Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Baroness Stroud

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I too support Amendment 100, in the name of my noble friend Lord Kirkhope, to which I have been pleased to add my name. I refer to my entry in the register of Members’ interests.

The question of offshore detention is undoubtedly one of the most controversial aspects of this Bill, which is designed to stem the flow of small boats from France. The stated objective of this policy is one of deterrence, but opponents of the policy have rightly been asking: at what cost?

Before we look at the issue of offshoring, I will take a moment to look at and think about the sorts of journeys taken by those fleeing violence and war. Asylum seekers are frequently exposed to intolerable levels of risk as they travel. Irregular migrants face dangerous journeys: they are unprotected, they accumulate debt, and they have no legal recourse. The limited opportunities for legal migration force individuals to use people smugglers where there is a risk of being trafficked. Asylum seekers who fall prey to human traffickers can be exploited in both transit and destination countries. During the asylum seeker’s journey, the fine line with human trafficking—the acquisition of people by force, fraud or deception with the aim of exploiting them—can be easily crossed.

Just imagine you go through all that and end up on these shores. It has taken your savings and months of your life to arrive here from, say, Afghanistan, Syria or Iran. On arrival on our shores, we greet you and, before we have even assessed whether or not you are a refugee, put you on a plane and take you back to the continent from which you came. That action alone could kill someone, but my question is also: what does that make us?

Before I set out my reason for asking the Home Secretary to think again about the use of offshore detention and processing, whether in Rwanda, Ghana or Ascension Island, as we have heard, I will return to the point I made last Tuesday. The best hope of a fair, just and affordable solution to the issue of the Calais boats still lies with a diplomatic solution with the French and EU nations. Will my noble friend the Minister comment on the Telegraph story on Wednesday about the French President’s apparent openness to a deal over channel crossings? As I have suggested a number of times, a returns agreement with the French is likely to be the only viable way to stop the crossings. I imagine this taking the form of an agreement that those who have crossed here irregularly are sent back to be assessed in France; in return, we commit to taking a certain number from Calais. This is a win-win solution that would genuinely destroy the economic model of the people smugglers, would cost less and would be far more humane.

Could my noble friend the Minister also provide an estimate of the cost of offshore processing? A cursory glance shows that a room at the Ritz costs between £650 and £700 a night. Extrapolate that and one finds that it costs around £250,000 to stay at the Ritz for a year. The estimates of what the Australians pay for one asylum seeker held in detention vary from that amount to eight times that. How can that be justified?

It is not only the cost that concerns me. Can the Minister provide reassurance that no children will be sent offshore and that women who are vulnerable to sexual violence will receive proper protections? The concerning stories that emerge from processing camps in other countries should give us pause for thought before we embark down this road. When there are other potential diplomatic avenues that the Government are yet to properly consider, offshoring looks like an oversized hammer being used to crack a nut, with the potential for corrupting our character as a nation and our international reputation, and increasing racial tensions domestically and the administrative burden and cost to the state. I urge the Minister to think again and for this House to give the other place an opportunity to think again.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Outside on the streets today are people supporting those of us who are fighting this Bill. They understand the damage it does not only to the refugees and people seeking asylum here but to the Government’s reputation. I do wonder. We have to say these things, because our consciences would not let us not say them, but are the Government listening? I rather think not. Essentially, these clauses are about being able to deport refugees while their asylum claim is being processed. That is not fair on the individuals involved and, I would argue, is inhumane. They are simply being herded like cattle and packed off to be trafficked, essentially.

Clause 28 and Schedule 3 make provision for safe countries, but no provision for safe accommodation. We know that the accommodation we provide here in the UK is pretty substandard and, sometimes, outright revolting, so I have no trust that safe countries will do any better than we have. I have a question that I would like answered today: what steps will the Government take to assess the conditions and that these people are being treated well in those safe countries?