Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)

My Lords, in moving Amendment 1, which is tabled in my name, I will speak in support of the other amendments in this group, all of which relate to Clause 1. It is worth pointing out in a sentence that the present position under Appendix FM of the UK Immigration Rules is that a person granted refugee or protection status is entitled to make an application for family members to join in two circumstances. Depending on eligibility requirements, they must be a partner—that is, someone in a genuine relationship—or a child under the age of 18 who is not married or in a civil partnership. That is the present legal position. This Bill would have the effect of broadening that application, and we are going to look at that in a second. At the Second Reading of this Bill, which was held on 18 October, I intervened on the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to ask whether she could inform the House of how many people she envisaged would be granted refugee family reunion status on an annual basis under this Bill. Her answer was: “I will not go into that now; I do not have it in my speech. I am time-limited and conscious of other people’s need for that time. I will happily tell the noble Lord later”.—[Official Report, 18/10/24; col. 360.] I have yet to be told how many people the noble Baroness envisages would be admitted on an annual basis under these measures. Clause 1(1) provides that: “The Secretary of State must, within 6 months … lay … a statement of changes in the … ‘immigration rules’”. That would have the effect, as per the wording in subsection 1(3), of requiring that there be leave to “enter and remain in the United Kingdom for family members of a person granted protection status”. Nothing in that clause suggests that there is any control on the number of people who may be admitted. The term “family members” is specifically defined in Clause (1)(5)(a), which provides that it includes a person’s “parent …. spouse, civil partner or unmarried partner … child, including adopted child, who is either … under the age of 18 or … over the age of 18, but dependent on the person… sibling, including adoptive sibling”. Clause (1)(5(b) states that it includes: “such other persons as the Secretary of State may determine, having regard to … the importance of maintaining family unity … the best interests of a child … the physical, emotional, psychological or financial dependency between a person granted protection status and another person … any risk to the physical, emotional or psychological wellbeing of a person who was granted protection status”, and “such other matters as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”. This is possibly the most expansive definition of “additional family member” that could be conceived. My amendments are targeted to address that issue in the Bill. The reason for this is that, clearly, the admission of refugees’ additional family members to this country places a strain on domestic limited resources, including accommodation, financial support, education facilities and medical facilities. As the House of Lords Library briefing noted, since 2015, some 64,000 additional family members have been admitted under the present scheme. I suggest that, under these proposals, that number would be multiplied very many times.