Illegal Migration Bill

Committee (1st Day)

Clause 1: Introduction

Amendment 1

Moved by

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert— “(za) defines “illegal” and “unlawful” migration for the purpose of this Act;”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment, and another to Clause 2 in the name of Lord Hope of Craighead, seek, in the interests of legal certainty, to provide a definition of what amounts to illegal migration at the outset of this Bill.

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 1, 3 and 5. It is a privilege to open the Committee stage of this important Bill. Before I come to the amendments themselves, there is one thing I wish to point out. Nothing that I may say in support of my important but relatively minor amendments is intended to undermine, or detract in any way from, the much more important and fundamental points raised by the other amendments in this group, in particular Amendments 2 and 4. I seek to reassure those in whose names those amendments stand. I am seeking to draw the Government’s attention to points raised by the Constitution Committee, of which I am a member, in its examination of the Bill.

Nobody can predict what shape the Bill will be in once it reaches its Third Reading, so it is as well for your Lordships to put all the cards on the table in Committee. Some will be more important than others, but one has to grasp the opportunity to put them on the table now. That is all that lies behind these amendments, and I hope that will be understood.

Amendments 1 and 5 deal with the use of words and the need for a definition. In its Short Title, the Bill refers to what it calls illegal migration, and so do the Explanatory Notes in their overview of the Bill on page 3:

“The purpose of the Bill is to create a scheme whereby anyone arriving illegally in the United Kingdom … will be promptly removed to their home country or to a safe third country to have any asylum claim processed. The Bill will build on the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 … as part of a wider strategy to tackle illegal migration”.

It says that the purpose of the Bill, among other things, is to

“deter illegal entry into the UK”.

But when it comes to the Bill itself, the language changes. The purpose of the Bill, it says, is

The fact is that the potential impact of Clause 1(5), which is a major incursion into the rights guaranteed by the convention, has not been adequately addressed. It seems that the persons affected by the Bill, many of whom are extremely vulnerable to government action that undermines or deprives some of their convention rights, are being sent into a desperate kind of no man’s land where they cannot have any access to the courts of this country for a ruling on what their rights are. The Government are reserving to themselves the right to say what is and is not compatible, which until now has been the province of the courts. That is a serious change in our situation.

Recourse to the European Court in Strasbourg, which remains, is such a remote remedy in most cases that it would be no help to these disadvantaged people. The committee therefore recommends that the Bill should be amended to require the Government

“to provide for guidance, subject to parliamentary scrutiny”—

which is crucial to this point—

“on how the Bill is to be implemented compatibly with Convention rights”.

That is what Amendment 1 seeks to do. I beg to move.

My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendment 2—unless the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, wants to go before me.

My Lords, with some trepidation, I want to comment on Amendments 1 and 5, tabled by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope. Under the refugee convention, anyone approved as a refugee has never been an illegal or unlawful immigrant, however they came to the UK. To define anyone as an illegal immigrant who may subsequently be deemed a refugee surely flies in the face of the refugee convention—or that is how I read it. I am sure that my noble and learned friend has a very good riposte to what I am saying, but if by any chance he does not feel he has, he may want not to press those two amendments.