My Lords, as my name is to Amendment 234, I will give my story of doctors—I am thinking of the example of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy—who left the country because of our family visa restrictions. I did some work on family visas in 2013, a year after the current rules were introduced. I felt as if I had almost physically been hit between the eyes when I realised that these rules were applying in situations which noble Lords have described. It is possible for the Government to grant visas on the basis of exceptional, compelling or compassionate circumstances outside the rules. The Minister will recall his Written Answer to my Question that disclosed that the number of applications granted outside the rules was 77 in 2011 and by 2014 had declined to 12.
The basis of these amendments, and the fact that we do not believe that this would be a pull factor, has already been covered. I shall try not to repeat too much of what has been said. I am very aware that it is not sensible to seek to make too many arrangements on the basis of anecdotes and very individual circumstances—hard cases, bad law, and all that. But there are so many stories. The Guardian published an article about two British citizens who had been granted refugee status and then become citizens, but could not bring their family members to the UK because of the income threshold that is part of the family visa rules. They are actually living with their wives and children in a camp in Dunkirk. Those who have seen the conditions in that camp will be appalled that that has come about.
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The children at the heart of much of what is being discussed, although not everything, are not being given discretionary leave because they are unaccompanied; they are being recognised as refugees. We talked a little about adult dependent relatives, for whom we clearly believe that the rules should be reviewed and revised in the light of the current situation.
Legal aid is referred to in Amendment 234. The Government said in their response to the consultation on legal aid:
“Applications to join family members are treated as immigration cases, and are generally straightforward because they follow a grant of asylum”.
But the family members we are talking about are outside the UK. They cannot claim asylum—indeed, it would be unlawful to help them to do so. A noble
Baroness referred to the Lawyers Refugee Initiative. It is worth emphasising the terminology that describes what they seek: a safe, legal route into the UK. Safety and legality are important.
Again breaking my own injunction, I will quote from a letter sent to me from a woman of Syrian origin who moved to the UK with her British husband and young son in 2002. She became a British citizen in 2010 and has not seen her family in Syria since 2011. I will leave it to noble Lords to imagine the description of their circumstances, loss of health, deaths, malnutrition and so on described in the next two paragraphs. She says that she is desperate to get her elderly parents here:
“My husband and I own a house with spare rooms. We both work and have good jobs, more than enough to support them. It is ironic that it is much more expensive for us to look after my parents if they remain in Syria, where extortion is a daily occurrence, or in Turkey, where accommodation is in short supply … And how would I care for them from here? … But there seems to be nothing I can do … I am not a refugee myself, I cannot exercise my EU rights to family life, I can’t apply under the adult dependant route”,
because of the current rules, which she says,
“make this route merely theoretical”—
I agree—
“but I am a proud citizen of this country, hardworking and paying my taxes. Is it too much to ask for me to be allowed to bring my family here to safety, where I can look after them?”.