argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): It is certainly not a tick-box exercise. Of course, a statement that someone is medically unfit and unable to travel is a fact that can be proved by a medical practitioner and which can be evidenced. The fact that the documents are not in place for travel can be evidenced by the absence of those documents; therefore we contest that the key facts can be established as to whether there is a genuine obstacle to the person leaving, without necessarily reopening the whole case for review The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, was generous enough again to recognise in connection with the Azure card, on which he has faithfully spoken over many years in this place, that we have made some improvements. I will refer back the comment on the specific chain he mentioned, the easyFoodstore—or is it the easyJet store?—which has food for low prices, because that ought to be considered. The list is not an exhaustive one: it can be changed and added to, provided that the companies themselves are willing to join the system. I will certain explore that further The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked whether the 90-day grace period would be extended if there is a change of circumstances. The person must genuinely ensure that there is an obstacle to return. An example might be if they did not receive timely notice of the asylum refusal or a failed appeal. The 90-day grace period for families will enable us to work effectively with families and local authorities to encourage and enable returns. Assisted voluntary return for families is a scheme for families comprising a maximum of two adult parents and at least one child under the age of 18. Families who leave the UK under this scheme can qualify for up to £2,000 per family member. A key difference between that scheme and the previous one— the test that was done under Schedule 3 to the 2002 Act—is that that was a dry, correspondence-based exercise, whereas with family returns we are talking about a family returns engagement officer, who works with them to ensure that provision is in place for them and their family both while they are in the UK and in the country to which they will return to On the regulations and whether they will be affirmative, we are very conscious as to what the committee has said, and of course we always tend to show great deference to that committee. However, I will have to come back on Report to confirm how we will deal with this. It simply requires a process we need to go through as regards consulting other people with interests across government to get approval or not for that type of thing. I feel as though I am letting my poker face go again—I have never played poker, and now I am probably figuring out why. Noble Lords have guessed it. In any case, we take the committee seriously and will come back with an amendment to—
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): More details will come out. We are working very closely with the local authorities and the Department for Education on what the guidance should be on this. We have to get that joined-up system there to ensure protection, particularly for the families, and work out how it will work. That process is ongoing. As set out in my letter of 21 January and in the substantial document, the review is current. I realise that we had a significant debate on the level of asylum support on 27 October. On page 2, paragraph 6 states: "As Lord Bates confirmed in the House of Lords on 27 October 2015, we continue to keep the support rate under review" We have engaged with a number of stakeholders, including Still Human Still Here, Refugee Action, the Children’s Society and Student Action for Refugees and we will study the results carefully. The review should report in March or April and will provide detailed reasons for the conclusion when it comes through The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked what the reduction in the number of migrants will be. An impact statement is attached, where the noble Lord will see that we anticipate that an estimated 20% of the failed cohort will return. That is the assumption we have used in the impact assessment. It is not an easy estimate to make, however, for the reasons the noble Lord gave. It cannot be judged on just this one measure but needs to be judged by the wider measures in the Bill, which will make it more difficult for people to rent accommodation, drive or gain employment if they have no right to be here. It is part of the package but that is the assumption I come to discontinuation of support. If there is a genuine obstacle, support will continue. If a pregnant woman is not due to give birth within six weeks of the expiry point of the 90-day grace period, she will generally be fit to fly and therefore not eligible for new Section 95A support. If that were not the case, there would be medical grounds to cite a genuine obstacle to being able to travel.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): Every case will be different but in a normal case, if someone cannot leave within 90 days, there is probably a genuine obstacle to their doing so. They may not be well enough or they may not have travel documents, in which case they would come into the category of having a genuine obstacle and, therefore, support could continue under new Section 95A.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): I am happy to set that out in a little more detail. I think it would be helpful to say how we envisage that working. The plan is for the family engagement officer—who is a key figure in this, working with the family to manage their return—to have cognisance of their circumstances not only while here but when they return, so that will be taken into account and will be something that we look at. I will write more on that; I am happy to do so.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I am a huge admirer of the work of the Red Cross and pay tribute to all that it does in this area. The noble Baroness referred to my charitable endeavours over the recess. Last year, I raised £90,000 for projects for the International Red Cross in China. My response to the point about the Red Cross study is that we are engaging with it. Home Office officials are in contact with the Red Cross and we are working through its recommendations, which I have read. There is some question—which we need to understand better—about the cohort. I think that the Red Cross looked at some 60 case studies. The majority—all but five or six, I think—were failed asylum seekers, but there was not really sufficient explanation of why they had failed. Suffice to say that we take this very seriously. We want to engage with organisations such as the Red Cross so that we move forward sensitively I have said that I will write on the point about the Azure card and perhaps I could include the exceptions. With that, I hope that noble Lords will accept my explanation and withdraw their opposition to the clause standing part.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): That is one of the reasons why, in the preceding group, we talked about the policy of deport first, appeal later. If people are appealing from outside the country, there is less of a risk that they will abscond. We should also note, when comparing this with the 2002 Act, the different way in which we now engage families in this situation—through caseworkers, through Migrant Help and by working with them to manage their return to the United Kingdom. There is also a very generous grant available to them—up to £2,000 per person in addition to travel costs—when they agree to do so. So judged in the round, within the wider package of things that we are trying to do in the Immigration Bill, we can actually see that that figure will improve. But I am sure that the noble Lord will hold us to account when those figures are published each year to see how we are doing.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Other
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): I apologise if I did not address those questions specifically head-on. Of course, I am blessed with having a team of officials behind me who capture the gaps in my response. We have a track record, I think, of following up in some detail to plug those gaps so that Members have the information that they need to scrutinise the legislation before the House.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for moving her amendment, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. In the interests of time, perhaps I may first draw the attention of the Committee to my letter of 21 January and in particular to the accompanying document, Reforming Support for Migrants Without Immigration Status: The New System Contained in Schedules 8 and 9 to the Immigration Bill, and specifically to pages 10 to 12 which deal with the handover situation of people on support from the Home Office and moving them on to a local authority, and how that system can be improved. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, who I respect enormously for his humanitarian instincts, as I do the noble Lord, Lord Judd, referred to the British Red Cross report. It was published on 13 January, I think, which is fairly recent in terms of government decision-making. We are engaging with the charity and we will have more to say on the report in due course At the heart of what the noble Baroness wants is whether we will agree to a meeting to look specifically at this issue. The next group of amendments is a significant one about children leaving care. I was going to suggest that we should have a meeting on that issue, which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, will probably find very helpful. I am happy to incorporate this specific point into that wider meeting, given that we already have five meetings coming up before Report. If that is helpful to her, I shall restrict my remarks to drawing attention to the document I have just mentioned and agreeing to combine this issue with those to be addressed in the meeting as a result of the next group of amendments.
Housing Benefit (Abolition of the Family Premium and Date of Claim Amendment) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Housing
David Freud (Conservative, Centre-right): I listened very carefully to the noble Lord on those points. My response to that is, if the claim was made on that date and it was lost but it was made then, the issue is whether the bureaucracy accepts the claim that it is lost. The date is established then, and would be established in both of those cases. A lot of the problems may be through legacy benefits, where, as I just explained, the situation has not changed DHPs are designed to give additional support to claimants who need it. It is technically possible for DHPs to meet a historic need, although in practice we suspect that it is rather unlikely that a local authority would make this award for that reason, as the regulations state that a claimant should need further financial assistance with housing costs to receive a DHP. As the time period that they are applying for would have passed, it would be difficult to argue that there was a need for financial assistance with housing costs. Therefore it is unlikely but not impossible.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I apologise for not having taken part in any of the proceedings on this legislation. Quarter past 10 at night in the middle of the week seems, perhaps, not the best moment to set forth on this matter. However, I am ashamed to say that until I was briefed by a friend, Mr Graham Hutton, chairman of the Aid to the Church in Need, about the position of Christians in Syria and Iraq, I was wholly ignorant of the extent of the atrocities that are occurring.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Mark Schreiber (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the Government should be rather ashamed that this debate is necessary. It has taken the whole consideration of the Bill on to a different plane from all the other amendments that I have listened to. It is so terrible that so-called diplomacy should be unable to do what is right. I have been deeply shocked that the Government, in being asked to give priority to Christians among the 20,000 Syrians who we are to admit during this Parliament as refugees, have said that they cannot do so because they cannot discriminate. The whole concept of refugees and asylum is discrimination. It is giving succour to those who need succour. I will go no further except to say that if the amendment were to come back to the House at Report and the Government resist it, they would be overwhelmingly and humiliatingly defeated.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my noble friend. I entirely accept what he says about Muslims being subject to horrors as well as Christians, but could he deal with the point that the problem for Christians is that they cannot go to the official camps because they fear for their safety, because, once again, they are a minority? Is there any possibility of creating some kind safe haven? That in itself may create a further security problem for them. The genocide point is that it would enable immediate action to be taken.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): Certainly, the situation is that we would take families from within the camps and from the surrounding areas. It is not exclusively from the camps; it is those who are identified as being in greatest need. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, raises an interesting point on the camps. I shall certainly feed that back to the department and seek some reassurance, and perhaps write to him and other noble Lords on what protections are arranged in the camps where DfID and others are involved to be sensitive to the needs of Christians.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not think that that would happen; it is certainly not what is intended. We intend that there should be full consultation with the devolved Administrations on these matters, and we hope that a voluntary scheme can be arrived at. I make the general point that we all agree that Kent, in particular, is bearing an unfair share of the burden of caring for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. We often hear in this House many fine words from local authorities but, so far, only six or seven out of 440 have stepped up to be part of the scheme on a voluntary basis. That is why we want to include this provision. It would be wonderful if more local authorities in Wales and in England came forward to take some of these children about whom we have talked so much tonight as being in need and share the responsibility, but if they do not, it is important that the Secretary of State has this power.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-03
Topic: Immigration
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): There will be a national register for those who want to help, in particular, with Syrian children. That is being brought together. That is a different arrangement. The children and families who we are currently taking from Syria are in acute need, often medical need, or have suffered violence. They are not those who would be most suitable for a room in someone’s home—they need particular attention. Further down the line, as we continue to help people fleeing that dreadful situation, we will want to take up those offers that have been generously made from charities, individuals and churches. That is why the national register is being put together, and it will be overseen by Richard Harrington, who is the Minister responsible for the Syrian vulnerable persons scheme.
National Health Service — House of Lords, 2016-01-14
Topic: Other
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): Perhaps I may remind the House that this is a time-limited debate. Although most speeches have finished when three minutes is still showing on the clock, speeches have reached their permitted limit when three minutes first shows on the clock.
Identity Documentation — House of Lords, 2016-01-14
Topic: Immigration
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for securing this debate and continuing an exchange which we had when he raised his Question in your Lordships’ House recently At the outset, let me say that I may well disappoint the noble Lord by the nature of my response, because the Government’s position is that identity cards as described—and certainly as introduced by the previous Labour Government—failed essential tests in that they were expensive. I realise that the sums talked about— £85 million—may not in the current scheme of things seem large, but back in times of austerity in 2010 they were very significant. Where something was not delivering the expected benefits, the decision was made to use that funding elsewhere I totally agree with the noble Lord’s analysis of a growing problem. We need to look at it very carefully. A number of noble Lords spoke about the changing nature of commerce and the way the state interacts with citizens, which raise a number of serious questions about how we establish our identity and keep services and information safe. That is why the Government issue a number of identity documents at present. Some 54 million people—84% of the population—have a passport. Increasingly, those passports carry biometric data, which can be used at special e-border gates that are being introduced. Sixty per cent of the population carry a photo driving licence. I understand that that does not apply to the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Harris, but a large proportion of the population does Several noble Lords rightly pointed to the fact that, outside of identity cards, there is an EU agreement that all people coming from outside the EEA into that area for a period in excess of six months should be required to have a biometric residence permit. So far, 2 million of those documents have been issued. Moreover, there is a similar European requirement for an application registration card for those claiming asylum in any EEA member country. That applies in this country as well I should say at this point that I fully support the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about collaboration with our European colleagues on security grounds being critical to the safety and security of people in this country. I shall come to some of the measures to which he referred later The first point is that there are already a large number of established and robust identity documents. The British passport is recognised as a gold standard in the international community, in terms of its ability to frustrate the fraudsters and those who would seek to copy these documents. Then there is the legislation we introduced just last year on specialist printing presses, which ought to be clamped down on—and the penalties should be increased So we have, first, already a large number of identity documents that could be called upon in certain circumstances to establish and verify people’s identity.
Identity Documentation — House of Lords, 2016-01-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): We do not know the specific type of passports they were travelling with in that instance. But additional elements have been introduced to improve our security, and I may just go through a few of them. Certainly, the passenger name records directive was agreed at the Justice and Home Affairs Council following the Paris attacks last year. We have the biometric residence permit, the application registration card, and the Prüm requirements for the exchange of databases. We are part of the Schengen information-sharing system with our European colleagues, and we are going to be part of the second-generation Schengen system. We are part of the European criminal records information system for sharing data across borders. Of course, I appreciate that people will feel that additional information is required, which is one reason why we are introducing the Investigatory Powers Bill. We are also investing heavily in our border security: £380 million of investment is going into the borders and immigration citizenship system, and the digital services for the border security programme, to which we have committed. We have committed an additional £64.5 million to the Channel ports to improve security there, and we have announced a further £1.9 billion to be spent on intelligence and security matters.
European Union — House of Lords, 2016-02-02
Topic: Other
Joyce Anelay (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I appreciate that the noble Baroness has done a lot of work on the academic detailed background to this, which is an advantage that many of us do not have. The 55% figure, which the BBC has reported, is not in the text released by Mr Donald Tusk, so the proposal for a majority depends on how that is defined. This is a working document, not a final agreement. The noble Baroness asks a very reasonable question about how a red card system is more effective. Those on a football pitch know what happens when they have a red card.
European Union — House of Lords, 2016-02-02
Topic: Other
Detta O'Cathain (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, first, I want to thank my noble friend for making these papers available to us. I recommend that everybody in the House get a copy of them and read them. They should read them in a spirit of tolerance—
European Union — House of Lords, 2016-02-02
Topic: Immigration
Detta O'Cathain (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, because tolerance should be our reaction. The whole issue has been so hyped up that we do not know where we are. The letter by President Donald Tusk is the most generous and accommodating letter I ever expected to see from the EU. Not only that, he pays tribute to us. He says: "To be, or not to be … that is the question" And: "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" The whole tenor of this letter is good. Will the Government use this to try to lower the tension between those who want to stay in and those who want to go? Let us have a period of calm.
European Union — House of Lords, 2016-02-02
Topic: Mixed Topics
Joyce Anelay (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend is right. Of course, in the renegotiation talks that have been carried on by my noble and right honourable friends, we have concentrated very much on economic governance, competitiveness, sovereignty, social benefits and free movement—the very reforms that I think the British people want to see.
Zika Virus — House of Lords, 2016-02-02
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sandip Verma (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as I have said, the Ross fund will be used for research and development. On the noble Lord’s point about doing research with Brazil, only last week the UK announced a £400,000 Newton fund Zika research project between Glasgow University and Fiocruz in Brazil, which is in the hotspot area of the outbreak.