Immigration (Guidance on Detention of Vulnerable Persons) Regulations 2018
Detention Centre (Amendment) Rules 2018
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mrs Moon. It is not the first time I have done so; I think the first time was in Westminster Hall. I make no apology if I repeat some of what my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton said from the Front Bench, because this matter is of such importance that it bears repeating.
I welcome this opportunity to scrutinise Government policy relating to the welfare of vulnerable people in immigration detention. At the risk of your ire, Mrs Moon, I will say that I do not think any of us has ever said that there is absolutely no place for immigration detention, but legislation and guidance have always referred to exceptional circumstances. Members sitting on a Committee of this importance, where we see a present danger and threat to the health and life of human beings, should know that.
The new Home Secretary, as my hon. Friend said, has pledged to re-evaluate the Government’s hostile environment policy because of the Windrush scandal. I completely agree with my hon. Friend; the adults at risk policy is part of that hostile environment, and I think the court judgment demonstrated that. The issues we are discussing today should be an important part of that review, because the treatment of victims of torture and other vulnerable people in the country’s immigration detention system is nothing short of scandalous. The current safeguards have failed, and the proposed amendments to the detention centre rules and the guidance on the detention of vulnerable persons set out in the statutory instruments will fail to provide adequate protection to vulnerable people.
I prayed against these statutory instruments with the support of Front-Bench colleagues to give the Government an opportunity to break with the errors of past policies. I urge the Minister to withdraw the SIs so that a proper consultation can be carried out on the proposed changes.
The Minister will know that I brought a ten-minute rule Bill before the House last December to make provision about immigration detention safeguards for victims of torture and other vulnerable people—I emphasise “other vulnerable people”. I will come to that point, but I am sure the Minister understands why I emphasise it. Long-standing Home Office policy has required that vulnerable people, including those with independent evidence of torture, should not be detained unless in exceptional circumstances. In practice, however, many are.
Extensive medical evidence has shown that immigration detention can seriously harm the mental health of detainees, particularly those who have previously suffered ill treatment, and the conditions of immigration detention can be appalling. Six court cases in recent years have reported on the inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees. Surely we should all be shamed by such reports. In 2017 alone, 11 people died in custody. Detainees in immigration detention are dying at a faster rate than we have seen before. We should all be deeply concerned about that.
In 2016, the then Home Secretary—now Prime Minister—commissioned the former prisons and probation ombudsman, Stephen Shaw, to conduct a review of the welfare of vulnerable persons in detention. His damning report found that the safeguards for vulnerable people were inadequate, and that detention was used too often and for too long. It is not a Labour spokesperson saying that; it is the former prisons and probation ombudsman.
However, the implementation of the Government’s adults at risk policy, which incorporates the detention centre rules and guidance on the detention of vulnerable persons, failed to address Shaw’s recommendations. Far from increasing protection to vulnerable detainees, it increased the risk of harm. In its initial 10 weeks of implementation, the adults at risk policy was applied incorrectly in almost 60% of 340 cases. Between January and September 2017, Freedom from Torture’s medico-legal report service received 101 referrals for suspected torture survivors in immigration detention, and 14 of its treatment clients were detained between January 2016 and November 2017. Torture survivors continue to be detained.
The guidance on the detention of vulnerable persons raised the threshold for a decision not to detain by increasing the evidentiary burden on the vulnerable individual. As a result, the release rate following a rule 35 report—designed to screen torture victims out of detention—has fallen dramatically. In quarter 3 of 2016, before the policy was introduced, 39% of those with a rule 35 report were released. In quarter 1 of 2018, that number fell to 12.5%.
According to the charity Medical Justice, the Home Office policy fundamentally weakened protections for vulnerable detainees, leading to more, rather than fewer, being detained for longer. That analysis was borne out in October 2017 by a ruling of the High Court in a case brought against the Home Office by Medical Justice and seven detainees. It found that the adults at risk policy unlawfully imprisoned hundreds of victims of torture. Do any of us really want to be responsible for that? That was due to the Home Office’s deeply regrettable decision to narrow the definition of torture so that it refers only to violence carried out by state actors, and excludes vulnerable survivors of non-state abuse. We can all think of organisations that might be responsible for non-state abuse. The policy also encourages states—some rogue states—to outsource torture to organisations such as ISIS, the Taliban, Hezbollah to name but a few: I am sure hon. Members can come up with examples of their own.
Let me come to some of the questions I want the Minister to answer today. They echo some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton made, and those that I am sure other hon. Members will make. The Government tabled these statutory instruments in direct response to the High Court’s ruling. Why are the Government proceeding with introducing these statutory instruments in their current form when Medical Justice—the very organisation that brought the successful litigation against the Home Office—has said that these changes will not deliver inclusive, protective and effective detention safeguards for vulnerable people? Why are we going ahead with that? The Government should be paying due respect and attention to the assessment of experts. They should have done that some time ago and saved themselves a High Court judgment. They should most certainly be doing that now.
Instead, to quote Freedom from Torture and Medical Justice,
“The SIs were laid before Parliament following an inadequate and expedited ‘consultation’ with a limited group of NGOs.”
They cautioned against the new torture definition, as set out in SI 2018/411, and said it was unnecessary, inappropriate and too complex for caseworkers and doctors to apply to specific cases. That is the very point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton. They said that,
“even when applied correctly, the definition will exclude a group of victims of severe ill-treatment, who do not fall within the other indicators of risk”.
Their concerns have been ignored by Government.
Why does the Minister think it necessary to produce a new definition of torture when the Government were not ordered to do so by the High Court? Can the Minister explain why the Government rejected the recommendation of Freedom from Torture and Medical Justice that the current categories of torture and victims of sexual or gender-based violence be replaced with a more inclusive category, modelled on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ detention guidelines, namely,
“victims of torture or serious physical or psychological, sexual or gender-based violence or ill treatment”?
NGOs stipulated that the new catch-all provision within the revised guidance on detention of vulnerable persons
“does not adequately mitigate the risk of excluding from the protection of the safeguard those who are known to be at risk of harm in detention”.
Their concerns, again, have been ignored by Government. NGOs asked the Home Office to await the publication of Stephen Shaw’s re-review into the welfare of vulnerable people in detention, in order to allow consideration of his findings before laying changes before Parliament. Their concerns have been ignored by Government, as have the concerns of the cross-party group of parliamentarians, including myself, who signed Lord Dubs’ letter to the Minister in March.
I raised this matter with the Minister during our telephone call about these issues on 28 March but was not provided with a satisfactory response. I wondered whether the telephone call was lip service or a tick-box exercise in order to say that consultation had taken place. The High Court judge did not demand that the Home Office respond to the court order before Shaw published. As we now know, Shaw gave the Home Office his report a matter of some weeks before these statutory instruments were tabled in the House.
Caroline Nokes
I would like to provide reassurance on that. I received Mr Shaw’s report at the end of April.
Joan Ryan
I accept what the Minister has said but I will check my notes when I sit down. If necessary, I hope she will let me come back. Whatever the case, the Minister has the Shaw re-review now. Given the considerable resource and expert input expended on the second Shaw review, I consider it deeply ill advised to proceed with these changes before the Government, parliamentarians and expert NGOs have had time to consider Shaw’s latest recommendations.
Let us be clear: as the judge did not ask for this to be done, it was always an option for the Government to go back to before the adults at risk policy and narrowing torture definition that have caused all the problems. They could have gone back to the previous policy while we look at the Shaw re-review, before laying these SIs. Why did the Minister not wait for Shaw to provide his findings before issuing these statutory instruments? It seems inexplicable, and the answers I have seen from her in no way answer that question. Can she explain why she believes that it is more sensible to consider the revised definition of torture and the amended guidance separately from the findings of the Shaw re-review? Given the relevance of Shaw’s re-review to the adults at risk policy, when will his report be made publicly available? Also, given that the Home Office possesses the report, why can we not see it now?
In a written statement on the Windrush scandal, which the Home Secretary submitted to the House on 24 May, he said that it was
“fundamentally important that the lessons from this episode are learned for the future, so that this never happens again.”—[Official Report, 24 May 2018; Vol. 641, c. 53WS.]
It is blindingly obvious that the Government are refusing to learn the important lessons on how to increase the protection of vulnerable detainees. The Government have ignored the expert advice of esteemed organisations, cross-party concerns in Parliament, expressed through questions, letters and early day motions, and a Select Committee inquiry, none of which has been properly addressed. As a consequence, here we are today, discussing statutory instruments that are not fit for purpose.
If there were any doubt about the level of concern, I am sure that the Minister is aware that early-day motion 696 was signed by 131 MPs, making it the eighth most supported early-day motion in the 2017-19 parliamentary Session. We have also had the early-day motions that have prayed against today’s statutory instruments: early-day motion 1200 and early-day motion 1202, which have 115 and 111 signatures respectively. That is a significant level of concern.
As we have heard, the Joint Committee on Human Rights is considering this matter today. The Home Affairs Committee also conducted an inquiry. I have read the transcript of that, and the answers that were given were most unsatisfactory. Next Thursday, we will have a Back-Bench debate in Westminster Hall that was requested by more than 20 MPs. The issue is not going away. Nobody is satisfied; everybody is concerned. I do not understand why the Minister is not paying any attention to what Members of Parliament, Select Committees and experts are saying.
How can the Minister say with confidence that, despite all the concerns that have been raised, the statutory instruments will make the situation better, not worse, for vulnerable people in detention? Is she willing to acknowledge that the Government may be running a real risk of further court action by ploughing on regardless of criticism? I cannot believe that she wants to make the situation worse for vulnerable detainees, so I cannot understand why she will not listen to what is being said to her.
In December 2017, as part of the conclusion to a ten-minute rule Bill speech, I said:
“The UK has a proud history of providing sanctuary to people fleeing violence and persecution. We have both moral and legal obligations to victims of torture and other vulnerable people who seek asylum. The UK must set an example as a country that respects and upholds human rights commitments. The torment faced by many individuals in the Government’s immigration detention system runs counter to this country’s proudest traditions.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2017; Vol. 633, c. 1073.]
We are asking for a policy devised with consideration, care and compassion for victims of torture and other vulnerable people who have come to this country seeking refuge. In order to ensure a more humane approach to immigration detention in general, I also urge the Minister to end indefinite immigration detention, and to introduce a 28-day time limit. I will not pursue that, because it is not the subject of the statutory instruments, but it is obviously a related issue. Will she therefore commit to reviewing that policy too?
The Government must learn the lessons from this episode so we do not end up back in court again. That would not be the worst outcome; the worst outcome would be to harm vulnerable individuals who are detained when they should not be. I urge the Minister to reflect on my concerns and withdraw the regulations. The Government must also engage constructively with parliamentarians and expert non-governmental organisations to ensure we have a policy that works for the good of vulnerable detainees. I look forward to the Minister’s response to my speech and her answers to my questions. I thank Committee members for their patience.
Caroline Nokes
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Enfield North for prompting today’s debate and for the opportunity to set out the Government’s position on these matters. We put significant effort into encouraging individuals to comply with immigration rules and supporting those with no right to remain in the UK to leave voluntarily. Unfortunately, a minority of individuals refuse to comply with the immigration rules and detention may be a necessary and proportionate tool to enforce their return.
Detention is used sparingly and we operate a strong presumption in favour of liberty. At any one time, we are detaining only 5% of those liable to removal, and the number of individuals we detain is decreasing: in the year ending March 2018, 26,541 people entered immigration detention, a reduction of 8% on the previous year.
Each time an individual is detained, there must be a realistic prospect of removal within a reasonable timescale, and we expect those making detention decisions to consider the likely duration of detention necessary to effect removal. The vast majority are held for very short periods: some 91%, or 25,000, of those leaving detention in the year ending March 2018 were detained for less than four months, and 64% were detained for less than a month.
When it is necessary to detain people in order to remove them, we have a number of safeguards in place, which are a key component of the adults at risk in immigration detention policy. The adults at risk policy was implemented in September 2016 and was a significant part of our response to Stephen Shaw’s review of the welfare of vulnerable people in immigration detention. Under the policy, vulnerable people are detained or their detention is continued only when the immigration considerations in their particular case outweigh the evidence of vulnerability. Decisions are made on the basis of all available evidence. Cases are reviewed regularly, as well as on an ad hoc basis whenever new evidence comes to light in respect of removability and vulnerability.
That brings me to the specifics of the statutory instruments, as they relate directly to the adults at risk policy. The main purpose of the statutory instruments is to amend the definition of torture for the purposes of immigration detention. Torture is one of the 10 indicators of risk in the adults at risk policy, in addition to a further safeguarding provision for any other vulnerability.
I do not dispute the assumption that individuals who have been tortured—along with all others who are vulnerable under the terms of the adults at risk policy—should be considered to be at particular risk of harm if detained, but that does not mean that such individuals should never be detained. The adults at risk policy represents a proportionate and rational way of carefully balancing the vulnerability considerations against immigration considerations. It aims to ensure that when the most vulnerable are detained, it is only for very short periods of time or where there are overriding public protection concerns.
The way in which torture is defined in the context of immigration detention has a long history. The definition in use, the so-called EO definition, was established in case law in 2013. It is a broad definition, which limits the ability of the Home Office and of immigration removal centre health services to focus resources on the most vulnerable. The Home Office therefore introduced the UNCAT definition of torture into the adults at risk policy. As we have heard this afternoon, the High Court has since declared that definition to be unlawful when used for the purposes of immigration detention. We of course accept the High Court’s view.
Contrary to what some have argued, however, the court also declared that the adults at risk policy was inherently sound. It took issue with the EO definition of torture, believing that it did not get to the heart of the imperative of defining torture in terms of the impacts of acts of harm that would be triggered by immigration detention. The court helpfully set out its view on what a rational definition of torture for the purposes of immigration detention should look like, and we used that as the basis of the definition set out in the statutory instruments.
The court also said that the broad safeguarding provision was not effective and that guidance needed to be amended. The SI bringing into force the revised statutory guidance meets that requirement.
Joan Ryan
First, the Minister is correct—I am saying so for the record—about when she received the Shaw re-review. However, she laid the statutory instruments on 27 March, to come into effect on 2 July, so she will have had the Shaw re-review for a couple of months before they come into effect. It does not seem reasonable not to have waited so that we could have taken that important re-review into account.
Secondly, I want to come back on the torture definition. Does the Minister agree that the judge did not order the Home Office to maintain a torture definition? His commentary on the definition was caveated with
“if that indicator is to be retained”.
The mechanism should have a very low threshold for identifying those vulnerable to harm in detention—much lower than that setting out culpability under international law. That does not seem to be where we are. This narrow approach risks excluding others who are no less highly vulnerable and who have suffered serious ill-treatment.
Caroline Nokes
I thank the right hon. Lady for putting on the record that I received Mr Shaw’s re-review at the end of April this year. She will be conscious that we have significant parliamentary timetable issues to get through, not least the summer recess. The High Court judgment was delivered on 10 October last year with an emphasis on timeliness. When I spoke to the right hon. Lady and before we laid the SIs, I did not know exactly when the Shaw re-review would arrive. I was expecting it imminently but, in the event, it came significantly after the date that I had expected it—by a couple of weeks. I was anxious that we should not be in the situation, 12 months on from the judgment, of not having responded and of still not having a new definition on the statute book.
The right hon. Lady spoke about whether there is a need for a definition of torture or, indeed, the other aspects of vulnerability that make up part of our adults at risk policy. However, there are 10 separate elements of indicators of vulnerability, of which torture is only one. We were conscious of the potential for some vulnerability that we had not previously considered, so we included a catch-all category at the end to enable different types of vulnerability that had perhaps had been missed to be considered by health professionals working in the detention estate when considering people’s suitability—or, indeed, by our detention gatekeepers.
Joan Ryan
I thank the Minister for being so generous in giving way. I agree that a catch-all is vital to ensure that unforeseen vulnerabilities can be picked up, but it is not an adequate substitute for known categories of vulnerability. Therefore, will the Home Office merge the existing categories of sexual violence and torture into a more comprehensive category modelled on the UNHCR detention guidelines, to ensure that vulnerable people are identified?
Furthermore, expert non-governmental organisations have said that the catch-all is too vague. The idea that the list is not exhaustive is essentially what the catch-all is, which leaves caseworkers in a difficult position; vulnerable people who should not be detained will be detained.
Caroline Nokes
I thank the right hon. Lady for her view. I disagree with her; it is important to have a catch-all that enables other categories to come forward. I do not want to make our definitions and guidance so restrictive that people may fall through the cracks. I am sure we all agree that that is absolutely the worst thing that could happen.
The view was put forward, as the right hon. Lady said, that the Home Office should not have laid these statutory instruments until Stephen Shaw’s follow-up report is published. I do not accept that; the changes we seek to make through the statutory instruments are to implement the court’s judgment within the reasonable timescale set by the court. The right hon. Lady will have read the judgment; specifically, paragraphs 172 to 177 cover these points in some detail. The Government have been correct to take the necessary action to put in place the new definition of torture within a reasonable timeframe. It is also right that we have made the important amendment to the statutory guidance, to put it beyond doubt that the list of 10 indicators is not exhaustive.
Implementing the court’s judgment is just the first step, and it is the right thing to do now. Stephen Shaw has conducted a wide-ranging re-review and we will consider carefully his recommendations, which have been relatively recently received and will be published, along with our response, towards the end of this month. We will take the recommendations into account and review the operation of the rule 35 reporting mechanism, as part of the wider review of the detention centre rules later this year. That exercise will be subject to consultation.
Until the report is formally published, I will not be in a position to disclose its contents. I can, though, say that my officials informed Mr Shaw’s team of proposals to implement the new definition of torture in parallel with their engagement with NGOs. I have explained to some hon. Members already that we will most certainly take Mr Shaw’s views into account when we review the detention centre rules later in the year. The imperative at present is to ensure that, in the light of the court’s very clearly expressed view, the correct definition of torture is applied without undue delay.
I turn to some of the comments made by right hon. and hon. Members. Please be assured that I have heeded the warning of Mr Shaw’s review and, if it can be regarded as such, the warning in paragraphs 172 to 177 of Mr Justice Ouseley’s judgment of 10 October. As I said, the review of the detention centre rules will come later this year. Adults at risk did form part of Shaw’s review, which will be published at the end of this month. That gives us the opportunity to carefully consider and establish what enhancements can be made to that policy. I regard it as a work in progress and something that we need to make sure we make necessary improvements to, as required.
The right hon. Member for Enfield North mentioned timeliness; the High Court had the benefit of the experts brought before it by Medical Justice. I am sure that she has read the judge’s comments, but I remind her that we had already invited Mr Shaw to carry out his re-review. I feel that there is a time imperative: we should not have allowed parliamentary recesses and delay to mean that we did not have a better definition 12 months after that judgment. We are considering the adults at risk policy in the round and we will publish Shaw’s report and our response later this month.
The right hon. Lady concluded with a comment on the 28-day time limit, which, although not strictly in the terms of these regulations, I regard as an arbitrary time limit that potentially runs the risk of those with no right to be here deliberately frustrating their removal, simply to meet the date at which they might be released.
The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston made some important points about mental health and the welfare of detainees. I take on board her comments about those with serious mental health conditions. We have worked very hard to introduce the mental health action plan in 2016—it was developed by the Home Office, NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care, following research by the Centre for Mental Health.
I am firmly of the view that the provision of mental health care in IRCs is crucial, but it is a matter for NHS England. We must, of course, remember that those with serious mental health conditions are perhaps best looked after under section 48 of the Mental Health Act 1983 and in hospital.
It has been suggested this afternoon that caseworkers and doctors would find the definition of torture set out in the statutory instruments to be too complicated. I do not accept that. As I have said, that is based on guidance provided by the court and has a number of key elements that must be met, but it is not inherently complex. We are in the process of producing detailed guidance for caseworkers who will be making decisions, and have engaged with a range of non-governmental organisations on the guidance.
My officials are currently also involved in running out an extensive training programme for caseworkers and healthcare professionals working in immigration removal centres and short-term holding facilities.
Joan Ryan
My understanding is that there was confusion when many of the caseworkers in training were questioned afterwards about the sample cases put before them on whether a person would be classed as vulnerable, should be safeguarded or not be detained. It was very difficult for them to identify who should be detained and who should not. Therefore, there is reason for concern. Medical Justice says that there will be problems applying this definition for medico-legal reports. Why are we not listening to what it says?
Caroline Nokes
We invited NGOs to attend the early sessions as observers and provide feedback. It is important that we evaluate carefully the success of training as part of any process. As I said, we are still in the process of rolling out guidance and the training programme. To date, we are about one fifth of the way through the training programme. It is important that we continue to learn the lessons.
I believe that these are important statutory instruments. As I explained to right hon. and hon. Members, the court clearly indicated that our previous definition was not adequate, so I have no hesitation in commending them to the Committee.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
The application process for resident EU citizens and their family members to obtain that status in the UK after we leave the EU will be straightforward, streamlined and user-friendly, and there will be a dedicated customer contact centre to help people through the process. The majority of applicants will need to meet only three criteria: they will have to prove their identity, prove that they are resident in the UK, and prove that they do not pose a serious criminal or security threat.
Kate Green
According to the Migration Observatory, 64,000 non-Irish EU nationals in the UK have never used the internet, and 250,000 have reported language-related difficulties in accessing or keeping work. What capacity will the Home Office have to deal with the many thousands of applicants who will not be able to apply online?
Caroline Nokes
It is crucial that, in addition to our assisted digital application process, we will have dedicated support—lines to help people through the process. But I am very conscious that there will be people with language difficulties; that has been raised with us by some of the user groups, and we are looking to see how we can assist them as well.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I greatly welcome the Minister’s announcement that the process will be smooth and easy to follow, but agree with the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) that a very large number of otherwise extremely sophisticated people in this country do not know that it will be as easy as my hon. Friend describes. By what mechanism will she get the message out to all these people that they are welcome here, that the process will be easy, and, crucially, that the cost of applying for residency will be no more than the current cost for a British citizen of applying for a passport?
Caroline Nokes
We have been very clear from the outset that the cost of the scheme will be no more than the cost of applying for a British passport, and indeed for those who already have permanent residency there will be no cost at all. It is crucial that we continue to work with our user groups, and as we roll the scheme forward we will be providing more information, including through our dedicated email service that we are sending out to people. But we do have an important communication job to make sure people know how to apply and when the scheme opens.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Efforts to involve community groups and public services such as libraries in facilitating settled status applications seem almost non-existent. I learned from Scottish Government colleagues last week that in Scotland the UK Government have made only cursory contact with just two libraries. Can the Minister tell us what further engagement is planned with community groups and public services?
Caroline Nokes
The Home Office continues to engage with people, businesses and organisations across the UK. We are seeking a deal that works for the entire UK and it is very important that we make sure that user groups in Scotland, including organisations such as Citizens Advice, have the necessary resources and understanding of how this system is going to work. We are rolling forward an engagement programme from this point onwards, and I am looking forward to making further announcements in due course.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the fact that 3 million or 3.5 million EU citizens wish to remain in the UK after we leave the EU is a huge vote of confidence in post-Brexit Britain’s future? Does she wish that all colleagues in this House had as much confidence as those EU citizens who wish to remain in the UK after we leave?
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. There are more EU citizens living and working here now than there were at the time of the referendum, and we want to make sure that it is very clear to them that they are welcome. We welcome the contributions they make to both our communities and our economy, and we are working to make sure that the streamlined process is as easy as possible.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
EU citizens are worried that they might be subjected to the same treatment as the Windrush generation; we have seen similarly cruel treatment of highly skilled migrants deported because of minor tax errors. What system is the Minister putting in place to ensure that, when the settled status system is up and running, issues can be picked up internally without the need for a media storm and extensive pressure from the Opposition?
Caroline Nokes
Of course, it is crucial that the settled status scheme gives people a digital confirmation of their right to live, work and rent property in the UK, and we are absolutely committed to doing that.
The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of people with minor tax discrepancies. It is important to reflect that there have been several instances where those minor discrepancies have run into tens of thousands of pounds, and it is crucial that we pick up any discrepancies between what people are declaring as their income for immigration purposes and their income for tax purposes. We want to make sure that we collect the amount of tax that is owing.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
Employers have had a duty to prevent illegal working since 1997. In 2016, we introduced tougher sanctions on rogue employers and made illegal working a criminal offence, so that wages can be seized as proceeds of crime. We have recently introduced additional safeguards to protect legal migrants seeking employment who do not have the necessary documentation to establish their lawful immigration status.
Damien Moore
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to reducing illegal immigration. Does she agree that the best way to deter illegal migrants from looking for work in the UK is by preventing their entering the country with stringent checks at air and sea ports?
Caroline Nokes
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. All passengers arriving in the UK at passport control are checked against watch lists on arrival at the border. The majority of those people are checked against our systems before they even travel, through the collection of advance passenger information. Between April 2010 and March 2018, we refused entry to 138,992 people, including more than 18,000 in the year to March 2018.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Those seeking asylum in the UK are currently banned from working and, as a result, they are forced to live in penury and are denied the right to contribute their skills to our society. Does the Minister agree that this system is lacking in both compassion and common sense? Will she reform it?
Caroline Nokes
Our asylum system provides accommodation and funding for those who are here during the process of their asylum claim. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point: we must continue to make sure that the UK has one of the most humane asylum systems in the world. We are working very hard to make sure we do that.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
The Government are considering a range of options for the future immigration system. We will make decisions based on evidence and engagement. We have asked the independent Migration Advisory Committee to advise on the economic and social impact of the UK’s exit from the EU and on how the UK’s immigration system should be aligned with a modern industrial strategy.
Steve Double
The tourism and hospitality sector’s No. 1 concern is post-Brexit access to the labour force. Many seasonal workers will not qualify for settled status under the current framework because of the seasonal nature of their work. Will the Minister consider some sort of seasonal workers scheme for the hospitality sector, along the same lines as a seasonal agricultural workers scheme?
Caroline Nokes
I recognise the importance of tourism in my hon. Friend’s constituency and his work in the all-party group on the visitor economy. Seasonal workers make an important contribution to the tourism and hospitality sector, and it is a sector that we wish to see thrive. Any EU citizen who is currently in the UK will be able to benefit from the settlement scheme that we are establishing. For the longer term, we have asked the independent Migration Advisory Committee to advise us; I am sure that it will be mindful of my hon. Friend’s points.
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
Along with the hospitality industry, the agricultural industry is crying out for help on migrant workers. Will the Government confirm that they will reinstate the seasonal agricultural workers scheme and allow it to reflect the needs in different areas, such as my county of East Lothian?
Caroline Nokes
The hon. Gentleman has identified farming and my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) asked about tourism, but a number of other sectors are affected, including fisheries, which has been raised with me recently. It is crucial that we take the advice of the Migration Advisory Committee and that we have evidence-based policy making. I reassure the hon. Gentleman and other Members that I am looking into this issue very closely indeed.
Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
We will continue building and managing an immigration system that meets the economic and social needs of the UK, and I will set out further plans in due course. I am committed to a fair and humane system, and we are reviewing the operational assurance regime across the borders, immigration and citizenship system to ensure that it is effective and reflects best practice.
Craig Tracey
In recent months we have seen a squeeze on doctors’ ability to come to this country to fill vital roles in our NHS. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that we can access the skills that are needed while ensuring that our immigration system becomes sustainable?
Caroline Nokes
We keep the tier 2 cap under close review. Priority is given to doctors working in shortage specialisms, as determined by the Migration Advisory Committee, and no one has ever been refused for any of those posts. We have taken steps to boost training places for nurses and doctors, and a record number of undergraduates will begin medical training by 2020, with 1,500 new places.
Several hon. Members rose—
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
The Home Affairs Committee recommended in February that the Government look again at the tier 2 system, because doctors were already being turned away. The BMJ is now reporting that 1,500 doctors have been turned away even though they had job offers in the national health service. In the Home Affairs Committee and the Health and Social Care Committee, and across the House, there is a strong desire for us to make sure that we get the doctors we need. The Home Office said in response to our recommendations that it was simply going to wait until the publication of the MAC report in October. That is too late. I urge the Government to change the system now to ensure that we can get in the doctors we need.
Caroline Nokes
I thank the right hon. Lady for her question, and I welcome the comments that various Select Committees have made on this issue. I have absolutely no doubt that she heard the Home Secretary’s comments yesterday, and I reassure her that we are looking at the matter closely.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
The right to rent is an important component of the Government’s policies to make sure that those who are living here illegally do not find it easy to access the services and facilities that those who are here legally access. It is really important that we draw a clear distinction between legal and illegal immigration. The Government are determined to make sure that we implement our policies in an effective but humane way.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
I was humbled to take part in the Firefighters Memorial Day commemorations in Corby a few weeks ago. Will my right hon. Friend join me in commending our brilliant and brave firefighters in Northamptonshire for all they do?
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
Caroline Nokes
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We regard the action that the Home Office has taken in response to information received from the Educational Testing Service as proportionate. However, we are reviewing the position of those who remain in the UK.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
While I welcome the Home Secretary’s comments about ensuring non-EU migration for the NHS, may I ask him to also bear in mind the needs of the private sector and ensure that any solution he finds does not merely put more pressure on the tier 2 visa cap? We must ensure that our private sector businesses get the highly experienced, skilled labour that they need.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I thank the Home Secretary for looking again at the impact of the tier 2 visa cap on doctors. Will he also look at the impact on trainee doctors such as my constituent, who has completed most of his GP specialist training on a spouse visa but, due to a marriage breakdown, now needs a tier 2 visa?
Caroline Nokes
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She makes a really important point. I am conscious that it is not only about NHS trusts seeking to bring in doctors from overseas; there are also a number in training and at university who are seeking to gain employment opportunities here. She will have heard the comments of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Some Iraqi Kurds who applied for asylum in the UK in Saddam’s time did so under false names because they were terrified of what would happen to them if they were sent back. It appears that some of them, having been granted asylum, are now having their British passports withdrawn simply because they have told the Home Office what their real name is. Does the Home Secretary think that that is fair?
Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend will be aware, soft fruit farmers in Angus and across the United Kingdom are gearing up for a busy season. What assurances can he provide to those farmers that they will be able to access the workforce they require, and can he give a timescale for when that will be delivered?
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend has been consistent in making a very strong case for supporting the Scottish strawberry and, indeed, raspberry. I am conscious that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary visited her constituency recently and listened to some of her constituents’ views, and we are looking at the issue of seasonal workers very closely.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Several Members have raised the fact that more than 1,500 doctors have been turned away in the past five months because of the tier 2 visa cap being reached. That crude approach, in which points are now gained only with a qualifying salary of £60,000 instead of £30,000, means that many areas of the UK and almost all public services are excluded; a doctor’s salary cannot simply be doubled. When will this be changed?
Caroline Nokes
The hon. Lady will have heard an earlier answer, which stated clearly that nobody on a shortage occupation list has been turned away. Both I and the Home Secretary are very conscious of the points that have been made repeatedly this afternoon. We know that there is a real challenge in the NHS accessing trained doctors. The Department of Health and Social Care is doing excellent work to make sure that we increase the number of training places in the UK, but the calls are being heard.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary agree that the current shopfront advertisements of Lush are clearly anti-police, are in very poor taste and should be withdrawn?
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
Is the Home Secretary aware of the increasing farce besetting Border Force recruitment in Northern Ireland, and will he meet us to consider how best and most fairly we can have exactly the same conditions for Northern Ireland applicants as those that apply in the rest of the United Kingdom?
Caroline Nokes
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that he and others have raised this with me. We have looked very carefully at recruitment processes in Northern Ireland to make sure that there is absolutely no bias, taking into account the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s comments.
Several hon. Members rose—
Windrush
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
This afternoon, we have had thoughtful and passionate contributions from both sides of the House, which have reflected the public mood towards the Windrush generation, who have contributed so much to our country. We also had a debate on Monday, in which the tone was constructive; I listened carefully to Members’ contributions then, as I have today.
We know that the failure of successive Governments to ensure that individuals arriving before 1973 had the documentation they need is deeply regrettable. I have previously said that I am personally sorry, and I repeat that today, but I also repeat how important it is that we put this right, as a matter of urgency.
Joanna Cherry
I am grateful to the Minister. Will she apologise for the underlying policies that caused this scandal?
Caroline Nokes
The hon. and learned Lady made some comments earlier that I wish to respond to, but I really think it is important that I put on record how sorry I am that people have been affected, and how crucial it is to me that we make sure we get it right, and that, going forward, we make sure this cannot happen again.
As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said, putting this right must not mean taking resources away from the teams who are already working so hard to help those who have been affected. I have seen them working and know their dedication and commitment, which I saw this last weekend in Croydon and in Sheffield. That is why the Opposition’s Humble Address motion is not the right answer.
We have announced a package of measures today to bring greater transparency to Members of the House and to the public. I would like to remind the House of those measures. First, the Home Secretary will be writing each month to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) with an update on progress. I have little time this evening to comment on her significant contribution, but I would like to say to her that it is important to me that we provide her with the updates and make sure that her Committee is aware of the progress. It is seldom that I say this on the Floor of the House, but I look forward to being called to her Committee as early as next week.
Yvette Cooper
I have put to the Minister, on behalf of the Committee, and to the Department about 50 questions so far, about half of them two weeks ago. So far, I think we have had only about five of them answered. When will they be answered?
Caroline Nokes
It is absolutely imperative to me—and indeed to my civil servants, who have been working incredibly hard—that the right hon. Lady not only gets the answers, but gets thorough and full answers. We will undertake to make sure that that happens as soon as possible.
Secondly, the Home Secretary will be writing to the right hon. Lady each month on the latest position on detention, removals and deportations. Thirdly, the Home Secretary will bring external oversight and challenge to a “lessons learned” review, which is already under way. He has asked the permanent secretary to give the review the resource that it needs.
The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) shared with us her experience as a former Immigration Minister. She made some observations that I, too, have reflected upon in my relatively short time in this role, and she made some valuable points. It is clear to me that there are resources needed to put this right, and also to look forward and make sure that there cannot be similar occurrences again.
There has been much debate about the impact of the compliant environment on the Windrush generation. We are taking steps—important steps—to safeguard those from the Windrush generation seeking jobs or rented accommodation. We have published updated guidance on gov.uk, which encourages employers and landlords to get in touch with the Home Office checking service if they are unsure about individual status. The taskforce will contact the individual concerned to help them to prove their entitlement, and the employer or landlord will be issued with a positive notice to enable them to employ or register the individual.
The Home Office is working with other Departments. The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) raised the importance of my doing so, particularly with reference to working with organisations such as the DWP, the Department of Health and Social Care, and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to make sure that not only Departments, but the partner agencies across the board, work to ensure that we have the relevant safeguards in place to prevent those from the Windrush generation from being denied the benefits and services they should be entitled to. Tomorrow, I will chair a cross-Government meeting to discuss those safeguards in more detail.
We have also been clear that ongoing enforcement activity must not impact on people in the Windrush generation. Immigration enforcement has put in place arrangements to minimise this risk.
Caroline Nokes
Will the hon. Lady allow me to comment on some points that she raised at the end of the debate? It is important to me that I address them. It is absolutely crucial that we work very hard to make sure that we have immigration policies that are fair and reflect human beings—the people we know they are. That has been one of the most powerful elements of the Windrush crisis. I have seen and listened to the individual stories, and I want to make sure that they do not happen again.
The hon. Lady raised a case from Sri Lanka. I hope she will come to me with the individual’s details, because it is important to me—just as when I assisted the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), who is no longer in his place—that we work hard to solve individual cases. I recognise how time-hungry and resource-intensive that will be, but it is imperative that we get this right, and I know that the Home Secretary shares that ambition. The previous Home Secretary—
Caroline Nokes
The previous Home Secretary worked hard on this issue and spoke of changing the culture of the Home Office. I am absolutely determined that we do change the culture and work hard to right this wrong.
Mr Nicholas Brown
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question put accordingly.
Minors Entering the UK: 1948 to 1971
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) and all right hon. and hon. Members across the House who have participated in the debate. They have spoken with passion, knowledge and indeed determination.
As we can clearly see, there is significant public interest in today’s debate, and rightly so. I thank members of the public who have attended, as well as all those people—nearly 200,000 of them—who added their name to the petition. The debate was obviously scheduled before the tabling of the urgent question, and I am probably at somewhat of a disadvantage compared with those Members who could be in the main Chamber for at least some of the earlier debate. The message conveyed by the new Secretary of State for the Home Department makes it clear that he is absolutely, personally invested in this issue.
Let us be in no doubt about the debt of gratitude that this country owes to the Windrush generation. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay described in his opening speech, they were invited to come to the United Kingdom immediately after the second world war and in the decades that followed to help us to build modern Britain.
As I said, the new Home Secretary was on his feet in the main Chamber when this debate began. He has rightly made it his clear priority to address Windrush, building on the work of his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), who showed commitment to addressing the issue. It was a pleasure to work with her in the Home Office, and I look forward to supporting the new Home Secretary in continuing that vital work.
I would like to do justice to the comments, questions and individual cases raised by Members this afternoon. All of them are important. Many Members will have noticed that I took copious notes throughout the debate, but I mention first the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) even though, somewhat shamefacedly, I wrote very little about his contribution. That is because I preferred to listen—to his passion and to his determination to convey to me, Members, the public and the Government how strongly he feels that we must right this wrong. We are determined to do so.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who is not in his place, on his tone. In fact, I congratulate all hon. Members who have contributed on their tone. There has been real consideration of the issue and real determination to convey the message to me as powerfully as possible. I therefore wish to start by saying that of course I feel shame and of course I am deeply, deeply sorry.
The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) raised three cases, highlighting real and personal stories, which were similar to the personal stories that I heard over the weekend when I was in Croydon and in Sheffield with caseworkers who are on the frontline, doing their best to help people through the process. I have to say that I was very impressed with the determination of those caseworkers to be sympathetic and understanding, and to talk people through the process as gently as they possibly could while at the same time enabling them to give their stories and to provide a picture of their life in the UK—helping them through a process with which we should have been helping them much earlier.
We cannot fail to be moved and to be ashamed when confronted with the individual stories, but as a result, be determined to get the wrong righted, to sort the cases out and to make sure that the legal status is confirmed. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned three cases; we have done a very rapid trawl of those appointments that are already scheduled and I believe that one of those cases will hopefully be resolved tomorrow.
It is important that we as Members convey to our constituents and to the public at large the fact that this process is designed to be constructive and to help. When I first spoke on this issue, I tried to impress on everyone the fact that we needed to have confidence built in the system, so that people would have the courage to come forward. Undoubtedly, the strongest advocates are the people who have been for their interviews and had their status confirmed, who have been willing to speak to the media to confirm that that has happened.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) spoke of the melting pot of Cardiff; I represent part of the city of Southampton, another area that has a very large port. I was very fortunate last Thursday night to go and meet, albeit in the road that crosses the edge of the constituency, one of my constituents called Don John, who for many decades has been a leader of the Caribbean community in Southampton.
I discussed the issue with him, knowing very well that this weekend, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) was holding an event in her constituency attended by Home Office officials, in order to give confidence to those from Bristol who might be affected that the Home Office is there to help. I said to Don on Thursday night, “Let’s see how the event in Bristol goes, but what I can do as a local Member is to make sure that people in Southampton have the opportunity to have an event. I will make sure that there are Home Office officials there.” I say that to all Members: where there is a significant community that they think will be affected, let us reach out to communities; let us not be just a reception centre in the various places that we have up and down the country; let’s make a real effort to go to communities and make sure that events take place in places that are comfortable for people.
I am the first to acknowledge that there can be barriers to coming and making contact with the Home Office. Working with my right hon. Friend the new Home Secretary, they are barriers that I am determined to beat down, because they should not be there.
Caroline Nokes
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to talk about trust, which is why I take her comment on the chin. We have a duty to rebuild that trust, and I am determined that we must do so through demonstration and through action, and through an assurance from me and those working on the taskforce that no case will be passed to immigration enforcement. When somebody contacts that helpline, we have absolutely undertaken that none of those details will be passed on to immigration enforcement.
Mr Lammy
The Minister will recognise that the Government still say that there is a burden of proof, although they have lowered it. If there were Windrush generation or Commonwealth people who contacted the Home Office who did not meet that burden, so did not get their status, would they be subject to enforcement? That fear is very real.
Caroline Nokes
The right hon. Gentleman raises an important question. I give that assurance. People may well come forward who cannot not produce the proof. It is imperative, if we are to build trust, that we say, “We will not pass those details to immigration enforcement.” The message has to be what I saw on Saturday: we want to be able to help people to build their own story. We want to be able to use whatever disparate pieces of information they may have. A gentleman came to Croydon on Saturday morning who could produce his City & Guilds qualification in horticulture, I believe. That one certificate was pretty much the only evidence that he had of where he had been at school. We have to listen to people and use our own records.
Catherine West
Does the Minister have a view about the legal aid question? In the old days, we all had legal aid centres that people could go to, but they simply do not exist in communities in the way that they did, due to Government reductions. [Interruption.] Will she comment on the possibility of legal aid?
Caroline Nokes
I am slightly concerned that there is an outbreak of coughing in the debate.
Caroline Nokes
The hon. Lady is right—it is absolutely freezing. I have been shaking throughout the debate, although that may not be due just to the temperature.
That is an interesting question, and we are already working with the Ministry of Justice on a review of legal aid. I do not want people to have to use lawyers; I want them to be able to go through an easy process. I get the message from the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) that we have to build trust, and I am determined to do so.
Caroline Nokes
I will finish this point. I do not want people to have to incur more stress and cost—we will reimburse them for their legal costs already, as part of the compensation scheme, which I will address.
There is an important aspect here: we are determined to make this easy, by having the most senior and able caseworkers—who we are trying to empower, through a change of culture in the Home Office—to take decisions. We want not the “computer says no” attitude, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset and many others have referred to, but a position where, better than the computer saying yes, the human says yes. That is a real change.
Eleanor Smith
I am one of the second generation of Windrush; my parents came in 1954. I really do not understand why people have to prove that they live in this country when they have children aged 30 or older and probably have grandkids, too. Why are we talking about having to prove it? Why can we not just give them a blanket exception? I do not understand why, if people have entered the country from 1948 onwards, and up to 1974, which is about 45 years ago, the Minister is talking about having to prove that they live in this country. Is that what she is saying?
Caroline Nokes
There is a significant question of deemed leave and processes in 1973 that did not give people a legal document that demonstrated their status. That is the failing that we have to put right. There may well be people out there who do not come forward. We have to work to give people confidence, but also to give them an important document that enables them to go on and get their British citizenship—all at no cost. I do not want anyone to fall foul of this going forward. If we just grant deemed leave again, we may find ourselves in this situation again.
Many Members have mentioned the difference from EU settled status. That is an important and difficult point. Since I came into this job, a great deal of my time and energy have been taken up with making sure that the settled status scheme, which we will open later this year, will work. It matters to me that it works digitally and easily, and that, rather than the “computer says no” mentality, we have a default position whereby if people are here, the computer will say yes.
The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) asked about whether the app will work on iPhone; we have been working on that for many months. It works on an Android phone, but Apple as yet has not released the update that would enable it to work on iPhones. I recognise that that is a problem. I encourage all right hon. and hon. Members to talk about that, because I cannot force Apple to participate—I wish I could, but I cannot. It is important that, for those EU citizens, many of whom have been here for years just like the Windrush generation, we make the process simple, straightforward and digital.
Afzal Khan
I thank the Minister for the clarification that no case will be passed on for enforcement, but we have seen that this is not simply a question of enforcement. There is the health issue—people are suffering from cancer and dying—and people are becoming homeless or losing jobs. What will she do to help them?
Caroline Nokes
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. It is absolutely right to say that the taskforce is prioritising appointments for people in vulnerable positions—those who are out of employment or at risk of falling out of employment, those with health conditions and those with problems with tenancies. There is a significant group of people with whom we must work, but it is right to prioritise people on the basis of need. We are working really hard. In Sheffield, it was great to see call-backs going on, appointments being made and people having conversations.
My right hon. Friend the former Home Secretary made it very clear that we will compensate people for loss, but it is right that we get the compensation scheme right from the outset. Members have raised interesting points about what should be included in that, many of which might seem really self-evident and straightforward—it should cover legal costs, loss of employment and housing, and so on—but there might be other aspects to it. A number of people have talked about counselling for stress and trauma. It is important that we have an independent person who enables and empowers us to get that right from the outset. That will take a little time, but it is important that we have someone independent of the Home Office who is able to engender trust.
Caroline Nokes
I will take an intervention from the right hon. Gentleman, even though he has not been here long.
John Spellar
I thank the Minister for the welcome remedial measures she is outlining, which could help to deal with the outcomes, but does she not recognise that this issue comes from deep systemic and cultural problems inside the Home Office? Members of Parliament raised cases and pointed out the flaws in the Home Office’s arguments, but it utterly refused to reconsider them. This is not just about the computer, or the initial person at the end of the line, saying no; it is about a failure of management then to remedy things. That is why we are having to get into compensation, taskforces and everything else. The Home Office will still have those deep problems. What is she going to do about that?
Caroline Nokes
Unfortunately, the right hon. Gentleman takes me away from the contributions that have been made and towards the—I do not know how to describe it—somewhat drier technical detail provided to me by officials. I am happy to move on to that, but I would like first to respond to the points made by Members who have been here for the whole debate.
I have addressed some important points about settled status for EU citizens and the responsibility for getting that right, but I would like to highlight the history lesson and information provided by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). He painted a picture of how the Government can use evidence that is already at our disposal. That is really important. We can share data with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Work and Pensions, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs—the list is long. That is exactly what the taskforce is doing. We are trying to lift the burden from individuals and place it on ourselves so that we provide the information and ensure we get it right.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) rightly started by thanking all those from the Windrush generation who have contributed so much. She raised difficult and important questions for me about how we stop this happening again, and she was absolutely right to do so. We have to stop it happening again. We have to ensure that the same cannot happen to future cohorts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty) mentioned the Gurkhas—that Nepalese community —who are so numerous at their base in Hampshire, and we must be mindful the whole while that other communities may well be impacted. I have indicated time and again that uppermost in my mind is the truly enormous number of people from the European Union—3.3 million—who are already here. I do not underestimate the scale of that task.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East asked how we can right the wrong done to her constituent, Paulette Wilson. Mrs Wilson absolutely deserves a personal apology. I am not sure that me saying sorry today is adequate. If the hon. Lady would like me to do so, I would be very happy to meet Mrs Wilson. Every one of us was struck by the severe and cruel injustice that was done to her.
The hon. Lady and the Opposition spokesman raised questions about how many people have been affected, how many have been detained and how many may have been subjected to letters asking them to leave the country voluntarily, or potentially even to removal. We are trawling through the Home Office computer system—the caseworker information database, which goes back to 2002—and scrutinising cases very carefully, using both date of birth and nationality information to verify that, as one might expect. I do not wish to get into numbers until I can be confident that they are correct. We have an absolute duty to ensure that we get that right. To date, we have not found any single individual who has been removed from the country wrongly. However, I wish to ensure that we get it right.
Caroline Nokes
Everybody is leaping to their feet. I will take a final intervention from the right hon. Gentleman, but I have to crack on a bit.
Mr Lammy
There is an important group of people who may not have been removed but who are watching and listening to this debate and communicating with their families in this country. That is the group of people who went back to the Caribbean, most often to attend a funeral, and were not allowed to come back to this country. It is very important that those people have access to the hotline and to compensation—many of them lost their jobs and are still there—and that they are properly tracked and attended to.
Caroline Nokes
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point those people out, and I am very conscious—
Caroline Nokes
May I conclude my point before more people jump in? The right hon. Gentleman is right to point that issue out. As the former Home Secretary said last week, we will facilitate those people’s coming home if they wish to. Of course, we must also ensure that visas are available to those who have settled back in their country of origin or elsewhere, should they wish to come here on a visit or relocate here permanently. That is crucial. It is important that we ensure that we enable that to happen for them.
Sir Peter Bottomley
It may be that the Minister wants to write to the right hon. Member for Tottenham after the debate. Officials may want—not today, but in time—to consider and advise Ministers on checking with airlines. Often, those people went with a valid ticket to an airline desk and were refused boarding by the airline because they might be refused entry to the country. The airlines will almost certainly have a record of that. It would be useful information.
Caroline Nokes
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which I have made to officials. I was very concerned that people might be turned away at airline desks. We absolutely must not let that happen. Equally, the Border Force in the UK has to understand that this is a generation of people to whom we owe a duty to get things right from this point forward. We cannot allow this dreadful situation to arise again.
Lyn Brown
On the issue of trust, my constituents are concerned that deportations are continuing, despite our debating the issue and despite reassurances from the Minister, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister. One of my constituents, Zita, contacted me to ask about flight PVT070, which she tells me is about to go to Jamaica with people on board who are being deported.
Caroline Nokes
It is absolutely not. We are looking very closely at all our enforcement practices to make sure that nobody can be impacted in this way, and that is crucial.
Several hon. Members rose—
Caroline Nokes
I hope hon. Members will not object if I move on somewhat. I apologise, but there are some important matters that I must get on the record, and I intend to do so.
I am very clear that there has been a failure by successive Governments to ensure that individuals who arrived before 1973 have the documentation they need. We are putting that right as a matter of urgency. My right hon. Friend the former Home Secretary made a statement to the House last week in which she set out our approach to the Windrush generation, including the compensation scheme, which I have already referred to.
I am a pragmatic politician, and I do not apologise for that. I have always been focused on finding solutions, and that is exactly what we are trying to do now. When we saw Windrush cases emerging, we became focused on the operational side of helping those individuals. As the former Home Secretary said, we were too slow to identify the pattern and recognise it as part of a wider issue. For that, I am very sorry.
I want to make sure that we not only put this right but improve our mechanisms, to ensure that if a similar systemic issue were to arise again, the Home Office would be able to identify and resolve it much more clearly. The new contact centre will be at the centre of that, monitoring trends from incoming calls to understand where the problems are. We will supplement that with insight and customer feedback to UK Visas and Immigration. I was asked whether there would be a time limit, and I can reassure Members that there will not be.
Catherine West
I thank the Minister for being so generous with her time. Will she clarify whether Home Office staff receive a bonus for the number of removals they make?
Caroline Nokes
I am absolutely unaware of any bonus scheme for removals. What I want to focus on today is not removals but making sure, for the Windrush generation, that we get their British citizenship granted as swiftly as we can and at no cost to them.
Yvette Cooper
I have been listening, and I wanted to hear the contributions—I will want to speak in the debate on Wednesday. My hon. Friend’s question is important, because I heard rumours that the head of immigration enforcement and senior enforcement officials have had bonuses linked to enforcement performance, including meeting removals targets. I appreciate that the Minister may not know the details right now, but it is really important that she finds some urgent clarity on that. It would be very disturbing to have a target-driven system that rewards people for removals they make, when there are no independent appeals against many removals and enforcement.
Caroline Nokes
The right hon. Lady has asked a specific question about bonuses, and I have said on the record I am not aware of any such system of bonuses. However, I will undertake to go away and find out, prior to Wednesday’s debate, when I look forward to being able to go over this issue in more detail, with more time, in the main Chamber.
I know, as everyone here and—I believe—everyone in this House knows, that we regard the Windrush generation as being of us and part of us. I believe the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green referred to them as being “part of the furniture”. We regard them as British, but we need to ensure that they have the legal documentation confirming that. Nationality law is incredibly complicated, and I want to ensure that their legal status is cemented as soon as possible. We have made it clear that we wish the process to be simple and that nobody should have to undergo a life in the UK test or attend a citizenship ceremony unless they wish to. Some may, and we would want to make that available to them.
Of course, some may not wish to be British citizens at all. We respect that position, but we still need to confirm their status here—free of charge—as someone able to remain in the UK and access services. This point was made earlier: there will also be people in the Windrush generation who, having worked all their lives in Britain, have retired to the country of their birth but obviously retain strong ties here. We should respect and nurture those ties. Should they wish to come back, we will allow that.
I sympathise with anyone who has found the process difficult, and I would like to assure hon. Members that we are doing everything we can to ensure that it is as smooth as possible. I am pleased that more than 100 people have now been issued with the documentation they sought, but please be assured that I am in no way complacent about that. We will continue to improve the service provided.
Mr Lammy
There is another important point. The Minister will understand that some important Caribbean countries—St Kitts, Antigua, St Lucia and others—got their independence after 1973, and a bunch of people are concerned about the 1973 cut-off. Will she say a little more about the situation for those people, some of whom may have come to this country as British subjects from countries whose independence did not come until later in the 1970s or early 1980s? Antigua’s was as late as 1981.
Caroline Nokes
Of course, my right hon. Friend the previous Home Secretary addressed how we solve the status and situation of those who may have come here between 1973 and 1988. I am aware of this issue, and, going forward, I want to ensure that we have a comprehensive package for those whom I am going to regard as the Windrush children, of whom there are very, very many.
As I have said, I was in Sheffield and Croydon over the weekend, listening to the calls being made and the quality of the conversations going on—they were conversations; they were in no way interrogative. In our process, we have a script that is evolving over time. At the end of every day, the script changes and the lessons that have been learned from those conversations during the day are used to ensure that things are better going forward. It is an evolving, iterative process.
I think I have addressed most of the questions raised. If important aspects have been raised that I have not addressed, I will make them very clear to the House on Wednesday. We are working hard to resolve the situation. The new Home Secretary has made his position, personal investment and commitment very clear, and we are working to ensure that it cannot happen again.
As we have heard, this year is the 70th anniversary of the Empire Windrush arriving at Tilbury docks, which makes the situation all the more poignant and tragic. The Government will be celebrating Windrush day, and in the next few days I will have the opportunity to speak to the new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government about how we can use that occasion to build trust with those we have let down. It is not lost on me that our new Home Secretary has come to the Home Office from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and, of course, he introduced the paper on integration, which is so important going forward. He has a strong ally in the new Secretary of State in his old Department, which I am sure will provide a strong link.
I reassure right hon. and hon. Members that the Government are committed to righting the wrongs for the Windrush generation, to ensuring that those who have the right to be here in the United Kingdom are never treated in such a way again and to restoring trust in the Home Office to deliver the outcome that people deserve. I am proud of the work that has been done over the past fortnight to set us on the right course, and I look forward to working with colleagues and officials in the coming months to accomplish those aims.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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John Howell (Henley) (Con)
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
It is important that we focus our support on the most vulnerable refugees in the region who are fleeing the atrocities in Syria, whatever their nationality. We are more than halfway towards reaching our commitment to resettle 20,000 refugees. As of December, 10,538 refugees had been welcomed in the UK under the scheme. We will continue to work closely with local authorities and devolved Administrations to ensure that we meet our commitments.
Mrs Trevelyan
Northumberland County Council is providing homes and resettlement family support for 28 Syrian adults and their 41 children, but we currently have no Syrian refugee children as we are short of foster carers to provide the necessary support. Does the Minister agree that we must encourage people who want to support those Syrian children to apply to be foster carers?
Caroline Nokes
I am very grateful to all the local authorities, including Northumberland County Council, that have participated in both the resettlement scheme and the national transfer scheme for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Northumberland County Council recently received funding through the controlling migration fund to boost its capacity to look after unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The Government are reviewing funding arrangements for local authorities that look after unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. In last year’s safeguarding strategy, the Government committed to further boosting fostering capacity, including by commissioning 1,000 training places for foster carers and support workers who are caring for unaccompanied children.
John Howell
Is my right hon. Friend continuing to work closely with local authorities? She mentioned a figure of 10,500, but how is she doing at meeting the 20,000 target within a couple of years?
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of working collaboratively with local authorities. We also work hard with charities, housing associations and civic society to help refugees on the road to integration. During the recess, I was fortunate to visit World Jewish Relief, Coventry City Council and Horton Housing, among others, which are working with resettled families who are being helped into work as part of their integration. He is right to mention the 20,000 target and I am absolutely confident that we will reach it by 2020.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Families belong together, and vulnerable refugee families from Syria in particular belong together. Will the Minister use the opportunity of the current attention on Syria to commit the Government to standing by Members on both sides of the House who support the Refugees (Family Reunion) (No. 2) Bill, the private Member’s Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil)?
Mr Speaker
What wonderful pronunciation, upon which the House will want to congratulate the hon. Lady.
Caroline Nokes
I thank the hon. Lady for that question; I am conscious of her keen interest in this subject. She will of course know that, since 2010, 24,000 family reunion visas have been issued, but I will look very carefully at the Bill from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), which has received cross-party support. We will continue to look at what we can do to help the most vulnerable families from the region. They should, quite rightly, be our priority.
James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
UK Passport Contract
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on why the contract for the new UK passport has been awarded to a French-owned company.
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
Her Majesty’s Passport Office is currently procuring services to design, manufacture and personalise UK passports from summer 2019, when the current contract ends. HM Passport Office has undertaken a rigorous, fair and open competition in accordance with UK law, and in line with EU and World Trade Organisation rules. This process began in March 2017, at which point HM Passport Office clearly set out the requirements under which potential suppliers should table their bids.
The security of the passport and passport holders’ personal data is paramount, and the tender requirements clearly set out the high standard of security that must be met to undertake the contract. For example, under the next contract, all passports will continue to be personalised with the holder’s personal details in the United Kingdom, which ensures that no personal data will leave the UK. However, the printing of blank passports in the UK is not a new requirement. Robust processes that have been established over a number of years have determined that manufacturing passports overseas presents no security concerns. Under the current contract, up to 20% of blank passports are produced in Europe. There is no reason why overseas production should not continue in the future and, as such, a national security waiver could not apply.
While there are no security or operational impediments to outsourcing the production of passports, there are significant benefits in terms of both value for money, and production innovation and development. This procurement has identified the supplier that best meets the needs of our passport service—keeping the UK passport at the forefront of travel document security, while offering the best value for money. I am unable to confirm any details of the bids while the process remains subject to commercial and legal sensitivities. However, a public announcement to confirm the winning bidder will be made once the contract is formally awarded.
Liz Twist
Last week, I visited staff at the De La Rue factory in my constituency who currently work on the passport contract. They provide secure, quality-assured passports with great pride. Can the Minister tell the House and my constituents what assessment has been made of the security implications of the production of UK passports by a non-UK company, or their production outside the UK? What assessment has she made of the deliverability and reliability of Gemalto’s bid, which I understand was over £100 million less than other bids, in the light of the Government’s experience of Carillion’s failure? Why was it felt appropriate for the Prime Minister to open the new headquarters of Thales—the French security and defence company that has recently taken over Gemalto, one of the bidders for the passport contract—during the procurement process? The Government must provide clarity about whether the bid was discussed at all during the visit.
In responding to press inquiries about the contract, the Home Office has drip-fed information and referred consistently to price and best value. However, does the Minister agree that best value is about more than money? It is about having a secure and reliable passport system that works for the UK. There must be questions about how Gemalto can make a contract worth £390 million work. In fact, I understand that the bid from De La Rue was significantly less than the previous price, and that it operates a gain-share agreement whereby any excess profits are returned to the Home Office.
Caroline Nokes
I thank the hon. Lady for her question; she is quite right to champion the excellent staff in her constituency. However, I reassure her that the winning bidder will of course comply with the UK’s security policy framework and international security standards to mitigate and prevent internal and external threats to the manufacture and onward transportation of blank books. It was very important to the Home Office to abide by international rules, and WTO, UK and EU law, regarding the fairness of the procurement process. A great deal of financial due diligence was done on all the bidding companies, and we are of course determined to have a UK passport that will contain the most up-to-date and innovative security features, making sure that our travel document is at the forefront of security globally.
Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)
There has been a slightly childlike, jingoistic element to the debate on this issue from the moment it started, as we could have had whatever colour passports we wanted while still remaining members of the European Union. However, given that we are embarked upon this, does my right hon. Friend agree that De La Rue is a very successful British company that wins fair, international tender contracts, and earns a great deal of money for this country by printing other people’s currencies and official documents? When we negotiate trade agreements in the future, we will be pressing other countries to open up their public procurement processes to genuine, fair, international competition. It would be totally ridiculous to abandon that principle now to give into not only constituency pressures, which I understand, but otherwise nationalist nonsense that ought to be ignored.
Caroline Nokes
I very much appreciate my right hon. and learned Friend’s contribution—how could I not? He is absolutely right to point out that we wish to be a global, outward-looking trading nation. All the companies that participated in this tender process provide identity documents and bank notes, and other passport providers have bid. The reality is that in a fair procurement process, we had to look at quality, security and price, and this was the contract that provided the best value on all counts.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware of the concern among supporters of every party in this House and none about the prospect of a British passport being printed by a Franco-Dutch company. The Government cannot be allowed to hide behind EU procurement rules. They must take responsibility for the potential fallout on workers, their families, the community and the Government’s wider industrial strategy. Does the Minister accept that it was wrong that the workers at De La Rue were not directly informed of the Government’s decision, but instead heard from the media that their jobs were at risk? Is this what senior Ministers in the leave campaign meant by “taking back control”?
Far from taking back control, it seems we cannot control where our passports are printed. We understand that passports may be manufactured partially in the UK, but it is telling that for security reasons—security reasons that the Minister does not appear concerned about—in countries such as France state-run companies make the passports. What is the total cost of the switch to blue passports? We read reports of savings of £120 million made in the allocation of the contract. Last December, the then Immigration Minister estimated the cost to be £500 million. We are now told that it is £490 million, so the original estimate seems to have been almost exactly correct.
Finally, the Minister must understand why the public see this whole episode as a farce. Labour Members call on Ministers to re-examine this decision and to meet De La Rue, the trade unions and others to ensure that this industry, the quality of the jobs that come with it and our security are protected. Ministers have to understand that the cheapest is not necessarily the best.
Caroline Nokes
I gently point out to the right hon. Lady that it was in 2009 that the rules were changed to enable the British passport to be made overseas and that 20% of blank passports are already printed abroad—[Interruption.] She refers repeatedly from a sedentary position to taking back control. Yes, we are: we are taking back control by awarding a contract within procurement rules—WTO rules as well as EU rules, which are embedded in UK law—and it is imperative that we have the most secure and up to date passports at the best value for money.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I am concerned for the De La Rue plant in Bathford in my constituency, which produces the very high-quality security paper used in Chinese passports, among others. Would it be possible for the Franco-Dutch consortium to buy its secure paper from Somerset, which would of course be De La Rue paper and of very high quality?
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend has done well to point out that De La Rue already prints documents for many different countries. Quite rightly, as with any British company, we wish it to be outward looking and global in its perspective. He makes an important point about paper milling in his constituency that I am sure the successful bidders will have heard.
Mr Speaker
I am sure that everything in North East Somerset is of the very highest quality, and often rather refined.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Scottish National party sympathises with the workers whose jobs are threatened by this decision but, to be frank, the issue of where the new United Kingdom passport is printed as a result of the Government’s handling of Brexit is the least of our worries. Getting a dark blue passport—as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) said, we could have had one all along, had we wanted it—will be little consolation for the loss of our EU rights, including the right to travel freely for work, study or pleasure, the right to free healthcare, and the rights protected by EU law and the Court of Justice. What benefits will we get from the dark blue passport to outweigh these losses? How many British citizens lucky enough to have a parent from another EU member state are, like me and many of my constituents, applying for an Irish, French or German passport so that they can hang on to those EU rights?
Caroline Nokes
The hon. and learned Lady appears to have focused on the colour of the passport and Brexit rather than the issue at hand: the need to obtain the best possible value for money in the new passport contract, and also to ensure that whatever the outcome of Brexit, we have one of the most secure travel documents in the world, with a range of innovative features.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The French Government own 26% of Gemalto, and De La Rue was not allowed to compete for the making of the French passport. Is my right hon. Friend aware of any soft loans or subsidies that have been supplied to Gemalto by the French Government, and will she make public the financial assessment of this £120 million so-called saving?
Caroline Nokes
This procurement is still subject to the full legal process, and I have no intention of making public anything that might jeopardise that. My hon. Friend has pointed out that 26% of Gemalto is owned by the French Government. Having their own national provider enables the French to get around EU procurement rules and, indeed, World Trade Organisation rules. What matters to me is that Conservative Members believe in both fair competition and global trade. We should welcome the fact that we have in De La Rue a company that trades successfully around the globe and secures contracts for all sorts of identity documents and, of course, banknotes. We should welcome the fact that we are not going to nationalise that company.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Given the policy of taking back control, will the UK have its own procurement policy for large contracts such as this one for passports separate from the Official Journal of the European Union process? Will that also mean that British firms will be less able to compete for public sector contracts in other EU countries in the many ways in which they can now?
Caroline Nokes
The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that there will be all sorts of opportunities post Brexit for the UK to determine its own rules, but I should gently point out to him that this is subject to WTO rules, by which I think we should look to be well guided.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
My right hon. Friend can be reassured by the fact that in 2010, when I was doing her job, the Labour MP Michael Meacher complained bitterly about the awarding of the contract to De La Rue because it had been taken away from a firm in his constituency. What was interesting about that firm was that it was an American firm, which had been given the contract by the previous Labour Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a degree of chutzpah in the modern Labour party’s saying that the British passport contract needs to be given to a British firm, given that when Labour was in power, it gave that contract to an American firm?
Caroline Nokes
As ever, I can rely on my right hon. Friend to get straight to the point. There is a long history of British passports not necessarily being printed by UK companies. What is important to me is that we award contracts within the rules, that the Government do not seek to circumvent those rules, and that the process is handled fairly.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
When the Prime Minister said that we would have a red, white and blue Brexit, we did not think that she was referring to the Tricolour. Why is protecting British jobs not a priority for this Government?
Caroline Nokes
Seeking to protect British jobs in the way in which the hon. Lady outlines would be protectionist. I want British companies to be able to bid on a global stage for all sorts of contracts, and to be able to compete fairly throughout the world.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is right to call for a fair and open competition on a level playing field, but is she confident that there will be a level playing field, given that 26% of Gemalto is owned by the French Government? Is she confident that Gemalto’s bid, which was significantly lower than others, is sustainable in the long term?
Caroline Nokes
As my right hon. Friend might expect, there has been close scrutiny of all the bids received—that has included a significant amount of financial due diligence—to ensure that the bidders can deliver on this contract, and deliver in a way that provides a British passport with the most up-to-date and important security features to be found in any travel document anywhere in the world.
Several hon. Members rose—
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I have a great deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) as she stands up for her constituents, but does the Minister agree that a lot of young people in this country will look at this debate with absolute bafflement? They never had blue passports; I never had a blue passport. What this actually represents is taking away rights as European Union citizens, which we discussed at great length the other day. That is the real damage in this situation.
Caroline Nokes
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that this is not about taking away rights; it is about awarding a contract within the rules.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The EU leadership group is in turmoil: it is worried about the British passport being made in France, because when the French people see this symbol of freedom and independence and realise that the British people are gaining control of their borders, money and laws, they will rise up and want to leave the EU. What does the Minister have to say to the French?
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend tempts me to say something I am really not going to say. What I welcome as part of this whole process is that we have companies in this country and abroad that can take part in a fair bidding process, where the best quality, the best security features and the best value for money wins, regardless of nationality.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
An awful lot of the De La Rue staff in Gateshead live in my constituency, although the plant is in the Blaydon constituency. Has the Home Office carried out any assessment of the loss of revenue from national insurance, corporation tax and income tax to the Exchequer when this contract goes to a French Government-owned company?
Caroline Nokes
It is important to reflect upon the fact that the new bidder will be providing new facilities and new jobs in the UK. We will of course seek to work with any company that experiences issues regarding the redundancy of staff, as any responsible Government would, but it is also very important to us that we make sure that we get best value for money for the British taxpayer.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
My constituents in Harlow will welcome a saving of £120 million to the taxpayer, but may I put in an early bid by asking my right hon. Friend to spend that £120 million on the NHS by putting it towards scrapping hospital car parking charges?
Caroline Nokes
I never fail to be impressed by my right hon. Friend’s ability to raise the issues about which he rightly campaigns and cares a great deal. Of course we need to consider how we spend any saving to the taxpayer in the best possible way. It is worth reflecting on the fact that the Immigration Act 2016 enables us to use any income received from passport fees to contribute not just towards the costs of the passport, but to securing our borders and making sure that there is easy and safe passage for British citizens through the border.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
How many jobs would have been secured had the contract been awarded to Gateshead?
Caroline Nokes
It is important to reflect on the fact that we do not believe in a protectionist policy. I can tell the hon. Lady that we anticipate that 70 jobs will be created in the UK as a result of the award of this contract, but this is about making sure that we get the best deal for the taxpayer, that we have the most secure and up-to-date travel document and, of course, that we abide by the rules and do not seek to implement protectionist policies in this country.
Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)
I absolutely support what the Minister has said, but can we perhaps move forward? What plans does the Home Office have for having not a paper passport, but a piece of plastic rather like our driving licence?
Caroline Nokes
The new passport will incorporate a polycarbonate page, which is the most up-to-date security feature, but there will still be paper pages, so the new passport will not look so radically different from what my right hon. Friend expects, although it is important that new security features are contained the whole way through it.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Many of my constituents who work in the Royal Mint in Llantrisant are proud of the fact that they produce not only British coinage, but coinage for 60 other countries around the world, so we do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. However, it is extraordinary that the only argument the Minister has so far advanced for the French being allowed to protect their French-made passports for French-made people is that the company is state owned, because that is just an argument for nationalising De La Rue, is it not?
Caroline Nokes
I do not think that I have at any point advanced an argument for state ownership. To be quite frank, we know that that produces poor value for money and higher prices in general. I am old enough—just—to remember the great British invention of British Leyland’s Allegro, and that was hardly a triumph.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
At a time when President Trump is clearly looking to go down the road of protectionism, may I say how welcome it is to hear a Government Minister robustly defending free trade? She has our strong support in pursuing competitive tenders that are in the public interest and the taxpayer’s interest, rather than sentimental jingoism.
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no place for sentimentalism. I am as sorry as anybody that we do not have a British company at the top of this process, but the reality is that, as a Minister, I have to reflect on value for money, quality and security. Those were our main considerations when determining where this contract should be awarded.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
May I bring the Minister back from the fantasy land of free trade to the real world, where countries look after their own industries and their own workers? It is interesting that she says she is unable to tell us any details, given that Government spokesmen are briefing the media on the exact financial details. Will she take the opportunity to do so when she makes the announcement? Will she make the announcement to the House, or is she hoping to do it during the parliamentary recess?
Caroline Nokes
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that we are at a standstill point in the process, and I intend to make no announcement until that is well and truly over. He paints a picture of protectionism and a little Britain that I do not recognise. I want us to be an outward-facing, global country in which our companies can have the confidence to bid on the world stage.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
I am rather disappointed by the outcome of this process, because a company in my constituency known as Morpho was going to invest hundreds of millions of pounds and create hundreds of jobs. When the Minister finally winds up this process, will she let that company know exactly where it has fallen short, because I do not believe that it would have done?
Caroline Nokes
As part of the procurement process, it was important that we scored issues such as quality, our confidence in the ability to supply, security features and value for money equally. When this is over, we will of course seek to inform all companies as much as we can within the law.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
In Perth, there have already been spontaneous demonstrations, with placards abound, and there are even rumours that the Daily Mail has sold out. Does the Minister agree that the billions of pounds of Brexit pain and international isolation will be all for nothing if we cannot have this new symbol of British freedom—the blue passport—British made?
Caroline Nokes
Well, if the Daily Mail has sold out in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, I have indeed done well, haven’t I? What matters in this process is that we have the best possible passport made at the best possible value to the taxpayer, and that we ensure that we award the contract fairly and, indeed, within the rules.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
May I tell my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) not only that they make excellent paper down there, but that they make very good plastic notes at De La Rue? May I tell the Minister that my constituents feel that passports are already too expensive and that the last thing we should be doing is choosing a contractor that is not competitive. She is doing the right thing.
Mr Speaker
I think that that question was rhetorical. No more than a single sentence is required in reply, and not even that, if the Minister does not want to respond.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I have constituents whose jobs are at risk as a result of this decision. The Minister says that this is a question of value for money, but my understanding is that the new contract represents a considerable reduction compared with the present arrangements, and I believe that De La Rue has been aggressively undercut by what might turn out to be an unviable bid. Would it not be better to award the contract to De La Rue, secure the jobs in the north-east, and enter into a gain-share arrangement so that the taxpayer can benefit from any efficiencies?
Caroline Nokes
We had to consider financial due diligence and ensure that all bidders were capable of delivering the contract within the quality standards set out and, indeed, with the new security innovations that will be included in the new passport. Ultimately, I believe in free and fair competition, and that is exactly what this result has shown.
Several hon. Members rose—
Croatia
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(8 years ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
We will today inform the European Commission and the Croatian Government of our decision not to extend further the transitional restrictions on Croatian citizens’ access to the UK labour market when they expire on 30 June 2018. This is in line with the provisions of the accession treaty for Croatia, under which temporary restrictions have been in force since Croatia joined the European Union on 1 July 2013. There are only three remaining member states (Austria, Slovenia and the Netherlands) who also currently impose transitional restrictions on Croatians, and will need to consider the case for extending these before July.
Since 2013 when Croatia joined the EU, their citizens, unless exempt, require authorisation from the Home Office before they can take up a post in the UK. After 12 months’ employment, Croatians are free to work in the UK without restriction.
It was always the case that these restrictions were temporary and it would only be legal to extend them further if there was an economic case that to do otherwise would cause or threaten serious labour market disturbance. We have examined the evidence carefully and no such case can be made.
The UK labour market is very strong with near record levels of unemployment and employment. There is a low volume of flows from Croatia to the UK, and a low number of resident Croatians in the UK. Long-term international migration flows suggest an estimated total as low as 4,000 long-term immigrants from Malta, Cyprus and Croatia arrived in the UK in the year to June (ONS, 2017). Estimates of the total number of Croatians resident in the UK in 2016 are below 10,000 (ONS, 2016). The cultural/social network ‘pull’ factor is limited, particularly given the much larger Croatian diaspora size in other EU member states (e.g. Germany).
This is in contrast to our consideration of extending controls for the EU2 (Romania and Bulgaria) when our economy was still fragile after the recession. Figures at the same point of those transitional controls showed there were around 57,000 Romanians and 35,000 Bulgarians living in the UK.
Our conclusion is that there is insufficient evidence to satisfy the test of ‘serious labour market disturbance’ that is required to extend the restrictions.
The decision not to extend the restrictions will mean that Croatian citizens will be able to seek and obtain employment in the UK on the same basis as currently enjoyed by all other EU citizens.
We will not discriminate between nationals of the EU member states in our implementation of the citizens’ rights deal. Croatian citizens will be able to apply for settled status on the same terms as all other EU citizens.
We have been clear that we will take back control of immigration and our borders when we leave the EU, and we will put in place an immigration system which works in the best interests of the whole of the UK.
[HCWS560]
Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab) (Urgent Question)
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the detention centre at Yarl’s Wood.
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
Ensuring that individuals abide by immigration rules is an essential part of an effective immigration system. This includes individuals leaving the UK if they have no lawful basis to remain. Of course, we all hope that those with no right to remain in the UK will leave voluntarily, and we have measures in place to assist those who wish to do so. However, this is not always the case, and detention is therefore an important tool.
The dignity and welfare of all individuals detained is of utmost importance, and any decision to detain is made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account individual circumstances. But let me be clear: Home Office officials work with any individual with no right to be in the UK, both detained—including those at Yarl’s Wood—and in the community, to assist with their return at any time, if they decide to leave the UK. In fact, 95% of people without the right to be here are managed in the community and most people detained under immigration powers spend only very short periods in detention.
In 2017, 92% of people were detained for four months or less, and nearly two thirds were detained for less than a month. As well as regular reviews of detention, individuals can apply for bail at any time. I visited Yarl’s Wood on 8 February to see that all detainees were being treated in a safe and dignified manner, and I understand that the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) is meeting the Home Secretary to discuss this issue very shortly.
The provision of 24-hour, seven-day-a-week healthcare in all immigration removal centres ensures that detainees have ready access to medical professionals and levels of primary care in line with individuals in the community. Any detainees who choose to refuse food or fluid, including the declining number of residents at Yarl’s Wood who are currently refusing food, are closely monitored by on-site healthcare professionals. Home Office staff will not only ensure that detainees are informed about how their actions may impact on their health, but make it clear that we will continue to seek to progress their case. The Government are committed to protecting the welfare and dignity of those in detention and we will always set the highest standards to ensure the safety and wellbeing of detainees.
Ms Abbott
The shadow Attorney General and I travelled to Yarl’s Wood detention centre on Friday 23 February to inspect conditions and speak to some of the people detained there. The Minister will be aware that I have been pressing for such access to the centre since the autumn of 2016. The timing of our visit coincided with a hunger strike by some of the detainees, who were protesting at what they described as the inhumane conditions there. But in response to my repeated inquiries, the authorities at the detention centre, the Home Office, Serco and G4S said categorically that there was no hunger strike. It now seems that we were misled.
Is the Minister aware that newspaper reports show a letter that has been sent to these women by the Home Office? The letter has been reproduced in some media outlets. It is a signed letter, on Home Office headed paper, which begins by stating that
“the fact that you are currently refusing food and/or fluid…may, in fact, lead to your case being accelerated”.
To some Opposition Members, this sounds like punitive deportations for women who have dared to go on hunger strike. Furthermore, I was contacted at the weekend by lawyers and others attempting to prevent the deportation of a young woman and her mother. This is wrong. The personnel at Yarl’s Wood are paid for from the public purse, yet Members of Parliament seem to have been misled by officials. Now we learn that the Home Office is apparently threatening these women with accelerated deportation.
The Minister has a series of questions to answer. When did she first know about the hunger strike? When did she know of the existence of the threatening letters, implying that deportation would be accelerated for those continuing on hunger strike? Did she or her officials approve these letters? How is it possible to accelerate deportations and conform to natural justice, as surely all cases are expedited in any event? Does the decision for removal supersede any health concerns that a detainee may have? Is the Minister aware that the primary demand of the hunger strike is to end the inhumanity of what, in practice, is indefinite detention? Finally, will the Government, in line with their own policy, stop detaining women who have been trafficked or sexually abused and stop misleading this House about their detention of these most vulnerable women?
Caroline Nokes
The right hon. Lady has raised some very important points. I will first clarify the circumstances in which a letter is given to individuals who may be refusing food or fluid while in detention. A letter will only be handed to people after an extensive welfare interview, which happens with a medical professional, and is used to explain to individuals the very real risk that they are putting themselves at by refusing food and fluid. We want nobody in detention to be in that situation and it is important that we explain to them the risks involved.
The letter is, in fact, part of official Home Office guidance and was published on the gov.uk website in November last year. It was agreed after consultation with NHS England, Medical Justice, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association and a range of non-governmental organisations, because it is important that we get the correct information to detainees who are choosing to refuse food and fluid.
I was first aware that individuals at Yarl’s Wood were refusing food and fluid at about the same time that the right hon. Lady undertook her visit. Of course I regard it as very serious. Nobody wants detainees to be at any risk, but it is important that they should not regard this as a route to preventing their removal from this country. As I said clearly in my opening statement, ensuring that individuals abide by immigration rules is an essential part of our immigration system. I wish to do nothing that encourages them to put their own health at risk by suggesting that doing so might prevent their removal from this country.
Indeed, there are some circumstances whereby people could be prioritised, such as if we anticipated that somebody needed escorts to be removed from the country, because there is always a long wait for that service. We can also talk to embassies to understand whether there is a problem with papers from someone’s home country, and get those expedited, so that the individual can be returned to their home country as swiftly as possible.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Accelerated processing would only be a threat if the judicial process was not seen to be fair and independent. Is it?
Caroline Nokes
My right hon. Friend will be aware that there is an extensive judicial process, whereby individuals seeking to stay in this country may apply to the first tier and, indeed, the upper tier tribunal at any stage in the process that they may apply for judicial review. We are determined to make the immigration system as fair as we possibly can, but also to uphold our rules.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The large-scale, routine detention of thousands of human beings in private prisons for an indeterminate period simply at the discretion of immigration officers is, frankly, a stain on our democracy and an affront to the rule of law. This most recent horrible episode in a detention facility is far from the first, as hon. Members know, and it will not be the last unless there is radical change. Why does the UK detain more than other European countries? Why can every other EU country manage with a time limit on immigration detention, but not the UK? Why do the Government continue to detain vulnerable people, including victims of torture, to the serious detriment of their health and wellbeing? It is very welcome that the shadow Home Secretary has brought this issue to the House, but will the Government have the courage to allow this House a binding vote and the chance to make it clear that it is time for radical reform of the UK immigration detention regime and that it is time for a limit?
Caroline Nokes
Immigration officials always consider individuals in detention on a case-by-case basis and put their welfare absolutely at the forefront. Some 95% of people with no right to be in this country are managed within the community. Only 5% will be within the immigration removal centres at any one time. They are only there when there is a realistic chance of removal, and we always seek to ensure that they are removed as soon as possible.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the superb job that she is doing as check Immigration Minister. My constituents in Kettering want to see firm but fair border controls, and the detention centre is absolutely part of that. Will the Minister assure me that the 5% of applicants who end up in a detention centre are there because there is a very real risk that they will abscond and we will not be able to deport them?
Caroline Nokes
There are several reasons why an individual might be in immigration detention. First and foremost, those for whom there is a realistic chance of removal from the UK may be there for a short period, as we seek to get them to removal as soon as possible. There are also those in immigration detention who are foreign national offenders and those who pose a risk to our society.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I welcome the work that the shadow Home Secretary has done to pursue this issue. I share her concern about the state of Yarl’s Wood and some of the policies that underpin it. I understand that the Immigration Minister this weekend responded to calls from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) to prevent the deportation of two of her constituents from being accelerated as a result of one of them being on hunger strike. But as well as that individual case, will the Minister address the wider issue and confirm that no individual should have their case or their deportation accelerated or prioritised simply because they have gone on hunger strike or made some kind of protest in response to the very difficult conditions that they face? I am sure that she would not want that kind of punitive action to be taken in response to protest.
Caroline Nokes
We take the issue of individuals refusing food and fluid very seriously indeed. We do not want any individual to put their own health and wellbeing at risk. It is important that we have an immigration policy that includes detention, but that we administer it in as fair a way as possible, always seeking to use detention as a last resort. The right hon. Lady referred to a specific case. I am not going to comment on individual people’s immigration status on a case-by-case basis. However, it is important that I am always prepared to listen when Members ask me to review their cases.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I thank the Minister for her statement and for the assurances that she has given the House. It is right that we have to have detention centres. Nobody likes them, but they have to exist as part of a policy that is the right policy to pursue. But will she be absolutely clear and give us all an assurance that the welfare of anybody—whatever their status may be—is always the primary concern?
Caroline Nokes
Of course the welfare of individuals at any of our immigration centres is of paramount importance. I assure my right hon. Friend that Yarl’s Wood was inspected by Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons between 5 and 16 June last year, and the report was published on 15 November. In addition, Yarl’s Wood was subject to a review by Stephen Shaw, who reported in 2016. He is currently looking at the recommendations that he made and the progress that the Government—and Serco, our operative there—have made in implementing them.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
My constituency has already said no to a part of the UK Government’s immoral immigration policy—a short-term holding facility near Glasgow airport. One of the main reasons cited for that refusal was the UK’s indefinite detention policy. The UK is the only country in the EU that has indefinite detention. Is the Minister proud of that policy?
Caroline Nokes
There is an automatic review of detention after a month and at every recurring month. Individuals may apply for bail at any time. It is important to reflect on the fact that only 5% of the immigration offender population will be found in detention at any one time. We seek to manage them in the community wherever we possibly can. They will be held in detention only when there is a real risk of absconding or of public harm, or where we are seeking to move somebody to removal as soon as possible.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I have a huge amount of respect for the Minister, but her statement that this happens only when people are at risk of absconding is not one that I recognise from immigration casework that I do every single day. A woman in my constituency rang the police because of a threat to kill her from a violent ex-husband. She was taken to Yarl’s Wood, not to a place of safety. We detained a woman who was a victim. She has now been given indefinite leave to remain because her case was going through the process. This is not an isolated case. Does the Home Office think that it keeps vulnerable women who are at risk of rape, sexual violence or domestic abuse safe by basically deterring them from calling the police because they will be sent to a detention centre?
Caroline Nokes
The hon. Lady will be aware that we have a very clear policy on adults at risk in immigration detention. I do not want any woman to be at risk of harm from either a current partner or a former partner. She raised a particular case. I urge her and all Members to bear in mind that if such cases occur in their constituencies, I will always want to look at them personally. We must remember, however, that we have in this country an immigration policy that seeks to implement the rules as they are set out, and it is important that we are able to uphold those rules at all times.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
In the Minister’s answer to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), she mentioned Stephen Shaw’s second review of the detention of people in immigration centres, particularly the experience of vulnerable people, and said that he is looking at the Home Office’s implementation of his first review. Has the second review been concluded, and has she received the report on it? If not, when does she expect to receive it, and when does the Home Office expect to publish it?
Caroline Nokes
The honest answer is no, I have not yet received it, but we anticipate it very shortly indeed.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) is travelling with the Defence Committee, but as Opelo and her mother are her constituents, she has asked me to put on record her thanks to the Minister for her intervention at the weekend. She also asked me to put on record her thanks to the Rev. Ashley Cooper and all those at Swan Bank church for the welfare support they have been giving to the immediate friends and family. Does the Minister agree that the fact that Members of Parliament have to resort to weekend telephone calls directly to Ministers to try to stop individuals from being deported before they have had their due process is a sign that the immigration system in this country is simply failing?
Caroline Nokes
I said very clearly that I was not going to comment on individual cases, but we do follow due process very closely indeed. I put on record my thanks to the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), to whom I spoke over the weekend and with whom I am in regular contact. It is quite right that she should be able to make those representations to me at, quite frankly, whatever time of day.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I am very proud to be the son of immigrants and proud of this country’s record on supporting refugees and immigrants. Does the Minister understand that at the heart of her answer is an indifference, first, to indefinite detention and, secondly, to the fact that many women at Yarl’s Wood have been there for months and months, running into years? That is why many of them are refusing food. The possibility that the Government will accelerate deportation on that basis must be contrary to human rights. Can she satisfy the House that this satisfies all the obligations that the Government have to meet in their human rights record and that it is not cruel and unusual punishment?
Caroline Nokes
It is important to reflect on the fact that detention plays an important part in our immigration system and will continue to do so. Of course we put the welfare and wellbeing of individuals who are in detention at Yarl’s Wood, and at every other centre in this country, at the forefront of our policies. It is important to remember, however, that some people in detention, including foreign national offenders, are there because if they were in the community they would have very high potential to do harm.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
A constituent of mine was detained in Yarl’s Wood last summer. She was at risk of losing her eyesight due to a serious eye condition that had already left her blind in one eye and, if left untreated for a short time, risked her going blind in the other. Despite people being made aware of this information, she was left for some time before being seen by a nurse. In the end, my office had to intervene directly to ensure that urgent medical assistance was provided to my constituent, to avoid her losing her sight. This appalling case is one of many. Will the Minister make an assessment and overall review of the conditions that women in Yarl’s Wood are subject to?
Caroline Nokes
Upon detention, individuals at Yarl’s Wood are given access to a healthcare professional within two hours and then have the ability to make an appointment with a general practitioner within 24 hours. It is really important that we provide healthcare to all those in detention. That is why it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and referral onwards to external healthcare services is also available. The hon. Lady asked whether I would review welfare at Yarl’s Wood. In fact, that is the job of the independent monitoring board, the independent inspector, and of course Stephen Shaw, whom we have asked to go back to review the recommendations that he made two years ago and provide us with an update on progress.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
How can the Minister say that the justification for detention is severe risk of harm or women absconding when so many of them are very quickly, or ultimately, released back into the community and sometimes go round the loop of “detention and release, detention and release” on a number of occasions?
Caroline Nokes
In upholding our immigration rules, we seek to assist those who have no right to be here to return home, whether on a voluntary basis or indeed, on occasion, by force. It is really important that we have an immigration system that is robust. We do not have indefinite detention. The hon. Lady will have heard me say that 92% of those held are released within four months and 63% are released within a month. It is important that we have a system where we can be confident that when we are able move people to removal, we have the capacity to do so.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I want to put on record my support for the work that the shadow Home Secretary has been doing on this issue and for the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), who has fought tirelessly for her constituents. I am grateful that the Minister has listened and agreed to review the case. For many of us, the trouble with this is that we are talking about an environment where we know that two thirds of the women in Yarl’s Wood have experienced rape or sexual torture and that 85% of them are then released back, not deported. Does the Minister recognise that, rather than continuing to keep Yarl’s Wood open, there may be not only cheaper but much more compassionate and humane ways in which we can manage our immigration system that would speak to the best of British values?
Caroline Nokes
The hon. Lady will have heard me say that 95% of immigration offenders are in the community and only a very small proportion—5%—are in detention. However, detention does play an important part. We will keep people in detention where there is a realistic prospect of removal and where they might cause harm out in the community. It is important that we retain that facility.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
At Yarl’s Wood and many institutions like it, vulnerable people are being held for long periods, despite the fact that the majority of them have committed no crime. Does the Minister agree that there must be an urgent review of the UK’s detention system?
Caroline Nokes
I think that I have been very clear this afternoon that, although we regard detention as a last resort, it is an important part of our suite of immigration policies. We use detention to enable us to remove people from this country, to make sure that those who might cause harm in our communities are kept away from society and on occasions when we are seeking to remove foreign national offenders as quickly as we can.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
How many people in Yarl’s Wood are currently on suicide watch?
Caroline Nokes
We keep the welfare of detainees under very close supervision, and I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that a declining number of people are choosing to refuse food and fluid. Of course, where people have mental health issues or there are concerns about their health, it is absolutely right that we keep them under very close supervision.
Seasonal Migrant Workers
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) on securing this debate. I pay tribute to her for the eloquent way in which she made her points. I have absolutely no doubt that her constituents have an extremely effective representative in this House.
I am grateful, too, for all the other speeches we heard this afternoon. There has been a great deal of consensus, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) rightly pointed out. We have had a series of well-informed contributions, although early on I felt that I should perhaps have had lunch first, given the wide variety of produce we got to hear about. I thank the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) for reminding me that today is the first day of spring.
This Government place great value on the UK’s food and farming industries. We recognise them as crucial to the UK economy and to the fabric of rural Britain. Let me be clear that I say that both as a representative of the Government and in a personal capacity. The constituency I have the honour to represent covers 162 square miles, and I reassure the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who yelled from a sedentary position, “You need to get out into the fields”, that I certainly do so in my constituency. I am astonished to hear that he was in the House when the seasonal agricultural workers scheme was originally introduced, as that happened in 1945. He is clearly ageing extremely well.
My constituency is far smaller than the constituency of Angus, but it is still large and has sizeable rural areas, so I am very aware of the role that the farming community plays in shaping the rural economy and preserving the countryside—to say nothing of the vital role it performs in putting food on our plates.
As hon. Members know, this week the Government published “Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit”. I am delighted to have the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), here with me this afternoon, and he will no doubt concur that we want to see a more dynamic and more self-reliant agriculture industry as we continue to compete internationally, supplying products of the highest quality to the domestic market and increasing our exports. Alongside that, we want a reformed agricultural and land management policy to deliver a better and richer environment in our country.
As we have heard, there is a huge opportunity for UK agriculture to improve its competitiveness by developing the next generation of food and farming technology. I reassure hon. Members that their comments about automation in soft fruit picking have not fallen on cloth ears—I am very conscious that huge parts of the sector are reliant on arduous manual labour.
We want to help attract more of our graduates and domestic workforce into this vibrant industry. Importantly, the White Paper also addresses the issue of apprenticeships. We will create more apprenticeships, widen participation and create progression for apprentices. Our reforms will help meet the skills needs of employers by putting them in control and enabling them to work with education providers to develop their workforce now and in the future. We heard that message from across the House. My hon. Friends the Members for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) and for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), all mentioned the need to make working in the sector more attractive to our young people.
We have heard much this afternoon about the UK’s exit from the European Union and the issues that that brings for the labour force. The Government have been very clear from the start that our first priority is to safeguard the position of the 3 million EU citizens already in the UK and of the British citizens living in Europe. The practical consequence is that all EU citizens currently working in the UK, whether they are fruit pickers or farm managers, can stay and settle in the UK if they so choose.
As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in her Florence speech last year, it is our intention that, for around two years after we leave, EU citizens will still be able to come and go and to work in any capacity with a registration system, so there will be no cliff edge for employers. Only yesterday, we set out what the rules will be for those who arrive during the implementation period, so that individuals planning to live, study or work in the UK after March 2019 will know what the arrangements will be if they want to stay for longer than two years. It is crucial to business that those arriving during the implementation period will have certainty that they can stay for the long term.
We have clearly stated throughout the negotiations that we value EU citizens and the contribution they make to the economic, social and cultural fabric of the UK. Our offer is that those EU citizens and their family members who arrive, are resident and have registered during the implementation period will be eligible, after the accumulation of five years’ continuous and lawful residence, to apply for indefinite leave to remain. That was an issue that the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) raised.
For the time being, the UK remains a member of the European Union, with all the rights and obligations that membership entails. Employers in the agricultural and food processing sectors, and elsewhere, are free to continue to recruit EU workers to meet their labour needs. This debate is very timely, in that it follows the publication last week by the Office for National Statistics of two important sets of numbers. The first were the quarterly net migration statistics, which show that although the rate of European net migration has slowed, it is still positive. The ONS figures indicated that in the year ending September 2017 there were 90,000 more EU citizens in the UK than there were a year earlier. Secondly, the ONS published the labour force statistics, which demonstrate that in the period October to December 2017 there were 100,000 more EU citizens in the UK labour force than there were a year earlier, including 79,000 more Romanians and Bulgarians. Of course, I appreciate that there is a difference between established workers and seasonal workers of the kind who predominate in agriculture, but it is important that we recognise that there are many EU citizens in the UK and that there are more than there were at the time of the referendum.
In 2013, the last seasonal agricultural workers scheme was abolished, on the independent advice of the MAC. We know that since then the agricultural sector has been working hard to recruit the labour it requires. The hon. Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned an important aspect of this—the treatment and condition of workers who come over to this country. It is important that we continually have an eye to modern slavery, that we look at the conditions in which people are living and that they are paid the minimum wage. In an important part of the review that we undertook with Matthew Taylor, he emphasised the need to make sure that employees had good conditions and indeed had payslips. That remains a priority for the Home Office.
We recognise the concerns raised by Members from across the House about labour shortages. That is one reason why we have commissioned the MAC to conduct a review of the UK labour market’s reliance on EU labour and the read-across to the industrial strategy. I know that the MAC has received many submissions from within the agricultural sector and from DEFRA—I say that to reassure the hon. Member for Bristol East. They will weigh heavily in the MAC’s deliberations and recommendations. My door is always open to representations, and Home Office officials regularly meet representatives from all sectors of the economy, from business and from academia—
Caroline Nokes
Given that many Members took a great deal of time, I am not going to take any interventions.
I also assure Members that we keep the situation under constant review, referring specifically to a seasonal agricultural workers scheme. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs made that point clearly when he addressed the National Farmers Union conference last week. That applies equally to all sectors of the economy. We have heard a little this afternoon about tourism and other sectors that might also be affected.
This Government are determined to get the best deal for the UK in our negotiations to leave the EU, including for our world-leading—
Caroline Nokes
No, I am not going to give way. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues took many minutes up earlier.
As I was saying, we are determined to get the best deal, including for our world-leading food and farming industry. In the meantime, we will continue to support the industry, to work with it and to review the situation going forward. I would like the industry to be assured that it has friends in government. I look forward to discussing these issues again and to keeping the recommendations under close review, and I will be appearing shortly before the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when I am sure this matter will be raised—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman can see that the Minister does not intend to take an intervention. [Interruption.] Order. He knows that he cannot make points from a sedentary position. He has already made his points and the Minister has heard them.
Caroline Nokes
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also heard you when you exhorted people to keep their contributions short. The hon. Gentleman has made many contributions from a sedentary position, some of which I have even deigned to answer. As I said, I will look forward to continuing to discuss these matters with colleagues across government and to making sure that the views of the agricultural sector, which have been expressed so effectively by my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, continue to be heard. I conclude by, again, thanking all Members for speaking and thanking my hon. Friend for initiating this debate.
Draft Passport (Fees) Regulations 2018
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Passport (Fees) Regulations 2018.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this slightly chilly Committee Room, Ms McDonagh. The regulations would, for the first time, set passport fees under the primary charging powers in the Immigration Act 2016.
In 2017, Her Majesty’s Passport Office issued nearly 7 million passports worldwide. It continues to provide excellent customer service: over the past year, the average turnaround for the vast majority of passport applications was approximately seven days. Its excellent performance has resulted in high levels of customer satisfaction; in a recent customer satisfaction index survey by the Institute of Customer Service, HM Passport Office ranked once again as the best-performing public service organisation. It has improved its customer satisfaction index scores over each of the past five years and has now appeared for the first time among the top 50 high-scoring organisations in the survey.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
By way of evidence, I renewed my passport very recently indeed and it came back in five days. Under the new system, in which applicants can upload their photograph from an iPhone, the application took 10 minutes. What a fantastic service!
Caroline Nokes
I am delighted to hear that feedback from my hon. Friend, the former Immigration Minister.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
As a counterpoint to that excellent experience, I know of a case in which a passport that had been correctly applied for was delivered by courier to the wrong house. How often does that happen?
Caroline Nokes
There are two points that I would like to address. My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby makes the valid point that the proportion of passports issued within seven days has surpassed 95%; the vast majority are issued very quickly and with huge customer satisfaction. However, I am always concerned to hear about instances of the process going wrong. If the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood raises the case with me outside the Committee, I will raise it personally with the head of the Passport Office.
Maria Eagle
I raised it at the time with the then Home Secretary, who is now our Prime Minister. The situation has been ameliorated, but the problem has not been solved. A new, full and correct British passport was delivered to what was obviously the wrong address and never, to my knowledge, has it been recovered.
Caroline Nokes
By her own admission, the hon. Lady refers to a case that must now be several years out of date. [Interruption.] Well, at least 18 months. I reassure the hon. Lady—
Caroline Nokes
As I have said, the customer satisfaction with Her Majesty’s Passport Office has increased significantly. We have made excellent improvements with the digitisation of the service, which my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby referred to, but I am absolutely prepared to take up the issue of the missing passport, find out where it has got to and, of course, ensure that it is cancelled, so that no one can use it fraudulently.
We now score alongside organisations such as Amazon and John Lewis on customer satisfaction. We are the only public sector body on the list, and we scored higher than Prudential, Debenhams and Hilton. I welcome those accolades as testament to our hard-working officials across the UK.
The 2016 Act includes powers that allow Home Office fees to reflect the costs not only of considering an application and issuing a passport, but of any other function of the Secretary of State in connection with UK passports, including costs associated with British citizens leaving and entering the UK. The full costs associated with processing applications and issuing passports are funded by income from fees charged for passport services, but the number of passengers arriving at the UK border continues to rise: approximately 130 million passengers arrive each year, of whom approximately 70 million are UK passport holders. This leads to a significant cost for the Home Office that is largely funded by the Exchequer. Allowing passport fees to reflect the costs to the Home Office associated with UK passengers leaving and entering the UK means that we can reduce the burden on the Exchequer and move towards a “user pays” basis for our overall service to UK passport holders.
Maria Eagle
The impact assessment suggests that if the draft regulations are implemented, £50 million of additional income in the next financial year from these increases will come into the Exchequer. If that happens, will the Minister tell us what percentage of the costs that she describes will be met by income from passports?
Caroline Nokes
I will move on to explain how the income received is only part of the £100 million investment that the Home Office will make in our borders in the coming 12 months. It is important that we recover any additional costs in a balanced way that incentivises the use of the more efficient online application process, which we intend to become the standard passport application channel. Although we are proposing to increase most fees, people who submit their application online will be charged a lower fee than if they submit their application by post.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that constituencies such as mine, which have an older population who have limited access to the internet, will be discriminated against by that? Has she done any equality impact assessment on constituencies such as mine?
Caroline Nokes
We have looked very carefully at this issue, and I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that 90% of the UK population have access to the internet. I recently made the point in a different Committee Room that many older people use the internet very successfully and with great efficiency. It is important that we reflect the difference in cost to HM Passport Office between a postal application and the online application, which obviously is much more simple and more straightforward. We also provide an assisted digital service for those who might have difficulty submitting their application online.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Could the Minister give a bit more information about how the assisted service works for people with disabilities or the elderly in remote or rural areas, such as parts of my constituency?
Caroline Nokes
We are enabling people to submit their application via a third party, so they can ask people to assist them if they have particular disabilities or challenges; that applies particularly to those who have a visual impairment. The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point about areas that might have lower broadband speeds. In my constituency in the south-east, I have some of the lowest performing wards for broadband in the country, although I am very conscious that my excellent colleague, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, has made huge strides and has hit our targets for increasing high-speed broadband across the country. I accept that there is still work to be done on that.
We intend to increase the online adult fee by only £3, which is broadly in line with inflation. That will mean that the adult fee will increase to £75.50, which is still below what was charged between 2009 and 2012, when an adult passport cost £77.50. The child passport fee will increase by the same amount, and will be set at £49. Fees for adult and child passports applied for via post will each increase by £12.50, to £85 and £58.50 respectively, to reflect the additional cost of processing postal applications. HM Passport Office provides excellent priority services for applicants who wish their applications to be processed faster, or who prefer to apply in person. It is right that applicants pay more for these priority services. We intend to move the fees for these services towards full cost recovery sooner than online or postal services, given their optional nature and the additional benefits that the customer receives by using them.
Finally, we are introducing a new and specific power in the regulations that allows the Home Office to consider waiving fees for replacement passports where they have been lost or destroyed during an incident considered a national emergency or crisis, where the UK Government have activated exceptional assistance measures overseas. This will allow the Government to ensure that we can provide the appropriate support to vulnerable individuals in emergency situations and crises.
We are committed to ensuring that the Government continue to move towards a position where the border, immigration and citizenship system is funded by those who directly use it, and where, as a key part of that, passport application fees include the cost of UK passengers leaving and entering the UK. The additional income from the proposed fee increases will help to protect vital frontline services, and ensure that we continue to operate a world-class border system.
Conor McGinn
Could the Minister confirm that the additional revenue raised will be used to re-employ some of the 1,000 border control staff whom this Government have got rid of in the last seven years?
Caroline Nokes
I would like to reassure the hon. Gentleman that, as part of our plans for Border Force, we have already recruited 300 additional staff, and we are launching a recruitment campaign for a further 1,000 staff. Of course, he will be as conscious as I am that as we move towards Brexit, it is imperative that our Border Force has the necessary number of staff.
Maria Eagle
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. I wonder whether she has had time to gather her thoughts about my earlier question, which was: if these regulations are implemented, what percentage of the full costs will be recovered by the fees for issuing passports?
Caroline Nokes
As I have said repeatedly to the hon. Lady, we acknowledge that this change will increase the amount of revenue by about £50 million, but we are investing £100 million in our borders and our passport control system over the coming year. I think that is a very straightforward answer: 100% of the fees recovered will be reinvested in our borders, immigration and citizenship service, as I very clearly stated.
I have nothing more to say, other than that I commend these fee regulations to the Committee.
Caroline Nokes
I certainly thank hon. Members for the consideration they have given the draft regulations. I want to pick up some of the issues that have been raised, particularly about assistance for people who need it when applying for their passport online. In addition to providing phone support and suggesting help from friends and family—assistance from a third party—we have designed the online application to comply with screen readers for those with sight impairment, but we will come forward with a full range of proposals. We have worked with organisations such as Age UK to ensure that they are sighted on this and understand the assistance that can be given. We are finalising the guidance that we will bring forward.
On high street assistance, which a number of Members raised, we have worked with the Association of British Travel Agents to see what support travel agents up and down our high streets might be able to give their customers who are not able to get online.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Only a handful of travel agents in my constituency come to mind, and I cannot think where in their small spaces they would be able to put computers for my constituents to apply for passports.
May I press the Minister on the digital divide? Everyone in this room can afford a mobile phone, owns one and knows how to use it, but thousands, if not millions, of people across our country do not have those skills or access to those resources. Particularly in the wake of the most recent plans by the Department for Work and Pensions to close jobcentres, including two in my constituency, my constituents have fewer opportunities to access computers. What will she do to ensure that people really can access provision and apply online?
Caroline Nokes
As I have indicated, there are other facilities that people can use. We have heard that it is perfectly possible to apply on a smartphone, but Age UK is there to support people who want to avail themselves of its services. I noticed that there was some scoffing at the suggestion that people could use computers in schools. The Romsey School and the Mountbatten School, which are community schools in my constituency, welcome in members of the wider community and like to regard themselves as hubs that encourage access. Further education colleges across Hampshire are able to bring their communities in, too, so I dismiss the idea that there is a barrier to communities. Actually, those institutions have discovered that it is a way to have a much more rounded community.
A comment was made about broadband speeds, particularly in Scotland. I note that Ofcom commented in a 2016 report that there was a 79% satisfaction rate, and that broadband take-up in Glasgow in particular has gone up significantly.
Alison Thewliss
The Minister seems to have misunderstood my point. I was not talking about broadband speeds in Scotland; I was talking about broadband access—people being able to use a computer and access digital services. That is the issue I was trying to point out. There is a digital divide in cities: many people and communities just do not have access to the internet at all.
Caroline Nokes
I regret that I do not have the figures to hand, but I would be interested in the number of smartphones that are used across Glasgow and in the hon. Lady’s constituency. A number of Members mentioned universal credit, which many users of DWP services access via their smartphone or tablet.
The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood asked what percentage of the cost of primary control points would be associated with UK passengers. This increase will enable that to be a 40% contribution, which is still some considerable way from covering the entire cost. However, as the powers in the 2016 Act set out, we will be able to review those costs going forward. Hon. Members will note that, when it comes to priority services, which are, by and large, optional, we have sought to move to quicker full cost recovery.
In certain circumstances, Her Majesty’s Passport Office has the ability to exercise compassion and discretion. I have to say that my experience, even before coming into this role, was that it was always keen to make sure that the best service was delivered to constituents who found themselves in difficult situations in which, at the last minute, an emergency passport is needed, whether for compassionate travel or when somebody had not anticipated that their passport would expire.
Passports are only one way to prove identity, and across Government we certainly seek to encourage people to look at all sorts of different ways to prove their identities, including ambitious plans for digital identity. However, we will continue to make sure that those who need a passport as a form of ID will be able to use it. I point out to the hon. Member for Glasgow East—
Caroline Nokes
Central; I apologise. I point out to her that passport fees went down in 2012. She provided us with a comprehensive list of the increases since 2001, but I make no apology for the action of the last Labour Government.
Luciana Berger
I had a moment to check the statistics on smartphone use in the UK. This year, it is 73.12%. Does the Minister therefore accept that we cannot expect the just under 27% of the population who do not have a smartphone to be able to access the service in the way she set out just a moment ago?
Caroline Nokes
I respectfully point out to the hon. Lady that, just because somebody does not have a smartphone, it does not mean that they do not have access to a computer via a library or a desktop computer either at home or at work. As we have heard, a range of steps have been taken, including the work we are doing with ABTA to make the service available in high street travel agencies.
The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood makes an important point on chip failure, although those are rare events. I have to say that I suffer myself from a nine-year-old passport whose chip no longer works. I have never found that to be an impediment to travel, but I cannot use e-passport gates, which makes me very cross. However, I will be renewing the passport shortly. In the event of chip failure, customers can send their passport to us, and if it is confirmed that the chip has failed, we will replace it for free.
An important question was raised about fee waivers. That is a very specific power that we chose to introduce after the recent horrendous tragedy at Grenfell Tower. There was no specific power for Her Majesty’s Passport Office to automatically reissue passports lost in that dreadful tragedy. We have introduced the waiver power, I have to say, sincerely hoping that we are never in a situation in in which we will have to use it. However, as I said, the Passport Office acts with compassion. Certainly when British travellers are overseas and need passport documents restored very quickly, it has a very strong track record in meeting its customer service objectives—I will not say duties. It is absolutely committed to that, and I think it has done well in proving its compassion when those circumstances arise.
As I sought to explain, the planned fee increases are a vital step towards meeting the Government’s ambition for a border, immigration and citizenship system that is increasingly funded by those who use it. They will ensure that we can continue to fund the world-class passport service that British passport holders already receive. There were 46 million passenger crossings through e-passport gates using UK passports in 2017. The UK passport remains excellent value for money. As I have pointed out, fees were reduced in 2012, and there has not been a fee increase since 2009. We currently process 99.9% of straightforward applications within three weeks, and on average, customers making a non-priority application can expect their passport to be issued seven working days after the application is made.
We are committed to meeting the needs and expectations of those who increasingly wish to use digital channels to access Government services, and I am conscious that 33% of applications are already made online. The new fee structure reflects the fact that it costs more to process postal applications than those submitted online, and is in line with key Treasury charging principles.
Operationally, Her Majesty’s Passport Service often works with speed and flexibility to respond to particular customer needs where there is a compassionate case for it. Only recently, the public counter in Glasgow remained open for business despite severe adverse weather conditions, working beyond normal opening times to honour a priority appointment that an applicant had missed due to the bad weather.
With more than 90% of adults in the UK having access to the internet, and third parties being permitted to apply on a person’s behalf, the vast majority of people should face no obstacle to applying online. However, as I have said, we are developing further help for those who wish to apply online but need additional advice or support. We are working to deliver an assisted digital leaflet for relevant support groups to enable them to help their clientele apply online. They will also ensure that their online application route is built in such a way as to be extremely simple to use and compatible with various aids, such as screen readers.
Alison Thewliss
When does the Minister expect the service to come into force, and will it be before the passport fee increase?
Caroline Nokes
As the hon. Lady will know, the passport fee increase is scheduled for March of this year. It is certainly our ambition to make sure that all the assistance is available as soon as is practically possible.
We will continue to provide an excellent service to millions of passport holders and applicants. As such, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Question put,