Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill Debate

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Department: Home Office

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
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My Lords, Amendment 24, which appears under my name, is one of a suite of amendments that I moved in Committee. I continue to stand by all of them, but in achieving a disappointing response from the Minister then, I have restricted myself to just one. I record now, as I did then, the role of Liberty in working on all of them. When I saw that no one else had brought forward a similar amendment, I felt that this issue had to be raised in any immigration Bill.

This amendment is about “no recourse to public funds”. It is something I find myself talking about so often that the phrase rolls off my tongue like poetry, but of course this is the stuff of nightmare, of personal desperation and great suffering. It is the situation of the victim of domestic violence facing the choice between homelessness and penury for herself and her children and the very real danger of being maimed or killed if she stays. It is the situation of the child going hungry, suffering the miserable, desperate pangs that prevent concentration or hope, when his peers get free school meals.

I assume there is no Member of your Lordships’ House who would deny the human right to life, but “no recourse to public funds” denies access to the most basic essentials. People are forced to rely on the fragile, overstretched resources of specialist charities, and people fall through the cracks of that hopelessly underresourced, fragile net of support.

I fear that in this Bill, the Minister and I are trapped on a merry-go-round. I believe I can foresee the response I am likely to receive: that this is discriminatory if applied only to people newly covered by immigration law, EU and EEA citizens, and not to everybody. At the risk of sounding like a recording, I want this to apply to everybody. The Government could and should end any application of the “no recourse to public funds” rule. In this amendment, I have tried to save as many as the rules of the Table Office will allow me. Saving some people from being penniless and homeless, from hunger and abuse, and perhaps from death, is better than saving none. I beg to move.

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Portrait Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
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My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for tabling Amendment 24. In supporting it, I will not repeat the evidence I rehearsed in Committee showing the damaging impact of the “no recourse to public funds” condition on children denied free school meals, in particular—she mentioned that particular group. But I will draw attention to a national survey published since then by the Children’s Food Campaign and Food Active, which found that nine out of 10 parents agreed that eligibility for free school meals should apply regardless of immigration status.

I also want to return to some specific points I raised in Committee. First, I would like to thank the noble Baroness the Minister for responding to my question about data in her letter. I hope the department will follow this up with the Children’s Society, to see how it might improve the data so as to provide a better indicator of the levels of hardship created and the demographics of the groups worst affected.

In Committee, the noble Baroness the Minister referred to what I said about the temporary extension of eligibility for free school meals to support families with NRPF. But she did not acknowledge the point I made that this was a partial concession covering only some NRPF families, nor that the concession has now been withdrawn. I asked what possible justification there could be for this, and I quoted from a letter from 60 organisations to the Education Secretary, which among other things noted that these children will face having to make up half a year of lost learning on empty stomachs. Could the noble Lord the Minister who is speaking today respond to that point now and, at the very least, commit to taking it up with colleagues in the Department for Education?

According to a briefing from the Children’s Society and others, the Government have indicated that there will be a full review of the free school meals system and that that is needed before the extension to NRPF families can be made permanent. But why? Why does it need a full review? Hunger cannot wait for a review. What is the scope and timetable of this review? If the Minister cannot answer that now, please could it be covered in a subsequent letter?

The Minister did not respond either in Committee or in her letter to a specific question that I posed, echoing the Work and Pensions Select Committee. I asked for a definitive clarification as to whether local welfare assistance funds counted as public funds for these purposes. They act as a kind of safety net below the safety net—a rather ragged safety net below the safety net—but if even those are not available, it makes life that much harder for this group. Again, if the Minister does not have the answer, could it please be covered in a subsequent letter?

The comprehensive improvement plan, published last week in response to the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, identified the NRPF as one of six primary streams in the compliant—aka hostile—environment. It is interesting that the Home Secretary, as far as I can see, did not refer to this rather important plan of the Home Office in her speech on Sunday at the Conservative Party conference. But in contrast to the plan’s emollient tone, while talking about compassion and so forth, we have learned in the media—and I know that the Minister will say that he cannot respond to leaks, but it did not seem like a leak; it seemed like it had been deliberately placed—that there is a push by Downing Street to

“radically beef up the hostile environment in 2021.”

If this is true, it makes a mockery of the review of the hostile/compliant environment detailed in the Home Office’s plan. Can the Minister provide a categorical denial that the intention is not to radically beef up the compliant/hostile environment, because that certainly was not what Wendy Williams was calling for?

I refer back to the exchange that I had in Committee with the Minister on the Windrush Lessons Learned Review—and I thank her for the offer of the meeting. It seems to me from the comprehensive improvement plan that the review of the hostile/compliant environment will not include questioning its legislative underpinnings. For instance, it will not question the right-to-rent legislation itself, but simply how it is being implemented. What if the review concludes that the legislation itself is not proportionate in meeting the Government’s stated aims, which is part of what Wendy Williams’s recommendations said it should be looking at? I would be very happy if the Minister responds to say that I have misinterpreted what the plan says, and that the terms of reference are that it is open to those reviewing the hostile/compliant environment to question the legislation, if that is where the evidence takes them. Surely—going back to my first point—the denial of free school meals to hungry children is not proportionate.