Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Lord Sentamu

Committee stage
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments led by my noble friend Lady Hamwee and the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, which have been signed by others. We have debated refugee family reunion at numerous points over the past five years or so. My friend, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, recalls that at one point I picked up the relay from my noble friend Lady Hamwee and took a Private Member’s Bill through this House successfully. Unfortunately, it did not get through the other place successfully, but I have been somewhat involved in this issue and feel strongly about it.

Just to pick up the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield, he talked about family being the basis of belonging and stability. That is important, not only for personal feelings of security and being able to thrive within the family but as a practical issue about integration, which has been much talked about in recent months. On the one hand, people shout, “Why aren’t immigrants properly integrated?”, yet we want to pull the rug from under refugees by saying, “You have no right to have family reunited with you, which would help you to settle and get on in our society”.

There is obviously room for discussion about the scope of the amendments that I support, and colleagues to the right have pulled various holes in in them. One can discuss some of them, but I must admit that I am somewhat shocked by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson—he and I are not always completely eye-to-eye in other fora. Here, he makes some reasonable suggestions in some of his amendments, but this one I find bad. He wants to delete proposed new subsection (5)(e) in my noble friend’s Amendment 166. He wants to delete having regard to issues such as

“the importance of maintaining family unity … the best interests of a child”

and

“any risk to the physical, emotional or psychological well being of a person granted refugee status”.

As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the right reverend Prelate said, the principle of family unity is important, but I think that the social aspects are also very important. There seems to be a lack of continuity and consistency in the policies of successive Governments. Like others, I find pretty shocking what has happened in the last six weeks. First, the Home Secretary paused family reunion, and then, perhaps tellingly—there may have been an interesting internal debate with the Home Secretary—No. 10 said, “Actually, we are going to make that permanent; it is not just a pause. We are going to eliminate family reunion as we know it”.

Some remarks from noble Lords on the Conservative Benches went to wider issues about immigration and asylum. I always find it a bit rich that such complaints are made. There are valid issues about the control of migration and security of borders—no one denies that—but we must not forget the big explosion in legal migration that took place after Brexit, which the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, supported. We then had far greater volumes than ever happened under EU free movement, besides eliminating the two-way street which allowed Brits to migrate within the EU. I think a bit of non-joined-up thinking goes on there.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, talked about how we do not have a right to deny public opinion. Of course, public opinion—which is perhaps in a rather inflamed state at the moment—is important. I read in a briefing from the safe routes coalition that recent polling undertaken by the organisation British Future found that 67% of the public support a controlled official route for refugee children whose only remaining family are in the UK to travel here safely. Two-thirds of the public polled support family reunion for children who are stranded abroad, which is a large element of these amendments. That is public opinion, and we must be specific about what the public are reacting to.

The aim of some is apparently to curb the numbers coming in, but it depends what numbers we are talking about. In the case of family reunion and child refugees, we are talking not just about compassion, humanity and human rights, or even the principle of family unity, but about the best interests of the child and of the people who will settle in this country. We and they hope that they will make a big contribution to the success of this country, but we cannot expect them to do that if they are lonely, anxious and deprived of the support of their family. We must always remember that we are talking about social practicalities here, as well as the high principles of human rights.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I sat through this wonderful Bill as it went through its Second Reading and through all its Committee meetings. I speak today because I have been moved by Amendment 177 from the noble Lords, Lord Dubs and Lord Kerr, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

Why am I saying these few words? The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, really put the finger on the issue: it is not just about children but about family reunion for asylum-seeking children outside the United Kingdom. He has narrowed it in such a way that it would be quite wrong in our statute to use it as an assurance, instead of a statement of public policy. If the statute uses it as an assurance, we will end up like that wonderful or awful Bill that went through Parliament and ended up as the Dangerous Dogs Act. Do your Lordships remember it? It was intended to give assurance, but it was very bad legislation and it was amended very quickly. We do not want that kind of assurance—of rising public opinion, which some see as a court of public opinion. It is important that a legislature is concerned about statements of public policy and that the law expresses that reality.

When I was Bishop of Stepney, there was a lady called Lasoya. She came here from west Africa as a student. She studied, got her degree and did very well. They gave her a job and she worked here for a number of years. She then became pregnant and had a son. The authorities then caught up with her overstaying and discovered that her son had already been registered as a British citizen. The adjudicator said that what should happen was that the son, who was already a British citizen, should stay, but that the mother should be sent back to west Africa.

That was an ugly statement. Hackney was up in arms and so was Islington. As Bishop of Stepney, I wrote to the Prime Minister, who at the time was John Major. I said, “At the moment, I have leave to remain. I am willing to exchange my leave to remain and give it to Lasoya so that she can stay with her son”. Do you know what happened? The Prime Minister was very quick to say that the adjudicator’s decision was ridiculous. He could understand what had happened and that she should not have overstayed, but the Government had not caught up with her, so the fault was on their side, so she stayed and there was great rejoicing in both Islington and Hackney.

Children outside the United Kingdom who are seeking asylum want to be reunited with their families who are here. Common sense tells us that, whatever the law may do in the future, this should guarantee that, because that is the only way if you have given somebody asylum and their children are not united with them. The ages are very clear in the amendment: limit it to those who are not 18 yet and then see what happens.

I am moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who has been a great campaigner for children and is known for working on this. The same is true of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who, in her work as a judge, has dealt with a lot of family cases and speaks from wonderful experience and knowledge. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said to the Minister that, if it is not to be decided today, this matter cannot be rushed or kicked into the long grass—by Report the Minister may have gathered ideas about how to respond to this marvellous amendment, which I support.