Nationality and Borders Bill (Seventh sitting)

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 21st October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Stuart C. McDonald]

That point was made repeatedly on Second Reading, but the big problem with the right hon. Gentleman’s question is that the language of the Bill itself recognises that such people are refugees. The Uyghur is clearly fleeing persecution, the Syrian is fleeing persecution by the Assad regime and the persecuted Christian is fleeing persecution. A refugee does not cease to be a refugee because he has gone on to a different country. We will come to a different debate under clause 14 on the circumstances in which it might sometimes be legitimate for a state to say, “Actually, you are in France and it would be appropriate for France to assess your asylum claim.” I am not saying that is never permissible—far from it—but we will have that debate on clause 14.

The people we are talking about here, however, have been through all that. The Home Office has attempted to move them to France or another country, it has not had any success in doing so and they have been recognised as refugees, so the question is how we treat those three people.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that those who purport to demand that France take more asylum seekers need to be mindful of the fact that France already takes three times as many asylum seekers as the UK, and that we need to meet our international obligations rather than seeking to demand that others take more of a share than we are taking?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. That is exactly why the Government are embarking on a dangerous slippery slope. If the case is that the UK cannot cope with the number of asylum claims that have been made here, which I do not think can remotely be the case, because it is not a remarkable number in the grand scheme of things over the past 25 or 30 years, and therefore we need to take all these steps, then clearly France and Germany and Italy will all be perfectly entitled by that same logic to do the same thing. When that chain of dominoes finishes up and we get to Lebanon and Pakistan, the countries neighbouring the countries where these people have been persecuted, the whole system of international protection falls apart.

Returning to the point I was making about how reducing the period of leave will be fundamentally detrimental to people’s ability to put down roots, to integrate and to feel part of UK society, I wanted to finish by saying that the VOICES Network, people who know the asylum system first-hand, in their response to the new plan consultation remarked that the proposal would

“perpetuate the insecurity and uncertainty of the lives of these people with damaging implications for their mental health.”

I think they are absolutely right.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. How many people does the Home Office anticipate will fall into this group in the first years of the policy? What impact does he believe the policy will have on the mental health, employment prospects and levels of integration for refugees such as a Uyghur, Syrian or persecuted Christian? It seems apparent to me that the measures will undermine all that. What will happen to children? What will the cost implications be for the local authorities and health services that are supporting them?

Similar moves in Australia have had exactly the impact I am talking about. As the Australian Human Rights Commission reported in 2019:

“Uncertainty about their future, the inability to make long-term plans and the stress associated with having to reapply for protection (including the anticipatory distress of potentially being returned to the country from which they had fled) caused significant distress and anxiety amongst TPV holders, hampered their capacity to recover from past trauma and resulted in poorer settlement outcomes.”

The Australian Red Cross said that

“temporary protection institutionalises uncertainty, and often poverty, amplifying pre-existing trauma and suspending the process of settling into a new country.”

I have no reason to think that that will not be the fate of the Uyghur, the Syrian or the persecuted Christian if these provisions are enforced for them. That, unfortunately, appears to be exactly what the Government want to achieve, and that is the shame of the whole policy.

On the other side of the coin, given the record delays and problems in processing asylum claims that the Home Office already faces, why on earth do we want to require the Home Office to process the same cases and applicants over and over again over a 10-year period, adding exponentially to caseworker workloads? Can the Minister confirm what exactly the review process will entail? What will be the targeting for these decisions? What happens to refugees whose 30 months or less have expired while they were waiting? How many additional decisions does the Home Office anticipate it will have to make from the third year onwards, and how many extra staff will that require? This is not only disastrous for asylum seekers, but pretty bad news for Home Office caseworkers.

Amendments 89 and 94 would remove the Secretary of State’s right to punish a Uyghur, Syrian or persecuted Christian by denying them indefinite leave to remain on the same basis as other refugees. That settlement provides the ultimate safety and security and is currently available after five years. Again, the Bill does not say what the Government’s intentions are with this power, but it is understood that they propose 10 years of short-term visas before settlement would become available. Can the Minister confirm precisely how the Secretary of State intends to use these powers? What else will be required of a refugee at the 10-year stage? Will there be a fee? What tests will we require to be met? These arguments are similar to those I made for amendments 88 and 93, so I will not repeat them. The key point is the same: instead of offering security, integration and the opportunity to rebuild their lives, the Syrian, the Uyghur and the persecuted Christian have been faced with uncertainty, re-traumatisation, stress and anxiety.

Amendments 90 and 95 are designed to remove the Secretary of State’s power to impoverish these three asylum seeker groups. The power would see universal credit, child benefit and local authority homelessness assistance among the crucial safety nets torn away from them. The explanatory notes say that the power will not be applied in cases of destitution. Minister, if the power must be kept, why not put that in the Bill? Fundamentally, how will it work, and how will it be assessed? Especially after months and years of being excluded from work, refugees will be destitute from the point that they are recognised. Will it happen automatically? How will the Secretary of State review that? How much more work will that entail for Home Office staff?

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[Stuart C. McDonald]

I have absolutely no problem with measures that go after the people smugglers. We all share the goal of disrupting their model. We draw the line at punishing the victims and going after them in an attempt to disrupt and undermine people smuggling. First, I find that morally indefensible. Secondly, as I will come to later, there is no evidence that it will work.

[Neil Coyle]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern, which is twofold? First, the best way to tackle the people smugglers is to provide safe routes, because then they are denied the chance to smuggle people to begin with. Secondly, a Xinjiang Muslim who faces forced sterilisation and forced labour is not going to be aware of UK law and what status they enter under. It is complete nonsense to think that refugees and asylum seekers fleeing persecution and torture are going to be aware of UK law, whatever goes into the Bill.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I absolutely agree. The hon. Gentleman makes two points. Yes, safe legal routes can and will make an impact. If people have safe legal routes, they do not need to turn to people smugglers. The Government acknowledge this when they speak about the safe legal routes they support.

There are various other measures we have to take. Our intelligence and police and security forces need to do everything they can to interrupt these networks. It is about international co-operation, including with France, as the Minister alluded to at Home Office questions on Monday. We support those measures, but we do not support deliberately impoverishing the Syrian, the Uyghur and the persecuted Christian and denying them universal credit, homelessness assistance or the child benefit that other citizens in this country get if they need it. I will come back to that in the clause stand part debate.

The Home Office knows this. It did research 20 years ago. If it has done any more since, it is not published. There is no evidence to show that people sit down with a nice table comparing family reunion rights and asylum procedures in all the different countries and then say, “Let’s go for that one.” They come here for a whole host of reasons. Many go to other countries for a whole host of reasons—language, family links, the influence of people smugglers, or they may have a friend or colleague here. Perhaps they just identify with the culture. There are myriad reasons why people end up in France or the United Kingdom, but it is not for these reasons. That is why these provisions will not work.

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[Anne McLaughlin]

Thank you, Ms McDonagh. That was a rather ridiculous intervention, so I was unsure whether to reply to it.

[Neil Coyle]

As UK law stands, an Afghan who had dared to work for and with the UK, protect the UK, in the past 20 years or so—perhaps as a guard at the embassy in Kabul—and who feared the threat to their family of the Taliban takeover so much that they gave their child to the US to evacuate from the country, cannot come into the UK under the family reunion visa. Perhaps one thing that we can agree on, and that the Minister could include in the Bill, is an extension of the family reunion visa beyond spouses and dependants.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I would absolutely support that. I had no intention of speaking for any more than five minutes, but Members keep on interrupting and goading me. I want to make two more little points, if I may. The Bill is being brought in because there is a mistaken belief that asylum seekers across the world are desperate to get to the UK. I am not sure why they would be if they ever watch parliamentlive.tv, but the fact is that most people coming to Europe as a whole think that Europe is one homogenous place. They do not think in terms of countries. This is not anecdotal; studies have been done on people who come to live here. Similarly, people often think that Africa is a country, when it is more than 50 countries.

Asylum seekers are not looking to go to a particular country. If they choose to come to the UK, it is perhaps because they have family or friends here, which is hugely important, or because they speak the language. They do not speak French or German, but they do speak English and do have family here. Imagine the turmoil when people’s city is bombed. They do not recognise the streets any more, and they do not know where their family are. They know that they could be raped, tortured or murdered at any moment. Imagine the trauma from that. People know that they have to get away. Of course they do not want to leave, but they have to do so. We should all think about that happening to us. We are so lucky that it will probably never happen to us. If it did, we would want to be with people who made us feel safe. If someone has family or friends in the UK, they should be able to join them. Yes, that is a pull factor, as is the language. There is also a mistaken belief that the great British empire was all-welcoming, all-democratic and all-supportive of human rights, which is another reason why people come to the UK.

The truth is that most people who arrive by boat have not decided that they are coming here; the smugglers have decided it. As my Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East said, we should be targeting the smugglers, not their victims. We should take away their market, and the only way to do that is to provide the safe and legal routes on which we apparently all agree. But where are they?

I will make one more point, which is about France. We have established that, under the international legislation that the UK played a major role in developing, there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first so-called safe country that somebody arrives in. However, it is important to understand why someone fleeing persecution, and probably suffering from mental health impacts such as post-traumatic stress disorder, might not want to claim asylum in France—I am using France as an example. Why would an asylum seeker choose to make a dangerous crossing? As I said, most people are not choosing; the people smugglers are choosing. Why might they choose to make a dangerous channel crossing, when they could claim asylum in France? I have spoken about the fact that people do not choose their route, but it is well established that the asylum system in France has a reputation for being harsh. I know there are Members present who like the idea of harshness, but we do not.

A 2020 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights condemned France for inhumane living conditions for asylum seekers. Having spent a few days with my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East in the jungle in Calais a few years ago, I saw exactly what the court meant. France might take in many more people than we do in the UK—I believe that we do not treat asylum seekers as well as we should do when they arrive here, and we certainly will not do so if the Bill passes—but France is not where I would want to be if I needed international protection, especially if I had to recover from trauma.

Even during the pandemic last year, when we all agreed that there should be a break in evictions and that everyone should have a roof over their head, asylum seekers sleeping in tents in France where thrown out of their tents and tear-gassed, no doubt triggering terrible memories for many of them. When I was in the jungle, parents there told me that their children no longer played in the little playpark nearby because far-right activists set off fireworks to terrify them, and terrify them it did, as these kids fled, thinking that they were being bombed again.

In addition, the housing situation for asylum seekers in France has only got worse, with asylum seekers such as Hussain, interviewed by the New Humanitarian in April, being forced to sleep rough on the streets of Paris over a year after he submitted his application. The French National Consultative Commission on Human Rights went so far as to say:

“It is true that the conditions in France make people want to leave”.

Nicolas De Sa-Pallix, a French asylum lawyer, condemned the French Government’s approach, and his words should act as a warning for Government Members:

“They talk about being both humane and tough in migration policies, but these don’t go together…You can’t have both.”

I agree, so why not just respond to the plight of these people, facing things that none of us will ever have to face, with humanity?

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With regard to differentiation, a question was rightly asked about the assessment of mental health needs. The process in the Bill contains enough flexibility for decision makers to take vulnerabilities, such as mental health conditions, into account when determining group 2 status. Details will, again, be set out in guidance, and I would expect that to be properly taken into account when decisions are made on individual cases.

[Neil Coyle]

The Minister is seeking to reintroduce a system that the UK has used before. In the 1930s, German Jews who had reached these shores were, in some cases, sent back if they had been through other countries. Famously, in one case, Jewish brothers who were deported back to Belgium went on to be murdered by the Nazis. Why are the Government seeking to turn back the clock with such potentially disastrous consequences? Why is the Minister not more proud of the British tradition and of the British contribution to creating the refugee convention?

[Tom Pursglove]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. What I am proud of is this country’s long-standing tradition of doing right by those fleeing persecution from around the world. That is a proud tradition in this country, and something that I think Members on both sides of this House can agree on. It is something that this Government remain absolutely committed to. We are very clear that people should come here utilising safe and legal routes. That is the right way to come into this country.

[Neil Coyle]

rose—

[Tom Pursglove]

Let me just make this point, because I am conscious of the comparisons that the hon. Member sought to draw to the 1930s. We are, again, very clear—I say this for the record—that we do not return people to countries where they would be in danger.

[Neil Coyle]

The Minister simply must give way on this.

[Tom Pursglove]

I have not accepted the intervention. I would like to finish the point that I was making. We are very clear that we do not return people to countries where their return would put them in danger. Of course, we also look at cases on a case-by-case basis.

[Neil Coyle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Tom Pursglove]

I will give way, but I have made this point, and I am very clear about it.

[Neil Coyle]

The Minister can say it as clearly as he wants. The reality is that I have constituents whose casework—correspondence from the Home Office—tells me that it was safe for them to be sent back to Afghanistan in June, when the Taliban were marching across Afghanistan and beginning to take over the country! There is a big difference between the nonsense and rhetoric we get and the reality—the dangers and risk that this Government are putting people in.

[Tom Pursglove]

In response to the specifics that the hon. Member is raising on Afghanistan, I would make the point that returns to Afghanistan have been ceased, given the current circumstances, given the circumstances there at the moment. That takes into full account the considerations around the circumstances on the ground at any given point in time, and the Government have rightly been responsive to that ever-changing situation. I am not able to comment on the detail of the individual cases that the hon. Member is referencing, but I would ask him to please write to me with that detail so that I can take that away and look at it.

[Neil Coyle]

I think Members will be somewhat sceptical of the invitation to write, given that we were writing about hundreds of cases in Afghanistan in emails that were not even opened by the Foreign Office, the Home Office or the Ministry of Defence. I will write. I will take that opportunity. I still have hundreds of cases, including four Brits who are still in Afghanistan because they were abandoned by this Government. The Minister says he is proud of our tradition and proud that we offer safe and legal routes, but where in this Bill do we extend the ability to access safe and legal routes that avoid the need to use human traffickers and people smugglers?

[Tom Pursglove]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that further contribution. I look forward to receiving the correspondence from him—it was a genuine offer made in the right spirit and I look forward to him taking it up.

As I say, this Government have a strong track record of providing safe and legal routes. This country has a proud record of providing safe and legal routes. It does not escape me that overall since 2015 we have settled more than any EU member state. That is something this country can be incredibly proud of. Various examples of safe and legal routes that people may avail themselves of include the UK resettlement scheme, the mandate resettlement scheme and the community sponsorship scheme. I am keen for communities to participate in that sponsorship scheme.

[Neil Coyle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Tom Pursglove]

I have been generous, but I will give way once more.

[Neil Coyle]

I welcome the Minister’s generosity and I am grateful for it, as I am sure Afghans will be if he can tell us when the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme will actually open, given that it has been two months since Kabul fell.

[Tom Pursglove]

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate some of the genuine difficulties for people in trying to leave Afghanistan—[Interruption]—and doing so in the safest way possible—[Interruption.] He keeps interrupting from a sedentary position. Will he let me finish the point that I am trying to make?

The bottom line is that we are firmly committed to that resettlement scheme. We will announce details of it as quickly as possible, having taken proper account of the very real difficulties that exist in getting people safely, as far as that is possible, out of Afghanistan. Ministers and officials are working tirelessly to work that up in an appropriate manner.

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[Tom Pursglove]

In terms of the deceit and the appalling treatment of so many people, I have heard heartbreaking stories of the way that individuals have been treated by these evil people smugglers. That has only redoubled my determination to render their business model redundant.

This point goes to the heart of the intervention a moment ago from the hon. Member for Sheffield Central: the measures in the Bill do not just stand alone—it is not just about these measures. Tackling the problem requires a strong and co-ordinated response that also involves our international partners. For example, the collaboration through the arrangement we have with the French is very important contextually in tackling this issue. Clearly, supporting French law enforcement to try and stop some of the crossings happening in the first place is crucial, and the evidence is clear that that support is having a positive effect in achieving that goal.

Our international diplomacy is also important, because we want to send out a clear message that human rights must be respected and upheld across the world. The measures in the Bill, as important as they are, are not the only element in responding to these huge challenges. That international collaboration is very important as well, as is our diplomatic work.

[Neil Coyle]

I thank the Minister for giving way; he has been very generous. It is extraordinary to hear a Minister trash their own department’s equality impact assessment and point out its inadequacies.

[Tom Pursglove]

indicated dissent.

[Neil Coyle]

That is exactly what the Minister did. However, my question is around family reunion visas, which he mentioned. The number of family reunion visas granted in the UK fell by nearly 10% in the last year for which numbers were available. Will he agree to a review of the system to look at some of the issues around entitlements for those other than dependants or spouses?

[Tom Pursglove]

I will take that away to look at it. I refer the hon. Gentleman to my previous point in trying to address the matter of family reunion. I am conscious that in his earlier remarks he raised the particular case of an Afghan family. I will also go away and speak about that to the Minister for Afghan Resettlement, who is the Minister responsible for Operation Warm Welcome and our refugee policy in relation to Afghanistan. I undertake to take that point away and ensure that my hon. Friend is aware of it. It is very important and I will do that. It is crucial that that happens. I ask that the hon. Gentleman leave that with me, and that will happen later today.

To finish on this point, the powers under clause 10 enable the Secretary of State to differentiate in respect of family reunion. It is important to recognise that the power is flexible and will not be used where a refusal of family reunion would breach our international obligations. The policy will be set out, again, in guidance and in rules, but I thought it was important to get that point on the record. Suffice it to say that of course this Government will always act in accordance with our international obligations and the law.

With all that in mind, I ask the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East to withdraw the amendment.

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[Tom Pursglove]

Amendment 15 is very specifically about Afghanistan. I would not wish to invoke your wrath, Ms McDonagh, by going wider than that, so I must keep my remarks to Afghanistan. The point that I have made stands, and I reiterate that cases are considered on a case-by-case basis, as the hon. Lady would rightly expect.

[Neil Coyle]

The Minister has been very generous in giving way. I am particularly concerned about this. He is suggesting that a safe route is available, when the Government guidance currently says not to make applications for family reunion for Afghanistan cases. Perhaps he can explore that issue in more detail with his hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who is the Minister for Afghan Resettlement, and get back to us—certainly before Report.

[Tom Pursglove]

I am very happy to reflect the sentiment in my conversations with my ministerial colleague. As I was about to say before I took the intervention from the shadow spokesperson, I urge SNP Members to withdraw their amendment.