Immigration Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made rather a good case for inserting the words “without reasonable excuse”, and I certainly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about voluntary work. But perhaps I may raise a wider issue. Making illegal working a specific offence will fill a gap, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, pointed out in his helpful letter of 8 January. It means that those who have entered illegally or who have overstayed their visas could now be prosecuted for working in the UK.

When I gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee of the other place, a former DPP said that in practice he had not known of a case where it was necessary to have this law because other provisions could be brought to bear. However, impressions matter. The present situation must be an excellent selling point for anyone who happens to be a people smuggler. Indeed, at this very moment there are literally thousands of young men camped near Calais. They are there because they believe that if they once get into the UK they can work illegally and send home what to them are very substantial sums of money. If detected, they can claim asylum and be here for a considerable period longer.

The fact that working illegally in the UK is not even an offence sends out entirely the wrong message, as the Mayor of Calais never tires of telling us. She is right; we should change the law. This is about deterrence and it is especially important in present circumstances.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I support other noble Lords who have objected to Clause 8 and the introduction of the offence of illegal working.

The noble Lord, Lord Green, said that it sends out a powerful message if there is such a criminal offence, but my fear is that it would send out a message that empty window dressing statute is redundant and that it is not effective law if we end up with no prosecutions and no confiscations. As other noble Lords have mentioned, the guidance from the CPS on proceeds of crime suggests that there will be very few cases when it would be in the public interest to pursue confiscation proceedings. The question has rightly been asked by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. On the question of whether there have been any prosecutions of Romanian, Bulgarian and Croatian workers for working without authorisation, I confess that it was news to me that there were already such criminal offences. I thank ILPA for that fact. We do not know whether there have been prosecutions of employees or whether employers were prosecuted in the same cases. It would help to know whether there has been a displacement of enforcement activity away from employers to employees, or whether we have offences on the statute book that have simply proved inoperative.

That is what would bring the law into disrepute. I have a feeling that if this was coming out of Brussels, it would rightly be criticised as a useless piece of legislation—not least by the present Government. It might be quite right to do so. There can already be prosecutions of people for breaching immigration law in arriving in the country in the first place. I do not know how many prosecutions there are—perhaps the Minister could tell us. The alleged purpose of this offence is to fill the gap that is said to exist whereby the Proceeds of Crime Act cannot be deployed. It seems very unlikely that that would be used because of the disproportionate nature of taking such action. We will end up with something on the statute book that frankly does not add up to a row of beans—all for the sake of window dressing and sending signals to certain parts of the press and the electorate, presumably.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

It comes under the Proceeds of Crime Act. What we are doing here is simply drawing that element into line. The accusation appears to be being made that somehow the Government are targeting people who are here illegally. Of course, if they are here illegally, they should not be here and they should rightly be removed. However, it is odd that under the legislation to which I referred, we can currently prosecute those who have permission to be in the UK and are working in breach of their conditions. We can confiscate the relevant sums under the Proceeds of Crime Act for those who are legally here in breach of their conditions. However, if someone is illegally here, or they have overstayed, we cannot do that. Noble Lords will need to comment on that themselves. However, if they believe that this provision is too punitive for people who are working illegally in this country, they ought also to say—I am not inviting them to do this by Report—that people who breach the terms of their existing stay in the country, such as students who work beyond the hours legally allowed, ought to be exempt as well. The fact that there is one rule for people who are legally here but breach their conditions, and another for people who are illegally here, seems to me wrong as there is a gap. We are trying to close that gap.

[Baroness Ludford]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way and apologise for interrupting. My question may simply reflect my ignorance of immigration law but I am reminded that I asked at Second Reading why immigration law could not be changed. We have so much immigration law that I should have thought that the situation was covered. So, for the offence of breaching conditions attached to immigration status, you can be prosecuted and your proceeds removed, but if you work in breach of immigration law as a whole—that is, you have totally driven a coach and horses through immigration law through being here at all—you apparently cannot be prosecuted and be subjected to POCA. Therefore, it seems to me that the root of the problem stems from immigration law and that the solution is not to create a new offence of illegal working but to go back to immigration law to determine why you can deal with some people breaching it but not others doing so.

Immigration Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I can match neither the expertise nor the radical force of my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Wallace of Saltaire. As a Liberal Democrat, I want better management of immigration and asylum than we have at present. This is essential in the interests of good government and public trust. The question is whether this Bill provides that better management. The answer, on grounds of both ethics and effectiveness, is that it does not.

On the subject of labour market provisions, it is necessary to clarify the primary purpose of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement as being to enforce the rights of workers and to protect people from exploitation, and not to confuse this with immigration control. The introduction of a criminal offence of illegal working is a very bad idea. I prefer the term “irregular migrants” to “illegal migrants”. Rightly or wrongly, there is already a range of criminal offences on the statute book to deal with those who enter the country irregularly, overstay or breach conditions. Criminalising working is an unnecessary distraction from the fair and lawful pursuit of removal. During consideration of the Bill in Committee in the Commons, the Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire, confirmed that the primary response to the discovery that an individual is in the UK illegally is to seek to remove them, rather than to pursue a prosecution. Given that, is this new offence not just political posturing?

Making illegal working a crime creates a perfect environment for exploitation because it will deter exploited workers from coming forward and militate against the Government’s work to combat trafficking, slavery and labour exploitation. The Home Secretary claimed, in the other place, that vulnerable people such as trafficking victims would not be punished because the Modern Slavery Act would continue to apply. How will this work, given that that Act only applies once someone is arrested and charged? There at least needs to be a provision for a defence of “reasonable excuse”. Many employers organise visas and so on for their employees, who may fall foul of these new provisions through no fault of their own. Does there really need to be criminalisation of illegal working in order to use proceeds of crime powers to confiscate the wages of illegal workers? Is it morally and practically sensible to seize them? Will it not deter exploited people from seeking protection? Will the proceeds not exceed the costs?

On the subject of access to services, the right-to-rent scheme, making landlords into immigration officers on pain of criminal sanctions, is objectionable on several grounds. There is a danger of discrimination against people who do not look or sound British but who have the right to rent that British and other nationals do. The pilot evaluation and research by NGOs have found worrying indications of stereotypes and prejudices coming into decision-making by landlords. Will the Government at least commit to a fuller evaluation of impact post-rollout, if that is what happens? The provision for landlords to evict tenants without a court possession order removes a crucial due process safeguard which protects against erroneous decision-making.

On the subject of support for asylum seekers, the provisions in the Bill which attempt to create a hostile environment to force people into leaving voluntarily are very worrying indeed. There is a real risk that refused asylum-seeking families will fall through the gaps. There are moral and practical objections. As to the moral objections, I would just quote Barnardo’s, which has said:

“Threatening families with destitution, with having their children taken into care, is not an ‘incentive’ that any caring society should utilise”.

As to the practical objections, the Home Office’s own evidence, including from the pilot a decade ago, strongly suggests that cutting families off from support will be ineffective in making them more likely to leave the UK, so the Government simply will not achieve their stated objective.

People cut off from support are more likely to abscond and go underground, putting them out of reach of the authorities and undermining the very immigration controls that these headline-grabbing proposals are supposed to enforce. Managed engagement, as in the Swedish practice, has a much better track record. In the Minister’s letter to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, which he kindly circulated, he says that “when working to remove families with children we are seeking to achieve compliance and voluntary departure through the family return process. These processes work but by their very nature are not always quick”. These processes work. The best solution is to give asylum-seekers permission to work—even an obligation to work, if fit—if they have waited more than six months for a decision.

I have observations on two themes which run through the Bill. The first is the extra bureaucracy and expense imposed on those outside government. Outsourcing immigration control to landlords, banks and the DVLA is not commensurate with the idea of reducing red tape. Local authorities will get more bureaucracy in regard to language requirements, asylum seeker and child support and notification of licences, as well as greater expense. Businesses will have the immigration skills charge. All this is rather strange when the Government go on about Brussels imposing too much red tape. Where is the domestic refit to match the European Commission’s regulatory fitness and performance programme, which the Government rightly support? The need is to get better Home Office management of asylum and immigration instead, not least by speeding up full monitoring of both entry and exit. Taking students out of the net migration target would also be helpful.

The second theme that runs through the Bill is having more powers and less scrutiny for those in government but fewer rights for people against poor government decision-making. The extra powers proposed for immigration, detainee custody and prison officers—such as to search and seize documents including driving licences, and for speculative in-country stops and closing premises—all need firm scrutiny. Does not some of this undo the good work in reforming and reducing stop and search, which the Home Secretary is rightly proud of because it generates resentment and harms race relations? Then there is the assumption that Home Office decision-making is perfect. This is reflected in the provisions on summary eviction of a tenant on the basis of a notice from the Home Secretary, enforceable in the same way as a High Court order, and the extension of “deport first, appeal later”. In fact only 13% of out-of-country appeals succeed, compared to an average of around four in 10 made in country. Then there is the absence of a right to appeal against the refusal of Section 95A support, whereas in six out of 10 cases determined by the Asylum Support Tribunal, the Home Office has been found to be in the wrong.

Another example is the ability of the Home Secretary to overrule the tribunal and impose electronic tags, and otherwise to overrule bail decisions, whereas in the period from 2011 to 2014 £15 million was paid out for unlawful detention. When the decisions of the Home Office could jeopardise people’s livelihoods, safety, home, bank account and driving licences and thus their ability to work, the extent of these unreviewable powers is unacceptable. My conclusion is that the Government need to display humanity and an attachment to real efficiency in enforcement and the rule of law, and accept changes to the Bill in so far as it can be improved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Green of Deddington]

This takes full account of those who will die and those who are born. It brings all three together. Any population projection depends on the birth rate, the death rate and the net migration. Taking all three into account, on 240,000 a year we would get what I have just described. We have to accept that. We have to recognise it and decide whether we will take serious measures to get the numbers down or whether we will build the list of cities that I will not read out again.

There is no doubt that immigration is the main driver of this huge population increase. In the medium term, two-thirds of it will be due to future immigrants and their children, and in long term, of course, all population increase will be due to immigration because our birth rate is below the replacement rate. In these circumstances, the public clearly want immigration brought under control, and rightly so. This will require two elements: reducing admissions where possible; and ensuring departures. Let me take them separately.

The Bill bears mainly on the latter. It is concerned largely with discouraging illegal immigration, whether by those who seek to enter clandestinely or those who have overstayed their visas. As for the clandestines, noble Lords might like to ask themselves why thousands of people—mainly young men—are camped near Paris in pretty dreadful conditions in the hope of getting into Britain. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, spoke eloquently about the conditions in which they find themselves.

Surely it has to be recognised they are not there because they are desperate, as the press so often says. They are already in a safe country and are perfectly at liberty to claim asylum in France. It is only because they believe the conditions in Britain are so much more favourable that they will take considerable personal risk to get here. Indeed so, because they know that if they do get here they can work on the black market—an activity that is not even illegal in this country, as the Mayor of Calais never fails to point out. They also know that if they are discovered they can claim asylum. Indeed, about half of all asylum claims made in Britain are made on discovery, not on arrival. If they succeed in their claims, as about half of them do—

[Baroness Ludford]

I apologise for interrupting and thank the noble Lord for giving way. Does he also accept that there are those who maintain, and I think there is force in these suggestions, that some of the reason for coming to the UK has nothing to do with the factors that he has mentioned? It is obviously the English language, which is the number one language learnt around the world. Also, although we are far from perfect in this country on race relations and integration, the atmosphere for integrating people and welcoming diversity is better in this country than in France.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Yes, absolutely. There is a lot that we can be proud of in this country, not just our language, culture, the openness of our society and the rule of law. We can be immensely proud of all these things. They are certainly a part of the reason why very large numbers of people want to come here. They also mean that we have to have pretty effective control or else, even as we have now and as have I pointed out, there would be consequences for many people in this country. It is perfectly clear how the public see all this.

The other main category of illegal immigrants are those who arrived legally but overstay their visas. Ministers regularly point out that we must break the link for those who are in reality economic migrants between setting foot in the UK—and indeed in the EU—and remaining indefinitely. Despite that, enforced removals of immigration offenders are running at only about 5,000 a year, so aspects of this Bill are designed to make the removal process more effective, which is certainly necessary. Other aspects are designed to shift the balance so that future migrants will be deterred from overstaying and others already here will decide to go home.

The Committee stage will be the time for detail. What is clear is that major pull factors are addressed, some of which the noble Baroness referred to. The task must be to reduce the overall scale of net migration to a level that the public can tolerate and, better still, support. We have the opportunity in considering this Bill to contribute to that essential objective.

European Union: Schengen Agreement

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Of course, my noble friend is absolutely right, and we have control of those borders because, in the Maastricht treaty, as he and I know, Sir John Major managed to negotiate an opt-out from the Schengen area. We retain strong control over our borders, which is quite essential. We look at the situation happening in Europe at present and we are not dispassionate, because the issues and security concerns that we have about Europe ultimately come towards us—so we need to work with our EU partners. We believe that the type of discussion that they are now having about strengthening the external border to the EU is absolutely right and timely.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that any crowing over Schengen difficulties is misplaced and shooting ourselves in the foot, given the huge benefits to UK citizens and businesses that Schengen confers in the ease of travel and trade? What are the Government doing to help to maintain the integrity and security of Schengen through full participation in the Schengen Information System and helping to reinforce its external borders?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right, and there is absolutely no crowing whatever. What we want is the security of those internal and external borders. We are joining the Schengen Information System II, which is very important for sharing information. We are providing support to FRONTEX and also providing support to the European asylum support officers, who operate in hotspots around Italy, Greece and Bulgaria. So we are not passive or crowing—we are actively working with our EU partners to ensure that this problem is addressed.

Channel Tunnel: Migrants

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: that is why the Prime Minister announced in July that the Organised Crime Task Force will concentrate specifically on immigration crime. At the Valletta summit in November he announced an expansion of the task force. Through new legislation in the Serious Crime Act, that work has already led to the disruption of 174 organised immigration crime groups. But we are very conscious that more needs to be done and are working very closely on that with our French counterparts.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that a twin-track approach is needed? First, refugees and asylum seekers need to be offered safe and legal routes through humanitarian visas and, secondly, all EU states need to participate fully in European police co-operation, including through a strengthened Europol, which the UK is not opting in to. Does he not therefore have to acknowledge the truth, which is that the present Government are failing on both those tracks?

[Lord Bates]

No. On Friday there will be a Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting, which the Home Secretary will be at. At the emergency meeting on 20 November following the Paris attacks, a whole new raft of initiatives was set out on which we are going to co-operate. These include the Schengen information systems, which exchange information on people who represent a potential threat across Europe. The noble Baroness was absolutely right in her first point, which is why we set up the Syrian vulnerable persons programme. We have said that checks on the 20,000 additional refugees who will come in over the lifetime of this Parliament will take place in the camps so that they do not have to make dangerous journeys and can be verified by the UNHCR and by us.

Draft Investigatory Powers Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is right, but that might not be necessary. I appreciate that the Bill has only just been published and is 300 pages long, but it has been worded as far as possible to allow for future proofing of the legislation. My noble friend Lady Shields plays an important role as a Minister looking at this area with her immense technical knowledge. I personally have benefitted from that knowledge in preparing for the Statement. A final point is that we have a plethora of different powers spread across different bits of legislation and a key driver of the Bill is that it is a great opportunity to bring them into one place so that they can be subject to that kind of scrutiny. I think that that is another element that we will strengthen along the lines of what my noble friend proposed.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the continuity and the expertise that the Minister brings, as well as his charity fundraising. Perhaps I may just pick up on a point that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, touched on: what exactly will the judicial powers be, and what evidence will the judges have? It was suggested today that the judge will be able to reject only on judicial review principles—that is, to ensure that the procedure was correct—but will not be able to look at the substantive evidence available to the Home Secretary. Will the Minister please clarify that? Secondly, and continuing a point that my noble friend Lord Paddick made, what confidence do the Government have that all ISPs can maintain the security of data?

[Lord Bates]

In terms of the judicial role, the judge will have sight of the same information as the Secretary of State currently has—which is the justification. Of course, the judge will be able to subject that justification to testing and review in terms of the process and content and ask them to go back and get more if required. That is certainly what the Secretary of State does at present. Those elements will be important in strengthening that part of the process. Again, however, that can be fleshed out in the pre-legislative scrutiny.

Asylum

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the EU directives, like the refugee convention and UK national policy, are based on individual need rather than nationality. That need may, as the noble Lord said, arise from indiscriminate violence, but that is again based on an assessment of the risks to the individual claimant. Briefly, on his other points, as noble Lords are aware, this Government have already introduced a series of tough domestic measures to restrict access to benefits for EU jobseekers, to punish the abuse of free movement rights on which we are leading the way in Europe. The Government maintain that free movement is an important principle of the EU, but that it is not an unqualified right and must be grounded in freedom to take up work.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the question was about the secondary movement of people claiming asylum in another EU member state, so I do not understand the answer, which was about EU nationals and free movement of people who have EU citizenship. Can the Minister confirm that the only possibility for secondary movement of asylum seekers is a small one if, under the Dublin rules, they have a family connection to someone who is already a refugee here? Otherwise, someone can move only if they have become fully settled in another member state and some years later acquire EU citizenship. There is little evidence of substantial such movement. Is this not just an example of how Eurosceptics are trying to confuse the issue by conflating EU free movement of EU nationals with the unfree movement of non-EU asylum seekers, with which the Government, unfortunately, seem to be colluding?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The Government adopt responsible measures and have taken a responsible attitude in addressing the issue of the migration crisis across Europe. On the noble Baroness’s assessment of the Dublin convention, she is correct: that does stand.

UK Opt-in to the Proposed Council Decision on the Relocation of Migrants within the EU (EUC Report)

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I also welcome the debate. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, on her speech and on the report. I congratulate the sub-committee—of which I am, in fact, not a member—on the speed of its report. We learn from the United Nations that there are 60 million refugees and displaced persons in the world and, since the beginning of 2014, getting on for 400,000 people have arrived in the EU. I share the view expressed by previous speakers in wanting a more positive response to the whole European agenda on migration from the Government of a country that is still a leading EU member state and a permanent member of the Security Council and which has, while by no means a perfect record on handling migration, at least a lot of experience, and a better tale to tell than many others. I would like a greater sense of how the Government think that the UK can contribute to EU solidarity on this matter, as well as enhancing the responsibility, which is the other side of the coin, of all member states to implement the asylum acquis. We know that there was not a good record in countries such as Italy and Greece even before this crisis; across the whole EU, apparently only two in five return decisions are implemented, which does not help the situation, although some ideas include much greater use of detention, which is worrying.

Sadly, the UK’s moral authority on matters of the asylum acquis is not increased by the fact that we have not opted into two of the five measures—the procedures directive and the reception conditions directive—in the common asylum system. Of course, we are not in the Schengen information system for immigration purposes, so the return decisions and entry bans are of no help to us. But even if the Government are not persuaded by this report and this debate—and I hope that they might be—I hope that they can tell us, in the words of the Explanatory Memorandum to this proposal, how they think,

“an effective and sustainable response to the situation in the Mediterranean”,

can best be implemented, and the extent to which the UK can contribute to an effective response to migratory pressures on some member states, even if it does not opt into the relocation proposal.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, updated us, there was an agreement at the JHA Council on Monday to clarify the legal nature of the scheme—that it is voluntary—by consensus, because it must be admitted that that lack of clarity was not conducive to making decisions. I would like to hear what the Government think about the implications of the scheme for the future of the EU asylum system. Now that the legal nature of being voluntary has been ascertained, could the Minister elaborate on what other factors and criteria will influence the Government’s decision now that that is clear?

The Commission has presented the present proposal as temporary, but as the precursor to a permanent and mandatory scheme which, presumably, would drive a coach and horses through the Dublin arrangement of responsibility on state of first arrival. The June European Council referred to a “temporary and exceptional relocation” of 40,000 over two years but, once this has been done, how could Dublin be re-established, even if it were desirable to do so? Perhaps the Government could answer both those questions. I note that Austria has already stopped processing asylum requests, and Hungary has refused to take back Dublin transferees, so what is the future of the EU asylum system? How will the Government contribute positively to make the overall system work? One puzzle is why the temporary protection directive has never been used and invoked in these circumstances. It is designed for a mass influx, which can be counted cumulatively. One would have thought that it was tailor-made for this situation.

While we are on the asylum acquis, the Commission guidelines on fingerprinting have elicited considerable concern on human rights grounds, since they introduce notions of coercion and detention for failing to give fingerprints. What is the Government’s reaction to those guidelines? It has been much commented on, so are they aware that many arrivals are not being fingerprinted? Can the Government give us an idea of what really is the extent and scale of the problem of non-fingerprinting?

Even if the Government are hesitant on relocation, they need to do much more to help promote safe and legal routes into the EU, whether for refugees, displaced people or legal migrants. It should be much more positive and proactive on the resettlement side of the equation for permanent resettlement, humanitarian admission, enhanced family reunions, study visas and so on, by which I mean direct from the region, specifically for Syrian refugees, of whom 4 million are registered by UNHCR and hosted in neighbouring countries. We must applaud the generosity of countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, while being very aware of the strain that this is placing on their capacity, resources and local communities. Indeed, they are starting to close their borders, because the degree of pressure is leading to unregulated shanty camps, which are rife with disease and distress and act as a hotbed for radicalisation. UNHCR is running out of money because promised donations, particularly from the Gulf states, have not materialised. Are the Government pressing those states to come up with the money?

There was an excellent article recently on resettling Syrian refugees by Dr Neil Quilliam, acting head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House. I have not got time to quote a lot of it but he feels that our failure to resettle or provide humanitarian admission to more than a few hundred Syrian refugees is harming the UK’s reputation in the Middle East and squandering an opportunity to influence a new generation of Syrians who will likely lead the reconstruction of their war-torn homeland. He draws an analogy with Iraqi Kurds and Kosovars and he proposes that the UK should admit 10,000 Syrian refugees as opposed to this couple of hundred. This would have various beneficial results. It seems to me that if we were to set such an example we ought to be aiming for something upwards of 200,000 resettlement places across the whole of the EU. Then we could challenge other regions and countries in the world to take on a similar burden. The advantage of resettlement is that it cuts out the middleman or criminal smuggling gangs. I believe there would be public support for such a programme. It does not have the same resonances as the relocation scheme.

On the return of irregular migrants, the Commission plans to revise the legislation on migrant smuggling by 2016. Will the UK take part? It is regrettable that the UK is not a party to the return directive or the framework decision on strengthening criminal penalties against smuggling. Will the Government turn over a new leaf and decide to actually lead in this area for the EU? Perhaps the Minister can update us on other measures that have been taken to tackle criminal smuggling, even though that is not the focus of today.

Also, can the Government give us, either now or perhaps in September, more information about the third leg of the European agenda for migration, which is co-operation with countries of origin and transit? There is much rather airy-fairy talk of a global package to support a dialogue with third countries. What does it really consist of? Are we ready to make serious offers to countries, including Morocco and Tunisia, with which the EU is trying to negotiate readmission agreements, on trade and possibilities for legal migration which would actually make it a real partnership? Even if the main focus today is the relocation proposal, perhaps the Minister can add some comments that will put some concrete flesh on the bones of those proposals, if I can mix my metaphors.

EU: Asylum Seekers

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Dykes for this debate. A commentator at Carnegie Europe recently said:

“The refugee crisis is just a part of a complex and massive public policy failure by the EU and its member states in the field of migration”.

It is hard to disagree. The symptoms are highly visible. The most obvious are the tragic deaths at sea, Hungary’s plan to erect a barbed-wire fence on its border with Serbia and migrants breaking into lorries at Calais. On that point, will the Minister say why those lorries are still not in secure lorry parks? We also see that the so-called European common asylum system is dysfunctional. It is not working. Can the record be improved in the short term through ideas such as the hot-spot approach of having EASO—the European Asylum Support Office—FRONTEX and Europol working on the ground with front-line states, or any other ideas for increasing reception-processing capacity?

In any case, the problem needs to be tackled much farther back in the chain. I am glad that efforts, not least in this House, to keep the UK a participant in Europol, Eurojust and a range of policing and criminal justice measures, succeeded. Will the Minister tell us what EU action is being taken, and what law enforcement action the UK is involved in against criminal gangs and smuggling networks? I think we all agree that action needs to be taken at source on the root causes. In the long term, tackling the sources of conflict, poverty and war will bear fruit. The UNHCR has today said that 60 million people are currently displaced by war. I am very glad that Parliament committed to a 0.7% target for international aid. That is not only altruistic, it is also self-interest. But this is a longer-term strategy and does not deal with the immediate crisis.

I believe that we cannot see trapping people in Libya as a viable plan. They would be subject to all sorts of human rights abuses. We need safe and legal alternative routes for displaced and vulnerable people in need of protection to reach Europe. The UNHCR target is to ask the EU to have 20,000 people a year settled through resettlement by 2020. The alternative is to issue humanitarian or asylum visas in the home country. The UK is resettling only 750 refugees a year through the gateway protection programme and has resettled only 187 Syrian refugees. I cannot believe that the public would object to these people being directly resettled. Will the Government give more support to an EU resettlement scheme than they are able or willing to give to an EU relocation scheme for people who have already arrived in the EU? Will they at least give intellectual support, even as a non-participant, to the development of a rational, coherent EU policy on legal migration, given that the EU as a whole—if not this country—is in demographic decline?

Clandestine Migrants

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that the work of FRONTEX in securing the borders of Europe is vital. We believe that it could be doing a better job, but we are co-operating with the agency at the present time—I believe that members of the police, the National Crime Agency and Border Force are working very closely with FRONTEX. One of the areas in which we would like to see it perform better is in taking fingerprint data as soon as people come into the European Union area. That would help in tracking them down.

The noble Lord is correct to say that this is a growing European problem. We are seeing a significant increase in the numbers of migrants coming into the EU—around 600,000. It is a European problem, but it goes beyond Europe’s borders. We are sure that our partnership in working together with other European countries—as we have done in this case with the Dutch, and as we are doing with the juxtaposed controls with the French—is an integral element of being able to tackle this going forward.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

The Minister referred to European instruments and my noble friend took up that theme, but I want to ask about carriers’ liability, which is also the subject of an EU legal instrument. Like the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, I heard John Vine, a former borders inspector at the weekend saying that there had been no sanctions on hauliers or confiscation of vehicles where they were found to have been carrying irregular migrants—he implied that there had been none at all. Is that the case, and, if so, why? Why have there not been any sanctions for breach of carrier liability legislation?

[Lord Bates]

We have to work closely with the hauliers. In March, my honourable friend the Immigration Minister met with the hauliers to discuss what part they can play in this, because that is certainly in their interests. I can say that the four vehicles found to be carrying these illegal migrants through Harwich have been seized, and there will be ongoing legal discussions because the case has to be proved in the courts, as the noble Baroness would expect. Of course, there are many other areas where I can point to seizures which have taken place, and I will certainly write to her on the specific number. I should say that a major part of the Serious Crime Act is about strengthening the powers of the courts so that they are able to seize the assets of those engaged in people trafficking—if that is the case in this particular instance—whether the assets be lorries or boats in the Mediterranean, so that they cannot actually continue with their evil trade.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, I too am grateful for the consideration that the Government have given to this matter and, in particular, to the powers of the independent reviewer. I am also grateful to the Minister for the frankness of his speech and for the way he has reported the reactions of the independent reviewer, which are obviously not an absolutely wholehearted welcome. I think it is excellent that the powers have been extended in the way that they have been.

I have an open mind on the amendment of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee, Lady O’Loan and Lady Ludford. I think that it would be good if the independent reviewer had the power—not the sole responsibility—to look at any provision of immigration and nationality law to the extent that it is used for counterterrorism purposes. That is clearly within his remit. The Minister himself said that it might very well be that Mr Anderson will be asked to be the person to report on the operation of the closed procedures in Part 2 of the Justice and Security Act. Therefore, I am rather sympathetic to those amendments and I do not think it would be very difficult for the Government to accept them.

However, I am sympathetic to the Government’s wish not to have too much duplication in this area. As a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which also roams over this area, I would like to say that we, too, have no problem with Mr Anderson. His co-operation with us is very good. We have no difficulty with the fact that we are looking at things which he is also looking at.

On his reservation about access to secret material, I am afraid that this intensifies my concerns about the very existence of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board. I think it is an improvement that Mr Anderson is to be consulted on and will have influence over the appointment of the members of the board and that it is there to support him. He has asked that he should have a written assurance that he should have access to all the secret material that he wants. I am sure that the Government would not have the slightest difficulty in giving Mr Anderson that assurance. But it complicates his relationship with the board, because, as the noble Lord has just said, the Government might well have reservations about that very secret material—the freedom to have the most secret material there is extended to the members of the board. I think that may be unnecessary. Clearly it would be difficult for Mr Anderson if he has access to material and the board has not.

All this leaves me with doubts about the utility of the board. I am glad that it is there to support Mr Anderson. I know that he needs more support. In responding to this, can the Minister say whether it is intended that the secretariat of the board should be the extra support that Mr Anderson needs? I do think that he needs extra support, but I would like to see the support there without the existence of the board, the utility of which I greatly doubt.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, very briefly, given the hour, I think we can all agree that the independent reviewer is not only a formidable lawyer but a master of modern communication with his blogs and tweets.

I welcome the broad support for Amendment 16A given by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. I want to press the Minister a little on some of his replies: first, on the potential clash with the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. I have just tried to flick through his last annual report but I do not think that he touches on anything to do with national security or powers linked to counterterrorism. As the noble Lord, Lord Butler, has just said, there is a way of dovetailing to make sure that there is no clash. What Amendment 16A proposes is very much to the extent that immigration and nationality law is used for counterterrorism purposes, which is not broadly the focus of the borders and immigration inspector.

Then there was a reference to a one-off review of Section 66, on deprivation of citizenship. However, a one-off review is not the same thing as continuous review and monitoring, so that is really apples and pears.

I join the noble Lord, Lord Butler, in wondering about the Secretary of State at some point, possibly several years hence, appointing an overseer of Part 2 of the Justice and Security Act. The Minister said that that person could be the independent reviewer. Why wait? Why risk setting up two separate posts, which would be inefficient and potentially add some costs? Why not short-circuit the exercise by deciding now to give that function to the independent reviewer? As my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, the case-by-case judicial oversight of the court is not what is meant here by the independent reviewer’s role in having that overview of the way that Part 2 of the Justice and Security Act, on closed material proceedings, has been employed in a whole string of cases. It is rather different. I would press the Minister to give a little more justification as to why Amendment 16A is not feasible.

Lastly, I may not have heard the Minister correctly—it may, again, be the lateness of the hour—but I am not sure that he gave an in-principle explanation of why it is not possible to have a statutory basis for the access to secret material. Of course, I accept what he and the independent reviewer have said—that in practice there has not been a problem and that if the Government tried to be obstructive, we would all know about it pretty soon. However, I do not think that he explained what the policy, or legal or other difficulty, is.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, as we glide through the final hour of the day, it is appropriate that we also glide through the final amendment. I congratulate the Government on the fact that the consultation on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board ended on 30 January and we have new amendments to debate on 4 February. That is quite an achievement.

I am grateful to the Minister, as we are significantly better placed than we were when the Government first announced this back in July, when the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and I were debating the DRIPA legislation. This was announced with no detail, although the detail then emerged that this was going to replace the independent reviewer. The Government wisely listened to those who said that this was a dreadful idea and could not see the logic behind it—but we then moved into an area where there was a lack of clarity and confusion. The Minister will be aware that we put down significant amendments in Committee on this, and I greatly welcome the amendments today.

I am also grateful to the Minister for meeting me to discuss this issue. He knows it was of enormous concern to us. Although I share some of the reservations of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, we are in a much better place. From what we are seeing here and from what the independent reviewer, David Anderson, is saying, he will find a way to make the board work effectively and be useful to him. The noble Lord made the point about him asking for a junior counsel or barrister to work with him. It seems to me that he has the opportunity here, if the board is acting under his direction and control, for somebody who is on the board to fulfil that role for him. I would not envisage a secretariat of the board—I am not sure how much of a secretariat the board will need—but certainly a board acting under his direction and control will provide an opportunity for him.

The other issue that we raised in our amendments was that the remit of the board should deal specifically with the impact of counterterrorist legislation on communities. I know that the independent reviewer already sees that as part of his role, but it is not explicitly in the amendments before us today. I do not think it necessarily matters, as long as it is made clear that he continues to see that as he does at the moment.