Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill
Baroness Hamwee ExcerptsWednesday 9th September 2020
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 View all Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 121-III Third marshalled list for Committee - (9 Sep 2020)
Baroness Hamwee
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is to probe the need for supplementary in addition to incidental provision.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 15, 16 and 17. These amendments take us back to the very wide provisions in Clause 4, on which we spent a good deal of time on Monday, when we debated the problems of a skeleton Bill and the reports of your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and Constitution Committee. From those respective committees, the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Pannick, applied their different but devastating critiques. My noble friend Lord Beith asked the pertinent question about what instructions had been given to the drafters of these provisions. After all, responsibility to give instructions lies with Ministers.
Had the Minister accepted the earlier amendments to Clause 4, particularly those changing “appropriate” to “necessary” and deleting the phrase “in connection with”, some of the ground would have been taken from under my feet. However, she did not and it was not; nor was the insertion of the term “only” in subsection (3)—that is, “may only make provision”—accepted.
Subsection (3) purports to explain subsection (1). The power to make regulations includes powers as listed in paragraphs (a) and (b). It does not limit those powers but just gives examples, and all my amendments seek to omit words from this clause. The first concerns the term “supplementary”. Why is it necessary to make “supplementary” provision as well as provision that is “incidental” and “in consequence of”?
The second amendment would omit the term “transitory”. I would be interested to know what is meant by the term in this context. It must mean something different from “transitional” because it sits alongside that term. It is a narrative word that I would have expected to read in a piece of fiction rather than in legislation.
Amendment 16 would take out paragraph (b), which gives the power
“to make different provision for different purposes.”
I am very familiar with this phrase; it may mean bringing provisions in at different times or for different jurisdictions and so on. However, my antennae were well up by the time I got to Clause 4(3)(b), and I would be grateful if the Minister would share with the House the different purposes that may be required, particularly in a Bill so urgent that it needs to come into effect very quickly. I can see that it may be important to bring some provisions in as soon as the Bill becomes an Act and others—particularly with regard to the settled status scheme—at a later date. However, it would be helpful to have her comments on this.
Amendment 17 would leave out subsection (4) as a whole. The amendments to this subsection had already been dismissed and one begins to wonder whether it is necessary at all, but opposing this provision will be a good summary of our concern about what are, to our eyes, its many flaws. I beg to move.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con) [V]
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 15. Clause 4 gives the Government substantial powers to make decisions about the future regulation of immigration without clarity about what these might be and what justifies such a wide power. Of course, we recognise that there needs to be an ability to do some tidying up of associated legislation when a Bill is passed, but the consequential amendments are normally set out in a schedule with a tidying-up clause that picks up anything that has fallen through the gaps. This does not seem to be the case in this Bill.
In August, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee said that this clause would
“confer permanent powers on Ministers to make whatever legislation they considered appropriate, provided there was at least some connection with Part 1, however tenuous”.
The committee was very clear that transitional arrangements to protect the legal rights of EEA citizens should appear in the Bill.
Last week, the Select Committee on the Constitution also made strongly worded recommendations on the Bill. It agreed with the Delegated Powers Committee’s concerns about Clause 4. Other noble Lords have already raised questions about phrases in this regulatory power. Amendment 15 is an attempt to understand why the Government need a power that makes transitory provisions, provisions that are not permanent. I hope the Minister will set out examples of what transitory provisions the Government consider might be needed.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I gave an example of “supplementary”; I did not give any examples of “transitory”. I will write a list and send it to noble Lords.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, I should be particularly interested to see examples of what “transitory” is. The noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, was also concerned about this. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, used the phrase “open to interpretation” and that is exactly the problem, because it allows activist lawyers to come and question. We are really on the side of the Government here, because the clearer the legislation, the easier it will be for them to enforce it, but there we go: that is not my business really, is it?
The Minister said that these are standard provisions. I had a very quick look at the internal market Bill shortly before this session started, because I had picked up that there are some issues in this territory—sorry, no pun intended. I could not find them, but it seems to me that the standard provisions get longer and longer. People get worried about whether a word is absolutely precisely on the point, and more words—adjectives, mostly—get added.
If the House agrees—we may come back to this at the next stage—that “appropriate” and “in connection with” are not appropriate for legislation because they are not clear enough and are too wide, as the rest of the clause comes under those overarching words, we will have got rid of the rest of the problem. But that is not for now and, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, some very compelling speeches have already been made. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, talked about a power grab: maybe it is just a cash grab. The Home Office seems to have managed to modify fees and charges in the past very successfully—subject, of course, to the outstanding appeal which she mentioned. Is it the case that the Home Office could not charge any fees at all to those who fall within the scope of the Bill without this power? In other words, is this limited to the ending of free movement, and the other EU-derived rights, and the position of Irish citizens?
As I recall, and I may be wrong, originally, a fee was proposed for applications to the EU settled status scheme. That was dropped. I thought that that was because of the outcry, but I wonder whether in fact the Home Office thought it might be challenged on the basis that a charge was ultra vires.
What is envisaged? Is it that these three groups of citizens will be in exactly the same position as non-EEA citizens as regards these charges? Yesterday’s events and the UK’s attitude to the Belfast agreement adds to my worry about how we will treat our friends from Ireland after the Bill comes into effect.
My limitation to a reduction in fees, in Amendment 21, is of course to probe the need for a power.
Baroness Hamwee
“(5A) Regulations under subsection (1) must provide that any EEA or Swiss national, and any adult dependant of any EEA or Swiss national, who has applied for asylum in the United Kingdom may apply to the Secretary of State for permission to take up employment (without limitation as to the type of employment) if a decision at first instance has not been taken on the application within 3 months of the date on which it was recorded.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make regulations enabling asylum seekers to work once they have been waiting for a decision on their claim for 3 months or more.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, Amendment 22 is the first in a group that also includes Amendments 24, 29 and 31, all relating to asylum seekers’ right to work. On the first day of Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on a very different amendment, talked about the purposes of work. I noted them down as being to earn money, for self-actualisation and as a matter of reputation. These all apply not just to you and me but to asylum seekers.
All the amendments in this group are variations on a theme. Our Amendment 22 would give an asylum seeker the right to work after three months if there has been no decision on his or her case. It will not escape noble Lords that the “if there has been no decision” is an important part of this.
The amendments are expressed to relate to EEA and Swiss nationals, to bring them within the scope of the Bill, but it is not beyond the scope of one’s imagination to think that there may be people seeking asylum in the UK from EU countries—Poland and Hungary might spring to mind—so it is not irrelevant. This is not just straining to debate a matter that I know has concerned many noble Lords for a long time.
The Minister may tell us that we will soon see a Bill about asylum, which the Home Office is currently reviewing. That is, it is reviewing the issue of asylum rather than a particular Bill. The Committee will be glad of any news not just about the Bill but about the consultation that the Home Office is undertaking with stakeholders about these issues. There are many stakeholders.
I see that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, has moved to the position from which he will respond—at least it looks that way; I am looking at him on a rather small screen—and I hope he will be able to give some assurances about consultation with stakeholders with regard to the changes in our asylum provisions.
The great majority of asylum seekers are keen to work. Persistence is probably part of the make-up of many of them by definition, their having managed to get to this country. They want to pay tax and to contribute to their new society. They are often very skilled; that will be the subject of the right reverend Prelate’s Amendment 31.
It is very harsh not only to provide such a low daily allowance—I know the noble Lord would be required to disagree with that—but to take a long time in determining claims. In a way, that is the real issue. We picked three months because that gives time for an individual to settle. An asylum seeker may need longer to become comfortable with the English language if he is not already an English speaker, though I am constantly impressed by people’s facility with English. It puts me to shame.
There is also the issue of preventing working. I referred to self-actualisation and reputation, the terms used by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. We all know the value of work to each of us as individuals: the sense of self-worth and of achievement with a job well done, or at least attempted. We know what it does for our well-being and for good mental health, and how important it is to be able to support one’s family.
I know the Committee will be interested in the right reverend Prelate’s proposal for the displaced talent visa, which recognises the skills that refugees bring with them, but Amendment 31 is not an alternative to the other amendments in this group. It is about a visa and about refugees, not asylum seekers whose status is not yet recognised. It is imaginative, and the Government may consider it something to be pursued. I am sure the right reverend Prelate would be the first to agree that his amendment should not be a sop to distract us from the other issues to which I have referred. I beg to move.
Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]
My Lords, Amendment 29 seeks to ensure that asylum seekers from the EEA and Switzerland will be granted permission to take a job from six months of their application for asylum if a decision at first instance has not yet been taken at that point. It is fairly obvious that I support the three-month amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, which is a little more radical than this one, and hope the Government may accept it.
The Minister will be aware that people often wait months, if not years, for a decision. These individuals, having escaped fear of torture or death, are left to live on a pittance of £5.66 per day. As I considered what to say today, I found myself thinking that, of course, six months in this situation is far too long. What are we as a nation doing impoverishing people in our community? Frankly, £5.66 is a disgrace.
The plea for the right to work after six months is endorsed by no fewer than 200 non-profit organisations. This is a very modest and widely supported proposal. Even Sajid Javid recognised in 2019 that it is time for reform. The coalition of these 200 organisations wants the six-month reform combined with the ending of the restriction on asylum seekers from applying for jobs not on the incredibly narrow and restrictive list of highly skilled professions on the Government’s shortage occupations list. I strongly support the abolition of this restriction, which was introduced only in 2010. That is telling; we seemed to manage pretty well before that.
Now, in effect, asylum seekers are rarely enabled to work. Does the Minister really believe that this is morally right and economically sensible? As Sajid Javid recognised, reform should no longer be delayed. Reform would enable asylum seekers to begin to integrate, to support themselves and live with dignity, to support their children to lead healthy, productive lives and, very importantly, to avoid the very real risk of exploitation and modern slavery.
We would all benefit too. The coalition of 200 organisations calculates that taxpayers would save £97.8 million if asylum seekers were enabled to work from six months. In 2019 it polled over 1,000 businesses for their view on whether asylum seekers should have the right to work. Some 67% of those employers agreed that they should, and a similar number believed it would ease the UK’s skills shortages. There is also huge public support for the right to work after six months. The Government would really have a great political benefit if they would only accept this amendment.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
We have had some useful discussions with the right reverend Prelate already and we would be very happy to continue those, particularly with my noble friend the Minister and our noble friend the immigration Minister in the other place, who would be well placed to engage in detail on the topics he raised.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, I begin with the so-called displaced talent visa—asylum seekers embody displaced talent in many cases but, as the right reverend Prelate says, refugees often demonstrate great talent. He referred to employment contributing to social cohesion; that is evidenced in the personal experience of people—friendships grow, which reduces the fear of others, the fear of strangers. When people see the benefits of immigration the contribution to social cohesion is very considerable. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned the importance of this to women. I should have made that point, and I am glad he reminded the Committee of it; he is absolutely right. The suggestion was hinted at that we might want to discriminate between members of the EEA and others; of course, that is not the case. We are constrained by the scope of the Bill in these amendments.
I am very glad that my noble friend Lord Paddick used the opportunity to remind the Committee of the problems in Poland. The fact that it is a member of the EU does not excuse them from what has been happening, which he explained to the Committee. It is important not to hold back from criticising one’s friends and one’s partners. This is a very real issue.
The noble Lord, Lord Randall, mentioned voluntary work. Again I am glad that he reminded the Committee of that because it is too often regarded as work rather than volunteering and reduces the possibilities of asylum seekers whose claims have not been determined to undertake activity which so often they are keen to do. It also means that a number of charities have to be extremely careful about the opportunities that they can offer because they are aware that what they must offer is volunteering and not voluntary work.
We have rightly been reminded of the importance of not seeing people reduced to getting into the black economy or becoming vulnerable to slavery, given the cash that is available to them, which I acknowledge is in addition to other support; many of us are not comfortable with that support, although it has recently been increased by the princely sum of 26p a day.
I am with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in the call for a response to the fire on Lesbos. We are in a position to respond to it. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Green, but only to the extent that the process needs to be speeded up. He will not be surprised that otherwise I take a very different view. That goes to some of the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. One incentive to getting into Britain by very dangerous means is to join one’s family. The narrative that we hear too often is that most refugees in France try to cross the channel to the UK. That is not the case. Safe and legal routes would sort this problem out.
The Minister referred several times to the Migration Advisory Committee having been instructed to assist with the review being undertaken by the Home Office. Can he tell the Committee when it was instructed and what the likely timing of this review will be? Whatever the reasons for its delay, can we look forward to when we might receive it?
Along with my comments about crossing the channel, I should have said that to talk about unfounded claims is rather close to talking about illegal asylum seekers. Asylum seekers are not illegal until their claim has been determined. The strength of feeling on this is very evident, but I have no option at this moment but to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I support this amendment and thank Brexpats—Hear Our Voice for the excellent “British in Europe” briefing. I will be brief because there is a straightforward argument here.
This is a simple matter of humanity. We are talking about British citizens living in Europe, who, like the rest of us, had no inkling up to four years ago of the significantly changed circumstances in which they would find themselves. Many have raised families in EEA countries with the reasonable expectation that their and their families’ mobility around Europe—including the UK—would not be affected in the future. Of course, Brexit has changed that.
We need to help our fellow British citizens and ensure that those who wish or need to do so can return to the UK with their families without deadlines being put on that return or any other conditions, such as the MIR, needing to be met. Indeed, as it stands, as the noble Lord, Lord Flight, said, we are discriminating against our own citizens if EU citizens who moved to the UK before the end of 2020 can, according to the withdrawal agreement, bring family members here for life and return to their own countries with their families. This is a clear discrepancy.
I cannot see any good reason why this amendment should not be accepted. I hope this is a matter that has just been overlooked. I will listen with interest to the Government's response.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, some years ago I chaired some work on the minimum income requirement affecting British people who, as has been said, never thought that they would be affected by their own country’s immigration laws.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned someone from south Wales. I encountered someone from south Wales, David, whose second wife was a teacher from Canada—I do not think that you can get more respectable than being a teacher from Canada. By his first marriage he had a disabled daughter. Had he been able to bring his wife to the UK to share the care of his daughter, that, among other things, would have saved the state a lot of money. Instead, he had to limit the amount of work and the kind of work that he did and so did not meet the minimum income requirement. She was appallingly treated. I do not believe people in British society would support this, were they to know about it. Many do not until they are brought up against it personally. I have long thought that the answer to all this will be found only when a son or daughter of a Cabinet Minister finds himself or herself in this situation.
The focus at that time was largely on spouse visas and what can be taken into account in calculating incomes. That has been changed somewhat, but the issue remains. The rules about leave to enter for an individual’s parents are so harsh that they really amount to saying, “You need to be so much in need of care and support that you probably would not be fit to travel.”
The reality of this is striking home, as noble Lords have said. One of my noble friends received a letter, which she passed on to me at the weekend, from a UK citizen who has found herself in this situation. I shall read some short extracts: “As someone who married a non-UK EU national in the UK but then moved to his country to live as his parents were already elderly, never was it in my worst nightmares that I would not be able to do the same and I might be forced to choose between caring for him and caring for my mother. When I left, returning was always an option, as I work remotely, to be able to return to care for my parents. My parents are now on the brink of their eighth decade. My mother has lung issues. My father has prostate cancer. It is inevitable that I will want and need to return at some point. What child does not want to care for their parents themselves?”
She goes on: “I and many of the more than 1 million UK citizens living in the EU will not have that right. If we do not return before the end of 2022, our fate will become income-dependent. How is it conceivable that the British Government’s approach involves discrimination against its own citizens? Surely, the family is as sacrosanct in the UK as in the rest of Europe.” I am pleased, from our Benches, to support this amendment.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, I declare a family interest in the issue raised by the amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Flight, said, the wording in the Bill means that British citizens who moved to the EU or EEA while we were a member will lose their right to return to this country—their country of birth—with a non-British partner or children unless they can satisfy financial conditions that many may well find difficult or impossible to meet. Amendment 23, to which I am a signatory, seeks to address this situation.
I do not wish to repeat the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Flight, in moving this amendment. I agree with everything that he said. I hope that as well as responding to the arguments that he made, the Minister will also comment on his point that the change is, in effect, retrospective, since it is our country and our Government who are changing the rules that apply to our citizens on this issue. When they made their personal decisions to move to the EU or EEA, the rules, as they currently apply, may well have been a factor in making that decision; it is our Government who are now apparently seeking to change those rules.
No doubt the Minister, on behalf of the Government, will also comment on a further point made by the noble Lord, Lord Flight. He said that it appears that the new UK rules that will apply to British citizens in the situation that we are talking about will be much tougher in their terms than those that apply to EU citizens with settled status in respect of their ability to bring their dependants to join them in the UK. No doubt the Minister will confirm, in the Government’s reply, whether that is the case.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise, but I have just received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, I simply ask the Minister what she would advise a couple, one British and one an EU national, who both have elderly parents. She is suggesting that they should pick between them for future care by the end of 2022. Is this really a humane approach?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for the slight discontinuity of speakers to the disbenefit of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Three years after we were supposed to leave the EU, and indeed some six years after this country voted to do so, we are giving people time. There are immigration rules in every country of the world, and we are trying to be as fair as possible. We have listened to the concerns of UK nationals living in both the EEA and Switzerland.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 30 and to speak to Amendment 68. These probing amendments are about citizenship, and I am grateful to the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens—of which I am a patron—and Amnesty International UK for their help with them. I pay tribute to these organisations for all the work they have done to promote and protect children’s citizenship rights.
For technical reasons, the amendments relate solely to EEA and Swiss nationals, but the issues they raise echo concerns raised previously on a number of occasions in your Lordships’ House, particularly with regard to children’s citizenship rights.
Children born in this country to parents settled here, or who have grown up here from a young age, are entitled to register as British citizens. A combination of factors, including exorbitant fees, lack of awareness of the need to register their right to citizenship and the difficulties faced by local authorities in assisting looked-after children to exercise the right, have resulted in thousands of children being denied that right to British citizenship.
One consequence of our leaving the EU is that many more children could be in this position. They are the children of EU nationals who were born or who have grown up in the UK from an early age; the Home Office appears to have ignored this group. In establishing the EUSS, it has done nothing to raise awareness of their citizenship rights or to encourage children and young people with these rights to exercise them. Instead, because the EUSS is free, there is a real danger that many of them will be encouraged to secure themselves immigration status and not confirm or register themselves as British citizens, which they may not realise is open to them and involves a fee of £1,012.
In a High Court judgment in December last year—mentioned in the debate on an earlier amendment—that fee was deemed unlawful, as it was set without having regard to the best interests of the child. That decision is being appealed, but its reasoning is highly pertinent. In particular, it underlined the importance of citizenship.
In response to a similar set of amendments in the Commons Committee stage, the Immigration Minister argued that any child looked after by their local authority can apply for limited and indefinite leave to remain without having to pay a fee, and that citizenship itself
“is not essential for any individual to work, live, study or access services in the UK.”
When he was urged not to pursue that line of argument by Stuart McDonald MP, he re-emphasised that citizenship
“is not something that people need in order to access services.”—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill Committee, 16/6/20; cols. 208-09.]
Does the Conservative Party really believe in such a transactional view of the significance of citizenship? In contrast, in 1981, during the passage of the British Nationality Act, which conferred the right to register as a citizen, it was emphasised that this was in part to ensure that the children concerned should have
“as strong a sense of security as possible”.
Citizenship is about security, belonging, inclusion, integration and identity. Indeed, the High Court judgment cited the Secretary of State’s own guidance document, which states that:
“Becoming a British citizen is a significant life event. Apart from allowing a child to apply for a British citizen passport, British citizenship gives them the opportunity to participate more fully in the life of their local community as they grow up.”
As noted on the earlier amendment, the High Court judgment referred to a “mass of evidence” that the inability to exercise their right to register as citizens because of the fee causes many children born in the UK to
“feel alienated, excluded, isolated, second best, insecure and not fully assimilated into the culture and social fabric of the UK.”
Is this really what the Government want? Do we want many more children to feel this way in future? This false equation of immigration status with citizenship was one factor in the Windrush scandal. Please do not let us repeat it.
Amendment 30 addresses the impact of the fee level on registration. In her Windrush Lessons Learned Review, Wendy Williams notes that
“there’s little evidence that the impact on people was effectively considered”
when fees were increased significantly. Amendment 68 specifies that the level should not exceed the administrative cost, which according to the Home Office is currently £372—£640 less than the fee charged. The Home Office’s argument that such a mark-up on the fee is justified because it provides a “benefit” and because the Home Office needs the money to run a sustainable immigration and citizenship system—repeated by the Minister at Second Reading—is specious because we are talking about a citizenship right bestowed by Parliament, not a discretionary immigration status.
Amendment 68 also excludes from the fee any child who has been looked after by a local authority—a particularly marginalised group of children. There is no logic to local authorities having to pay these fees on behalf of these children as it simply involves a transfer of resources from local to central government. I believe some other noble Lords might say more about this. It also requires the Secretary of State to take steps to raise awareness of the right to register as a British citizen but I will not say more about that now as it is the main focus of Amendment 67, which will be debated on a later day.
Because of the restrictions created by the Bill’s Long Title, these are simply probing amendments. However, as I am sure the Minister realises, the more general question of the barriers to registering the right to British citizenship, particularly the level of the fee, is one that we will return to in this House time and again. Given the Home Office’s welcome readiness to accept the recommendations of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, and the dangers of now repeating some of the flaws it revealed, will it now think again? As a first step, will the Minister, on behalf of the Home Office, undertake to look again at the level of the fee, which even Sajid Javid, when Home Secretary, admitted was “huge”? I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has been terrier-like in her pursuit of these issues. I, like the whole House, am grateful to her for that and I too thank the organisations she mentioned.
The fees are to exercise a right, but a right is no use if you cannot exercise it. The fees are a deterrent. They are a deterrent if you think that you are in a sufficiently secure position and do not understand the distinction between immigration status and citizenship. They are a deterrent if you are told by the Government that you are in secure position through the European Union settled status scheme. They are obviously a deterrent if you cannot afford them. I will not be the only Member of the Committee who has heard distressing stories of families who have realised that they cannot afford to pay for the citizenship registration of all family members and have selected some. If there is a mother with four children—well, we can all do the maths.
The noble Baroness used words, which I have written down, that are about more than security; they are about a sense of belonging. Otherwise, over the years why would so many people have chosen to become citizens through a sometimes pretty laborious route, having to take tests about things that would probably be mysteries to many of us and culminating in citizenship ceremonies? I have been to one. The ceremony is an important part of the whole process—the recognition of that belonging.
Everyone understands that there are administrative costs to these things, but the current fees far exceed the costs. There is a surplus—I use that term rather than “profit”, because I understand that the Minister protests at the term “profit”—in the order of £600, as I understand it, and £800 in the case of adults, where the fees are something like £1,200. The Home Office talks about this surplus being justified because of the benefit, but I do not understand the logic of citizenship being a benefit if indefinite leave to remain is an equivalent, or at least sufficient to meet all the attributes of citizenship, as seems to be argued by the Home Office.
The noble Baroness mentioned the Windrush scandal, and I am sure the Home Office must be anxious not to get into a similar situation. It has said that all Wendy Williams’s recommendations are accepted. About three of those are about meaningful engagement with stakeholders and communities and the use of research. If the Home Office were to engage on this topic and undertake research, I think it would understand how very fully these issues play with the people affected. In any event, as has been said, citizenship is about rights—the right to citizenship of the children referred to—and we should not put blocks in the way of rights.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for the excellent way in which she introduced these two amendments. I have added my name to Amendment 30, but I support Amendment 68 as well. I echo her words and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in thanking the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens and Amnesty International UK for their helpful briefings.
I will not detain the Committee long, but I emphasise and urge my noble friend to consider that, as the two noble Baronesses said, this is about not a benefit but a statutory right to give someone the security of UK citizenship. If the cost of the administration is £372 according to the Home Office, it seems difficult to understand why three times that amount—a 200% mark- up—is applied to those trying to exercise their rights. It should not be a business transaction; that should not be any part of this equation.
During the passage of the British Nationality Act 1981, it was said that Parliament intended that all children growing up in the UK with that connection
“should have as strong a sense of security as possible.”—[Official Report, Commons, 24/2/81; col. 177.]
Charging more than £1,000 will clearly be prohibitive. As both noble Baronesses who have spoken said, the High Court found in 2019 that unaffordability meant that children who were born here—who feel British—feel alienated. Have we not learned from the Windrush generation that people should not be excluded from their citizenship rights? Indeed, on the question of Windrush, this could be a near exact repeat of what happened. In the 1980s, Parliament gave people the right to register as British citizens, but apparently they were discouraged from exercising that right. Just as it wrongly told the Windrush generation that immigration status was the same as having citizenship, I hope that today the Home Office will not repeat the mistaken claim that British people do not need British citizenship and are adequately provided for by applying for a different immigration status. These are lessons that were highlighted in the report of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review and I hope that we will take them seriously. I support these probing amendments and hope that my noble friend will be able to address them before Report.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)
I have received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
The Minister talked about the service being far from making a profit, yet we have heard from the Government on previous occasions about the surplus that is achieved from individual payments and fees. Will she write to noble Lords after today’s debate explaining in only as little detail as is required what the finances of this service are in order to square those two statements?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I could go through them tonight, but I think the Committee is probably getting quite weary, as is the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, so I will write and explain.
Baroness Hamwee
“( ) Regulations under subsection (1) may not limit or remove the right to vote in local government elections of persons who lose rights under section 1 unless the Secretary of State has laid before each House of Parliament a draft of the proposed regulations and an assessment of their effect on the right to vote, at least three months before a statutory instrument containing the regulations is to be made.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Government to allow Parliament the opportunity to consider proposals for restricting the right to vote in local elections of EU citizens.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) (V)
My Lords, currently EU citizens—not citizens of Switzerland or the wider EFTA—may stand and vote in local elections. This is a right under UK law. You would think that they would feel secure for the future in this, knowing that an Act of Parliament would be required if the right were to be withdrawn, coupled with the promise made by the Vote Leave campaign that EU citizens would be treated no less favourably than at present. However, under Clause 4, which we have debated almost into the ground, there could be secondary legislation to amend the primary legislation.
Over the summer, my noble friend Lord Tyler asked a Written Question about the local elections that were postponed from May 2020 to May 2021. When I say “local”, I include police and crime commissioners and the Greater London Authority. The noble Lord, Lord True—the Cabinet Office Minister—confirmed that the right would apply next May; this regards England because the franchise for local elections is devolved. That is logical because the elections should have been last May. In any event, they will take place during a period when applications to the EU settled status scheme are still open.
I understand that the Government are dealing with local voting rights on a country-by-country basis, regarding this as a reciprocal matter. My list may be out of date, but I believe that they have signed bilateral voting rights agreements with Spain, Portugal, Luxemburg and Poland. Scotland and Wales have already passed the necessary legislation for beyond 2021.
The right to vote and stand is important. It is a matter of social cohesion. I will not be the only Member of the House who has had a conversation about this on the doorstep during election campaigns—at all levels of elections—where I have encountered citizens of various countries. Sometimes, I have urged them to campaign and assured them they can vote in a local election; on other occasions, I have listened to their complaints that they cannot vote. Nor will I be the only Member who has stood on a doorstep and talked about the importance of voting as a member of one’s community to have views represented on how services are run, to exercise the right as a taxpayer and service user, and to show one’s priorities for policy and spending. Today, we have talked a good deal about belonging. The right to vote and the right to stand are both issues of belonging. I beg to move.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for moving Amendment 33 and the noble Lords, Lord Judd, Lord Tyler and Lord Rosser, for their contributions to this short but important debate. While I understand the sentiment that underpins the noble Baroness’s amendment and some of the speeches we have heard, I do not think it necessary to add this to the Bill.
As noble Lords will be aware, the Government have already shared the draft illustrative regulations proposed under Clause 4(1). As I hope and am sure noble Lords will have seen, they do not include any provisions relating to the voting rights of EU citizens; nor has there been any immediate change to the entitlement of EU citizens resident here to vote in local elections. Indeed—as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said—in an Answer to a Question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and answered by my noble friend Lord True, the Government recently confirmed that EU citizens resident in England
“will remain able to vote”
in the elections in England next May. That includes not only elections to a number of local authorities at every level but elections for the Mayor of London and the Greater London Assembly and combined authority mayors in the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, the Tees Valley, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, the West of England and West Yorkshire, as well as for the police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales on the same day. It also applies to the right of EU citizens to stand in those elections, and anyone elected
“will be able to serve their full term”.
I hope that removes the uncertainty the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned, in the short term at least. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to EU citizens who have served their local community in public office, whatever party or affiliation they have done that under.
I am afraid I have no update for the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, beyond the Answer by my noble friend Lord True, which he read out in full. As that pointed out, we have taken positive steps in our relationship with EU member states and signed bilateral voting agreements with Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg in 2019; the one signed with Poland in May this year remains the most recent.
This is really a debate more about parliamentary scrutiny. On that issue, which the noble Baroness’s amendment considers and which the noble Lord, Lord Judd, also mentioned, the Bill as drafted makes clear that any primary legislation amended by regulations provided for by Clause 4 would be subject to the affirmative procedure and would have to be approved by both Houses of Parliament. I have no doubt that in the course of any such debates, noble Lords—including those who have spoken tonight—as well as Members in another place, will want to give such regulations their fullest scrutiny. As such, we do not think this amendment is needed.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
The compliments paid to me made me blush, but I probably was not on screen when I was blushing. Anyway, I thank noble Lords for those.
I live in the constituency of Richmond Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. We have Swedish and German schools here and a lot of French citizens. The point about the large number of French people in London is quite right. Those citizens are very much members of the local community. I absolutely agree with my noble friend that the best way to achieve rights for British citizens abroad is for us to be open and generous with rights in the UK. That is not only the proper thing to do but a good way of negotiating.
My noble friend also mentioned limitations set out in the Written Answer from the noble Lord, Lord True, which referred to the London Assembly. I take from the response just now by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, that it should have been the Greater London Authority, which consists of the mayor and the London Assembly. I think I can see the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, in the Chamber; I thank her for the wave. Like me, she will know that the terminology—the nomenclature, perhaps —of the various parts of the GLA is something that few people get their heads around.
More seriously, perhaps, I think the Minister said that this was not necessarily one for the Bill, and prayed in aid the draft illustrative statutory instrument that has been sent to noble Lords. That seems to me to be a circular argument. Where else should we raise the issue but on this Bill? We are told that we could raise the point when we scrutinise draft regulations that are laid under Clause 4—but we cannot introduce regulations. I really think he has set us an impossible task.
I am sorry that the issue has been dismissed in the way that it has; that is very sad. As I said, I would like us to be open and generous on this point. Clearly there is no more that I can do tonight other than express that. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 33.
Baroness Hamwee
“Time limit on immigration detention for EEA and Swiss nationals
(1) For the purpose of this section, a person (“P”) is defined as any person who, immediately before the commencement of Schedule 1, was—(a) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 (SI 2016/1052); (b) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with a right conferred by or under any of the other instruments which is repealed by Schedule 1; or(c) otherwise residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with any right derived from European Union law which continues, by virtue of section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (saving for rights etc. under section 2(1) of the ECA), to be recognised and available in domestic law after exit day.(2) The Secretary of State may not detain P under a relevant detention power for a period of more than 28 days from the relevant time.(3) If P remains detained under a relevant detention power at the expiry of the period of 28 days then—(a) the Secretary of State must release P forthwith; and(b) the Secretary of State may not re-detain P under a relevant detention power thereafter, unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that there has been a material change of circumstances since P’s release and that the criteria in section (Initial detention: criteria and duration) are met.(4) In this Act, “relevant detention power” means a power to detain under—(a) paragraph 16(2) of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 (detention of persons liable to examination or removal);(b) paragraph 2(1), (2) or (3) of Schedule 3 to that Act (detention pending deportation);(c) section 62 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (detention of persons liable to examination or removal); or(d) section 36(1) of the UK Borders Act 2007 (detention pending deportation).(5) In this Act, “relevant time” means the time at which P is first detained under a relevant detention power.(6) This section does not apply to a person in respect of whom the Secretary of State has certified that the decision to detain is or was taken in the interests of national security.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause places a limit on the length of time EEA or Swiss nationals may be held in immigration detention of 28 days.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
This is the first of many new clauses which noble Lords have tabled to become part of the Bill after Clause 4. I am moving Amendment 39, which is part of a package with Amendments 40, 41 and 94; all four should be read together. Also in this group is Amendment 70 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and in my name, which raises important aspects of detention.
As with other amendments, because the Bill relates to EEA and Swiss citizens, the amendments themselves are necessarily limited. It may seem unlikely that issues around detention will arise in their case but, as I said on an earlier amendment, it is not impossible that asylum will be sought in the UK from harsh regimes in some EU states. I mentioned Hungary and Poland, which are moving politically, and my noble friend Lord Paddick dealt with the attempted dismissal of that notice.
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill
Baroness Hamwee ExcerptsMonday 7th September 2020
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 View all Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 121-II(Rev) Revised second marshalled list for Committee - (7 Sep 2020)
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, we on these Benches—I am on them virtually—make no bones about how much we oppose the ending of free movement. That includes both welcoming EEA citizens—the collective term which includes the Swiss for this purpose—and their families to live and work in the UK, and the equal and opposite right for British citizens in the EU. For myself, it offends my politics, my emotions, my values, my logic and, you might say, my whole outlook on life. However, I will endeavour to keep my remarks within the scope of the Bill and not to seek to reopen what has irreversibly been decided—although “irreversible” may have gained a new definition overnight—nor do I want to make a Second Reading speech.
What is relevant is that the Bill does not set out what will be in place of the current arrangements. Like the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, I am with the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, regarding the importance of the integrity of the system. We might want different systems, but what we have should be robust.
The noble Baroness and the noble Lord spoke in terms of enforcement—a term used in the amendment. I prefer to talk in more inclusive rather than exclusive terms. She talked about so many of the issues that we are addressing now, or failing to address. One must use the opportunity to say that the best way to address them is to create safe and legal routes to the UK. I do not want to divert on to the wider question of those who seek sanctuary, but I have to disagree with her approach and some of the language that she used.
By no means all of the new, much-heralded immigration system which will apply to EU citizens is yet in the public domain. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, referred to UK citizens in the EU; he may see that Amendment 23, which we will come to later, may give us more of an opportunity to discuss their position. When the system is in the public domain, however, we will not be able to rely on it in the same way as we can rely on primary legislation because of the flexibility—would that be a polite word?—provided by the Bill. So much of our system is contained in rules which Parliament cannot realistically amend, and indeed often it takes an awful lot of background knowledge and experience, application and concentration to understand those rules. It is no wonder that the Government had some years ago to require a particular level of expertise to advise on immigration. The rules are difficult for most of us—other noble Lords may say that they waltz through them with no difficulty; I do not—and they are often impenetrable to those directly affected. I have too often heard Ministers say, “It is on GOV.UK.” That is not everyone’s bedtime reading. Indeed, however detailed the rules and however much they flesh out the Bill, it remains a skeleton.
My noble friend Lady Ludford and I have three amendments in this group, all to Schedule 1. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, referred to the coy but comatose draftsman—I may use that term on other occasions—and my noble friend Lord Beith asked an important question about what instructions had been given to the draftsmen and draftswomen. After all, the responsibility lies with Ministers.
Amendments 4 and 5 take out some of the most offensive words in Schedule 1, which I do not think I need to read into the record again, as others have referred to them. They are wide and imprecise; there are references to “application or operation of” provisions, and
“otherwise capable of affecting the exercise of functions in connection with immigration.”
If any of your Lordships on Opposition Benches were to produce amendments using that sort of terminology, we would quite rapidly be shot down, and rightly so, by the Government Front Bench.
A lot of functions are connected with immigration, and we will come on later to employment, renting property —the rest of the hostile environment. There are also all sorts of functions which I would accept are necessary but which I would not want brought within the repeal of
“rights, powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies and procedures”,
to which Section 1 applies.
Amendment 6 in our names would add words to the schedule by not applying it to rights which do not arise under an EU directive. Directives which do not relate to immigration include, in our view: the protection for victims of trafficking in the anti-trafficking directive—there is an amendment specifically on that—the protection for asylum seekers in the reception conditions directive 2013/33, and the protection for victims of crime in the EU victims’ rights directive 2012/29. We do not suggest that we believe that these protections are at risk, but we do not know. If the Bill remains as it is when it becomes an Act, the only way to know for certain is to test the matter in the courts. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, was critical in the context of removals from this country of applications to the courts. However, that is what they are there for, and they are applying law that has been made by Parliament, or by Ministers subject to the rather inadequate scrutiny that parliamentarians are able to give them.
On Amendment 6—this is something that has been identified by the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association; the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, mentioned the comments on the Bill by its chair, Adrian Berry—the protections are potentially at risk as what the association describes as “collateral damage”. We hope that they do not fall within the scope of the Bill, but I think it is a matter for the Government to explain what the position is. This is all about the lack of clarity, the bad rule-making, to which other noble Lords have referred, all offensive to the rule of law.
To return to the first amendment in this group, I welcome reports to Parliament and parliamentary scrutiny. I am hesitant to criticise or comment on the wording of the clause, having learned from the noble Baroness that the clerks were involved in crafting it, but I am not sure that the provisions of Schedule 1 are correctly described as enforceable. A provision within six months would take us beyond the end of the year. However, I should not carp about that sort of detail because, whatever the language, I understand that the supporters of Amendment 1 are seeking to ensure that free movement ends and that Parliament is told how. We have made our views about the first part of that very clear.
Before I finish, I want to mention the amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar. I thought the points made by noble Lords were very telling regarding the reference to soft power. I was reminded of listening to the European Union Youth Orchestra a couple of years ago in Edinburgh. That was a very special experience and it rather goes to why we are so distressed by what we are having to go along with in the Bill.
I think I have said enough not to have to refer specifically to our opposition to Amendment 1.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, this group of amendments seeks to address the issue of the lack of clarity in the Bill, not least in Schedule 1. I am sure we have reached the stage now where noble Lords want to hear the Government’s response. I wish to comment briefly on three of the amendments in this group, although all of them raise issues of significance, as my noble friend Lord Adonis has said. That has become clear from noble Lords’ contributions, even though noble Lords have not all been coming from the same direction.
Three days ago, we were sent a letter from the Government sharing illustrative drafts of regulations that they propose to make under the powers in Clause 4 of the Bill. One wonders why at least some of the terms of these draft regulations could not now be or already have been incorporated in the Bill and thus be open to proper parliamentary scrutiny.
Schedule 1 revokes Article 1 of the EU workers regulation, which provides freedom-of-movement rights. Paragraph 4(2) of that schedule provides that other parts of the workers regulation cease to apply so far as they are
“inconsistent with any provision made by or under the Immigration Acts”
or
“capable of affecting the interpretation, application or operation of any such provision”.
This is a very broad drafting. Amendment 3, to which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, spoke with his usual considerable authority, would remove paragraph 4(2), as it is so broad and lacks clarity. We share the concern that that amendment seeks to address.
No doubt the Minister, in giving the Government’s reply, will be giving a pretty comprehensive list of examples of how and why, in the Government’s view, other parts of the workers regulation might credibly become, first, inconsistent with provisions made by the Immigration Acts and, secondly, capable of affecting provisions made by or under the Immigration Acts.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Brinton has her name to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, which we support. My noble friend is indisposed at present, but I know that she will be here in spirit. I start by saying to the Minister that I will try not to moan. I generally try not to moan. It is reasonable for her to refer a Member of the House to GOV.UK; my point was that most of the public would be bemused by the reference. I think I can see on my screen that she is nodding.
There was enthusiasm for tabling amendments quickly after Second Reading, especially on what were particularly topical issues. A health and social care visa was one such. It remains topical, as does the whole operation of the social care sector, even though it is not in the headlines quite so much. I have spoken about immigration arrangements being in the rules. The scheme set out in our Amendment 47 may not be ideal—I confess I do not think it is—but it is about pinning down the arrangements into primary legislation to make them not too easy to amend.
My noble friend Lady Brinton and I also have our names to Amendment 57, on a social care visa. Many of your Lordships will have direct experience of the work of those in social care and share what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has talked of—the importance of proper payment reflecting the level of skill, which is very significant. As it happens, I cannot praise too much someone who recently cared for a close relative. She came from Romania.
The essential core skills are not ones that can be trained into anyone; there are the practical, technical aspects of care, but you cannot train someone to care as part of their personality. They either have it or they do not. That is why so many carers, little supported, are people who look after their spouses, children or parents at home. I mention this because, last time I mentioned care at home, the Minister thought I meant domiciliary care. That is part of the subject matter of the amendment, but I depart from the scope of the Bill for a moment to recognise the dedication and sheer hard work that family members undertake, which is inadequately recognised. Other noble Lords in the debate may know how much, in pounds and pence, that work saves the state.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, will explain the importance of her proposal in Amendment 66. I simply say that my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester added her name to that amendment, and she is very sorry that she cannot take part in today’s proceedings.
Also in the group is Amendment 82 of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, which I thought was interesting. Some of us leap in; calmer heads propose an analysis of the issue. I suspect that will not preclude some pithy points in support of progressing with analysis.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB) [V]
My Lords, Amendment 66 would provide for the creation of a fast-track health and social care visa for EEA and Swiss nationals who provide personal care for severely disabled people, after the end of free movement. The visa would be limited to EEA and Swiss nationals who, immediately prior to the commencement of Clause 1 and Schedule 1, had the right of free movement into the UK.
Subsection (1) of my proposed new clause says:
“The Secretary of State must provide by regulations made by statutory instrument for the introduction of a fast-track health and social care visa for a relevant person who provides personal care for severely disabled people in the United Kingdom.”
Subsection (2) defines “fast-track” and “relevant person”:
“In this section, ‘fast-track’ means processed by UK Visas and Immigration within three weeks from the day on which the applicant provides their biometric information, and ‘relevant person’ means an EEA or Swiss national who immediately prior to the commencement of section 1 and Schedule 1 had the right of free movement into the United Kingdom.”
The proposed new clause would provide for the introduction of a fast-track health and social care visa for a person who provides personal care for severely disabled people. The visa would be limited to EEA or Swiss nationals who, immediately prior to the commencement of Clause 1 and Schedule 1, had the right of free movement into the UK. This is a probing amendment to see what consideration the Government have given to extending their new health and social care visa to persons who provide personal care for severely disabled people in the United Kingdom.
In July, the Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced that a
“new Health and Care Visa will be launched this Summer, creating a new fast-track visa route for eligible health and care professionals and delivering on a key manifesto commitment.”
However, the Government have been criticised for excluding care workers from being able to apply for visas designed to fast-track those coming to the UK to work in the health and care sector.
On 13 July, the Home Office released details of the UK points-based immigration system, which will come into effect from 1 January 2021. Under the new system, the health and care visa will allow people working in eligible occupations, who speak English and have a job offer, to come to the UK. Under this visa route, workers and their families will gain fast-track entry to the UK, with reduced application fees and dedicated support, the Government said. Those who are eligible to apply and their dependants will also be exempt from paying the immigration health surcharge—a move that has been welcomed by doctors. But applicants must meet a salary threshold of £25,600, which is €28,200 or $32,000, to be eligible to apply for the visa, unless they are entering a shortage occupation, such as nursing and medicine. The NHS workers’ union, GMB, said that this threshold would mean that many NHS cleaners, porters and support staff will not qualify for the visa.
The Government have faced a backlash because social care workers are not eligible to apply for the visa, although the Migration Advisory Committee, on whose advice much of the new system is based, recognised the workforce shortage faced by social care in its most recent report and did not recommend that care workers be added to the list of shortage occupations. I cannot understand this. Perhaps the Government can tell us why. Instead, the committee said that it hoped the Government’s forthcoming Green Paper on social care would provide more clarity on the future of the sector in the UK and contain concrete proposals to improve terms and conditions for care workers. Waiting is not acceptable. There is a crisis.
Critics have said that the exclusion of care home staff from a post-Brexit, fast-track visa system for health workers could prove to be an unmitigated disaster and may increase the risk of spreading coronavirus. Professor Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, which represents the largest private providers, has said that the decision amid the pandemic in which 20,000 people have died in UK care homes has the potential to destabilise the sector even further, with disastrous consequences, confirming that there could be no special treatment for carers coming to the UK from the rest of the world.
The Government have said that they hope that Britons will fill the shortfall of around 20,000 workers, equating to 10% of all posts. Currently, 17% of care jobs are filled by foreign citizens. In the debate on Second Reading, I drew attention to this when I said:
“There is a danger that people who cannot get work of their choice are pushed into doing care work, with such horrifying results as happened at Whorlton Hall near Barnard Castle, Thors Park in Essex and Winterbourne View near Bristol, where patients were abused and bullied. This cruelty was exposed by ‘Panorama’. We must surely try to prevent this sort of thing happening again. I hope the Government will listen before it is too late.” —[Official Report, 22/7/20; col. 2251.]
The health and care visa has been designed to attract the brightest and best from around the world. It has been criticised for excluding front-line care home workers and contractors. It has been pointed out that the minimum salary threshold means that many cleaners, porters and other support staff will not qualify. This will discriminate against severely disabled people living in their own home who need paid carers. The Government are discriminating against any care workers.
Vic Rayner, the executive director of the National Care Forum, has said that in London, where around 38% of care workers are non-British, the policy could be “an unmitigated disaster.” She said:
“‘We have 122,000 vacancies, growing demand for our services, and then the tap is turned off like this … It is not good news at all. What you need for good care is a stable, skilled and plentiful workforce. And in the context of Covid-19, where you are trying to minimise movement of staff, any shortages might increase movement of staff and use of agency staff, which we are trying to avoid.’”
Robin Hall, the secretary of the Hampshire Care Association, has said that a shallower pool from which to recruit could drive up wages, which, without greater public funding, would mean fewer staff employed per resident. She said:
“‘That will damage the quality of care we can deliver … You also may have to get less choosy about who you employ, and that’s a dreadful thought. A lot of our EU staff are highly skilled. They are smart, articulate and speak three or four languages. We don’t get that quality of applicants from the UK because of the status the profession has.’”
With the advances in medical treatment made over the years, many severely disabled people are living in the community in their own home. Many of them need live-in or daily carers. We also have an increasing elderly population. A bright young man called David who broke his neck in a rugby accident and was paralysed from the neck down had been cared for by his mother. As she got older, her arthritis became worse. David was fearful that he might end up in a care home, which was something he could not accept. David lived in a comfortable bungalow with a garden and a lily pond. One day he was found drowned in that pond. In desperation, he had driven his electric wheelchair into it to end his life. Surely we do not want more cases like that.
Good care workers who work in people’s homes must be dedicated to the job, get satisfaction from it, be honest, skilled, compassionate and flexible. Caring for severely disabled people is not for everyone, but those who undertake these positions are special and they should be valued, not treated as “also rans”.
I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on Amendment 66, and I hope that it will be taken seriously.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, this afternoon my noble friend Lord Newby, speaking on a business Motion, made the point that Private Members’ Bills should come back on to our Order Paper. This would certainly be a candidate for that. I referred to this directive when I spoke to my Amendment 6 earlier today. We have heard long, careful and impassioned speeches from previous speakers, so I do not intend to say a great deal, but that should not be taken to be any indication that I do not feel strongly about these issues.
The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is about how the support that we would all want to see for victims of trafficking is given. The Modern Slavery Act is only five years old, but thinking has moved on since then. Knowledge and understanding have moved on. We need to continue to develop and refine the support that is made available and recognise it as a right beyond guidance. It is a moral duty and it needs to be made certain in law. It does not require much imagination to understand that the need for protection varies from victim to victim, but it is likely to have to be long and intensive and, as we have debated in other contexts, certainty is an important component of recovery. I support this amendment very warmly.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I am delighted to support amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, and I pay tribute to his tireless work in this area over many years and I wish him success in the future. I am sure he will be successful. I hope we will shortly hear a positive reply from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, confirming that the EU anti-trafficking directive will still apply and that the Government will go further. As the noble Lord, Lord McColl, told us, leaving the EU does not compel us to offer less protection and less support to victims of modern slavery and trafficking.
I am also aware that in March, only a few months ago, the Government said that at the end of the transition period the UK will no longer be bound by the trafficking directive but they have not set out plans to retain or incorporate any of the directive into UK law. That is a worrying and alarming position. I will go further and suggest that it is hugely damaging to our reputation abroad. The UK has a reputation of being a safe haven for people fleeing persecution and for people in distress. We have a reputation as a compassionate country that deals with victims of abuse, trafficking and slavery justly, fairly and properly, but there have been too many occasions when this Government have shown a cruel, uncaring streak which I would not expect from a Government of the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, can take up the challenge of the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, and provide the Committee with the reassurance for which it is asking. At a minimum, we need to hear from the Government that they will put in place legislation that ensures that no matter what else happens as a result of Brexit, victims will be no worse off and will have no fewer rights than they have at present. In many areas they need to have more rights and to be treated with more compassion.
We also need to have on the record from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, the effect as he sees it of paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 on the position of victims of trafficking and their current protections. I support the call from the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, for at least a commitment from the Government not to use these powers to erode the rights and protections of victims.
I have in the past supported, and will continue to do so until he is successful, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, in his entirely correct campaign to speak up for the victims of modern slavery and afford them the same protections in England and Wales that legislation in both Northern Ireland and Scotland provides. The noble Lord, Lord Morrow, should be congratulated for taking the equivalent legislation through the Northern Ireland Assembly. It offers more protections that I, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and other Members of this House want to see applied to England and Wales.
I support the call from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for Private Members’ Bills to come back on the business agenda, and for me the Private Member’s Bill from the noble Lord, Lord McColl, should be top of the pile. It is a matter of great regret that the Government have not been prepared to support the noble Lord’s Bill. It is passed by this House and then crashes on the rocks in the other place, not even getting to the point of being discussed. That is a matter of much regret. The Government could in future agree to support the Bill and give it government time or, even better, announce maybe today or later that they will table a government amendment to appropriate legislation to ensure that the protections victims have in Scotland and Northern Ireland in terms of further care from the state will now be afforded to them in England in Wales.
Other than that, the Modern Slavery Act is a very good Act. Lots of good work was done by the former Prime Minister, when she was Home Secretary, to get it; she made a personal commitment to do that. My noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley served on the joint Bill committee to look at the legislation—I know lots of good work went on—but there is one area of further protections that the law is missing, and we should do more in that regard. For that reason, I very much support the call of the noble Lord, Lord McColl. I look forward to the noble Lord’s response to this debate.
Baroness Hamwee
“(6) The Secretary of State may not conclude that the deportation of an Irish citizen is conducive to the public good under section 3(5)(a) unless he or she concludes that, due to the exceptional circumstances of the case, the public interest requires deportation.(7) No person of any nationality is liable for deportation under section 3(5)(b) on the ground that they belong to the family of an Irish citizen who is or has been ordered to be deported, unless subsection (3)(a) is satisfied in respect of that Irish citizen.(8) An Irish citizen may not be deported or excluded from the United Kingdom if—(a) the Irish citizen was born in Northern Ireland; and(b) at the time of the Irish citizen’s birth, at least one of his or her parents was—(i) a British citizen; or(ii) an Irish citizen; or(iii) a British citizen and an Irish citizen; or(iv) otherwise entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment protects the threshold for deportation of Irish citizens and ensures that no-one born in Northern Ireland may be deported.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, Amendment 8 concerns protections against deportation for Irish citizens. It might seem a little counterintuitive to noble Lords that it is necessary to provide protection at all because it is inherent, as it were, given our relationship with Ireland, the common travel area and so on.
Since 2007, the Government’s policy position has been to deport Irish citizens only where a court has recommended it in sentencing or where the Secretary of State concludes, due to exceptional circumstances, that the public interest requires it. That reflects the special status that Irish citizens have, as I have mentioned, with close historical community and political ties, as well as the common travel area.
However, this is a matter of executive policy not protected by any level of legislation. It currently permits the deportation of Irish citizens in a range of circumstances, circumscribed by EU law relating to free movement. The protections of EU law come to an end in less than four months, so there will be no law to stop a future Government reversing the position. Domestic law would allow them to do so. However, that is completely separate from the UK’s membership of the EU. There is not a democratic basis on which to remove these protections when free movement comes to an end.
The Government have expressed no intention to change the policy position, so it would be good to take the opportunity to incorporate the greater protective status for Irish citizens into law. The position is particularly confusing, given that the Government have taken steps to remove Irish citizens from the automatic deportation regime. They could easily have done so for the rest of the regime and not just when an individual is sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment. The legal position is not corrected by the Bill, and in fact Clause 2(2) weakens the protection because it does not put in place a replacement for the safety net that EU law has provided.
The Good Friday agreement envisages that Irish citizens from Northern Ireland should not, as a matter of law, be able to be excluded or deported from the UK, but that is not currently reflected in UK immigration law. Because British citizens cannot be excluded or deported from the UK there is a risk that, when an Irish citizen from Northern Ireland is threatened with deportation, they will have to assert British citizenship in order to continue to live in Northern Ireland. That goes against both the spirit and the terms of the Good Friday agreement, which allows all people of Northern Ireland to remain in the territory whether they identify as Irish, British or both.
Mentioning the Good Friday agreement reminds us of the importance of the involvement of the devolved Administrations—the different experiences, economies and needs in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. However, we also need to keep in our minds the Good Friday agreement and the opportunity that we have here to set what is executive policy into law.
Amendment 58 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, requires the Secretary of State to publish a report on the reciprocal rights of the common travel area. I obviously do not oppose the substance of this but we are very near the end of the transition period. The law being created by the Bill—or perhaps I might say the law being destroyed by the Bill—will happen in less than four months, and the protection of rights is a matter for now.
Late on Friday, the Government published a draft statutory instrument, which we will have a word about when we come to the next group. It was only when I looked at the fact sheet that I saw something positive about Irish citizens. The clearest part of the instrument relates to exclusions but I would like to be inclusive. Therefore, although I support the sentiments of Amendment 58, I really think it is a matter for now, and I hope that noble Lords can support Amendment 8, which I beg to move.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her very clear introduction and explanation of the reasons for Amendment 8, to which I am delighted to attach my name. The noble Baroness set out very clearly the need for legal certainty and security for Irish citizens and people born in Northern Ireland.
Rather than repeating all these things again, I think it is worth very briefly addressing the whole issue of deportations. Of course, in this context, I cannot avoid mentioning the Windrush generation, the hostile environment and the fact that we have increasingly come to see people who have perhaps spent effectively all of their life in the UK, who have very close ties to the country and whose entire upbringing and experiences are in the UK facing deportation. That is utterly unacceptable in any circumstances but the situation with Irish citizens and the Common Travel Area involves two countries between which there has been continual, regular interchange and movement. A large number of people could potentially be affected by this situation, people who could see their lives torn apart. It is crucial that we build in these protections.
We have a great deal to do and it is already late so I will not go on too much longer, but I also want to mention briefly—having listened very closely to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and the debate on the previous amendment, in which many expressed the sentiment that we should have world-leading protection in the UK for victims of trafficking and modern slavery—that I associate the Green group with those sentiments.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have spoken to these amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, says, I often speak as first-generation Irish and he speaks as second-generation Irish, so I think one could say that we have a personal interest in getting this right and reiterating those rights in the Bill. Both the UK and Irish Governments have committed to maintaining the common travel area, which I will now call the CTA. It is underpinned by deep-rooted, historical ties and, crucially, predates our membership of the European Union.
It has been agreed with the EU that the UK and Ireland can continue to make arrangements between themselves when it comes to the CTA. This means that we will continue to allow British and Irish citizens to travel freely between the UK and Ireland and reside in either jurisdiction, and commit to protecting a number of wider rights and privileges associated with the CTA. These include the ability to work, study and access healthcare and public services. Both Governments confirmed that position on 8 May last year, through signing a CTA memorandum of understanding, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. The Government has included Clause 2 in the Bill to ensure that Irish citizens can enter and remain in the UK, without requiring permission, regardless of where they have travelled from, except in a limited number of circumstances.
Amendment 58 also seeks to require the Government to publish details of the rights and benefits provided by the EU settlement scheme. The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 protects the residence rights of EEA citizens and their family members for those individuals who are resident in the UK before the end of the transition period and for eligible family members seeking to join a relevant EEA citizen in the UK after that time. By applying for UK immigration status under the EU settlement scheme, they can also continue to work, study and, where eligible, access benefits and services, such as free NHS treatment, as they do now.
While Irish citizens resident in the UK by 31 December 2020 can apply to the EU settlement scheme if they want, they do not need to. Their eligible family members can apply to the scheme, whether or not the Irish citizen has done so. However, Irish citizens resident in the UK by 31 December this year may wish to apply to the scheme to make it easier to prove their status in the UK in the event that they wish to bring eligible family members to the UK in the future.
The Government have therefore already made it clear that both the CTA and the EU settlement scheme provide Irish citizens with a number of rights following the end of free movement, and we will continue to emphasise that commitment. I hope that that gives the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, comfort enough not to move Amendment 58.
Turning to the question of deportation raised by either the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, or the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—it is getting late—Amendment 8 seeks to make additional provision with regards to the deportation of Irish citizens and their family members. First, subsection (6) seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State may not conclude that the deportation of an Irish citizen is conducive to the public good, unless she concludes that, due to the exceptional circumstances of the case, the public interest requires deportation.
Subsection (7) seeks to ensure that the family member of an Irish citizen can be deported only on the grounds that their family member is or has been deported, where the Secretary of State has concluded that the deportation of the Irish citizen is conducive to the public good and, due to the exceptional circumstances of the case, the public interest requires their deportation.
I use this opportunity to reiterate our approach to deporting Irish citizens. While Clause 2 disapplies the right to enter and remain in the UK, without leave, for those Irish citizens who are subject to a deportation order, in light of the historical, community and political ties between the UK and Ireland, along with the existence of the CTA, Irish citizens are considered for deportation only where a court has recommended deportation or where the Secretary of State concludes that, due to the exceptional circumstances of the case, deportation is in the public interest—much in the way that was pointed out by the noble Baroness.
The Government are firmly committed to maintaining this approach. Irish citizens were exempted from the automatic deportation provisions in the UK Borders Act 2007 by the Immigration, Nationality and Asylum (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid in February 2019, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, pointed out.
Under the Immigration Act 1971, the family member of an Irish citizen would not be considered for deportation on the grounds that their family member is or has been ordered to be deported, unless a deportation order was made in respect of that Irish citizen. The amendment also seeks to prevent the deportation or exclusion from the UK of an Irish citizen if they are among the “people of Northern Ireland” entitled to identify as Irish citizens by virtue of Article 1(vi) of the British-Irish agreement of 1998.
I make it absolutely clear that the Government are fully committed to upholding all parts of the Belfast agreement, including the identity provisions which allow the “people of Northern Ireland” to identify as Irish, British or both, as they may so choose, and the citizenship provisions which allow the “people of Northern Ireland” to hold both British and Irish citizenship. Recognising the citizenship provisions in the Belfast agreement, we would consider any case extremely carefully, and not seek to deport a “person of Northern Ireland” who is solely an Irish citizen. Exclusion decisions are taken on a case-by-case basis by Ministers. Exclusion of a person from the UK is normally used in circumstances involving national security, international crimes—including war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide—serious criminality or corruption and unacceptable behaviour. It is essential to the security of the UK that Ministers retain the power to exclude in such serious circumstances, although of course all cases are considered extremely carefully.
I hope that with these explanations, the noble Baroness can withdraw her Amendment 8.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, the Minister was unsure whether points were made by my noble friend Lady Ludford or by me. I cannot speak for my noble friend, whom I am very happy to be confused with, but speaking for myself, I cannot claim any Irish family connections, although I have a lot of friendships. Amendment 58, calling for a report, begs the question of what would happen if the report showed that the current position is inadequate, as I think it would. That is the thrust of Amendment 8, and why it is seeking to use the opportunity of the Bill to set the position in stone rather than sand.
The Minister’s response seemed to confirm the points that I had made. She talked about the common travel area memorandum, but it is only a memorandum. The Bill has the effect of weakening the legal protections. It does not reflect the spirit of the Belfast agreement.
I thought it was telling—and frankly embarrassing and even shaming—to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, reminding the House that the protection depends on EU law. She made the point that it is not possible to make an informed choice, which is also extremely telling because, as she said, the common travel area arrangements are written in sand. I had not thought of that when I tabled my amendment, but it is intended to ensure that those sands do not shift.
I do not disbelieve what the Minister has said, but she has talked about the Executive attitude, not the legal position. While of course I do not question her integrity, she will know as well as I do that Executives change, as do their views. I am sorry that we have not been able to make more progress on this. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would restrict the Secretary of State’s discretion and preclude her or him from making regulations which are not necessary.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, in moving Amendment 9, I shall speak also to Amendments 10, 11, 13, and 35 to 38, in my name and that of my noble friend, and to my objection that Clause 4 should stand part of the Bill.
In the debate on Amendment 3, we heard some precise and forensic criticism of the drafting of the Bill. I could almost say—but I will not—that we could just read across to this group all that was said in that debate. I will resist that temptation.
Clause 4 provoked the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee to repeat the view of the Constitution Committee that skeleton Bills inhibit parliamentary scrutiny, that it is difficult to envisage any circumstances in which their use is acceptable, and that the Government must provide a justification for them. The committee describes the Bill as leaving so much of the post-transition period regimes for immigration and for social security co-ordination—the subject of Clause 5— to be “provided for in regulations”. “By-passing Parliament”, the phrase used, must cause anyone with any interest in the governance of the UK to be really worried. I must say that people are worried about the governance of the UK whether they think about it in those terms or, as is currently the position, they do not under- stand what the Government are telling them to do.
There is a need for the provision of mechanics for ending free movement; this has not suddenly come upon us out of the blue. While of course I accept that this is a complex area, it means that there is all the more need to have got on with the detail and published it, even during the Parliament before last, so that we could have considered it. After all, the referendum was held four years ago last June, and Article 50 was triggered in March 2017.
The “breathtakingly wide” powers—I quote the Public Law Project—which it is proposed will be given to the Secretary of State, would give anyone pause. The Public Law Project says that its work on Brexit
“seeks to promote Parliamentary sovereignty.”
That is a point worth making in the context of this debate. The term “parliamentary sovereignty” may have a familiar ring in the context of Brexit.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, expressed some frustration about the limitations arising from the scope of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Green, referred to similar points on the report of the Constitution Committee. I have long taken the view that, when people with very differing views have the same criticism as I do, we must have a point.
I omitted to thank the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and its chair, although my thanks must be implied by all the references I made to them. That I quoted from the report did not steal the thunder of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, at all. He cannot be surprised, because they were very good quotes. I said that I hoped for some excoriating speeches. I had him in mind, but he has moved on to sorrow. However, he did not disappoint.
When I started to read Clause 4, I picked up my pen and did not put it down, which was obvious from my raft of amendments, which almost amounted to an edit of the clause. The Minister says that she seeks to reassure us about how the Government intend to use the powers. As I so often say, I do not doubt the good intentions behind all this, but I ask her if she would be comfortable if—unlikely as it may seem—our positions were reversed. Would she take comfort if I produced a draft that was illustrative only? She said several times that the Government cannot accept the amendments. It really amounts to “will not” accept the amendments. As regards “made affirmative”, how realistic would it be for Parliament to block the instrument regarding the ending of free movement, after free movement had ended?
There is such an absence of detail on the workings of the policy. The six “consequential repeals” in Schedule 1 do not “scratch the surface”; that is not my analysis but that of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, given the huge amount of immigration legislation. It also says that “a solitary page”, paragraphs 5 and 6 of Schedule 1, purporting
“to remove all rights, powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies and procedures which derive from EU law … is lazy law-making. If people are going to have their rights removed, it is incumbent on Government to list precisely what those rights are and then specifically to remove them.”
It says that that would also enable
“parliamentarians to know precisely what they are voting for”.
To revert to the reference made at the beginning of today’s debate by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, Caligula might have been proud of Clause 4. This is not the time to pursue the matter, although I am clear that we have to return to it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
“(2A) The power to make regulations under subsection (1) does not include power to make provision inconsistent with the withdrawal agreement as defined by section 39 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 (interpretation).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that the power cannot be used inconsistently with the Withdrawal Agreement.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, in moving Amendment 12, I shall speak also to Amendments 18, 19 and 83.
There is nothing subversive in Amendment 12—there is no cunning plan. All the amendments in this group are intended to ensure consistency with the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020. It does what it says on the tin. In the light of Clause 4, which spells out the power to make regulations which “among other things” may modify primary legislation, these amendments seem to us to be necessary.
I was about to refer to the British in Europe group as a campaign group, but it is far more than that: it represents its stakeholders and argues very powerfully for the interests of British citizens in Europe. As the group puts it, the withdrawal agreement is the vital underpinning of rights created in UK law for UK citizens living in the EU and for EU citizens living here. In various debates over the past few months, noble Lords have tended to focus on the latter, because living here means being subject to UK law. But British citizens in the EU are British and must not be prejudiced by anything that is not in accordance with an international treaty.
I say that without having heard much news since this morning because of being, as it were, in the Chamber, but the news this morning was very much about not following through—not complying with—an international treaty. After all, we should all be entitled to rely on an international treaty.
Immigration law is so complex that to allow an inconsistency to slip through unintentionally is a real danger. Amendment 12, therefore, provides in terms that the power to make regulations does not include a power to make a provision inconsistent with the withdrawal agreement.
Amendments 18 and 19 aim to bring the clause into line with the two pieces of legislation that I have mentioned. Section 7(2) of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 provides that, if the Minister considers it appropriate, regulations under subsection (1) may be made so as to apply both to persons to whom the provision in question applies and—this is the relevant point—to persons to whom the provision does not apply but who may be granted leave to enter or remain in the UK by virtue of residence scheme immigration rules and who do not have such leave. Amendment 18 would replicate that.
Amendment 83 deals with Clause 5, and it may be appropriate to come back to it when we debate Clause 5. However, again, its purpose is to ensure that the power created by the clause can be used only in ways which are consistent with our country’s obligations under the withdrawal agreement. “Retained direct EU legislation” is the full gamut of EU legislation on social security co-ordination, and under the withdrawal agreement the UK is committed to applying this legislation to all those who come within the scope of Part 2. Among other things, the legislation covers the aggregation of social security contributions made in different countries, mutual healthcare arrangements, the payment of pensions and pension increases for pensioners living in different countries, and the regulation of other cross-border benefits.
In practical terms, the most important aspect for British citizens covered by the withdrawal agreement is the continued right for them to receive their pension and pension increases. Many noble Lords will recall debates regarding pensions and pension increases for people who have moved away from the UK, outside the EU, and whose pensions have been frozen. Other aspects are the continued right of pensioners to healthcare under the S1 scheme, which enables a pensioner residing in a country not responsible for their pension to receive healthcare in the country of residence at the expense of the country paying the pension contributions. This is a mutual arrangement that also applies to EU pensioners living in the UK. One aspect of this is the continuation of the scheme whereby those who have worked in the UK and one or more EU countries have their contributions aggregated, so that they do not fall foul of the national rules on minimum contribution periods.
One of the very big concerns of people who lose the right of free movement is the impact on their retention of rights and ability to move in the course of work as their careers develop and their jobs take them to different countries. Without this scheme, many people who have contributed for a full working life but have moved several times would end up without a pension at all. Again, we are faced with the possibility of a Government modifying—or worse, perhaps—these provisions by regulation alone.
All the points that have been made this afternoon and this evening about what could happen are relevant here. Social security legislation probably rivals immigration legislation in its complexity, so the point that was made earlier about unwitting breaches of the withdrawal agreement would apply as well. I assume that we will have similar answers to this amendment, but, although the points may be similar and parallel, they are no less important or worthy of being pressed and explored, as I am seeking to do with Amendment 83. However, at the moment, I will formally move Amendment 12.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
I call the noble Lord, Lord Flight. Lord Flight? As he is not present, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for speaking to this group of amendments, which concern the scope of the delegated regulation-making power under Clause 4 and, in the case of one of the amendments, Clause 5. As I have said, it is right that Parliament pays close attention to the provision of delegated powers, and to assist we have shared draft illustrative regulations to be made under Clauses 4 and 5, subject to Parliament’s approval of the Bill.
Amendments 12 and 83 prevent the Government from using the powers in Clauses 4 and 5 to make regulations which are inconsistent with the EU withdrawal agreement. We already have a legal obligation to comply with that agreement, which also has direct effect in domestic law in accordance with the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020. These amendments are unnecessary and would call into question why they are not included in every other item of legislation across the statue book.
I turn to Amendments 18 and 19. Clause 4(4) allows the regulation-making power to make provision for those who are not exercising free movement rights at the end of the transition period. This group may nevertheless be eligible for status under the EU settlement scheme and are therefore still affected by the repeal of free movement. Clause 4 does not allow changes to the statute book for migrants from the rest of the world, who are not affected by the repeal of free movement. The suggested amendments are unnecessary and would add confusion and hinder our ability to make appropriate provision for those affected by that repeal.
It is right that Parliament should set the scope of the power in Clause 4 in terms appropriate to the purposes of this Bill in ending free movement and protecting the rights of Irish citizens. It is also right that Parliament should retain the appropriate oversight over the exercise of that power. The Government’s intention here is simply to ensure absolute clarity of purpose.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, mentioned some issues that I have already addressed, namely comprehensive sickness insurance and the form versus the digital form. Article 18(1) explicitly provides that a document evidencing status may be in digital form. She also talked about children and the EU settlement scheme, specifically children whose parents—or indeed institutions in which they live—may not have signed them up. We will provide for reasonable excuses; I believe that we will come to that later in the Bill.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, with her knowledge of pension provisions, for contributing to this debate. My noble friend said that I must have been prescient in tabling this amendment. I think it was more about a continuing, underlying, and rather generalised sense of anxiety—not about resiling from the withdrawal agreement, which had not struck me as a possibility until a few hours ago.
The Minister has given us some reassurance; I hope that I have heard correctly over the airwaves about the legal obligation to comply with the withdrawal agreement. I suppose that this does not mean there will not be an attempt to change that legal obligation in some way. Anyway, that is not for tonight and certainly not for after 10.15 pm. Probably the best I can do at this moment is to beg leave to withdraw Amendment 12; I do so now.
Immigration (Persons Designated under Sanctions Regulations) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
I thank the Minister for her explanation of the instrument. I was able to hear her, though I regret I was not able to hear the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.
We on the Liberal Democrat Benches are certainly not opposing the regulations. Sanctions are an important tool to protect both security and human rights; the noble Lord, Lord Singh, in particular has focused on this. UN sanctions seem in the main to relate to security, though I would argue that human rights are both intrinsically important and very closely bound up with security issues. Liberal Democrats are far from alone in having called for more sanctions against those responsible for human rights abuses in Hong Kong—which we must not allow to go off the agenda—and abuses against the Uighurs, which take the meaning of the term “abuse” to an extreme.
Immigration sanctions are not the only sanctions which can be applied against individuals. Financial sanctions can be very telling, though in both cases the impact on people in this country, and on the families of those people, can be very considerable—something that we might come back to in the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill. Judicial oversight is a necessity, and I will come back to that this afternoon.
Can the Minister explain whether the travel bans under these regulations will have corresponding financial sanctions, or are the two entirely different but possibly parallel streams? One would be very keen to know that we can make more difficulty for some people, not only over shopping trips to Harrods but regarding the acquisition of residential properties whose vacancy is, at best, offensive.
These travel bans carry with them the right to large human rights law protection claims. I trust that the lawyers who undertake that work will not be attacked as “activist lawyers” by the Home Office, though I have to say for myself that I would be proud to be an activist lawyer. Indeed, I hope that all parliamentarians find it possible from time to time to be activists in the law-making process. Where would Parliament be, having made the laws, without lawyers enabling people to exercise rights under them?
I am going to take the opportunity to make the point about the importance of the European Convention on Human Rights and its place in our domestic law. I pay tribute to Lord Lester, my noble friend who died very recently, for his work on human rights and the creation of the Human Rights Act.
I emphasise the importance of judicial review. It may be called on more often and more extensively than was the case some years ago, which is not actually surprising when individual rights are threatened by the state. Judicial review is often portrayed as something pursued by tedious lefty lawyers, but I see it as having a very important function.
I have some more specific questions for the Minister. Will the claimant be able to make a human rights claim and appeal against a refusal of the claim in-country, or will he be required to apply from abroad? I suspect, in the light of Section 92 of SAMLA, that it is mostly going to be the latter, something to which we have often expressed opposition.
The instrument extends beyond the UK to jurisdictions that we are told in the Explanatory Memorandum have not been consulted. The fact that a territory has no competence does not mean it is not affected, and it may well have something to say on the issue. Most specifically, presumably the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the British Overseas Territories are going to have to enforce the bans. Is that the case, or is enforcement a matter for the UK courts? Can the Minister explain how that is going to work?
I confess I am stumped by paragraph 7 of the regulations. Nothing in subsection (4) of the section that it refers to permits the tribunal to consider the validity of a decision to make or vary, or to refuse to revoke or vary, the immigration designation of an appellant. Can the Minister help us by approaching it the other way around and telling us what it can do?
I assume that the term “notification” does not necessarily mean that the notice has actually been received. I guess that would be something for other provisions.
Paragraph 3 applies the instrument to a person lawfully within the UK. What if that person is here unlawfully? Does one just go straight to immigration enforcement? What if the person has made an asylum claim that has not yet been determined? I should say that I do not regard that as being here unlawfully, but which claim will be determined first?
I think the Minister said that the Home Office intends to start with this arrangement, which suggests that there will be a review. Can she tell us when that is likely to take place and anything more about the review?
Hong Kong British National (Overseas) Visa
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
I knew that the noble Lord would get a ship into his question somehow. I fear that he might have stolen the thunder of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, by asking that question although I am sure that the noble and gallant Lord will ask it again. The Government are giving careful consideration to the representations from those campaigning for that right of abode for former British Hong Kong servicemen. The new visa creates a pathway to citizenship, as he knows, and it will be available to those who elect to retain their ties to the UK through registering for BNO status. We expect that that will include the majority of Armed Forces veterans in Hong Kong.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
Applicants for the new visa will have to prove that they are ordinarily resident in Hong Kong and be able to support themselves independently in the UK. Are the Government not concerned that, without the co-operation of the Hong Kong authorities and others in Hong Kong, providing documentary proof of residence and transferring assets are both likely to be extremely difficult, if not impossible for some people?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I agree with the noble Baroness that this is a difficult situation. The Foreign Secretary said that we need to be honest about the situation that we are in. We cannot force China to let BNO citizens come to the UK if China chooses to put up barriers. But as China is a leading member of the international community it must be sensitive to its international reputation and the free will of BNO citizens in Hong Kong. We will continue to honour that commitment to those holding BNO status.
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill
Baroness Hamwee ExcerptsWednesday 22nd July 2020
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 View all Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 30 June 2020 - (30 Jun 2020)
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, noble Lords will have had briefings from many organisations. I wish, in the time, I could do them justice, but I thank them. They say this is an important opportunity to raise issues; noble Lords will make it an opportunity, well beyond the narrow scope of the Bill.
I shall be blunt on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches. We understand where we are with Brexit, but we deplore so much of UK immigration policy, we do not support the Bill and we deeply regret the loss of free movement and our membership of what we regarded as a union which was more than political.
Ironically, in the context, the Bill denies parliamentary sovereignty. It is always a concern when excessive powers are granted to the Executive. In its report on the same Bill in a previous Parliament, our Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, to which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred, made that quite clear.
The Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, which lives its name, lists the issues of the Bill: legal uncertainty; lack of detail; the power of the Secretary of State to remove unspecified rights; the power to thwart the will of Parliament; the power to amend Acts of Parliament and secondary legislation, which there is an awful lot of; the power to set immigration fees, the size of which can restrict the exercise of rights; diminishing scrutiny; and no clarity on how changes in relation to Irish citizens will affect the rights of Northern Irish citizens under the Good Friday agreement.
Preliminary research by the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association has identified three important legal protections which are not in any way addressed in the Bill. These are: protections for victims of trafficking in the anti-trafficking directive; protections for asylum seekers in the receptions conditions directive; and protections for victims of crime in the victims’ rights directive.
Our immigration law is, in the words of the Law Commission, “overly complex and unworkable”. A new Bill should simplify it. This is not dry or geeky—it is constitutionally important, and the personal impacts are enormous. An overarching policy that is hostile, harsh, robust, compliant—however it is badged—impacts individuals and personal relationships, often in ways never expected. Ask anyone faced with the need for a spouse visa, who becomes part of a Skype family.
The Windrush review recommendations include assessing whether policies, individually and cumulatively, are effective and proportionate. The recommendations deal too with the engagement of groups and communities affected by proposed policies. I was glad to hear the Minister refer to this and that the Home Office is clearly taking this seriously. We look forward to progress reports on the work now going forward, announced yesterday, and to its outcome.
I did not expect to feel so viscerally shaken by Brexit, not by the direct effect but by a sense of shame in what is heard as “Nice to have known you”—“you”, the millions of people who, through free movement, have become integral to our society. For British citizens living in the EU, their loss of free movement between member states is a real and immediate worry.
Huge numbers of applications have been processed through the settled status scheme, and it has been very successful for those for whom it has been successful. Inevitably, some troublesome aspects are coming to the fore as we draw closer to the close of the scheme, and they will become clearer as time goes on. That is why my noble friend Lord Oates will be tabling an amendment regarding physical documentation in the scheme. If I were renting property, facing an employment check or opening a bank account, I would want that too.
There is a shortage of specialist advice for people whose applications are not straightforward or who may not be able to look out for themselves—many children are within both groups. The detail and nuances of the scheme are not well understood. I read of a civil servant—so no slouch, one assumes—who did not appreciate that his pre-settled status was not the end of it.
We should listen to the people affected: they have a real-world view. We should thank those who painstakingly and responsibly analyse impacts such as entitlement to benefits, no recourse to public funds and allied issues like naturalisation, where comprehensive sickness insurance has reared its head as grounds for refusal. My noble friend Lady Ludford will pursue this in Committee; I miss her today as she is unwell, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Purvis who is covering some of what she planned to say.
Social security co-ordination needs a whole laundry basket of hot towels. It was a relief to read that the DPRR Committee recommends leaving out Clause 5, but I do not suppose that that will be all we discuss. I hope that I have not contributed to my noble friend Lady Ludford’s ill health by suggesting that she deals with Clause 5.
It is not beyond the bounds of the possible that, as values diverge, asylum may be sought in the UK from countries where discrimination becomes persecution—I am thinking of Hungary and Poland—so it is entirely right that, in an EU Bill, we address whether, how and for how long we use detention in immigration removal centres. Did moving detainees when Covid-19 took hold show that there are real flight risks? Asylum seekers never have an easy time; it feels heartless to reduce them and their situation to an item in a list. Unable to work when they are keen to contribute, they are caught with so little income that even existing is a challenge.
We will have more time to debate that in Committee, as we will have more time to discuss family reunion for refugees and ensuring safe and legal routes for unaccompanied children—something that member states have mandated the EU to deal with, so there are no bilateral agreements there; all that is on the table is a very inadequate draft text from the UK.
The immigration system is much more than the points-based system, but the PBS is currently in the spotlight. It is to be preceded by the health and social care visa and a belated nod to the health charge levied on health workers who pay tax, but hands-on
“care workers won’t be able to apply for a visa dedicated to care.”
That neat summary comes courtesy of the BBC’s Dominic Casciani. Are we heading for an even bigger shortage of carers? They ensure that people can stay in their own homes, which means big savings all round and support for the biggest band of carers: the family. Low paid does not mean low skilled. With care workers, it is often a skill that is innate and a matter of culture. I hate the term “brightest and best”. Best at what?
A lot of sectors will be mentioned. A number of my noble friends have stood back today but plan to take part in Committee, when these issues will be explored. I do so want to talk about the creative industries; I will join that debate then.
Time is against me. I can combine two areas of concern—agri-food workers and seasonal workers—to mention seasonal agri-food work. I can also make the link between two Bills: this one and the Domestic Abuse Bill. The link is the lack of provision for migrant women suffering abuse.
Let one sector in the PBS stand proxy for many. Apparently, 80% of the UK’s 10,000 international architects are from the EU; the RIBA says that £7,000 a year will be added to the cost of bringing one in. That seems counterintuitive when we are told to plan for a great burst of building infrastructure.
The requirement for a level of English makes me acutely conscious of my own lack of facility in another language. It is sadly typical of our still too prevalent, overwhelmingly proud and complacent insularity.
No doubt adjustments can be made to business models. Paying a fair wage and not exploiting people must be part of that model, but can this be achieved overnight and while gearing up for a full Brexit, whatever that may comprise?
I know that many of our concerns are shared widely across the House, so we will be glad to support Members on other Benches on a number of amendments, taking forward those proposed in the Commons, as well as having plenty of our own. There are far more issues than we can even touch on today.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, given the large number of noble Lords down to speak in the debate, I gently remind them of the three-minute Back-Bench advisory speaking limit.
Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2020
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, as other noble Lords have said, the question is not just “Why?” but “Why now?”; I am certainly satisfied as to the former. The FKD seems to be—or have been—a thoroughly nasty, dangerous extremist organisation and it is hard to find words to describe what one reads about it:
“A small international neo-Nazi organisation that embraces the most extreme interpretations of white supremacist ideology”
according to a website—not its website, obviously. Apparently, it
“criticises and demeans other white supremacist movements, such as the alt-right, for being too focused on public perception and unsuccessful in creating real societal change”—
a rather sinister application of “deeds not words”.
It says that there needs to be a war against a society controlled by Jews, and that that is inevitable and the only way to reset cultural and societal norms—“Black lives don’t matter”. I am sure that the Official Report will understand that those last four words are in quotes. It advocates killing and, as I think the Minister was alluding to, it targets teenagers and young adults.
I ask, “Why now?”, because the actions referred to in the Explanatory Memorandum and by the Minister have mostly been outside the UK and took place a little while ago. Activities in the UK, at least those cited, took place last autumn; there was one arrest without prosecution and one alleged offence, as I read it, although ironically, there was an announcement in February this year that the group would dissolve. I do not challenge the assessment that the group and its members remain active through channels other than Telegram, but would this order catch them? Can the Minister address this in her response? This links to the questions from the noble Lords, Lord Wood and Lord Bowness, and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. I am glad that they raised the international and EU dimensions.
The House has heard that a former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation described how the regime of proscription is undermined. More than that, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, described it as
“an affront to the rule of law”
by keeping on the list organisations that have changed and are no longer concerned with terrorism. It is an affront, given the implications of proscription for freedom of speech and the penalties carried with it.
Yesterday, the campaigning organisation HOPE not hate—its name describes its purpose—welcomed this proscription but demanded to know why a group with only a handful of members in the UK was to be proscribed but not the Order of Nine Angles, which it says is a violent Nazi group actively organising in the UK whose beliefs have inspired several young people recently convicted of terrorism. Yesterday, HOPE not hate encouraged people to tweet the Home Office asking it to proscribe that group, which is still a threat to British people. Obviously, I do not expect the Minister to comment on that group; I do not know whether she has been briefed on those tweets.
There have now been many calls for regular and frequent proactive reviews of proscription orders by such reprobates as the current Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, the Home Affairs Select Committee and my noble friends Lord Paddick—during the passage of the then Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill—and Lady Ludford. I, too, take the view that the Government should have a duty to keep orders under review to bring this into line with sanctions and the designation of areas—so, a duty to deproscribe.
The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, referred to what I think is the standard paragraph—paragraph 14—about the right of a person affected by proscription to apply for deproscription. I seem to remember that, during the passage of the then Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, we queried how realistic this was as the individual would draw attention to himself. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, referred to Northern Irish groups having difficulty in pursuing this.
The Minister in the Commons talked about orders such as this
“ensuring that groups who call for violence and mass murder … are prevented from continuing to stir up hatred”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/7/20; col. 1632.]
I wish that could be ensured. The orders are one tool to do so; of course, we do not oppose this order. Given how precious our freedoms are, again, we call for the most careful and well-justified use of powers to restrict those freedoms, as well as for the converse: the use of powers where that use defends those freedoms.
Metropolitan Police: Racism
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, the police are one part of the criminal justice system and should be learning from the CPS’s responses, with its evidential tests when cases are passed to it. Are the different parts of the system co-ordinating to address eradicating discrimination, which exacerbates the climate of distrust referred to in the Macpherson report more than 20 years ago?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
It is absolutely crucial that different parts of the system not only speak to but learn from each other, and that this forms what is best practice as we proceed.
Port Examination Codes of Practice and National Security Determinations Guidance Regulations 2020
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, as is the case with most statutory instruments, we had a substantive and, in this case, substantial debate on the primary legislation, which is not up for discussion. However, as the SI brings into force codes of practice lower in the hierarchy, it is worth reminding ourselves of their status.
The fact that they are codes, are written down and are subject to consultation is very significant, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has said. They are also subject to parliamentary approval, but they do not have the scrutiny which can lead to amendment. They are the practical application of the powers of the state. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, said during the passage of the Bill,
“the Bill will confer a bristling armoury of powers on ports police”.—[Official Report, 17/12/18; col. 1762.]
The current Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation raised points on the draft codes about reflecting the language of the law, points which the Government rightly took, because the rule of law requires law.
I will use this opportunity—I have not managed to find another—to mention the recent report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons on short-term holding facilities at the border. I have to say that “facilities” is something of a euphemism. There were some shocking findings, including that
“a pregnant woman was detained for over 27 hours; the detention log evidenced little meaningful engagement with her”
and:
“Detainees’ … ability to make telephone calls was at best restricted, and at worst prohibited.”
Border Force staff said that they felt “forgotten”, and that there was no guidance or sharing of best practice. Can the Minister tell the House how the Government are responding to the finding of inadequate leadership?
Actions at the border must not raise any concerns about any sort of discrimination, a point to which a number of noble Lords have referred. I raised this recently when the EU Security and Justice Sub-Committee, of which I am a member, questioned the Security Minister, James Brokenshire, about access to data—a very important tool of border security—post Brexit. A number of noble Lords including the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Wheatcroft, and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, referred to this. I asked him about stopping a disproportionate number of individuals whose ethnicity and dress were, to put it bluntly, not those of a white person who is not Muslim. He said “Ah—you’ve not seen the new code”. Now that I have, can the Minister point me to the answer? Is it through training, which must be kept under constant review, and accreditation? Will training, for instance, cover unconscious bias as well as, I assume, keeping and analysing data? This is a current issue but has always been a current issue, as my noble friend Lord German indicated.
During the passage of the Bill, we received a lot of briefing on the detail of the procedures: the length of time that someone could be detained, access to a named lawyer and so on. The Government’s response to the consultation on the codes on this point refers to the examining officer’s discretion and says that the detainee is told of this discretion. However, it is the criteria for the exercise of the discretion which are important and should be transparent.
As noble Lords have also mentioned, we have received a lot of briefing discussing journalism and journalistic sources—a contentious and difficult area. We are told that the Government are now considering whether to amend the definition of “confidential material” to make it clear that it includes material identifying a source of journalistic information. Can the Minister tell the House when we can expect to see this? Perhaps it will be in the current counterterrorism and sentencing Bill.
We scrutinise legislation; I am glad that we also have systems to scrutinise how things work in practice. However, applying the findings from those is essential because, as I know all noble Lords agree, trust in the means used by the state to keep us safe, but which reflect our values, is essential.
Surrender of Offensive Weapons (Compensation) Regulations 2020
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, I do not need to take up the House’s time in reiterating concerns about knife crime and the use of weapons; nor am I going to reopen the discussion about merits. However, since the Home Office’s own press notice regarding these regulations refers to the recruitment of 20,000 new police officers, I think I can ask: how is that going?
I do not recall spending much time on the compensation provisions regarding knives during the passage of the Bill—except for antique knives, as two of today’s speakers have referred to—but we spent quite a lot of time on the justification for the Bill covering certain firearms. I am certainly not opposing the regulations, although of course I have questions about them.
The first is, as my noble friend Lord German asked: why has it taken a while for not just the regulations but the underlying provisions of the Act to be commenced? The press notice gave no clues about that. I assume that the Government were waiting for the scheme but perhaps the Minister can flesh that out. It is a pity, given the seriousness of the issue, that there has not been more urgency. As far as I can see, the provisions on knife crime prevention orders have not been commenced either, which I have to say causes me less grief because we had a lot of concerns about those, but the Minister might quite properly say that I am straying beyond the instrument in referring to those.
When will the compensation scheme launch? Can the Minister give the House a bit more information about the consultation that has taken place on the standard levels of compensation and other aspects of the scheme? She has talked about stakeholders. Who are they? What publicity and information will there be to prompt the owners of the knives to come forward? I imagine that the identity of the owners of the firearms can be established without them responding to adverts.
My second set of questions is about the expected outcome of the scheme. Is there an estimate of the number of weapons likely to be surrendered in what is really rather a short period? I am struck by the question that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked about the value of some of the weapons, given that the impact assessment of the cost of the amnesty is £200,000 to £300,000. Who is bearing that cost? Will it be the Home Office or individual police forces?
I do not know the price of the weapons that are subject to the regulations—I too had never heard of any of these weapons until we started work on the Bill—but I know that a lot of damage can be done by knives worth less than £30. Can the threshold be explained? The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, had a very proper and important point about this.
The rationale for the order is the deprivation of ownership. I agree with what has been implied by other speakers: the point should be wider and the rationale really should be the prevention of crime.
A big question in my mind is whether someone who has bought one of these ferocious weapons is likely to surrender it. I assume that we are talking just about surrender, not the amnesty mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, or about immunity. Certainly, there will be no immunity for others such as, for instance, gang members. In my mind, it could be that the very act of surrender would put an individual in a dangerous position. Will the police refer individuals for support on gang exit in appropriate cases? Like the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox—indeed, no doubt like all noble Lords—I am all for early intervention.
Will the purchasers of knives—I think it may be different for firearms—have bank accounts and be willing to disclose details of them and their own details to police? In other words, how realistic is this? I hope I am not being too pessimistic because I too wish this scheme success.
Covid-19: Support and Accommodation for Asylum Seekers
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I join the noble Lord in paying tribute to all the emergency services and in sending our best wishes to those injured, including PC David Whyte, for a swift recovery.
The noble Lord is right: people get an initial assessment. Regarding further vulnerabilities, 24-hour healthcare is available to anyone who may need it who is in this or any other type of asylum accommodation. On the lack of cash for those in hotel accommodation, it is important to point out that anyone in hotel accommodation gets all essential living needs and costs met in terms of food, toiletries, hygiene products and healthcare, so there are no additional costs that they might need to meet. People can apply for additional assistance, should they need it.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, 5% of very little is almost nothing. I refer of course to the recent increase of 26p per day in the allowance for necessities for asylum seekers who are not in hotel accommodation. Even if the Government will not increase the allowance, why can it not be paid fortnightly or, even better, monthly? That would allow for more efficient shopping, would cost no more and perhaps would save on administration and even allow a smidgen more dignity to asylum seekers.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the Government are looking into the frequency with which the allowance is paid. The increase is quite a bit above inflation, even though it may not seem like much. The assessment of the amount of money needed to purchase sufficient food is based on data from the ONS, looking specifically at expenditure on essential living items by people in the lower 10% of income groups, and is supplemented by market research.