Undocumented Migrants

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for that question. I will certainly drop her a note after Question Time to give her detail on how we are examining the family reunion policy and the impact on children. I am afraid that in a 25-second answer I cannot sum up the detail that I would like to, but I will certainly write to her on that point.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, has Minister had any recent discussions with the Irish Government about the fact that there are so many migrants—some illegal, some not so illegal—coming across the border into Northern Ireland and then on into the rest of the United Kingdom? The Irish Government are now stopping people going the other way. Are His Majesty’s Government taking this as something that needs to be looked into very quickly?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises an important point. The UK Government continually discuss with the Irish Government the impact of a range of matters on the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, including access to the rest of the United Kingdom via Northern Ireland and Ireland. It is extremely important, and we are focusing on that. I will certainly report back to the noble Baroness on that issue.

Borders and Asylum

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her comments and the tone in which she has put them. She is absolutely right about the debate on migration, illegal migration, asylum and border control. In my view it is a challenge and a difficult issue, but I hope that between the three main parties represented here and those individuals from the Cross Benches and others, we can have that debate in a civilised way. I also hope that in the country at large it can be debated in a civilised way.

There is an important issue to discuss about who we allow into the country for immigration purposes and how. There is an important issue of how we stop illegal migration, and an important issue of how we manage and meet our international obligations on asylum. The Government, in these 13 months, have brought forward a White Paper on the first issue, have taken action on the second and are now looking at managing the asylum regime by speeding up asylum claims to get the backlog down. Those are really important issues, and those who seek to divide us are using them in a way that I would not support. The right to protest is always there, but it should be about the tone of that protest accordingly.

We will bring forward further information on the new body in due course. I hope tonight is an hors d’oeuvre for the noble Baroness, as the main course will follow.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome the much tougher Statement from the Home Secretary. Not long ago, politicians making some of those suggestions would have been accused of perhaps being almost racist.

Does the Minister think that the huge pull factors for migrants living in horrible conditions in France are being tackled firmly enough? If we continue what some would describe as featherbedding people who arrive, that is bound to be a pull factor. Does the Minister agree that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights should still be on the table? Does he welcome the report with the foreword by his former boss—and mine at one time—Jack Straw, which makes it clear that whatever your view on leaving the European convention, the Belfast/Good Friday agreement certainly does not prevent that happening?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. When people speak about leaving the ECHR, I always wonder what rights they do not want. Is it the right to a free trial? Is it the right to not have modern slavery? Is it the right to not have exploitation at work? I am never quite sure which one of those rights people do not want. My forefathers and relatives in the past fought hard to ensure we have decent rights at work, including the right to a fair trial and the right to be free from slavery: all those things are embedded. Only a very small number of countries have not signed up to the ECHR. That is not to say—which is why I have said it—that there are not tweaks and interpretations we can make. That is why we will be looking at how we deal with Article 8 in the first place.

I will also, with due respect, challenge the idea that there are pull factors and that people seeking asylum are featherbedded. I do not regard that to be the case. There is no benefit being claimed. No allowance at any meaningful level is given to asylum seekers. We are also trying to end some of the pull factors by tackling very hard illegal working, which undercuts and undermines real people doing real jobs, exploiting people and undermining legitimate businesses.

So I say to the House as a whole that it is a very complex, multilayered issue, but the Government are trying, with a range of measures, to deal with this in a way that does not inflame the situation but looks at long-term, positive solutions to bear down on genuine problems.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. Listening to the different views makes me think of saying, “Here we go again”. I asked the Library how many Bills there have been since I came into the other place in 1989 that contain the words “immigration”, “asylum” or “migration”. I remember a number of those debates. I was astonished to find that there have been 14 Bills since 1989 called things such as the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill and the Immigration Asylum and Nationality Bill.

Each Government, including the Coalition Government, brought in different Bills. They all had the same words. I looked at some of the Home Secretaries’ Second Reading introductions to the Bills, and they all talked about how this was going to transform things, improve things, strengthen the borders and so on. Really, of course, if we are honest, none of them achieved what was promised.

The Minister, who knows I have huge respect for him, made a much franker opening by saying that, hopefully, some of the things in the Bill can make a difference. I welcome some of the measures, but we must face up to the fact that the world is changing. People keep telling me that it is, so why do we not genuinely look at changing the refugee convention and work out the bits of it we can work with and the bits we cannot?

We should also genuinely look at the European Court of Human Rights. Time has moved on, and things have changed. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, has already mentioned this, but I was very disappointed when our Attorney-General, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, accused anyone who said that we should talk about the European Court of Human Rights of working under some kind of Nazi ideology. I know he has apologised, but it was a very grave mistake.

We have to face up to the reality that nothing will change fundamentally until we have a look at those two ideas. We have seen over the years that United Kingdom judges—I know there are a lot of lawyers in this place, and they get upset when you criticise anyone in the legal profession—have adopted ever more expansive definitions of ECHR articles in immigration tribunals, including allowing dangerous criminals to stay here, giving all sorts of reasons why they should stay and ridiculous reasons why people should not be deported. There are thousands of examples of the definitions of the articles—not just Article 8 but Article 3—being stretched and stretched over the years beyond any definition of common sense, and certainly beyond anything intended by the people who originally framed them.

Back in November 2021, shortly after I came into this place, I was lucky enough to have a debate on migration. It was, sadly, two days after 27 people were lost crossing the Channel—one of the biggest number of deaths that had happened. As I mentioned then, one noble Lord said to me before that debate, “I really don’t think we should be having this debate, because it’s going to be divisive”.

That is our problem. We have not been prepared to be honest, to face up to and talk about what people out there are talking about when they see pictures, as they saw over the weekend, of that very large number of predominantly young men. I went down to Dover during the previous Government with a group to see what was happening there. When you see all those young men coming off the boat, obviously relieved and pleased to be there and to be safe, and you realise that they are all 18 to 24 year-olds—yes, there might be one woman on the boat, or there might be a couple of babies that the criminal smugglers are very keen to put on board—the reality is that they cannot all be asylum seekers.

I know the figures that have been given. Supposedly 76% of the people who come have been given asylum. I have a number of questions for the Minister on this. Can he tell me how many extra people have been taken on to interview asylum seekers? Can he tell me what the training is and how long it takes before they are able to start meeting asylum seekers and assessing whether they are genuine? Some members of the public might think this is happening because we want to speed up the process and get the numbers down, but is there some kind of unwritten convention that it is much easier to tick the box and let the person stay? What happens to all the people who are turned down, who have thrown away their documents so we have no idea where to deport them back to? What has happened to the thousands—I am sure it is thousands—who have come in the past few years and literally just disappeared? Where are they all? Have we got figures on them? Those are things we need to know if we are going to get to the bottom of all of this.

Also, we have a very open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Jim Allister, the TUV Member of Parliament for North Antrim, asked a Question for Written Answer at the end of April:

“To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what procedures are in place to check the movement of people over the Northern Ireland-Republic land border to identify illegal immigrants with no right to access the Common Travel Area”.


The answer was very clear:

“no immigration checks are undertaken on the Northern Ireland-Republic land border”.

Yet at the same time the Republic of Ireland is doing checks the other way at the border, even though it is the country that said that there should be no border there.

We have to be much more realistic, and much more honest. We cannot continue like this. It is unsustainable for any country to have so many people coming in who are not necessarily anti-British—of course they want to come to this country because the pull factor is huge—but we have no idea what their ideologies are. We have no idea whether they are going to get involved and genuinely become British citizens sharing some of our values. It is a drain on our public services, and most of all, it is shattering our cultural community feeling of togetherness. We need to accept that we have to do something. We will not smash the gangs unless we stop the boats. If we stop the boats, we stop the gangs.

UK Airports: British Passport Holders

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Hoey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that UK airports have dedicated lines for British passport holders.

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

The Home Office has previously reviewed the potential for the introduction of UK-only queues, most recently during the period when the UK left the EU. Analysis conducted has found that it would have a negative impact on border fluidity. However, we keep our border systems under review.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

I thank the Minister for that. It might be helpful if we could all see how that assessment was done; perhaps that could be put into the Library. I wonder if he agrees that it is not really about length of queues and waiting times; it is a principle about people coming back into their own country, just as happens all over world. Will he look again at this? UK citizens coming in should be given their own British entry point, unlike what is happening at the moment.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As I said to the noble Baroness, it would lead to longer queues. Perhaps that is symptomatic of the impact of Brexit as a whole. The noble Baroness needs to recognise that British and Irish citizens, citizens of the Commonwealth and citizens of reciprocal countries can use border gates and border entry accordingly. In doing so, they are helping to reduce queues. If we had a British-only queue, we would have longer queues for British citizens. That is not what I want to see.

Illegal Migrant Returns Agreements

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord will be aware that the Government intend to look at a whole range of data. One of the reasons we have deported more than 2,500 people forcibly, including 1,500-plus people who are foreign national offenders, is that we recognise that when people have completed their sentence, there is the right to remove them if the Government wish to remove them. We get notification when foreign national offenders complete their sentences, and we will certainly examine that issue. Perhaps the noble Lord could ask his own Front Bench why there were 100,000 such foreign offences last year alone.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

Is the Minister aware that in the past few weeks the police in the Republic of Ireland have been stopping buses coming over from Northern Ireland, checking identity and immigration status and sending people back to Northern Ireland? Has he had any discussions with the Irish Government on this, and is it affecting in any way the common travel area?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I take what the noble Baroness has said at face value. I have not had any exposure to that issue—it has not come across my desk—but I will take it away and reflect on it. I assure her that there is co-operation between the Irish authorities and the United Kingdom authorities—and, indeed, the Northern Ireland Assembly—on all matters relating to the common travel agreement area.

Respect Orders and Anti-social Behaviour

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for those points. These issues are consistently under examination by the Home Office. Going back to the potential legislation and the remit of the Statement, the two big issues in the Statement show that there is a real focus on shop theft, from a very low level through to a very high level. That should be put into policing plans on shop theft as a matter of urgency, with changes to the law made accordingly to reflect that.

On protection for shop workers, they are doing a job and should not be attacked in the course of their work for upholding legislation on sales or for resisting theft. I note the abuse they sometimes get, particularly from people who are undertaking anti-social behaviour in a more formal way. I declare an interest as a member of the shop workers union. That is the thrust of the two bits of legislation that are linked in the Statement, and I hope that will be welcomed by this House in due course.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the return of genuine neighbourhood policing, which is so necessary, particularly on our housing estates. But, as the noble the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, it is about the numbers of police officers. Does the Minister agree that it is very important that the status of neighbourhood policing is raised, not among the public—they understand it—but within the police force itself, so that people who are serving the local community as local neighbourhood police are seen as just as important and just as good at tackling crime as those in other parts of the Metropolitan Police and police forces in the United Kingdom?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that it is important that people know who their police officers are, see them visibly and have the trust and confidence to give them information that might help reduce anti-social behaviour or other criminal activity. It is important that police engage with the community in a way that gives them confidence for that information to come forward and that, as they have done in the past, at a local level police use their antennae to pick up on information that needs to be addressed by the wider policing family in tackling criminal activity.

Illegal Migrants

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will hear from the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

I thank the noble Lord. I ask the Minister, in all seriousness, whether anybody in the Government has talked to the French authorities about the conditions that many of those migrants are living in just across the sea. Anyone in this House would realise that, if they are living in those kinds of conditions and they know what is going to happen in terms of their living conditions if they manage to get to the United Kingdom, that is a huge pull factor. Surely the French Government have to take into consideration the human rights of those migrants, as we do in this country.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I first visited camps in Calais when I was shadow Immigration Minister in November 2014. The route then was via lorries and Eurostar trains, rather than small boats. The conditions were terrible then and they are terrible now. We need discussions with our colleagues in France. There is no current bilateral agreement with France on this issue following the decisions of Brexit, but we are engaged. The noble Baroness will know that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has met the French authorities, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has the G7 nations. We are pledged to work to end this crisis, and we will.