Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I thank the noble Lord for that clarification and I am relieved to hear it. I think it was the bit where somebody asked, “How would you answer the situation where 199 people were killed if the limit was 200?” All I am saying is there is often a conversation like this when we talk about safety, risk and responsibility.

I like this amendment because it introduces into the debate about the Bill the opportunity—some months down the line—to have a cost-benefit analysis of whether it has worked. I first came into this House at the height of the lockdown period. On a number of occasions—rather tentatively at the time, because I was new—I, along with others, called for a cost-benefit analysis. I kept asking, with lockdown and all those measures in the name of safety, whether we could just assess whether they were the only way that we should proceed. I was told that we had to be very careful because old people were going to die, and so on and so forth—you are familiar with the arguments.

The reason I mention that is that we can now look back and say that many of those old people were locked up in care homes and greatly suffered. We can say about young people—when some of us argued that we should conduct a cost-benefit analysis of closing schools—that we now have a crisis of worrying about pupils and the impact that lockdown had on them. There is a discussion that the Government are initiating about the cost and impact of lockdown on employment people’s habits as we speak.

It is sensible with a Bill such as this to introduce a review that will give us the opportunity to do a cost-benefit analysis. This is particularly important because a regulator is introduced. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, explained that we need to be able to see whether the regulator is the appropriate way of getting what we would like, which is more public protection, or whether, in fact, it undermines some of the important aspects of local regulatory interventions.

We debated a very interesting group just before the break, when the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, raised the point about the number of regulatory regimes that each venue already apparently has to adhere to in terms of licensing, and so on. This amendment gives us an opportunity to see whether the central regulator is the appropriate way of ensuring that we keep people safe with respect to premises and terrorism.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 44 in my name, and I can probably be quite brief, as it covers similar ground to Amendments 33, 34 and 36, which have been spoken to by my noble friend Lord Davies. However, my amendment is complementary to the amendments already on the table. It does not replace them; it is consistent with them, but it looks at the problem slightly differently.

I think it is fair to say that those who have engaged with the SIA over the years have mixed views about its effectiveness even now, and that is when it has focused entirely on one fairly discrete industry. Now we are proposing a huge expansion of its role to cover all kinds of premises and organisations of all kinds of sizes, including voluntary and commercial organisations and so on; it is a huge expansion of the authority’s role. All these amendments really speak to the fact that there is some uncertainty about how that is going to be carried out in this very complicated and publicly sensitive area.

My Amendment 44 looks at this in a slightly different way and proposes an independent review panel. Of course, that could sit alongside the various advisory bodies that have already been spoken about, but, for two reasons, there is some value in having an independent panel when looking at these problems. First, it establishes a degree of distance. Its reports to Parliament will have a degree of independence of commentary, of not needing to ingratiate itself necessarily with the regulator and the industry. That is what is needed in this situation of a new area of work for the authority.

More important is the point that is in proposed new subsection (3) in my amendment, which is the specific risk of overreach—I have spoken about this on one or two occasions before as we have considered this Bill—and that, once you establish a bureaucracy, everybody has to pay attention to that bureaucracy; once something is in law, that has to be the priority for those who are operating it. There is a temptation for the legal authority to overreach and to lay down rules for its own convenience, rather than for the genuine good functioning of those that it is regulating; and to maybe not look sensitively at the different sizes and natures of organisations but simply to lay down one set of rules. History suggests that with these regulators the effect is that the regulatory burden goes up and is insensitive to the people being regulated. That is why there is particular value in looking at the issues of overreach and how bureaucracies work in practice and why there is particular value therefore in it being an independent body. So, to conclude, I hope the Government will be able to give serious consideration to this idea, along with others in this group.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

On 16 September 2016—I think I have the date correct—the noble Lord made a very strong statement in which he condemned the layers of bureaucracy and regulation in the European Union. Does he not think it is weird and even bizarre for a serious Conservative to be recommending a regulator of a regulator when just a regulator might do very well?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

There is a big difference between organisations set up in the framework of the European Union and us deciding how we work our own bureaucracy. There is a lot of value in an independent panel to examine the work of a regulator that is taking over a new and very large area of work. So, no, I would not agree with the parallel; regulation and independent review are appropriate when we are creating a new regulator with a new set of work—that is the issue that is here today.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I had written against the first and last of these, “Does this not have the danger of adding to the bureaucracy?” Perhaps more importantly, these amendments raise the issue of just how the governance of the SIA will operate—I certainly have not yet got a handle on that.

If the SIA itself wants to establish an advisory board, I think that is up to the SIA, but I do not think we are yet clear—and we should be clear very soon. The two years will go by fast and the SIA needs to be operating during the period. As to how it will operate, the amendments also raise the question of just what the responsibility of the Secretary of State is, as against the SIA—although not against it, I hope—in this eco-landscape, as some might say. With regard to a report to Parliament, I am sure that the Minister will say that the Government will keep the operation of the Act under review, although I am not sure the timescales are entirely sensible: things seem to come a bit too soon.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

As the song used to say, “It Should Have Been Me”, but there we go.

The key starting point in this debate is the relationship between the SIA, its responsibilities, the Home Office and the people it serves. Quite self-evidently, Ministers decide and have responsibilities under Clause 12 to ensure that the SIA produces an annual report on its performance. It enables the Secretary of State to issue directions to the SIA on what it should be doing if it is not doing what it should be doing, ensures that the Secretary of State has the power to appoint board members, including the chair, and requires the Secretary of State’s approval for the SIA’s operational guidance that will be issued in due course. Ministers will be accountable to this House and the House of Commons for the performance of the SIA. If there is to be an advisory board in place, I suggest that the House of Commons and this noble House suit that purpose down to the ground; they will hold Ministers to account for the performance of the SIA.

In the first instance, I am surprised. Obviously the concept of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has not yet floated across the channel to the noble Lord, Lord Frost, or the Opposition Front Bench, because this set of amendments creates another set of bureaucracy to oversee the SIA and an interface between it and Home Office Ministers. It adds bureaucracy and cost, but not a great deal of value. In doing so, it also confuses the relationship between the Home Office’s direct responsibility to this House and Parliament and the responsibilities of the Security Industry Authority.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

Does the Minister accept that the major expansion of bureaucracy in the Bill comes from the regulatory requirement of so many small premises in the first place? That is the expansion of government activity under the Bill and I feel—I cannot speak for others—very sceptical about it. Does he agree that it is a bit rich, having been willing to preside over this huge expansion of activity, to criticise those of us who want to see it properly monitored to do its job efficiently?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord calls it bureaucracy; I call it life-saving measures. The Bill is about putting in place life-saving measures to ensure that, in the event of a terrorist attack, individuals know what to do. That might save lives downstream. That is a type of bureaucracy that I am quite happy to accept. There are many burdens and bureaucracies in life, such as health and safety legislation, mine legislation and road safety legislation. There is a whole range of burdens that are there to save lives and this is the same process.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Frost]

5: Clause 2, page 2, line 11, leave out “200” and insert “300”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would raise the minimum threshold for a premises to be a “qualifying premises” to 300.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, without making this a Second Reading debate, as we have discussed, I want to repeat the degree of scepticism that I expressed at Second Reading about the value of this Bill. Of course, the threat of terrorism is real; of course, it is important to deal with it by every possible means, but it is equally possible that this Bill will end up with a lot of bureaucracy, paperwork and assessment without doing anything to deal with the threat of terrorism whatever. However, it is the Bill that we have, and we need to do all that we can to make it workable and get the detail right. That is why I have tabled Amendment 5.

I can be quite brief, because this is a fairly simple concept and a core provision in the Bill—as to where premises are caught and affected by the standard duty. This threshold will determine the success or failure of the Bill; it is this threshold that will capture popular opinion about the Bill when it eventually comes into force, and it is this threshold that determines whether, if you are a volunteer or run a business of any kind, you can carry on as you did before, being prudent about the terrorist threat, or whether you have a new set of formal legal duties that you must pay attention to. As I said at Second Reading, when you make something law, you are telling people that they must pay attention to that above the purpose of their organisation. That is what making it law means.

This is where the Bill is going to bite. This is the area where volunteers may decide that they no longer want to continue in what they are doing. It may be the area where they give up. As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said, it may be the area where it takes away the fun, the point, the raison d’être of the activity from those who do it. Therefore, it is important to get the threshold right.

As I said at Second Reading, I accept that the Government have taken a step, raising the threshold from 100 to 200, which has significantly improved the Bill. However, my Amendment 5 would raise that threshold to 300. I have two points to explain why that higher threshold is worth considering.

First, I do not think that we have had a proper explanation yet of why 200 is the right number. The shadow Minister raised this question in Committee in the Commons. The responding Minister’s only explanation was that

“300 would significantly impact the outcomes of the Bill, and particularly what the standard tier seeks to achieve”.—[Official Report, Commons, Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill Committee, 31/10/24; col. 68.]

That is obvious, but why? We need a little more understanding of why it is 200 rather than 300 and why it is any particular figure other than the arbitrary seeking of a number. One Minister said something like that in the Commons: “We’ve got to decide a number, and this is that number”. However, it is such an important number that it deserves some proper thought.

Secondly, lots of activities are still caught by this 200 threshold. The impact assessment says that it is 154,000. That is down by nearly half from what it would have been at 100, but it is still a lot—that is one premise for one activity for every 450 people in the country. For a threshold of 200, that is quite a significant figure. An occasional capacity of 200 people is quite a small number of people. One in eight village halls are still caught by this threshold. The Music Venue Trust says that a sixth of its premises are caught between the 200 and 300 thresholds. These are not small numbers, but they are still relatively small activities. That is the point. We must try to set the threshold at a point where we are not capturing those who do not need to be caught by it.

Is the Minister confident that the threshold really must be so low? Can he give a clear explanation for why it has to be set at that level? Can he go beyond explaining that it is simply arbitrary, that it has to be set somewhere and that 200 is the right number—end of discussion? We need a little bit more debate than that and I hope that we might get it now.

[Lord Udny-Lister (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 6 and 7, in my name, follow a similar line to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Frost. His request is that the threshold moves to 300; mine is that it moves to 400 or 500. The truth is that I do not think there is a magic number. I think the number was first 100, and I am grateful to the Minister for moving it to 200, but as the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said, there is no particular reason for this number. It can be almost any number; it is just that you capture more and more businesses, village halls and voluntary organisations by going for the lower number. I want to push for this to be debated fully this evening, because this is one of the core issues within the Bill and something that needs a lot of time.

The amendments seek to increase the threshold and exempt smaller venues. That would be so important for so many of them. It is about viability and costs, as many businesses are struggling with all the costs that face them. The Government should be trying to protect them and these premises from further resource pressures. Therefore, it is the damage that is going to be done that I ask the Government to think about. By raising the threshold, these amendments would alleviate the administrative and financial responsibilities involved and associated with implementation, while concentrating resources and efforts on larger premises, which will always be higher-value targets for terrorist activities.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made a very important point in an earlier group. Every time we do anything like this, we say to the terrorists that they have had another victory and done something more, by making us start to change our lives—that is what is happening here. I feel very strongly that we need to minimise the effect on the people of this country, as much as we possibly can, and go for the largest number that can possibly be considered. I cannot believe that there is not an argument we could have which would enable the Government to accept a number of 400 to 500; they may wish to consider the 800 number, but that is another issue. I am less concerned about that; I am concerned about smaller organisations—the voluntary organisations and smaller business—and the chilling effect that this will have.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The measures that we have accepted are part of the consultation that we have undertaken. The noble Lord was a Minister standing at this Dispatch Box in this department during the genesis of this Bill, so he will know that there has been wide consultation on these matters. Again, I point him to Clause 5 on public protection measures. Clause 5(3) refers to

“evacuating individuals from the premises … moving individuals to a place on the premises … preventing individuals entering or leaving the premises … providing information to individuals on the premises or at the event”.

Are those onerous issues? Or are they things that, even in our own assessment, are relatively low cost in terms of training? That relatively low cost is, essentially, in person hours when determining what those requirements are.

Again, we could fix a number. If I fixed the number at 300, 400 or 500, we would take even more premises out, but that would dilute the purpose of this legislation, which is to set good practice for the prevention of an attack when an attack is occurring and the steps that can be taken to save lives. People’s experiences—not mine, but those in the consultations of the public inquiry—mean that the 200 figure we have now settled on is the right one. I commend that figure to the House and hope that noble Lords will support it in due course when it comes to the final decision by this House before Third Reading.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

I thank everyone who contributed to this section of Committee. I thank the Minister for his thoughtful comments. I appreciate that there is a degree of arbitrariness in this number, but, equally, it is our task to try to make it as non-arbitrary as possible and make sure that the number we eventually choose is as well grounded in reality as it possibly can be.

Perhaps I might be permitted just one remark before sitting down. I say that because there is pressure for risk aversion, and we have heard some of that in your Lordships’ House today. It is important to be careful what we are doing here. We need to keep in mind what the threshold number means. If we set it at 200, for example, we are not saying that we are prepared to tolerate the risk of 199 people being killed in a terrorist attack. That is not what the threshold is about. The risk that we want to tolerate of that is the number zero.

What we are saying is that there is a trade-off. The costs to businesses and society of complying with these measures are justifiable above a certain number when we take the broader risk of terrorism into account. As the Minister said, the risk of a terrorist attack is unlikely in any individual case. We have to be able to debate this number prudentially while understanding exactly what the threshold means. We have debated it and I suspect we will so again. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 5 withdrawn.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the Minister for his very reasonable opening statement. I regret not being able to make his consultation meeting yesterday.

I have a dilemma with this legislation. On the one hand, it is clearly true that we all have a responsibility to consider how we as a society face up to the sickening evil of major terrorist attacks. We all have huge sympathy, of course, with the families of victims. We understand their outrage and anger at the failings, and we admire their work to try to ensure that what happened to them does not happen to others in future. On the other hand, we as legislators have a duty to take a wider perspective and to assess whether proposed measures will genuinely reduce risks without imposing disproportionate burdens.

I am not the first person to make these points; they were made a couple of years ago by the Commons Home Affairs Committee in the previous Parliament. It is striking to me that both consultations on this legislation, in 2021 and last year, produced quite a wide range of responses, with concerns about implementation and costs being just as strong as recognition of the need to act further against terrorism.

This Bill was in the manifestos of both main parties, which is unusual—although perhaps not as unusual as it should be. It will clearly pass in some form, but we still have a duty to scrutinise. History shows that, when there is wide consensus on legislation, it often ends up being quite difficult legislation to make workable in practice. That is what we have to look at.

Against this background, I welcome the rethinking for which the Government have clearly been responsible with this version of the Bill. It is clearly better and more proportionate than the one introduced by my own party when in government. Equally, I believe there is a case for further thought in some areas, as many noble Lords have already noted.

Personally, I think the case for the measures in this Bill is much stronger for major events and major venues—that is, those in the so-called enhanced tier—where there is clearly a need to respond to the IOC’s call back in 2018 to clarify the legal responsibilities, and where the size of events and premises, such as major halls, theatres, et cetera, requires a degree of co-ordination and pre-planning. If legislation can help in that, it is sensible that it should.

I cannot help echoing the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, about the exclusion of Parliaments, devolved Administrations and indeed schools from this legislation. I wonder whether we are seeing another example of the phenomenon of the Government imposing duties on others while excluding themselves—a point that we discussed in this Chamber yesterday.

I have three concerns about the standard tier. The first is a point that has been made by other noble Lords. I welcome the fact that the threshold has been increased to 200 but I still believe there is a case for increasing it further—for example, to 300, as the then shadow Security Minister proposed in the Commons last year. I agree with those who have asked the Minister to set out more fully in winding up just why this threshold has been chosen and what the Government see as the potential pressures, in either direction.

My second concern is the nature of the burden on small organisations. This Bill will produce a burden. Unless the threshold changes further, it will hit small organisations and voluntary organisations, particularly perhaps those that have events that occasionally go above the threshold and thus permanently come within the scope of the duty. Indeed, the fact that the Government have excluded certain categories reflects a recognition that there is a burden imposed by the Bill.

The cost of £330 annually for smaller voluntary organisations is not trivial. In effect, it pushes up the cost of insuring, say, a village hall by between a third and a half every year. For organisations that are under pressure, that is significant. I note that the Night Time Industries Association has similar concerns about smaller venues. I agree with it and others who have made the point about the need for clarity on the relationship between the powers in this Bill and those in the Licensing Act. Perhaps the Minister could address that point as well.

My third concern is about the consequences—perhaps unintended, but arguably foreseeable—of legislating at all. When you give something the force of law you do two things. First, you increase the risk to individuals of non-compliance. As a result, you increase the risk of risk-aversion: the pressure to do more than is necessary just in case, to make sure that the law is fulfilled. In other areas, the observed behaviour of regulators is that they often encourage this through defining and spreading so-called best practice. The Bill imposes the reasonably practicable duty on the responsible individuals, but it is a subjective test, drawn from a different, albeit related, area of legislation. I think it will be subject to mission creep, as these vague forms of words often are.

The second thing you do when you create a duty through legislation is, in effect, to create an industry that depends on that regulation, that has a potential interest in maintaining and developing it and which, in practice, often has a big influence on setting and defining the levels of standard practice and in seeing them promulgated by the regulator, industry bodies and others. I think that is foreseeable in this case too, and the Henry VIII clauses in the Bill certainly give the Government the power to support that kind of mission creep over time, and to give it the force of law over time if they are so minded.

This all means that what may be a limited and justifiable burden at first may well grow over time, and that is often hard to reverse. The problem is that none of this adds to productive activity. When you give something the force of law it has to take priority over other activities. Again, for smaller businesses and voluntary organisations this means that it must often take priority over the actual purpose of that organisation. That is what giving something legal force means. When we are adding so much to the burdens on those organisations already, we have to think very carefully about the value added.

There is a particular risk in areas of voluntary activity. For example, one in eight village halls is still apparently caught by the Bill, according to the impact assessment. The risk in voluntary areas is that people are just not ready to devote the extra personal time or take the extra risk and the burden, so facilities simply close rather than take on board the burden of compliance.

I hope, and actually I believe, that the Government will not just dismiss these concerns, which came strongly out of the consultations and the evidence sessions. I hope and suspect that we will see amendments covering them, and I hope the Government will take them seriously. As the Minister noted, if and when the Bill passes it will have a lengthy pre-implementation period in which they can be addressed too.

I note that many noble Lords have asked whether the SIA is the right regulator. I note that the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health has proposed the creation of an advisory board for the SIA for these purposes, and some form of that could be well worth the Government considering.

Let us reflect on what the Bill will do. It will mean that most businesses and organisations serving the public in any numbers need to consider the risk of a terrorist attack all the time. You may say they should, and certainly the threat, regrettably, is substantial—very high. However, even now, the risk of any individual person facing an actual terrorist attack remains extremely low. The Bill may reduce the risk slightly further as regards events or premises but, equally arguably, might only deflect it. After all, we have plenty of evidence that the risk exists in other places too, most notably on the street or in parks, both of which have been the location of serious attacks in recent years—indeed, very recently.

We cannot reduce the risk to zero through prevention measures and, as a society, we should not try. An attempt to do so may cause more harm and more problems of other kinds. To take one analogy that is perhaps imperfect but it makes the point, just as our streets have filled up over the years with street furniture, barriers, controls or whatever in a partly—but only partly—successful effort to reduce road deaths, they have also become more ugly, complex and difficult to navigate for many people as a result. The Bill may well see many public facilities go down the same route and, as we have seen from the barriers on our bridges across the Thames, once they are introduced, these measures rarely get removed.

I hope we do not have to—and I do not want to—live in a society where all our public facilities become like airports, with security checks, barriers and cordons, and with security officials barking at us if we put a foot wrong. We have already gone some way down that road. That is all the more reason to be sure that the Bill’s provisions are genuinely proportionate, reduce risks in a worthwhile way and do not take us further down a path that risks never being reversed.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I support the aims of the Bill and I hope that it—and they—will succeed, that it will not be challenged and that there will be no further obstacles put in the way of removing people who come to this country illegally and by these dangerous routes.

My Amendment 17 would leave out Clause 2(5) and substitute the text on the Marshalled List. The aim is to tighten the Bill on what may

“prevent or delay the removal to Rwanda of an individual”

under any of the Immigration Acts, the Human Rights Act 1998,

“EU derived law and case law … under sections 2 to 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018”

and

“any … provision … of domestic law (including … common law), and … international law”

relevant to the aim, so as to limit legal challenges to the Bill. I do not share the views of those who say that the Bill contravenes the rule of law. Their view rests on assumptions about the role of international law, its place within our own system, the creative approach of the Strasbourg court in applying the convention and the tendency now to accord something of a primacy to courts over Parliament.

These assumptions are contested within the legal profession itself. I will refer to one KC, Anthony Speaight, whose paper was published at the weekend by Politeia, of which I am research director. I therefore declare a special interest in the matter. Speaight explains the comparative novelty of the view, which he dates from Lord Bingham’s 2010 book, that the rule of law requires adherence to international law.

I am not a lawyer. I approach the question as a historian of British political and constitutional history. It is a history, by and large—and certainly in the era since the franchise was extended in the 19th century—of the interplay between Executive and Parliament, with the Government accountable through Parliament to the will of the people, even before the extension of the franchise. At the moment, both the Government and Parliament are intent on being accountable on the matter of curbing illegal immigration. But they are prevented by laws and the judiciary that operates them or, as in the case of the Strasbourg court, interprets them in a manner that takes from and does not protect their liberty, on which good law is based—the freely expressed will of the people who are governed.

On immigration, legal and illegal, the people have spoken loud and clear. They want Britain’s borders controlled and the flow of immigration curbed. Parliament has passed the laws to bring such control, but each Bill it brings forward meets a challenge in the courts. Is removal to Rwanda to be stopped not by a recalcitrant authoritarian monarch or an oligarchic, aristocratic, landowning Parliament, as in the past, but by a judiciary acting—I do not doubt in good faith—to give effect to a cocktail of legislation binding this country from an era whose laws are not our own and from times that are not our own?

There are practical limits to what a good Government can achieve. It is recognised, perhaps more clearly by voters than by rulers, that uncontrolled immigration facilitated by the obstacles now put by the courts, often—as in the case of illegal immigration through asylum claims—has consequences for the economy in terms of the budgetary costs. It puts demands that cannot be satisfied on Britain’s domestic arrangements—not just for processing claims but on every manner of the support that the UK’s people have over the centuries shown to those who, for whatever reason, come to make their lives in this country.

If our constitution is to survive the onslaught of legal challenge, the will of Parliament, reflecting the mandate of the voters, must triumph and, with it, the stability, transparency and accountability it has brought to Britain and its people, rather than be challenged on account of international or our own laws.

This country is no outlier. Across the channel, the political systems of western European neighbours are buckling under the political immediacy of uncontrolled immigration, each seeking to exploit or avoid the system to which in law they are bound under EU law, convention law and the mass of internal legislation to which these have given rise. They also have to take account of Schengen.

Take the case of France. Its political system was practically frozen for two years, haggling over an immigration Bill that many see as promising too little, too late. The problems with which it grapples are immense. Constitutional arrangements and stability are under threat at different levels. Departments are pitted against national powers, as in the recent stand-off with some mayors, who refuse to accept and look after unaccompanied minors because they have no ability to do so. At government level, against the ruling of the Strasbourg court, it is voters against the traditional systems of the political parties, the republicans and the socialists.

In this country, we are free to make our own laws. Other noble Lords will speak to their amendments on the same theme. My amendment aims to tighten the Bill and to pre-empt further challenge. As the Minister mentioned earlier, a core principle and aim of the Bill is to prevent further challenge to the workings of ordered, representative and accountable democracy. It aims to promote the aims of the Bill to delay illegal and unsafe crossings and deter the horrid loss of life, such as the death of a little girl of seven in freezing waters in the channel on Sunday night. I therefore beg to move.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I will also speak in favour of Amendment 17, tabled by my noble friend Lady Lawlor, to which I have added my name. As I said at Second Reading, I support the Bill. I am afraid that the Rwanda policy is a bit of a Heath Robinson arrangement. It shies away from some of the tough decisions needed to solve the problems. But I support the Bill because it is the plan we have, and we must hope it makes a difference.

It can certainly be improved. Most of the amendments discussed today would make it worse rather than better, and less effective rather than more effective. Amendment 17 is one of the few exceptions to that. It aims to provide a more clearly drawn Bill—one that can withstand challenges and fulfil its purpose more effectively, by making clear that no other legal provisions of any kind, whether in domestic or international law, can be used to frustrate the policy.

I do not want to repeat issues that have already been raised in Committee and discussed again at length today, but I will briefly explain why I support this amendment and then make one comment based on my involvement in recent years in the intersection between international and domestic law.

First, it is absolutely clear that this Parliament may legislate against international law, and indeed the Government may act in contravention of international law. As we have already heard, Clause 1(4) makes that clear and nobody is seeking to amend that. It is a long-standing, fundamental element of our constitution. It is not some sort of weird, UK-specific provision; there is good reason for the dualism in our system. First, otherwise Governments could act to create domestic law merely by signing an international treaty and thereby sidestep normal democratic processes. Secondly, it reflects the reality that international treaties are in practice very difficult to adapt to changing conditions because all the parties must agree to changes. It has been suggested by some noble Lords today and in previous debates that that is what should happen and that we should seek to renegotiate the international framework. The refugee convention, for example, has 149 state parties, including such well-known supporters of international law as China, Russia and Iran. Are we going to wait for them all to agree to amend this framework? We are clearly not, but if national Governments accept that they can deal with pressing national challenges only by renegotiating these treaties, they are in effect abandoning their duty to govern their own countries on matters of huge importance.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 29th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, we have heard a lot of anger and outrage this afternoon, and a lot of agonising about nebulous concepts such as international influence and reputation. We have heard much effort to side-slip away from our dualist system of international and domestic law, a lot of advocacy of a purist view of separation of powers that has never applied in this country, and a surprising degree of deference by this sovereign Parliament to a Supreme Court that did not exist two decades ago, is not a constitutional court in the US or European sense—much as many people seem to wish it was—and has decided that it is the fount of wisdom not just on law but on complex issues of foreign policy. Indeed, when it comes to the safety of Rwanda, it seems that the Government’s facts are just judgments but the Supreme Court’s judgments are facts.

Maybe it is useful to get back to the essentials. Perhaps it is old fashioned, but I believe it is the job of a national Government to set terms for who may enter the country, and to control the border accordingly. I think that proposition would be widely agreed on in this country, but seemingly not here. Here, it is suggested by many noble Lords that in significant areas the terms of entry must be set by international conventions agreed decades ago by a European court that seems to believe it has the right to define the extent of its own powers, and by the people traffickers and criminals who make it possible for large numbers of people to take advantage of these terms. We are told, in other words, that the British Government should not, in practice, be able to set the terms under which people can come into this country. I put it that starkly because we can then see that this is not a proposition that would command widespread assent in this country.

This current situation cannot be sustained in modern conditions. The Government are right to do what is necessary to re-establish control. Control must mean that the Government define the conditions for entry into the UK; that one of those conditions is that if you arrive illegally, you do not have the right to stay and must therefore go somewhere else; and that we have no obligation to take in just anybody who shows up and can claim asylum, in whatever numbers. It may well also have to mean that if international law, whether the ECHR or any other agreement, says anything different, then so much the worse for international law. All these things may be unpalatable—and I know they are unpalatable to many in this Chamber; it is much easier to avoid thinking about them—but if you do not do these things, you do not have control.

To the extent that I understand the alternatives most widely advocated by noble Lords, they seem to involve establishing so-called safe and legal routes for the many people who currently show up here illegally—in other words, to acquiesce in the reality that we do not control our borders, and to give up trying. The truth is that safe and legal routes will be rapidly overwhelmed by numbers, and that illegal arrivals will continue.

The most reverend Primate, who is in his place, reminds us that all human beings are of great value. Of course I agree with him, and for the same reasons; of course we should welcome the stranger. But, in my very humble view, in this area you cannot get from that undoubted existential truth to a political proposition—a proposition that large numbers of people from many countries around the world, if they can persuade a criminal trafficker to take them, have the de facto right to settle in this country. Those are propositions of a completely different nature and kind.

It follows logically from all this that of course I support the Bill and its deterrent purpose. I admit some doubts as to whether, in its current form, it will be robust enough to achieve the desired end. I think it would certainly have been better if it had been amended to strengthen the exclusion of international law, as proposed in the Commons; in my view, we will one day have to go there. But it is done now; the Commons debated it fully and has spoken. I support the Government in bringing it into force swiftly and I hope noble Lords will do likewise.

Public Order Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, particularly today. I fear that we are probably not destined to agree on very much in our debates in this place, but I hope that she will not be too embarrassed to hear that I agree with her on the importance of free debate and protest, even on unpopular causes. It is important to maintain that, and it is a principle through which I look at the Bill.

I support the general principle of the Bill. It seems unarguable that there have been changes in the methodology of protest, from a range of campaigners, that deliberately aim at the disruption of everyday life. We have seen that in many ways, as noble Lords have mentioned. But the Bill includes new and significant powers, of a novel kind in some cases. Noble Lords may remember that I resigned from the Government last year rather than support the then “plan B” measures and restrictions on civil liberties that would have come with a further coronavirus lockdown. From the experience of the pandemic, we have seen just how easy it is to create, expand or distort powers for purposes that were not originally intended. So we have real-life experience of this, and we should keep that in mind—it has not been said much in this discussion so far, but we all lived through it.

So if we are to avoid such problems, it is important to be clear—I think and hope that the Government are—about what we are trying to achieve. I suggest that the correct principle is that the right to protest and persuade is fundamental and must be protected, but intimidation and anything more than incidental disruption of the rights of others to go about their lawful business, particularly with novel and aggressive tactics, ought not to be allowed. We must apply this principle whatever the circumstances, whether it is fracking, an abortion clinic or anything else. My worry about some aspects of the Bill is that this principle may not be fully followed.

I will make three brief points. First, Clauses 1 to 8 of the Bill create a series of specific powers that would certainly stop some of the disruptions that we have seen over the last year or two, such as blocking the Dartford bridge, oil refineries and so on. I am certainly willing and ready to accept the Government’s judgment that extra powers are needed to deal with those situations. However, in line with the principle I set out, it is important, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights notes, to look carefully at the drafting, which may be a bit loose, and to avoid the risk of inadvertent consequences. It is also not clear that the powers would stop some of the things that we have seen, such as blocking roads in central London, throwing paint over paintings and so on. As has been said, existing powers cover those situations, and they should be used with more determination than we have seen so far. Otherwise, the risk—I hope we will not get into this situation—is that next year, we will have another Bill creating specific offences of throwing paint over a painting and so on. We need to avoid that, and the authorities need to be determined to use the powers that they have, with new powers being limited to specific, defined and novel situations.

Secondly, like others, I have concerns about Clause 20, on SDPOs made “otherwise than on conviction”. I think—and, again, our experience in the pandemic is part of this—that it is fundamentally unacceptable in a free society to restrict individuals’ free movement or right to protest, to free speech, to carry particular items and so on, without them having been convicted of an offence in a court of law. I find it particularly problematic that people should have to wear electronic tags without conviction—where people have been caught and convicted, that is a different matter. But Clause 20 is quite widely drawn and carries the risk of making it too easy for the authorities not to worry about actually catching and convicting but simply to use an SDPO. It seems to carry the risk of a slippery slope for the convenience of the Executive. I note that, in their response to the JCHR, the Government do not make a very strong defence of this provision. If there is a defence, I would like to hear it—perhaps the Minister could say more on that at the end.

Thirdly, as the Minister noted, Clause 9, on abortion clinics, was added in the other place and was not part of the Government’s original thinking. I am a little surprised that the Government allowed it to be subject to a free vote, because the issue is clearly not about abortion services themselves but about the right to protest and persuade. Here, the distinction I made between persuasion and intimidation needs to be maintained, and I am not sure that Clause 9 does that. I have no difficulty with subsections (3)(c) or (3)(d), but it cannot be right for this Parliament to make it illegal if someone, for example, “seeks to influence”, “persistently … occupies” or

“informs or attempts to inform”,

in subsections (3)(a), (3)(b) and (3)(f), respectively. That is true whether it is in the vicinity of an abortion clinic or anywhere else.

I sense, from comments made by Ministers here and in the other place, that they feel that they are on uncomfortable ground and are looking for help on this subject. I am sure that there will be amendments in this area and hope that the Government will give them a fair wind.

Finally, the Government themselves note that Clause 9 is incompatible with the ECHR. Many commentators and the JCHR argue that the same is true of other areas of the Bill. I do not know about that. For me, that is interesting but not decisive; I do not base my concerns on that argument. I believe that this Parliament should be able to protect the civil liberties of people in this country without outside help. Its record over the last two to three years has been, shall we say, mixed in this respect. To conclude, I hope that the Government will look carefully at these points of detail of specific concern and make it easier for those who think—as I do—that we should be able to wholeheartedly support a more carefully worked-through and acceptable version of the Bill.

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Lord Frost Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for the question. I entirely share her concern for the staff at Manston and Western Jet Foil who have to work in difficult conditions. I have made a point of ensuring that officials are fully alive to these issues. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, suggested that the Home Secretary had yet to visit Manston. As I understand it, she is going to visit later this week, and I can reassure the House that I am visiting next week. I have absolutely no doubt that, on all of those visits, the present concerns of the staff will be taken into account.

As I understood it, the noble Baroness’s question in relation to appeals effectively asked whether this showed a failure by decision-makers to take into account matters which had come to light later. That is not routinely the case. Usually what happens is that a fresh claim is advanced by the applicant and/or there is a fresh set of facts; for example, the development of a subsequent relationship.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, we have seen over the last couple of days what seems to me to be an almost obsessional pursuit of the Home Secretary, who is dealing with a series of extremely difficult, substantive problems. It is a pursuit on the basis of leaks, anonymous briefings and the usual oversensitivity about words—though if we are going to be sensitive about words, I suggest that “racist” is one that should not be used without a degree of caution. Does the Minister condemn this practice of leaking against a sitting Minister? Does he agree that what the British people want the Home Secretary and the department to do is get on with solving the substantive problem, which means making the country less attractive to illegal migrants, looking at the international legal framework in which we are operating and improving the performance of his department?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend. It is very important that the Home Secretary is able, without unnecessary distraction, to get on with the job of resolving this very difficult situation. I am very grateful to my noble friend for the support he has expressed for the Home Secretary. I am sure that this issue will be front and centre of all her decision-making.