Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Kerr of Kinlochard

Report stage
Wednesday 5th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 42 seems to me to be something of a no-brainer. It would relieve the public purse in two ways. Local authorities might no longer have to find the cost of accommodation, and central government would no longer have to provide the pittance it does as a weekly allowance to people held in asylum hotels. It would be good for these people. It would be good for their self-respect and it would make it more likely that they would successfully integrate if they were, in the end, granted asylum.

The only people it would be bad for are people in the black economy. We all know that people in the situation we are describing tend to go out and find work and that work is available for them, thus they are launched into a criminal level of British society straight away. That is the wrong way to integrate people who have done no harm—people who are here fleeing persecution, famine or war elsewhere. It seems paradoxical and extremely dangerous that we do not allow people to work. I strongly support Amendments 42 and 43.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I think that, across the House, most of us are not supportive of illegal migration and would want those who should not be here to be removed. Equally, therefore, we tend to be supportive of deportation. But we need to look at those who are here and going through the various processes. I support all these amendments, and in particular the speeches made by noble Lords in support of them.

Amendment 42, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has just said, seems to be a no-brainer. Why on earth do we not let people work so that we do not have to pay for them? It seems a very simple point. It would, as has already been said—it seems necessary to say it again as the current Government do not seem to recognise it, as indeed the previous Government did not recognise it—save money, save having to provide accommodation, and solve the problem of immigrants in hotels. It seems a sensible thing to do. I find it very difficult to understand. Added to that, as has been said by the right reverend Prelate, it is a waste of talent. There is no shortage of people who escape to this country who have qualifications. We have gaps in our workplaces, and many of these people would be valuable and useful to the economy.

Amendment 43 is rather different. I declare an interest as co-chair of the anti-modern slavery APPG and vice chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation. These people are exploited. They very largely have not come to this country as illegal migrants; they have come to be exploited or have already been exploited. It is a particular group of people. As has been pointed out, it takes a very long time to get through the NRM. Why on earth can they not be useful? Again, they are a similar sort of people, many of them with qualifications, and again, as the right reverend Prelate said, it is a waste of talent.

Take migrant domestic workers. There are the most appalling stories about the way in which they come to this country, where they work seven days a week, sleep on the kitchen floor and eat what remains on the plates of their employers. These are facts that various local organisations can prove. Kalayaan is a good example of a charity that looks after people who have been appallingly exploited as domestic workers. Currently, these workers do not have the rights that they had under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It is about time that this badly treated group of people were given the opportunity to have another job in the same sector that they came here for. Therefore, for the various reasons I have just said, and for those that have already been given, I strongly support these amendments.

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[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

It is our polite custom to say what a privilege it is to follow the previous speaker. In this case, and on this subject, that is absolutely true. It is to this subject that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has devoted a life of public service, trying to do for others what was done for him in 1939. It does him great credit.

In 2016, as the noble Lord mentioned, his amendment was carried in this House and accepted at the end of the day by the then Conservative Government, and some 480 unaccompanied children got here who otherwise would not. It does him enormous credit.

Here he is again. This time, the noble Lord is concerned for the lone lost child left behind. He is concerned for the parent here who is a bona fide refugee, who has satisfied all the tests and has been given leave to remain in this country, but knows that the child is lost. The child is in a camp in Greece or Italy or, worse, on the streets of Calais. What is the father or mother to do? They have a heartbreaking choice. They can stay separated and forget the child, or they can go to the smuggler, pay up, and hope that the child makes it and comes in. That is not right. There has to be a third way.

There has to be a way in which a parent who has a right to be here, which has been established by our administrative systems and courts, can bring in the lost lone child. There used to be ways, before Brexit. But now there is only the option of a smuggler or of separation. We owe it to ourselves, to how we see our country, to stand with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, on this and pass Amendment 55.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I would have put my name to this amendment if I had got there in time. Every slot was taken, and I am not surprised. I add to what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said my admiration of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I have supported him on this proposal ever since he put it forward. He raises, quite rightly, issues about the well-being and welfare of children, who I spent all my judicial life trying to help. He also talks about it being a moral issue and an issue of principle, with which, of course, I agree.

However, what might be more attractive to the Minister is the fact that it is very few children. We have heard that it has been 10,000 in the past. But currently, we are talking about a few hundred. I do not think the public are going to mind very much about a few hundred children coming to this country.

Some years ago, when Fiona Mactaggart was still an MP, she and I, with the help of Safe Passage, went to Calais to meet some of the children. I have told your Lordships’ House this before, but I say it again because among the children, mainly teenagers, were some quite young children who were seriously at risk, sleeping under the trees and waiting for the one meal a day that very good, kind French people were offering.

We are talking only about children under 18, for goodness’ sake, and I do not apologise for saying again that we are talking about hundreds. This is not something that will embarrass the Government like the crowds of people coming in who they do not seem terribly good at getting rid of—nor did the previous Government. We are talking about a small number of children whose welfare is seriously at risk. The Government really should do something about it. For me, as a mother and a grandmother, the idea that it is suspended is tragic.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Kerr of Kinlochard

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I wonder if I could put to the noble Lord the question that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, put, which he did not answer in the previous debate? The amendment would impose a requirement to deport, but to where? Where are they to go?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I find it rather odd to read these two amendments. I am not party political. I sat through a large amount of legislation by the last Government: the Nationality and Borders Act, the Illegal Migration Act and the Rwanda Act. There was a great deal of legislation but there were remarkably few people actually deported. There appeared to be, within the last year of the last Government, even fewer people being deported. There seemed to be—if I might put it like this—almost a degree of lethargy. So listening to the way in which the noble Lord has put forward these two amendments makes me feel, to some extent, astonished. What they are asking of this Government, as far as I can see, is what in legislation they achieved but in deportation they did not achieve. They are expecting this Government to do what the last Government did not do. Sitting as I do on the sidelines, listening to what parliamentarians say and to what the Opposition say to the Government, I find it difficult to see why the Government should have to respond to this. It really seems quite extraordinary.

Following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has just said, in subsection (3) of the proposed new clause to be inserted by Amendment 109, there are four ways in which somebody could be returned. One is to

“a country of which P is a national”.

I understand—and they understand, and have said so quite properly—that they would not send the person back to a genuinely unsafe country. So an Afghan would not go back to Afghanistan, I assume, and probably a Syrian might not, even now, go back to Syria. That is where we start.

Then we have

“a country or territory in which P has obtained a passport or other document”.

Is that country automatically going to receive this particular person?

Number three, at paragraph (c), is

“a country or territory in which P embarked for the United Kingdom”.

Again, is that country—mainly France, or Belgium or Holland, I would expect, which are the nearest countries—going to be expected to take back every person who comes over? At the moment, the Government are negotiating a pilot scheme for a few to be taken back. I would have thought that the French would simply say certainly not.

The fourth one is

“a country or territory to which there is reason to believe P will be admitted”.

That is a sensible proposal, but where is that country? At the moment, from what we have heard, there are not likely to be many countries which would want to take the majority of people who have come to this country illegally. As I said earlier, I find these two amendments astonishing.