argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
David Alton (Crossbench, Unknown): Does my noble friend agree that it would be helpful to the Committee if, when the Minister comes to reply, she provides two specific facts? One is about the number of people, said to be 125,000, awaiting decisions on their asylum claim; and the other is the average length of time it is now taking to expedite those decisions. This returns to the point made by the right reverend Prelate earlier about the pressure that would be taken off accommodation if those matters were attended to in a much more efficient way.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): Yes, 125,000 is correct, and I think that many—most—are waiting for more than a year. But if I may continue with my point—which does not address that; what I am addressing is the way this discussion has gone—the issue of scale is an important one. I have some sympathy with the Home Office: it is having to deal with a very large problem that is extraordinarily difficult to deal with. It is clear that the situation in the channel is a shambles. It is also clear that it is going to get worse. The number who arrived last year was 30,000 just on the channel, with another 10,000 elsewhere. We could, this year, have something like 60,000 arriving and claiming asylum. That is a massive logistical task and we should have that well in mind in making recommendations to the Home Office. It is clear that the system is already buckling under the strain. One major problem is, of course, accommodation. Provision of accommodation in four-star hotels does nobody any good: it does the Government no good, it does the cause of refugees no good and it should not be taking place. That, presumably, is why the Government are now legislating in connection with accommodation centres, but the response to that legislation is to propose eight amendments that, taken together, would make it unworkable, given the scale of applications that we can expect. For a start, if we limited it to 100 for each accommodation centre, we would have to build something like 100 centres. If we get to the higher end of what I have just been describing, it would be 200. We have to be realistic and recognise what the Home Office has to deal with. I have not always been its great friend, but I think it has a problem and we should be conscious of that To conclude, I advocate a rather different approach. I think we should set up accommodation centres, we should establish them and mark their boundaries, we should provide medical assistance and legal advice, but we should simply make it the case that if applicants leave that accommodation without permission, their application is refused.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): The noble Lord mentioned that most applicants will become refugees. I have the Home Office figures here: 49% of the 450,000 asylum applications between 2004 and 2020 were withdrawn or rejected, including those that went to appeal. Those are the basic stats from the Home Office; they should surely underline the whole debate.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): To get the timescale on this, I say that 10 years ago it was 40,000 asylum seekers a year. That is roughly the number now—30,000 on the channel and 10,000 by other means. The difference, as I mentioned, is the potential in the channel for the numbers to go up very fast and make it even more difficult for the Home Office and local government.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): The Minister is valiantly dealing seriatim with the qualms that so many of us have about accommodation centres, but I have not yet heard an answer to the fundamental question: why accommodation centres? What is the purpose of this? Why would it improve the asylum system? Is it cost savings? I hope it is not deterrence. Is it the advantages for the Executive of the concentration of cases in one particular place? If we are going to deal fairly with asylum seekers, surely the best thing to do is to speed up the process of hearing their cases and get more of the initial decisions right so that fewer go to appeal. Surely the accommodation should be empty local authority housing. Why are 12,000 of the 16,000 August Afghans still in hotels? Is there some hold-up in the system which means that local authorities, some of which are quite keen to get some revenue from the presently empty accommodation, cannot deal with them? Is that not the answer, rather than building these concentration centres—or is there some reason that I have just completely missed that would make an accommodation centre the answer? What is the underlying rationale of the proposal?
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): Does the noble Baroness agree that there should be a distinction between those who have had their cases examined and are refugees and those whose cases have not yet been examined? That is all I am asking for.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
David Alton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I was trying to intervene on the noble Lord’s speech, and I apologise to him for doing that. As I am also going to be involved in the other business going on in Grand Committee a little later on, I might not be able to be here to hear the Minister’s reply, so I am going to have to forego the opportunity of speaking on this group of amendments. However, I wanted to register my strong support for them, not least because, in 2016, I moved an amendment on the six-month issue and this House passed it by 218 in favour to 195 against. One point that the noble Lord might also like to register is that Article 23 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifically sets out the right to work. That is something that this House has an obligation to consider, but I thoroughly endorse everything that the noble Lord has said. I should mention that I am patron of Asylum Link Merseyside, which has made representations on this subject.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Usha Kumari Prasher (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I rise to support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, and supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Ludford, and myself. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, in her usual manner introduced it fully and spoke movingly, as did the noble Lord, Lord Paddick As we heard, asylum seekers wait months or even years for a decision on asylum claims, and sometimes decades. This condemns them to poverty, uncertainty and fear. It leaves them in a limbo, experiencing poverty and destitution. If they are allowed to work, this would improve family life, give them better prospects for their lives in the UK, and they would be able to rebuild their lives in the UK and eventually integrate better. It also, of course, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, makes economic sense. As we have already heard, the Migration Advisory Committee, which advises the Government on migration policy, in December 2021 recommended that the Government should look again at this policy. It also recommended giving asylum seekers the right to work after six months and not restricting them to the jobs on the shortage occupation list. Perhaps the Minister can explain why they are not paying heed to the advice of their own advisory committee The committee also states that the argument that this right would be a pull factor, as we have heard already, is not supported by evidence. The benefits of allowing asylum seekers to work outweigh the unfounded fears expressed by the Government. Therefore, I urge the Minister to accept this amendment, which has very wide support.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, we have heard eight speakers on one side of this debate, and I think a word is in order from the other side. We are back to the same point: should we or should we not assume that all those who come here to seek asylum are genuine? It is, to me, no answer to reply that we are all human. Of course we are, but so are the population of this country and the constituents of those who were MPs In the medium and longer term, any asylum system has to have the support of the public. That could be brought into doubt if they saw increasing numbers of mainly young men arriving in this country, as others have mentioned, in a very visible fashion. As for public opinion, that will depend very much on the outcome of the next months and years. If that is a bad outcome from the point of view of numbers—numbers who are not perhaps genuine—that will decide itself.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): Yes, I heard that opinion poll mentioned a couple of times. I would actually like to see the question and the context in what it was put. Any opinion poll needs to be looked at very carefully, but it may well be the case—I do not know, I have not looked at this particular one—if you ask the public that question today, they will say "Okay, sounds sensible". What I am saying is that, if we set the asylum system in such a manner that the numbers will increase significantly month after month and year after year, that will change. So we need to be careful about what we do with this amendment at this point We know that the system is already under considerable pressure; we have talked about that. We know that the present conditions on work are very tight, as other noble Lords have mentioned. They are deliberately tight. The case must have been undecided for 12 months —there are far too many of those now—and the job must be on the official shortage occupation list, which is barely relevant to the qualifications of most asylum seekers My argument is that it would be a serious mistake to abolish both these requirements as the amendment proposes. It would make for a very clear incentive to spin out the claims process—not that they need to at the moment, but in the longer term—to get permission to work in any capacity. With the current delays in the system, additional numbers would get permission, thus adding to the pull factors at the channel.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): I do not see the relevance of that question Let me conclude, if I may. As we discussed earlier in this debate, the Government’s asylum workload has tripled from 40,000 cases in 2012 to 120,000 cases in 2021. Furthermore, nearly half of all cases awaiting an initial decision have been waiting for 12 months or more. In the present situation, they would in any case get permission to work. However, it is vital for these delays to be tackled. On that point, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and I are agreed. It makes no sense to me to adjust the immigration system to encourage delay. This Bill contains some useful measures designed to speed up the asylum process, and they should be supported.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): I am a bit puzzled. Although the precise numbers vary from year to year, it is quite clear that substantial numbers—30%, 40% or 50%, depending on which year you take—turn out not to have a case for asylum in this country. Surely that should be a factor. Surely the way forward is, as the noble Lord proposed when he first spoke, to speed this situation up so that we can get the answers within the six months, which would be much better for everybody. Surely that should be the centre of their policy.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Terence Etherton (Crossbench, Unknown): In moving the amendment in my name, I should say that I have also put my name to the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to exclude Clause 15 from the Bill—but I will wait to hear him and support him when he proceeds with that I will make a relatively short point in relation to Amendment 68. The provision relates to Clause 14 and the section of the Bill that deals with inadmissibility. Clause 14 is concerned with amending the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and the exclusion in that Act, by way of amendment, of asylum claims by EU nationals. I am not certain why they have been selected for exclusion, but I assume it is because EU member states are bound by the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, the provisions of which, for the most part, mirror the European Convention on Human Rights and, in some respects, go beyond it. In Article 1A(2) of the refugee convention, persecution is obviously tied to the question of human rights The point I wish to make is simply that, under the new clause proposed by Clause 14—headed "Asylum claims by EU nationals"—to amend the 2002 Act, the Secretary of State "must declare an asylum claim made by a person who is a national of a member State inadmissible." Proposed new Clause 80A(4) states: "Subsection (1) does not apply if there are exceptional circumstances as a result of which the Secretary of State considers that the claim ought to be considered." Proposed new subsection (5) states: "For the purposes of subsection (4) exceptional circumstances include"— and then it lists a series of matters under proposed new paragraphs (a) and (b), with three proposed sub-paragraphs under (b) Basically, short the point is that there can be persecution for the purposes of entitlement to refugee status under the convention even where the state itself is not the protagonist of the persecutory conduct but allows citizens, residents or others present within its territory to persecute particular groups or persons who otherwise fulfil the requirements of the convention’s definition of "refugee". My amendment proposes adding to the exceptional circumstances in proposed new Clause 80A(5) the circumstance when the EU member state "fails to protect its nationals, including in particular those who have a protected characteristic within the … Equality Act 2010 which is innate or immutable, from persecution by third parties who are not agents of the member State." This is not a fanciful matter. If we take the case of Hungary, which has been moving more and more to the right in political terms, we see a campaign that is based on undisguised anti-Semitism against George Soros’s support for universities there, and a constant encouragement by the Government there of homophobia and attacks on LGBTQI+ people. So it is not a fanciful point, and I suggest that it should plainly be added as one of the exceptional circumstances. That is the point. On that basis, I beg to move.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Other
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, but my feeling about these amendments is that that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, is right and that the best answer is to strike out the clause.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): Was everything I said even more incomprehensible than usual? Basically, I am saying that we can amend and improve this a bit, but it would be much better to get rid of it I also have one point of detail. I am struck by the double reference to the definition of a safe third country, which I believe is irrelevant because the refugee convention says what it says. The definition is that a safe third country "is one from which a person will not be sent to another State … otherwise than in accordance with the Refugee Convention" and that is repeated later. Of course, there is absolutely nothing in the refugee convention about sending somebody to a safe third country, or sending somebody to any country, except there is the firm ban on refoulement, that is, sending somebody back to the country where he had the justified fear of persecution. I understand why the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has that phrase in his amendment. He is thinking about refoulement, but the Government, when they put it in the Bill, are not thinking just about refoulement. They are thinking about their doctrine of having to seek asylum in the first safe country. They are thinking about their strange reading of Article 31 of the refugee convention. They are not letting Article 1 speak for itself, and their reading of the convention is a quite different one, as was explained by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Etherton, Lord Brown and Lord Clarke, with a different definition from the one that has become the jurisprudence of this country.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): How does case-by-case work? If we are not going to have agreements and the Minister says it is much better to do it case by case, how does that work? The diplomatic post in the capital in question goes in and says, "We have Mr X in an accommodation centre in Kent. We’d like to send him to you because we think he has a connection to you and we don’t want to let him have asylum here." What happens if the country in question says, "Well, if he’s with you, he’s your problem"? Do we just put him on a plane and tell him to take his chances at the other end, or are we negotiating his terms of entry into the third country?
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): No other country is in this position because other countries believe that the refugee convention means what it says. I am uneasy, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, must be right, but what makes this particularly peculiar is that we are considering inadmissibility here. Suppose there were an agreement in place. Suppose we were handling a case—the Minister says that it is best done case by case—but we have not done anything except say, "This is inadmissible." We do not know anything about this chap. He has not had an appeal turned down and has not been categorised in group 1 or group 2; he has simply been declared inadmissible. What does the diplomatic post in the intended recipient country have to go on?
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am not sure whether this is helpful to the Minister or not, but the Dublin agreement was just quoted. Over the last five years, we asked France and Germany whether they would take back 2,480 cases. They took 234, which is just under 10%. Let us not imagine either that the Dublin agreement was useful or that something similar will be in future.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Terence Etherton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for battling so valiantly in relation to all the points that have been raised, and am extremely grateful for all the amendments that have been spoken to. What has become clear from this discussion is that there are, on any footing, immense practical difficulties in relation to Clauses 14 and 15. In effect, I think the Minister accepted that it is not going to be straightforward to repatriate people with inadmissible claims to other EU countries without any agreement. The expression "window dressing" has been used. It is going to be very difficult I hope I correctly interpreted the Minister in getting my crumb of comfort from Clause 14. I think she reassured me that the exceptional circumstances specified were not closed. As a statement from the Dispatch Box in Parliament, recorded in Hansard, that is quite an important point. If Clause 14 remains, it will give at least some people some succour at any event, particularly in the circumstances I mentioned: an EU country which does not prevent those who are citizens, resident or present within the country, from persecuting others belonging to a social group, or for some other reason I am afraid that the overwhelming sentiment—and certainly my view—was that whatever may be said by the Government about adopting existing expressions which are generally used or have been previously used, in vital respects Clause 15 is inconsistent with the convention. This is not in a complex way, but in an obvious way. I am sorry to say this, but to my mind as a lawyer it is an egregious contravention of the convention. I ask the Minister about, for example, condition 5 in new Section 80C. Not only is that not in the convention, but I do not know where it comes from. I can see it is there as a matter of policy but it is not in the Dublin regulations, so far as I can recall. As I pointed out, in any event the Dublin regulations are being revised, so there is no point in going back to them There are a number of difficulties. There is one point I was hoping the Minister might be able to reply to that she has not. I would be grateful if she could explain perhaps in communication with me. How does one reconcile condition 4, which is failing to make a claim in the first country—thereby rendering you having a connection and the possibility of inadmissibility—with one of the requirements under Clause 11 to satisfy Article 31, which is arriving directly, because you never get there if you are rendered inadmissible? At the moment I do not see how the two fit together. I am not suggesting it is a straightforward and easy point; it is a lawyer’s point, but an important one. It shows a muddle somewhere along the line. But, on the basis of everything that has been said, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 85 on the destruction of documents. I am a sponsor of this amendment, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, who is unfortunately unwell and in isolation The purpose of these subsections is to indicate matters that might damage a claimant’s credibility in respect of an asylum or human rights claim. The destruction of documents is clearly one of these. Why else would this be done, except to make it much more difficult to identify the claimant and therefore much more difficult to assess their claims? Noble Lords will remember that claimants arriving by air used to cut up their passports and dispose of them in the aircraft’s toilet. That was dealt with by photocopying their documents before they boarded the aircraft. This time round, it is rather more difficult to counter, but it should certainly be regarded as relevant to an assessment of the validity of their claim.