Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Green of Deddington

Report stage
Monday 3rd July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Ludford, who is unable to be here today, has her name to these amendments so I am speaking on her behalf, as it were, and on behalf of these Benches.

I make the general point that interim relief is an intrinsic and sensible part of our law. Injunctions are generally to prevent something happening, to maintain the status quo until there can be thorough consideration of a case. It is that way round because the person who wants to prevent that something happening is at risk of an action which would have a major effect on him—the other way round does not work in the same way. In this case, the action—removal from the UK —would effectively be the end of the story for the claimant and, if not that, it would at least make pursuit of claim from outside the UK very difficult indeed. That is quite different from the depiction we heard last week of a witness on a video link from another room or another building with all the normal support and access to his representatives.

This afternoon, I received an email from the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law—I stress “Bingham” and “rule of law”; noble Lords will note that title—with quite a long summary of a report on this subject which I understand is to be published tomorrow. It concludes that although improvements could be made to the process in the European Court of Human Rights, they do not affect the court’s jurisdiction to indicate binding interim measures. It makes the point that, when states signed up to the European convention, they expressly accepted that:

“In the event of dispute as to whether the Court has jurisdiction, the Court shall decide”.


So as not to detain your Lordships from making another trip to increase your steps through the Lobbies this evening, I will not read the whole of the summary. However, I make the point that the UK Government have proactively promoted the binding force of interim measures, advocating that other states, such as Russia, treat them as binding and comply with them. Given the provenance of that advice, I take it—and I hope your Lordships take it—very seriously.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister when he speaks in a moment will explain what this is intended to deal with. It is only specific to these circumstances; is it that a certain number of lawyers are making a certain amount of money and he thinks that that is not helpful to the policy that the Government intend to put forward?

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Green of Deddington

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will be extremely brief. I suggest that we look at these issues, which have now been dealt with in great detail, in a wider context. The fact is that the asylum system is a shambles; I will not go into that any further—we all know that. However, we need to be very careful before we make further commitments on safe and legal routes.

The wider reason is that, last year, we had overall net migration of 606,000. Of those, roughly 200,000 were refugees of different kinds—I am putting it in the most general terms. If that is allowed to continue, and if we fail to reduce the other elements of immigration which are also rising very quickly under this Government, we will have to build something like 16 cities the size of Birmingham in the next 25 years. Nobody has challenged that, because it is a matter of arithmetic.

We face a huge problem. Therefore, I suggest that whatever the arguments for this particular category may be, we need to keep well in mind the wider impact on the scale and nature of our society. That should not be overlooked.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have my doubts about the term “safe and legal routes” as well. I would prefer to focus on safety; to talk about legal routes now impliedly accepts the argument that people who come here in the way that we have been discussing are in some way illegal. I do not think the routes are illegal any more than the people.

I did not know that my noble friend was going to refer to the recent report of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee on family migration, published in February. It raised a number of matters pertinent to the debate. Noble Lords will be familiar with the problem that one of our recommendations addresses. We recommended that the Home Office should allow biometrics to be completed on arrival in the UK for a wider range of nationalities in crisis situations. As noble Lords will know, there are many countries in which it is not possible to reach a visa application centre before travelling in order to enrol your biometrics. There are countries which do not have them. My noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed said of the Government’s attitude to Iran and Sudan that they do not recognise the reality of the situation. In this connection, I do not think they recognise the realities either.

The reply from the Government arrived less than a week ago. I hope that this “in due course” is quite quick, and we will have the opportunity to debate it, but who knows? The Government said:

“Where an applicant considers they cannot travel to a Visa Application Centre … to enrol their biometrics, they can contact us to explain their circumstances”.


Well, that sounds practical, does it not? They continued:

“New guidance will be published in the near future setting out the unsafe journey policy. Where an applicant believes that travelling to a VAC would be unsafe, their request will be placed on hold pending the new guidance being published, however, should there be an urgent requirement to resolve their request this should be made clear in the request and consideration will be given as to the applicant’s circumstances and whether there is an urgent need to travel to the UK. If the request is deemed to be urgent we will contact the applicants to explain available options prior to the guidance being published”.


What a neat and tidy world the Home Office thinks exists.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Green of Deddington

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the argument from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, seemed to be addressed more to refugees than asylum seekers and I think that almost everyone who has spoken about the right to work of asylum seekers has urged faster decision- making. I want to speak to the two amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, to which I have added my name.

The House has heard many noble Lords stress the importance of a trauma-informed approach and the difficulties of almost every asylum seeker, I would have thought, in telling their story almost as soon as they get here after dreadful experiences. It must be dreadful, even if the journey is quite straightforward, to tell the story coherently and fully. I fear the Home Office has not yet got it.

The Minister wrote to me last week on the interpretation of “without delay” and I thank her for that. She has had an awful lot of letters to write during the course of the Bill. The official who wrote this one said that

“if someone was fearful of acknowledging their homosexuality to the authorities, then it may be reasonably practicable for them to make a claim some time after arrival, as we recognise the extremely difficult process of coming to terms with one’s own sexuality.”

If an asylum seeker has experienced what we know in some countries people experience because of their sexuality, I do not think that “coming to terms with one’s own sexuality” begins to describe it. That is why these amendments are needed.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will very briefly speak to Amendment 30 and say that I very strongly agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, who I thought said some very valuable things.

I would like to say and make it clear that I am actually in favour of asylum. I believe that it is absolutely right in principle but I find in this debate and more generally that there is something of an assumption that all asylum seekers are genuine and, frankly, they are not. Indeed, the very careful process that they go through finds that nearly half of them are not accepted as asylum seekers.

The risk of moving this to 12 months is that some applicants—those who are not genuine, of course—would have an incentive to spin out their cases until they reach the six-month point, which would not be too difficult, and then they are here and that is it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, hit the nail on the head. First, what we must avoid is the possibility of work before acceptance as a genuine refugee. Secondly, that points to the need to speed up the process, which is what is causing all this difficulty. If we could get the cases resolved in a reasonable time, those who really deserve it would get it—and good on them—and those who do not would be in a queue to be removed.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Green of Deddington

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

I shall go on to Amendment 113, which deals with unaccompanied minors. The main effect of this amendment would be to put a considerable number of children in serious danger. As drafted, it applies only to children already in the EEA, but it would obviously be a major incentive for families now outside the EEA to pack their children off to Europe in the expectation that they could go on to the UK. The amendment is also widely drawn to include nieces, nephews, grandchildren, siblings, spouses—all from families that are very large in any case.

We have seen how opening this route would encourage minors to make dangerous journeys. In 2016, when there was talk of the UK taking significant numbers of children, the numbers of unaccompanied children literally doubled overnight. That is according to evidence given to the relevant parliamentary committee by the Home Office director responsible in December 2021. We have to consider the wider consequences of this, to which may be added the difficulties already facing the authorities in correctly assessing the age of those claiming to be children. We have discussed this before in Committee and we know that, in the last available year, 1,100 persons claiming to be children were found to be adults. This amendment is dangerous and unwise, and should not be accepted.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have been encouraged to say a word—it was only going to be a word, but it will be a few more now—in support of my noble friend Lady Ludford. I am pleased that she has taken on this cause. I am not seeking to analyse every one of these amendments, but they are about protection in every sense of the word, which is what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham was saying. I applaud the Government for enabling the reuniting of some families, but I am thinking about those who have not been reunited, where there are problems.

I had a similar experience to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in a meeting with Brandon Lewis and a battalion of officials, when I remember being told that the rules are quite adequate—but they are discretionary.

We have been asked by the noble Lord, Lord Green, to think about the real world. The real world is not just in the UK. One of the aspects of children being alone in the UK is the cost to local authorities, which can be very substantial when children are here by themselves. One needs to include a number of factors when balancing the question of costs.

I would like to echo whoever it was who pointed to the importance of siblings being able be together. A child or young person—frankly, anybody coping with the experience of being a refugee—needs the support of family. A sibling can be such a support to a child; I have heard siblings speak of this. These amendments have my support.