My Lords, Amendment 179 stands in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and myself. In some ways, it says everything which needs to be said. That a former governor of Hong Kong and a former Lord Chancellor are two of the signatories to this amendment shows that it is not just cross-party but has support across both Houses. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has taken a personal interest in this and I really appreciate the time she took in organising a meeting and being willing to address the issues during a long discussion on the subject. I am indebted to her, and I know that she gets the message of this amendment. It stands after Clause 78 and concerns the visa eligibility of British nationals (overseas). The amendment would rationalise the UK’s policy by offering courageous young people in Hong Kong a lifeboat out of the city. I declare my interest as a patron of Hong Kong Watch and as the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong.
I warmly welcome the Government’s creation of the BNO visa, which was opened up just over a year ago, allowing those holding BNO status in Hong Kong to come to the UK to live the life of freedom that they were promised would continue after 1997. However, as the former Foreign Secretary and leader of the Conversative Party, the noble Lord, Lord Hague, noted last week in his column in the Times, the policy has immense benefits:
“Improvements to this scheme can still be made, in particular by creating equivalent rights for those born after 1997—there are many young people who want to leave Hong Kong even though their parents want to stay, and they should be welcome here.”
The Government’s commitment to the people of Hong Kong and the unanimous cross-party support that this has received shows that we are a country which does not turn its back on the persecuted. However, I have become increasingly concerned at the exclusion of young people born after 1997, who are unable to access this lifeline visa route, even though these are the very people who flooded the streets of Hong Kong and stood up for the freedoms throughout the protests in 2019. That was when I was part of the international
team which monitored the last free elections in Hong Kong; it was an extraordinary thing to see at first hand.
Research published at the end of last year showed that 93% of the defendants in protest-related prosecutions in Hong Kong were under the age of 25. In happier times, I chaired a meeting here in your Lordships’ House at which two young Hong Kongers spoke. One was Joshua Wong, one of the most heroic young defenders of Hong Kong’s freedoms and, for this, he is now incarcerated in a Hong Kong prison. In 2019, I was able to take the Westminster Award for Human Rights, Human Life, and Human Dignity to Hong Kong and present it to him. That was after he was refused permission, even then, to travel to the United Kingdom. The other person at that meeting was Nathan Law, the youngest member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, might remember that in my day I was briefly the youngest Member of the House of Commons, and I told Nathan that we babies of the House should stick together. Nathan is now in exile in the United Kingdom and last week we stood together at an open-air rally in London focusing on the destruction of Hong Kong’s freedoms and other aspects of the erosion of freedoms elsewhere in China.
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Amendment 179 is an act of solidarity with Joshua and Nathan. It would provide a way out for the people of Hong Kong who need it most. The amendment would at least make young people with a BNO-status parent eligible to apply for the visa and start rebuilding their lives in this country. A previous version of the amendment was tabled by the right honourable Damian Green in the House of Commons and received the backing on the amendment paper there of 30 senior Conservative Back-Benchers, including several former Cabinet Ministers, a former Foreign Secretary, the former leader of the Conservative Party and the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, as well as support from across the opposition Front Benches. Charles Moore—the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham—writing in the Spectator in December, was equally supportive and called it “logical and just”. He correctly highlighted that such a move would not meaningfully alter the overall number of BNOs expected to arrive, because the children of BNO status holders had already been factored into the Government’s estimates to some extent at least.
In December, the Minister raised concerns about Damian Green’s amendment, saying that it did not contain certain safeguards, such as an age limit and residency. We have listened to that, and this amendment has inserted conditions that would give access only to those born after 1997 who are
“currently resident in Hong Kong or the United Kingdom.”
Both honourable Members from the other place and we here have consistently throughout this process underlined our desire that the Government adopt the proposal themselves. I have suggested to the noble Baroness, and I know that she is sympathetic, that a simple immigration rule would be able to achieve this purpose.
I appreciate and welcome the outreach and efforts that the Government have put into finding a way forward with us. I was pleased to hear that, in response to a Question that I tabled in January, the Government recognised there is a need. They said:
“We are sympathetic to the circumstances of children born on or after 1 July 1997 with BN(O) parents and are considering what more can be done to support this cohort where they wish to build a permanent life in the UK.”
The noble Baroness and the noble Lord will realise that in this amendment, as in the amendment from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, we have put a timeline so this does not disappear into the future by too long a distance.
I am pleased that the Government have moved beyond the arguments that they made in the other place that the existing youth mobility scheme was a viable alternative for these young people. The youth mobility scheme in its current form is designed to give young people from a selection of countries an experience of life in our country for up to two years before taking that back to their own countries. It is not designed for those fleeing tyranny. The youth mobility scheme is a non-renewable visa. It does not count towards the five-year route to resettlement that those on the BNO route possess and, crucially, one must apply via a ballot from Hong Kong which typically opens in January and July each year, meaning that it is not appropriate for those needing to flee the city immediately.
With these young Hong Kongers, we need to provide a meaningful route to settlement. The BNO scheme, if it were opened up to them, would provide that but I am sure that there are a range of alternatives that the Government could explore, and I look forward to hearing what conclusions the Minister has reached on this matter.
Let me come an end. At the moment, many young Hong Kongers are left only with the option of applying for asylum. More than 200 who have unnecessarily applied for asylum have described how they left the city at very short notice and could not afford to wait until the youth mobility scheme ballot opened. One example, Steven—obviously not his real name for reasons the House will understand—is a 19 year-old who fled Hong Kong in November 2020 to claim asylum in the UK. He had a protest-related charge brought against him after his part in a protest and his subsequent arrest in 2019. He was released on bail and was awaiting a date for his court hearing when he fled to the UK—a decision he took suddenly after hearing of friends being arrested and a further charge brought against them.
Young people like Steven have been floundering in our asylum system for more than a year and have been unable therefore to work—an issue the Committee has addressed at earlier stages—living a life on the breadline and in limbo. There is no need for young, talented Hong Kong pro-democracy activists to be treated like this when they have the ready-made BNO scheme as an alternative.
As someone who once represented the great city of Liverpool, I note the debt that it owes to the Hong Kongers who have arrived there over the years, some
fleeing the Cultural Revolution and some coming from as early as the 19th century. The talents and the gifts that they bring to our country are enormous.
What we are asking for here is a small and rational compromise that would help those young people who really need it. I look forward to continuing the conversations with the Government to achieve a solution to that end. I beg to move.