Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Lord Bishop of Durham and Lord Kerr of Kinlochard

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. She made her case for transferring this responsibility from the Home Office to the Foreign Office on grounds of efficiency and good administration. In my totally unbiased view, it is of course the case that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is a model of efficiency and good administration. But on practical grounds, I really do not agree with this.

There is a Foreign Office role. The role of the treaty section is monitoring, ratification procedures and quality control over the treaties that we sign. There is a role for legal advisers, referred to by the noble Baroness, monitoring the Government’s respect for their treaty obligations and, if necessary, reminding other departments of the obligations that we have taken on.

There could be a role for our posts abroad. I strongly support the proposal in Amendment 130 for the safe passage visa. It would be very good if our posts abroad were allowed, say, to filter out applications that are clearly not unfounded and to assist applicants with the electronic application system. That would be very good, but the trend in the Home Office, which the noble Baroness in my view correctly described, to move more and more to being a department of the interior, with a bit of homeland security, would be increased if responsibility for carrying out our treaty obligations in respect of asylum seekers were transferred to another department.

Moreover, the Foreign Office really is not equipped to take on the enhanced teams required to deal with 178,000 applicants in the asylum queue. So, although I understand the noble Baroness’s motives and applaud her praise for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I am against this proposal.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, the Minister ought to welcome Amendments 132, 134 and 135, because they simply ask for transparency of reporting back on the success of the Bill. The introduction says:

“The purpose of this Act is to prevent and deter unlawful migration, and in particular migration by unsafe and illegal routes”.


Most of the arguments have been around the Government’s conviction that this is the right way to stop the boats. Many of us in this Committee believe that it will not stop the boats, that we will end up with large numbers of people being detained for indefinite periods and that it will cost a huge amount of money.

I quite happily accept that the Minister will probably say that practically these amendments cannot work with one month and might need a different timescale and so on, but they are basically saying, “Please report that this is doing what the Bill set out to do”. Really, I cannot see how the Government can object to being required to report on their own successes.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Bishop of Durham and Lord Kerr of Kinlochard

3rd reading
Monday 14th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

We have greatly improved Part 2 of the Bill, because it no longer flies in the face of the 1951 refugee convention as understood by our courts, all the other parties to the convention and UNHCR, the institution given the responsibility of overseeing the implementation of the convention. I really hope the Minister will ensure that her colleagues in the other place understand that many in this House feel very strongly about this and would be unlikely to change our view if we were again asked to consider the introduction, contrary to the convention, of a first safe country rule.

There is never a good time for a unilateral reinterpretation of international obligations, but there could not be a worse time than when there are 2.7 million refugees in continental Europe and the Russians are trampling on the 1949 Geneva conventions. We really need to hang on to our reputation for believing in a rules-based system and the rule of law.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, I support all the amendments because they all seem to make complete sense in terms of tidying up, including those in the Government’s name. I too was disturbed by the announcement about the devolved legislatures—it expresses the deep unease about the Bill out in the country as a whole. I ask the Minister to take away from this House a real concern that this is not the right time to press ahead and that Ukraine has raised questions about the Bill and whether some kind of pause ought to be considered.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Bishop of Durham and Lord Kerr of Kinlochard

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I support all the amendments in this group but particularly Amendment 48, which has my name on it, to which the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, spoke. It is a great pity that the Government wound up the Dubs scheme for unaccompanied children, which was doing a great deal of good, and that the Government did not want to stay in Dublin III or try to negotiate on that. We are not part of that agreement, and that removed two safe routes for unaccompanied children.

Under the Immigration Rules, as I understand them, it is not possible for a child to come to stay with a grandparent, sibling—a brother or a sister—uncle or aunt. It has to be a parent. Suppose the parents are lost or the situation is such as that unfolding in Ukraine now. Suppose the child has lost the parents en route. Why can he or she not come and stay with their grandparents in this country? The Immigration Rules seem to be too harsh. I therefore support the language of Amendment 48.

The more worrying point for me is the one made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, when he cited the Safe Passage numbers. It is alarming that the number of unaccompanied children coming in by a safe route has dropped steeply now that we are no longer in Dublin, the Dubs scheme has gone and these Immigration Rules are being applied. Where are these children going? Safe Passage tells us that in more than 50% of the cases that it is trying to follow, the children just give up, drop out and disappear off the books. Where do they disappear to? I fear that they disappear down to the beach and into the hands of the crooks.

Safe and legal routes really matter, so Amendment 48, which opens up the possibility again of having a safe and legal route for unaccompanied children, matters in my book. It was in this Chamber that the Dubs scheme was first approved by large majorities. For exactly the reasons that we approved it then, we should approve Amendment 48 now in a world that is, if anything, more dangerous, with more children in such a plight than then. I give my strong support to that amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, in rising to speak to Amendment 48 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, to which I have added my name, and Amendment 49 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, I declare my interests in relation to both RAMP and Reset, as set out in the register.

I support Amendment 48 as one of a range of safe routes needed to give people seeking asylum an alternative to using criminal gangs. People will do whatever it takes to reach family. I simply endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, the case for family reunion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. I urge the Minister to consider this proposal as a pragmatic response to the need to find durable solutions to desperate people dying on our borders in order to reach their family. This route will prevent some from ending in the traffickers’ hands.

I now turn to Amendment 49. I support it because we need a target for the global resettlement scheme, to ensure that it is operational to a level which provides a real alternative to people forced to use criminal gangs, and that it reaches countries such as Iran, Eritrea and Sudan, from which the majority of those arriving on small boats originate. We had the annual target of 5,000 for the Syrian resettlement scheme, and that is indeed the number who came, in a controlled, predictable and prepared way. We currently do not have a target for the global resettlement scheme, and just 1,587 came in 2021.

A target enables local authorities, charities, faith communities and the wider community, including businesses, to create and maintain the infrastructure needed to provide good welcome and ongoing support. This infrastructure also makes emergency response easier, as we have needed with Afghanistan and now Ukraine. It becomes less a crisis-to-crisis response and rather a strong infrastructure that can scale up when needed.

I note for the Minister that community sponsorship is deliberately not named in subsection (2) of the new clause proposed by this amendment, as there has been an earlier commitment made by Her Majesty’s Government that those coming through community sponsorship should be seen as additional to those in any set target. However, it is named in subsection (3). The Minister has previously spoken of her strong support for community sponsorship, so I hope that she will take this opportunity also to reaffirm Her Majesty’s Government’s commitment to the growth and development of community sponsorship widely, as well as the welcome announcement for it with Ukraine. Further details around that would also be welcomed, particularly by Reset.

It is welcome to see the Home Secretary committing to the humanitarian pathway for Ukrainians. We wait to learn the detail of this and the expected capacity. The point is that over five years, the number coming through on community sponsorship is 700, for the reasons that were named. It takes time. That capacity is growing and building strongly, but it will not answer the Ukrainian question quickly.

Returning to the need for a clear resettlement target, I conclude that without one, I fear that the global resettlement programme will be sidelined, and refugees will have no alternative but to use criminal gangs as what they perceive as their route to safety.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Bishop of Durham and Lord Kerr of Kinlochard

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 30th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Durham [V]]

My Lords, I too speak in favour of this amendment and support fully the explanation of why it is needed by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, but also the very helpful interventions by the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Smith, who asked for clarification of just what the objection is. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, I do not read the amendment as declaratory. It is about being granted indefinite status but, as both noble Baronesses said, if the Government can come up with slightly better wording, fine.

I simply remind the Minister and the Government that it is their responsibility to protect the most vulnerable children in our society, which surely includes children in care. They have an added vulnerability when they have uncertain status, so it is absolutely the Government’s responsibility to ensure that these children are not left with anything indefinite at all about their standing, and that their welcome as part of our society is clear.

In the Psalms, the King is told that he is to

“defend the cause of the poor of the people”

and

“give deliverance to the children of the needy”.

The King in those days, of course, had absolute rule. For our current purposes, it falls upon the Government to defend the cause and give deliverance to the children of the needy. I hope the Minister will agree that this amendment is necessary and that if it needs altering, she will bring back the relevant changes at Third Reading.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

I refer to my interests as recorded in the register. In the letter that the Minister was good enough to send us at lunchtime today, she said of this amendment that

“it would risk putting children in a more vulnerable position because they would effectively be required to prove that they were once a child in care every time throughout their adult life that they were required to prove their status. We cannot put our most vulnerable children in this precarious position and the Government is adamant it will not do so”.

Yes, but I would like to encroach, very rashly, on the territory of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and refer to King Herod. I am sure King Herod was quite adamant that it would be entirely wrong to make all boys in and around Bethlehem prove throughout their adult life that they were not the King of the Jews, particularly when a simpler remedy was at hand. The statement in the letter is odd.

I supported this amendment in Committee because it seemed to me that there was a real risk of these children falling into a crack and that we had a duty to make sure that they did not. I do not think that their problem, if this amendment were now carried, would be that they had, for the rest of their lives, to carry proof that they had once been in a care home. I do not see that at all. I listened very carefully to the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Smith, and it seems to me that they would be carrying proof of their status, which would have been established; that would be the proof they would carry, not proof that they had once spent time in a care home.

If there is a technical problem with the drafting of the amendment that enables the drafter of the Minister’s letter to conclude or pretend that we who support this amendment are ready to see people having to prove, for the rest of their lives, that they were in a care home, let us correct it. I think the amendment does not indicate that this is the risk; it requires local authorities to act in loco parentis and, if it is in the best interests of the child, to get the process under way to give children the proof of the status that they will enjoy like anybody else who has citizenship, pre-settled or settled status, leave to remain or whatever. That would be the proof they would need to carry and, yes, that might be quite onerous, but the Minister could assist us on this when we come to Amendment 18 and agree with those of us who think that it would be a kindness to allow physical proof.