Contributions
236 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, if his amendment 5 were accepted, someone could orchestrate a boat crossing the channel, throw a child off—which this measure is trying to…06 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. My hon. Friend is making a really important point: these cross-channel operations and strategies are more diplomatic…06 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I will make a couple of points about the amendments to the clause, and the clause overall. I have always been…06 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I am afraid I completely disagree with him on what this Bill is doing. Being an asylum seeker is a self-declaration. It is…06 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Sixth sitting)I want to make just a couple of points on the seizure of phones. We have to be incredibly realistic about the threat that the country faces and how these things are organised. We…06 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s point, and I can assure him that no one has higher respect than I do for the organisations that have supplied such evidence. I have been in…06 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)That is absolutely right—but, in my experience of the channel coast and of working in the refugee sector, those do not exist. Anyone who was to do that would probably be giving…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Third sitting)It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I would like to make a couple of points about the amendment. As the Minister set out, clause 1 does not mean that…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Third sitting)Does the hon. Gentleman accept that although Commissioner Miekelson is a fictional character, the role was created by statute—by the SNP Scottish Government when they created…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Third sitting)What, then, is the hon. Gentleman’s view of how UKBA functioned? In her testimony, Theresa May said that, where it had that kind of independence, it became “closed, secretive and…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Third sitting)Before I was elected and before Brexit, I was the justice and home affairs attaché at the British embassy in Paris. I helped to co-ordinate engagement between the Home Office, the…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Third sitting)The most comparable piece of legislation on this topic in a devolved context is the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015. That Act does not require a clause that…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Third sitting)On that point, the 2015 Act does refer to the Council of Europe protections and its definitions are taken from there. But there is not a clause that says that due regard has to be…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Third sitting)But in an implicit way, just as this Bill is. There is nothing on the face of the Act, in the way the hon. Member is proposing for this Bill.04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)It is quite interesting to hear the points that the Minister is making, considering the conversation we had this morning about the commander being functionally a civil servant.…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)There is an issue around taxonomy and categorisation here. Anyone is entitled to claim asylum. It is a universal human right. Anyone from any nationality and background, whatever…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)I apologise for my longer interventions, Mr Stuart; I will try to bundle them all into this speech. One of the most important things that we heard during evidence was from Dr…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)The hon. Gentleman is making an important point, but I do not accept that the proposal is creating new criminal offences for all asylum seekers or for all people; it is creating…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)Weald of Kent, sorry—that is quite far south for me. The hon. Lady made a point about the sector and charging for services. Some organisations out there are charitable and provide…04 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting)Q Or four. Professor Brian Bell: Well, four went voluntarily, but if the policy had been implemented in full, there were never any guarantees. We certainly would not have been…27 Feb 2025