Lord Coaker:

Moved by Lord Coaker

177: After Clause 78, insert the following new Clause—“Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme(1) The Secretary of State must, in regulations subject to affirmative resolution procedure, provide for a resettlement scheme for Afghan citizens known as the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (“ACRS”).(2) There must be provisions within the ACRS to allow those who are fleeing persecution and have family members in the United Kingdom to apply for the Scheme.(3) For the purposes of this section, “family member” includes—(a) the spouse of the applicant;(b) an unmarried partner with whom the applicant is in a stable relationship;(c) any children of the applicant; (d) a parent or guardian of the applicant;(e) an aunt, uncle or grandparent of the applicant; or(f) a sibling of the applicant.(4) Regulations under this section must be made and the ACRS must come into force within 30 days from the date of the passing of this Act.”Member’s explanatory statementThis new Clause will place the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme on a statutory footing and ensure that it includes provisions for a family reunion route within it.

My Lords, in this group I have the lead Amendment 177, which puts the Afghanistan citizens resettlement scheme—ACRS—on a statutory footing and includes provisions for family reunion. Noble Lords will know that the ACRS finally opened on 6 January—the day after this Bill had its Second Reading. That was after a delay of five months. The scheme is separate to the ARAP scheme—the Afghan relocations and assistance policy—on which the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, had tabled her welcome and important amendment.

I have a number of questions and comments to make on this important group. The Government have promised to resettle up to 20,000 people under the scheme. I wonder whether the Minister has any idea about the time period in which the 20,000 will be resettled? What oversight mechanisms will be in place to ensure that the promise is delivered, and who will be included in that total? Ministers have promised that 5,000 people will be resettled under the scheme in the first year: how many of them are already here? Will the Minister tell the House how many additional people will be arriving under this scheme in the next six months—what the Government’s aim and estimate of that is?

The crucial point is that the Government have not included a family reunion route in the scheme, which this amendment seeks to address. The Government’s stated aim in the Bill is to prevent people making dangerous journeys, but does the Minister not agree with our concern that those who are at risk from the Taliban—and who have family in the UK or have family members who are resettled here—are at extremely high risk of taking desperate and dangerous journeys in order to be reunited?

We strongly support the Government seeking to provide safe and legal routes out of Afghanistan, but a family reunion stream must be part and parcel of that resettlement plan. The longer we do not act to provide a safe family reunion route, the more likely these dangerous journeys are to be made at the hands of people smugglers. There are significant numbers of people who are eligible for the scheme who have already fled Afghanistan due to the urgency of the danger they faced. Can the Minister give more information about how those who are now in a third state will be included in the scheme? We have waited five months for the scheme to be open at all; why is it that this route into the scheme has not opened yet?

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has said, my amendment falls within this grouping.

This new stand-alone clause would expand eligibility for the ARAP scheme by amending the Immigration Rules. It would insert into the rules the current Home Office guidance on the extended eligibility for the relocation of additional family members. This amendment would also narrow the basis for those who would otherwise be eligible for relocation under ARAP being excluded from the scheme. This would bring the ARAP provisions into conformity with the standards set out in the 1951 refugee convention—including, for example, ensuring procedural safeguards in relation to any exclusion decisions.

The ARAP scheme is a considerable improvement on previous policies on the UK’s support for former interpreters and staff in Afghanistan, but it remains restrictive. Further narrowed eligibility criteria were introduced in December, including heightened risk thresholds. Most recently, the Government have indicated that approximately 6,500 Afghan evacuees—plus those who, although called up for evacuation, did not manage to get on the flights—will now be included in the commitment made under the ACRS, thereby significantly reducing the number of places available, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said. The UK is reneging on its promise to evacuate all those who contributed towards its security interests. We should remember, for example, that Canada has offered 40,000 resettlement places. We stand quite low on the chart of resettlement. This amendment would ensure that all those who worked for the UK Government and whose lives and security are at risk precisely because of their association with the UK are eligible for relocation under category 1 of the ARAP scheme.

Finally, this amendment would insert into the Immigration Rules a route for additional family members of locally employed staff to apply for relocation on terms no less favourable than current guidance, meaning anyone beyond a spouse and children under 18 years old, which in turn would enable proper family reunification. In speaking to my amendment, I reiterate the obligations that the UK holds not only under the international convention but as a responsible employer.

My Lords, I would briefly like to support both amendments. There is an advantage in putting both ACRS and ARAP on a statutory footing. It is important to understand the need to add a right to family reunion. The fact that the 15,000 people we got out have been given only temporary leave to remain—they do not have refugee status as such, and they are not entitled to any family reunion rights—is shabby, to be honest, and it would be good to put it right, as the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, would do.

I have only one query about the amendment. The conditions on links to the UK and help to the UK which would justify inclusion in the scheme are quite tight. One of the conditions applies to any person who worked in Afghanistan

“alongside a UK government department”.

Is the British Council a UK government department? Is the World Service a British government department? That seems to me a little too narrow—but the spirit of the amendment is absolutely right. It is important to avoid being shabby. We suffered a serious defeat, but we really need not suffer dishonour.

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.

My Lords, I intervene briefly to support Amendment 193A in the name of my noble friend Lady D’Souza, the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and particularly those made just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham. She will not mind me saying so, but hers was the speech of the debate we had recently in the Moses Room, where we were discussing the International Relations and Defence Select Committee report on Afghanistan. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and I served on that committee. We both made some of the points which have made again today about resettlement and the need to reach out.

One of the other extraordinary speeches in that debate, if the Minister has not had a chance to read it, concerned what the noble Baroness just said about the importance of interdepartmental dialogue and discussion, which was represented in a way during that debate because we had the Foreign Office—the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, replied—as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, of the Ministry of Defence, who has been engaged with this issue too. That is a really important point about the need for joined-up government and it is an excellent report, which I commend to the Minister.

Returning to a couple of questions that were asked directly of the Minister during the debate, the British Council was raised; I think, in parenthesis, my noble friend Lord Kerr also referenced the BBC World Service. Only yesterday I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, copying in the Minister, about the situation of 60 Afghan journalists who worked for the BBC in Kabul. It is to the credit of the British Government that they are now here in London. However, the point I made was that as a result of the reduction in our aid programme, in cutting from 0.7% to 0.5%, the BBC is not now in a position to offer contracts to those 60 and it looks as though only 26 will be employed.

That brings me to my next question, about integration. Some of those who have arrived here from Afghanistan have been put in pretty grim accommodation. The Minister may recall that I wrote to her about one of the hotels in which some were based here in London. Some have now been relocated to where I live, Lancashire. The conditions in one of the houses that I had described to me recently were pretty awful. Even worse, the father of the family, who was a major in the Afghan army, and whose life would obviously be at great risk from the Taliban, is unable to get a job at the moment. This comes back to the right-to-work discussions that we had earlier in the proceedings on the Bill. What can we do to help people in that position?

The Minister will recall that earlier in our proceedings I raised the issue of language. My wife, in “retirement”, as a speech and language therapist, does two days a week as a volunteer in Lancashire, teaching English to people who have arrived as refugees and asylum seekers. They now include some of the Afghan arrivals. I will not go into the tragic details of some of those whom she has been working with or some of the trauma that has been experienced by the children of some of those families, but I urge the Minister to build on the intervention that was made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham last week about the importance of English as a second language. If we do not provide the opportunity of learning English, opportunities for employment and integration will be minimal indeed.

This amendment is good. No doubt it can be improved between now and Report. Perhaps more can be done to ensure the successful resettlement of those who have already reached here, and we will not leave it to people such as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, to hire private aeroplanes and persuade businessmen in Britain, generous as they have been. She specifically mentioned Sir Michael Hintze, who paid for a plane to come from Kabul full of people who had been lawyers, judges, journalists, human rights defenders—people at risk. It should not be left to private citizens to do that. I know the Minister sufficiently well to know that she would share that view. Therefore, I hope that we can build on this amendment to some extent.

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I agree with almost everything that noble Lords have said. Our actions have spoken louder than our words in the last few months, in the efforts that have gone into helping those people most vulnerable in Afghanistan and getting them out. On government join-up, I could not agree more. We do not always do well on that as a Government but it is what we have attempted to do. It is undoubtedly true that MoD, FCDO and Home Office join-up has been crucial here. We have a proud history of supporting those in need of our protection and I understand and agree with the concerns that noble Lords have about the plight of the people from Afghanistan.

I turn first to Amendment 177, on putting the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme on a statutory footing; this is probably the one thing I do not agree with, given how we operate as a Government and the flexibility we need to adjust to different crises and situations around the world. During Op Pitting, the Government and military worked around the clock to airlift about 15,000 people out of Afghanistan; it was the biggest airlift from a single country in a generation. We have relocated thousands of people who loyally served our military in Afghanistan and continue to help more.

In addition, the ACRS has now commenced—it includes female judges, whom the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and I are so concerned to help. As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said, it will provide 20,000 people at risk with a new life in the UK. We initially planned for 5,000 people in the first year; we have exceeded that and now have 6,500. The timescale for the 20,000 will depend on national and local authority capacity to support that resettlement. I know that he will understand that. As to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, they will all receive ILR—that is quite clear.

The reason why we keep this non-legislative, operating completely outside the Immigration Rules and on a discretionary basis, is that it provides flexibility to respond to changing international events—and there is absolutely no doubt that they are changing rapidly. Placing the ACRS on a statutory footing might make it more difficult for us to respond flexibly when and if we need to, which was essential in the aftermath of the Afghan crisis.

We play a leading role as one of the world’s largest refugee resettlement states. However, we cannot provide protection through resettlement to absolutely everyone, as I think the Committee recognises. It is essential that any decisions regarding resettlement take that capacity consideration into account.

The purpose of the ACRS, as noble Lords know, is to provide a route to safety for those at risk and in need of protection due to the situation in Afghanistan, rather than to provide a route to family reunion. This is because those routes already exist; I will say more about them in a minute. There are established family routes for both refugees and non-refugees resident in the UK to bring eligible family members here. The UK has a generous approach; since 2015, we have granted more than 39,000 refugee family reunion visas, over half of them to children.

This amendment seeks to bring the ACRS into force within 30 days from the date of Royal Assent to this Bill. However, as I am sure the Committee will understand, it is already in operation, having commenced last month.

Amendment 193A from the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, is on the Afghan relocations and assistance policy. We remain eternally grateful to all those Afghan nationals who put their lives at risk working for or alongside the UK military and UK government departments in Afghanistan. They were critical to our safety and mission over 20 years and it is absolutely right that they and their family members are now supported by the UK. That is why the ARAP scheme was established last April; it has already seen over 8,000 people relocated in the UK, many as part of the 15,000 people that we safely evacuated from Afghanistan last summer. Rightly, eligibility for ARAP has already been expanded several times since it was launched: first, to include people who had resigned from service; then to include people who had been dismissed for all but serious or criminal offences; and then last December to include people who had worked alongside, rather than directly for, Her Majesty’s Government, and their non-Afghan family members. The effect of the changes has been significantly to expand eligibility for the scheme, which I remind noble Lords is neither capped nor time limited.

My understanding of the ARAP scheme was that it was widened to some extent to allow those who may have been dismissed for minor offences to be included, but that the most recent changes, towards the end of 2001, reduced eligibility, particularly for certain groups of people who had worked with the British Council as contractors, so those in the second wave were no longer eligible and would have to apply under the ACRS and not ARAP.

I think the noble Baroness probably meant 2021 rather than 2001, but it is late and we are not going to split hairs over that—I know what she means. I understood that the scheme had been expanded, but I will clarify that in writing, because what she said is contrary to what I have been briefed. I recall that the scheme was expanded because of pleas in both Houses about the various cohorts of people who might be caught or excluded under the scheme. I do not have specific information about the British Council or indeed the BBC, but that is what I shall write to the noble Baroness on if she is amenable to that.

Of course, we are aware that there are people still in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries who are eligible for relocation under ARAP, and the Home Office is working closely with the MoD and the FCDO to ensure their safe passage here. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who talked about jobs. People who have come here from Afghanistan are often highly qualified. It was brought up the other day, I think in the Home Office, about how each department could help in the endeavour with people who have such skills. I shall include in the letter some of the detail on that. It was mentioned almost en passant, but I know that departments are reaching out, as is the private sector.

On the sentiment behind this amendment, which would widen further the criteria, I do not think that the changes suggested are needed in primary legislation. The Immigration Rules are designed to be flexible so that they can be altered where necessary, with the approval of Parliament, to enable us to make changes such as those I have already talked about. Having them prescribed in primary legislation would prevent the Government responding quickly, as I said earlier.

The specific changes put forward are quite marginal. The ARAP rules as drafted, and changed as recently as December, provide us with the requisite flexibility to include those who made a substantive and positive contribution to the UK’s objective in Afghanistan either directly or alongside a UK government department and who are now at risk as a result of that, and to allow them to come to the UK. That was always the intention behind the scheme, and it continues to be delivered.

On additional family members, to which the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred, the ARAP rules reflect the wider immigration system in that principals can be joined by spouses, civil partners, durable partners and children under 18. It is absolutely right that they are consistent with other routes to the UK. However, as the amendment notes, in June last year we published guidance on how additional family members can join principal ARAP applicants here outside the rules where there are specific levels of dependence or risk. This option has been widely used, and it provides us with greater discretion than would be the case if prescriptive criteria were set out in the rules.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newham, asked whether we will look at other opportunities. It is a most horrendous situation and so of course we are looking at other opportunities for how we can get people out. However, I conclude by saying that I think the ARAP scheme thus far has been a great success, fraught with difficulty though it is. It has provided relocation to more than 8,000 people, with a similar number yet to come. We think the rules in place strike the right balance and I hope the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for her reply. There is no doubt that the Government have made some progress in bringing out of Afghanistan people who supported us and worked with us in our hour of need. She gave us an interesting figure: rather than 5,000 people, which was the target in the first year, I think I am right in saying that there were 6,500 people. We all welcome that and appreciate the efforts there. Alongside that, though, there are still people who should be being helped who we are not able to help. That is the purpose of the amendments before us. All of us are searching for ways to speed this up and accelerate progress, to make sure that the people who helped us are helped.

It would be interesting at another time for the Minister to say more about the other opportunities the Government are exploring to help more people in future—in other words, to adapt and amend the scheme. We would all be interested in those other opportunities and actions the Government are taking.

This is an issue we will continue to come back to. It is right for all of us to continue to put pressure on the Government over this, but I am grateful for the reply and I seek leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 177 withdrawn.