Asylum: Processing of Applications

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The reason we are doing it is to ensure that people get crucial decisions as quickly as possible. When we inherited this system, we had a backlog of 400,000 pre-2007 cases. Everyone was rightly expressing concern about that. That was why we needed to bring in people who could work through that backlog. The backlog has gone. We now have professional standards of six months for simple cases and one year for more complex cases. This is not like other areas where you get a seasonal flow, such as with passports or student visas. Because of events in Syria, there is currently a 29% increase in the level of applications. So it is very difficult to manage, and the people who are doing it are doing it in a very professional, effective and sensitive way.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords—

European Union: Refugees

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I also offer warm thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, for initiating this vital debate and for his excellent speech. The European Commission has put forward a very comprehensive package of measures on borders and migration. As the Dutch Migration Minister who chaired last week’s Justice and Home Affairs Council said:

“We can solve this crisis if all member states are ready to work together, as well as work with the countries on the Western Balkan route and with Turkey”.

Unfortunately, the member states have behaved badly; they have been reactive and disorganised and, at worst, played the blame game. Greece, as well as Germany, has a more than legitimate grievance about not being invited to the meeting that Austria hosted recently. Yesterday we saw terrible scenes of tear gas being fired at migrants on the Macedonian border. The problem is not the lack of available laws, tools or even money—€10 billion has made available from the EU budget so far—but a lack of political will and solidarity. It is obvious that we need to do a number of things, of which the following is a non-exhaustive list of six.

The EU’s external border must be strengthened. It is welcome that the Council is urgently examining the Commission’s proposal for a European border and coastguard agency, which I assume that the UK cannot be associated with. We must also have effective rescue at sea. FRONTEX operations last year rescued 250,000 people and NATO assistance is also very welcome.

We need a much greater push to put smugglers and traffickers out of business and into jail if at all possible. I believe there are 11,000 suspects on Europol’s database. Does the Minister have any data on what has happened to those who have been apprehended? I believe 900 people have been apprehended by FRONTEX working with Europol and Eurojust.

The EU must also ensure that security threats from potential terrorists are combated by stopping them slipping in as migrants. The Council has agreed a common position on the proposal for checks against databases at external borders but, again, as it is a Schengen project, I assume the UK cannot take part. Will the UK use the Interpol database and its access for policing purposes to the Schengen information system to align our practices on Schengen and seek maximum co-operation with the Schengen zone on this checking process?

I note that the Home Secretary said last week, in a Written Statement that she would,

“push for Schengen and non-Schengen states to be able to exchange immigration information”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/2/16; col. 11WS]

As the UK does not have access to the immigration side of the Schengen information system, will the Minister explain what such an exchange might consist of?

We must secure safe and legal routes for refugees and asylum seekers to reach Europe. Of course direct resettlement from the region is important, but there must also be opportunities for spontaneous arrivals to come legally in pursuit of a place of safety. We have constructed such barriers with carriers’ liability that that is almost impossible.

Those who arrive on our shores must be processed and registered efficiently. Action is at last happening to have so-called hotspots in Italy and Greece up and running, though it is too slow. Decisions on who needs protection must be made promptly so that they can work and integrate as speedily as possible, and those who do not have legitimate claims to stay must be returned. This is essential to preserve the integrity of the refugee system and public support for it.

I recognise that the Government are offering practical assistance to help with the registering and fingerprinting of migrants in Greece and Italy. Will the Minister tell us exactly what our help consists of—for instance, the number of experts that we have loaned?

It is vital that the internal Schengen arrangements be preserved. These benefit UK citizens and businesses, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, as well as those of other EU countries. The reimposition of internal controls will, as the Commission warned, set back what is already a very slow eurozone recovery through obstructing the single market.

One of the worst features of the current disarray is that who gets through to safety is rather a lottery; it is often young and able-bodied men rather than vulnerable women, children, the elderly, the sick or the disabled. I am of course not saying that those men do not deserve protection—many of them do—but there is a worrying survival of the fittest dimension to it all.

I also appreciate the German Chancellor’s unilateral moves last summer, born of despair at the prospect of getting a co-ordinated response. It is none the less true, however, that some confusion was created down the chain, not least in switching the Dublin regulation on and off. Can the Minister give us some clue or prediction about what will happen to the Dublin regulation?

The Home Secretary also said last week that,

“if the EU is to avoid a repeat of last year, we must take decisive action now”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/2/16; col. 12WS]

Will the Minister tell us what this Government are proposing to do to make sure that the UK is fully engaged in, committed to and participating in solutions to this migration challenge? We know about and appreciate the resettlement programme and the financial assistance being given to the region, but the UK should take part in and not stand aside from the sharing of responsibility for those who have reached Europe. I say this with full recognition of our aid contributions, the resettlement programme, and the fact that we have a rising population, which some member states do not. We need a strong and effective EU in the matter of migration and security, and any Eurosceptic who thinks a Europe in disarray on this issue is good news for their cause needs to examine both their head and their conscience.

Immigration Act 2014 (Commencement No. 6) Order 2016

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I am not going to support the fatal Motion, but I have a great deal of sympathy with the underlying thoughts behind it. I begin by declaring an interest: I am a small landlord and have rented property—in fact, three properties—for some 20 years, and therefore come with a degree of personal experience of the problems that landlords face when confronted by prospective tenants. I want to make only four points.

First, I endorse what the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, said with regard to the lack of knowledge. My knowledge of these requirements has come from being a Member of this House. I have not received, from the Home Office or from anywhere else for that matter, any detailed information regarding a landlord’s obligations, and I share the reservations expressed by the noble Earl.

Secondly, it is very difficult for landlords—and, incidentally, for people employing dailies as well—to interpret the documents that prospective tenants or employees produce. Very often we are told that the relevant documents are with solicitors; very often, the prospective tenant or employee has very limited language skills. It is often very difficult to determine whether or not somebody has a residential entitlement of the kind contemplated by the Home Office.

Thirdly, landlords like rapid reletting. They do not like voids; they like certainty. If they have any doubt about when or whom, or about the identity or legitimacy of a tenant, they will go for the safe option. Surprise, surprise—that will have a discriminatory consequence; that is a certainty.

Fourthly, and with utmost deference to the noble Lord, Lord Best, should we trust the discretion of the CPS? There is one fundamental rule that this House and the other place need to bear in mind: if you give a discretion to an official, it will be abused. My general principle is to give as little discretion to officials as possible. The CPS can come along and say, “We will exercise our discretion; we will be moderate and careful”. Some of them will, but many will not. I have a great deal of sympathy with the views expressed by the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with everything that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said. I also agreed with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said. He delivered forcefully and vigorously his strong objections to the scheme going ahead without fuller evaluation. I have to say that I felt that his outrage is synthetic if Labour will not join the Liberal Democrats in voting for my noble friend’s fatal Motion. It has no effect; it is just outrage without action.

The checking requirement is not expected to be onerous—that was a comment in the Government’s Explanatory Memorandum or some guidance document. Elsewhere, they state that a landlord or agent can carry out simple document checks—simple document checks. We have already heard that in fact they will have to refer to the Home Office and wait a couple of days. As the noble Viscount pointed out, landlords do not want to wait: they do not want voids. Tenants will lose the chance of the property. It is a particularly unfair responsibility on small landlords to have to check documents. The noble Lord, Lord Best, said that it was straightforward to do that checking, but that is absolutely not the case.

The judgment in the recent Ryanair case has been mentioned. The judge who found in favour of the airline said that its staff could not be expected to spot cleverly forged passports that even trained immigration officers found hard to detect.

Interesting evidence was given to the committee in the other place by Tony Smith, former director-general of the UK Border Force. He said that when he was regional director of UKBA, his enforcement teams,

“uncovered a significant number of ‘forgery factories’ in London who were manufacturing fake EEA identity cards … mainly being sold to migrants from non EEA countries who were working illegally in the UK. Although these documents would likely be identified as fraudulent at the border”—

there is no guarantee—

“they are usually sufficient to pass the ‘reasonably apparent’ test to an employer. The same is likely to apply to the implementation of landlord sanctions”.

So a former Border Force director says that the number of forgeries in circulation makes it extremely difficult, even for immigration officers. He wrote:

“Although the EU Council has called on all Member States to adopt common designs and security features”,

for identity cards for a decade,

“not all EEA countries have done so”.

Of course, the UK does not have a permanent resident card for foreign nationals with indefinite leave to remain, equivalent to the US green card, so there is no one document.

Even as a Member of the European Parliament, I was dealing with quite a lot of immigration cases, and people would often turn up with a whole batch of letters from the Home Office which apparently attested to their immigration status. I was completely unequipped to work out what they all meant. There was a set of different stamps and letters, instead of one simple document. To put this onus on landlords is not appropriate.

I also do not understand what is apparently regarded as the concession of allowing expired biometric residence documents and immigration status documents to be recognised. How is a landlord to know which expired documents can be relied on and which cannot? Perhaps the Minister can give us an answer to that.

I noticed something in the Financial Times a few months ago that reminded me that a landlord must identify all adult occupiers who will use the property as their main home, whether or not they are named in the tenancy agreement. The columnist wrote that, “Nosiness may be necessary”, to inquire who else is going to live in the property who is not in the tenancy agreement. The column also recommended that you may,

“need to pay for a professional opinion”,

which all raises the cost that will no doubt be passed on in the rent. Noble Lords opposite have made the point about how they only know about these requirements from being Members of this House. Obviously, not all landlords are Members of this House. There has been a suggestion that the dissemination of information will largely rely on electronic media and people knowing where to seek out the information. The Residential Landlords Association made the point that 90% said that they had not received any information from the Government either by email, from an advert, from a leaflet or from the internet, and 72% did not understand their obligations under the policy.

Immigration Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I react with as much puzzlement to the Minister calling the government amendments “technical matters” as my noble friend Lady Hamwee did when the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, called her Amendments 78 to 91 on licensing, “technical amendments”. These are about people’s livelihoods, whether it is a licence or closing premises. It seems an extraordinary use of Executive power for an immigration officer to be able to close premises—a shop or other place of work—under the conditions that have been cited. I cannot see how this complies with the rule of law. There is going to be no transparency in this process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to be able to speak in support of the amendment tabled by my noble friends on the Front Bench. Indeed, I, too, am delighted that this is now my party’s official policy.

The right to work—or, perhaps more accurately, the right to be allowed to undertake paid work—is a human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and incorporated into human rights law as part of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which recognises,

“the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work”.

After the Second World War, TH Marshall wrote that in the economic field, the basic civil right is the right to work. More recently, in 2007—long before I came to this place—the Joint Committee on Human Rights described the denial of the right to work as part of a deliberate policy of destitution, in breach of asylum seekers’ human rights.

The all-party parliamentary inquiry into asylum support, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alton—of which I was a member—talked about how asylum seekers who are not able to undertake paid work lose skills and are unable to provide a role model for their children, and about the impact on their self-esteem, self-confidence and mental health. All this has a damaging effect on their children. A Freedom from Torture report on poverty among torture survivors states:

“Many questionnaire respondents, and most participants in client focus groups, highlighted the importance to them of having permission to work while their asylum claim is decided as a means of supporting themselves and being self-reliant. Indeed, the lack of permission to work for asylum seekers was a major theme of discussion and the key change that focus group respondents called for, although they also recognised that many torture survivors”,

may not be “well enough to work”.

A letter to the Independent at the end of last year asked why asylum seekers are not allowed to work in the UK. It pointed out:

“We have skills to contribute: some of us are doctors, nurses, carers, teachers, builders. But these skills are wasted and deteriorate while we wait for a decision on our asylum applications. We want to contribute to the UK economy and to be part of this society”.

Much of government social policy, whichever party is in power, is premised on the principle that paid work is the primary responsibility and the most important contribution that people make to society, summed up in the rather tired mantra of “hard-working families”. Why should asylum seekers be denied the opportunity for a whole year of joining the happy ranks of hard-working families in the labour market—and even then joining only on very restrictive terms? The evidence shows that this impedes integration. The Home Office’s own research shows that delayed entry into the labour market can cause problems even when refugee status is then granted, leading to high levels of unemployment and underemployment.

We have already heard about what happens in other European countries. My understanding is that most of these countries have fewer applications for asylum than are received in the UK, which does not support the argument that providing the right to work acts as a pull factor. The lack of impact on the number of applicants is confirmed by a study of OECD countries. Indeed, after our last debate on the issue, the then Minister acknowledged the paucity of hard evidence to support the Government’s case. Moreover, as Still Human Still Here argues, it is not very likely that economic migrants would draw themselves to the attention of the authorities by making an asylum claim, so that they might be able to apply for permission to work in a whole six months’ time.

The danger is that asylum seekers will end up in the shadow labour market, facing the kind of exploitation we discussed earlier in the context of undocumented migrants. Indeed, can the Minister say whether, if they do take paid work, they could be caught by Clause 8 —criminalised for working illegally even though they are legally in the UK awaiting a decision on their asylum claim?

I fear that Governments are often timid with regard to the rights of asylum seekers, for fear of public opinion. However, surveys by the IPPR, and the British Social Attitudes survey, show that there is public support for allowing asylum seekers the right to work. The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, in an inquiry into destitution among asylum seekers a few years ago, said:

“Overwhelmingly, giving asylum seekers the right to work was the favoured solution identified”,

by those who gave evidence.

As has been said, we have debated this issue a number of times in your Lordships’ House, even in just the five years that I have been here. Since the previous time we debated it, the financial position of asylum-seeking families has worsened because of the savage cut in asylum support for children. So the cost to them of not being able to undertake paid work is all the greater now, with damaging implications for their mental and physical health and that of their families. I urge the Minister to take this amendment away and think about whether the time has not now come to concede this most basic of human rights.

[Baroness Ludford]

I, too, welcome the support of the Labour Party and its conversion to this cause. It is hugely important and significant. All the considerable benefits of a change in policy have been cited, and I do not need to enumerate them. They are so powerful, and there are only benefits—there are no costs, quite honestly, associated with this policy, except possibly a political one. That is no doubt what the Government fear. So I want to propose a rebranding exercise: to position this not so much as the right to work as the obligation to work—a requirement to work, except for asylum seekers who, for reasons of age or health, cannot do so. We could reframe it in those terms, as we do in the field of welfare. Indeed, a Liberal Democrat policy document from two years ago did exactly that. Why not talk about an obligation on fit asylum seekers to use their skills to benefit themselves, this country and the taxpayer? I think that you would also see a different approach and a different perception from the public, as well as, one hopes, from the Government, if that rebranding were to take place.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

My Lords, first, I welcome all those who now support so vigorously and enthusiastically the right of asylum seekers to work after, say, six months. They have such potential. I know they are not asylum seekers but a third of the doctors and consultants in the hospitals and half the nurses in north Wales are not of Welsh extraction; they are from overseas. We rely on each other. If you go to the hospitals in Liverpool, the same story is told. We work together; we are one world. We have a responsibility towards each other—a responsibility, I suggest, to help everybody, wherever they are from, to reach their potential and to contribute as much as they can to the well-being of the whole community.

I am not going to speak at great length—I would be very unpopular if I did. In any case, everybody else has said what I wanted to say. It is wonderful that we are in an atmosphere of wanting this policy to succeed.

I will say just one thing. Last night I was at a meeting where we spoke of the children in the camps at Calais and Dunkirk. At Dunkirk there are no facilities, and we have all seen the pictures of the children tramping in the mud, which in places is a foot deep. One contributor last night said, “You know, they haven’t had any education for 12 months. They haven’t had any schooling. They are missing out”. Many of those of Arab extraction who are coming to the UK—people who speak the languages of other nations—could become the teachers who help this new generation, and in helping that new generation I am sure we will be doing something to build the kind of world that Lloyd George talked about. He once said that he wanted to build a country fit for heroes to live in. Let us build a world fit for children to live in. We can do it in this Bill by adopting amendments such as the one that is proposed here.

Immigration Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, these amendments, which I support, raise both the role and resources available, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, described, to the Director of Labour Market Enforcement. Reading though the exchanges in another place, it is clear that the Government were uneasy at Report stage about the lack of clarity in the Bill. Otherwise, why would the Minister, Mr James Brokenshire, have given an assurance to the House of Commons that they would go away and reflect on the matter? Therefore, it would be interesting to hear today the outcome of those reflections.

Certainly, looking at what was said in another place, there are some contradictions obvious to anyone who reads those exchanges. The Minister said, for instance, in Committee:

“We intend the director’s remit to cover labour market breaches, not immigration offences”.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee, 27/10/15; col. 163.]

That is very straightforward. However, at a later stage, he said:

“The provision is not intended to stray into the separate issues of immigration enforcement, but if cases of people who are here illegally are highlighted, the director would be duty-bound to report that and to pass on intelligence through the hub that is being created”.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee, 27/10/15; col. 166.]

I would therefore like to know what happens when there is a contradiction between those two roles. Where there is a protective role and an enforcement role, what would be the director’s expected priority in those circumstances? We said throughout the proceedings on the modern day slavery and human trafficking legislation that it should always be victim focused. Is this a derogation from that, or are we simply being consistent with what we did before? The House needs to know before we give this the green light.

I was surprised when the Minister in another place, in refuting the arguments that have been put forward again in your Lordships’ House today, said,

“I simply do not think it is necessary”.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee, 27/10/15; col. 166.]

I wonder why he came to that conclusion, because clarity in legislation is always highly desirable. Otherwise, why would he have wanted to go away and reflect; why would these amendments have been moved in another place; and why would they be here again today? Clearly, something is necessary. Will the Minister, if he cannot put it right today, be agreeable to doing so on Report?

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I share colleagues’ concerns about the lack of clarity of the remit and purpose of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and the indications of a lack of resources for the organisation so far. The Migration Advisory Committee has already been cited, but it is worth mentioning the remarks of Sir David Metcalfe in evidence to the Committee in the other place. He said that funding remains an issue, particularly for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and that:

“In the low-skilled report, we calculated that you would get an inspection from HMRC once every 250 years and you would get a prosecution once in a million years”.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee, 20/10/15; col. 20.]

The odds of bad employers being caught, let alone prosecuted, seem slim. It comes to something when the US State Department is moved to mention the lack of resources. In its Trafficking in Persons Report 2015 it mentioned concern that there needs to be an increase in funds for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. It is a little galling to have to be told by another Government that there are not enough resources, but we could take that to heart. That report also stated that government funding for specialised services for victims of trafficking remains limited. We are judged to be falling down on resources.

I, too, was confused by the exchanges in committee in the other place about the director’s focus outside workers who are here legally. The suggestion seems to be that a labour market offence can be committed only against persons legally in the country, which suggests that others are going to be dealt with through an immigration lens. I add my voice to those who have asked for clarity about whether the director will be focused on employers who most exploit workers, including those without leave to be in this country and to work. Without that wider remit outside legal workers, the director cannot be effective against the worst employers.

I am confused by the number of definitions of worker. We can add to them the definition under EU free movement law, but perhaps that would unnecessarily complicate the matter in hand. However, there seem to be at least three definitions of worker, and it might be sensible to have one.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I understand the questions raised by noble Lords and the dangers of a lack of clarity in this area, but we may be making a bit of a meal of this issue. In the House of Commons, James Brokenshire made the situation fairly plain. Referring to the comment quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, clearly, offences are matters not for the Director of Labour Market Enforcement but for immigration officers. Equally, the director may well want to look at intelligence arising from offences relating to immigration in the context of the strategy he is trying to devise to avoid labour market exploitation. There seems to be a difference between people on the ground who are trying to deal with immigration offences day to day, and the director, who is trying to enact a supervisory role on a rather larger scale.

If I am right about that—I may be wrong, and I fully agree that the situation is confusing and difficult and should be simpler—the amendments put down by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, are mistaken because they tie the director down too much. In practice, we may want the director’s remit to go rather wider and to take into account what he may learn as a consequence of the information he acquires from immigration officers operating on the ground. That is a sensible way to proceed administratively. I may be wrong, and I will listen to what the Minister says, but it seems to me that the situation is rather clearer than we seem to be suggesting.

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.