UK Asylum and Refugee Policy

Recognition of human dignity is the first principle that must underpin our asylum policy. A hostile environment is an immoral environment. Each human being has an inherent and immeasurable worth, regardless of their status, wealth, heritage or background. The Book of Genesis tells us:

“God created mankind in his own image.”

In chapter 25 of the Gospel of St Matthew, in the parable of the sheep and goats, Jesus tells his followers, about those who are strangers:

“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Care for the stranger has long been embedded in societies of Christian and Jewish roots and of other faiths right around the world. The welcome arrival in the UK of other religious faiths deepens these traditions of compassion. A compassionate asylum system is one that sees the faces of those in need and listens to their voices. A compassionate system does not mean open borders, but a disposition of generosity and a readiness to welcome those whose need is genuine and where we are able to meet that need.

It also means compassion and generosity to those communities that will receive refugees, which are often neglected and forgotten. I have seen this with my own eyes around the diocese of Canterbury in east Kent, which I serve and which perhaps bears the heaviest weight of this great crisis.

A compassionate policy is one that has confidence to reject the shrill narratives that all who come to us for help should be treated as liars, scroungers or less than fully human. Compassion is not weakness or naivety. It recognises the impact on receiving communities, which includes the need to limit numbers and maintain security and order. Compassion means ending the criminal activity of people smugglers—perhaps one of the biggest industries in the world, after drug smuggling. It must distinguish between victims seeking help and criminals who exploit them.

So much of the public and political debate on migration is driven by fear linked to change and a fear of loss of control. Some of these fears are understandable. Many people are concerned that their communities and local services risk being overwhelmed. In east Kent, local schools, businesses and hospitals have risen amazingly and magnificently to the challenge. The RNLI and Border Force have carried out their mandate of saving life at sea, despite the disgraceful politicisation of their work by some. There is real pressure on housing, schools and GP surgeries, to which they respond superbly. By the way, refugees have not caused our housing crisis; we are around 40 years behind in our investment in housing stock. There would be a crisis anyway.

The number of asylum seekers has dropped in the past two decades. In 2021, 48,540 asylum applications were made in the UK; in 2002, there were 84,132—almost twice as many. Other countries have taken significantly more refugees. In the year ending September 2021, Germany received over 127,000 applications and France over 96,000. It is not a competition, but we need to face the fact that the UK ranked only 18th in Europe for our intake of asylum applications per head of population in that period. It cannot be repeated enough that four out of five refugees stay in their region of displacement, hosted by even poorer nations. If you spoke to Uganda and other countries in that area, they would call 45,000 a rounding error.

When we fail to challenge the harmful rhetoric that refugees are the cause of this country’s ills—that they should be treated as problems and not people, invaders to be tackled and deterred—we deny the essential value and dignity of fellow human beings. The right to seek asylum and the duty of the global community together to protect refugees has been politically degraded in this country, when it should be a positive source of pride. I am not addressing only the Government Front Bench; this has been a decades-long downward slide over successive Labour, Conservative and coalition Governments.

Noble Lords would expect me to say something about the Rwanda policy. We cannot separate the policy from the moral arguments. The Government did not do this when they announced the policy in Holy Week this year—the most sacred week of the Christian calendar—on Maundy Thursday, when in Christian belief Jesus was washing the feet of his disciples, including Judas Iscariot. The Prime Minister of the time gave a speech in which he used the word “compassion” six times and described the policy as

“the morally right thing to do”.

In my sermon on Easter Sunday, I gave a brief view on this—five lines in a three-page sermon—and shortly afterwards, every one of my colleagues on these Benches issued a statement concluding that this was an “immoral policy” that “shames Britain”. It is very rare on these Benches that we are united on almost anything. I congratulate the Prime Minister on managing to unite the Bishops’ Benches. What a miracle. It is a good reason for the other 53% of the population to click the census to say that they are Christian.

The Government have said that the Rwanda policy aims to deter people from arriving in the UK through

“illegal, dangerous and unnecessary methods”.

There is little or no evidence that this deterrence or the hostile environment works; the Government’s own impact assessment confirms that. The complaint I make is not about Rwanda, a country that I know well and in which there is much that I admire. A compassionate policy is one that recognises that we have a share of global responsibility; outsourcing our share creates more opportunities for people smugglers to operate in and around Rwanda. It is not a solution; it is a mistake, and it will be a failure.

Furthermore, the desire for orderly migration to discourage people from “skipping the queue” is absurd if there is no legal queue. This is a point that the Home Secretary and her officials recently conceded at the Home Affairs Select Committee in the Commons. There is no “safe” or “regular” route for an Iranian Christian or a gay man or woman from Eritrea to come to the UK to claim asylum, yet both would be highly likely to have a valid claim if they got here. Unless you are coming from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria or Hong Kong—and that, by the way, is not asylum but financial visas—or are eligible for the restrictive family reunion criteria, there is no regular route that you can use. It was reported this month that not one person has been accepted and evacuated from Afghanistan under the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. The Minister has very kindly written to me to correct that report, which was in the newspapers last Sunday; I hope in his response that he will clarify that correction for the whole House.

When migrants arrive here, our system is grossly wasteful—in both human and financial terms. Control has become cruelty. Staggering inefficiencies by successive Governments trap people in limbo—at incredible expense to the taxpayer—in the system for years, unable to build a life or to contribute to our society. I recently came across someone who had been in the asylum system for 14 years—14 years, my Lords. Evidence from the Home Affairs Select Committee shows that, of all the people who arrived in the UK by boat and claimed asylum in 2021, only 4% of claims had been processed by the Home Office by October 2022. This does not treat people with dignity or compassion, nor is it control. As well as the overcrowded and disease-ridden conditions exposed recently—which the Government are now addressing—camps and hotel accommodation keep migrants separate from the rest of the community. That segregation feeds concerns about lack of control. It fails to treat asylum seekers and refugees as neighbours who are to be loved, or citizens in waiting. We miss out on the gifts they bring and want to contribute. I met someone yesterday who is now a citizen. He is incredibly proud of his citizenship and is contributing enormously to our society by working with people in prison to help them go straight when they come out.

Solidarity with others is built by contact and building relationships. Instead, we feed the politics of suspicion and division. There are real alternatives to this. We have seen in the Ukraine scheme that asylum seekers and refugees can live within existing communities. Such communities should receive prompt and adequate government support. It does cost money, but it is cheaper than exporting our responsibilities and much cheaper if the system is compassionate, clear, efficient, accurate and effective. We are clear that the UK cannot take everyone, but it can make its decisions through a system which balances effective, accurate and clear control with compassion and dignity—a system based in our history and proper moral responsibilities. We used to talk of no recourse to public funds. A system of segregation risks creating a policy of no recourse to public compassion. We should take heart from the magnificent public response to refugees of recent years. In this country, there are still profound reserves of kindness and good will to draw on.

What can we do in the short, medium and long term which is underpinned by these principles? In the short term, we can combat smugglers and prevent small boats from crossing the channel. To minimise irregular arrivals, we need to provide safe and legal ways for people to get here and receive assessment and, where appropriate, protection. Approaches for this can include expanding the family reunification models, community sponsorship, and humanitarian visas and corridors from a far greater number of countries. We cannot continue with the tenfold increase, between 2010 and 2020, in the number of people waiting more than a year for an initial decision. The average processing time for an asylum case is currently around 15 months—it should be a maximum of six. In Germany in 2021, the average asylum procedure took 6.6 months despite a far higher refugee and asylum-seeker population. Nearly one-third of those who have been waiting more than six months are made up of nationals from 10 countries that have a successful application rate of between 75% and 99%. It is ridiculous and disgraceful that people fleeing Afghanistan and Syria have to wait so long when their applications will almost certainly be granted.

It is right that safe countries are currently determined by statutory instrument; Parliament is then able to democratically scrutinise those decisions, altering them, where needed, on the views and needs of the population. We need a triaging system to cut back which distinguishes quickly between people, based on the likelihood that they will be granted asylum; it would speed up decision-making, and allow those who almost certainly would not be granted asylum to be removed almost immediately. That is not so far from our current policy but, in practice, it is not happening. The Home Office could do that. Removing people whose claims are unsuccessful can happen in a dignified way. There has been real success with voluntary removals in the past when the Government collaborated with civil society. Returns have been on a downward trajectory, however, for a number of years. Removals will be swift, just and fair only if the system is clear, accurate and not overwhelmed. In the meantime, I propose we should also make one major change: asylum seekers should not be just allowed to work but expected to work, except in limited circumstances where it would clearly be inappropriate. This combines and matches the right to fair and dignified protection with a responsibility to their new society and the common good.

I have four seconds left. In the medium term, we suggest that people smuggling, like piracy, should become an international crime and that the UK should take the lead in the struggle against people smuggling by forming an international body to track it down and attack it everywhere. It is what we did in the 17th century against piracy and in the 19th century against slave trading. Surely this is as serious.

Finally, in the longer term, we need to update the 1951 refugee convention, which is hugely valuable in maintaining the importance of protection for all refugees but must be made fit for the new challenges that we face. A recent report by the Legatum Institute lays out some areas of ambiguity, including the role of the safe third-country principle, the responsibility to report other countries that are hosting many refugees, guidance on return and readmission and the eligibility of people fleeing new drivers of displacement, such as climate migrants. This problem is going to get worse. Britain showed global leadership in 1951, and we can do so again. We need more ambition in our policies. Time is not a luxury. Climate change and conflict risk driving migration for future generations at a rate we cannot imagine today—perhaps tenfold more.

Of course, we do not have the answer on these Benches, but the Church of England, together with many others, plays a leading role in dealing with the consequences of our present policy and its chronic dysfunction. We have done so for quite a while. In a chapel in Canterbury Cathedral, there is an inscription several centuries old that bears witness to the protection given to French Huguenots who fled persecution in the 17th and 18th centuries. The community needed a place to worship, and a chapel in the cathedral was offered to them by a simple exchange of one-page letters. They are still there. The French Protestant Church of Canterbury is there today, next to the plaque which heralds

“the glorious asylum which England has in all times given to foreigners flying for refuge against oppression and tyranny.”

This is our tradition, our history and our pride. Let us make it our future. I beg to move.

But what have we relegated our common bonds in favour of? Something more exclusive. When did virtue signalling to one another within the elite become more important than keeping faith with the values we all have in common, regardless of our status? We have allowed criminal gangs and opportunists to weaponise our differences and endanger the lives of economic migrants in the process. If that is not bad enough, at the same time, we are increasing the divisions in our society by suggesting that the democratic wishes of the majority do not matter. That is why we need to get a grip of illegal immigration.

We should not be surprised that people become distressed by increased pressure on local services. When it comes to those who do unskilled work—in warehouses, distribution centres or factories—we fail to understand that what makes those jobs bearable, alongside decent pay and working conditions, is creating a sense of community through camaraderie, collective effort and friendship. A working environment that is attractive to people doing repetitive jobs is difficult to create when no one cares if the workforce can relate to each other and technology, not human beings, determines operational standards and whether someone is doing a good job.

No one expects or wants zero immigration, and people want to help and support refugees fleeing war and persecution. However, successful and effective immigration and asylum policy relies on us understanding the valid concerns of the majority of our citizens who are opposed to the current rates of people entering the UK. The first step has to be implementing tighter controls. High-minded pronouncements, hand-wringing and the free-for-all it is creating are what is putting lives in danger, not by not doing everything we can to deter people from illegally crossing the channel. I would support any further measure to that end brought forward by the Government, and I hope that serious consideration is given to the recommendations in the CPS report by Nick Timothy and Karl Williams published this week. I hope my noble friend the Minister will comment on that when he comes to wind up.

What I know is that dismissing people’s concerns fuels division and drives distrust in the democratic process. If we are serious about building a more prosperous and cohesive society, we need to show that we are proud to be living alongside the great people of this country, who are what makes us successful and whose good character is what attracts talent and like-minded people from all around the world.

My experience here so far reminds me of my early days as a London Assembly member, when everyone else seemed to understand the unwritten protocols and the unspoken rules. I thank all those who are helping to guide me through these rules, in particular the noble Baronesses, Lady Donaghy and Lady Wheeler.

I am also grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. Immigration is an issue I feel passionately about, and I agree strongly with the sentiments so eloquently expressed in the most reverent Primate’s excellent speech.

I declare an interest at this point as chair of the London Resilience Forum. The forum has over 200 member organisations. These are generally organised into sector panels to ensure that the voices of all those organisations that may be called upon to plan for or respond to an emergency are heard. Today’s debate is particularly appropriate in recognition of the work of the Church of England in leading the faith sector panel in London, and the work the Church undertakes in similar roles on LRFs across the country. Along with the voluntary sector, including both national and community-based organisations, faith organisations representing all faiths provide the welcome those fleeing conflict or injustice deserve. They play a vital role in the work of LRFs in relation to forced migration.

Local resilience forums over the past few years have become in some ways the go-to partnerships of last resort, often picking up issues where government cannot identify another obvious way to deal with a crisis. LRF preparedness includes responding to support colleagues from other agencies and partnerships, such as regional strategic migration partnerships, when forced migration does not run as smoothly as it might. Over recent years we have seen forced migration increase with conflict overseas. We should be particularly proud of how the British population stepped up to welcome Ukrainians to this country. There is much to learn and ponder in the context of this debate. However, I will briefly refer to the Afghan relocations and assistance policy— the ARAP scheme—which was set up in April 2021.

A number of those with local government expertise have already described the admirable work carried out during this period, and also how numerous people, including families, pregnant women and children, have been accommodated, sometimes for months and years, in overcrowded hotels. It is clear that the Government could have been far better prepared when planning the airlifts from Kabul which took place in August 2021. However, I want to refer instead to the role of the London Fire Brigade.

As your Lordships know, the London Fire Brigade has had some very challenging press over recent weeks, and some of its problems in relation to culture were debated by this House yesterday. I am proud that the LFB is facing its problems head on. However, I would also say that, despite its issues, the LFB is the best type of emergency service when called upon in a crisis. The fire brigade is made up of doers: the type of people who run towards a problem, rather than run away. Therefore, on the August bank holiday last year, when I was told that there was a problem with basic items reaching immigrants and a lack of drivers to deliver them, I picked up the phone to the fire brigade to ask if it had the capacity to deliver essentials such as nappies and sanitary towels to hotels housing recent arrivals from Afghanistan. It sorted the vital deliveries within hours.

In conclusion, it has been an honour to be able to make my first speech in your Lordships’ House in this debate and on this important subject. I look forward to making future contributions on this and other matters.

Lastly, there are the ones who often tend to be forgotten. In visiting some of the refugee camps, or what is left of them in Calais and on the Greek islands, you come across the volunteers—many from this country but not exclusively so—often young people who are willing to devote a year or two of their lives to help their fellow human beings. They do not get all the accolades or the praise, but they should. It is a tremendous sign of how young people are prepared to work for the most vulnerable of their fellow human beings in difficult and uncomfortable circumstances.

In looking at the asylum and refugee issue, I, among others, have clearly said that this must not be the property of one political party; we have to look across the board. What I found with some of the amendments and arguments in which I got involved was that even Ministers came up to me and said, “Never mind: keep going with your amendment”, even though the official government policy was to deny the amendment. That was pretty exhilarating. I said to one or two Ministers, “But you shouldn’t be saying this to me.” I know for a fact that at quite senior levels there was support for some of these amendments. The Government are not monolithic—they are not saying, “We only have one view on this”—and I am delighted.

Having said that, it is important, in order that we can welcome vulnerable people to our communities, that senior people in government send out the right signals. Public opinion needs to be won over to the arguments we heard from the most reverend Primate this morning. Public opinion matters. It was public opinion that persuaded the Government to accept one of the amendments I put forward, because public opinion was pretty forceful. I remember walking down the road in west London, and somebody shouted at me. Normally, when people shout at politicians it is hostile, but this was not. A voice said, “Keep going with your amendment.” I took a great deal of comfort from that. Although I get a few hostile emails and so on, the number of supportive messages from the public far outweighs the hostility. Maybe that is not a good statistical sample, but I believe that one of our challenges is to keep public opinion on our side. I remember how, at the time of that amendment, public opinion was won over at the sight of a Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, drowned on a Mediterranean beach. Public opinion responded to that positively, and that helped to sway the argument.

However, we have voices going the other way. The most reverend Primate referred to the use of “invaders”. Throughout history, invaders have been the enemies of this country. We should not regard people who come here for safety as the enemy.

I finish with two brief comments. I went to a large refugee camp in Jordan called Zaatari. That camp is physically better than many because it has electricity, sanitation and prefab buildings. I got talking to a Syrian boy who had just finished his education in the camp. I asked him, “What now?” He said, “I can’t get a job in the camp or outside the camp. What hope is there for me?” One of our main responsibilities is to give hope to our vulnerable fellow human beings. It is hope that is important.

Secondly, as somebody who came here as a refugee, let me say that this country has been pretty terrific to me. I value that, and I know that the refugees who come here today also value being able to live in this country, find safety, get on with their education, get work and become part of our local communities. Surely that is the aspiration we should all aim for.

There is a sort of contract between those whom the UK welcomes and this country, although “welcome” is not the right word given how much of the process is working. Perhaps it is the company I keep, but I have never met an asylum seeker or refugee who is not grateful, keen to contribute to our society and frustrated by the rules that preclude it. Of course, the irony is that the skills, talents and characteristics that many refugees bring are needed here. Would I have had the gumption to get up and go, or would I have put my head in the sand? There are particular character traits involved alongside the external imperative; these are traits that we know employers welcome and are needed.

Slavery and trafficking are not unrelated to asylum seeking. Yesterday, I heard conscription in Eritrea be described as “state slavery”. Not every slavery claim is false. Are the Government retreating from their work on modern slavery? What should we read into the delay in appointing a new Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner? Is every Albanian to be disbelieved? Who can be surprised that Albanian children are going missing? It is a well-known pattern because traffickers and abusers are trusted by victims more than they trust the UK authorities. I understand that 88% of Albanian women have succeeded in their asylum claims; that figure is not an outlier.

The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, referred to the Centre for Policy Studies’ publication of this week, endorsed by the Home Secretary. The centre’s website page on the publication refers to the views of Conservative switchers who voted Conservative in 2019 but have since drifted away; they seem to be the audience. Importantly, we must distinguish asylum seekers and refugees from immigrants who come here for various reasons and make up the greater number by far.

Years ago, I heard the term “detained fast track”. I thought that it was benign, fast-track acceptance. In 2015, the system was declared unlawful by Lord Dyson in the Court of Appeal, primarily because

“the time limits are so tight as to make it impossible for there to be a fair hearing of appeals in a significant number of cases.”

Are we heading for “seek asylum” detention, fast-tracked away without assessment? The new tier system means no assessment at all.

The Government seem to focus on excluding asylum seekers. What we do not hear about is the effort that is going into dealing with the criminal smugglers, as distinct from revictimising their victims. The criminals are able to tweak their business model or move it to say, Rwanda, if they are not prosecuted and penalised.

Today’s Motion refers to “forced migration”. Climate change is forcing it, with migrants displaced far and wide within their own regions. People will take avoiding action—that is not economic migration—and will be planning ahead. So should the UK, and with compassion, confidence and practical common sense. We are left with this question: in the context of the current and anticipated international situation, what do the Government regard as the UK’s fair share?

I wish that we had longer for this debate.

What was desirable 300 years ago is an imperative today. Despite this, those seeking asylum in this country are seen as alien invaders by many, including our Home Secretary. In a callous desire to appeal to latent bigotry, she even went further, in putting blame for the insanitary conditions and overcrowding at the Manston processing centre on the asylum seekers themselves. With the very same logic, it could be equally argued that patients are to blame for delays in admission to hospitals.

As we have heard, we are not even in the top 10 countries that show generosity to strangers per head of population. Today, there are chronic labour shortages in hospitals, care homes and elsewhere, while at the same time, we are trying to send refugees desperate for work to places such as Rwanda.

In the Prayers that begin our daily sittings, we are urged to put aside our prejudices and use Christian teachings to underpin political decision-making. Deuteronomy reminds us to be kind to strangers,

“for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Leviticus reminds us that, when a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him,

“you shall love him as yourself”.

These far-sighted teachings, echoed in Sikhism and other faiths, are the very opposite of today’s harsh attitudes to those seeking asylum, which harm not only those seeking refuge but our standing in the world. They should be re-examined with urgency.

This is the very question that the Woolf Institute’s newly formed and independent Commission on the Integration of Refugees is exploring. I declare my interest as vice-chair of the commission. It is an honour to be involved under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. As I am sure he will shortly outline in greater detail, we are seeking to bring together a range of views and experiences from our commissioners and from others across the country. Those with very different opinions and approaches are agreed that the system is broken. We have come together to move towards a vision for the better integration of refugees. As the Good Faith Partnership wrote in its report for the commission, published just last month,

“the stage is … set for those with practical ideas to tap into this widely held desire from the British public to integrate newcomers into their homes and communities.”

I and many others believe that one of those key practical ideas is the provision of housing. Good refugee integration requires good housing solutions. I declare my interest as lead bishop for housing. I arrived in this country with my parents at the age of 13, while the Iranian revolution gripped my homeland. I arrived as a refugee. We were able to build our lives here, in large part thanks to the housing provided to us when we arrived, first in a theological college and later in a vacant vicarage. We had a home again; we had stability and safety from which to build our lives again. It is out of that that my own life has grown. Creating this rootedness remains a key factor for successful refugee integration today.

The report of the Archbishops’ Commission on Housing, Church and Community, Coming Home, concluded that

“good housing should be sustainable, safe, stable, sociable and satisfying.”

However, for many refugees, this is not their experience. Countless refugees remain in overcrowded temporary accommodation for long periods. In August 2021, over 20,000 Afghan citizens were evacuated by the British military. More than a year later, 12,000-plus are still housed in hotels, costing £1.5 million per day. This is both dehumanising and expensive.

So how do we respond? Part of the solution is “meanwhile housing”, the installation of demountable, sustainable, high-quality homes on meanwhile-use land. This provides better outcomes for refugees and improved use of public funds. Bristol City Council’s project, Enabling Housing Innovation for Inclusive Growth, has been pioneering in taking the solution forward. We at the newly launched Church Housing Foundation are actively working with government and others to find ways to assist the provision of meanwhile housing.

Additionally, lifting the ban on the right to work, as the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has said, would have a transformative impact, enabling individuals to create more security for themselves by putting to use the skills that they have. Indeed, a YouGov poll earlier this year found that 81% of the public agree.

A high percentage of those who apply for asylum are granted permission to stay. If these individuals are to have a chance of settling well, they must discover a new sense of belonging. Belonging grows from a combination of receiving good and dignified welcome—for example, in how they are housed—and the opportunity to contribute from the earliest moment, chiefly through the right to work.

Finally, on a positive note, I recognise and praise the incredible work going on in local churches and communities across the country to welcome the stranger, including in the diocese in which I serve, Chelmsford. As we strive towards better refugee integration, in principle and in practice, we can also be encouraged by the many good examples already around us.

The first principle is that charity begins at home, in how we treat people who have come to settle here. When I was a child, mass immigration into this country was just beginning. The parish in which I lived asked each family to link up with a migrant family, many of whom were lonely, isolated and, at worst, facing hostility. My family was linked up to a delightful Mauritian couple, whom we would invite to supper every few weeks. We became good friends. That was done by parishes across south London. I would love to hear from Bishops who have not yet spoken about what the churches are doing today to help integrate those who are here in our society and to be the good Samaritans to our neighbours from abroad.

But charity does not end at home. I pay tribute to those tens of thousands of people who opened their homes to families fleeing the bombing in Ukraine, while their menfolk remained to fight for their country. We should not imagine we are sharing in being good Samaritans if we throw open the doors of our country to everybody because, if we do that, we are doing good at others’ expense. We are, in effect, saying that migrants, be they legal or illegal, asylum seekers or otherwise, through housing benefit and social housing, will have access to rented and social homes. We all have our own homes, so we will not be affected. Therefore, more young people will have to wait at home or live in cramp bed-sitters for longer, because of what we, as legislators, think we are doing generously, without taking the impact on others into account.

The second principle is that our neighbour can be anyone, but it cannot be everyone. Millions of people want to come here. Look at the impact of the green card system the Americans operate, when they make 30,000 visas to the US available to certain countries and say, “Anyone can apply; there is a ballot.” Some 9% of the population of Albania applied when they heard about that being offered to them, as did 11% of the Armenian and 14% of the Liberian populations. These were only the people who heard about it and responded. The potential number who would like to come to America or Europe, if we open these so-called direct routes, would be enormous. Will we say to those who apply, at an embassy or some place abroad, that they would have the same legal rights, and opportunities to appeal or for judicial review if things are turned down? If so, potentially millions of people would join the queue. It would not shorten but lengthen it, so we have to restrict and to prioritise.

I submit to noble Lords that the priority should not be the boat people. They are not coming by boat from Basra, Somalia or Eritrea; they are coming from France, Belgium and Germany. Why are they coming here rather than staying in those safe countries? They are three or four times as likely to be rejected there. France, in the last year before the pandemic, forcibly repatriated 34,000 people. I find some strange double standards being applied here. There are no criticisms of France for being much stricter than us or of us for being much laxer than them, but one or the other must be the case.