It is a pleasure to be at the Dispatch Box for the return of this incredibly important piece of legislation. I thank peers in the other place for their detailed work on the Bill. We welcome the amendments that have been secured, most of them with significant majorities; several of the improvements before us today demonstrate cross-party support.
Lords amendment 1 would require the Secretary of State to commission and publish an independent assessment of the impact of ending free movement on the social care sector. The Government’s intransigence on this matter has been beyond disappointing. This Bill has been an affront to those migrant workers working on the frontline in social care. To have clapped them on a Thursday night and then told them that they are unskilled and therefore not welcome on a Monday is both disrespectful and shameful.
Members on both sides of the House have witnessed the vulnerabilities across our health and social care sector, which, despite the best efforts of its dedicated workforce, has been pushed to the limits over the course of the pandemic. Unison, the UK’s largest trade union, represents our dedicated public sector workers, including social care workers, across the UK. We have worked closely with Unison, which has supported and represented workers throughout the pandemic. With its in-depth knowledge of the sector and foresight, it has articulated its vision of social care in its “care after covid” campaign
to address the fault lines that were so exposed throughout the last six months. To propose a Bill that will make radical changes to the recruitment of social care workers without considering the impact is simply negligent and careless governance.
The Minister referred to the Migration Advisory Committee; in its recent report, commissioned at the request of the Home Secretary, it expressed concerns about the social care sector and argued that if necessary funding and pay increases do not materialise urgently, it would expect the end of freedom of movement to increase the pressure on the social care sector. That would be particularly difficult to understand at a time when so many care occupations are central to the covid-19 pandemic frontline response.
These remarks should unsettle the Government and spur them into action, and I fully expect that if the Government do not listen, on the day that the new points-based immigration system is implemented we will still be deeply entrenched in the battle against coronavirus. If we do not do our due diligence by adopting this amendment, the Bill is set to undermine social care recklessly at a time when we can least afford it, so we urge the Government to reconsider their position, commission the impact assessment and understand the impact of the Bill on the social care workforce, on visas and on the consequences for recruitment, training and staff terms and conditions.
Amendment 4 would ensure there are safe refugee family reunion routes after Dublin III ceases to be available in the UK following the end of the UK-EU transition period. I want to place on record my thanks to the brilliant and inspirational Lord Dubs for his tireless work and leadership on this amendment in the other place.
A great deal has been said about immigration over the summer and we on the Labour Benches want in the strongest possible terms to distance ourselves from the Home Secretary’s dangerous rhetoric and to thank those lawyers who play such an important role in ensuring that the UK is upholding its international and legal obligations. The amendment demonstrates the future for one of the safe and legal routes we have all advocated for over the summer.
The Dublin III regulation is for family reunion and represents legal routes to safety from Europe for children seeking to come to the UK. Family reunion under Dublin III is currently the only legal pathway to reach the UK from the EU for the purposes of claiming asylum. It will no longer apply after the transition period. If we do not seek to address this issue, I fear that we will see more images of people making precarious and life-threatening journeys on dinghies across the channel.
The Government will say that they have a draft proposal for family reunion; however, it is apparent that their proposal is woefully inadequate. The proposals remove all mandatory requirements to activate family reunions. They remove the child’s right to appeal against refusal, and some children would not be covered by the narrower definition of family which Parliament passed in a 2017 Act.
Other safeguards have been removed, too, such as deadlines. According to one non-governmental organisation, 95% of people helped by NGOs to obtain a right of
passage would fail the test proposed by the Government. Existing immigration rules also fail to cover this specific area, and therefore this amendment gives Parliament a chance to enshrine in law the basic principle of family reunion.
This issue is incredibly salient and our thoughts are still fixed on the suffering and horrors caused by the fire at the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos. The scale of that tragedy could have been minimised.
We all heard the pleas before the incident to the Greek Government for help with numbers at the camp, yet the calls were ignored by the people in power.
It is worth noting that the number of people who have come in under Dublin III has historically been very small. Up to 2014, there were 10 or 11 a year, and since 2016, a little over 500 have come in under it. We hear about the Government’s proposed fairer borders Bill on asylum, but those children cannot wait. We are asking the House to use its power to give transformative opportunities to innocent children who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves fleeing persecution and destitution.
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Lords amendment 6 would limit the maximum length that an individual can be held in immigration detention to 28 days. As well as implementing that backstop, the amendment would ensure that re-detention cannot be used as a matter of routine and will instead only be justified where there is a material change in the detained person’s circumstances. The Secretary of State’s decision to detain a person would, after 96 hours, be subject to judicial scrutiny at a bail hearing. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, the Secretary of State should only detain a person if they are in a position to set removal directions and carry them out within 14 days of the initial bail hearing.
This amendment commands cross-party support and has done so throughout the Bill’s passage in both Houses. It is overwhelmingly apparent that serious systemic problems exist in our current detention system. The courts and all parliamentary and inspectorate investigations in recent years have found fundamental failings. Long-term detention of mentally ill and vulnerable detainees remains a serious problem. The adults at risk policy does not provide a sufficient level of protection.
Throughout the passage of the Bill, defenders of the current system have stated that detention for more than 28 days is limited to those who have committed serious offences. That simply is not the case. In reality, we have seen examples of people with no offending history, including survivors of trafficking, detained for periods exceeding 28 days. On the basis of human rights alone, the amendment should be accepted, but this is also a question of the general efficacy of our detention system. It causes unnecessary human pain, and it is a waste of resources to trap people in detention indefinitely with no definitive answer provided on their immigration status. That is why we and so many others feel so strongly that the case for immigration detention reform is long overdue.
Lords amendment 3 would fast-track settled status for children in care and care leavers. I think all Members would agree that the Government must do all they can to ensure that everyone who is eligible to apply for
settled status via the EU settlement scheme is aware of the scheme. There is a profound and well-founded fear that EEA and Swiss children in care may be left behind. The Home Office has estimated that there are 5,000 looked-after children and 4,000 care leavers in the UK who will need to apply under the EU settlement scheme, yet analysis from the Children’s Society has found that 153 out of 211 local authorities across the UK have identified only 3,612 EEA and Swiss looked-after children and care leavers, with only 11% having so far secured status.
The Government have produced non-statutory guidance for local authorities on the EU settlement scheme regarding their roles and responsibilities for making or supporting applications for looked-after children and care leavers. Nevertheless, many local authorities are unaware of those responsibilities and also blissfully unaware of the stark consequences and immigration enforcement measures that face children in their care if they fail to register under the EU settlement scheme. That risk is now compounded by the coronavirus crisis, as local authority resources are being diverted elsewhere. Identifying and assisting children in care who need to apply for immigration status, which is seemingly non-urgent, will inevitably be deprioritised. Implementation of this amendment would facilitate local and national Government working together to ensure that no child in the care and responsibility of the British state becomes undocumented.
Lords amendment 2 would guarantee the right of UK citizens who have moved to the EU to return home to the UK, accompanied by their close family, without financial restrictions. Under the Bill as introduced, British citizens who moved to other EU countries while the UK was a member will lose their right to return to their country of birth with a non-British partner or child unless they can meet financial conditions that are beyond the reach of many. If they need to return to look after an ageing parent—an example shared with us on numerous occasions—thousands will now have to choose between returning to the UK alone, leaving their family behind or abandoning their parent to stay with their non-British family overseas. Nobody should have to face a choice like that, especially in the unique circumstances brought about by the pandemic, which has caused stress and anxiety for so many people.
The Government plan to use the ending of free movement as an opportunity to make British citizens meet the minimum income requirement for family reunion for the first time. The minimum income requirement is such a significant barrier that a study found that 40% of UK workers would not reach it.
Without Lords amendment 2, we would end up in the perverse situation of the Government discriminating against their own citizens. While British citizens who have moved to the EU or EEA before the end of 2020 will face these new restrictions, EU citizens who have moved to the UK before the end of 2020 will not. They will have the right under the withdrawal agreement to bring family members here for life, as well as keeping their existing right to return to their country of birth with families they have made in the UK.
Lords amendment 5 offers a sensible method of safeguarding the rights of all EEA and Swiss citizens registered through the European Union settlement scheme by providing them with physical proof of their status. In the largest survey to date on EU citizens’ experience
of the EU settlement scheme, carried out by the3million, 89% expressed unhappiness about the lack of physical proof. Simple physical proof would provide citizens with definitive reassurance and provide instant recognition of settled status, meaning that people could continue to live in the country seamlessly following the transition period.