Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules

Lord Oates Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Oates]

That this House regrets the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules (HC 556), published on 19 February, in particular the provisions preventing overseas care workers from bringing family to the United Kingdom, as this will (1) deprive migrant care workers of the basic right of caring for their own children, (2) increase workers’ dependency on their sponsors by removing the safety net of a partner’s income, and (3) make it harder for workers to report and change sponsors, increasing the risk of exploitation.

Relevant document: 16th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Work Rights Centre for its briefing and support, and for all its efforts to protect working people from exploitation. I am also grateful to the Kenyan Nurses and Midwives Association UK, the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project, the Cavendish Coalition, and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation for their briefing.

Noble Lords will not be surprised to learn that my remarks tonight will be heavily critical of the Government so, before I embark on them—and as I may not have another chance before change comes at the next election —I put on record my personal respect for the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, and my thanks to him for his rapid and humane responses to the immigration issues I have frequently raised with him.

This regret Motion concerns the Government’s Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules on 19 February, which came into effect on 11 March. The Statement implements part of the announcements made by the Home Secretary on 4 December 2023. This includes preventing overseas care workers from bringing their dependants to the UK, and a requirement that care providers in England that wish to sponsor migrant workers are registered with the Care Quality Commission. Regrettably, these changes will do little to combat exploitation in the care sector. Arguably, they will encourage and entrench it.

Before I go into further detail on this point, I express particular regret at the notion that carers arriving in the UK will no longer be able to bring their children with them. This troubles me deeply. We are asking care workers to care for our loved ones, but we are denying them the right to do the same in respect of their own children and partners. The Government have stated that they do not expect a significant reduction in the demand for care roles because of this change. Given the Government’s failure to provide an impact assessment to accompany these changes, a fact highlighted by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, neither we nor the Government can know this. Only time will tell, but I will certainly be surprised if the changes do not lead to a fall in the experience and quality of care workers who wish to come to the United Kingdom.

This concern appears validated by the work of two organisations, the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe and the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network, which support over 100 women healthcare workers who received their work permits before the changes took place and therefore have a right to have their children join them. However, they are repeatedly being refused visas for their children. The distress and anxiety of leaving a child behind are overwhelming, and many of these women choose to return home rather than continue to be parted from their children. One of these women describes the pain of separation from her teenage son as follows:

“The separation has strained the emotional bond between us. I am not in his life during this critical teenage stage. It’s devastating not to be in the daily life of your child. It is having a negative impact on his future. In truth I am now a depressed caregiver. This in turn affects my work as well. A happy carer makes happy clients”.


These women are exceptional people. Some are graduates and university lecturers, and many have medical qualifications —they are nurses, midwives and senior nurses. They have skills and experience that our country will not benefit from if we enforce the separation of care workers from their children and partners.

However, regardless of whether the number of care workers or the level of their experience falls or stays the same, we should ask ourselves whether this change is morally right. What sort of country are we if we exploit the contribution that care workers make to the well-being of our communities but implement rules that separate them from their communities and their children, across continents and against their will? We need to think carefully about this issue and how we ourselves would feel were such a situation to affect us and our families.

Separating parents from their children is terrible in itself, but there are other consequences that the ban on dependants is likely to have. The Work Rights Centre points out that the ban, which includes a ban on partners, is likely to do two things: first, to force carers into acquiescent exploitative working conditions and, secondly, to make it more likely that carers will be forced into destitution. This is because the income of partners is one of the only lifelines that migrant care workers have to support themselves when exiting an exploitative workplace. It is also often a vital source of income, given the cost of living pressures in the UK.

Turning to the first issue, migrant care workers are vulnerable because their visas rely on employer sponsorship. The latest intelligence report from the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, the government agency tasked with tackling exploitation, noted that the most common vulnerability among potential victims of forced and compulsory labour in the UK was the potential victim being tied into a visa sponsorship arrangement with an employer. The report states:

“This on occasions led to workers being forced to work for the employer even if the conditions were unacceptable and the employer using the threat of cancelling the sponsorship if the worker complained”.


If sponsorship is revoked, workers have only 60 days to find another registered sponsor before becoming undocumented. Two months’ time is simply not enough time; not only do workers have to find a new employer who has a sponsor licence in that period but they also have to secure confirmation of a job offer and they need to submit new visa applications for themselves and any family members. To make matters more difficult, there is no central job search portal to match migrant workers in this situation with legitimate employers who have a sponsor licence.

With regard to the second issue, migrant care workers and their partners arriving in the UK depend on the money that they are able to earn while working in the sector; they do not have recourse to public funds and, in social care, they are paid at notoriously low rates. Many migrant workers opt for the additional 20 hours a week that is permitted under the health and care work visa in order to supplement their income, and many often need their partner’s income to meet the cost of living. A central concern here is that, without addressing the vulnerability that underlies work sponsorship or tackling the issues of low pay in the sector, banning migrant care workers from bringing their partners to the UK will do little but increase cost of living pressures and financially disincentivise people from reporting exploitation. That is before we consider whether it is right that those emigrating to the UK to work in our social care sector and make a valuable contribution to our society should be denied the ability to do so with their loved ones by their side.

I come now to the new CQC registration requirement, designed to combat the increasing and disturbing evidence of exploitation of sponsored workers in the care sector. Regrettably, the evidence suggests that these changes are unlikely to achieve this important objective. There have been recent media reports concerning sponsor licences being issued by the Home Office to companies purporting to provide care but with a very limited corporate history or track record of actually doing so. Some of these companies were successfully registered with the CQC before being given sponsor licences, although they had never been subject to CQC inspection. This has resulted in sponsored workers arriving in the UK to find that there is no work and being forced into precarious situations by rogue actors to whom they are often indebted.

These revelations suggest that merely being registered with the CQC is not a sufficient measure to prevent exploitation. Stakeholders have identified a number of loopholes—for example, that care providers can register with the CQC but then make this registration dormant. The provider is not then subject to inspection or other regulation by the CQC, and its dormant status is not listed on the CQC’s website. Stakeholders have expressed concerns that these dormant providers are obtaining sponsor licences.

These loopholes give rise to a number of questions, which I hope the Minister can answer this evening. First, why do the Government not impose a requirement that care providers wishing to sponsor migrant workers should either have been subject to inspection in the recent past or must be inspected before a licence to sponsor is issued? Secondly, have the Government considered imposing a minimum inspection rating as a requirement before care providers are eligible to sponsor? Thirdly, what measures do the Government intend to put in place to assess the impact of these changes so that the Home Office can properly assess whether they are delivering on the objective of ending care worker exploitation?

The truth is that this measure, while it has the veneer of action against exploitation, is without any real teeth to ensure that that exploitation is actually stamped out. The CQC has not been provided with new powers to investigate labour exploitation within the care workforce. Indeed, that is not its responsibility. The CQC is clear that its focus is on the quality of care that is delivered, not on labour exploitation. The CQC obviously has a vital role to play in regulating the social care sector in England, but the Home Office cannot abdicate its responsibility to properly audit employers before and after sponsor licences are given out.

On this note, the report of the former Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration into the immigration system and its role in the care sector is deeply concerning. It highlighted, among other things, the inappropriateness of the sponsor licensing regime for the sector and the mismatch between the Home Office’s meagre complement of compliance officers and the ever-expanding register of licensed sponsors. Senior Home Office staff and managers told the inspector’s team that Home Office guidance is not sufficiently stringent to enable refusals of sponsor licence applications, even where significant concerns exist.

In light of these findings, will the Minister outline what improvements have been made to empower sponsor compliance case workers to refuse the licence applications of abusive employers at the earliest possible stage? If the department cannot instigate a greater number of sponsor inspections, how will it change guidance so that it does not remain flexible and enabling for exploitative sponsors? How is the Home Office protecting migrant workers who, as a result of enforcement action against sponsors, are left destitute and indebted? These are key questions, the answers to which are extremely unclear.

I close by paying heartfelt tribute to all those who come to this country to work in our health and care sectors in difficult circumstances and often on low pay. They make an immeasurable contribution to our country and the well-being of our communities. I hope, therefore, that the Government will reconsider their approach so that we can ensure that they are all protected from exploitation, are able to have a decent standard of living and are afforded the rights to family life that we would expect for ourselves. I beg to move.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Oates has done us all a favour by ensuring that we are able to have this debate today—a debate which, as he has pointed out to us, involves some of the most vulnerable people coming to this country in order to fill a need that we have. It is that need that has brought me here to make a contribution today.

The debate is particularly timely, given that we had the Government earlier today making a Statement in which they seemed incredibly pleased with themselves because there had been a reduction of over 20% in the number of health and social care visas that were issued during the first three months of the year. That reduction with which the Government are so inordinately pleased is an area of significant concern for those of us who worry about the provision of health and social care services.

There are three possible hypotheses for why we saw that reduction. The first is that the need for health and social care workers was only temporary—that we have now filled all the jobs and therefore no longer need those migrant workers. That seems quite a stretch to me. The second is that the reduction represents the fact that some of the fraud and abuse in the system has been squeezed out—those visas were not actually necessary, so now the new processes have squeezed them out. I am sure that that is what the Government hope is happening. The third is that there continue actually to be significant shortages but somehow we have managed to contrive through these changes to change the system such that we are putting people off, for the very good reasons that my noble friend described —for example, there are people who simply will not come now, even though we desperately need them, because they cannot bring their family members with them.

If that latter scenario is true then we are storing up trouble. We can imagine that we will be back here in six months’ time, having to make changes again because our health and social care system is crying out for those workers. That kind of yo-yo effect does a disservice both to the health and social care system and to our reputation. We are perhaps a little imperial in thinking that people out there think of the UK as the only option; they have a lot of options. As long as the UK presents a good option, people from countries will come here. However, if we are yo-yoing—saying that we want them today but not tomorrow, and making it easy today but difficult tomorrow—then people will explore other options. When we issue the call for help because we need it, fewer people will answer. From a health and social care point of view, this is extremely concerning.

I would be interested to hear from the Minister what mix of those scenarios he thinks is correct: that we have put people off who we actually need; that we do not need them any more; or that there was just a lot of fraud in the system, and we have now squeezed that out and therefore everything is fine and at a steady state.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, I also thank all noble Lords who have spoken, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Oates, who tabled this Motion and has therefore given us the opportunity to discuss these important issues. Before I address the points raised, I will start by summarising the changes that have come into effect.

On 4 December, the Home Secretary announced a package of changes aimed at reducing the overall level of net migration and tackling abuse in the social care sector. From 11 March, those being sponsored to work as care workers or senior care workers have been unable to apply with dependants. As we have seen with the latest statistics that were published yesterday, since May 2023 there have been, on average, 20,000 dependant applications per month under the health and care visa. That is unsustainable, so we had to act. We also now require any care service seeking to sponsor care workers in England to be providing regulated services and be registered with the Care Quality Commission.

However, the Government of course continue to be immensely grateful for the vital contribution that health and social care workers from across the world make, and we recognise their commitment in keeping vital services running and, obviously, in saving lives. As the noble Lord, Lord Oates, noted, they are of course exceptional people.

The Government have provided substantial support for health and care professionals, over and above what other sectors get. We launched the health and care visa in August 2020, making it easier, cheaper and quicker for health workers to come to the UK to work, compared to other immigration routes. As we have seen in the immigration statistics, the sector makes very good use of the immigration system to ensure it has the workers it needs. Building on that, we added care workers to the shortage occupation list and health and care visas on 15 February 2022. Since this time, the Home Office have issued over 100,000 visas to care workers and senior care workers, before even considering dependants accompanying and joining them. These roles remain on the immigration salary list, maintaining access to these workers for the sector.

While we have a generous visa offering in place for the sector, the Government also have commitments in reducing overall numbers coming to the UK, and we have taken action to address that. Let me be clear that the provisions that came into force on 11 March apply to new applications and will not affect those already sponsored to work as a care worker or senior care worker through the health and care visa before that date. That includes those who were sponsored before the rules had changed but who have not brought dependants to the UK yet. In addition, there is a provision allowing children born in the UK to regularise their stay.

The Government recognise that the measure to prevent care workers and senior care workers from applying with dependants will dissuade some people from applying. However, given the large volume of applications, we believe that there will still be people willing to apply for care worker and senior care worker roles, and our offer to those carers is still very competitive.

There is no evidence yet on the quality issue that the noble Lord, Lord Oates, raised, but we will keep that under review. I also note that medically qualified individuals possibly have other routes available to them that may allow for dependants to accompany them.

I turn to the points raised in the Motion. We have clearly set out the position that individuals will need to determine whether they wish to make an application with the full knowledge that those working in care worker and senior care worker roles will not be able to apply with dependants. As I have said, we believe that we still have a very generous offer for those who wish to work in social care.

All noble Lords have raised concerns about individuals having an increased reliance on sponsors as a result of not having family in the UK. I accept that this may be a possibility, but it is also arguable that a person having to consider the impact of leaving a job, which might affect an entire family, has greater reason to stay than an individual without a family to support. I also caution that only 25% of dependants are estimated to be in work, meaning that many would not be able to rely on additional income to support the family in any event. I also do not believe that these changes make it harder to report or change an employer. I must say that we will not tolerate any instances of abuse by employers and, where we see evidence of it, we will take action.

Officials from the Home Office and the DHSC are working closely with the sector to improve their interactions with the immigration system and to help target non-compliance and exploitation. We strongly condemn offering employment to health and care worker visa holders under false pretences. Those found operating unlawfully may face prosecution and/or removal from the sponsorship register.

During UKVI compliance work, we have encountered a significant number of non-genuine employers and, in very high numbers, employers not being able to evidence hours of work available to migrants. That has led to two strands of action. First, considerable scrutiny is applied to employers who are asking to bring over a migrant worker, to ensure that they have enough work guaranteed to occupy that worker in addition to their current workforce. Secondly, compliance activity is being taken against employers currently sponsoring migrant workers when they are either unfit to do so or do not have sufficient work levels available for that migrant. Given the level of displaced workers and abuse in the sector—and the need to operate a fair immigration system that treats all workers, employers and sectors equally—it would not be appropriate to relax those requirements for the care sector.

The Home Office has also dedicated resource to policing the sponsorship system to ensure that sponsors adhere to their duties and wider UK law. A person who is sponsored to work in the UK is linked to that employer, but they are free to seek alternative sponsorship and to make a new application if they do not believe that they are being treated fairly. If a person were here with a family and decided to leave their job, they would still need to find alternative sponsored employment before their leave was curtailed. As I mentioned earlier, the additional income from a working partner would help only if they were one of the 25% of dependants estimated to be in employment. Those individuals whose sponsor’s licence has been revoked can seek alternative employment, providing they have a job offer from a Home Office-approved sponsor and make a new application. Work is under way, across government, with the sector to address unethical recruitment practices and to signpost migrants to help with their rights.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for bringing up the subject of the domestic workforce, because a lot of work is being done on that and I welcome the opportunity to run through it quickly. We remain committed to developing the domestic workforce by investing in retention through better workforce training, recognition and career progression. We are launching a new career structure for care workers, so that all staff can build their careers and more experienced care workers are recognised for their skills. We are creating a new qualification and digital skills record to reduce the need for retraining costs and additional training time for care workers every time they might move employer. Reduced retraining also means that care workers can spend more time caring for people. We are increasing funding for learning and development, creating thousands of new training places, so that care workers can improve their skills and gain qualifications.

The Government have made available up to £8.6 billion in additional funding over the financial years 2023-24 and 2024-25 to support adult social care and discharge. That includes the £500 million announced this January, which has been made available specifically to support local authorities with the cost of social care in 2024-25. We provided £15 million for the 2023-24 financial year to help local areas to establish support arrangements for ethical international recruitment in adult social care and bolster the workforce. We are also working with the DWP to promote adult social care careers to jobseekers, and funding sector partners to provide support to employers and commissioners to improve recruitment and retention.

The noble Lord, Lord Allan, asked a number of questions about immigration non-compliance and migrant exploitation. As I have said, we are working very closely with the Department of Health and Social Care on that. UKVI also works closely with law enforcement counterparts on areas that it identifies go beyond immigration non-compliance. He invited me to speculate on the type of offences that may be committed, but I obviously cannot do that because I do not know. Some of those may well represent fraud, but it would not be for me to say. As I also mentioned, we have a large number of compliance officers who ensure that the system is properly policed.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked a perfectly good question about the impact assessment. A full impact assessment has not been published, and I have been before the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to discuss the matter. We published a Statement on the estimated impact on immigration in December 2023. The Government are still working through assumptions on the impact assessment, but we intend to publish it as soon as that work has been completed. The estimated impact on visa in-flows was published in December 2023, which estimated a 22% reduction based on the number of workers who could be matched to the register of CQC-regulated businesses—equivalent to around 20,000, if the rule had been in place in the year to September 2023.

Noble Lords will be aware that the Government are committed to bringing down the overall level of net migration. We believe that the package of measures announced on 4 December strikes the right balance between cutting the numbers of people who come to the UK and attracting those with the required skills and experience. Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for the opportunity to discuss this important issue—and for his very kind words—and all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I will read the report of it carefully and, if I have not answered any questions, I will do so by letter.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and all noble Lords who have participated in the debate. A number of important points have been made, but I fear that he may be a little complacent about the ability of care workers who feel that they are being exploited to leave their employment and find other employment. It is an incredibly difficult situation for them, and things certainly do not seem to operate in that way.

There are very important issues around the enforcement of and resources for compliance. The Minister seemed to suggest that the Home Office had the necessary resources for that job but, as I pointed out, that was certainly not the view of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, also made an important point about the idea of a single enforcement authority, because we need absolute clarity about who is enforcing things.

I am particularly grateful to my noble friends Lord Allan and Lady Hamwee for taking part in this debate and for, as always, bringing important thoughts to it. I also thank her for the passion that she has always shown on these issues.

I would have wished to divide the Chamber on this matter in different circumstances, but that might not be the wisest idea tonight. I am sure that we will return to the issue in due course. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion to Regret.

Motion withdrawn.

Certificate of Sponsorship: Foreign Health and Care Workers

Lord Oates Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Oates]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they will take action to ensure that care providers who issue out-of-country certificates of sponsorship to foreign health and care workers provide sufficient work to allow them a living wage while resident in the United Kingdom.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Borders (Lord Murray of Blidworth) (Con)]

My Lords, the Home Office’s sponsor licence system places clear and binding requirements and obligations on employers, including paying the required salary, looking to recruit and manage overseas employees across all sectors, including care. Should an employer be found in breach of these requirements, we will swiftly take action and can remove its ability to recruit from overseas.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. Is he aware that those requirements are frequently not complied with? Is he aware that the Kenyan and Zimbabwean diasporas report certificates of sponsorship regularly being sold in those countries for many thousands of pounds to care workers who, when they arrive, are not provided with sufficient hours of work to enable them to live, leaving many indebted and destitute? Will the Government end this scandal by requiring a minimum number of hours of work to be provided, and enforcing compliance through an audit of HMRC records held for every employer for whom a certificate of sponsorship is issued?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The rules provide that care workers must be paid at least £20,960 per annum, not lower than £10.75 per hour based on a 37.5 hour working week. The Government do not tolerate illegal activity in the labour market. Any accusations of illegal employment practices will be thoroughly investigated, and it goes without saying that we strongly condemn the offering of health and care worker visas under false pretences.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Lord Oates Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Oates]

103: After Clause 187, insert the following new Clause—
“International Anti-Corruption Court
(1) Within six months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must seek to begin negotiations with international partners to establish an International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC).(2) It is to be the objective of the Secretary of State in the negotiations to secure that the IACC has the following purposes—(a) to hear cases of international economic corruption, and(b) to sentence persons to appropriate punishment for international economic corruption.(3) The Secretary of State must lay a report before each House of Parliament within a year of the passing of this Act on the progress of the negotiations.(4) In this section “international economic corruption” means offences which if committed in the United Kingdom would constitute an offence mentioned in paragraph 15 of Schedule 9.”

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who cannot be in the Committee today, I rise to move Amendment 103 in his name, my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Wheatcroft and Lady Altmann. In doing so, I pay tribute to his tireless efforts in exposing corruption, particularly the key role he played in bringing the kleptocracy of former South African president Jacob Zuma to the world’s attention.

This amendment would require the UK Government to begin negotiations for the establishment of an international anti-corruption court, or IACC, within six months of the passing of this Bill. International corruption is estimated to cost $2 trillion, or 5% of global GDP, every year. In a 2021 report, the UN High-level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity calculated that as much as 2.7% of global GDP is laundered by criminals through illicit global financial flows. While these opaque transactions occur in all countries, they have a much heavier impact on low and middle-income countries. The Washington-based organisation Global Financial Integrity found in its most recent report that from 2004 to 2013 developing and emerging economies lost $7.8 trillion in illicit financial flows—around 10 times more than the entire sum of foreign aid, including aid from the UK, that they received over the same period. Illicit outflows are increasing rapidly at an average rate of 6.5% per year, nearly twice as fast as global GDP.

A substantial proportion of that corruption comprises theft by a nation’s leaders of state funds for their own use—in other words, kleptocracy. Putting an end to that kleptocracy and recovering assets stolen by corrupt leaders would enable millions of the poorest in our world to be adequately housed, clothed and fed by helping prevent national treasuries being looted to line the pockets of corrupt politicians and their business cronies.

That so many kleptocrats succeed is not because of a lack of domestic laws; there are 189 parties to the UN Convention against Corruption. Most of them have complied with their obligations under the convention to have appropriate domestic anti-corruption legislation, but to facilitate their criminal activities kleptocrats have gutted their domestic criminal justice systems and taken control of the prosecuting authorities, police and, frequently, courts. There is no better current illustration than President Putin, who with his oligarch accomplices has looted the country.

Another prime example, whom I have mentioned already, is former South African President Jacob Zuma, who with his business cronies the Gupta brothers looted on an industrial scale and deliberately disabled police and prosecutors, so much so that the country was estimated to have lost fully one-fifth of its GDP during his infamous state-captured decade. Across the border in Zimbabwe, the ZANU-PF regime is mired in corruption, which has robbed the Zimbabwean people of what should be a bright economic future. Instead of serving the people, regime leaders, aided by corrupt businesspeople and a prosecutorial and judicial system entirely captured by the ruling party, loot the country at will. Just last week, opposition politician Jacob Ngarivhume was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment simply for calling for peaceful protests against corruption in July 2020.

Few of these kleptocrats keep their ill-gotten gains at home. Billions of dollars of stolen assets are laundered in a number of countries, including China, Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore, Monaco, Switzerland, some states of the United States, UK overseas territories and, shamefully, London. Recently, the Al Jazeera documentary “Gold Mafia” secretly filmed Zimbabwe officials and business contacts conspiring to launder illicit funds. Those filmed included at least three British citizens—Uebert Angel, Rikki Doolan and Kamlesh Pattni—who made clear on camera their willingness to act corruptly. I know that the Minister cannot comment on those individual cases, but I hope that the National Crime Agency is investigating the activities of these individuals and others named in the documentary and the sources of their wealth, and that the authorities will not hesitate to freeze their funds while these investigations are being pursued.

However, while British authorities can act on crimes committed under UK jurisdiction, there is no international mechanism to prosecute kleptocrats and to seize and return their illicit funds. This gaping vacuum can be filled only by establishing an international anti-corruption court that can hold corrupt leaders and their co-conspirators accountable.

If some of the countries where laundered funds are held would join such a court, the stolen assets could be frozen and then, through orders of restitution, be repatriated to the countries from which they were stolen. If the risk of those funds being misused if returned to a corrupted state are too high, they could be repurposed and repatriated only at a time when they would reach the real victims: the millions in need in those countries.

The envisioned court would have jurisdiction over crimes committed by nationals of an IACC member state and crimes committed on the territory of an IACC member state. It would enforce existing national anti-corruption legislation and would be a complementary new international counterpart to these laws against kleptocrats and their collaborators.

The IACC would be a court of last instance, meaning that it would acquire jurisdiction only in cases in which the appropriate domestic authorities are unable or unwilling to investigate or prosecute the corruption. For the IACC to succeed, it would not be necessary for the countries governed by kleptocrats to join the court—it goes without saying that they would not. The IACC could be established by treaty and quickly become effective if it consisted initially of even a relatively small number of representative states, so long as they included some financial centres and other attractive destinations where kleptocrats frequently launder, hide and spend their stolen assets.

In this way, the IACC would have the potential to prosecute, punish and recover illicit assets from kleptocrats who rule or are very powerful in the countries that might not initially join the court. Most importantly, the threat of criminal prosecution at the IACC would deter other potential crimes of grand corruption by leaders who may otherwise be tempted to emulate the example of the kleptocrats.

The cost of the IACC would constitute a small fraction of the amount of illicit assets that it could seize and return to their originally intended purpose for the public good. In addition to orders of restitution, it could levy funds on those found guilty, which could be used to defray some of the cost of its prosecutions and proceedings.

If the court demonstrates during its early years that it can work effectively and efficiently, many other countries are likely to join it. In the aftermath of kleptocratic government, some developing countries may not have the human and financial resources to fight kleptocracy, so could approach the IACC to come to their assistance. A senior United States federal judge, Mark Wolf, is leading a campaign to establish such a court. Together with others, including the renowned South African jurist Richard Goldstone, he launched a civil society called Integrity Initiatives International. Its main project is to establish the IACC, and it has convened a number of the world’s top international lawyers to begin drafting a treaty for the court. None of its supporters see the court as a panacea that will end the kleptocracy any more than the International Criminal Court has ended illegal or genocidal activity by political leaders. However, it would be one of many tools, domestic and international, that are absolutely essential to combat and, I hope, ultimately defeat kleptocracy.

Almost 300 leading figures from across the world, including 45 former presidents and Prime Ministers and 32 Nobel laureates, have signed a declaration calling for the creation of the IACC. Three Governments—the Netherlands, Canada and Ecuador—have made the establishment of the court an element in their official foreign policy. In January this year, Nigeria became the fourth country to publicly state its commitment to working with other states towards the establishment of the court. Recently, the President of Moldova, Maia Sandu, also committed to joining the emerging coalition of states for the IACC. Additional countries from each region of the world have also expressed their interest in the idea.

The United Kingdom and our legal profession have always led in establishing and participating in international courts of last resort. This started with the ground-breaking Nuremberg trials and went on to include the International Court of Justice and, of course, the International Criminal Court.

The Government’s Integrated Review Refresh, published earlier this year, committed the UK to championing global efforts to ensure that revenues and assets lost to illicit finance are identified and recovered so that low and middle-income countries can self-finance their own development. This commitment was reiterated by the Minister for Development and Africa in his Chatham House speech on 27 April when he said that

“we will bear down on money-laundering and the flows of dirty money which deprive countries of their legitimate tax receipts and represent money stolen particularly from Africa and African people”.

We must live up to these commitments. I therefore urge the Government to accept our amendment and ensure that the UK becomes one of the early and leading supporters of the establishment of the IACC, lending the UK’s weight and expertise to finding the fastest route to the creation of the court and the most effective framework for its operation.

I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise with great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Oates, who made a powerful, persuasive and rich speech. I echo him in paying to the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for all the work he has done in this area.

The noble Lord, Lord Oates, rightly acknowledged that the international anti-corruption court, which I absolutely back—backing for it is clearly growing by the day—is one of many tools that we need to tackle economic crime. My Amendment 106A seeks to put another tool in the toolkit. At the moment, it is perhaps in a prototype stage and is earlier in development than the international anti-corruption court, but it is growing fast and has significant international backing.

I am proposing that the Government should provide leadership in supporting UN General Assembly Resolution 77/244, which was passed on 30 December last year with leadership from Nigeria and the Africa group. It calls on the Secretary-General to prepare a report on how

“to strengthen the inclusiveness and effectiveness of international tax co-operation”.

This has been seen as a step towards a UN convention on the issue and the establishment of international bodies to enforce it. I hope that some noble Lords who are taking part in this debate or who read Hansard later will be interested in joining me in pushing this forward as an issue on which Britain can and should be a leader. Due to the limited scope of the Bill, I have had to cut down somewhat what the General Assembly resolution says, but there are still steps that we can take forward here; I will be very interested to hear the Government’s response to this UN General Assembly resolution.

Following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Oates, said, it is clear that chasing economic crime money, particularly tax evasion, is what is known in the jargon as a wicked problem. The aims of the evaders are simple; their reach is global and the ability to act is measured in seconds. Money can be shifted in less than a click of my fingers. However, national states have very complex goals in development, rights and the rule of law, and their powers are individually restricted within their own borders. Their legal framework is limited in resources, as we discussed in our debate on the previous group, and frequently takes a lot of time to move into action.

It is worth looking at what Attiya Waris, the UN independent expert on the effects of foreign debt, told the UN General Assembly last year:

“The shortcomings of the international and national tax systems require international cooperation and assistance. They cannot be addressed unilaterally”.


The idea of a UN convention got virtually no coverage or attention in the UK but, internationally, there is a great deal of work going on. That was reflected in a letter sent in March to the UN Secretary-General by scores of civil society organisations—including some that will be familiar to noble Lords, such as Action Aid, the Tax Justice Network and World Economy, Ecology and Development.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord will not be surprised to know that I do not know, but I will ask.

The Government will endeavour to update your Lordships’ House on their plans for progressing international action on corruption in due course. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the noble Lord, Lord Oates, on his behalf are reassured by the Government’s commitment to combatting corruption. We look forward to further discussions on this subject and to setting out our plans in further detail at an appropriate time. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Turning to Amendment 106A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, the Government care deeply about tackling tax evasion and avoidance. My ministerial colleagues continue to work closely with the various sub-committees that sit within the UN’s Economic and Social Council. However, standard-setting powers on tax currently sit within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s inclusive framework and global forum, and the UK believes that this is the mechanism best placed to deliver consensus-based reforms aimed at tax avoidance and evasion.

The inclusive framework and the global forum have wide and diverse memberships of more than 140 and 160 countries respectively. Furthermore, the OECD holds strong technical expertise in matters of international tax avoidance and evasion, and a potential UN convention on global tax evasion as envisaged by this amendment would duplicate and be likely to hinder the OECD’s work. This would delay the co-ordinated global response and effort to address tax evasion and avoidance and combat harmful tax practices, as well as creating divergence in international tax standards.

Having said that, the UK will engage constructively with the upcoming report by the UN Secretary-General. We want to find ways to improve international co-operation, as I have said, but to do that we want to ensure that this captures the full range of existing mechanisms for international tax co-operation and considers creatively how they could be improved better to meet developing countries’ needs. We have submitted evidence to the UN Secretary-General demonstrating these points.

Having said all that, obviously I ask the noble Baroness not to move her amendment.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate; I particularly thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Wheatcroft and Lady Bennett, for their support. I am sympathetic to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I am grateful to the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for their thoughtful responses. I am disappointed by the Minister’s conclusion, obviously, but I hope that, as he suggested, we can continue those discussions going forward.

I want to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, that my purpose was not to come as a critic of the Government. Indeed, I highlighted commitments made by the Government in the Integrated Review Refresh and I commend the Minister for Development and Africa on his real focus. He understands how important this is. Overseas development assistance is nothing compared to getting this right.

I am not sure that I share his views on the International Criminal Court and other international criminal tribunals. One of the great proponents of this international anti-corruption court is retired Justice Richard Goldstone. He was the chairman of the international criminal tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, which convicted a number of key figures including Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić. It does have impact. We should be aware that, even for the non-signatories of the ICC, it has consequences. It has consequences for President Putin that he has been indicted, such as consequences on whether he can travel to BRIC countries that are signatories to that court.

On the charge of being aspirational, I plead entirely guilty. You cannot get real change in the world unless you are aspirational. Of course, as I said in my opening speech, this amendment is not a panacea; it is one tool. One of the most important things, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said in his remarks, are the enforcement powers that we have in the UK, which, in my view, we are not using as much as we should be. I hope that, through this Bill and other means, we will do much more on enforcement.

As we have heard in the previous debate and amendments, this is really about the mechanisms to enforce lots of things; it is not about the laws. There are loads of laws on this stuff generally; it is about enforcement mechanisms. The international court would be another enforcement mechanism but, of course, we need enforcement mechanisms at home.

With that, I thank everybody who has taken part in the debate and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 103 withdrawn.

Immigration (Restrictions on Employment and Residential Accommodation) (Prescribed Requirements and Codes of Practice) and Licensing Act 2003 (Personal and Premises Licences) (Forms), etc., Regulations 2022

Lord Oates Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, depending on the Minister’s response, I intend to divide the House. Concerns about the removal of physical proof of immigration status have been discussed previously in this House, and for good reason. I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for the considerable work he has done on this. I am also grateful to the3million, which has provided a comprehensive briefing for this debate jointly with Hongkongers in Britain and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. I am grateful too to the Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit, City Hearts and the Snowdrop Project for their joint briefing.

The significance of this SI, and it is Part 3 with which we are concerned, lies in the fact that the digital-only policy for the immigration status of migrants becomes, in effect, universal. Part 3 of this SI does this by extending digital-only proof of the right to work and rent to almost all migrants, a further 2.5 million non-EU citizens who will be stripped of their ability to use physical biometric cards to prove such rights. This measure will therefore include Ukrainian citizens who have undergone huge difficulties in reaching this country—those lucky enough to have done so—only to face the numerous problems of a digital-only system in proving their status.

Those problems are legion. They have previously been outlined in detail in this House—the key thing here being that the Government should be well aware of them by now, long before any decision to introduce legislation that takes us considerably further down this road. Indeed, this should not be secondary legislation at all because of the fundamental changes concerning proof of status that it contains. There are the concerns of those who are digitally illiterate about the use of the “view and prove” portal, including the frequent unhelpful messages such as “You’re already logged in” and “Service currently unavailable”—there are others—and the fact that attempts to generate a share code result in a system error.

Another problem is the ability of the system to cope properly with multiple applications from an individual, such as a reapplication following an incorrect refusal. That is just one example of many such multiple application errors. In March this year, the3million submitted a report to the independent monitoring authority devoted entirely to the problem of maintaining a digital immigration account. Have the Government seen this document? The new “right to work” and “right to rent” portals are creating similar problems.

These are then expanding concerns, without even touching on the concerns of those who are digitally excluded. An Ofcom review from this year highlighted the fact that older people, the financially vulnerable and those with disabilities are more likely to be affected in this way. Yet the Government have gone ahead with this legislation without any extensive trialling or impact assessment. The one government trial, which was conducted in 2018, concluded:

“There is a clearly identified use need for the physical card at present, and without strong evidence that this need can be mitigated for vulnerable, low-digital skill users, it should be retained.”


One government trial, and that was its conclusion.

Also, clearly there has been no consultation with the anti-trafficking sector, whose briefing for this debate highlights its concern about the potential impact on a large number of vulnerable individuals who are survivors of trafficking and modern slavery and are unable to access the digital-only system on their own. A reliance on support workers to do so removes dignity and independence from survivors; this is a really important point. The sector recommends that the measure is removed and alternatives found. Will the Government consult the sector?

Bearing all this in mind, why did the Government even think of introducing this legislation? The reason given in paragraph 7.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum is that, following our leaving the EU, a small group of non-EU family members stripped of their previously lawful status but most likely eligible for settled status will have unexpired biometric residence cards. Because of this—and because biometric residence permits and frontier worker permits look like BRCs—the Government are getting rid of all of them.

The Explanatory Memorandum claims that there will be a nil or insignificant effect in a number of areas, all of which can be refuted. For instance, there will be a data protection impact as the “view and prove” procedures store transactions against individuals of access to services without there being transparency about this data. There will be an effect on business. A poll commissioned by the3million in 2020 found that employers who participated in the “right to work” trial showed a stronger preference for physical documents than those who had not experienced digital checks.

However, the Explanatory Memorandum is completely silent about the effect on the status holders themselves, which is surely the crucial aspect of this. In 2020, a nationwide survey on the experiences of the EU settlement scheme by Northumbria University found that almost 90% of respondents were unhappy about not having a physical document. These concerns are UK-wide. The Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all wrote to the UK Government twice last year asking for physical proof of status for EU citizens.

The Government’s policy also stands in stark contrast to the rest of Europe. British citizens in the EU protected by the withdrawal agreement have the right to a physical residence document, identical for all member states. Therefore, we are not providing reciprocal proof. Moreover, by virtue of a temporary protection directive, Ukrainian citizens have the right to a physical residence permit.

I am not against a digital system—we live in a digital world—but a digital-only system for immigration status ignores real life, real experience and real people. Like many others’, my Covid vaccinations are all on the NHS app. I was hoping to go abroad this year; I have not yet. Every time my Covid details needed updating, I printed out that page with a QR code—I am sure I am not the only one who does this—which is the crucial part of that data, and put it with my passport in case I could not use my phone at the airport. The3million has made the reasonable suggestion that such a QR code solution could be used for immigration status for EU citizens, and it is hugely disappointing that the Home Office has rejected this proposal without any further engagement with the3million so far, despite the fact that the objections raised have been answered one by one.

On the subject of engagement, in response to a promise the Minister made during the passage of the now Nationality and Borders Act, I gently remind her that I have not yet had a reply to the email I sent her two months ago requesting a meeting on these matters. Can something be sorted out?

Finally, I want to make a point that I believe no one has made yet. By removing the physical document, you are not just taking away something without which there are significant practical problems anyway; that in itself is insensitive. You are also depriving citizens of that piece of card or paper they can hold up and show to anyone that this allows them—a Ukrainian citizen, for instance—the right to be resident in this country, to work here and to find a place to live here. It is the same sense that our own passport gives. That piece of card or paper I am holding in my hand is a fundamental thing—a part of who I am at this moment in time. That is hugely important in itself. To deny that is surely a cruelty, and for that reason alone the Government should revoke this legislation.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, moving this regret Motion. I thank him for his kind comments and I reciprocate.

Although I welcome us discussing the regret Motion, I regret that we are returning to the issue of digital-only proof of status—not because the Home Office is showing any willingness to listen to those affected, to understand the problems it is causing them or to empathise with the deep anxieties they are suffering as a result, but because it has determined to ignore all the warnings it is given and all the actual cases of hardship that have been reported to it. Far from sensibly conceding that physical proof should accompany digital proof of status, it has decided to extend the imposition of digital-only from holders of EU settled and pre-settled status to almost everybody else. Huge numbers of people will recently have discovered that their biometric residence cards, biometric residence permits and frontier worker permits have been rendered invalid for the purpose of proving status to landlords and employers since 6 April this year, even if the validity of their card had years to run.

These measures do not apply to British and Irish citizens, who will be able to prove their status digitally by having their identity documents validated by an identity validation technology service provider and will retain physical documents as an option when digital proof does not work. Of course, they have the right to vote in general elections—I wonder whether that was a consideration of the Home Office.

In advance of digital-only proof of status being imposed, Members of this House warned repeatedly about the sort of problems it would cause. The Home Office ignored those warnings. Now that these problems are manifesting themselves in hardship cases, the Home Office is ignoring them too. As the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, pointed out, the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“There is … no significant … impact on charities or voluntary bodies”


and

“no significant … impact on the public sector.”

It says absolutely nothing about the individuals who have to operate that system, which tells you everything you need to know about the Home Office’s approach. The arguments for providing physical proof alongside digital proof have been aired extensively in this House on previous occasions, including during the passage of the immigration and social security co-ordination Act, when your Lordships gave overwhelming support to an amendment to that effect.

Credible government arguments were entirely elusive and, as the noble Earl has already mentioned, the Government’s pilot scheme expressly warned against a digital-only system. So not only do the Government lack credible arguments but there is the question of equity, which was also raised by the noble Earl. By denying physical proof of status to EU citizens and others, we are denying something which is available to all our citizens in the European Union by right.

I shall not rehearse all the arguments we have been through, but I want to highlight to the House some of the impacts that are being felt by those who have digital-only status imposed on them. In doing so, I acknowledge the excellent work of the3million, the Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit, City Hearts and the Snowdrop Project in keeping us informed on these matters. They have reported a series of problems and distress, with the “view and prove” system throwing up multiple errors, such as, “You are already logged in”, “The details don’t match our records”, “Service currently unavailable” and, most chillingly, “We can’t find your status.” There are problems when updating status because, for example, the person has a new passport. There are problems accessing mortgages and loans and problems when trying to return home to the United Kingdom. One of the3million’s staff recounted this experience recently. She said, “I was denied boarding in Palma de Mallorca because I have a Romanian passport and I’m going back to the UK, where I have lived for the last 12 years. They asked for additional photo ID, which they said would prove I have an immigration status in the UK.” It was only because she was a staff member of the3million that she knew her rights and was able to board. Pity the person who did not know all the details.

There are problems accessing employment. The Snowdrop Project reports a client who got a job as a care assistant. Having passed DBS checks and references, her employer asked for a share code. She went to the Home Office site, but every time she tried it, it said it could not find her details. Eventually she managed to speak to someone at the Home Office who confirmed that the issue was on its side. The issue was still unresolved weeks afterwards. This has meant a month of no pay while waiting for the job to start and not knowing when the issue will be resolved, and one less carer in an already overstretched care system. Do the Government have any understanding of how distressing these sorts of incidents are to the people concerned? Will Ministers at least try to walk a little distance in the shoes of others and to understand the impact this policy is having?

There is not time today to list the many case studies and examples provided by the organisations I have mentioned, but the Government can read their briefing materials as well as I can. I hope the Minister will do so and will react with compassion and understanding and do something to deal with the situation. All this is avoidable if the Home Office would move on the issue which is causing such evident problems. As the noble Earl mentioned, the3million has made a proposal which could work along the lines of the Covid passes in our NHS app. That app gives us confidence and means that when there is a problem with the digital service we have a back-up. Sadly, when this idea was put in a comprehensive manner to the Home Office it put its hands over its ears once again and rejected it without properly discussing it with those who proposed it.

At the time of the Windrush scandal the Home Office commissioned the Windrush Lessons Learned Review. It had this to say at page 137:

“Warning flags about the potential consequences of the policy were raised at various stages, in various ways and by various interested parties. Yet ministers and officials were impervious to these warnings because of their resolute conviction that the implementation of the relevant policies was effective, should be vigorously pursued and would achieve the policy intent. Efforts to address concerns were superficial at best and served to deal with the symptoms rather than the root causes of the problem.”

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Oates Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Oates]

79: After Clause 78, insert the following new Clause—
“UK immigration status: certification
(1) The Secretary of State must issue physical proof confirming immigration status to anyone who has been granted such status under the immigration laws of the United Kingdom and who requests such proof.(2) No fee may be charged for issuing physical proof under this section.(3) The certificate mentioned in subsection (1) must confirm that the relevant person has the relevant status.(4) The certificate mentioned in subsection (1) is valid for right to work checks, right to rent checks and all other checks that may be undertaken by agents within and without the United Kingdom to confirm the relevant person’s UK immigration status including permission to travel to and enter the United Kingdom.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would require the Government to issue a physical certificate to all people with a UK immigration status, allowing all those with such status to provide documentary proof.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 79 would require the Secretary of State to provide physical proof of immigration status to anyone who has been granted such status and requests such proof. The arguments for providing physical proof alongside digital status have been aired extensively in this House, most recently in the debates on the then Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill, when your Lordships overwhelmingly supported a cross-party amendment to this effect for EEA citizens with settled or pre-settled status. I am heartened that this amendment has also received support from across the House, and I am grateful to all the signatories of it.

This amendment differs a little from my 2020 amendment in that it covers not just EEA citizens with settled and pre-settled status but also non-EEA citizens who have immigration status. That is because, despite the huge difficulties and anxieties caused by digital-only status, the Government have decided to extend it to non-EEA citizens who previously were able to use biometric residence permits, biometric residence cards or frontier worker permits.

Whatever the merits or otherwise of a digital-only system, one would imagine that before introducing such a radical change the Government would have undertaken extensive trials to check that the system worked and could be easily operated by those who had to use it. In fact, the Government conducted only one such trial in 2018, which concluded:

“There is a clearly identified user need for the physical card at present, and without strong evidence that this need can be mitigated for vulnerable, low-digital skill users, it should be retained.”


The Government ignored that finding and ploughed on.

A comprehensive document setting out many of the difficulties users have encountered was submitted to the independent monitoring authority by the3million in November last year, and I raised a number of specific concerns when we debated this amendment in Committee. These included problems with updating status when a person received a new passport, multiple errors in the view and prove system, and even immigration officials demanding physical proof of settled status.

The Government set up a settled status resolution centre, which, confusingly to everyone, works alongside the UKVI resolution centre. At the outset, those who received a letter telling them they had received settled or pre-settled status were not provided with any contact number at all if something went wrong. Subsequently, the letters included the number of the EU settlement resolution centre for people to contact—but many cannot even get through. Despite the Home Office asserting in meetings with stakeholders that callers who did get through to the resolution centre had to wait an average of 14 minutes, it could not or would not say how many did not get through, although it acknowledged that demand was managed. That seems to mean that callers were simply disconnected to keep waiting times down. For example, the transcript of a call made on 12 November 2021 and included in the submission to the independent monitoring authority showed that the call had been automatically disconnected regardless of the options chosen.

The full scale of the problem has come to light only recently, because until then the Home Office resolutely refused to provide detailed information on the performance of the resolution centre. In 2019, an FoI request to obtain this information was refused, on the grounds that the data was already planned for publication. However, as no such publication subsequently took place, a new FoI request was submitted in July 2021. After repeated follow-up requests, an internal review and a referral to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the information was finally published on 1 December last year. It immediately became clear why the Government had been so reluctant to publish the data, because it showed that, over the 12 months to October 2021, just 44% of the calls to the EU settlement resolution centre were successfully connected.

In response to all these difficulties and to the Government’s rejection of biometric residence cards for EU and EEA citizens with settled and pre-settled status, the3million made the constructive alternative proposal of a barcode system similar to the one we had for Covid vaccination status. The Minister responded to this suggestion in Committee by saying:

“He mentioned the QR code, and I totally agree; the QR code has worked brilliantly throughout the pandemic for certain things such as updating your Covid vaccination status. I will take that back to the Home Office and report back on any progress … but I support the whole principle of being able to use a QR code”.—[Official Report, 10/2/22; cols. 1981-82.]


At last, after so many years debating this issue, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope and some common ground.

How naive I was. Last Friday, the3million received a letter from the Home Office rejecting the idea of a barcode. It is four pages of bureaucratic obstructionism without any acknowledgement of the problem that needs to be addressed, the anxieties of those whom the policy affects, or any positive proposals about a way forward. It makes a whole series of inaccurate assertions that could easily have been corrected if those involved in determining the policy had engaged effectively with those affected by it, but they did not.

Having finally agreed to a meeting for the 3million to present the proposal, the Home Office then took eight months to respond to it and refused to hold an interim meeting with the group during that time to discuss progress with its assessment of the proposal. It then produced a wholly negative response that rejects the proposal out of hand on grounds that are simply wrong and could have been corrected had the interim meeting taken place.

The truth is that the Home Office had made up its mind before it had even begun. Unfortunately, this sort of response is not a one-off but part of a pattern of behaviour at the Home Office that was identified in the independent Windrush Lessons Learned Review—commissioned by the Home Office—which states on page 141:

“It is not clear that the department has learned the wider lesson that it should be engaging meaningfully with the communities it serves. The true test will be whether stakeholders, including those considered to represent critical voices, are firstly invited to participate in developing the department’s policies, and also in designing, implementing and evaluating them.”


The Home Office’s response to the barcode proposal makes it abundantly clear that this test has been comprehensively failed. At the heart of this issue is whether the Home Office is willing to listen to the users of its services and take on board their concerns, or whether Ministers and officials are impervious to them and simply determined to pursue their policy regardless of the consequences.

As I have said in all our previous debates, this is ultimately about people’s lives, the unnecessary difficulties and anxieties being imposed on them, and the Home Office’s seeming inability to recognise or empathise with those concerns. I hope that the Minister and her department will reflect on how their response fits into the wider cultural problems in the Home Office and come back with a proposal that will fix this problem, rather than continuing to pretend that it does not exist. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Yes.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. Given the lateness of the hour, I will not go into detail but just say two things. First, I have read the entirety of the Home Office letter to the3million group, most of which is wrong and could have been corrected if the Home Office had the decency to meet on an interim basis as requested. The Minister will have seen, or will see shortly, the comprehensive refutation of every point that she has made.

Secondly, it is all very well to say that the system works well for some people. For digital-savvy people, I am sure it is fine; but for people who are not digital-savvy, it is not. That is specifically what the pilot undertaken by the Government warned about. It said that the system should not be changed, as unless effective mitigation was put in place it would have a significant impact on vulnerable users. It is having a significant impact. I very much regret and am dismayed that the Home Office does not understand that and will not listen to the people who have to use it. On that basis, I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Oates Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, over the Christmas break I had the chance to read two things in particular. The first was a birthday gift, Jon Meacham’s excellent book, Franklin and Winston; the second was this Bill. I confess that the former experience was considerably more enjoyable than the latter, but the two are linked because it was Franklin Roosevelt whose ideas and humanity did so much to shape the post-war order; and it was Sir Winston Churchill’s Government who, on 11 March 1954, ratified the 1951 refugee convention which this Government, through this Bill, so clearly and shamefully intend to violate.

In the short time available I am going to focus on Part 2, relating to asylum and the treatment of refugees, but I also want to touch on the continuing lack of physical documentation for EU citizens with settled and pre-settled status, an issue which many of us across this House have raised consistently. I give notice that I intend to table an amendment in Committee—again, I hope, with cross-party support—to correct this continuing anomaly which is causing significant hardship to settled EU citizens.

As we have heard, the 1951 refugee convention came into being in the aftermath of World War II. It was intended to create a shared obligation towards refugees and to end the pre-authorisation regime which had existed in the 1930s and had prevented so many people, particularly Jewish people, finding a safe haven from Nazi persecution. It is exactly such a pre-authorisation regime that this Government seem determined to return to, with all the injustice that will entail.

This Bill turns the concept of shared responsibility on its head. It introduces the principle that a refugee must claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in. As the UNHCR has made clear:

“this principle is not found in the … Refugee Convention and there is no such requirement under international law.”

As the joint opinion for Freedom from Torture points out, such a principle

“would have been nonsensical in circumstances prevailing in 1951, with no commercial air-travel.”

Quite apart from violating our obligations under international law, this safe country principle makes no sense for an international convention. It would mean that the obligations of the convention applied in effect only to those safe countries which happen by circumstances of geography to be closest to the countries of origin of the refugees. Already, these countries carry the bulk of the burden and often they are the least well-resourced to deal with it. As the UNHCR reminds us, 73% of refugees are already hosted in neighbouring countries and 86% of them are hosted in developing countries. The logic of the Government’s position is to say to these countries that 73% is not good enough—you must take them all.

In inventing this new principle, the Government are also creating a second class of refugee—literally, a “Group 2 refugee”—and then penalising them, in explicit violation of the convention which provides that no such penalties should be required. The result is that people who the Government themselves accept are refugees requiring protection under the convention will be denied rights because of their means of entry to the country or their failure to apply for asylum elsewhere. Not only do the Government intend to penalise refugees for entering by unauthorised means, they are also doing their best to ensure that there are no authorised means by which you can claim asylum outside country. Heads they win, tails you lose.

In his notably bellicose opening, the Minister told us that we did not have to choose between fairness and effectiveness. That is true. It is therefore particularly curious that the Government have felt the need to avoid a choice they did not have to make by plumping instead for legislation that is unfair and will prove ineffective.

The Minister also told us that the asylum system is broken, and who could disagree with him? As my noble friend Lord Paddick and other Peers set out, the Home Office’s administrative record is appalling. It has failed to remove 40,000 failed claimants who are eligible for removal, it is processing only half the applications it did 17 years ago, and those put through its processes are subject to delay, prolonged uncertainty and misery. We do not need new legislation but effective administrative action by the Home Office, safe and legal routes for refugees to claim asylum and a system that is humane, fair, effective and rapid. The Bill will achieve none of that. Nasty and ineffective in equal measure, it is a byword for this Government.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Oates Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th November 2021 Lords Chamber

So it is a complete waste of police time to ask them even to consider the ludicrous basis for assessing whether a demonstration should take place or not, based on noise. In the very good examples given by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, of when noise is horrible, he was talking about unpleasant political views—and, to be honest, whether you shout or whisper them, they are unpleasant: the issue is not the noise but the views.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I speak particularly to Amendments 294, 299, 303 and 305 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and other noble Lords. I have added my name, but I want to speak in support of the wider amendments in this group. In doing so, I declare my interests as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe.

As we have heard, the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, take up recommendations from the Joint Committee on Human Rights to remove the trigger for imposing conditions on protests based on noise. In her brief remarks about Part 3 of the Bill at Second Reading, the Minister stated:

“The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental part of our democracy”.


She went on to say that Part 3 was

“not about stifling freedom of speech and assembly”.—[Official Report, 14/9/2021; cols. 1281-82.]

The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said earlier in this debate that nobody wants to undermine the right to protest, and complained about hyperbole. I might make a complaint on the other side about complacency. If it was really the intention of the Minister, the Government and Government Back-Benchers not to impact on protest, they really should have brought another Bill forward, and they should talk to the drafters, because the right to peaceful protest is clearly under attack in this part of the Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said.

Noise is fundamental to peaceful protest, as is impact —not least because protest is about making one’s voice heard when it would otherwise be ignored. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, what on earth would be the point of a protest if you were not heard and if you did not have an impact? So any measure that makes the level of noise and its impact on others an arbiter of whether or under what conditions a protest may go ahead is, quite apart from being an absurd road to go down, self-evidently an attack on the right to peaceful protest that the Minister has told us is such a fundamental part of our democracy.

Do we really think that a senior police officer should be put in a position where they have to take on the responsibility of determining whether a protest should go ahead at the place proposed or on the route planned on the basis of the noise that protest may generate and the impact that it may have on people?

The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said that there was a new fashion in protests, but I do not think there is a new fashion for protests to be noisy. All the protests I have ever been on in my life have I think been noisy.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

I did make the point that I was not wholly comfortable with what was being said about noise in the legislation, and I was looking to my noble friend the Minister for some comfort—but I do think there is a new fashion of protest, which the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, also referred to, which is very different from that which we have seen before and is causing a huge amount of disruption, which people find unacceptable.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her clarification, but I have to say to her that noise is absolutely fundamental to the issues that we are debating now. As the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said, in relation to the other protests and the obstruction of highways et cetera, the powers exist already in the Public Order Act and in other places to deal with them. So the question now is whether we should have the new, very restrictive curtailments on the right to protest proposed in this Bill which are about noise and its impact, and that is what I am addressing.

Not only is it a terrible idea which will place the police in an impossible situation, but the Bill compounds their difficulty by failing to provide any definitive criteria by which the police can determine whether the level of noise or its impact on others is sufficient to trigger their powers. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, raised this issue. No decibel level is defined in the Bill; no definition of intensity of impact, which the police are supposed to take into account, is set. As a result, the police will be dragged into areas of heated political controversy on which they will have to make entirely subjective decisions—except in the cases where the Home Secretary will help them out by making her own entirely subjective decisions—deciding that one protest may go ahead in a certain way and a certain place but having to decide that another may not. Presumably the police’s decisions will be open to challenge by protesters on the one hand and those who wish to curtail protest on the other. It is hard to think of a better way to undermine trust in the impartiality of our police services.

As I mentioned at Second Reading, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has also mentioned, many noble Lords will have taken part in the protests outside South Africa House against the apartheid regime. It was the express intention of those protests to generate noise and, doubtless, the agents of the apartheid state were impacted, and they may well have genuinely felt serious unease as a consequence, but, as long as those protests remained peaceful, it was surely no business of the state to protect them from the impact of that noise or any serious sense of unease that it may have caused.

That is an example from the past—it would be interesting to know how the Minister thinks the powers would be applied in that case—but let me take one from the present. Currently, a fortnightly vigil for democracy and human rights is held outside the Zimbabwe embassy on the Strand. The vigil is not normally loud, but, on occasion, when the Zimbabwe Government are involved in particularly egregious violations of human or political rights, it can be noisy and, without doubt, it has an impact on people in the vicinity. People are understandably angry in such circumstances, particularly in circumstances where protesters have been gunned down in Zimbabwe, and the noise that the protesters here generate will certainly have an impact on and may cause serious unease to embassy staff. But again I ask: if the protest is peaceful and orderly, is there any reason to prevent it happening?

As evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights highlighted, police will inevitably be faced with pressures from certain embassies to ban protests outside their premises on the grounds of noise or serious unease. Can the Minister expressly address this issue in her summing up? Do such embassy protests fall under the powers of this Bill? Could a senior officer, for example, direct protestors not to protest outside the Zimbabwe embassy if he was convinced of serious unease being caused to embassy staff? How would the police assess evidence of the threat of serious unease in court? I hope the Minister will not tell the House that she cannot envisage the police using such powers in these circumstances, because that would only highlight how this part of the Bill will entangle the police in decisions they simply should not have to make.

If those are some of the potential, but hopefully unintended, consequences of this part of the Bill, what of the intended consequences? We know that the public protest clauses and proposals contained in Part 3 and in the government amendments, which will be debated in a later group, are deliberately aimed at environmental protestors, whether Extinction Rebellion or Insulate Britain, because the Government have basically told us that they are. Many of the people involved in these protests are young people who are protesting against an existential threat to their futures. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made a very powerful speech in this regard. What is the reaction of the Government to these tiresome people who have the temerity to demand a future for themselves and their children and who understandably will not be bought off by the long-term promises so casually given out by the Prime Minister and so nakedly betrayed by his failure to take the action now to realise them? To deal with them, the Government propose using these wholly disproportionate powers.

What do these people want? They want us to insulate Britain. It is hardly world revolution. Yet in the face of an unprecedented climate emergency, we cannot even do that. No wonder they are angry. No wonder they despair of politics as usual. Instead of consuming a lot of time and energy banning their protests, because they are noisy or might have some impact, perhaps it would be better to have an infrastructure Bill with a long-term programme to tackle the problem of our energy-leaking and climate-threatening buildings. At least that is a problem we know how to deal with and could if we had the will. Certainly, it would be a better use of time, because if the Government think that these measures to curtail protests on the spurious grounds of noise and impact and to jail more people for a longer time will stop these protests, they are sadly mistaken.

Those who face an existential threat do not just buckle under, no matter the level of restriction or curtailment of their rights. If you doubt that, look at a history book. Look at the civil rights movement which the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, mentioned, or the suffragettes, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, highlighted. These people were protesting in the face of laws far more extreme than even this Government would contemplate. Bringing in unjust laws to deal with this situation does not stop protest. You deal with it by addressing the issues fairly. These measures will only further embitter the protests. Far from what the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, hopes for, it will not bring about any greater sense of unity, and it will not only further embitter the protest but embroil the police in unending controversies which, as far as I understand, they have no desire to be dragged into. Also, they have been provided with no objective criteria on which they can adjudicate such controversies.

The amendments in this group will remove some of the most objectionable aspects of this attack on peaceful protests. I hope that the Minister gives serious consideration to the powerful arguments that have been made by noble Lords on all sides, but really this part should come out of the Bill completely.

I conclude by saying that I am very pleased to say that we are a long way from the situation in Zimbabwe, where a youth leader languishes in jail in appalling conditions for more than 200 days, charged with blowing a whistle at a protest, where the police have become so embroiled in political controversy that they are no longer trusted by the public at all, and where public safety and public order are consistently deployed as reasons to stifle the most modest of protests. But those who courageously struggle in such situations look to our democracy, with our traditions of free and raucous protest, as a beacon. We should remember that. Every time we take a step away from them, we dishearten democrats around the world and give succour to those who oppose them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

When Boris Johnson was Mayor of London, he brought in a rule about not drinking on the tube, which was a solution in search of a problem—because it was not a problem at the time. But it immediately made me want to run out, buy a bottle of gin and go drinking on the tube, because it was such a stupid rule. This provision is a little bit like that: I do not really want to carry a tube of superglue around, but I have on many occasions carried a bike lock. It is absolutely ludicrous.

When the Minister read out the list of amendments, my heart sank. Although I had looked at them all individually, somehow hearing them one after the other made me feel that this is totally wrong. If the Government do not withdraw all these amendments, we should vote against the Bill in its entirety.

The Minister talked about protestors, referring to the issue of whatever their cause may be. But the HS2 protestors, of whom I consider myself one, have actually been trying to save precious things for the nation. It is not fun to be out on a picket line, being shoved around by security guards and hassled by the police constantly. I was standing next to one man on a picket line who said, “I retired last year and I thought I would be birdwatching, but here I am holding a placard”. Those are the sorts of people who have been protesting about HS2; they have been trying to save precious eco-systems for the nation, for all of us, and to prevent the chopping down of ancient woodlands. We really cannot dismiss these people as troublemakers, deserving of all these amendments. I admire the attempts of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, to improve these measures, but it is a hopeless case.

The Government are very quick to talk about the views of the public and what the public want, perhaps from a few clips on TV and a few emails, but on the sewage amendment to the Environment Bill, they had thousands and thousands of emails, but they absolutely ignored them and carried on allowing sewage to be pumped into our rivers and on to our coastline. So please do not tell me that the public want this. The public did not want sewage, but the Government ignored that. The Government pick and choose to suit themselves what they design legislation around.

As the noble Lord, Lord Beith, mentioned, there is also the late tabling of these amendments. It is a democratic outrage. They are of such legal significance and such a threat to people’s human rights that they should be the subject of a whole Bill, with public discussion about it, public consultation, human rights declarations and equalities impact assessments. Every MP should be furious that they have been bypassed, because the only scrutiny they will get is, if they are lucky, a quick 20 minutes during ping-pong to find out what they are all about. Because they are whipped, they will probably not pay any attention to it anyway. This is nothing more than a naked attack on civil liberties and a crackdown on protest, and we must oppose it for both what it is and how it is being done.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak specifically to government Amendments 319F to 319J on powers to stop and search without suspicion, and Amendment 319K and subsequent amendments on serious disruption orders. Before I do, I add to the comments made by just about all noble Lords on the outrageous way in which the Government have proceeded in this matter. To bring this number of amendments, introducing, as they do, among other things, unlimited fines, wide-ranging suspicionless stop and search powers, the creation of criminal liability on the basis of the civil burden of proof, with powers of indefinite renewal, at such a late stage in the Bill and at this time of night amounts to absolute contempt of Parliament. I may not get to say this often when we are in Parliament together, but on this matter I agree with every word that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, had to say.

I turn to powers to stop and search without suspicion. As the Minister explained it and as other noble Lords have commented, this provides an extraordinary power, exercisable by any police officer in an area where an inspector or above has delegated that locality, under a whole series of offences. We already know how stop and search powers are abused. We know how disproportionate they are. My noble friend Lord Paddick set out the stark figures.

You do not have to take it from the Liberal Democrat Benches or the other Opposition Benches. We have heard a lot quoted from the former Prime Minister and Home Secretary this evening, but it is worth reminding the Committee of the issues that she has highlighted over suspicionless stop and search and the dangers that causes: the undermining of trust in the police and all the problems that come with that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, raised the important point that people on bicycles travel with locks. We all have locks on our bicycles. I should be interested to know the Government’s answer. Government Amendment 319J provides for 51-week imprisonment—nearly a year—for anyone who obstructs a police officer who, without suspicion, demands the right to search them. This is not how you stop protest; it is how you cause it.

As if that is not enough, we have heard about government Amendment 319K, which introduces serious disruption prevention orders, creating criminal liability based on the civil burden of proof, and imposing a series of potential restrictions on individuals. The penalty for breaching any of those conditions is imprisonment. As my noble friend Lord Paddick said, these are protest banning orders, and they have no place in our society.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Oates Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I intend to focus my remarks principally on the public order powers set out in Part 3 of the Bill, particularly their potential impact on protest against the failure of Governments here and around the world to take the urgent steps necessary to address the climate and ecological emergency.

When I first heard about the Bill some months ago from someone in the environmental movement, I thought that they were parodying the Government’s proposals. When they assured me that they were not, I thought that they must simply have been mistaken. Then I read the Bill. As we have heard, it provides new powers to ban noisy protests that may cause “serious disruption” or

“have a relevant impact on persons in the vicinity”.

Who determines what all this means? It is the Home Secretary, by regulations; it is not on the face of the Bill. The Bill also imposes a maximum 10-year sentence on those who obstruct

“the public or a section of the public”

or cause “serious annoyance” or “serious inconvenience” to another person, among other things.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, has left the Chamber. I listened very carefully to what she had to say, and I do not doubt her motivation in what she argued, but it sounded very similar to the arguments that I recently read in the letter written by the six clergy of Birmingham, Alabama, criticising the civil rights campaign. In response, Martin Luther King, Jr., in his powerful letter from a Birmingham jail, said that the clergy had warned against what they saw as extreme and divisive tactics and the unwise and untimely strategy of direct action.

People take direct action when the political process fails to address issues over an extended period of time. When that failure poses an existential threat to those people, the solution is to address the issues and try to understand the reasons behind the anger and the protests, not to force them further underground. These powers will not remove divisiveness from society, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, hopes: they will do the opposite. They will not quell environmental protests, because acting with the urgency posed by the existential threat of climate change is the only thing that will do that.

During the campaign against the apartheid regime in South Africa, many in this House took part in the 24-hour picket line outside South Africa House. We often made quite a lot of noise. I have no doubt that the apartheid regime operating inside that embassy found that protest a serious annoyance, a serious inconvenience and, most likely, a serious loss of their amenity. We were there to cause such annoyance, to be as noisy as possible, and to raise our voices loud in protest so that the world which had not been listening, and the Government in this country who had not been listening, would do so.

Today, environmental protesters are raising their voices loud against the existential threat to life on our planet. They are raising their voices loud against politicians in this House and elsewhere who make bold, long-term promises but fail to take the vital actions to follow them up. They are raising their voices loud against those who, over the past three decades, and even to this day, continue to deny the science of climate change and, as a result, have put our whole planet at risk. Yes, they are using the time-honoured tradition of civil disobedience and peaceful obstruction. Yes, it is obstructing the public and is no doubt causing serious annoyance to people, including, on occasion, to me. However, the reason these people are protesting on the streets is because the people inside this Parliament have recklessly failed to protect our planet over a period of decades.

Those out on the streets are not there for no reason. They are there for one simple reason: because without them raising their voices and forcing their way on to the news agenda, the world would not be listening. They are not the selfish ones: it is they who have shown that they care enough for their community, their country and their planet to take action to raise our attention and the world’s attention to what Martin Luther King, Jr. called

“the fierce urgency of now.”

Zimbabwe: Human Rights

Lord Oates Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Oates]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they conducted an assessment of the political and human rights situation in Zimbabwe prior to the decision to deport Zimbabwean nationals to that country on 21 July; and if so, from whom they sought evidence when making that assessment.

[Lord Oates (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and, in doing so, declare my interest as the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Zimbabwe.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, assessment is made against the latest country of origin information and relevant case law. This is based on evidence from reliable sources; reputable media outlets; local, national and international organisations; human rights organisations; and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office information. Sources are included in the footnotes of the country policy and information notes published on GOV.UK.

[Lord Oates (LD) [V]]

My Lords, in a response from the Minister for Immigration Compliance to a letter from over 75 Peers and MPs, the Government sought to distract attention from the human rights situation in Zimbabwe by focusing on foreign national offenders. However, as the minutes of the meeting between the British Embassy in Harare and the Zimbabwean Government dated 30 June make clear, this is a PR tactic, and it was agreed at that meeting that Zimbabwean nationals who were not foreign national offenders could also be included on the 21 July flight.

Can the Minister clarify to the House whether it is the Home Office’s policy to deport only foreign national offenders to Zimbabwe, or does it intend that future flights will include those who are not FNOs? Can the Minister also tell the House how many deportation orders were originally issued for the removal of Zimbabwean nationals on 21 July and how many were subsequently found to be unlawful or were otherwise stayed by the courts?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I can confirm to the noble Lord that it is government policy to deport foreign national offenders who have received a custodial sentence of 12 months or more. We are not trying to distract from human rights issues. Regarding the flight that departed last night, 50 were due to be on it; 14 were returned and 44 submitted last-minute claims.

Forensic Science Regulator Bill

Lord Oates Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oates (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill and the fact that it has received support from across the House. Before I address the specific issues arising from it, I pay particular tribute to the forensic scientists working in police forces up and down the country, who are almost always grossly under-resourced. Their dedication and commitment, in often difficult circumstances, needs to be recognised.

These circumstances have not been improved by the plethora of changes and reforms to the way in which forensic science services have been organised since 2005. These changes, carried out under Governments of all colours, have left us with a mess, as my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond set out so clearly. The Bill is an attempt to address part of that mess: the failure to provide the forensic science regulator with the statutory powers it needs to do its job.

It seems extraordinary that the regulator which operates in this most sensitive of areas, where the effectiveness or otherwise of forensic services can determine whether the innocent are convicted or the guilty go free, has, since it was brought into being, had no statutory powers. It is able to provide only advice and never direction—despite the fact that the former forensic service regulator, Dr Gillian Tully, repeatedly highlighted the need for statutory powers for her office, and that this view was endorsed by committees in this House and the other place. The Bill corrects that important omission and I congratulate Darren Jones in another place and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in this place on introducing it, and the Government on supporting it.

While it is an important step forward, on its own the Bill cannot tackle the many challenges facing forensic science in this country. As the report of your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee noted in May 2019:

“The quality and delivery of forensic science in England and Wales is inadequate.”


This is a major problem because, as the report and other noble Lords also noted, in many criminal cases forensic science evidence is pivotal. The delivery of justice depends on the integrity and accuracy of that evidence, and the trust that society has in it. The report went on to quote what it described as the “stark warning” of the forensic science regulator that

“profound changes to funding and governance are required to ensure that forensic science survives and begins to flourish rather than lurching from crisis to crisis”.

At the heart of the problem is the huge reduction in the money spent on forensic science. Andrew Rennison, a commissioner at the Criminal Cases Review Commission, told your Lordships’ committee that in 2008

“there was probably £120 million being spent on forensic science. That is now down to about £50 million or £55 million”

at a time when the demands on forensic science services are greater than ever. This poses an obvious and major risk to the integrity of our criminal justice system.

The lack of statutory powers for the regulator, combined with budget cuts, reorganisation and a huge growth in the need for new services, such as digital evidence, have proven a toxic cocktail. The Bill will tackle one important element of that cocktail but there is much more work for the Government to do to provide effective organisation and resourcing of forensic science. That work needs to be undertaken with urgency so that forensic scientists are provided with the resources to do the job that we ask of them, public trust in forensic science evidence is restored and the justice system is properly served by our forensic science services.