Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-01
Topic: Immigration
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I was pleased to add my name to these amendments. They strike me as being reasonable and modest, and a very strong case has already been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton. ILPA also makes the case for allowing payment to be made by instalments: "The sum at stake, the £200, £150 for students may appear modest. It is not. Factor in that it is a payment per year, that there will be a levy for each family member and then consider average earnings in different countries and exchange rates with the UK and it acts as a bar to entry … Any health levy payable prior to arrival risks presenting a barrier for those nationals of countries where earnings are low and currencies weak relative to the UK. Similarly if a person must pay the levy for their entire period of leave up front: to do so exacerbates the effect of existing disparities" The Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit has provided a case study which again illustrates the difficulties that upfront payments can create for low-paid workers: "F is a domestic worker from South Asia. She has leave to remain granted under the rules for domestic workers in place before April 2012. In 2015 she sought to extend her leave to remain. She faced an application fee of £649 and a health surcharge of £200 so a total of £849 to pay up front. This was more than her monthly wage of £800. From our experience, someone working in a minimum wage job is virtually certain to have their application for fee remission refused, even when human rights is the main focus of the application, which is not the case for domestic worker visa extensions who could not therefore hope to be given a fee waiver. F had to borrow the money from her employer which on this occasion was possible. Not all employers would be willing to assist in this way"— I suspect that rather few employers would do so. It continues: "For a domestic worker to find that much money up front inevitably necessitates borrowing, which can put a vulnerable person further at risk. To save that much money each month can be a huge task for someone on a minimum wage income but is more manageable than an upfront payment. The fee for such applications will go up to £811 in 2016 in addition to the health surcharge" I suspect that all of us in this House live pretty comfortably, so for us to make a payment like that upfront is something that we probably do not even think about. It might just be a slight nuisance. We must put ourselves in the shoes of someone for whom making such an upfront payment is a huge burden, and something that seems impossible to comprehend. The difference it would make to them to be able to pay in instalments is enormous. It is important that we try to think what it means to the people for whom we legislate The exemptions also seem to me very fair. I was going to make reference to the UNCRC, but the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has already made it. There are questions about whether charging children is compatible with those provisions. To exclude victims of domestic abuse would simply build on the existing exemptions under the destitution domestic violence concession, without introducing a new principle. On the question of destitution, the briefing that I had from the Caritas Social Action Network gave the example of someone who was not considered destitute for this purpose because they had £60 in their bank account, but they were homeless. Perhaps I should know the answer, but will the Minister tell us the criteria for destitution when deciding on such cases? I hope that he will look kindly on these very reasonable, very modest and very just amendments.