UK Asylum and Refugee Policy

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Friday 9th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the most reverend Primate for encouraging us to consider the question of asylum from a moral position, but I warn those who made such interesting maiden speeches—I warmly welcome them—that debates in this House are not always so erudite or ethical.

One concern when we discuss this topic is how we are regularly urged to deploy our moral sentiments in feeling compassion for refugees. Is it emotionally manipulative to suggest that policy should be decided by such one-sided emotional concerns? There are millions of people who could have their lives enhanced by living in the UK. When I watch the news and see the plight and suffering of those around the world, I am tearful and want to do something desperately, but, as the most reverend Primate admits, we cannot take all the world’s suffering as refugees here. We have to prioritise, and that does not make us immoral. I therefore feel uncomfortable when some accuse those who raise concerns about the numbers arriving in small boats of lacking a disposition of generosity or not caring. Is not that demonising and dehumanising language too?

Let us not pretend that this is an easy moral question. For all the moral righteousness expressed here, I ask what the moral difference is between a man fleeing a war-torn country, which is considered legal, and a man fleeing grinding poverty, which is not. This highlights a moral problem thrown up by the asylum system: it treats the cause of someone fleeing a country as the basis for creating deserving and undeserving migrants. It implies somehow that a refugee is a victim worthy of our generosity, unlike economic migrants.

I am not sure the fashion for emphasising that Jesus was a refugee helps, if I am honest. It feels like a bit of a cheap shot. Did not Christ allegedly die for us all? This sanctifying narrative and the present system definitely incentivise anyone arriving to follow the script and claim they are refugees, but, as explained so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, people arrive without papers or with letters from tyrants as evidence. There is a problem: the system is open to abuse.

If the host authorities say they will give asylum to Syrians, those from the Middle East will inevitably claim to be Syrians. If the rules say asylum will be given to under-18s, young-looking 20-somethings will understandably claim to be younger. In 2016, the Church of England clerics warned about fake conversions from Islam to Christianity. In Nick Timothy’s major report published this week, he notes that modern slavery laws are being “abused”. It is now standard advice, especially for those coming from Albania, to claim they are victims of trafficking.

Noting those truths is not about blame. I do not blame people for trying their luck—they want a better life—so there are no accusations of “scroungers” or “invaders” from me. But it is simply disingenuous to suggest that the objectivity of the law is not being strained when determining asylum status is so difficult. I am especially worried when we gaslight the British public, who feel that some are gaming the system—and they are right to think that. They also believe that, no matter how many times they vote for control of our borders, they are being ignored at the expense of asylum seekers.

When people considered the original 1951 convention on refugees, the spectre of those fleeing the Holocaust death camps informed the spirit of “never again”. Many Jewish refugees were, shamefully, turned away. British citizens understand that, and they understand those fleeing the bombs and terror of Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine and our obligation to those escaping the Taliban in Afghanistan, and so on. They are more than welcoming, but they are also understandably upset about the 40,000 currently crossing the channel, who they know are not fleeing from the terror of the Nazis or the Taliban, but who are leaving peaceful France.

They are right as well to ask British politicians about their priorities. Did your Lordships see the film of the recent public meeting in Skegness, called by the mayor in response to the local seaside hotels? There was a lot of hostility in that meeting, but it was aimed not at refugees but at the local MP. It was frustration at a system where, without consultation, asylum seekers in their midst were being given free accommodation, utilities and three meals a day, while local people face desperate times and the brutal reality of austerity. Homelessness is on the rise in the town, and the veterans sleeping rough in Skegness also deserves our compassion; the interviews with them were heart-breaking. Of course refugees are not living in five-star hotels, and I am not suggesting that, but can we also empathise with citizens who cannot get to see a GP, get into A&E or get medical treatment for chronic pain when they are told that medical services are being made available to refugees in local hotels?

Dismissing the plight and aspirations of our own citizens, so well-articulated by the noble Baronesses, Lady Stowell and Lady Stroud, is just as divisive and mean-spirited as using the language of invasion. This issue requires that we deploy a full range of moral principles. Our duties stretch beyond compassion for migrants. If we flaunt the democratic duty to uphold the integrity of national borders and treat the social cohesion of settled communities as a distasteful, inconvenient obstacle, we indeed risk a backlash against all refugees and migration schemes, which would be terrible. In my view, we need a complete overhaul of the laws on the issue. At present, who is in control?

In his foreword to the recent pamphlet From the Channel to Rwanda: Three Essays on the Morality of Asylum, Doctor Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, wrote:

“if people smugglers can simply nullify carefully thought-through and debated legislation and policy by landing people in small craft on the beaches in Kent, this cannot indefinitely be acceptable in a democratic and law respecting nation.”

I think Nick Timothy is right that, if human rights laws or the 1951 refugee convention prevent us democratically deciding our priorities, we must be prepared to leave both if necessary. Those who disagree, who think there should be more refugees, should argue for that democratically and push that up the next election’s list of things to be debated.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Baroness has run out of time.