My Lords, the British people are generous and welcoming to those in need fleeing persecution, war and humanitarian crisis abroad. They also know that uncontrolled illegal migration makes us less safe, is unfair on taxpayers, puts lives into the hands of people smugglers and is unfair on would-be immigrants who play by the rules.
More than 45,000 people came here by small boat last year. The overwhelming majority of arrivals were adult males under the age of 40. These journeys are extremely dangerous; people have lost their lives attempting to cross one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes in flimsy boats. These journeys are also unnecessary. Those making the crossings are coming from safe countries, such as France, where they could have claimed asylum.
Our broken asylum system is costing the country some £3 billion a year, and taxpayers are now spending more than £6 million a day on hotels alone. We cannot continue, year on year, with this relentless rise in the number of illegal arrivals adding unacceptable pressures not just on our capacity to house new arrivals but on our ability to provide health, educational, children’s and welfare services.
My right honourable friend the Prime Minister is right: we have to stop the boats. I welcome the fact that this objective is shared across the political spectrum. The issue before your Lordships’ House today is how best to achieve this shared objective.
There is no one single solution. We need to address this complex issue across a broad front, and the Bill needs to be seen in its wider context. The Government have already delivered: the largest-ever small boats deal with France; a new agreement with Albania; a new, unified small boats operational command; tougher immigration enforcement; new, more robust measures for identifying potential victims of modern slavery; and a plan to clear the legacy initial decision asylum backlog by the end of the year and move migrants out of expensive hotels.
But we also need new legislation to make it unambiguously clear that if you enter the UK illegally, you will not be allowed to stay here. Instead, you will be liable to be detained and will be swiftly returned, either back to your home country or to a safe third country. It is only by removing the incentive to come to the United Kingdom that we will stop people taking these dangerous journeys and deter the people smugglers from profiting off people’s suffering. This is what the Bill seeks to deliver.
Crucially, the Bill places a legal duty on the Home Secretary to make arrangements for the removal of illegal entrants who meet the four conditions set out in Clause 2. This is critical to the operation of the scheme. It will send a clear message about Parliament’s intent in enacting this legislation. Save in the very limited circumstances provided for in the Bill, it will be crystal clear to illegal migrants, the courts and the British people that the Home Secretary is legally bound to remove all those who meet the conditions set out in Clause 2 as soon as it is reasonably practical to do so.
To leave out from “that” to the end and insert “the House declines to give the bill a second reading because it
(1) undermines the rule of law by failing to meet the United Kingdom’s international law commitments and by allowing Ministers to ignore the directions of judges;
(2) undermines the UK’s tradition of providing sanctuary to refugees by removing the ability of refugees to exercise their legal right to claim asylum, by removing protections afforded to modern slavery victims and by increasing the number of people in indefinite detention, including children;
(3) fails to provide safe and legal routes for refugees;
(4) fails to include measures to eliminate the backlog of asylum cases; and
(5) fails to include measures to tackle people smuggling gangs.”
My Lords, Trevor Phillips recently wrote in the Times that, in 2000, 175 million people lived outside the country of their birth and that, by 2020, it was 280 million. He likened the Prime Minister’s pledge to “stop the boats” to King Canute ordering back the incoming tide. He argued that we need to bring order to the flow, rather than focusing on the impossible task of locking the doors to keep asylum seekers out. We agree.
We have yawning gaps in our labour markets that refugees could fill. We believe that we should adopt the approach many other countries are adopting, that responsibility should be taken away from the Home Office and given to the Foreign Office or the Department for Business and Trade and that “Migration is no job for a home secretary”. Phillips agrees. We should be harnessing the power of the incoming tide, not refusing to accept that it cannot be stopped.
The Government talk about “pull factors”. We talk about “push” factors: the intolerable conditions in their home countries that compel asylum seekers to find sanctuary elsewhere in the world. Even in detention in the UK, you do not have to worry about where you are going to live, how you are going to survive without adequate food or water, or whether you are going to be killed or persecuted, or otherwise have your life endangered. Can the Minister say what evidence the Government have that the measures in the Bill will deter small boat crossings?
Talking of so-called “pull factors”, the Government have reduced their spending on measures designed to improve conditions in asylum seekers’ home countries from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income, while at the same time spending millions of pounds from the 0.5%—this so-called “overseas aid”—on housing asylum seekers in the UK. Can the Minister confirm how much less the Government are currently spending on overseas aid since the downgrade to 0.5%, and how much of the 0.5% is being spent on housing asylum seekers in the UK?
My Lords, before I make my speech, let me make it clear that we will not support the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in his amendment. Of course, we oppose the Bill, and did so at Second and Third Reading in the other place. We understand why the amendment has been moved and we know that it sounds attractive, but if we pursued it, all that would happen is that the Government would use the Parliament Act and no amendments in this place would then be possible. So we will propose amendments and press the Government to think again, but we recognise that the elected House passed this legislation.
I also say to the Minister and this Chamber, however, that we do not need lectures either from the Home Secretary or the Justice Secretary about the constitutional position of the Lords. We will not be rushed or intimidated into giving the Bill an easy ride. We will do all we can to do our job in seeking support across the Chamber to bring about the much-needed change.
As we begin this House’s discussion of the Bill, I declare my interest as an unpaid trustee of the Human Trafficking Foundation and my work with the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab. It is essential, if not crucial, that we lay out again the principles on which we should base our consideration of the measures in the Bill. We can address the detail in Committee and on Report, and I shall do so a little in this speech—but what of our principles?
Of course, we face a very real challenge, with the Government having lost control of migrants crossing the channel in particular and asylum policy in general. The Bill is the latest response to a crisis whereby 138,000 asylum claims await decision and 45,700 migrants crossed the channel in 2022, with 6,415 so far this year. Since the Bill was announced, 3,265 migrants have crossed the channel—some deterrent. They come into a system in which already 38,900 people await removal. Of course there is a problem that needs fixing, but this new Bill, layering on more incompetence, complexity, unworkability and unfairness, will not do it—it will make it worse. Indeed, it comes less than a year after we were told that it would all be sorted out by the Nationality and Borders Act—that it was the solution and the way to stop the boats. The ink is hardly dry on that Act, and in blind panic, as the problem gets worse, new measures, which would have been regarded as unthinkable just a few years ago, are now to be rushed through.
11:46 am
Lord Etherton (CB)
My Lords, I acknowledge at the outset the great assistance that I have received in discussions with Dr S Chelvan, a barrister with particular expertise and experience in immigration law.
It is important to appreciate where we are going with UK legislation on refugees. There are four resettlement schemes operated by the United Kingdom: Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Hong Kong. Critically, under the Immigration Rules, there is no asylum visa route for an individual refugee to enter the United Kingdom and claim asylum. This means that, unless a person is within one of the four resettlement schemes or asylum is sought by someone already lawfully present in the United Kingdom, the refugee’s arrival in and entry to the United Kingdom will inevitably be illegal.
That means that they will fall within category 2 refugee status under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. They will therefore be subject to accelerated and punitive procedures and, even if they fulfil the refugee definition, they will not have the benefits of settlement and nationality afforded to group 1 refugees. They would, however, be able to make a human rights claim or a protection claim, albeit under strict constraints, including very short time limits. If they have arrived after 7 March 2023, they will almost inevitably be caught by the four conditions for mandatory removal under Clause 2 of the Bill. It is obvious and must be emphasised that this is not a small boats Bill. The provisions of the Bill would affect all who seek refugee status in this country and are entitled to the protection of the 1951 convention.
In a move away from even the limited rights of category 2 refugees under the 2022 Act, the duty under Clause 2 to make arrangements for their removal is unaffected by the making of a protection claim or a human rights claim or an application for judicial review. Any protection claim or human rights claim is by statute inadmissible and carries no right of appeal.
Removal must be to one of the countries specified in Schedule 1, but the only country there specified with which the United Kingdom has an arrangement for taking such asylum seekers is Rwanda. Such asylum seekers will be detained, as provided in Clause 10, and, under Clause 11, that will be for
“such period as, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, is reasonably necessary to enable the … removal to be carried out”.
There is no statutory time limit on such detention. An asylum seeker who is subject to removal under Clause 2 has the ability to make a suspensive claim—either a serious harm suspensive claim or a factual suspensive claim—but that does not affect the legality and finality of the obligation of the Secretary of State to make arrangements for removal.
The Foreign Office travel advice includes the following:
“Homosexuality is not illegal in Rwanda but remains frowned on by many. LGBT individuals can experience discrimination and abuse, including from local authorities. There are no specific anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT individuals”.
While the search is on for some other more appropriate safe country for LGBT refugees fleeing persecution, which may take years or may never be achieved, the refugee is detained without limit of time. What an appalling indictment of our failure to comply with our international legal obligations in breach of the rule of law and of our lack of humanity and empathy.
11:54 am
The Archbishop of Canterbury
My Lords, we need a Bill to reform migration. We need a Bill to stop the boats. We need a Bill to destroy the evil tribe of traffickers. The tragedy is that, without much change, this is not that Bill.
This Bill fails utterly to take a long-term and strategic view of the challenges of migration and undermines international co-operation, rather than taking an opportunity for the UK to show leadership, as we did in 1951. There are too many problems in this Bill for one speech. The right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Durham and the Bishop of Gloucester will speak to other issues, but I hope the Government will listen to the speeches pointing out some of the issues, including the eloquent and detailed speech by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker.
The existing global conventions and agreements need updating in response to the crises we face today. While now inadequate, those conventions offer a baseline from which to build a globally shared understanding of what protection must be given to refugees. They are not inconvenient obstructions to get round by any legislative means necessary. Legal compatibility is a question for the learned lawyers among your Lordships, but it does not require a lawyer to see that what is suggested is a dramatic departure from what was ever envisaged in international law since 1951.
Even if this Bill succeeds in temporarily stopping the boats, and I do not think it will, it will not stop conflict or climate migration. The IPCC forecasts that climate change by itself, let alone the conflicts it is already causing, will lead to at least 800 million more refugees in total by 2050.
What if other countries follow suit? The UNHCR has warned that the Bill could lead to the collapse of the international system that protects refugees. Is that what we want the United Kingdom’s contribution to be in our leadership? Currently, 80% of refugees are still in the global South, protected by the poorest countries in the world. Of course we cannot take everyone, and nor should we, but this Bill has no sense at all of the long-term and global nature of the challenge the world faces. It ignores the reality that migration must be engaged with at source, as well as in the channel, as if we as a country were unrelated to the rest of the world. It is a siloed Bill, not a whole-of-government Bill. It does not draw in conflict management and prevention, which drives migration. It does not draw in climate impacts, which drive migration and conflict. It is isolationist. It is morally unacceptable and politically impractical to let the poorest countries deal with the crisis alone and cut our international aid.
20 of 62 shown
As I have indicated, the exceptions to this duty will be limited and, in most cases, only temporary. In particular, we recognise the sensitivities in relation to unaccompanied children. That is why the Bill provides that the duty to make arrangements for removal does not apply until they reach adulthood, which in some 70% of cases is within two years of their arrival. Reflecting our current policy, the Bill confers a discretionary power to remove unaccompanied children in limited circumstances. The Bill now expressly sets out those limited circumstances in which the power to remove unaccompanied children may be exercised; that is, for the purpose of reuniting a child with a parent, where the child is to be returned to a safe country of origin or where the child has made no protection claim.
The Bill also suspends the duty to make arrangements for removal, again on a temporary basis, in the case of those persons who make a factual suspensive claim or a serious harm suspensive claim. It is vital to the effective operation of the scheme provided for in the Bill that we address head-on the cycle of repeated and late legal challenges by those seeking to frustrate the Home Secretary’s existing removal powers. The suspensive claims provided for in the Bill will be the only claims that will be heard in country and will therefore be the only route by which someone can challenge removal. Legal challenges by way of judicial review are, of course, still available, but they will not suspend removal, and Clause 4 makes this clear. These claims can continue remotely. It follows from this that the courts are not able to grant any form of interim relief that would have the effect of holding up removal pending consideration of the substantive judicial review. Clause 52 now makes this clear in the Bill.
As I have indicated, the Bill itself makes provision for two kinds of suspensive claims that provide sufficient legal remedies to those seeking to challenge their removal. Where a person seeks to challenge their removal on the basis that the Home Secretary has made a mistake of fact in deciding that they met the removal conditions, they can lodge a factual suspensive claim. Where such a claim is successful, the duty to make arrangements for removal would no longer apply, although the claimant may be subject to enforcement action under existing law if they have no legal basis to remain in the United Kingdom.
The second type of suspensive claim is a serious harm suspensive claim. Under the provisions of the Bill, a person who has made a protection or rights-based claim in respect of their home country will not be returned to that country unless it is one of the safe countries listed in new Section 80AA of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and only if there are no exceptional circumstances militating against their return. But such a person can and will be removed to a safe third country.
Serious harm suspensive claims recognise that, exceptionally, there may be a well-founded reason why a person cannot be removed to the third country specified in the removal notice. Such a claim must be based on the fact that the person would face a real, imminent and foreseeable risk of serious and irreversible harm if they were removed. This is purposefully a high bar that reflects the terms on which the European Court of Human Rights may decide to indicate interim measures under rule 39 of its rules of court. Where a serious harm suspensive claim is upheld, it would be open to the Home Secretary to remove the person to another country or to revisit their removal to the original third country following a change of circumstances—for example, should the medical condition that previously prevented removal subsequently improve.
I have already alluded to the fact that the test for serious harm suspensive claims reflects the approach taken by the Strasbourg court when deciding the grant of interim measures. I have also explained the provisions in the Bill placing limitations on the grant of interim remedies by our domestic courts. In this context, it is entirely right that we address the impact of any interim measures indicated by the Strasbourg court.
Clause 53 of the Bill provides a discretion for a Minister of the Crown to suspend the duty to remove a person where an interim measure has been indicated. That discretion must be exercised personally by a Minister. This means that the Minister may suspend removal in response to a rule 39 interim measure but is not required to as a matter of UK law. The clause provides a broad discretion for the Minister to have regard to any factors when considering whether to disapply the duty and provides a non-exhaustive list of considerations that the Minister may have regard to when considering the exercise of that discretion. As my right honourable friend the Immigration Minister indicated in the House of Commons, this Government take our international treaty obligations incredibly seriously, and I can assure noble Lords that this discretion would be exercised judiciously and on the basis of the facts of an individual case.
The Bill provides for bespoke powers of detention for the purpose of the scheme. It is vital that we have the power to detain to establish whether a person falls within the scheme, and pending their removal, if the Bill is to be effective both as a deterrent and as a means of ensuring that the Home Secretary can comply with the duty on her to make arrangements for removal. That said, I again acknowledge the particular vulnerability of unaccompanied children. That is why the Government have brought forward amendments to provide that unaccompanied children may be detained only in circumstances prescribed in regulations. In addition, in line with the commitment given by the Immigration Minister, later in the Bill’s passage through this House we will set out the new timescale under which children may be detained for the purposes of removal without judicial oversight.
It is a central tenet of the Bill that a person who satisfies the conditions in Clause 2 will not have their asylum, human rights or modern slavery claims considered in the United Kingdom. It is a sad but incontrovertible fact that our modern slavery protections are susceptible to abuse by illegal migrants seeking to frustrate their removal from the United Kingdom. Whereas in 2019 just 6% of people arriving in the UK on a small boat and detained for return involved a modern slavery referral, the figure in 2021 was 73%.
The Bill therefore applies the public order disqualification, as provided for in the Council of Europe convention against trafficking, to those who meet the conditions in Clause 2. This means that they will not benefit from the protections otherwise afforded to potential victims of modern slavery. The Bill provides for an exception where a person’s presence in the UK is necessary for the purposes of their co-operation with a law enforcement agency in the investigation of an offence linked to their exploitation.
We recognise that the application of the public order disqualification to this cohort is a significant step and justified only during such time as the exceptional circumstances relating to the illegal entry into the UK, including arising from the channel crossings in small boats, continue to apply. For this reason, the modern slavery provisions are subject to a sunsetting clause such that, unless renewed by affirmative regulations agreed by both Houses, they will cease to apply after two years.
As I have set out, the whole point of the Bill is deterrence. As well as being clear that illegal entry into the UK may simply result in your detention and swift removal, the Bill underlines that you will have no ability to build a life in the UK. Save in very limited circumstances, Clauses 29 to 36 provide that a person will have no right to secure settlement, acquire British citizenship or, once removed, lawfully re-enter the UK.
Finally, I return to the theme I began with. Ours is a welcoming, compassionate and generous nation. We have offered our homes and communities to nearly half a million people seeking protection since 2015. We have safe and legal routes available to people from any country in the world, such as the refugee family reunion scheme and the UK resettlement scheme, as well as in recent years country-specific routes for people from Syria, Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Ukraine. We stand ready to do more. But our ability to do more must be directly linked to our capacity to house and support new arrivals.
We recognise the calls for early progress on this front, so within three months of Royal Assent we will begin the consultation with local authorities and communities themselves to understand their capacity to accommodate and support persons to be admitted to the UK each year through safe and legal routes. Within six months of Royal Assent we will set out, in a report to be laid before Parliament, the existing and proposed additional safe and legal routes. We will seek to open the proposed new routes as soon as practicable and, in any event, by the end of 2024.
We simply cannot continue with a situation whereby, year on year, tens of thousands of people make the dangerous, illegal and unnecessary journey across the channel in circumvention of our immigration controls. Illegal migration is not fair and not right. It is not fair on the British communities whose public services and housing are under pressure. It is not fair on those who work hard and obey the law to come to the UK through established routes. It is also not fair on the people travelling in the small boats themselves, who are placed in peril at the hands of people smugglers.
We must stop the boats. The Bill, in conjunction with the other steps the Government are taking, is a necessary, urgent and indeed compassionate response to the daily challenge posed to the integrity of our immigration system. We must act now and, on that basis, I beg to move.
In the Times today, the Home Secretary talks about
“the clear desire of the British people to control immigration”.
The Telegraph reported yesterday—under the headline that net migration was set to hit double the pre-Brexit level—that, in the year to December 2022, 1.37 million work, study or other visas were granted by the Government to allow people to stay long term in the United Kingdom. The Home Secretary says that the number seeking asylum crossing the channel in small boats in the same period was 45,000—just over 3% of those who sought to stay in the UK last year, even if every asylum seeker was granted leave to remain. If the Government are, as they appear, subscribing to the populist view that there is “too much” immigration, can the Minister explain why they are attempting to push through legislation that seeks to deter only three in every 100 long-term arrivals, and why, since Brexit, they have increased the number of countries from which people can enter the UK without question and without a visa by 10?
The Government portray asylum seekers as an undesirable drain on society. We disagree. Let me give noble Lords an example. A young man who I know personally, who is now in Norway, had been living in Afghanistan when, at the age of three, he lost his father, killed in the Afghanistan war, and, at the age of five, his mother died of breast cancer. He was sent to his grandmother in Iran, where he worked from the age of six until he was 12. He saved enough money to begin his journey through Europe, finally arriving in Norway the day before his 16th birthday, where he was granted asylum.
He had never been to school before arriving in Norway; now, at the age of 23, he speaks fluent Norwegian and English. He works long hours in the security industry, sending £500 a month to his grandmother and two cousins in Iran. He is also on a three-year course at police college, which will result in him becoming a Norwegian police officer. He has a Norwegian passport and driving licence, he lives alone in private rented accommodation that he pays for himself and he is saving for a deposit to buy his own home, as well as paying Norwegian tax and national insurance.
Under this Bill, if that young man came to the UK in the same way, he would face compulsory X-rays to confirm that he was not an adult. Even though the Home Secretary’s duty to deport him would not apply until he was 18, the Secretary of State would still have the power to deport him while he was a child. He would most likely be detained until he was 18 and then sent to Rwanda—if anyone ever gets sent to Rwanda, and even if the capacity of Rwanda could cope with the numbers involved.
During that time, the Home Office could prevent that young man being looked after by a local authority, ignoring this country’s international obligations to act in the best interests of the child and the provisions of Part III of the Children Act. Whether the detention of asylum seekers was reasonable or not, including the potentially indefinite detention of children, pregnant women and victims of torture, would no longer be a matter for the courts but for the Home Secretary to decide.
If the European Court of Human Rights blocked that young man’s deportation by means of an interim order, the Home Secretary could ignore the judge’s ruling. UK courts would be prevented from granting an injunction, even if there were grounds for a judicial review. So much for the rule of law.
If that young man could not be sent back to where he came from, because neither Iran nor Afghanistan are listed as “safe countries” and he remained in the United Kingdom, he would never be able to work, never be given leave to remain and never be able to become a British citizen. Neither would his children, were he to have any, nor any of his family members. Estimates are that between 160,000 and 193,000 asylum seekers could be left in limbo in the United Kingdom in the first few years of the Bill’s operation—a permanent drain on the state, a subclass of society, open to labour and sexual exploitation. Can the Minister say when we will receive the Government’s own impact assessment, or will noble Lords have to rely on NGO estimates?
This young man’s story is not exceptional. There are many such examples in the UK that prove that those with the drive and determination to make such long and perilous journeys are just the sort of people who will work hard, contribute positively to society and support their families—the complete opposite to how this Government seek to portray those seeking asylum.
The Bill seeks systematically to deny human rights to a group of people desperately seeking sanctuary. It would breach our international obligations under the UN conventions on refugees, on the rights of the child and on the reduction of statelessness, and the European convention against trafficking. This is the first, but not the only, Bill that explicitly states that it does not have to be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Human Rights Act is being revoked, one law at a time. The Bill would undermine the rule of law, with Ministers able to ignore the rulings of judges. At the same time, we are asking Russia and China to abide by the international rule of law.
I have one final thought. I studied moral philosophy at university. One of the acid tests of whether something was morally right was the question: “What would happen if everyone did the same thing?” Can the Minister say what would happen if every country adopted the approach outlined in the Bill?
This Bill is a low point in the history of this Government and we should not allow it to proceed any further. I beg to move.
In the face of increasing global migration, fuelled by regional insecurity, war and persecution, and the challenge of climate change, which can only get worse, where is the leadership that you would expect from our Government? Our Government say that the solution is to go it alone, embarrassed and humiliated, even as we look at countries—often some of the poorest in the world—taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees from conflicts on their borders. One has only to look at Sudan. Where are the leaders such as Churchill and Tory MP Maxwell Fyfe, who set up the Council of Europe when faced with the humanitarian and refugee crisis post World War II? Obviously now it is totally different, but they saw international co-operation, based on human rights, as an essential prerequisite to any solution.
This illegal migrants Bill has been condemned by the United Nations refugee commissioner, the Council of Europe, UNICEF and numerous NGOs and organisations, including faith organisations working in this area—condemned by all. And what do the Government say of us? That we are out-of-touch lefties, trendy lawyers and people who are not in touch, when we are standing up against those introducing unworkable measures that drive a stake through the heart of our international standing—something that we can be proud of.
As Amnesty says, Clause 1 means that, whatever the merits of the refugee’s asylum claim, whatever the strength of their connection to the UK and however indecent and impractical the aim of expelling them, their expulsion is to be required by the Bill, and no moral, legal or practical consideration is to obstruct that. That is shocking and appalling. Furthermore, the Bill bars anyone and any court from interfering; it says that there will be no judicial review for up to 28 days for anyone. No ability to test the legality or reasonableness of that is to be allowed under Clause 2. Under the Bill, everyone who has entered irregularly has to be detained; no matter whether you are fleeing persecution, war, or being trafficked, you will be locked up. Thousands on thousands will be locked up but the Government will not even give a number. There are approximately 2,000 places available at the moment. How many more cruise ships, military barges or camps are needed? Where are they? When will they be available? The Government have no idea or proper plans—they are clueless—and no judgment can be made, because no impact assessment is available for us to consider.
We have no idea what happens after those 28 days. All of it is predicated on returns agreements, like the one with Rwanda, which is stuck in the courts; other such agreements are completely non-existent. What do the Government do? They seek unilaterally to undermine the ECHR, even while they negotiate, by giving the Home Secretary what is effectively an opt-out from any interim measure granted under Rule 39. As Joanna Cherry MP, the acting chair of the JCHR, reminded us, we are talking about the suspension of measures such as extradition—not stopped, but suspended—while the case is properly examined. She pointed out that between 2019 and 2021, interim measures under Rule 39 were applied for in 880 cases against the UK but granted in just seven. How does that justify driving a coach and horses through international treaties that we signed and, indeed, helped to set up? As a former Attorney-General, Geoffrey Cox MP, said, the provisions in this Bill ask the House, should the Bill be approved, to allow,
“quite consciously and deliberately, a deliberate breach of our obligations under the convention”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/4/23; col. 785.]
What of children under this Bill, particularly unaccompanied children? Last year, over 5,242 unaccompanied children sought asylum in the UK. These children will be detained, whatever the Minister says, for an uncertain period and returned if possible. Even if they are allowed to remain in the UK while a child, unaccompanied children will live in the knowledge that on their 18th birthday they will be subject to removal, regardless of their protection needs, which will be deemed inadmissible. If this Bill becomes law, more children will go missing. Notwithstanding the Children Act, unaccompanied children have often been placed in hotels outside the care system. The result has been 4,600 children placed in Home Office-run hotels, 440 missing episodes and 200 children still not found. This Bill will make it worse. I say to the Government that, if the state was a physical parent, it would be prosecuted. Clauses 15 to 20 do all of the above and have been condemned by, among others, the Children’s Commissioner.
Clauses 21 to 28 destroy one of the Conservative Government’s greatest achievements, the legacy of Theresa May, the former Prime Minister, and our reputation as a world leader in the area of modern slavery. As the former Prime Minister said, the Bill
“will drive a coach and horses through the Modern Slavery Act”.[Official Report, Commons, 28/3/23; col. 886.]
If noble Lords have not yet done so, they should read Clause 4(1)(c). People cannot claim to be a victim of slavery or trafficking to suspend any detention or removal, which is justified and based on selective statistics. As Theresa May said,
“more people will stay enslaved”,
and the Bill will give more power to the slave drivers and traffickers, for whom it will be easy to say,
“Don’t even think about trying to escape”,
because, if you do, you will be sent away, perhaps to Rwanda. This cannot be what our country has come to. The Government have said that you do not even have to be in the UK to assist an investigation, making it harder to identify, catch and prosecute the traffickers. Most astonishingly of all, the former Prime Minister said:
“It is a slap in the face for those of us who actually care about victims of modern slavery and human trafficking”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/4/23; cols. 808-09.]
That was a former Conservative Prime Minister speaking recently in the other place about the provisions in the Illegal Migration Bill that is before us today.
We have a Bill that gives the Home Secretary the power to remove anyone who arrives via an irregular route, with no certainty as to where, if anywhere. Such a power extends to children—the power to detain children with no legal redress for at least 28 days. It is immoral, but there is no space or places for detention. Courts can be ignored, whether domestic or international. There are no returns agreements or international co-operation and no help if you are trafficked. That is what this House is being asked to support.
A new approach is needed. There is a better way: an approach that takes on the traffickers and smugglers, sorts out the bureaucratic mess and muddle of the current system with a fast-track asylum system and seeks international agreements and co-operation. We need an approach that restores the aid budget to 0.7%, tackling more problems in the region itself, and the speedy setting up of safe and legal routes. Above all, we need an approach that is workable, practical and based on our international obligations and the conventions that we have signed.
Instead, in response to a broken system that is failing, we have a Government playing fast and loose with our place in the world and our respect for international law. This must change. We will do all that we can, particularly on Report, to change this Bill—not by blocking it but by standing up for those who look to us for sanctuary and by proposing workable, humane solutions. We will be proud to do so. We will ask the Government to think again, as is the constitutional right of the House of Lords with respect to things that come to us from the other place.
We will not be cowed by the other place as it tries to intimidate us about seeking to change the Bill. Of course we will seek to change and amend it and we will say where we think that the Government have it wrong. This House has always done that and we will not be deflected. As I said, we need a different, moral approach that works and does not make things worse. What we are seeing from this Government is even more gimmicks and we will get more of the same until we get the change that we and the country need: a change of government.
Can it get any worse for a refugee seeking asylum in the United Kingdom? It can, because even in relation to safe and legal routes—the four resettlement routes—Clause 58 says:
“The Secretary of State must make regulations specifying the maximum number of persons who may enter the United Kingdom annually using safe and legal routes”.
Even in the case of refugees from war or armed conflict, the Government have failed to provide a safe route in relation to Sudan. We appear to be witnessing the playing out of a policy continuum under which increasing barriers for refugees to the United Kingdom are being imposed with an ultimate goal of preventing all refugees save those who have already applied under the four resettlement schemes.
It is against that background that I wish to illustrate the operation of the current and proposed legislation by reference to LGBT refugees. It is well established that LGBT refugees are within the protection of the refugee convention. Not only is that the view of the UNHCR but it has been decided by our own courts at the highest level. Unless an LGBT person is already legitimately in the United Kingdom and claims refugee status while here or happens to be within one of the four resettlement schemes, they will, as I said, almost inevitably be caught by the four conditions in Clause 2, so the Secretary of State will be under a statutory duty to make arrangements for their removal. They cannot make a protection claim, a human rights claim or an application for judicial review to prevent the operation of that duty. They will be detained for as long as the Secretary of State considers “reasonably necessary” to enable the removal to take place, without any statutory time limit. None of that is affected by the ability to make a serious harm suspensive claim.
They have to be sent to one of the countries in Schedule 1. Here, however, is a difficulty. There are many countries on that list in Schedule 1 that have anti- LGBT laws or where, even if such laws are not actively enforced or there are no express laws, there exists a social environment where there is anti-LGBT persecution with impunity and a climate of fear for LGBT people. This is particularly true of those Commonwealth countries, of which there are many, where our colonial history has had the civilising consequence of bequeathing brutal anti-LGBT laws and prejudices. Such laws or prejudices exist in the following countries specified in Schedule 1: Albania, Brazil—particularly in relation to trans people—Gambia, Ghana, Hungary, Jamaica, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Nigeria, Poland, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and, in some respects, South Africa. The only country with which the United Kingdom has reached agreement is Rwanda.
Nor is there any measure in this Bill for engaging with the criminal gangs of traffickers directly and offensively, rather than trusting simply to what appears to be the unpredictability of market forces—as if traffickers were rationally trained economic actors and not appalling criminals. Safe, legal routes must be put in place as soon as illegal, unsafe routes begin to be attacked. We cannot wait for the years that will take place before that happens.
This Bill is an attempt at a short-term fix. It risks great damage to the UK’s interests and reputation at home and abroad, let alone the interests of those in need of protection or the nations that together face this challenge. Our interests as a nation are closely linked to our reputation for justice and the rule of law, and to our measured language, calm decision and careful legislation. None of those is seen here.
Long-term, globally co-ordinated solutions must be part of the way forward. This nation should lead internationally, not stand apart. I intend to table amendments in Committee that encourage this longer-term thinking and collaborative focus, including a plan for combating traffickers and working with international partners to look at updating the 1951 convention.
Nevertheless, I hope that this House will not support the excellent, sympathetic and carefully put amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I agree with its sentiment but I also believe that, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said, it is our duty to change, not to throw out, the Bill.
Finally, as one might expect from these Benches, in the New Testament, in Matthew, chapter 25, Jesus calls us to welcome the stranger. That call has been part of the history and culture in this country for centuries and was part of the drive for the Modern Slavery Act. I urge the Government to reconsider much of the Bill, which fails to live up to our history, our moral responsibility and our political and international interests.