Illegal Migration Bill

Committee (3rd Day)

Clause 5: Removal for the purposes of section 2 or 3

Debate on whether Clause 5 should stand part of the Bill.

My Lords, I propose that Clause 5, Schedule 1 and Clause 6 should not stand part of the Bill. I appreciate the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, on this. Clause 5 relates to the removal of a person, as the Minister said on Monday, “swiftly” after they arrive in the UK or, as he put it, “shortly” after their 18th birthday. But Clause 5 actually says

“as soon as is reasonably practicable”.

Without the regulatory impact assessment, we in Parliament cannot judge what is a “reasonably practicable” period. What we do know—the Ministers know this all too well because they are lawyers—is that case law determines that

“as soon as is reasonably practicable”

cannot be considered as “as soon as possible” or “as soon as feasible”, although the Minister wanted us to think that it does. I guess the Bill would be a deterrent if one assumed that no lawyers for anyone would read it. Of course, there is no baseline estimate of the amount of accommodation and staffing or other logistical requirements that will be needed. We need central government estimates on costs, as we debated on Monday.

As we start today it is worth reflecting on the Minister’s comments in Committee on Monday as to who is included as a person—or “P”. As we found, “P” includes a young woman trafficked to the UK—potentially via multiple trafficking handlers, blackmailed and threatened, most commonly with threats of rape or family retribution—for criminal sexual or labour exploitation.

Home Office data shows the number of irregular arrivals of women since 2018 who received a positive referral to the national referral mechanism was 520. Those 520 women had been criminally exploited, and now they would be imprisoned and deported to a strange third country and, as the Minister confirmed to me on Monday, with no statutory duty for resettlement, readmission or support. Of those women, 73 were 17 and under. Last year, 13 girls came from countries to which we cannot return them. So those sexually exploited girls are now due to be detained and possibly sent to Rwanda. Last year, 13 girls were trafficked for exploitation in the UK, and the Government would now no longer allow their referral for protection. Well, not in my name—and nor should be in the name of any Member of this Parliament.

The Minister told us on Monday that they were part of the gaming of the system. He repeated to me on Monday the false assertion that

“the numbers of people claiming to have been modern slaves in this scenario indicates that there is extensive abuse”.

He also said that

“the simple reality, I am afraid, is that our modern slavery protections are being abused”.

These are misleading talking points from the Minister, and from Suella Braverman, which led, in December, to a formal complaint from Ed Humpherson, the director-general for regulation in the Office for Statistics Regulation, the formal watchdog. In response to those assertions, he investigated the data and wrote to the Home Office on 8 December. In his letter, he said:

Half of all referrals came from central government—his own department—and this was a 79% increase compared to 2021. If it were not bad enough that the Minister suggested it was the arrivees gaming to a much higher extent, he is not even accurately relaying the Home Office data. But it is even worse than that. The Home Office Analysis of Modern Slavery NRM Referrals from Asylum, Small Boats and Detention Cohorts was published on 4 May 2023. I quote from paragraph 2, “Key findings”:

“From January to September 2022, people arriving via small boats were no more likely to be referred into the NRM (about 7%) than those referred from the asylum population (also about 7%)”,

so there is no particular issue. The Home Office went on, in key finding 6:

“This analysis demonstrates that the behaviour of asylum claimants and those arriving on small boats … does not appear to be drastically changing (demonstrated by the consistency in the proportion of those populations who are referred to the NRM)”.

The Home Office’s own statistics, published on 4 May, show that behaviour

“does not appear to be drastically changing”,

but the Minister told us on Monday that it was. I hope he has an opportunity to clarify the record today, at the soonest opportunity in Committee, and to refer to the Home Office statistics published in May, not a political assertion. Maybe he thinks we do not read these things or care what Ministers say. Well, I read the data and I care. Clearly, Home Office officials are with me; that is why they cared when they accepted the official rebuke from the regulator in January.

A system not being gamed, assertions not backed up by data, and partial use of data to seek to mislead us—who is accountable for this? It is not a Minister, but it is a 17 year-old Eritrean girl trafficked for sexual exploitation in our country, where she will now not be referred for any protection and instead detained on her 18th birthday and shipped off to somewhere we do not know where and nor will she. According to the Government, it could be one of the 57 countries “safe” in Schedule 1. But we also demonstrated on Monday that, regrettably, for many of what the Government had said were safe countries, the Justice Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, in the conscientious way in which he responded to the Committee, and I respect him for doing so, said that they are not, but that a suspensive claim can be brought to the Home Secretary—not directly to the tribunal but to the Home Secretary—a mechanism that renders the whole point of the schedule entirely otiose.

The 2002 Act defined the word “safe” for the purposes of an individual review of a person. Now the Government think just that stating the country will suffice, but FCDO advice for seven on the list of 57 includes significant red areas and advice against all travel, and for others we showed through Home Office country notes that there is also widespread risk of persecution on the basis of personal characteristics. I asked what would prevent someone being returned to a third country considered safe but then that person being moved to an unsafe country or region. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, gave a straightforward answer:

“I suppose that the direct answer is that one would have to negotiate an appropriate agreement with the country concerned”.—[Official Report, 5/6/23; col. 1229.]

I agree, but remember that the noble Lord, Lord Murray, earlier on Monday dismissed the need for such agreements to be in place. He said that

“they are not silver bullets”,—[Official Report, 5/6/23; col. 1138.]