Lord Green of Deddington: To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to section 16 of the Memorandum of Understanding between the UK and the government of Rwanda for the provision of an asylum partnership arrangement, how many refugees from Rwanda will be resettled in the UK; and over what time period they will be resettled.
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords, it was suggested earlier that Cross-Benchers are a bunch of left-wing intellectuals. I do not think I have ever been accused of being left-wing and certainly not an intellectual. That may explain why I intend to strike a very different note. I intend to tackle a subject that many of your Lordships love to hate. You have guessed it: immigration and, in particular, its impact on and...
Lord Green of Deddington: Does the Minister agree that the wonderful response of the British public to the Ukraine crisis illustrates their willingness to help when they are sure that those concerned are genuine? Secondly, in the wider context of the review that he mentioned, will the Government include another look at the refugee convention, now many years old and facing entirely different circumstances?
Lord Green of Deddington: I shall be extremely brief, noble Lords will be glad to hear. I should just like to draw attention to the state of public opinion, which is amazed by people arriving on our beaches in their tens of thousands. It was 30,000 last year; it could be double that this year. The public do not like it and they are right. It is very bad for the Government’s reputation. It is not so good for the...
Lord Green of Deddington: To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with P&O Ferries about the (1) immigration status, and (2) right to work in the UK, of the replacement workers they are reportedly hiring; what assessment they have made of the right to work in the UK of these workers; and, of the workers of foreign nationality hired by P&O Ferries, what were the immigration routes by which they...
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords, it has been a very interesting debate. I welcome the response of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats and note the careful response from the Labour Front Bench. There are wider issues here, and I hope that both opposition parties will look at this and that the Government will, too. The point that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, made is a very...
Lord Green of Deddington: I assume the noble Lord is aware that British citizens in India are not permitted to vote.
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords, I gave notice at Second Reading that it was my intention to bring forward an amendment on votes for Commonwealth citizens in general elections—and I repeat that. We have had a very good debate on local elections and got into a lot of technicalities, but this is now about general elections. My suggestion is that, to vote in general elections, the basic requirement should be...
Lord Green of Deddington: A lot has changed in 14 years, but the thrust of what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said is absolutely right. We now have a system that has developed somewhat in defining what a UK citizen is—I accept that—but it is not too difficult, is quite well known and has been discussed recently. I do not think that undermines his recommendation or the logic of saying that the clear...
Lord Green of Deddington: Before the Minister sits down, is she confirming that any immigration negotiations with India will be confined to mode 4?
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords, as a retired second lieutenant who served in Borneo alongside Gurkha regiments, I am very happy to support these proposals.
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords, I will even more briefly strike a slightly different note. This proposal—I know it has virtually gone through—is very unwise. We have a scheme which already applies to rather more than 5 million people. That is surely enough, and we should leave it at that.
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords, we had a long debate and the House will be glad to know that I shall be extremely brief. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for her very powerful contribution to my case. To sum up: we need the support of professionals in this matter, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, said, but also the support of the public, a point raised rightly by the noble Baroness,...
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords, I have retabled my amendment in the light of the Minister’s reply in Committee. Judging by Hansard, there was a very good discussion, albeit at three in the morning. We need to be clear about what we are trying to achieve here. Surely it is, first, that adults should not easily claim to be children and get away with it, and, secondly, that where doubts about age remain, the...
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords, I support Amendment 80, which I have co-sponsored. The problem is that Covid has sent immigration statistics into a tailspin, to which the Government’s response has made matters worse. As I understand it, the Government suspended the International Passenger Survey that took place at all airports when Covid struck, mainly to protect the staff, who would normally have been...
Lord Green of Deddington: To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Stedman-Scott on 11 February (HL5761), what is (1) the underlying data issue affecting the calculation of the scale of National Insurance numbers issued to adult overseas arrivals from June 2021 onwards, (2) the scale of the uncertainty about the numbers involved, (3) the degree and manner in which this has affected...
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords, I speak in support of this admirable initiative by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, whose expertise in this area is matched only by his determination to get it attended to. I fully endorse his opening remarks—if I may say so, an outstanding summary of the issues—and I endorse the powerful arguments outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. As noble Lords probably know, I...
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords, this is more important than it looks. Frankly, it is rather absurd that people can turn up in their tens of thousands on our beaches and there will have been no offence. That is not to say that they should be charged, but there must surely be some legal impediment to people just turning up.
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords, I offer just a sentence on some of these amendments. On Amendment 48, we need to bear in mind the risk that if we set up what is now proposed, children who are not yet in Europe will feel obliged to take quite serious risks to get into Europe to take advantage of it. With regard to Amendment 49, Syria is a good example. We decided that something needed to be done. We chose a target...
Lord Green of Deddington: My Lords—