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House of Lords

Wednesday 9 March 2016

3 pm

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Durham.

Retirement of a Member: Lord Vincent of Coleshill

Announcement

3.06 pm

The Lord Speaker (Baroness D'Souza): My Lords, I should like to notify the House of the retirement, with effect from today, of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Vincent of Coleshill, pursuant to Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. On behalf of the House, I should like to thank the noble and gallant Lord for his much-valued service to the House.

Health: Ebola

Question

3.06 pm

Asked by Lord Chidgey

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the principal lessons that can be learned from communities affected by the Ebola epidemic in preparedness for future health crises.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Verma) (Con): My Lords, the UK’s £427 million response was fundamental to combating Ebola and saving countless lives. We are committed to learning lessons and responding effectively to future crises, and made a critical contribution to better understanding community engagement. Many UK nationals worked bravely alongside Sierra Leonean communities and health workers, and I pay tribute to their phenomenal work. Part of our £240 million economic recovery programme will help strengthen local health systems, and help communities to hold government to account.

Lord Chidgey (LD): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply and for her consideration of the report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Africa on lessons to be learned from the Ebola crisis, which will be launched publicly later today. Can she confirm that the Government accept the key finding of this far-reaching study: that, in order to ensure preparedness for future health crises in Africa, health systems should be developed horizontally, local leadership prioritised and investment concentrated at community level? Will the Government regularly monitor DfID’s health development programmes to ensure that they recognise and respond to these findings?

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Baroness Verma: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and the APPG for the useful and timely report, which draws attention to the importance of communities’ role in ownership and in delivering in crises. We agree that engaging with communities in the delivery of public health systems is essential. To provide stronger, people-centred health services that reflect their needs, we are looking at lessons learned from the crisis, and very much looking at the recommendations of the noble Lord’s report.

Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD): My Lords, will the Government acknowledge that, prior to the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone, they were planning to cut support for health systems in that country? As the Minister said, they subsequently spent nearly £500 million tackling the crisis. Does she accept that if we are to have health systems fit for the future, we must maintain long-term commitments? Can we be satisfied that the Government have reviewed their policy, given the cutbacks that have been applied in sub-Saharan Africa in order to support the Syrian refugee crisis?

Baroness Verma: My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, we are currently undergoing bilateral and multilateral reviews. We will learn from that process where our future funding will go. To take the noble Lord’s point about concentrating on fragile countries, a number of the countries to which the noble Lord referred will be among the 50% that we are targeting in our support for conflict-ridden and fragile states.

Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB): My Lords, could the Minister encourage the Governments of the countries involved with the Ebola virus to teach their populations not to eat bush meat, which can carry the virus?

Baroness Verma: My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an important point about causes, but these are lessons that we will learn as we review all the work that we ourselves, other agencies and the Sierra Leone Government have done. We are also undertaking a lot of research in this area, so I thank the noble Baroness for her question.

Baroness Hayman (CB): My Lords, I saw for myself at the height of the Ebola crisis last year and again on the return to visit the Parliament in Sierra Leone last month the value that communities there put on the work of the Minister’s department, the Foreign Office, NHS volunteers and international development agencies. One thing that they did not value was the suspension of direct flights to west Africa. Could the Minister look very carefully at that decision and not have a knee-jerk reaction in future? It did not stop people travelling from west Africa—it just made life a lot more difficult for volunteers and those going out and actually impeded public health screening, because people came back through a variety of routes rather than direct routes.

Baroness Verma: The noble Baroness is of course aware that as a Government we have to put the safety of the British people first.

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Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab): My Lords, is the Minister aware of the criticism that has been made by Save the Children of the UK’s NHS employment of 27 Sierra Leonean doctors and 103 nurses, which amounts to a subsidy to the UK of £22 million? Will the Government review the practice of using migrant nurses in the NHS?

Baroness Verma: As the noble Baroness will of course be aware, it is important that during the crisis we draw on the expertise of all volunteers and experts. We were very fortunate to have volunteers from the UK go out, but we also very much drew on local communities and are now building up their local capacities.

Viscount Ridley (Con): My Lords, does my noble friend agree that something that we can do from this country is harness the extraordinary strength of our scientific base, particularly with respect to tropical diseases—in particular, insect-borne diseases such as malaria and Zika, which also threaten people’s livelihoods?

Baroness Verma: I absolutely agree with my noble friend. As I said earlier, we are working with other partners in looking at research and the Government are investing a lot more in research to be able to tackle these tropical diseases.

Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab): My Lords, just to pick up on the point made by my noble friend, one problem is that there is no postgraduate training for those who want to specialise in the healthcare system in Sierra Leone to build a sustainable and resilient system. I have asked this question before, but the Minister did not respond directly to it. What steps are the Government taking, and DfID in particular, to support the royal colleges in ensuring that there is in-country professional development for healthcare workers?

Baroness Verma: My Lords, I am sorry if the noble Lord thinks that I did not respond, so I shall try again this time. We are supporting the strengthening of healthcare systems in Sierra Leone and other places. In Sierra Leone in particular we are investing £37 million to strengthen President Koroma’s recovery plan, which will help build up the strength and capacity of local health workers—and, of course, will look at patient safety.

The Countess of Mar (CB): My Lords, I understand that it is possible that Ebola will become endemic in some of the populations that have been affected in the recent crisis. Can the Minister tell us what assistance is being given to these countries to monitor their people and make sure that we do not have such a huge epidemic as we had before?

Baroness Verma: My Lords, I am pleased to say that so far we are now looking towards 16 March as being the zero-plus-42 days since the last outbreak of Ebola, but we continue to monitor. Sierra Leone has active surveillance activities. Throughout the communities,

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health workers, health facilities and community surveillance programmes are continuing, even though we are coming to a zero point.

Schools: Admissions Code

Question

3.15 pm

Asked by Lord Watson of Invergowrie

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why they are proposing to prevent some parents and organisations from objecting to violations of the School Admissions Code.

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con): My Lords, we want the schools adjudicator to focus on concerns that parents might have about the admission arrangements of their local school. We also want to free schools from bureaucracy so that they can focus on delivering excellent education. We propose that only local parents and local authorities be able to refer objections about a school’s admissions arrangements. That change will be subject to full public consultation and parliamentary approval.

Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab): I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. Given that the schools adjudicator’s most recent report highlighted that violations of the school admissions code were widespread, noble Lords may not regard it as a coincidence that there is currently no body charged with enforcing and monitoring that code. Does the noble Baroness agree that the establishment of an independent body with responsibility for enforcement of the code is overdue? If that were done, there might be less concern about the banning of organisations that can raise questions.

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: We want to put parental concerns at the heart of the system, which is why we want the adjudicator to focus on those concerns. It is not great for parents that it now takes 49 days for them to hear the result of their objection; that has risen from 26 days. We want the schools adjudicator—she herself has suggested it—to limit those who can make an objection, to put parents at the centre.

Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con): My Lords, will the Government consider advising Front-Benchers that Question Time is for Back-Benchers, not Front-Benchers?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: I will refer that to the Leader of the House.

Baroness Pinnock (LD): My Lords, I thank the Minister for saying in response to the earlier question that parents will be at the heart of school admissions policy because, in her latest report, the Chief Schools Adjudicator states that:

“Admission arrangements for too many schools that are their own admission authority”—

that is, academies—

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“are unnecessarily complex. The arrangements appear to be more likely to enable the school to choose which children to admit”.

What action is the Minister proposing to ensure fair access for all children?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: The schools admission system is working well. Last year, the adjudicator received 218 objections, but they related to just 1.1% of schools. Of course it is right that parents can raise their objections when they need to, which is why we also propose to give them a greater voice by requiring admissions authorities to consult on their arrangements every four years rather than every seven years as currently.

Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con): My Lords—

Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab): My Lords, I understand that there is to be a consultation on a package of changes to the schools admissions code and that there will be measures on fairness and transparency. Will the Minister define what the Government actually mean about fairness and transparency?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: Schools obviously have to publish their admissions codes. It is most important that parents understand what they are and what they mean so that, if they want to send their child to a school, they understand the criteria on which it will judge. We want to put parents at the heart of this, which is why we propose to make sure that their concerns are raised by the adjudicator and can be looked at in a timely fashion. We also want to make sure that schools explain their admissions policies clearly so that parents can try to get their children to the schools they want.

Lord O'Shaughnessy: My Lords—

Baroness Meacher (CB): My Lords, we now have reliable information that virtually all religiously selective schools breach the schools admissions code, some in a very serious way. Does the Minister agree that serious breaches of the code are thoroughly unacceptable? Will Ministers agree to meet the British Humanist Association and the Fair Admissions Campaign to discuss the importance of having some informed organisation, whatever that might be, to make sure that the authorities are aware when breaches occur?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: It is certainly true that, if any school is breaching the admissions code, that cannot be acceptable. The noble Baroness refers to faith schools in particular, but actually a lot of the issues raised in the report An Unholy Mess, which I think she is referring to, were related not to faith but to other issues such as banding, sixth-form admissions arrangements and the use of incorrect definitions. Still, schools of course have to get their admissions codes right, which is why we want to put parents’ concerns at the heart of the process and ensure that admissions codes are clear for all parents.

Lord O'Shaughnessy: My Lords—

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The Lord Bishop of Durham: My Lords, we know that some campaign groups are actually targeting faith-based schools as part of a broader agenda. How many of the upheld objections were unrelated to religious selection criteria, and how many were upheld on minor administrative infringements? Are the significant time and resources used to respond to such objections justified in the light of those numbers?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: As I said in my previous answer, many of the faults that were found related not to faith but to other issues. Church and faith schools make a significant contribution to our education system: 87% of faith schools are good or outstanding, compared with 82% of non-faith schools. Of course schools have to abide by the correct codes, but it is important to recognise the value that these schools add to our education system.

Lord O'Shaughnessy: My Lords—

Baroness Whitaker (Lab): My Lords, the Fair Admissions Campaign—

Noble Lords: O’Shaughnessy!

Lord O'Shaughnessy: Your Lordships are very generous to a newcomer; thank you. As we have heard, church schools have been the subject of many vexatious attempts to take them to the admissions adjudicator. I ask the Minister to condemn those who abuse the school admissions code to make political and ideological points. I declare an interest as a parent with a son at a Catholic school. I also invite the Minister to pay tribute to the many excellent church schools, which not only are more ethnically diverse than average schools but are more likely to have a good or outstanding judgment from Ofsted.

Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, following the noble Lord—

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: The noble Baroness can answer the question for me if she likes. As I said, we want to ensure that parents are at the heart of this process, which is why we want to ensure that adjudications are not held up by the need to consider large numbers of objections referred by interest groups. Unfortunately, because of some campaigns, parents now have to wait longer for the outcome of their appeals, and that cannot be right.

Adult Education: Part-time Attendance

Question

3.22 pm

Asked by Baroness Burt of Solihull

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of adults attending part-time higher or further education classes while maintaining a career.

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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con): The department does not record the employment status of those in part-time, further and higher education. However, this Government are committed to providing learning opportunities to those of all ages and circumstances. Advanced learner loans are now available for adults who wish to retrain and study for a new career. We have been taking steps to address the decline in part-time higher education by introducing a new maintenance package. Apprenticeships allow individuals to train while progressing their careers, and we are aiming for 3 million more apprenticeship starts by 2020.

Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD): I am grateful for that Answer, although I think it would be appropriate for the Government to count the number of part-time students. Many noble Lords in this Chamber will remember the days when night school was a major instrument of social mobility, yet today night school has almost disappeared and the number of adults on part-time courses has plummeted. What can the Government do to increase the availability of part-time HE and FE courses, including night school, and to encourage people in work to better themselves in this old-fashioned but tried and trusted way?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: This Government are taking a number of steps to help to encourage part-time learning. For instance, we will be introducing maintenance loans for part-time students for the first time, and we have expanded second degree student support funding for those who want to study a STEM subject. We have also expanded the advanced learner loan system, so from 2016-17 learners aged 19 and over studying at levels 3 to 6 will be able to access that support. We are doing what we can to provide people who want to study part-time with the support to do so.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab): I thought that there could not be a worse Government than this Tory one for butchering further education until I looked at Scotland, where there are now 150,000 fewer places in FE than there were when the SNP took over. Are the Tories and the SNP in some kind of Dutch auction to see who can reduce further education places to their lowest number?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: I am very pleased to reassure the noble Lord that in fact, under this Government in the last spending review, we have protected FE budgets at £1.5 billion over the course of the Parliament. Therefore I am sure that the noble Lord will recognise how much the Government are doing to support FE and will want to congratulate us on doing so.

Lord Lucas (Con): My Lords, does my noble friend recall that the committee on the digital economy of this House recommended shorter courses, of five weeks or so, and bang-up-to-date courses so that people being encouraged to do part-time courses would be given something that employers value?

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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: I congratulate the noble Lord and the committee on their report. As I said, we want to encourage people to undertake part-time study if that is what they want to do, and of course we are working with employers and colleges to try to ensure that we have a flexible system that everyone can take advantage of.

Lord Sutherland of Houndwood (CB): My Lords, two of the main providers of higher education for part-time students are the Open University and Birkbeck College, both of which do exceptionally well. Have the Government carried out any consultation with them about the impact of the new fees regime on applications for such courses?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: I also congratulate those two organisations on their work—in fact, I met both of them recently. The Government are certainly listening to their concerns. Part of the reason we are consulting on the introduction of maintenance loans is because we want to make sure that we get the details right and ensure that those who want to take advantage of this support can do so.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab): With respect, can the noble Baroness answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, about the Government’s views on night schools and night classes? Do they support them and, if so, will they encourage them?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: We want people to be able to access higher and further education in whatever way they think is best; night schools are one way to do that. Therefore, in order to provide flexibility for people who want to do further studies, there should be a whole range of provision so that people from all backgrounds and ages can access the support that suits them best.

Baroness Rebuck (Lab): My Lords—

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD): My Lords—

Baroness Sharples (Con): My Lords—

The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con): My Lords, it is the turn of my noble friend Lady Sharples, then I am sure we will go next to the Labour Benches.

Baroness Sharples: Can my noble friend say how many adults learn English on these courses?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: I am afraid that I do not have those specific numbers to hand but I will be happy to try to find them and get back to my noble friend in writing.

Baroness Rebuck: Will the Minister comment on the Skills Funding Agency report, which found that there are now 1.3 million fewer adults in further education compared to 2010?

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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: We are encouraging a whole range of ways in which people can access further education. For instance, increasing numbers of people take higher and degree apprenticeships—that is in fact one of the fastest growing elements of the programme—so we are offering a whole array of ways in which people can retrain and study further.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: Is the Minister aware that one of the main factors that inhibit those applying for part-time retraining in different areas is what is called the ELQ rule—in other words, where they already have a qualification they cannot take another one at the same level? Does the Minister have any proposals for easing that? It has already been done for the STEM subjects but it would be a good idea to ease it up for other areas so that people can retrain, even if at the same level.

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: I am happy to say that we have expanded the number of courses where you can get second degree student support so that now people wanting to take subjects allied to medicine, biological and veterinary sciences, agriculture and related sciences, and physical and mathematical sciences can access that support.

Lord Rooker (Lab): With respect to further education —I declare an interest as someone who did three nights a week on day release at one point—would it not be a good idea that, instead of stuffing this place with chancellors of universities of higher education, we put some people with direct knowledge of further education in here?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: I am afraid to tell the noble Lord that basically, there is nothing that I can do about it but I have sympathy.

Turkey: Zaman Newspaper

Question

3.29 pm

Asked by Lord Sharkey

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the Government of Turkey about the seizure of the Zaman newspaper.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con): My Lords, we regularly underline the importance of freedom of expression and all fundamental freedoms as part of our dialogue with the Turkish Government. On Monday, the Prime Minister raised concerns about press freedoms with Turkey’s Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, underlining the importance of protections for a free press and human rights in Turkey. As a friend and ally, we urge the Turkish Government to uphold the right of media to operate without restriction.

Lord Sharkey (LD): I have been a committed friend of Turkey for 40 years or so, but I now see a country where journalists are imprisoned, the media are persecuted,

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the Constitutional Court’s rulings are openly criticised by the President, and the main opposition newspaper is seized. Dissent and disagreement are seen as crimes, human rights violations are widespread, and it all seems to be getting worse. Does the Minister think that Turkey can be trusted to respect the human rights of all the refugees, including Kurds, who are to be returned to its care under the EU plan?

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I stress that the EU plan has not yet been finalised. It was raised in the margins of the summit and indeed after the summit had formally concluded. President Tusk will, within 10 days, be concluding what the agreement looks like. However, the noble Lord makes a very valid point, whatever agreement may or may not be reached. The answer to it is that Turkey has already shown extraordinary generosity in hosting 2.6 million refugees from Syria and another 600,000 from other countries. It has already shown that it can be trusted to deliver a change of legislation whereby those refugees are able to work in Turkey, and during the next school year every Syrian child will be able to get access to education. We will hold it to any agreements.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con): My Lords—

Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab): My Lords—

The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con): My Lords, I am sure that two distinguished Members of this House can, between them, decide whom to give way to.

Lord Morris of Aberavon: My Lords, has any estimate been made, to the nearest million, of the number of Turks who might be eligible to enter the European Union—and, ultimately, the United Kingdom—without visas?

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord refers to one of the issues that was under discussion after the summit had concluded its official session on Monday. The question of whether visa restrictions will be lifted within the Schengen area is now being considered and a proposal will be brought forward at the next European Council meeting, which I believe will be on 16 or 17 March. I repeat that that is for the Schengen area only and not for here, and therefore I suggest that it is a little premature to try to estimate how many Turks will avail themselves of it.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, will my noble friend, through the Prime Minister, tell the German Chancellor and others that it is completely unacceptable and utterly bonkers to think that it is appropriate to export back to Turkey migrants who have come to Europe in return for Turkey being able to send people to this country?

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, the proposal itself is welcome in that, in outline as it stands, it would break the business model enjoyed by the most

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evil people that I can think of beyond Daesh—the human traffickers who make people’s lives a misery by promising a life in Europe as the automatic result of getting on a leaky boat in the Mediterranean and risking their life, along with the lives of their children. I absolutely understand my noble friend’s point and I assure him that the Prime Minister will bear in mind the concerns that underlie his question.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB): My Lords, does not the Minister agree that the best way of bringing effective and continuing pressure on the Turkish Government over matters of press freedom and human rights is to open some new chapters in their accession negotiations, which would provide real leverage on Turkey? The failure to do so has meant that the EU’s leverage has been very weak in recent years.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The noble Lord makes a very strong point. The 35 chapters of the accession negotiations were opened in 2005, and progress through them has indeed been taking some time. It is a matter of further discussion whether and how further chapters might be opened. Clearly, requests are being made by Turkey, but the noble Lord’s point is right: it provides leverage.

Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD): My Lords, in the light of the opening of these chapters and the negotiations that will flow from that, will the issues of press freedom, freedom of speech and human rights be part of those discussions? Turkey is in a very difficult and volatile situation, given the war and all those refugees on its doorstep. I ask for an assurance that that is not lost in the European Union’s keenness to keep all the refugees in Turkey.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I can give that assurance. The Prime Minister made that point very clearly during the summit itself and ensured that language on that was included in the summit’s published conclusions.

Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab): My Lords—

Lord Marlesford (Con): My Lords—

Baroness Stowell of Beeston: My Lords, I am very sorry that the House requires me to take up valuable time to adjudicate. It is the turn of the Labour Benches and, therefore, of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords, is it an unspoken, unwritten part of the deal under discussion that we moderate our criticism of the authoritarian tendencies of the current Turkish Government?

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: No, my Lords. Human rights underpin all the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as I made clear when I appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee of another place recently. We will never hold back from speaking out or

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from holding people to account on the important issues of the Copenhagen agreement, whereby democracy and the rule of law underpin everything.

Electricity Supplier Payments (Amendment) Regulations 2016

Motion to Approve

3.36 pm

Moved by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

That the draft regulations laid before the House on 25 January be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 2 March.

Motion agreed.

Immigration Bill

Report (1st Day)

3.37 pm

Clause 1: Director of Labour Market Enforcement

The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con): My Lords, as this is the first day of Report, I will put some general comments on the record. I thank all noble Lords for their engagement with officials over the period between Committee and Report. We have had eight all-interested Peers meetings, numerous bilateral meetings and significant engagements. We even had some external visits. As a result of all that, I have written a number of letters, including to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and to others, that even St Paul would be proud of. As a result of listening to the points and concerns that were raised by noble Lords from all sides of the House in Committee, as well as before then, we have a number of new proposals that I believe will go a long way to addressing those. In fact, ahead of Report, we tabled more than 100 government amendments to the Bill and tried to expand on, through a number of letters, the implications of what is being proposed.

I wanted to preface my remarks on this group of amendments by putting on record my thanks to all noble Lords for their engagement with the process. We hope that we have made progress which proves acceptable to your Lordships.

I want to draw your Lordships’ attention to two key issues in the Government’s amendments in this group: first, the Director of Labour Market Enforcement’s intelligence hub and, secondly, changes in light of recommendations from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

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Clause 6 requires the director to gather, store, process, analyse and disseminate information relating to non-compliance in the labour market. This enables the director to produce an evidence-based annual strategy. Our amendments will enable this through operating an effective intelligence hub.

The enforcement bodies covered by the strategy are the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, HMRC’s national minimum wage team and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority. They will supply the majority of information and intelligence for the director’s work. Amendment 2 requires the director to include information-sharing matters in the annual strategy; for example, frequency of provision of information. Amendment 10 allows the director to request information from those bodies, and vice versa, throughout the year. Other bodies may also hold intelligence useful for the strategy. Amendment 8 allows anyone to share information with the director or staff in the intelligence hub where it relates to the director’s functions. The amendment also enables the director and intelligence hub staff to share information with specific named persons, listed in a new schedule inserted by Amendment 11, if relevant to the functions of those persons. There is a power to add to the list by regulations through the affirmative procedure. We are committed to data security. Amendment 9 sets out restrictions to ensure the information is used and shared appropriately. This contains specific provisions for the intelligence services and HMRC.

It is vital that the three labour market enforcement bodies have gateways allowing them to share information with other enforcement bodies. Amendment 29 will allow the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate to share information with the Employment Agency Inspectorate in Northern Ireland, the Pensions Regulator and the Care Quality Commission, enabling collaboration across organisations. We want the GLAA to have the necessary gateways to share information relating to its new role. Amendment 32 therefore enables it to share information encompassing all labour market enforcement functions within the director’s remit and LME undertakings and orders. Reflecting the GLAA’s new role enforcing modern slavery offences, Amendment 38 inserts a new section into the Modern Slavery Act 2015 allowing disclosure of information to the GLAA from specified persons, and vice versa. A new schedule in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 will list those specified persons. There will be a power to add to this list, subject to the affirmative procedure. Other amendments allow the GLAA, HMRC’s NMW team and the EAS to share information relating to the new LME undertakings and orders in this Bill.

The next amendments are those that address specifically concerns raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report, for which we were very grateful, and its concerns particularly about some powers in Chapter 1. We are happy to accept its recommendations. Amendment 13 therefore makes the power to extend the purposes for which officers of the GLAA can be given PACE powers subject to the affirmative, rather than negative, procedure and thus to rigorous parliamentary scrutiny. The committee’s second recommendation concerned the new LME undertakings and orders. Amendments 26 and 27 provide

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that the code of practice governing their use by enforcement bodies will be subject to parliamentary oversight by being brought into force by a statutory instrument subject to the negative procedure. The committee’s third recommendation related to the GLAA’s licensing rules. Amendments 31 and 33 maintain the introduction of licensing rules by statutory instrument and not simply by publication, but with the added requirement of approval by the Home Secretary.

3.45 pm

As the GLAA’s expanded role under the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 applies only in Great Britain, Amendments 36 to 38 preserve the Act as it is in Northern Ireland. Our other amendments are mainly technical and ensure that the legislation enables the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and enforcement bodies to tackle labour market law breaches and protect vulnerable workers.

Amendments 1 and 28 enable the Government to make provision for the director to receive a pension, in addition to paying a salary and other necessary expenses. Amendments 5, 6 and 7 ensure that the scope of the director’s labour market enforcement strategy covers all the enforcement bodies’ work by including the new LME undertakings and orders and slavery and trafficking prevention orders obtained by the GLAA where the offence is secondary or inchoate, such as aiding or inciting, or where there was no conviction due to insanity or disability.

Amendment 12 amends the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 to reflect that future enforcement may be through more than one body—HMRC’s national minimum wage team and the GLAA. We want reciprocal powers for the GLAA and certain bodies to ask for assistance. Amendments 14 to 20 will specify those bodies in legislation. They clarify that the power to add bodies to these lists can be used only for bodies whose functions are reserved. I can assure noble Lords that we are removing the National Crime Agency from the list only because it already has the right to ask for assistance through the Crime and Courts Act 2013.

Amendments 21 to 25 change the provisions on the court procedures relating to LME undertakings and orders to clarify when and which court can vary or discharge an LME order. Amendment 40 clarifies that the regulation-making powers in this chapter will be used only for reserved matters. Amendments 41, 42 and 43 provide definitions to aid interpretation of this chapter. Amendments 152 and 153 change the territorial extent clause of the Bill to reflect the position in the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Finally, Amendment 38 repeals Section 55 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the duty on the Secretary of State to consult on the role of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. This is redundant with our recent consultation and the publication of our response. I beg to move.

Baroness Hamwee (LD): My Lords, I have Amendment 154 in this group. The Minister has referred to the large number of government amendments and I accept that many of them are in response to comments made in Committee, although I am not sure that that

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could apply to the 46 amendments in this group. At the last stage, there was a good deal of comment about the number of government amendments laid at a relatively late stage of the Bill. These further amendments are not so much a response to the Committee as continuing the substantial development of the issues. The Minister may know that there has been some pressure on us to argue for recommitment of these clauses so that we can look at them calmly as a whole. That would have been the right thing to do. I canvassed a little on that but I detected not a lot of enthusiasm and I accept that we have limited time, so I will not spend time this afternoon arguing for recommitment. But I wanted to put that point on the record.

The first amendment is not the biggest but let us start at number one. I do not begrudge a pension for the director of labour market enforcement, but the amendment has puzzled me. I had a look at the Modern Slavery Act to see what was provided for the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner and it does not refer to a pension. Given that it is not that unusual to appoint someone to a post which focuses on an issue, under the umbrella of a department but something new and quite discrete, is there not by now a standard formula for the appointments of such postholders? Does the wheel have to be reinvented a little differently each time?

By far a bigger issue is the reporting lines. The director deals with organisations that also have departmental reporting lines and which are now on the receiving end—that is a deliberate choice of phrase—of the provision of the strategy and the intelligence hub. On the charts with which we have been provided, there is no arrow in the reverse direction to show the contribution of those organisations. The Minister has heard me say this before, but this is particularly an issue for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, the board of which is almost airbrushed out; it is hardly acknowledged. The director himself or herself has two masters in the form of two Secretaries of State with differing and possibly incompatible priorities. The Home Secretary is concerned with enforcement while BIS is concerned with deregulation, and I believe that it is to be BIS that will host and fund the director. An even bigger issue is that of resources for the functions and duties on which the amendments elaborate. The GLAA is to have new, extended functions and duties, and we need to be assured that adequate resources will be in place over the spending review period.

Amendment 2—I assure noble Lords that I shall not go through every amendment—seems to go into quite a degree of detail. Surely the detail of how one does something, which in this case is the obtaining and providing of information, should not have to be in legislation in this way. As long as the director has the power to require information, should that not be enough? The strategy will now propose annually the information that is to be provided and,

“the form, and manner … and frequency”.

The more you spell out in legislation, the more you have to spell out. Having gone a little way down this road, you realise that if you have done that, you need to spell out the other as well.

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Amendment 21 refers to a court in a “part” of the UK. The Minister should be aware that I was going to ask this question: what is a part of the UK in the case of a court? Is it a country or is it a jurisdiction, which of course is not the same as a country in the case of the law and the courts because England and Wales are a jurisdiction. Is it a county or a town? It would be helpful to know which it is.

On the information gateways set out in Amendment 8 and subsequently, again I am not sure why it is necessary to provide for information to be disclosed to “a relevant staff member” and then to define who that is. If the director asks for information, surely any staff member is working on behalf of the director. This may be something technical related to the Data Protection Act and noble Lords may think that I am being spectacularly pedantic in raising it, but if someone gets it wrong, there are consequences. If an irrelevant staff member, as it were, seeks information, what is the status of that?

I have comments to make about what seems a very narrow gateway in terms of control and the time-consuming and cumbersome nature of it, but I would particularly like to ask what consultation has been undertaken on these provisions about information with the Information Commissioner, the commissioners appointed under RIPA, which is not yet RIP, and with the bodies concerned. I ask because there are issues about bureaucracy, protection and confidentiality—health bodies are involved here so I assume confidentiality has been considered—and I wonder whether the Home Office might produce a flow chart showing who must provide what, for what purpose and to whom, and whether it can then be used by the recipient for that purpose or another purpose?

Finally, my Amendment 154 would change the title of the Bill. A third of its clauses now deal with the labour market. There have been very significant additions since the Bill started life in the Commons. It seems to me—this is a substantive point and, I know, one of real concern among organisations—that it would be appropriate to call the Bill the immigration and labour market Bill. There were several amendments throughout the passage of the Bill to the effect that labour market matters are not confined to immigration. Indeed, they are very much wider than immigration. It is important not to badge the GLAA, the stand-alone body, as an immigration enforcer, and important not to adopt the mindset that immigration should be the driver of dealing with labour market abuses, or that labour market abuse is confined to illegal immigrants.

Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB): My Lords, I intervene briefly—I know that there are more substantive issues that the House will want to move on to fairly soon—simply to place on record my consternation that in Committee we decided to invent a whole new authority, the GLAA, yet here were are on Report with more than 100 new amendments. Ministers are damned if they do and damned if they do not. I recognise that we have a Minister who listens carefully to debates in your Lordships’ House. Indeed, he has a rollercoaster of meetings outside your Lordships’ House. His energy and willingness to listen are much to be commended, but could he distinguish for us which amendments have arisen as

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a result of consultations with and suggestions from outside organisations and Members of your Lordships’ House, and which are government amendments that are necessary to put right things that were not considered in Committee?

Would he also not agree that it is not good to make legislation on the hoof? In Committee I contrasted it with the way he dealt so impeccably with the modern slavery and human trafficking Bill, which had enjoyed pre-legislative scrutiny from Members of both Houses prior to being introduced in another place, and which was dealt with with great diligence by Members of both Houses and in an exemplary manner by the Minister himself. Surely that is the way we should enact legislation. But the Immigration Bill has completed all its stages in another place. It has now come here and he has introduced whole new clauses without any pre-legislative scrutiny or consideration of them in another place.

If we are honest, there has not been much consideration here. We pride ourselves, do we not, on being a House that scrutinises legislation in great detail, line by line and clause by clause? I honestly do not think that we can say we have done that with these clauses. Personally, I do not understand all the implications of the amendments that have been introduced. Although I am grateful to the Minister for the compendium of letters and detail that he sent us this morning, the idea that one could have read it all in advance for today is, I think he would agree, pretty unlikely.

So all I am doing is appealing to the noble Lord to look at the way we have dealt with this and ask officials whether it would not have been better to come forward at an earlier stage, or waited for another opportunity. I also put in an appeal at least for post-legislative scrutiny. If there is to be no sunset clause in the Bill, can we at least have an undertaking from the Government that we will revisit these clauses especially in 12 months from now to see how they work?

I have one other question for the noble Lord on resources. He will recall that at meetings held on the periphery of your Lordships’ House I questioned the level of resources available to what was the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, soon to be the GLAA. I know that he is deeply committed to tracking down those who exploit labour, who are involved in human trafficking and all the dreadful things that have been rehearsed at earlier stages of this and previous legislation. Is he really confident that there are sufficient resources? Given the research done by universities such as the University of Durham into the funding of the GLA, does he think that those resource problems have been overcome?

4 pm

Lord Deben (Con): My Lords, I remind the House of my declaration of interest and the fact that for many years I have helped businesses trying to combat modern slavery. I am a little less critical than the noble Lord, Lord Alton, of the changes being made, because I think that they are necessary, but I agree that it would have been better, had we had the time, to make them in a different way. But we have this opportunity and not to have made them would, I think, have been a grave mistake. I support the noble Lord’s suggestion

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that the Government give an undertaking that we will come back to this in a year’s time to make sure that these necessary changes have done what we hope they will do.

I want to draw the attention of the House to something that is very often forgotten. It is that when companies look at their supply chain and seek to see where there is modern slavery, they usually start in some distant country. They think about somewhere where the rule of law is not as we would expect it to be. The shock, to many, is how much is found in so-called civilized and advanced countries—not just in Britain and the European Union but in the United States. It is very valuable that we have moved from the narrow attitude that you get this only in agriculture or with gangmasters, or that you get it only a long way away, to an understanding that we actually get it in almost every place, in almost every country and in the most remarkable situations.

I will quote an experience of mine. While I was working very hard on what we should do in countries in the Indian subcontinent, the very first and worst case happened in Manchester. We have to recognise that the issues with which we are dealing here are almost universal and a terrible indictment of man’s inhumanity to man.

Baroness Ludford (LD): My Lords, I want to ask about the information gateway provisions, and in particular Amendments 8 to 11. These are very substantial and intrusive new powers introduced at a very late stage of the Bill. Will the Minister elaborate a little on the justification for introducing them and why they were not thought of at an earlier stage of the Bill, even before Committee? They seem very wide, talking about the disclosure of information,

“for the purposes of the exercise of any function of the Director”.

Like my noble friend Lady Hamwee, I would be interested to know whether the Information Commissioner has given advice. If so, will the Minister share that advice and assessment with us? There is a need for safeguards to match the breadth and depth of the powers. It strikes me that, while mention is made of the Data Protection Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act—which is not quite RIP—there is, of course, a new EU regulation on data protection that will be directly applicable and therefore will not have to be transposed into an Act of Parliament. Have these powers been health-checked against the new regulation, which may be somewhat tighter than the Data Protection Act in certain areas?

I want to ask specifically about medical confidentiality. In Amendment 9, which introduces a new clause after Clause 5, subsection (1) says:

“A disclosure of information … authorised by section (Information gateways) does not breach … an obligation of confidence owed by the person making the disclosure”.

Since health bodies—NHS trusts, the Care Quality Commission and so on—are on the list for information sharing, this obviously raises the question of whether medical information is going to be covered, which is likely.

There do not seem to be any similar provisions to those in new subsections (5), (6), (7) and (8) of the new clause in relation to intelligence information and

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information pertaining to HMRC, where there is an obligation not to disclose information,

“without authorisation from the appropriate service chief”,

or “from HMRC Commissioners”. There does not seem to be anything comparable for medical data. Clearly, these are sensitive personal data for which a higher level of stewardship is already required under the Data Protection Act, and even more so under the new EU regulation. I would like an assurance that these provisions have gone through the filter of the ICO and the new EU regulation.

Lord Rosser (Lab): As has already been said, the Government have tabled a whole raft of amendments relating to the labour market aspects of the Bill and the new position of Director of Labour Market Enforcement and the associated organisations. A number of questions have been raised in this brief debate and I certainly do not intend to reiterate any of them.

We had a lengthy debate in Committee about including in the Bill wording stating that the primary purpose of the director is the enforcement of labour market legislation as defined in the Bill. The purpose of our amendment seeking to achieve that objective was to ensure that the director’s functions were exercised primarily for the purpose of protecting those vulnerable to labour market exploitation. As we know, the Government resisted defining in the Bill the director’s primary purpose and function. Our concern was that without a clear definition in the Bill of the function of the director—a post that is being established in an immigration Bill—there are likely to be misunderstandings or wrong assumptions on the part of those who might come into contact with the director’s organisation that the post was also about immigration checks, rather than just labour market enforcement.

In respect of one or more of the bodies under the Director of Labour Market Enforcement, the Government’s amendments appear to provide for the sharing of intelligence and new information-sharing gateways, and for the disclosure of information to specified persons. What assurances can the Government provide that these amendments will not lead to the director and the associated organisations moving into the field of immigration control issues, rather than just labour market enforcement and the protection of workers from exploitation?

Lord Bates: My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions that have been made. I apologise to noble Lords for bombarding them with so many amendments at the last minute. As is often said, “You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t”. I have found it difficult to gather together all the pieces of this jigsaw, given all the consultations that we had. I wanted to bring together all the letters and the consultation documents into one document. The Bill team dutifully did that. I thought that was a helpful pack to take home and suggested that we ought to provide it to other Members. Therefore, we sat late into the night, binding the documents, putting them into envelopes and then ferried them across to the House to put them on to colleagues’ desks in time for today’s debate. That process was not meant to be an insult to noble Lords. On the contrary, we were trying to be helpful.

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There is nothing new in the pack. It is simply a collection of documents that have been sent out by other means.

There was a very good question from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the nature of the amendments. Lest I be accused of making a virtue out of tabling too many government amendments, sometimes in the journey of legislation we forget important elements of it. To give some context, there was a wide consultation on this new role, which went out between October and December last year, and we and listened to those views. It was published in December, and in January we published the Government’s response. Rather than publishing that response and dealing with the issue in guidance, we thought, “Let’s try to make amendments to the Bill in the light of the responses and how we want things to change”. That accounted for the bulk of the amendments.

We flagged up these amendments back in January, on the first day of Committee. I said that we had tabled a batch of government amendments relating to labour market enforcement and that others would follow at this stage. Breaking those down might be useful. Of the amendments we have tabled, 14 relate to the intelligence hub; seven relate to the DPRRC’s report, which was extremely helpful, and implementing all of its recommendations; 18 are technical; there were some drafting changes, which relate to the additional 15; and two relate to changes to the territorial extent of regulation-making powers.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for giving me notice of one of the points she was intending to raise. We believe that the title, Immigration Act, is entirely adequate given the measures in it. While the labour market enforcement procedures will protect all vulnerable workers, they will have a particularly beneficial effect for those who migrate to the UK, who are more likely to fall victim to exploitative employers as they may not fully understand their rights and can be far removed from their normal support structures. Chapter 1 of the Bill will better equip our enforcement bodies to find and stop unacceptable behaviour by rogue businesses—the point raised the noble Lord, Lord Deben. We need to ensure that migrant workers coming to this country are not exploited by businesses here; we need to up our game and ensure that businesses are playing by the rules and treating their employees properly.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made a general point about the remit and asked about immigration control and the director getting involved in immigration. If the director got involved or shared information about immigration control, they would be operating outside their statutory functions as set out in Clauses 2 and 3.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, asked about information-sharing. An important point, which I made in my introduction to the amendments, is that we have taken great care to set out the basis for information-sharing. In fact, one of the reasons we tabled the amendments was to address an earlier concern that the Bill did not state which organisations were going to share information. Rogue businesses and employers which breach labour market legislation often breach other legislation. Therefore, we are creating a framework to enable information-sharing between the director and other bodies. The legislation will be underpinned

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by memorandums of understanding between the director and those bodies, setting out the types of information that can and cannot be shared and the relevant processes that need to be followed. We are legislating now because we wanted to take account of the public consultation and legal advice.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked if I would clarify the relationship between the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and the GLAA board. Our amendment clarifies that relationship by requiring those exercising labour market enforcement functions to have regard to the labour market enforcement strategy. My noble friend Lord Deben asked how we will know whether this legislation is effective. The publication of the strategy—it will be made public—will enable us to understand what the priorities are for the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and what issues he is uncovering in carrying out his duties. In addition, we will set out how the GLAA board must carry out its functions in such a way as to fulfil its part in the labour market enforcement strategy. The GLAA board will remain accountable to the Home Secretary for the delivery of its functions, but those functions will now sit within the broader strategic context provided for by the role of the director.

4.15 pm

On resources, which the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Rosser, as well as my noble friend Lord Deben focused on, perhaps a better explanation was provided in my letter of 20 January. I set out there that the current levels of resources available for the 2015-16 financial year are that the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate has a budget of £500,000, the HMRC’s national minimum wage team has a budget of £13.2 million —that was a significant increase, as your Lordships might recall, as additional resources of, I think, about £4 million were put into that—and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has a budget of £4.3 million.

Of course, that will all be part of the ongoing review of all government spending, but our track record in creating offices such as the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner shows that we have set up such offices with a particular purpose and focus, and we will want to make sure that they have the tools to do the job we ask of them.

I think that I have responded to the majority of the points that were raised—

Lord Deben: I thank my noble friend for giving way. I still have a problem, and that is that we are making these major changes, but the Bill is still called just the “Immigration Bill”. Given that the Bill now covers things that are at a much further remove from immigrants, the Government really ought to think seriously about its Title. It really is something very different from that.

Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con): My Lords, may I just remind the House that the Companion is very clear that, on Report,

“Only the mover of an amendment … speaks after the minister … except for short questions of elucidation”?

Lord Deben: If I may say so, I was asking for direct elucidation. I wonder whether the Minister would answer my question.

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Lord Bates: I shall do my best to address the point, and I hear what my noble friend says. He talked about the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, but of course there were two days of evidence-taking sessions in Committee in the Commons, which were all published and which actually helped us greatly in shaping many of these government amendments.

However, the Bill is particularly about protecting, if you like, in two ways. The first purpose of the Bill is to create some discomfort for those who are illegally in the UK so that they cannot have a normal settled life while they are actually trespassing on our laws and are here illegally. The other area, which I think should carry a great deal of support, is about making sure that those people who are here legally are treated properly. In that sense, putting those things together, we believe that the Title of the Bill still stands. I accept that there is an argument or debate on that, but I have made my response to that.

Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I asked the noble Lord about a court in “a part” of the country, but I do not think that he has answered that question.

Lord Bates: I did not answer that, and it was a good question. There is a court in another part of the Chamber which is rushing advice to me, which will save another letter. In Amendment 21, what does the reference to a court in a “part” of the UK mean? Part of the UK in the context of these provisions on court proceedings means jurisdiction—whether the court is in England and Wales, in Scotland or in Northern Ireland. I hope that is helpful.

Amendment 1 agreed.

Clause 2: Labour market enforcement strategy

Amendments 2 to 4 agreed.

Clause 3: Non-compliance in the labour market etc: interpretation

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7: Clause 3, page 4, line 13, leave out “or (e)” and insert “, (e) or (i) to (l), or

(ii) a finding of a kind mentioned in section 14(1)(b) or (c) of that Act in connection with any such offence”

Amendments 5 to 7 agreed.

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(10) If a person contravenes subsection (7) or (8) by disclosing revenue and customs information relating to a person whose identity—

(a) is specified in the disclosure, or

(b) can be deduced from it,

section 19 of the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 (wrongful disclosure) applies in relation to that disclosure as it applies in relation to a disclosure of such information in contravention of section 20(9) of that Act.

(11) In this section—

“appropriate service chief” means—

(a) the Director-General of the Security Service (in the case of information obtained by the Director or a relevant staff member from that Service or a person acting on its behalf);

(b) the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (in the case of information so obtained from that Service or a person acting on its behalf);

(c) the Director of GCHQ (in the case of information so obtained from GCHQ or a person acting on its behalf);

“GCHQ” has the same meaning as in the Intelligence Services Act 1994;

“HMRC information” means information disclosed to the Director or a relevant staff member under section (Information gateways) by HMRC Commissioners or a person acting on behalf of HMRC Commissioners;

“intelligence service” means—

(a) the Security Service;

(b) the Secret Intelligence Service;

(c) GCHQ;

“intelligence service disclosure arrangements” means—

(a) arrangements made by the Director-General of the Security Service under section 2(2)(a) of the Security Service Act 1989 about the disclosure of information by that Service,

(b) arrangements made by the Chief of the Intelligence Service under section 2(2)(a) of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 about the disclosure of information by that Service, and

(c) arrangements made by the Director of GCHQ under section 4(2)(a) of that Act about the disclosure of information by GCHQ;

“intelligence service information” means information obtained from an intelligence service or a person acting on behalf of an intelligence service;

“national minimum wage information” means information obtained by an officer in the course of acting—

(a) for the purposes of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 (see section 13 of that Act), or

(b) by virtue of section 24(2);

“relevant staff member” has the same meaning as in section (Information gateways);

“revenue and customs information relating to a person” has the meaning given in section 19(2) of the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005.”

Amendments 8 and 9 agreed.

Clause 6: Information hub

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“(2) The Director may request any person by whom, or by whose officers, labour market enforcement functions are exercisable to provide the Director with any non-compliance information specified or of a description specified in the request.

(3) “Non-compliance information” means information relating to non-compliance in the labour market which the Director considers would facilitate the exercise of any of his or her functions.

(4) A person by whom, or by whose officers, labour market enforcement functions are exercisable may request the Director to provide the person, or an officer of the person, with any enforcement information specified or of a description specified in the request.

(5) “Enforcement information” means information which the person making the request considers would facilitate the exercise of any labour market enforcement function of the person or of an officer of the person.

(6) A person who receives a request under this section must respond to it in writing within a reasonable period.”

Amendment 10 agreed.

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An NHS foundation trust within the meaning given by section 30 of the National Health Service Act 2006.A Local Health Board established under section 11 of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006.

Other

The Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner.A Northern Ireland department.”

Amendment 11 agreed.

Schedule 1: Functions in relation to labour market

Amendment 12 agreed.

Clause 10: PACE powers in England and Wales for labour abuse prevention officers

Amendment 13 agreed.

Clause 11: Relationship with other agencies: requests for assistance

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19: Clause 11, page 7, line 40, leave out from beginning to end of line 15 on page 8 and insert—

“( ) Regulations under this section must not make provision which would be—

(a) within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament if contained in an Act of that Parliament,

(b) within the legislative competence of the National Assembly for Wales if contained in an Act of that Assembly, or

(c) within the legislative competence of the Northern Ireland Assembly if contained in an Act of that Assembly made without the consent of the Secretary of State.”

Amendments 14 to 20 agreed.

Clause 20: Further provision about LME orders

Amendment 21 agreed.

Clause 21: Variation and discharge

Amendments 22 to 24 agreed.

Clause 22: Appeals

Amendment 25 agreed.

Clause 23: Code of practice

Amendments 26 and 27 agreed.

9 Mar 2016 : Column 1308

Schedule 2: Consequential and related amendments

9 Mar 2016 : Column 1309

(2) In subsection (1)—

(a) for the words before paragraph (a) substitute “Information to which this subsection applies—”;

(b) for paragraph (a) substitute—

“(a) may be supplied to any person for use for the purposes of, or for any purpose connected with, the exercise of functions under this Act,

“(aa) may be supplied to any person by whom, or by whose officers, labour market enforcement functions are exercisable for the purposes of, or for any purpose connected with, the exercise of such functions, and”.

(3) After subsection (1) insert—

“(1A) Subsection (1) applies to—

(a) information held by any person for the purposes of, or for any purpose connected with, the exercise of functions under this Act, and

(b) information held by any officer acting by virtue of section 24(3) of the Immigration Act 2016 (investigative functions in connection with labour market enforcement undertakings and orders).

(1B) In subsection (1) “labour market enforcement functions” has the same meaning as in Chapter 1 of Part 1 of the Immigration Act 2016 (see section 3 of that Act).”

(4) In subsection (2)—

(a) omit “relating to the operations of a person acting as a gangmaster”;

(b) for “(1)(b)” substitute “(1)(aa) or (b)”.”

9 Mar 2016 : Column 1310

9 Mar 2016 : Column 1311

A district council in England.A London borough council.The Greater London Authority.The Common Council of the City of London.The Council of the Isles of Scilly.

Health bodies

A National Health Service trust established under section 25 of the National Health Service Act 2006 or section 18 of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006.An NHS foundation trust within the meaning given by section 30 of the National Health Service Act 2006.A Local Health Board established under section 11 of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006.

Other

The Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner.””

Amendments 28 to 39 agreed.

Clause 30: Regulations under Chapter 1

Amendment 40 agreed.

Clause 31: Interpretation of Chapter 1

Amendments 41 to 43 agreed.

Clause 32: Offence of illegal working

Lord Bates: My Lords, I have considered carefully the constructive debate on illegal working that we had in Committee—particularly on the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. I am also grateful to

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noble Lords who have given up so much time to discuss these issues with me in recent weeks. I accept that a compelling case has been made. I hope that with Amendments 44, 45, 47, 48 and 51 to Clause 32, which have been tabled in my name, noble Lords will agree that concerns have been addressed.

Illegal working is a key driver of illegal migration. Being able to work illegally encourages economic migrants to put themselves in harm’s way in efforts to enter the UK illegally or to overstay. We need to address these economic motivations. Illegal working also undercuts legitimate businesses which play by the rules, and may depress wages and the availability of work for British citizens and lawful migrants. Individuals with an irregular immigration status are likely already to be committing a criminal offence, regardless of whether they work. The creation of this offence does not alter the fact. Many economic migrants are not here because they have been trafficked or enslaved, but because they have chosen to break the law in order to work illegally in the UK.

Parliament has already provided immigration officers with powers to recover the proceeds of crime in relation to immigration offences through the UK Borders Act 2007, but the courts do not always regard earnings derived from working illegally as proceeds of crime when considering cash forfeiture or confiscation cases under existing legislation, so the provisions of the 2007 Act are being frustrated. We need to plug this important gap in the law to deter illegal economic migration, including by those who work as self-employed without permission.

Victims of modern slavery are not the target of the offence: they have a strong statutory defence provided for by Section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Traffickers and slavers always try to mislead their victims about the consequences of asking for help from authorities or non-government organisations. Their business model depends on controlling their victims, including the victims’ access to information. I do not believe that the creation of this offence makes a material difference to traffickers’ ability to spread disinformation.

The truth is that there is only one way to counter the lies spread by traffickers: we need to empower victims by providing them with accurate information about their rights and means of redress, and we need to do this through channels that are accessible and trusted. That is why the Government work closely with NGOs and are constantly looking for new and better ways to reach victims.

I reassure noble Lords that the Government will ask the modern slavery strategy and implementation group, a group chaired by Ministers that brings together non-government organisations and other partners, to advise on what further steps can be taken to ensure that victims and would-be victims understand the law and know what support is available to them. The Government have put victims at the heart of our modern slavery strategy. We are also seeking to strengthen enforcement against exploitation through measures in Part 1.

However, as I said, we have listened carefully to the concerns expressed by noble Lords about the strict liability nature of the offence and the resulting disparity

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with the offence of employing an illegal worker. By tabling the amendments in my name, the Government propose to introduce a mens rea for the offence. The effect of the Government’s amendments is that the individual must either know or have reasonable cause to believe that they have no right to work. This means that the offence would not be committed by someone who is working illegally but does not know, or does not have reasonable cause to believe, that he or she lacks permission to work.

We feel that this strikes the right balance between protecting the vulnerable and ensuring that those who make no effort to ensure that they are complying with UK immigration law cannot simply plead ignorance of our Immigration Rules where they should have known that they had no permission to work.

I turn to the minor and technical amendments tabled in my name to Clauses 34 and 87 and Schedule 4. Amendments 53 and 55 to Clause 34 concern the powers to prevent illegal working in licensed premises. Clause 34 allows regulations to make provision for Scotland and Northern Ireland equivalent to that made for England and Wales. To this end, the clause allows the regulations to amend an Act of the Scottish Parliament. However, in Scotland the equivalent of late-night refreshment, so-called late-hours catering, is dealt with by the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. This is an Act of the Westminster Parliament which predates devolution. Amendments 53 and 55 to Clause 34 address this technical conundrum.

Amendment 148 to Clause 87 deletes a reference to a regulation-making power for private hire and taxi provisions to cover Scotland and Northern Ireland. This is now redundant as the necessary provisions have been placed on the face of the Bill. Amendment 56 to Schedule 4 adds a definition of “the Immigration Acts” to the Taxis Act (Northern Ireland) 2008. This is a necessary amendment because the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 does not contain such a definition. Without this amendment, the provisions could not operate properly in Northern Ireland. I beg to move.

4.30 pm

Lord Rosser: We have amendments in this group. First, I thank the Government for their amendment, which means that the offence of illegal working is committed only by a person who,

“knows or has reasonable cause to believe”,

that they are disqualified from working by their immigration status. It is different in wording from our amendment, which refers to a defence of having a “reasonable excuse” for working when disqualified from doing so by immigration status. I am certainly no lawyer, but I suspect that our amendment might provide a broader range of people with a defence than the government amendment. However, since the Government have taken on board the case that has been made for providing a defence to the offence of legal working, we do not intend to pursue this point any further.

We have previously argued the case for deleting the intended new offence of illegal working from the Bill, and we are associated again with an amendment to that effect. Not a single person could be prosecuted under this new offence who cannot already be prosecuted

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under existing offences; it is already a criminal offence under the Immigration Act 1971 to enter the UK without leave, when leave is required, and to overstay or be in breach of a condition of such leave. The Government’s argument for a new criminal offence of illegal working is that they believe it will provide an increased likelihood of seizing earnings through confiscation orders made under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The Government can confiscate relevant sums from those who work in breach of the terms of their existing stay under the 2002 Act but cannot do so for those working illegally, and the Government wish to close the gap. However, government figures indicate that the 2002 Act is not typically used for offences of working in breach of conditions, although it is deployed in cases involving other immigration offences. The government figures indicate that only 16 confiscation orders were made under the 2002 Act in 2014-15, and none of them followed criminal convictions for working in breach of conditions.

As I understand it, proceeds of crime proceedings are apt to be lengthy and costly, and the Crown Prosecution Service guidance on proceeds of crime says that it should prioritise,

“the recovery of assets from serious and organised crime and serious economic crime”.

I suggest that there would be few cases in which it would be cost effective or in the public interest to pursue confiscation proceedings to seize wages earned as a result of illegal working as proceeds of crime. However, there must be a distinct likelihood that the existence of the offence of illegal working will be used as an additional threat by those abusing or taking advantage of trafficked or enslaved persons to discourage them from going to the authorities, or indeed to coerce such people into exploitation in the first place. Yet one objective of the Bill is to encourage people who are being exploited to come forward. A trafficked or enslaved person who knows that they are not permitted to work will of course have no defence under the government amendment of “reasonable cause to believe”. So it is quite possible that the new offence of illegal working will on one hand raise little or no additional money under the 2002 Act, and on the other hand, by providing the threat of prosecution for those exploiting vulnerable people who should not be in this country, be a further means of discouraging them from coming forward to the authorities. I very much hope that the Government, even at this late stage, will be prepared to give further thought to the wisdom of introducing this new offence of illegal working.

Baroness Hamwee: The Minister said during the previous stage that the amendment that would insert “without reasonable excuse” would introduce considerable ambiguity and risk successful prosecutions. The amendment is down again today. We should consider it. The courts, the CPS and the police often have to assess whether something is reasonable so, as I read it, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is a matter not of ambiguity but of judgment, although I concede that if it was strict liability there would be no need of judgment.

For the reasons that the noble Lord gave, the reasonable cause—I accept that that is a more normal formula—in the government amendment is welcome, but I do not

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believe it goes far enough to provide a defence to someone who knows that he is illegal but who has been abused and exploited, perhaps at a lower level than is covered by the Modern Slavery Act. If it is within the Modern Slavery Act, the defence kicks in only after there has been a charge. I do not think I am alone in preferring to see a charge not even getting off the starting block.

Our Amendments 49 and 50 are in response to the Minister’s explanation in Committee that the clause is largely driven by the wish to bring it within the Proceeds of Crime Act. He assured the Committee that the Proceeds of Crime Act would not be applied to inappropriate targets:

“We are talking here about people who have on their person a significant amount of cash in excess of £1,000”.—[Official Report, 18/1/16; col 626.].

I took those words literally and our amendments are an attempt to reflect them because, if that is the policy, the legislation should say so. I accept that the CPS guidance is to prioritise the recovery of the proceeds of serious organised crime and serious economic crime and that the confiscation order must be proportionate, but to create an offence with the risks which have been referred to and which I will come to in a moment seems an inappropriate direction in which to go if there is such a clear view on the part of the Government about when it will be used.

We remain extremely concerned about Clause 32 as a whole, and my noble friend Lord Paddick and I have our names to Amendment 52 to leave it out because of the danger of an increase, not a reduction, in exploitation. As we discussed on the previous group, the Bill is about more than immigration. If you fear prosecution and imprisonment, is that not a greater deterrent to standing up for your rights? Someone working without the right to do so should not be exploited any more than someone with the right, but we think that the new offence may carry far more risks than it solves problems.

I suspect that the new offence, or at least casting it in this way, is probably quite totemic for the Government but, given the risks of applying the Proceeds of Crime Act, surely there are other ways to deal with the issue, such as the existing offences that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has referred to, rather than by giving abusers and exploiters even more ammunition and ways that they can say to workers, “We can really cause trouble for you. You are in a situation that you can’t get out of, and you are in terrible trouble if you try to go to the police, squeal on us or whatever”. Given that existing offences could be used to prosecute everyone who would fall within the new section, we remain unpersuaded that it is appropriate to include the clause in the Bill.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con): My Lords, in relation to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, as against the clause as introduced, the virtue of the clause as amended by the government amendment is that the prosecutor would have to prove that the person in question knew or had reasonable cause to believe that he was disqualified, whereas in Amendment 46, which was proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, the onus

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would be the other way: in other words, the defence would have to prove that the matter was done without reasonable cause. I think that that is the nature of the law in this matter. So in a sense the government amendment has greater protection for the person alleged to have committed the offence than Amendment 46 would have done.

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (CB): On that point, my Lords, I have had occasion under another statute to consider the phrase “without reasonable excuse” in a judicial capacity, and I found it impossibly imprecise.

Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab): My Lords, I support Amendment 52, which would leave out Clause 32. I shall make one specific and one general point.

I am grateful to the Minister for his collection of letters. I am not sure that it is quite a limited edition, and I have visions of him scurrying around late at night delivering them. I have found it helpful because of course I had mislaid the letter of 28 January, in which he clarified that the offence of legal working will apply to asylum seekers who are not permitted to work but also to those who have been granted permission but take a job that is not on the shortage occupation list. Whatever one thinks of the clause itself, and I am opposed to it, surely it is unfair that it is applied to people who have a clear legal right to be in the country at that point. This has been presented as a clause that applies to people who have no legitimate right to be in the country, but those who are still seeking asylum have that right. I was concerned about that because it seems unfair.

My more general point is that, like other noble Lords, I fear that despite the government amendment the clause will serve to encourage exploitation. I was disturbed to read in yesterday’s Independent a report of a study of young migrant men carried out by the University of Manchester as part of a European Commission study, which found that these young men felt that they are constantly having to justify their status and made to feel that they are on the wrong side of the law even when they have done nothing wrong. I am not arguing that there is a clear cause and effect, but when we have government policies like the previous Immigration Act, this Bill and particularly this clause, which deliberately try to create a hostile environment for undocumented migrants, unfortunately they can create a hostile environment for those who have every right to be here. That impedes their ability to integrate into British society, which can be in nobody’s interests.

Baroness Ludford: My Lords, I wish to add to the very sound arguments put by my noble friend Lady Hamwee and others on the question of the resources of the Crown Prosecution Service and the police. Surely there are many pressures on them and demands for resources. I was reading the other day that there are 5 million frauds against bank customers every year and lax attention by the banks. Given the extent of child abuse and sexual abuse and the explosion of problems online which the CPS is trying to react to and get on top of, is it right to make this an extra priority for the CPS when we ask so much of it in other areas?

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4.45 pm

Is there not also a possible perverse result? If people are illegally in the country—I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about asylum seekers not being illegally in the country; I assume that we are focusing on those who are—is not the priority to seek their removal? The proceeds of crime proceedings that could be taken against them could be very lengthy, and you would be finding a reason to prolong their stay in the country at the expense of someone—certainly the criminal proceedings would be at the expense of the taxpayer. It would be very hard to remove these people and therefore say that they could not be present at their own criminal trial, so you would give a perverse extension of the stay of people in the country who should not be in it. This does not seem to be terribly wise policy-making, as regards both the resources of the CPS and the perverse incentives to prolong people’s stay in the country.

Lord Deben: I wish simply to thank the Minister for these changes, particularly in view of the two codas from our legal friends on the dangers of the amendments and the explanation that my noble friend put forward about their real meaning. I hope the Minister will take back to the Government the great advantage to be gained from being seen to listen to sensible arguments in the House of Lords and changing the legislation as a result. There are many other occasions when we would get through our business much more quickly if sensible debate was ended by a sensible change of mind by government.

Lord Green of Deddington (CB): My Lords, I will contribute a slightly wider point to the discussion. It is surely clear to all of us that a substantial number of people would like to come to this country and work illegally. As the Home Office will confirm, nearly half of those who apply for asylum have previously been working illegally and apply only when discovered. We have literally thousands of people queueing up in Calais wanting to get into Britain and work illegally. They know perfectly well that they will be illegal when they get here but they come because they want to work and send money home. Understandable though that may be, it is surely essential that there should be a disincentive to those people from making that attempt. The obvious thing is to make it illegal. There is no way that they will understand the intricacies of British law—indeed, the deputy mayor of Calais does not understand them—so it must be made illegal. If the Government can usefully adjust the law in terms of prosecutions, so be it, but let us keep our eye on the ball. There are literally thousands, if not many thousands, who would like to come and do this and they should be deterred.

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB): My Lords, I associate myself with what the noble Lord, Lord Green, has just said. Clause 32 would essentially criminalise knowingly working illegally. I find it difficult to suppose that there would be much if anything in the way of the successful recovery of illegal earnings under POCA, and I can hardly think that that is the real object that underlies the proposed introduction of this new offence. Surely the real question is whether

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the suggested benefit indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Green—of adding this explicit new offence to the altogether more abstract existing offence of working in breach of immigration conditions, to discourage people smugglers by cancelling the message that they presently give to aspiring immigrants; namely, that there is no such existing offence here—outweighs the suggested risk of the exploitation of such workers by henceforth making it more likely that they will keep their illegal working secret. My judgment is that it does outweigh it. Therefore I support the existing clause as amended.

Lord Bates: My Lords, I guess that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is regretting raising the absence of legal advice on this point. What is so wonderful about this place is that, when we look for legal advice on our proceedings, up pop a former President of the Supreme Court, a former Lord Justice of Appeal and a former Lord Chancellor. One of the great advantages of this House is that we can draw on such expertise. I am particularly grateful to the noble and learned Lords for their contributions in this regard.

In the spirit in which my noble friend Lord Deben approached this matter, which is the spirit in which we approach the Bill, we looked at whether the “reasonable excuse” amendment would be able to hold up and work. The advice that came back was that it was thought that it would not work; none the less, in Committee the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, highlighted a number of cases in which people had been brought to this country believing that they had a legal right to be here. They had been told that by an unscrupulous employer but it then became manifest that they did not have that legal right. We agreed that there ought to be some defence and have brought that forward in Amendment 48 with the words,

“knows or has reasonable cause to believe”.

I shall deal with a couple of the points that have been raised. The noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee, Lady Ludford and Lady Lister, rightly were all concerned about the impact on potential victims of trafficking and modern-day slavery. The suggestion that the Modern Slavery Act defence applies only after a charge is not correct, as that does not reflect the operational reality. We do not accept that the defence protects victims only after arrest—that is not the case. Law enforcement officers do not pursue investigations where a defence is clearly established. For example, it is a defence to a charge of assault if a person acts in self-defence and uses reasonable force. If officers establish that at the scene of an incident, they will not arrest a person, as to do so would be a waste of resources, as the noble Baronesses rightly highlighted.

I turn to how the clause on illegal workers will work. While many illegal workers do not earn significant sums, unfortunately some, particularly the self-employed, benefit from current loopholes in the law and make a good living out of being in the UK illegally. I am sure that the point that the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, raised—about those who come here and move on to asylum—will be discussed when we reach a later clause concerning the ability to work while claiming asylum. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Recovery of Cash in Summary Proceedings: Minimum Amount) Order 2006 specifies that only cash sums of £1,000

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and above may be seized. This means that the illegal worker must possess cash amounting to at least £1,000 before proceeds of crime action and cash-seizing powers may be used in connection with the new legal offence. We believe that that threshold, as well as closing a loophole, and the new mens rea defence, which is required to be proved in the court for a successful prosecution to occur, give the right balance and the right defence to ensure that the types of individuals whom the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred to are not caught inadvertently by this legislation.

Amendment 44 agreed.

Amendment 45 agreed.

Amendment 46 not moved.

Amendments 47 and 48 agreed.

Amendments 49 and 50 not moved.

Amendment 51 agreed.

Amendment 52 not moved.

Clause 34: Licensing Act 2003: amendments relating to illegal working

Amendment 53 agreed.

Amendment 54 not moved.

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Amendment 55 agreed.

Schedule 4: Private hire vehicles etc

Amendment 56 agreed.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, in his reply to the previous group of amendments the Minister gave a trailer for Amendment 57. In this argument we are returning to an issue that some of us raised and spoke to in Committee. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Paddick, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee,

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and others for supporting this amendment then, and again today. The amendment does precisely what it says on the package: it gives asylum seekers permission to work after six months. It was in Committee that the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said—and I agree—that the other side of this coin is that an amendment of this kind would impose a duty to work, rather than simply leaving asylum seekers to eke out a pitiful existence on a monetary subvention by the state.

In his admirable book, The Home We Build Together, my noble friend Lord Sacks describes three groups of people who arrive as migrants in a foreign land. The first group are greeted by the local mayor and told that they will be given free accommodation, every possible benefit and that nothing will be required of them. They are told that they will be left to get on with it and that the community will have nothing to do with them and do not want to be troubled by them. The second group arrived and, this time, the mayor explained that there was no welcoming committee, no accommodation available and no financial support. However, if the strangers in their land had money, there was a brand new hotel in which they could stay for as long as they could pay. A third group arrived, and they were told that there was no accommodation, no benefits and nowhere to hire. But the mayor and the community provided bricks and mortar and a site where the strangers could make a home and earn a living. The mayor promised that the whole community would assist them and that they would build a home together. All of us know that the third response—a combination of generosity and self-help—is the approach that would work best. It is the approach that lies at the heart of this amendment. Amendment 57 would allow asylum seekers to be able to work if their claim is not determined by the Home Office in a timeframe of six months. Why would any Government oppose something that is based so clearly on common sense and on the principle of self-help and the removal of reliance on the state?

During our Committee debates, the Government said that they opposed the amendment because it would lead to an increase in unfounded applications. The noble Lord, Lord Ashton, who is in his place, responding for the Government, echoed what has become something of a mantra, saying:

“Earlier access to employment risks making asylum more attractive for those who are otherwise not eligible to work in the UK”.—[Official Report, 20/1/16; col. 851.]

But where is the empirical evidence for this assertion? The Government’s position is based on speculation. They previously conceded that,

“it may be broadly true”,

that,

“there is little hard evidence that the change you propose (to allow asylum seekers to work after six months) would result in more asylum applications”.

So I agree with the Government’s earlier assertion and I wonder why they have changed their mind.

5 pm

All the available evidence suggests that permission to work does not act as a pull factor for asylum seekers or economic migrants. That is reflected in the Home Office’s own research and was confirmed by a review

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of the 19 main recipient countries for asylum applications in the OECD in 2011, which concluded that policies which relate to the welfare of asylum seekers—for example, permission to work, support levels and access to healthcare—did not have any significant impact on the number of applications made in destination countries. Furthermore, 12 other European Union countries already allow asylum seekers access to the labour market after six months or less of waiting for a decision on their claims. These countries are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. The vast majority of those countries have had such policies in place for many years, and none of them has had to change the policy because of any abuse of the asylum route by economic migrants.

In Committee, the Government noted that Germany has the largest number of asylum applications in the EU and a significant number of applications from countries in the Balkans which generally do not merit refugee status, and they sought to indicate that this was connected to its policy on permission to work. However, as the NGO, Still Human Still Here, has pointed out, “The reason Germany has the most asylum applications in the EU is because of its Government’s publicly stated willingness to keep its borders open and to provide protection to those refugees fleeing conflict and persecution”. Furthermore, the significant number of asylum applications from Balkan countries long predates Germany’s decision to reduce to three months the time that asylum seekers have to wait before being able to access the job market.

In reality, those motivated to come to the United Kingdom for economic reasons are unlikely to make an asylum application and bring themselves to the attention of the authorities on the basis that they might be able to apply for permission to work after six months. Even if this were the case, they would never have an opportunity to do so, as the Home Office decides all straightforward claims within six months—a point made repeatedly by the Government in Committee. In summary, the Government accept that there is no evidence that the policy change proposed by this amendment would lead to an increase in unfounded applications. It is also stated that all straightforward cases, which would clearly include unfounded asylum applications, would be dealt with within six months and that the individuals concerned would therefore not have an opportunity to apply for permission to work.

The Government have developed a second line of argument against the idea contained in this amendment. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, told us:

“The Government believe that the current policy strikes the right balance. If a claim remains undecided after 12 months, for reasons outside their control, the person can apply for permission to work. That is a fair and reasonable policy and is consistent with our obligations under EU law. It also assists genuine refugees”.—[Official Report, 20/1/16; col. 851.]

What the House has to ask is whether, as the Government claim, the current policy is fair and proportionate, and strikes the right balance. Once again, the evidence suggests that it does not. Twenty-four other European Union countries allow asylum seekers to access their labour markets if an initial decision has not been

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taken on their claim after nine months, and half of those countries allow asylum seekers to work after six months or sooner. In contrast, the United Kingdom Government effectively prohibit asylum seekers from ever working, because, even after 12 months, they can apply only for jobs on the shortage occupation list, which is for skilled jobs where there is an identified national shortage. Even if an asylum seeker had the requisite skills for such a job, it is unlikely that they would be able to secure it, as they would have to have had their existing qualifications recognised and may well have become deskilled in the year or more that they had been unemployed.

Once again, this is not the policy in many other European countries. For example, Belgium, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden all allow asylum seekers to work in any job, including being self-employed, once they are granted permission to work. Nor does the current policy assist genuine refugees. More than half of all asylum applications are currently provided with protection in the United Kingdom either after the initial decision or on appeal. The process of integration for these people begins when they arrive in the UK, not when the Government recognise them as refugees and give them permission to stay. An extended period of exclusion from the labour market can have only a long-term impact on refugees’ ability to find employment. The policy does nothing to encourage the principle of our duty to build a common home together.

Conversely, earlier access to employment increases the chance of smooth economic and social integration by allowing refugees to improve their English, acquire new skills and make new friends and social contacts in the wider community—all of which helps to promote community cohesion, which we should use every opportunity to nurture. I do not know how many asylum seekers Ministers have spoken to but, overwhelmingly, the vast majority of asylum seekers whom I have met want to work and contribute to society and they are frustrated at being forced to remain idle and dependent on benefits.

Finally, I return to the point I made in Committee when I referred to the experience of asylum seekers at Asylum Link on Merseyside, where I am a patron. I asked noble Lords to consider how on earth any of us would manage to subsist on just over £5 a day, which has to pay for food, clothing, toiletries, transport and any other essential living needs while an asylum application is being considered—housing and utility bills are paid for separately for those who need them. These support levels are set at rates that force asylum seekers to live way below the poverty line. In their shoes, I would probably try to find some form of income, inevitably driving some desperate people into the black economy and to act illegally—you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Where is the justice, fairness or decency in that?

Where, too, is the principle of self-help that should be cherished in every free society? What effect does this enforced destitution have on those who experience it? There is absolutely no doubt that asylum seekers who have to survive solely on this level of support for extended periods of time will generally suffer a negative impact on their mental and physical health. At the end

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of 2015, more than 3,500 asylum seekers had still been waiting for more than six months for an initial decision on their claims despite the assurance of the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, in Committee that,

“the delays that have happened before have been brought under control”.—[

Official Report

, 20/1/16; col. 852.]

Indeed, the Refugee Council in a note sent to me says:

“According to the latest immigration statistics, over 3,600 applications had been without an initial decision for longer than six months. When the dependents of applicants are taken into account, that’s nearly 5,000 people living on little over £5 per day who are unable to work”.

The Home Affairs Committee stated in its most recent report into the work of the Immigration Directorates:

“We are concerned that the department may not be able to maintain the service levels it has set itself on initial decisions for new asylum claims within 6 months. To do so may require further funding and resources”.