Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I have been sitting on my hands because whenever you tell a personal story, it looks as though you are not pleading what the noble Lord talked about—law. We arrived in 1974 and were treated with such great respect, love and care. For about 20 years we travelled on a British travel document. That kind of hospitality was of great help to us all.

The way I read this clause is almost as a revisitation of Guantanamo Bay—a very bad piece of work—or voluntary rendition, whereby people were taken from one country to another to sort out whether they were terrorists or not. This country should not use offshoring. The word “offshore” already does not have a good reputation in terms of money and offshore investment. This is a country that has been the mother of parliaments and the mother of legislation and where the rule of law is what governs all of us. How can we get a third country to take what we call refugees?

I can assure noble Lords that there will be many countries in Africa that will volunteer to do it. The question we have to ask is: how do those seemingly wonderful countries treat their nationals? Do they treat them in the same way that this country does? I would be very doubtful. For the sake of the rule of law, for the sake of this great Parliament and for the sake of the British people who have been very good in welcoming the likes of me, this clause should—please—not become part of the legislation.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I am also very impressed by the moderate contribution from my noble friend Lord Horam on the Australian experience. I have a question, therefore. How do the Australians get round the alleged breach of the refugee convention?

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I reiterate what was said a little while ago: this is about asylum, not general immigration policy. There is a considerable difference between the two; that does not always get recognised.

This proposal to offshore asylum claims is inconsistent with the global humanitarian and co-operative principles on which refugee protection is founded. Frankly, if everybody did what we are proposing, there would not be much of the refugee convention left, as I am sure everybody recognises and, in their heart of hearts, knows to be true.

Having made those introductory comments, I will endeavour to be brief. I want to ask one or two questions. The Minister in the Commons said:

“Schedule 3 aims to reduce the draw of the UK by working to make it easier to remove someone to a safe country where their claim will be processed. It amends existing legal frameworks to support our future objective to transfer some asylum claims to a safe third country for processing.”—[Official Report, Commons, Nationality and Borders Bill Committee, 26/10/21; col. 388.]


As I have just indicated, the Minister referred to “some asylum claims” being transferred. Will the Government spell out in their reply what categories or types of asylum claims would be processed in another country, and what categories or types of asylum claims would be processed in this country? In addition, based on claims made over the past three years, what number or percentage of total asylum claims and claimants would be processed in and removed to another country, and what number or percentage of total asylum claims would still be processed in this country? I assume that the Government have figures on that.

Information on the countries we have reached agreement with for offshore processing has been, to say the least, a bit thin on the ground, with Ministers saying to date that they are not prepared to enter into a “running commentary” on the conversations that are taking place. I hope that the Government will be a little more forthcoming today on which specific countries we have reached agreement with, or confidently expect to reach agreement with, and which countries have declined to reach an agreement with us. Also, how many different bilateral negotiations are we currently involved in?

It is unacceptable to be told by the Government that we should agree to a policy and its associated clauses and schedules, which, however repugnant, are meaningless and cannot be implemented unless appropriate agreements are reached with other countries—and then, when asking the Government to give information on whether and what agreements have been concluded, to be told by them that it is none of our business. That is what the Government have been doing to date. We expect better from their response today. However, if the Government are going to continue to play dumb on this issue, perhaps it would be better for them to withdraw Clause 28 and Schedule 3 until such time as they have concluded agreements with other countries, without which the policy cannot be implemented.

The only thing the Government have said is that the model the Home Office intends to proceed with is

“one where individuals would be processed as part of the asylum system of the country that we had an agreement with, rather than people being offshore and processed as part of our asylum system.”

So it is not just offshoring; it is also treating and dealing with people under another country’s asylum system rather than our own. The duty to ensure that the rights of asylum seekers are respected would still fall on the UK; it would be helpful if the Government could confirm that in their response.

Essentially, as has already been said, the UK would be outsourcing its refugee convention obligations, potentially to less wealthy nations. The UNHCR has been highly critical of efforts to offshore asylum processing, noting how

“offshoring of asylum processing often results in the forced transfer of refugees to other countries with inadequate State asylum systems, treatment standards and resources. It can lead to indefinite ‘ware-housing’ of asylum-seekers in isolated places where they are ‘out of sight and out of mind’, exposing them to serious harm. It may also de-humanise asylum-seekers.”

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that my son works in retail. I have added my name to that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia on Amendment 114 in this group. This threshold needs removing from the Anti-social Behaviour Act, and here we have the perfect opportunity to do it.

Retailers keep UK plc going. They provide us with the goods we need to live our lives, no matter what. They are key workers, but they do not have the key support they need. It is shocking that retailers lose £770 million a year to retail crime. Between the 307,000 shops, this comes to an average of almost £2,500 per shop, per year. Noble Lords may say that this amount of money could easily be a sunk cost for our supermarkets —but not for our independent shops. Assuming an 8% margin, retailers such as those belonging to the British Independent Retailers Association would have to make sales of almost £32,000 for a small shop just to make back what they have lost to these criminals. This is while the level of retail crime is still increasing: by 19.1% between 2014 and 2018, compared with 4.96% between 2010 and 2014, before the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act was given Royal Assent.

As only one in 20 of all shoplifting offences are now prosecuted, it cannot be a shock that such odds are likely to give any wily criminal the feeling that their crime does not matter and that they can do what they want with little or no consequence. Is it any wonder that retailers feel that, while they are being punished, perpetrators of retail crime are not? This needs to change. Retailers need to feel that they have the Government’s support and that they are not the ones being punished when someone steals from their shop. I therefore support this amendment from my noble friend Lord Dholakia.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Kennedy. I shall speak to my Amendment 104FB, which would require the Secretary of State a year hence to carry out a review of the adequacy of police resources devoted to assaults on retail workers. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, I always had very good relations with USDAW in my many years as—I suppose you could say “a retail boss”—an executive at Tesco.

I start with an enormous thank you to my noble friend the Minister for arranging a meeting with the retail industry bodies, USDAW and several parliamentarians, including myself, with a star cast of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General. We all felt, for the first time, that we were having a high-level and constructive discussion on what could be done across the board about violence and abuse of retail staff. That is against a background of 455 security incidents a day, according to the BRC, and very few prosecutions.

The police response to these incidents has historically been inadequate. We need to ensure that the police have the right resources and can put a higher priority on prosecuting these retail crimes. This is particularly important given the role of retail workers in enforcing Covid restrictions such as masks, but also in addressing knife crime and shoplifting, as the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, explained, which in my experience is often caused by the need for individuals to get drugs, so it feeds into drug crime as well.

At the Zoom meeting, the industry welcomed the fact that the Government had recognised the seriousness of the issue and tabled Amendment 84, which we have heard about from my noble friend. This would mean that the worst offenders could see tougher sentences. The industry also very much welcomed the new relevant instructions from the Home Secretary and from the Attorney-General.

However, it is important to ensure that this new measure has the desired effect in terms of police effort. I believe there should be a regular review to monitor its effectiveness, hence my amendment proposing a review in a year’s time, which I hope the Minister will feel able to support.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 114 is in my name. We discussed it in Committee and I have studied at great length the response from the Minister. Unfortunately, it has not satisfied many retail traders, whose income depends on crime being prevented. The consequences for shop insurance and livelihoods depend on proper action on low-level crimes.

In 2014, a change in the law meant that shop theft valued at less than £200 would not be charged through the courts but, rather, would be tried summarily. The reasoning behind that was to make the prosecution of cases more efficient. The Government may claim that that has happened, but that is only because the courts no longer see the problem and no longer see that it takes an average of 30 convictions for this type of criminal to go to jail. The burden has fallen on small retailers, who now see savvy criminals exploiting the situation to steal with virtual impunity.

The cost of retail crime to retailers is huge. My noble friend Lady Harris mentioned the cost, according to figures supplied to us by the British Retail Consortium, to those such as members of the British Independent Retailers Association. Money that could otherwise be used to improve facilities, raise wages and improve the offers to consumers instead goes straight into the pockets of criminals.

--- Later in debate ---

It is very nice when, occasionally, you get plaudits from all around the House, so I am going to bask in it for one second and thank noble Lords—it will not happen often.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Before my noble friend sits down, perhaps she could get one final plaudit for her terrific performance in this area by agreeing that the Home Office, and indeed the other departments—the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General’s Office—will look with favour on a discussion with the retail and indeed the wider sector on the impact of these changes, say, in a year’s time. I think she rightly said that what matters is the experience of retail and other workers in the light of the new law. I fear perhaps that not much progress might be made, so if we find that we need to review this in a year’s time, I hope she will look positively at that.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am more than happy to do that. In fact, I think it would be a very good idea to meet up, because the discussions have been positive and fruitful over the last period. So, yes, I am very happy to do that in support of my noble friend.

I welcome the support for the government amendment, as I have said. I think it makes a real, significant step forward. Let us keep it monitored, as my noble friend said.