142 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them

1. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

   I beg to move amendment 61, in clause 19, page 17, line 1, at end insert— “(3AB) It is in the public interest, and in particular in the interests of the elimination of violence against women and girls, that due regard be given to circumstances arising from a person who seeks to enter or remain in the United Kingdom being a victim of violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse (within the meaning of Part 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021).” <em>This amendment inserts a new public interest consideration into section 117B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, requiring a court or tribunal to take into consideration the effects of violence against women and girls when deciding whether an interference with a person’s Article 8 rights is justified.</em>

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2. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

   It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. My amendment would introduce a public interest test for survivors of violence against women and girls, domestic abuse and sexual violence into the considerations. I will also speak to the matter of leaving out the clause. I will start with the clause and what it does. The clause will fundamentally alter the balance that has long existed between article 8 rights and the public interest by restricting the courts’ ability to assess the individual circumstances of each case. Our courts and tribunals carefully balance the right to private and family life against the public interest in an effective immigration system. Our judiciary performs that task every day, helping to deliver justice, uphold the rule of law and guard against abuse. Yet the clause assumes that the balance is being struck wrongly, without the Government having demonstrated that. The main evidence is only a 2022 internal sample of Home Office decisions. The existing statutory framework already strongly favours the public interest, in particular in deportation cases. While preserving the ability to consider individual circumstances, the clause will replace that with a more prescriptive framework. Here are my views on the main changes in the clause: first, it will require courts to predict whether a person will remain financially independent. That is an inherently speculative exercise, because it fails to consider the uncertainties of ordinary life, including illness, disabilities, caring responsibilities or economic downturns. The effect is likely to discriminate most heavily against disabled people, as well as those with long-term health conditions and caring responsibilities. Secondly, the clause will discount genuine family life, because of immigration status. Family life formed while a person was here with no leave to remain would be given no weight at all, and family life formed while people’s status was precarious would be given little weight. Precarious migration status covers everyone with anything short of indefinite leave to remain or citizenship—care workers, skilled workers, international students, refugees and partners on the family route. Under the earned settlement proposals, the qualifying period to become eligible for settlement would be extended to a baseline of 10 years, and in some cases 15 or even 20 years for refugees. Many people will therefore remain on in a precarious position for years, during which the relationships they form and the children they raise would count for little or nothing under the clause. The reality is that family relationships do not cease to exist or be formed just because an immigration status is uncertain. Strasbourg accepts that precarious status can reduce the weight that is given to family life, but it has not said that it counts for nothing. In an important case, Jeunesse <em>v.</em> the Netherlands, the European Court of Human Rights found a violation—even when the applicant had remained without leave for years—because of the impact on her children. With a “No weight” rule, as in clause 19(4), there will be no space to assess such cases and to retain flexibility. It will weaken protection for children. Finally, and perhaps most alarmingly, when courts assess a child’s best interests they do not look at one factor in isolation—they examine the full picture: a child’s age, health, education, friendships, cultural identity, family circumstances, personal development and connection <span id="247" class="column-number" data-column-number="247"></span>to the UK—and the children are not defined by a checklist; yet clause 19 would introduce a closed checklist, under which it would be unreasonable “to expect a child to leave the United Kingdom if (and only if)” they would receive no education abroad, face “very significant obstacles” to integrating in the new country, or suffer “a very significant and long-lasting adverse effect”. Each is a very high bar. Remarkably, the Government’s impact assessment describes those factors as a “non-exhaustive” list, but subsection (7) uses the phrase “if and (only if)”. It is very clearly a closed list. The Bill therefore goes even further than the Government say they intend, in terms of its effect on children. I am also concerned that the clause applies to British children too. As drafted, it could result in a British child with a migrant parent either being separated from their parent or having to leave the UK to preserve the family unit. That results in two-tier British citizenship. The Government’s own impact assessment lists family separation among the consequences of these reforms, and says—with little humanity—that the new test will allow decision makers “to consider whether parents can maintain their relationship with a child from outside the UK” or whether a British child can “successfully adapt to life abroad”. The existing framework is not perfect, but it already places substantial weight on the public interest and has safeguards allowing courts to consider the facts of each case. Clause 19 risks upsetting that balance. At its heart, the issue here is a simple one: do we trust our courts to weigh the facts before them, or do we seek to predetermine the outcome through statutory presumptions? I believe that the existing approach better serves both justice and the rule of law, and for that reason clause 19 should not stand part of the Bill. Amendment 61 would reduce the harm of this clause, if it remains, by inserting a new public interest consideration into section 117B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, requiring a court or tribunal to take into consideration the effects of violence against women and girls when deciding whether an interference with a person’s article 8 rights is justified. In my view, without the amendment the Bill will remove or weaken application grounds or causes of appeal relied on by many women living in abusive or exploitative conditions, making them even more vulnerable. That may leave victim-survivors at risk of being refused leave to stay, removed or deported for factors that are a direct consequence of the abuse to which they have been subjected. To bring that point home, I will provide some examples from organisations that are currently supporting such women. My first example shows how the stricter public interest considerations risk undermining evidence for financial dependency and contact with the criminal justice system being usual results of an experience of violence against women and girls. Julianne was living in another country when she began her relationship with a British man. While visiting him in the UK, she became pregnant with his child and he encouraged her to stay, promising to support her and secure her immigration status. Trusting those assurances, Julianne stayed and became an overstayer. Once her status became insecure, her partner’s behaviour changed dramatically. He subjected <span id="248" class="column-number" data-column-number="248"></span>her to domestic abuse, isolated her from friends and family overseas, and exploited the fact that she had no support network in the UK. The abuse escalated after the birth of their child. Julianne eventually fled with her child after a violent assault. She sought medical treatment, reported the abuse to the police and received emergency support from the local authority. Traumatised and destitute, Julianne was left to navigate a complex immigration system alone, as she had been unable to secure legally aided advice and could not afford to pay for a solicitor. She lives with the constant fear of removal. I have changed Julianne’s name. Julianne had a pathway to regularisation as the parent of a British child; however, if clause 19 becomes law the barriers to regularising her immigration status would be raised significantly, potentially preventing her from qualifying to remain in the UK as the parent of a British child. Re-emphasising the weight of financial independence without reliance on state support and public services will create pressure on victim-survivors like Julianne to stay in abusive and exploitative situations instead of leaving and claiming support, as she did. Women who have been subject to economic and immigration abuse will be penalised due to their lack of financial independence. The public interest considerations would weigh heavily against Julianne because she accessed support from the local authority while protecting herself and her children from domestic abuse, and because no weight would be given to her family life, as it was established when she overstayed. Without amendment 61, there would be no discretion to consider the role her abuser played in causing her to overstay. In respect of the redefinition of family, I have a further example of where limiting family life to core cohabiting family and replacing a judicial assessment with a checklist will ignore nuances and external factors forcing a family not to cohabit, such as coercive and controlling behaviour. More broadly, women who are convicted of criminal offences would also be put at increased risk of deportation, as a high evidential standard is needed to prove a disproportionate impact on them or a family member. That includes women who are coerced or pressured into criminal activity—those driven to engaging with the criminal justice system due to unmet needs, such as being unable to afford food or having unaddressed mental health problems, and those who retaliated against the person abusing or exploiting them, or who had a counter-allegation made against them falsely. All those women are vulnerable and deserving of protection and support, not the further punishment of possible deportation. My second case study is Blanca. Blanca came to the UK with a visa to work, and while here, she married a British man and had a baby. He had a good job, so they agreed she would stop working, and they then had two more children together. Over time, he became more controlling. Although the children’s benefits were registered in her name, he controlled the payments and did not give her access to the money. As Blanca did not have her own income, he gave her money for the family’s food, but he would demand that she provide receipts and the exact change. If she bought anything he considered unnecessary, he would be angry and make her return it. That included sanitary products, <span id="249" class="column-number" data-column-number="249"></span>which Blanca found humiliating and confusing. He also became verbally and later physically abusive towards Blanca, and she became more and more scared of him. One day, when she was in the supermarket, her period started. She did not know what to do, and she was scared of her husband seeing that she had bought something he thought was unnecessary. She stole a box of sanitary pads, but on her way out of the shop, she was stopped by security who reported her to the police. She was charged and later convicted of theft. If part 2 of the Bill were fully implemented, Blanca’s conviction would put her at high risk of deportation. No consideration would be given to the abuse that she experienced, which pushed her to commit the crime, nor would it be given to her vulnerability and trauma. In addition, as she did not have lawful status for much of the time she was in the UK, her private and family life may be deemed to hold no weight—or, at best, little weight—if it were held to have been established when she arrived with precarious status. The Committee can see that clause 19 has all these knock-on effects into further parts of the Bill, and that this additional public interest consideration is necessary. I hope the Committee will discuss and support amendment 61, if clause 19 is to remain in the Bill. I am happy for this to be a probing amendment, if the Government will consider these risks and make their own similar changes to the Bill later.

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3. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

   I am very interested in the fact that the Minister has just talked about going further on good character in some guidance. Will that guidance take into account factors that might otherwise weigh against the character of someone making an appeal if they have been exploited or abused? Is that the kind of thing that the Minister is thinking about in terms of deviating from the 1981 guidance?

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4. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

   Further to the discussion with the Minister about ensuring that victims of abuse and sexual violence are protected, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. <em>Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.</em> <em>Amendment proposed</em>: 105, in clause 19, page 17, line 3, leave out “should” and insert “must”.—<em>(Blake Stephenson.)</em> <em>This amendment would require, rather than advise, that no weight is given to private or family life established while a person is in the United Kingdom unlawfully, with leave obtained by deception or in serious breach of their conditions.</em> <em>Question put, That the amendment be made.</em>

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5. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

   I will speak very briefly on clause 20, specifically subsection (4). At present, it will expand the scope of section 117D of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 so that it automatically applies to everyone whose deportation the Home Secretary has <span id="269" class="column-number" data-column-number="269"></span>decided is conducive to the public good, regardless of the objective seriousness of their offence, under the Immigration Act 1971 and its use of the word “deems”, which I think is very important. I hope the Minister can answer three questions on the clause. First, do the proportionality qualification and the exceptions in the clause offer any protection for those whose criminality is as a result of exploitation or abuse, particularly those who face immigration-related domestic abuse and have been convicted of crimes related to that? On that theme, the new clauses tabled by the official Opposition would clarify the word “serious” so that some offences would be considered serious automatically. I see the point they are trying to make, but if we made that automatic, it would not be possible for those who are exploited and drawn into criminality to face a proportionate, human-rights-based public interest test. I do not support those new clauses, nor do I support amendments 108 to 111.

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6. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

   I am asking the Minister these questions, so it would be marvellous if we could wait to see how she answers them. Thirdly, does that approach not allow the Home Secretary to unilaterally stack the deck against an appellant in an appeal, on an arbitrary basis? Does that take away from the objective seriousness of the offence that they have committed? Does the approach therefore impermissibly limit the ability of the appellate body to decide an article 8 ECHR claim on its merits, as is required under the Human Rights Act 1998?

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7. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

   I beg to move amendment 75, in clause 21, page 19, line 19, at end insert—<span id="288" class="column-number" data-column-number="288"></span> “(2A) In making regulations under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare and best interests of any children in respect of whom a protection claim is made or who are granted protection status.” <em>This amendment would require regulations under Clause 21 to take into account the best interests of children.</em>

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8. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

   It is great to have you in the Chair this afternoon, Mrs Barker. Amendment 75 was tabled to the original clause 21. The Government published amendments on 13 October that removed clause 21 and added new clauses 35 and 36, a new schedule and some additional amendments linked to the new core protection status. However, the issues raised in my amendments 75 and 74—as well as in amendments 51 to 54 tabled by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough—continue to be relevant to this debate. Amendments 75 and 74 are focused on the broad nature of the powers in relation to conferring rights and obligations or requirements on someone with or claiming protection status. That was set out in clause 21(3)(c) and is retained in subsection (3)(c) of Government new clause 36. My concerns remain relevant, as I said. I will not press my amendments to a vote, but the Government need to consider those issues seriously and respond to my points. Government new clause 35 will remove clause 21(6)—the sunset clause—which limited the time period for regulations to be made under the clause to one year after the Bill comes into force. New regulations can therefore be made indefinitely under that new clause, and I would like the Government to justify that change. Amendment 75, which was tabled to the Bill as introduced, sought to ensure that regulations must have regard to the best interests of a child. No child rights <span id="290" class="column-number" data-column-number="290"></span>impact assessment has been produced on any aspect of this corporate action model, despite the fact that the shortening of refugee leave to 30 months already applies to children and families seeking asylum for over six months. The amendment would make sure that, before making regulations, the Government look properly at the impact of corporate action, including the short periods of leave and the long route to settlement in this—I think downgraded—protection status. I am particularly worried about this in relation to the ability to settle, make family life and all the kinds of rights that children have. When the Government do this, they need to pay particular attention to the Home Office’s legal duties under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. Applied to children and young people, corporate action and the 20-year route will undermine children’s well-established need for stability, particularly refugee children as they recover and rebuild their lives following what is probably life-changing trauma and distress. In addition, repeated immigration status reviews and uncertainty around long-term residence will drive avoidable school and college moves as families are forced to relocate at short notice or potentially lose housing as a result of insecure employment status and other impacts of this shorter period of leave and the resulting uncertainty. For children, each move disrupts attendance and their ability to get pastoral or potentially special educational support. It can set back attainment or harm social integration, particularly at a stage when continuity is most important for children and young people. Temporary leave cycles and renewal windows are inevitably going to risk coinciding with exams, including GCSEs, highers, A-levels and vocational assessments. Anxiety about imminent status decisions could undermine revision and therefore exam performance, and in some cases, young people facing disruption will miss exams completely. This must be looked at very closely. I also want the Government to think about children who are getting ready for higher education; they are just about to become adults and are potentially looking to study in this country. Unstable status also makes it harder for young people to secure home fees and student financing. Short grants of leave could push refugees into the overseas fee category for a long time or leave them ineligible for maintenance support. The rights of children growing up in this country would be impacted because they would have university access and progression closed off to them. They might be forced to defer going to university, which might stall their integration into the community or harm their earnings potential. I do not think that any of those impacts are in the public interest, and I want Government to at least commit today to conducting a child rights impact assessment that will look at all of these things in part 3 of the Bill before Third Reading—and certainly before any of the regulations in this part are made. Amendment 74 would ensure that there was no regression of rights and entitlements. It is needed because the broad regulation-making powers contained in clause 21 currently have very few limitations on scope. The delegated powers memorandum says that the powers will not be used to reduce the entitlements of refugees, and this amendment would seek to reflect that by requiring that they do not reduce rights and entitlements below what was in place on the day that the Bill was introduced. <span id="291" class="column-number" data-column-number="291"></span>The amendment merely reflects what the Government have said their intentions are: in part 48 of the delegated powers memorandum, the Government state that the measure will not be used to reduce “the entitlements currently held by refugees” or persons with humanitarian protection. The amendment seeks to reflect this commitment in the Bill: that people who have already been granted protection status before the Bill is introduced retain the rights, entitlements and protections that currently exist. That would include family reunion with no additional eligibility criteria and a five-way pathway to settlement, if interpreted correctly according to what the Government have said. That clarity is very much needed for refugees who are currently in the UK and need certainty of their situation so that they can focus on developing their life in this country—integrating, earning and all the things that will help their family life and their children. I have a question about a particular part of new clause 35. I welcome the detail in schedule 1 and I appreciate having it at this stage so that we can scrutinise the Bill. However, part 7 of new clause 35 gives the Secretary of State the power to “revoke a person’s protection status.” That is literally all it says. While a whole section of the immigration rules covers the situations where a person’s refugee status and humanitarian protection can be revoked, on the face of this Bill, the Government are creating a very broad ability to revoke that status, which is currently unconstrained. Why are the Government not listing suitable uses of that power on the face of the Bill? This issue is particularly relevant because in the last few weeks other parties—not represented on this Committee—have announced their desire to revoke the right to asylum and revoke refugee status for some who have already found protection in the UK. The Government rightly stood up for the right to asylum and stood against those proposals. It would be good to have that on the face of the Bill, so that we have better protections against the risk of the power being taken over by another party or future Home Secretary who would abuse it. I would like the Government to clarify that. Finally, it would be useful to hear how the Minister believes the change in new clause 35 will simplify decision-making processes since we have heard in oral evidence that the convention grounds cannot be done away with. Merging them with what had previously been known as the humanitarian protection grounds is potentially complex and confusing for people. Will the Government clarify how people will be told on what grounds they have been granted protection, in order to make sure that the Bill is very clear?

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9. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

   I would like further clarity on why those grounds—the reasons for which revocation could be made—which the Minister read out very clearly, are not simply added to the Bill at this point to make the situation incredibly clear.

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10. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

    It is important to know whether the 30-month process will be more like a simple renewal—like me renewing my TV licence or something like that—or whether it will be a reinterrogation of the person seeking protection all over again? Will the onus be on the Government to say, for example, that a country has suddenly become safe, that there has been a new Government, that major changes have occurred and, therefore, that we will look more closely at a number of cases, but that in countries where the situation has remained the same, we will not be looking in depth? How simple the process will be is really bothering people. Having all their circumstances reinterrogated and having to prove themselves over and over again is something people have learned to expect from the Home Office. It is up to the Minister to reassure us on this point.

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11. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

    For clarity, will the onus be on the Government to prove the change, or will it be like reapplying from scratch each time? Again, my casework shows that we are more used to the Home Office asking for chapter and verse from the applicant each time. If the Minister is prepared to promise that it will be for the Government to prove changes, that would mean a lot to many people listening.

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12. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

    I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. <em>Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.</em> <em>Clause 21 disagreed to.</em> <em>Ordered, </em>That further consideration be now adjourned. —<em>(Jade Botterill.)</em>

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13. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Hannah Spencer

    Manufacturing Skills

    Students in Gorton and Denton tell me they often have to spend two to three years on a course before they can even be considered for an apprenticeship. Make UK reports that 39% of manufacturers do not think our education system can deliver the skills that they need. Does the hon. Member agree that we need to make apprenticeships more accessible and flexible so people are not held back from skilled jobs and manufacturers can get the workers they desperately need?

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14. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Ellie Chowns

    House of Lords Reform

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this important debate. I represent the Green party. For many years, we have supported the abolition of the House of Lords and its replacement by a fully elected second Chamber. I am personally fairly agnostic about the exact format of how that should be done, but I fundamentally believe that a basic principle of democracy is that the legitimacy of the lawmakers comes from the trust put in them. I am talking about the authority entrusted in the legislature by the people, the voters—not by the people in charge of a political party who draw up a list from time to time, some of which is clearly related to the amount of money donated for years by some of the people who end up in the other place. It is not even through the legitimacy that an individual achieves within their specialised field of expertise because of many long years of practice in that field. We should absolutely as a Parliament draw on expertise from across the full panoply of sectors in our country, but we need to ask ourselves who should be making the laws. It should be people who work on the basis of the trust given them by the voters, by the people, and on the basis of every vote having equal weight. That is why I am equally passionate about the importance of a proportionally elected Parliament. Fundamentally, we have a system in the House of Lords that is undemocratic and hugely unrepresentative in all sorts of dimensions and areas of demographics. It is untransparent because so much of the decision making about who becomes a Member is done behind closed doors. How can that be suitable for the 21st century? We have a huge problem with not only the composition but the functioning of the House of Lords. It is, of course, important that legislation is properly scrutinised and that there are full opportunities to amend it. We have questions to ask ourselves in the Commons about how well we do those things and how well our system enables us to, but we do not fix them with an institution such as the House of Lords—no matter how effective individual Members of the Lords may be. Like colleagues here, I pay tribute to the work of so many Members of the Lords who take their role seriously, bring expertise and pay attention to the job that they <span id="370WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="370WH"></span>are there to do. However, as the hon. Member for Stroud has pointed out, there has been a huge failure in the functioning of the House of Lords because, effectively, the will of a few of its Members has overridden the will of the House of Commons. That cannot be right, so we desperately need reform. I welcome the proposal from the hon. Member for Stroud of a national commission on reform of the House of Lords. To address a point raised by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood), I should say that I would strongly favour the inclusion of a citizen’s assembly as part of that process. I fundamentally believe that a representative sample of the British people, representing all demographics and engaging in the detail and questioning of how we construct our political system, so that the people’s voice is heard, must be a fundamental part of any reform process. We cannot continue as we are—with an undemocratic, unrepresentative, untransparent second Chamber. We must have reform.

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15. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Ellie Chowns

    Topical Questions

    Constituents in North Herefordshire and across the country want an end to the current postcode lottery in access to adult social care. The King’s Fund published a report on equal access just last week. Has the Minister read that report, and does she agree that social care needs to be locally delivered, but nationally funded?

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16. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Fifth sitting)

    I am afraid I still cannot find the updated impact assessment, either on the website, by email or on the table in this Committee Room. I would very much like to see the new information that the Minister referred to yesterday.

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17. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair today, Mr Twigg. I take completely the opposite position from the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire in almost every respect. I am going to speak against clause 18 and its inclusion in the Bill, and I am going to oppose the Government amendments that would put further tests on parent-child relationships and parental involvement for refugees. I will also be opposing the Conservative amendments, which would put even tighter constraints on family life. I am here to defend our article 8 protections—I say “our”, because I believe it is really important that we set laws for refugees and asylum seekers that we would happily be subject to ourselves. That is absolutely at the core of the universal nature of human rights and the international agreements we have made to respect human rights around the world in the way that we would want them to be respected should we be in the horrible position of needing to claim asylum. Article 8 protects the right to family life specifically for us under the European convention on human rights. Although it is not absolute, it requires any state interference <span id="221" class="column-number" data-column-number="221"></span>in these rights to be lawful, necessary and proportionate. I do not agree with the Government when they say in their human rights memorandum that they are taking “proportionate means of achieving the legitimate aims.” To me, paragraph 26 in the memorandum clearly admits that there is interference in our rights with this legislation. The Government are using the argument that they are taking “proportionate means” of “achieving the legitimate aims”, but the legitimate aims they lay out are: “maintaining effective immigration control, economic wellbeing and the prevention of disorder or crime.” I honestly do not see how clause 18, on family life and people making claims for reuniting their families and maintaining this essential human right protected under article 8, comes into those “proportionate means”. It is about reducing the ability of families to reunite. The impact assessment clearly says that many thousands of people who would be able to come here under current laws will be denied their claims. This is a reduction in human rights and it seriously needs looking at. I am neither equipped nor planning to add further arguments relating to Northern Ireland and the Windsor framework, but further conversations are needed about what is currently in the Bill, never mind what would happen if we withdrew from the ECHR. Everybody on the Committee wants a fair, robust and effective immigration system—one that works and upholds the rule of law and on in which people have confidence. Article 8 is not an abstract concept within all this; it is the law that decides whether a parent can stay in the country where their children live or whether a British child grows up with both parents. We do not want to see families separated or children separated from the parents who care for them, yet that is precisely the risk posed by clause 18, according to the Government’s own impact assessment.

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18. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    I thank the hon. Member for his perspective. He must appreciate through his constituency casework, as I do, the general principle that article 8 claims need to be assessed on an individual basis. The Bill tries to codify and generalise things in ways that reduce the ability for anyone making decisions to look at the genuine family lives of those making the claims. Bad decisions can result from people misunderstanding different cultures, from unconscious biases and from all kinds of things like that. It is really important that we do not try to prescribe family life under state definitions. I will come on to talk more about that and about the toxic <span id="222" class="column-number" data-column-number="222"></span>rhetoric and the awful anecdotes, such as the examples we have heard from Ministers, which increase the toxicity of the debate. We can do much better than this Bill to reduce that. Clause 18 would replace the reality of family relationships with statutory presumptions. Families today come in many forms. We have single-parent households, blended families, grandparents raising children, and parents who do not live under the same roof through circumstance rather than choice. A family does not stop being a family because it fails a cohabitation test. I will always stand up against people trying to define what a normal family is. The Government’s stated objective is to confine family life “normally” to the core cohabiting family unit. A parent who does not live with their child must prove that the relationship is genuine and be judged on how often and how recently they have had contact, even where work, shared care or the immigration system itself has kept them apart.

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19. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    I thank the hon. Member for making those points, but as we spoke about on Second Reading and in earlier debates on this topic, the muddle lies in the bad initial decision making in the Home Office. If it is not clear what kind of evidence people need to establish family life, it should be dealt with through better processes, better information and more support for legal representation. Codifying it, as is done in the Bill, is not the right way to deal with that.

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20. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    I disagree wholly with that. During the speeches made by Opposition Members earlier in the debate, I kept thinking about the people who, due to natural disasters or wars, are left without core family, and have to find another family member who will take them in and take that place. There is an inherent danger in putting in place these limits, and in the amendments tabled by Conservative Members that would add rigid definitions. Given the stories about the different ways in which people have experienced refugee status over the years, which all hon. Members will have heard about in <span id="223" class="column-number" data-column-number="223"></span>casework and read about in memoirs and novels, the need for this change does not ring true. We should keep the system as it is now, where the reality of every single case needs to be looked at.

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21. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Member. We need to look at individual cases individually, as no two families are the same. We could imagine many circumstances for which we would want exceptions to this rule. The Government have rightly left caveats in the Bill, but the Opposition are arguing against them. Putting in rigid criteria on top of what is already in the Bill is absolutely the wrong way to go about addressing the issue. The best way to deal with any problems we might see is to do so in the initial decision making. Clause 18 says that financial or emotional dependence, illness, or living in a conflict zone alone is not enough to establish family life, yet families routinely support each other financially, emotionally and practically. Ministers say that those factors can still be weighed at the public interest stage, but once family life is ruled out, that stage is never reached. What will that mean in practice? As I have hinted at, the Government’s impact assessment says that their article 8 reforms will mean 14,000 more refusals every year. Even after appeals, around 11,700 people more will be refused each year. Under the law as it stands, those people would succeed. That shows that clause 18 does not simply clarify existing principles, but is intended to change outcomes at a substantial scale. The clause does diminish human rights for refugees in this country, as is admitted in the Government’s human rights memorandum. The way the clause is doing that is very troubling for two main reasons. First, it suggests that family relationships deserve protection only when they fit a model chosen by the state, but article 8 has never worked that way. The European Court has always looked at the substance of an individual relationship, not its form. Indeed, the very cases the Government cite require an individualised assessment of all the circumstances. As the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire said, we have been here before. The examples we are hearing from the Home Secretary and the Minister come as part of what is now a mini-tradition of Home Secretaries using exaggerated anecdotes to add to toxic rhetoric about migrants.

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22. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    I thank the hon. Member for trying, but he is talking to a person who cannot read the universal declaration of human rights without welling up, and I will never give up making arguments of this sort.<span id="224" class="column-number" data-column-number="224"></span> Previous legislation on these matters, to which the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire referred, followed on directly from the infamous 2011 party conference speech of the then Home Secretary—now Baroness May of Maidenhead. She repeated false claims from newspapers that judges had permitted a man to escape deportation because he had a pet cat—something she says she did not make up. In reality, neither of the judges’ decisions in the case was based on the man having a pet, and the second and final decision was not based on any human rights consideration at all. It was straightforwardly based on a failure by the Home Office to apply its own policy. Amnesty International gave us more information in its written evidence: “This—together with the readiness of many political commentators to cherry pick often minor or irrelevant facts that are mentioned in tribunal or court judgments and present these as if the main or sole reason for a decision that may have little or nothing to do with them—continues to underpin criticism of Article 8 in immigration-related decision-making. That criticism is plainly misinformed, often careless and, in some cases, on its face, clearly ill-intended—including out of dogmatic hostility to the ECHR and other political motivations.” On Second Reading of the Bill, the current Home Secretary summarised an unnamed case. She said: “In 2025, an Albanian man jailed for growing cannabis escaped deportation not because he had any right to be here, but because it was deemed unduly harsh on his partner to deport him. She was not his wife or life partner—instead, this relationship began only after a deportation order had been served. Why was the deportation deemed to be unduly harsh? The partner spoke no Albanian and had never visited the country before.”<span id="vol789_col675" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="675" data-volume-number="789" data-external-id="EB75D38E-6943-461F-BEF4-8664C19ECA0E">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 13 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 675.]</span>

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23. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    Yes, I will respond to that shortly with some data. To return to the anecdote from the current Home Secretary, Amnesty again corrects the record: “A key error in this summary is the statement that the relevant relationship had only begun after a deportation order had been served. That is not correct. The judge’s decision makes clear that it began significantly before the order. Of especial relevance was that the notice that such an order might be made was served in December 2019, but no order was then made for more than four years. By the time it was made in January 2024, the relationship had developed over a relatively lengthy period.” The Home Secretary mentioned the criminal conviction. Amnesty also corrects that information. It says that he was jailed for four months for a relatively minor offence, and was now “working lawfully and supporting himself.” It also says: “There was no suggestion of any risk of reoffending. His partner, who had no connection and had never been to Albania, was working and providing daily support to her sister and mother. Whatever may have been the position in 2019 was clearly not the position in 2024; and the relevant facts were clearly not adequately presented in what had been reported or at Second Reading.”<span id="225" class="column-number" data-column-number="225"></span>

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24. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    I have said that, based on my own casework, my experience of the Home Office’s errors, and the cases that I have seen, I would like to see investment in Home Office decision making to make it better in the first place. That would be the best way to deal with this issue, particularly when more than half of appeals are being approved.

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25. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    It is pretty clear that I think the Bill is a result of the Government responding to toxic rhetoric coming from other parties, and that it is an attempt to be seen to be doing something.

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26. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    I will finish my point. In an evidence session, we challenged the National Crime Agency on the roots of the organised crime that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes mentions, which is doing huge harm. I will not argue that the small boats system is the best way to bring people to this country. Small boat numbers started to grow the moment safe routes were closed. We need safe routes, and that is the approach the Government could take to reduce small boat crossings. The law that protects our rights does not need to be undermined. I would absolutely argue that.

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27. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    I am happy to clarify that I am talking primarily about Reform UK. That party is not represented on this Committee and can answer for itself in other ways, but it has, until recently, been taking votes from the Government on the right. I am happy to come back in future sittings with further examples of anecdotes being used instead of evidence. I chose to highlight two examples of Home Secretaries doing that, because the Minister is here to represent a Home Secretary.

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28. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    This is turning into a very broad debate, but I give way to the hon. Member for Glasgow South West.

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29. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    Much appreciated, Mr Twigg. I would say that the best way to stand up to toxic rhetoric is to stand up to it. We are familiar with the concept of the Overton window, and I am distressed that a Labour Government have been moving in this direction through their immigration policies. As I said at the beginning of my speech in the previous debate, the Government ought not to bring forward this Bill or row back on other civil liberties and human rights legislation—that would be the right thing to do. I am a lone voice on this Committee, but that cannot be right when we know that people around the country want migrants to be welcomed and want to see more unity, inclusion and social cohesion. The way to build that is not to hear the argument about how article 8 and the ECHR need to go and then do a little bit of that. The answer is to stand up to the rhetoric and build a better country.

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30. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    One more time, then I will press on to the end of my speech.

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31. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    I do not concede that we are taking in too many refugees. As I said at the beginning, we have an international obligation to take our fair share of people <span id="227" class="column-number" data-column-number="227"></span>seeking asylum, because of all the causes around the world that the hon. Gentleman mentioned earlier—he left out climate change, but I will forgive him that. There are many, many reasons why we ought to take a humane approach to asylum. Some Government Back Benchers talked earlier about safe routes. There have been good schemes, aimed at particular conflicts in particular countries, and I hope the Government will continue to bring in more such schemes, but it is not good enough to cherry-pick particular conflicts or the kinds of refugees that we find acceptable. The volume of Ukrainian refugees has been absolutely huge, and has not caused social cohesion problems. We can make that work for many other countries as well, but the volumes in other schemes have always been too low. We need a universal framework of law that will work for all kinds of refugees.

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32. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Sixth sitting)

    Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any. I really think that the current law needs to be administered better, and that we need better decision making, more humanity in all of this, and more support for people to get good decisions made the first time. I would be very happy to receive from the Government any clear evidence of abusive claims under the current law that does not rely on anecdote, but I am absolutely sure that, in clause 18, the Government are seeking to prevent people who would currently succeed from achieving asylum in this country and from being reunited with their families. Let me move on to more things that the Government have said. The Government tell us that clause 18 is consistent with Strasbourg case law, and they even cite the cases, but, as other hon. Members have mentioned, they cannot have it both ways. If the clause simply restates the law, it is unnecessary. The Government’s impact assessment says that they expect grants to be cut by a third by those reforms. If the clause goes further, it risks putting the country in breach of the convention and inviting years of litigation. Either way, the clause does not deliver the clarity that Ministers promise, and I think that Opposition Members are united on that today. I believe that a fair immigration system should tackle abuse while protecting genuine family life, and that it should put the best interests of children first and reflect the reality of modern families. Clause 18 does neither. It risks real hardship for genuine families, with little evidence that it will achieve anything else. I urge the Government to think again. We can maintain effective immigration control without using this clause to break up thousands of families. We can protect our borders without sacrificing the fundamental British values of compassion and fairness. For those reasons, I ask the Committee to agree that clause 18 should not stand part of the Bill.

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33. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Hannah Spencer

    Jodrell Bank Observatory

    <Question HRSContentId="{12A330C1-1532-4A59-88AF-E8146689C47C}">2. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{1CAC1AD1-7792-41F8-AB2F-E10B1273D82E}">What assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the withdrawal of UK Research and Innovation funding for Jodrell Bank observatory from 2028.</QuestionText> </Question>

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34. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Hannah Spencer

    Jodrell Bank Observatory

    Funding for the e-MERLIN radio telescope network is due to end in 2028, putting Jodrell Bank’s future at risk. People across Gorton and Denton have made clear to me the vital role the observatory plays in opening science up to people of all ages. Many of us went there on school trips as kids. The Prime Minister assured us that his Government will find a funding solution, so will the Secretary of State explain how the Government intend to honour that heartfelt commitment and secure Jodrell Bank’s long-term future as an active sovereign scientific facility?

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35. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Ellie Chowns

    Sustainable Farming Incentive

    The Minister knows, because I wrote to him the day after this latest SFI shambles, that farmers in North Herefordshire are livid about the problem. Farmers in Ocle Pychard, Pudleston, Linley Green, Kimbolton, Dilwyn and more have all written to tell me that they are not only hopping mad; they are distressed and depressed at the devastating impact that this situation is having on their livelihoods and the prospect of them continuing to run their farms. Will the Minister recognise that farmers need to hear “sorry”? They need support, sustainability and certainty, not a lottery of fingers on buzzers. Fundamentally, they need direct answers to the following questions. Why is there less money available under the scheme than there was previously? Why did the Government not learn the lessons from the failure last year? And what are they going to do to genuinely own the problem?

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36. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Ellie Chowns

    Business of the House

    Last week I was contacted by a constituent who faces a £300 a month shortfall between her rent and her local housing allowance. She is deeply concerned about the rent arrears and the risk of her and her family being forced into homelessness. That situation is affecting people across the country. On the very same day, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a report showing how rent controls could reduce the cost to the Exchequer of the unfreezing of local housing allowance by more than a billion pounds by 2030-31. Can we have a debate in Government time about the urgent need to unfreeze local housing allowance and to institute rent controls so that we can avoid the risk of homelessness and the devastating impact, worry and distress that it is causing to so many of our constituents?

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37. 15 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Ellie Chowns

    National Care Service

    I welcome the statement from the Minister, as I am sure will many people in North Herefordshire—people who draw on care and people who provide care, both paid and unpaid. Does the Minister agree that we need to end the lottery of care—the postcode lottery of care being provided in different ways in different places, the life lottery of people’s access to care being partly determined by their circumstances, and the lottery of whether someone ends up having catastrophic care costs at the end of their life and potentially losing their life savings? Can we agree that we need to ensure that care is locally provided but nationally funded, and will she lobby her colleague the Chancellor to include fair taxation of wealth in the mechanisms considered to fund that?

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38. 13 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)

    I beg to move amendment 64, in clause 1, page 2, leave out lines 1 to 5 and insert— “(5) In the exercise of its functions, the IIAA must— (a) be accessible, fair and independent, (b) handle its cases quickly and efficiently.” <em>This amendment would remove the requirement for the IIAA to “aim to” operate fairly and independently and handle cases quickly and efficiently, so that the IIAA instead has a duty to so act. It would also remove the requirement for the IIAA to have regard to the public interest.</em>

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39. 13 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)

    It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. I am moving amendment 64, to make fairness and efficiency duties of the Independent Immigration Appeals Authority. I should add that in this group I also support amendments 48 and 49, tabled by my Lib Dem colleagues, I oppose amendment 87 tabled by my Conservative colleagues and I support the Lib Dems’ new clause 12. My amendment would impose on the IIAA a duty to operate fairly and independently and to handle cases quickly and efficiently. The Bill only imposes an obligation on the IIAA to aim to do those things. The amendment also removes the requirement for the IIAA to operate as part of the immigration system. The Independent Immigration Appeals Authority will be a body that is independent in name; the reality, however, will be much murkier and more ambiguous. The Home Secretary will personally appoint senior figures in the IIAA, including its chair, and a Home Secretary appointee will be responsible for appointing adjudicators who make appeals decisions. The effect of the Bill is to make asylum decision making less independent, <span id="93" class="column-number" data-column-number="93"></span>less fair and less expert. It brings asylum appeals under greater political control, putting at risk people’s basic human right not to be persecuted for who they are. The major driver of the appeals backlog is the poor quality of Home Office asylum decisions, not tribunal judges. The Refugee Council has shown that about two thirds of Home Office asylum decisions that are challenged are overturned, either by the tribunals or by the Home Office itself. My preference, therefore, is for the Government to scrap all of part 1 of the Bill and get back to the day job of making good asylum decisions. If part 1 does go ahead, however—I will debate later whether that should happen—it should contain safeguards for basic standards of independence and fairness. The amendment deals with two ways in which the Bill tries unfairly to align the IIAA with the Home Office’s policy priorities, rather than the requirements of justice and fairness. First, clause 1(5) states only that “the IIAA must…aim to be accessible, fair and independent”— not that it must be independent, fair and accessible in practice, but merely that it must aim to be so. By contrast, under existing rules for tribunals, there is a duty, an overriding objective on tribunals, to deal with cases fairly and justly. That is not an aim, but a requirement. As such, subsection (5) is a watering down, a weakening and an undermining of the independence of asylum appeals. My amendment would make it a legal duty for the IIAA to be independent, fair and accessible, as it is for tribunals, and not merely an aim. Secondly, the attempt to draw asylum appeals into the Home Office’s sphere of influence is seen even more clearly in the fact that subsection (5) requires the IIAA to prioritise “in particular…the fact that the IIAA operates as a key part of the immigration…system.” That, I think, is an unambiguous push to align the IIAA not with the requirements of justice and fairness, but with Home Office policy priorities. My amendment would therefore remove any risk that the IIAA will be pressured into aligning with the Home Office’s immigration policy priorities, and let the IIAA be what it is meant to be: a quasi-judicial body for deciding appeals fairly and independently. Ultimately, without my amendment, the IIAA will be a body with a conflict of interest at its heart: a requirement to aim to be independent and fair, but also a priority to view itself as part of immigration control. If the Government are sincere about creating a body that can deal with cases independently and fairly, without interference from the Home Office, the IIAA’s duty to operate independently and fairly should be more than an aim; it should be a requirement, just as it is for tribunals. Moreover, there should be no pressure on the IIAA to align with the Home Office’s political vision of immigration control, whoever is in charge of the Home Office. The amendment would create that safety against the priorities of future Governments, as well as this one, being able to put political pressure on the IIAA. The amendment would put all that beyond doubt. It gives the IIAA the best chance of being truly independent and fair. I will seek a Division on this amendment.

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40. 13 Oct 2026·Parliament·Siân Berry

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)

    I am not convinced by anything I have heard from the Minister. She talked about my amendments not allowing flexibility, but let us be clear what she has said: she is asking for flexibility in fairness, but not flexibility in the political definition of public interest. The risk to human rights here is huge. Let us not forget that these are life and death decisions for people who are among the most vulnerable in the world. It is clear from the data that the backlog is being driven by the fact the Home Office is deciding to refuse more cases, and the risk that those decisions are bad ones is also pretty clear; we see the frequency with which they are overturned, or the Home Office’s objections are withdrawn, when they go to the current tribunal. We know that bad decisions can be driven by a target-based culture. We saw that in the Windrush lessons learned review, which said that there was a target-dominated work environment and low-quality decision making. Those things go hand in hand, and we will create a hugely dangerous risk by putting the IIAA together with these objectives right at the heart of what it does. We risk doing Windrush again; we risk huge injustice; we risk huge costs for the Government in compensating people who have been subject to enormous detriment. This would be a really simple thing to fix at this stage. I will not withdraw my amendment, but will press it to a Division. <em>Question proposed,</em> That the amendment be made.

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