Border Security: Collaboration

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement and welcome the Government’s decision to pause Syrian asylum claims. We welcome the fall of the Assad regime and wait to see what will happen in Syria, although the risk of instability is high.

On the subject of new international agreements relating to border security, I am afraid that I cannot be as positive. The Government’s record so far on border security and immigration has been an unmitigated disaster. Illegal small boat crossings have surged on their watch, with record numbers of dangerous journeys across the channel putting lives at risk. This is a direct consequence of the Labour Government’s inability to get a grip on the problem and their refusal to make the hard choices necessary to secure the borders. The public know it and statistics prove it. Under Labour, the UK has become a magnet for criminal smuggling gangs. No doubt the Minister will tell me that the Government will be judged on the success of their delivery. Well, I can tell the Minister that he is being judged now and it is not a good look.

The agreements reached with Germany and the Calais Group may sound good on paper but what is missing is any real action or delivery. Where is the urgency? What are the tangible results? Where are they? Smuggling networks remain entrenched. The enforcement measures announced today amount to little more than tinkering around the edges. The Home Secretary said in the other place that her approach was delivering results, but the facts do not bear that out. I can put it no better than my right honourable friend the shadow Home Secretary did:

“In the 150 days since the election, more than 20,000 people dangerously and illegally crossed the English channel, 18% more than did so in the same 150 days in the previous year. I do not call an 18% year-on-year increase ‘delivering results’; that is a failure”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/12/24; col. 902.]


This country deserves better. The British people want stronger borders, a controlled immigration system and criminals brought to justice. Yet Labour’s track record, now and during its last time in Government, shows that it cannot be trusted to deliver on any of these priorities.

Therefore, I ask the Minister a few questions. First, can he clarify what specific, measurable steps the Government are taking to dismantle criminal smuggling networks, domestically and internationally? Secondly, what provisions are in place to ensure that the agreements with Germany and the Calais Group deliver urgent, tangible results rather than just more headlines? Thirdly, will the Government consider further legislative changes to enhance border security and ensure tougher penalties for smuggling gangs and those facilitating illegal crossings? Fourthly, given the sharp increase in channel crossings year on year, how does the Minister reconcile this trend with the Home Secretary’s claim that the Government’s approach is delivering results? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches we welcome the Statement, although I do wish that these Statements were not always headed as being about border security. It is about much more than security. In particular, we welcome the collaborative approach, which we see as essential to international issues.

The Statement mentions Syria. I appreciate that the Statement is not really about Syria but as it is in here, let me take the opportunity to ask—although I think I can anticipate the answer—whether the Government are yet seeing any impact either of Syrians in this country who are now wanting to go back to the Middle East or any new wave of asylum seekers coming from Syria.

The Statement refers to wider crimes. We know that organised crime covers a wide area and that these things are all related. It lists violence, exploitation, money laundering and drug trafficking. I am sure that the Government see that people trafficking and illegal working are all part of the picture—but I would be glad of the confirmation.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, talked about higher penalties. It is the same with policing. It is catching people, rather than the penalties, which is the deterrent. Given his background, I would be surprised if he disagreed with that. The Statement also refers to legislation identified by the Germans as being needed to add to their measures. Have the UK Government identified any need for further legislation here? I hope not, because legislation is often referred to as being the solution when so often it is action that is needed.

Finally, I express one major reservation. Safe and legal routes are not mentioned. Were they part of the discussions between the international parties?

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful for those contributions from His Majesty’s loyal Opposition and the Liberal Democrat Benches. I have set out to the House on numerous occasions the record of the previous Government, and I shall not take the House’s time today to repeat that record, except to say that, since 4 July, this Government have had to take significant steps, which I will now outline, to tackle the backlog of problems left by the previous Government’s small boats initiatives, the failure to tackle asylum processing effectively and the use of hotels, which has gone from zero in 2019 to 200 hotels in 2024. I will not go on the record too much because I have covered that area before and, if provoked, will undoubtedly do so again.

I hoped that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, would have shown a little more enthusiasm and welcome for the steps that the Government outlined in this Statement. We have, for the very first time, secured agreement with Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands to take action on a number of key issues. Those key issues reflect what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said. For the first time ever, the Germans have agreed to look at their own domestic legislation to allow for criminal exchanges of a range of issues with the UK Government, because the UK is not a member of Schengen and current German legislation does not allow the Germans to do anything outside the Schengen area. They are now looking at that, and there is a commitment, I suspect, from all political parties, because Germany faces an almost certain election in February, to continue that process as a whole.

The joint action plan on irregular migration, which was concluded last week, includes international co-operation, intelligence sharing and the use of the Europol system, of which we are now no longer technically part because of the decisions on Brexit. Therefore, we have strengthened information sharing, strengthened co-operation and a strengthened commitment from the five key partners that face the channel, plus Germany, to tackle this issue. That is a good thing that will help lead to people smugglers thinking twice about smuggling individuals or facing the consequences accordingly. The clarification in German law will facilitate migrant smuggling to the UK and Germany becoming a criminal offence. That is in addition to the measures that we have taken using money saved from the appalling, wasteful, useless Rwanda scheme that the noble Lord supported. That scheme has now been scrapped; the £700 million has been put into areas such as £150 million towards a new border command, which legislation will establish on a legal footing in the new year. Those are real, manifest issues.

The noble Lord gives me one of his very pleasant, helpful, wry smiles. But he knows, deep down, that the record of his Government was one that he would not really hold up to scrutiny; and that the things we are doing are positive measures that will remove the criminal gangs and take action against them. There is a whole range of other things that we will look at in due course. He may smile at this again, but he needs to know that 1,000 more staff have gone into enforcement and returns because of the savings made on the Rwanda scheme, and therefore people who are here and have had their asylum claims refused, or who are here illegally, are now being returned. Enforcement returns are 19% up and voluntary returns are 14% up, and that is because we have shifted resources from the useless, wasteful Rwanda scheme, which did not return people or act as a deterrent, to a productive, forceful scheme that forces returns and is putting in place a border command. He used some of my lines back at me; we will be judged on how this scheme operates. Let us leave it at that, for the moment, for this noble House and for the noble Lord, because we will return to those matters in due course.

I just want to cover any other points that he made. There is a G7 plan, which includes Italy and other countries, that is looking at crossings from the Mediterranean. I think it will have an impact; he does not. Time will tell, and we will debate this continually in the future.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, began with Syria. Everybody internationally, with the possible exception—or definite exception—of President Putin and the Assad regime itself, welcomes the fall of the Assad regime, but it has raised some complications. We do not yet know how the new regime is going to operate; we do not yet know whether Syrians in the United Kingdom will feel safe to return to Syria; we do not yet know whether people will flee from Syria and make legitimate asylum claims. That is all under consideration. I cannot give her any assurances yet. She knows that we have paused the asylum scheme on Syria for that reason. I hope that we will be able to give some further news on that in the new year when, I hope, things have settled a bit more in Syria.

The noble Baroness mentioned people trafficking; I say that, yes, that is a crime we wish to crack down on. I mentioned the Schengen agreement, which is the piece of legislation we got an agreement on with the German authorities today.

The noble Baroness mentioned safe and legal routes, which are extremely important. She may not have seen it in the Statement, but it is a key part of government policy to ensure that people who need asylum can make those claims. If they are legitimate in this country, they can be processed quickly; if they are processed quickly, we can make some determinations that mean that we do not have to rely on the 200 hotels that the previous Government put in place, costing us millions of pounds each day; and, if there are safe and legal routes and people are agreed, they can integrate into UK society as asylum seekers who have sought, claimed and got asylum. The downside of that also remains: if people do not have a right to live in the United Kingdom and their asylum claims fail, we have to find mechanisms to remove them.

I hope that, overall, the House can welcome this as a positive Statement. I look forward to reaching out with a hand of friendship to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to say that I hope that we can have some co-operation on these matters. We potentially share the same objective; we have simply had different means of getting there.