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Lord Hylton: My Lords, the Minister is no doubt trying to be helpful, but will he explain why it is that if a family whose application has failed is not willing to return voluntarily, the Government do not remove that family? Instead, they seem to prefer to leave such families here to starve and possibly to suffer separation.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I shall come to that question as I go through my notes. Without pussy-footing around, I want to make absolutely clear the status of the families that we are talking about. We know that forcibly removing families with children is extremely distressing. However, the question we must answer is whether, if nothing is done, the family should be entitled to indefinite support from the taxpayer regardless of its behaviour. That is the implication.
We must face up to the reality of those families' position in the country. They are in the country illegally and will not be given permission to stay. Whatever hints may be given, that is the position. They are here illegally and will not be given permission to stay because they have gone through the appeal process. It is not in the children's best interests to remain for long periods in a country where they have no prospect of being allowed to stay permanently. It is quite wrong for the children to be used as a shield for a family that is behaving irresponsibly in taking no steps to leave or that has no reasonable grounds—that is, the caveats in the legislation—for not taking any steps.
It may be that we do not agree that families should be encouraged to leave voluntarily, but I hope that we would all agree that in those circumstances, with no prospect of a permanent stay and all appeal rights
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exhausted, that the families should be encouraged to leave the country voluntarily. If they are not, people are selling them a false prospectus. The detailed process, which includes the opportunity for interview and warning letters, makes it clear that that is what we want to achieve—that is, a voluntary leaving of the country—but we do not accept that it is enough simply to leave it at that.
I do not need to emphasise again that we cannot physically remove a family without the appropriate travel documentation, which is why the clause is so important. If we are dealing with families which do not have the appropriate travel documentation and which want to remain here, the obvious question the family will ask is: "Why should we co-operate with removal, because if we don't, we can't be removed and we will be able to stay here, receiving cash and accommodation, indefinitely?" That is bound to be a question at the back of someone's mind. If it was not in the mind of the families, it would be in the mind of their advisers.
Therefore, at some point, we have to draw a line and say, "The process is finished. Some action needs to be taken". People have to understand that they cannot just ignore our immigration and asylum laws—that is what is happening in these circumstances—and simply expect the British public to pay for them regardless. That is what has been happening and that is what we want to avoid.
Unless we address these issues, they undermine our efforts to develop better integration packages, which the Government, refugee organisations and other political parties have to sell. They undermine our ability to say why we have a humane immigration policy and why our door is open to genuine refugees. It is much more difficult to do that if the public see another door open at the side where the rules are not followed. That is the consequence of doing nothing. If we do not address these issues, they will undermine our policies for managed migration and undermine taxpayers' acceptance that we need to help many thousands of people, which we do gladly. However, we are not prepared to see the perception of the system undermined by people who simply flout the rules in a systematic fashion.
The House is fully aware that we do not want to make families destitute—far from it—and we do not want children to be taken into care by local authorities. We will not certify under Clause 9 where the family is co-operating. Where it is co-operating or where it has reasonable grounds not to co-operate and take steps to move, we will not certify. We want people to return home when they have no basis of stay in the United Kingdom and when their legal position is such that they have no prospect of permanently remaining here. However, that will not work unless there is an end point. Amendment No. 7 would remove that possibility and that is why we cannot accept it. As I said, there will be fundamental differences of opinion in this respect. On the issue of consultation, I should say that I am unfamiliar with the date the noble Earl referred to. There is no agreed date for implementation of this provision, whatever he may have heard. I am not in a position to elaborate on that.
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We are willing to listen to the views of organisations and happy to consider comments. If anybody wants to talk to us, we will listen to them. We have met organisations. We meet the Local Government Association on a regular ongoing basis. I suspect my department has contact with the association every day and will continue to do so. I agree that my explanation will not satisfy people with a point of principle, but I hope that I have spelled it out in not unsympathetic terms. If you are over sympathetic, you send the wrong signals. We are dealing with people who are being unreasonable—because if they are reasonable no action will be taken. They have failed, they have no prospect of permanent stay in this country whatever. We do not want to make them destitute. It is not a policy objective to separate families from their children.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I am extremely grateful for the thoroughness, energy and care with which he has answered our questions. But I would like to register that, without nitpicking, I respect that he has points of principle and those of us who may not agree with him have points of principle that are actually backed up by experience of the real world.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I freely admit that. I have put on the record that when I walked into the Home Office in 2001 I said, "By the way, I am poacher turned gamekeeper. I have used every trick in the book to exploit the rules and your inefficiency"—which is what it was. There were rooms full of hundreds of unopened mailbags; the system was in total chaos. In the end, it did not help my constituents because they were always in doubt, never having a decision, never knowing whether they could put their roots down and so on. So I fully accept that comment. I am not saying that my experience or my principles are any greater than anybody else's—far from it. If I even hinted at that, I certainly did not intend to do so.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I am most grateful to the right reverend Prelate and to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, whose knowledge of children's affairs is completely unrivalled in this House. They both speak with the backing of organisations such as the Refugee Children's Consortium. The Minister has correctly said that this is a matter of principle, on which it would be impossible across the Floor of the House today to reach agreement. We would have liked to test the opinion of the House, if we had heard anything at all from the Conservative Benches this afternoon. But, realising that they are unlikely—
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, it is normally not proper to intervene at Third Reading, but the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has called into question the absence of comment from these Benches. I have adopted the proper course at Third Reading, which is to say nothing because I could add nothing to
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four speeches I made on this issue. I feel it would be inappropriate to the House to extend the debate any longer.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, the noble Baroness has not rendered the House any wiser about whether she would have supported us if we had pressed this to a Division. We would only have done that if there had been some chance of defeating the Government on the principle of this clause. Despite the fact that the Minister may say he has not considered this matter solely over the weekend but has been at it for months and months, he has still not explained to us how this clause will be implemented.
He keeps on saying that we are talking about people who have failed all the way through the system. He may be right about the parents, but he is not right about the children. It is not their fault that the parents have not had an adequate claim to asylum. It is not their fault that the parents have been—as he would put it—irresponsible enough to fail to comply with the arrangements for their voluntary departure—but it is difficult to make my speech when there is another one going on just under my nose. It is not the children's fault that the parents have put them in this position. We are concerned not with the irresponsible parents, but with what happens at the end of the day when the parents have refused to comply with all the injunctions to leave the country voluntarily and to pay attention to the notices which the Minister said will be served upon them, explaining the consequences of their failure.
I want to know whether the Minister will ultimately take the children into his care. What will the instructions be? We have not seen the guidance, but if he has been at it for all these months then why could we not have seen a draft? Why does not the veil which he lifted to a very slight extent today reveal the substance of the matter? He said only that the detailed guidance would contain instructions on whether the families have taken steps to comply with the need to examine relevant information, but not what happens to the children when that process has reached an end.
The Minister has not said today how many meetings have been held with the LGA. It is no good telling us that he meets them almost every day. What we want to know is how many discussions have been held on this specific issue, and whether the LGA is satisfied with the instructions it will be given on how to comply with the ECHR, the Children Act and so forth while at the same time support is removed from these families. He has not given a clear process for how potential breaches of Articles 3 and 8 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child will be assessed. He has not told us what involvement there will be from independent experts in assessing the facilities available to the children in the final circumstances, nor about arrangements for the care and welfare of the children to be made prior to the withdrawal of support.
We are extremely disappointed in the attitude of the Government and their failure in the person of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, to answer many of the questions which remain in the minds of the Refugee
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Children's Consortium. But in view of the fact that we would not win a Division, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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