Illegal Migration: Pull Factors
Lord Empey Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Lord Empey
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the “pull factors” attracting migrants to enter the United Kingdom illegally.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
The Government are committed to tackling illegal migration and the criminal networks behind it. We have launched campaigns directed at misinformation on pull factors and are taking a tougher action on illegal working in particular. There is no single universal pull factor independently driving irregular migration to the UK. In many cases, asylum seekers or illegal migrants are being directed or even coerced by organised criminal networks. The Government keep all these issues under review.
Lord Empey (UUP)
I thank the Minister for his response. The Minister is currently introducing some minor measures to make it more difficult for the traffickers facilitating small boat crossings, and I support those measures, but does he believe that it is sustainable for us as a nation to admit between 10,000 and 23,000 migrants per week, largely legally, meaning that we are increasing our population by at least 500,000 per year indefinitely? Will he confer with his colleagues in government with a view to convening all-party talks to try to reach a consensus on how migration is to be dealt with long term, and commence a national conversation with the objective of reducing the anxiety and toxicity around this issue?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right that we need to reduce the anxiety and toxicity around this issue. I reassure him that, first and foremost, the Government are committed to meeting their international obligations, which include asylum claims legitimately put before the United Kingdom. He may have noticed that an immigration White Paper was produced recently by the Government, which raises a number of issues. We need to look at pull factors, certainly, but the Government are also taking very strong action on cross-border, cross-channel issues, including the removal of people who have failed their asylum claims, the removal of foreign national criminals and the removal of individuals who are illegally working in the United Kingdom, as well increasing prosecutions. There is a range of measures, and we discuss this internally in government every day of the week.
UK-France Migration: Co-operation
Lord Empey Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord. Let me put him at ease. I am not having a bit of fun with the previous Government; I am imploring the House to understand what the pressures were under the previous Government, the lack of action—that is a political opinion and my view—and how, as well as the borders and security Bill, the measures that we have taken with Belgium, Holland, Germany and, in this last week, France, in the agreement between President Macron and the Prime Minister, are designed to do what the whole House has a shared objective on, which is to reduce the crossings, hold those criminals to account and break their business model. That is what we are trying to do.
The noble Lord asks when the scheme will come into play. We plan to do the scheme by the summer, which is a definitive date. I suspect that the proposal is for the next five to six weeks, but the summer is our aim. We have not yet set a date to monitor and evaluate the pilots, but, self-evidently, it is in the interests of France, the UK and the people who are being trafficked to smash the gangs as soon as possible and ensure that we provide an upscaling of the scheme as soon as possible. I hope the noble Lord will give a fair wind to what I think will still be a deterrent. We will return to that after the Recess, to be questioned and subject to scrutiny in September, which I regard as the early autumn and late summer.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, the Minister referred to a number of his international engagements, but one thing the Government are stubbornly refusing to look at is discussing with our allies a revision of the 1951 European refugee convention. I have asked Parliamentary Questions twice and both have come back with a negative response. It seems to me that talking to allies about something that was done after World War II which is relevant to all this is worth doing, and I hope the Government will do that.
While in broad terms I do not resile from the fact that the Minister is having a go at all this, and I am quite supportive of that, I am far from convinced that the European Union will be happy with it, for a variety of reasons. I hope it works, but it will have no impact whatever on the total increase in our population, which is the thing that we are studiously ignoring in this Parliament and have been for 20 years. Even in a good week, we are still increasing our population by 10,000 people per week. In 2023, we were increasing our population by 23,000 people a week, but no one in the Government or Parliament seems to join the dots between that and the housing shortage, health waiting lists and a stagnant economy.
I will support the Minister in all the measures he has taken with our European allies because I think they can be small contributing parts, and of course the Rwanda scheme never got off the ground and so we will never know whether it would have worked. The fact is that the gangs are not smashed; they are still trading well and they have weeks of good weather ahead of them. I hope that, when we come back after the Summer Recess, we are not sitting here talking about numbers still being 56% up. This scheme must be designed as a deterrent but there are many other pull factors, including our legal approach to all this and how we are dealing with it, subsidising legal actions against our own Government. That in and of itself creates a pull factor.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Lord raises a number of key points. As a Government, we are committed to our international obligations. The noble Lord mentioned the 1951 convention. As he knows, a letter has been circulated by some European Union member states calling for that to be examined. We want to maintain our international obligations, and it is important that we do so. In doing that, we still have to undertake the actions mentioned—I am thankful for the noble Lord’s support on those today—as well as other actions.
The noble Lord mentioned the EU’s interests. On 30 March and 1 April this year, we had a border security summit on organised crime that brought together 50 countries that are impacted by this, including key members of the European Union such as Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, and other countries such as Turkey, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Albania, Nigeria and Pakistan. It is very important that those longer-term issues are addressed.
The people who arrive in northern France have usually entered the European Union via southern Italy or Greece, and sometimes via the borders of Poland and eastern Europe. It is in the EU’s interests to examine the French-British scheme and to ensure, if there are positive lessons to be learned, that it is expanded. It is in nobody’s interest to have criminal gangs operating throughout the EU and in the United Kingdom and the channel. As well as the challenges of that movement, the profits those criminal gangs make are going into drugs, guns and other activity that fuels further crime. I hope that the noble Lord’s fears will not be realised and that we can take action.
The noble Lord said that a large number of people are arriving here. I point him to the figure of 10,191 asylum-related returns that took place last year because of the speeding-up of the asylum-claim process. We are speeding up the asylum-claim process and weeding out those people who have paid for a small boat trip and arrived in the UK but have no legitimate asylum claim whatever, having arrived as economic migrants who did not go through a legal route. Those people are being removed.
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
Lord Empey ExcerptsThursday 26th June 2025
(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, has given us a foretaste of the consideration we will give to Amendment 206, tabled by her noble friend Lady Hamwee and to which I have added my name, which is about Europol. I agree with what she said. I also agree with the interventions made by other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who spoke on behalf of his noble friend Lord Browne, about the importance of consultation. Of course, I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said. She has no reason to fear; no one will ever accuse her of being pompous. She was right to remind us about the importance of the use of words, drawing our attention to “irregular” and “illegal”.
I will speak to Amendment 7, moved very ably by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, on his behalf and that of his noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, which spells out what the duties of the commander should be in
“reducing the number of illegal migrant crossings, and … increasing the prosecutions of criminal organisations who facilitate illegal migrant crossings”.
In some ways it seems almost otiose to include this in the Bill, as those are clearly the main reasons why the Government brought it forward in the first place, but I understand the need sometimes to use Bills as a form of semaphore to send out signals and why the Opposition Front Bench might wish to do that.
As the Minister knows, I apologised for being unable to speak at Second Reading because a group of us from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I chair, were in Strasbourg to talk about, among other things, interpretations of Article 8 of the ECHR, prosecutions, the number of illegal crossings—as referred to in this amendment—and the criminal gangs manipulating and profiteering on the backs of often desperate people. During that visit, we met, among others, Tim Eicke KC, who has been the British judge in the European court for the past nine years. As noble Lords will know, the Government have put forward the names of three others who will take his place. I am glad to say that he has told me that he is willing to come to your Lordships’ House when he returns in September to share with us many of the experiences that he has had over these past nine years.
The European court and the Council of Europe are not our enemies; some of your Lordships were able to participate in the debate that I moved on behalf of the Cross Benches a few weeks ago on the European Convention on Human Rights—its origins, which we have been celebrating as it is its 75th anniversary, and its importance in this day and age. The Council of Europe and the European convention are inextricably linked. I wanted members of our committee to evaluate and understand that, because if one were to leave the convention it would mean also leaving the Council of Europe and disentangling ourselves from many of the things that I believe will help us ensure that the number of illegal crossings will be reduced and the number of prosecutions increased, because we have to do these things across borders and with our neighbours. If we do not, we will certainly not stem the staggering numbers of people leaving their homelands to make these dangerous crossings.
The Council of Europe and the court shared our concerns in all the discussions that we had. These are not our enemies. We discussed the exploitation and displacement of a staggering 122 million people—a number that has nearly doubled in the past decade. The number of refugees and persons in need of international protection reached over 42 million, while the number of internally displaced people rose to around 74 million. More than two-thirds of refugees originated from just six countries: Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, South Sudan, Sudan and Venezuela. A rough but telling extrapolation from these figures suggests that around one in every 67 people on earth has been forcibly displaced. These people are the shadow which hangs over our debate on this amendment and others today.
On 20 June, the Joint Committee on Human Rights published its report on this Bill. It runs to over 80 pages and I commend it to your Lordships. It is available in the Printed Paper Office. At paragraph 13, we remarked:
“It was not within the scope of this inquiry to look at wider issues such as the root causes of the refugee crisis or proposals for offering safe and legal routes to those in need of protection. Whilst this Bill focuses exclusively on tackling organised immigration crime, we encourage the Government to seek to address the underlying root causes which are fuelling the global refugee crisis”.
We cannot dodge that challenge. I strongly agree with the UNHCR, which, in its recent analysis of global trends, was emphatic that, for meaningful progress to be made,
“we must address the root causes”.
It is a point that I have repeatedly—perhaps some would say tediously—made in your Lordships’ House. Simply blaming international humanitarian law will not be part of the solution.
To be clear, the Joint Committee welcomes the Bill’s overall aims to deter organised crime and prevent loss of life at sea. Of course, we would therefore agree with the terms of this amendment as it is drafted. It is right that the Government do all they can to ensure that a legislative framework is in place to help eradicate this terrible and dangerous criminality, but we will not do that by diminishing our obligations to uphold international conventions and commitments.
The noble Lord, Lord Hanson, does an admirable job in his role at the Home Office and I join others in paying tribute to him. I have been deeply impressed by the work he does and it is good to have got to know him over the distance. The Minister knows as well as I do that, if offences are applied too broadly, refugees, victims of people smuggling and modern slavery are being put at risk of being criminalised rather than the smugglers. We have to help the victims as well as tackle the smugglers; it is not a question of one or the other. The Bill needs to target those who are profiting from organised immigration crime. The people they are exploiting need to be protected, but at present there is a risk that the most vulnerable are caught by some of the new offences. We are united in wishing to reduce the number of illegal crossings, but we are wary of enacting laws which could have unforeseeable consequences.
I will return to some of these points in later groups. I will try not to be repetitive—we have to make progress on this Bill. I welcome the debate we have had so far on this group and the spirit in which it has been conducted. It is admirable, and far better than some of the exchanges that we had in the previous Parliament, both in the Joint Committee on Human Rights and on the Floor of the House. I hope, as we proceed, that we will keep these two objectives in our sights: first, to tackle the illegality of those who are putting lives at risk on a daily basis and, secondly, the importance of protecting those who are so vulnerable.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, I apologise for not speaking at Second Reading, but I did attend the pre-brief that the Minister kindly gave to Peers.
On Amendment 71, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, I would be surprised if such meetings were not on the agenda of anybody holding the position. I have no difficulty with the concept of putting it in the Bill, but I assume it would be a routine level of co-operation that you would expect. However, if she feels it necessary to insist that it is in the Bill, I personally have no objection to it.
As I said to the Minister, my concern is not with the Bill itself but with what is not in it; that is my biggest worry. We have just heard figures about the international situation and, of course, we require an international negotiation to try to solve an international problem. That is why I am surprised that the Government are refusing even to talk to our allies about the 1951 refugee convention. I asked the Government last August and again a few weeks ago, and they refuse to enter into discussions with our allies on that. I would have thought it was a relatively sensible place to start, because the convention was created after World War Two and the world has changed. The problem is highlighted by what we have just been discussing. International aid is obviously another component and, of course, for economic reasons, we are moving in the opposite direction. There is a contradiction at the core of it all.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend, who makes a really important point about the importance of looking again at the things we committed ourselves to in the circumstances in which those were signed. I reassure him that the Joint Committee takes that view too. While we were in Strasbourg, we discussed a letter which had just been sent by nine different Governments, led by Denmark and Donald Tusk’s Poland—which could hardly be regarded as being anti-international law or on the far right of politics—urging the Council of Europe and the European court to look again at the interpretation of things such as Article 8. I know that is the position of the Government, too. I hope that, as the Bill proceeds, we will hear more from the Government about what it actually is that they would like to see reformed.
Lord Empey (UUP)
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. The Minister will be aware that, of course, the ECHR has particular connotations for me and Northern Ireland and how we negotiated the Good Friday agreement. Equally, how its terms are being interpreted, within the United Kingdom internally in particular, gives me cause for great concern. No agreement should be unable to be reviewed or looked at with life experience and the passage and flux of time. All I am saying is that the Government need to do both. The refugee convention of 1951 is another component part of it.
Coming back to the point about the powers of the commander, I believe it has to be the Government that set the strategic objectives. If we are not careful, we are also in danger of having too many cooks here. We have Border Force, this new organisation, the Government themselves, the police and all sorts of people involved, indeed including Interpol operating internationally. My anxiety about all of this is that successive Governments and Parliaments—we are all responsible—were all part of the business model of ruthless people who exploit and take money from unfortunate individuals who find themselves in difficult circumstances.
On the other hand, there are our own failings internally about our record-keeping. I do not believe that we really know who is in this country. We do not know how many Governments are putting potential sleeper cells into our country, and we do not really know who leaves and when. Boats are not the only method of irregularly or illegally getting into this country; the old-fashioned back of the lorry and other means are still there and have to be taken into account.
We have a huge task ahead of us, but I say to the Minister that the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and others have substance. I do not see anything wrong with the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Browne; it seems a reasonably sensible thing to do, and I would have no issues with it at all. However, I remind the Minister that, at the end of the day, the buck stops with the Government in setting goals, and it is within that that we should look at how a commander operates, because that person cannot simply exist in splendid isolation.
Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill
Lord Empey ExcerptsWednesday 12th February 2025
(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Suttie (LD)
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, I think that this amendment has a lot of merit. It certainly raises some very important issues. Ahead of this Bill, I met with people from the insurance industry. They very much made the point that time and money could be saved by incorporating some of these security provisions at the design phase of public buildings.
The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, made a very powerful case for why this amendment would make sense. Clearly, retrospectively trying to put in measures for effective and safe evacuations and invacuations is frequently going to be harder and less cost-effective than building them in at the planning and architectural design stage for new public buildings. As others have hinted, this amendment is perhaps not for this Bill but for a future planning Bill, but it raises a common-sense and important set of issues. I look forward to Minister’s reply.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, my two colleagues mentioned the situation in Northern Ireland. The Minister will be very familiar, from his service there, with a lot of this. A lot of the protections that were put in place were against blast. Terrorist tactics have changed and will continue to change. You cannot simply look at what the threat might have been 30 or 40 years ago: look at the threat that we face today, but in 10 years or 20 years, it may be very different.
The trick will be to have flexible thinking going into the actual design, so although the nature of the threat will change over time there will at least be a bit of future-proofing—that is the language we would need to use. All those lessons should be learned. I served on the Northern Ireland Police Authority, which had to deal with the threats to buildings in those circumstances and to other Civil Service facilities. The Minister will be very familiar with all that. The key is for those who design or adapt buildings—because more buildings are going to be adapted than built from scratch—to show a bit of flexibility in those processes and put a little thought into what might be coming down the road. Our buildings were largely protected against blast, which would not necessarily be the only thing that is at risk.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendment 43, tabled by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister. This has been a very interesting debate. The amendment seeks to introduce a new clause requiring the Secretary of State to
“consult with local authorities on integrating counter-terrorism measures into the planning and design of new buildings which are likely to be designated ‘qualifying premises’ for the purposes of this Act”.
It further calls for the introduction of measures to ensure that anti-terrorism design principles are incorporated into building projects, particularly those in high-risk areas.
The importance of designing safer urban environments from the outset cannot be overstated. In an era where the threat of terrorism continues to evolve, our approach to public safety must also adapt. The integration of counterterrorism measures into the planning and design of buildings offers a forward-thinking solution that enhances security while reducing the need for costly and disruptive retrofits. By embedding security principles into architectural design, we can create spaces that are both functional and secure. Measures such as blast-resistant materials, secure perimeters, control access points and natural surveillance through open and well-lit layouts can significantly reduce the vulnerability of public spaces.
Many countries have already embraced the concept of designing out terrorism. For example, in the United States and parts of Europe, urban planners and architects routinely incorporate security features into the design of transport hubs, commercial centres and public venues. The United Kingdom should not lag behind in adopting similar best practices. This amendment encourages a collaborative approach between the Government, local authorities and the construction industry to ensure that new developments are designed with security in mind. Local authorities are uniquely positioned to provide insights into the specific risks and needs of their areas, making their involvement in this process essential.
Incorporating counterterrorism measures at the planning stage is not only more effective but more cost-efficient. Retrofitting existing buildings to meet new security requirements can be expensive and disruptive, often requiring extensive modifications that compromise the original design and functionality. By contrast, proactive design reduces long-term costs and creates environments that seamlessly balance aesthetics, functionality and security.
I must stress that this amendment does not seek to turn our urban landscapes into fortresses. Good design can enhance both security and public experience without compromising the openness and accessibility that define vibrant communities. By working closely with architects, planners and local authorities, we can ensure that security features are thoughtfully integrated and do not detract from the usability and beauty of public spaces. I fully associate myself with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, on this issue.
The amendment rightly prioritises high-risk areas where the likelihood of terrorism incidents is higher due to factors such as foot traffic, symbolic importance or previous threats. By taking a proactive approach in these areas, we would not only protect lives but bolster public confidence in the safety of shared spaces. In conclusion, the amendment would strengthen the Bill by embedding security into the very fabric of our built environment. It demonstrates a pragmatic and forward-looking approach to counterterrorism that balances safety, efficiency and community needs. I urge the Government and noble Lords to support this amendment as it represents a vital step forward, creating a safer, more resilient United Kingdom.
Asylum Seekers: Hotels
Lord Empey Excerpts(7 months ago)
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Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, I have considerable sympathy with the Ministers of this Government and previous Governments with regard to hotels. However, the Minister answered a Question last week and I got a sense of complete complacency, not only in Parliament but in government, about the position that all this immigration is leading us to. The truth is that the system is completely out of control and has been for some considerable time. We talk about dispersed accommodation and integration, which I fully support, but if you have 20,000 people per week coming into the country, how do you disperse and integrate them? The numbers are just uncontrollable, given the shortages of accommodation that we already have.
Then we say, “Well, we’ve got waiting lists in the health service”. Of course we have waiting lists in the health service. If you are increasing your population at that rate, how could it be anything else? The question is a basic one and it goes back to the fact that it is gangsters who are running these people, taking money off them and putting them into harm’s way in the channel in the hope that they will get to the other side, although they have already pocketed the money. Although the Government have made a commitment that they are going to tackle that as their number one priority—the Prime Minister has been very explicit about it—I would like to hear from the Minister what progress has been made.
We have a long tradition, of course, of opening our doors—it goes back to the Kinder trains in the 1930s and 1940s; of course, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is one of the shining examples of the success of that—but as a country, we just do not have the capability or capacity to deal with the numbers and we are just not facing up to it. Look at what is happening around the world; look at what is happening today in the United States and why it is happening. Look at what has happened in other countries in Europe and look, in a few weeks’ time, at what might happen in Germany. We cannot just keep sweeping this under the carpet.
Part of the problem goes back, I think, to the good will that was genuinely expressed over 70 years ago when we were dealing with the 1951 refugee convention. On 30 July last year, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, a Written Question:
“To ask his Majesty’s Government whether they are discussing with other countries amendments to the 1951 Refugee Convention to take into account the changed world circumstances”.
The Answer was:
“The Government is not discussing amendments to the Refugee Convention with other countries”.
Why not? It was done with good will and the right intentions quite a number of years ago, but it is out of date and we need to address it. I hope the Minister can give us some comfort on that.
We are under international obligations, and that is why we need an international solution, but we also have national obligations. We have just taken a heating allowance of £200 a year off pensioners who are earning just over £12,500 a year, yet it costs £145 a night to house anybody who comes in on a boat, and they also have access to our health service and so on, while other people in our own community do not. We have to be compassionate on one side, but we also have to be realistic on the other.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for giving us an opportunity to debate this issue. We have had a number of Questions on it, but it is worthy of a debate in this short time we have. I will try to answer the points that noble Lords mentioned in their contributions.
If the noble Lord will forgive me, I will start with the noble Lord, Lord Patten, who asked whether we have a plan to look at blue Monday five years hence. I hope it will help him and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, if I mention some points very briefly, which I hope will satisfy the noble Lord, at least in part.
First, we have to speed up asylum claims, because they are taking too long to be determined. As my noble friend Lady Lister mentioned, we have a proud record of accepting asylum claims, but we have to adjudicate them. The longer we take to adjudicate them, the longer people need to be in hotels and dispersed accommodation. So the first task the Government have to undertake is to ensure that we complete and assess asylum claims as quickly as possible. To do that, we have put in an extra 1,000 staff, deployed from different parts of the department, in part from the savings from the Rwanda scheme which was scrapped.
Secondly, we need to speedily remove those who do not have a claim for asylum. Since 4 July, the Government have taken 16,000-plus people who have failed the asylum system from hotels and returned them to a place of safety—a country that they have been deemed able to return to.
Thirdly, and this is the nub of the discussions we have had so far, we need to look at how we close hotels, because they are a costly way of operating asylum accommodation. We have already closed the “Bibby Stockholm” and scrapped the use of Scampton in Lincolnshire, and we have plans to reduce the number of hotels over the course of this Parliament. It will take time, but by March this year we will have nine fewer hotels than we inherited in July last year. The noble Lord will expect me to say this, but I find it strange that under his jurisdiction and his Government, the number of hotels went from zero in 2015 to a peak of 400 in 2023 and is now just settling at the 260-270 mark. There is a record that we have to pick up on and work with, which I am trying to do in a constructive and positive way.
To answer some of the points mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Green, we have put in place the new Border Security Command—which will require legal back-up in a Bill later this year—with Martin Hewitt as its head. That is designed to try to take some of the pressure not off asylum accommodation, which is legitimate, but the illegal entry to the UK by criminal gangs organising for people to make dangerous crossings to potentially seek asylum, who in some cases have no basis for asylum but still come across in illegal gangs. The Border Security Command will be part of the plan to try to overturn that.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, asked about what we are doing with our international partners, and we have some international policy objectives. We do not have a phobia about talking to Germans, Italians or the French. We have a Calais Group in place to look at the issues there. Our Border Force control is looking at what is happening in Germany, working with Germany upstream to reduce the pressures there and to ensure that people claim asylum legitimately in their first port of call, rather than coming to the United Kingdom.
We have scrapped the Rwanda scheme, which was a disincentive and a waste of money. We have put that money into the areas I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, such as speeding up asylum claims, finding places to reduce the use of hotels and commissioning good, dispersed accommodation. I take the point mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord German, that we want to get people through the system as quickly as possible, so they are determined to be legitimately here and able to work, or not legitimately here, and a way is found to deport them. That process needs to have integrity and speed.
There are issues arising from and discussions about the levels of migration, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Green. The Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill, which is a Liberal Democrat-inspired Bill, not a Government Bill, has legitimate objectives at its core, which I accept and understand. A big migration White Paper is due shortly; it will look at the very pressures that have been talked about in this House by my noble friend Lady Lister and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield, and at how we deal with integration and the potential shortfall in skills. It will consider how we deal with asylum issues generally, all the questions that are dealt with in the family reunion Bill, and how we create a wider 5-year plan—going back to the noble Lord, Lord Patten—to ensure that we can deal with those issues over that period. Those are all key issues.
To the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield and others who have mentioned it, I say that the hotel costs which are the focus of this debate are simply eyewatering and not a good use of taxpayers’ money. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, mentioned, they are not even a good way of ensuring the safety and security of the people in those hotels, particularly women fleeing persecution. The costs were £8 million per day under the previous Government. They have dropped to £6 million per day following the work we have done to reduce them. It will take time but, I say again to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, it is part of the plan to get that figure right down and, over a period, end the use of hotels, but we have to deal with the demand issues first. These include legitimate asylum claims, which my noble friend Lady Lister mentioned; we should be place of sanctuary, somewhere that accepts people who are fleeing persecution, and do so in a proper and effective way without hotels.
We have to be cognisant of the fact that we still have to deal with the continued demand, as has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Empey. We need to focus on reducing the pressure on the system from those who are seeking to come here illegally.
We have increased dispersed accommodation by 8% in the past few months of this Government’s tenure—the first time that we have been in office to do so. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money had already been spent on large sites at Scampton and Bexhill, and the “Bibby Stockholm”, by the previous Government, and we have tried to row back on that. We have reviewed asylum spend, and it is important that we look at the bigger picture. In 2023-24, when the noble Lord’s party was in office, the Home Office spent £4.7 billion on asylum support, the vast majority on hotels. We are continuing to explore how we can save taxpayers’ money, and we are on track to save £4 billion over the next two years. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Patten, that it is part of the plan to reduce the amount of money spent on asylum accommodation by speeding up the claims, scrapping accommodation such as the “Bibby Stockholm” and ensuring that the Rwanda policy is changed, so that we can use that resource to clear the backlog of asylum decisions.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for securing this debate. This Government inherited an asylum system under exceptional strain. When we came into office, there were tens of thousands of cases at a complete standstill, and a growing a backlog. In reference to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord German, asylum seekers were therefore living in limbo, accommodated in hotels which not only cost exorbitant sums but are profoundly detrimental to the wellbeing of vulnerable individuals, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, mentioned. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield highlighted that there is real pressure on hotels from collections of individuals, which has led to forces that are not conducive to integration, security and acceptance. The focus has been on hotels rather than on dispersed accommodation, where people go about their daily lives in a dispersed way.
For all those reasons, the Government are actively working towards a more sustainable and cost-effective solution to accommodate asylum seekers away from hotels. I have to be honest with the House: it will take time. It is a challenge, and it cannot be done straightaway, but the Government’s objective is very clear. In the manifesto, we said that we would end the use of hotels for asylum accommodation and, at a date to be determined, that we will do. I will be accountable to this House, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary will be to the House of Commons, in ensuring that we do that in future. The resource that is being eaten up by asylum hotels is the very same that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, mentioned, can be used elsewhere for more positive activity. I will look at the detail of what she mentioned and drop her a note.
I will check on my noble friend Lady Lister’s lost letter. I thought I had sent it, but maybe it got lost in the system over Christmas and the new year. We will find out where it has gone, and if it does not have a stamp on it yet, it will have one shortly. She may even find that I use the new method of email, as a matter of some speed, to get the correspondence to her in short order. I will look at that as a matter of urgency and get back to her.
I hope that today’s debate has been useful. There are challenges. On all sides of the House, we accept that we have the challenges of wider migration, hotel accommodation and its cost, making a plan and illegal migration into this country. In the short time that I have had, I hope I have set out the Government’s prospectus. With that, I hope that the House can hold me to account in due course on the delivery of that proposal.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
We have time. As I have known the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for such a long time and worked with him in such a constructive way, and even though the clock is flashing, I will take his intervention.
Lord Empey (UUP)
Before the Minister sits down—again—could he respond to my point about the 1951 refugee convention. He talked about demand. This is part of the legal framework and our international obligations, which I think need revision, with our partners across the rest of the world who were party to it in the first place. If he cannot give me a response now, he can write to me—or email me.
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Search, Seizure and Detention of Property: Code of Practice) (Northern Ireland) Order 2024
Lord Empey Excerpts(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my registered interest as a member of your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, in which we considered this SI in some detail. I welcome my noble friend to the Front Bench. We well recall him serving as a Minister in Northern Ireland; in fact, I succeeded him in the Department for Social Development and I remember the handover meeting very well. The following day, he went off to be a Minister of State here.
I welcome this statutory instrument. It is important that we move to a normal society in Northern Ireland, that the proceeds of crime are adequately addressed and that people refrain from crime in Northern Ireland, where we have the association of crime with paramilitarism. They are two scourges in our society that must be eliminated.
I have certain questions for my noble friend. While this is a reserved matter, the code is to be published by the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland. When will it publish the code, and will it be by way of a statement in the Assembly? Maybe there has already been one. Is an assessment available of the success of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 in Northern Ireland? I realise that will require a detailed answer, so I would be content if my noble friend could provide one in writing. I note that there is no impact assessment; can he indicate why? Will the police resourcing of the implementation of the code come out of the Northern Ireland block grant? There is a little difficulty there in that policing resources in Northern Ireland, in both funding and people power, are gravely overstretched.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, there is obviously a conspiracy here: the people running the Football Governance Bill have obviously decided to keep us all occupied here so that we are not dealing with them. Perhaps we should go into the Chamber later and see if we can make a contribution.
There are two sides to this: the devolved issue and the national issue. I want to explore the interface between the two and ask whether, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, mentioned, there is a resource implication. In other words, are any additional resources required? With crypto assets and so on, we are dealing with very sophisticated people who have access to complicated software and things like that. Are we capable of dealing with that as quickly as we can?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
As the Minister responsible for this order, I have not had any discussion with Naomi Long or the Department of Justice on these matters, but I hope it will give some confidence to my noble friend to know that it is my intention to meet our counterparts in Northern Ireland. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has, I believe, already met the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, and I intend to do the same. I have a potential visit to Northern Ireland planned for the new year to discuss areas of mutual co-operation. I will make sure that this issue is raised as one of many items on the agenda of any future meeting in January. With that, I commend this order to the Committee.
Lord Empey (UUP)
Will the Minister reflect again on the resources issue? If he does not have any material to hand, he could write to us, which I imagine would be easily achieved.
Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules
Lord Empey Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, I believe that immigration in this country is out of control and has been for some time. I think the numbers are far too large. If we look at the difference in the rates of immigration since we left the European Union, we see that, far from taking back control, we have lost control—and the numbers justify that. However, that is not the point I wanted to try to raise tonight—and I am not going to get into the cop business because I think that is dangerous.
We have seen cases where people who should have been put out of this country because of convictions—including even some very serious convictions for sexual and other offences—have had their deportations stopped because of, perhaps, a right to a family life. I want to raise a particular case. While the system may be intended to try to curtail immigration, the side effect has been that, where somebody behaves properly and plays by the rules as set out, they are in a worse position in many cases than somebody who tries to enter this country illegally, or somebody who has managed to get in, committed criminal offences and still has their right to a family life protected.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned a case where it was said that the resident here could go to the other country and work there with their partner. However, that does not work if the individual is registered as disabled. The particular case I want to draw the House’s attention to tonight is that of Mr Barry Ferguson, in Newtownards, County Down, who is registered as disabled because of an autoimmune illness. He has two children with his partner, who is a Malagasy national. He has been bringing up his children in Newtownards, where they are at school, and who are there without their mother. The arithmetic, whether we have the high level or the low level, would be utterly irrelevant because they cannot meet the criteria. We have been dealing with their case for the last couple of years.
It frustrates me because, while I fully understand the Government’s desire to reduce immigration, we are taking a blunt instrument to a family situation. People find themselves trapped because, if they do things legally and in the right way, they are effectively being punished, while people who pay no attention to the rules seem to get away with it.
I say to the Minister that, while it is probably unusual to bring individual cases to the Floor of the Chamber, Mr Ferguson has gone to his Stormont representative, my colleague Mike Nesbitt, to try to get help from his office for the last couple of years, and we are up against a brick wall. I would greatly appreciate, on behalf of Mr Ferguson and his family, if the Minister would take up this case—I will provide him with the details. It is clear evidence to me that having children be brought up in the United Kingdom without their mother, who cannot get in, is entirely unacceptable. I would appreciate a response from the Minister when he winds up.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, I think personal stories illustrate the broader point. I am pleased to stand in solidarity with these regret Motions and will not repeat much of what has been said, particularly about the lack of impact assessments and consultation in these matters.
I met a man last week, in Leeds, who is coming up to 80 and who has been married for 27 years, and his wife is not able to join him. They have been separated now and it is just miserable—I cannot imagine being in that situation myself. There are parts of Leeds where the average income is £27,500 a year. This is fundamentally discriminatory in that, if you are from the poorer end, your love counts for less than if you are more affluent. This cannot be just; it cannot be right in a society that we would describe as fair and just.
I do not want to prolong this, so I will put another question, as much of what I wanted to say has been said. It is a genuine question and I do not know the answer—there might be a perfectly good one. We are seeing in our universities a drop in numbers and, at the same time, a real financial crisis. Has any assessment been made by the Government as to whether there is any link between these two phenomena?
Inadmissible Asylum Seekers
Lord Empey Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am afraid I do not have that information to hand. I will see whether I can find it, and I commit to write to the noble Lord if I can.
I turn to other aspects of the various questions I was asked. The noble Lord, Lord Hussain, asked about individuals who were previously present in a safe third country and entered the UK by a dangerous and unnecessary method. I am afraid that they are liable to relocate to Rwanda. It is an ongoing operational matter, so I am unable to provide a running commentary on individual numbers or cases.
In answer to the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, about colleagues, I note that he now has a colleague who says:
“Don’t trust Labour on immigration they really want open borders … The Government wants to close legal loopholes … Labour seems intent on creating them”,
and
“Labour … are not serious about stopping small boats, tackling criminality, protecting people from the smuggling gangs or saving lives in the Channel”.
What on earth did the colleague mean by all that? I think the noble Lord knows.
As I hope I have made clear, the Government recognise the crucial importance of having in place a robust operational plan to deal with individuals who have outstanding asylum claims in the UK. We are getting on with the job; we will have a lot more to say on this subject, and I expect to be questioned on numerous future occasions on this very subject. I have little else to add.
Lord Empey (UUP)
The Minister did not manage to answer the question from my noble friend Lord Rogan about the situation between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. I am sure he would appreciate an answer.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
With apologies, I did mean to, but for obvious reasons I cannot comment on the internal policies of another country, and I do not think it would be appropriate to do so in this case.
Asylum: Channel Crossings
Lord Empey Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
Of course, I do not have those statistics to hand but they are available on the GOV.UK website. The latest statistics release, covering 1 January 2023 to 31 March 2023, shows that during that period 3,793 people arrived in the UK having crossed the channel by small boat. The next quarter of statistics is due to be published on 24 August 2023. As the noble Lord is aware, the Home Office needs to ensure that information intended for publication meets the standards and requirements set for departmental publications.
Lord Empey (UUP)
Can the Minister explain how this wretched illegal trade is allowed to be conducted in broad daylight from the shores of northern France? What would the situation be if the boats were going in the opposite direction? Would we allow the south coast to be used as a trading post for this illegal trade?
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
I thank the noble Lord. The answer is clearly that we would not, and I agree with the sentiment of his question.
Hong Kong British National (Overseas) Visa
Lord Empey Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
I shall not guess at the answer to the last question because I simply do not know. The usual checks when obtaining a visa will be made. The noble Lord will know that, from our point of view, the UK’s extradition treaty with Hong Kong has been suspended indefinitely until the UK is sufficiently assured that the new NSA established by China in Hong Kong will not be able to initiate extradition requests to the UK and that extradition requests will not be sent in relation to the newly created offences under the national security law.
Lord Empey (UUP)
By what authority did the Government unilaterally take a decision that could, in extremis, increase the population of this country by in excess of 3%? Have we learned nothing about the treatment of large-scale immigration measures that have coloured the debate on this matter for so many years?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I think I explained at the beginning that this offer reflects the unique and unprecedented circumstances in Hong Kong and the UK’s historic and moral commitment to BNO citizens. It is outside the normal immigration legislation that we have in place.