Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Beith) (LD)]

Amendment 166 having not been moved, I cannot call Amendments 167 to 171.

Amendments 172 and 173 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Beith) (LD)]

Amendment 173 having not been moved, I cannot call Amendment 174.

Amendment 175

Moved by

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Amendments 30 to 32 not moved.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Beith) (LD)]

Amendment 32A is a manuscript amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. It is quite long, so I do not propose to read it out unless any noble Lord wishes that to be done. I invite the noble Lord to move the amendment.

Amendment 32A

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not sure whether we are actually debating this or not, because I do not think the chair has put it to us. However, I will say in one sentence that both the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, have a point that this is an important provision. We should be building into planning legislation —into licensing legislation—arrangements to design out terrorism and, I would go further, to design out crime.

I hope that the Minister will be able to say in reply that that is something the Government will bring forward in another way, at another time.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Beith) (LD)]

The noble Lord has correctly picked up on my error. The matter is before the House and the amendment has been moved.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Lord Beith Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th February 2025 Lords Chamber

To conclude, all these amendments are intended to shape, constrain and control the environment in and purposes for which the novel powers in the Bill can be used, and to require more justification of those powers when they are used.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Beith) (LD)]

If this amendment is agreed to, I will not be able to call Amendments 6, 8 or 27A by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to one of the many amendments in this group, Amendment 13, which in essence is perhaps a more balanced version of the amendment tabled in Committee. This more balanced amendment seeks to ensure complete and utter equivalence and transparency, whether the Government decide—for reasons that have to be stated, clear, transparent and the result of consultation—to align with the EU or with any other country or group of countries. It is simply to try to make sure there is complete equivalence and transparency, with no hidden agendas, no constitutional crisis, as the noble Lord, Lord Frost, described it, in understanding the rationale behind the decisions that are taken. As I stated at Second Reading and in Committee, however people may interpret my intentions, they are decidedly Cross-Bench and apolitical. I have no interest in revisiting some of the painful politics and turbulence of the last decade or so, which this country has willed on itself.

In relation to the specific amendment, what is really driving this is what I think should be paramount: the interests of the country, obviously. In an instance such as this, I personally regard the interests of the country to be predominantly to do with the views of the businesses most directly affected by these regulations. The organisation that I think has taken the closest interest in this and has been talking to its members in great detail about it is the British Chambers of Commerce. Your Lordships may or may not be aware that I should declare an interest in that its president is a fellow Cross-Bencher, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox. It did an extensive survey of its membership, which was published just before Christmas. I remind your Lordships that the chambers represent about 50,000 businesses across the UK, which employ about 6 million people and have an aggregate turnover across all the companies involved of about £600 billion per annum—a not inconsiderable part of the economy.

The views of the membership are pretty clear. They are in no way ideological about this, but there is a clear view on the part of a majority of the businesses that, in many instances, alignment with the EU is in the direct interests of their businesses and employees, particularly if they wish to grow their businesses. Many are involved in exports—and imports—to the European Union, which continues to be their single largest export market. They have an understandable wish for the ability to grow their businesses to be as easy as possible. What has happened over the past few years has, in many cases, made it a great deal less easy than they would wish.

There is, therefore, a very clear stated wish. They have come up with a wish list that they hope the Government will focus on. It is interesting that one thing they said should be a medium-term view relates specifically to the Bill that we are discussing. They say that the UK should build on the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill to facilitate alignment of UK regulation with relevant—but only where it is relevant—primary, secondary and tertiary EU decisions in the traded goods sectors. That does not deny the fact that, in some areas and in some sectors and instances, it will not make sense to align with the EU. The point that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, made—and I am sure others will make—about having the ability to align with other countries or groups of countries is entirely open to the Government to do. I think, however, that they will do that only as a result of careful consultation with the interested bodies. They would then have to make a judgment call on what is in the best economic interests of the UK in terms of which direction they go in.

That is quite simply what this amendment is about. It is meant to promote growth. Those businesses are looking for greater predictability, transparency and consultation—the feeling that they have actually been listened to. Above all, what I think they are looking for—and what sometimes one senses, from some of the interventions on this Bill, is missing—is rebuilding a sense of genuine trust between those who may have slightly different views about the direction that we should take on issues such as this, as well as a relationship that is more trust-based and transparent and where dialogue is easier with some of the bodies, including the EU but also those other countries that we might align with, than has been the case hitherto.

King’s Speech

Lord Beith Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, the gracious Speech makes only limited reference to the criminal justice system and none to the crisis within it, but, even as it was being prepared, delivered and debated, the Government were making some significant steps. One that we have heard more detail on this afternoon is the release of 5,500 prisoners, not as part of a developing policy on the effective use of custody but as a crisis response to the fact that the prisons are full. This is clearly a disgraceful inheritance from the Tory Government and one that the Government have tackled with difficulty. However, the current Government cannot escape all blame for the situation: Labour ramped up the rhetoric on locking people up some years ago, which set a trend that has continued since and needs to be reversed.

One positive thing that the new Government have done is to appoint a Prisons Minister with knowledge, commitment and practical experience in rehabilitating offenders, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson. I congratulate him on his Maiden speech. I also welcome the appointment of our respected colleague the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, to the department, and the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, with whom I worked on these issues when we were both in the Commons. These Ministers will need firm backing at Cabinet level for the steps they will need to take to end the chaos and redesign the system with the objective of reducing crime, not of winning headlines for talking tough.

I draw the Minister’s attention to the report on community sentences from our Home Affairs and Justice Committee, and I apologise that I cannot be at Friday’s debate, when he will hear more about it from my noble friend Lady Hamwee. I also commend the House of Commons Justice Committee’s report, Public Opinion and Understanding of Sentencing. That is the issue I want to touch on now.

Parliament proposes, the Sentencing Council interprets, and judges and magistrates impose sentences, which may include custody. Custody is a massively expensive and huge commitment of resources, in a criminal justice system that is desperately short of resources, but it has often been the most readily available option. In a particular court area, there may not be a combination of measures that could be effective in dealing with an offender, so custody becomes the alternative.

Why does our system put and keep in prison more people than any other system in a western European democracy? There are several reasons for imprisonment. The first reason is the protection of the public from dangerous and violent offenders, but that protection is necessarily limited by the fact that most offenders will eventually be released, and therefore need the prison system to provide—the second reason—rehabilitation by means of courses, training and other activity that can reduce reoffending. An overcrowded and understaffed prison system cannot do this. The third reason for custody is the belief that the risk of a prison sentence is a deterrent. There are some crimes for which that may be true, but some of the crimes we are most anxious to deal with do not fall into that category: domestic violence is not cured or prevented by the fear of a prison sentence, nor is much alcohol or drug-related violence.

We need to recognise that there is a fourth factor—a powerful one—promoting the inappropriate use of custody: prison sentence and its length is used by the public and the media as a yardstick by which to measure the relative seriousness with which we take any particular offence. Custody and its length are used as a proxy for disapproval and for indicating how seriously we take a crime. That distorts the effective use of the remedies that are available. Relying on a community sentence, however effective, is seen as not taking a crime seriously enough.

This is compounded by newspapers. I refer to an article in a newspaper that takes all these issues seriously and is working on them: the Times, which has a commission on justice. Last Thursday, we had the headline:

“Asylum seekers who snatched Rolex watch walk free”.


It is that “walk free” that so distorts the debate. In fact, they were given five-year criminal behaviour orders, subjected to six-month curfews, required to live in Home Office accommodation, required to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and 40 hours of rehabilitation, and banned from the City of Westminster. That does not sound like walking free to me.

This makes me reflect on the other side: I am not convinced that four-year or five-year prison sentences for disruptive but non-violent environmental protesters is a very good use of scarce resources. We need to develop the understanding that the way to take crime seriously is to make sure that the sentence is likely to reduce reoffending. That is the measure. I hope that the new Ministers can encourage rational debate on this issue so that we can start to use custody where it needs to be used and not abuse it when other things would work better.

Angiolini Inquiry Report

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Is it not lamentable that recommendation 14 had to be written at all in the 21st century? Frankly, it is pathetic that we still have to have this conversation about such behaviour. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that this is about leadership and culture, and the Home Secretary was extraordinarily explicit on that subject, as I referenced earlier. The culture change has to come from the top; leaders are responsible for setting the standards, and we obviously expect them to keep pushing for improvements to be made across policing.

The recommendation is directed at police forces. It is important to remember that there is local accountability via the office of the police and crime commissioner, and that local accountability absolutely should be engaging with all sectors the community—the people who elect them, after all—to do precisely that. However, the Government have invested in the College of Policing’s National Centre for Police Leadership, which has already set out national standards for leadership at every level. That has to be embedded across forces, so that officers at every rank know what is expected of them and what development they need to get there. That also goes back to a question that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, asked me about consistency, which I did not answer: she is 100% right that there is a lack of consistency across police forces. Of course, when all ranks are trained nationally, that will introduce the element of consistency that we clearly need.

I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford. However, as the recommendation is directed at police forces, I have to maintain the operational independence line, as it is entirely appropriate that police forces should be free from central government control. Nevertheless, there is local control that could certainly exercise the type of oversight that the noble Baroness wants.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to local accountability. Is he satisfied that the various assurances and procedures that he described will apply to the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and other forces that do not have local accountability?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord raises a good point. The Civil Nuclear Constabulary comes under the atomic energy people—I forget their precise title—and was referenced in Lady Elish’s report. I have not been party to the conversations that are going on there; I imagine that they are ongoing, and I would like to report back in due course, when I can. Obviously, I cannot say more at the moment.

Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Beith Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Yes. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, says, “Don’t get too excited”, and he is right.

I now turn to the government amendment in this group, Amendment 46. This proposed new clause amends the Investigatory Powers Act’s bulk equipment interference regime to ensure that sensitive journalistic material gathered through bulk equipment interference is subject to increased safeguards. Currently, Section 195 of the IPA requires that the Investigatory Powers Commissioner be informed when a communication containing confidential journalistic material or sources of journalistic material, following its examination, is retained for any purpose other than its destruction.

This amendment introduces the need for independent prior approval before any confidential journalistic material or sources of journalistic material are selected, examined, and retained by the intelligence agencies. It also introduces an urgency process within the new requirement to ensure that requests for clearance to use certain criteria to select data for examination can be approved out of hours.

The Government recognise the importance of journalistic freedom and are therefore proactively increasing the safeguards already afforded to journalistic material within the IPA. In doing so, we are also bringing the IPA’s bulk equipment interference regime into alignment with bulk interception, which is being amended in the same way through the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (Remedial) Order 2023; that is being considered in the other place today.

In wrapping up, I once again thank noble Lords for the constructive engagement we have had on the Bill, singling out in particular the noble Lords, Lord Anderson, Lord West, Lord Coaker and Lord Fox. With that, I hope that noble Lords will support the Government’s amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Beith) (LD)]

If Amendment 39 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 40 by reason of pre-emption.

Amendment 39 agreed.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Beith) (LD)]

The original Question was that Motion D be agreed to, since when Motion D1 has been moved as an amendment to Motion D. The Question therefore is that Motion D1 be agreed to. The matter will be decided by a Division.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, this is a consequential amendment and should just be moved formally by the House.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Beith) (LD)]

It is a matter for the House whether it is treated as a consequential amendment, and not one that I can rule on.

Motion D1 agreed.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I moved Amendment 139A. The right reverend Prelate and I have often had our names paired on amendments on these issues. The story from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, about Home Office officials sitting in court to see what they can pick up was truly shocking, whatever other conclusions one might draw about it.

I am unclear why it is necessary to apply the restrictions about sharing data, automatically or otherwise, when the subject is already detained, but I come back to my principal point—sadly, it is not the first time we have made it from these Benches—that we thought that the effective immigration control exemption in the Data Protection Act, and so much now comes within that, was far too wide and had dangers inherent in it. The examples given by the right reverend Prelate in the field of domestic abuse bear this out.

We have heard a lot about the Government wanting co-operation from victims with regard to the investigation and prosecution of traffickers and smugglers. It does not seem to me that not agreeing to a firewall is the best way to go about getting that co-operation.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Beith) (LD)]

Is the noble Baroness withdrawing her amendment?

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I was just about to. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Coronation: Policing

Lord Beith Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Well, I absolutely could not agree with the noble Lord more.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

The success of the police’s actions over the Coronation as a whole surely does not prevent us from considering the long-term dangers, which we started to learn about during the Covid regulation period, of creating situations in which police officers are felt by citizens to be interfering with legitimate rights, whether it is protest or just the ability to walk in the countryside during the Covid regulation period, or to take home a tube of glue to repair some domestic damage. Surely we have to consider those long-term issues, while rejoicing in the fact that a good job was done by so many police officers.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord: all of those matters should stay under active consideration, particularly as the nature of crime, disruption, protest and what have you evolves. But, overall, I also agree with the noble Lord that last weekend was a magnificent one in the life of the nation, and all of those involved should be applauded, including the people who went and those who protested peacefully.

National Security Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I got involved in Committee—my only appearance on the Bill—because of concerns brought to my attention about the impact of the registration scheme on huge swathes of ordinary, everyday business and commercial activity. I was much encouraged that at that stage my noble friend the Minister said that this was under review. I am more than pleased with the actual outcome. I know that once a Bill has been published it is very hard for the Government to do a radical overhaul, so we have to pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister and the Security Minister in the other place for having the courage to say that what we started with would not work well enough and to come back with such a significant set of revisions on Report. I thank him again for all he has done to achieve this.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I think I failed to hear something the Minister said earlier relating to Amendment 110A. I raise it because the noble Lords, Lord Anderson of Ipswich and Lord Carlile of Berriew, are both unable to be in the House this afternoon for various compelling reasons. The amendment helpfully tidies up part of the provision by ensuring that the reference to arrangements entered into before the clause comes into force does not apply to arrangements that have ceased to have effect. I think the Minister indicated that he was going to accept it and therefore, I presume, move it at the appropriate stage.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, raised valid areas with regard to the sometimes complex relationships between political parties and the Governments of states, which I hope the Minister, who referred to foreign Governments, can go a little further and point to. It is absolutely right that that is one of a number of criteria set down earlier in the Bill, in Clause 32, and that the meaning of a foreign power includes

“a political party which is a governing political party”.

There will still be issues when it comes to relationships such as demand and supply and other kinds of relations, but I hope that the Minister will provide clarity and proper consultations so that, when we come to the finalised guidance and regulations, those issues will be very clear. The Minister will not be surprised to hear that, as in the earlier group, we are still hoping for that bit of clarification on the German Stiftungen and others represented by the kinds of organisations that the Stiftungen are—those that operate within a public policy and political sphere but are not directly linked to the Government or governing political parties although they are, by definition, political in their nature. I am sure that the Minister will respond to that when he winds up.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, we have a number of scars on our back from legislation where we have tried to do heavy lifting in this Chamber to improve Bills. I tabled a number of amendments in Committee highlighting the concern that what had been brought forward was an unworkable scheme; I think we are now looking at a workable scheme. That is important for the security of our country.

I particularly welcome the draft registration forms, about which I had raised concerns in Committee. I am very pleased that the Minister will be having an active consultation. I am delighted that there will be an updated impact assessment. While the Minister said that that is required of the Government, in previous Bills some excuses have been made for impact assessments not to be updated, so I am very pleased about that. And on the draft regulations, as I said, I am delighted.

As I said on the earlier group, the Minister has been true to his word. I have just one final favour to ask of him. Given that I have been rather successful with colleagues in securing some concessions on this Bill, could he have a word with other Ministers, just to say that “Purvis is not always wrong”? Sometimes, we can do our job in this place; we can make the Government’s job a bit better and make unworkable schemes workable. I commend the Minister for how he has approached this so far.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

If they do not have the necessary security clearances, they obviously cannot, but, as I said earlier, that is part of the full consideration of the MoU and the various changes to the machinery of government that is currently under way.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

Has the noble Lord quite grasped the significant value of the ISC? I speak as someone who used to be on it. One aspect is its value to the Prime Minister, who gets a detailed assessment of aspects of security in circumstances where nobody else can, and he alone can do something about it. It is also an important guarantee to parliamentary colleagues in both Houses that things that cannot be disclosed are being examined by people whom colleagues trust, and that is very important in order to have some confidence that there is oversight going on.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I completely agree with the noble Lord. I certainly get it, and I hold the ISC in great respect, including the noble Lords in this House who are members. As I have said, the Justice and Security Act requires the Prime Minister to read the report before it is published. He gets an unredacted version, so he sees the full picture, and I have committed to take back the House’s concerns about attending the committee, via my noble friend Lord True.

If I may, I will turn to the tier 1 investor visa route, and I am afraid that I will have to repeat a number of things that I said in my opening remarks. The review of visas issued under the route took place relatively recently. A Written Ministerial Statement on 12 January set out the findings of that review, which reviewed visas issued between 2008 and 2015. That included that it had identified a minority of individuals connected to the tier 1 investor visa route that were potentially at high risk of having obtained wealth through corruption or other illicit financial activity. The Statement represented the Government’s substantive response to the commitment to undertake that review and publish its findings.

I am aware that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, would have preferred that the published review included more information about specific individuals. I agree with his remarks about protecting our democracy and transparency. However, we have had to act responsibly in regard to the UK’s national security. We have sought to strike the right balance between setting out the broad findings of the review and the constraints on disclosing sensitive details, which must be withheld at the request of our operational partners to protect our border and the vital work of our law enforcement agencies. I think that those are perfectly reasonable points to have made in regard to the tier 1 investor visa.

I appreciate that I have not given as fulsome answers as all noble Lords would like, but in light of the answers that I have given, I request that noble Lords do not press their amendments.