UK Borders Bill

My Lords, this Bill is another example of the Home Office doctrine that urgent social problems can be put right by ever more draconian laws. Many of the problems that it fails to address could be improved or resolved by well directed administrative action. Can the Minister assure the House that funds will be provided for the training of immigration staff, especially interviewers and case-holders, and that staff generally will remain in post long enough so that much-needed improvements will, in fact, be achieved? I shall emphasise some of the real problems that are daily experienced in immigration and asylum. The first problem is the large backlog of old applications, which is only slowly reduced. Then there are flaws in current asylum procedures. For years we have been asking for better first decisions, thus avoiding long delays and costly appeals. What do we find? We find many applications fast-tracked, giving applicants little time to prepare, and no legal advice, sometimes followed by long detentions. We find a low percentage of successful applications, followed by a substantial rate of successful appeals. In 2005-06, 20 per cent of appeals were won. Will the Government give this matter particular attention? We find many refused asylum applicants who are neither deported nor able to return home voluntarily. They are forbidden to work lawfully, so they work illegally or become destitute. We find significant numbers of adults trafficked for labour or sexual exploitation, with relatively few prosecutions in either category. We find convicted foreign national prisoners wrongly released or kept in prison after the end of their sentences when they should be deported. We find torture victims held in detention, despite countless assurances we have had that this would not happen. There is a whole raft of issues concerning asylum-seeking and migrant children, which we have already heard, where the best interests of the child are not upheld as they should be. I will come back to each of these very human real and urgent problems. As regards the older asylum cases, I have to ask what resources are being currently devoted to reducing and, if possible, eliminating the backlog? What extra resources will the Government provide? With how many cases has all contact been lost? How will the Government protect the most vulnerable in the backlog, especially women, children and the elderly? The things needed to improve the handling of old and new asylum cases have long been known. There must be first-class, up-to-date information about countries of origin. Changes in situations should be promptly known and the often flawed suggestion that applicants can move to another safe part of their country should be critically examined. Interviewers should understand that refugees often arrive dazed and disoriented. They need to be able to understand the psychological experience of sudden flight to a strange country. Interpreters also need empathy as well as good professional ability. Will the Government consider providing experienced legal advice to all applicants requiring interpretation, or who are totally ignorant of English ways and systems? I am sure this would produce better results. I come now to those who have been refused as refugees and who have no more in-country appeals available to them. On 14 December last year, in a debate that I opened, I concentrated on those at risk of destitution. I should mention that since then I have tried repeatedly to bring the non-government organisations to meet Ministers to discuss this scandalous situation, but I regret that I have had no success. Perhaps Ministers have been too busy splitting up the Home Office. The problems, however, are still here. Estimates of the numbers involved vary from 180,000 to 450,000. The policy of enforced destitution is not working because people find work of some kind or get charitable and community help. In any case, they usually see themselves as too poor to return voluntarily. Meanwhile, Britain has to pick up the mental health costs. Enforced removal is not working satisfactorily because the Home Office reckons the average cost at £11,000 per person, so that only some 20,000 people are removed in a year. The Home Office must surely become more realistic. It has to realise that many people not qualifying as refugees still need protection. It is not realistic to return such people to countries such as Iraq, Somalia, Darfur, Iran, North Korea, parts of Burma or China, or indeed to return Christian converts to many Islamic states. Therefore the old category of exceptional leave to remain for a limited period of years has to be more widely used. It is necessary for humanitarian reasons because it allows people to work legally, thus meeting some of the demand for migrant workers. Turning now to children, the best interests of the child should always prevail. The police work to this principle, and so should the Immigration Service. We should remove our reservations from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and ratify the optional protocol which we signed some years ago. Nothing should be done to prejudice our ratification of the Council of Europe convention against trafficking, which again we have signed. Important conclusions flow from these points. Children should not be held in detention, with or without their parents. There should be no automatic deportation of children when they reach 18. Each case should be considered on its merits. There should be no compulsory taking of biometrics for those aged under 18. The Home Office has quoted a figure of 6,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children now being cared for by local authorities, 600 of whom may be trafficked. Both figures are, I suggest, very uncertain and are complicated by informal private fosterings which are often not registered. I have previously argued for better pay, training and support for foster parents, and for full registration of private placements. I do so again, and support the appointment of guardians ad litem whenever unaccompanied children have no capable advocate. Stronger action is needed to prevent children going missing and to trace them when they do. The national action plan on human trafficking should be fully resourced and implemented. I come now to perhaps the biggest issue of all, which I mentioned last December; namely, undocumented and irregular residents, those the French call ““les sans papiers””. They are mainly rejected refugees and other overstayers. Many have national insurance and health numbers here, but lack immigration status and citizenship. Some are married to British citizens and more have children born in Britain. There may be half a million such people—possibly more, who knows—with perhaps 200,000 in the London region. They are wide open to exploitation and quite often earn less than the minimum wage. It is urgently necessary to bring as many as possible out of the twilight and out of the black and grey economies. To do so will reduce asylum backlogs, benefit the Revenue and prevent abuse and exploitation. Legalising and regularising would be in line with the conclusion of the Home Affairs Committee in 2004 and of a recent report from the Public Accounts Committee. A start should be made with those who have been in the country for four or five years and who have committed no serious offences. They should be given full rights to work for two years, after which they should be eligible for full citizenship. It is idle for Her Majesty’s Government to argue that necessary and humane measures of this kind would abolish immigration control or attract swarms of boat people. The Government themselves had a family amnesty here in 2003, wisely benefiting 50,000 asylum applicants with their children. Since 1981 there have been some 20 regularising programmes throughout Europe, giving temporary or permanent permission to some 4 million irregular people. Experience in the United States is similar. The Government should not just dismiss serious arguments of this kind. They should consider what will really promote social inclusion and cohesion. I put it to your Lordships that what we need is good administration coupled with basic humanity. We can do without endless streams of new legislation, almost always unconsolidated. I trust that this bad Bill will be greatly improved before it becomes law.