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

I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is engaged by Lords amendment 4B. If Lords amendment 4B is agreed to, I will cause the customary entry waiving Commons financial privilege to be entered in the Journal.

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 4B.

With this it will be convenient to consider Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu of Lords amendment 4B.

Lords amendment 4B relates to family reunion and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. I am sure that hon. Members will have in mind the tragic events in the channel last week. Let me reiterate very firmly that the Government are determined to end these dangerous, illegal and unnecessary crossings to ensure that lives are not lost and that ruthless criminal gangs no longer profit from this criminal activity.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced recently at the Conservative party conference, we intend to reform our broken asylum system to make it firm but fair. We intend to introduce legislation next year to deliver this, allowing for a wider debate on the subject. Our reformed system will be fair and compassionate towards those who need our help by welcoming people through safe and legal routes. It will also be firm and stand up for the law-abiding majority by stopping the abuse of the system by those who raise no founded claims through protected routes but make claims purely to frustrate the implementation of our immigration law and procedure.

Let me reassure hon. Members that the Government remain committed to the principle of family unity and to supporting vulnerable children. We have a very proud record of providing safety for those who need it through our asylum system and world-leading resettlement schemes, and we are determined that that will continue. We have granted protection and other leave to more than 44,000 children seeking protection since 2010. 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 are in the UK.

The Government understand the importance of this issue, and it is right that we continue to debate it. Lords amendment 4B is well-intentioned in seeking to ensure that adequate protection is in place for vulnerable asylum-seeking children. However, we have made a credible and serious offer to the EU on new arrangements for the family reunion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. It remains our goal to negotiate such an agreement. As my noble Friend Baroness Williams announced in the other place on 21 October, in the event of no negotiated outcome, we will pursue bilateral negotiations on post-transition migration issues with mutual interest countries, including family reunion for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Government policy has not changed on this matter.

The Minister tells us that the system is working well and that it would be dangerous to change it, and for that reason, the Government are not going to change it. What purpose is served by a consultation in those circumstances?

We are happy to look at a proper review of the rules. Our current rules apply alongside Dublin for those who are within the EU. We think it is appropriate to take stock, as we are doing with the rest of our migration system, as our arrangements with the European Union fundamentally change. We are happy to make the commitment to review them for the future; that is part of the general stock-take we are doing. It is not unreasonable to highlight our record on resettlement and this country’s commitments and the actions it has taken, compared with the commentary we sometimes hear. I am sorry to hear that the right hon. Member does not see a review of the rules as the way forward, but I am sure that he and his colleagues will look to proactively and positively engage with the discussion that this amendment and the review will engender.

It is now essential that the Bill receives Royal Assent without further delay if key elements of the Government’s future border and immigration system, including the new skilled worker route as well as social security co-ordination, are to be implemented as planned. Further delay would put at risk the ending of free movement at the end of the transition period, which means the UK would effectively continue to have free movement, but unreciprocated by the European Union, into 2021. We cannot accept a delay to that key manifesto commitment. I therefore hope that, for all the reasons I have outlined today, the House will now support our amendments (a), (b) and (c) in lieu, and the statutory commitments they contain, and disagree with the Lords in their amendment 4B.

I want to start by thanking the Minister for taking the time earlier this week to explain the Government’s amendments in lieu, and for writing to me and others today with further details. Although we do not have a problem with the Government’s amendments—on the contrary, we welcome the opportunity to review all the safe and legal routes available to those fleeing war, torture or persecution who have grounds to seek asylum in the UK—the review offered still falls a long way short of the commitment that we have asked for in Lords amendment 4B.

The review is a welcome addition to the Bill, but the fact that it is to be introduced through an amendment in lieu of ours makes it feel somewhat hollow by comparison. The Minister will be aware that support for our amendment in the only slightly varying drafts in the other place, spearheaded so ably by Lord Dubs, has resulted in two significant Government defeats, and efforts in the Commons have consistently had support from Members on his own Back Benches. I want to thank them for their work on this, not least the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). He and my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), through their work on the Home Affairs Committee, have championed the merits of continuing the routes for unaccompanied child refugees.

We ask the Minister one more time to reflect on why adopting the Dubs amendment in its entirety is not just critical but time-critical. We debate the amendment today with 56 days to go until the Dublin regulations end, and with them the lifeline they offer, and we fall back on the immigration rules. We also debate the merits of our amendment, as the Minister has already said, in the shadow of such tragedy in the English channel this year. The sinking of just one of those insecure boats just last week resulted in the loss of life of four people, two of them children who were just six and nine. A further 15 people were taken to hospital, and three more are missing, presumed dead, including the 15-month-old baby of the Iranian Kurdish family who died. It is a truly harrowing reminder that people are making more and more desperate decisions as this Government’s squeeze on safe and legal routes continues. It demonstrates that the morally bankrupt traffickers, who allow children and adults alike to get into their dangerous boats and set off to sea in bad weather, will continue to exploit people in the worst possible ways unless we reopen and continue those safe and legal alternatives, family reunion being one of them.

The number of child refugees who have come to the UK throughout the history of the Dublin regulations has been far from overwhelming, but for those who have been able to use them, they have been life-changing. Between 2016 and 2018, after Dublin III introduced mandatory provisions, family reunions—both children and adults—in the UK were carried out at an average rate of 547 people annually. Come 1 January, those provisions will cease to exist. In fact, 25 councils around the UK are working with Safe Passage and have pledged more than 1,400 places for unaccompanied child refugees in Europe if the Government can provide a safe and legal route for them to come here.

Following the devastating fire at the Moria camp on Lesbos in September, my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), the shadow Home Secretary, wrote to the Government, urging them to join Germany, France and others in offering refuge to just some of the children who have lost everything. The Greek Government have been appealing for help from other countries to assist in taking asylum-seeking children since last October. Thirteen countries, including Norway and Switzerland, which are not EU members, have joined the international effort, but the UK is yet to offer any assistance, and we are yet to receive a response to our letter.

Additionally, the Government have been keen to say that the immigration rules will be sufficient. The Minister knows that the immigration rules are not open to legislative scrutiny and are not amendable by parliamentarians, so we lose a range of protections when we revert to them. This amendment is our last chance to take the corrective action required before the Dublin regulations time out at the end of December.

According to Safe Passage, 95% of the young people and children it has supported through the Dublin III legal pathway would be unlikely to qualify under the immigration rules alone. The welfare and rights of child refugees should not rest precariously on the Government’s seemingly stagnant negotiations on the UK’s future relationship with the EU. The Government have promised that talks on this matter will resume on a bilateral basis in discussions on post-transition migration issues with key countries with which we share a mutual interest. However, without concrete alternative provisions in place, the fear is that a countdown on family reunion will be one more tactic used by smugglers to encourage people into their boats before 31 December.

The current situation in refugee camps is dire. There are more than 1,600 unaccompanied children on the Greek islands, and many do not have their basic needs met. Children on Samos have been sleeping on the floors of windowless containers or in derelict buildings, as the number of people has grown to 3,745 in a camp built to house 640 people. Refugee Youth Service reports that the youngest unaccompanied children currently known to them are just 11 years old. They are at extremely high risk of exploitation and violence.

The terms “unaccompanied child refugees” and “asylum seekers” are quite technical, but we are talking about children with no one who have had to flee their homes alone. We know that we can work together to alleviate some of that suffering quickly. In the midst of a global pandemic, when we are all at risk of a highly infectious and deadly virus, the cramped and destitute conditions that house—if it can be called that—most of those fleeing their homes are unimaginable to most of us. We implore the Government to respect this addition to the Bill, adopt Lord Dubs’s amendment 4B and allow those children, who have had some of the worst possible starts in life, to reach sanctuary in the UK.

I am going to call the Minister at 6.27 pm, and the questions will be put no later than 6.32 pm. There are a number of MPs on the call list, so please show some self-discipline in order that we can get in as many as we can.

I rise to speak in support of Lords amendment 4B. I was disappointed to hear the Minister dismiss it as just well intentioned. I think it is absolutely essential. With just eight weeks to go before the Dublin arrangements for family reunion fall, we have had the tragic drownings in the channel recently; mercifully, but surprisingly, such cases are rare.

Here we go again. This is the last remaining amendment that has come back from the Lords, and it has done so with a vengeance. It was a big defeat for the Government in the other place, by 320 votes to 242. Lord Dubs has led the charge on this ably and eloquently over many months, and he spoke with huge passion. The debate in the other place was just about financial privilege; as he put it, that

“falls short of being humanitarian and falls short of respecting the opinions of this House.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 October 2020; Vol. 806, c. 1595.]

Many in this House think we must do better, and I find it extraordinary that the Government are still digging their heels in for the sake of about 500 highly vulnerable children.

The Government have produced their own amendment. I have no objection to it; it is perfectly innocuous. It commits to a review of safe and legal routes, and that is welcome. It is the least that can be expected, however, because it is what the Government have promised all along in the light of the welcome overhaul of the immigration system and the continued suspension or non-renewal of previous safe and legal routes. Simply adding the Government’s amendment to the Bill will not guarantee the replacement for the Dublin family reunion scheme that we have been promised for so long—despite the fact that, as the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) has said, there is no negotiating mandate from EU member states.