Borders and Asylum

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Hoey

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her comments and the tone in which she has put them. She is absolutely right about the debate on migration, illegal migration, asylum and border control. In my view it is a challenge and a difficult issue, but I hope that between the three main parties represented here and those individuals from the Cross Benches and others, we can have that debate in a civilised way. I also hope that in the country at large it can be debated in a civilised way.

There is an important issue to discuss about who we allow into the country for immigration purposes and how. There is an important issue of how we stop illegal migration, and an important issue of how we manage and meet our international obligations on asylum. The Government, in these 13 months, have brought forward a White Paper on the first issue, have taken action on the second and are now looking at managing the asylum regime by speeding up asylum claims to get the backlog down. Those are really important issues, and those who seek to divide us are using them in a way that I would not support. The right to protest is always there, but it should be about the tone of that protest accordingly.

We will bring forward further information on the new body in due course. I hope tonight is an hors d’oeuvre for the noble Baroness, as the main course will follow.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome the much tougher Statement from the Home Secretary. Not long ago, politicians making some of those suggestions would have been accused of perhaps being almost racist.

Does the Minister think that the huge pull factors for migrants living in horrible conditions in France are being tackled firmly enough? If we continue what some would describe as featherbedding people who arrive, that is bound to be a pull factor. Does the Minister agree that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights should still be on the table? Does he welcome the report with the foreword by his former boss—and mine at one time—Jack Straw, which makes it clear that whatever your view on leaving the European convention, the Belfast/Good Friday agreement certainly does not prevent that happening?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. When people speak about leaving the ECHR, I always wonder what rights they do not want. Is it the right to a free trial? Is it the right to not have modern slavery? Is it the right to not have exploitation at work? I am never quite sure which one of those rights people do not want. My forefathers and relatives in the past fought hard to ensure we have decent rights at work, including the right to a fair trial and the right to be free from slavery: all those things are embedded. Only a very small number of countries have not signed up to the ECHR. That is not to say—which is why I have said it—that there are not tweaks and interpretations we can make. That is why we will be looking at how we deal with Article 8 in the first place.

I will also, with due respect, challenge the idea that there are pull factors and that people seeking asylum are featherbedded. I do not regard that to be the case. There is no benefit being claimed. No allowance at any meaningful level is given to asylum seekers. We are also trying to end some of the pull factors by tackling very hard illegal working, which undercuts and undermines real people doing real jobs, exploiting people and undermining legitimate businesses.

So I say to the House as a whole that it is a very complex, multilayered issue, but the Government are trying, with a range of measures, to deal with this in a way that does not inflame the situation but looks at long-term, positive solutions to bear down on genuine problems.

UK Airports: British Passport Holders

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Hoey

Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that UK airports have dedicated lines for British passport holders.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

The Home Office has previously reviewed the potential for the introduction of UK-only queues, most recently during the period when the UK left the EU. Analysis conducted has found that it would have a negative impact on border fluidity. However, we keep our border systems under review.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

I thank the Minister for that. It might be helpful if we could all see how that assessment was done; perhaps that could be put into the Library. I wonder if he agrees that it is not really about length of queues and waiting times; it is a principle about people coming back into their own country, just as happens all over world. Will he look again at this? UK citizens coming in should be given their own British entry point, unlike what is happening at the moment.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As I said to the noble Baroness, it would lead to longer queues. Perhaps that is symptomatic of the impact of Brexit as a whole. The noble Baroness needs to recognise that British and Irish citizens, citizens of the Commonwealth and citizens of reciprocal countries can use border gates and border entry accordingly. In doing so, they are helping to reduce queues. If we had a British-only queue, we would have longer queues for British citizens. That is not what I want to see.

Illegal Migrant Returns Agreements

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Hoey

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord will be aware that the Government intend to look at a whole range of data. One of the reasons we have deported more than 2,500 people forcibly, including 1,500-plus people who are foreign national offenders, is that we recognise that when people have completed their sentence, there is the right to remove them if the Government wish to remove them. We get notification when foreign national offenders complete their sentences, and we will certainly examine that issue. Perhaps the noble Lord could ask his own Front Bench why there were 100,000 such foreign offences last year alone.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

Is the Minister aware that in the past few weeks the police in the Republic of Ireland have been stopping buses coming over from Northern Ireland, checking identity and immigration status and sending people back to Northern Ireland? Has he had any discussions with the Irish Government on this, and is it affecting in any way the common travel area?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I take what the noble Baroness has said at face value. I have not had any exposure to that issue—it has not come across my desk—but I will take it away and reflect on it. I assure her that there is co-operation between the Irish authorities and the United Kingdom authorities—and, indeed, the Northern Ireland Assembly—on all matters relating to the common travel agreement area.

Respect Orders and Anti-social Behaviour

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Hoey

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for those points. These issues are consistently under examination by the Home Office. Going back to the potential legislation and the remit of the Statement, the two big issues in the Statement show that there is a real focus on shop theft, from a very low level through to a very high level. That should be put into policing plans on shop theft as a matter of urgency, with changes to the law made accordingly to reflect that.

On protection for shop workers, they are doing a job and should not be attacked in the course of their work for upholding legislation on sales or for resisting theft. I note the abuse they sometimes get, particularly from people who are undertaking anti-social behaviour in a more formal way. I declare an interest as a member of the shop workers union. That is the thrust of the two bits of legislation that are linked in the Statement, and I hope that will be welcomed by this House in due course.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the return of genuine neighbourhood policing, which is so necessary, particularly on our housing estates. But, as the noble the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, it is about the numbers of police officers. Does the Minister agree that it is very important that the status of neighbourhood policing is raised, not among the public—they understand it—but within the police force itself, so that people who are serving the local community as local neighbourhood police are seen as just as important and just as good at tackling crime as those in other parts of the Metropolitan Police and police forces in the United Kingdom?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that it is important that people know who their police officers are, see them visibly and have the trust and confidence to give them information that might help reduce anti-social behaviour or other criminal activity. It is important that police engage with the community in a way that gives them confidence for that information to come forward and that, as they have done in the past, at a local level police use their antennae to pick up on information that needs to be addressed by the wider policing family in tackling criminal activity.

Illegal Migrants

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Hoey

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

I thank the noble Lord. I ask the Minister, in all seriousness, whether anybody in the Government has talked to the French authorities about the conditions that many of those migrants are living in just across the sea. Anyone in this House would realise that, if they are living in those kinds of conditions and they know what is going to happen in terms of their living conditions if they manage to get to the United Kingdom, that is a huge pull factor. Surely the French Government have to take into consideration the human rights of those migrants, as we do in this country.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I first visited camps in Calais when I was shadow Immigration Minister in November 2014. The route then was via lorries and Eurostar trains, rather than small boats. The conditions were terrible then and they are terrible now. We need discussions with our colleagues in France. There is no current bilateral agreement with France on this issue following the decisions of Brexit, but we are engaged. The noble Baroness will know that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has met the French authorities, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has the G7 nations. We are pledged to work to end this crisis, and we will.