Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Rosser

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to support the amendment moved so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, this afternoon. I supported her on earlier occasions when we debated these issues. I am particularly pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston, who has returned us to an aspect of the debate which we discussed at earlier stages.

Members of your Lordships’ House may recall the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, during our earlier debates. She focused on the effects on the unborn child of being detained in these stressful circumstances. I referred to work by the late, eminent psychiatrist, Professor Kenneth McCall, who described the effects later in life on children who had been affected by traumatic events that they had experienced in the womb. On the other side of that coin, of course, the world-famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin said that he believed that he learned his love of music during the time that he was in his mother’s womb. So it may be that the empirical evidence needs to be extended and much more work needs to be done around these things—but our own common sense and knowledge of our own human development probably take us in that direction.

But this is not just about concern for the unborn child. The noble Baroness quite rightly reminded us of the recommendations of Stephen Shaw, which were at the very heart of the debate when we looked at this earlier in our proceedings. He of course recommended that there should be an absolute ban—so this falls a long way short of his recommendations. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, in her phrase, “very exceptional”, is reminding the Government that it cannot be right for us to have pregnant women held in detention in these ways.

I was particularly pleased, like the noble Baroness and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to read the remarks of the Conservative Member of Parliament for Enfield, Southgate, David Burrowes, who spoke so well in the other place yesterday. I hope that when the noble and learned Lord comes to reply, he will respond to the concerns that David Burrowes raised and to the remarks of the Royal College of Midwives—referred to earlier by the noble Baroness—which were quite categorical in saying that we should never keep women in these circumstances.

I have one or two questions to put to the noble and learned Lord. What kind of pre-departure accommodation will be made available when a pregnant woman is being held? Will he say a word about that and will he talk about how those particular needs will be met? Will he also assure us that pregnant women will not, for instance, as has happened in the past, be picked up in dawn raids, put in the back of vans and taken miles away to accommodation, with appalling consequences for the women in those circumstances? There are accounts of nauseous experiences, of vomiting and of people being incredibly distressed by those kinds of experiences. This should be in very exceptional circumstances, as the noble Baroness said.

Finally, I underline the point made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Lister, about the second part of Amendment 85E. An odd phrase has been included at this late stage to say that,

“a person who, apart from this section, has power to authorise the detention must have regard to the woman’s welfare”.

Those words—“apart from this section”—are, at the very best, ambiguous, and I really cannot see what point they have. Could the noble and learned Lord enlighten us when he comes to reply?

[Lord Rosser]

Perhaps I could add to the point just made and express the hope that the noble and learned Lord will not only respond to questions raised in this short debate in this House but be doubly determined to do so. I find it extraordinary that when our amendments were discussed in the Commons last night, although they have the not surprising procedure that a Minister opens the debate, there was no reply by a Minister at the end of the debate. So all the legitimate questions raised in that debate after the Minister had finished speaking were not answered at all by the Government. I know very little about House of Commons procedures —that is quite obvious—but it is certainly a fairly remarkable procedure to have a debate where questions are asked of the Government but there is no Minister replying at the end. I hope that that is a defect that the noble and learned Lord will be able to rectify when he replies to this debate.

We accept that the Government have moved on this issue to a position of not allowing the detention of pregnant women beyond 72 hours—or up to a week with the Secretary of State’s approval. This House of course wanted the Government to go further and provide additional safeguards, which were reflected in the amendments sent to the Commons. In the Commons last night, the Minister said that the Government had tabled amendments that made it clear that,

“pregnant women will be detained for the purpose of removal only if they are shortly to be removed from the UK or if there are exceptional circumstances that justify the detention”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/5/16; col. 486.]

As has been said, the Minister went on to say that the guidance will also make it clear that the guidance would also make it clear that the power to detain should be used only in very exceptional circumstances. Why does the government amendment passed last night in the Commons refer to “exceptional circumstances” and not to “very exceptional circumstances”, which is and will continue to be used in the guidance?

What in the Government’s view is the difference in this context between “exceptional circumstances” and “very exceptional circumstances”, since it is they who have decided not to use the same wording in the Bill as is and will continue to be used in the guidelines? Through her amendment, my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett seeks a credible and reassuring answer to that question, and I hope that the Government can provide it.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Rosser

Monday 1st February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I hope the Minister will listen, as I know he usually would, to the contributions that have been made on all sides of your Lordships’ House, but especially to those of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence.

As those contributions were being made, my mind went back to those riots in 1981, of course not just in Brixton but in Toxteth in Liverpool. I had been a young Member of Parliament for about 18 months. In the weeks before the riots occurred, I had raised on the Floor of the House in another place the dangerous relationship that had been deteriorating between police and public in that part of Liverpool. Sir Kenneth Oxford was then the chief constable on Merseyside and he took a very provocative view towards the black community in that neighbourhood. I was not entirely surprised when, on a hot summer’s night in 1981, I was asked to come urgently to Upper Parliament Street, where two and a half days of rioting began, in which 1,000 policemen ended up in the local hospital. I dread to think what would have happened if guns had been so readily and easily available on the streets then as they often are now.

As a result of those riots, I visited the home of the young man who had been involved at the very outset, Leroy Cooper, who was a constituent of mine. I sat with him and his father as they described to me how the trigger had taken place on the street in Lodge Lane in Liverpool as an overzealous policeman confronted this young man. It was a traffic incident, which plays exactly into the amendments before your Lordships’ House today—not a car but a motorcycle—and, as a consequence of the anger that had been building up for some time, it erupted and riots occurred which had a devastating effect.

The overuse of stop and search powers at that time, which had been part of the incident, was set aside in the months and years that followed and a much different form of policing emerged. Bernard Hogan-Howe, who became the assistant chief constable on Merseyside, played a leading part in the introduction of strong community policing, having learned the lessons of what had gone before. It would be a tragedy if we were now to turn the clock back. I hope therefore that the Minister will think very carefully about and look at the terms of this very good amendment, Amendment 160, which says that,

“the authorised officer has reasonable grounds to believe the power should be exercised urgently”.

It does not take away the powers. As the right reverend Prelate said, those powers already exist in plenty of statute if there is a need to intervene. But something that could be used and seen as a deliberate attack on one part of our community will do nothing to enhance community relations. It will not foster good policing in our cities and could actually have a deleterious effect.

For all those reasons, I hope that the Minister will think very carefully about the arguments that have been deployed today. If he cannot agree today, I hope he will at least hold meetings with Members of your Lordships’ House between now and Report to see whether this could be modified.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My noble friend Lady Lawrence of Clarendon has eloquently set out the reasons for her concerns about Clauses 17 and 18, which create an offence of driving when unlawfully in the UK and give powers to carry out searches relating to driving offences. The Bill provides a power for an authorised officer—police or immigration officers or third parties designated by the Secretary of State—to search premises, including a vehicle or residence, where the officer has reasonable grounds for believing that an individual is in possession of a driving licence, is not lawfully resident and the licence is on the premises.

As has already been said, the National Black Police Association has expressed concern at the potential of these provisions to undermine vital work promoting good relations between police and the communities they serve, saying that they could result in a return to the days of sus laws and the police being seen as part of the Immigration Service. Evidence indicates that black and minority ethnic drivers are around twice as likely to be stopped as white drivers.

The situation will not have been made any easier by evidence given by the police to the Commons Public Bill Committee when, as my noble friend Lady Lawrence of Clarendon said, a Metropolitan Police chief superintendent explained that they already had a power to stop any vehicle to ascertain ownership and driver details and, having done that, they would then inquire into whether the driver had the authority to drive that vehicle. He went on to say that, to fall within the new provisions in the Bill that we are debating, the police would then most likely need to do a further check with the immigration authorities, which at that stage would give them reasonable grounds—but not necessarily proof—based on a search of the immigration database to believe that the person driving was an illegal immigrant. In other words, these clauses relating to driving could effectively result in adding a routine immigration check into a traffic-stop regime which many in black and minority ethnic groups already regard as operating in a discriminatory fashion.

The points that have been made by my noble friend Lady Lawrence, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark and others about the impact of these two clauses on fostering distrust and disharmony between the police and the public require a full and considered response from the Government, including the Government’s assessment of the impact on community cohesion if they disagree with what has been said on these proposed measures. This is yet another potential example in the Bill of measures that are intended by the Government to encourage illegal migrants to depart, by making it harder for them to live and work here, having highly likely unintended adverse consequences—this time for the role of the police, community relations and racial harmony.

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Rosser

Monday 23rd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, indicated, I am one of those who put my name to the amendment, and I am very happy to add my support to it in a short intervention this evening. Before doing so, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said about the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of both the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, in dealing with Members from all sides of the House during the passage of this legislation, whether in the series of meetings organised in your Lordships’ House or in the face-to-face meetings with some of us who participated at the Home Office. We are all grateful to them for that. It is exemplary and it should recommend itself to other Ministers who are keen to facilitate their legislation through Parliament. This, of course, does not mean that we have always been of one mind or that we are necessarily going to agree about Amendment 27 to Clause 40.

The issue is the accountability of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. I suspect that it may be one of those issues where we will not find agreement because it cuts right into lines of accountability through the Home Office. Departmental issues may take precedence over what I think may well be the private views of members of the Government but which they may not be able to voice here this evening.

The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, is commendable for its clarity. However, as he also indicated, it is a shrewd amendment, not least because it is based on the Children and Families Act 2014. If what we did a year ago was right in that context, surely it is right to follow exactly that precedent here again this evening.

It seems to me that one of the most important things is to recognise that, however good the nature or good will of individual Ministers, they, and even Home Secretaries, come and go. We are in a period where we face a general election. There may be a different set of Ministers—perhaps from the same party or maybe from other parties—in the very near future, so assurances given on the Floor of your Lordships’ House in the course of debate, even though they are given in good faith, cannot carry over in the same way that legislation carries over. Parliament does not come and go, unlike individual Ministers, and that is why it is so important that we place these words on the face of the Bill.

There have been plenty of precedents where uncomfortable, inconvenient and untimely issues have arisen, and departments have endeavoured to shelve them or kick them into the long grass, to suppress them or simply to ignore them. This amendment would prevent that. If we deemed such a provision to be necessary to protect children, surely it is necessary to protect victims of slavery, many of whom will in any case be children.

In a letter to me just a couple of days ago, on 20 February, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, Mr Kevin Hyland, said:

“My independence will be unwavering, whether that be toward law enforcement, government, the private sector or indeed any organisation”.

I repeat:

“My independence will be unwavering”,

in the direction of government, as he specifically states. Either he is independent or he is not, and this amendment gives him the parliamentary access which will guarantee him that unwavering independence. I hope that this evening the Government will indicate either that they will take this matter away and look at it between now and Third Reading or that they will recognise the spirit in which the amendment is being moved by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and give some guarantees to the effect that he is seeking.

[Lord Rosser]

While the government amendment is welcome in extending the remit of the anti-slavery commissioner and allowing the commissioner to appoint his or her own staff, there are other areas where there still appear to be constraints on the commissioner's independence.

The commissioner must still seek prior approval of strategic plans from the Home Secretary on his or her activities and areas of focus, and annual reports may also be subject to redaction before they are laid before Parliament and published. Apart from the impact on the commissioner’s independence, it is not clear within what timeframe this checking and seeking clearance has to be undertaken in order to avoid the prospect of delays, for example, in the publication of a report or the approval of a plan or programme. The delaying of the publication of reports by the Home Office is an experience apparently not unknown to Mr Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration.

Annual reports from the anti-slavery commissioner may be redacted on the grounds that material may jeopardise the safety of an individual, prejudice an investigation or, in the view of the Secretary of State, be against the interests of national security. Perhaps the Minister could say how frequently it has been necessary to redact reports where the same conditions and criteria as it is proposed to place on the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner’s reports already apply in relation to comparable commissioners or bodies.

As has been said, following the passing of the Children and Families Act 2014, the Children’s Commissioner can bring any matter to the attention of Parliament. And again, as has already been said, the Explanatory Notes to the 2014 Act state that the commissioner might do this, for example, through annual reports to Parliament or by writing to the chair of a relevant Select Committee. Under the 2014 Act, the Children’s Commissioner must as soon as possible lay a copy of his or her annual report before each House of Parliament.

In his letter of 16 February, the Minister said that,

“the Government’s intention has always been that the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner will be independent”.

But it appears that there are varying degrees of independence—or lack of independence, depending on which way one wants to look at it. Perhaps the noble Lord could say whether the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner will be in the same position when laying his annual report before each House of Parliament or writing to the chair of a relevant Select Committee as is the Children’s Commissioner under the Children and Families Act 2014—and, if the answer is no, why that should be the case.

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Rosser

Monday 8th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I, too, would like to raise one or two questions about Schedule 3, since my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley has given us the opportunity to consider it.

As I understand it, under Clause 45, a victim is not guilty of an offence only if they have done the act which constitutes the offence because they have been compelled to do that act, the compulsion is attributable to slavery or the relevant exploitation and a reasonable person in the same situation as the person, and having the person’s relevant characteristics, would have no realistic alternative to doing that act. If the victim has managed to meet these requirements, Clause 45(1) still does not apply if the offence committed is listed in Schedule 3, which, as has already been pointed out in another way, extends to six and a half pages of offences. Some are easily understandable for being on that list, such as murder, manslaughter and kidnapping, but others are not so obvious bearing in mind the requirements under Clause 45 that the victim will already have had to meet in order to use Clause 45 as a defence.

In view of that, how does the Minister justify the need for such an extensive list of offences for which a victim can be found guilty even though they have met the three requirements to which I have already referred under Clause 45(1)? How and against what criteria was this list of offences compiled? To look at one example, included in the list is an offence under Section 25 of the Immigration Act 1971 of assisting unlawful immigration to a member state, which is an offence one might normally associate with a trafficker rather than the victim. Is there evidence that victims of trafficking are committing this offence of assisting unlawful immigration to a member state unrelated to their being trafficked themselves? If there is, is it also appropriate that they could be found guilty of such an offence, despite meeting the requirements in respect of compulsion and the reasonable person test under Clause 45(1) to show that they cannot be guilty of an offence unless it is listed in Schedule 3?

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, I am puzzled by this. In Part 5, Clause 45(1) seems clearly to set out, in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), under what terms prosecution would ensue or not ensue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, has rightly told us, the danger with lists is that there may well be things that have not been included on the list that might in due course pertain. I simply ask what may be an entirely innocent and naive question: why is it not possible to put in the Bill a generic term rather than having to have all these details in the legislation?

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Rosser

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, has undoubtedly drawn attention, as he did at Second Reading, to the abuse of people who are under tied visa arrangements. We await with interest the Government’s response to the points that he has made. We are associated with Amendment 94, which will be debated much later, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, has added his name, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, as well as my noble friend Lady Royall of Blaisdon. The amendment seeks to insert a new clause entitled “Protection from slavery for overseas domestic workers”, which would enable such workers to change their employment and not remain under the tied visa arrangements. That is the goal that we, and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and others, seek to achieve. Amendment 94 will be debated later. For the moment, we await the Government’s response to the two amendments to which the noble Lord has spoken.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I would very much like to support my noble friend Lord Hylton, and I follow the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in his support for Amendments 28 and 95. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has rightly reminded us that when we get to Amendment 94 there will be a chance to have a wider debate about the whole question of the overseas domestic worker visa.

Many of us would say that the subject of denying someone the right to go to an employment tribunal—that is what my noble friend’s Amendment 28 specifically deals with—is a sort of curtain-raiser to the debate that will come later. Enabling migrant domestic workers to change employer, to apply to renew their visa annually if in full-time employment, and to have the right to go to an employment tribunal, would be a significant step towards preventing abuses against migrant domestic workers, including forced labour for their employers, and would enable them to seek redress without fearing deportation from the United Kingdom.

My noble friend Lord Hylton has a long and honourable record of raising this question for all the years that I have been in your Lordships’ House, so it comes as no surprise to me that he has tabled these amendments. He is not, of course, alone in raising this question. Amnesty International UK, the Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit, the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group, Human Rights Watch, the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, Kalayaan and Liberty are among those who support moves in this direction.

Evidence since the introduction of the tied ODW visa in 2012 demonstrates how the current tied visa system facilitates the abuse of migrant domestic workers in the UK and therefore undermines the objectives of this timely and very welcome Bill and the Government’s efforts to fight modern slavery. Because of its deleterious effects, the 2012 decision, whether it was made wittingly or otherwise, is something we need to return to in the course of our deliberations, to see what we can do about it.

The Joint Committee on the draft Modern Slavery Bill identified the 2012 policy as having,

“unintentionally strengthened the hand of the slave master against the victim of slavery”,

and said:

“Tying migrant domestic workers to their employer institutionalises their abuse”.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights reported that it,

“regards the removal of the right of an Overseas Domestic Worker to change employer as a backward step in the protection of migrant domestic workers, particularly as the pre-2012 regime had been cited internationally as good practice, and recommends that the Bill be amended to reverse the relevant changes to the Immigration Rules and to reinstate the pre-2012 protections in the Bill”.

We have heard a great deal already today about the importance of having what my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss described earlier as flagship legislation. I know that it is the Government’s wish that this should be seen as an international gold standard piece of legislation that others will be able to imitate, and that they hope it would be capable of implementation worldwide. But that is in doubt unless we put right this defect that was incorporated into our legislation. I recognise that it may not be possible to do that today, but I hope that when the noble Baroness replies to the debate she will indicate to my noble friend that we will continue to discuss this issue to see what we can do to remedy something that was done in 2012 and has, wittingly or unwittingly, brought about these consequences. One of those consequences is, as is highlighted in Amendment 28, that people are prevented from having access to employment tribunals.