Passports: Strike Action and Voter ID

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Plainly, that was an issue that the noble Lord should have raised—and no doubt did raise—during the debate on the Elections Bill. It is quite a long way from the topic of this Question, which is about the strikes by the PCS.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Can my noble friend the Minister, having gone through that extensive list, say whether the department has made any estimate of how many people do not have any of the forms of documentation that he listed?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Well, of course, elections fall within the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities rather than the Home Office, but I am delighted to make that inquiry and write to him, and deposit the answer in the Library of the House.

Asylum Seekers: Local Authority Accommodation

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Certainly, when a refugee is assigned to a local authority area, there is a payment to the local authority in relation to that person to defray the costs of the accommodation for that individual.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, the Question was about local authorities that do not take their fair share. Will my noble friend the Minister enlighten the House on whether he or his department are aware of any local authorities that have refused to take their fair share of asylum seekers?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Since April 2022, when the policy was changed, the department has not noticed that any particular authorities have been backward in coming forward in relation to assisting the department in this regard.

UK Asylum and Refugee Policy

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Friday 9th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Whips of both parties for allowing me to speak in the gap. I thank the most reverend Primate for opening this debate and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, and the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, on their maiden speeches. I must apologise to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester for missing his maiden speech. The irony, which I am sure is not lost on him, was that I popped out because it was time to pray. I also thank my noble friend Lady Berridge for mentioning the Bishop of Burnley. He and I were best friends at school; when we were in detention 40-odd years ago, little did we think that one of us would end up a bishop in the Church of England and the other a Member of the House of Lords—not a great incentive for schoolchildren to behave well.

As an academic and a former head of research at a think tank, how would I write about this issue? There are lots of challenges. As the son of an immigrant who came on two big boats—one from Guyana to Trinidad and one from Trinidad to the UK—in the early 1950s, my heart says that we should let everyone in and open up to the whole world. However, my head says that we cannot. The difficulty is, where do we draw the line? This has troubled me for some time. We all draw that line very differently, and it has been a struggle to try to decide where we should draw it.

We have to look at two issues: those seeking asylum and those seeking to immigrate here. On asylum, of course we have to open our hearts to people suffering terribly in the rest of the world, but we also have to ask questions. How do we differentiate the genuine asylum seekers and process them as quickly as possible to get them into British society to contribute in a positive way? How do we make sure that we have tough love for those who fail and send them away in the most humanitarian and appropriate way possible, despite people perhaps campaigning for them to stay? We also have to think about the causes of people wanting to come to this country. We have to ask whether we have a moral responsibility to bear from some of our foreign adventures that have led to refugees from some of these countries, even if we cannot let them all in. How do we speed up processing—I thank my noble friend the Minister for answering my Written Questions on the Government’s plans for this; I hope he will share some of those thoughts—and make sure that we return people as quickly as possible?

On the other part of immigration—those who want to come and make a better life in this country, as my parents did—I am pleased that we now seem to have a fairer system after leaving the EU. We no longer give priority to mostly white Europeans over mostly non-white non-Europeans, and we treat everyone equally. But can we have a dynamic points system whereby we identify skills gaps in this country, are clear and transparent with people about the skills we are looking for, and encourage them to come? Could we use technology, for example AI, to scan vacancy boards and give those vacancies higher points so that people can come here?

I also agree that we should look at legal routes of migration outside this country, but what are the unintended consequences of that? Can we change our language so that we are welcoming and understand why people come, and not treat everyone as invaders? Can we work internationally, find those clear rules and have a dynamic points system? Can we have a system of compassion and be clear that we will welcome those who want to come and work here, where we have those gaps, and help those who are genuinely fleeing as much as we can, in conjunction with international partners and organisations and civil society? Let us hope that this and future Governments can come up with a more compassionate policy that most of us can share in.

Counterterrorism: Martyn’s Law

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Bringing forward this legislation was a 2019 manifesto commitment. As the noble Lord noted, there was supposed to be a consultation in early 2020, but that was delayed due to Covid. It was eventually undertaken between 26 February and 2 July 2021. It was a very comprehensive consultation process with more than 2,500 responses, and the duty has received strong support from businesses and others. As I say, the Government are committed to bringing forward this important legislation, as per the Queen’s Speech, as soon as parliamentary time allows.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that one of the best ways to tackle terrorism is to prevent people becoming terrorists in the first place? What is his department is doing to work with the many local civil society organisations that are working with young people in many communities across the country, to prevent them being recruited by terrorists?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. The Contest strategy is the Government’s counterterrorism strategy and has the four Ps at its core, one of which is Prevent. Many sections of the community are engaged with that and the Government expect to publish an updated and enhanced version of Contest early next year.

Scammers

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have already outlined some of the legislative work going on, and I am not going to unequivocally commit to doing anything in other Bills at the moment. I will go on to one other point which perhaps refers to the previous question: one of the more effective tools at the moment is Friends Against Scams, to which I referred in my opening Answer. It is run by National Trading Standards and encourages people to educate others about fraud. People sign up, do an online training course and then share it. More than 1 million people have signed up. That sort of work is very valuable.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend has rightly said that there is quite a lot of information online if you think you have been subject to fraud. Some of those sites encourage you to report a suspicious email or text, but do not do any more than that except say that they will remove it for you. What more can we do to direct people to websites that can actually help people who feel they have been a victim of fraud?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The National Cyber Security Centre launched its suspicious email reporting service to remove harmful scams online, and it is seeing high levels of success. As of October 2022 it had taken down more than 105,000 scams across 192,000 URLs. Another thing that the Government have done is the National Economic Crime Centre’s department dedicated to ensuring consistency of messaging. I will make sure it is aware of my noble friend’s suggestion.