Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules
(1 day, 10 hours ago)
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Lord German
That this House regrets that the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules (HC 1691), published on 5 March, fails to provide a credible plan for bringing down the asylum backlog and closing asylum hotels, including the provision of safe routes for refugees to enter the UK; risks increasing the bureaucratic burden on the Home Office and costs for taxpayers; further disincentivises proper integration of refugees; will force vulnerable asylum seekers into destitution and rough sleeping; and will place significant financial and operational burdens onto already overstretched local authorities.
Relevant document: 56th report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I must declare my interest: I am supported by RAMP. That has always been a mystery to some people. It is the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy, so that Members can understand.
This regret Motion concerns a statement of changes to the Immigration Rules laid before the House on 5 March. I do not expect that this debate will be quite as well-natured as the previous one because this piece of secondary legislation has resulted in one of the most excoriating reports from our Select Committee that I have ever seen. Its 15 pages can be summed up in a few words: piecemeal, ill thought-out and lacking in evidence. Add to that the financial assertions made by the Government that have now been blown out of the water and we have a policy for which we will surely pay a sad and unnerving price in both financial and human capital terms.
The Government may have pushed back implementation, but the start date of 2 March in this legislation and the retrospective laws that lie behind it are already on the statute book. The statement of changes represents a fundamental shift in the way that this country provides sanctuary to people in need, yet it has been introduced without meaningful parliamentary scrutiny. It risks placing additional strain on an already overburdened Home Office system but, critically, at the same time it takes a less humane approach to protection.
These changes, by a piece of secondary legislation under the negative procedure, will affect more than 1 million people in this country, and I must say that that is a conservative estimate. Many of these are working people contributing to the economy of our country and many are children, yet, despite the scale of these changes, the statement offers no credible plan for tackling the asylum backlog or preventing dangerous journeys. The changes do not expand safe routes for refugees. They also undermine integration by denying those granted protection the certainty needed to rebuild their lives.
Our Select Committee and others have warned that, in making these changes to the Immigration Rules, the Home Office is introducing measures before their impact can be known, so avoiding a more complex legislative process and the scrutiny that comes with it. Changes of this scale deserve proper debate and examination by Parliament, particularly where they affect the security and stability of individuals who have been recognised as being in need of refuge. These Motions are a poor substitute for scrutiny, especially as key information is either being withheld or not available. If the Government are serious about clearing the asylum backlog, the focus should be on improving decision-making capacity, reducing unnecessary procedural barriers and ensuring that claims are processed quickly and fairly. What we are seeing here, though, risks achieving the opposite.
I begin with the change to the length of protection granted to refugees, reduced from five years to two and a half. Sadly, the reality is that warfare is often protracted. The brutal civil war in Sudan is now in its third year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is in its fifth and the war in Syria lasted more than 13. Conflicts rarely end after 13 months, and it can take many more years before infrastructure and capacity allow for large-scale voluntary returns.
Introducing temporary protection for refugees would therefore leave families in a state of fear and limbo, with worrying consequences for being able to integrate. Temporary protection is likely to have an acute impact on the well-being of refugee children, who need stability as they recover and rebuild their lives. Repeated reviews will disrupt educational attainment and the ability to secure home tuition fee status. Temporary protection is also likely to delay family reunion. This could push more families towards dangerous journeys, given that 90% of refugee family reunion visas were previously granted to women and children.
This uncertainty has tangible effects. Although the United Kingdom rightly provided a vital lifeline to those fleeing the war in Ukraine, evidence from the British Red Cross found that the temporary nature of their status meant that Ukrainians were turned down for jobs, even when they were well qualified, because employers were concerned about the short duration of their visas. Landlords were reluctant to offer longer-term tenancies and displaced Ukrainians have remained significantly more likely to become homeless than the general population. Significantly, tightening the settlement rules in Denmark—the Government have taken some view on the success of that—has in fact reduced refugees’ employment levels.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I start by thanking the various organisations that have sent us enormously helpful briefings and, of course, the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which has produced a pretty devastating report on the whole process.
I was very surprised when I learned that there is no ability in the House of Commons to have a debate on this issue. Frankly, I could not believe it, but I have discussed it with various MPs, who said there is no possibility for the elected House to debate this issue. These are not trivial changes; they are quite fundamental to the way in which we deal with asylum seekers and refugees, and they are too complicated as changes for the procedure that is open even to us in this House. At least we can have a debate, but we have to have a Second Reading debate and a debate on detailed changes all in one go, which is really not very satisfactory. If we had a proper Bill, we could have probing amendments to test the strength of the arguments. As it is, the only option is a Motion of this sort to enable any debate to take place at all. I would have welcomed a chance to table probing amendments on a whole range of these issues. We are dealing with what is the material for an important Bill. So, I shall not be asking for the opinion of the House, but I hope that our comments today will influence government thinking. I think that is the best we can do with the procedure that is open to us.
Of course, we are dealing with an issue that is going to be with us for many years to come, because with the turmoil in the Middle East and in other countries as well, we must expect more people to be on the move. It is important that we manage the results of such movements in a dignified way, consistent with our international obligations and commitments, and that we do it in such a way that we do not forget that human rights matter.
I will avoid speaking as if we were now in Committee or on Report; instead, I will mention just a few of the issues. I welcome the extension to the Ukrainian scheme—that is good. Many of us have been arguing for that for some time, and it is very welcome that the Government are doing it.
My sense of what we have before us is that we are dealing with a lot of piecemeal changes—not a total, whole approach to a difficult issue. I have the impression that the issues have not been all that well considered. Indeed, in saying that, I am supported by the report by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which stated that
“we found the answers unhelpful”
and that the Home Office has
“not fully thought through the implications of the policy”.
That is a serious criticism, not from a party point of view but from the point of view of good governance and how subordinate legislation should be handled.
I have also read the reports from NGOs and other organisations, which clearly regret that there was not enough consultation for them to have an input into the whole process. The belief is that, if they had had more input, the changes proposed would have been better thought out and more substantially based. For example, to review asylum applications regularly will need more overall capacity in the Home Office. We have heard over the years, throughout successive Governments, that the Home Office has not, until now, had that capacity. I welcome the changes that have taken place in the Home Office—it is making asylum decisions much quicker than before and the backlog is being dealt with—but now we will have proposals that will move the whole process the other way and will put extra pressure on it. It is difficult to believe that a two-and-a-half-year assessment can happen without additional resource needs. What assessment have the Government made of the needs that will stem from the proposals we have before us?
Under the current system, the Home Office usually makes one further decision on refugee status after someone is initially granted protection, but under these proposals, there could be many decisions. One opinion is that it could happen as many as eight different times. The problem is that this will impose burdens on legal aid, if there is any legal aid available. The Government could be reasonably asked to identify what legal aid needs there will be, to ensure that those granted refugee status will be able to access legal aid during the review period, because every review period will challenge the right of people to stay in this country and their whole futures will depend on it. Frequent housing moves can have a very disruptive effect on education and on children who are trying to be settled in a new country, which will all lead to instability. People living in this country, who are feeling unstable and uncertain about their futures, cannot make the sort of contribution to our society that we would like them to make.
The result is that there will be tensions with the refugee convention, under which the United Kingdom has agreed to facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees—we are going against that part of the refugee convention. I know that there are other challenges to the refugee convention, but I hope that we will firmly stand by it. Has any assessment been made by the Government of the impact of the reduced length of leave on integration outcomes? What we really need is an overall integration policy. Integration is a difficult thing to achieve, so we need a policy for the integration of people in our society.
Finally, I will talk about family reunions and children. Family reunion applications were paused from September last year. We had the understanding that they would be resumed early this year. Can the Minister say when those family reunion applications will be restarted? Have the Government assessed the impact of the pause, given that nine out of 10 visas granted before the pause went to women and children? How many refugees have applied under other family visa routes since the pause, and how many were successful?
I feel that we are turning our backs on refugee children and family reunion. They are not covered here. I would like the Government to come back and give us an idea of what policies there are going to be on family reunion, which this House has debated with a lot of emotion over the years.
I am conscious that what we do has to have public support. On the one hand, we cannot introduce policies on refugees and asylum and just ignore the concerns of the general public; on the other hand, many of the things that we have talked about in earlier speeches and now could have public support if presented sensibly. We cannot proceed with policies on asylum and refugees without public support, but we have to gain public support. That means having calm, balanced debates explaining the terrible situations that people have fled from and why it is right that we, among other countries, should provide safety for people whose human rights have been so severely prejudiced.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
It is daunting to follow two such experts on the subject. I cannot match their eloquence, but, like them, I feel strongly that these rule changes are wrong. Some of them, we have to admit, we were warned of in the White Paper, which we discussed on 17 November. Even so, there are some surprises.
Refusing to issue visas to enable Sudanese and Afghan students to come here is new and startlingly insensitive, given that Afghan women aged 12 and over are barred from any form of education back home and that in Sudan there is the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis. It is catastrophic and heartbreaking, as the Leader of the House correctly described it earlier this afternoon. Refusing even skilled worker visas to Afghans looks very like washing our hands of a mess that is partly of our making.
In November, the Home Secretary said,
“we will create a new … visa route, solely for refugees, with a quicker path to permanent settlement”.
Where is that new route? It is not there. It is not in today’s ragbag of changes. Instead, the door is slammed shut on students from Sudan, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Cameroon.
Undoubtably the most significant change—and it was foreshadowed—is the new requirement for reassessments of refugee status for all refugees every 30 months for up to 20 years. This will do huge damage. It will hurt the people concerned, making their integration much harder. It will make it harder for them to get accommodation, it will make their children’s education harder and it will be harder for them to look for a job, which we allow a refugee to do only if the asylum application has been outstanding for over 12 months through no fault of their own. It will make it harder for them to progress in work, because employers will not invest in training workers whose right to remain here is so temporary and transitory.
In another of today’s changes, we twist the knife by imposing a new ban on refugees taking low-paid jobs, precisely the jobs in construction, social care, farming and nursing where the real shortages are. Why do we have to be so cruel, and at such cost to ourselves? Apart from the Exchequer costs discussed by the noble Lord, Lord German, of putting refugees through up to eight or nine reassessments, think of the economic activity foregone and the taxes foregone. It is an own goal. It is bad for the country, as well as being bad for the refugees. I hope it is true that some in government are urging the Home Secretary to reconsider.
For me, the most striking feature of the Paisley debate among the Scottish party leaders the other night was the huge critical audience reaction to the anti-immigrant stance of the two right-wingers. The Scottish people clearly do not feel that immigrants are a threat. Of course, the population of Scotland would decline but for immigration. Immigrants seem to be welcomed in Scotland. I hope that the Labour Party will think very hard about whether the stance that has been taken by the Home Office now is a wise one. I do not think it is wise for the country and I suspect it may not be wise for the party—although that is not my business.
Finally, I will say a word about process. I am privileged to serve on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which is skilfully chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. The noble Lords, Lord German and Lord Dubs, both referred to our report on the rule changes, which drew attention, in fairly scathing terms, to the undesirability of piecemeal changes, to the absence of impact assessments for all but two of these many changes, to the lack of any consultation with outside expertise and, most surprisingly to me, to the baffling inability of Home Office officials to explain how the new rules will work and to answer our questions. Some of the questions were quite basic but we got no answers. It would be very good if the Minister, who I greatly admire, or one of his Home Office colleagues, would go through the report that the committee has produced and let it have answers to the questions that officials ducked when we raised them, and which remain open. Some sort of response to our report would be very much welcomed.
We concluded, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, noted, that
“the Home Office has not fully thought through the implications of the policy”,
and that
“the lack of an assessment of the effects of, in particular, the reduction in the duration of refugees’ permission to stay and the changes to the occupations in which they may be permitted to work makes full scrutiny of these changes impossible”.
That is our conclusion. We concluded that we could not do our job and advise the House properly on these changes. We could not do our job and so Parliament cannot do its job. Therefore, I support both regret Motions, for reasons both substantive and procedural.
We know that primary legislation is pending. It would have been so much better to wait for the primary legislation. If these changes have to happen, we must be allowed the chance to debate them properly in primary legislation, to think it through and let Parliament think it through, or, better still, to let the Home Office think again.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I too declare an interest as a RAMP associate.
The changes to asylum law, triggered by the statement of changes, was heralded by the Home Secretary as
“the most significant reform to our migration system in modern times”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/11/25; col. 509.]
This is echoed in the Explanatory Memorandum’s explanation that this
“marks the start of introducing a new regime”.
Yet without these regret Motions, which I very much welcome, we would not even be debating this fundamental change from what the EM describes as
“an assumption of offering permanent protection … towards a more basic, and temporary protection”.
Surely, as has already been said, in the name of democratic accountability, such a significant change merits primary legislation subject to full parliamentary scrutiny in both Houses.
It is the change to the basic asylum protection that will be my main focus, but I echo my noble friend’s welcome to the extension of the Ukraine scheme and his Motion’s concern about the visa brake’s prevention of educational opportunities, including for Chevening scholars. I will leave it to colleagues to say more about this, but I simply wish to raise the question of the lack of a published equality impact assessment.
The response to my Written Question about vulnerable women from Sudan and Afghanistan who had already been selected for scholarships completely ignored the gender dimension mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. The cursory treatment of equalities in the general impact assessment displayed total ignorance of the position of women and our responsibilities under the UN’s women, peace and security agenda, for which we are penholders.
This raises a more general question about the lack of impact assessments for key measures, which, as we have heard, the Secondary Legislation and Scrutiny Committee advises makes full scrutiny impossible. The committee is somewhat dismissive of Minister Tapp’s assurance that the Home Office takes the provision of IAs “extremely seriously” and concludes that the Home Office may not have
“fully thought through the implications”
of the change in asylum protection.
I add my disappointment that we have not yet seen a child rights impact assessment. In response to an Oral Question, my noble friend the Minister assured me that such assessments
“will be conducted throughout the policy development process”.—[Official Report, 27/1/26; col. 763.]
But, in answer to a more recent Written Question, he emphasised:
“There is no legal requirement to publish Child Impact Assessments and to commit to do so would be premature given that for many of the measures, policy development is ongoing”.
So this new regime starts without parliamentarians and others having the necessary information to assess its effect on children and other asylum seekers. This is among the wider process concerns raised by the SLSC, including the total lack of consultation.
When asked about this, the Home Office responded:
“Given the pace of change”—
which surely the Home Office itself has set—
“it is not always possible to consult ahead of all policy reform”.
While the significance of some of the changes was accepted, the Home Office later stated that
“it is important to put that meaning into context for the change in question as those factors on their own do not always result in a justification for a public consultation”.
What on earth does that mean? I am not surprised that the SLSC was not convinced by the Home Office responses, and I sympathise with my noble friend the Minister, who has to defend the very poor case made by his department.
I turn to the substantive impact of the move towards temporary protection for refugees. The SLSC is similarly sceptical about the Home Office’s responses to its questions on employment and suggested that we might want to press further on this. Can my noble friend tell us what the evidential basis is for assuming that temporary protection status will improve refugees’ employment prospects, when organisations such as the Refugee Council, Freedom from Torture and the Helen Bamber Foundation argue the opposite in their submissions to the SLSC? Please could the Minister not respond that the expectation is that refugees will be able to switch to the new bespoke work and study route, which offers a speedier route to indefinite leave to remain, given that the Government still cannot say what the criteria for joining it will be or even when it will be introduced?
The mention of a fee and the possession of skills, together with changes to the occupations in which asylum seekers can seek work after 12 months, suggests that the work lane of this route might be open only to those who are able to access more skilled and better-paid jobs. That should be irrelevant to refugee status and would create a two-class system of refugees. If my noble friend cannot give us any details now about the work and study route, can he at least say when the Home Office hopes to make those details available?
On the related question of the permitted occupations open to asylum seekers after 12 months, while it is welcome that the number of available occupations will be increased, it is not clear why this cannot be in addition to the current rules rather than instead of them. As it is, and as the SLSC warns, it could mean that fewer asylum seekers are able to find work and, as we have heard, it also closes off the social care sector to them, which could have significant effects. Its report says that the Home Office has not engaged with this point, so I hope my noble friend will do so now and will also commit to monitoring the effects of the change, as called for by the SLSC.
Employment is an important element of integration, which we have heard about, which the EM, echoing Ministers, states is a key aim of this and related reforms, in line with the recently published, and welcome, social cohesion action plan. But I have not yet seen an explanation of how making refugees’ data so insecure is conducive to integration, from the point of view either of refugees themselves or of employers and landlords who might think twice, as we have heard, before taking them on. This is certainly not the view of organisations that work with refugees, including the International Rescue Committee and the UNHCR. The latter warns:
“Providing refugees with only 30 months of leave at a time is likely to be detrimental to refugees’ sense of security, belonging and stability, factors critical to positive engagement and participation in society. Status of such a temporary nature may impact on a person’s ability to find housing, seek employment, learn English and develop skills, and risks undermining the Government’s intention to enhance refugees’ ability to contribute to their new communities”.
Baroness Teather (LD)
It is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett. I am hugely grateful to the noble Lords, Lord German and Lord Dubs, for providing an opportunity for the House to discuss the Government’s changes to the asylum, refugee and settlement system.
I should begin with some context. After I left the other place, I spent nearly a decade working for the Jesuit Refugee Service, first internationally, supporting projects in the Middle East and South Sudan, and then running the UK office for nine years until early last year. JRS UK supports asylum seekers and refugees facing destitution or detention, providing legal advice, accommodation and much more besides. It is this perspective that I bring to this debate.
There is much to regret in the raft of changes announced by the Government to the asylum system, as many other noble Lords have already pointed out in this debate, and of course—as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee pointed out—a huge amount that remains profoundly unclear. In the interests of brevity, I will focus my remarks tonight on the one change that I fear will create the most human misery for refugees and will be deeply counterproductive to integration and social cohesion. That is the reduction in the duration of leave to remain for refugees to 30 months and the requirement to reapply repeatedly for up to 20 years before achieving permanent settlement.
My experience of working alongside asylum seekers and refugees suggests that offering only temporary protection, coupled with the requirement to endure regular cycles of jeopardy to apply for renewal, will leave refugees in a near-permanent state of precarity and vulnerability. It is very likely to undermine refugees’ ability to settle, to integrate, to get work, to keep work—as the noble Lord, Lord German, remarked in relation to the Ukrainian scheme—to engage in education and to lay down roots. It is likely to affect their ability to rent housing, to leave them more vulnerable to exploitation and to damage personal relationships.
Children and young people in refugee households will grow up in this instability, which could potentially last the whole of their lives. How will that affect their schooling and educational choices? Concern about the impact of reducing the duration of leave is shared by every refugee charity that has spoken publicly about the changes. It is laid out in detail in submissions to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee by, for example, the Helen Bamber Foundation, Freedom from Torture, ILPA and the Refugee Council. All are also asking why this change has been introduced before making clear other elements of the core protection system and work and study route.
The Jesuit Refugee Service works closely with people with insecure immigration status over many years, giving a window into the likely impacts of temporary forms of protection for refugees. That experience suggests that uncertainty and insecurity over immigration status has a profound and lasting impact on people’s mental health. Indeed, the agony of enduring enforced limbo was an issue that came up repeatedly in JRS research documenting asylum seekers’ experiences of waiting for decisions, with many describing it as wasting their life. The Government are now proposing to extend this misery even beyond the point of grant of status.
Refugees have often experienced significant trauma, including torture and trafficking. Uncertainty and prolonged limbo are not conditions that facilitate healing and recovery. I recall vividly refugees who had attended the JRS UK drop-in for years but felt able to begin trauma counselling and to grieve for what they had lost only once they had papers and knew that they would be safe. This is a point echoed in the evidence submitted by the Helen Bamber Foundation and Freedom from Torture to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
The Government’s stated aim for this policy change is
“to change perceptions of what the refugee offer is in the UK”.
The pull factors argument is often employed by Ministers as an explanation for making the process more unpleasant, but it has never been shown in practice to make much difference. Furthermore, these rules will be applied to people who are already here, as it is applied retrospectively to anyone who made an asylum application or submitted further submissions to an asylum claim on or after 2 March 2026.
Lastly, I heard the Minister’s answer to my question and to other noble Lords in the Chamber earlier today that renewing leave would be a straightforward process, with reviews supported by AI. I gently suggest that, from all my dealings with the Home Office over a 23-year period, first as a constituency MP responding to immigration casework in my advice surgery in Brent, and then as director of JRS UK, the idea that the Home Office is likely to manage a huge additional volume of decision-making without delays, muddle and error does not bear any contact with reality.
What happens to people’s lives when renewal decisions start to take months to resolve? What will be the ramifications of delay for individuals’ personal decisions on whether to marry or take work or study, invest in volunteering or build relationships in their local community? If people lose work when the bureaucracy slows or because the anxiety makes sustaining that work difficult, will that be held against them in the new work and study route? It is an intolerable burden to place on the shoulders of people who have already suffered enough at the hands of their own country, in the journey to get here and in our byzantine asylum process. We risk crushing often highly gifted individuals, denying them the chance to begin their life again and contribute to Britain, as they are desperate to do. I urge the Minister to think again.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I recognise that the Government wish to reduce migration and that this requires public support. However, like all others who have spoken this evening, I am very concerned about some of the changes to the Immigration Rules, including the reduction in time for refugee status from five years to 30 months, for all the reasons that have been given this evening.
I will focus on the visa ban for students from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan. I am utterly dismayed that brilliant students who were hoping to come to our universities, following rigorous selection procedures and on fully funded scholarships, have had their hopes, dreams and futures shattered. This has a profound effect on the individuals but also on their countries, on our universities and on our reputation.
The Written Ministerial Statement said of the ban:
“Its key aim is to reduce the strain on the asylum system. It will also strengthen public confidence in the immigration system”.
I believe that the ban poorly serves both purposes. The Home Secretary has spoken of a “surge” of people from the four countries claiming asylum in the UK. There has been a large percentage increase in recent asylum claims from these countries, but the actual numbers of students who have claimed asylum from those four countries is minuscule in the context of overall immigration. This ban is a monumental sledgehammer to crack a nut, which has a disproportionate impact on hugely talented individuals from the most difficult and dangerous parts of the world—young people whose talents are desperately needed to bring about change in our world. As the noble Lord, Lord German, said, all four of these countries are on the International Rescue Committee’s emergency watch list. This means that they are among the 20 most fragile and conflict-affected places on earth, with humanitarian emergencies that are likely to worsen in the next 12 months.
The visa brake will have a specific impact, as has been said, on women and girls from Afghanistan, who suffer such severe restrictions on access to education. I firmly believe that we have a duty to give opportunities to outstanding students from these countries. They would in future make outstanding contributions to democratic renewal, peace, institution building and economic and social reform in their own countries. Importantly, they would also make a fantastic contribution to our own universities. I know this to be the case because at Oxford I have worked with many students from the four countries—courageous young people and leaders of tomorrow, who have come through so much to come to our country. They have had to study so much in their own countries. They are quite extraordinary young people. They are sanctuary students. The concept of sanctuary is one that I firmly espouse. It is a principle that defines our humanity. I believe that the visa ban undermines that principle.
There are countless examples of exceptional young people from the four countries who come to this country on student visas. They excel in their studies, and some of them are now doing stellar research that will literally change the world in, for example, medicine, climate change and environmental policies.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow noble Members of this House speaking with wisdom, compassion and conviction. I understand that, in the current polarised climate, the Government want an immigration policy that is not only capable of exercising control over migration into this country but is demonstrably seen to be doing so. In that endeavour, the recent summary of immigration statistics, published for the year ending 31 December 2025, indicates a marked reduction in inward migration in most categories, although that of illegal channel crossings—itself not the largest category by some margin—remains stubbornly immune to downward pressure.
I wish to offer some observations from these Benches that, while sympathetic to where Ministers find themselves, none the less owe a debt of gratitude to the regret Motions from the noble Lords, Lord German and Lord Dubs, for making it possible to have this debate—for which I express thanks.
First, my episcopal colleagues and I do not dispute the function of the Executive in exercising immigration control. However, we assert the contribution that migration has made to the United Kingdom. With a declining birth rate and rising economic inactivity, it is likely to play a continuing, vital part. Secondly, we deplore rhetoric that creates images of the “other” and imputes images of rampant criminality on migrants and asylum seekers. That is utterly reprehensible and disgraceful.
Thirdly, I understand the point made about visa pauses because of the switch from various nationalities from visa routes to asylum applications, but apart from the very modest numbers involved, given that the grant of asylum is given in most such cases, what is the point that the Government are trying to make? Is it that the criteria in the refugee convention are no longer adequate for the task, or is it that the Government think that Home Office staff are applying them incorrectly and with too great a liberality, so all possibility of getting anywhere near the United Kingdom must be denied to these people?
Fourthly, we have heard the concerns about the 30-month leave to remain and the anxiety that this imports into a category of people who dearly wish to put anxiety behind them, and the inhibition this puts on integration. I would rather hear about the expansion of in-person English classes.
Finally, the denial of family reunion to those given refugee status is a major concern. For most of us, family means the nurture, happiness and support which enables us to face the trials of life. This is true for refugees, and I find references to family reunion under other routes unsupported by any evidence and difficult to comprehend. I call on the Minister to announce the recommencement of family reunion in this category. I support the regret Motions in the names of the noble Lords, Lord German and Lord Dubs.
Lord Smith of Finsbury (Lab)
My Lords, it pains me to intervene to say that I think Ministers have got these changes wrong. It pains me even more to say that this is an all too common feature of Home Office decisions at the moment. I want to focus, as my noble friend Lady Royall did, on the provisions in these changes for students, and I do so, of course, as chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
The total ban brought in on students from four countries, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, not only removes opportunities from students severely affected by war and regimes in those nations—and let us not forget the impact on Afghan women students particularly—but diminishes the experience and opportunity to learn for British students too. Overseas students bring life and cultural difference to our universities, and we are infinitely the richer for it. Welcoming international students also represents a rather crucial bit of British soft power, and we should not forget that advantage either.
Why on earth is the Home Office deciding to remove any possibility for students from those countries to come here to the UK, even Chevening scholars, simply because a small number of those who have been here in the recent past have asked to stay? While I am at it, can I ask, as I have done before, why students cannot be removed entirely from the immigration figures? Students, by definition, are not immigrating—they are here for a temporary, defined period. The statistics are there to record permanent immigration. It is high time for the Home Office to think seriously about that change, and not the changes in front of us this evening.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I agree with everything that has been said this evening. I do not remember a debate where that has been quite so true. I will jump from international students to the EU settlement scheme, quite briefly, as I know that the bulk of this debate has been on other matters.
First, however, the Immigration Rules represent an astonishing degree of executive power over substantive policy changes, surely not envisaged in the Immigration Act 1971, which conferred those powers. I am grateful to the Hansard Society podcast, which I listened to, about how this has grown. It is an incredible imperial edifice that is largely immune to parliamentary control or even scrutiny. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who reminded us that the other place has no scope to debate them at all, so this is the only place they get any airing. They are even below the level of secondary legislation, because all we can ask the Minister and the Home Office to do is think again—we can only regret, not negative these changes.
I want to raise the proposed changes to the Immigration Rules Appendix EU and ask a series of questions. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee regretted the lack of impact assessments. I think there were only two on the page on GOV.UK—there certainly is not one on the changes to Appendix EU—and I must admit that I find them difficult to understand.
In paragraph 5.54 of the Explanatory Memorandum, the Government suggest that they need to tackle
“identified abuse by EEA citizens sponsoring EUSS applications by those falsely claiming to be eligible family members”,
and that they will
“enable an EUSS application to be refused where it is more likely than not that … the person has assisted another person fraudulently to obtain … entry clearance”.
No assessment is available of this identified abuse or its scope, why these powers are necessary or how they will be exercised. If the Minister does not have time tonight then maybe he can write to me on this, but the Government say they want to extend
“the current provision allowing a non-EEA national applicant to use an expired biometric residence card as proof of their identity”.
I do not understand why the point about a “non-EEA national applicant” is in Appendix EU. Does it mean to the EU settlement scheme? It is not very clear.
There is the assertion in paragraph 5.55 that
“we continue to see attempted abuse of the EUSS family permit route”
and the Government want to bring in additional validity requirements. What is this attempted abuse? Can we have some evidence of what it is and what the scope is? The Government say they will
“require the applicant to provide evidence of the sponsor’s EUSS status”.
I am surprised that that is not already required. I do not understand why an applicant applying essentially for family reunion does not already have to provide evidence of the status of the person they want to join—the sponsor. That is really weird. They will also require the applicant to provide evidence or information to attest to the family relationship. I do not understand how anyone could make an application of this kind without already providing such evidence. Those are some of the issues raised for me by page 12 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which are pretty unclear and seem to provide lots of scope to the Government to do things on rather unclear grounds.
Finally, I highlight the fact that the organisation the3million, with which the Minister and I have had a lot of contact in the past few years, is sadly having to take legal action because the Government do not allow people who have applied for status under the EU settlement scheme and are waiting for a decision to come to the UK while that application is pending. There are probably about 75,000 people waiting for a decision on their application whom that is affecting, of whom 9,000 have been waiting for more than four years. Some are waiting for an administrative review; some are waiting for the outcome of an appeal. All together, we are talking about a not inconsiderable number of people.
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
My Lords, I speak briefly in support of the case made by my noble friend Lady Royall. I regret that we are having this debate in this way this evening but it has been extremely powerful.
I thank the Minister for his personal response to my letter. When I raised the issue of the Chevening scholars some weeks ago, I had a very thoughtful and generous response from him in which he pointed out that the four countries targeted for the ban have seen a spike of 470% in the number of applicants. We may question how that came about—there are many different reasons—but it does not dent the problem created by a blanket ban, which creates enormous, perverse, inhumane and unjust consequences for a very small number of people. The people I want to focus on are a lightning rod, and an exemplar of what happens when people become collateral damage in policies that may have the best intentions but have the most profound and serious consequences for individuals who are, as has been said across the House in different circumstances, already extremely vulnerable and likely to be made more vulnerable by the situation they are placed in.
In that respect, I refer to the case that I know well: the University of Sussex, which, like LSE, is one of the two universities that have taken the majority of Chevening scholars. Noble Lords will know about the reputation of its Institute of Development Studies. I declare an interest as I have a PhD from the University of Sussex and was on its council for many years. Sussex had an extraordinary reputation for developing leaders of the third world. A prime example of this was South Africa. So many leaders from post-apartheid South Africa went to the Institute of Development Studies and then went back to South Africa to create the foundations of democracy. That is what Sussex has been doing with the Chevening scholars over many years.
The numbers of these Chevening scholars are tiny: in the six years to 2024, there were 119 Afghan recipients, 58 from Cameroon, 65 from Myanmar and 101 from the Sudan. What the vice-chancellor has said is that, because of our reputation for development studies and as a global university, many Chevening alumni have, as we would expect and as so brilliantly described by my noble friend Lady Royall, gone on to hold senior positions in government and in political service and public service. They have been the leaders on which the future of these countries has depended, and we look now in some terror at how those countries will build their futures if they do not have these brave, principled women as well as men—we have already been given some idea of the implications for women, and we wish there had been an impact statement on how women will be disadvantaged by this.
What I found most difficult to understand, alongside why no exception could be made for the Chevening scholars, was that these young people had gone through all the hoops, they were at their final stage and they were scheduled for interview when the scheme was declared closed, with no appeal and no way back. I feel that it is a dishonourable position to have put the country in, to have put the universities in and to have put the FCDO in, frankly, as the funder and organiser of the scheme. It sends an extraordinarily bad signal because these people not only take the soft power, the skills, the huge generosity and intelligence back with them and the knowledge of what Britain can offer but contribute so much.
My simple question to the Minister, for whom I have enormous respect, as we all do around this House, is this: if this is not a permanent arrangement, can there not be, even at this stage, some flexibility for a clearly identifiable group of people to whom we owe so much? Can we have a more generous appreciation, perhaps even in the language of the Home Office, of the implications and an acknowledgement of what this signals to the rest of the world as well as to people in this country?
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
My Lords, I know what a lonely place the Government Dispatch Box can be when one is introducing a firm bit of immigration legislation. One notes immediately the surreal disconnection between the Overton window of the views in this House and the views in the country at large. I am afraid that the Minister’s evening is not going to get any better because I have to declare that I entirely support the Government’s position in relation to these rule changes.
The short point is that these are changes that are necessary to reduce the abuse of the immigration system. They are a sensible and proportionate use of the power to make changes in the Immigration Rules. I particularly support the measures in relation to the reduction of the period granted for asylum claims, to allow the review to occur after two and a half years and, furthermore, to allow a review prior to the grant of indefinite leave to remain. Under the present scheme, the situation in the United Kingdom is much more generous than that of our colleagues across the channel. This is a sensible rebalancing, and I congratulate the Home Office on bringing forward these measures.
Furthermore, in relation to the visa brake, which has been the topic of a good deal of conversation in the speeches that we have heard this evening, these are sensible measures in my submission. One can see from the statistics that the abuse of student visas in order to allow people to claim asylum had become completely apparent. Between 2021 and the year ending September 2025, the proportion of Afghan asylum claims to study visas was 95%, while applications by students from Myanmar soared sixteenfold over the same period. Claims in the year ending September 2025 by students from Cameroon and Sudan rose by more than 330% in 2021, posing an unsustainable threat to the UK’s asylum system. Faced with that, the Government had little choice, I submit, but to address the question that these people applying for student visas intended to come here to claim asylum. It was a backdoor route into the country, and the Government have rightly taken steps to stop it until that problem can be resolved.
The only regret that I have is that the opposition appears to come from the Government’s Back Benches in both this House and the other place, and it is reportedly present even in their senior ranks. So I say to the noble Lord the Minister: keep at it, you are doing well and do not be put off by the siren voices behind you.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
This is an important debate on an important issue. The case has been made by every speaker so far making detailed points on the policies and the problems that they create. I want to put on record my concern and my support for the comments that have been made by my noble friends and other Members of the House.
Although much of the debate has focused on specific problems and the specifics of the proposal, I think a view should be taken of the proposals as a whole. There are some necessary changes, and we know what they are, but taken as a whole we have to ask ourselves whether this the sort of country we want to be. To me, the answer is no. I just want to make that general point and put it on record.
The second issue—and I think this has come out clearly from the debate, particularly from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard—is that the whole process of us being here at 10.10 pm on a Tuesday night with unwhipped business means that this debate has not had the significance that it should have done. It is only those who have strong feelings about this issue who have come. The whole process, the fact that there was no debate in the Commons, and this archaic process we have landed ourselves with—I know it is only from 1971—is totally inappropriate to the task at hand. The review of immigration laws, which is a big political issue in this country, should not have been handled in this way.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I do not expect that my first point will gain overwhelming sympathy, but the challenge of following the detail of changes in Immigration Rules—it is not particular to this Statement of Changes—about what is in effect, whether there is a discretion in the hands of the Home Secretary and all of that is considerable. The impact on people directly affected, or who believe they are affected, or who are anxious about becoming affected in the future, is also considerable. There can be no doubt about the level of anxiety—our inboxes bear witness to that.
There is also—this is a point that may not gain sympathy—the impact on professionals, as well as on the organisations working in the immigration and refugee fields. It is not just support and assistance for which they are relied on. My guess is that the complexity, indeed the near impenetrability, of the rules current at any given time—to which one adds the decisions of tribunals and the higher courts—is a deterrent to lawyers entering into this area of work, and then of course there are the legal aid rates. All that makes it the more difficult for applicants to access support and representation.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord German and Lord Dubs, for bringing forward these regret Motions. Both Motions relate to issues that concern the effectiveness and fairness of our immigration system. I reiterate at the outset that the Conservatives broadly support the direction of travel reflected in these changes to the Immigration Rules: we have long argued for a firmer and more controlled system. We therefore welcome elements of these changes, including the move towards temporary refugee status and the increase in requirements for settlement. These are steps in the right direction and reflect arguments that have been consistently made by the Conservative Party. However, there are details which require further scrutiny, and the key question is whether these measures can deliver a system that is effective and sustainable.
Several concerns raised in these regret Motions merit serious consideration. Regarding the asylum backlog and continued use of hotels, it remains unclear how the proposed changes alone will achieve the Government’s stated aims. Despite a range of reforms, the number of individuals in receipt of asylum support remains high and pressures on accommodation persist. More than 30,000 individuals remain housed in asylum hotels, at significant cost to the taxpayer, and it would therefore be helpful if the Minister could set out how these specific changes will contribute to reducing the backlog and ending the use of hotels.
Similarly, we share concerns raised regarding the potential for increased bureaucracy in relation to the move towards shorter periods of refugee leave and more frequent reassessments. While we support the principle of temporary status, there is a legitimate question as to whether the system has the capacity to manage repeated reviews efficiently, without adding further strain to an already stretched Home Office.
On integration, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, raises topical points. It is essential that those who are granted protection can integrate effectively into British society. There is a balance to be struck between ensuring that status is not automatically permanent and providing sufficient stability for individuals to build their lives and integrate. I would be grateful if the Minister could address how the Government intend to maintain that balance in practice.
On the concerns raised about the absence of impact assessments, particularly in relation to children and equality considerations, it would be helpful for the Minister to tell the House what analysis the Government have undertaken in these areas.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord German, and my noble friend Lord Dubs for tabling their regret Motions. It is always a pleasure to discuss matters in the House, even at 10.32 pm. Important issues have been raised, and I will try to respond to them as best I can—even with my croaky voice, on which I hope the House will bear with me.
I will start by giving some context on why we are here. This Government were elected in July 2024, and they inherited a considerable series of challenges that they have been trying to address. After the election, there was a high backlog of asylum claims not being processed by the previous Government. There was a level of abuse that is higher than it is now. There was a high level of hotel use of some 400 hotels that were paid for by the Government of the day, costing the taxpayer a fortune. There was no real control over the level of migration and indeed those abuses. There was no safe and legal route defined to the extent that it is defined now. I start with that for the simple reason that that is the background on which the Government have tried to take some action. I welcome the support tonight from the noble Lords, Lord Murray of Blidworth and Lord Davies, but that is the inheritance that we have had to try to deal with.
The Motion from the noble Lord, Lord German, says that the Government
“fails to provide a credible plan for bringing down the asylum backlog”.
Let me start with that. The Government have put in place around 1,000 extra staff—paid for by the scrapping of the Rwanda scheme—to improve the performance of the asylum system and the review of asylum backlogs.
There is a plan, because the Government have produced an immigration White Paper, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, indicated, was trailed by the Government. The Government have an immigration White Paper and have made statements on how we intend to deal with those issues. The Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord German, talks about failing to bring down the asylum backlog. I will come to that in a moment. It refers to “closing asylum hotels”. I will come to that in a moment. Indeed, it refers to
“increasing the bureaucratic burden on the Home Office”.
Well, I will come to that in a moment.
My noble friend Lord Dubs’s Motion makes a valid point about the equality impact assessment, which I will come to in a moment.
The noble Lords who have spoken today—my noble friends Lady Royall, Lord Dubs, Lady Lister, Lady Andrews, Lord Smith of Finsbury and Lord Davies of Brixton, the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord German, the noble Baronesses, Lady Teather and Lady Ludford, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark have all challenged some of the points that are here today, and I will try and respond to those issues.
The Immigration Rules changes were laid on 5 March. They were trailed in the White Paper. Three statutory instruments were laid concurrently: the Asylum Seekers (Reception Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations, the asylum regulations on failed asylum seekers and the Asylum Support (Amendment) Regulations. Some of those were SIs, and the immigration changes set out in the new approach to refugee and humanitarian protection include a new core protection offer.
The position that we find ourselves in now is that there have been changes in some of the very areas that the Motion from the noble Lord, Lord German, is critical of. For example, there has been an asylum decision issue, where the number of people waiting for an asylum decision has fallen by 48% in the past year. That is positive, but it is not reflected in the Motion. We have returned 58,538 people in the past 12 months who had no right to remain, including foreign national offenders who should not have been here.
On the issue of asylum hotels, which he mentioned, there was a high of 400 asylum hotels in the summer of 2023. Today, there are fewer than 200 operating, and there will be announcements in the near future on how we can reduce that number still further. We have a commitment to close asylum hotels before the end of this Parliament. We also have, as laid out in the statements that have been made, plans to ensure that in that new reform we improve safe and legal routes, provide more structured and targeted support for refugees, speed up decisions through simpler appeals procedures and tackle exploitation through illegal working and visa abuse, which harm both vulnerable people and local communities. So, there is a plan.
I challenge the claim in the Motion of regret from the noble Lord, Lord German, that there is no plan. There is a plan to speed up asylum claims, provide targeted support and ensure that we meet our international obligations, ensure that we reduce hotel use and ensure that we do that in a fair and appropriate way.
The Home Secretary has set out—yes—the most sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration in a generation. Yes, the Immigration Rules changes mark a major step towards a fundamental reset of the system. Yes, there is a new core protection offer for refugees. Yes, there are changes planned to ensure that new asylum claims made after 2 March will be for 30 months rather than for five years. It does not mean that those asylum claims are not going to be maintained if there is still a need for the asylum claim after 30 months, but it is important that we make those changes, because we have to improve the performance of the system. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, that we have to do that.
In answer to my noble friend Lord Dubs, the equality considerations are at the front and centre of our work. As required through the public sector equality duty, Home Office officials are currently considering wider equality impacts, and the impacts that asylum reforms will have on those with protected characteristics is no exception.
In our modern and complex world, we must recognise that changes are required; countries of origin can and do change, and refugee status should be reviewed accordingly to reflect that. I think that is fair.
A number of noble Lords mentioned the visa brake and Chevening. The Government have introduced a visa brake on student visa applications from nationals of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan. The reason they have done that is that those nationalities present some of the highest proportion of asylum claims to visas issued, and the number of claims is consistently high—again, a point that the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, made. By introducing these temporary changes, the Government hope to reduce the strain on the asylum system and strengthen public confidence in the immigration system as a whole.
I must stress that these immigration changes are part of that wider programme of work. We are looking to work with local authorities for their support in delivering supported accommodation for asylum seekers. We are looking to maintain and develop further safe and legal routes, such as the Hong Kong British national route and the Homes for Ukraine route that are here today. On the suspension of family reunion, we are keeping that under review as a whole.
A lot of issues and concerns have been raised today by individual Members. I will go through Hansard tomorrow with a fine-toothed comb; we will pick out all the points that have been made by noble Lords; we will respond to those points, having consulted my colleague Ministers who have a direct responsibility for these areas in the Home Office; and I will make sure that those points are answered.
There will be opportunities to address other issues in legislation, undoubtedly post the potential King’s Speech —there will be other areas. However, the Government have to deal with the issue of getting asylum under control, meeting our international obligations, reducing hotel use, and trying to stop that pull factor which noble Lords have mentioned. This is a series of measures which the Home Secretary has brought forward and which I believe are an appropriate start on these issues.
I understand the concerns that have been raised; they were raised in the House of Commons also. The Government will continue to keep these matters under review, but I say to noble Lords today that the regret Motion does not address the issues that I believe the Government are trying to achieve. It does not give credit to the Government for the challenges they face and does not acknowledge the strong efforts that we are making to reduce some of the real challenges that are a cost in our system. We are trying to reduce asylum backlogs and reduce hotel use, and we are trying to look at where there is abuse, to make sure that we still meet our international obligations but at the same time ensure that we have a tighter system to restrict that abuse. I know there are concerns and sensitivities, and I will look at the points made in the debate today, but I ask the noble Lord not to press his regret Motion. I say to my noble friend Lord Dubs as well that the equality issues are central to what the Government are trying to examine in the processes that we are looking at. We will keep those equality issues under review, and I am open to challenge in this Chamber about how the system is developing in due course.
I hope noble Lords will bear with me because my throat and the winter pressures are catching up on me, but I will look at those points and respond accordingly. I thank the noble Lord for his contributions today.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I first thank the Minister for his remarks—not that I agree with them, as your Lordships would expect, but to persevere through a croaky voice is not easy at the best of times. All I can say to him is that the Chief Whip has arrived; I think he has something special in his cupboard which he can help the Minister out with at the end, and if he does not, I ask him to please let me know because we can make that very public.
Seriously, however, at this point in the evening, I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate; everyone has spoken with passion and with conviction, and most people have also spoken with great concern. If this were to be a scoreboard for a football match or whatever, the score would be 13-3. I say to the Minister, “Be aware of who your friends are in this matter”, because it seems that the alliance between the Labour Government and the Conservative Party and what lies beyond them is somewhat frightening for those of us who believe in a more humane society.
One of the things that has come out of this debate, from all my colleagues and everyone else who has spoken, is that somewhere we have got the narrative wrong about what migration is about. Your Lordships must remember that the OECD says of the United Kingdom that properly managed migration is a benefit to our economy. If that is the case, we need to say something positive about the people who are with us and doing things with us. The concern that I generally pick up is that we are not respectful enough or giving enough sense of humanity about the society in which we want to live.
Lord Dubs
10.48 pmMotion to RegretTabled by That this House regrets that the Statement of Changes to Immigration Rules (HC1691), published on 5 March, while making a welcome extension to the Ukraine Permission Scheme, will make it harder for refugees to successfully integrate; provides no equality impact assessment or children’s impact assessment for the reduction in leave granted to refugees; risks creating additional burdens on the Home Office by requiring refugee status to be reviewed every two and a half years; fails to restart the process for refugees to be reunited with their family members; and prevents some students, including Chevening scholars, from taking up educational opportunities in the UK. Relevant document: 56th report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).
Lord Dubs (Lab)
I thank all Members of the House who spoke, particularly those in support of the regret Motion, and my noble friend the Minister. He has handled this extremely well. He has one of the most difficult jobs in government, and I very much appreciate the sensitive way in which he responds to debates such as this.