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

Commons Amendments

Motion A

Moved by

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 4B and do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 4C, 4D and 4E in lieu.

4C: After Clause 2, page 2, line 22, at end insert the following new Clause— “Protection claimants: legal routes from the EU and family reunion (1) The Secretary of State must review, or arrange for a review of, the ways in which protection claimants who are in a member State are able to enter the United Kingdom lawfully. (2) For the purposes of this section a “protection claimant” is a person who— (a) has made an application for international protection to a member State, or (b) is not a national of a member State and is seeking to come to the United Kingdom from a member State for the purpose of making a protection claim. (3) The review under subsection (1) must, in particular— (a) consider the position of unaccompanied children in member States who are protection claimants and are seeking to come to the United Kingdom to join relatives there, and (b) include a public consultation on that aspect of the review. (4) The Secretary of State must, within the period of three months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, lay before Parliament a statement providing further details about the review under subsection (1) and, in particular, about the aspect of the review described in subsection (3). (5) After the review, the Secretary of State must— (a) prepare a report on the outcome of the review or arrange for such a report to be prepared, and (b) publish the report and lay it before Parliament. (6) In this section— “application for international protection” has the meaning given by Article 2(h) of Directive 2011/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on standards for the qualification of third country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted; “protection claim” has the same meaning as in Part 5 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (see section 82(2) of that Act); “relative”, in relation to an unaccompanied child, means a parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt, brother or sister of the child; “unaccompanied child” means a person under the age of 18 (“the child”) who is not in the care of a person who— (a) is aged 18 or over, and (b) by law or custom of the country or territory in which the child is present, has responsibility for caring for the child.”

4D: Page 5, line 33, at beginning insert “Subject to subsection (1A),”

4E: Page 5, line 34, at end insert— “(1A) The following provisions of section (Protection claimants: legal routes from the EU and family reunion) come into force at the end of the period of two months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed— (a) subsection (4); (b) subsections (2) and (6) so far as relating to subsection (4).”

My Lords, I turn to the issue of family reunion, which relates to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in Amendment 4B and his most recent Motion A1, which seeks to amend the Government’s Amendment 4C, agreed to in the other place.

I accept the spirit of the noble Lord’s amendment. I reiterate that this Government share the noble Lord’s sincere concerns about refugee and asylum-seeking children. We are determined to continue our proud record of providing safety to those who need it, and supporting vulnerable children remains a fundamental tenet of this. Within this, we also recognise the importance of family unity, which I know is such a vital issue for the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and other noble Lords who will no doubt speak today. The Government absolutely share those concerns.

I take this opportunity to commemorate the anniversary of Kristallnacht today. It was Kristallnacht that effectively gave birth to the Kindertransport scheme, which enabled 10,000 refugee children to come to the UK in the 1930s, including the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I am of course extremely proud of what the UK did then and continue to be proud of what we are doing now and our record in government.

The UK continues to be one of the highest recipients of asylum claims from unaccompanied children across Europe, receiving more claims than any EU member state in 2019 and 20% of all claims made in the EU and the UK. There are more than 5,000 unaccompanied children being looked after in English local authorities alone. Our resettlement schemes were the largest in Europe over the last five years, directly resettling over 25,000 people from regions of conflict and instability, half of whom were children.

I turn now to family reunion, with which the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is concerned—and on which, I hasten to add, Commons Amendments 4C, 4D and 4E also include significant commitments. On 1 January 2021, the UK will cease to be bound by the Dublin regulation. Instead, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Europe with family members in the UK will be able to apply to join eligible sponsors, such as those with refugee leave or who are beneficiaries of humanitarian protection, those with British citizenship or those with settled status under the Immigration Rules. Anyone who might currently have been transferred under Dublin will have a route through which they can apply, where the sponsor has the relevant status. I will make sure that guidance is updated to ensure that this is clear and transparent.

It is essential that the Bill receives Royal Assent without further delays if key elements of the Government’s future border and immigration system, including the new skilled workers route as well as social security co-ordination, are to be implemented as planned. Any further delay puts at risk the ending of free movement at the end of the transition period, a central manifesto commitment that the British people voted for and which has been strongly supported by the other place, and it risks free movement continuing on an unreciprocated basis.

In view of this, and in view of the fact that we have issued 6,320 refugee family reunion visas in the year ending June 2020—our record speaks for itself—as compared to 532 family reunion transfers under Articles 8, 9 and 10 of Dublin in 2019, I am sure that noble Lords would agree that there is no need for this amendment. I ask that noble Lords agree the Government’s Amendments 4C, 4D and 4E, which have been endorsed in the other place, and respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, not to divide the House on his Amendment 4B and Motion A1. I beg to move.

At end insert, “and do propose the following amendments to Amendment 4C—

4F: After subsection (5) insert— “(5A) Until such a time as the report under subsection (5) has been published and either any included recommendations on the position of unaccompanied children under subsection (3)(a) have been implemented or a reason has been given for non-implementation, the Secretary of State must make arrangements for protection claimants who are in a member State after 1 January 2021, and who would have been eligible to enter the United Kingdom under a relevant provision of Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013 if the United Kingdom remained a party to that regulation, to enter the United Kingdom.”

4G: In subsection (6) insert— ““Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013” means Regulation (EU) No. 604/ 2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council including the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person (recast); “relevant provision” means any of the following articles of Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013— (a) Article 8; (b) Article 9; (c) Article 10; (d) Article 16; (e) Article 17;””

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s statement and I am grateful for the civil conversations I had with her over the weekend about it. I very much welcome the review that the Government have initiated, and I obviously look forward to seeing the outcome.

I appreciate what the Minister said about the anniversary of Kristallnacht; she also talked about Kindertransport children arriving here. All I would say is that, as one of them, I have always been enormously grateful to this country for the safety and the opportunities it has given me. I only want to achieve for other children coming here in similar circumstances the same sort of opportunities I have had in the United Kingdom.

The purpose of the amendment was to seek assurances that the ending of the family reunion provisions under the Dublin treaty on 31 December would not disadvantage refugee children who were seeking a route to this country. The amendment simply seeks to put in place interim arrangements for refugees seeking to reunite with family members in the UK after the transitional period is over, until the government review is completed, so that there should not be a gap in the provision for refugees seeking to reunite with their families.

Clearly the Minister’s wish was to make it unnecessary for me to pursue my amendment, so let me deal with that in a little detail, although, as I have said, I welcome the Government’s plans to review the whole issue. I remind the House that we are talking about children, many of them in Calais, Dunkirk or on the Greek islands, sleeping rough and at the mercy of traffickers. We have seen the tragic consequences of what the traffickers do to make money while risking the lives of very vulnerable people. It is my belief that the British people are essentially humanitarian, and that the majority of people in this country support our being generous to child refugees—not all, but the majority —so we are not flying in the face of the majority of public opinion in what we do for child refugees.

The following Members in the Chamber have indicated that they wish to speak: the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark.

My Lords, I support the position taken by my noble friend the Minister in her Amendments 4C, 4D and 4E. As noble Lords will know, I am not entirely in favour of the Bill. I do not like the fact that it applies to migrants from the EU only and, with other noble Lords, I sought amendments to the new system. For example, I remain unhappy about permitting those coming to work here to take jobs that have not first been advertised to talent here in the UK. This is perverse and will simply serve to increase unemployment. I am astonished that the trade union interest is so unconcerned about this.

However, the Bill is already overdue and, across the House, we all have an interest in getting it on to the statute book in time for people to understand the new rules when transition ends. I cannot support continued ping-pong and I ask the Opposition proponents of the proposals on unaccompanied children to show more responsibility. If they cannot—I detected a certain softening from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs—I hope that others across the House will do so and that this latest attempt at ping-pong will fail.

The fact is that the Government have made very substantial concessions—further than I would have gone, with experience of these matters from Downing Street in the 1990s. In particular, they have promised a review of legal routes to the UK, including for family reunion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and committed themselves to meeting various parliamentary milestones. They have also promised bilateral negotiations with key countries on post-transition migration issues. That will be especially important in the unlikely event of a full breakdown of the FTA with the EU.

The government package should be accepted now and we should avoid the embarrassment of another round of ping-pong. To inform the review and thinking today, I make the following observations. Although I, too, celebrate the anniversary of Kristallnacht, we are no longer in the 1930s. In the Bill, we are talking about children coming from the EU—all countries that observe decency and freedom and are subject to the EHRC. Moreover, in the UK, despite beating ourselves up on occasions, we have a good record. There are various avenues for entering the UK as a minor. My noble friend the Minister has explained these in detail and why Dublin is not the only route. I will not repeat what she said, but I emphasise that since 2010, we have granted protection or other forms of leave to more than 44,000 children seeking protection. In 2019, we received 3,775 asylum claims from unaccompanied children—more than any other EU member state.