Government Website: Registering a Death

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Mackinlay of Richborough

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The issue is under constant review. Work continues towards the introduction of electronic registration of deaths in England and Wales to minimise the burden on bereaved family members at a difficult time. As my noble friend has said, this system was introduced for perfectly legitimate reasons to improve safeguards. We need to make sure it works well. I have tried, in response to the Question by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, to make improvements in the areas I am directly responsible for, and I will reflect with my noble friend on other issues.

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I could bring to the House my recent experience. My father passed away on 21 December, which is, dare I say, a challenging time of year, given that the nation stops work for about two weeks. I was not able to register the death until 8 January, but, considering the time of year, I have to say that the medical examiner’s office was working throughout the Christmas period and I was able to get an appointment in reasonable time. I ask the Minister to pass on my thanks for a system that worked for me at a difficult time of year. Everyone behaved well, professionally and sensitively, and I offer thanks for how it is working.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for that, and I will certainly pass it on to the appropriate authorities. For information, my own mother died a long time ago, on Christmas Day, and we had a very difficult time dealing with that, given the holiday period. The service that was provided, in that case in the Liverpool region, was exemplary, and it is important that we recognise good service when it happens. We are trying to improve the situation, as I have said to the noble Baroness. I will reflect on the points that the noble Lord has made.

Migrants: Hotel Accommodation

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Mackinlay of Richborough

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. Safeguarding is extremely important, and it is the Government’s ambition to remove all asylum seekers from hotels as soon as is practical. We have reduced the number of hotels: in fact, we have fewer hotels now, in the week of the general election anniversary, than we had last year when the Conservative Party left office. It is our ambition to further reduce that. When the Conservatives were in office, hotel costs peaked at £9 million per day. This time last year they were £8.5 million per day, and this year they are £6 million per day. That is still too high, but it is on the right, downward trajectory, and we will continue to safeguard in doing that.

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, I have a pal who has a fairly good-grade job. Many months ahead, he had booked four-star accommodation two days a week at a well-known hotel chain. He had a phone call out of the blue and was told, “I’m very sorry but your months-ahead booked accommodation in our four-star hotel has now been cancelled because the hotel of 150 rooms has been taken over for migrant accommodation”. Does the Minister agree with me that the pull factors of good accommodation are clear and obvious? The pull factor of the ability to get a delivery job in this country is very clear, and we can see illegal working on every high street. Until we get a grip on this issue, I am afraid that it will not get any better. We need rather more than “let’s smash the gangs”.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, and I would be grateful if he could write to me with the details of his friend’s hotel, because that is a great surprise to me. We are not opening new hotels; we are trying to reduce the number of such hotels and reducing the bill, under his Government, of £9 million a day to the current £6 million a day that I mentioned.

If the noble Lord wants to tackle illegal working, I recommend that he supports the Bill on employment rights currently before this House, which is about reducing the pull factors of illegal working and cracking down on illegal employers. As I recall, the Opposition have voted against that Bill on several occasions and plan to do so again.

Migration and Border Security

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Mackinlay of Richborough

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Again, I hope I can help the noble Lord, but this is a very fast-moving situation; we were not here this time last week. There are challenges in Syria, with people moving back there from neighbouring countries and the United Kingdom, and people, potentially, still seeking asylum from a new Syrian regime that they do not support. These issues are all on the table. I hope the noble Lord will understand, but I do not wish to commit now to definitive policy solutions to those issues, because the Government are reflecting on them. So I will simply say that the £11 million of humanitarian aid that the Foreign Secretary announced this week is a start. If the noble Lord and the House will allow us, those are matters that we can maybe discuss in slower time, when the Government have assessed the position fully and determined what best we can do with our partners to assist that position.

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, much has been made of the Syrian situation by many noble Lords this afternoon. Does this not open up a question as to what the asylum rules are really there for? We do not know quite where Syria will end up—it is early days, as the Minister very correctly said—but many Syrians will be looking to go back home. During the years of civil war in Syria, Lebanon warmly accepted many Syrians, but it was quite bizarre that, during the height of Lebanon’s recent problems, many Syrians went home from Lebanon saying that Syria was safer than Lebanon at the time.

Are we not in a situation, if Syria does settle down, where we can consider whether temporary asylum is probably a better way forward for the world? Ultimately, is it not the case that the brightest, best, fittest and strongest people, having left their country at a time of conflict, would actually wish and want to return home to rebuild that country for the future? Is that something the Government would support: a temporary asylum basis rather than a permanent one?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. Individuals can always choose to return if the situation in their home country that they were fleeing and seeking asylum from changes. In this circumstance, we have temporarily paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims while we assess the current situation and we are keeping country guidance under review. With due respect to all noble Lords, we do not yet know how this will pan out; we do not know who the good guys and the bad guys are going to be; and we do not know ultimately what will happen in the new Syria that might emerge from the collapse of the Assad regime.

The same is true for Ukrainian citizens and others who flee and seek temporary asylum or relief from a particular war situation or from poverty and hunger. We judge those on an individual basis: asylum is given, or it is not; people are returned, or they are not. I would like to keep to that system, but recognise that circumstances change, as has been shown in the last week in Syria.