Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

I am grateful to the Minister for that positive contribution. I hope he is sincere. I would be delighted to meet him and go over some of the issues. There are things that can be done, as the Australian points-based system has demonstrated. There are ways in which the Minister and his Department could aid us. All it requires is the will and the determination to get it right. If he wants to work with me and our party to try and achieve that, I am more than happy to do so. The Minister seems to be pointing to the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). Perhaps that is an invitation to the official Opposition too. Work with us. Help us. For goodness sake, we have issues and problems. The Minister and his shadow have the opportunity to solve them, and I challenge both of them to work with us and help us resolve some of the problems. Let us see if we can make a difference to the problems that face us. That brings us to what is proposed in the Bill. Will it help Scotland? No, it will not make a blind bit of difference. It is just another Bill to frustrate and thwart people who are trying to secure permanent status in the United Kingdom. All it does is make smaller hoops for them to jump through and a higher bar for them to get over. It is not trying to improve the situation for any constituent part of the United Kingdom. The phrase "earned citizenship"—what a phrase!—suggests that migrants must prove their worth. The implication is that they are automatically a less deserving or less trustworthy group than those who are born in Britain. There is also the idea of probationary citizenship, which is an entirely new concept to me. It suggests an immigration limboland—an immigration neverland, if you like. Then there is the proposal for enforced volunteering for those wishing to obtain citizenship. I thought volunteering meant offering one's services free, without any sort of force. The whole idea of volunteering has been turned on its head by the concept of earned citizenship. It is a potentially dangerous and damaging proposal. There are changes in the number of days a person applying for naturalisation will have to be present in the UK for each year of the qualifying period. That, again, will make a difference to people who are trying to get in. All this is designed to frustrate people trying to get UK citizenship. The basis of the Bill seems to be the hope that people will be so frustrated and thwarted by the whole process that they will go away. The Bill tries to put them off, not to improve our immigration status. It is the impact on refugees that I find most concerning. All the language about earning the right to stay and probationary periods runs totally counter to the spirit of the UK Government's commitment to protect refugees and to fulfil their obligations under the refugee convention and the European convention on human rights. Granting long-term secure protection to refugees who are fleeing persecution and whose lives are sometimes in danger is inconsistent with the idea that refugees must earn that protection, and it goes against article 34 of the UN convention, which requires signatory states to encourage or facilitate naturalisation. Massive issues remain about the welfare of asylum seekers, particularly those with children. We heard some fine remarks from Labour Members about that. There is widespread revulsion at the locking up of children, dawn raids on asylum-seeking children in Scotland and their detention in the former prison of Dungavel. We had assurances from the Secretary of State for Scotland that the detention of asylum seekers' children would end, but in the past couple of weeks another Ivory Coast family were subject to not quite a dawn raid, because such raids now take place 15 minutes after dawn, and rounded up and put in the Dungavel detention centre. That was the case of the Gaye family in Scotland, who are awaiting deportation back to the Ivory Coast. That should never have happened. The child has already been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder caused by previous interaction with the UK Border Agency. I have seen a letter from the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who is now Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, saying that any asylum seeker and any asylum seeker's child who are subject to any medical intervention or casework should not be subject to deportation. That seems to go counter to what is happening in that case. I know that Members of the Scottish Parliament have written to the Minister about the case, but they have not even had the courtesy of a reply. That was about two weeks ago. They were told that they would get a reply within five days. Nothing. They got back in touch again. Nothing. When will the Minister get round to replying to those people about the Gaye case? The case is getting wide publicity in Scotland and causing anxiety and concern about what is happening to such families. Also in the past week, we found out that another family were subject to a near-dawn raid and to detention in Dungavel, so the assurances from the Secretary of State for Scotland are worth nothing at all. Scotland wants an end to dawn raids and to detention in Dungavel. That is what was promised and that is what should now be delivered.