Illegal Migration Bill

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

3rd reading
Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

That the Bill be now read a third time.

Relevant documents: 34th and 37th Reports from the Delegated Powers Committee, 16th Report from the Constitution Committee, 12th Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Correspondence from the Senedd published.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Borders (Lord Murray of Blidworth) (Con)]

My Lords, before we commence proceedings on the Bill, I am obliged to make a short statement setting out the position on legislative consent. It is the UK Government’s view that the Bill relates to reserved or excepted matters—namely, immigration and nationality—in each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and is therefore not within the legislative competence of any of the devolved legislatures.

The United Kingdom Government note that the Senedd has declined to agree a legislative consent Motion in relation to certain provisions in the Bill, but it is our view that the legislative consent process is not engaged in relation to Wales.

Noble Lords will recall that we added a provision on Report relating to legal aid in Northern Ireland. Such a provision may amount to an alteration of the Department of Justice’s executive functions; as such, we consider that this provision engages the legislative consent process in Northern Ireland. However, due to the continued absence of the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly, a legislative consent Motion cannot be secured.

For completeness, I add that no legislative consent Motion has been considered by the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government sought to bring forward such a Motion in relation to the modern slavery provisions in the Bill, but the Presiding Officer concluded that it did not meet the terms of the relevant standing order of the Scottish Parliament and consequently it was not debated. Accordingly, I beg to move.

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Moved by

[Lord Murray of Blidworth]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I do not want to detain the House for too long at this stage but, in view of what transpired on Report, it is fitting that I say a few words before the Bill completes its passage through your Lordships’ House.

There is clearly some disagreement about the means, but we all agree on the necessary ends: we must stop the boats. It remains the Government’s contention that the provisions of the Bill, as introduced in your Lordships’ House, are a vital plank of the actions we are taking to stop these dangerous, illegal and unnecessary crossings of the channel. As my noble friend Lord Clarke so memorably noted, we have not heard an effective alternative. But, if we are to stop the boats, it is imperative that the scheme provided for in the Bill is robust and sends the unambiguous message that, if you enter the UK illegally, you will not be able to build a life here; instead, you will be detained and swiftly returned, either to your home country or to a safe third country.

As a result of the many non-government amendments agreed by your Lordships’ House on Report, that message is no longer unambiguous. It is, at best, half-hearted and, at worst, now wholly absent from the Bill. The Government are reflecting carefully on each and every amendment, but I have no doubt that many will not find favour with the other place and we will soon be debating them again.

Having said all that, I record my thanks for all the valued contributions made by my noble friends and noble Lords opposite during the Bill’s passage. It is particularly appropriate, following the sad news of his death late last week, that I express my sincere appreciation for the insightful contribution made by Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood at Second Reading. This was one of his last speeches in this place and I am sure that I speak for all noble Lords if I say that his passing is a great loss to this House.

While there has not been much common ground between these Benches and those opposite, I express my gratitude for the candid and courteous way in which the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Ponsonby, have engaged with me on the Bill. I also extend my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and his Front-Bench colleagues for their clarity of message, albeit not one that I have been able to agree with.

Finally, I am duty bound to record my sincere gratitude for the invaluable help and assistance of my noble friends Lord Sharpe and Lord Davies and my noble and learned friends Lord Bellamy and Lord Stewart. I put on record my particular thanks to the excellent Bill manager, Mr Charles Goldie, and thank Gurveer Dhami, the deputy Bill manager, the whole of the Bill team, my private office staff and the officials and lawyers in the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice who have provided excellent support, along with the first-class drafting of the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel.

As I have indicated, I suspect it will be an unusually short time before we are debating these matters again, but for now I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, we have a short time before this Bill comes back and I would like to take this opportunity to say to my noble friend that the Bill has been significantly altered and, in the view of many of us, generously improved in your Lordships’ House.

My noble friend said some fairly strong words and, of course, he is fully entitled to do that but I urge that he discusses with his ministerial colleagues, particularly the Home Secretary, some of the speeches that have been made in this House and the underlying concern of those speeches—many of them made from this side of the House—that there is an absence of kindness, consideration and concern in the Bill that came before us at Second Reading.

The Bill has been improved. It has been made more human and more humane. If there is a particular thing that illustrates what I am trying to say—and it was raised earlier this afternoon, and I raised it myself in the gap when we debated the Windrush generation on Friday—it is that this incident of the painting out of murals designed only to amuse unaccompanied children sends out a message that, frankly, is not worthy of our country. I urge my noble friend to permeate his discussions on this Bill and his consideration with the Home Secretary as to which amendments can be amended, which can be accepted and which they feel they have to resist, with a recognition that it is the kindness and consideration of this country that have made it a great country. One has only to cite the Jews in the years before the war and the Ugandan Asians who came into this country 50 years ago, both enriching our communities.

Of course we cannot have boat people coming indiscriminately, but we must recognise that they are human beings, that they are individuals and that they are worthy of consideration as such. I implore my noble friend to enter some of that spirit into the discussions that he is shortly to have with the Home Secretary and his ministerial colleagues.

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[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I start on a sombre note and join other noble Lords and the Minister in paying tribute to Lord Brown, who will be sorely missed by us all. He spent many an hour in the tearoom and elsewhere trying to explain various legal niceties to me in a very calm and dignified way, always treating me with a respect and courtesy I am not sure I deserved. He was a truly remarkable man and a pleasant individual. He will be missed by us all, and it is very sad that he has left us.

I will start with some usual courtesies before I make a couple of comments. I thank the Minister for the briefings he gave us. We have fundamentally disagreed on certain things. We were not pleased about the lateness of the impact assessments, as my noble friend Lady Lister made clear. To be fair to the Minister, even when we have fundamentally disagreed, he has always tried to brief me with respect to the Bill, and I am grateful for that. I thank his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for being similarly available whenever needed with respect to the Bill. Again, we disagreed on various things, but I appreciated his courtesy and help. I would be grateful if he could pass on my thanks to the noble and learned Lords, Lord Bellamy and Lord Stewart, who at different times contributed to the Bill. I have to mention the Government Whip, who sat there all the way through with his normal face, which was always interested and agreeable. It was a pleasure to talk to him, if no one else at times. I also thank the Minister’s officials, who have been really helpful.

My noble friend Lord Ponsonby is always a welcome contrast to my calm and unexcitable demeanour. He generates the rhetoric, drive and passion that I sometimes lack, and I am grateful for him encouraging me to have a bit more zeal at times—but seriously, it is good to have him alongside me. I am grateful to the officials in our office, Dan Stevens and Clare Scally, who have been very helpful, and my Back-Bench colleagues—I am always a bit nervous about this; it is like being at a wedding when you forget the aunt at the back—particularly my noble friends Lady Chakrabarti, Lord Dubs, Lady Lister, Lord Bach, Lord Cashman and Lord Hunt, and many others, for their support and help as the Bill has gone through. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and his team for their co-operation, and Peers from across the House, some from unexpected quarters, who rang me to ask about different things. It has been a pleasure to work with them.

I want to start with some related points, including the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. Having said what I said about the Minister, a couple of the things he said at the beginning were disappointing. There may have been times when some have thought it the right thing to do but, generally speaking, this House has not sought to block the Bill. It has recognised that the Commons has a right to pass its legislation. However, many in this House feel that the payback for that—for want of a better way of putting it—is that the other place has to respect that this place has a constitutional role to play as well. We will not be intimidated or made to back off from passing amendments that we think are important, or from saying where we think the Government have got it wrong.

I have been in government; it is hugely irritating to a Government to have this happen, but it sometimes works, in that better legislation is passed. If two and two does not make four, there is a problem. On a Bill as controversial and difficult as this, it is only right that large numbers of amendments be passed. It is only right to ask the other place—as a number of Peers have done—to give due consideration, in proper time, to the amendments we have passed and to adapt and make changes.

To be frank, it is difficult to know exactly what we should think about what will happen tomorrow, given that the only briefing we have had has gone to the newspapers and the media, telling us what to expect in the amendments to be published tomorrow or later today. Some may be things that we could agree to. Many in this place, including me, and a number of Members in the other place, will say that it cannot be right that journalists are ringing to ask your opinion, when you have no idea about it. They ask why you cannot comment and you have to say, “Well, I don’t know what the Government are suggesting”. That cannot be right, and it needs to be looked at.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, made a passionate point. Sometimes, if a Government get something wrong, as they have with the murals at the detention centre, the right thing to do is to stand up and say that it should not have happened and they will make sure it does not happen again.

As part of our co-operation and work together, the Minister organised a trip to Dover and to Western Jet Foil for my noble friend Lord Ponsonby and myself. My noble friend and I went to the facility with the mural, where Mickey Mouse was painted on the wall. There was nothing offensive about it—nothing at all that anybody could take offence at. All it did was provide comfort and a sense of belonging to children in a desperate situation, which, presumably, is why somebody painted it. They did not paint it out of badness, or to make a political point or embarrass the Government. This was simply a human being, no doubt as an act of kindness, painting something on the wall to comfort children in a desperate situation.

In addition to the Minister’s response being wrong and disappointing, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made the point he made—he will correct me if I am wrong—in order to show that that attitude cannot prevail when considering the other amendments we have sent to another place, where they are generally dismissed out of hand. The Government may have given way on four, five or six—we do not know—but the 20 or so amendments sent there deserve proper consideration. If the Government object to them, they will need to give a proper explanation. Underlying what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, that is what we are asking for.

This place deserves its proper position within the functioning of the constitution of this country. If it does not have that, the consequence will be poorer legislation. In respect of an Illegal Migration Bill that is so controversial, the impact will be on innocent people, including children, who do not deserve it.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I will not address all the speeches, but I can certainly say that I agree with parts of almost all of them. Of course, noble Lords are entirely right that I and the department should think deeply about the amendments proposed, and we will. It is clear that there will be some changes, and I hope to work with noble Lords on that in due course.

Without Lord Brown, this House is very much a lesser place, and I am glad that we had an opportunity to reflect on that today.