Dear Sajid,
Further to my intervention in last Monday’s Urgent Question debate, and your invitation to suggest how you might go about implementing your very welcome pledge to create an immigration system based on decency and fairness, I am writing to set out a number of proposals to that end which I would be glad to meet and discuss further.
Independent Review of Home Office immigration policy & practice
On Wednesday, you told the House of Commons that you will “bring independent oversight and challenge to a lessons-learned review already under way in my Department. That review will seek to draw out how members of the Windrush Generation came to be entangled in measures designed for illegal immigrants, why that was not spotted sooner and whether the right corrective measures are now in place. I have asked my permanent secretary to give the review the resources it needs and to aim to complete its work before the summer recess.” That is clearly a step in the right direction.
However, it was predictable – and predicted – that British citizens would, in your words, become entangled in measures designed for illegal immigrants. It is simply impossible to create a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants without creating a hostile environment for people who are perceived to look like migrants. And, apart from anything else, as long ago as October 2014, ministers and senior officials in your Department were alerted to the very problems highlighted in recent weeks, by the Legal Action Group report Chasing status. The recommendations of that report included establishing a special unit within the Home Office to deal with Windrush Generation cases. Had that and other recommendations been acted upon at the time, we would not be where we are now.
Recent revelations, together with the Home Office’s long track record of delay, maladministration and poor quality decision-making, and your predecessor’s welcome if somewhat belated acknowledgement that the Home Office has “become too concerned with policy and strategy and sometimes loses sight of the individual”, demand more than an internal review with an undefined element of “independent oversight”. The public must have confidence that the deep-seated, systemic problems highlighted by the Windrush Generation scandal will be properly addressed. That requires a genuinely independent commission to review Home Office immigration policies and practice, their impact on black and minority ethnic communities, and how they might be reformed to improve fairness and efficiency.
Immigration detention
While your predecessors have previously indicated a welcome intention to reduce the use of immigration detention, progress has been far too slow, and bold action is now required. The vast majority of asylum and other claims can be resolved more humanely and more efficiently while the applicant is living in the community. HM Inspector of Prisons has reported that the majority (67%) of women detained at Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre are later released into the community, which begs the question as to why they were detained in the first place.
Your predecessor’s leaked letter of 30 January 2017 to the Prime Minister indicates that the Home Office is still unlawfully detaining at least some “illegal migrants that we have no realistic hope of removing from the country”. That is a practice that clearly requires your urgent attention, but I suggest it is now time to end the wasteful and unjust practice of indefinite detention, full stop.
The minimum income requirement for spousal visas
The £18,600 minimum income requirement for British citizens to bring a non-European Economic Area spouse to the UK – a discriminatory sum, well above the minimum wage – has led to thousands of families being separated. In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that the Home Office’s rules and instructions failed to take full account of its legal duties in respect to the children involved, or to allow alternative sources of funding to be considered. And the Court agreed that the income rule has “a particularly harsh effect” on British citizens who have lived and worked abroad, have married or formed stable relationships there and now cannot return home to Britain. To my mind, such a policy has no place in a genuinely decent and fair immigration system, and it is time to make immigration policy both child and family friendly.
Mass deportation charter flights
The Home Office has been using mass deportation charter flights since 2001. The flights are shrouded in much secrecy, seemingly to keep them out of public view, and by their very nature they are not subject to the informal public exposure and scrutiny afforded to the vast majority (90%) of deportations (by scheduled flights). Each deportee is escorted by at least two security guards from private companies, and many deportees have reported – and HM Inspector of Prisons has confirmed – verbal abuse by security guards. Others report having been subjected to excessive force or restrained in a way that is supposed to be used only in extreme circumstances. I simply fail to see how such a brutal and callous approach to the inevitably traumatic process of deportation is consistent with an immigration system grounded in ‘decency and fairness’.
Migration statistics – overseas students
As you will know, overseas students bring more than £10 billion per year in export earnings to the UK economy. And the USA, Canada and Australia all treat overseas students as temporary migrants; enabling them to meet migration targets without curtailing the number of such students and their substantial social and economic contribution. I have, since 2012, repeatedly called for overseas students to be excluded from the net migration calculation, and I hope you will agree that this is now the sensible course to take.
I would very much welcome an early opportunity to meet with you to discuss these issues.
Yours sincerely,
Reply to letter:
Join The Discussion