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

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Home Office
Tim Loughton Portrait Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
- Hansard - -

First, I declare my interests in the register. Secondly, it is getting rather difficult to talk to so many amendments in the space of six minutes. Perhaps I should have applied for a ten-minute rule Bill beforehand and got all my points in through that. I want to talk primarily to my new clauses 2 and 29. I certainly put on record my support for new clauses 7 to 10 tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis).

--- Later in debate ---
Steve Brine Portrait Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

A ten-minute rule Bill would have been good. In respect of new clause 29, which my hon. Friend is also speaking to, the Government will say that the matter is subject to negotiation, and that acting now would pre-empt and tread on that. I always listen with great respect to what he says, and I take a lead from him in many regards. Why is that not the pertinent point?

Tim Loughton Portrait Tim Loughton
- Hansard - -

I have not actually come on to new clause 29 yet, and other people will speak to that point, but the problem is that the Government position has been weakened. They produced a negotiation document, which now has a discretionary scheme, rather than the mandatory scheme. The EU will be even less likely to want to agree to that, and it is absolutely essential that we have a scheme in place, otherwise on 1 January next year there will be no safe and legal route for the several hundreds of children who have been coming to this country safely to avail themselves of. That is the problem.

New clause 2 would ensure that all looked-after children and care leavers were identified and given status so that they do not become undocumented. Issuing settled status now would prevent another cliff edge in the future. These young people would have to re-apply for settled status in five years’ time, perhaps without the help of the local authority. The evidential burden would be lowered for local authorities applying and for Home Office caseworkers, saving time with the complex application process. The amendment to the process for identification and granting status is time-limited. As set out in the new clause, it would be effective for five years after the settlement scheme deadline, until 30 June 2026.

These are really vulnerable children. We do a great job of looking after them in this country, from which we can take great pride. For goodness’ sake, let us continue being able to do that job and keep them here legally without allowing them to become at risk. This is not about bringing lots of new children into the country—they are already here. We just want to make sure they have representation, recognition and the documentation to ensure that when they grow into adults and apply for a job, it is not all of a sudden found that actually they have no right to be here and they face deportation.

New clause 29—what a sense of déjà vu—was raised many times during the Brexit Bills. We were convinced by Ministers that that was not the appropriate place for it. I accepted that. We were told that it would be in the immigration Bill instead. It is not in the immigration Bill. We have been told that it is going to be down to the negotiations instead. Time is running out; the Dublin III scheme ends in exactly six months’ time, and there is no replacement for it yet.

As I said, the Government published their negotiation document. The most fundamental problem with the scheme that is now being negotiated—it is not guaranteed —is that the text removes all mandatory requirements on the Government to facilitate family reunions and would make a child’s right to join their relatives entirely discretionary. The text intentionally avoids providing rights to children, contains no appeal process and attempts to be beyond the reach of the United Kingdom courts. Other categories of vulnerable refugees, including accompanied children, would lose access to family reunion entirely, and a series of other key safeguards have been removed, including strict deadlines for responses and responsibility for gathering information being on the state rather than the child.

Tim Farron Portrait Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton Portrait Tim Loughton
- Hansard - -

I will—to whoever that was.

Tim Farron Portrait Tim Farron
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am at the far end of the Chamber, but I thoroughly agree with the hon. Gentleman; I am very close to him when it comes to the point he is making. Obviously, this is a very regrettable state of affairs. Does he agree that it would be right for the Minister, at the Dispatch Box today, to commit the United Kingdom to signing up to the equivalent of Dublin so that children who are here unaccompanied can have their family come and join them, and children from outside this country who are unaccompanied can come and join family members here? That is the right and decent thing to do, and it would be continuing our obligations to those people.

Tim Loughton Portrait Tim Loughton
- Hansard - -

The hon. Gentleman is right. Actually, the Government have said all along that that is their intention. I have had meetings with many Immigration Ministers over the last few years. I remember going to see the then Immigration Minister, who is now the Northern Ireland Secretary, after Baroness Morgan and I visited Athens with UNICEF. We visited some of the camps out there and saw some of the children who would qualify for this scheme. We were given clear undertakings that it was absolutely the Government’s intention to make sure that after we came out of the EU, when Dublin III no longer covered the United Kingdom, we would have a scheme at least as good as what there is now.

Again, we are talking about just a few hundred children. We are not talking about attracting thousands of children to this country; it is a few hundred specifically identified children—usually through some of our agencies operating in refugee camps and around the world—who have family links in this country. In some cases, those will be their only family links. They may have lost their parents in the civil war in Syria; they may be at the hands of people traffickers, fleeing abuse, fleeing war zones or whatever, and it may be that a brother, an uncle or an aunt is the only family member they have left and that that person is legally in the United Kingdom. Those are some of the most vulnerable children whom we have done a fantastic job of giving a safe home to in recent years, and it is essential that we carry that scheme on. It is a mandatory scheme, and it is a scheme of which we should be hugely proud.

That is why now is the time for new clause 29. We have had fob-offs, frankly, over recent years about why it would not be appropriate to put this in legislation. We need a very clear statement and intent from the Government today that there will be a scheme in operation on 1 January. I know that it depends on negotiations, but if all else fails, we can put in place our own scheme that is at least as good as Dublin. That is what the new clause tries to achieve.

We have a great record in this area. We have taken almost 20,000 refugees under the Syrian scheme. We targeted 20,000; we have actually taken 19,768. We have invested more than £2.3 billion in Syrian refugees—more than any other country in the EU. We have filled the 480 Dubs places. We have a great record, so why on earth would we not want to make sure that we continue that great record for some of the most vulnerable children fleeing from danger, whom we have been able to afford safe and legal passage to join relatives in the United Kingdom?

That is what the new clause asks for. We have to do better. I and my constituents will not be able to understand it if we fail to give a strong commitment that this country continues to want to do the best by those really vulnerable children. For that reason, I support new clause 29 as well.

Holly Lynch Portrait Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

It is a pleasure to return to the Chamber for the Report stage of this important Bill and to follow the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). I will return later to the merits of new clauses 2 and 29, but I will focus my comments on the merits of new clauses 13 to 15, tabled by the Leader of the Opposition. I will also outline our support for several other new clauses that have appeal across the Labour Benches, not least new clause 1, the lead amendment in this group.

I am sorry that we could not persuade the Government to engage further with us on any of the amendments or new clauses that we tabled in Committee, but we have the opportunity on Report to make the case again for different approaches in certain areas. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) spoke to new clause 13, which called on the Government to review “no recourse to public funds” with a focus on vulnerable groups, including those with children and victims of domestic violence. We had hoped that such a review would establish an evidence base allowing for a more informed parliamentary discussion on the broader issue.

In the immediate term, we have already called for “no recourse to public funds” to be suspended for the duration of the coronavirus crisis. On 21 April, we asked the Government to lift NRPF as a condition on a person’s migration status, in order to ensure that nobody was left behind in the public health effort undertaken to fight against coronavirus.

--- Later in debate ---
Thirdly, to reassure Members that acceptable progress is being made to identify and trigger the applications of all eligible EU children in care and care leavers up to the point of transition on 31 December this year, I would ask my hon. Friend to provide updates to the House both this autumn and again early next year, so that we can be clear that sufficient progress has been made.
Tim Loughton Portrait Tim Loughton
- Hansard - -

As my hon. Friend and I have both done the same job, I think we appreciate the real problems that social workers and local authorities are having in identifying these children. Does he agree with me that part of the problem is that the Department for Education does not routinely collect data on the nationality of the children it looks after in the first place? Is it not essential that that is the very minimum that needs to happen if we are to identify all of those children who would be covered by this scheme?

Edward Timpson Portrait Edward Timpson
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and he is right. When one is trying to understand the consequences of the actions one takes as a Minister—as we heard in the statement earlier from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk)—the enrichment of data can help us appreciate whether we are making good progress. In the independent school exclusions review that I carried out for the Government last year, a lot of my recommendations were about getting better data about the children in our systems, why they are there and how we can better track them, so that we know we are making good decisions on their behalf. I agree that that information would be relevant to the considerations under new clause 2.

It is important that we get this right. The corporate parenting principles that we legislated for in 2017 are designed for circumstances just like these. Please can we make sure that we live up to them?

--- Later in debate ---
Richard Fuller Portrait Richard Fuller
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am very glad that I sat in on this debate today to learn the origins of the hostile environment. We learned today that the author of the hostile environment was none other than the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), the Labour candidate to be Mayor of the West Midlands. That is right. He is the author of the hostile environment for immigration. We have learned that today.

The second reason I wanted to contribute today was to be able to say thank you to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for bringing forward the points-based system for immigration. Like her, I felt that the opportunity to bring forward an immigration system that did not discriminate based on the origins of where someone came from was one of the strong reasons to support Brexit in the referendum. I am pleased that she has confounded her critics by coming forward so quickly in this Parliament with a new Bill that does precisely that. She knows, and many Members here know, that many areas of the Home Office do not work well, and I am pleased she has started there. Now let us turn to some other areas.

I will turn to what I can only describe as a shameful briefing note on immigration detention put out by the Home Office earlier today. In that note, the Home Office claims that 97% of the people in immigration detention were foreign national offenders. Do they think we are stupid? Do they not think we understand that most of the people in immigration detention have been put out of the detention estate during covid-19?

The note goes on to describe in the most lurid details what may be the case about the backgrounds of individuals, forgetting all those other people who have been put through immigration detention who have perfectly legitimate cases to remain in this country and who may have been victims of communal rape or child trafficking. It is a shameful document that was put out by the Home Office today, and that is why I am very pleased to support the new clauses in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) that deal with 28 days as a limit on detention.

Tim Loughton Portrait Tim Loughton
- Hansard - -

My hon. Friend gets it absolutely right about the misinformation that has been dispatched this morning. Is it not the case that a six-month grace period would be the result of the new clause? Those people would not be put out on the streets from the detention centre. The problem is that 63% of those in detention centres are released back into the community because the process has failed, and that includes serious sex offenders, rapists and other serious criminals, so it is happening now and not as a result of what the new clause would achieve.

Richard Fuller Portrait Richard Fuller
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, particularly in stressing that the issue is not the people but the process: it is the process that does not work. An immigration detention estate is a manifestation of a completely failed process that fails the person coming to this country right from the start. We should not have an immigration detention estate; we should not have it at all. We only have it because of the accumulated errors of the Home Office going back well over a decade, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said.