Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Etherton and Lord Cashman

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

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be brief and summarise the position I took in Committee. I support all the amendments in this group, particularly those relating to Clauses 31 and 32. I do so because the amendments will protect the most vulnerable, including women and girls who have been subjected to gender-based violence and abuse and the long-term harm those cause. They will also protect other vulnerable groups with protected characteristics, and recognise the immense and deep trauma such individuals have suffered but often deny because of a deep sense of shame. The amendments also restore the principle of a civilised and humane approach to asylum and ensure that we conform with the UN refugee convention and our international legal obligations. Finally, I have been deeply moved by the letters and some postcards I have received, particularly from women and other vulnerable groups, who express that they have much to fear from the clauses and the effects that they will have on their lives.

[Lord Etherton (CB)]

I have two amendments in this group, but they are quite distinct from what has been debated so far and distinct from each other. One is concerned with Clause 32(5) and the other concerns Clause 36(1). Because the amendment to Clause 32(5) is a manuscript amendment tabled only today, if I may, I shall start with that to Clause 36(1), because your Lordships will be familiar with the background to that.

Clause 36(1) seeks to define, for the purposes of the convention, the meaning of coming “directly” to the United Kingdom from a country of persecution. The same definition was relevant to Clause 11, because that cross-refers to the provisions of Clause 36, so we have in Clause 36 as a matter of proposed domestic legislation and as a matter of interpretation of Article 31 of the convention the same definition of arriving “directly”. Your Lordships will recall that the issue was whether, as the Government contend, if an asylum seeker passes through an intermediate state on the way to the United Kingdom from the place of persecution—through a place considered to be somewhere they ought reasonably to have applied for refugee status—they have not come “directly”. In fact, the only way they could come directly, if they are surrounded by other countries—Ukraine is a good example—would be to fly.

The House rejected that definition, because it accepted the amendment to remove Clause 11. It expressly rejected that definition of arriving “directly”. Amendment 46 simply takes out the corresponding provision in Clause 36(1), which was incorporated in Clause 11 but would otherwise simply remain at large but, so far as I can see, would have no relevance whatever to anything else in the Bill. If I am wrong on that and there is some purpose in retaining Clause 36(1), although that interpretation of arriving “directly” was rejected by the House when it approved the removal of Clause 11, the House would want to know what it is being retained for: why it is being retained and in relation to what other provisions in the Bill. My amendment would remove Clause 36(1) from the Bill.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Etherton and Lord Cashman

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Etherton (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 61 in my name. Unlike the previous amendments that have been discussed so eloquently, this is not based on specificities in relation to the nature of the accommodation and particular people; it is a compendious description of the standard of accommodation that should be provided to a refugee, in the light of and against the background of the unsatisfactory accommodation provided to date, which, as I said, has been so eloquently elaborated upon by previous speakers.

The compendious description is in three parts, which are as follows. The accommodation

“must be provided in the United Kingdom”,

which ties in with Clause 28—I will deal with that more fully under that heading. It

“must be consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights”—

there can be no objection to that, for obvious reasons. It must also

“be such as is appropriate for the safety and welfare of that refugee having particular regard to any protected characteristic asserted by the refugee, within the meaning of Chapter 1 of Part 2 of the Equality Act 2010, which is innate or immutable.”

I will say a little bit about that last particular part of this compendious description of the appropriate accommodation that should be provided. An asylum seeker who has “innate or immutable” protected characteristics may have particular vulnerabilities—we have heard quite a bit about that—which need to be taken into account in determining what would be appropriate while their particular claim is being assessed, and even if it has been rejected. In the case of LGBTQI+ and single women refugees, for example, it has been clearly established that they may well encounter bullying, sexual harassment and physical violence from other refugees coming from the same or similar countries, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Uganda, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq and Syria—or, indeed, in the case of LGBTQI+ refugees, any of the more than 70 countries where sex between two people of the same sex is illegal. There have been comprehensive analyses and accounts of this type of abuse in detention centres, and one can find them in Stonewall’s 2016 report No Safe Refuge: Experiences of LGBT Asylum Seekers in Detention, Stephen Shaw’s 2016 report to the Home Office on his Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons and the 2020 recommendations of the University of Sussex’s School of Law, Politics and Sociology on people seeking asylum in the UK on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

In relation to the suggestion in the Bill that there could be offshore centres, I will describe in more detail criticisms of the state of accommodation and examples of the sort of violent and oppressive treatment that I have described—particularly the appalling events that have taken place in some of the Australian offshore centres in Papua New Guinea.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak to these amendments and congratulate my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett on so eloquently moving the amendment. I also congratulate the other speakers who have spoken in favour.

I particularly welcome Amendment 61 of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, because, as he said, he introduces into it elements—human rights and the regard to the special provisions within the Equality Act —of which we should be proud and on which we should lead internationally. I give my wholehearted support to that because, as noble Lords have heard me say before—I make no apologies for saying it again and again—in each of these situations, I imagine what I would want as an asylum seeker or refugee. I must imagine myself in that situation. Some who read our newspapers would believe that it is a picnic and a party; it is certainly not at the moment in the United Kingdom. I believe that the signal that we are sending out with the Bill and with these amendments is that asylum seekers and those seeking refuge are not welcome.

To reiterate the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, I remember that, when I was a Member of the European Parliament many years ago, I was approached by a person whose partner was a gay man from Belarus who was seeking asylum here. His asylum process was going through and, suddenly, in the very early hours of the morning, he was arrested and detained at a detention centre. Let us make no bones about it: Clause 12(9) introduces detention centres—they are called “accommodation” centres, but asylum seekers are detained and cannot leave them at will. This is why the minimum conditions that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham outlined are a basic and bare necessity to which we should adhere. This young gay man was placed in a detention centre for a number of weeks and had to sleep in shared accommodation; we managed to get him out because his partner could afford a rather brilliant lawyer to plead the case. While he was there, he contemplated suicide on an hourly basis. This young man is now in a senior job in the United Kingdom, paying his taxes, his dues and his national insurance and abiding by the same rules and laws as everyone else. But he still lives with that scar every single day, and I do not want any other person to experience that.

Placing vulnerable people back into these situations, as outlined by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, only increases stress and the damage to mental health. If LGBTQI people are put back into the communities from which they have fled, they face further oppression within places that should be safe, and it makes it much more difficult for them to prove their LGBTQI status to others.

Someone once said to me, “Oh, being trans is just a feeling, isn’t it?” Well, I cannot prove to anyone that I am a gay man; it is a feeling and one that I have when I look at another human being—although not every single man, interestingly enough. Therefore, we have to deal with these particular issues, not only of LGBTQI people but all of these vulnerable asylum seekers.

I will finish with this. In roughly 1600, Shakespeare co-wrote a play; it was the only play that he co-wrote and it is “Sir Thomas More”. Sir Thomas More is called to London because the citizens of London are rebelling—they had probably read the tabloids of the day—because “the strangers” had made their way from Calais via Dover to London. In a parenthesis to a speech, Thomas More comes out, and with one hand silences the crowd. In that silence, a voice shouts, “Remove them!” Thomas More replies: “You bid that they be removed, the stranger, with their children upon their back, their families at their side, their belongings at their feet. Imagine you are the stranger, with your children upon your back, your family at your side, your belongings at your feet. Imagine you are the stranger and bid that they be removed and show your mountanish inhumanity.” It is a great privilege and pleasure to support these amendments.