Nationality and Borders Bill (Sixth sitting)

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

There may be a vote in the Chamber this afternoon. If there is a Division, we will suspend for 15 minutes.

Clause 2

Historical inability of unmarried fathers to transmit citizenship

Question (this day) again proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

I will continue my remarks from the point at which I left off. One of the general criteria is that the person has not previously been a British overseas territories citizen. The registration provisions are intended to cover those who missed out on becoming a citizen by virtue of the fact that their parents were not married; they will not benefit those who acquired BOTC status in some other way and subsequently renounced or were deprived of that status.

The provisions created by this clause are detailed, as we need to cater for changes over time to British nationality legislation. It may help if I summarise who is covered by each provision. Proposed new section 17C of the British Nationality Act 1981 will apply to those who would have been entitled to be registered as a BOTC under the 1981 Act if their mother had been married to their natural father at the time of their birth. It allows the Home Secretary to waive the need for parental consent where that would normally be required. A good character requirement must be met if there is one for the provision that the person could have applied under had their parents been married.

Proposed new section 17D of the 1981 Act will apply to those who would automatically have become a British dependent territories citizen or BOTC at birth under the 1981 Act had their mother been married to their natural father at the time of their birth. Both parents must consent to a child under 18 making an application for registration, but this requirement can be waived where one parent has died, or in special circumstances.

Proposed new section 17E is for those who were citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies immediately before the 1981 Act came into force, and who would automatically have become a British dependent territories citizen, and then a BOTC under the 1981 Act, had their mother been married to their natural father at the time of their birth.

Proposed new section 17F covers three groups. The first is those who were British subjects or citizens of the UK and colonies by virtue of birth in a former colony, and who would not have lost that status on that country’s independence if their parents had been married. The second group is those who were British subjects before 1 January 1949 and would have become citizens of the UK and colonies on that date if their parents had been married. This would affect, for example, a person born in Canada whose father was born in Bermuda, and who would have become a citizen of the UK and colonies by descent if their parents were married. The third group are those who did not acquire British subject status, or citizenship of the UK and colonies, but who would have done if their parents were married. For example, this would affect a person born in the USA to a father born in Montserrat.

Clause 2 also sets out when a person registered under these provisions will acquire BOTC by descent or otherwise than by descent. A person who holds that status by descent will not normally be able to pass it on to a child born outside the territories. Our intention here is to give the person the status they would have received had their parents been married. Home Office officials are working with territories to develop the process for these applications. As was the case with clause 1, we think that registration is the right route, rather than automatic acquisition, to allow people to make a conscious choice about acquiring British nationality.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

If a married couple has a child, the assumption is made that the man is the biological father, even though anyone who has seen “The Jeremy Kyle Show” will know that that is not always the case. If a couple is living together when a child is born, will DNA evidence be required in some or any cases, or will it be assumed that the man is the biological father?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question. I will take it away and write to him on that point.

As I mentioned in relation to clause 1, we will also create a route for people who become BOTCs to additionally become British citizens.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

Sections 1 and 2: related British citizenship

[Tom Pursglove]

I beg to move amendment 59, in clause 3, page 8, line 17, leave out “under this section” and insert “on an application under subsection (1)(a)”.

This amendment means that the requirement in s.4K(3), that a person is registered as a BOTC, only applies to applications under subsection (1)(a). It is not needed for applications under subsection (1)(b), which are made by persons who are already BOTCs, and as previously drafted could have prevented registration of persons naturalised as BOTCs rather than registered.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause stand part.

[Tom Pursglove]

The amendment remedies a drafting issue. The clause as a whole creates a route to register as a British citizen for people who have registered as a British overseas territories citizen under the new routes introduced by clauses 1 and 2. The British Overseas Territories Act 2002 made BOTCs British citizens as well, so it is right that we allow those who missed out on British overseas territories citizenship to become British citizens as well. However, we also want to cover those who have already taken steps to become a British overseas territories citizen, such as through registration or naturalisation in a territory. The amendment introduces the wording of section 4K(3). As that section is currently worded, it means that only those who have been registered as a BOTC can register as British citizens using this clause. The amendment will mean that people who have naturalised as a BOTC will also qualify.

More broadly, on clause stand part, this is an important change aimed at giving British citizenship to those who become British overseas territories citizens under the provisions introduced by clauses 1 and 2. As we have heard, two groups missed out on becoming BOTCs because of anomalies in British nationality law: people born to BOTC mothers before 1983, and people born to unmarried fathers before 1 July 2006. Clauses 1 and 2 will correct this, giving them the opportunity to acquire the BOTC status that they should have had.

We also recognise, however, that changes to the law in 2002 mean that they should also have become British citizens. Under the British Overseas Territories Act 2002, on 21 May 2002 all British overseas territories citizens who had that citizenship by connection with a “qualifying territory” became British citizens. For children born in a qualifying territory after 21 May 2002, British citizenship is acquired automatically if either parent is a British citizen or settled in that territory. This means that this group have missed out on both BOTC and British citizenship, so we need to create a route for them to acquire both.

We recognise that some people who did not become BOTCs automatically may have already taken steps to acquire that status by applying for registration or naturalisation in a territory. Some may also have applied to become a British citizen under existing provisions, but for those who did not, this clause allows a person who would have become a British citizen, had women and unmarried fathers been able to pass on status at the time of their birth, to register as a British citizen if they are now a BOTC.

Home Office officials are working with territories to develop the process for these applications, including in respect of whether this can be a done as a “one-stop” approach, with a person being able to apply for BOTC and then also opt in to apply to be a British citizen at the same time.

We regularly receive representations on this issue, from individuals and governors, and so understand the strength of feeling. We are aware of families where cousins have different statuses because women and men could not pass on citizenship in the same way, or because a child’s parents did not marry. Those in this position understandably feel that they have been unfairly prevented from holding a status that they should have acquired by birth. It is therefore important that we make this change, and I commend clause 3 to the Committee.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh.

Opposition Members will not oppose amendment 59, and I will speak primarily to clause 3 stand part. The clause refers to the creation of the new statutory entitlement for British overseas territories citizens who have been affected by the injustices that we have heard about this morning in relation to clauses 1 and 2 to become citizens by registration. While all those with BOTC status additionally became British citizens in 2002, by virtue of section 3 of the British Overseas Territories Act 2002, we know of the loopholes that have existed due to the fact that women could not pass on citizenship, or because their parents were not married, and as a result many were unable to become British citizens under the 2002 Act. I am pleased that the Government are committing to new routes for adult children of British Overseas Territories Citizen parents to be registered as BOTCs and, in turn, as British citizens.

Clauses 1 to 3 would benefit people born to BOTC mothers and BOTC unmarried fathers who could not pass on citizenship to their child due to nationality laws at the time of the child’s birth, which, as we have heard this morning, is deeply unfair and is rightly being addressed in this legislation. Clause 3 creates a route to becoming a British citizen for people who registered as a BOTC under the new routes introduced by clauses 1 and 2.

However, we must also discuss the implementation of clauses 1 to 3. Accessibility is all-important and while we welcome the changes made to British nationality law outlined earlier today, I have concerns about rights being inaccessible, which we have seen time and again in the UK, with devastating consequences. If we take perhaps the clearest and most heartbreaking example of the Windrush scandal—one of the most shocking and contemptible episodes in the UK Government’s history—I am sure colleagues across the Committee will agree that the Windrush generation were treated shamefully after a lifetime of working hard, paying their taxes, bringing up their families and contributing to our society. They were left facing uncertainty about their legal status in the UK and lost access to their homes, jobs and healthcare, through no fault of their own.

As last year’s “Windrush Lessons Learned Review” highlights, changes made to British nationality law in the 1980s

“progressively impinged on the rights and status of the Windrush generation and their children without many of them realising it.”

Therefore, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, the rights that are to be established for British overseas territories citizenship must be accessible. The Home Office must provide assurances as to when and how these rights will be made public and widely publicised for those affected. I make the point around accessibility now as we discuss clause 3, and I hope we can return to it later on, as I believe it is very important.

Overall, the Opposition none the less support clause 3 as it provides the framework to tidy up inconsistencies in British nationality law and acknowledges those who have suffered under UK law due to loopholes outlined in clauses 1 and 2.

Amendment 59 agreed to.

Amendment proposed: 10, in clause 3, page 8, line 18, at end insert—

“(4) The Secretary of State must not charge a fee for the processing of applications under this section.”—(Stuart C. McDonald.)

This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from charging a fee for British citizenship applications by certain British overseas territories citizens.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Question negatived.

Clause 3, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4

Period for registration of person born outside the British overseas territories

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Tom Pursglove]

We have been clear that the nationality provisions within the Bill seek to tackle historical unfairness and inequality in British nationality law. As with earlier clauses, this legislation gives us the opportunity to amend provisions for British overseas territories citizens to mirror the comparable requirements already in place for British citizens.

Section 17(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981 provides a registration route for a child whose parent is a BOTC by descent where that parent had been in a territory for a continuous period of three years at some point before the child’s birth. At present, an application to register a child under this route must be made within 12 months of the child’s birth. However, the parallel provision for British citizens, section 3(2) of the 1981 Act, was amended in 2010, replacing the requirement for an application to register a child to be made within 12 months of the child’s birth, with a requirement for the application to be made while the child is a minor.

Clause 4 seeks to amend the BOTC registration route in the same way. Rather than requiring applications to be lodged within 12 months of the birth, the clause would allow an application to be made at any time before the child’s 18th birthday. Consequently, the provision for the Secretary of State to exercise discretion to extend the registration period from 12 months to six years in section 17(4) will be removed as it is no longer needed.

Entitlement remains limited to children with a particular parental and residential connection to the relevant territory. In line with the British citizenship route, we do not propose extending the route to adults. Other adults seeking to become BOTCs, such as by naturalisation, must demonstrate a personal connection with the territory and cannot rely merely on the residence of their parents, and we want to ensure that this amendment remains consistent with other existing provisions. The aim is to ensure fairness across British nationality law, not to create further discrepancies. Clause 4 will bring the provisions for BOTCs in line with those already in place for British citizens.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Clause 4 also refers to an additional aspect necessary to align British citizenship and British overseas territory citizenship. The clause removes a requirement that applications for registering a child as a BOTC must be made within 12 months of birth, amending section 17(2) of the 1981 Act. As the Committee will know, section 17(2) provides a registration route for a child whose parent is a BOTC by descent and had been in a territory for a continuous period of three years at some point before the child’s birth. At present, an application under this route must be made within 12 months of the child’s birth; however, the same provision for British citizens was extended throughout childhood with the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, which replaced the requirement for the application to be made within 12 months of the child’s birth with a requirement for the application to be made while the child is a minor.

Clause 4 amends the BOTC registration route in the same way, so the same extension from within 12 months of the child’s birth to throughout childhood is applied to BOTCs. The Opposition support this clause and would be interested to know how many people will be affected once clauses 1 to 4 have been implemented.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Disapplication of historical registration requirements

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Tom Pursglove]

This clause seeks to amend British nationality law to remove historical registration requirements and to reflect recent case law. As we have already heard, before 1983 women were unable to pass on British citizenship, and before 1 July 2006 unmarried fathers were unable to pass on citizenship. Under the previous legislation, the British Nationality Act 1948, citizenship could normally only be passed on to one generation of children born outside of the UK and colonies.

However, section 5(1)(b) of the 1948 Act permitted transmission through a father to a further generation if the child was born in a foreign country and their birth was registered within a year at a British consulate. The period could be extended at the Secretary of State’s discretion. An example of this might be where the child’s grandfather was born in the UK and their father was born in the United States of America: the child’s birth could be registered at the British consulate in the United States and they would have become a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies as a result. However, a British mother or unmarried British father could not register their child’s birth at a consulate, because they were unable to pass on citizenship at that time.

There are already measures in place for people to register as a British citizen if they would have been able to acquire that status automatically if women and unmarried fathers had been able to pass on citizenship under the 1948 Act. This clause means that a person will not be prevented from registering under those provisions if the only reason they cannot qualify is that their parent was unable to register their birth at a consulate.

[Bambos Charalambous]

As we move through part 1 of the Bill, we turn to British citizenship in clause 5. This clause again seeks to correct historical problems in British nationality law concerning discrimination against women. The current statutory language has caused significant problems in implementation. Under the 1948 Act, citizenship could normally only be passed on for one generation to children born outside the UK and colonies, but section 5(1)(b) of the Act permitted it to be passed on to a further generation if the child was born in a foreign country and the birth was registered within a year at a British consulate. The child of the British mother or unmarried British father could not be registered because they were unable to pass on citizenship at the time.

British women, therefore, although able to inherit their fathers’ nationality when born abroad, have historically been denied the right to pass it on to their own children in the same circumstances. Although when it came into force on 1 January 1983 the British Nationality Act 1981 equalised the rights of men and women as regards the nationality of their children, it did nothing to remedy the discrimination against women that had persisted up to that point. That discrimination was demonstrated in the Supreme Court on 9 February 2018, in the Advocate General for Scotland v. Romein. Ms Romein was born in the USA in 1978 and her father was a US citizen. Her mother was born in South Africa to a Scottish mother and a Welsh father, from whom she inherited her British national status. Despite her family’s connections to the United Kingdom on both sides, as a result of the discrimination inherent in British nationality law—specifically, at that time, section 5 of the British Nationality Act 1948—she was unable to pass her British national status on to her own child, despite wishing to do so.

Clause 5 therefore amends eligibility requirements for registration under section 4C and 4I of the British Nationality Act 1981, to disapply the requirements for a birth to have been registered at a British consulate within 12 months. In effect, it will tidy up the language of British nationality legislation to make clear the Supreme Court’s judgment in Ms Romein’s case, which confirmed the right of British women to pass their nationality on to their children born abroad. The Opposition support the clause, which creates no new rights, but rather makes clear the existing rights in UK law. We welcome that.

Question put and agreed to. 

Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. 

Clause 6 

Citizenship where mother married to someone other than natural father  

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Tom Pursglove]

Picking up on the earlier question that the shadow Minister asked, I should say that my understanding when it comes to this amendment is that the clause will affect only a small number of people. But it is an area of law out of touch with modern society, so it is right that we should make this change.

The issue is that in British nationality law the mother’s husband is the child’s father, even if she has been separated from him for years and the child is not biologically related to her husband. That can create difficult cases—for example, when a child’s biological father is a British citizen, but their father for nationality purposes is the mother’s estranged non-British husband. The child misses out on British nationality as a result.

Generally, we think it is right that the mother’s husband should be treated as the child’s father for nationality purposes. The common law presumption is that a child born during a period of marriage is the child of the mother’s husband, unless shown otherwise. For nationality purposes, however, there should be certainty about a child’s status, which should not be subject to change at a later date if paternity is disputed. But we need a solution for the child whose father is not the mother’s husband, so that they do not miss out on becoming British through their natural father.

Until now, we have been registering such children as British citizens using the discretion that the Home Secretary has to register any child under the age of 18 under section 3(1) of the 1981 Act. We recognise that those children would have been British automatically were it not for their mother being married to someone else, so we made that a fee-free route last year.

However, the inconsistency has been highlighted by the courts. In the case of K, the court ruled that, although it was a correct interpretation of the legislation for the child not to be a British citizen automatically, the fact that the only remedy was through discretionary legislation was incompatible with the European convention on human rights.

We must take this opportunity to create a specific route for children in this position to be able to acquire British nationality. That is achievable by removing from existing registration provisions the requirement for children of unmarried fathers to have been born before 1 July 2006. People in this position may not see any practical difference, as they can currently make a fee-free application under section 3(1), but the important point is that the provision gives this group a legal entitlement to registration, rather than their having to rely on the exercise of discretion.

We are also using the clause to allow a child of a non-British member of the British armed forces to make an application to register as a British citizen, despite their mother being married to someone other than their biological father at the time of their birth. That will bring them in line with other children whose parents were serving overseas at the time of the birth.

[Bambos Charalambous]

It is deeply regrettable that British statutory law has long discriminated against children born out of wedlock, preventing British nationality from being derived from a British father if he was not married to the child’s mother. The British Nationality Act 1981, when first passed, did not correct that discrimination relating to British citizenship, but since then there have been various attempts to remove it. Those amendments have created rights to be registered as a British citizen for some of the people affected by that discrimination. However, no corresponding right has been introduced for people who would have become British overseas territory citizens. As we have seen, clause 2 is intended to correct this omission, and the Opposition support it.

However, clause 2 is not sufficient in itself to correct the discrimination relating to British citizenship; indeed, the relevant legislation has led to an anomaly. That anomaly, which is to be corrected by clause 6, which we also support, is that people who would have been born a British citizen but for their father not being married to their mother now have the right to be registered as a British citizen if they were born before 1 July 2006. That applies whether or not the mother was married to someone else at the time of the person’s birth.

However, people born on or after that date, who would similarly have been born a British citizen but were not because their father was not married to their mother, do not have a corresponding right. The courts have declared that discrimination to be incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998. Clause 6 is intended to correct that injustice, and we therefore support it. It does so only for British citizenship. That is because the correction for British overseas territories citizenship is built into clause 2.

As has been said, our primary concern with clauses 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 is not with the text or with the fundamental intentions behind them but with the fact that, when commenced, the rights that are to be established must be accessible. There are too many examples of British nationality rights being inaccessible. The Windrush scandal is but one especially painful relevant example.

The following matters are therefore crucial. We would like the Minister to give assurances as to how these rights will be made public and will be sufficiently widely publicised, not least because many of the beneficiaries will be in other territories or countries.

Ministers must equally give assurances that evidential and procedural obstacles will, to the fullest extent practical, be removed or reduced. Biometric registration and overseas and mandatory citizenship ceremonies, for example, must not be prohibitive to the exercise of these rights, as they have been in the past. Biometric registration must not be prohibitively expensive or inaccessible. Ceremonies can be waived, and that should be done where a person wishes to do that, or where a ceremony cannot be offered without undue cost or delay to the person being registered.

Where relevant information is available and can be confirmed by the Home Office or the Passport Office, that should be done. People must not be obstructed by unreasonable demands for evidence. It must be understood that, for some people, there may be considerable obstacles to securing evidence of their rights so many years after the original injustice—for example, due to age, somebody passing away, or separation, including by reason of abuse or violence. The Home Office or Passport Office must be as helpful as possible to facilitate the exercise of these rights.

In conclusion, we support the clause and the intention behind it, but it is of great importance that the Minister also ensures that these rights are fully accessible.

[Tom Pursglove]

Let me respond briefly to the point that has understandably and rightly been made. As I said in response to earlier clauses, there is a very constructive working relationship between the Home Office and the various overseas territories for which these provisions are relevant, as well as with the various governors. There is good engagement, and we are keen to see this information cascaded.

The point I would strongly make is that we are seeking through the provisions in the Bill to put right past injustices, and we would want this information to be as readily available as possible to people who may find themselves affected. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate has my undertaking that I will take that point away and monitor it very closely to ensure that that happens.

In the discussion on an earlier clause, my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby showed an interest in relation to proof of paternity. In relation to this clause, regulations will set out what can be accepted as proof of paternity—first, being named before 10 September 2015 as the child’s father on the birth certificate issued within 12 months of the birth and, in all other cases, any evidence such as DNA test reports, court orders or birth certificates considered by the Secretary of State to establish paternity. I know that my right hon. Friend had an interest in that issue in relation to the earlier clause, but I thought that it would be useful to say something about it here as well.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7

Citizenship: registration in special cases

--- Later in debate ---

[Bambos Charalambous]

I want to speak to amendment 34, which deals with people who would be British overseas citizens today but for historical unfairness in the law, an act or omission of a public authority or other exceptional circumstances. The Opposition welcome the fact that clause 7 attempts to rectify the position for those who would be British citizens or British overseas territories citizens today but for such an error. However, the clause does nothing for people who would be British overseas citizens today, and that is wrong.

Those who would be BOCs but for such an error should not be excluded from the proposed remedy. They have suffered from historical unfairness, just as those who would be British citizens or BOTCs today have done. Prior to 1983, there was one substantive class of British nationals, citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies. When the British Nationality Act 1981 came into force on 1 January 1983, CUKCs were divided and reclassified into three categories: British citizens, connected to the UK; British dependent territories citizens—now BOTCs—connected to the remaining British overseas territories, such as the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar; and BOCs, connected to the former British colonies.

The Home Office acknowledges that past unfairness in British nationality law includes where men and women were unable to pass on citizenship equally, and where unmarried fathers could not pass on citizenship. The Home Office acknowledges that in the case of people who could be British citizens or BOTCs, but many persons who would be overseas citizens today also suffer from such prejudice. As a result of the British overseas expansion and later decolonisation, there are pockets of BOCs around the world—for example, in Kenya, Malaysia, South Africa and anglophone west Africa, including places such as Sierra Leone. The category of BOC was created under the British Nationality Act, and it gave effect to the fact that BOCs were British nationals and should remain so. The newly created status gave no home or right of abode in the UK or any other remaining British territory.

Although BOCs have no right to come to the UK or a remaining British overseas territory, the status still has real value. It enables a person to seek to use the UK BOC passport, and possession of such a passport enables BOCs to seek UK consular assistance in a third country and to seek residence and permission to work in third countries under local laws. It may be useful where the passport of another nationality that those people hold is considered unreliable, and where their children are born stateless, to benefit from UK laws that reduce statelessness.

BOCs around the world make active use of that status. For example, many persons of Somali heritage born in Aden in Yemen when it was a British colony are reliant on BOC status, as they were, and are, shut out from the Yemeni nationality. Their BOC passports enable them to obtain lawful residence and permission to work in Gulf states, and to secure a visa to study in other countries. The Home Office proposal in clause 7 helps those affected by historical unfairness in British nationality law, an act or omission of a public authority, or exceptional circumstances to become British citizens or BOTCs. However, potential BOCs would also have suffered from such historical unfairness in British nationality law, acts or omissions of public authorities, or other exceptional circumstances. All those classes of British nationals were CUKCs prior to the British Nationality Act 1981, and all suffered from these problems. Clause 7 should therefore be supplemented to provide for registration as a BOC on the same basis as it enables registration as a British citizen or BOTC.

[Tom Pursglove]

I will deal with each of the amendments proposed, and then I will of course pick up on a number of the points, questions and challenges that have been raised throughout the course of this debate.

I thank the hon. Members for Enfield, Southgate and for Halifax for having tabled amendment 35, which would allow a person to become a British citizen automatically following their adoption in the UK if the order was made after the age of 18 but before the age of 19, but the adoption proceedings started before their 18th birthday. I have noted the unusual situation, highlighted by hon. Members, in which newly adopted young people can find themselves as a result of differences between the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and the British Nationality Act 1981. An adopted person can automatically acquire British citizenship, provided they are under 18 on the date the adoption order is made. However, under the 2002 Act, it is possible for an adoption order to be made where someone is already 18 years old but has not yet turned 19.

I am aware of cases in which individuals are affected by those nationality provisions, and I have some sympathy for them. However, I am also conscious that a person aged 18 will normally be capable of making their own life choices. At 18, someone can purchase alcohol, accrue debt, join the Army, or vote in an election. From a legal standpoint, at 18, an individual is fully fledged and can theoretically live independently of other family members. It is therefore consistent that a person aged 18 or over who is seeking to acquire British citizenship should normally do so only on the basis of their personal connections with this country, not those of their new family.

I must consider the wider position of adopted children, and I am satisfied that to extend the nationality rules to cover persons who have attained the majority would move nationality out of step with immigration routes. For example, young people over the age of 18 must meet the requirements of the immigration category they are applying in, and are unable to rely on other family members for a claim to residence. I have sympathy for those young adults who feel that they have lost out, but other routes are available that would allow them to choose whether they wish to naturalise or register as British citizens.

Turning to amendment 13, again I thank hon. Members for tabling the amendment and for drawing attention to clause 7, which we believe is a positive move that will allow the Home Secretary to grant British citizenship to those who have missed out on acquiring it, potentially due to reasons beyond their control. Clause 7 will apply to anyone who

“would have been, or would have been able to become, a British citizen but for—

(a) historical legislative unfairness,

(b) an act or omission of a public authority,”

or their exceptional circumstances. This means that the clause covers not just those who would have become citizens automatically, but those who might have had an entitlement to registration or could have registered or naturalised at the Home Secretary’s discretion. As such, we think it right that the provision remains discretionary, to allow the Home Secretary to take into account the criteria that she might have taken into account at the time.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I will have to give some further thought to what the Minister has just said. I take the point about people who would have had to register—therefore, there is still an element of discretion. However, will he look again at the case of those who would have automatically had that citizenship and whether there really should be such broad discretion in cases where people have missed out on citizenship because of historical injustice or exceptional circumstances?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the point that he raises. Broadly speaking, there is a view that the discretionary approach to cases is helpful in ensuring that we can reach the right decision in individual cases and that we are able to take into full account, in general terms, all the relevant factors.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Is it the Minister’s intention that the Government will publish the grounds on which decisions are made with discretionary purposes for each decision, regardless of whether they are successful or not?

[Tom Pursglove]

I will come back to the point that the hon. Gentleman raises but, as I say, there is a view that taking a discretionary approach to cases is helpful in reaching the correct decisions, and that the circumstances of individual cases are properly taken into account. There is precedent in the British Nationality Act 1981 for applications to be considered on a discretionary basis—for example, naturalisation is a discretionary provision. The law states that the Home Secretary may naturalise a person if she thinks fit and that person meets the statutory requirements. Members will be aware that the Home Office publishes caseworker guidance, which sets out the sorts of circumstances where discretion would normally be exercised, and that is relevant to the point that the hon. Gentleman raises.

[Neil Coyle]

It is in part, but publishing the full grounds will help to determine whether people seek to take a case or not.

My further question is about the equality impact assessment. As I touched on this morning, the Government are suggesting that they will extend access to legal aid through the Bill. Is the Government’s intention that legal aid will be extended for this specific purpose, regardless of whether people can make a successful claim or not?

[Tom Pursglove]

Again, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. The key point is that through the Bill, we are improving access to justice. Clearly, the improved access to justice offer is very relevant to the one-stop shop proposals that we are taking forward in the Bill and which we will no doubt debate in greater detail when we reach later clauses.

[Neil Coyle]

Is that a yes or no?

[Tom Pursglove]

We will no doubt debate this in great detail in due course. As I say, we are putting in place an improved access to justice offer more generally through the Bill.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

There is an absolutely fundamental distinction between naturalisation and registration. We are talking about people who would have had an automatic right to citizenship, which is completely different from naturalisation altogether. Again, I am still struggling to understand why there has to be such broad discretion. People have lost their automatic right because of historical injustice, and the danger that has been highlighted by Members is that that will put folk off applying. Will the Minister not even think about some restrictions on the degree of discretion that the Home Secretary has, or at least provide detailed guidance on when she will exercise that in people’s favour?

[Tom Pursglove]

I want to pick up the points that have been raised by the hon. Members for Bermondsey and for Old Southwark and for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East. Clearly, the guidance is a very important element of the immigration system, so that people can understand very clearly what is required and precisely how cases will be handled. I am always in favour of trying to make such matters more transparent and to improve guidance wherever we can, and that is always ongoing work. I take on board the point that has been raised, and I will certainly reflect on it.

As I say, Members will be aware that the Home Office publishes caseworker guidance, which sets out the sorts of circumstances where discretion would normally be exercised. This works, and we intend that published guidance will also be available for the new adult registration route. The fact that the Home Secretary is not obliged to naturalise a person does not therefore impact practically on most applicants. However, we want to maintain the ability to refuse applications from people who might meet the requirements, but are nevertheless unsuitable to become British citizens.

Where registration is set out in legislation as an entitlement, it needs to be more tightly set out so that there is no doubt as to who does and does not benefit. Because of the historical nature of citizenship and the fact that issues can crop up that we might not have been aware of, we need the flexibility to be able to consider someone’s circumstances without being overly prescriptive. Equally, we recognise that people can be affected by a number of circumstances, which may be difficult to set out in detail. We are not making this a discretionary provision in order to refuse deserving people, but to allow us to respond to situations that cannot reasonably be foreseen.

I understand that hon. Members may wish to seek assurance that people who have missed out in the past will be granted citizenship, but we think that this can be achieved through a discretionary route, which will allow us to take into account all the circumstances of a case. That is why we are introducing the various provisions in the Bill in the first place: to right those historical wrongs. We want this to work.

On amendment 30, again, I thank the hon. Members for tabling the amendment. The new adult discretionary registration provision will allow the Home Secretary to grant British citizenship to anyone who would have been, or would have been able to become, a British citizen, but for historical legislative unfairness, an act or omission of a public authority, or the exceptional circumstances in play. I understand hon. Members’ concerns that that power should be used fairly and consistently, which is right.

Each case will be considered on its own merits, taking into account the particular circumstances of that person, including the reasons they were unable to become a British citizen automatically, through registration or through naturalisation. On that basis it would be unnecessary to have a legislative clause that effectively causes us to treat like cases in a similar way, because applications will be decided in line with the legislation and guidance.

I have already mentioned that we intend to publish caseworker guidance setting out when we expect that this power might be used and the sort of circumstances we will take into account. Of course, that is done very transparently and can be seen by hon. Members and by people out there seeking access to those routes. As I think is my colleagues’ intended purpose in proposing the amendment, that will help to maintain consistency in decision making.

However, I am not convinced that that would be helped by a statutory requirement to produce or amend guidance every time a person with different circumstances is registered. There may be concerns about reflecting an individual’s circumstances in published guidance, even if anonymised. We will reflect the overarching principles in guidance and amend as appropriate. Guidance will continue to be published on the gov.UK website. I can also assure hon. Members that work is done within UK Visas and Immigration to ensure consistency of decision making, particularly when a new route is introduced, and I think that that is right and proper.

I do not think we can commit in statute to publicise any grants of citizenship to people in a similar position. As I have said, we will publish guidance setting out the approach we will take and make it available to potential applicants, but it would not be right to impose a statutory requirement to do so. Indeed, some of those registered will be in unique positions and it would not be possible to identify others who might qualify on the same basis.

The reporting obligation set out in the amendment would require the Home Secretary each year to report any historical legislative unfairness that had been identified in registering a person under clause 7 and say how she intends to correct it. Perhaps it would help to clarify that the thinking behind clause 7 is that it can be used to rectify individual situations that may have been created by historical unfairness, rather than having to create specific provisions to cover each scenario.

[Neil Coyle]

I thought the Minister was one of those who believed in Parliament taking back control, not the Executive having more control, but let me have one more attempt at the legal aid question. This is not just about the circumstances of the individuals involved—we have heard some distressing cases today—but about the costs imposed in particular on councils, which are using emergency services to support people who might otherwise qualify for support. If legal aid were immediately available for everyone affected, those cases could be resolved much more quickly. Given the complexity the Bill is imposing, it seems as if it should be an actual requirement that that support be available. Let me try again: will legal aid be extended to everyone facing these circumstances as a result of this legislation?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question and I will visit that in my later remarks, if I may. He is right to say that I think it is right that Parliament took back control. That is a debate we have had on many occasions and no doubt will continue to have in the years ahead. I am a member of the Government, but I still believe very strongly in parliamentary sovereignty and the role of Parliament in decision making.

To clarify, the thinking behind clause 7 is that it can be used to rectify individual situations that may have been created by historical unfairness, rather than having to create specific provisions to cover each scenario, some of which may affect only a very small number of individuals. This is in fact the way we intend to address those situations, and it may not necessarily be appropriate to introduce additional measures to do so. As such, I do not see that specifying such a report in legislation would be helpful. In terms of addressing unfairness, this provision does not give a far-reaching power—it is much narrower than the discretion the Home Secretary has to register a child under section 3(1) of the British Nationality Act 1981. It does, however, reflect our desire to address historical injustices, as is reflected in all of the first eight clauses. I therefore ask hon. Members not to press amendment 30.

I am grateful to hon. Members for tabling amendment 14, which replicates amendment 13 for British overseas territories citizenship. I set out in response to the earlier amendment why we wanted this to be a discretionary provision, rather than creating an obligation to register. The same arguments apply here. Turning to amendment 31, I have set out why we could not accept an earlier amendment, and the same arguments apply here. I hope that hon. Members will not press amendment 31 either. On amendment 34, new clause 12 seeks to create a discretionary adult registration route for a person to become a British overseas citizen.

[The Chair]

I am sorry for interrupting, but I am not sure that we are actually debating new clause 12 at the moment. As far as I understand it, we are debating amendment 35 to clause 7 and amendments 13, 30, 14, 31 and 34 and clause 7 stand part.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

I was referring in passing to new clause 12, Ms McDonagh. British overseas citizenship, or BOC, was created by the 1981 Act. It was created for people connected with former British territories who did not have a close connection with the UK or one of the remaining British overseas territories. This was usually where they were from or connected to—a country that had become independent, but they did not acquire the citizenship of that country. The intention was to avoid making people stateless due to complex histories of independence or countries ceasing to be British protected territories. The intention of the 1981 Act was that everyone who was a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies immediately before 1 January 1983 would continue to hold some form of British nationality. The then Government anticipated that many who became BOCs would have an additional citizenship or nationality.

British overseas citizenship was intended to be a transitional status, and it was expected that many who held that status would have acquired the nationality of the place where they were born or were living in the 38 years since that legislation was passed. They are able to hold a BOC passport and rely on consular assistance when outside the country of any other nationality that they hold, but are likely to rely on their other citizenship for rights of residence and local travel. Given the 38 years that have passed, we do not anticipate that there can be many people who have missed out on becoming a BOC and have no other citizenship or nationality.

There were provisions for children of CUKC mothers to register under the British Nationality Act 1964 where they would otherwise have been stateless. Since 1983, there have been measures in place to acquire BOC through discretionary registration as a child or for certain people who are stateless. However, it was not the general intention that further people would acquire British overseas citizenship under the 1981 Act other than in those specific circumstances. People who hold only BOC and do not have, and have not voluntarily lost, another citizenship or nationality are able to apply for British citizenship under existing legislation. If a person believes that they missed out on becoming a BOC because of historical unfairness, and that, as a result, they also missed out on being able to become a British citizen, as they have no other nationality and have not done anything that meant that they lost a nationality, there is nothing to stop them applying for that status under the clause. BOC status was introduced to avoid statelessness due to complex histories of independence or countries ceasing to be British protected territories. We do not intend to create a new route to British overseas citizenship.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Coyle]

If I heard the Minister correctly, he is suggesting that someone should pursue their rights through the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but that process would take years and could cost millions if the Government were opposing what that individual was seeking. Is it not incumbent on the Government, under the Equality Act 2010, to get things right up front? Would that not save a lot of time and money, and prevent a lot of desperate situations from emerging?

[Tom Pursglove]

The point that I would make is that we keep evolving circumstances and individual cases under review. It is right that we consider cases individually and properly take account of their individual circumstances. That is why we are arguing strongly that the discretionary means of tackling this is the correct way to do so. I am confident that through the provisions, we will right many historical injustices and wrongs, and that is something we should all welcome.

In the light of the debate that we had about fees, whether or not applications will be free under the clause is an important point. That will be an issue for the appropriate fees regulations in due course. As I set out when dealing with earlier clauses, those regulations will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. I note the views that have been strongly expressed today. Members will have heard what I have said about this previously, and I would be very happy to engage with them in the development of those regulations that we would then bring forward. With that, I would ask hon. Members not to press their amendments.

[Bambos Charalambous]

I wish to press amendment 35, and all other amendments in my name and in the names of the other Members.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider that schedule 1 be the First schedule to the Bill.

[Tom Pursglove]

I think it is fair to say that, with all the Blair and Brown documentaries on television at the moment, it is perfect to be thinking about clause IV, for members of the Opposition.

[The Chair]

I do not wish to interrupt the Minister, but he may find that clause IV was not dealt with in the depth that it should have been.

[Tom Pursglove]

That is me told.

Clause 7 applies to three routes to British nationality: naturalisation as a British citizen, naturalisation as a British overseas territories citizen and registration as a British citizen for other British nationals. All these routes require a person to have been in the UK or an overseas territory for a continuous period immediately before applying. This is known as the residential qualifying period. These residence requirements exist to allow a person to show that they have a close and ongoing connection with the United Kingdom.

The residential qualifying period is five years, or three years for spouses and civil partners of British citizens or British overseas territories citizens who are applying for naturalisation. During the five-year period, the person must not have been outside the UK for more than 450 days, must not be subject to immigration time restrictions in the UK or a relevant territory, and must have been lawfully resident. There is discretion in the legislation to overlook excess absences and unlawful presence, but the requirement to have been in the UK or territory on the first day of the residential qualifying period is mandatory. There is no discretion in the current law to grant citizenship to someone who does not meet that requirement.

This means that, for example, a person who has lived in the UK for 10 years, but who was absent from the UK at the point five years before making an application because of a global pandemic, would not be able to qualify, despite their long-term connection with the UK. Under the current legislation, their only option would be to wait until they could meet the requirement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

I very much agree, because the people we are talking about came here because they were invited. My partner’s family were among them. Thankfully, they were not caught up in this scandal.

We needed people to come here and help rebuild after world war two. People living in the Caribbean were well used to having white people in charge of their country, but what they were not so used to was the racist abuse that would meet them when they reached these shores. They assumed they would be welcome because they were part of the Commonwealth. They fought in our wars. They were invited here. It must have been a huge shock when they got here and somehow that narrative changed.

The narrative is still being used—it is still being used by some people elected to this place—that somehow the gratitude in all of this should be their gratitude to us and that we are somehow doing them some sort of favour. In fact, lots of our wealth was built on the backs of the people we enslaved on those islands. I cannot remember what it is called, but there is such a thing as the collective, inherited trauma that people suffer from. Their descendants were then invited over here to do what we needed done and they were treated the way they were treated, and then they were treated by this Government in the way they were treated in the Windrush scandal.

In the first years, about 5,000 Jamaican nurses came here. We have heard about all of those people from overseas territories who came and supported our health service. Many of them have suffered greatly. Some died during the pandemic, because they put themselves at risk. We needed those 5,000 nurses who came from Jamaica in the first years for our health system, but Jamaica needed them as well. We took them out of the Jamaican health system. We should have been thanking them. We should have been on our knees with gratitude. I do not like the narrative that they are somehow supposed to be grateful to us. So, yes, I would have liked these measures to have gone much further, but I will say that taking away the five-year rule is at least doing something to hold our hands up and say, “We did something wrong, and you don’t deserve to have to wait the five years when you are not the ones at fault.”

[Tom Pursglove]

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East speaks for the whole House in saying that immigration has made an enormously positive contribution to this country over decades. As elected Members and in our communities across the country, we should continually make mention of that and constantly reflect on it—I am certainly very conscious of it.

Equally, I am conscious of the importance of righting the wrongs of what happened in relation to Windrush. There is an absolute commitment at the Home Office to do just that: follow up on Wendy Williams’s recommendations and make sure that they are delivered. As the SNP spokesman said, the clause has benefit beyond Windrush. I am really pleased that it seems the Committee can come together and support the clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Clause 9

Citizenship: stateless minors

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Tom Pursglove]

The clause amends the provision for registering a child as a British citizen or British overseas territories citizen when the child was born in the UK or a territory and has been stateless since birth. Although it applies to both British citizenship and BOTC, it addresses an issue specific to the UK, so I am going to talk about British citizenship. However, parallel changes will be made in relation to BOTC.

It may help if I put the issue in the context of all children born in the United Kingdom. Since 1983, a child born in the UK will be a British citizen automatically only if one of their parents is a British citizen, is settled in the United Kingdom or, from 13 January 2010, is a member of the armed forces.

“Settled” is defined in the British Nationality Act 1981 as being ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom and not subject to an immigration time restriction on their stay. That effectively excludes those whose parents only have limited leave to remain or are here illegally. Those exempt from immigration control because of diplomatic service or as members of visiting forces are also not regarded as settled. Any child born in the United Kingdom after 1 January 1983 who was not a British citizen at birth has an entitlement to register as a British citizen if the parent becomes a British citizen or settled in the UK, if the parent joins the armed forces, or if the child lives here for the first 10 years of their life.

In addition, there is provision for children born in the UK who would otherwise be stateless to acquire citizenship. If a child is born in the UK to a parent who is a British overseas territories citizen, British overseas citizen or British subject and would otherwise be stateless, they will acquire the same nationality as the parent. Alternatively, if a child is born in the UK and is, and has always been, stateless, they can apply to be registered as a British citizen before their 22nd birthday based on a period of five years’ residence. Those provisions enable us to meet our obligations under the convention on the reduction of statelessness. That means that if a child is stateless and has had no other citizenship or nationality from birth, they can effectively be registered on reaching the age of five—rather than after the age of 10, like other children born in the UK.

The UK, like many other countries, allows for citizenship to be acquired by descent by a child born abroad to a parent who holds that status by birth. Under most countries’ citizenship laws that happens automatically, but some countries require the parents to register a child’s birth for the child to access citizenship. That is the case for India and Sri Lanka, where a child’s birth needs to be registered at a high commission if they are to be recognised as a citizen.

We are aware that increasing numbers of non-settled parents in the UK are actively deciding not to register their child’s birth at the embassy or high commission, and thus failing to secure their child’s entitlement to their parents’ nationality by descent.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The explanatory note just says that there have been cases. This is a very serious change. Can the Minister give us examples of analysis that has been done and the types of circumstances in which such decisions are taking place? Tell us about the scale. I see no evidence of a significant problem, whereas I do see that the clause could cause significant harm.

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for prompting me on this. I have a fairly lengthy speech on this clause. I will come to those points, and will illustrate them with some specific case studies, which I hope will be of interest to him.

As I was saying, this results in the child remaining stateless from birth and enables them to be registered as a British citizen once they reach the age of five if they meet the other criteria. We have seen a significant increase in applications, from tens per year to thousands. In 2016-17, there were 32 applications to register stateless children on this basis. That increased in 2017-18 to 1,815 applications. This allows individuals, including those who have overstayed or entered illegally, to acquire British citizenship for their child, which can in turn benefit their own immigration status.

We do not think it fair that parents can effectively secure a quicker route to British citizenship by choosing not to register their child’s birth. In doing so, they are depriving their child of a nationality, which is about not only identity and belonging, but being able to acquire a passport or identity document, and the ability to travel overseas, such as to see family. They are also taking advantage of a provision that is intended to protect those who are genuinely stateless.

I will say, for the avoidance of doubt, that the process of birth registration is not impossibly difficult. It is simply a matter of completing a form and supplying supporting information about the parent’s identity, status and residence, and the child’s birth. The fee to register a child’s birth at the Indian high commission in the UK is £19; it is £53 at the Sri Lankan high commission.

In changing this provision, we want to maintain the ability for genuinely stateless children to benefit, but we want to change the registration provisions so that parents cannot effectively choose statelessness for their child and then benefit from these provisions. That is right and proper, and in line with our international obligations.

We think it is right that children who genuinely cannot acquire a nationality should be able to benefit under the stateless provisions of the 1981 Act. This change reflects our expectation that families should take reasonable steps to acquire a nationality for their child. We will set out in guidance the sort of steps that we think are reasonable, and applications will be considered on an individual basis.

The provisions are not intended to negatively impact children of recognised refugees who are unable to approach the authorities of their former country. Hon. Members may argue that it is important for a child to have a nationality. We agree. That is why we are a signatory to, and are committed to, the 1961 convention.

Why are parents choosing not to acquire a nationality for their child when they can, leaving the child without the ability to travel urgently if needed for five years? Let us look at a typical example that addresses the point raised by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East.

[Neil Coyle]

The Minister refers to a typical example, but I believe that the question put was about the overall number of cases. Will the Minister provide the House with the overall number of cases involved, and specifically the number of cases in which the Government suggest nationality is being deliberately withheld?

[Tom Pursglove]

Let me talk through the case studies in the first instance, because I think it is useful to set this in context. Child X was born in the UK, which their Indian parents had entered as students. The student route is not one that leads to settlement, so they could not have assumed they would be granted indefinite permission to stay. The college they were studying at had its sponsorship licence revoked, and the parents remained here illegally.

At the time of X’s birth, both parents were in the UK without lawful leave. Steps were taken to remove X’s parents, who absconded at one point. However, an application was made to register X as a British citizen, under the stateless minor provision, a few days after their fifth birthday. While they had not approached the Indian high commission to register X’s birth, the parents provided letters they had obtained from the Indian authorities stating that there was no record of the birth having been registered, so they clearly had no fear of approaching the Indian authorities.

X was registered as a British citizen, as the current wording of the British Nationality Act 1981 left us no other option. The parents then made an application to remain in the UK on the basis of family life, which was granted because it would have been harsh for the British child to leave the UK. I hope that Members across the House will agree that, while it is not X’s fault that their parents manipulated the system, it is not right that as a result they can acquire citizenship earlier than other children born here, whose parents have remained in the UK lawfully and been fully compliant.

We have heard the comment that parents should be able to choose which nationality their child has, but this is not about French parents living in the UK with settled status, for example, choosing whether to apply for a French or British passport, as the child holds dual nationality. Nor is it about parents who are dual nationals, such as a parent who is a British citizen by birth and citizen of Bangladesh by descent choosing not to register their child’s birth, which would have allowed them to acquire citizenship of Bangladesh in addition to British citizenship. No: this is about parents who are choosing not to acquire their own nationality for their child and leaving them with no nationality for a significant period until they can eventually qualify for British citizenship.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has published a document entitled “Guidelines on Statelessness nr 4: Ensuring Every Child’s Right to Acquire a Nationality through Articles 1-4 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness”. Those guidelines cover situations where it is possible to acquire the nationality of a parent by registration. They provide that the responsibility to grant nationality to children who would otherwise be stateless is not engaged where a child is born in a state’s territory and is stateless but could acquire a nationality by registration with the state of nationality of a parent, or a similar procedure.

The guidelines go on to say that it is acceptable for contracting states not to grant nationality to children in these circumstances if the child concerned can acquire the nationality of a parent immediately after birth and the state of nationality of the parent does not have any discretion to refuse the grant of nationality. However, that does not apply if a child’s parents are unable to register, or have good reasons for not registering, their child with the state of their own nationality. That must be determined depending on whether an individual could reasonably be expected to take action to acquire the nationality in the circumstances of their particular case. The effect of this clause therefore reflects the approach recommended by the UNHCR.

We understand that parents want the best for their children, and that a future in the UK represents that to them, but it is not right that they choose not to acquire a nationality for their child in order to facilitate that. We want genuinely stateless children to be able to benefit from our stateless child provisions, but we expect those who can easily acquire a nationality for their child to do so.

I will pick up on the point the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark made, because I am sure he wants to prompt me on that, but I first wanted to get through those case studies and set out the Government’s rationale. Clearly, in some cases there is a perverse incentive, and it undoubtedly disadvantages those who are acting in accordance with both the letter and the spirit of the law. It is right to address that, and that is why we are taking the measures proposed in clause 9 to close that loophole.

[Neil Coyle]

Will the Minister provide the overall number of cases that the Government believe fit this category? Will the Government also publish the number of children involved in similar cases where the parents have been trying to regularise their status within the UK? We had examples this morning such as that of my constituent Ade Ronke, who was wrongfully accused by the Home Office of having a prosecution that she did not have—it was a case of mistaken identity. There are cases like that, and hers took seven years to regularise. I mentioned this morning that at least two cases in my constituency took 10 years. There may be many children across the country whose parents have been waiting very many years to sort their status, who could fit into this category, but are being mislabelled by the Government.

[Tom Pursglove]

The direct answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is that we can provide details of the number of applications, but we cannot confirm the specific number of cases in the way he is requesting. We know this is happening, and we believe that there is a perverse incentive for people to choose not to acquire a nationality, so that the family as a whole can jump the queue.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

May I confirm that I heard the Minister right? Did he say that the Government and Home Office are clear that this is happening, but they cannot give any indication of the extent?

[Tom Pursglove]

As I have said, we are aware that this is happening. We think it is right to take steps through the Bill, so that those going through the process are not disadvantaged relative to those who are seeking to make use of this loophole.

[Bambos Charalambous]

We believe that clause 9 will disentitle many stateless children who were born and grew up in the UK from their existing statutory right to British citizenship. I have heard what the Minister said. I think it would require a fair bit of cunning and conniving to conceive a child, wait for five years and not register them before applying for citizenship. This applies not just to children aged five, but to children aged five to 17. There may be many children caught up in those circumstances. We therefore strongly oppose this clause and believe that it should be removed.

Let us be absolutely clear about what the Government are trying to change with this clause. The existing law in section 36 of the British Nationality Act 1981 gives effect to schedule 2 expressly for the “purpose of reducing statelessness”. Paragraph 3 of schedule 2 is designed to prevent children born in the UK from growing up without nationality. As Ministers made clear during the passage of the 1981 Act, the provision was needed to ensure continued compliance with our international obligations under the UN convention on the reduction of statelessness, to which the Minister referred. In accordance with that convention, the provision entitles someone under the age of 22 born stateless in the UK who has lived in the UK for five continuous years at the point of application and who has always been stateless to register as a British citizen.

Clause 9 inserts a new paragraph 3A into schedule 2 of the 1981 Act for stateless children aged five to 17, requiring the Secretary of State to be satisfied that the child was unable to acquire another nationality before the child is permitted to register as a British citizen. It considers that a child can acquire a nationality where the nationality is the same as that of one of the parents, the person has been entitled to acquire that nationality since birth, and in all circumstances it is reasonable to expect them, or someone acting on their behalf, to take steps to acquire that nationality.

We oppose clause 9 because it is unethical and puts children’s rights in jeopardy. It unnecessarily restricts a vital safeguard intended to protect the rights and best interests of a small group of marginalised children born in the UK. For those affected, statelessness can mean problems accessing rights and services, denied opportunities, unfulfilled potential and a sense of never quite belonging. As worded, the new provision would give the Secretary of State wide discretion to prevent a stateless child born in the UK from acquiring British citizenship, perpetuating their statelessness. The Opposition believe that clause 9 creates an additional and unjustified hurdle to stateless children’s registration as British citizens and to satisfying the Secretary of State that they cannot secure some other nationality. This is in addition to the child having to show that they were born stateless in the UK, have remained stateless throughout their life and have lived at least five continuous years in the UK at the point of exercising their statutory entitlement to be recognised as a British citizen.

For many years, the existing requirements have together proved a high barrier to stateless children securing citizenship of the UK, which is where they were born, where they live and where they are connected to. Clarification of the relevant law by the High Court in 2017 and awareness raising by the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens, the European Network on Statelessness and others have enabled several children to apply to be registered under statutory provisions that are expressly intended to reduce statelessness. Prior to this, applications were so few as to be negligible. That indicates the profound inadequacy of the Home Office’s previous operation of the provision, and the strong likelihood that there have been a growing number of children living stateless in the UK, in contravention of the original parliamentary purpose, and following the UK’s international commitment to reducing statelessness.

The purported justification for the draconian clause 9 bears no relation to any matter over which the child has any control or influence, or for which they have any responsibility. It is suggested that some parents may choose not to exercise a right to register their child with the nationality of another country, and may leave their child stateless for the purpose of securing British citizenship, but no evidence has been presented for the idea that some parents may choose not to exercise the right to register their child with the nationality of another country. In any event, an application for registration of a stateless child’s entitlement to British citizenship is a complex matter, and that itself has been an effective and unjust deterrent to the exercising of the right.

The UK Government have provided no evidence to justify restricting children’s rights in such a way. In fact, the leading organisations in the field have evidence to show that stateless children and young people born in the UK already face significant barriers to acquiring British citizenship under existing law, and that has a significant detrimental impact on their wellbeing. Young people have described how their inability to acquire British citizenship leaves them feeling alienated and excluded.

--- Later in debate ---

It would be an irresponsible Government, an irresponsible Home Office and an irresponsible Minister who risked making the same mistake, at huge human cost to the families and children affected, huge administrative cost to the Department, and huge cost through legal fees and court processes, which reached the same conclusion that the Government failed to do here what they failed to do previously.

[Tom Pursglove]

We have had a very wide ranging debate in relation to these matters, with views expressed that are sincerely and strongly felt. I do not doubt that for a moment. Let me be clear that genuinely stateless children will still be able to benefit from the registration provisions. This change is to prevent people from benefiting by choosing not to acquire their own nationality for their child where they are able to do so.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the Minister for giving way, because it is important that he addresses the question that has been raised successively. The clause goes against the drift of the rest of part 1, which is rectifying anomalies. This potentially creates one, and one that will come to land heavily on the Home Office in the future, as well as those who will be affected by it. It is incumbent on him, before we vote on it, to explain clearly the extent of the problem. He has given only one anecdote as the justification for it. Will he use the opportunity to do that now?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. As Opposition Members will know, the way that I go about my work is to always try to be as constructive and helpful as possible. With that in mind, I will gladly write to the Committee setting out in greater detail our rationale for taking this approach, and as much information as I can to justify it.

As I say, there is a fairness issue here that we believe needs to be addressed. The MK case was cited, and it is worth recognising that in his conclusion Judge Ockelton made the comment that it opens an obvious route to abuse. We are satisfied that what we are proposing complies with our obligations under the statelessness conventions, and all our obligations that flow from that. I commend that the clause stand part of the Bill, with the very clear undertaking that I will provide the information that I have promised.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

16. What steps her Department is taking to reduce the number of small boat channel crossings.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

May I, too, associate myself with the tributes that have been paid, and that no doubt will be paid for the rest of the day, to both Sir David and James Brokenshire? They were model parliamentarians and great friends, and we are far poorer in this House for their passing.

Illegal entry to the UK via small boats is unsafe, unfair and unacceptable. We are working tirelessly to make the route unviable through a comprehensive package of measures—there is no one single answer. Our new plan for immigration and the Nationality and Borders Bill will address the challenge of illegal immigration by increasing maximum sentences for people smugglers and making it easier to swiftly remove those who enter the UK illegally.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

What urgency does my hon. Friend attach to the implementation of offshore processing along the Australian model?

[Tom Pursglove]

My right hon. Friend will know that the provisions in the Bill are comprehensive, many and varied. As I said, there is not one single answer to the challenge that we face in relation to illegal channel crossings. We must make the route unviable and, of course, in the Bill we reserve the right to do exactly what my right hon. Friend advocates.

[Sir David Evennett]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Nationality and Borders Bill is key to preventing the vile people-smuggling gangs from continuing to facilitate channel crossings and putting so many lives at risk?

[Tom Pursglove]

As ever, my right hon. Friend gets to the nub of the issue. I make the point again, because it bears repeating, that there is no one single answer to resolve the challenge that we face. In swift order, we require the comprehensive measures set out in the Bill, which are there to tackle dangerous crossings. Of course, we also need global assistance to help us to achieve our aims. We must put these evil criminal gangs out of business once and for all and preserve human life, which is exactly what the measures we have proposed seek to do.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I want to add my sincere condolences to Sir David and his family and friends. Sir David was kind to everyone in Parliament and he will be greatly missed.

Last week, Sir David and I were part of a parliamentary delegation in Qatar. During the visit, we met the unaccompanied child refugees who had been evacuated from Afghanistan and are now being housed in temporary accommodation in Qatar. As many as 13 of those children have family members in the UK and are desperate to be reunited with them. Will the Home Secretary now take steps urgently to facilitate the reunion of those children with their families?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. We are working across Government on these matters. I know that engagement is going on through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office with the authorities that he describes. We have a proud record and tradition in this country of providing sanctuary to those who find themselves in desperate circumstances. That absolutely continues to be the case. That is a firm commitment of this Government and it is perfectly in line with this country’s proud traditions. People across our country would expect us to continue to do that, and that is exactly what we will do.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

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

I and my colleagues, from the bottom of our hearts, send our deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of both Sir David Amess and James Brokenshire. It is fair to say that, in short, everyone knew Sir David and everyone liked and respected him, without exception.

I shadowed James Brokenshire as Immigration Minister in my first year in this place, and he made my job 10 times tougher, not only because of his mastery of the brief, but because he, too, was a person whom it was impossible not to respect and to like and we will sorely miss him.

At the last Home Office questions, the Home Secretary suggested that I had not read the Nationality and Borders Bill when I said that it would see Uyghurs, persecuted Christians and Syrians fleeing war prosecuted and sentenced to prison, but I have read it and that is precisely what clause 37 will do. I welcome the Minister to his place, but if he does not want to see Uyghurs, persecuted Christians and Syrians prosecuted and imprisoned, will he take that clause out of the Bill?

[Tom Pursglove]

I would expect nothing less from the hon. Gentleman given that we are beginning line-by-line consideration of the Bill tomorrow in Committee. I have no doubt that he will have studied every single clause very carefully and will be interrogating me on each of them. We do not want to see anybody persecuted. As I have said previously, as a country and as a Government, we are absolutely determined to make sure that there continue to be safe and legal routes, so that people who qualify can continue to access sanctuary in this country. Also, of course, through our international engagement, we always press home that human rights must be respected and upheld at every turn.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the Minister and, indeed, the Government’s forthcoming legislation on this issue, but may I urge on him the utmost haste and speed in delivering it to this House for our consideration? The trade, as it were, of human trafficking is a hideous crime. Lives are being lost now. It is making a laughing stock of the two systems on both sides of the channel. We need to put a stop to it. It should not be beyond the wit of the Government to do so.

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend who has consistently raised these matters. He is right to say that we want to deliver the provisions of the Nationality and Borders Bill as quickly as possible, because we believe that they are fundamental to preventing these dangerous channel crossings as part of an overall package to deliver on that. I hope that the Bill will command support across the House.

My hon. Friend is also right to raise the issue of collaboration with our international partners; of course, the French are integral to that. We have an arrangement with the French. It is bearing results, but there is clearly still more to do. This issue cannot be resolved entirely without that collaboration.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

8. What recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of implementing drug safety testing for (a) festivals and (b) events in the night-time economy.

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[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

10. Whether she plans to take steps to amend immigration rules to help tackle labour shortages in the agri-food industry across the UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

When we introduced the new skilled worker visa last year, we broadened the skills threshold from the academically focused graduate level under the previous tier 2 visa to school-leaver level, or RQF—regulated qualifications framework—level 3, to ensure that a wider range of skilled work was recognised. That change means that roles such as butcher, farmer and poultry processor qualify for the skilled worker route, allowing recruitment into them on a global level.

[Carla Lockhart]

I extend my thoughts and prayers to the families, friends, colleagues and staff of Sir David Amess and James Brokenshire. I trust that I will have the opportunity to speak further on that later.

I thank the Home Secretary for meeting me and party colleagues a few short weeks ago on the issue of labour shortages and for the actions taken since then to alleviate the labour supply pressures, but I fear that the short window of opportunity being offered will not be enough to attract the necessary workers. Additionally, our farmers, particularly our pig farmers, are in crisis as we speak in this House today. What additional efforts are being made, alongside the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to support this industry and meet the pressing demand for labour, with farms backing up with healthy pigs and abattoirs cancelling 25% of their pig slaughter due to staff shortages?

[Tom Pursglove]

I note that the hon. Lady met the Home Secretary recently to talk about this issue. Events have moved on since; we have flexibility on visas and the issues around cold storage are being addressed. However, it is clear that this is a short-term fix, not a long-term solution. We must continue to focus—I think people in our country would rightly expect us to do so—on what more we can do to make sure that we improve skills, training, wages and terms and conditions so that the domestic labour market is able to fulfil these roles in the longer term. We have been responsive to industry’s asks, and of course our ears continue to be open.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It would have been very appropriate today if David Amess had been the first to welcome the new Minister to the Dispatch Box, because the three of us worked together on Grassroots Out, and David held the first rally for us. That is appropriate to this question: is it not right, Minister, that coming out of the European Union gives us the ability to decide on these issues?

[Tom Pursglove]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for his question. It will not surprise him to hear that only a couple of weeks ago I received a note from Sir David congratulating me on my appointment. It is something that I will absolutely treasure in the years ahead. His encouragement was always second to none. The truth is that people like he and I campaigned in the referendum for a global immigration system, which is exactly what we have delivered. I genuinely believe that that is the right approach to immigration for the years ahead, based on skills—recruiting the skills that we need, but making sure that we do right by the domestic labour market and people in this country by improving skills, opportunity, training and terms and conditions, and making sure that we can recruit more readily to these roles.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

I, too, wish to pay my tributes to Sir David and James Brokenshire and pass on my deepest condolences and sympathies to their families. They were two of the kindest, most decent parliamentarians I have ever met. I will certainly miss my conversations with Sir David by the lifts in 1 Parliament Street, always with a smile.

The National Farmers Union has told MPs that there is a chronic shortage of butchers and agriculture workers that has led to 150,000 pigs being backed up on farms. Will the Government add butchers and agriculture workers to the shortage-occupation list, and will the Government agree to review the list earlier than 2022, as is the current plan?

[Tom Pursglove]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting question. He should know that the Home Office and Ministers in the Home Office are working constructively with DEFRA, which is regularly engaging, no doubt, with the National Farmers Union around these matters. Following last year’s SOL review by the Migration Advisory Committee, the Government set out their response, stating that the labour market is changing as a result of covid and that it is important to assess changes in the labour market before making widespread changes to the SOL. This is particularly true at a time when so many British people still face uncertain times with the ending of furlough. We are committed to addressing these challenges and we have taken steps in the short term to do so, but, as I say, such steps are really not the long-term solution to those challenges. Of course, we are responsive as the situation develops.

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

Although I take this opportunity to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) to his position on the Front Bench, he might not welcome what I have to say after I congratulate him and echo the comments he made in condolence for our dear departed colleagues, David and James.

So far, we have not had any facts and figures. What are the numbers of shortages? How many applications have been made? How many visas have been granted?

[Tom Pursglove]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. As I say, we have been responsive to the needs that have arisen in our economy. We have been engaging with the various sectors that have come forward to raise concerns. For example, there is a commitment to supporting visas for 4,700 HGV food drivers, up to 5,500 poultry workers and 300 fuel drivers. I think the key thing now is that those industries that sought that extra support and that flexibility through visas now get on and recruit to those roles.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

11. What steps her Department is taking to tackle online fraud and scams.

Nationality and Borders Bill (Third sitting)

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I am sorry. I said that had to be the last question. I have to try and get everybody in and there are a lot of Members. Minister.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

Q Thank you, Sir Roger. I will be quick, so hopefully the hon. Member might get another go.

Your Excellency, looking back in the Australian context, is it reasonable to think, that if you had stood back and done nothing about this challenge the numbers of people crossing or seeking to cross would have increased, and on less seaworthy vessels?

George Brandis: I think that is an absolutely fair inference to draw, because in the years prior to the introduction of the policy, which was in September 2013, the numbers had escalated, so every year there were more than in the previous year. It almost inevitably follows, given that nothing else would have changed, that the number of those vessels that did not make it and the number of passengers who drowned would have escalated, too.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q How fundamental do you think that offshore processing was in acting as an effective deterrent as part of your wider plan to tackle this challenge?

George Brandis: Well, as I have already said in my evidence, there were three legs, or three elements, to this policy and all of them were essential to it. I do not think you can disaggregate one from another.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q I am interested in wider criminality. What impacts did you assess there to be in the line of finance that these crossings were generating for these criminal gangs? What impact did that have on wider criminality? Was it fuelling other types of criminality in Australia?

George Brandis: It is very difficult to answer that question in a general way. The people-smuggling gangs who were the authors and beneficiaries of this activity were located in Indonesia, primarily. That is not to say that they may not have had connections in Australia, but they were primarily groups that operated within Indonesia, and there were many of them. I am not in a position to generalise from that proposition to what extent they had connections in other countries, including Australia.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Trying to create a swifter, more efficient, more streamlined processing of applications is fundamental to the plan the Government here are seeking to advance. Was that an element of the work you put in place in Australia, and how important do you think it is, both in acting as a deterrent and having a system that is much more humane and treats people fairly?

George Brandis: As is evident from the statistics I quoted before, we accept an unusually large number of humanitarian and refugee immigration applications for a country of our size. We have an ambitious humanitarian and refugee programme, and we seek to process those applications swiftly and efficiently, but we do say, “You’ve got to come in the front door, and not put yourself in the hands of criminals and put yourself and your children at risk of drowning.”

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Finally, looking back at your experience, the establishment of the policy framework and everything that underpinned it more generally, what in your assessment were the key challenges you faced in delivering on this, and what lessons could the British Government learn from that experience in the work we are doing?

George Brandis: There were logistical challenges, particularly the turn-back operations. It was very challenging for the maritime authorities to do that while at the same time ensuring that nobody’s safety was put at risk. That was one dimension to this, but it is a bit of a different problem because, as one of your colleagues pointed out, here these people come by dinghy. Almost all the people who were trying to come to Australia were coming in decrepit old timber fishing boats, which were much more fragile. That was the difference.

I am not here to instruct or encourage your Parliament on the right policy choice; I am merely here to respond to the questions you have asked me about how a particular set of measures worked for Australia. I have already observed that there are differences as well as similarities in the profile of the problems. However, I would say that undoubtedly the key to this is to put the people smugglers out of business. The way to put the people smugglers out of business is to demonstrate to their potential clientele that they are wasting their money. The way we did that in Australia, and it was a robust policy, was to persuade the potential clientele that, if they came in through the front door as genuine refugees, they would be embraced; but, if they put themselves in the hands of people smugglers, there was no way they would ever end up in Australia.

[The Chair]

We have time for one final question from Neil Coyle.

Nationality and Borders Bill (Fourth sitting)

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Q Of course, Chair, I will be very quick. You mentioned that in your view the Bill will be counterproductive to its own objectives. I think I heard you right in saying that it would hamper returns. Could you develop that point?

Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor: I will. One of the important elements is that if you have a system, there have to be consequences to that system. It does not make any sense to have a system that determines who is a refugee and who is not, and then the results go nowhere. I know that it is difficult to arrange for returns—there are a number of issues and they need a great deal of partnerships internationally—but it is a fact that if somebody is properly looked at in a proper procedure and then found not in need of international protection, it is a lot easier if that happens closer to the time than after a few years, when they have had time to establish a family and when perhaps the whole question of identification is getting a little more vague. It is a fact that good case management increases the chances of people returning, and it increases the chances of people returning voluntarily, too.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

Q Clearly, one of the fundamental cornerstones of the policy is prioritising safe and legal routes, and I am sure that you would strongly support that. Presumably you also think it is right to try to deter and dissuade people from making those very dangerous crossings across the channel, which pose a grave risk to life. What do you suggest, if not the approach we are suggesting?

Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor: Granted, you will never have a silver bullet that solves all of your issues until and unless people no longer feel the need to seek asylum elsewhere. However, as I said, I think that a fast and fair procedure is your best defence, alongside strong agreements with the European Union on the allocation of responsibility for asylum seekers. That is by far the best way of dissuading people who might sometimes be hopping around countries to choose a jurisdiction or who are just giving it a shot—people whom your colleague referred to as illegal immigrants. There are some who could masquerade as asylum seekers; there is no question about that.

[The Chair]

Order. I am sorry, but that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions. On behalf of the Committee, I thank our witnesses for their evidence.

Examination of Witnesses

Siobhán Mullally and Dame Sara Thornton gave evidence.

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[Holly Lynch]

Thank you. Ms Mullally?

Siobhán Mullally: The state has very specific obligations to protect victims and potential victims of trafficking, and there are very specific provisions under the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings with regard to missing children, whether those are foreign nationals or not. Internal trafficking is a very serious concern that is often not recognised sufficiently in many jurisdictions, not exclusively the United Kingdom.

A concern was raised previously by the Council of Europe group of experts on action against trafficking, the treaty monitoring body under the convention on action against trafficking, about children going missing in the UK—particularly unaccompanied, separated asylum-seeking children, but also child victims of trafficking internally. Of course, there are very serious obligations on the state to provide protection to all children without discrimination.

One concern with regard to the trafficking context can be that sometimes the child victims and adult victims go outside of the ordinary protection mechanisms and are not treated with the same urgency that they ought to be, but there are very specific obligations on the state to try to respond effectively and in a timely way to prevent that, and to ensure protection.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Just a few questions for Dame Sara, if I may. As you will know, we are bringing in more staff as decision makers, and we have brought in the new modern slavery victim care contract. For the benefit of the Committee, can you describe what the principal drivers of the pressure on the national referral mechanism are, from your perspective?

Dame Sara Thornton: Thank you, Minister, and I very much welcome the new staff who are being recruited into the single competent authority, because I have raised the need to speed up decision making with your predecessors on many occasions.

The biggest cause of difficulty, I think, is the increased numbers. Although 2020 was similar to 2019, with about 10,600 referrals into the NRM, that number has doubled in three or four years, so there is substantial pressure. The other thing that is happening, as I mentioned earlier on, is child criminal exploitation and the cases of children. Those decisions need to be made quickly, because there are often related proceedings. Having been to the single competent authority and spoken to the staff, what tends to happen is that all those priorities keep going to the top of the pile and then there are an awful lot of cases in the backlog. On the whole, it has been about increased demand, and the resources just have not been able to keep up with it. So I welcome the fact that there are new staff. It will take a while for them to be trained and to be competent, but that is a good thing.

The second thing, which is identified in a report I published last year, is that one of the difficulties for the decision makers in that competent authority is that they do not always have all the information. They have some information, but they are often having to make decisions on partial information. They might have asked local authorities, they might have asked police forces or they might have asked Border Force. They do not always get the replies and therefore they are having to do the best in difficult circumstances. Staff have been under huge pressure and I hope we can begin to bring those averages down and bring the weight down.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Are there challenges around bringing clarity to victims about precisely what their rights are and around how the processes themselves work? Is there more that needs to be done to boost awareness in that area? Does that act as a barrier?

Dame Sara Thornton: There are difficulties. Colleagues might be aware that the process is that you have first responders, who are police officers, members of Border Force, immigration enforcement and local authority staff, who have the ability to refer a potential victim into the national referral mechanism. One of the difficulties, and it is constantly reported on, is that the staff who are doing that do not understand how the national referral mechanism works. They do not understand enough to give good advice. So report after report recommends that there needs to be more training of first responders, and the Home Office recently published some more training.

I am getting to the position now where I wonder whether it is a sensible to expect that every police officer should be able to deal with this—every member of Border Force, every member of a local authority—and whether you might want to have specially trained points of contact who deal with it. If you think about it, even though the numbers have been going up, most police officers in the course of a year will never deal with these situations. I do think there is an issue about that, and we need to think very seriously about the model we have for first responders.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Obviously, the Government are very clear that we want to send an unequivocal message to those responsible for people smuggling that what they do simply will not be tolerated and that the punishment for that will be harsh. We are proposing through the Bill to introduce life sentences for people smugglers. Is that something that you welcome, and what would you observe about that and the difference that it might make?

Dame Sara Thornton: I think that people who smuggle fellow human beings, or indeed traffic them, are committing a most heinous crime. Think about the 39 people who lost their lives in Essex two years ago. Whether they were smuggled or trafficked is a matter much debated, but the callous way that those criminals treated those victims, in my view, needs the harshest punishment. The only thing I would say is that, as a former police officer, I am on the whole in favour of harsh punishments, but you have life sentence as an option from the Modern Slavery Act 2015 for slavery and trafficking. It has never been used. So there is the point that, I guess, it has a deterrent effect, but there is also an issue about whether, if those powers exist, they really need to be used to be a really effective deterrent.

[The Chair]

I see no further questioners. I thank the witnesses for their evidence. We will move on to the next panel.

Examination of Witnesses

Lisa Doyle, Mariam Kemple-Hardy, Priscilla Dudhia and Alphonsine Kabagabo gave evidence.

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[The Chair]

Thank you. I call the Minister.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q I have a question for Mr Berry. Do you see any benefit whatsoever in streamlining the processing of applications in the way that the Bill seeks to do, and providing clarity for the claimants sooner?

Adrian Berry: I do not think it provides clarity to take away the ability to properly prepare a protection claim. What you need are proper resources and proper funding in order for that claim to be properly advanced, and then you need a robust determination mechanism to assess it. The difficulties relate to gathering evidence, taking witness statements from people who have been traumatised in their home country and traumatised by their journey, and obtaining other evidence in terms of other witnesses of fact and expert evidence in a case. These things take a little bit of time, and the existing procedure creaks even without accelerating the procedures. So long as people are treated with dignity and the resources are available, determinations will be made that are good and do not require challenge. That alone would foreshorten the procedure.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q If you had the opportunity, what would you do to better shape the system to remove those with no right to be here and to deport foreign national offenders?

Adrian Berry: Foreign national offenders are a completely separate issue. We are talking about asylum, and the Bill is focused on protection claims in the section that we are concerned with. It is very important not to confuse foreign national offenders with people who are claiming asylum.

[Tom Pursglove]

To be clear, I am talking about the Bill as a whole.

Adrian Berry: Yes, and the Bill as a whole contains provisions on asylum, not extra removal provisions, so I was talking about the Bill as a whole as well. You already have everything you need. We are almost returning to the stage where immigration Bills happen every couple of years, attempting to address problems that had apparently been solved by earlier immigration Bills. The Home Office has a vast array of powers at its disposal. What is needed is that it properly uses them.

[Tom Pursglove]

No further questions.

[The Chair]

Are there any other questions? Mr McDonald, I stopped you on a question. Would you like to carry on?

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[Holly Lynch]

Q Based on what you have just said, this came as a bit of a surprise. Would it be fair to say that you think that part 4, on modern slavery, does not belong in a piece of legislation around borders? Perhaps it should be removed, the consultation process should be done properly, and then revised proposals around properly tackling modern slavery and trafficking, supporting victims and bringing perpetrators to justice, could come back in a way that we would all like to see?

Patricia Cabral: I think that would be preferable, given that we have got a review of the whole of the modern slavery strategy. What we do not want to risk is the progress that has been made, and the good provisions that have been made, through the UK’s modern slavery strategy, potentially getting rolled back. That is the big concern. What we should be doing is improving things. I would support looking at the provisions around modern slavery and trafficking as safeguarding matters, rather than immigration matters. Obviously, there are enforcement matters related, but there is confusion. I draw the Committee’s attention to the Government’s 2014 review, by Jeremy Oppenheim, which led to revisions of the national referral mechanism to separate immigration decisions from matters of modern slavery. The provisions in part 4 are rolling that back quite considerably.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q I have one further question. On Tuesday, one of the issues that the local government witnesses referred to as being particularly problematic was around age assessments. I would be interested to know whether any of the witnesses have come into contact with that challenge? They mentioned that sometimes those cases end up in quite long and protracted judicial review processes. I would be keen to hear any reflections that the witnesses have around the Bill’s approach to this.

Adrian Berry: I do not know whether the other witnesses have had experience of age assessment trials—I have. This Committee cannot scrutinise that clause in the Bill, because all you have put in it is a placeholder clause, with the detail said to be coming later on. We are not in a position to scrutinise it, and I cannot tell you what it says, because you had not finished the Bill before publishing.

Age assessment trials are trials; although they take place within a judicial review context, they are full trials with witnesses, and over time the courts have developed a system for case managing those trials. The difficulties that arise would arise in any context. In other words, it is very difficult to tell how old someone is. It is a process that requires expert evidence and the gathering of timelines and the chronologies of people’s journeys, and their explanations. That would take time in any context. Until we see the detail of what you propose, the age assessment provision simply cannot be assessed. We hope you bring forward the actual clause by Report.

[The Chair]

Are there any further questions?

Nationality and Borders Bill (First sitting)

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

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[The Chair]

[Tom Pursglove]

[Tom Pursglove]

[Tom Pursglove]

[Tom Pursglove]

[The Chair]

Nationality and Borders Bill (Second sitting)

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Okay, thank you, Zoe. I will bring in the Minister at this point.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

Q Thank you, Ms McDonagh. I have one question for Ms Gardner. One of the real focuses of the work of your organisation is around welfare. What assessment do you make of our proposals to streamline the judicial process to process cases more quickly and, of course, remove people who have no right to be here more quickly? What do you make of that?

Zoe Gardner: I am quite confused about that being the aim of the legislation that we have in front of us. The measures that have been put forward in the Bill, as far as I can tell, will only serve to exacerbate and complicate the repeated legal claims that will be made. For example, the split standard of proof in the Bill would apply a different standard of proof to different parts of a person’s asylum claim. That will be challenged and tested in the courts and will take longer. Obviously, the delays of six months will make the system take longer. On the other side, slapping a priority sign on to somebody’s deportation order does not actually make any difference. Again, as Lucy said, that is a matter for having well-resourced court systems and a fair and efficient system, and the Bill just does not do anything to achieve any of that.

[The Chair]

Apologies, but that brings us to the end of the time allotted to ask questions. I thank our witnesses on behalf of the Committee. Many questions were asked and our witnesses gave evidence that Members wanted to listen to.

Examination of Witness

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Kirby gave evidence .

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[Anne McLaughlin]

Q Good afternoon. I will start by saying that none of us here can possibly understand how complex the work is that you and your colleagues do. I am trying to understand some of it. I know that recently you said that you have spotted a trend of people who were arrested in drug busts claiming to be victims of slavery when you did not believe that to be the case. I think that, as a result of those concerns, the Home Secretary is overseeing plans to roll out a new public order definition that will allow police forces to refuse NRM protection to those committing serious crimes.

That turns the presumption of innocent until proven guilty on its head. Do you think that that is the most helpful way to go forward and, if so, are there other circumstances in which we should not offer support to people because we do not believe them, before they have had the opportunity to prove otherwise? If you do not think that it is helpful, how would you amend the legislation to be more helpful, while recognising that we do not know whether people are victims of slavery at the point at which they are arrested?

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Kirby: There are a few areas there. First, the existing legislation does not apply to a lot of crime types in any event—some of the more serious crime types that you mentioned, such as kidnapping and manslaughter, and lots of offences included in the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and firearms legislation, so some of that is there already. I do not think that it is right to say that policing is turning the presumption of innocent until proven guilty on its head. What I would say is that, where we already have information and intelligence in relation to individuals and their place within a criminal hierarchy, at that point it may be appropriate to turn that presumption on its head.

To illustrate, there is a recent case in Derbyshire where an Albanian gang has been dismantled only in the last couple of weeks. There have been 24 arrests, and I think 12 of those people were Albanians, running cannabis growers and other types of criminality in the region. More than one of those people claimed to be victims, but we had a covert investigation behind us that showed their level of control, their ability to communicate, the resources that they had and various things that clearly went against that claim. Absent that information and intelligence, I do not think that we would say, “We don’t believe this person,” in the first instance. An investigator should, and in all investigations does, go into that situation with an open mind. This person could be a victim or could, in fact, be a criminal. They start at that point, not on one side or the other.

The other part of your question was about what we do to make things easier for investigators to understand the true position. I think that, again, that would be some sort of duty to co-operate, because it is quite difficult if somebody claims to be a victim and then, for example, refuses to provide a phone passcode, and so on. Perhaps a duty there would assist us. I mentioned whether a person should have to declare straightaway, because often there are delays, but I think that a lot of genuine victims would suffer that way.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Clearly it is critical that our resources are focused on genuine victims of modern slavery. Are you able to share any examples or concerns that you have about individuals or groups taking opportunities to misuse the national referral mechanism by falsely claiming to be victims?

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Kirby: Absolutely. I cannot give you names right now. That perhaps would not be appropriate, but in various areas of criminality we have seen that, and again it is for various reasons. One reason that I have alluded to already is to hamper prosecutions, as a tactic. Quite often we can get around that as investigators because we have been looking at the various areas that would prove or disprove a person’s status throughout, but sometimes the defence is raised in order to obtain access, we believe, to other services that we would of course want to provide to genuine victims, such as access to housing and potentially some assistance in securing visas and so on.



We do see those things. I can only say that in some cases we have proved that those people are not victims—for example, through covert activity that was already in place because it was a part of larger operations or because of things such as telecoms investigations and so on, sharing that work. There is a lot of technical detail in how it is done, but we have detected people exploiting the system for those two reasons: benefits and to avoid prosecution.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Building on that, what, in your experience, is the impact of sequential claims and referrals, and how will the measures in the Bill help to ensure more effective process?

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Kirby: By “sequential”, do you mean repeated?

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Just sequential claims and referrals to the mechanism.

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Kirby: Okay, I am trying to understand where you are going with the question. I am sorry, do you mean if somebody makes a claim and is referred, and then does so again following a criminal justice process? Or have I misunderstood your question?

[Tom Pursglove]

Q It is about issues around repeat claims and those sorts of difficulties that we know exist.

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Kirby: We see victims being referred into the system and then disappearing from it and turning up somewhere else, and then being referred into the system again, and so on. That is an indication, of course, that the control that these criminal gangs have has remained in place and they continue to be controlled, coerced and taken out of that process. Again, in general terms, the speedier the decision that is made in terms of a conclusive grounds decision and the support put in place in a substantive way, the less likely we are to see that because this would be an alternative for people who otherwise are in some sort of a holding pattern, waiting for decisions to be made, perhaps in temporary accommodation and so on. So, for me, the measures that are most effective are those that are going to cement those decisions the quickest and provide real support to those individuals—[Inaudible]—so they can be taken out of that coercive group of organised crime groups.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q I am grateful for that thorough answer. One final question: what assessment have you made of wider criminality resulting from the proceeds of criminal gangs organising dangerous crossings?

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Kirby: Can you repeat the question? I had an issue with the connection. I apologise.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q What assessment, if any, have you made of wider criminality resulting from the proceeds of criminal gangs bringing people across the channel?

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Kirby: The ability of gangs to bring people across the channel is a really important part of how many of those gangs work, particularly when we talk about foreign national offenders and foreign national organised crime. Again, at the risk of being boring talking about west Balkan criminality, I think it is a good way to illustrate that. West Balkan criminality, Albanian criminality, which is really what we are talking about, has taken more of a foothold since around 2017 in the UK, partly because of a real crackdown in Albania around cannabis cultivation. There needs to be a business model to support that. The gang members themselves do not want to spend long hours in uncomfortable and dangerous cannabis grows, for example, with the risk of being caught. Why would they want to do that? Similarly, if the business model is to exploit people for sexual practices then there need to be people to exploit. The ability to bring people into the country across the channel is hugely important for them.

Of course, there are other rackets such as labour exploitation and so on that have been talked about many times. Focusing on those two, they need people who can be exploited. British citizens form part of that, but people from comparatively poor areas who have comparatively few opportunities are much easier to exploit. In fact, many of those people do not initially believe they are victims—they believe that they are entering into a business deal. “You do this for this long, and then we will fly you back, or there will be some sort of benefit”. Sometimes that is the case. I would suggest that the conditions those people are living in are appalling and that the deal is a terrible one, but for some of them that is a better deal than they had where they came from.

Forgive me, that is a bit of a long answer. The point is that without the ability to bring foreign nationals in-country, those very well-organised criminal gangs—in my experience, many of them are far better organised than our own high-level criminality—would struggle to prosper in the way they currently are.

[Tom Pursglove]

Thank you, that is very helpful.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q I have some follow-up questions to that. You mentioned the Balkan states, in particular Albania and Lithuania. Is it generally the Balkan states which are involved in the criminal gangs you have come across?

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Kirby: At the moment, there is a heightened threat from people from those areas. That is what we are seeing most of in terms of foreign national offenders in Derbyshire and the east midlands, and I am fairly confident that is also the pattern elsewhere. To illustrate, we used to see Vietnamese organised criminals involved in cannabis growing, sex trafficking and other issues, but more often than not we now see Albanians in control, potentially exploiting those Vietnamese people, or, if not, working together. Some alleged groups are so well-organised and disciplined that they are able to effectively out-perform other criminal gangs. That is the threat we are seeing most in terms of foreign national criminality.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Howell]

Q Can we change the direction slightly? We have heard lots about the stresses that illegal immigration is putting on local councils. Looking at the Bill as it stands, can you tell me whether there are things in there that help the situation for you, and are there things that you would like to have seen in there—things that would have helped if they had been put in? I am trying to see what difference the Bill would actually make to your life.

Councillor Rachael Robathan: Yes, there are certainly some things that we would welcome, although it would be good to see some more detail when the secondary legislation comes forward. Just to back up slightly, a further issue that we have in Westminster, as many of you will be aware, is the significant number of rough sleepers. Our latest count was 171, which is actually fewer than there have been previously. We worked very closely with Government on the Everyone In programme and so on last year, which was very successful, but we still have 70 in a bridging hotel within Westminster, so there is a significant issue around rough sleeping.

Over half of those people have no recourse to public funds. All of the asylum seekers in Westminster have come through the sanctioned route, so they would be in category 1 under this Bill, but one of the concerns for us would be if there is more clarity, if you like, in terms of no recourse to public funds for category 2, whether some of those people who would have no recourse to public funds might slip into rough sleeping. There is always a draw to the centre of Westminster: it is known that an aggressive beggar can make up to £500, or sometimes more, on our streets in Westminster, so if people find themselves on the street, there is an economic pull into the centre. That could lead to increasing numbers within Westminster.

Speaking very specifically about Westminster, the issue is that we then have an issue with tented accommodation, and the point about tented accommodation—I have had a number of meetings with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice about this—is that there is a very high bar for the police or others to be able to gain entry to the tents. Not only is it difficult to enforce against those who would be illegally there but, much more importantly, it is very difficult to address issues around trafficked women and other people who are on the streets and need support and help, because we are unable to deliver that. That is a concern.

One of the things that we would welcome—I think this has come through in what both Councillor Gough and I have said—is a more organised approach to the way asylum seekers are looked after and accommodated. More planning around the process would help. I think we have also both said that the Afghan resettlement has been much better in terms of being able to have planning and co-ordination with local authorities, so that is something we would welcome.

Also in Westminster, I welcome the measures around modern slavery, but also the greater sanctions to stop people coming back into the country if they have been convicted of criminal activity. Once again, we have people on the streets in Westminster who engage in criminal activity to earn money. That activity is not at a very high level, but they are still things that have a real impact on our residents’ lives. We would welcome the moves around electronic travel authorisation and other measures to make re-entry into the country more difficult for those people who are here to commit criminal activity.

Councillor Roger Gough: I would endorse what Councillor Robathan has said; I agree with all those points. There are a couple of specifics from our side. One slightly begs the question as to how effective the measures will be, ultimately, because others looking at the Bill can judge that better than me. The basic principle of seeking to promote safe and orderly routes at the expense of those that involve things like the small boat routes would be very welcome. There is no doubt, and it has been much emphasised, that that route is very dangerous. It creates a degree of political tension because it is so visible. It is something that we very much wish to avoid. Those issues come home to those of us who are border authorities, particularly in the case of the small boats in areas such as Kent. The measures to try to shift the balance between the two ways in which people get here would in principle be very welcome.

The second area I want to touch on relates to age assessment. Broadly, the direction there seems to me to be a favourable one. The attempt to create a national body, not to carry out or provide support to local authorities, unless it is requested, so much as to provide some consistency and regularity to a very time-consuming process that can wrap up huge amounts of time from very qualified social workers and which often has no very obvious end to it because it is relatively loosely guided, is welcome. Establishing best practice as well as providing support for local authorities, many of which will be less experienced in this area than authorities such as mine, would be very welcome.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q First, I have a very Kent-specific question. You will appreciate that I am new in role, but for the benefit of the Committee, could you set out what pressures Kent County Council currently faces as a result of the number of people crossing the channel?

Councillor Roger Gough: We are slightly betwixt and between on that. I apologise if I give an answer that may not be quite as definite as you would like. I shall explain why. If we take this year and last year, the very specific pressures that we have been experiencing were rapid increases in the numbers of young people coming into our care, the end result of which was that social work case loads rose far above recommended levels, particularly for the specialist teams dealing with those cases. We also had reception centres that, particularly with the first wave of big pressure last year, were filling rapidly. That was the point at which placing young people in other accommodation was difficult because of the circumstances of the pandemic.

Just to be clear, it is perhaps worth saying that when we talk about unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, historically, these have been adolescent males. Indeed, if you look at last year’s figures, we have very few indeed who were under the age––or stated age––of 16. There was something of a shift in the early part of this year where, from memory, about a fifth of those arriving were of stated age under 16. That tended to push you more towards foster accommodation rather than the semi-independent and other forms of accommodation that we would provide for the 16 and 17-year-olds. That has meant that through the pressures on fostering, and to some extent on other forms of accommodation, we had to place more young people outside the county, and we were certainly heading into that sort of territory at the time when we were closing our doors again in June. That was the biggest area of concern.

One thing that is worth noting, too, and it has a longer lag on it, is care leavers: those who come into our care, or indeed the care of any authority, under the age of 18—they are taken in as children in care—then become care leavers. Councillor Robathan referred to that. Under the changes to legislation that took place three or four years ago, we have a responsibility for them through to the age of 25. While at the moment, we have around 300 under-18s in our care, we have over 1,000 care leavers. In fact, our care leaver service is more ex unaccompanied asylum-seeking children than it is ex Kent children in care. As you can imagine, that generates a number of specific pressures, too. I hope that answers your question. The only reason for my hesitancy at the start was that we have just come out of the period when we were not taking young people into our care, and therefore some of the very large numbers of arrivals that we saw a few weeks ago, of whom typically 10% to 15% would probably be unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, were not having a very direct effect on us at that point. But clearly if those numbers were to continue, we would potentially be in a different situation.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q In terms of the broader measures that we are seeking to introduce in the Bill, how pressing do residents in your communities think they are?

Councillor Roger Gough: First, there is a big variety of views in Kent, as I think there is anywhere. My inbox, my postbag, tells me that about all the issues that are raised, but as I mentioned in my earlier responses, the very visible sense of large numbers of arrivals on the coast has had an effect within the county, and therefore that has made the issue a pressing one. As I say, from a service delivery point of view, for us the most pressing element of it has been to do with the children.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q To touch on age assessments again—I know that you have commented briefly on those—there are almost three elements to my question, and I would be delighted to hear from both of you on this. What pressures do age assessments place on your local authority in resource terms? What safeguarding risks do you think exist as a result of adults successfully posing as children? How many UASCs who approach you for support do you have doubts about in relation to their claimed age?

Councillor Roger Gough: On the first question, it is a demand and I cannot quantify it at this moment, but I can give you perhaps some indications. It is a demand on social worker time, so you will tend to see that a typical age assessment involves two experienced social workers, who will carry out interviews. If you just take everything going smoothly, if I could put it that way, that would involve a couple of half-day interviews followed by extensive paperwork, research and then later stages of the process. In practice, and this goes back to my earlier comments about age assessment, there are a number of ways in which the process may well be less smooth running than that. But you need experienced social workers, and one of the areas in which we have worked with the Home Office has been through their support for us in backfilling posts so that experienced social workers can take that role on.

On safeguarding, clearly there is a significant concern—it is quite hard to specify the full details of it—where you have adults in what one would take to be a young person’s space. Clearly, you will have a challenge over those who are, if you like, on the cusp. What happens—this ties in, perhaps, to your third question—is that we have had historically quite large numbers of young people being put through by the Home Office where doubts have been raised by Border Force regarding their age. There are some of whom they would say—interestingly, recent court findings have helped with this process a bit—“Look, this person is definitely, in our view, out of the reasonable range to be considered a child,” and they would be into the adult part of the process.

That can sometimes come back. For instance, where asylum seekers have been placed in hotels elsewhere, disputes about age assessment then come back as an issue for the new local authority. I know of a number of places across the south-east where that has happened, but in our case, there are a number of cases where any local authority, I think, would take the view that, where it is very hard to establish—again, the guidance around this is relatively loose—that a young person is definitely out of that age range, there is precious little point in pursuing that further.

That still leaves you with a material number. At one point, at the height of things, around half the young people who were arriving arrived with doubts raised about them by the Home Office. We would then probably in practice seriously investigate, because it was considered viable to do so, only a portion of those, but they would very often go into cases where the age dispute would be pushed to the point of saying that this was indeed an adult.

Councillor Rachael Robathan: As Councillor Gough said, this is very time consuming. As he stated, almost all of the UASC are late-teen boys, and it can be very difficult at the best of times to tell someone’s age, so it involves a huge amount of time on the part of the local authority. There is a very clear safeguarding issue, because once someone has been accepted as UAS they are put into a child setting—schools and other child settings—where there is a very clear safeguarding issue. That is something that we are all very conscious of, clearly.

The other point, as we said earlier, is that there is an ongoing responsibility to these young people, because the responsibility to support them carries on until they are 25, so if you have someone who presents as a 16-year-old, let us say, that means that you have almost 10 years during which you will support that young person. In terms of ensuring that there is the best use of public funds, which we all know are always very stretched, we need to ensure that the people coming into the system are the ones who really need that support, and who are legitimately there.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q I noted the broad support for the national age assessment board approach that we are proposing to try to deal with some of this, but what impact do you believe the current judicial review-based processes for settling disputes of age assessments have on your organisation? I am conscious, as a former councillor, that it is not always just financial; it is also around officer time in particular, and the impact on services more generally. What would you say about that?

Councillor Rachael Robathan: Anything that moves towards a uniform process will greatly help. At the moment, involving the local authorities and putting the responsibility on them is very difficult for what are very often stretched institutions. Having a uniform, joined-up process would be very welcome.

Councillor Roger Gough: Already when you see changes in, for instance, what the courts have found about what is a reasonable basis on which a challenge can be presented by Border Force, as we have seen recently, that has made a huge difference. The proportion of young people coming to us age disputed is significantly lower than it was before that.

When you get changes in the process, it can make a material difference. Authorities like ours are at least experienced in this area, even if we are in the eye of the storm. As dispersal happens, or when, as I mentioned earlier, those who have been placed as adults launch a challenge within their own authority, issues may arise for an authority that is not nearly as well set up to deal with them as we are.

To pick up on the point that Councillor Robathan made, it is worth emphasising what a difference going into the children’s system or the adult system makes. As we have both said, first there are children in care and then there is the care leaver process, all of which, quite properly in their own way, have particular requirements for children’s services departments in authorities. The process around adult dispersal clearly still makes demands on council services, but in the first instance it is a housing-related issue, from which a number of other things follow. It is not quite the same as building in what can be a seven, eight or 10 year process of somebody being part of the children’s services operations of the council.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Q I thank the witnesses for their evidence so far. I have a couple of follow-up questions on age assessments. You have spoken about the safeguarding issues that arise if somebody who is an adult finds themselves in a space for children, but of course the opposite can also happen; there are huge safeguarding issues if somebody aged 15 or 16 ends up being put in a hotel with adults or dispersed to some other part of the United Kingdom with limited supervision. It is in all our interests to get that absolutely right. Would it make any difference, for example, if we took the pressure off these decisions—I am thinking slightly off the top of my head—by continuing UASC leave to a higher age, say 20 or 21?

Councillor Roger Gough: Sorry, could you just run your last point by me again?

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

Q My second and final question is on international relations. The UK lags behind other European countries in terms of numbers. The British Red Cross said that we were the 17th highest in terms of the number of people that we took in. The Bill basically says to the French, among others, “Not in my backyard—your problem”. What does that do to international relations and what could the UK Government do? I accept what you say about other Governments having to come into these bilateral agreements, but what could the UK Government do to reach out to other countries in Europe to try to work on this together?

Tony Smith: I would dispute those figures. We are probably about fifth in Europe in terms of asylum intake, but you are right that other countries have more asylum applications every year than we have. That is not necessarily because those numbers have been invited by the EU to go and live there. It is because they are unable to control their own external frontier. Because of the Schengen arrangement, asylum seekers can choose where they would like to go. Many drift north to Scandinavia, Germany, Holland or France, where they would rather be than in some of the southern or eastern European states.

The EU has its own difficulties in determining the allocation of asylum seekers across the Schengen zone because they do not agree among themselves about how they should be distributed. The bigger question is not necessarily a European one but a global one. No doubt you will hear evidence from experts on this. The need for international resettlement is a huge problem. We have seen it in Afghanistan; we have climate change; and we have migratory pressures coming up from South America to the US border. People are going to continue to move in great numbers over the next 20 or 30 years. The question is how the western world is going to cope with that.

I am quite a big fan of the refugee resettlement programme. UNHCR has been going out to western countries for some years saying, “We have 80 million people displaced, and 40 million in different countries in our camps already. These are refugees who have already fled war zones whom we would like you to take.” Even though we were taking only about 5,000 or so, we are still third highest in the world, so we are not really getting to grips with the global challenge of resettling refugees through the resettlement route. It has picked up a bit since Afghanistan, and we are doing more. There is certainly evidence that we are trying to do more, and I think we could become global leaders on refugee resettlement programmes, but it is going to be difficult politically for anyone to sell that when we are seeing uncontrolled migration across the English channel.

It is finding the balance. How can we help to contribute to genuine resettlement for genuine refugees, but at the same time take back control of our borders, which is clearly the Government’s stated intent?

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Is it reasonable to think, based on your many years of experience, that if we do nothing—if we just stand back from the challenge of illegal crossings—the number of crossings will increase and crossing will become even less safe? Do you think that the principle of deterrence is important in all this?

Tony Smith: I do think that. It is absolutely important in all this. While I would not defend the turn back strategy, I can understand why the Government are looking at those kinds of measures to stop the boats. It must be extremely frustrating not to be able to do anything about the ever-increasing numbers, particularly when a succession of Home Secretaries have come in saying that that was what they would do. A number of my successors—civil servants—have given evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, saying that they were going to make the route unviable. I am afraid it is not within their gift to make the route unviable within the current frameworks. One would hope that the new legislation would change things. It certainly changes the dynamic. We can now say, “We know that you arrived by this route. We know that you are not immediately fleeing persecution.”

I am not a big fan of the criminal justice system for migrants. It has not really worked. I am a fan of it for smugglers and facilitators, but putting migrants in prison is not necessarily going to be the answer and will lead to more challenges. The question is how we disrupt the smugglers and break that business model. The only way is to start seeing people going back to France. Then people will see that there is no point putting their life at risk in a small dinghy. There will be no point in more and more of them spreading up to Calais because that business model is broken. The big difficulty for the Government is how to persuade the French that we ought to have a policy like that and negotiate an agreement, and how to counterbalance that with the other problem of significant numbers of people around the world seeking resettlement. How are we going to contribute to responding to that?

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Notwithstanding what you have already said about collaboration between us and the French to tackle this, what assessment have you made of the work that is already in train to try to improve the situation? Do you think it has improved the situation somewhat?

Tony Smith: Without a doubt. I support the investment of resources in France, and that is something that we have been doing for a long time now. The French could legitimately say, “Actually, why would you not help us to contribute to border security?” Let us not pretend that the French operational arms, including the police aux frontières, the douanes, the various coastal agencies—I used to talk to them regularly when I was in the job—are not supportive of preventing criminality at an operational level.

We can be quite pleased with the work that we have done to at least try to disrupt the smuggling gangs. Quite a few have been prosecuted on the French side, albeit, sadly, more the middle men rather than the big fish who are behind human smuggling gangs. You will hear from other witnesses more qualified than me to tell you about that level 3 criminality, but it is really difficult. How do we disrupt the business model? It is about deterring people from coming. We owe a duty under the 1951 refugee convention to give refugee status to those who are genuinely in need, but I am not sure that it is the same duty for those who are arriving in this way, from a fellow original signatory to that convention, than those coming through evacuation processes such as we have seen recently in Kabul.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Mindful of the breadth of your professional experience in previous roles, how crucial do you think the streamlining of the processing of applications is to tackling some of these challenges?

Tony Smith: We lived through this before. We had something called the new asylum model when I was in the UK Border Agency, before taking the top job in the Border Force. Previously, I was regional director for UKBA London and the south-east, which meant that my teams were the ones who were processing asylum arrivals coming into the country. I was actually responsible for removals.

Yes, we did have targets in the Home Office in those days for enforcement. It was part of my mission to ensure that those who did not qualify to stay, either because they had arrived under safe third country rules, or they were coming on a manifestly unfounded route, were sent back. The trouble is we have seen a good deal of judicial overreach by the European Court of Justice, and significant interpretations and European directives, which kind of hindered those arrangements on returns. We have now got to a point where we are not really returning anybody who is coming across on these boats, and people notice that. If we do not start returning people, the numbers will continue to rise. We need to find a way of segmenting those applicants who we know have a genuine claim for asylum in this country from those who have probably been in Europe for a long time and may have had applications for asylum rejected—they have had a notice de quitter from Schengen, sometimes two or three notices—who are not genuine asylum seekers but who would just like to come to live here. That is not effective border control.

It is going to be really, really difficult, but I applaud the authors of the Bill, because it finally gets to grips with the difficulty of the way we have interpreted the 1951 refugee convention and put up what I think is the right interpretation of it in not conflating two different arguments, which is human smuggling across the English channel by criminal gangs, putting lives at risk, and the genuine need to resettle refugees from different parts of the world.

[Chair]

We only have a few minutes, so I call Jonathan Gullis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q You also mentioned some other countries, such as Belgium, Germany and Turkey. Are you working closely with them?

Rob Jones: We are, absolutely. We have very positive relationships with those countries. The supply of boats to northern France and of engines in the infrastructure that supports these crossings is something that those partners can help us with.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q I heard your answer in relation to modern slavery, but in terms of wider criminality and what you are seeing on the ground, what impact do you think the proceeds of small boat crossings are having on criminal gangs?

Rob Jones: We know that that route is more and more attractive to organised crime. That is why we need to break the momentum that is pushing the viability of that route. People who are involved in the facilitation of migrants are also involved in drug trafficking and other serious organised crime. We have seen that polycriminality with HGV companies that will one day smuggle drugs and another day smuggle migrants.

One of the good things about these provisions is that they, to coin a phrase, level up the sentencing for people involved in the facilitation of migrants with that for those who are dealt with for drug trafficking. It cannot be right that, at the moment, if you smuggle 20 kg of class A drugs, you could face a life sentence, but if you conceal 20 people in a false floor in a lorry, which is one of the things that we encounter at the border, it is 14 years. Some of the provisions here, including the life sentence for facilitation, are a useful deterrent that we feel will help with that broader organised crime threat where some of this money is reinvested in other crimes.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q I agree with you very much on the penalty. It would seem obvious to me that closing down that line of revenue for these criminal gangs is a sensible and obvious thing to do. One other area in relation to penalties in the Bill is the issue of returning foreign national offenders. At the moment, I think the penalty is six months. We are proposing to increase that penalty to five years. How valuable do you think that will be in terms of some of the issues with which no doubt you end up grappling, with foreign national offenders returning to this country and then carrying out further crimes?

Rob Jones: That is another helpful element that has, we hope, a deterrent effect. Criminality linked to the western Balkans, and really determined people who will be deported and then engage in a merry-go-round using false ID cards and clandestine entry to come back to the UK to continue committing crime, is something that we need to deal with. Those provisions would be helpful in that context.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q I am interested, on a broader level, in what challenges you think our country faces from organised immigration crime more generally.

Rob Jones: It is now recognised by organised crime groups as something that can generate a lot of revenue quickly. The previous witness talked about pull and push factors. The UK is a very attractive destination, and people will pay significant amounts of money—thousands of pounds—to smugglers. As we move forward with more pressure—we have seen what has played out with Afghanistan—and with more irregular migrants moving, there is the opportunity for organised crime to capitalise on that. Having a strong deterrent and being able to project our response and deal with organised crime groups upstream is really important to us, because there will be more and more pressure on the system, which inevitably will be exploited by smuggling gangs.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Presumably trying to focus our approach on safe and legal routes is also very helpful from a national security perspective.

Rob Jones: Absolutely, with the normalisation of clandestine entry, where people are allowed to hide in a crowd. When this problem began, a big day was 100. We are now looking at a big day as being over 700. Within that, you get an increased risk that people will enter the country in a truly clandestine fashion. The more that you can do to offer safe and legal routes, and to disincentivise the business model through deterrents and a range of provisions, the more effective we can be at tackling the organised crime element, because we can then concentrate on the worst groups, which pose the highest risk and will potentially be moving people with a criminal history, whom we are most concerned about.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Q Thank you for your evidence, Mr Jones. I do not think that anyone would beg to differ on the need to deter and disrupt the smuggling gangs and to support safe legal routes; the issue is much more about where we draw the line in trying to deter people who use those gangs, whether it is appropriate to criminalise them, and so on. May I ask you about another challenge on which I think you have given evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee: the use of social media companies and encryption to try to organise these sailings, and so on? Back then, I think you indicated that there was a lack of co-operation from a lot of the social media companies, which was posing a lot of challenges. Has there been any progress in that regard?

Rob Jones: There has been some progress. We have been working constantly with the social media companies to get a better response, and to ensure that their platforms are not being used to promote dangerous crossings, and there is progress. We are working in a voluntary environment. We are, in some ways, short of regulation, particularly in relation to this element, but we continue to work with those companies on a day-to-day basis to take material down. That response has improved. It is still not as good as I would like it to be, and we are working to an action plan where we have a common agreement of standards in terms of takedown and our aspiration to prevent adverse outcomes in the English channel, which is ultimately what this is all about. It has got better. It is not as good as it could be. Your point on encryption and some of the closed spaces that we cannot see that are being used to promote these crossings remains an issue for us.

Nationality and Borders Bill (First sitting)

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

There are other Members who wish to ask questions, Mr McDonald. If there is time, I am happy to bring you back in. At present I have Jonathon Gullis, Paul Blomfield and Anne McLaughlin who are waiting to speak. Minister, would you like to come in now or wait?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

I am happy to come in later.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

Q Clause 10 talks about the idea of differential treatment. To people in Stoke-on-Trent this seems absolutely acceptable. Stoke-on-Trent is, by the way, a member of the asylum dispersal scheme and the fifth largest contributor in the UK. Some people have come via safe and legal routes, such as from Afghanistan, whereas others are illegal economic migrants who were already in a safe country in France but who have come over the English channel,. Do you not think that saying we are going to treat people differently is going to deter people from making that journey? That will impact the people smugglers, because people will not make the dangerous journey they should not be making in the first place, because they are aware of the consequences when they are caught.

Jon Featonby: That is one of the reasons why we are concerned about the clause. We come from a different viewpoint in that we believe that people’s rights and entitlements should be based not on how they entered the UK, but on their protection need. People who go through the asylum system and fall into group 2 in clause 10 are people whom the UK has recognised as being in need of international protection, and they have refugee status.

We work with and have conversations with people who have been through the process. Maybe they arrived in the UK on a small boat or through some other irregular means. They tell us that these changes would not have impacted the decisions they made. It is very unlikely that people have a clear idea about what the UK’s asylum system looks like and what their entitlements will be when they are in it or when they go on to get status. Some people have very little choice in the country they end up in. They may well not have started out being involved in the smuggling networks in France. It could have been much closer to the country from which they have fled. The smugglers have much more control over where people end up.

Where somebody feels safe is subjective to the individual. There are many reasons why people in France may be unable to avail themselves of the protection system there. It might be that, because of how they were living in France, they were not aware of how they could claim asylum or the route to do that. It may be that they were treated in some way along that journey that meant they felt unable to avail themselves of protection in France. It is also important to note that the vast majority of people who do make it to France in search of protection stay in France. France receives, generally, at least three times as many asylum applications as the UK.

We do not believe that the differential treatment will deter people, and there are challenges around the differential treatment in clause 10. Stoke is absolutely one of the places in the country that we work with and pay tribute to. Abi Brown, the leader of the council, speaks very eloquently about how proud she is of the council’s role. However, clause 10 will potentially make it harder for those local authorities who support people. If people continue to come to the UK, go through the asylum process and get status and are then unable to reunite with their family members or have insecurities around the length of time they are going to get status, and, crucially, if they are unable to access public funds, that impacts on their integration prospects and ability to support themselves. That may well increase the pressures on local authorities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Thank you, Sir Roger. Thank you for coming to give evidence, Mr Featonby. I welcome the support you have expressed for the principle of the Afghan scheme. Of course, this Government are absolutely committed to the principle of establishing safe and legal routes. You have been asked several times about the issue of channel crossings, and I feel that you have glossed over that slightly in your answers. Do you think that it is a priority? How would you go about tackling that challenge?

Jon Featonby: It should be, and it is right that it is a priority. There are too many people trying to cross the channel. It is well known that it is the busiest shipping lane in the UK. It is not said enough, but tribute should be paid to Border Force and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution because we have not seen huge numbers of lives lost, especially compared with what we have seen in the Mediterranean.

We would certainly say that although people continue to make those journeys, the primary focus should be on ensuring that people’s lives continue to be saved and that the loss of life stays relatively low. However, it comes back to the fact that we do not think the Bill will deter people from putting their lives in the hands of people smugglers or, as we are increasingly seeing, taking to small boats—relying not on people smugglers but on very small and even less seaworthy crafts.

There is no easy way to tackle the problem. There is no one simple solution. However, some of it will come down to the increased provision of safe routes. The more safe routes there are, the less likely people will need to take dangerous journeys. Something that needs to be a part of the UK’s international co-operation, and something that it can play an increasingly important role in, is making sure that people have access to protection systems outside the UK.

It comes back to the point about understanding why people make those journeys in the first place. People do not get on those boats on the French shores lightly—it is clear what the risks are going to be when they are there. Understanding what leads someone to that point is vitally important, and I am not sure that the Bill reflects what people with that lived experience would tell us. Some of that will require continued work with our European partners, in particular, to make sure that people have access to information, as well as to their protection systems, in order to look at the reasons why somebody may not have claimed asylum in France, for example.

A vital point that came up in the equality impact assessment published earlier this week is that when states such as the UK look to put in extra measures to protect their borders and asylum systems, they must ensure that does not lead to inverse reactions, which will just lead to people making more dangerous journeys. That is certainly what we have seen over the last 10 to 15 years. The harder it has been for people to make journeys when one route is cut off, the more people are generally pushed to make more dangerous journeys. We should be dealing with the root causes of why people make those decisions in the first instance.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q What assessment have you made of those evil criminal gangs and the associated criminality? You have referred to the life sentences for people smugglers. What more would you propose doing to break their business model?

Jon Featonby: It is largely about the points I have just raised. The explanatory notes to the Bill talk about breaking the business model, and absolutely there are the enforcement procedures regarding the people smugglers themselves. We agree that that should continue to be a priority. However, we need to look at why people turn to people smugglers, and that is because of a lack of other alternatives, whether that is accessing protection systems or those other safe routes.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q On modern slavery, I recognise that one of the challenges to modern slavery prosecutions is maintaining victim engagement throughout the criminal justice process. In your view, what are the key barriers for victims?

Jon Featonby: That is a very good point. We believe that the modern slavery response needs not only to provide protection for people coming out of situations of exploitation, but to enable those people to take part in prosecutions to tackle people who are exploiting others, whether in the UK or abroad.

The challenges that we see people quite often face are, first, at times a lack of trust in the police or whoever else it might be, but also—probably more importantly and more pertinent to the Bill—a lack of security about their immigration status. The people we work with, who predominantly do not have a secure immigration status in the UK, are thinking about where they are going to sleep that night, and how they are going to feed themselves and their family, rather than how they are going to help the police through this, or potentially how they will have to recount quite traumatic experiences to support those prosecutions.

That is why we support the measures in the Bill to try to give more people secure immigration status. We think that will make a big difference, but we absolutely encourage the Government to go slightly further to ensure that more people can avail themselves of that protection, which would have a beneficial impact on prosecutions as well.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q I will ask one more quick question, so that hopefully my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West can come in. In your view, will the new legal aid provision in relation to the one-stop process encourage earlier referrals into the national referral mechanism?

Jon Featonby: Potentially. Some of it depends on how it is implemented. We would probably like to see some changes to that provision. I touched earlier on the work that the Red Cross does at reception centres to support people when they first leave those situations of exploitation. At that point, people come out, they are in these centres, the Red Cross may well be there, but it is probably the police, local authorities and increasingly immigration enforcement. There are very few opportunities for people to get legal advice at that point around what the NRM entails for them.

The provisions in the Bill on legal aid are welcome, but they are only for those people who have ongoing protection claims. Most people who come out of those situations of exploitation will not necessarily have an ongoing asylum claim. We would welcome the broadening of the provisions in the Bill to make sure that it covers everybody who may be thinking about entering the NRM, so that they are able to get legal advice, whether or not they have an ongoing human rights or asylum claim alongside it.

[The Chair]

Thank you. This will have to be one final question from Mr Anderson and one final answer.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 10th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Can I just look a Whip in the eye? We are making good progress, and it is nearly 1 o’clock. Some of us—perhaps even myself—would like to have lunch. We do not want to cut the Minister off in full flow, so perhaps it is now time for a break.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

Given your generosity, Sir Charles, I would be delighted to move that the Committee do now adjourn.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Tom Pursglove.)

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

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 18th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

In conclusion, the Home Office has expressed concerns about giving automatic settled status to this group, but what is the alternative? The worst possible situation would be letting potentially thousands of children become undocumented, and discovering in five, 10 or 20 years that they have no proof of residency and are here illegally. As corporate parents, we have been entrusted with the care of these children. Allowing them to become undocumented is not providing care or promoting their welfare, as the Secretary of State is required to do. This is another Windrush waiting to happen, with one glaring distinction: the Government have been warned that they should take action now. They are about to make the same mistake, but they can do something about it now. The new clause would ensure that these children were given legal status. We are not suggesting that they bypass the settlement scheme processes; we suggest, rather, that they be given the helping hand that they so desperately need to make it through the scheme in good time, so that they can get the status to which they are entitled. I commend new clause 41 to the Committee.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the debate be now adjourned.

[The Chair]

I thank the Whip for that. Mr Stringer is chairing the Committee this afternoon, and I understand that the Committee intends to report then, so I will not see Committee members again. I thank you all for your courtesy. Even the Government Whip has been well behaved.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ah yes, you’re a very fine sportsman—I call Mr Tom Pursglove.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

You are far too kind, Mr Speaker.

What difference does the Home Secretary believe putting 20,000 more police officers out on the beat, catching criminals and deterring crime, will make in practical terms?

[Sajid Javid]

I have long said that we need to tackle crime, especially serious violence, on many fronts, and that means making sure that the police are properly resourced so that we have enough police on the streets. That is why this year we had a record settlement of almost £1 billion, which was voted for and supported by Government Members but rejected by Opposition Members.