Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-10
Topic: Mixed Topics
Julie Smith (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I support both amendments. It is in some ways unfortunate that ARAP and ACRS have to be debated in the context of a Home Office Bill, where, on this occasion, we do not have representatives of the MoD and the FCDO. Normally, I raise these issues with the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, the Minister of State in the FCDO. There is very clearly a foreign policy dimension to these two amendments, so, in many ways, I hope the Minister—I assume it will be the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who will respond to this group—will have conversations on a cross-departmental basis. Clearly, the decisions on who comes into our country and whether they are deemed to meet various issues associated with terrorism—checking each individual to make sure that they have been properly processed and so on—is a Home Office matter, but the wider set of issues links back to our role in Afghanistan, and our moral duties to tens of thousands of people go back to the 20 years we were in Afghanistan There are two amendments which are clearly related and if we had more time—if we had seven, eight or nine more days of debate—we could debate them all separately. We have been told clearly on numerous occasions by the MoD and the FCDO that the ARAP scheme, as currently defined, is not time limited, nor are the numbers of people who can apply to ARAP limited. However, although the scheme was lauded by the Secretary of State for Defence when launched in April last year, before the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was limited in December—I think the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, has already pointed that out. We had a scheme which was fit for purpose, just about. Some of the people who were evacuated under Op Pitting have come under ARAP, and that is most welcome, as it is a more generous scheme than the ACRS It is to be very much welcomed that people have come in under ARAP and that more are still entitled to do so, but I very much support the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, on Amendment 193A because it may be limited. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, asked, "It seems to be narrowly defined. Does it include the British Council?" I very much hope that it does because some of those who were called forward in August were from the British Council. Others called forward have still not made it to the UK; others have now been told "You were going to be part of ARAP; now you have to apply on a case-by-case basis under the ACRS." That is not good enough The noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, said from a sedentary position "and Oxford University". I think the spirit of this amendment says, "We believe there is a duty to people who worked with us in Afghanistan, whose lives are now at risk precisely because they did so, teaching English and British values, and supporting those values as part of our activities there." We have a duty to them. If the Minister says, as I suspect she will, that she cannot accept Amendment 193A, will she at least consider ways in which opportunities can be brought forward to ensure that those people whose lives are at risk today are looked after? I have received so many representations, as I am sure other noble Lords have, from individuals of Afghan heritage—people who may be dual nationals here—saying that their uncle, cousin or father is at risk now. The Taliban are knocking at their doors now. What are the Government going to do On the ACRS, it is welcome that we now know how people can apply. But how depressing it is that individuals cannot put their names forward under the ACRS and that the assumption is that most of the 5,000 people who are to be eligible this year are probably already in this country? Is that sufficiently generous? Do we not need to look again at the ACRS? If the Government really think that the routes to that scheme should be through representations by the UN—maybe because they have worked for the British Council or Garda World as interpreters—that is great, but what about individuals and their families? Surely there should be an opportunity for wider family reunification, as outlined in Amendment 177. There are many issues to consider and I hope that the Minister will be able to answer some of them this evening.