Immigration and Asylum Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Debate between Tom Gordon and Siân Berry

Committee stage
Thursday 29th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Siân Berry]

Of course!

New Clause 11

Refugee family reunion

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the date on which this Act is passed, lay before Parliament a statement of changes to the immigration rules for the purposes of making provision for refugee family reunion in accordance with this section.

(2) Any changes to the immigration rules included in any statement laid before Parliament under subsection (1) must come into effect after 21 days.

(3) Before a statement of changes is laid under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must consult with such persons as the Secretary of State deems appropriate.

(4) A statement laid under subsection (1) must set out rules providing for leave to enter and remain in the United Kingdom for family members of a person granted refugee status or humanitarian protection.

(5) In this section—

the

‘immigration rules’ mean any statement of rules, or any changes to such rules, presented to Parliament pursuant to section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971;

‘refugee status’ and

‘humanitarian protection’ have the same meaning as in the immigration rules;

‘family members’ include—

(a) a person's parent, including an adoptive parent;

(b) a person's spouse, civil partner or unmarried partner;

(c) a person's child, including an adopted child, who is either—

(i) under the age of 18, or

(ii) under the age of 25 but who was under the age of 18 or unmarried at the time the person granted asylum left their country of residence to seek asylum;

(d) a person's sibling, including adoptive sibling, who is either—

(i) under the age of 18, or

(ii) under the age of 25 but who was under the age of 18 or unmarried at the time the person granted asylum left their country of residence to seek asylum; and

(e) such other persons as the Secretary of State may determine, having regard to—

(i) the importance of maintaining family unity,

(ii) the best interests of a child, read in accordance with Article 3 of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,

(iii) physical, emotional, psychological or financial dependency between a person granted refugee status or humanitarian protection and another person,

(iv) risks to the physical, emotional or psychological wellbeing of a person granted refugee status or humanitarian protection, including from the circumstances in which the person is living in the United Kingdom, or

(v) such other matters as the Secretary of State considers appropriate;

‘adopted’ and

‘adoptive’ refer to a relationship resulting from adoption, including de facto adoption, as set out in the immigration rules.” —(Tom Gordon.)

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to make changes to the Immigration Rules to make provision for leave to enter or remain in the UK to be granted to the family members of refugees and of people granted humanitarian protection.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Tom Gordon]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. New clause 11 would require the Secretary of State to make changes to the immigration rules to make provision for leave to enter or remain in the UK to be granted to the family members of refugees and of people granted humanitarian protection. The family reunion route was paused on 4 September 2025, with a stricter system promised from spring 2026 still not in place, as we discussed earlier in Committee. So I ask the Minister: if the Government announce a new settlement route, will there be a new family reunion route, too? We want to see the details of the resettlement scheme announced with this legislation. Obviously, the purpose of this amendment is to make sure we end up with the tens of thousands of people, predominantly women and children who used to use the family reunion visas, able to access it.

I meet many people in my constituency of Harrogate and Knaresborough, from victims of genocide such as the Yazidi people to people who came through the Afghan route. Quite often the distress and additional trauma that is caused by having been separated from their families compounds the issues that they are already trying to grapple with.

With the new rules set to come in under this Bill, there will be issues around refugees being able to hit the income thresholds so that their family members can come with them. That is the purpose of this new clause and I would welcome any news or updates from the Minister further to the questions already put during the course of this Bill Committee.

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Tom Gordon and Siân Berry

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Siân Berry]

It is great to have you in the Chair this afternoon, Mrs Barker.

Amendment 75 was tabled to the original clause 21. The Government published amendments on 13 October that removed clause 21 and added new clauses 35 and 36, a new schedule and some additional amendments linked to the new core protection status. However, the issues raised in my amendments 75 and 74—as well as in amendments 51 to 54 tabled by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough—continue to be relevant to this debate.

Amendments 75 and 74 are focused on the broad nature of the powers in relation to conferring rights and obligations or requirements on someone with or claiming protection status. That was set out in clause 21(3)(c) and is retained in subsection (3)(c) of Government new clause 36. My concerns remain relevant, as I said. I will not press my amendments to a vote, but the Government need to consider those issues seriously and respond to my points.

Government new clause 35 will remove clause 21(6)—the sunset clause—which limited the time period for regulations to be made under the clause to one year after the Bill comes into force. New regulations can therefore be made indefinitely under that new clause, and I would like the Government to justify that change.

Amendment 75, which was tabled to the Bill as introduced, sought to ensure that regulations must have regard to the best interests of a child. No child rights impact assessment has been produced on any aspect of this corporate action model, despite the fact that the shortening of refugee leave to 30 months already applies to children and families seeking asylum for over six months.

The amendment would make sure that, before making regulations, the Government look properly at the impact of corporate action, including the short periods of leave and the long route to settlement in this—I think downgraded—protection status. I am particularly worried about this in relation to the ability to settle, make family life and all the kinds of rights that children have. When the Government do this, they need to pay particular attention to the Home Office’s legal duties under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. Applied to children and young people, corporate action and the 20-year route will undermine children’s well-established need for stability, particularly refugee children as they recover and rebuild their lives following what is probably life-changing trauma and distress.

In addition, repeated immigration status reviews and uncertainty around long-term residence will drive avoidable school and college moves as families are forced to relocate at short notice or potentially lose housing as a result of insecure employment status and other impacts of this shorter period of leave and the resulting uncertainty. For children, each move disrupts attendance and their ability to get pastoral or potentially special educational support. It can set back attainment or harm social integration, particularly at a stage when continuity is most important for children and young people. Temporary leave cycles and renewal windows are inevitably going to risk coinciding with exams, including GCSEs, highers, A-levels and vocational assessments. Anxiety about imminent status decisions could undermine revision and therefore exam performance, and in some cases, young people facing disruption will miss exams completely. This must be looked at very closely.

I also want the Government to think about children who are getting ready for higher education; they are just about to become adults and are potentially looking to study in this country. Unstable status also makes it harder for young people to secure home fees and student financing. Short grants of leave could push refugees into the overseas fee category for a long time or leave them ineligible for maintenance support. The rights of children growing up in this country would be impacted because they would have university access and progression closed off to them. They might be forced to defer going to university, which might stall their integration into the community or harm their earnings potential.

I do not think that any of those impacts are in the public interest, and I want Government to at least commit today to conducting a child rights impact assessment that will look at all of these things in part 3 of the Bill before Third Reading—and certainly before any of the regulations in this part are made.

Amendment 74 would ensure that there was no regression of rights and entitlements. It is needed because the broad regulation-making powers contained in clause 21 currently have very few limitations on scope. The delegated powers memorandum says that the powers will not be used to reduce the entitlements of refugees, and this amendment would seek to reflect that by requiring that they do not reduce rights and entitlements below what was in place on the day that the Bill was introduced. The amendment merely reflects what the Government have said their intentions are: in part 48 of the delegated powers memorandum, the Government state that the measure will not be used to reduce

“the entitlements currently held by refugees”

or persons with humanitarian protection.

The amendment seeks to reflect this commitment in the Bill: that people who have already been granted protection status before the Bill is introduced retain the rights, entitlements and protections that currently exist. That would include family reunion with no additional eligibility criteria and a five-way pathway to settlement, if interpreted correctly according to what the Government have said. That clarity is very much needed for refugees who are currently in the UK and need certainty of their situation so that they can focus on developing their life in this country—integrating, earning and all the things that will help their family life and their children.

I have a question about a particular part of new clause 35. I welcome the detail in schedule 1 and I appreciate having it at this stage so that we can scrutinise the Bill. However, part 7 of new clause 35 gives the Secretary of State the power to

“revoke a person’s protection status.”

That is literally all it says. While a whole section of the immigration rules covers the situations where a person’s refugee status and humanitarian protection can be revoked, on the face of this Bill, the Government are creating a very broad ability to revoke that status, which is currently unconstrained. Why are the Government not listing suitable uses of that power on the face of the Bill?

This issue is particularly relevant because in the last few weeks other parties—not represented on this Committee—have announced their desire to revoke the right to asylum and revoke refugee status for some who have already found protection in the UK. The Government rightly stood up for the right to asylum and stood against those proposals. It would be good to have that on the face of the Bill, so that we have better protections against the risk of the power being taken over by another party or future Home Secretary who would abuse it. I would like the Government to clarify that.

Finally, it would be useful to hear how the Minister believes the change in new clause 35 will simplify decision-making processes since we have heard in oral evidence that the convention grounds cannot be done away with. Merging them with what had previously been known as the humanitarian protection grounds is potentially complex and confusing for people. Will the Government clarify how people will be told on what grounds they have been granted protection, in order to make sure that the Bill is very clear?

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

I will speak to my amendments 51 to 54. I have a number of questions that I hope the Minister will be able to answer and give more clarity and certainty on.

On amendment 51, part 3 gives the Home Secretary a very broad power to make regulations introducing core protection. The delegated powers memorandum says it is to bring the statute book in line with the new definition of protected status, but clause 21(3)(c) lets regulations confer rights and impose obligations on those claiming or holding protection, and clause 21(3)(e) lets them treat convention and humanitarian grants differently. In my view, that goes well beyond updating definitions. Could the Minister explain that?

If the powers are to deliver entitlements in restoring order and control statements, which is obviously the 30-month protection, 20-year route to settlement, no family reunion, new work and study route, then Parliament should see them during the passage of the Bill. Changing refugees’ entitlements matters for how they rebuild their lives and integrate, and for the wider points around the economy and social cohesion. That needs proper scrutiny, not a negative procedure SI.

In reference to amendments 51 and 52, if regulations will change entitlements and obligations, can the Minister set out what exactly those changes will be? If not now, will they be set out before the Bill leaves the Commons? How will those changes meet the desired outcomes and will there be further impact assessments to understand the implications of them?

Amendment 53 is about the five-year leave and settlement. Since March 2026, refugees have been granted 2.5 years instead of five. The Home Secretary insists on a minimum 20-year route to settlement, up from five. Amendment 53 would restore an initial grant of at least five years and eligibility for settlement after five years. Reviews every 30 months and a settlement route that feels out of reach makes it harder to focus on learning English, training and work. People invest in their future when they know that they have one here. The Refugee Council estimates there will be up to 1.1 million reviews in the first decade, at a cost of up to £725 million. That would add additional pressure to the Home Office, which cannot yet decide claims well the first time. The Government say that they were inspired by Denmark, but in some ways it is far more restrictive. Most of Europe grants around five years and then settlement, but Denmark allows settlement after eight years for restricted conditions.

Digital ID

Debate between Tom Gordon and Siân Berry

Monday 8th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

Thank you for your excellent chairing, Sir Edward. I hope the Government have been given serious pause by the 2.9 million signatures on this petition, over 5,000 of which were from constituents in Brighton Pavilion. So many people are right to be so concerned, because such a scheme carries extreme risks to our privacy.

If this scheme is introduced, it seems impossible that we can be protected from any future Government who are determined to utterly disregard a lot more of our basic human rights. This iteration of digital ID could, through a unique identification number, link our most sensitive biometric information to our names, ages, nationalities, addresses, medical information and housing and criminal histories, enabling a detailed profile worthy of the Chinese Government to be put together, which utterly undermines not only our right to privacy, but many other things. We ought to be protected from the state having access to and control over all that information.

I hope that the Minister understands that private citizens are already starting to gain perspective on how unsafe our data is in the hands of private companies. The reaction to digital ID shows that we are now very concerned about the difference when a state has access to all that information and what a future state might do. We have already seen issues of data sharing between police forces and immigration enforcement. Migrants have been scared to come forward and report basic crimes around their right to safety because of that kind of overreach. The eVisa scheme has caused awful failures—people stranded at airports; people losing job opportunities because of the failures of the basic IT—but this is far more serious than that.

Right hon. and hon. Members owe it to our constituents to protect them from not just this Government, but what all future Governments might do. Combined with the recent clampdown on protest rights, the proposed removal of trial by jury and the capacity of the state to track and identify us through facial recognition, this adds up to a toolkit for authoritarians that we must not give away. It must be stopped. It is a house of dynamite.

[Tom Gordon]

Will the hon. Lady comment on the polling around digital ID? This summer, there was net support: over 30%. When the Government announced that they were picking it up, that collapsed to minus 14%. Will she give her thoughts on why that might be?

[Siân Berry]

People might have heard the Government claiming that other countries have had digital ID for many years and then heard about the security flaws in the Estonian system or the hackers in Estonia, India, Norway and Poland who have created enormous data breaches. I have dwelled a lot on state power, but let us not forget that creating such a database is an enormous risk. All the eggs are in one basket when it comes to criminally inclined people who would take our data and hurt us that way.

I was wrapping up when I was intervened on, and I will try not to use too much more time. The risk management calculations here are so clear. The consequences of things going wrong—whether it is state intrusion, criminals taking away the data, errors or data theft, so that people lose their identities to somebody else—become much higher when something like this, where everything is linked together, is created. I said that it was a house of dynamite and a toolkit for authoritarians. It is hugely expensive, and I hope the Minister will clarify the final cost. According to the OBR, £1.8 billion is only the beginning of the cost.