Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-16
Topic: Immigration
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 62 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, which I was delighted to sign. I also wish to express my support for Amendment 64, which the noble Earl has so ably presented, and to speak to my own Amendment 79. The first two refer to people who need refuge; mine refers to a different group and I will get to that in a second As I was listening to the powerful presentations from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Earl, I was thinking back to January 2016 when I was at a memorial service for a 15 year-old Afghan boy. His name was Masud, and he died in the back of lorry trying to get to the UK to rejoin his brother. This relates to the discussion we were having before about the situation on Lesbos. We have to provide safe, legal, orderly routes for people to reach the UK, and to achieve the refuge they should be entitled to. I note my position as the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong and identify what may well be a rising issue. The Government have stepped forward and said that they want to help people who need to leave Hong Kong because of what is happening there with regard to human rights. I very much hope that we will see action on providing orderly routes for people to be able to do that, and for people all around the world I mostly want to speak on Amendment 79. As I said, this does not relate to refugees. This relates to a situation involving those generally known as Skype children, the numbers of whom are, of course, likely to be significantly enhanced. At the moment, for non-EU and EAA citizens who are the spousal partner of a British citizen, the British citizen has to have an income of £18,600 a year to bring them to the UK—more with children—and at the end of the transition period this Bill will extend that to many more people and many more children This is a more limited amendment than Amendment 23, which we debated last week, which addressed couples being able to stay together as well as children. While I prefer Amendment 23, I am hoping that the Conservative Government might be more prepared to consider amending the legislation specifically so that it is not tearing children out of their parents’ arms. It is, at the moment, not using the wisdom of Solomon but actually delivering the verdict of Solomon and forcing parents to let their children go to be separated from them for years. As we all know from the situation with Covid-19, yes, you may be able to keep in contact through a screen, but it is certainly not the same thing I note that in 2018 the Children’s Commissioner for England commissioned a report showing that up to 15,000 British children were already growing up in this situation. This is without adding in people affected by Brexit. Many children were reportedly suffering from significant stress and anxiety from the separation So have the Government made an estimate of the number of children likely to be affected annually by the minimum income requirement once the immigration Act, as it will be, comes into effect? The research by the Children’s Commissioner found that Britain had the least family-friendly reunification policies of 38 developed countries, largely because of that minimum income requirement. That is of course £18,600 a year, which was then 138% of the minimum wage. It will not be quite so bad now. The Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield, said at the time: "There is a wealth of evidence which indicates that children are far more likely to thrive when they are raised by parents in a warm, stable and loving family environment." There is evidence, she said, that this affects "their well-being and development. It is also likely to have an impact on their educational attainment and outcomes." As one of the authors of the report commissioned by the Children’s Commissioner pointed out, the great majority of children affected by this are British citizens. They are being forced to grow up effectively in single-parent families, when their parents want to be together. So I hope that the Government will reflect on the comparison with Solomon and think about accepting this amendment.