argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Beyond Brexit: Policing, Law Enforcement and Security (EUC Report) — House of Lords, 2022-03-11
Topic: Mixed Topics
Peter Ricketts (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank all the participants in our debate this morning, which has been substantive and wide-ranging. The details are certainly technical, but the subject is vital for the security of citizens in this country and in the EU. I start by thanking the Minister. We are all aware of the huge load that she is carrying with three major pieces of legislation on her plate and a series of late nights this week; yet, I hope she will not mind me saying, she was her usual cogent, comprehensive and collegial self at the Dispatch Box this morning, and we have covered a great deal of ground Secondly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has also done, I want to thank the staff of our committee: our clerk, Simon Pook, our legal adviser ,Tim Mitchell, our policy assistant, Genevieve Richardson, and our committee assistant, Amanda McGrath. They took on a large extra burden due to the fact that we only ever met virtually; I think that is true for staff throughout the House. They were themselves working from home, often not in ideal conditions. Many of them had to re-role as IT technicians as well as using their other skills. The House owes our staff a real debt for the load that they have carried during this extraordinary period I will not prolong the debate but pick out just three or four very brief themes: first, the importance of sustaining practical co-operation at the operational level and the risk that we may pull apart over the years because we are not part of the management and administration of these EU measures and instruments. Secondly, a number of noble Lords made the point that the TCA is a foundation on which we can build closer co-operation in areas where there are gaps at the moment. Thirdly, it is a fragile foundation in the sense that, as the noble Lords, Lord Anderson, Lord Paddick and others have said, it does depend on continued EU confidence in the UK’s high standards, both in human rights legislation and in data protection; I hope that is something that the Government will continue to bear very much in mind. There are a number of continuing areas of concern such as family law, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, explained to us so clearly, and the operation of the surrender agreement, all of which underlines the need for this House and its committees to continue to scrutinise this important area of co-operation and all the different arrangements that we have discussed today.
North East Ambulance Service — House of Lords, 2022-05-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Berkeley (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, does the Minister agree that we have to be much more proactive in encouraging people to have the courage to be whistleblowers? It is the only way we are going to learn. Secondly, should we not outlaw NDAs of this sort, so that they cannot suppress information that is vital to the well-being of society? I agree with the previous speaker who said that we need to change the culture around this, not just small points.
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-31
Topic: Immigration
Terence Etherton (Crossbench, Unknown): I should like to make three essential points by way of reply to what has been said. I am extremely grateful to those Members of the House who have supported my amendment The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, highlighted what is for him, and I think in government policy terms, critical: that it is said that the success rate is too low. This raises the question: at what price do we value justice? We are agreed that 40 to 50 cases each year have been wrongly refused permission to appeal by the Upper Tribunal. In the case of severely important asylum claims and human rights cases, those 50 cases represent all the trauma that is gone through by a complainant. If one has sat in court and listened to the stories of people who have made the most extraordinary efforts to get to this country, seeking asylum, going from place to place trying to get here, one will know that refusal of a Cart review as one of the 50 is a real denial of justice Yes, there are very many cases—too many cases; we are all agreed on this—of unmeritorious applications by way of Cart, but we have to find a balance which takes into account the injustice that will be suffered by even one person, let alone 50 people, in these most serious of cases which involve such a long time and, in many cases, severe trauma. There are those who recall the biblical admonition: "Justice, justice you shall pursue". That is what I have spent my entire career attempting to do, particularly as a judge. I do not accept that the middle course is paying too high a price for the justice that would otherwise be denied to the categories of people for whom I have been speaking. My presentation—my middle course—is for those people who would otherwise suffer My last point is this. Attractively though the Minister has put it, that there are three bites of the cherry is not entirely correct. The modern method of appeal from tribunals is an appeal from a decision in an asylum case from the Lower Tribunal, then to the Upper Tribunal and then to the Court of Appeal. On his analysis, the Court of Appeal hearing would be a third bite of the cherry, but that is standard procedure. I do not accept that a third review of tribunal cases is in any way unusual. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Ukraine Refugee Visas — House of Lords, 2022-03-31
Topic: Immigration
Ilora Gillian Finlay (Crossbench, Unknown): Could the Minister please tell us how many whole-time equivalent staff have been taken on in addition to manage the process? How many Ukrainian translators have been drafted in to assist with the process? Who is the official employed full time to oversee the Homes for Ukraine scheme and how are they being held to account? Why is there no processing of DNA on arrival in place if there are concerns about the children? Where is the information on an appeals process if somebody is rejected?
Homes for Ukraine Scheme — House of Lords, 2022-03-31
Topic: Immigration
David Alton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, can the Minister say who is the official employed full-time to oversee the process? Will he arrange for him to attend the regular briefings organised by the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence, which no one from the Home Office or his own unit attends, in order to brief Members of both Houses? Can he also say whether he will look, as I did last week, at the way family units are being kept together in Lithuania when refugees arrive from Ukraine, and at whether we are doing the same here?
Homes for Ukraine Scheme — House of Lords, 2022-03-31
Topic: Immigration
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): Will the Minister accept thanks for having finally clarified that the issue of security is not about catching spies but about dealing with people traffickers? Are we liaising in the most intense way possible with Europol, which I presume is also following this same process to try to stop any refugees falling into the hands of traffickers?
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-08
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have retabled my amendment in the light of the Minister’s reply in Committee. Judging by Hansard, there was a very good discussion, albeit at three in the morning. We need to be clear about what we are trying to achieve here. Surely it is, first, that adults should not easily claim to be children and get away with it, and, secondly, that where doubts about age remain, the claimants concerned should be kept separate from those who are clearly children One aspect which was not covered in Committee was the very considerable increase in claims from those who were falsely claiming to be children. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said that, in 2019, those found to be adults amounted to less than half the cases. I have in my pocket the Home Office table showing the outcome of these claims since 2006. The year which the noble Lord chose, 2019, was the lowest percentage in the last 10 years. We now have the percentage for adults in the last two years, and they were 43% and 66%, respectively. I will not provide more statistics, except to say that what is really important is the number of cases to which these percentages refer. In 2019, there were only 304 age-disputed cases; in 2021, there were 1,500—I repeat: 1,500. The whole scale is much greater and justifies the tightening of the criteria for which I am calling As to the test applied, the Minister said that our current threshold is that a person claiming asylum is declared to be an adult when "their physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggest that they are significantly over 18".—[Official Report, 8/2/22; col. 1568.] That is a pretty tight restriction. My amendment would adjust that to when "their physical appearance and demeanour strongly suggest that they are over the age of 18." The change is to "strongly suggest". I believe that this falls well within the Supreme Court judgment to which the Minister referred in his speech: BF (Eritrea). That judgment found that claimants could be treated as adults if two Home Office officials considered that the person looked significantly over 18. My amendment tightens the criteria, but that is what we need to do in the face of the significant exploitation of the present scheme My last point concerns the important and related issue of safeguarding those who are found to be children. Surely it is common prudence that doubtful applicants should, until their cases are resolved, be kept separate from those known to be genuine children. I look forward to an assurance from the Minister that arrangements are now envisaged which will achieve this result. I beg to move.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-08
Topic: Immigration
Julia Neuberger (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and of Whittington Health NHS Trust, and as chair of the Schwab & Westheimer Trust, charitable trusts set up to provide education for young asylum seekers I am speaking to Amendment 64A. When we last debated age assessments for young asylum seekers, in Committee, it was in the small hours of the morning, and the issues to which we should have given real attention did not get enough scrutiny. The issue had had precious little scrutiny in another place, because these provisions were brought in so late by the Government in the passage of the Bill. I am very grateful to the Government for the amount of information which they have provided recently, but there is still more to tease out. I hope, therefore, that noble Lords will understand why I and my colleagues—the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Hamwee, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham—are putting forward this detailed amendment at Report. I am grateful to the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the British Dental Association, the British Red Cross, the UNHCR, the ADSS, the British Association of Social Workers and many others for their briefings and help. There is widespread concern about age assessments among all the various voluntary and statutory agencies concerned with young asylum seekers, and among many medical, dental and scientific bodies. Because of the small family charity which I chair, I spend time with asylum-seeking young people who are desperate to get their lives back on track by getting an education. Most of those I meet are older than the children and young people presently under discussion and whose age might be disputed, but by no means all. From what they tell us, I know how traumatised they can be, and have been, not only by their experiences in their home countries and on their incredibly difficult journeys but by the processes they have been forced to go through once they have arrived in the UK, and the way in which they are often not believed—almost as if there is an assumption that they will not be telling the truth The fact that they might be asked for consent before they undergo an age- assessment process is neither here nor there. Refusing consent would undoubtedly be a black mark against them in a system which they already perceive as doubting their word. Many of them will not have paper evidence of their date of birth, precisely because of what they have been through. The idea that the Home Office will control these procedures, and insist on them, fills many of us with distinct unease as it almost certainly means that already traumatised young people who have been through terrible experiences to reach the UK will be forced to endure yet more traumatising experiences, possibly including intimate examinations which are hard, if not impossible, to justify.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-08
Topic: Immigration
Ann Butler-Sloss (Crossbench, Unknown): I recognise the concerns that adults should not be able to be treated as children—that is a serious matter. None the less, I support not Amendment 64 but Amendment 64A for the following reason, in addition to what the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger and Lady Lister, said Thanks to Safe Passage I had the opportunity to visit one of its children’s homes, where there were a number of young asylum seekers from Afghanistan. I talked to a group of half a dozen of them. All of them, aged 16, had moustaches, and several had incipient beards. To anyone who did not know that those from other countries are more advanced physically than those from this country, who are much less likely to have moustaches or beards at 16, they would automatically look like adults and would be treated as such. Safe Passage was absolutely certain that they were only 16 and it had a lot of evidence to support that. I am extremely concerned that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Green, together with the existing clause in the Bill, will in fact treat young people like those Afghan 16 year-olds as though they are adults.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alexander Carlile (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, given that misrepresentation of age is a matter of concern, it is very important that the determination of age should be conducted in a way that is robust, certain in application, equitable and reliable. In my view, Amendment 64A, in the name of my noble friend Lady Neuberger, absolutely fulfils those criteria; indeed, it is a template for such criteria. I strongly support the amendment and adopt everything she said. Age assessment techniques must be proportionate and fair. If any intrusive measures are to be taken—including dental X-rays, for example—that must be based on proven evidence of scientific reliability, not vague opinions that it might add something. It must be done in a service setting that is suitable for dealing with children, who are the vast majority of the customers under consideration in the cohort we are discussing. I commend proposed new subsection (5) to your Lordships, because it sets out the principles behind my noble friend’s amendment concisely and correctly, in a way that I am sure is the envy of some parliamentary draftsmen who have tried to draft something along similar lines before.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-08
Topic: Immigration
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): I will add 60 seconds’ worth on Amendment 64. I am a trustee of the Refugee Council, which provides legal advice in a number of age assessment cases. The overwhelming majority of the cases we take on are won: the initial assessment has been wrong and the child is a child. The effect of this amendment, if carried, would be to put these children in harm’s way.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-08
Topic: Other
Alexander Carlile (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, there may well be a Division on the second of the amendments in the group. In which case, can we take it that the House will not resume until we have had the opportunity to come back to your Lordships’ House, even if it is a bit after 5.15 pm?
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-08
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, we had a long debate and the House will be glad to know that I shall be extremely brief. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for her very powerful contribution to my case. To sum up: we need the support of professionals in this matter, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, said, but also the support of the public, a point raised rightly by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. Very briefly, we face having asylum seekers arriving by the tens of thousands, as I mentioned. They are clearly briefed to destroy their documents—only 2% of them have them—and the number of those who claimed to be children but were found to be adults was 1,500 last year. That was five times any previous year, so there is a case there. The Government are right to get on the case and I hope they will have a useful negotiation with those who think otherwise. This is clearly a difficult policy area, but I leave it to the Government to take matters further. Meanwhile, I beg to withdraw my amendment.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-08
Topic: Other
Julia Neuberger (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, we did not get reassurance on several issues. I wish to test the opinion of the House because we need to know more about the ethical response, which we did not get from the Minister.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-08
Topic: Immigration
Michael Berkeley (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will make a few comments to amplify the remarks of my noble friend Lady Meacher. I have just been reading a most remarkable book by a doctor, who as an eight or nine year-old child escaped from Afghanistan to try to realise his vision of becoming a doctor and thus being able to support his family back in Afghanistan. In trying to secure a voyage here, the bureaucracy of our immigration system, which I am afraid is outrageously being demonstrated in Calais, meant that this child fell into the hands of traffickers. He arrived here with a forged passport, so was sent to Feltham young offender institution. My point is that unless we improve our ability to admit refugees—particularly at a time like this, as we have heard today—we will play into the hands of these people. Like that child, so many of these refugees are just desperate for a better life; he wanted to support his family That child had experienced post-traumatic stress disorder of the most awful sort, having seen friends and relatives bombed and shelled and having walked among mutilated bodies. He had nightmares and flashbacks, but he did not know that he had post-traumatic stress disorder and could not understand why he was finding it so difficult to explain to the authorities that he had come from this troubled background. It was only years later, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, mentioned, that he realised that it must be because of post-traumatic stress disorder This extraordinary person started the most wonderful foundation, Arian Teleheal, saluted by the Government, which does telemed work with children and victims all over the world. He is a wonderful example of everything which is great in this country and everything that we need to make better. He knew that if he could get here and get training as a doctor, he could change the circumstances of those he had left behind in Afghanistan —and my goodness, he did. However, we must make it easier for people such as him to come here and benefit from our education, and then do wonderful work, such as what he wanted to do, as a doctor.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-08
Topic: Immigration
John Montagu (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hylton very much regrets that he could not stay for this amendment because he had to leave early. He and I have been involved with the problems of domestic workers over decades, it seems—certainly since the 1990s. I should declare that I was once a council member of Anti-Slavery International, and I well remember meeting domestic workers through Kalayaan and being shocked at their predicament, which continues today in some cases This amendment has been very skilfully drafted by the right reverend Prelate. It includes domestic workers in diplomatic missions, where a few cases have come up, and, secondly, it allows workers to change their employer, within the same type of work—but they must register this change. They may renew their visas for 12 months at a time but without having recourse to public funds. Thirdly, they may bring in spouses and children while that visa still applies. After five years of continuous residence, they may apply for indefinite leave to remain, and, if their employer wants to continue that employment, that is all right. Thus the amendment is full of limitations, which should satisfy the Home Office. There is also subsection (2)(c), which favours family reunion and prevents the loneliness that often comes from separation In the public perception, the Home Office is moving backwards at the moment, and all I can say is that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, this amendment is simple, and there seems to be no reason why Her Majesty’s Government should not support it.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): I will speak in support of my noble friend Lord Sandwich. This amendment would take us back to the pre-2012 situation. There is no doubt—there is overwhelming evidence—that not being able to change employer means that these luckless people get stuck with an abusive employer in some cases. This is easily remedied. I agree with the noble Earl that the amendment is skilfully drafted. It proposes a modest change that would undoubtedly do good, and I very much hope that the Minister will be able to accept it I detected a slight trace of politics coming into our debate on Amendment 75. I was a Sir Humphrey once, and I commend to the Minister "unripe time", which is very good, and "due consideration"—"shortly" is very dangerous. Seriously, I see no difficulty with an investor visa, provided that it is for a real investment that is actually invested in plants, machinery or jobs in this country. What worries me is that it is sufficient simply to hold some gilts for a short period and then sell them again—I do not think that that is good enough.