Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2020-01-08
Topic: Immigration
John Roger Roberts (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, for trying to speak earlier. I look over the Irish Sea from where I live and I wondered whether I also had to cross that sea today, but I am delighted that he is here. In the referendum campaign and the general election campaign, one of the claims made was that we would "take back control". We can take back control to some limited extent, but there are areas where we cannot but where we are the victims of circumstances. For instance, how do we take back control when we have climate change turning parts of Africa into extended deserts and a mass movement of immigrant people looking for some way of sustaining their life? How do we do that? What do we do with Syria? What might we to do with Iran? We accept many refugees from that region, but we never know how many we will have to take. What will President Trump do next? We have to be flexible here. How do we take control I was here when David Cameron made the promise that, by the year 2020, we would have accepted 20,000 refugees from Syria. I look forward before long to having the breakdown of those figures If we cannot take control, there are other things that we can do which are easy for us to accomplish. First, we can change our whole immigration ethos. Why do we welcome immigrants to this country yet not allow them to work until they have been here for 12 months? Why do we still have indeterminate detention on the books? We are one of only a small number of countries in the world that do it. Why do we let 18 year-old lads here from Afghanistan or other places be in fear because their status changes when they reach that age of 18? There are things that we can do. Why do we still allow a Home Office that has 47% of its immigration decisions overturned on appeal? These are things that can be done. We can have control over our own legislation. I would like to see that control, so that we change from being a hostile environment that seems to be shutting the door against people to an environment of welcome where people say, "Yes, we are here. We know there are problems, but we are here, and we can contribute so much to the life of the United Kingdom." We heard in the House yesterday of the shortage of nurses, yet we have nurses—thousands of them, I imagine —in the immigration procedure. We are not taking advantage of them and not giving them the opportunity. There is so much that can be done. We might not be able to take control of everything, but there are certain things we can do I have come across a lot of people in the time that we have been talking about this. I shall give just one instance before I finish. There was a lad from Afghanistan originally; he was 14 years old. His mother and father had been killed by the Taliban. He went to Pakistan and from there to Turkey. From Turkey—what a journey for a 14 year-old—he found his way to Calais. In Calais, he jumped on the back of a truck and he landed in London. He joined our Citizens of the World Choir. I remember going with him to the Llangollen International Eisteddfod. There in Llangollen, he came to me after that performance and said to me, "Do you know, that was the best day of my life?" He is a remarkable person. He has now been in a sixth-form college. There was a mock election there and he sent me a photograph. He had a rosette; he was a candidate. The rosette was the right colour, of course; I do not know why because there was no influence directed towards him. He did that and he said, "the best day of my life". We had brought hope instead of despair—I could go on, but I must not—as with so many of the lads and lasses from overseas who come here In this new term, will the Government now give us hope and respond to those needs that we have debated over the years, so that so many people will be able to say, "Yes, this is the best day of my life"?