Immigration Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my declaration of interest and the fact that for many years I have helped businesses trying to combat modern slavery. I am a little less critical than the noble Lord, Lord Alton, of the changes being made, because I think that they are necessary, but I agree that it would have been better, had we had the time, to make them in a different way. But we have this opportunity and not to have made them would, I think, have been a grave mistake. I support the noble Lord’s suggestion that the Government give an undertaking that we will come back to this in a year’s time to make sure that these necessary changes have done what we hope they will do.

I want to draw the attention of the House to something that is very often forgotten. It is that when companies look at their supply chain and seek to see where there is modern slavery, they usually start in some distant country. They think about somewhere where the rule of law is not as we would expect it to be. The shock, to many, is how much is found in so-called civilised and advanced countries—not just in Britain and the European Union but in the United States. It is very valuable that we have moved from the narrow attitude that you get this only in agriculture or with gangmasters, or that you get it only a long way away, to an understanding that we actually get it in almost every place, in almost every country and in the most remarkable situations.

I will quote an experience of mine. While I was working very hard on what we should do in countries in the Indian subcontinent, the very first and worst case happened in Manchester. We have to recognise that the issues with which we are dealing here are almost universal and a terrible indictment of man’s inhumanity to man.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I want to ask about the information gateway provisions, and in particular Amendments 8 to 11. These are very substantial and intrusive new powers introduced at a very late stage of the Bill. Will the Minister elaborate a little on the justification for introducing them and why they were not thought of at an earlier stage of the Bill, even before Committee? They seem very wide, talking about the disclosure of information,

“for the purposes of the exercise of any function of the Director”.

Like my noble friend Lady Hamwee, I would be interested to know whether the Information Commissioner has given advice. If so, will the Minister share that advice and assessment with us? There is a need for safeguards to match the breadth and depth of the powers. It strikes me that, while mention is made of the Data Protection Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act—which is not quite RIP—there is, of course, a new EU regulation on data protection that will be directly applicable and therefore will not have to be transposed into an Act of Parliament. Have these powers been health-checked against the new regulation, which may be somewhat tighter than the Data Protection Act in certain areas?

I want to ask specifically about medical confidentiality. In Amendment 9, which introduces a new clause after Clause 5, subsection (1) says:

“A disclosure of information … authorised by section (Information gateways) does not breach … an obligation of confidence owed by the person making the disclosure”.

Since health bodies—NHS trusts, the Care Quality Commission and so on—are on the list for information sharing, this obviously raises the question of whether medical information is going to be covered, which is likely.

There do not seem to be any similar provisions to those in new subsections (5), (6), (7) and (8) of the new clause in relation to intelligence information and information pertaining to HMRC, where there is an obligation not to disclose information,

“without authorisation from the appropriate service chief”,

or “from HMRC Commissioners”. There does not seem to be anything comparable for medical data. Clearly, these are sensitive personal data for which a higher level of stewardship is already required under the Data Protection Act, and even more so under the new EU regulation. I would like an assurance that these provisions have gone through the filter of the ICO and the new EU regulation.

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I think that I have responded to the majority of the points that were raised—

[Lord Deben]

I thank my noble friend for giving way. I still have a problem, and that is that we are making these major changes, but the Bill is still called just the “Immigration Bill”. Given that the Bill now covers things that are at a much further remove from immigrants, the Government really ought to think seriously about its Title. It really is something very different from that.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, may I just remind the House that the Companion is very clear that, on Report,

“Only the mover of an amendment … speaks after the minister … except for short questions of elucidation”?

[Lord Deben]

If I may say so, I was asking for direct elucidation. I wonder whether the Minister would answer my question.

--- Later in debate ---

Is there not also a possible perverse result? If people are illegally in the country—I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about asylum seekers not being illegally in the country; I assume that we are focusing on those who are—is not the priority to seek their removal? The proceeds of crime proceedings that could be taken against them could be very lengthy, and you would be finding a reason to prolong their stay in the country at the expense of someone—certainly the criminal proceedings would be at the expense of the taxpayer. It would be very hard to remove these people and therefore say that they could not be present at their own criminal trial, so you would give a perverse extension of the stay of people in the country who should not be in it. This does not seem to be terribly wise policy-making, as regards both the resources of the CPS and the perverse incentives to prolong people’s stay in the country.

[Lord Deben]

I wish simply to thank the Minister for these changes, particularly in view of the two codas from our legal friends on the dangers of the amendments and the explanation that my noble friend put forward about their real meaning. I hope the Minister will take back to the Government the great advantage to be gained from being seen to listen to sensible arguments in the House of Lords and changing the legislation as a result. There are many other occasions when we would get through our business much more quickly if sensible debate was ended by a sensible change of mind by government.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will contribute a slightly wider point to the discussion. It is surely clear to all of us that a substantial number of people would like to come to this country and work illegally. As the Home Office will confirm, nearly half of those who apply for asylum have previously been working illegally and apply only when discovered. We have literally thousands of people queueing up in Calais wanting to get into Britain and work illegally. They know perfectly well that they will be illegal when they get here but they come because they want to work and send money home. Understandable though that may be, it is surely essential that there should be a disincentive to those people from making that attempt. The obvious thing is to make it illegal. There is no way that they will understand the intricacies of British law—indeed, the deputy mayor of Calais does not understand them—so it must be made illegal. If the Government can usefully adjust the law in terms of prosecutions, so be it, but let us keep our eye on the ball. There are literally thousands, if not many thousands, who would like to come and do this and they should be deterred.