Guns Manufactured by 3D Printers

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I will take that as a representation to the Government about their proposals for next year. The Government are exploring all legislative options to criminalise the possession and supply of 3D-printed firearms templates. We are looking at that now; I hope the noble Lord will have patience in this matter.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, as well as 3D-printed firearms, there has been a significant increase in 3D-printed components used to convert blank firing guns into operable firearms—so much so that the head of the NCA has called for legislation to deal with this issue. Is my noble friend in a position to commit to ensuring that any legislation deals with the illicit manufacture of the components that can turn innocuous blank-firing pistols—which are available for purchase without any licence—into lethal weapons, and not just 3D-printed firearms?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The question of hybrid weapons, again, is covered by existing legislation, in the sense that it is an offence carrying a penalty of life imprisonment to distribute them, and an offence carrying a penalty of between five and 10 years’ imprisonment to hold and own them. If the hybrid nature of firearms is being developed, that again is an issue that we are currently looking at, currently examining. There is a Private Member’s Bill in the House of Commons for consideration in January. The Government will respond to that Private Member’s Bill and will reflect on the points made in both this House and the House of Commons.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 25th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, REACH regulations cover the safety of chemicals. We simply ask: how can the Bill regulate cosmetics without considering the safety of the chemicals used to manufacture them? I do not buy the idea that Defra is in charge of chemical regulations—in the same way that the DWP is in charge of the chemicals database, other than via its responsibilities in managing the Health and Safety Executive. I will come back to a regulation that the DWP presented to the Grand Committee last year. So, should the Bill ignore chemicals or not? We need an explicit reference in the Bill to cover it. We have talked a lot about AI but the use of chemicals is equally important, particularly in online marketplaces.

I am sure that the selection of EU REACH rather than British REACH will raise certain hackles. I would grab any REACH in a storm, but the EU one is a system that functions, unlike its British cousin, which has proved expensive to business and is failing to react to new challenges.

Over a year ago, I was substituting for my noble friend Lord Fox when the biocidal products regulations 2022 were being discussed in Grand Committee. I think that none of us, including the then Minister, if she were honest, knew very much of what we were talking about. However, it was the most illuminating regulation that I have ever taken part in. We discovered that this was, in essence, a time extension for the use of the EU chemicals database, because Whitehall had not understood that the day we left the EU, we would lose access to the chemicals database. As a result, the Health and Safety Executive had to take on a very large number of staff. Its chemicals sections had increased by 30% to try to rewrite the chemicals database while also consulting with users, whether they were manufacturers importing, exporting or creating in this country. We know that there are systems out there that work but because of our bizarre structures, we tend to have government departments that are not focused on chemicals.

The cosmetics industry imports many of its ingredients from the EU, and often in very small quantities. These would certainly be covered by EU REACH, because these sales represent such a tiny proportion of total production. If there were a substantive difference between EU REACH and British REACH, it is unlikely that the manufacturer would invest in accrediting its products in the UK, causing the UK cosmetic manufacturer either to stop making its product or to move manufacture to the EU—hence my noble friend Lord Fox’s proposal about REACH in this amendment.

Can the Minister confirm whether, under the terms of the Bill as it stands, if a product contains a chemical that was allowed by EU REACH but blocked by British REACH, and yet it conformed to QC standards, it would be legal in Britain? That is what this amendment seeks to clarify. Given the interconnected nature of the UK and EU chemicals industries, it offers a route for aligning the UK chemical regulation with that of the EU. But perhaps the Minister thinks that the current wording of Clause 1(1) means that it could be used to amend and update UK REACH to align with EU REACH. I beg to move.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to both amendments in this group, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her introduction of them.

When examining the purport of these amendments and considering whether to include provisions that require us to adopt regulations that correspond with the EU’s REACH provisions, I suggest that the metric by which we should judge that is simple. Would doing so make the people of this country safer? Every other consideration should be secondary to that.

As I said both at Second Reading and in Committee last week—I apologise to those who have heard this before, but it is worth repeating—the past few years have seen a significant divergence between the UK’s approach to chemical regulation and that of the EU. The previous Government decided to leave REACH—the EU’s body responsible for the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals and their regulations—and to set up a parallel organisation.

Since then, we have not adopted a single registered restriction on a harmful substance, compared with 10 new protections offered by EU regulation, including on harmful microplastics deliberately added to products. While REACH has regulated PFAS in the EU, not a single river or water body in England is in good chemical health. Since we left REACH, the EU has initiated 23 risk assessments related to harmful substances, while we have initiated three.

In considering why that is the case, I point to two contextual factors. This is not a function of the legislative constraints. The Government have the power under the EU withdrawal Act and Schedule 21 to the Environment Act to adopt new restrictions and controls where necessary. However, reviews undertaken by the NAO and the Public Accounts Committee in 2022 pointed to a lack of operational capacity and insufficient data as factors that have hampered the ability of the UK’s chemical regulator properly to do its job. For instance, brominated flame retardants were identified as a risk to health and globally significant exposure rates were identified in this country. Indeed, they were identified as a regulatory priority over two years ago and a review was promised. So far, no review has been published and it is difficult to discern how this apparent priority has been acted upon, if at all.

However, while the EU has added eight flame-retardant chemicals to its list of substances of very high concern, no substances in this category have been added to the parallel UK list. The EU restrictions road map has proposed a ban on brominated flame retardants while no equivalent step has been proposed, let alone planned. This is not because we have data which diverges from that upon which the EU has based its conclusions but because we are working more slowly. I vividly remember the promises of greater regulatory agility and speed which would inevitably result once we were free of the sclerotic influence of the EU. This example is but one of many—including lead in PVC, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in synthetic football pitches and formaldehyde in wood furniture—which suggest that far from being more agile and responsive, our current system of chemical regulation is slower, less efficient and consequently less safe than its predecessor.

In April this year, Hazards magazine published a parallel analysis of the 25 new standards that have been introduced across the EU since our departure in 2020 and the UK’s response. Of the 25 standards, 12 were identical. There were 10 in which the UK’s standard was weaker, sometimes significantly. Only in one case has the UK adopted more protective measures than the European standard. Again, this is suggestive of regulatory incapacity as much as a deliberate exercise of our power independently to regulate.

Fiscal stringency creates significant challenges in remedying this situation, but both these amendments obviate the need for the otherwise necessary significant increase in investment in our chemical regulator. Ensuring that our domestic regulations correspond with those of REACH not only offers greater safety but removes a barrier to trade and promises to ease the burden on our chemical regulator which, as I said earlier, the NAO and Public Accounts Committee suggested has compromised its ability to work with appropriate speed.

At Second Reading, my noble friend the Minister said, in response to a question from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that the Government are currently considering the best approach to chemical regulation in the UK separately to this Bill. In deciding our approach to these amendments, it would be extremely useful if my noble friend who is responding to this debate could at least give us an idea of the direction of travel on this. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, made the point also at Second Reading that the absence of such a Bill from the King’s Speech makes it unlikely that we will see it in this Session. That being so, what plans do the Government have, in the absence of adopting the amendments that are the subject of this discussion, to exercise the powers in Clause 2(7) to ensure that we catch up and keep pace with the EU chemical regulation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

If I have understood my noble friend’s response to this debate, do the Government accept the NAO and Public Accounts Committee’s assessment that UK REACH lacked capacity to do its job? If so, has Defra allocated sufficient funding to bring it up at least to the productivity of EU REACH in the quantity of assessments, recommendations and decisions that it makes? The statistics show that it is not doing anything much in this space.

Hezbollah: Threat to the United Kingdom

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Godson, for affording us the opportunity to examine this Question today. It is a debate that is timely and of significance, and the forensic nature of his opening remarks is wholly concordant with the significance of the issues we are discussing. Mindful of severe time constraints, I wish to ask my noble friend the Minister three questions. Before I do, though, I think it is worth examining one of the premises of the Question before your Lordships’ House, and that is the efficacy of proscription.

In examining that, I do not resile from the basis on which Hezbollah was proscribed in its entirety in 2019. I concur with the judgment of the then Home Secretary that a distinction between the political and military elements of Hezbollah had become academic, if not meaningless. Equally, I concur with all those who have highlighted the appalling anti-Semitism that is not an adjunct to Hezbollah’s world view but central to it.

But we must be clear that such proscription largely is a symbolic gesture, offering British police the ability to prevent open displays of support domestically, but little more. Our proscription of Hezbollah does not degrade its operational capacity nor its ability to foment violence and conflict in the Middle East. In this context, proscription puts me in mind of Douglas MacArthur’s somewhat jaded observation:

“Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword … never encountered automatic weapons”.


I seldom quote that observation, save with disapproval, but it finds an unfortunate echo in this context.

Hezbollah and those who range themselves under its banner care nothing for our moral disapproval. In the longer term, the only answer to Hezbollah is to degrade its capacity, cut off its avenues of funding and vigorously contest those who seek to give it endorsement or legitimacy. Given the limited ability of proscription, it is surely important that the few provisions it does offer are enforced.

Could I ask my noble friend the Minister about the recent comments of a Metropolitan Police officer who, in the face of open support for Hezbollah evinced at a recent march in London, responded with the somewhat circular statement “Your opinion is your opinion”. It is, of course, contrary to the provisions of the Terrorism Act 2000 to display or incite support for a proscribed organisation. Proscription is not merely a gesture but an empty gesture unless the police are briefed adequately in advance of such events.

On a related matter, I should be grateful if my noble friend could update your Lordships’ House on the Government’s current thinking around the possibility of proscribing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. I ask that not because I am hoping to elicit a specific answer but because I am conscious of the possible cost of so doing in relation to our diplomatic channels with Iran.

In my last few seconds, I would like to ask for the views of my noble friend on the first speech given by Sheikh Naim Qassem, the successor to Hassan Nasrallah. In the same address, he claimed that he “doesn’t want war” and is only aiming to “respond” to aggression while also threatening to strike the Israeli Prime Minister’s residence and expressing his contentment for the current conflict to last many more months. Given this, to put it generously, somewhat opaque set of remarks, I close by asking my noble friend to share any assessment the Government have made of any changes to Hezbollah’s operational approach, consequent on the change of leadership.

Violent Disorder

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

There is freedom of speech, and I made it very clear in the wake of the riots that people are entitled to criticise the UK Government’s asylum policy, immigration policy or any aspect of UK government policy. What they are not entitled to do is to incite racial hatred, to incite criminal activity, to incite attacks on mosques or to incite burnings or other criminal, riotous behaviour. That is the threshold. The threshold is not me saying, “I do not like what they have said”—there are lots of things that I do not like that people have said; the threshold is determined by criminal law, is examined by the police and is referred to the CPS. The CPS examines whether there is a criminal charge to account for, which is then either made through a guilty plea and a sentence, which happened with the majority of people who now face time in prison, or put in front of a court for a jury of 12 peers to determine whether an offence has been committed. There is no moratorium on criticism of political policy in the United Kingdom. There is free speech in this United Kingdom, but free speech also has responsibilities, and one responsibility is not to incite people to burn down their neighbour’s property.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister will be aware of the analysis by the European Consortium for Political Research, which was published only two weeks ago and substantially reinforces the question that my noble friend Lord Reid asked. The correlation between the location of violence and the incidence of child poverty in any area was significantly greater than the correlation between rioting and the presence of any of the other, many factors that people have attributed the violence to. Does my noble friend agree that any response to the riots must go beyond punishment and look to restore the essentials of economic equity, viable public services and greater equality, the absence of which appears to make violent disorder significantly more likely?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend makes extremely valid points about the examination of the causes. As I have said to this noble House, the Home Office, via the Deputy Prime Minister and her department, wishes to look at some of the wider issues of social deprivation that may or may not have contributed to these riots. However—if I can again draw both Front Benches opposite back in—we still have to focus on the points that were made in this debate: irrespective of social conditions in a particular area, scapegoating and attacking citizens or individuals who have in many cases no relationship to those causes is simply not acceptable, so they have to face the law. However, those are certainly important issues that need to be examined as part of the long-term mix on preventing further activity such as happened over this summer.

International Law Enforcement Alerts Platform

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, in the accounting officer assessment of the current I-LEAP programme, which was updated in May of this year, phase 2 was described as “a longer-term objective” which remains

“at a very early stage”.

What assessment has my noble friend the Minister made of the progress achieved by the last Government in reaching a data-sharing agreement? If, as those words imply, progress was halting or minimal, what changes can we make to our approach to hasten progress, given how important it is, as my noble friend said?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. The House will understand that we are where we are. SIS II finished in 19-20 and—

King’s Speech

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I await with some expectation, as he does, the answers to the relevant questions he asked.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Timpson on an excellent maiden speech and, before that, an excellent maiden Statement. I can pay him no higher a compliment than to say that he clearly has the ear of your Lordships’ House. Mind you, from my conversations and reading since his appointment was announced, it seems that he has the ear of quite a large proportion of the population in this country as well.

Attempting to describe even a small percentage of the challenges bequeathed to this Government would more than exhaust my allotted time. Among them, I suggest that nowhere, perhaps, have the new Government been saddled with a more unenviable inheritance than in the sphere of justice and, more specifically, prisons. Of course, I acknowledge that it is common practice for Governments to take office bemoaning the parlous state to which their opponents have reduced the country. Indeed, your Lordships will recall the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, and his Sancho Panza, George Osborne, carrying around and flourishing copies of Liam Byrne’s valedictory note for years afterwards.

What the last election and the public mood demonstrate is that not only is Labour in step with the country, but there is no need for such spurious props today. The electorate has grown tired of living in a country in which so many critical services simply do not work. The failure of the last 14 years is as observable as it is evident. Our prisons are in crisis. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, that there is no ticking time-bomb. The ticking stopped before the election took place and we are in a much worse situation than that. Ten prisons are operating at over 140% capacity; Leeds, designed safely to accommodate 641 inmates, currently houses over 1,100; Durham, designed to accommodate 573, currently houses 970. This means that prisons are more unsanitary, violence is more common and disease can spread more easily.

Equally, when hard-pressed staff are seeking to achieve safety and order, the things that are sacrificed or neglected are those elements of incarceration that are most conducive to rehabilitation. The prison library and opportunities for prisoners to learn skills or simply to pursue knowledge for its own sake are the first casualties in a system that has been asked to do far too much with far too little.

Wandsworth is the subject of an urgent notification from the Chief Inspector of Prisons. Only a couple of months ago, many of its inmates began to be locked in their cells 24 hours a day and 80% of inmates were sharing cells designed for one. The inspectors found vermin, failing security, drugs and rising rates of self-harm. It is just one prison, but that description shames the entire country.

A quarter of prisoners across the prison estate are held in Victorian facilities with no in-cell sanitation, forced to use bins as makeshift toilets. More than half report feeling unsafe. More than a quarter have received threats or intimidation, 13% of which have escalated into physical assaults. This is the inheritance of my noble friend the Minister, the Secretary of State and the wider ministerial team, and it is against that context that their future performance should be judged.

My strong belief is that, while prisons remove people from society, the welfare of prisoners and their successful rehabilitation should be a matter of universal interest. I believe it is equally true that an improvement in the prison education system is a necessary precondition for any substantial fall in recidivism. Over 50% of the prison population have a literacy level below that of the average 11 year-old. This fact, perhaps more than any other, allows us to understand the cycle of poverty and alienation that too often ends in jail.

Churchill, in his Edwardian incarnation, was a reforming Liberal Home Secretary. In his autobiography My Early Life, he describes his approach to prison reform by saying that

“when I was Home Secretary … I did my utmost consistent with public policy to introduce some sort of variety and indulgence into the life of their inmates, to give to educated minds books to feed on … and to mitigate as far as is reasonable the hard lot which, if they have deserved, they must none the less endure”.

This strikes me as a pretty useful starting point for any determined programme of prison reform.

I know I am not alone in your Lordships’ House in greeting the appointment of my noble friend Lord Timpson with great enthusiasm and optimism. I have confidence in him and the wider ministerial team effecting a real and lasting change to our prison system, as well as widening access to justice. This will have my full support in this House and outside as they engage with these challenges.

Passport e-Gates Network Outage

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his positivity, and I could not agree with him more. It is perfectly possibly now to get off a plane and, if you do not have luggage, to be out of an airport within 15 or 20 minutes, which is remarkable—Singapore levels of efficiency, some might say. As regards the sharing of information and Schengen, I am afraid I do not know the answer; I will have to write on that.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have an interest in this question. I do not think it is a declarable interest, but I have an interest to this extent: I was a Minister in the early 2000s when these gates were put in the first time. I was responsible, with my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who was the Home Secretary, for installing eGates. I think they have transformed the ability of people to go through our airports, and I am very supportive of them.

I am obliged to Tom Pursglove for reinforcing on 8 May what we were debating for some hours in the previous business, which is that you can never guarantee that any IT system will be 100% reliable 100% of the time. Persuading people that that was the case is what led to the Horizon scandal. I do not want to take the Minister back to where he has been since my noble friend Lord Coaker asked him a question and the two other questions, but Tom Pursglove’s answers need clarification. The Minister has given us some. If the noble Lords do not mind, I am going to read consecutive sentences that Tom Pursglove used when answering this question in the other place. He said:

“When it comes to the root cause of what happened—how we got to this point in the first place—as soon as the fix was put in place, the posture changed to getting us to a place where we better understand the root cause. That work is ongoing, and it would not be right for me to speculate on it, but I can absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman that we will get to the bottom of the issue”.


He then went on to say—and this is what confuses me:

“As for the specific technical issue last night, I am assured that the technical team are confident that there is now a permanent fix to that issue”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/5/24; col. 594.]


That seems to suggest that he was in a position to say what it was. The important question was asked by my honourable friend Dan Jarvis, against the background of previous e-outages. He sought to find out whether this was the same problem recurring; that was the simple question. If it is not the same problem recurring—I infer from what the Minister said that it is not—that is the answer to the question, but if it is still an issue, I would like to know, as I am sure would other noble Lords. In any event, I suggest that the Minister goes back to Mr Pursglove and tells him to be more specific in answering the question, rather than being in places.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I will repeat what I said earlier: there is no relation to any previous incident. In effect, I am being asked to unpick what my right honourable friend in the other place might have meant a week ago, which I simply do not know. I will tell the House what I do know—I have already said this, but I will repeat it. At 7.44 pm on 7 May, a loss of network connectivity caused a number of Home Office IT systems to lose service, including customer services and migration and border systems. Operational policing systems were unaffected, although Home Office access to them was. Due to the timing of the outage, the primary visible impact was at all ports where both eGates and primary control point desks were unavailable. Border Force officers reverted to using PCP laptops, which are not reliant on the network, and the Warnings Index to process passengers. Service was fully restored just after midnight on 8 May. As I said, DDaT engineers identified that the cause of the outage was a capacity issue on an element of the network that controls network traffic in the data centres. The incident was caused by the cumulative effect of changes that we have been making to sustain and modernise the Home Office network environment. That is all I can answer.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 22nd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Motion B1 and Amendment 10H in lieu. I have given a great deal of thought, in recent times, to the question of what courage and strength look like. I ask myself today whether it a desperate and unpopular Prime Minister threatening to keep some of us septuagenarians up all night if we do not bow to his will, or putting yourself and your family in mortal peril by fighting totalitarianism alongside British forces with no idea of how that struggle will end. I know which I consider to be brave and strong, and I believe that the overwhelming majority of your Lordships, like others up and down the United Kingdom, of whatever age or political persuasion, agree. For weeks, Ministers have toured the TV and radio studios, saying that to repay our debt of honour to those who have served the Crown, in Afghanistan in particular, would open the floodgates of applications. If the concession I seek would open such floodgates, creating oceans of imposters, this would be only as a result of the Government’s own incompetence and lack of preparation. It is incompetence, as well as dishonour, that has brought us here this evening.

In the summer of 2021, the former Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, told us in a statement to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, that the Government were developing a plan for the evacuation of our exposed allies and agents from Afghanistan. If your Lordships will allow me a moment, I will read my exact words when reporting this to the House:

“Dominic Raab told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that, back in July, the Government were planning for the possibility of an evacuation of British citizens and those who were quite rightly entitled to think that we had a moral obligation to secure their lives”.—[Official Report, 7/9/21; col. 812.].

I remember, post Operation Pitting, asking if someone would share that plan with me, to see whether it included the reality that those who were sent to help people evacuate left before those who needed to be evacuated could be.

In a Statement repeated in your Lordships’ House and set out in full in Hansard on 7 September, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, told your Lordships that the Taliban must ensure safe passage and that the Government would keep ongoing evacuation plans under review in respect of such people. He said this:

“Let me say to anyone to whom we have made commitments and who is currently in Afghanistan: we are working urgently with our friends in the region to secure safe passage and, as soon as routes are available, we will do everything possible to help you to reach safety”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/21; col. 21.]


Those are the words of the Prime Minister, repeated here. After the Statement was repeated in your Lordships’ House, we were told that this plan had been in existence for most of that year and that it had been reviewed in January, and was repeatedly reviewed, so that the chaos that we saw at Kabul airport would not happen—but it did.

You would have thought that, with all of that planning and information behind it, and having recruited and trained the Triples and paid them out of the embassy in Kabul, the 2,000 people who made them up—who were most at risk, and who had been working for us, in harm’s way—would have been known about, recorded and evacuated, and that it would have been the simplest thing in the world to triage anybody who claimed to be of that group out of the ARAP process. That is not how it turned out. Instead, a great many were left behind, and so the disastrous evacuation plan of 2021 continues.

The Government created this problem, which has caused at least nine of those who fought for us to be executed by the Taliban because the promised safe passage never appeared. His Majesty’s Government told us, even last week, that there would be no concession in respect of those people who had come here because they were frightened for their lives, and were entitled to be frightened for their lives and to find a way of getting here if there was no safe passage.

Why no concession for so long? I am asked this question every day—every day, since we started debating this issue, I am asked by many people, including many Conservative politicians, why there has been no concession: “Why have they not been able to work something out with you? Why the delay?”, they ask me. Either the Government have no confidence in their ability to implement this plan and are seeking in some way to delay it—considering it to be not their responsibility—or they just want the theatre of delay to their flagship Bill, so as to blame Labour, the Lords, the courts and so on. Today, the Government finally bring a concession: having offered and then withdrawn it last week, they refused to put it in the Bill.

I break away now to ask the Minister to re-read the passage of his speech that I call a concession—I know he does not—and to read it a bit more slowly, so that we can understand its implications. If not, if he has a printed a copy, I will read it slowly. I invite him to read it again, please. Will the Minister do that now, as it is important to the rest of my speech?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

With the leave of the House, I will read it very slowly:

“That means that once this review of ARAP decisions for those with credible links to Afghan specialist units has concluded, the Government will not remove to Rwanda those who have received a positive eligibility decision as a result of this review, where they are already in the UK as of today”.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

You cannot be removed and deported to Rwanda unless you are here by what the Government call illegal means and what I call irregular means. Those words are important for this reason. The Minister does not believe this to be a concession; it is to him a restatement of what he has been telling us for some time, but in a different form. In my view it is quite clearly a concession, although I guarantee that the media out there are being briefed that it is not, because there can be no concessions on this Bill.

Let me tell noble Lords why it is a concession. At Report on this Bill in your Lordships’ House, on 4 March, as recorded at col. 1420 in Hansard, I asked this question of the Minister:

“Will the Minister answer the question I asked in February when this review was announced”—


meaning the Triples review of eligibility for ARAP—

“will anyone who is eligible but was told they were ineligible—and acted in a way in which a small number of them did in extremis to protect themselves from possible death—be disqualified from being allowed to become eligible on review? Will they be excluded from the requirement of the Illegal Migration Act and this Bill if it becomes law that they must be deported to Rwanda?”

The Minister answered—it was the first time he was in a position to do so:

“As I understand it, they will be deported to Rwanda”.—[Official Report, 4/3/24; cols. 1420-1421.]


Now they will not be. That is a concession in anybody’s language.

It is an extremely important concession, because these are the small number of people who I have said, in every speech I have made in support of my amendment, are the target of my ambition that they will not be deported. Today, the Government finally bring a concession, having offered then withdrawn it, so should I trust them at their word? They left these people behind; they messed up any subsequent evacuation plan. This is a third opportunity competently to do the right thing. Why should I trust them now?

I will tell your Lordships why I am minded to consider doing so, although I have not yet made up my mind. It is because we are now part of a grand coalition, including noble and gallant Lords, many very senior politicians and officials, who have secured this country for years and put their names to this, veterans, campaigners and many voters of all persuasions and traditions across our nations—and we will not be silent until today’s promise is honoured by this Government or the next one.

Finally, what does this ignominious history tell us about the Rwanda policy as a whole? There were no safe routes for those heroes to whom we owe a debt of honour, still less are there safe routes for any other genuine refugees worthy of the promise of the refugee convention—also paid for in courage and strength in an earlier war, so many years ago. While I may not press my Motion this evening, I look forward to the day when a Labour Government repeal this immoral and unlawful excuse for legislation in total.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. His persistence, his clarity and his determination have, in my view, led to a meaningful concession—and it is a concession—by the Government on a very important issue. To those who say that your Lordships’ House has not behaved legitimately and constitutionally in relation to this Bill, we can at the very least point to the concession that has been made to the noble Lord, Lord Browne, as justification for still being here debating the Bill tonight.

I stand principally to speak in total support of the admirable speech given by my noble friend Lord Anderson in favour of Motion A1. I will return briefly to Motion A1 in a few moments but, before I do, I wish to place on the record something which concerns me very much about the fact that we are debating this matter at all today. I do so with appreciation for the characteristically gracious and considerate words spoken by the Government Chief Whip earlier this afternoon. I was not in the House, because I did not know she was going to say it, but I have been able to watch it on that splendid organ, parliamentlive.tv.

I speak as a religiously confused person, born with 100% Jewish blood but brought up in the Church of England by convert parents. I note that there may well be some Jewish Peers in the House today. Others, I know, are absent on the grounds of conviction and conscience, for today is the first day of the Passover festival—of Pessach, one of the Jewish religion’s most sacred holidays. It is a day when Jewish families gather, sometimes with their friends—I should have been at one such event tonight—around a dinner table to pray, to eat, to sing and to retell the story of the exodus, with the help of a narrative liturgy called the Haggadah. For those who have been to such a Seder, it is a joyful experience and it brings home to one the importance of the first day of Passover. I am told that strong representations were made, not least by the Labour Party, through the usual channels, to avoid the final stages of the safety of Rwanda Bill being heard today. The Jewish community, although it places great importance on the first and second days of Pessach, would have been willing to be here tomorrow or any other day this week. Unfortunately, that was refused.

I have tried hard to think of a legitimate reason for that refusal. If this debate had taken place on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, or next week, it would not have made any material difference to the Government’s position. Nothing that was said by the Prime Minister, who on 11 November displayed, properly and rightly, his devotion to his own religion in public, has justified choosing today for this debate. I take it as an offence to our ambitions for diversity in this country— sermon over.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

I will not be pressing Motion B1 but I urge every noble Lord in this House to support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, in his parliamentary sovereignty amendment and my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton in the debt of honour amendment this evening.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, and I thank her enormously for her words of support for Amendment 10F. I also thank her for her continued support throughout the time that I have been pressing this amendment in my preparations and other aspects of what I have been doing in your Lordships’ House.

I will speak to Motion D1 and Amendment 10F in lieu. I began my remarks yesterday with a promise not to rehearse the moral case for the amendment. I add to that the promise not to rehearse the compelling long- term strategic security case for it to protect our future credibility as an ally, nor to rehearse in detail the irrationality of the Government’s two principal lines of argument in refusing to accept the principle of exempting a small number of ill-served brave Afghan fighters, who are already here in the UK, from deportation. Rather, as this is the fifth time that I have had to make a speech in your Lordships’ House in support of a variant of this amendment, I refer noble Lords to cols. 906-08 of the Official Report for yesterday—that is for those of you who are not already word-perfect on my speeches on this.

Since yesterday the halls of this Parliament and beyond have echoed to suggestions, and in some cases reassurances, that we who support this amendment could expect a statement of assurance from the Government about the fate of this small body of brave soldiers who fought with our forces in Afghanistan and are in this dilemma, facing compulsory deportation to Rwanda, only because of our Government’s sclerosis and administrative shortcomings and the possible venal dishonesty of some forces that they served with, which have resulted in the wrongful refusal of the ARAP status that they would have been awarded and which would have included visas for them, thus enabling them to escape certain death rather than compelling them to take irregular routes here in the first place. If those assurances had been bankable, our party and I would have engaged with them. A promise of such assurances was supported by credible evidence of high-level exchanges, but that was withdrawn this afternoon. I understand that that is because of a political policy decision at No. 10 that was reflected in a statement by the Prime Minister’s spokesperson. I would read it out to noble Lords but they can read it for themselves.

We are left with the best that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for whom I have great regard, can offer. I will read the assurance from yesterday that he repeated today in his short, interrupted speech:

“I turn to Motion F and Amendment 10D. As we have set out before, the Government recognise the commitment and responsibility that comes with combat veterans, whether our own or those who have shown courage by serving alongside us, and we will not let them down. Once again, I reassure Parliament that, once the UKSF ARAP review has concluded, the Government will consider and revisit how the Illegal Migration Act and removal under existing immigration legislation will apply to those who are determined ARAP eligible as a result of the review, ensuring that they receive the attention that they deserve”.—[Official Report, 16/4/24; col. 901.]


That is what we have, but I do not have any faith in the Government’s attitude to the brave men and women concerned from that assurance. I do not understand what it means. I do not take any assurance from it, given not only the way that these individuals have been treated but the way that your Lordships’ House and my noble friends have been treated over the last 24 hours. I also do not take any reassurance from it because, as a parent, a practising lawyer and a politician, on occasions in my life when I have “ensured that people receive the attention that they deserve”, it has normally resulted in me scolding them, disciplining them or telling them they were wrong and they will have to be punished. It does not seem to give any assurance that there will be any positive result; it sounds more like a threat than anything else.

As I said yesterday, now is the time to give these people the sanctuary that their bravery has earned. This worthless assurance will not do. I therefore feel compelled to test the mood of your Lordships’ House and to send the message to the other place that it is time the Government learned the political consequences of the failure either to give an assurance that is bankable or to accept this amendment. There is little, if any, support in your Lordships’ House for the failure to do so, and there is certainly no majority support in the country for us to treat these brave people this way.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I do not intend to repeat the arguments that were made yesterday for the two amendments that I understand are going to be pushed to a vote. I shall simply say this about the amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope: it provides Parliament and the Government with protection. Parliament, including this House, is provided with protection by the amendment in declaring that Rwanda is a safe country when we do not have the evidence of it being so. The amendment gives us security. Secondly, it provides protection for both present and future Secretaries of State, whose ability to act when Rwanda is perhaps declared as not being safe in the future is constrained by the Bill that we are being asked to pass without amendment. It is therefore essential for both Parliament and the Government to have the protection that this Motion provides.

In respect of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, I was hoping to hear from the Government a concrete guarantee that Afghan supporters and allies, who provided such great service to the United Kingdom, would be given the right to live in our country. No such guarantee has been given. Vague words do not stand the test here, and it is essential that this House stands by the resolve it has shown by ensuring that this matter is referred back to the other House to really consider its obligations to those who have served this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have already spoken to Motion D; I beg to move.

Motion D1 (as an amendment to Motion D)

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

Moved by

At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 10F in lieu—

10F: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—“Exemption for agents, allies and employees of the UK Overseas(1) Notwithstanding the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the Illegal Migration Act 2023, any earlier Immigration Acts and the other provisions of this Act, the following categories of person may not be removed to the Republic of Rwanda—(a) allies or agents who have supported His Majesty’s armed forces overseas in an exposed or meaningful manner that now affects their claims for protection;(b) persons who have been employed by or indirectly contracted to provide services to the UK Government in an exposed or meaningful manner that now affects their claim for protection;(c) the partners and dependent family members or persons referred to in paragraph (a) or (b) above;(d) persons who were the partners or family members of persons referred to in paragraph (a) or (b) above in a manner that now affects their claim for protection.(2) The exemption in subsection (1) above includes but is not limited to persons eligible for entry to the UK under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (“ARAP”) and Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (“ACRS”).(3) A person seeking to rely upon the exemption in subsection (1) above shall give the Secretary of State notice within one week of arrival in the UK to allow prompt verification of available records as to allies, agents, employees, contractors and family members. (4) Failure to give reasonable notice as required under subsection (3) above, may in the absence of available records verifying the claimant’s qualification for exemption under this section, allow a court or tribunal to draw adverse inferences as to the credibility of the claimant’s case for exemption.””

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, since the Minister spoke about Motion E, I should like to respond to the government amendment. I am co-chair of the parliamentary group on modern slavery and a vice-chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation. The government amendment on modern slavery or human trafficking is entirely inadequate to deal with a group of people who are victims of a crime, suffering very often serious trauma, and without control of their destiny—they arrive here without the choice to be here. They are a specific and completely different group from any other group that your Lordships have been considering. They are then sent to Rwanda or to another country.

This Government, and I praised them at the time, passed a brilliant piece of legislation: the Modern Slavery Act, which is admired across the world. It has been made, if I may say so, almost entirely without any effect by subsequent legislation. For the Government to rely on the Modern Slavery Act as the legislation that is taken account of is laughable. The idea the Government make, that the Modern Slavery Act provides a protection for those victims who are covered by the existing legislation, is equally laughable. I did not table again the amendment that I put at the first ping-pong, but I must say that I deplore the Government’s approach to victims of a heinous crime that is widespread across this country.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Motion F1 and Amendment 10D in lieu. Your Lordships’ House will be pleased to hear that I do not intend to rehearse the moral case for this amendment in any detail. Frankly, if I have not persuaded the House of that on any of the previous occasions that I have spoken to a variant of this amendment, then I will not do so today. Instead, I shall focus briefly on yesterday’s proceedings in the other place and the reasoning of the Minister and others in refusing to accept it in its earlier version, Amendment 10C.

First, I must dispute any suggestion that mine, in any of its versions, is a wrecking amendment. Indeed, I argue that, far from being a wrecking amendment, it is calculated to improve this legislation in a very specific way and, in so doing, to protect our international reputation and our credibility as an ally in future conflicts while leaving the central policy entirely unchallenged—although I do not agree with the central policy or support it.

I take this opportunity to express my thanks to 13 senior military and security figures, many of whom are Members of your Lordships’ House, for their letter in support of Amendment 10C, which was published in the Sunday Telegraph last Sunday. As they said in this letter, without this amendment, the legislation we are considering will

“do grave damage to our ability to recruit local allies in future military operations”.

I will be grateful if, when he responds, the Minister explains why several noble and gallant Members of this House—former Chiefs of the Defence Staff and others with direct senior experience in national security issues—are wrong in that assessment and that his Government are right. If the Government simply feel that our future credibility as an ally is less important than other considerations, perhaps he could just say so openly.

Ours is a revising Chamber; this is what we are here to do. Given that we have already seen objective reality defined by governmental fiat in relation in Rwanda, I am less surprised than I otherwise might have been by the Government’s determination to construe Amendment 10C as in some way disruptive or hostile. It is neither. After all, as I have explained before, it affects only a small number of people who have given service to this country when we have asked it of them. This is a measured, limited and proportionate amendment, calculated to achieve justice for a relatively small number of people who have risked death and injury at our behest and in our interests.

As I have also explained before, in many cases it has been our own bureaucratic sclerosis, administrative shortcomings and wrongful refusal of the status that would have awarded visas to these very people, enabling them to escape certain death, that compelled these brave men to take irregular routes here in the first place. To then use the fact of their irregular arrival—the need for which is a consequence of our own failure—as a justification for their removal to Rwanda is not merely illogical but disgraceful and immoral.

The Government have offered two principal lines of argument in refusing to accept the principle of exempting this group from deportation. First, they have argued that the deterrent value of the Rwanda policy requires absolute consistency: there should be no statutory exemptions from deportation, however deserving. In response to Conservative Back-Bench voices outlining support for the principles underlying my amendment, the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration argued that it was unnecessary, given that the Home Secretary had discretionary powers under Section 4 of the Illegal Migration Act to exempt individuals in certain circumstances.

Justifying the refusal of my amendment by arguing simultaneously that clemency may hypothetically be exercised and that the deterrent effect must be adamantine is completely incoherent. The Government have had more than a year’s notice of this and of the identity of some of the people affected by the amendment. The Times, the Independent, Sky and Lighthouse Reports have all exposed the failures of our approach to the people affected. If the Government wished to offer certainty and comfort to these people, they have had ample time so to do. What faith can we possibly be expected to repose in the Government’s possible future gratitude to these brave men, given the way in which they have been treated to date? Of course, I welcome the relocations and assistance policy review, but why not simply accept the moral case, add this amendment to the Bill and relieve this and any future Home Secretary of the burden of exercising discretionary power by enshrining this exemption into law?

As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has claimed, the Government’s new amendment on modern slavery reporting is inadequate. It undermines their own contention that this Bill must be passed unamended to preserve its deterrent effect. In making this concession, they have also—albeit tacitly—conceded the value of the scrutiny of this House. I therefore propose both to test the opinion of this House once again and to ask the other place to consider whether it is really in our moral or national interest to expose those brave men who have served with us to further uncertainty. I continue to believe—as all the time I have been advancing this amendment I have believed—that it is now the time to give them the sanctuary their bravery has earned.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make one point in support of Motion F1. I yield to no one in my commitment to the democratic legitimacy of the House of Commons, but this House does have a constitutional role to play and this Bill is an example of it. We have a constitutional right and duty to make amendments to a Bill—even a bad Bill such as this Bill, which was in no manifesto—to try to improve it.

The noble Lord who just introduced his amendment referred to yesterday’s debate, from which I will read one sentence:

“My abiding concern remains for a class of people who served our country, who endured great danger in Afghanistan, who still find themselves in danger in a third country—namely Pakistan—and who may well fall foul of an entirely unintended consequence as a result of this legislation, however well intentioned it may be”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/4/24; col. 100.]


That was said by the distinguished Conservative Member Sir Robert Buckland. If we vote in support of Motion F1, we can give Members in the other place another opportunity to think again and accept this improving amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 10D in lieu—

10D: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Exemption for agents, allies and employees of the UK Overseas
(1) Notwithstanding the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the Illegal Migration Act 2023, any earlier Immigration Acts and the other provisions of this Act, the following categories of person may not be removed to the Republic of Rwanda—
(a) agents or allies who have supported His Majesty’s armed forces overseas in an exposed or meaningful manner that now affects their claim for protection;
(b) persons who have been employed by or indirectly contracted to provide services to the UK Government in an exposed or meaningful manner that now affects their claim for protection;
(c) the partners and dependent family members of persons referred to in paragraph (a) or (b) above;
(d) persons who were the partners or family members of persons referred to in paragraph (a) or (b) above in a manner that now affects their claim for protection.
(2) The exemption in subsection (1) above includes but is not limited to persons eligible for entry to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (“ARAP”) and Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (“ACRS”).
(3) A person seeking to rely upon the exemption in subsection (1) above shall give the Secretary of State notice as soon as reasonably practicable to allow prompt verification of available records as to allies, agents, employees, contractors and family members.
(4) Failure to give reasonable notice as required under subsection (3) above, may in the absence of available records verifying the claimant’s qualification for exemption under this section, allow a court or tribunal to draw adverse inferences as to the credibility of the claimant’s case for exemption.””

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

I beg to move Motion F1.