Afghan Interpreters

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

It really is the main reason for the delay. We obviously sympathise with the situation many Afghans find themselves in, including those who are suffering due to their work standing up for human rights and the rule of law, and those facing wider persecution by the Taliban. As the Minister for Immigration said yesterday, we remain dedicated to honouring our commitments to those people. We continue to develop plans across government to support new arrivals into suitable accommodation in the UK. Finding suitable accommodation is the biggest problem we have, but work is being done at speed.

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the decision taken by the Pakistani Government on refugees? My noble friend will be aware that between 3.5 million and 4 million refugees have been in Pakistan for more than two decades, but most of them are undocumented, and the Pakistani Government took the decision—rightly criticised by human rights organisations across the world—that undocumented refugees should return to Afghanistan. This is a dire situation. The deadline is 1 November. What is His Majesty’s Government doing to protect those who protected us?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend raises a very good question. We estimate that currently, there are around 3,000 ARAP and ACR-eligible individuals in Pakistan. I am of course aware of the actions of the Pakistan Government regarding undocumented illegal immigrants in their country, but the Government are accelerating the arrival of ARAP-eligible individuals currently in Pakistan and we are doing our very best to move them into suitable accommodation as fast as possible.

Contest: UK Strategy for Countering Terrorism 2023

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for those comments. I would like to associate myself with his remarks thanking our security services for the work that they do.

The noble Lord is quite right to highlight post-release situations regarding individuals who have been convicted of terrorism or terrorism-related offences. Obviously, they continue to pose a threat, as has been proved in those cases noted. Despite ongoing efforts to mitigate the terrorist risk posed by individuals in custody, the majority still require long-term risk management post release.

However, following the Fishmongers’ Hall attack, we established the probation national security division, doubled the number of specialist counterterrorism probation officers, and allowed for more robust and dedicated risk management of these individuals. Furthermore, all terrorist offenders on probation are now subject to electronic monitoring, and in June 2021 we introduced polygraph testing for terrorist offenders, giving us a powerful tool for monitoring behaviour.

HM Prison and Probation Service, the police and other agencies work closely under MAPPA—the Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements framework—to assess, manage and mitigate the risk posed by individuals at all stages through conviction, custody, release, post sentence and notification requirements. There is much more in there about this, but it is certainly safe to say that the Government are well aware of the risk identified by the noble Lord, and are doing a lot about it.

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my register of interests and specifically to my role as a commissioner on the Independent Commission on UK Counter-Terrorism Law, Policy and Practice. Prevent, both as a policy and particularly in its implementation, is deeply controversial. Can my noble friend assist the Government’s case by providing some detail, and specifically some data? It may well be that it he cannot do that today, but perhaps he can write to me. Can he specifically provide data the Government hold on the origin of Prevent referrals—whether by, for example, the police, schools or healthcare—that lead to Channel interventions, data on Channel referrals by age for those under the age of 18, and, finally, data on autism and other forms of neurodiversity among individuals referred to Prevent and to the Channel programme?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. She is quite right that Prevent can occasionally be characterised as somewhat controversial, but we should remember that it is of course ideologically agnostic. I can give some but not all of the data to which my noble friend refers. Some 3,800 referrals have resulted in individuals receiving support to move away from radicalising ideologies. In the year ending 31 March 2022, there were 6,406 referrals to Prevent, and of those, 13%, or 804, were adopted as Channel cases. I do not have the data as regards age, origin or autism, but I will endeavour to find that out. I do not know whether it is collected but I will certainly try to find out and will write to my noble friend with the answer.

Independent Cultural Review of London Fire Brigade

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I think I made it abundantly clear that I was blaming no one; I was stating a fact. I also made it very clear that we published a fire reform White Paper in May and that Andy Roe has committed to acting on all 23 recommendations.

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, if the Minister is open to suggestions for solutions, may I ask him to take one away? Many years ago, the Government committed to finding a definition of Islamophobia. There is an agreed definition which has been adopted by all political parties in Parliament, including the Conservative Party in Scotland. The Government, however, have not adopted that definition. There was a report recently of a private meeting at which it was suggested that the Government had dropped their work on the definition of Islamophobia, but a No. 10 spokesman subsequently confirmed that that is not correct. Can my noble friend please investigate whether this work is continuing, and, if so, can he say when we can find an agreed definition and when that is likely to be published?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The simple answer to my noble friend is that I am afraid I do not know but I will endeavour to find out.

Asylum Seekers: Accommodation and Safeguarding

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Clearly, every person who arrives at Manston and says that their age is below 18 is the subject of an age assessment—that is, a neutral evaluation of that status. If they are believed to be children then they are treated, as I say, as a key priority for the Home Office and housed in special hotels, which are secure and provide the necessary support for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, we now know that the far-right attack committed by firebombing a migration centre in Dover was done by a man inspired by far-right extremism. Can my noble friend assure this House that conversations are taking place within the Home Office, and government generally, advising colleagues that sensationalist language from political leaders leads to real consequences and that they should refrain from using it?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Clearly, I agree with the noble Baroness that sensationalist language should be avoided. I am afraid that, at this stage, I cannot comment further on the firebomb attack, which is obviously still the subject of investigation by the police.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, on the detailed measures that he has brought forward. I really appreciate the time that he has given to the discussions and debates that he and I, and other Members of this House, have had over the last few weeks and months. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Williams for her work and her calls, and for the way in which she has dealt with this issue, reaching out to try genuinely and sincerely to find a compromise. That is what this is—it is a compromise, and compromise is good, but fairness, justice and equality are better. Therefore, despite the fact that these amendments go some way to making what was really bad legislation slightly less bad, they are simply papering over the cracks.

Once again, we are being asked by the Government to keep incrementally changing this law from the early 1980s—each time it has been changed with one case law or one individual situation—so that more and more people in this country, from a wider and wider scope, with more and more different offences, are now included in a space where their citizenship can be stripped. Therefore, we have an opportunity in this House to, once again, incrementally, make a bad law slightly less bad—or we can take a position and say that the underlying law itself is so bad that we are no longer prepared to keep making these incremental changes.

This takes the bad law a little further. If we go back to what this law actually does, first, it strips citizenship from those who were born and raised here, know nowhere else and whose family have been here for generations, but who are deemed to have—they do not actually have—another citizenship through some tenuous link to a country that their grandfathers or great-grandparents may have come from. Secondly, under this law, in our courts in the United Kingdom we punish two people convicted of the same crime differently based upon their heritage—not on the crime committed, but on their heritage. That is what the underlying law does.

I take issue with the idea that these people are not second-class citizens; they are. Let me give an example. My grandfather came here in the 1950s; my father came in the 1960s. I was born here; I have no other citizenship. My children were born here; they have no other citizenship. My grandchildren have been born here; they have no other citizenship. However, if my grandchildren—we all bring our children up well, not to commit crime, but we can never predict how their lives will turn out—were to commit not just a terrorist offence but a criminal act such as a sexual offence or an offence involving fraud, they could, in court, be punished for the crime but also have their citizenship stripped. That is fact. That makes me a second-class citizen. It makes my children second-class citizens. It makes their children second-class citizens. How far back do we go before we say to people that they are as equal as anyone else in this country?

Today, by supporting the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, we can say, from this House, that despite all the assurances and the changes, we believe in equality for all in this country. My noble friend mentioned New Zealand and Australia, and I accept that changes have been put in place there; safeguards have been put in place where it is deemed not fit to serve notice. But we also have allies, such as the United States and Canada, who simply do not even have the law—they do not believe that we should be stripping our citizens of their citizenship.

The current law has been used throughout two decades of the war on terror, during the rise of ISIS, and while terrorist fighters from the United Kingdom have been going overseas. Over the years, we have managed to use the law, without this additional incremental change, to ensure that we have stripped people who we consider to be dangerous of their citizenship. We have managed under the current law; this further change is not required.

In conclusion, we may not have taken this moment to put right the wrongs of the past—many noble Lords, including many noble friends from my own Benches, stood up and asked for the original law to be considered. However, the least we can do is to stop a bad law becoming worse. If the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, tests the opinion of the House, I urge Members to vote for it because I will be voting for it, too.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Moylan and the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, to oppose Clause 9; I have added my name to both. I also lend my support to all other amendments in this group. We should support anything that allows us to think again, row back and reset in an area that has developed in ways that we could not have envisaged, and take any opportunity to put it right.

The consequences of Clause 9 are, once again, incremental changes but with far-reaching consequences. I do not intend to rehearse the arguments I made at Second Reading on the history of the state’s power to strip UK citizens of their citizenship. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Moylan, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for comprehensively and clearly stating the history of this issue, the background, the policy, the changes and its impact.

Each change has been sold by successive Governments as small, incremental, narrow and necessary. But each change has widened further the net of who, how and why the state can strip our fellow countrymen and women of their right. Clause 9 removes the requirement for the Secretary of State to notify someone when they are being deprived of their citizenship in a broad range of loosely defined circumstances, including when it does not appear to be “reasonably practicable”. I am grateful to my noble friend for her recent correspondence, but I am afraid it provides little justification for this change, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said.

Today I want to make three points. The Government have stripped hundreds of citizens of their citizenship over the last decade. Indeed, as recently as 2017, we heard that over 100 people were stripped of it in one year alone. The requirement for notice was, of course, fulfilled in all those cases. The lack of a Clause 9 power did not prevent the Government acting in hundreds of cases. The case of D4, which has been mentioned by other noble Lords, was what led to this clause at the 11th hour, with little debate in the Commons. To help the Committee understand the rationale behind this clause, can my noble friend start by publishing in a single document the numbers of people deprived, the reasons for the deprivation and the ethnicities of those deprived from, say, 1981 to 2010 and 2010 to date?

Secondly, I want to talk about stripping someone of their citizenship. It strips them of their right to live in their country and of their home, their job and their right to family. It often deprives them of the only place they know and forces them to find another place in the world that may or may not accept them—often a place with which they have little if any connection and where their life may be at risk.

Clause 9 seeks to do this without even notifying the person of such a radically life-altering decision. This in reality removes the person’s right to challenge the decision, the basis of it, the accuracy of the facts on which it was based or, indeed, even whether the person stripped is the right person. My noble friend’s explanation in her letter, I am afraid, goes no further in giving any reassurance that appeal rights will be preserved with Clause 9. As the Constitution Committee said in its report on the Bill:

“The House may conclude that this clause is unacceptable and should be removed from the Bill.”


Thirdly, I want to move to a fundamental principle that we are equal before the law, entitled to equal protection and equal treatment. I think the whole Committee can agree on that. In this country, we legislate for what is a crime and publish the law, including sentencing guidelines. If we break the law, we know the consequences that will follow—and follow equally for all citizens. Yet it seems that these fundamental principles are now being eroded.

So perhaps I may ask my noble friend: if an act, a crime, carries the penalty and sentence of citizenship being stripped, should it apply to anyone convicted of that crime? Do my noble friends on the Front Bench agree that sentencing should be linked to crime, not where your grandparents or great-grandparents were born, and that a sentence should not change based on heritage or race? If my noble friends agree with that principle, they will think again and, I hope, before Report they will strike Clause 9 from the Bill, because to do anything else would mean that we further the appalling situation in which we find ourselves now in Britain that seeks to sentence predominately a minority black and brown community differently from the majority white community. Yes, that is hard to listen to, but it should disgust and disturb us in this House.

Being a citizen of this country means that, when you commit a crime, you are arrested, tried and convicted by our laws and our courts. I therefore disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I accept that it is hard for him to revisit his time, but it is punishment and cannot be protection, as he says it is. If the laws, as he says, were brought in as a response to the challenge of terrorism and an international terrorist franchise, surely that required an international response. So how will dumping our citizens who have shown support for that international franchise in another country—likely with less resources—protect us? I would argue that it makes us all less safe.

Finally, this clause has had a chilling effect in our country. It has provoked debates in homes in settled, established communities such as mine and those of other noble Lords. I want to mention a very personal story. When I was growing up, there were two things I remember acutely. The first was a Hitachi case containing everyone’s papers, passports and naturalisation certificates. When anything happened in our home, for example if we moved, that Hitachi case was rescued first, because the fear was real that, without that case, we might be asked to leave.

The story that I heard from my parents was this. My dad is an optimistic guy who always thought that he would build a house in the north of Pakistan in the way that many of us dream of having a villa in the south of Spain. But my mum, like many women, was more realistic and cynical. She worried that one day we would be asked to leave and go back home. I did not envisage that here I would be at 50, not quite dreaming my dad’s dream but definitely worrying my mum’s worry.

So I say to my noble friend that opposition to this clause is widespread. Most of our inboxes are full of briefings and correspondence. The clause is broadly opposed in this Committee. Today we have seen the House at its best; across it and across political divides we have had noble Lords raising their concerns. So I hope that my noble friend will think again before Report.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, I want to say just a few words because I have listened very carefully, looked at all these amendments and heard some extremely good speeches from colleagues on all sides of the House. However, I am a former Immigration Minister and, looking back at legislation that I was involved in in the 1990s, there were certain Bills in which clauses came forward, we looked at amendments and, frankly, we concluded that, however good the amendments were, the clauses were unamendable and should be removed when they were not effective and where it had been clearly shown that they would have had bad effects.

I am grateful to those who have moved or spoken to their amendments, but I can think of few proposals that can offend as widely and as profoundly as the removal of people’s citizenship. Clause 9, sadly—to me, anyway, as a lawyer—is an affront to our common law, to international legal standards and understandings, and to our various human rights commitments. Critically, it could have appalling consequences for those affected.

As I stated at Second Reading, stripping people of their citizenship—secretly and unilaterally, on vaguely defined grounds such as “in the public interest”—exposes us to actions that fall short of our normal democratic standards, both at home and abroad. It also predicates many legal proceedings.

We all know that the first rule of government is to protect our citizens. I took that very seriously then, as I do know. Clause 9 would place already vulnerable people at greater risk. There are plenty of examples of this. A person may be deported to a country where capital punishment is practised, or where other inhumanities might present themselves. This proposal could hardly be described as protective, as it would open us up to accusations of double standards, which would undermine our efforts to speak out against issues such as the death penalty or cruel and inhumane practices elsewhere.

The UK has a very good and proud record of calling out injustice when it applies to other countries that show a lack of respect for human rights and international standards. At times—not often, but occasionally—we are also good at sporting spurious justifications to mask unsavoury policies. I fear that this clause would grant the UK the same sort of cover and ability to employ the same sorts of excuses to enforce policies that are otherwise indefensible and might be misused.

Citizenship is a valuable status and a clear constitutional right. The issue of revocation is, therefore, to be taken seriously. Any attempt by the state to withdraw an individual’s citizenship must have a clear and robust basis in law. It must assert the primacy of due process, including the right of appeal. Above all, it must be transparent, where the basic rights of notification of action to a subject are followed.

I fear that Clause 9 will create a process that is arbitrary and fundamentally unjust. That is why it should not be supported. I hope that my noble friend can rectify the situation before Report. I listened particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. He was quite correct; it is very difficult to see that any form of amendment could put this clause right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Of course there are home-grown people trying to do harm to our British citizens, but this is one of a number of powers to try to reduce high harm activity against the people of this country.

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

As a follow-on from the noble Baroness’s question, I have a question that I asked in my initial intervention. Why should they be treated differently? Say one person is involved in serious organised crime, such as major drug dealing, child trafficking or sex trafficking offences, and another person commits exactly that same offence, and say both of them were born in the United Kingdom, raised in the United Kingdom, have never lived anywhere else and have never taken citizenship of any other country. If they commit exactly the same crime, why should one be told to leave and the other not?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, what I think I have tried to explain today—and it will be obvious that are clearly differences between us—is that, where the highest harm individuals can rely on another citizenship, the Home Secretary has within his or her power the ability to remove that citizenship. Of course, the one citizenship that is protected is when someone is only a British citizen and of no other territory.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, in my limited time I will speak today only to Clause 9, which seeks to strip British citizens of their citizenship without notice. I want to focus on the real-life impact of this proposed legislation and the consequences for communities, and to unpick the notion that citizenship is a privilege, not a right.

Modern nationality law starts in 1981. For all its shortcomings, it was an attempt to bring into the system through formal paperwork those who were British—I repeat: those who were by right British. The state was formalising a right that already existed, something expressly stated by the then Home Secretary William Whitelaw during the passage of the Bill. However, what followed, with subsequent changes to nationality law and an increasingly hostile approach taken by successive Governments of all colours, was the appalling circumstances in which the Windrush generation and others—people who by right were British—were treated like outsiders, foreigners and aliens. Our hostility to immigration and immigrants was the climate in which we abandoned our own who were by right British, even if they had not formally exercised that right.

I lay out this background because this notion of citizenship being a privilege seems to be a popular, but sadly ignorant, mantra. Of course, immigration is not a right, but immigration and immigration controls are very distinct from nationality rights. Those who mix them do so because their flawed understanding does not see beyond the colour of someone’s skin.

Let me personalise it. My family, as many of yours, were a century ago citizens of the UK and colonies. They had rights; all those in the Empire and the Commonwealth did. When my grandfathers fought for the British Indian Army as British subjects, they did so as citizens. When the Windrush generation answered the call for workers and came to this country, they did so as citizens. When South Asians took up gruelling jobs in the mills and foundries of Yorkshire, as my family did, they did so as citizens, as equal members of this country in a continuation of a bond that had started decades earlier. It was not a conditional or temporary right, or a right that we would try to take away from them and their children or grandchildren in ever more cunningly creative ways, and it certainly was not a privilege. It was a right, one established through our colonial history, through strife, blood, sweat and those who even gave their lives. By formally taking a British passport, they were merely formalising a right, not having a privilege bestowed upon them.

The othering of our fellow citizens—which has happened over the years under Conservative Governments; was made worse, I would argue, by Labour Governments, with some of the most dramatically expanded powers of deprivation; and was extended by the coalition Government—this chipping away at the basic right of citizenship, must now stop. That starts with striking Clause 9 from this Bill. We across this House, whichever party we belong to, have been part of the problem. Our respective parties have, over time, torn down the basic belief that all citizens in this country are and should be equal and that, as a citizen, you are a permanent member. It is a fundamental right recognised in case law, including by the High Court in the case of D4, the case that led to Clause 9. This problem did not start with Clause 9, but it must start to end with Clause 9.

This is government sleight of hand, this last-minute addition to override the decision of Mr Justice Chamberlain. It is an attempt at another incremental change with the hope that, once again, no one will notice, but which has huge real-life consequences. This power grab by the Home Secretary is deeply dangerous, one that seeks to deprive someone of their right to citizenship without even giving the person being deprived the right to know, depriving them even of the right to check whether the Secretary of State had the legal basis or accurate facts to exercise that power. These proposals would mean that I would have greater protections when being deprived of my driving licence than of my nationality.

And so a piece of legislation introduced but never used by the late Lady Thatcher’s Government during the Cold War to deal with treason has morphed, mainly during the Blair years as an attempt to remove one man, Abu Hamza—my noble friend Lord Moylan is absolutely right that Labour sowed the seeds of what we now reap—into a catch-all law that covers around 40% of our ethnic minority communities. This clause is not a debate about immigration, it is a debate about our fellow citizens. These laws have the potential to include members of Parliament and their families. They include our loved ones, friends and colleagues; they include some of us. This is not scaremongering, this is fact. This is why families across our country are campaigning to push back against the real-life consequences they are today experiencing as a result of years of incremental legislation.

In conclusion, my parents’ generation, now in their 80s, always feared that their future generations would be outsiders, second-class citizens who would be told to “go back home” or to leave. My generation always dismissed these fears as unfounded, but Windrush proved they were not baseless. Clause 9 and the Government’s exponential use of deprivation powers compound these fears and so I urge my noble friend, who is thoughtful and informed on these issues, to ask the Government to think again and row back.

Authority to Carry Scheme and Civil Penalties Regulations 2021

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]]

My Lords, as my noble friend has said, these regulations bring into force the authority to carry scheme 2021, which replaces the authority to carry scheme 2015. I apologise in advance to my noble friend about where I want to take this debate today because it is both timely and necessary in relation to these regulations.

These regulations, which protect the United Kingdom and its citizens, ensure that those whom we do not believe are conducive to the public good are not allowed to enter. They create a mechanism underpinned by financial penalties to ensure the practical application of this protection. However, they also include our responsibility to ensure that we do not allow individuals from abroad who intend to cause harm to others and to us to leave these shores. These regulations stop people from being both carried here and carried from here—as well as, of course, providing the Secretary of State a mechanism to require carriers to remove people upon deportation.

The Explanatory Memorandum published by the Home Office alongside the regulations provides further policy background detail, some of which my noble friend has referred to, so my quotation does slightly duplicate. I quote the Government’s guidance:

“Preventing individuals from travelling to or from the UK”—


the latter is my emphasis—

“is an important part of the UK’s border security arrangements. The ability to intervene, pre-departure and prevent travel has meant that, under the 2015 Scheme, the Home Office has refused carriers authority to carry around 8,000 individuals”,

as my noble friend has referred to, and she has detailed the various categories of those. The quotation continues:

“It also included one member of a flight crew who had been previously deported. These are all individuals who would otherwise have travelled to the UK and would have been dealt with at the border, with the resulting financial and time implications associated with processing, detaining and removing that individual.”


The regulations detail that authority to carry from the UK may be refused in respect of various categories of persons, of which one is children whom the Secretary of State has reasonable cause to believe are intending to leave the United Kingdom for the purposes of involvement in terrorist-related activity.

I want to ask the Minister some questions on this “from” element, in relation to what I term our responsibility to prevent our citizens from causing harm by travelling overseas, including harm to themselves—these are children we are talking about. Noble Lords will be familiar with the case of Shamima Begum, the 15 year-old girl from east London who, along with her teenage school friends, travelled to Syria to become a bride to ISIS recruits. Her tragic story is of a young women groomed, abused and now left stateless in a refugee camp, having given birth to and lost two children, both British nationals, and, five years later, at the age of 20, attempting to return home.

We stripped her of her citizenship, despite her being born a British citizen and having only ever lived here. She was deemed by the then Secretary of State to be a Bangladeshi citizen—a country she does not know and has never taken citizenship of and which has said will not grant her citizenship. It has also said that, if she tried to enter that country, she would be subjected to being sentenced to death because of her association with ISIS.

As such, I will ask the following questions, and, if my noble friend cannot answer them today, I look forward to receiving a written reply. First, how many British citizens have been prevented from travelling overseas under the scheme to date? Secondly, how many children did we protect from becoming involved in terrorism by preventing them from travelling? Thirdly, carriers face a penalty for failing in their duty to protect if they carry someone to the UK under these regulations; what is the Government’s thinking when we fail in our duty to protect by allowing a person—someone who should have been protected and prevented from travelling under these regulations—to travel? Fourthly, what practical measures do the Government take to fulfil their responsibility to prevent individuals in the categories that they refer to in the regulations from travelling?

Finally, does my noble friend agree with me that we have a right to protect our country by revoking the citizenship of those who intend to cause us harm? That is absolutely a right that we have. However, does she also agree with me that that decision should be based on the harm intended, the crime committed or a crime that may be committed, not on the British national’s heritage?

Health Measures at UK Borders

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think there should be a principle we accept that if people are fined, they have been not only acting against the law but putting the lives of other people in danger. I take the point about students being able to pay fines, but there is an obligation on each and every one of us to keep each other safe. On the noble Lord’s point about the BAME community, there is obvious evidence that the community is suffering more in terms of symptoms and illness than the population at large. The way in which we all behave has an effect on the well-being, or otherwise, of our BAME friends in this country.

[Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I start by paying tribute to my noble friend the Minister, who has been working a gruelling schedule in very difficult circumstances for many months now. Much of what I was due to raise has already been raised by my noble friends Lady Gardner of Parkes, Lady Wheatcroft and Lord Randall, but may I press my noble friend? The Government announced the new rules about overseas travel on 4 January, some five weeks ago, yet it still does not seem clear what current checks are in place to ensure that those travelling to and from the UK are doing so only for necessary and essential travel. Does she, for example, have any figures on how many passengers have been prevented from boarding flights since the new criteria were introduced? What are the checks to ensure that the passenger locator forms are accurately and truthfully completed, so that the system we have in place is effective?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My noble friend is right about the importance of the passenger locator forms being accurate and people being honest, and of some of those follow-up checks, with enforcement if necessary. As I said to earlier speakers, those checks are being stepped up. People are flouting the rules because they do not think they apply to them. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, 109,000 people have died, and it is very important that people stick to the rules so that we can protect the NHS and save lives.

Children: Online Grooming

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I can guess at several of the factors, but one might be the ever-increasing use of encryption, so that not only can parents not see what their children are doing, but nor can the local authority or, actually, the internet providers themselves. This is at the heart of what the Home Secretary and Five Eyes partners are trying to discourage going forward.

[Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]]

My Lords, following up on the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, my noble friend may be aware that Facebook and Facebook-owned apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp account for more than 50% of online abuse. What conversations are specifically taking place with Facebook in relation to its platforms being the preferred method and platform for this kind of abuse?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Well, Messenger, which is a Facebook app, had not to date been encrypted, but Facebook has announced its intention to encrypt Messenger from, I think, next year. This is precisely the type of discussion that the Home Secretary and Five Eyes partners are having with Facebook, because not only will law enforcement bodies and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the US not be able to look at what is going on there, but nor will Facebook itself, and that is the crucial thing here.