Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 29, with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I declare my interests in relation to RAMP and Reset, as set out in the register.

I have tabled this amendment again because in Committee we did not have as satisfactory a response to our questions as we had hoped on the basic details of what these accommodation centres will look like. We do not know how many or where these will be. We do not know how many people will be accommodated in each one. I am not assured that the previously terrible, and now still wanting, conditions provided at Napier will not be repeated. We are being asked to agree to the use of accommodation centres without any information or reassurances of what they will look like, where they will be, and so on. We can only go on what we see as existing provision on MoD sites. That makes me very concerned—I remind the House that I had the privilege of visiting Napier barracks recently—and gives me strong reason to call for their use to be restricted, so that the vulnerable groups set out in this amendment cannot be accommodated in them. I continue to believe that placing people seeking asylum in housing in communities is much better for everyone.

I therefore ask the Minister for her agreement that we are given opportunities to discuss the design of these centres before the relevant regulations are laid in draft and before contracts are offered. We would like some clarity on when the regulations will be laid, a clear commitment that no unaccompanied children will be placed in such centres, and, although we would prefer no families at all in such centres, if there were to be families with children there, that suitable family accommodation and suitable safety arrangements for them would be provided in them. It is not my intention to press this to a vote. We hope that this debate will give an opportunity for the Minister to place some further reassurances on the record about accommodation.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to support this amendment—

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[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My apologies; it is getting late.

I am very pleased to support this amendment. When we debated it in Committee with regard to children and families, the Minister said that there were no current plans to place them in accommodation centres but that if a child was destitute and there was a place for the night, she could not say that the child would not be so placed. However, she promised to think further on the points made and I hope that she has been able to do so. I have two reflections which build on what the right reverend Prelate has said.

First, the Minister suggested that a child in a family, who was destitute, might have to be placed in a centre, but given that she told us that such centres were only for people who are destitute anyway, I am not sure how much comfort to take from that. Can she elucidate further please? Can she also confirm that it would only be for a night, or possibly two, that a family would be housed in an accommodation centre as an exception, which was what she implied? Can she give us an assurance that no family with children will be placed in a centre for more than the briefest of time in an emergency?

The Minister also reminded us that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children would not be placed in such centres. As the right reverend Prelate said, it would be good to have absolute assurance to that effect. Can she tell us what will be the position of a child who turns 18? Might they be moved into such a centre at that point? It is impossible to consider this group without also taking into account the fears expressed by many organisations that the age assessment clauses, which we will debate later, could mean many more children wrongly being assessed as adults. Therefore, in practice, unaccompanied children might be housed in such accommodation, which clearly the Government rightly consider unsuitable for unaccompanied children. What safeguards can there be against that? In Committee, I also asked the Minister what assurances she could give us that the use of accommodation centres will be accompanied by more robust screening and protection than exists at present, to ensure that those with particular vulnerabilities are not housed in such centres.

However, no such assurances were given, other than the repeated statement that there will be individual assessment before placement in accommodation centres. None the less, it is clear from various sources of evidence that such an assessment does not exist at present nor is it providing effective screening for those with particular vulnerabilities. Indeed, the APPG on Immigration Detention, of which I am a member, has been told that, despite the June 2021 High Court ruling, there does not appear to be any significant improvement in such assessments. Charities report that people with particular vulnerabilities continue to be accommodated in Napier barracks. Therefore, can the Minister tell us what is being done to improve the assessment process?

Finally, as a fellow insomnia sufferer, the Minister said she would take back the point I raised about the impossibility of sleeping in Napier barracks dormitory-style accommodation because of the constant noise at night. I wondered if she had anything to report on that.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I do not make light of the difficulty of providing accommodation. Batting the blame between central and local government, as is sometimes done, is not going to advance the issue at all. As the right reverend Prelate has said, the debate in Committee focused on Napier. I thought it rather conflated accommodation of asylum seekers on arrival with long-term accommodation. Only a decade ago, my honourable friend Sarah Teather MP—as she was then—achieved very significant change, as a Minister, in both the law on, and the attitudes towards, the care of children with families in detention and subject to removal. More recently, we have had Stephen Shaw’s report on the impact on vulnerable people, and so on.

I accept that the Minister will say that the accommodation in question is reception and not detention. In a way, that is my point. The objective must be to receive people thoughtfully, humanely and in a welcoming and supportive way. Accommodation centres must not feel like detention. There was some discussion in Committee about whether people would be able to leave them—not for specific appointments, but because they felt like going out for a walk. The way that they are designed, organised and staffed is absolutely essential to their good working. The Explanatory Notes refer to “efficiency”. I do not think that this is incompatible with the approach that I have outlined, but they also refer to “compliance” and that worries me more. I wonder why that merits a separate mention.

This amendment demonstrates the concerns of the sector which arise from experience over a long period. I missed signing it by a couple of minutes on the day it was tabled by the right reverend Prelate. However, on behalf of these Benches, we support it.

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[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 30 in my name aims to introduce the right to work for asylum seekers who have been resident in the UK for more than six months. The arguments for the right to work have been well articulated in Committee and earlier, but I will summarise them so that we are clear.

I will begin with the economic arguments. The latest figures show that 125,000 people are waiting for an asylum decision. Every study shows that the net benefit to the state would be tens or hundreds of millions of pounds every year in improved tax-take. The UK economy is recovering after Covid and a lot of jobs have been created, but this has, in turn, created labour shortages. It makes no sense that asylum seekers who can drive HGVs or serve in our NHS are forced to sit around doing nothing for more than a year while they await a decision from the Home Office.

The second argument is one of integration. There is considerable evidence that the right to work has a large, positive impact on the integration of asylum seekers. The Government’s Migration Advisory Committee itself recently underlined that shorter waiting times had a large, positive impact on long-term employment outcomes for asylum seekers. Indeed, discussing refugees’ access to the UK labour market, one leading academic in asylum and refugee policy refers to what she calls the

“inherent contradiction between UK refugee integration strategies that focus on employment, and restrictive government policies that negatively affect access to the labour market.”

There is also the argument of public support for this policy. The policy is overwhelmingly popular with the public: 73% of red wall voters support the right to work, according to recent polling. Business leaders back easing the ban on the right to work, with the Survation poll showing that two-thirds of business leaders back it. It is rare to find a policy that has these three characteristics: economically advantageous, socially advantageous and politically advantageous.

There is one final reason why this is an amendment that the Government should accept. There is also a basic human dignity argument for this policy. We believe that every individual should be able to support themselves and their family. In fact, we would go further and say that, as Conservatives, we believe that every family has a personal responsibility to do so where they can. We have repeatedly, as a party, made the argument that work is the best route out of poverty, so the intention of this amendment is to ensure precisely that. Let people support themselves and create their own pathway from poverty to prosperity while they await a decision. The lack of the right to work makes people vulnerable to exploitation, declining mental health, poverty and modern slavery.

If the human dignity arguments do not convince Ministers, this amendment should also be viewed as purely pragmatic. Reforms to the asylum system proposed through the Nationality and Borders Bill will take time to come fully into effect. In the interim, while asylum cases are being processed, the asylum system continues to be under considerable strain. By offering asylum seekers the right to work, the Government will take pressure off themselves. I anticipate, however, that the Minister and other colleagues might be inclined to dismiss this amendment, using the argument that the right to work could be a so-called pull factor. So, before I finish, I want to address the reasons I believe this is not the case.

First, push factors, such as war and famine, as we are seeing in Ukraine, drive refugee flows far more than pull factors do. Secondly, as I have said before in this House, the real pull factors are our language, our culture, the rule of law, democracy, historical ties through the Commonwealth, family connections and liberty—and we are not about to sacrifice any of these, thank goodness. Thirdly, it is worth noting that the UK is currently an outlier in enforcing a 12-month wait period for work and then placing strong restrictions on which employment can be taken up. No other nation, whether any across Europe, the States, Australia or Canada, has such stringent requirements. It is worth asking why they have not considered the right to work to be a pull factor. Finally, this view is backed up by the experts. The Government’s own Migration Advisory Committee underlined that there is no evidence in academic research that people decide to claim asylum based on these kinds of factors. The Home Office itself commissioned a study that showed little evidence of a link between economic rights and the destination choices of those seeking asylum, and, to my knowledge, it has never produced evidence to the contrary.

All of this is to say that I believe that the Government could quite legitimately, without any nervousness and in line with their own poverty strategy of families working their way out of poverty, adopt this amendment that allows asylum seekers to work after six months of being in the UK. I will be listening carefully to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 30. In Committee, the Minister said that the Government’s opposition to the right to work was based less on the pull factor argument than on the impact on the integrity of the labour market. That is just as well. As the noble Baroness said, we have yet to see convincing evidence of the pull factor any better than the selective and somewhat misleading quote from a study that the Minister offered in Committee. She mentioned an impact assessment on that, which I believe is yet to materialise. When can we expect it?

If we consider the numbers involved, it is difficult to see how labour market integrity will be compromised. Indeed, the combination of the effects of the Bill and the welcome promised speeding up of applications, to which Amendment 53 in the name of my noble friend Lord Coaker should add some teeth, should reduce the numbers affected significantly. I imagine that the Migration Advisory Committee will have considered the integrity of the labour market before recommending the right to work after six months and in any occupation. Yet the Minister did not even mention the MAC report raised by a number of noble Lords in Committee.

Neither did she mention the MAC’s argument, and one central to the case I made, concerning the impact of the ban on working on integration, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, which supposedly remains a government goal. Nor did she acknowledge the statement I read out from MIN Voices, made up of asylum seekers, who said that not being able to work made them feel less than human and corroded their self-respect and dignity—again, echoing what the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, said. As the chair of Surrey Heath Conservatives pointed out on ConservativeHome —my new favourite reading—this very much chimes with Conservative values, so that in his view the ban is “fundamentally un-Conservative”.

I conclude by repeating the plea of MIN Voices’ plea to

“see us as human beings not a number. Let us build our life and future and not waste our time and skills”.

I should also mention the article by Sarah O’Connor of the Financial Times, who ended her recent analysis of the labour market implications of the ban by saying that

“if people want to work, we should let them”.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I very strongly support this amendment, to which I have added my name.

In Committee, the Minister referred to the integrity of the labour market as a route being one reason to reject this amendment and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, dealt with that very well, so I will not repeat her comments. The only other real argument against reducing the UK’s exceptional period before asylum seekers can apply for permission to work was, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, said, the so-called pull factor encouraging asylum seekers to come to this country. I want to say a bit more about that because it really is very difficult to take seriously under the circumstances. When Germany allows asylum seekers to work after three months, Italy after two months, Portugal after just one week, can our Government really justify the current one-year ban and argue that if we changed it, there would be this serious pull factor problem?

If the Minister accepts this amendment, we will have the same employment restriction as France, Spain, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands, Ireland and Greece, and we would remain more restrictive than all other western European countries. Ireland was the only other western European outlier until it recently reduced its nine months restriction down to six months in 2021. This amendment would do no more than Ireland did to bring it into line with the list of countries I have already referred to.

The fact is, the UK has a longer employment restriction for asylum seekers than any other comparable country. I just feel ashamed of us, to be honest—I think it is disgraceful. Moreover, it seems the Government have no grounds to argue that enabling asylum seekers to work will, in fact, act as a pull factor. A recent review of 29 academic papers on this subject found that there was no correlation between the right to work and where people seeking asylum chose to seek protection; the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, explained that perfectly clearly so, again, I do not need to repeat her words.

The other very important reform in this amendment is to end the iniquitous limitation on asylum seekers, even after the 12-month ban, to jobs on an extremely limited shortage occupation list—I seem to remember one of them was a ballerina or something. How many asylum seekers can really take up ballet? This renders employment impossible for the vast majority of asylum seekers until their application is finally approved.

The assumption behind this amendment is that asylum seekers would, after six months, become automatically eligible for a work permit, enabling them to become self-employed or to take up any job, to pay taxes and national insurance, and so on. It will be very difficult to justify not accepting this amendment.

In summary, I do not accept the arguments put by the Minister in Committee. I just hope that she and her colleagues have reconsidered their position. On 8 December 2021, I understand that the Home Office said in a Written Statement that it had concluded its review of the current policy. This is surely a perfect moment to introduce reform.