Question proposed (19 July), That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Amendment proposed (19 July), to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add
“That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Nationality and Borders Bill, notwithstanding the need to address the increasing number of dangerous boat crossings in the English Channel, because the Bill breaches the 1951 Refugee Convention, does not address the Government’s failure since 2010 to competently process asylum applications which has resulted in a backlog of cases and increased costs to the taxpayer, fails to deal with the serious and organised crime groups who are profiteering from human trafficking and modern slavery, does not address the failure to replace the Dublin III regulations to return refugees to safe countries, fails to re-establish safe routes and help unaccompanied child refugees, and fails to deliver a workable agreement with France to address the issue of boat crossings.”—(Nick Thomas-Symonds.)
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
I am delighted to warmly welcome many of the measures outlined in this Bill, specifically those to make some well-reasoned amendments to nationality law and consequently our policy towards those wishing to become British citizens.
As the House will no doubt be aware, citizenship is often the smaller, quieter sibling of immigration policy. Successive Governments have often, and quite understandably, prioritised their focus and thoughts on immigration—how to control it, who to let in, why and when. The Government have done very well in reforming our country’s immigration policy in the midst of our exit from the European Union. We have reshaped our immigration system toward our country’s needs, which is the correct approach for a country navigating different waters in a brave new world as we move towards a global Britain on the world stage.
Previous Governments, however, have seldom thought about the part after immigration, and it is to this Government’s credit that they are now doing just that. Last year I had the pleasure of chairing an independent inquiry into UK citizenship policy with the highly regarded think-tank British Future; it included a number of colleagues from this House and experts from relevant stakeholders such as the Law Society of Scotland. The inquiry’s report, which is entitled “Barriers to Britishness”, sought to explore the means and capacity for possible reform in this often-forgotten area of policy to see how the UK Government could take a more welcoming and positive approach to those who have come here, built their lives here and made a significant contribution here.
It is often said that the journey to become a British citizen is too expensive or too complicated. However, I am pleased that the Government have taken on board a number of my inquiry’s recommendations. As a result, the Bill goes some way towards simplifying the process of becoming a British citizen. For those applying for citizenship, the introduction of the requirement for applications to show a sustained connection to the UK was one of my inquiry’s key recommendations. That is reflected in clause 8. It comes at the expense of the previous requirement for applicants to prove that they were physically present in the UK five years before their application. That helps to remove a barrier towards Britishness while reducing the need for applicants to rely on costly legal advice for their application. The clause may also benefit non-British members of the armed forces, who might serve abroad for protracted periods.
First, I thank the hundreds of constituents who have written to me asking me to oppose the Bill, which I will this evening. I am proud to be here as a Member of Parliament for Glasgow. I praise Glasgow’s role as a dispersal city, and the great work of organisations such as the Govan Community Project and the Govan Home and Education Link Project, which help asylum seekers on a daily basis.
Glasgow is well aware of the reality of asylum seekers’ experiences, which we cannot really contemplate. Victims of torture, sexual violence and persecution—that is the reality of asylum seekers’ experience. As restrictions ease, the Government had an opportunity to introduce some substantial legislation to address the inequalities that the covid pandemic has exposed, such as an unemployment Bill to deal with precarious work or, indeed, to reform the broken social security system. I am afraid that this Bill exposes the Conservative party in all its guises, because it is the politics of the dog whistle—the politics where every person seeking sanctuary is viewed with suspicion.
I read Hansard today and the phrase “economic migrants” was used liberally by Conservative Back Benchers yesterday. Perhaps they could benefit from Show Racism the Red Card coming in here, as they do in classrooms in Glasgow, and explaining the difference between an asylum seeker, a refugee and an economic migrant, because I suspect that some Conservative Back Benchers would fail that simple test. It is the politics where the legal profession is collectively dismissed as Marxist, despite some incredible court rulings. For example, Serco obtained an extraordinary High Court ruling that private sector companies, which the Government use across public services, do not have to comply with basic human rights legislation when providing accommodation to asylum seekers.
It is surprising to hear Government Members say that the legal routes issue is different from those in the Bill. It is not. If the Government close legal routes to seek sanctuary in this country, it cannot be a surprise that people would be so desperate that they choose to try other routes into the UK. There has been a lack of real engagement in the consultation process for the Bill. The Bill was, of course, published before any formal response to the consultation—a consultation in which many organisations that deal and work with asylum seekers on a daily basis raised real concerns that have not been addressed.
The Nationality and Borders Bill is important and necessary legislation to address the growing problem of illegal entry into the UK by migrants crossing the Dover straits. Last year, in 2020, more than 8,500 people made such a journey in small vessels: 87% of them were men and 74% were aged 18 to 39. This year, over 8,000 have already completed the trip, including a record number of 430 in a single day—and that was yesterday. For residents on the Kent coast, including in my constituency, it has become a fact of life that, when the weather is good and the sea is calm, hundreds of undocumented asylum seekers will attempt to cross the channel in small boats.
We need to be clear that illegal crossings of the channel are dangerous and cost lives. In recent years, migrants have died while being smuggled in lorries. There have been deaths from people trying to walk through the channel tunnel, and there have been drownings at sea from people trying to make it across the channel in small boats. We cannot allow this to continue. No country would allow this to continue, or should.
The Government have made substantial investments, along with the French authorities, to improve security at the port of Calais and the channel tunnel, making it much harder for people to gain illegal entry there. Improved patrolling along the French coast has led to the successful detection of many people as they attempt to make their crossing, but before their vessel enters the water. Some people have called for vessels to be intercepted at sea, and suggested—I think wrongly—that vessels are just being escorted across the channel by the French authorities or by our own. I do not think that is the case. Vessels need to be intercepted before they get into the water, as interception at sea is dangerous if the migrants on the vessels are not co-operating with the authorities.
We cannot, of course, patrol in French waters, and we are reliant on the French authorities to do that. Of course, it would be much better if they could do that just as those vessels leave French waters, when returning to France would be easier, but we have no means to patrol in its waters. I would say, though, that excellent work has been done at sea when it has been needed by Border Force and most importantly—I would like to thank this group of people—by the volunteer lifeboat men working for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution at the lifeboat stations from Dungeness in my constituency round to Dover, who are now regularly called out to assist people in distress at sea.
In 1933, Einstein lived in Norfolk, guarded by local residents and a Conservative MP to prevent attempts to assassinate him by the Nazis. At the time, he said:
“I shall become a naturalised Englishman as soon as is possible for my papers to go through.”
He never did get those papers, though.
Throughout this debate, I have heard Members laud our history of accepting refugees as if it somehow explains and justifies the Bill before us; as if our capacity as a nation to retrospectively see that we did the right thing means that we are doing so now. Yet even when it came to geniuses like Einstein, the term “asylum seeker” has always meant second-class citizen. There are no photographs of the parents of the Kindertransport children, the ones denied entry by Whitehall, only to be murdered by the Nazis. When it came to east African Asians, we introduced the Commonwealth Immigration Act 1968 to make it harder for them to seek sanctuary. Now we have orphaned children sleeping rough on our border with France and in Greece in overcrowded covid-ridden camps, and we say that they must be safe so they are not our problem.
Let us stop re-writing the UK’s history to provide cover for legislation like this, which makes plain the Government’s disdain for those who find themselves with little alternative but to run for their lives. They want to penalise people for how they run, creating a third class of citizens who are at perpetual risk of being deported: because they did not queue properly and fill in the appropriate form, they did not travel directly to an island nation or present themselves immediately for a claim, they must be suspect, regardless of their story or why they fled, breaching the refugee convention. I hear this a lot: “Well, they came through France, Germany, Belgium. Why should we help them?” The convention is clear that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country. It was intended to get nations to work together to help make managing those at risk possible.
2:06 pm
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
This Bill is incredibly wide-ranging, and I associate myself with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) about the nationality changes. However, I will confine my remarks to illegal immigration and allow other Members to get in.
This debate is particularly poignant today, when we hit a new record high for small boat crossings, with 430 people crossing in a single day. While Redcar and Cleveland is more than 300 miles from Dover, I am contacted about illegal immigration almost daily. The Labour party likes to pretend it is not happening, as we have heard from some of the contributions so far today and yesterday, but it is happening, and the refusal of some to acknowledge it is part of the reason why Labour no longer represents seats such as mine. I am here to share the views of those I represent, and I believe that we owe it to the public to finally address the problem.
There are a few in my constituency who want Britain to completely close its borders to asylum seekers and refugees—I believe they are wrong. Equally, there are some who want us to be borderless and do nothing to prevent illegal immigration into this country, and they are wrong, too. The vast majority of people in Redcar and Cleveland, including me, want us to help those most in need and offer protection to those facing persecution while preventing illegal entry into this country.
That is why this Bill is so important. We can have a firm but fair approach to illegal immigration. “Firm” means stopping people from jumping the queue by crossing the channel. “Fair” means new, safe legal routes to asylum in the UK. “Firm” means a new one-stop process for claims and an end to repeated meritless appeals. “Fair” means improving support for genuine refugees to help them to build their lives here.
We have to be honest with our constituents about what is happening in the small boats on the channel and in lorries through the tunnel. People are being smuggled into this country, and those who evade detection are vulnerable to modern-day slavery and further trafficking within the UK. It is simply not a case of people fleeing war-torn areas or escaping persecution; they are travelling from France. The vast majority of those who arrive are male, and almost exclusively they are over the age of 18. Many lie about their age. As the Home Secretary said yesterday, in 2020, 8,500 people arrived by boat. Some 87% of them were men, and of that 87%, 74% were aged between 18 and 39.
These people are loaded into floats that we could barely call dinghies, which are overfilled, leaving them at risk of capsizing, or they are pushed into the back of lorries, where the driver is often unaware of the live cargo being carried. Many have paid hundreds of pounds for the journey, and in some cases thousands, although it has dropped in recent months, to jump the asylum queue and deny a legitimate asylum seeker a space.
2:10 pm
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Clauses 1 to 4 remove some of the remaining anomalies associated with British overseas territories citizenship, allowing mothers and unmarried fathers to pass on BOTC status, which could previously be passed on only by a married father. That introduces a most welcome route to full citizenship for those who hold BOTC passports in 14 qualifying territories, including the Falkland Islands, whose residents, as we all know, have as much a sense of being British as those living here in the UK.
Another welcome change is outlined in clause 7, which creates a new process for the discretionary registration of adults as British citizens in circumstances when they would otherwise have become British had it not been for historical unfairness in the law, an act or omission of a public authority, or other exceptional circumstance. As the House will be aware, the Home Secretary already possesses the power to grant citizenship on a discretionary basis to children. However, by extending that right to adults, the Bill will benefit those such as the Windrush victims who have been stranded abroad or young adults who have grown up in care and whom the local authorities neglected to register as British as a child, or registered under the EU settlement scheme.
The Bill, in making those amendments to nationality law, goes a long way towards simplifying the citizenship process for those who wish to be British. There are, however, further areas of citizenship policy to which I and the inquiry have recommended changes, not least the cost of a citizenship application. The cost of becoming a British citizen is £1,330. Let us compare that to the cost in Australia, which is £155; in Canada, which is £373; in New Zealand, which is £243; and in the United States, which is £590. I would be most grateful if the Minister explained why the cost of an application is extremely high, compared to the cost in those countries. I urge the Government to consider a much more reasonable application fee and reduce that further barrier to becoming a British citizen.
Overall, I welcome the Government’s proposals to make the offer of citizenship more open and accessible. I hope we can go further in ensuring that those who have chosen the UK in which to work and build their lives, and who have made enormous contributions, have that matched by the offer of citizenship. I will support the Government’s Bill this evening.
Depriving asylum seekers of the chance to obtain competent legal representation and to challenge poor decisions increases the risk of returning people to extremely serious danger. That approach also ignores the numerous reasons why refugees may be unable to provide all the evidence and information regarding their case at an early stage in the procedure. Such reasons include a lack of knowledge of the system. Asylum seekers do not have expertise in the UK’s immigration system when they get here fleeing oppression. They do not know what evidence they have, so it should not be a surprise that people who are survivors of trauma do not immediately disclose information, especially women and survivors of sexual violence.
There are a number of concerns. I mentioned accommodation. It is astonishing that Home Office providers of asylum accommodation do not need to use registered social landlords to provide that accommodation. Even worse, the Government now want to legislate to increase the use of military barracks. That is utterly unacceptable and will do serious harm, I fear, to the mental health of many of those seeking sanctuary in the United Kingdom. By vowing to continue that practice, the Government are ignoring the views of public health experts. It really is astonishing.
The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration described the Home Office’s use of that sort of accommodation as a “serious error of judgment”, while the immigration court ruled earlier that the Home Secretary failed to ensure that deaths in immigration detention centres were properly investigated. A Home Affairs Committee report published in December 2018 described the conditions in which vulnerable people are being housed as “degrading” and called on the Home Office to show “greater urgency”.
My last concern is that we want to follow the Australian model. Centres in Australia saw cases of sexual abuse and the rape of refugees leading to some falling pregnant, and there were instances of staff using unreasonable force, while the remoteness of offshore facilities also caused deaths due to the lack of healthcare facilities.
Glasgow has risen up to the Home Office time and again, as we did in Kenmure Street, and I was very proud to be there exercising my right to freedom of peaceful assembly. The people of Glasgow in opposing the Bill say this: “Say it loud, say it clear: refugees are welcome here.”
Pascale Moreau, the European director of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said a couple of years ago of this problem:
“Our collective response should be comprehensive and complementary—from saving lives to combating smuggling rings, expanding legal options, and ensuring that all those who are in need of protection can effectively access it”.
That is why the approach set out in this Bill is so important.
We need to make it clear that illegal entry to the UK is not a shortcut to residency in this country. We need to make it clear to the people traffickers who prey on vulnerable people for profit that they will face tough sentences for bringing people illegally into this country. We need to make people think again before attempting these life-threatening crossings. That is why it is right that the Bill addresses that. It will make it illegal for people to arrive in UK waters without permission, which it already is; increase the maximum sentences for people who are arriving in the country illegally from six months to four years; make it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK without permission; and introduce tough new sentences for people traffickers, so they know they will face lengthy prison sentences—up to life prison sentences—if they are involved in operating people-trafficking rings. These are the reforms we need.
Alongside these reforms must also go the work for safe routes to make sure that migrants and asylum seekers are aware of safe legal routes to enter this country. The safe routes scheme this country invested in saw more than 25,000 refugees settled in this country from 2015 to 2020. In addition, more than 29,000 close relatives joined people in this country. Under the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, working with UNHCR, we were able to identify the most vulnerable people in the most dangerous places and give them a safe route to enter this country.
We want people to take that route, not to put their lives in the hands of people-trafficking gangs to make a journey across Europe and a life-threatening journey across the channel, but instead to work with the authorities in war zones and danger zones, where we know people are displaced and need help, to give them a safe legal route to this country and to know that at the end of that safe legal route will be a successful asylum claim and with it indefinite leave to remain in the UK. That is the route we need to establish. We need to close down the illegal crossing points, which are incredibly dangerous, that are profiting criminal gangs and are rightly concerning to people who live on the Kent coast, too. We need to close this route down and give people safe routes to this country and safe ways to claim asylum.
It is true that it was easier to quietly ignore those in danger when there were not that many of them, before the mass refugee camps in Sudan or the Syrian civil war, but just because the challenge is harder does not mean that our response should be, too; that we should be a nation that does not keep its promises to the 3,000 children we said we would take under the Dubs scheme; we have only taken 480. Turkey is taking 4 million refugees and we are quibbling about 26,000 applications. The vast majority of refugees end up staying in the areas they have run from, displaced and living in developing countries when wealthy ones like ours want to look the other way.
Persecution does not happen in an orderly fashion. Wars are not run to a timetable to be able to make people make applications. You run, you grab your children, you flee with what you can, you try to save their lives—yes, many of them boys and young men—from certain death. What parent cannot understand that ambition? We all want to stop the traffickers, but the gangs will use these changes as a selling point to those desperate people. If we want to stop the gangs then take away the market, but there is no safe and legal route being proposed here, no new commitments made. The vulnerable persons resettlement scheme has stopped. If we think that the only place that people are running from is Syria, we do not understand what is going on in Ethiopia, Iran, Afghanistan, to the Uyghurs, to LGBTQ people in Myanmar, or to Christians and religious minorities around the world.
Ministers claim the legislation will protect women from trafficking when it will do the reverse, because it is not based on any evidence. Their own statistics show that the majority in detention referred to the national referral mechanism are then recognised as potential victims of trafficking and that 81% of reasonable grounds rejections that are challenged are granted a positive ruling, yet many of those women would fall into that group, too. Women repeatedly abused on their journeys here, who cannot find the words to speak about the hell they have been through, will be criminalised because they did not have all their paperwork neatly folded about their person for presentation during this time. Locking them up in detention centres reinforces, not removes, the abuse they face. Yarl’s Wood is a stain on our national identity, a place where victims of sexual abuse and rape in war are jailed. Not only does it cost more than community schemes to run, but it retraumatises those women over and over again.
Home Office costs are spiralling, 40% of appeals are successful and more and more people are forced to live in misery and destitution as a result of the scheme we have. The Government’s solution is to try to house them offshore in a move that makes Yarl’s Wood look compassionate. Those who have lauded the Australians and their offshoring facility at Nauru would do well to read the horrifying accounts of the sexual abuse of women and children over the years, in addition to the hundreds of incidents of threatened and actual self-harm, and ask whether this is really the path we want to go down.
Einstein said:
“A bundle of belongings isn’t the only thing a refugee brings to his new country.”
Out there, the British public know that. They know that we need a system that can process people fairly and quickly. They know that but for the grace of God there they go. If the worst were to happen to them and they had to flee their homes, they would want a new home that saw them not as a burden, but as a benefit. Our past does not mean we cannot build a future in which we make that ambition a reality. This Bill will not stop the boats; it will encourage them. So let us not give the criminal gangs their latest recruiting tactic. I urge colleagues to vote this Bill down and stand up to those who want to demonise refugees. Let us come together to come back with something that can make Britain proud of how we treat the persecuted, not an international pariah.
I use the word “legitimate” because these people are crossing the channel. They could have claimed asylum in France, Italy, Spain or Germany, or any other safe country they have travelled through. It makes their reason for attempting to settle in the UK solely economic. Without intervention, they risk death in the back of the lorry, like the tragic case of October 2019, where 39 people were found deceased in the back of a trailer in Essex. Many would drown in the channel, like the estimated 300 people over the last 20 years, which is why our emergency workers and Navy must intervene, putting their own lives at risk, too. Who could argue for this to continue? Who could say that we should not do all we can to make this route unviable? What is the compassionate response? We should be proud of our record on overseas aid contributions and to have resettled more refugees than any other European nation. This is a matter not of us turning our back on the world but of making sure that our immigration system is firm but fair in the way that the British people would demand.
I come back to the point that I have made over and over again in this place: the most compassionate thing we can do to help these people is to make the route unviable and prevent the crossings altogether.