Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Liddle

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

We have had only one Labour person.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Labour Benches, but I hope that if people ask short questions and get short answers, we will get through everyone.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that we cannot solve this problem by unilateral domestic action alone? We have to have co-operation with European countries that are facing similar problems of asylum and refugees. Does he also accept that this co-operation is going to be very difficult to deliver if we are seen to be unilaterally going against the European Convention on Human Rights? This is fundamental, because it will not only stop co-operation in this area but threaten co-operation in areas such as trade. It is a foundation of the Good Friday agreement and is vital to Britain’s standing in the world.

EU Bilateral Agreements for Asylum Seekers

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Liddle

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in negotiating bilateral agreements with European Union member states for the return of asylum seekers arriving in the United Kingdom.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, we are in discussions with a number of EU member states and other third countries to reach bilateral arrangements for the return of asylum seekers and intend to open further talks with others. The political declaration agreed by the UK and the EU alongside the TCA noted the importance of this issue and our intention to engage bilaterally with member states on such arrangements. These take time and it would be inappropriate to disclose the nature of those talks.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer, but is not the answer that very little progress has actually been made? It would be nice if she acknowledged the fact that it is because of Brexit that we have lost the right to return asylum seekers who could have claimed asylum in other EU countries. More to the point, without these agreements, does it not make the Government’s plan to legislate to make all unauthorised arrivals on UK shores illegal not only unjust and possibly in breach of our international legal obligations but completely unsustainable?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I say to the noble Lord’s final point that everything we are doing complies with all our international obligations, including the refugee convention. I see the noble Lord shaking his head, so let me underline that this allows for differentiated treatment where a refugee has now come to the UK directly from a country of persecution and did not

“present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.”

That is from Article 31.

Covid-19: UK Border Health Measures

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Liddle

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Yes, my Lords, the Government are led by the science. It is up to SAGE if it wants to publish papers but it is absolutely not compelled to do so. It has published its minutes up to 1 May. As I said before, SAGE advises the Government and it is up to the Government to make decisions based on that advice.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

I would like to follow up on the penetrating questions asked by the noble Lords, Lord Taylor of Holbeach and Lord Lansley. Surely it must be the case, and surely this is the logic of the scientific advice, that whether you need quarantine when you arrive from a particular country depends on the rate of infection in that country. If countries have very low rates of infection, why on earth are we worrying about arrivals from those countries? Should the principle of differentiation between countries according to their rates of infection not be a fundamental part of this policy if it is to be continued at all?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, that is why the UK is engaging with different countries and airlines on all sorts of considerations while it considers what the next stage of this process will be. The Government are very keen to review this as soon as we possibly can within the next three weeks, and then the next stages of decision-making will be stated.

Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2019

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Liddle

Thursday 28th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

On the EU side of things, can the Minister tell us what the attitude of the French Government is towards these questions? France is our closest security partner and it would be very relevant to know its views.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am sure the noble Lord will understand that I cannot talk about intelligence discussions with other states at the Dispatch Box. Of course, we have very close security ties with France. We have assisted it when it has had terrorist attacks, and I have no doubt that discussions with France will be ongoing.

Flooding: EU Solidarity Fund

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Liddle

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, as a member of Cumbria County Council, perhaps I may say that the Minister’s announcement will be very welcome in the county, even if she has had to spend several months arguing with the Secretary of State for Justice that this does not represent a terrible affront to national sovereignty. It is vital that we proceed—as the Minister knows, there is a huge problem. The Government have been helpful so far but the infrastructure costs to the public sector alone amount to not many tens of millions but possibly hundreds of millions in the county of Cumbria alone. Does the Minister accept that there needs to be the quickest possible analysis of the total costs so that a proper application can be submitted and we can try to get as much of this money into the county and into other affected areas as quickly as possible?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: the devastation in Cumbria has been quite significant. He and I have talked both across the Dispatch Box and privately about the needs of Cumbria, and I hope that the flood envoy, as well as Ministers, have been useful in their visits there. The Government are doing everything they can to work with the flood-affected areas to make right the damage. However, they were very keen to make an immediate response and moved very quickly to remedy some of the immediate problems. This is a much longer-term payment—back in 2007, it took months to come through—so we need to separate the immediate recovery operation from some of the more long-term funding that will come through.

Local Government Finance

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Liddle

Monday 8th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for making some very constructive points, particularly about the issues that rural authorities face with things such as the delivery of social care in sparsely populated areas. The rural services delivery grant will be £60.5 million this year and £30 million next year, compared to the provisional settlement. That will be for all councils where 2% is less than £5—whatever is the greater—and will apply to all shire districts.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, in declaring an interest as a member of Cumbria County Council, perhaps I may associate myself, first, with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Beecham about the very serious threat to the quality of life and basic decency of our society that the cuts in the local government grant represent. This is a horrific situation for all those who care about the public realm. Having said that, my own instinct as a localiser is to move to self-funding, but I have always thought that we needed new and reformed methods of finance and a proper assessment of needs, along with some sort of transfer mechanism to make it possible.

Of course I welcome the increase in the rural services grant, but I point out that the numbers in the Statement that has been circulated show that the big increases are £11.9 million for Surrey, £5.7 million for Kent, £7.7 million for Hertfordshire, £9.3 million for Hampshire and £6.9 million for Essex. This looks like a Home Counties settlement, not one for the whole of England.

My own authority of Cumbria is glad to see that some consideration has been given to the problems of a genuinely stretched local area. However, in a Question in the House a couple of weeks ago, I raised the problem of how funding for the costs of flood recovery is going to be made available. Is what is in the local government settlement all there is going to be, or will some special announcement be made to reflect the hundreds of millions of pounds in costs facing councils in our area, and in the rest of the north, as a result of the floods? Is this it or is there more to come?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I wish that the noble Lord had been in the House either last week or the week before, when we were talking about the floods and some of the infrastructure replacement requirements. The noble Lord makes the point that some of the infrastructure repairs in Cumbria are going to be far greater than we had thought, and I said to noble Lords at the time that if there were infrastructure repairs that they thought had been either overlooked or not identified yet, they should get in touch with me and I would speak to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport. If the noble Lord thinks that the funding assumptions are out of kilter, I ask him to let me know. I look forward to having another conversation with him in due course about that and, perhaps, devolution.

The noble Lord also makes the point that Surrey and so on have had more. I have just been having a look at the figures for poor old Trafford, which has got minus 1.2%, while Manchester has had a £16.8 million increase. We always think we are worst off in our part of the world but Trafford, sitting beside Manchester, has actually done considerably less well. Still, this settlement recognises some of the challenges to those county areas. I hope that the noble Lord will get in touch with me over the flooding issue.

Cumbria: Floods

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Liddle

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have announced funding of £40 million for Cumbria and Lancashire following Storm Desmond and Storm Eva, and we will help fund the assessment of damage to local highway infrastructure in both areas. Additionally, we have announced £3.3 million to provide a temporary footbridge and for the repair of Tadcaster Bridge in North Yorkshire, and a further £5.5 million to rebuild Elland Bridge in Calderdale.

[Lord Liddle]

I thank the noble Baroness for her reply and thank the Government for the immediacy of their response to this tragedy. However, the question remains whether the Government are, in principle, prepared to find the full costs of recovery. In terms of transport infrastructure, these are estimated to be £257 million in Cumbria alone—£465 million when you count everything—and £40 million is not much by comparison with that. This is at a time when we are having to make cuts of £80 million over this Parliament, on a £375 million budget, and reduce our staff from 7,000 to 5,200. Given that we are stretched beyond capacity, will the Government commit to fully funding the costs of recovery?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, over this Parliament, the Government will commit £2.3 billion for flood defences and the flood maintenance budget will be protected. In 2015-16, £171 million will be invested. There are pockets of funding in addition to that: there is £40 million for Storm Desmond and Storm Eva, as I said, and £4 million has been committed in match funding in respect of the charitable donations that have so kindly come in.