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One of those documents was a letter dated 26 April 2002, which gave Mr. J exceptional leave to enter the United Kingdom until 26 April 2003. The letter stated:
"provided an applicant has permission to be in the UK when an application"
"is made, he or she is legally entitled to remain here on the same conditions previously granted until the application is decided".
Mr. K, who had photocopied a driving licence, a national insurance record and that letter, understood the letter to mean that Mr. J could remain in the UK and continue to work after 26 April 2003.
However, Mr. K did not leave the matter there. An employer with less of a conscience and less concern to protect his position would simply have signed off at that point, but from time to time Mr. K asked Mr. J how the application was going. He was assured that solicitors were dealing with it and that nothing had changed. He understood that to mean that Mr. J could continue to remain and work. However, it was as a result of making such an inquiry that Mr. J subsequently produced a further letter to Mr. K.
Mr. K believed that, having secured copies of the letters, as well as Mr. J's national insurance number card and provisional driving licence, he was acting wholly within the law. Mr. K then found out that although he can now employ Mr. J, because he has indefinite leave to remain, and was perfectly entitled to employ him when he took him on, there was a period in between in which Mr. J should not have been employed. Mr. K did not realise that.
I am perfectly happy for there to be a penalty in that case, but I am not happy that it should be £5,000, with no remission whatever for Mr. K's efforts to try to comply with the law. If we are to be bound wholly by the rulebook, with no exercise of discretion and no application of judgment by individual officials of the Border Agency, particularly at the senior level, frankly we might as well do away with human beings altogether. We might as well tap everything into the computer and come out with a mathematical computation of the penalty at the end. In fact, civil servants, whether employed directly in government or out in the agencies, are there to exercise judgment and discretion within the rules that they operate.
I now come to the second case, which inspired me to ask for this debate. The Minister will be aware from our correspondence how very angry I am about this one. It concerns a constituent who is happy to be named; she is Mrs. Carpenter. My constituent, Mr. R. Carpenter, married an Indonesian national five years ago in her own country. Three years ago, they also married here, because he was particularly keen that the marriage should be recognised in both countries. It is worth pointing out that he did that precisely because he wanted there to be no doubt that this was a subsisting, genuine marriage. He did not want to rely on something that had happened on foreign shores; he made quite certain that he was married according to British law as well. Since that time, the Carpenters have had two children. One is now four, the other is 13-weeks-old. Both those children are British. There is also a 12-year-old Indonesian stepchild.
In recent years, Mr. Carpenter has been working in Singapore and China, but, until July 2003, he was domiciled and working in this country, as he is now. He
resides in my constituency. As far as I know, there is no law on earth that states that a British citizen who has chosen to work abroad for a few years of his life is obliged to continue to do so if his circumstances change. Any such citizen is fully entitled to return to live and work in this country.
The sequence of events was that, in January this year, the Carpenter family had a major family celebration, which, naturally, they wanted Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter to attend. Obviously, Mr. Carpenter could come and go at will, but, because they had been ex-pats and Mrs. Carpenter had not yet settled here, she required a visitor's visa. She got the visa; there was no problem with that. Before they left Singapore to visit Britain, however, Mr. Carpenter lost his job. They would not, therefore, have the life that they had been enjoying to return to. He has now found a job in this country, and I stress again that we are talking here about a British citizen with British children and a lawful marriage of five years' standing.
The Carpenters then applied for Mrs. Carpenter to be allowed to stay in this country. Let me say right away that the reaction of the Border Agency should have been to say, "No. If you are applying to stay here on the basis of marriage, you must leave and apply from outside the country." I have no queries about that approach at all. That is what the agency does, and, had it done so in this case, I would have explained to Mr. Carpenter that, although it might seem harsh, that is what happens.
Indeed, I have on many occasions had to persuade constituents who were applying to stay here as spouses-sometimes with very long marriages behind them-that they would nevertheless have to leave the country in order to make the application. I once spent three years trying to persuade a lady to go back to the Cameroons. She eventually did so, and got permission to come back here to stay within a few weeks. I understand the rule that someone applying to settle permanently in this country as a spouse must leave the country in order to do so. I have operated that rule myself.
That is not what the Border Agency said to Mrs. Carpenter, however. Its letter stated:
"You have provided no evidence of strong ties in terms of private life and the Secretary of State is satisfied that it is reasonable to expect all four of you to continue your family life and private lives outside of the United Kingdom."
That is not only inhumane but outrageous. The agency says
"you have provided no evidence of strong ties",
yet she is married to a British citizen. She has been married to him for five years. She is the mother of two British children who can stay in this country, yet, according to the agency, she has no evidence of strong ties in terms of private life. And the Secretary of State believes it reasonable that "all four of you"-British citizens as well-should continue their family and private lives outside the United Kingdom. Why should they? Are we saying, "Once an ex-pat, always an ex-pat"? The man has a job in this country. I say again that if the Border Agency had merely said, "You would have a good case for staying here as a spouse, but you will have to go outside the country to establish it", I would see no problem with that. The Border Agency did not say that, however.
I am aware that Mrs. Carpenter applied to stay here on compassionate grounds, as she was about to give birth. Having given birth, the Border Agency naturally enough said that there were no more compassionate grounds. I understand that, but I will absolutely not accept-and I believe it to be highly challengeable under any human rights legislation, which the Minister knows I do not usually invoke-that any British citizen can be told that "all four of you" can
"continue your... private lives outside of the United Kingdom."
That is provocative, cruel and not even particularly lawful.
I turn to deal with the third case, the one I raised first in my introduction. It concerns Mohammad Ahmed, who arrived in the UK as a minor more than nine years ago. He claimed asylum, which was refused, and the appeal was dismissed. I view that as perfectly reasonable; I do not argue with it at all. Through various appeals, he has nevertheless managed to stay in the country and he has now been married to a British citizen for two years, living with her for five years before that. He also has a very stable relationship.
As I mentioned in respect of the earlier case, it was understood that if he were to stay here now-not on grounds of asylum, but as a spouse-he would have to leave the country in order to do so. Unfortunately, the country he had to go to was Iraq, but they both accepted that that was the right way forward. They spent a great deal of time, which I am sure the Minister will find perfectly credible, trying to get a passport from the Iraqi embassy. One can understand the situation: this man has been in the country for nine years, having first entered as a minor, and the necessary documentation was not readily available, so he had to try to get recognised as an Iraqi national in order to get his passport. Investigations had to be made, which therefore took some time.
The Border Agency recognised that these people were at last doing the right thing, so they simply imposed reporting restrictions. At first, it said Mr. Ahmed had to report weekly. As he was working, that was severely disruptive. After I made representations to the Border Agency, it was agreed that he could report monthly and as far as I know, he has faithfully reported monthly ever since. We should remember that he is trying to get a passport out of Iraq. Then, just a couple of weeks ago, he went to report and was immediately seized and taken to Colnbrook. His wife was eventually informed where he was and she began to visit him. Phoning up one morning, she was told that he was being deported that afternoon. He has since gone.
I have no doubt that, once again, that is a tick in a box. A deportation has happened; a target has been reached: this is wonderful, and doubtless the Minister will report to the House that more deportations are taking place than ever before. Anyone who looks at those circumstances can see that that was an unreasonable deportation. The man was settled; he was married; he was working. The Border Agency knew where he was, where he lived and where he worked. What it should have done is to have served him with a notice, explaining that he would have to leave the country by such and such a date. Arresting him without any prior warning-
when, as I say, the Border Agency knew where he was, where he worked and what was going on-was, in my view, heavy handed.
The fact that I encountered three cases like that in as many weeks suggests to me that the Border Agency is having a drive, and that what it is driving at is not the difficult targets-the ones that the public really resent-but the easy ones: the people who have done their best to obey the law but find, like my Mr. K, that they are on completely the wrong side of it, despite being thoroughly convinced that they have done everything that was expected of them.
I should be grateful to hear the Minister's comments on those specific cases. I should also be grateful to hear his comments on what I now consider to be a campaign against soft targets.
4.50 pm
Mr. Greg Hands (Hammersmith and Fulham) (Con) rose-
Mr. Speaker: Order. I was about to call the Minister.
Mr. Hands: I was trying to make a speech.
Mr. Speaker: I call Mr. Hands.
Mr. Hands: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for the confusion. I was under the impression that as we can finish at any time before 6 pm, other Members were allowed to take part in the debate. I do, however, apologise-especially to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe)-for not giving notice that I intended to speak. I shall not speak for very long-
Mr. Speaker: Order. Let me say to the hon. Gentleman-and for the benefit of others attending our proceedings-that in so far as there was any slight confusion, that is the explanation of it. It is commonplace in these circumstances for the approval of the Member who has secured the debate, and that of the Minister as well as that of the Chair, to be sought. There is time available, and I am certainly not insisting on it, but that is the reason for the confusion.
The hon. Gentleman may now have the Floor.
Mr. Hands: Thank you for that guidance, Mr. Speaker.
I shall not speak for very long. As I have said, I did not intend to speak at all, but I happen to have become very interested in the actions and activities of the UK Border Agency over a considerable period.
A couple of years ago, the Home Office produced a league table-which was remarkable, given that it is generally not very good at producing proper statistics about anything, particularly immigration-listing the Members of Parliament who had received the most immigration inquiries. I was ranked No. 1 among Conservative MPs, which did not surprise me a great deal, as at any one time there are between 700 and 800 immigration cases on my book.
Speaking as a constituency Member, I share all the concerns raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald. I do not have details of many specific cases with me, so I shall refer to only two.
About 18 months ago I visited UKBA's offices at Lunar house in Croydon, which were, I believe, in their current configuration. I think that the staff were a bit surprised to find that a Member of Parliament wanted to go to see them. I too was surprised, and disturbed, by what I found. First, I found a young and dedicated team of staff who impressed me a great deal. I thought that they were probably quite poorly managed, and they were certainly struggling under the work load. Their work had been computerised, and they could take me to their computers and show me the latest computerised file on one of my constituents. At the same time, however, they were unable to do anything without resorting to the voluminous physical file that was retained in another room. The other room, at the back of Lunar house-it was like a conference room-was packed with physical files, which were enormous and held together with string and rubber bands. The superficial impressiveness of the computer system was unfortunately rather undone by that.
My right hon. Friend spoke of pursuing those who had complied. I have come across such cases on a number of occasions during the four and a half years in which I have been a Member of Parliament. Let me cite one which, although it dates from a while ago, illustrates the phenomenon well.
The events that I am about to describe took place in the summer of 2006, six months before Bulgaria and Romania became full members of the European Union. Although I concede that there are restrictions on citizens of those countries in terms of where they can work and the requirement for them to have work permits, their entitlement to be here was not in doubt after 1 January 2007.
My constituent worked at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a development bank dedicated to improving the lives of those in central and eastern Europe, and indeed in the former Soviet Union. She was the case officer for Bulgaria. It is probably a good idea for such a person to be a Bulgarian national, as there are unlikely to be enough United Kingdom subjects with a sufficient level of competence or expertise. It seems entirely reasonable that she was in this country working for the EBRD. She had clearly complied, almost precisely to the letter, with everything she had been asked to do. However, she was asked to produce within two weeks an astonishing 30 or 32 documents including fairly obvious things such as her birth certificate and payslips, but also her school reports from Bulgaria. It was entirely unrealistic to expect the production of such documentation from someone who, it seems to me, was perfectly justified in being in this country.
I contrast that with other cases where clearly the person should not be in this country. I have raised a particular case at Prime Minister's questions. I was astonished to receive a pro forma letter on an immigration case, addressed to me as an MP. The letter stated that, unfortunately, the agency had been unable to determine the case because the person concerned was a member of or was aligned with the beliefs of the al- Qaeda organisation. That was in an immigration letter sent to me as the constituency Member of Parliament.
The letter went on to apologise not only to me but to the person concerned and his family for any distress and inconvenience caused by taking so long to consider his case. The case is complicated, but this did not seem to
me to be someone to whom we should be apologising. I contrast that with the treatment of some of our constituents whom I think have been treated badly.
Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab): I apologise for missing the start of the debate, which started a bit sooner than I expected. Has the hon. Gentleman seen the letter that Lynne Homer sent to me yesterday in which she said that the UK Border Agency has now discovered 40,000 files it did not think it had seen before? That is 40,000 people whom the agency does not know are still in the country or not. Is that not indicative of the shambles that grips the UK Border Agency at Lunar house?
Mr. Hands: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am not surprised, having been to the UKBA offices, which I described about five minutes ago, and having seen for myself the chaos, despite the dedication and rather good quality of some of the staff involved.
I did not mean to speak for long and I just wanted to back up what my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald said. The other thing I learned at UKBA is that it is under instructions to resolve the cases that are easiest to resolve first. This is where my right hon. Friend's point about resolving the cases of the weakest in society kicks in: these are the cases that are easy to get out of the way quickly in a furious effort to try to reduce the backlog, presumably to meet some central Government-imposed target.
Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab): If only that were so. Some of the easiest cases to resolve are those where a person has become a mum or dad, where there are British children or where there is a relationship with a spouse or parent who is demonstrably British. Those cases are no-brainers. These people cannot and will not be returned to any other country and yet they are told that these cases will not be resolved until 2011. It is heartbreaking and ludicrous. Obviously these people cannot earn money and their documents are tied up. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says and I congratulate him on his speech, which I support, but if these are the easy things to be done, presumably we are talking about 2014 and 2015 for the other cases.
Mr. Hands: I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention with which I concur.
I will end there, Mr. Speaker. As a constituency MP, I am extremely worried about what is going on at UKBA. It cannot do any good to have this number of unresolved cases. As I have said, I have between 700 and 800 unresolved immigration cases at any one time, and I suspect that I am by no means in the premier league of MPs in that regard. This does nobody any favours: it does this country no favours, it does hon. Members no favours, and it certainly does those applying to be in this country no favours either.
5 pm
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