Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-08
Topic: Immigration
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): I think the noble Baroness’s warning is very well taken I support Amendments 118, 119A and 119B, but I want particularly to speak in favour of Amendment 116 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope. The noble Lord and I have done business together for a long time—the past is another country, and it was in fact in another country—and it is a pleasure to be supporting his amendment. I should also say that I am very grateful to the Minister for the letter that she wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, with a number of useful factual points in it. I am very grateful for my copy today It seems to me that the amendment raises two questions: why should one set a number, and why 10,000? Why should one set a number? I am a trustee of the Refugee Council and I have spent some time trying to work out why so many of the Afghan refugees who came here last summer are still in temporary bridging accommodation. I have not quite got to the bottom of it, but it seems to me that the problem is not ill will or lack of intention. I do not criticise the Government. It is a problem with local authorities that arises from the squeeze on their budgets and lack of certainty over financing. The attraction of setting a minimum number is the certainty of having a number in the public expenditure survey—a number negotiated with the Treasury. The Treasury would need to ensure that local authorities were equipped with the money to pay for at least that level There seems to be no shortage of willingness in local authorities; it is a shortage of funding in local authorities. When you look at the huge number of local authorities—nearly 300—which came in under the Syrian refugee scheme, it seems to me that what is needed is the certainty that enables one to plan ahead for financing and finding accommodation. So I think setting a number is a good idea and I support the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, for that reason Is 10,000 the right number? There are 28 million refugees in the world; it does not seem a very high number. Canada is taking 35,000 Afghans in this calendar year. The population of Canada is just over half the population of the United Kingdom. Comparing us with Europeans, we are number 21 out of 42—bang in the middle of the pack. With our tradition of a presence around the world, that seems to be quite low On the other hand, it is probably more than the hotchpotch of present schemes will bring in. It probably would be an increase, but I cannot say for sure because, as the Minister says in the enclosure to her letter today, rather surprisingly, 11 months in, it is still too soon to produce any statistics on how many people are coming in under the resettlement scheme that started in March last year. We do not know how many we are taking now, so we do not know whether this would be an increase. I suspect it would be, but I suspect that overall refugee numbers coming to this country would drop over time. I think this is the answer to the channel problem; 26,000 people came across the channel last year. If there were safe routes—and here is a safe, reliable route—fewer people would try to come unofficially. Fewer people would get killed trying to come into the country So I think that, although the number of official refugees would probably go up if we set a 10,000 minimum, the total number of refugees coming here would probably go down. I cannot prove it but that is my instinct. It seems to me that so strong is the incentive to find safe routes that this is a very good way of going about it, so I support the amendment.