Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2024

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 11 March be approved.

Considered in Grand Committee on 7 May.

Motion agreed.

Passport e-Gates Network Outage

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I too pay tribute to the staff involved, both Border Force staff and other airport staff, who took the pressure when this occurred. It is now five days after this Statement was made in the other place and, understandably, the Minister there was able to give only limited detail and indicate that investigations were ongoing. Clearly there will be more known now than was known then, so can the noble Lord give us more detail and a commitment that, when the final report is produced, he will return to inform us about the lessons that it revealed? Getting this right is obviously vital.

The Government were lucky this time, as the issue occurred in the early evening, midweek, in early May—at a quiet time of the day, a quiet time of the week and a quiet time of the year. If it had occurred at peak time, the story would probably have been very different. This is the third eGate failure in a year. It simply cannot be acceptable to regard it as an inevitable part of a technology-based system, because even more complications are coming in the near future.

The UK Government are introducing the ETA—the electronic travel authorisation—for non-visa countries. This has already started with the Gulf countries, and plans to roll it out gradually—first to the rest of the world other than the EU, and then to the EU—are scheduled for October 2024. The EU is also introducing the EES—the entry and exit scheme—including facial recognition and fingerprints. This scheme’s full implementation has been delayed until after the Olympics and is now also expected in October. Surely it is a potentially fatal mistake to introduce both the ETA and the EES at the same time. Can I ask what discussions the Government are having with the EU to ensure that everything does not all coincide at the same time?

The general public are blissfully unaware of what lies ahead. What plans do the Government have to alert and inform people well in advance of the introduction of these changes? Can the noble Lord assure us that the technology for this is fully ready and thoroughly tested?

Both UK and EEA citizens can use eGates, and the Government have recently added 10 more countries to the list of those that can use them. That is why eGates are so busy. Ironically, instead of taking back control of our borders following Brexit, we have in fact reduced the number of controls at our borders. Noble Lords will know that when we UK citizens go abroad to the EU now, we are not able to use eGates in most cases; we are required to queue up, and very often we have to answer detailed questions about our visit, rather like we do if, for example, we visit the USA. We no longer have the privilege of easy entry and exit from EU countries. We are making life easier for people coming here, but life is not being made easier for us going to other places.

We all know that having a physical presence is a major deterrent to people wanting to abuse access to this country. Does all this not underline the need to keep a strong physical presence of Border Force officers at our points of entry and exit from this country?

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

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their questions, which I will endeavour to answer. I join them in thanking all the Border Force officers for their efforts.

On a question that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked me, I take this opportunity to reassure the House that border security was not compromised in any way. I am also grateful to the public, who were extremely patient, and I join my honourable friend in the other place in offering our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to them.

It is worth giving a little context about eGates, because they have revolutionised the experience at the border, as I am sure all noble Lords can attest. Many more checks are performed automatically than was previously possible, and it is now quicker, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has just noted, for many passengers to land in the UK.

The eGates generally continue to perform extremely well, and most ports report that an average of 90% of passengers eligible to use eGates use them very successfully. The Border Force facilitated over 132 million passenger arrivals last year, with 90% of those within current service standards. The number was even better in the fourth quarter of last year; it was 96.7%. I am grateful for its efficiency and, much as it will regret the occasional blip, none the less it is generally speaking a very strong story.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked whether the root cause has been identified and rectified. Engineers identified the cause of the outage—and it was an outage—as a capacity issue. That was on an element of the network that controls network traffic within the data centres. The incident was caused by the cumulative effect of changes we have been making to sustain and modernise the network environment; incidentally, those will produce increased resilience over the summer. All the incidents that have affected the eGates have been singular and nothing has been repeated. The technical term for the outage was something to do with a logical network route—at which point, I confess I rather glazed over and did not really understand the further technical remarks that were made to me. But I am reassured that that has been entirely dealt with; capacity has been increased, and this therefore should not happen again—I hesitate to say it will not happen, but it should not.

I turn to the other questions asked of me. There was no malign actor, hacking or cyberactivity associated with this; it was simply a capacity issue with regard to the network infrastructure. That also rules out software and hardware problems; it really was just about system capacity. As I have already said, there were not any vulnerabilities at the border.

I was asked questions about the EU Entry/Exit System. As I have said before from the Dispatch Box, the Government are doing as much as they possibly can to prepare for the implementation of the EES and its impact on British travellers, particularly at the juxtaposed border controls in Dover, at Eurostar in St Pancras and at the Channel Tunnel. We engage regularly with the Commission and the French Government at every level. Beyond this, we hosted the director-general of the Police aux Frontières on his visit to Dover, St Pancras and Folkestone last month. We continue to work with the port operators to understand the impacts of the EES and obviously support their plans to mitigate them.

We are working up plans to make sure that the public are kept abreast of all these new requirements, and that any impacts they may have on their future travel plans are well understood in advance. I believe my right honourable friend in the other place is due to appear before the European Select Committee on this, at which point no doubt much more will become available. The European Commission guidelines have not yet been issued, so there is not much more I can say about the European side.

As regards the timing and phasing of this, obviously the ETAs have now been in operation for a while—certainly going back to last year. They are not, as it were, coincident. The simple fact of the matter is that it may be inconvenient for us if the EU is tightening its border controls, but I respect and defend its right to maintain its own border integrity, as we do.

I was asked about a physical presence at the border. I agree: of course, there must be a physical presence. However, there has been much chatter about things such as roving officers, and so on. I reassure noble Lords that the border is not compromised by a roving officer not being present; they do not control who can pass through the eGates. The eGates undertake all the security measures of passengers who use them.

It is simply not true that this involves reduced control. Individuals who use these eGates—this answers one of the questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson—are not routinely questioned by Border Force officers, but they continue to conduct a full range of security checks, and the biometric check they undertake to compare the person with their travel document means that they are a highly effective means of detecting imposters. They are also able to identify pre-existing adverse information about travellers, and individuals subject to information will be seen by a Border Force officer. If officers require information about any person’s previous immigration history, the Home Office has access to data, including advance passenger information and exit record checks, to be able to verify a person’s individual history. Those officers retain the ability to exercise the full range of their powers at the border, and will continue to refuse entry, where appropriate, to those they deem eligible. I agree that it needs to be visible, but it is effective.

To go back to what the ETA actually is, it is a digital permission to travel to the UK for those who want to visit who do not need a visa. As the noble Baroness correctly pointed out, the scheme has already launched for nationals of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Other non-visa nationals will be able to apply for ETAs later this year. We believe they are making the UK safer, because they enhance the Government’s ability to screen travellers and prevent those who pose a threat getting on a plane, ferry or international train. Of course, by knowing more in advance of travel, our ambition is to increase automation of passenger clearance at the border and generally improve the experience.

I think I have answered all the questions, but I reassure noble Lords that this was a one-off incident and I am reliably informed that it has now been corrected and that additional capacity has been put in place. Obviously, I would not like to claim that it will never happen again but, as far as I am aware, the situation has been dealt with and again I thank Border Force officers and those in the Home Office data and digital team who worked very hard on this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I will address the last points first. As I said, it was not a software issue that caused this particular outage, so I can deal with that relatively straightforwardly. As regards government contracts, as the noble Lord will be aware, I think they are all published on GOV.UK. I am not sure if this one was or if I am wrong there, but I will check and find out and come back as required.

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

Is it redacted?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Yes, I will also check on that.

I did not know about the Amadeus takeover of this particular Portuguese company, but I will make further inquiries and, if there is more to be said, I will write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister agree that one of the lessons from earlier outages was the need to be able bring in extra staff and surge staff if it ever happened again? Of course, it did happen again and the fact that the staff were able to get into place very quickly is to be commended and the staff involved need to be thanked and congratulated on their swift response.

The Minister in the other place said that he could not comment further on the root causes of the outage: however, the Minister here went into more detail on that. Is that the update the Minister in the other place promised last Wednesday and is there nothing more that can be mentioned about that and elaborated on? Also, when the EES comes in—which the noble Baroness dealt with at some length—can the Minister tell the House whether it will apply to flights from the UK to airports in the Republic of Ireland?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I have already said, I do not know to what my right honourable friend in the other House was referring when he talked about updates, so I am afraid I do not know whether I have just given an update on his points. What I can say—and should have said in my opening remarks—is that the lessons learned exercise is still ongoing, so I cannot say that that is fully concluded yet because it is not. I am afraid I do not know the answer regarding the Republic of Ireland. From memory, I do not think the Republic of Ireland is a member of the Schengen agreement, so I am not actually sure how that affects it.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, the House will be relieved that what happened was not the result of a cyberattack and did not compromise our borders, but nevertheless, in the Minister’s own words, it was the result of a capacity issue and cumulative changes. In the light of the question asked earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, is the Minister, in effect, telling the House that there was an upgrade issue? He said that he hoped it would not happen again, but it has happened in the past, and it was because of an upgrade issue. Can the Minister be honest with the House about this, especially bearing in mind that the reputational damage to the UK is so obvious when something like this happens?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I can reassure the noble Viscount that I am being honest. The simple fact is that this is not a repetition of the previous outage, which was unrelated to this capacity issue. The capacity relating to this incident has now been doubled, in effect, so I am confident that the problem is currently fixed. The previous issue related to a different set of upgrades, as far as I understand.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I shall be a little bit more positive and say, first, that since their introduction these gates have been tremendous in terms of increasing mobility and getting people through airports generally. I welcome them in terms of people being able to travel relatively freely. At the moment—this may be slightly different data from that of my noble friend—I understand that seven non-European nations are able to use the gates, including South Korea. Can the Minister say whether more negotiations are going on and whether we will be able to welcome more nations to this facility? Secondly, Ireland is not part of Schengen; it is part of the common travel area that we are the major part of. One key area for security was the Schengen Information System, which has an alert system in terms of bad guys and people who we would not want to come into this country. Can the Minister remind me whether we are still seeking entry or sharing Schengen Information System data, whether that is still possible or whether it has happened?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his positivity, and I could not agree with him more. It is perfectly possibly now to get off a plane and, if you do not have luggage, to be out of an airport within 15 or 20 minutes, which is remarkable—Singapore levels of efficiency, some might say. As regards the sharing of information and Schengen, I am afraid I do not know the answer; I will have to write on that.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have an interest in this question. I do not think it is a declarable interest, but I have an interest to this extent: I was a Minister in the early 2000s when these gates were put in the first time. I was responsible, with my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who was the Home Secretary, for installing eGates. I think they have transformed the ability of people to go through our airports, and I am very supportive of them.

I am obliged to Tom Pursglove for reinforcing on 8 May what we were debating for some hours in the previous business, which is that you can never guarantee that any IT system will be 100% reliable 100% of the time. Persuading people that that was the case is what led to the Horizon scandal. I do not want to take the Minister back to where he has been since my noble friend Lord Coaker asked him a question and the two other questions, but Tom Pursglove’s answers need clarification. The Minister has given us some. If the noble Lords do not mind, I am going to read consecutive sentences that Tom Pursglove used when answering this question in the other place. He said:

“When it comes to the root cause of what happened—how we got to this point in the first place—as soon as the fix was put in place, the posture changed to getting us to a place where we better understand the root cause. That work is ongoing, and it would not be right for me to speculate on it, but I can absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman that we will get to the bottom of the issue”.


He then went on to say—and this is what confuses me:

“As for the specific technical issue last night, I am assured that the technical team are confident that there is now a permanent fix to that issue”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/5/24; col. 594.]


That seems to suggest that he was in a position to say what it was. The important question was asked by my honourable friend Dan Jarvis, against the background of previous e-outages. He sought to find out whether this was the same problem recurring; that was the simple question. If it is not the same problem recurring—I infer from what the Minister said that it is not—that is the answer to the question, but if it is still an issue, I would like to know, as I am sure would other noble Lords. In any event, I suggest that the Minister goes back to Mr Pursglove and tells him to be more specific in answering the question, rather than being in places.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I will repeat what I said earlier: there is no relation to any previous incident. In effect, I am being asked to unpick what my right honourable friend in the other place might have meant a week ago, which I simply do not know. I will tell the House what I do know—I have already said this, but I will repeat it. At 7.44 pm on 7 May, a loss of network connectivity caused a number of Home Office IT systems to lose service, including customer services and migration and border systems. Operational policing systems were unaffected, although Home Office access to them was. Due to the timing of the outage, the primary visible impact was at all ports where both eGates and primary control point desks were unavailable. Border Force officers reverted to using PCP laptops, which are not reliant on the network, and the Warnings Index to process passengers. Service was fully restored just after midnight on 8 May. As I said, DDaT engineers identified that the cause of the outage was a capacity issue on an element of the network that controls network traffic in the data centres. The incident was caused by the cumulative effect of changes that we have been making to sustain and modernise the Home Office network environment. That is all I can answer.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I will recount a personal anecdote, and ask my noble friend the Minister some questions, because I travel frequently between here and the European Union. I had the good fortune to arrive at Gatwick in the mid-afternoon of the day in question; had I not, I might have been stuck, so I felt much relief from my adept timing. However, I am somewhat anxious, given the amount of traffic that one can expect at places such as St Pancras station and the like. I went there with a group from this House to see what is being done to anticipate the queues of people. I know from experience that being at St Pancras and boarding a Eurostar train can be a very time-consuming business—however hard you try, it will be difficult. I am told that a lot of the shops will have to be demolished to provide room for the ETA system to be effectively applied.

Is my noble friend the Minister prepared to give us some notional guidance on how the changes at St Pancras station are developing? The use of eGates there is to be applauded. Schiphol airport has an open eGate system now; I have spent too many hours there waiting for somebody to stamp my passport to know that that is a great advantage. It will be a great advantage to use eGates because of the extension that has been granted from this country into the Netherlands and the reciprocal measure here. What is the situation with St Pancras and its Eurostar eGates?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that, and I am delighted that he did not get caught in the disruption last week. As I said in my opening answer to the Front Benches opposite, the Government are doing everything that we can to prepare for the implementation of EES and mitigate its impacts on British travellers, which particularly applies to the juxtaposed border controls. As I mentioned, the director-general of the Police aux Frontières visited Dover, St Pancras and Folkestone last month. I cannot speculate on what physical changes may be required at St Pancras to accommodate the new systems. My noble friend mentioned the ETA system, but I do not think that that is what he meant; I think that he is talking about the EES. I suspect that the ETA system will not have much impact at all at St Pancras. As soon as I am in a position where I can give an update on any physical or infrastructural changes required in and around St Pancras—and, indeed, at the other juxtaposed border controls—I will be very happy to come back and explain them.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, on the point about outage, the same thing happened 12 months ago. It was not necessarily the same issue of capacity but, nevertheless, it is not good enough. We rely so heavily now on numbers to make sure that these eGates work. We work on reciprocity. Reciprocity means that we welcome people from other countries into the UK, inbound, and they can use eGates—not all of them, but we have agreed with a number of countries that this can take place.

That is not the case now when, as UK passport holders, we go to places where we could formerly use eGates. We are fine in Spain and one or two other countries but, when we travel to other places, which are not off the map, we find that we are not allowed to use eGates. Can I ask my noble friend to look into this? It is a matter of fairness that, if we are willing to welcome other countries’ citizens into our country using eGates, it should be a reciprocal arrangement.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

First, I say again, for the record, that this was not an outage that we have seen before but a unique situation; I say this just to shoot that particular fox. My noble friend makes some very good points. These are matters of high-level diplomacy but I will, of course, look into the reciprocity arrangements that she talks of and see whether there is any more that I can say about that. I suspect that negotiations are ongoing and I imagine that they form part of much bigger discussions.

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

My Lords, technical challenges have been referred to in some detail in relation to Portugal, with the potential that that country, in which I am resident, is to be suspended from the Schengen system in July. This will presumably cause a whole plethora of additional challenges for the UK tourist industry. All the countries seem to be having these technical problems. I wonder, could there be some kind of discussion to see what could be done working in unison to try to sort it out?

While on my feet, I encourage the Minister to consider the provision under Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, whereby residents of a country, if non-nationals, may avail themselves of foreign immigration lines. The SEF authorities in Portugal would welcome Ministers from both countries, Portugal and the UK, sitting together, as it would ease their burden. The systems are exactly the same whether you are resident or non-resident, in respect of which lines you have to go through. However, because of Article 50—dare one say it, a colleague in this House was responsible for drawing up that process; a colleague who says, “Not me, guv”—the SEF authorities would very much welcome the Ministers getting together to sort this out by agreement.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Again, I am not particularly qualified to comment on Portugal’s internal systems and processes. Perhaps, since he lives there, the noble Viscount could bring his considerable diplomatic weight to bear and help us out a bit. Those discussions should be ongoing. It is, of course, our oldest alliance, so I am sure there is plenty of good will.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will return briefly to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, about the new owners of the software provider having full provision for the ending of support for Windows 10. I do not think the Minister answered that, so perhaps he could write to us later about it.

There are broader questions raised by this incident about the robustness and resilience of critical official systems. I have a Written Question down at the moment about their robustness and resilience against the solar storms we are currently experiencing. I will park that to one side, except to note that, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said, external threats will lead to internal breakdowns. We have seen this again and again with the border gate systems. Do the Government have a list or register of the systems for which there has to be an alternative manual arrangement which can deliver at reasonable speed and in reasonable volumes? There is obviously a risk when we are digitising so many systems. Are the Government saying that there are some things for which there has to be a manual emergency system and that they are ensuring that provision?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I answered the noble Lord’s question in that I genuinely do not know, so I shall write. As far as I can tell, the noble Baroness’s question ranged from matters of diplomacy to matters of astronomy. It has certainly covered a wide area. She will not be surprised to know that I am not an expert on either. As to whether there is a list of systems where a manual resilience process needs to be maintained, I do not know. Of course, there are certainly lists of priorities which must be maintained at all costs to maintain national security, border integrity and so on. I do not have this to hand but I will investigate the manual side of things. If there is anything useful to say, I will come back on it.

House adjourned at 7 pm.

Modern Slavery National Referral Mechanism: Waiting Times

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Bristol]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce waiting times for ‘conclusive grounds’ decisions under the National Referral Mechanism for modern slavery.

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

My Lords, the Government remain committed to ensuring that victims are identified promptly. We have taken steps to shorten the timelines for making decisions in the national referral mechanism, including new guidance for making reasonable grounds decisions, changes to the online referral form and setting timescales for information to be provided to the competent authorities. We have also significantly increased staffing for the competent authorities and are seeing the results through increased output of decisions.

[The Lord Bishop of Bristol]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. The median waiting time for conclusive grounds decisions in 2023 was 526 days but, for women, the median waiting time rose to 904 days, nearly double that for the whole group. This has a negative impact on them, their families and their children, and it makes it very difficult for swift enforcement action to be taken against perpetrators. What assessment have the Government made of why this discrepancy is so large and what steps are they taking urgently to reduce waiting times for women?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for that question. We are working to improve the timeliness of all decisions from all angles. That includes increasing the capacity for decision-making, testing alternative approaches, improving the quality of the information provided as part of the decision-making process, and reducing opportunities for misuse. The statistics are trending in the right direction. In the past two years, almost 30,000 people have had access to the protections of the NRM. Last year, 9,825 conclusive grounds decisions were issued, the highest number since the NRM began. In the first quarter of this year, 5,161 reasonable grounds decisions and 3,893 inclusive grounds decisions were issued, far higher than in any other quarter since the NRM began.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

Can the Minister answer the question about the discrepancy between women and men in the cases cited?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I apologise; I should have addressed that. I do not know the precise reason for those discrepancies, but I will look into the details and come back to the noble Lord.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I declare that I am co-chair of the parliamentary group on modern slavery and vice-chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation. Can the Minister say how the NRM will deal with potential victims of modern slavery when the Illegal Migration Act is in force?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

These are discussions that we have had at considerable length over the past few months. When the IMA is commenced, its modern slavery provisions will strengthen the UK’s continued efforts to mitigate risks to public order by withholding modern slavery protections from those who enter the UK illegally and who therefore put themselves and first responders at risk and place acute pressure on public services. Where someone has entered the UK illegally and is identified as a potential victim of modern slavery, we will ensure that they are either returned home or sent to another safe country, and away from those who have trafficked them.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as the chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation. Home Office figures for 2023 include bad faith disqualifications, where someone has been disqualified from protection because the referral or claim was made in bad faith. As it appears that there were zero bad faith disqualifications last year, can my noble friend the Minister say what the evidence is for the claim we hear that the NRM is being abused?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The public order disqualification is part of the Nationality and Borders Act, which has also been discussed extensively from this Dispatch Box and over a number of debates. It provides a definition of public order which makes it operationally possible to withhold the recovery period in certain circumstances, in line with Article 13 of the European Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. All decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister explain why the last annual report on modern slavery, as required by the Modern Slavery Act, was published in 2021? When will the Government publish the next annual report? Would that not help us to understand the statistics?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have already highlighted that a lot of statistics have been published. I do not know specifically when the next report is due to be published, but I will find out.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, will not the new provisions that the Government introduce make it less likely that witnesses come forward? Will that not be welcomed by traffickers, who will see it as an easy way of not getting caught?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

No. I do not see why it would make witnesses less likely to come forward.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister not recognise that delays with the NRM leave potential victims without the security that they would otherwise have and—following on from the last question—make them more open to further exploitation and re-trafficking? Does he also recognise that many victims of trafficking are British citizens?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

What I recognise is that this is very complicated. Referrals into the national referral mechanism are made by a number of public authorities, including the police, local authorities and so on, as well as non-governmental organisations. Then, one of the two competent authorities takes a look and makes an initial reasonable grounds decision, following which a potential victim is entitled to a minimum 30-day recovery period, unless there are grounds to disqualify them from that entitlement. The recovery period lasts until a conclusive grounds decision is made. These cases are very complex. In many cases, there is insufficient evidence and information in the referral form, so the competent authorities must consider all the information available to them and request it from various other authorities over which they have little or no operational control, and they do not have investigatory powers. This is extraordinarily complicated, but of course I recognise the victims’ distress.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister must have had in mind the Salvation Army when he was talking about non-governmental agencies. Over the past 13 years, it has dealt with over 22,000 cases that it has referred to the national referral mechanism. Yet, in data that it has produced, it points out that the delays have risen from the very modest five-day target in 2023, which was often realised, to 47 days now. It also says that there are technical deficiencies with the NRM. Will the Minister agree to meet senior officials from the Salvation Army to discuss the practicalities and issues arising as a result of the delays?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Yes, I am very happy to do so. The Salvation Army deserves great credit, because it is contracted to offer a lot of the services that are delivered via the NGOs to the victims.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, as the Minister has said, assessments to identify and support victims of trafficking, for whom any delay is harmful, can be complex and time-consuming. How many children are involved in the increasing backlog, either as victims themselves or as the children of victims? Do cases involving children receive any priority—and, if so, how?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Of course, there are a lot of age-disputed cases in the system, so it is difficult to give the noble Lord a precise answer on that. There are decision-making pilots for children which are much quicker at making decisions. They are taken through a multi-agency structure of the local authority, health and police as a minimum. The safeguarding partners have a responsibility to obtain and present evidence at meetings where decisions are taken, so they are dealt with slightly differently.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, this morning in the High Court in Belfast, a judgment disapplied certain elements of the Illegal Migration Act as they contravened Article 2 of the Windsor Framework. What assessment does the Minister, who brought the legislation through this House, have of that judgment?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am afraid that is the first I have heard of it, so I have no opinion on it.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre’s paper on the 2023 national referral mechanism statistics notes with some concern that the data raises

“significant questions over the decision-making process”

as a result of changes to the statutory guidance that came in in January 2023 and not changes in the number of likely victims of modern slavery. Can the Minister say that the systems do not put victims of modern slavery at further risk?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I go back to an earlier answer I gave, that these are extraordinarily complex cases and, therefore, the guidance has to be refined in light of those cases periodically. I do not know to what specifically the noble Baroness is referring but, as far as I am aware, it does not make it any more complicated.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I should have referred to my interest as a trustee of the Human Trafficking Foundation, as laid out in the register, at the beginning of my question. I apologise for that.

Inadmissible Asylum Seekers

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord German, and all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. As noble Lords are aware, the UK has a long and proud tradition of providing safe haven to those who genuinely need our protection, and we remain committed to providing such protection, in accordance with our international obligations.

The matter of the Government’s proposed approach to addressing the cohort of individuals who have entered the United Kingdom since 7 March 2023 is therefore an important one. It may be helpful if I set out, in general terms, the Government’s approach and recent successes in clearing the asylum legacy backlog, give a brief update on the Government’s aims for deciding the asylum claims which have been made since 7 March and clarify how inadmissibility provisions will be applied. Before I do that, again none of the speakers addressed the simple question of why people have to claim asylum in the first safe country. It seems to be forgotten repeatedly and often that these arrivals in this country have all left a safe third country. It is a long-standing principle that those in need of genuine protection should claim asylum at the earliest opportunity, in the first safe country they reach, and this is the fastest route to safety.

I remind the House of the progress the Home Office made in 2023 in clearing asylum legacy backlog. As noble Lords will recall, the legacy backlog comprised 92,601 asylum claims lodged before 28 June 2022, when provisions within the Nationality and Borders Act came into force. The Prime Minister committed on 13 December 2022 to clear this backlog by the end of 2023. The Prime Minister’s commitment to clear the backlog was delivered at the end of the year and, in total, 112,000 asylum cases were processed in 2023. Increased efficiency and capacity saw the Home Office not just clear the backlog but exceed it by also processing over 25,000 asylum claims lodged on or after 28 June 2022. To achieve the success of 2023, the Government enhanced processing and deployed an additional 1,200 caseworkers, thus meeting the target to double the number of asylum caseworkers and increasing productivity.

As of 14 April 2024, there were 2,545 full-time equivalent decision-makers in post, answering the question of the noble Lord, Lord German. That is nearly double the number of asylum caseworkers in April 2023. In addition, the streamlined asylum process was developed as part of the legacy backlog clearance strategy for adults. It centred around accelerating the processing of manifestly well-founded asylum claims from legacy claimants of certain nationalities, such as those from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria, Yemen and, more recently, Sudan. This involved the use of an asylum questionnaire provided to claimants allowing them to explain why they required protection status in the UK. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees welcomed the introduction of the streamlined asylum process, publicly stating

“Removing the requirement for substantive interviews through the use of a questionnaire for asylum seekers from certain countries with very high grant rates should meaningfully reduce the current backlog of cases awaiting adjudication. Simultaneously, the procedure should uphold appropriate safeguards by maintaining individual interviews before any negative decisions are made”.


Since April 2023, children’s claims from high grant rate nationals of Afghanistan, Eritrea, Sudan, Syria and Vietnam have also been considered through the streamlined asylum process. It remains a key priority to consider claims as efficiently as possible, to clear the asylum backlog and to reduce the number of people on asylum support, in turn reducing the burden on taxpayers. By our speeding up decision-making, asylum seekers are given the certainty they need to plan for their future. In 2024, flow claims—those lodged on or after 28 June 2022 and before 7 March 2023, as well as asylum claims from those who arrived before 7 March 2023—are being prioritised now that the legacy claims have been cleared.

The Home Office has continued to build on existing processes and systems in its approach to tackling this latest cohort of claims. For example, the streamlined asylum process was extended to include eligible claimants from 28 June 2022 to 6 March 2023. During July 2023, the streamlined asylum process for children’s claims was also rolled out to claims from the same nationalities lodged from 28 June 2022 until 6 March 2023. We have recently redesigned the statement of evidence form for children, making the process quicker and more streamlined. The process for accompanied and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children enables cases to be progressed more quickly.  The latest provisional data shows that, as of 14 April 2024, there were 7,358 outstanding claims made on or after 28 June 2022 and before 7 March 2023. This demonstrates that we are making good progress on clearing the remaining claims. That means that the Government have made excellent recent progress in clearing both the legacy and, shortly, the flow backlog of asylum claims. The Government remain committed to their objective of deterring illegal migration to the UK and stopping the boats.

The Government are clear that those who fear persecution should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, and not put their lives at risk by making unnecessary and dangerous journeys to the UK. Illegal migration from safe countries undermines our efforts to help those most in need. Controlled resettlement, via safe and legal routes, is the best way to protect such people and disrupt the organised crime groups that exploit migrants and refugees.

[Lord German (LD)]

I wonder if I could ask about those who come directly to this country and those who pass through other countries? Given that nearly two-thirds of all people who are here irregularly do not come in small boats, what percentage have come directly? For example, those who overstay visas have not come via a third country but have arrived directly. I understand that the Government do not know how to split up that two-thirds, but is there any data on the numbers arriving here directly in that 60-odd percent?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I can reassure the noble Lord that I am coming to a more detailed set of number shortly, if he will bear with me. The safe third country inadmissibility policy is a longstanding process, intended to encourage individuals to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. That is an established part of international asylum procedures, applied across the EU and explicitly provided for in UK law, including in the strengthened provisions introduced in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.

 With the exception of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, those who choose to travel from a safe third country such as France, and then claim asylum in the UK may find their claim treated as inadmissible to the asylum process. That means that the UK will not consider the substance of the person’s claim and will seek their removal to a safe country.

In answer to the right reverend Prelate about facilities in France, anyone detained at the border is held for the shortest time possible. We prioritise processing children and vulnerable people as quickly as possible. Individuals in detention are held in safe and decent conditions. There are established procedures in place in every facility to monitor people’s welfare and safeguarding needs. These facilities are subject to inspection by HMG’s Inspector of Prisons, accompanied by their French counterpart, to ensure that they are of the highest standards.

 It is in this context that current removals to Rwanda may apply. Any individual who is otherwise suitable for an inadmissibility decision and who has arrived in the UK through dangerous, illegal and unnecessary methods since 1 January 2022 may be considered for relocation to Rwanda, under the Migration and Economic Development Partnership. Individuals will only ever be removed to a third country when that country is safe and removal is appropriate, according to the individual’s particular circumstances.

Once commenced, the provisions in the Illegal Migration Act will further strengthen our approach to inadmissibility.  When a person meets the four conditions under Section 2 of the Act, they will be subject to the duty to remove. Any asylum or human rights claims made against the person’s country of origin will be declared inadmissible. The UK will not consider the substance of the person’s claim and will seek their removal either to their home country—if it is safe to do so—or to a safe third country, such as Rwanda.

As of 14 April 2024, there were 21,313 outstanding claims made between 7 March and 19 July 2023. In addition, there were 51,925 outstanding claims made on or after 20 July 2023. I would caution that this data is provisional. It is taken from live operational databases and has not been cleansed to remove duplicates. The finalised figures as at the end of March 2024 will be published later this month.

 

The right reverend Prelate also asked me about the numbers of missing children. There are 111, they are all male and 98 have reached the age of 18. There are 13 left who are under the age of 18.

These provisions will apply to both adults and children. The duty to remove does not require the Secretary of State to make removal arrangements for unaccompanied children, but there is a power to remove unaccompanied children in limited circumstances, such as family reunion with a parent. However, any asylum or human rights claim made against the child’s country or origin will be declared inadmissible. Taking these measures will send a clear message that children cannot be exploited and cross the channel in small boats for the purpose of starting a new life in the UK.

Once commenced, these inadmissibility provisions will apply to those who are subject to the duty to remove under the Illegal Migration Act, and who entered or arrived illegally on or after 20 July 2023. As all asylum claims are generally worked in date order, the next cohort of asylum claims that are due to be progressed are those made by individuals who arrived in the UK after 7 March 2023. Further information will be published on our plans to decide these cases in the coming weeks. I am afraid there is no more I can say at this point.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I appreciate that the time allocated for the Minister is passing but, since several noble Lords took far less time than their allocation, I am sure the House will be sympathetic if he continues.

I think he has finished with the numbers, which he said would answer my noble friend Lord German; I am not sure that they have. On the same subject, the only way to come without crossing the channel would be to fly or to be here already, because we are an island. The report on safe routes published some months ago merely reported on what the safe routes are, without proposals for new safe routes. Can the Minister tell the House what proposals the Government have in mind so that their conditions can be fulfilled? I also hope he can answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, about the reporting.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Baroness will be aware that under the provisions of the Illegal Migration Act, a consultation process took place with local councils and authorities to find out what their local capacities are. I believe that consultation process has concluded, but I do not yet know the outcome. That will presumably inform the debate as to the safe and legal routes that may or may not be made available after we know the numbers.

We are continuously working through cases that could not previously be progressed as they require further investigation. The difficult cases typically relate to asylum seekers presenting as children, where age verification is taking place; those with serious medical issues; or those with suspected past convictions, where checks may reveal criminality that would bar asylum.

To come on to a few of the more specific questions, I can say confidently that detention capacity is sufficient. I cannot comment on other operational aspects around detention, but as of 24 April there were 2,200 people in immigration removal centres, which includes those liable for removal to Rwanda.

In answer to the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I can say that any evidence presented by an individual will be considered on its own merits. The information needs to be substantial and reliable and support the claim being made.

In answer to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord German, about our ODA spend, that is all reported in line with OECD rules. We do not include support costs for those in detained accommodation, nor for those whose asylum claims have been declared inadmissible.

[Lord German (LD)]

I am sorry to interrupt again, but can the Minister answer the question? His officials told the committee in the other House that there is ongoing discussion about whether the continuous use of ODA is possible. Have those discussions with the Treasury reached a conclusion, and is the Minister able to say that it is certainly possible to spend this money now?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am afraid I do not have that information to hand. I will see whether I can find it, and I commit to write to the noble Lord if I can.

I turn to other aspects of the various questions I was asked. The noble Lord, Lord Hussain, asked about individuals who were previously present in a safe third country and entered the UK by a dangerous and unnecessary method. I am afraid that they are liable to relocate to Rwanda. It is an ongoing operational matter, so I am unable to provide a running commentary on individual numbers or cases.

In answer to the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, about colleagues, I note that he now has a colleague who says:

“Don’t trust Labour on immigration they really want open borders … The Government wants to close legal loopholes … Labour seems intent on creating them”,


and

“Labour … are not serious about stopping small boats, tackling criminality, protecting people from the smuggling gangs or saving lives in the Channel”.

What on earth did the colleague mean by all that? I think the noble Lord knows.

As I hope I have made clear, the Government recognise the crucial importance of having in place a robust operational plan to deal with individuals who have outstanding asylum claims in the UK. We are getting on with the job; we will have a lot more to say on this subject, and I expect to be questioned on numerous future occasions on this very subject. I have little else to add.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

The Minister did not manage to answer the question from my noble friend Lord Rogan about the situation between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. I am sure he would appreciate an answer.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

With apologies, I did mean to, but for obvious reasons I cannot comment on the internal policies of another country, and I do not think it would be appropriate to do so in this case.

Rural Crime

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my interests as a retired farmer and a member of the National Farmers’ Union.

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

My Lords, since 2010, overall incidents of crime have come down by 55% on a like-for-like basis. The Government are committed to tackling rural crime. Decisions on deployment of police resources are a matter for chief constables and locally elected police and crime commissioners. However, the Government set up the National Rural Crime Unit to help police secure specialist operational support, develop bespoke approaches and share best practice.

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply. Rural theft cost the UK £49.5 million in 2022 and that overall trend is increasing exponentially today. Fly-tipping continues to be the most prolific form of rural crime. Is my noble friend satisfied that the punishments meted out to those who commit rural crime—if indeed they are caught—provide an effective deterrent? Does he agree with me that the results of the recent election of police and crime commissioners provide an opportunity for those elected to prove their support for rural issues, especially in the fight against rural crime?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend made a couple of very good points. First, the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 was given Royal Assent in July last year. Secondary legislation is needed before it comes into force and work has begun on the necessary regulations, with a view to hearing debates in Parliament in this Session. As noble Lords will be aware, there has been some progress on equipment theft; in fact, there was a story this morning in the Daily Telegraph and commendations go to Kent and Thames Valley Police for having arrested seven people relating to a hoard of over 1,000 suspected stolen items. It is not really my place to comment on sentencing, but I do think that significant progress is being made.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, will either the Minister or those in his department have a specific meeting with the newly re-elected police commissioner for Dyfed Powys, Dafydd Llywelyn, who represents one of the most rural areas in the whole of England and Wales? There have been specific crimes in that area that need investigation and possibly increased powers to deal with them. Will he give such a commitment?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I would of course be very happy to meet the said gentleman. Let me go into the details of the National Rural Crime Unit a little. It was established in January 2023, with a grant of £300,000. It is working and was set up with a significant input from the National Farmers’ Union, as noble Lords will be aware. The unit has made a real difference; Farmers Weekly reported on 25 April:

“They have absolutely changed the playing field in terms of policing”.


So the first port of call should be to superintendent Andrew Huddleston in that unit, which is doing great work.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is participating remotely.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the hugely experienced David Allen on his election as crime commissioner for Cumbria. With 47 million visitors to the Lakes annually and an associated increase in rural crime, will Ministers respond to his early call for resources to fund a major expansion in the automatic number plate recognition programme? We need it to cover our arterial road system, in particular the A66 and A69. As a matter of note, Vauxhall in London has more of these cameras than the entire county of Cumbria.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

On resources, there are now over 149,000 police officers in England and Wales, which is a higher number than any time before. The Government have also confirmed a total police funding settlement of up to £18.4 billion next year, which is an increase of £842 million. On how the money is spent locally, the noble Lord will be aware that those are very much local decisions, but I hear what he says and he made some interesting points.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, I am a member of the APPG on metal theft and we have identified and reported on the enormous and growing scale of metal theft in rural areas, which of course has a massive impact on rural communities. Church roofs are stolen; a kilometre or more of copper cable is extracted from the local comms system, taking out telephone networks; and so on. Such crime is overwhelmingly committed, we heard in evidence, by organised criminal gangs. They are rarely caught and rarely held to account. Does the Minister think the police have the right strategies and tactics for handling organised crime in rural areas?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Again, the noble Lord makes some very good points. As he will be aware, operational decisions are taken locally, so that is a matter for chief constables in conversation and association with their police and crime commissioners. But plenty of national resources are available, as I have already highlighted.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, notwithstanding the figures that the Minister just gave us, the National Farmers’ Union Mutual says that 80% of its members have reported disruption from crime in their areas. One specific ask from the National Farmers’ Union Mutual is for improved protection to be given by extending the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act to include GPS theft from farmed vehicles. Will the Government consider doing that as a matter of urgency?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

That is a very good point. We still have to commence the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act, as he knows, and a call for evidence went out last summer seeking views on the secondary legislation, as required. That would be the appropriate place for making these points and discussing this. It has been targeted at agricultural and construction sectors—manufacturers, dealers, retailers and so on. I wait to see what the results of that call for evidence deliver, but I think the noble Lord makes a very good point—and, going back to the story about Kent that I referenced earlier, it was because of a GPS tracker that these people were caught.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, it is recognised that one niche area of rural crime by organised crime groups is laundering money through events such as illegal hare coursing, which is causing a huge problem. We were very grateful for the recent support of the Government in trying to bring an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, but is the Minister sure that the new police and crime commissioners not only understand the problem but have the right training in place so the law can be implemented?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

First, I commend the right reverend Prelate on his work in introducing the amendment to that particular Bill. It came into force on 1 August 2022 and, without his efforts, I do not think it would have happened. Hare coursing is not a notifiable offence, but the statistics I have are very encouraging. There has been a 60% reduction in the poaching of both hare and deer over the course of the 2022-23 season. The National Rural Crime Unit informs us that there has been an increased use of criminal protection notices when used alongside the new measures, including those involved with hare coursing. I was very pleased to hear about the successful prosecution of two individuals in Lincolnshire last week for hare coursing. So, it would seem to bear out that enough work is being done, but of course I will follow up and, if there is more to say, I will come back to the right reverend Prelate.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, we hear more in the media about crimes in urban areas and cities due to the numbers. However, many rural crimes are serious. Cuts in bus services and the decimation of youth services have left young people adrift. Young people are vulnerable to predation by criminal drug gangs running county lines. Prevention is always better than cure. Why have the Government abandoned vulnerable young people in rural areas?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Well, that was more of a statement than a question and I do not think the Government have abandoned rural young people.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, Julia Mulligan, our very good North Yorkshire police and crime commissioner, brought out a report five years ago about the wide gap in support between rural and urban victims of domestic abuse. That report, Captive & Controlled, stated:

“Abuse lasts, on average, 25% longer in the most rural areas”.


Can my noble friend assure me that this gap has narrowed, and how has this been achieved?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend asks a good question, but the findings of the Captive & Controlled report are not easily replicated, so it is difficult to give him the assurance he seeks that the gap is narrowing. But teams in the Home Office and Defra have sought to understand the additional challenges that victims in rural communities face, and we have invested to help address those. That includes funding for an older persons’ rural domestic abuse practitioner in Northumberland and support for children, young people and families in rural communities in Shropshire and Devon. I would also say that the duty to collaborate we are introducing through the Victims and Prisoners Bill will further help police forces understand and commission to meet the needs of the victims in their communities.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, would the Government agree with me that there is a direct relationship between crime and poverty? What are we doing, really, about all the things that are happening in the countryside that are stripping people of jobs? It is very, very difficult to get a job in the countryside that pays enough for you to live on the wage. It is a low-wage economy.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

That may be the case, but there are also lots of good opportunities in the country and, of course, we live in a world where the gig economy gives people opportunities to live pretty much wherever they want.

Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2024

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2024.

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

My Lords, this draft order, which was laid before Parliament on 11 March, will make amendments to the Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) Order 2000. It will remove an inconsistency between the 2000 order and the findings of a High Court judgment in proceedings brought by the Independent Monitoring Authority for the Citizens’ Rights Agreements relating to the EU settlement scheme. That scheme enables EU, other EEA and Swiss citizens living in the UK by the end of the EU exit transition period on 31 December 2020, and their eligible family members, to obtain a UK immigration status. It gives effect to key aspects of the UK’s commitments under the citizens’ rights agreements—that is, the EU withdrawal agreement and the equivalent agreements with the other EEA states and Switzerland.

In line with the agreements, the 2000 order provides for an EU settlement scheme status holder to lose their immigration permission automatically after more than a specified period of absence from the UK. For a pre-settled status holder, the specified period is currently two years’ absence; for a settled status holder, it is five years’ absence. Swiss citizens and their family members have a specified period of four years, due to differences in the terms of the citizens’ rights agreement with Switzerland.

The High Court judgment found that, where a pre-settled status holder has rights under the EU withdrawal agreement or the agreement with the other EEA states—Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein—they can automatically acquire a right of permanent residence, which is another form of settlement, once the conditions for it are met, and so benefit from the longer period of absence. The effect of the judgment is that the 2000 order is inconsistent with that legal position because the order does not cater for the group of pre-settled status holders who have automatically acquired a permanent residence right.

That ability does not extend to Swiss citizens and their family members due to the different terms of the Swiss citizens’ rights agreement. The EU settlement scheme is also more generous than the citizens’ rights agreements as regards eligibility criteria and because, for pragmatic domestic policy reasons, it is open to wider groups of people than those covered by the citizens’ rights agreements. As a consequence, not all pre-settled status holders can automatically acquire a permanent residence right.

However, to achieve consistency, the draft order provides for all those granted leave under the EU settlement scheme to benefit from the longer absence period before their immigration permission lapses. This is irrespective of whether such individuals hold pre-settled or settled status, and whether they are from the group that has acquired a right of permanent residence.

We have done that for reasons of simplicity and operational practicality. Generally, a Border Force officer will not know on initial examination if a pre-settled status holder has obtained the right of permanent residence, as that would require a detailed examination of the circumstances and relevant evidence, which is often impractical at the border.

The change to the 2000 order does not prevent the Home Office from cancelling pre-settled status where a holder who has not acquired a right of permanent residence has been absent from the UK for longer than the period permitted by the relevant citizens’ rights agreement, which is generally six months in a rolling 12-month period. The scope of this action will remain available by decision under the Immigration Rules, rather than by lapsing of leave under the 2000 order.

For the avoidance of doubt, the draft order does not extend the permitted absence periods for holders of pre-settled status, which are set out in the relevant citizens’ rights agreements. It affects only the automatic loss of leave under the 2000 order.

The draft order gives clarity to citizens by bringing our legislation in line with the legal position as determined by the findings of the High Court judgment. It achieves that in the simplest and most sensible way while not preventing the Home Office from taking the appropriate action where a person is no longer eligible for leave under the EU settlement scheme. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, we support the order as well, and I thank the Minister for introducing this SI. Currently, pre-settled status lapses when somebody is outside the UK for a period of two years or more continuously; settled status lapses after five years of absence.

A court ruling, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, found in late 2022 that, first, applicants granted pre-settled status should not lose their rights of residence if they do not make an application for settled status. This was on the basis that the wording of Article 13(4) of the withdrawal agreement makes it clear that a right of residence can be lost only in very specific circumstances. The expiry of the status was not among them. Secondly, the consequence of the above is that settled status rights accrue automatically once the conditions of such status have been satisfied by the individual without the need for a second application.

As we have heard from the Minister, this SI aligns the law with this ruling in ensuring that pre-settled status can lapse only after five years’ absence. The Government also announced last year that some pre-settled status holders will be automatically changed to being settled status holders this year.

Can the Minister confirm how many people have applied to switch from pre-settled to settled status but are currently waiting for a decision on their applications? We know that there is still a backlog. Will he tell us what information the Home Office has on the number of people who currently meet the eligibility criteria to switch from pre-settled to settled status but have not yet submitted an application to do so?

In July 2023, the Home Office said that its intention was to take steps to automatically convert as many eligible pre-settled status holders as possible to settled status once they are eligible for it, without them needing to make an application. Can the Minister update us on the progress of those plans? As he has acknowledged, the draft order seeks to implement a change to current legislation that is required as a result of the court’s decision. We approve of the order but I would be interested in the answers to those questions. They are actually the same questions that were asked in the other place when this matter was considered.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their contributions to this relatively short debate. It is worth saying to start that the EU settlement scheme has been a great success—and I shall come on to the numbers in a second. We have gone above and beyond our obligations under the citizens’ rights agreements and are pleased that so many families, friends and neighbours have obtained the status that they need to remain in the UK.

To respond to the various points, the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, asked me about facts and figures. This also answers a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made. There is no complacency here: as of 31 December 2023, 7.7 million applications were made to the scheme by an estimated 6.2 million people, of whom 5.7 million have obtained a grant of status. We have received 1.7 million applications since 30 June 2021, of which 38% were late applications; 39% were repeat applications, including those moving from pre-settled to settled status; 23% were joining family members; and 1% were from derivative rights applicants—please do not ask me what that means, because I do not know.

Nearly 1.6 million of the applications received since 30 June have been concluded; 746,000 people have moved from pre-settled to settled status, which represents more than half of repeat applications, and contributes to settled status outcomes being proportionately high when looking at the monthly outcome figures in the quarterly statistics. Application intake has remained high—the average monthly intake for the final quarter of 2023 was approximately 51,000. However, we continue to conclude more applications than we receive, concluding on average more than 57,000 applications a month.

Finally, there are 121,830 pending applications, compared to 142,430 in the previous data released to 30 September 202, which is a 14% reduction. I appreciate that that was a lot of numbers. It might be helpful if I commit those to paper and send them to both noble Lords.

The order is not retrospective, in answer to a question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. If the leave of a pre-settled status holder lapses before the coming into force of this order and they have not obtained a withdrawal agreement right of permanent residence, they will have lost their immigration permission to enter or remain in the UK. That is consistent with the citizens’ rights agreements, because the point at which pre-settled status currently lapses, after more than two years of absence, is more generous than any of the periods of absence permitted under the agreements.

On why we have not given pre-settled status holders a more generous permitted absence period in line with the draft order, the current provisions already allow pre-settled status holders significant periods of absence while maintaining their status. We have gone further than required by the citizens’ rights agreements. There are no plans to take a more generous domestic approach to permitted absence periods for pre-settled status holders than those set out in the agreements. Pre-settled status is a route to settlement, and we expect an individual to show a level of commitment to the UK. Not only are these absence periods well established under previous immigration arrangements with the EU; it would be unfair on UK nationals in EU member states who would not benefit from such greater flexibility.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked me why we were slow to implement the judgment. By virtue of UK domestic law, the withdrawal agreement as interpreted by the judgment is directly effective, which means that the rights are, and always have been, available to citizens. Our implementation is therefore focused on ensuring that it continues to be easy for citizens, government departments and third parties, such as employers and landlords, to evidence rights or check that they are in place. Some of that work is not straightforward and necessarily takes time. No guidance on the order has been published, but it will be shortly.

Finally, I thank the noble Baroness for submitting her specific question, which was about confirming that the GOV.UK web pages make it clear that the change made by the SI will not benefit a holder of pre-settled status who does not have permanent resident rights. The change will benefit pre-settled status holders who have not acquired a withdrawal agreement right of permanent residence by extending the five-year lapsing provision to all EUSS status holders. I can confirm that the GOV.UK pages will be amended to clarify the position for leave that has lapsed before and after the order comes into force. The position remains that the easiest way for a pre-settled status holder to prove their right to live permanently in the UK is to apply for settled status.

I hope that that addresses all the points raised today. I appreciate that this is a particularly complicated subject. In conclusion, the draft order upholds the judgment of the High Court; it ensures consistency in the legal framework and does so in a simple, practical and workable way. I thank noble Lords for their support and commend the order to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

I acknowledge that this is a difficult issue and I repeat my opening statement about the gratitude we all feel for people who come and care for our family members. I have recently been in that position myself, just in the last couple of weeks, and it worked out very well in my own family’s case. It is a difficult, sensitive issue. I think the Liberal Democrat Peers have raised real issues of substance, and I look forward to the Minister’s answer.

[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.

Immigration Update

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in the other place by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Immigration, Tom Pursglove, on immigration. The Statement is as follows:

“This Government are committed to reducing immigration—both legal and illegal—into the UK. Legal immigration has risen in recent years in part because we have extended the hand of friendship to people fleeing conflict and persecution in Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan. That was the right thing to do. But another factor has been rising numbers of overseas students and workers and their dependants, which have risen to unsustainable levels. The steps that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary announced last year to cut net migration will mean that around 300,000 people who would have been eligible to come to the UK will now not be.

We have restricted most students from bringing dependent family members, increased the salary that most skilled worker migrants need to earn to get a visa by almost 50% to £38,700, stopped overseas care workers bringing dependent family members with them, raised the minimum income for family visas to ensure that people are supported financially, and scrapped the 20% going rate salary discount for shortage occupations and replaced the shortage occupation list with a new immigration salary discount list. The latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics show that net migration in the year to June 2023 was 672,000, 73,000 lower than six months earlier. These are provisional figures and we need to go further, but these are encouraging signs.

The latest statistics show that the numbers applying for skilled worker, health and care and study visas in the first three months of 2024 were down by 24% on the same period last year. We removed the right to bring dependants on the student visa route for those starting courses from 1 January other than those on postgraduate research programmes and government-funded scholarships. Applications for student dependant visas have fallen by 80% since our changes came into force. From 11 March 2024, we have stopped overseas care workers bringing family dependants, and have required social care firms in England to be Care Quality Commission-registered in order to sponsor visas. In the year ending September 2023, an estimated 120,000 dependants came via that route. In the first three months of 2024, applications for health and care visas were down by 28%. This is just the start; most of our changes have only just come into force.

Meanwhile, we remain committed to stopping the boats. Following Royal Assent to the Safety of Rwanda Act 2024 and the ratification of our treaty with Rwanda, we can operationalise our plan to relocate illegal migrants to Rwanda. Rwanda is a safe country that has repeatedly shown its ability to offer asylum seekers a chance to build new and prosperous lives. It has a strong and successful track record in resettling people, hosting more than 135,000 refugees, and it stands ready to accept thousands more who want to rebuild their lives and who cannot stay in the UK. Once flights begin, we will have added another vital deterrent to crack down on the people-smuggling gangs who treat human beings as cargo. The first illegal migrants set to be removed to Rwanda have now been detained, following a series of nationwide operations this week. Operational teams within the Home Office have been working at pace to safely and swiftly detain individuals in scope for relocation to Rwanda, with more activity due to be carried out in the coming weeks. This action is a key part of the plan to deliver flights to Rwanda in the next few weeks.

We have made solid progress in stopping the boats but we need to finish the job. The number of small boat arrivals fell by more than a third in 2023, and our work with international partners prevented more than 26,000 crossings last year, as well as helping to dismantle 82 organised crime groups since July 2020. Our new agreement with Albania has cut Albanian small boat arrivals by more than 90%, and we recently signed a ground-breaking deal with FRONTEX—the European border and coastguard agency—which marks another crucial step in securing our borders. An initial cohort in the thousands of suitable cases for removal to Rwanda has been identified and placed on immigration bail, with strict reporting conditions. We have a range of measures in place to ensure that we remain in contact with individuals, including both face-to-face and digital reporting, and Immigration Enforcement has a range of powers to trace and locate any individuals who abscond, as well as a dedicated team of tracing officers who work with the police, other government agencies and commercial companies to help trace individuals and bring them back into contact. It would be inappropriate to comment further on operational activity.

Immigration has enriched this country beyond measure, but it needs to be sustainable and it needs to be fair. Legal immigration should be focused on helping those in genuine need, and on ensuring that our economy has the skills it needs to flourish. It is simply not right for those who can afford to pay gangsters to jump ahead of those who would play by the rules and whose need is greater. No one needs to flee to the UK from a safe country such as France. Illegal immigration and unsustainable legal migration both place intolerable burdens on communities, and over time they will undermine support for immigration in general, which would be a tragedy. That is why the Government have a plan, which we are putting into action. There is further to go but we are seeing the positive impact of it already. I commend this Statement to the House”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and I am sorry that he has been given the task of defending what reads more like a press statement on the eve of an election than an update on overall policy, but perhaps I am prejudiced. I am sorry that the Statement does not extend to putting our policy into an international context and telling the House anything about work being done with international partners.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, I am interested in this well-covered story of the individual who has received £3,000 under the old scheme to go to Rwanda. What support will he receive to help him settle in? Will he have to pay for it out of the £3,000? Can the Minister give a breakdown of the number of asylum seekers who are not missing but who cannot be found? How many are due to report within the next week, the next month and so on? What is the “range of measures” to remain in contact with those people and how does the Home Office know where they are when they are reporting digitally? Will the Government keep the House updated on this?

The Statement refers to the minimum income requirement for family visas, which we will be debating the week after next. We have just debated overseas care workers bringing dependants, so I will ask some questions about students—most, but not all, of whom similarly cannot bring dependent family members—and about young people.

On students, where has there been a reduction in student visa applications? Is there data to show which courses have a reduction in international student numbers? Have the Government consulted universities recently about the impact of international student numbers on their university funding? Is the reduction in numbers reflected more in certain nationalities than others? What would be the long-term impact on university funding? Has an assessment been made of the impact of the policy to reduce international student numbers on the soft power that creates for the UK internationally?

With regard to young people, the youth mobility visa scheme offered by the EU has been rejected by the Government and I understand that Labour takes the same view. Why have the Government rejected this out of hand? Details would need to be negotiated but it is a sensible proposition. It would boost our economy—especially in hospitality and tourism—offer important opportunities for young people to live and work abroad and have an important role in our relationship with the rest of Europe. Why have the Government rejected the proposal?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for those questions. I will start with the cohort that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, referred to. He asserted that of the 5,700 that have been identified, the Home Office has located only 2,143. This is not accurate. In preparation for flights taking off, we have identified the initial cohort to be removed to Rwanda, as was said in the Statement, and have dedicated caseworkers who are ready to process any claims. An initial cohort of around 2,000 suitable cases has been identified for removal. They have been placed on immigration bail with strict reporting conditions. For those outside this group, there is still a wide range of tools to maintain contact with them, including face-to-face and digital reporting, while many individuals are also residing in Home Office accommodation. We are confident of their whereabouts. Once the decision to detain is made, this is just one of the cohorts of people who may be eligible for removal to Rwanda.

As to those who may or may not get sent to Rwanda, I am not qualified to comment on those particular statistics. I certainly did not recognise the one that the noble Lord quoted from the Refugee Council, so I will refer back to Hansard and, if I may, I will reply in more detail. On money, I do not know how much more has been released to Rwanda. I am basically up to date with what I read in the papers, which is that when the treaty was ratified there was another release—but, again, I may have to come back and correct the record on that.

The noble Lord asked me again, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about the impact assessment. As I said on the previous group, the intention is to publish this as soon as possible. There are a number of assumptions in there that are being reworked, and as soon as those are solved or sorted, it will come around.

The noble Lord did acknowledge that I have already answered a lot of the questions that he posed about the domestic workforce, the plans we have in place and the cross-departmental work with DHSC and DWP—so I will not rehash all that, because it would bore the House to tears. On his final question about the volunteer who flew to Rwanda, as I understand it, he qualifies for the five-year support package, as outlined in the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised the issue of students. We expect to see a surge of applications in the summer as students tend to apply for their visa in advance of their course start date, most commonly in September. We have asked the Migration Advisory Committee to look at the whole student situation; I am not quite sure when it is due to report back, but it will certainly do so in due course, and I am sure we will discuss its findings.

The noble Baroness also asked me to comment on a large number of operational matters. I am afraid I will not do that, for very obvious reasons, but I will recount some of the work that is being done with our international partners, particularly on the policing and law enforcement side. As noble Lords will be aware, to stop boats launching we signed the biggest ever deal with France; we have doubled the organised immigration crime funding for the National Crime Agency; and, as I mentioned again in the opening Statement, last year the French stopped 26,000 boats launching and we took down 82 gangs. Since the inception of the UK-France Joint Intelligence Cell, 24 organised crime groups have been dismantled, with 12 in 2023; and 280 people smugglers were arrested in 2023, including 94 pilots of small boats. The NCA also conducted the biggest ever international operation targeting networks suspected of using small boats for people smuggling, with 136 boats and 45 outboard engines seized. Over 150 small boats and engines have been seized as a result of the work of law enforcement in the UK.

On working with EU partners, illegal migration, as noble Lords will be aware, at the EU’s external border is growing dramatically. It is the highest it has been since the 2016 migration crisis. There were about 380,000 irregular crossings at the EU’s external border in 2023, showing a 17% increase from 2022 and indicating a consistent upward trend over the past three years. But the UK is committed to working with our European partners on these issues, both bilaterally and multilaterally, including at the EU level. I have mentioned FRONTEX —I could go on. There are an awful lot of interesting EU and broader European initiatives taking place, but I do not want to bore the House and I will not go through all the details now.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, I cannot resist a buy one, get one free offer, so I want to come back in on the health and social care workforce, as we have this opportunity, and pick up one of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, made around transparency and the impact of the Government’s policies on the workforce. It may be that this is one of those happy occasions where the Government can eat their cake and have it, by both reducing immigration and filling the gaps in the social care workforce, but it may also be that the two are in tension. It is really important and I hope the Minister will at least commit to transparency around that, because I do think the public are grown-up enough to have a conversation around this. They do not just need to hear from the Government that it is all fine on both counts if it is not. So I hope we will get the data that we need to understand and make a grown-up choice. If there is a trade-off between reducing immigration and filling the social care workforce, we should have a public discussion about that.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I completely agree with the noble Lord; of course we should. We have to monitor those statistics to make sure that the sector has what it needs, but also that the system suits the domestic issues that we have been discussing as well.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, the Minister and your Lordships will be aware of the frequent denunciations of the Government’s policy on immigration by Irish politicians. Indeed, members of the Irish Government have denounced the Rwanda policy in very derogatory terms. Yet, having done so, they now seek to return to the UK those who say they are fleeing the UK because of the Rwanda policy. It is one of the many ironies of the situation: a Government who wanted an open border in all circumstances now want to send police to the border to ensure that there are controls there, and so on and so forth.

It is not lost on many people in Northern Ireland that Brit bashing becomes very fashionable as Irish politicians head into an election, but can the Minister assure me that Northern Ireland will not become a dumping ground for people returned from the Irish Republic? Although the Irish Government talk about 80% of people coming in through Northern Ireland, they have not produced any real evidence as to the actual figures. Can we be assured that Northern Ireland will not become a dumping ground and that there will not be any people border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom? Can he also outline what the understanding is, which the Irish Taoiseach has referred to as already being in existence between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic, about the return of people coming into the Irish Republic from the UK illegally? Can he tell us what that understanding amounts to and whether it has any force of law?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. I would also reflect on the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made the point relatively recently that there is no deterrent effect, but clearly that is not being represented in the facts on the ground.

I shall to an extent repeat what my honourable friend said in the other place, which is that

“this Government are resolutely opposed to a hard border on the island of Ireland”.

He said that he understood that

“the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has requested an urgent meeting with the Irish Government to seek assurances that there will be no adverse implications for the smooth operation of either the common travel area or the Good Friday agreement. That is an important meeting and he is right to seek it. I reiterate that we would welcome a returns agreement with the EU. We think it is right that we explore those opportunities and we will continue to pursue that”.

Beyond that, I am afraid I cannot comment. It would be wrong of me to comment on the stories about the Irish police and the border. Much as I would not comment on operational matters in this country, I certainly will not on those in another. Obviously, higher-level discussions are still ongoing, which would, I think, address the last part of the noble Lord’s question. I am sure there will be much more to be said about that in the coming days.

Ukraine: Small Boats

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moore of Etchingham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how many small boats impounded from illegal migrants they have in their possession, and whether they plan to grant requests from the Ukrainian authorities to contribute these to the Ukrainian war effort.

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

My Lords, no such request by the Ukrainian authorities has been received by the Home Office. These boats, which are not manufactured to commercial standards, are completely unsuitable for anything other than endangering those who use them. Border Force has seized and disposed of hundreds since 2018.

[Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)]

I thank the Minister for his reply, but I think it is ridiculous to tell the Ukrainians what is safe for them to use in the situation they are in. They want these boats because they are the only way they can get across the Dnipro to their bridgeheads on the other side, and ferry men and munitions in and the wounded out. The Ukrainian authorities have asked for them; I am afraid it is a mistake to say that they have not. The Ukrainian embassy asked for them twice in February, and I have heard today that the Ukrainian ministry of defence is about to ask for them again now. I find it very puzzling. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why there is such reluctance to help—particularly as, at last, the American aid has come through—Ukraine get on the front foot, doing something incredibly brave, with these tiny boats, to get across the Dnipro and progress. They know more about what craft are seaworthy; they will repair these craft, because they need to—because they use them in matters of life and death.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, there are a number of questions there. First, just to repeat, the UK’s total committed military, humanitarian and economic support for Ukraine now amounts to almost £12.5 billion. As recently as 23 April, the Prime Minister announced that the UK will send our largest ever package of equipment from the UK, which is designed to help push back the Russian invasion on land, sea and air.

I go back to my initial Answer: these craft are unseaworthy. It is for us to determine their seaworthiness. They are built to extremely poor standards; they do not really even make it across the channel. They are not worth sending to Ukraine. As far as we are aware, the Ukrainian authorities have yet to ask for these boats. If they do, they should approach the Home Office and we will certainly come up with some other solutions.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I could help the Minister, because the Times last Monday had the answer to some of the questions about how many boats the Home Office has impounded. There are

“20 rigid inflatables … 62 folded-up inflatables and 131 engines”.

The fact that they have made it over the channel and been impounded suggests that they were seaworthy at a certain point. If the Ukrainians want them, why on earth does the Home Office not allow them to have them? Why do we need to keep them? Surely it is a win-win situation simply to hand them over to the Ukrainians to enable them to use them on the Dnipro.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Far from being rigid inflatables, these boats more resemble oversized rubber tires—inner tubes. The engines on these things tend to be very underpowered; they are less than 30 horsepower. They are bolted to a plywood transom and riveted to the back of the boat. They are unsafe.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, assuming that the seized boats are not going to Ukraine, could my noble friend tell the House how quickly they are destroyed?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Some are kept for evidential and investigation reasons, but they are destroyed as quickly as possible. They are actually recycled; they are not put into landfill.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, a year ago I asked this same Question and I got the same Answer from the Minister. Does saying that the boats are not safe indicate that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency has a role to play, in making sure that we can give boats to the poor people of Ukraine only if the MCA has approved it? It is nothing like crossing the channel to cross the river; it is a big river, but it is nothing like the channel. I know that the Swindon Humanitarian Aid Partnership is sending aid out all the time; it is taking buses and could take boats. It has said it can do it with no problem with security, but still the Minister rejects it. Could he think again?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

No. I am rejecting it because these boats are unsafe. What I will do, however, is share a good news story from last week. The seventh convoy run by the National Fire Chiefs Council delivered to the border of Ukraine a large amount of the sort of aid that the noble Lord is describing, including 33 fire and rescue vehicles, two mechanics’ vehicles, an HGV carrying more than 2,800 items of surplus equipment, and 30 fire and rescue vehicles, including 20 fire engines, eight command units, an aerial ladder platform and a 4x4 LPP vehicle. That is practical help. I commend the 100 volunteers from all over the country who drove the fire services aid to the Ukrainian border. That is worth having. These boats are not.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, speaking as a simple sailor, none of those things float so they will not help the Ukrainians much on the Dnipro, will they? It seems extraordinary. Perhaps these things are unsafe, but can we not leave it to the Ukrainians to decide? If you are fighting for your survival, my goodness me, it is amazing what you can do. I would like to think that we could do the same if we were in that position, so why not let them do it? Is it because we are frightened of litigation against us? What is the reason, really?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am very disappointed that the noble Lord the admiral does not support the Government’s position on this. An unsafe boat is an unsafe boat. He knows more about them—and ships, of course—than I do. The fact is that the Ukrainians, as far as we are aware, have not even asked for these things, so that judgment does not need to be made.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

If these boats are unsafe, why can the Government not let them have other boats?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I have just said and will continue to say: because the Ukrainians have not asked for them.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I commend the Government’s efforts to support the people of Ukraine. Does my noble friend agree that we must do everything we can to try to protect the brave people of Ukraine when in many ways they are fighting on the front line for our own democracy? If there were a request from the Ukrainians for these boats, would his reply be different?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My reply would be that we should look into the appropriate sorts of boats that we should send as part of our aid. Again, to remind noble Lords about the type of aid, since the start of the conflict the UK has sent almost 400 different types of capabilities to Ukraine. If the Ukrainians asked for boats, we would certainly look at providing them, but not these.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I visited Western Jet Foil just over a year ago, and I agree with Minister. I saw oversized rubber tyres which looked extremely dangerous, so I support the Minister in what he just said. I want to ask the Minister about the seizure of Russian assets. We have had the same answer from the Government on this question for a long time now. Will the Minister outline what concrete steps the Government are taking to access those assets for the benefit of the Ukrainian people?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his support for the Government’s position regarding the boats. On the seizure of Russian assets, I am afraid I am not more aware of the discussions than he will be from having read in the papers about what is going on at a very high level among the international community. I am sure that as soon as there is more to say on the subject, we will be back at the Dispatch Box.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

Having listened to the conversation, I think the enthusiasm in your Lordships’ House to support Ukraine in any way that we can is highly commendable. After two and a half years of conflict, there is a now a highly mature system of gifting in kind from the UK to Ukraine based not on—dare I say?—bright ideas of what we think we have that they want but on what they need and what they request. If we simply start gifting everything that we think they want, rather than what they actually ask for, we are in danger of overburdening them with all sorts of kit they know not what to do with.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. If there is a genuine request from the Ukrainian authorities to provide them with boats, we will absolutely look at it, and we will find the appropriate vehicles.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Can my noble friend clarify this? I understand that he is saying that there has been no request through the embassy here in the UK. Equally, the noble Lord, Lord Moore, said that there was a formal request in February. Could my noble friend, for the benefit of all of us here who feel quite strongly about this, double-check whether there was or was not such a request?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I say to my noble friend what I said earlier: no request has come to the Home Office, and, as far as I am aware, the same goes for the FCDO and the MoD. As far as I am concerned, there has been no meaningful request to the authorities which could provide the boats that are under discussion.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, asked about seizing Russian assets to use them to support the war effort by Ukraine. That idea came from the Foreign Secretary. He said it on a BBC programme and everyone else there said it was the most brilliant idea that had come from the United Kingdom, so I am surprised that there has been no further conversation. I happen to agree with the Foreign Secretary; he has his finger on the pulse. Is it not time that these assets were seized and used to help Ukraine to fight its war?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I think I made clear, I do not disagree or otherwise with the noble and right reverend Lord. He makes a perfectly reasonable point, but the Foreign Secretary is having those discussions and I am not.

Jewish Community in London: Safety

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellingham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what further measures they plan to take to enhance the safety of London’s Jewish community.

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

My Lords, the Government are steadfast in their commitment to protecting our Jewish communities, which is why we have committed further funding of £72 million for the Jewish community protective security grant to continue the vital work done in protecting Jewish communities until 2028. The JCPS grant is managed by the Community Security Trust, which I had the privilege of visiting a couple of weeks ago and which provides protective security measures at Jewish schools, colleges, nurseries and some other Jewish community sites, as well as a number of synagogues.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the police have a very challenging task to allow peaceful marches, to protect the rights of local people who are observing the march and to arrest those who are blatantly breaking the law—and that they normally they get this right? I ask the Minister to reflect on the Gideon Falter case and just to further reflect on whether, if the person in question had been a hijab-wearing Muslim woman observing a pro-Israeli march, or, for that matter, a Catholic priest, they would have been accused of provocation and threatened with arrest? I suggest that, if that had happened, there would have been massive outrage and the police officers in question would have been dismissed. So all we are really asking for is that everyone should be treated fairly and equally.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend that the police have a hugely difficult job, but obviously a police officer telling a person that being openly Jewish is provocative is clearly very wrong. I will not speculate as to what might have happened in the case of other individuals. We should welcome the Met Police’s apology. The Prime Minister recently made it clear to police forces that it is the public’s expectation that they will not merely manage protests but police them and, of course, do so proportionately. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary met with Sir Mark Rowley and the Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist earlier this week, and put it very well:

“Jewish people will always have the right to be able to go about their daily lives safely and freely, in London and across the UK”.


The Home Secretary continued:

“Sir Mark has reassured me he will make this clear to all sections of the community as a matter of urgency. The Met’s focus now is rightly on reassurance, learning from what happened, and ensuring that Jewish people are safe and feel safe in London”.


I think we should all support it in that critical endeavour.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would enhance the image and security of the wonderful Jewish people if the Jewish people in this country were to issue a strong statement dissociating themselves from the policies of the Netanyahu Government and the atrocities that have been committed on the people of Gaza, who are also human? Instead of that, the Board of Deputies has unfortunately sent a delegation to Tel Aviv showing solidarity with the Netanyahu Government, whose atrocities include the destroying of hospitals and the firing on aid convoys, killing even British people.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I think that is a deeply inappropriate question and I will not stoop so low as to answer it.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

Perhaps I can. British Jews are no more responsible for the actions of the State of Israel than I am.

To return to the question, it is clear that this incident was deeply regrettable; that language about being “openly Jewish” was wrong and I am glad that the Met Police has apologised for it and will take the opportunity to reflect and ensure that all Londoners can have confidence in it and everyone can feel safe in their city. I will not try to second-guess policing decisions and I would not expect the Minister to do so, but I am sure that discussions are ongoing around these issues in government. I noticed that this Question was originally down to be answered by the Minister for Faith. Can the Minister tell the House whether the Minister for Faith is being drawn into these discussions so they are not simply seen as a policing or security matter?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, we have to consider all the various aspects of policing in the round. The noble Baroness is quite right; public order policing is very complex and obviously very challenging, but it remains incumbent on Sir Mark and of course the mayor as well to ensure that London remains a safe and welcoming city. As I said in an earlier answer, I believe that the force’s focus ought to be on proportionate policing, making sure that it is done properly and fairly, and obviously we will continue to back forces in that, using all aspects of government.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, just to follow up on the noble Baroness’s point about drawing in other issues, not just leaving it to policing, the question is about enhancing the safety of our Jewish community. What more can we do to enhance it? Once it gets to policing, we know that it is in a bad place. How can we stop it getting to that point and enhance the safety of our Jewish communities right across the United Kingdom?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I think I answered that in my initial remarks, in which I mentioned the funding that has been increased for the Community Security Trust to administer in the JCPS. Just to go back to the Community Security Trust—I declare an interest as I was at the dinner where the Prime Minister announced the additional funding and I donated some money to it—the fact is that it has an enormous network, which I know is incredibly sophisticated, having seen it in operation, the police work incredibly closely with it, and it does a fantastic job. I very much praise it for all the work that it does.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, from a slightly different angle, the additional funding from the Government mentioned by the Minister is extremely welcome, but it is not assuaging the additional insecurity felt by the Jewish community after 7 October. A recent survey found that 50% of British Jews are currently considering leaving the United Kingdom. This would spell disaster for Britain, which desperately needs their talent and creativity and the diversity that they bring to British life. We as politicians have an important role to play here, and we must be extremely careful about what we say and do, which could inflame tensions and increase divisions that are growing and are already way too wide.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness’s statement.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Government for their commitment to protect the Jewish community, and I ask my noble friend whether he will join me in paying tribute, as I am sure he will, to the CST, which is trying to keep Jews safe. I declare my interest as a British Jew and to my other interests in the register. While there are weekly marches calling for “globalising the intifada” and eradication of the only Jewish state, when Jews are pelted with bricks and beaten with bars, and children are threatened on the way to school and university students threatened on campus, I feel that it would be most appreciated if the Government would look carefully at banning more of organisations such as Palestine Action, which has come to light, and other groups which seem to want to target the Jewish community directly, when we have no responsibility for the actions of an overseas Government.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend makes some good points. Of course, as has been often stated from the Dispatch Box, the Government do not comment on ongoing matters of possible proscription. The police can of course impose conditions on protests where they believe the protest may result in a variety of civil offences, serious disorder, damage to property and so on and so forth, but the ability to actually ban protests is a complex one under the Public Order Act. Of course, I agree with my noble friend, but it is incumbent on all citizens to reassure the Jews, who are feeling so under pressure.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords have been following the events at Columbia University and the encampment there, where there have been some pretty horrific scenes of students screaming rather maniacally to exclude “genocidal Zios”, and using other very offensive and anti-Semitic slogans, and so on. It has just completely got out of hand. The global student movement is coming to the UK: “From Gaza to Columbia to London” is the slogan, and it starts at UCL at 1 pm on Friday 26 April. I am not saying that as an advert, and I am not particularly worried about people protesting or about their interpretive dance against colonisation that they are bringing over. However, I am worried about anti-Semitism on London and other British campuses. Safety is not just a policing question. Can the Minister assure us that guard is being taken against what is happening on campuses, where the levels of anti-Semitism are now routine and normalised?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend from the Department for Education assures me that there is protection on British campuses. However, I also acknowledge the points that the noble Baroness made and share her concerns; these trends are very disturbing.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister comment on the take-up of grants for the protection of religious premises from attacks? Is he aware of some of the concerns that the processes that his department requires from faith communities are extremely complicated for often quite small sums of money?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am afraid that I do not have any statistics to hand on that. But, again, the money that we were talking about making available in my initial Answer is administered by the Community Security Trust; there is no application process to access that pool of funds.