Transnational Repression in the UK (JCHR Report)

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

That this House takes note of the Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights Transnational repression in the UK (7th Report, HL Paper 160).

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords, before the debate gets under way, I want to highlight the four-minute advisory time for Back-Bench contributions. This is designed to ensure that the debate can finish within two hours, in line with the usual timings for Thursday debates, and that the House can rise at a reasonable time. I therefore urge noble Lords to keep their remarks within four minutes to meet these ends—of course, with the exception of the mover, the noble Lord, Lord Alton.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is an honour to open today’s debate on the Joint Committee on Human Rights report Transnational Repression in the United Kingdom. As chair of the JCHR, I pay tribute to my committee colleagues from both Houses and thank the terrific JCHR team, headed by our clerks Rhiannon Hollis, Moriyo Aiyeola and Lauren Marchant. I also thank the Library for its briefing note, the Minister and the officials who have briefed him for the work that has been done by him and his colleagues in the department, but especially the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, who will make his maiden speech today. We greatly look forward to hearing that.

Our report highlights the absence of a universally accepted definition of transnational repression—TNR. We recommend that the Government adopt a formal definition, systematically collect data, and develop monitoring mechanisms. We agree with James Lynch, the co-director of Fair Square, who told our committee that we are missing a

“big opportunity to properly monitor and analyse the trends and then develop a coherent strategy”.

We query the way in which TNR is treated in diplomacy with hostile states, and contend that failure to incorporate it as part of the UK’s diplomatic engagement with perpetrator countries

“risks … emboldening authoritarian regimes to escalate TNR activities”.

The report calls for international co-operation with other democracies—we mention the example of Canada—in combating TNR, and we make some specific recommendations about the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, and the misuse of Interpol red notices. Closer to home, we call for a national hotline for victims, and more systematic, specialised training for police officers to identify the early warning signs of TNR.

In paragraph 96 of the report, we say:

“The UK’s response to TNR would benefit significantly from more structured and consistent coordination across government departments”.


Andrew Scurry, the director of the homeland security group at the Home Office, told us that:

“We are looking still with the police … at how best to gather data and more information, and indeed intelligence”.


It would be good for the House to hear how that is going.

During a discussion this morning with academics from Bristol and Oxford Universities, facilitated by the international affairs parliamentary hub, I was struck by their finding that TNR is profoundly on the rise in the UK. This chimed entirely with our own committee’s view that TNR is not a peripheral or minor issue. MI5 says that, in 2024, the number of its state-threat investigations jumped by some 48%, with more than 20 threat-to-life cases relating to Iran alone, since the start of 2022. The true scale, though, is likely to be far greater still, given the significant underreporting and the often covert nature of TNR criminality.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights commends the National Security Act 2023, which created new offences relating to foreign interference in the UK, and did not identify any significant gaps in criminal law related to TNR. We do, however, want the existing laws to be better used and more effectively enforced. It is essential that the legal framework remains agile and responsive to evolving threats. We recognise the rapidly evolving nature of digital technologies, and the increasing sophistication of methods used to conduct TNR. We call for the Government to keep relevant legislation under regular review, and have asked for an annual update to the JCHR on the effectiveness of current legislation in addressing evolving digital forms of TNR.

Our country has a long history of giving protection to courageous dissidents being hunted down by dictatorships. During my early days as a young Member of Parliament in the 1980s, I met extraordinary heroes who had escaped the Soviet bloc and continued to work for the liberties that would ultimately come with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Back then, and today too, dictatorial regimes had a long reach.

Let me draw on the evidence given to our inquiry to illustrate the nature of the threats that people resident in the United Kingdom now face. A number of noble Lords have experienced a small dose of transnational repression themselves: in my case, collecting sanctions from Russia, North Korea, Iran and China. But this is small beer in comparison with some of the appalling intimidation experienced by others. Perhaps the Minister could tell us whether China has lifted sanctions on parliamentarians’ families, and on others, including Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, who chaired the Uyghur Tribunal, Dr Jo Smith Finley, Essex Court Chambers, and the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.

Will the Minister also comment on the 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty placed by the CCP on the head of Chloe Cheung, a 19 year-old young woman, and others in the United Kingdom? Read Chloe’s courageous testimony to our inquiry, waiving her anonymity, in which she described the profound effect that this CCP targeting has had on her. She spoke recently against the proposed CCP mega-embassy in London, fearful that, if it is built and she is snatched, she will, to use her words, “never come out”.

Read the evidence of the brave Uyghur activist Rahima Mahmut, whose relatives in China have been subjected to intimidation and coercion, forced to publicly condemn her in order to safeguard themselves from reprisals. She movingly described to the committee what she called the “human cost” of speaking out. Read the evidence of the disgraceful treatment of Professor Michelle Shipworth by University College London, and the shameful mistreatment of Sheffield Hallam’s Professor Laura Murphy following her brilliant work on Uyghur slave labour in Xinjiang.

Their treatment is an affront to British sovereignty, to academic freedom and to free speech. It is transnational repression driven by overreliance on Chinese money. Let us note too that, earlier this month, MI5’s Ken McCallum identified threats to universities, students and academics at a meeting he convened with 70 vice-chancellors. How will the Government implement a direct reporting route on foreign interference, implement the complaints scheme in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act and strengthen overseas transparency regulatory powers?

Unsurprisingly, the JCHR received a large amount of evidence recommending the designation of China under the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme—FIRS. It was an issue raised by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC the lawyer of British citizen Jimmy Lai, incarcerated in Hong Kong for five years and in solitary confinement. She told our inquiry that, as his lawyer, she had been subjected to threats and harassment. She criticised the feeble response to bounties and sanctions against parliamentarians and described how peaceful protestors in Manchester had been assaulted by CCP diplomats. She said:

“We send such a terrible message if we have a situation where a diplomat can drag an activist by the hair into the Manchester consulate … and the use of language such as calling individuals rats who need to be hunted down worldwide, and yet … China is not in the enhanced tier”.


The JCHR concluded:

“Decisions on which countries to specify under the enhanced tier of FIRS must be guided by objective assessments of threat, not influenced by broader foreign policy considerations. We recommend that the Government specify China under the enhanced tier of FIRS”;


and that

“The Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 do not capture the full range of TNR tactics”;


and that China’s omission from the enhanced tier

“risks undermining the credibility and coherence of FIRS”.

The JCHR found:

“China conducts the most comprehensive TNR campaign of any foreign state operating in the UK”.


I would be grateful if the Minister would respond to my previously voiced proposal—which appears at paragraph 90 on page 37 as a JCHR recommendation—that the Intelligence and Security Committee, on which the noble Lord himself served with great distinction, should have confidential oversight of FIRS and sanctions and which, like appointments of high-level British ambassadors, or the expulsion of diplomats connected to TNR, should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

Such scrutiny should also extend to issues of proscriptions. Let us consider Iran and the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We heard shocking evidence of the lethality of Iranian transnational repression. We heard about an Iranian journalist left seriously wounded on the streets of London and about intimidation of BBC Persian journalists and their families. One witness, Hossein Abedini, deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, almost lost his life in a vicious brutal attack by Iranian operatives. He told the JCHR that “cultural centres” in the UK are used as fronts for surveillance operations targeting members of the Iranian diaspora. Reporters without Borders told us:

“Iranian women journalists have been subjected to gendered and sexualised abuse, including explicit threats of rape or sexual violence towards them or their families (including children), the circulation of fake stories designed to ruin their reputations and photoshopped pornographic images”.


In this week marking the fourth anniversary of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, we should consider also how Putin’s regime has engaged in the most terrible war crimes and egregious forms of transnational repression. We can recall the Salisbury nerve agent attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal. But Russian TNR comes in other form too. The JCHR received evidence relating to the misuse of SLAPPs to intimidate and silence journalists, activists, and other critics.

Although SLAPPs are typically initiated by private individuals rather than states, we heard that they are often used as a TNR tactic. Susan Coughtrie, the director of the Foreign Policy Centre, told us that individuals “closely aligned” with the state are utilised to carry out TNR through legal harassment. She cited the case of Catherine Belton, the journalist and author of the book Putin’s People:

“She was pursued originally by five oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, but also Rosneft, which is the Russian state gas company, so there was a very direct link there … to the Russian state”.


The inquiry found that SLAPPs are increasingly used to silence and intimidate people who expose or criticise the actions of authoritarian regimes.

The committee would also like the Government to look at the cost and stress of lengthy legal action, provide a clear timeline for a review of the effectiveness of the SLAPPs provisions in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and ensure that future legislation deals with SLAPPs that are not related to economic crime.

Our inquiry also found that Interpol red notices had been issued without the knowledge of those targeted, leaving people uncertain about whether they can travel without risk of detention. We concluded that red notices are being systematically exploited to pursue political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists beyond national borders.

Beyond Russia, Iran and China, the committee received credible evidence that a number of states had engaged in acts of transnational repression on UK soil. The evidence included allegations concerning Pakistan, India, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

I draw particular attention to the evidence and testimony given to our inquiry concerning Eritrea by Martin Plaut, the accomplished former BBC journalist, author and academic. The UN special rapporteur on Eritrea told the inquiry that those who refuse to contribute a tax that is levied on the diaspora are

“considered government opponents and face harassment, intimidation and ultimately social isolation”.

I welcome an update on what the Government are doing about this.

In the last few days, I have received additional disturbing depositions, one of which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, will refer to in her remarks. I received evidence also about a Burmese artist who has been targeted, and I will send the depositions to the Minister, because they are outside the scope of the inquiry.

Let me end. With our national security interests and way of life threatened on a scale unparalleled since the 1930s and 1940s, democracies must act together in strong alliances to combat multipolar threats to our way of life. We are fools to take for granted our privileges and freedoms, including the right to think, to speak and to believe—even to live. All over the world, the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are under concerted attack. We have been far too complacent and dependent on the states which threaten us, and insufficiently focused on resilience. Transnational repression is a harbinger of far worse to come.

Our committee concluded that transnational repression risks undermining the UK’s ability to protect people who have sought safety within our borders, such as the witnesses to whom I have referred. But we also found that a failure to deal robustly with TNR and the malign activities of hostile states will also increasingly put the UK’s indigenous population at risk today. Debates such as this will bring the JCHR report to a wider audience and I hope that noble Lords who have participated—and I am grateful to them all—will circulate its findings far and wide. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I start by saying how grateful I am to noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, for the way in which he has engaged with the JCHR on this issue, and indeed to his colleague, Dan Jarvis, Member of Parliament, another Minister in the Government, who gave evidence to the committee. It has been constructive and we have made progress.

The noble Lord has felt some of the frustration around some of the issues, such as FIRS and sanctions—things on which he cannot give running commentaries, including the proscription of the IRGC. However, that begs the question I raised earlier on about how we as a Parliament deal with such difficult, sensitive and often controversial questions. They cannot be dealt with on the Floor of the House, but they can be in places such as the Intelligence and Security Committee. I hope that he will talk to his colleagues about how some dedicated moment in the course of the year might be set aside to look at those things, because he knows as well as I do that if the avalanche of issues that come before a committee rumbles on, you never get round to doing some of the other things you might like to do. Perhaps he can take that away specifically so that some of these questions could be looked at in more detail in more confidential surroundings, in camera and safeguarding national interests. That is something constructive that could come out of this.

The Minister said that this is a safe, open and democratic society. There is unanimity across your Lordships’ House that we want to keep it that way. I do not agree with him about the numbers. In fact, he said we need to look again at the data. We have underestimated the scale of transnational repression. If anything, this report and the debate have helped us to see the scale.

This is an excellent report. I congratulate everyone involved in its compilation. I only regret that my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, who is such a hard-working member of the committee, has now rotated off it. We were grateful to him for the contribution that he made to the report’s compilation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said that few people know what transnational repression is. She is quite correct. I hope that the report and today’s debate will help to put that right. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, complimented the witnesses who came before the committee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, emphasised the courage that many have shown, specifically those who wanted to waive their anonymity so that people would know what has happened to them.

Maiden speeches always give special definition to debates, and the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, certainly raised our debate. The noble Lord, Lord Cryer, said that we would all have to look to our laurels as a result of the noble Lord’s maiden speech; I agree. The noble Lord, Lord Isaac, brought together two things: his commitment to education and to human rights. Curiously, those two have conflated as we have heard about the threats to our universities. We heard that from the noble Lords, Lord Moore and Lord Young of Acton, and other noble Lords who contributed. This is something we have to return to. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern, the Universities Minister, is looking at this. She could do no worse than go back to the report compiled several years ago by the then Universities Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone. When I drew that report personally to the attention of his brother, who at the time was the Prime Minister, he said he was not even aware of it. Things have moved on and we need to be much more aware of the systemic subversion of our universities, which has been referred to today.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who is a long-standing friend, always emphasises the importance, as he did in his intervention a few moments ago, of resilience and getting rid of the dependency we have—billions of pounds of national debt every year. But it goes beyond the funding to the very heart and nature of our society. We have heard about FIRS, SLAPPs, red notices, Magnitsky sanctions, common definitions, the collection of data, how to reset diplomatic engagement, proscription of the IRGC and the rest. These are all important themes and I am glad that our committee was able to bring some of them out. I am grateful to all noble Lords who developed the arguments and delved deeper as we have proceeded.

I shall end on a personal reflection, which is that I always enjoy listening to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. We have talked today about maiden speeches. He may not remember but in 1979, a brash new young MP who had just been elected in a by-election and became the shortest-ever lived MP, for two and a half days flat, had to make his maiden speech within two hours of arriving because the House was being suspended so that people could go back and fight a general election. It fell to the noble Lord, then Jeff Rooker, to respond to the new youngest Member of the House of Commons and say nice things about him. He has always given me encouragement as the years have proceeded, and it is always a pleasure to hear him speak in debates such as our own today. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, will also feel encouraged by all the commendations that have been made to him from around your Lordships’ House. With those words, I conclude my remarks.

Motion agreed.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

472: After Clause 196, insert the following new Clause—
“Universal jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and ancillary conduct (England and Wales)(1) The International Criminal Court Act 2001 is amended as follows.(2) In section 51(1)—(a) after “person”, insert “, whatever his or her nationality,”;(b) after “war crime”, insert “in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.”.(3) Omit section 51(2).(4) In section 52(1)—(a) after “person”, insert “, whatever his or her nationality,”;(b) after “conduct”, insert “in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.”.(5) Omit section 52(4).”Member's explanatory statement
This new clause gives effect to the JCHR’s recommendation to amend the ICC Act 2001 to provide for the exercise of universal jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and ancillary conduct. This would allow for the authorities in England and Wales to prosecute persons suspected of these crimes without any requirement for a connection to the UK.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in moving all-party Amendments 472 and 473, I thank the co-sponsors and other supporters, who include the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws and Lady Hodgson of Abinger, my noble friends Lord Anderson of Ipswich and Lord Carlile of Berriew, and the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Clement-Jones.

These amendments have been recommended to the House in two separate reports of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I have the honour to chair. One of those arose from the legislative scrutiny of this Bill; the other was its report on how to deal with the atrocity crimes of Daesh against the Yazidis and other minorities. The recommendations and amendments of the JCHR were unanimous and enjoyed all-party support. They also enjoyed the strong support of the International Development Committee of the House of Commons and its chair Sarah Champion MP, and organisations such as Redress.

The Minister and others will have seen a letter from the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, signed by more than 30 of some of the most illustrious and distinguished practitioners in the field. These amendments are a response to what the JCHR saw as a justice gap. They are also compatible with practice in other jurisdictions and are limited in scope. They make a very small but indicative and incremental change by removing the requirement of UK citizenship and UK residence from Sections 51 and 58 of the International Criminal Court Act 2001. I will try to summarise the key arguments in favour of the amendments for the Committee, then tackle some of the misconceptions.

Under international law, the UK is already legally obliged to prosecute suspects of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes who are present on its territory regardless of nationality or residence. A failure to do so puts the UK at risk of becoming a safe haven for alleged perpetrators of international crimes. The rule of law is weakened when alleged perpetrators of genocide or crimes against humanity and war crimes can be here in the UK without facing justice, so this is about closing that justice gap.

These amendments give substance to the long-standing case for reform repeatedly raised since 2009 and are not directed at any particular country, individual or context. There is no concealed political agenda, and safeguards are included to ensure the continuation of prosecutorial oversight by the Crown Prosecution Service and the Attorney-General of decisions about whether to prosecute. They also make a reality of the often-repeated desire for the United Kingdom to reinforce and renew its claim to leadership in promoting the rule of law. We will be doing so by ending impunity for the gravest international crimes and by empowering British courts to act where alleged perpetrators of international crimes are present in the United Kingdom.

It is a mirage to cite the role of the International Criminal Court, as it cannot single-handedly provide accountability for international crimes, even before considering the use of vetoes by those who would not wish such crimes to be referred to that court. Capable national courts must share the burden, as the German courts have done, in successfully prosecuting the crime of genocide. Other comparable democracies already prosecute suspects present on their territory, and that option should be open to us too.

--- Later in debate ---

As for the other concerns I have mentioned, we might try to address them by providing the strict conditions under which our courts would exercise universal jurisdiction. Those conditions would be, first, if the individual in question could not be extradited to a foreign jurisdiction with a closer connection with the alleged offence of the alleged offender because of, for example, human rights bars; and, secondly, where the countries with closer connections with the offence or the offender do not have an independent judiciary. If we had those conditions spelled out, it would deal with some of the concerns that have been pointed out.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I ask the noble Lord to continue the discussions with those of us proposing this amendment today, but our amendment is not as ambitious as he suggests. I wish it were, but actually it is much more limited. On some of the points he raised about the kinds of people who could be brought for prosecution to the United Kingdom under universal jurisdiction more widely, yes, that could happen in a country like Germany, but it would not happen under this amendment. This is about people coming here and being able to do so with impunity rather than immunity, simply because we do not have any powers to arrest them or take them to court.

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

I appreciate that it is about only those who are within the jurisdiction, but a lot of officials come within the jurisdiction at different points in time and for different reasons. There was another case a few years ago in which I was also instructed, concerning the visit of the Egyptian head of intelligence to the United Kingdom. On that occasion, there was an attempt to arrest him, which failed, and his immunity was upheld. That is the sort of scenario where we need clarity.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I am very glad that my noble friend has raised that point, because it is very relevant. If, for instance, the Foreign Office were to say to the Attorney-General, “We are bringing someone here to have discussions about how to secure peace in Sudan”, but they might have been involved with the RSF or the Sudanese Army in some of the atrocities there, there would be no requirement to prosecute them, because in those circumstances the Attorney-General simply would not allow the prosecution to proceed.

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

It is not quite like that, because the Foreign Office would have to issue special permission for the person who came within the jurisdiction, and now that we have clarified the law, that would give that individual immunity. As for the Attorney-General’s decision not to consent, there is a risk that that could be subject to judicial review, and there have already been attempts in that space. But I agree that that is a very important procedural requirement, and it is already in the Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I accept that, and I thought I understood the noble Lord’s position clearly, but I am grateful for his clarification. It still adds to the general point that I have made today, and I go back to the original, overarching point that the UK applies universal jurisdiction to only a very few specific international crimes. Our approach—through long-standing support of successive Governments—is that, where there is no apparent link between the UK and an international crime, we support the principle that such crimes are best investigated and prosecuted close to where they are perpetrated. That may not be a position that satisfies the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, or his supporters today, but it is one which I hope I have clarified. I note also—which I did not mention earlier—the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for the general approach of the noble Lord, Lord Alton. With that, I ask him to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has participated in this important debate. I was particularly grateful, of course, to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, with her immense experience and as a colleague on the Joint Committee on Human Rights—we are beginning to miss her already, only one week after she rotated off the committee. This was a unanimous recommendation, not just in one but in two reports. We took evidence. This was not just about our inability to intervene in faraway places. We took evidence about British nationals who had been in north-east Syria and in northern Iraq and who had committed what even the Foreign and Commonwealth office has now decided was a genocide—it is willing now to use that word, which is very unusual on the part of the FCDO.

So we have the evidence. We know that 400 of the British fighters who went there came back, and not a single one has been prosecuted for the crime of genocide. Too often, there has been rank impunity. We also know that they have connections with other people who are not British citizens and who regularly travel to the United Kingdom. What this limited amendment seeks to do is not bring all those people before the British courts; it is about taking people who come into the UK with those kinds of links and bringing them to justice if the Attorney-General believes that there is a case to answer.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for reinforcing the argument, and I thank my noble friend Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, the noble Lords, Lord Verdirame and Lord Wigley, and my noble and right reverend friend Lord Sentamu. I wish we could have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, but I suspect there will be an opportunity on Report, and I hope that omission will be put right. Nevertheless, I was grateful to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, said about being willing to hear what she has to say but on a one-to-one basis. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, and of course the Minister himself.

Asylum and Immigration: Children

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The UK Government are committed to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I give that commitment to the noble Lord: that is what we are committed to. The policies that we are bringing forward, which are subject to consultation, will be in line with those policy objectives.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has been in correspondence with the Home Secretary about children who disappeared from asylum accommodation in the UK: not one or two, but dozens and dozens of children. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us when we might get an update on what happened to those children. Did they end up being exploited or trafficked when they disappeared? Every single one of those children’s lives matters. When will we be able to find out what happened to them?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. The last hotel that dealt with unaccompanied children was closed by the previous Government in January 2024. At the Home Office we are committed to working with local councils, the police and others to find out what has happened. It is a disgraceful episode that more than 472 children went missing from hotels up to January 2024. We think that about 428 children have now been found, following investigation, but that still leaves some 50 to 60 children who have gone missing. This Government will ensure that we work with local authorities, the police and third sector partners to locate those remaining children. We are going to try to make sure that that does not happen again, by changing the procedures under this Government.

Defending Democracy Taskforce

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend makes some valuable points. The Security Minister, the honourable Dan Jarvis, has already announced in November that he is co-ordinating a cross-government, counterpolitical interference and espionage action plan, which will report back to Parliament, in due course, from Ministers across government. A significant number of achievements have been made to date. I will take away my noble friend’s suggestions and report back to her in due course.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, on 30 July, the Joint Committee on Human Rights published its report on transnational repression. Can the Minister tell us what weight he attaches to its conclusion that the UK has become a hunting ground for authoritarian regimes around the world to harass and intimidate, and its finding that the Government are failing to provide adequate protections? In particular, what has he got to say about those Hong Kong residents in the UK, such as Chloe Cheung, aged 20, who has had a 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty placed on her head? What does he have to say about the evidence we received about Iranian pro-democracy activists in the United Kingdom, who have even had their lives put at risk by Iranian state agents?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

It is not acceptable for foreign nations to threaten individuals who happen to reside in the United Kingdom, and I condemn any actions taken by foreign nations to do that. As I have said to the noble Lord on a number of occasions previously, if there are particular individuals who wish to draw concerns to the attention of the Home Office, we will examine those concerns and look at how we can protect those individuals.

Shamima Begum

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his comments on this case. He will know that the decision of the UK Government has been upheld by UK courts, which we support. I cannot comment further. I explained to my noble friend prior to this Question coming up that I could not do this because there is currently a court case before the European Court of Human Rights and it would be inappropriate for me to go into individual cases given the ongoing litigation in this matter. However, the Home Secretary will never hesitate to use any of the powers available to her to safeguard national security, and the Home Secretary at the time who took this decision did so for that reason.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, without asking the Minister to go into individual cases, has he had a chance to read the report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, debated in your Lordships’ House back in September, on Daesh crimes? Has he seen the evidence that we were given that there is a distinction to be made, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has said, between children and adults? To leave children in festering conditions in camps in Syria is likely to lead to their being radicalised by groups whose interests are wholly opposed to the interests of the United Kingdom. Can we contrast the generalities around young people with the failure to prosecute any one of the 400 Daesh fighters who have been returned to the United Kingdom? As the Joint Committee pointed to, not one has been prosecuted for the crime of genocide, which even the British Government now say was committed against the Yazidis and others.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I respect the noble Lord and his representations, but the decision in relation to the individual case was taken having considered evidence and supported by both the previous Government and this Government. With the litigation that is currently ongoing in the European court, I cannot say much from this Dispatch Box. I hope that the noble Lord understands that; I would like to be able to give him further information, but I cannot.

The noble Lord will have noticed that this very weekend the UK Government took action against Daesh and will continue to do so. The prosecution issues that he mentioned are for the courts and the legal system and not for me as a Minister.

Facial Recognition Technology: Safeguards

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Government have invested over £12 million in supporting the development of facial recognition technology and have supported local forces in doing that. Ultimately, this is a decision for local forces at the moment. We want to see the outcome of the consultation, but I think that that it is an important use of technology to help prevent crime, catch criminals and find missing people. It is also used by police officers on their body-worn cameras to identify individuals when they say they are somebody but, actually, it can be proved that they are not. It is important tool, but the key questions are how we safeguard it, how we put regulations around it and what body will examine those regulations. We are looking at those in the consultation and I will take any representations from the noble Lord as part of that.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome what the Minister said about the importance of safeguards. He will have seen the report last week from Liberty and the Times, which found that, across 43 regional police forces, children as young as 12 have been caught by facial recognition. Will he confirm that he will talk directly to Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, who has expressed concern about this, and that the specific position of children, and their safeguarding and protections, will form an important part of the consultation?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Yes, my Lords.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

58: After Clause 48, insert the following new Clause—
“British National (Overseas) visa route: statutory protection(1) Notwithstanding section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971, the Secretary of State must, by regulations, ensure the continuation of the British National (Overseas) visa scheme as set out in the Immigration Rules HC 395 (“the BN(O) route”), including the pathway to settlement after five years of lawful residence.(2) The provisions of this section may not be repealed except by an Act of Parliament.” Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to place the BN(O) visa route, including the existing five-year path to settlement, on a statutory footing. It would require any substantial restrictions to the route — such as eligibility criteria or the qualifying period for settlement — to be made through regulations subject to the affirmative procedure, and would prevent the repeal of the route other than by primary legislation.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, first, I express my thanks to many noble Lords, both those in the Chamber this evening and others outside it. I felt a tsunami of good wishes and kindness since experiencing a routine bus journey to your Lordships’ House at 8.15 am one morning, after which I ended up with a broken back, concussion and various other things.

The following week, the noble Lord, Lord Katz, responded to a debate about a Joint Committee on Human Rights report, which I should have been moving; the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, moved it in my place. He said that it was odd that someone who was probably the most sanctioned Member of either House of Parliament, with four countries having sanctions against him, should end up being silenced by a London bus.

That meant that I was unable to speak not only in that debate but on the amendments in the group currently before the House. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, who is overseas this week, for introducing Amendments 58 and 61 in Committee. I particularly thank my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who kindly said that, if it got too late this evening, I would be released so that I could get a train—not a bus—back to the north of England. I am grateful to her.

I am particularly pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, on the ministerial Bench. He has been very kind to me over the intervening period in engaging with emails and the usual flurry of things that I tend to inflict on Ministers, so I am grateful to him.

In moving Amendment 58 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I should also mention that I am vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong and a patron of Hong Kong Watch. In 2017, I was part of the team that monitored the last fair and free elections in Hong Kong. As a result of that, I was sanctioned, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, something that I regard as a great honour—to have been sanctioned for something as important as the promotion of democracy in a place such as Hong Kong.

Going right back to my earliest days in the House of Commons, I visited Hong Kong in 1980, and I have huge admiration for people who have been part of the pro-democracy movement. I count Jimmy Lai as a friend. I know many of those who are currently languishing in prison in Hong Kong as pro-democracy activists. I have nothing but huge admiration for those who have been allowed to be settled in this country. I thank the previous Government for opening the way for Hong Kongers to be able to come, settle and play their part here as they continue to defend democracy.

I move this amendment in defence of a promise, made not just by Ministers of this Government, but by the United Kingdom itself. It is a promise rooted in law, in honour and in the moral fabric of our democracy. When Britain and China signed the Sino-British joint declaration in 1984, we pledged to the Hong Kong people, our fellow citizens, that they would enjoy their rights and freedoms under the rule of law.

When that pledge was broken by Beijing through the imposition of the national security law, we created the British national (overseas) visa route as a means of upholding our end of the bargain. That route is more than a bureaucratic mechanism; it is a covenant. It says to the people of Hong Kong, “If your freedoms are eroded, Britain will offer you sanctuary, stability and, ultimately, the chance to rebuild your lives in freedom”. The amendment simply seeks to protect that covenant, to put the BNO visa route on a statutory footing to ensure that the pathway to settlement after five years of lawful residence cannot be changed by ministerial whim or administrative convenience.

This is about trust. Hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers have sold homes, left careers and uprooted their families on the strength of this promise. They have enrolled their children in British schools, invested in our economy and enriched our communities. They have done so believing that this country stands by its word. To allow that route to be weakened, extended or quietly repealed by regulation would be a betrayal, not only of them but of Britain’s reputation as a nation of honour.

We have seen the power of this route. More than 230,000 people have already come to the UK under it. They are starting businesses, serving in the National Health Service, volunteering in our communities and contributing to civic life. They are an asset, not a burden. However, I have heard from many families who now fear uncertainty. I pay tribute to the Home Secretary, the right honourable Shabana Mahmood, for the statements she has made to try to reassure people, which have been very constructive and helpful. Nevertheless, there are rumours—unconfirmed but unsettling—about the possible tightening of eligibility or lengthening of the route to settlement, and those have created anxiety. People worry that what was promised as a five-year pathway could become 10; that the cost of visas and fees will rise beyond their reach; and that the scheme might one day close to new applicants altogether.

These families deserve better; they deserve certainty. That is why Amendment 58 provides that the scheme may not be repealed except by Act of Parliament. If there is ever to be a change, it should be done transparently, through primary legislation—debated and decided by both Houses, not slipped through in secondary regulations or quietly allowed to lapse. The Government have argued that flexibility is necessary to respond to changing global circumstances, but flexibility must not come at the expense of integrity. The Home Secretary should not be able, by regulation, to undo what was solemnly promised in the name of the United Kingdom. This is not an abstract issue. It goes to the heart of who we are as a nation. We stand at a time when the international rules-based order is under strain. From Ukraine to Taiwan, from Hong Kong to Tehran, authoritarian regimes test the world’s resolve. Britain’s word—our credibility—matters more than ever.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, spoke powerfully in Committee about the need for certainty for those who have built their lives here under this route. She reminded us that what we are offering is not a new privilege, but the honouring of a promise, and I entirely agree. We are not creating new rights: we are keeping faith with those who relied on our word. Let us recall what these families have fled. In Hong Kong today, people are imprisoned for peaceful protest, for journalism, or for simply lighting a candle in memory of Tiananmen Square. Civil society has been dismantled. The free press has been silenced. The rule of law has been subverted by decree.

The BNO route has been one of the few lifelines available to those who refuse to live under tyranny. It has been a quiet act of defiance, an assertion that Britain still believes in liberty. To dilute or imperil that route now would send the message not only to Hong Kong but to the world that Britain’s promises can be adjusted when convenient. I hope that we will not do that. There are those who argue that the route creates pressure on public services, and I acknowledge that concern; but we should also recognise the contribution of these new arrivals, which I have alluded to. When I meet Hong Kongers who have come under this scheme, I am struck by their gratitude and determination to give back. They see this country not as a temporary refuge but as a home, and they want to serve it.

By supporting this amendment, we reaffirm a simple truth: the promises made by Parliament should be changed only by Parliament. We would not tolerate a Chancellor quietly revoking a pension guarantee by regulation, nor should we tolerate the quiet dismantling of a visa promise made to hundreds of thousands of lawful residents. Some may ask why the amendment is necessary now. I would answer that it is because the trust of the people affected is not theoretical; it is real, it is personal, and it is fragile. Many of these families have known only broken promises from colonial powers, from authoritarian regimes, and from political leaders who said one thing and did another. Let us not add Britain’s name to that list.

In 1984, we gave our word. In 2021, we offered a route to keep it. In 2025, we must protect that route in law. If we fail to do so, we risk signalling to the world that Britain’s undertakings are conditional; its assurance, reversible; its word, negotiable. This House has often been at its best when standing up for principle over expedience. From the abolition of slavery to the defence of refugees, from Magna Carta to modern human rights, the thread that binds us is the belief that law should protect the vulnerable and restrain the powerful. That is what Amendment 58 seeks to do. It places a shield of legality around a promise of hope. Therefore, I ask noble Lords right across the House—whatever parties or groups they may be members of; whatever their views on broader migration policy—to please join me in supporting this amendment.

I will not detain the House by speaking at length on Amendment 61, but I am a signatory to it, and the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, is for good reasons unable to be here tonight. I commend to the House what he said in Committee and urge the Minister to look again at the position of people who have come from Ukraine and who have no immediate prospect of returning, especially those who are from areas that have been occupied by Putin and may never return to Ukraine. Women and children primarily are involved in that, and I tabled this amendment in Committee at the request of women and children from Ukraine. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, for his support for it, and I commend that to the House as well. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

Given the unique circumstances of this cohort, the flexibility of the Immigration Rules is in our view the more appropriate way, so I ask the noble Lord, Lord Alton, to withdraw the amendment in his name. I hope that your Lordships will forgive me for rather rushing through that; they were important issues, and I hope I have done them justice.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister has indeed done the issues justice. I am grateful to him, not least for the tone he adopted in the reply he gave to the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I made in our speeches about Hong Kong.

I heard what the Minister said about flexibility. That is one of the problems outside this place: people are worried about what “flexibility” might imply. However, if they read carefully what the Minister has just said, I think they will be reassured at some level.

I also heard what the Minister said about continuing to listen, and I will convey that message back to the all-party parliamentary group and to others who are interested in this. We might well take him and the team at the Home Office up on what I think was an invitation to continue to engage on this question.

The way in which the noble Lord has dealt with this amendment is exemplary, and I am grateful to him. As I say, I thought the tone was well struck. On the issue of the Ukrainian amendment, I will talk to his noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, when he is back here next week, and maybe we can go and see Ministers to talk about that situation. But they are different categories of people and the issues are separate.

If the Minister was worried about standing in the way of noble Lords and the Recess, I would be even more worried, so the noble Baroness will be pleased to hear that I have no intention of dividing the House. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 58 withdrawn.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I echo the remarks that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made about the blame game and the importance of us all working with the Government to do what we can to try to tackle the fundamental issues that are influencing the nature of this huge crisis. As I have said before—I repeat the figure now—117 million people are displaced in the world today. That is not the fault of the previous Government or this Government, but it is the reality. People will keep on coming, including from places such as Sudan, which was mentioned in the previous group of amendments.

I attended the All-Party Group on Sudan’s meeting at lunchtime today. The situation in Darfur is absolutely horrific. It is a place I have visited in the past. Two million people were displaced from Darfur, and 200,000 to 300,000 people have died there. If any of us were in Darfur, we too would try to leave, and we too would probably make dangerous journeys. Most people who leave Darfur travel through Chad. They try to get to Libya and to the Mediterranean. Most never even succeed in making that journey—they die on that part of the journey. If they get into the Mediterranean, they probably reach the seabed. If they make it to the continent, some of them finally get to the English Channel. We talk about this as our crisis, but it is their crisis as much as it is ours.

If we do not tackle the fundamental reasons why people are being displaced—for instance, the nature of the current, almost untalked-about war in Sudan that has led to this massive surge in the number of people leaving that part of the world, as is reflected in the figures that the Government publish about the people who are in these boats, coming from places such as Sudan—and if we do not tackle the root causes, this will keep coming round again and again, whoever the Government of the day may be. That is why I agreed with what was said in the previous group of amendments, and I reiterate the importance of finding international solutions.

The 1951 convention on refugees was right in its time—it needed to be drafted in the way it was drafted at the time—but we still need that convention. Yes, it probably needs to be reappraised. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has been thinking about this too, as well as looking at Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which the Minister and others have referred to. These things can be examined, as the Minister has said again and again today, but they can also be reformed. Indeed, nine countries, including Denmark, wrote an email to the European court and the Council of Europe—

[Lord German (LD)]

They did not send it to the right people.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Well, they sent an email. The noble Lord, Lord German, is right to point out, from a sedentary position, that it was perhaps not done through the most courteous of routes. However, the point is that those nine countries—Poland was another—are not illiberal countries and they are not led by people who have a hatred of European institutions. They were arguing that the time has come for international action to be taken by countries, collectively, to re-examine the things that we are signed up to, to see whether they are fit for the present time.

I want to say one other thing to those who have tabled these amendments. We have heard a lot about the Rwanda Act and the Illegal Migration Act. At the heart of that was the suggestion that that would be a deterrent and a safe place to which we would send people. Recently, I have been looking again at Rwanda to see what the situation there is at the moment. In its human rights assessment of Rwanda just a few weeks ago, the US Department of State said that Rwanda is raising

“arbitrary or unlawful killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; arbitrary arrest or detention; transnational repression against individuals in another country; serious abuses in a conflict; unlawful recruitment or use of children in armed conflict by government-supported armed groups; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including threats of violence against journalists, unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, and censorship; trafficking in persons, including forced labor; and significant presence of any of the worst forms of child labor”.

I am talking about Rwanda, and that is the US Department of State’s finding within the last few weeks. Recently, Human Rights Watch made a submission to the universal periodic review and reported on the use of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees from 2019 to 2024. I might add that the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ report on transnational repression—which is with the Minister at the present time, and I look forward to his response to that—identified Rwanda as one of the countries responsible for transnational repression. I point the Minister to those details.

Last but not least, we cannot forget about the involvement of Rwanda in atrocity crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with M23 raging on across eastern DRC. Earlier this year, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on International Law, Justice and Accountability that I chaired published a report on CRSV in the DRC and the abuses perpetrated by that group.

Let us be careful what we wish for. Let us understand the nature of those countries that we are going to send people to and that we say are safe places where people will be able to have good, prosperous and decent lives. Let us be realistic and honest about the nature of these things. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, reminded us that we will get to Amendment 110 from the Official Opposition, which is about lists and, indeed, we can then talk more about the countries that are on that list. Rwanda is on that list that the Official Opposition are pointing us towards.

I just want Members of the House to do what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said: we should stop blaming one another and trying to score political points and realise that this issue is now being exploited by people who have no great love of democracy and the rule of law and are taking people on to the streets and capitalising on this crisis. If we do not find solutions to this, I fear for the stability of our communities and the dangers to law and order and to the very vulnerable people whom I think all of us in this House are trying to protect.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for tabling Amendments 105 and 109. I apologise to the House: in the confusion over the vote we had on Clause 38 stand part, I inadvertently started to discuss not only Clause 38 stand part but, in the last set of discussions, some of the arguments on Amendments 105 and 109. We drifted into that inadvertently because I thought we had finished debating Clause 38, so I apologise to noble Lords if I repeat some of the arguments here.

I start with the very sensible suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. These are complex and difficult issues. We have an inheritance from 5 July last year when we took office which we have had to deal with. I am not seeking to make political capital out of this. I want to have solutions, and the solutions are to have a fair and effective migration system, to speed it up, to ensure that we deal with international obligations on asylum, to remove those people who have failed the asylum system, to remove foreign national prisoners who have abused our hospitality and the privileges of being in this country, to ensure that we have a thriving economy and to ensure that we meet the skill sets that we need for the United Kingdom to succeed. Where we can bring entrepreneurs and others who can offer skills to this country, we do so. As has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, there are many forces outside this House which seek to divide the United Kingdom to exploit these issues. It is imperative that we find concrete solutions.

One of the concrete solutions is the very point that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has made—and it has been echoed by the Liberal Democrat Front Benches—which is how we deal with the real funnel of pressures that are coming, which are driven by terrorism, starvation, war and poverty. People who make that journey and claim asylum have very often faced challenges that I could never imagine. We need to have international co-operation, because the United Kingdom cannot solve those issues alone. That is why my right honourable friend the Prime Minister met 51 countries in May of this year; has discussed with former European partners, which are still our neighbouring countries— France, Belgium and Holland—what the solutions can be; is working with the Germans; and wants to have some international action to stem that flow through the G7 and other bodies of people removing themselves from their home nations to seek asylum wherever it might be. It is an important issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, asked, “If not this, what is the deterrent?”. I do not want to repeat the issues today, but I have tried to set out the range and menu of measures that we are taking which we believe are going to add to that deterrence. However, the deterrence also demands that we take action against the criminal gangs that are leeching off that misery, poverty and desperation to ensure that they enrich themselves through criminal action. That is why we need international co-operation on a range of measures to focus on criminals who are using this to exploit people who are in a very vulnerable position. As of today, that may not be the deterrent that the previous Government potentially thought Rwanda was, but I think it is more effective.

Amendments 105 and 109 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Davies and Lord Cameron of Lochiel, seek to reintroduce the duty to remove measures in the Illegal Migration Act that we are repealing. I take the contribution from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, very seriously. For a duty to remove to be effective, there needs to be a destination where it is safe to remove people when their own country is not safe for them or where there are practical difficulties in proceeding with the removal and a host country needs to agree to accept those people. That is the fundamental challenge that I put back to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron.

Again, in the spirit of the instructions from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, to the House to deal with this in a sensible and noble way, I am not seeking to make difficulties for the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. I simply put it to him that the measures in Amendments 105 and 109 would mean that we would have to proceed with removal when there was nowhere to remove them to. That is the fundamental flaw in Amendment 109.

I repeat what I said in response to the general debate on Clause 38, that we have removed people who are unlawfully in the UK. We have seen that increase in the number of failed asylum seekers being removed. We have seen an increase in the number of foreign national prisoners removed—I have given the percentages to the House in every series of amendments we have had today, so I will not give them again now. The Government’s aim is to deliver a long-term and credible policy to ensure that we have a properly functioning immigration system. I say in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, that, yes, it means that we are going to have to occasionally examine things in August and September that we had not considered a year ago. That is because the situation changes. Situations change, and politics needs to change. The measures in the Bill repeal an unsuccessful scheme and try to put in other measures to meet the deterrence that the noble Lord wishes to see.

I urge the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, not to press his amendments and to examine in further detail the proposals that we are bringing forward to the House to achieve the objectives that we share.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group seek to understand why the Government have decided to remove key parts of the legal architecture that we say provided a robust legal framework for dealing with this issue. Amendment 110 seeks to reintroduce an essential power from the Illegal Migration Act which enables the Secretary of State to update, through regulation, the list of countries to which individuals can be safely removed. These are countries that meet the test of presenting no serious risk of persecution in general. I repeat the point that I made earlier: the test is “in general”. The provisions in the amendment allow that list to evolve with circumstance, reflecting real-world developments, legal reforms and international assessments.

The capacity to have that list is a crucial part of the architecture of deterrence, because the only way we will stop people risking their lives to come here illegally is if they know with certainty that doing so will not result in a permanent right to stay. That means that swift and lawful removals to safe third countries must be a central pillar of our strategy. To achieve that, we need a legal framework that enables such removals to happen. That is what this clause does; it gives the Government flexibility to respond to changing global conditions and build bilateral or multilateral returns agreements on a lawful, transparent and evidence-based footing. Without that power, our capacity to remove inadmissible claimants is drastically reduced.

It is not about denying protection to the vulnerable. Proposed new subsection (4) rightly requires the Secretary of State to have regard to the legal, social and political context of any country before designating it as safe. It allows for targeted assessments—for example, recognising where certain groups might still face harm, even if others do not. As I have suggested, this is a balanced, evidence-led provision which allows us to remove those with no right to stay, while also upholding our obligations to those who genuinely need refuge. Amendment 120 works in conference with Amendment 110 and sets out the list of safe third countries to which I have already referred. To conclude, we cannot reduce illegal migration by making it easy to stay. We reduce it by making it clear, through law and through action, that illegal entry will not be rewarded. We hope the Government can set out why they have now abandoned that strategy.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I return to something I said in the earlier groups of amendments. The country that is at the heart of so much of this debate and previous debates is Rwanda. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has introduced his amendments with customary coherence but, ultimately, I do not think he has thought through some of the countries he is talking about. He certainly has not responded to the points that were made earlier about Rwanda.

It is not just about Rwanda. The problem is that this is about generalities, and we are required by the obligations that we have entered into to get down to specifics. I shall give one illustration of what I mean by that from another example in this long list in Amendment 120—that is, the country of Nigeria. The Joint Committee on Human Rights report, referred to in earlier proceedings on this Bill, quotes the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as saying that,

“while designation of safe countries may be used as a procedural tool to prioritise or accelerate the examination of applications in carefully circumscribed situations”,

which is really what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, was saying to us, and I do not think that there is conflict about that,

“it does not displace the requirement for an individualised assessment of an asylum claim”.

The UNHCR notes that the risk of refoulement in the absence of individualised assessments is unacceptable. I refer the noble Lord, if I may, as well as the Minister when he comes to respond, to paragraph 122 of the Joint Committee on Human Rights report that deals with that.

The JCHR concluded that it shared the concerns of its predecessor committee—because this is not a new issue; it has been around for predecessor committees. I look at the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, because she and I seem to have gone around this course many times over the past few years. It said:

“We share the concerns of our predecessor Committee that, whilst the states listed may be considered safe in general, this does not guarantee the safety of all individuals from these states, especially those who are members of particular social groups facing persecution. It must be possible for such individuals who face a real risk of persecution upon return to make a protection or human rights claim which must be considered on its merits in order to guard against the risk of refoulement. If the Government chooses to bring section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act into force, it should, at the very least, periodically review the list of safe states, with a particular consideration of the rights of minority groups”.


Again, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, accepted that there would be regular review, but I would like him to respond further, when he comes to reply to the group of amendments, on how he looks at the position of minority groups in some of these countries. These are not just groups that are defined by issues such as ethnicity, religion, gender or orientation: it is also about what happens inside particular countries. A country such as Nigeria may be safe, and that is the example that I shall turn to in a moment, if you are in Lagos or Abuja, but it is not necessarily safe in Benue state or northern Nigeria—depending, again, on aspects of your background. How will that be dealt with in a list of this kind?

I have a dislike of these kinds of lists anyway, as a principle. I do not know that they help matters. We should look at every single case and country on the merits of the arguments. These are things that we should keep abreast of without having to draw up lists. I shall give a specific example of the dangers of this one-size-fits-all approach in what can be variable conditions, depending on many issues—everything from minority ethnicity or religion to gender or orientation. It is an issue that I raised in the debates on the Nationality and Borders Bill, when we were debating it on 8 February 2022, and again on Report on the Illegal Migration Bill, and I refer to Hansard of 5 July 2023.

I cited the case of Mubarak Bala, president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, who was sentenced to 24 years in prison for so-called blasphemy committed on Facebook. Nigeria is one of 71 countries that criminalise blasphemy, and as long as those laws exist people will face persecution, prosecution and imprisonment. As I have said, some will even face the possibility of death and be pushed to find safe haven abroad. During those debates, I also raised the case of Usman Buda, a Muslim, who was murdered in Sokoto state in north-west Nigeria because it was alleged that he had blasphemed. I raised the case of the lynching of Deborah Emmanuel, a Christian, at Shehu Shagari College of Education, again following an unsubstantiated accusation of blasphemy.

Last year, I raised the plight in your Lordships’ House of Nigerian Christians in the northern and middle belt states and pointed out that some 82% of Christians killed for their faith in the previous year were in Nigeria—4,998 Christians were slaughtered, with 200 murdered during the Christmas services in 2023. The highly respected voluntary organisation and charity Open Doors reports that

“Christians in Nigeria continue to be terrorised with devastating impunity”

with

“abductions for ransom, sexual violence and death … leaving a trail of grief and trauma”.

I met Dominic and Margaret Attah, who were survivors of the Boko Haram Pentecost attack at St Francis Xavier Church in Owo, where 30 were murdered. Margaret’s legs had been blown off. She wanted to know why nobody had been brought to justice. I asked the then Minister, who told me in reply:

“We continue to call for those who committed this attack to be brought to justice and held to account”.


Needless to say, they have not been brought to account. Nor have the abductors of Leah Sharibu, who was abducted on 19 February 2018 by ISIS West Africa from the Government Girls Science and Technology College in Dapchi, Yobe State. Leah was told to convert; she refused, and was raped, impregnated and enslaved. She is still held captive. I promised her mother, Rebecca, who I showed around your Lordships’ House, that I would lose no opportunity to raise her case. I have done so on a number of occasions with Ministers.

When I see that this country is safe, according to the amendment, to send men back to, I wonder what will happen to these men if they come from a particular religious group or one that holds a set of views that are unacceptable, or a group that is defined by their sexual orientation. The Government’s travel advice contradicts the presumption that it is safe, particularly for gay men:

“Same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Nigeria with penalties of up to 14 years in prison. Some northern states observe Sharia Law which can prescribe the death penalty for same-sex sexual activity … Same-sex relationships are generally viewed as socially unacceptable in Nigerian society. There is an increased risk of violence, attacks and threats, such as blackmail and intimidation against anyone being thought to be part of the LGBT+ community or supporting their rights”.


This advice is based on facts, not wishful thinking that adding Nigeria to this list will somehow make it a safe country. We have got to follow facts and evidence. Similarly, atheists face significant risks, including discrimination, marginalisation, ostracism, violence and, as I said, potentially death, particularly in the northern states. No differentiation is made in this list between different parts of the country. No distinction is made according to people’s minority status. It demonstrates the dangers of drawing up lists of this kind. I plead with the Official Opposition to give this further thought before we are perhaps asked to vote on this on Report, which I hope we will not be.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

It is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and his detailed introduction to Amendment 120. I will start there and then very briefly go back to Amendment 110. I will not repeat what I said earlier or what he has just said.

I have checked every single country on the list where it says, in brackets, “in respect of men”. All of them have similar approaches to gay men in particular, as the noble Lord described. There are a number of European countries that are now doing that, including Hungary and Slovakia. When I was last in Bratislava, we went to place some flowers where a friend of a local had witnessed her two colleagues being shot as they went into a bar. It includes Moldova and a number of other countries which are becoming extremely intolerant.

Going back to Amendment 110, the detailed descriptions in proposed new subsection (3) which start with sex, language and race are helpful, but they are exclusive. They exclude key protected characteristics which we and our courts recognise in this country. Can the Official Opposition say whether there is a particular reason for doing that? For example, the protected characteristic is “religion or belief”, not just religion. There is gender reassignment, sexual orientation and pregnancy and maternity, which is extremely important for not just adult women but young girls, who may be returning to a place where young girls are traded for marriage and pregnancy. The last remaining two are age and—I am sorry to say I do not find this here—disability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but perhaps I may raise a point which he has referred to but which has not been referred to in the debate, which is “part of a country”? Is it possible to be assured that if one is returning someone to a country where in one part there is a problem, that country—through its internal procedures—will not move somebody into that part?

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I am very happy to butt in and to say that was exactly the point I wanted to make. The noble Lord referred us to subsection (1) in the amendment and the phrase “in general”. That in itself needs to be fleshed out as to what it really means. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has asked the right question.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their interventions. “In general” is a well-known phrase; it is used in the 2002 Act and in this subsection. If one is to imagine a Secretary of State taking a decision, it has to be a generalised decision. It has to take into account a general view of whether that country, or part of that country, is safe.

In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I would say what the “part of a country” aspect allows the Secretary of State to do is to specify in the list—which is an evolving list—whether one part of the country is safe.

In light of everything that has been said—I am grateful for all the thoughtful contributions from across your Lordships’ House—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 10th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 95 is about the use of information supplied by HMRC. I acknowledge that many—possibly most—people believe that if information is given to a government official in one part of government, the Government as a whole have it. That is not the case, and we do need to take care with protecting data. Clause 28(1) allows for the use of any of an organisation’s functions, and the amendment would limit it to the functions for which the information is supplied, it being for the purpose of any other functions of the persons in in subsection (3).

I have explained that extraordinarily badly. This comes of thinking that you can write brief notes instead of a complete speech, which I try and avoid for Committee. I refer noble Lords to the authority of the Bill. Basically, I want to limit the use of information provided under the Bill and to ask the Minister how this will work, how it will be policed and what sanctions, what remedies, there are if information is misused.

Amendment 190—in his absence, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson—raises again the issue of a firewall to protect vulnerable people. I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Katz, is going to hear a repetition of points that I made on the Employment Rights Bill, because they are relevant here too. The objective is to protect workers who are in particular need of protection because of the abuse, the exploitation, they are experiencing. The amendment would restrict the use of information disclosed for enforcement purposes—enforcement against abuse or exploitation—regarding a subject of abuse who is seeking support, and of information regarding a witness to that exploitation. I shall return to witnesses in a moment.

I became aware during the passage of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 of the conditions to which some overseas domestic workers were subject. Slavery was the right term for them, and a change in the rules was made. It was minor and, frankly, quite inadequate. Our law did not and does not protect migrant workers—not just domestic workers but those in agriculture, care, health and so on—as it should. They are particularly vulnerable to abuse, not just because of the consequences if their existence comes to the attention of immigration authorities, but because of their fear of the consequences. People who do not know their way around the system, who are in fear of any authority figure, are very open to unscrupulous employers who can make threats—the threats may have no foundation at all—that the person may be detained or deported, or that the person’s children will be taken away, so they cannot take the risk of reporting abuse and exploitation. I am told by the sector that this fear is not ill-founded. There is evidence that data is often shared between labour market enforcement agencies, the police and Immigration Enforcement.

The current situation has a widespread effect: mistrust by migrant communities prevents police and labour inspectors doing their job properly, which drives down conditions for all workers. It is not impossible to deal with this. Secure reporting has been implemented in the Netherlands and Spain. I understand that Surrey Police has implemented a firewall, and the Greater London Authority is undertaking a pilot. During Committee on the Employment Rights Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, mentioned that the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration found that allegations raised during inspections were not investigated by the Home Office. As she said, the rights of all workers are only ever as strong as those of the most vulnerable.

One comment made during that debate was that nobody should fear. Another comment—with which, of course, I agree, and which came from the Conservative Benches—was that one of the gravest human rights abuses is modern slavery and human trafficking, and that vulnerable individuals risk slipping through the gaps. The Minister on that Bill argued that blocking information-sharing

“could have unintended consequences and make it harder for the vulnerable individuals concerned to get the help they need and deserve”,

and that the right balance was

“between protecting vulnerable workers and maintaining the integrity of our immigration system.” ”—[Official Report, 18/6/25; col. 2078.]

I would argue that the system actually deters those vulnerable workers from seeking protection, and the clear view of those working in the sector is that the current position is to their very considerable detriment.

The immigration White Paper states:

“We recognise the challenges migrant victims of domestic abuse can face”—


“domestic” is quite a wide term in this context—

“and we will strengthen the protections in place to support them to take action against their abusers, without fear of repercussion on their immigration status.”

This is an opportunity to make an adjustment that would make a very considerable difference to people who do not always get the help they deserve from those who are in a position to make that difference.

The Conservative Front Bench has tabled Amendment 188. I am really intrigued as to why it wants to amend the Data Protection Act, given paragraph 4 of Schedule 2, which we on these Benches have often opposed. We will see. I beg to move.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will be brief, because I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, particularly about the position of domestic migrant workers. This is something we will come back to at later stages of the Bill, but as the noble Baroness has raised it now, I just put on record how much I agree with her. The noble Lord, Lord German, and I recently met with Kalayaan, which does so much extraordinary, wonderful work in this field. We were reviewing with it how things have changed—and what else needs to be changed—in the years that have passed since 2015. I have with me a publication it issued called 12 Years of Modern Slavery, the Smoke Screen Used to Deflect State Accountability for Migrant Domestic Workers.

I know that the Minister agrees with Kalayaan’s 2015 findings, because there is a photograph of the Minister and me, both of us looking considerably younger, alongside our redoubtable friend, now retired from this place, Lord Hylton. We were celebrating the passage of the 2015 legislation but recognising that more still needed to be done. I will not quote at length from the report. If the Minister has not seen it, I will be more than happy to share my copy with him, so that he can study the photographs and see the effects of too much engagement with Bills such as this.

The report says:

“Government data tells us that from 2005 to 2022, the number of visas issued to migrant domestic workers has remained consistent at around 20,000 per year”,


so this does affect a significant number of people doing significant work. Kalayaan urged the Government to take immediate steps to amend the Immigration Rules and reinstate the rights provided for under the pre-2012 visa regime. Among those is the right to renew a domestic worker visa annually, subject to ongoing employment. That is a reasonable demand. I hope that at some stage during the proceedings on the Bill, the Minister will see whether there is a way to address that issue. So I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has said.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on a couple of the amendments in this group.

I was listening very carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said on the information-sharing provisions in Clauses 27 and 28, which her amendment refers to. It would be helpful, certainly for me, if the Minister when he responds could be clear about the scope of those two clauses. My reading of Clauses 27 and 28 is that the HMRC data that is allowed to be shared under those provisions is that gained purely through its customs functions, not through its other activities. I am unclear about how that would help—or not—in the very important issues that the noble Baroness raised about the protection of workers and, rightly, the need to crack down on those who abuse people’s immigration status and employ them when they have no right to work in this country.

I very much support strengthening the law in this area and sharing information to support that, but I am unclear on the customs function. The customs data helps strengthen the case about combating organised criminal groups and their transporting of funds and the supplies they use to do this trafficking. That seems to be the purpose of the clause, so it would be helpful if the Minister could flesh that out.

I strongly support my noble friend’s Amendment 188. Whether we support them or not, we should go back to the purposes of the GDPR and the human rights legislation, particularly the GDPR data. The intention of that legislation is absolutely right—that we protect the information of people who are legitimately in the country. However, we should not use that legislation to protect those who are here illegally or who are criminals trafficking in human beings and abusing our laws. It would be much more helpful if that legislation was not used to protect them. Therefore, I very much support my noble friend’s amendment. I know he will set it out in more detail; I just wanted to add my support and to raise the question that arose from the noble Baroness’s contribution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I will say a couple of words in support of these amendments from my noble friend. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, just remarked, it is not as if these changes would be difficult to make: the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred to them as simple improvements to the process. My noble friend referred to the current summit: to be honest, I have not seen the results, as I was in meetings all morning. Are there any yet? It has obviously been widely trailed that President Macron will talk about improving the reception by this country of applicants for family reunion. It would be perhaps a little ironic—well, there would be a nice coincidence of efforts—if, from this side, we are proposing simple improvements in process and we also have an ally in President Macron, who is saying, “Please simplify and streamline your family reunion efforts”. That would be a nice entente amicale.

I will make a point that I am not sure any of the other speakers have, which is made in our briefings. Families often become separated, so not only does a family together have to make possible multiple journeys but dispersed members of a family, including children, might have to make multiple trips from different locations. So you are multiplying the risks and the possibility of violence and distress. I think my noble friend referred to one in five families saying they had to resort to using smugglers to reach the visa centre. Well, surely one of the major purposes of the Bill, which we all support, is to try to put the smugglers and people traffickers out of business. Here is a government policy that is helping to give people smugglers more business—we regret it, but it is the reality—which you could avoid by the simple shortcut of making biometrics collectable other than at visa centres and not requiring at least two journeys. The thought of a lone woman or a family with children having to expose themselves to all the threats to safety that we can imagine and are told about is really unconscionable, when it really would not take a great deal of effort by the Home Office to keep people safer, streamline the process and satisfy President Macron, as well as us, all at the same time.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, whether or not President Macron is tuned into our debate today and supportive of what noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, has just said, she will be glad to know, as I was, that the British Red Cross says:

“Extending the relevant clause to include refugee family reunion would ensure families, including children, were able to provide biometrics outside a visa centre and significantly reduce the risks encountered to reach visa centres”.


That was the point that my noble friend Lord Kerr was making during his very good speech—his remarks were eminently sensible, as always—and the invitation to try to extend that provision is long overdue.

The Red Cross interviewed 215 people—100 families. I will summarise just three things that it found:

“Just under half of the people found the journey difficult … 1 in 5 families said they had to resort to using smugglers to reach the visa centre … Just under 60 percent of families were displaced before or during the application process.”


The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, gave an example from Iran. I will give an example, if I may, from the Red Cross, from Sudan. Between 2003 and 2005, I travelled to Darfur. During that genocide, 300,000 people were killed there and 2 million people were displaced. Here we are in 2025 with the war in Sudan, which is often overlooked because events in the Middle East and in Ukraine are so high on our agendas. It has been appalling to see the horrific number of deaths and displacements again in Sudan. It is not surprising, therefore, that Sudan is probably top of the list of those who end up in the small boats trying to cross the English Channel.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I just have a few points to make on the amendments and the contributions that have been made, which I hope means that the Minister can make sure he covers them when he responds.

On the first two amendments, on family reunion, I support the concept and did a lot to support it when I was Immigration Minister. Just to give a balanced argument, though, it is important that we collect biometric information to make sure that the people who are applying are who they say they are. That is of course the reason why—the Minister will confirm this—it is important to get the biometric information before the application is submitted, so that you know that the person making the application is indeed entitled to do so. Clearly, it would be helpful to make it easier to collect that biometric information.

Of course, one challenge with the list of countries read out earlier by noble Lords is that we often do not have our own personnel in those countries, for very sensible reasons. In making it safer for those applying for family reunion, we must obviously be mindful of the risks that might be run by British officials in collecting the biometric information. There are some countries where it would be problematic to do so, because we simply do not have people. I am therefore not sure that it is quite as straightforward as some noble Lords have suggested, but I suspect that, given the progress of technology and the point made by the noble Lord, Lord German—that a lot of this equipment is now much more advanced, portable and transportable—we can make some improvements. I will therefore listen carefully to what the Minister has to say about how we can make things easier for people with a legitimate family reunion claim, while also maintaining our border security.

I want to pick up on one point that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, made—I understand why he made it—about data protection and protecting the rights of children. I think there is a bit of a danger here of focusing on the process and forgetting what the point is. If a child, someone over 16 but under 18, is coming to the United Kingdom in order to get to a safer location, we obviously need to be satisfied that they do not present a risk and are not a criminal or a terrorist from abroad—we know, of course, that in many countries, you can be those things while still being a child. If we are not careful and we overdo the GDPR aspect, for example, the danger is that we will not take the biometric data from the child, or that the circumstances will be such that doing so is problematic. In not doing so, we would not then be able sensibly to give that child safe protection in the United Kingdom—we would be cutting off our nose to spite our face.

There is a balance to strike here. If the point of the exercise is that that child is able to get a successful asylum claim and come to the United Kingdom and be safe, we should not let what are otherwise sensible information protections get in the way. There is a risk of missing the point, and there needs to be a bit of proportionality and balance here.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I agree with the general thrust of the argument the noble Lord, Lord Harper, is putting to the Committee. He talked about getting the balance right, and that is really what I was arguing. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that these are children or young people, and we owe them a duty of care. We should get the balance right and not categorise them all as potential criminals or as having been involved in acts of terror or criminality. However, I recognise that there is that potential, and therefore, as he says, we have to get the balance right. We do not want a general disapplication of protections. We want to know that they are going to be used in a measured and sane way.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

As a supplement to that, I add that the balance is already there in the international standards, in things such as making sure there is an appropriate adult present. That does not harm any of the ambitions of the noble Lord. It is just what we would normally expect for minors.

--- Later in debate ---

There are ways around that challenge which we are trying to examine, to see where they can be approved. However, in the context of family migration reunion today, I respectfully hope that noble Lords will reflect on what I have said, as we will reflect on what they have said. For the moment, I hope they feel able not to press their amendments. I give way to the noble Lord.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I am grateful to the Minister. He will recall the example I gave of a two year-old boy in Sudan wanting to be reunited with his grandmother. It took 11 months to do that, and it required the transportation of information half-way across Africa in order to achieve it.

Will the Minister look at the countries generating the largest number of migrants who end up in boats in the channel, on irregular journeys, as some would put it—we all know that Sudan is one of the foremost of those countries—and see if we can do more to prevent people leaving in the first place by dealing with issues like family reunion in a more expeditious manner? I am not asking him necessarily to come forward with amendments to that effect, but even if he were to facilitate further discussions between his department and particularly the FCDO to see how that might be generated, that would be helpful to the Committee.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I will let my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti speak and then respond.