Sentencing Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

It is time for this side. Forgive me, but I think it is time that we heard—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am not “this side”.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Forgive me.

I want to be brief, because the speeches have been eloquent and passionate. All the bases have been covered, but in the absence of, for example, my noble friend Lord Blunkett, whose amendments I signed, it is important that someone from the Labour Benches conveys the concern that persists in the Labour Party. That includes people who are incredibly loyal to the Government and incredibly proud of the Minister, my noble friend Lord Timpson. The anxiety and concern at this profound injustice is very live and real.

I support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and other aspirations and amendments in this group. I agree that administrative mechanisms have not been enough. They do not show the signs of being enough to prevent more suicides and self-harm from what the noble and learned Lord put very well as having been a collective miscarriage of justice. When miscarriages of justice are perpetrated by the judiciary, there are appeal mechanisms and even executive pardon mechanisms to deal with them, but this was perpetrated by the political class: by the Executive and the legislature.

To the credit of the coalition Government, the IPP sentence was ended, but the response in relation to those already incarcerated was inadequate. These people, frankly, rot in prison. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, put it very well: some of these people have now been incarcerated—some even without any release—for offences that would never have justified life imprisonment. They are decades beyond tariff. This is unconscionable, and something must be done.

I know very well from regular meetings and from all the engagement and work that my noble friend Lord Timpson is doing that he is committed to getting these people out, if at all possible, but administrative mechanisms do not seem to be enough. I hope he will forgive me for saying that, in these meetings and in that engagement, some of us have observed even institutional intransigence in some parts of the institution about dealing with this. Frankly, this was a legislative disaster and it will require a legislative solution. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to make this 11th-hour concession. That may prove difficult— I do not know—but, at the very least, I would hope that he might consider a free-standing Bill that the Government could bring forward, with cross-party support, to provide a mechanism to deal with the remaining relatively small number of people suffering this profound injustice.

Administrative mechanisms and “wait and see” are plainly not going to work, not least because of the point about zero risk that was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, earlier this evening and has come up in a number of speeches. There cannot be zero risk. There is not zero risk with people in the mainstream population who have never been convicted of an offence so, of course, there is not zero risk in relation to this cohort. Any risk that they pose has probably been exacerbated, as was put by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, by this appalling state-sponsored miscarriage of justice of collective proportions.

It is time for all of us to play our part on a cross-party basis, which is why I shall be listening as anxiously to the reply from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, opposite. This is a political problem and an institutional problem, and it will take good will from all sides to deal with it. We spoke earlier about the purposes of imprisonment. The legitimate purpose of imprisonment was never supposed to be political point-scoring, yet that political point-scoring has created all sorts of problems that have escalated in the past three decades, so I hope that there can be some olive branch offered from that side of the House as well.

I know that the Minister is committed to justice and has proved in his extraparliamentary life what can be done with genuine courage and a commitment to turning people’s lives around. This, I know, is on his mind. I am asking him to consider a legislative response, rather than just leaving it to administration, because that has not been sufficient. I support the approach of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, but there is a lot in what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said too. It is perhaps a shame that we did not have a single offering, but I firmly believe that there will have to be a legislative offering, ideally from the Government. Otherwise, this stain—the word of my dear friend and former mentor, the late Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood—will carry on, perhaps beyond our own lifetimes, and I for one would be seriously ashamed of that.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I will introduce Amendments 184 and 185 in my name. I am grateful for the support of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. Both amendments are inspired by the Government’s commitment in last year’s election manifesto that we will once again be a defender of the international rule of law.

The late Lord Bingham of Cornhill’s eighth principle on the rule of law is that it

“requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law as in national law”.

The rule of law is a fundamental constitutional principle that safeguards against arbitrary power. What are we here for if not to protect the constitution?

Throughout debates on this Bill and other annual asylum Bills of recent years, noble Lords have raised concerns about compliance with international law, including the 1951 refugee convention. More than 20 years ago, in 1993, a Bill was passed through Parliament, with the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, as Home Secretary. It was implemented by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, and contains a section titled “Primacy of Convention”. This section, still in force, provides that:

“Nothing in the immigration rules … shall lay down any practice which would be contrary to the”


refugee convention.

My Amendment 184 is in the spirit of this provision, but addresses the relationship between the convention and our domestic legal system more holistically. Drawing from the hallmark constitutional balance agreed by Parliament in the Human Rights Act 1998, it seeks to ensure harmony between primary legislation, subordinate legislation, the Immigration Rules, executive guidance and the refugee convention, so far as that is possible. It would give effect to Parliament’s intention to legislate in compliance with human rights. As with the Human Rights Act, courts would interpret laws only with the grain of the legislation and do no more than necessary to ensure compliance with human rights standards. This would help realise Parliament’s overarching intention and rectify drafting errors or address factual circumstances not foreseen by legislators.

Just as our courts have exercised judicial restraint in using Section 3 of the Human Rights Act, our independent judiciary could be trusted to exercise restraint in using this proposed new clause. Where primary legislation cannot be compatibly interpreted, then, as with Section 4 of the Human Rights Act, a declaration of incompatibility could be made which would not affect—I repeat not affect—the validity or continued operation of that law.

Those who rail against judicial human rights decisions with which they disagree should be reminded of this relationship between Sections 3 and 4 of the Human Rights Act. It explicitly protects parliamentary sovereignty and, in contrast with, say, the US Bill of Rights, prevents our Supreme Court reinterpreting, let alone striking down, explicitly incompatible primary legislation. For the sake of completeness, the injunction in Section 2 of the Act is to “take into account”, not be bound by, decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Amendment 184 would, so far as is possible, ensure, for example, that our criminal penalties do not violate the immunity provided by the refugee convention, that our guidance on nationality does not treat refugees for evermore as not of good character if so to do would breach the refugee convention, and that refugees would not face being sent to places called safe where they will, in fact, face persecution.

Amendment 185 is specific to the question of immunity from criminal penalties. As your Lordships have heard time and again, Article 31.1 of the refugee convention protects refugees from

“penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence”

if they come directly from the country persecuting them,

“present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence”.

The reason for this immunity is simple. People fleeing persecution and seeking sanctuary are often compelled to arrive, enter and be present in a state irregularly. It is clear that Section 31 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 is intended to cover this defence. Indeed, it is titled:

“Defences based on Article 31(1) of the Refugee Convention”.


However, it is insufficient and does not reflect the full scope of that article. It provides only a narrow defence to an insufficient list of offences, including forgery and connected offences, possession of false identity documents, deception and falsification of documents.

Therefore, while there is a statutory defence for arriving with false documents, there is no statutory defence for arriving without requisite documents. Someone who uses a fake passport to get on a boat or plane directly from where they face persecution is provided with a narrow defence, but as we know, with our ever-tightening visa regime and with airlines afraid of penalties, refugees cannot board safe planes—if they could, they might not risk crossing Europe on foot or the channel in dinghies. If they had instead walked barefoot or been trafficked and arrived in Libya, Turkey or France, having lost or had stolen any papers they had along the way, they would have no statutory defence against prosecution for irregular arrival or entry in the UK, or indeed against the new facilitation offences in this Bill and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 before it.

This is not a mere hypothetical. The best available data shows that 556 people arriving by small boat were charged with illegal arrival and 455 were convicted—a number of them young people, who are treated and prosecuted as adults, with insufficient initial age assessments. The vast majority of those charged and convicted had ongoing claims for asylum, as well as experiences of trafficking and/or torture, but had to share prison cells with adults before being released into the care of local authorities.

In its recent report on this Bill, the Joint Committee on Human Rights stated:

“Article 31 is partially incorporated into domestic law by way of section 31 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. However, the Committee agrees with its predecessor that this provision is not fully compliant with the Refugee Convention”.


Therefore, my amendment is one endeavour to ensure compliance. I appreciate that there are other such attempts, including from the chair of that committee, the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, in his Amendment 203. I am sure that we all wish him a full and speedy recovery from his recent injuries.

In Amendment 203I and other amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, has proposed a restrictive interpretation of Article 31.1 of the refugee convention. Our courts have interpreted the term “directly”—as in coming directly—broadly and purposively to ensure that refugees who have crossed through and had mere short-term transitory stops in other countries, such as while crossing deserts and seas, may still be exempt from penalties if they were en route to their place of intended sanctuary. The late and much lamented Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood in Adimi provided a clear test for interpreting whether someone has come directly, looking at the length of stay in the intermediate country, the reason for the delay and whether or not the refugee sought or found protection in that intermediate country. We must return to and uphold that common law position, as the late Lord Bingham of Cornhill did in the House of Lords Judicial Committee in Afshar.

As we repeatedly discuss, the entire system of international refugee protection would collapse if this were not the case—if every person were subject to penalties if they passed through or stopped in a safe country. The UK could say that all refugees are the responsibility of France. France would look to Italy, which would no doubt point to Tunisia. Tunisia would say “Libya”, and Libya would say “Sudan”. Thus, immediately, neighbouring countries would bear all the responsibility, of which they already bear a great share, or refugees would be pushed back into their countries of persecution. This was never the intention and could never logically have been the intention of a refugee convention. With this approach, like dominoes, our system of post-war legal protection and the international rule of law would fall. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I signed the two amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, not because I have any legal training but because I trust her judgment on this. I was hoping that some of our estimable Cross-Bench KCs and former judges would stand up and say, “This is rubbish; you can’t do this”. In their absence, I will say just a few words.