“(1) The Secretary of State must make arrangements to ensure that personal data of a victim, as defined by section 1 of this Act, that is processed for the purpose of that person requesting or receiving support or assistance under the Victims Code is not used for the maintenance of immigration control.

(2) Paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the Data Protection Act 2018 shall not apply to the personal data to which subsection (1) applies.

(3) For the purposes of this section, the Secretary of State must issue guidance to—

(a) persons providing relevant victim support services, as defined by section 12 of this Act;

(b) persons exercising any function of the Secretary of State in relation to immigration, asylum or nationality; and

(c) persons exercising any function conferred by or by virtue of the Immigration Acts on an immigration officer.

(4) In this section “immigration control” means United Kingdom immigration control and includes any United Kingdom immigration control operated in a prescribed control zone outside the United Kingdom.”—

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

I wonder if it will help to start by saying that the Deputy Speaker has said that the debate in the Chamber will go all the way to 5 pm—I will preface my quite long speech with that, but I will keep it moving.

New clause 20 calls for the introduction of a firewall to ensure all victims can report abuse to the police and other vital support services without the fear of immigration enforcement. A firewall separates crime reporting and access to support from any immigration control activity whatever. Data sharing between the police and statutory agencies with immigration enforcement has had devastating impacts on migrant women, who are disproportionately impacted by violence against women and girls. This vulnerability is linked to and exacerbated by the limited avenues to support available to them due to their insecure immigration status.

We know already that migrant women are virtually barred from accessing refuge accommodation when being subjected to the no recourse to public funds condition. Perpetrators of violence can and do weaponise women’s immigration status, or lack of, to coerce and abuse them. Evidence shows that over 90% of migrant women had received threats of deportation from their abusers. One of the most significant barriers to accessing support and justice is a lack of trust in the police and other statutory agencies. Research by the Step Up Migrant Women campaign shows that one in two migrant victims of VAWG do not report abuse to the police for fear of disbelief, destitution, detention and deportation. That fear is not without justification.

Freedom of information requests show that between May 2020 and September 2022 the details of 600 victims of VAWG were shared with immigration enforcement. The first police super-complaint on data sharing with immigration enforcement found that this practice causes significant harm to the public interest. Migrant victims are prevented from reporting to the police, which leaves their abusers unpunished and free to target other victims, creating a meaningful threat to public safety. Those data-sharing agreements also impose barriers to policing by undermining community-police relations, which in turn impacts the police’s ability to access valuable information to prosecute perpetrators.

A firewall would allow migrant victims to access support and report crimes at an early stage. Those early interventions are likely to be cost-saving in the long term, and would remove the pressure placed on police officers to make significant immigration-related decisions. Placing a firewall between the police and immigration enforcement was recommended by the Justice Committee when scrutinising the Bill. This Committee’s witness sessions have shown us that a firewall has broad support from stakeholders.

A firewall is the simplest way to solve the issue. Surely we want the police to have strong communication channels with migrant communities. We want to increase police access to intelligence to prosecute all perpetrators and prevent them from offending with impunity. We want positive action to ensure trust between victims and witnesses from marginalised communities and law enforcement. All of that can be achieved with a firewall.

The firewall would need to be accompanied by guidance to advise police officers that when encountering victims with insecure immigration status, best practice would be to offer protection. They should investigate the crime, of course, and signpost the individual to specialist domestic abuse services, legal advice where appropriate and support to resolve their immigration status, if required. Firewalls have been successfully implemented internationally, and we have already made positive steps towards them here in the UK. After the super-complaint process, local police in Northumbria began implementing safe reporting multi-agency local guidance. Surrey police have a firewall in place to improve migrant women’s trust to access support when experiencing domestic abuse.

I acknowledge that there are some claims that people will pretend to be victims of violence and exploit the system to hide from immigration enforcement, but there is a wealth of evidence that shows that unfounded and false claims of VAWG are invariably and consistently low. The overwhelming evidence suggests that perpetrators are the ones exploiting the current data sharing agreements with immigration enforcement to further abuse migrant women. They are able to threaten victims with detention, deportation and separation from their children if they come forward and seek support against their abuser. Immigration enforcement’s primary responsibility is enforcing immigration rules. Therefore, its involvement is fundamentally incompatible with safeguarding vulnerable victims, some of whom may even have fallen out of status because of the abuse to which they have been subjected. That reality has been confirmed by independent police watchdogs, which have stated that in the case of domestic abuse, data sharing between the police and immigration enforcement does not constitute safeguarding.

I understand that the Government are working on an immigration enforcement migrant victims protocol and a code of practice, but many relevant stakeholders, including the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and organisations supporting migrant victims, have stated that these alternatives are unsuitable for improving migrant victims’ ability to access support, as they do not put an end to data sharing. Indeed, through the Home Office’s immigration enforcement migrant victims protocol, data sharing with the police will not only continue but be expanded.

The Home Office has stated that no immigration enforcement action against victims who report crimes will take place while criminal investigations and proceedings are ongoing. However, that principle gives no guarantees to victims and witnesses of crime before approaching the police; they do not know whether such proceedings will take place. It also seems not to take into account the evidence showing decreasing charges, prosecutions and convictions for VAWG-related crimes, or a rise in victims dropping out of the justice system because of institutional failures to protect them. Research shows that in cases involving migrant women, the police are even less likely to conduct criminal investigations and bring criminal charges.

One example involves Lucia, whose name has been changed. Lucia is from Latin America. She came to the UK on a visitor visa. In 2019, she met her partner online. After some months he proposed and he convinced her to stay in the UK by telling her that he would marry her before her visa expired. However, as time passed, he became aggressive and began isolating her from her friends and family. When the pandemic hit, he increased his control over her. At the end of last year, she ended the relationship. After that, he sent her messages and emails insulting and threatening her.

Lucia sought support from the Latin American Women’s Rights Service—LAWRS. She was experiencing a high-risk case of abuse and stalking, which led to a deterioration of her mental health and the development of suicidal thoughts. Despite the risk, Lucia was fearful of contacting the police, because of her lack of legal status, but as the threats and stalking grew worse, her caseworker supported her to report it to the police. When the police came to her home, Lucia felt that her case and evidence were undermined. She felt embarrassed and victim-blamed, as police officers asked her whether she knew that meeting people online was not safe. Later, when the police asked for ID and looked through her passport and expired visa, they called immigration enforcement in front of her and told her that she should be ready to leave at any moment. The officers did not want to leave her place of residence until she gave them a date for returning to her home country. Before leaving, one officer told her that he did not want to call the Home Office but had no alternative. Regarding the abuse case, police told Lucia that she was not a victim of a crime, as her perpetrator was not threatening her. The only recommendation was that she change her contact details. Lucia was not provided with a crime reference number or any commitment that her abuser would be investigated.

As the abuse escalated again, Lucia refused to make another police report, as she was terrified of deportation. Eight days after the police report, Lucia got an immigration enforcement letter, which exacerbated her fear and made her decide to disengage from LAWRS support all together. She told her caseworker that she did not believe that there would be a way for her to obtain any justice. Despite being a victim, she felt she was treated as a criminal, facing negative consequences due to her immigration status.

Lucia’s caseworker remains incredibly concerned about her. Women such as Lucia should not have to live in fear of their abusers or of immigration enforcement. If the police had treated her with dignity and compassion, she might have had a greater chance of escaping abuse and achieving justice. A firewall is desperately needed to ensure the safeguarding of migrant women, giving them the same status in law as any other victim. It is crucial for building police trust in communities, protecting victims and witnesses, and preventing perpetrators from committing violence and abuse.

It is very disturbing to hear the example that my hon. Friend has brought before us. Does she agree that what that lady has experienced is Double Jeopardy—with a sense of being totally undermined by the police, not being believed and being accused? The revictimisation in that situation sounds absolutely appalling.

I completely agree. People talk, and that sends out a chilling message to the whole community, keeping people with their abusers. I urge the Minister to consider this new Clause, because unless we get the firewall in place, we allow perpetrators of violence and abuse to continue their unique and specific reign of terror.

I do not really need any notes, because I am about to make a briefer than normal speech that I have made what feels like a hundred times. One day, what we are asking for will happen.

I cannot stress enough the importance of the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham about the need for a firewall between immigration services and the police. At the moment, we say, largely to women, “If somebody tries to kill you, tries to rape you or does rape you and you call the police, we are going to call enforcement on you,” so what happens is that they do not call the police and I read out their names in March.

My brilliant constituent was part of the super-complaint. She faced a very real and credible threat to her life by a man who had abused her horrendously to the point that she had to be moved into a safe house because he was such a danger to her. She does not speak very good English. The police came round to her house; I had called them to go there because her husband had sent violent and threatening letters to both me and her, saying what he was going to do to her and to her family in Pakistan. The next thing I knew, I got a phone call from her and she kept telling me she was in Bradford. I did not understand because she did not speak very good English. She was in Bedford, because she had been put in Yarl’s Wood detention centre.

My constituent had not said anything about her immigration status, which, by the way, was completely legal. She had every right to be in our country. She now has indefinite leave to remain and is working towards British citizenship. The man who attempted to kill her was a British citizen. She had not said anything about her status, but the police had seen the papers on the side from the Home Office and thought, “I know, let’s detain this woman.” The next time her husband tries to kill her, she will not bother calling the police, will she? And neither would I—and it was me who called them in that instance.

The way we behave in this country is a disgrace. The idea that someone could come in and say they had been raped, and we would ring immigration enforcement—that the first thought is “We’ve got another one!”—is unbelievable, yet it happens. But there is a perfectly good, well practised and well measured way of stopping it happening. The Government’s response on this particular issue—which, unfortunately, I have also heard a hundred times—is that sometimes we have to speak to immigration for the benefit of the victim. Now, I speak to immigration on behalf of victims all the time. It is par for the course that I might help a victim with their immigration status. In fact, I helped the woman in the Constituency case I just described. She now has indefinite leave to remain and is working towards becoming a British citizen.

It is not that I do not speak to immigration; what I do not do is ring immigration enforcement to cart these people away. There is this idea that the police are helpfully getting in touch with immigration. Well, they do not do that in other cases. When I call the police, nobody asks me, “What’s your immigration status.” Nobody asks me whether I am a British citizen when they come to my house when there has been a crime against me. Why on earth are we doing this? I am afraid that it is part of the very hostile environment towards migrants in our country. How low must we have to be to get our low-hanging fruit from a rape victim or a domestic abuse victim who has every right to live in our country?

The Government’s mealy-mouthed response is no longer acceptable. I hate to change the tone of our debates, but I am so cross about the slow progress when every expert—the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, everybody—has said again and again why the policy is dangerous. The Home Office response is weak, woeful and immoral. I support the new Clause.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her Amendment, and to the Shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley. I say this in a nice way: the shadow Minister has not nothing that I have not heard from her before, as I think she acknowledged in her remarks.

The amendment would prevent the sharing of victims’ data between organisations and individuals providing services under the victims code and those enforcing immigration Laws. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley knows, that is a matter for the Home Office, but of course we are all one united Government, so I am responding as the Bill Minister, but I highlight my gratitude to the Home Office for the input that it has provided today.

The Government are fully committed to protecting all victims of crime, regardless of their immigration status. We are also duty-bound to maintain an effective immigration system, to protect our public services and to safeguard the most vulnerable from exploitation because of their insecure immigration status. Immigration enforcement will always seek to protect and safeguard any victim before any possible enforcement action is taken. Indeed, the Home Office routinely helps migrant victims by signposting them to legal advice to help them regularise their stay.

It is important to remember that every case is different and that an insecure immigration status does not automatically mean that somebody will be detained or removed. The decision on what may be the most appropriate course of action is based on many factors that require a full assessment of the individual circumstances. Evidence of vulnerability is an essential part of that assessment and is necessary to ensure effective safeguarding plans to protect victims from harm.

There can on occasion be benefits to sharing information, such as preventing perpetrators of domestic abuse from using a person’s insecure status against them as a means of coercion and control. But I note the counter point put by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, and the hon. Member for Rotherham. According to Home Office figures, of the 211 migrant victims of domestic abuse referred by the police to immigration enforcement between April 2020 and March 2021, none has been detained or removed as a result of that referral.

With regards to support services, the Government are clear that victims of crime are victims first and foremost, and must be able to access support, regardless of their immigration status. There is no mandatory requirement for victim support services to disclose the personal data of victims to immigration authorities; nor is data routinely requested from such services for the purposes of maintaining immigration control.

I just gently point out the reason that I think nobody has been detained or deported in that period. It is because there is nowhere to detain them; there is no space in the detention estate.

I take the hon. Lady’s point, but I would say “or removed” as a result of that referral. Support is provided to migrant victims of domestic abuse in the UK through our destitution domestic violence concession, which enables victims who have entered the UK on a partner or spousal visa to access public funds for three months, which can be used to fund safe accommodation.

May I take the Minister back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley? The freedom of information request shows that between May 2020 and September 2022 the details of 600 victims of VAWG were shared with immigration enforcement. The Minister has said that no one was detained or deported on the basis of that, which makes me think that it was not only wrong but incorrect of the officers to collect and share that data because it came to no material outcome. Has the Minister had conversations about that, or can he reassure us that he will look at the College of Policing’s guidance for officers regarding when, how and for what purpose they share such information? Clearly, something is going very wrong in the system.

I will make two points. First, the data that the hon. Lady was talking about in the FOI covers a different period than the data I was referring to. She is not comparing apples to apples, but I take her underlying point. Officers will follow the guidance and make referrals, but it is not necessarily for them to make fine judgments about the ultimate immigration status or appropriate action. They may make a referral, but it is ultimately not for police officers to make that decision on whether there are grounds for no further action to be taken; that would be for the immigration service.

This is a really serious topic. Something is going wrong with the guidance that police officers are, or are not, following. Will the Minister commit to looking into the guidance that officers are being given to see whether it is appropriate to safeguard victims, and to ensure that all the changes he has been working to put in place in the victims code can be operated?

I will make two points again. First, the data sharing and what is required of the officers is clear. If an action is not taken subsequently to detain or remove someone, that does not mean that the officer was wrong in sharing the information; it is not necessarily for them to make that judgment. Secondly, on the hon. Lady’s request, I am happy to ensure that the Immigration Minister, who is probably on his feet in the House at the minute, is made aware of her point.

He is aware.

I suspect that he might be. Migrant victims can also apply for settlement—indefinite leave to remain—under the domestic violence indefinite leave to remain rules. The intention is to safeguard victims of domestic abuse by offering them secure status and financial support, independent of their abusive partner. We know that victims of domestic abuse with insecure immigration status can face additional barriers in seeking support from agencies, professionals and others. That is why in April 2021 the Government launched the support for migrant victims scheme, which is being run by Southall Black Sisters and their delivery partners. The scheme provides wraparound support for migrant victims, including accommodation, subsistence and counselling, and is backed by £1.4 million in funding. More than 950 victims have been supported through the scheme since its introduction.

Supporting victims regardless of immigration status, especially victims of domestic abuse, is a key commitment of the Government, but I am afraid that my colleagues in the Home Office and I do not see the hon. Lady’s new Clause as the right way to further that work. The victims code touches on every aspect of our criminal justice system, so the new clause’s inclusion of personal data that is processed for the purpose of requesting or receiving support or assistance under the victims code is extremely broad. It would apply a blanket approach to a complex and vast amount of data, regardless of what the data is, where it has been sourced from and why it was originally collected.

Retaining operational discretion so that each case is considered individually, plus ensuring that support is available to those who need it, is the right approach. Knowing the hon. Lady well, I understand the sentiment and intent behind the new clause. It is important that we look at what more can be done to make clearer to victims what is available to them and the processes that they can expect. That is why the Government are committed to introducing an immigration enforcement migrant victims protocol for migrant victims of crime. The protocol will give greater transparency to migrant victims and their dependants on how their data will be shared, and will set out that no immigration enforcement action should be taken against that victim while investigation and prosecution proceedings are ongoing, and while the victim is receiving support and advice to make an application to regularise their stay. As I say, I understand the sentiment behind the new clause, but I regret that we will have to resist it on this occasion.

The situation that we are in pains me, and it pains me that the Minister is unable to move forward on this. It is not enough to inform those vulnerable victims; I need to see the police being informed of what they ought, and ought not, to be doing. I will withdraw the new Clause, but I assure the Minister that it will come back. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.