Mr Shaw described the detention of people with serious mental illness as an “affront to civilised values” and I agree.

Torture survivors and victims of serious violence and ill-treatment are among those particularly vulnerable to harm. Last week, the Government ignored concerns from the Opposition and from organisations such as Freedom from Torture and Medical Justice that their proposed changes to the detention rules would undermine rather than improve the safeguarding of victims of torture and ill-treatment.

As the right hon. Member for Enfield North said, the problem with those changes is that they encumber medical practitioners with an overly complex definition of torture that introduces a concept of powerlessness that has a dubious link to vulnerability and that will require a detailed and excessive interrogation of the vulnerable person. There is a danger that victims of severe ill-treatment and violence risk being excluded from the protections offered in the detention centre rules and guidance.

The burden of evidence placed on torture survivors has also increased. Instead of simply requiring them to provide independent evidence of torture to justify exclusion from detention, specific evidence is now needed to show that detention is likely to cause harm, which is a difficult concept.

We also need to consider the fact that guidance now includes a broader range of immigration factors that can justify detention even of torture survivors. As the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has said, the adults at risk policy appears to make it more likely that vulnerable people will remain in detention because it requires the Home Office to balance the person’s vulnerability with their immigration history, with disproportionate weight being given to latter in many cases. The proof is in the pudding: the figures show that the number of releases following a rule 35 report has plummeted from 39% to 12.5%. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston set out exactly why the rule 35 process cannot be considered fit for purpose.

Last week, along with other hon. Members, I argued that the Government’s policy on the detention of vulnerable people should be shaped by the new Shaw review. The right hon. Member for Enfield North described that request as not unreasonable; I think it would be entirely sensible. Even though the Government have ignored our request, it remains the case that fundamental reform is needed, and it should reflect the wide-ranging recommendations of Mr Shaw’s reports.

We will continue to argue that there is no need for a specific definition of torture, and that the category of vulnerability should be broadened to include other victims of serious violence and ill-treatment, as recommended in the UNHCR detention guidelines. There should be a presumption, not a burden of proof, that such individuals are vulnerable to harm, and we should make their detention truly exceptional, rather than arming the Home Office with a further list of excuses for keeping them locked up. There is a drastic need to introduce a more thorough screening process.

More broadly, the detention estate must be cut drastically. The Yarl’s Woods, the Brook Houses and the Dungavel Houses should be shut down. Community alternatives and case management systems are more humane, cheaper and more effective, and they should be rolled-out with learning from best practice in other countries. There must be a time limit on detention. We must end this stain on our country’s reputation. As the right hon. Member for Enfield North said, this is a human rights cause, and we will all continue to champion it until radical reform is delivered.

Immigration Rules: Paragraph 322(5)

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Westminster Hall

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

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) for securing the debate and pursuing this issue with her usual determination and eloquence, not just today but over several weeks. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions and, like the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), thank the campaigners and witnesses who spoke to us this morning to give us an insight into what is going on.

I do not think there is a more effective way to highlight yet another rotten Home Office stink than by relaying the personal stories of the individuals affected, as hon. Members rightly have. I started jotting them down—the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about doctors who had made simple mistakes with their tax returns and the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) spoke about law-abiding citizens with families who had been here for a decade—but I stopped when I got to the gobsmacking story relayed by the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) about the accountant who had owned up and yet found that that was not enough to satisfy the Home Office, and about all the consequences that followed.

This all reeks of another episode of the Home Office coming up with a new wheeze to increase the number of people they can remove, and implementing it with no concern for whether decisions stand up to scrutiny in terms of the law or, indeed, basic common decency. It is clear that the Home Office did not like tier 1 general visas as they were closed to new applicants in December 2010, and those still in that process face severe repercussions—low-hanging fruit indeed.

Will the Minister, in responding, tell us whether there has been any change to Home Office guidance? Have any new policies or instructions been issued that relate to tax discrepancies and the relevance of paragraph 322(5) to that issue? If not, what is her explanation for this sudden upsurge in the number of cases we have seen in the last 12 months? Members have pointed out, and were told this morning, that there are probably now more than 1,000 cases. Will she confirm the numbers her Department has? What do the data on appeals and judicial reviews tell us? What has happened to the review we were told was due to be completed by the end of May? Going further, why has the Department been so slow, given that those such as the hon. Members for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) and for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central have been raising this matter for months? Once again, it seems that there are systemic issues in the Home Office and those at the top do not appear to know what is going on.

When did the practice of comparing declared income on Home Office applications with tax returns commence, and what safeguards were put in place to ensure that caseworkers, who are not accountants or tax lawyers, did not put two and two together and come up with five? That is exactly what seems to be happening in too many cases. We have all read about cases where minor errors were corrected without demur from HMRC and where different sums were declared purely as a result of different accounting periods or rules applying. We heard again about cases where the difference was £1.20 or £1.60.

When was it decided that paragraph 322(5), which Home Office guidance states is usually to be focused on people involved in serious crime, threats to national security, war crimes and travel bans, was remotely appropriate for the circumstances we have heard about today? As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central and the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) said, that could have serious implications for applications to travel to other countries.

No doubt the Minister will flag up, as she has before, examples of where apparently there has been genuine fraud. Obviously she cannot publish the details of those cases, and that is understood, but the problems with that being the total response from the Home Office are twofold. First, it is utterly contrary to the experience of everyone in the Chamber, as has been relayed, and it seems that yet again the Home Office is using the excuse of a few bad eggs to throw out more than 1,000 people. Secondly, it is a question of trust. I do not think that many members of the public or MPs here—especially after Windrush—will be happy with the Home Office saying, “Trust us. We’ll review things and sort it out.” If she wants us to have confidence in the process, there must be an independent review of what is going on. Will she set that up?

Finally—and most crucially of all—what steps can be taken to allow those individuals to live their lives here while they challenge what appear, in many cases, to be absolutely perverse decisions? Individuals and families are facing destitution and bankruptcy because of the outrageous changes to appeal rights made in 2014 and 2016. If the immigration system was just and respected the rule of law, they would all have an in-country right of appeal to a tribunal and their leave to remain would be automatically extended so that they could still work until the appeal process had been completed. What will the Minister do about that?

I finish by repeating what my hon. Friend said. So many of those involved are people we should be thanking, not threatening with removal. If there is one positive from today, it is that they know that MPs across the political divide are on their side and determined to put things right. I very much hope that the Minister is listening.

Immigration (Guidance on Detention of Vulnerable Persons) Regulations 2018 Detention Centre (Amendment) Rules 2018

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I have no hesitation in joining the opposition to these two draft statutory instruments. I thank the right hon. Member for Enfield North for kicking off the process of challenging them and for securing a debate on the detention of vulnerable migrants next week.

My party’s position is that the large-scale, routine detention of thousands of people, including vulnerable people, in what are essentially private prisons, for indeterminate periods, simply at the discretion of immigration officers, is a scandal. It is a stain on our democracy and an affront to the rule of law.

On the matter of scale, which the Minister always attempts to play down, 26,000 individuals each year—3,000 at any one time—is not something to celebrate. That is an horrendous number and is massive in scale next to comparable countries. It is clear that we are detaining many people whose removal is not imminent—around half are released back into the public.

Detention in those places is a harmful experience for anyone. By its very nature it makes detainees vulnerable. That vulnerability can be exacerbated depending on personal, social and environmental factors. Vulnerability will vary over the period of detention. Stephen Shaw’s first review states:

“Detention in and of itself undermines welfare and contributes to vulnerability.”

As we have heard, it also has atrocious implications for mental health. Nevertheless, the UK continues to detain vulnerable people on a huge scale, including too often people with serious mental illnesses. The detention of people with serious mental illnesses was described by Mr Shaw in his first report as

“an affront to civilised values”.

Torture survivors and victims of serious violence and ill-treatment are particularly vulnerable to harm. Contrary to what the Government claim, organisations such as Freedom from Torture and Medical Justice are concerned that the specific changes proposed in these SIs will undermine the safeguarding of victims of torture and ill-treatment. That is because the changes place an impossible task on detention centre medical practitioners, with a definition of torture that is overly complex because it introduces a concept of powerlessness that has dubious links to vulnerability to harm and will require detailed and excessive interrogation of a vulnerable person.

Victims of severe ill-treatment and violence risk being excluded from the protections offered in the detention centre rules and guidance. The changes also increase the evidentiary burden on torture survivors. No longer will the guidance simply require independent evidence of torture to justify exclusion from detention, but specific evidence will be needed that detention is likely to cause harm. That requires to be seen alongside the fact that the guidance now includes a broader range of immigration factors that can justify detention, even of torture survivors, which explains the plummet in the number of releases following rule 35 reports that we have heard about.

Medical Justice and Freedom from Torture propose that we withdraw these statutory instruments until we see the Shaw review. The arguments for not waiting for Shaw were unconvincing. Going further, they argue that there is no need for a specific definition of torture and that the category of vulnerability should be broadened to include other victims of serious violence and ill-treatment, as recommended in the UNHCR detention guidelines. There should be a presumption, not a burden of proof, that such individuals are vulnerable to harm, and we should make their detention truly exceptional rather than having the Home Office with a further list of excuses for keeping them in detention. That is a sensible way ahead on these statutory instruments.

Psychoactive Substances

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I, too, congratulate the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) on bringing forward the debate, and on the very valuable work that he and his colleagues are doing in the all-party parliamentary group. I had not been aware of its existence until this week, but if he has an application form handy, I would be very happy to join.

My Scottish National party colleagues and I supported the Government’s Psychoactive Substances Act, which quite rightly introduced a broad prohibition on the manufacture and supply of these substances, essentially in order to stop dealers circumventing the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 by endlessly modifying products to create new substances.

In 2014 alone, there were more than 100 new substances identified in the EU. That highlights the need for a new approach. We raised concerns about some aspects of the Bill; a number of them were based on a report published by the Home Affairs Committee at the time. We welcome this opportunity to revisit how the 2016 Act is operating, and to express our view on exactly what the Government’s review should look at and on how we go about measuring whether the Act has been successful.

Importantly, the right hon. Member for Delyn made the subject of the debate policy overall, not just the Act. That reminds us that the Act was never going to be a silver bullet; it was to be just one of several policy levers designed to combat new psychoactive substance use. One of the principal aims of the legislation was to close so-called head shops—indeed, that seems to have happened —in order to remove these substances from the high street. That raises questions about displacement. As the right hon. Gentleman said, we need to know whether people are instead buying these substances from dealers in controlled drugs. That was expected to an extent, and it appears to have happened—but to what extent? Has there been displacement in the sense that former psychoactive substance users have switched to controlled drugs? Has there been displacement through sales moving to the internet, including the dark web? What steps are the Government taking to close down the sites involved?

Concerns were expressed during debates on the Bill about enforcement and prosecution. How would prosecutors prove potential psychoactive effect? Would that require expert evidence? What would the costs be? The evidence at the time showed that Irish legislation had led to very few prosecutions, so it will be important to know what has happened in this country. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s comments on the figures that the right hon. Member for Delyn gave.

Hon. Members have highlighted, as the Home Affairs Committee did at the time, that non-legislative measures need to accompany the Act. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted education; we need to know about the progress made in ensuring that information about psychoactive substances reaches all pupils, and whether we are measuring awareness among our young people. More generally, we need to know what can be done to ensure that all people have access to the information and advice that they require.

The right hon. Member for Delyn and the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) spoke in detail about the chronic problem in the prison system. There also seems to be a growing problem in the immigration detention estate. In the NHS, have we made sufficient progress in ensuring that frontline staff are fully informed about substances, and that appropriate treatment and harm reduction options are available? The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) made a powerful argument for a proper public health approach. The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich made a thoughtful contribution on the importance of research and making sure that that is not caught up in the legislation.

Given that we have heard that new psychoactive substance use seems more significant among vulnerable populations, particularly homeless people, what steps can we take to focus efforts there? It was very interesting to hear about the joint working approach in Wrexham.

Ultimately, this is about people. The hon. Member for Strangford did us the service of highlighting the tragic case of his young constituent. We want fewer people to be harmed by new psychoactive substances. We need evidence that the passing of the legislation has resulted in fewer people being affected. The statistics seem encouraging, but as the right hon. Member for Delyn said, it is not quite as simple as that. Clearly, we still have a lot of work to do to tackle the scourge of new psychoactive substances, and we look forward to engaging with the Gopvernment again on this issue.