Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules

Lord Horam Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

The noble Lord is quite right, but they add to all the pressures he was talking about. Perhaps if we had a more rigorous method of knowing who was actually here, and by what route they came, we would be able to ascertain more clearly—and certainly more fairly—whether they should stay or not.

My final point to the Minister is related to but, I admit, slightly removed from this debate. The Home Office has announced that it is to do away with the golden visa route into the country, which is how kleptocrats arrive here. When we think of people coming here—documented or undocumented, but particularly those who have legal documentation—it is not particularly fair that there are people who buy themselves a route into the country by having millions, whereas those who are genuinely in distress and concerned for their lives must go through hurdles such as those identified by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I have some sympathy with the comments of the noble Baroness on the subject of people overstaying and on the right to remain here. In particular, she made the point that, very often, students overstay—that after their two-year period here they stay on, and so forth. She made the point that neither the coalition Government nor the Conservative Governments have gone along with the idea of having personal identification cards of any kind. She is right about that—but, with respect, that is rather a sledge- hammer to crack a nut. To some extent, it is a responsibility on people who sponsor students to come to this country, for example, to find out whether they have complied with the rules and go back to the country or overstay. There is some personal responsibility on organisations—companies, the NHS and public organisations—to follow that up. That would be simpler than having such an expensive solution. I think personal identification cards for the whole population were calculated as costing about £20 billion.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

Very briefly, I was also referring to undocumented people who overstay tourist visas and stay on here. If the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, needs any proof of that, he needs to go to—I should not single out any particular nationality —a fine ethnic minority restaurant in Birmingham and go into the back rooms. He will see plenty of those. Then there are Deliveroo drivers, for instance.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I take that point.

On the main point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, I sympathise with his point about the changes in the Immigration Rules. They have been extensive; there has been a huge number of changes—almost every few months, frankly—and they are practically incomprehensible. It is a paradise for lawyers; the detail they go into and the language they use is virtually incomprehensible. The noble Lord who spoke for the Opposition is nodding with some feeling on that. It is incredibly difficult to understand what is going on half the time. For heaven’s sake, there must be some way of simplifying all this for the ordinary person in the street.

I wish, more than anything else, for some transparency. I am in favour of a transparent framework for asylum seekers and economic migrants of all kinds, which would be debated in the House of Commons annually. You would have a cap for a year; it would be looked at, people would understand where it came from and particular interest groups would be consulted. We could do that for the year and then look at it again to see what had happened—what had gone wrong, what had gone right and so on. We could have an annual debate, like the Budget debate—although perhaps not as long; maybe a day’s debate—in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, so that everyone could have their say about this. It would be a much more transparent and sensible way, and it could deal with some of the ignorance and myths, which, as my noble friend Lord Lilley pointed out, surround this whole subject of immigration and asylum seeking.

Having said that, I do not disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, on his point in his Motion. The fact is that there is a huge problem here of human trafficking—we all know that; it is an international business. The smugglers—they are smugglers in effect—started off with drugs and tobacco and so forth, and now they deal in human beings. It is an international trade and all western European countries are facing this difficulty. It is completely illegal and to deal with it you really have to make a differentiation in law. You cannot deal simultaneously, in the same breath, with people who abide by the rules and who come here under acknowledged schemes, such as the Ukrainians, the Hong Kong people, the Afghans and so forth—they are large in number and we admit them freely and gladly to this country—and people from Albania who pay someone £2,000 to illegally enter this country. You cannot treat those people on the same basis; it is impossible to deal with the human trafficking and have the same legal basis for both activities.

Secondly, on safe routes, again, my noble friend Lord Lilley made the point that there is quite a large number of safe routes into this country. How far can you really expand them, realistically? Even now, Manston camp is taking in 3,000 asylum-seeking people, and it is really capable of taking only 1,000. With hotels in the north of England and the Midlands full of asylum seekers, we are now getting to the point where the hotels can no longer take them, because they want to do ordinary tourist business, so local authorities will be asked to take more. That means that council properties will be consumed by asylum seekers and will not therefore be available to local people. Of course, inevitably, it is the poorer parts of the country where all these people end up; they do not go to the Cotswolds or Hampstead because of the house prices. They end up in Blackpool, Middlesbrough or Darlington. Therefore, ordinary people—very often the poorest people—suffer the consequences. In all conscience, we have to consider that, as well as our natural and understandable concern about the position of genuine asylum seekers.

My final point is that, however many safe routes you have, there will still be trafficking across the channel, and people saying to those in Albania, Afghanistan or wherever, “We can get you into England—if you pay us a couple of thousand quid, we will get you across the channel.” However many safe routes you have and however much you expand that—I do not think that it can be expanded too far, for all the other reasons I have given—it will happen none the less. Therefore, there must be some system of deterrence, and I believe that the Government’s proposals—which have not yet come into practice of course because of all the legal objections—are the only answer to deterring people totally.

We are already seeing that some Albanians have decided not to apply for asylum in this country because they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda. They have been sent within 24 hours back to Albania under the agreement that we have with the Albanian Government. In a small way, even despite all the legal problems and judicial reviews and so on, you can see a deterrent factor working. The Government are pursuing the right angle here; it is not working in practice at the moment because of all the judicial reviews and legal difficulties, which is a great pity.

We are in a democratic society, where there is a clear public will to deal with illegal immigration. The Government—the major party—have voted it through the Commons and we have voted the Bill through the House of Lords. For it then to be stopped, potentially for months and months, by judicial activity, makes it seem that democracy is not working properly. That should not be allowed to happen in a functioning country such as ours. On that basis, I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, despite understanding his desire for the whole issue to be treated with great humanity, with which I would agree.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, on securing this debate; I very much agree with what he says about the Immigration Rules.

Before going too deeply into the details, I want to say that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Horam, about the complexity of the Immigration Rules. They are so difficult. I chanced upon a document produced by the Law Commission—I do not know how long it has been out; it does not have a date. It says at the beginning that the Law Commission was asked to review the Immigration Rules to identify ways in which they could be redrafted to make them simpler and more accessible. The one thing I can say about the rules we are debating today is that they are certainly not simple or accessible. I have read them about three times, and I have read the explanation of the rules about three times, and I am still not very much the wiser. I commend to the Home Office the Law Commission’s report. If it was written some time ago, it is still very much up to date. The idea is that the rules should always be drafted in such a way that they are meaningful and comprehensible.

I will comment very briefly on one or two things that have been said. I am personally very much in sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, said about identification. I do not think that I can bring my own Labour Party with me on this, but I believe that, in terms of the rights of individuals, it would be an improvement. If any noble Lords have tried to open a building society savings account, they will know of the number of documents that one has to produce as evidence that one is who one is—sometimes, I just take my passport with me, as it is a lot simpler than anything else. I also have a little advice: when one is moving house, make sure that your wife or partner is also named on the utility bills, because there comes a point when you have to produce evidence for her as well—or the other way round. I have gone through this in getting a blue badge for my wife; it is complicated, because one has to get all this evidence. ID cards might well be helpful, and we should debate that more fully another day.

I was a little surprised by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, when he said that more people claim asylum in the UK than in France. I was not aware of that. It was my understanding—and the Minister may be able to give us the figures—that of the people arriving in France, far more claim asylum in France than seek to come to this country to claim asylum here.

--- Later in debate ---

As to the deterrent effect, I appreciate that the Rwanda scheme has not actually been put into practice, but the Government have certainly signalled that they are going to pursue it relentlessly, yet we have record numbers of people coming across the channel. So I question the deterrent effect in the first place. As I say, how can it be the only alternative if it is not a legal alternative? I can suggest an alternative—for example, humanitarian visas, where people in their country of origin are able to make an initial application for asylum in the UK and be told in-country whether that application is likely to be successful when they get to the UK. Alternatively, they might be told, “Please don’t bother paying people to get you to the UK, please don’t bother coming to the UK, because on the basis of the assessment we’ve done here, in-country, you have no chance”. That is an effective deterrent, rather than the Rwanda policy.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

The noble Lord says that that is an effective deterrent, but, with respect, it would have to be tested in reality, just as the Government’s measures are being tested in reality—or not tested in reality yet.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

Arguably, the Government’s policy is being tested in reality, because the threat hangs over everybody who crosses the channel that they could be sent to Rwanda—albeit that there is a stay on it because of the action before the courts—yet there are record numbers coming across the channel. So, I would argue that we need to try something else.

The whole disgraceful Rwanda policy is designed to avoid the UK making any decision about whether someone is a genuine refugee or not by simply removing them to Rwanda and letting the African nation decide. The change in the rules ensures asylum seekers who arrive in the UK, other than through what I would argue are practically non-existent “safe and legal” routes, will automatically be removed without any consideration of the merits of their claim for refugee status. Can the Minister explain, for an unaccompanied child refugee who claims asylum in the UK because they were in danger of persecution in both their country of origin and the country from which they travelled to the UK, do these changes mean that their persecution in the country from which they fled immediately before arriving in the UK will no longer be considered as grounds for eligibility for humanitarian protection because it was not their country of origin?

Has the Home Office thrown the baby out with the bath water through these changes? If, as the Minister claimed earlier today, the Home Office will consider the vulnerability of asylum seekers before sending them to Rwanda, why can it not consider at the same time whether the application for asylum has any merit, rather than refusing to even consider it and sending people to Rwanda?

We objected to almost every provision in the Nationality and Borders Act and it is therefore no surprise that we regret these Immigration Rules, which give effect to the primary legislation. In recent years, asylum seekers have amounted to only around six in every 100 immigrants to the UK. If anti-immigration advocates, such as the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, believe there is a problem that needs to be addressed, we on these Benches believe the focus should be on the 94% who are being given visas, not the most vulnerable desperately seeking sanctuary in the UK.

There appears to be a glimmer of light in the former Home Secretary’s resignation letter to the Prime Minister today in which she said that

“I have had serious concerns about this Government's commitment to honouring manifesto commitments, such as reducing overall migration numbers and stopping illegal migration, particularly the dangerous small boats crossings.”

The resigning Home Secretary says she has serious concerns about the Government’s commitment to stopping illegal immigration. Can the Minister enlighten us as to what she means?

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I shall add a little balance to this debate by speaking on behalf of the Government on this particular Bill. I speak in particular to Amendment C1 from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, Amendment B1 from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and Amendment H1 from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I say straightaway that I have great sympathy for the point of view they put forward in those three amendments. In particular, it is almost certainly the case that there are not enough legal routes for genuine refugees to this country. I recognise what the Minister said about the extent to which we have already accommodated refugees and the figures she quoted, but I still think that we do not have enough legal routes for the generality of refugees, leaving aside those from Hong Kong, the Afghans and Syrians and so forth.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made the point very well on the previous group of amendments that if we compare the number of asylum seekers to the number of economic migrants—the number of work visas, for example—that is the real problem: in numbers. It is numbers I am concerned about principally and not the number of asylum seekers, which is comparatively small. I would trade a reduction in the number of economic migrants—people taking work visas, particularly the golden visas we have heard about more recently as a result of the Ukraine war—for an increase in the number of legal routes for genuine asylum seekers. That would be a very sensible thing to do. Not only that but it would be humane. I would do it on the simple humanitarian grounds that some people need legal routes more than purely economic migrants.

But the problem with that argument is that it only goes so far. First, there is the capacity to absorb new immigrants, given where we are with a large number of work visas, family visas and undergraduate visas each year and, on top of that, the Ukrainians, those from Hong Kong and the rest, and particularly as most immigrants go into the poorer areas of our country. If you read about or experience, as I have done as a former Member of Parliament, the effect on housing, schooling and GPs in the poorer areas of this country of a rapidly increasing number of immigrants over quite a short period, you can see the anger and despair of ordinary British people dealing with this situation. You cannot leave that out of account, particularly when one of the Government’s major objectives is the levelling-up agenda, which is precisely to help those areas most affected by the number of immigrants coming into the country, whether those are the large number of economic migrants or the smaller number of genuine refugees.

Finally on this point, however many legal routes we may have, we will not stop the traffickers in human beings just by having more legal routes. We have to tackle the problem directly. While there is a way of getting to this country by paying somebody £2,000 or £3,000 to come across the channel, people will take that opportunity. That is the difficulty. While I respect the views of the Opposition and the independents that we need more legal routes, that will not solve the problem of the traffickers across the channel. That is why we have this Bill; we need to tackle that problem directly.

I fully agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on the important point they made about the 2001 refugee convention. I do not want this Government to step outside that in any way. It would be a tragedy if that happened. It should not be allowed to happen; I believe that it will not happen. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that there had been no really serious arguments from the Government against his position on this issue, but he must have heard the arguments from the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, earlier in this Bill’s passage. At some length and across several columns of Hansard, he set out in detail exactly what the Government’s position was. Surely the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, must agree that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, was very persuasive. He may not agree with him, but he was certainly persuasive in his full and detailed account of the Government’s position and why what they are doing remains within the refugee convention. That is the first point.

Secondly, lawyers such as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, are arguing this in theory and in absentia, being in the Chamber as we are. However, it has already happened in Australia, which has for many years had an offshoring policy agreed between all the parties. In the early stages of that process, its Government had to argue precisely what our Government are arguing now: that what they were doing by way of offshoring was within the 1951 convention and did not abrogate or step outside it in any way. There were court cases in Australia on precisely this point. The Australian Government won them all, because they showed clearly that they were not stepping outside the 1951 convention. So there is that evidence from another country which has done precisely what our present Government are doing.

In addition, the Australian Government did a sensible thing. Throughout the long development of their offshoring policy—it took two or three years; this is not something that will be resolved here overnight, perhaps not even in a year or two—they made a point of having a dialogue with the UNHCR, which is the guardian of the refugee convention. At every stage, they took the trouble to talk to not only the UNHCR’s headquarters in Geneva but to its local regional representatives and to allow them to inspect exactly what was happening in the offshoring areas and in Australia itself. This kept the UNHCR on board, if you like, so that it had no reasonable reason to disagree with what the Australian Government were doing. I hope that our Government will do exactly the same thing, because it is sensible to do so. We want the UNHCR to have an understanding that what our Government are doing is sensible and appropriate. We do not want to be excessively controversial.

There is a more general point about this Bill, which I have mentioned before. It is an enabling Bill. It simply sets the scene and gives the Government the power to do something. It is not the final policy. We are way off a final policy. For a start, we must have a sensible arrangement with France to deal with all this. I am sure that that will be a necessary part of any government policy. Having a sensible arrangement with France may be rather easier now that we know who its president is, but it will not be enough for Boris Johnson to say, “Donnez-moi un break, Emmanuel”. He will have to have a much more rounded policy, which may take several years given all the other issues we have with France on shipping, the Northern Ireland protocol and all the rest of it. It will take a long time to sort that out; it is far from finished.

Equally, on offshoring, although I hear what my noble friend the Minister said about what information is available, I still feel extremely vague about what is happening. I have no idea whether it will work. I have many questions about how this is going to be pursued. It may be a disaster for all I know. I think that a great deal will depend on how exactly it is executed. Again, the Australians, who did this, always say to me that it takes great effort to get these sorts of policies going because they are international policies involving other Governments and you have to get that all right.

So what we are saying here is that this is an enabling Bill. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, to think back to his period as a distinguished diplomat. He might well be saying to the Government, in these circumstances, “Keep the Bill as broad as possible. Give yourselves as much room to manoeuvre as possible, because you simply do not know what will come up in the course of these negotiations with France, Rwanda or whoever”. You have to allow for that and, if you find yourselves in a situation in which you would like to pursue a course of action but cannot, because the Bill simply does not allow for that and we do not have the legislation in place, it would be a disaster for the Government.

In that respect, we should consider that the Government do not have a final policy. We have an enabling Bill. Is it right for the Lords to prevent the Commons from even trying to have this policy, which may or may not eventually work? We should remember that, in the most recent votes on this, there was a majority of 70 or 80 in the Commons—more or less the government majority, without any dissent—on every single resolution put to it, against us and in favour of their arrangements. I cannot quote the present Attorney-General, but I can quote a recent one, Sir Robert Buckland. He is not necessarily any friend of the Government, as we know, because of the history there. He was the Attorney-General and is now the MP for South Swindon. He said that he worked with Priti Patel on the Bill and that

“it is in direct fulfilment of our manifesto commitment. There is no doubt in my mind about its importance and about the need for it to be passed.”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/3/22; col. 212.]

That was the view of a recent Attorney-General, Sir Robert Buckland, who is no one’s idea of a raving right-wing Tory.

Finally in all this, I think the Government should try to get as much consensus as possible, because I suspect this will be with us for several years—perhaps even over more than one Government, as it was in Australia. They should establish a forum for debate, where critics of the Government can talk and explain their worries and concerns. Maybe churchmen should be in it, and maybe the Refugee Council. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is a trustee of the Refugee Council, so maybe he should be on this forum. Something like that would be a means of discussion whereby we do not just talk at each other across the Chamber and in the newspapers, but talk seriously about this very important problem, which any Government of whatever description would have to resolve—namely, these illegal boat trips across the channel.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will be very brief after that monologue, which I found extremely boring. Forgive me if I am being rude; I do not know whether I am trespassing on any rules. But, really, if the noble Lord is coming to the Chamber, perhaps he could bring a speech and not choose to deliver some sort of long ramble, when we are quite short of time.

I am going to talk about Motion F1. I have listened to the Government and the Minister talking today about Rwanda and, quite honestly, I think their representation of Rwanda is extremely flawed. I draw the House’s attention to one report from Amnesty International, in 2021, last year, which produced a review on Rwanda that said that there were huge human rights concerns. For example, abortion remains illegal in most circumstances. The Government interfere in the right to fair trial, including torturing the accused, denying access to legal counsel and confiscating legally privileged material. They arrest journalists and opposition politicians, and there are deaths in custody.

What is happening? The Government talk all the time about stopping these trafficking gangs, but our Government are becoming a trafficking gang. They are going to take people abroad and leave them there. They are taking them to a country that has human rights abuses. This is inhumane and cruel, and I will be voting for every single amendment today, because the Government have overreached and are making themselves an embarrassment for us in the world.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, on Motion A, I am very pleased to be able to accept Amendments 1A and 1B in lieu of my original amendment. Together with assurances given on the record in the Commons, they will open up entitlement to British citizenship, which will be subject to neither a fee nor a good character test. They therefore meet the objectives of the original amendment. I thank the Minister for whatever part she may have played in helping achieve this change of heart, following the meetings she had with some of us and Rosy Leveque of BIOT Citizens.

I have two questions. When is it anticipated that applications can begin, and can the Minister confirm that it is still the Government’s intention to use some of the largely unspent £40 million Chagos support fund to help Chagossians settle here, and to help those already here who have welfare needs?

As well as the Government, I thank noble Lords from all Benches who gave such strong support to the amendment, and in particular those on the Government Benches, as I am sure their passionate support was key to encouraging the Government to think again. I thank the APPG on the Chagos Islands for helping to build that support. I also pay tribute to Henry Smith MP, who has long championed this cause in the Commons, and to the late and much-missed Lord Avebury, who first raised the issue in your Lordships’ House over a decade ago. His work to remove this and other citizenship injustices has been energetically continued by the BOT Citizenship campaign, especially David Varney and Trent L Miller.

Last but not least, I pay tribute to the Chagossians themselves, who have helped to spearhead the campaign, in particular Rosy Leveque and Chagossian Voices. The joy felt as a result of the government concession is summed up well in an email sent to me and Henry Smith from a Chagossian on Mauritius, who is longing to be reunited with his family in the UK. I will quote briefly a few lines:

“I am writing to you simply to say that words are not enough to express how thankful and grateful I am. I can’t stop crying with joy and happiness, and trust me when I say that many Chagossians in Mauritius and Seychelles are also overjoyed and overwhelmed by this result. Many of us have been keeping our grandparents’ birth certificates in a folder waiting for this day to come.”


The original injustice that deprived the Chagossians of their homeland and that perpetuates their exile remains and will rightly continue to be contested. However, I believe that all those who have contributed to the ending of the citizenship injustice done to the descendants of those for whom the Chagos Islands were home can feel pride today. I am sure that we all look forward to welcoming to the UK as British citizens the Chagossians who have been the victims of this injustice.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her leadership on this issue, the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who has pursued this for many years, and Henry Smith in the other place, who has played a notable part as well. Indeed, I also thank my noble friend the Minister and the Government, who have pursued this and given way on quite an important principle and made a unique situation for the Chagossians in this country. I now hope that the Foreign Office takes the cue from the Home Office and deals with the real problem, which is giving the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius—that is the real issue. We only got four votes in the United Nations on this issue—with 150-odd against us. It is a lasting disgrace, and I hope that the Foreign Office, which is not normally behind the Home Office on these issues, takes the cue accordingly.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I take the rare step of agreeing completely with the noble Lord, Lord Horam, particularly in his praise for the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who has worked so incredibly hard and has been so effective, as well as the Minister, who clearly smoothed the way for these changes. I will ask one question. One difference in the Commons amendment is that it does not state:

“No charge or fee may be imposed for registration under this section.”


So can the Minister tell me what fees or costs will be imposed on Chagos Islanders to rectify this injustice?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, there is a danger for a Green such as me in agreeing so strongly with two noble Lords from the opposite side of the Chamber—the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Horam—but it is not my fault; they have moved towards my position, just to be clear. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, made a wonderful speech.

I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on the other place having treated this House with “disdain”. It is worse than that. It is contempt. It is real contempt that they have not read what we have done. I say to the Minister that here we have some incredible legal advice, from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and the noble and learned Lords, Lord Judge and Lord Brown. It is free and it is good, so why are we not taking it? Why do the Government still resist that we are breaking the law if we allow the Bill to go through?

The brilliant Twitter lawyer, David Allen Green, often mocks the use of “for the avoidance of doubt”, because well-drafted text should not allow any doubt in the first place. However, the Government seem not to understand that this is what they are doing. They are opening an option for a lot of court cases, and they have slashed the amount of money that is going into the legal system anyway, so it will be very difficult to do those court cases. They are not just avoiding taking the advice of this House but allowing themselves to break the law. I do not understand why any Government would think like that.

If we are to comply with our duties and obligations to the refugee convention, we must vote for Motion C1.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I might offer a slightly different perspective. One of the difficulties that we have had with the Bill throughout is that we are considering things back to front. Normally, when there is policy proposal, you get a White Paper, then a period of consultation, then you come down to the details of the Bill when you can see in law what the proposals are and discuss them in detail. Here it is the opposite way round. We have a Bill, but we do not know what the policy is. Essentially, the Bill has come forward as an enabling Bill to allow the Government to address the issue of illegal crossings of the channel, so we are doing things the wrong way round. It is even worse than that; old hands here will remember the halcyon days when we had Green Papers, which proposed a certain progress of action. We would then have a White Paper setting out a government policy, and then we would have legislation. Here, we are doing it the wrong way round.

The reason is a fairly practical one, as I understand it. In this case, dealing with cross-channel migrants, we must deal with foreign Governments. We must have agreements, certainly with the French and possibly with the Belgians, Dutch and other countries that we want to deal with. That is the problem, and the practical reason why we are doing things the wrong way round.

It leads to a difficulty in that the Opposition rightly have questions which they want answers to, but the Government cannot answer the questions because they do not yet know what the policy will be. There is a package of measures, some of which we can imagine would work and some that would not work, but we do not know what those practical measures are. Equally, the Government have difficulties. They cannot answer some of the questions that are being put by the Opposition because they do not know what the policies are either. Certainly, we Back-Benchers are in darkness. There is a real problem there.

That has a bearing on the arguments which have taken place and which we cannot entirely resolve in this sort of debate. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made the point, which I think is the Opposition’s principal position, that the problem would be solved if we could open legal routes to all the refugees who wish to come to this country. The problem would be resolved that way if we had enough proper legal routes.

The Government’s position is clearly that this probably would not work, because even if you had large numbers of legal routes, if traffickers were still able to give the clear message to their victims that they could get into this country and could stay, work and have a life here, they would still be in business. That is a matter of practicality and judgment. Would having enough legal routes solve the problem? Remember that the traffickers deal not just with human beings but with drugs and all sorts of criminality. If they remained in business, doing business across the channel, you would still have this trade in human beings. That is the practical, judgmental issue at the bottom of this, and we do not know the answer because we do not know the package of measures that the Government will come forward with. We are looking only at the enabling legislation.

I fully accept the additional point that we must look at the effect on refugees of international law. I take the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, that there is a significant issue here. However, those who make that point must accept that the Government are equally sincere in thinking that there is an issue here on which they remain fully compliant with the 1951 convention. The noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, gave a very well-organised defence of the Government’s position, setting it out very clearly. I am not a lawyer so cannot comment on that. All I can do is accept the Government’s advice that they are compliant with the convention.

Finally, I agree with my noble friend Lord Cormack that there is a problem with the House of Commons considering these issues because of timetabling. This is a pervasive issue in the House of Commons. It has been there for years, and they have found no real solution to it. Just as we can go on for as long as we want and for as long as time and patience permit, they are timetabled for six hours or whatever it may be and, therefore, inevitably, immensely important and worthwhile issues such as this as compressed, very often into a few moments, with a ministerial response of a few minutes. This is wholly unacceptable. We have found no way round that, but we must deal with a situation as we have it. For example, in response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, the vote in the House of Commons was a majority of 98 against his proposal that there should be differentiation between group 1 and group 2—that decision to differentiate passed by a majority of 98 in the House of Commons.

That is a massive majority and reflects not just questions of law but the justified concern of the House of Commons about human trafficking across the channel. I am sure that we are all concerned about refugees not only from Ukraine but from other countries —everyone is concerned about that—but how we stop illicit human trafficking across the channel is a separate issue. Everybody is trying to do their best here; in some cases, the procedures that we have to adopt are very unsatisfactory but I hope that people accept that the Government are trying to do something that, in their judgment, is a practical answer. Even those who do not agree with them should understand that this is a matter of judgment. We will not know the full consequences for some time to come, until the Government’s policies are clear—but not to allow them to pursue their policy with the flexibility and elbow room that they need would in my view be a grave misjudgment.

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I speak in support of Motion E1 in my name, and refer to my entry in the Members’ register of interests and my connections with RAMP. I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the constructive way in which she has engaged with me since we last debated in this House the right of asylum seekers to work after six months. I will not rehearse all the arguments for extending the right to work as we have done that on multiple occasions, but I want to address some of the arguments that have been put forward by the Government. I am grateful to the Minister for sharing some of her concerns with me; I will briefly address three of these.

First, there appears to be a concern that, if we extend the right to work for asylum seekers, we will extend that right to those who are convicted criminals in their home country. Although only a tiny proportion of those who apply for asylum fall into this category, it is a legitimate concern. However, I do not believe that it should stand in the way of right-to-work reforms because all those in this category should be held in immigration detention anyway and would be unable to work by virtue of that status.

Secondly, there is a concern that this may encourage more mendacious claims; again, I believe that this has become an exaggerated argument. The figures as they stand find that 72% of people who apply for asylum get accepted on the initial decision before any appeals process has begun. This is a sign that the vast majority are not applying with mendacious claims but are genuine refugees. There is a danger that, in our current system, we are penalising these people by not allowing them to work and unnecessarily putting significant stumbling blocks in the way of their integration.

Thirdly, there is a concern about incentivising the pull factors; we have heard an awful lot about this. I once again believe that this is exaggerated, based on anecdote rather than raw empirical data. I also think that this adjusted amendment before the House today addresses any possible concern by introducing a four-year trial period with a review three years in to determine whether indeed there is any pull factor. This has the pragmatic benefit of meaning that we will be able to address existing labour shortages in the immediate term while giving the Home Office an opportunity to assess whether concerns that this contributes as a pull factor have any backing in meaningful empirical data. There are no studies that currently back this perspective.

In summary, the Government say that the amendment is not needed because, in the new system, all those coming by legal and safe routes would have an immediate right to work—but this actually supports the amendment. Why are we happy to give an immediate right to work to Ukrainians but not to others who come to this country? The Government say this is not needed because in the new system, even including appeals, the process will take only six months. That is great, but we are not there yet and, to my knowledge, we have never been there. The Government say this is not needed because the new system will be so clear that they will be able to focus on the backlog and on those who come in via alternative routes. Again, this sounds great but, at this moment, all evidence is to the contrary.

Even the new system for Ukrainians cannot flex or adapt quickly enough and already shows signs of significant strain. No one more wants the system to be sorted than me or other noble Lords, but we have waited many years to see it happen. There are between 60,000 and 80,000 people who need to be able to work; they should be experiencing a Britain that enables asylum seekers to rebuild their lives and create their own pathway from poverty to prosperity.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

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

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I spoke on this subject in Committee, so I will not make any more than a few brief remarks on Report. I cited the Australian example, which now has all-party support in Australia, for dealing with a particular form of offshoring.

The problem of dealing with cross-channel migration is undoubtedly very difficult, but it is not impossible; we have had some success in dealing with the problem of people coming across in lorries, which is one of the reasons they are now coming by sea. But the reason I cannot go along with my noble friend Lady Stroud is that if you are dealing with a very difficult, protracted and visible problem like this, you need to consider all the options available. Some of them will turn out, on closer analysis, to be impractical. It will turn out that you simply do not want to do some of them because of the reasons raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about some of the ramifications. Some of them may simply be politically impossible to do, but it is an obligation on the Government to explore every avenue to resolve this very difficult problem.

Also, this is clearly an international problem. It is not only Britain that is dealing with this issue; it is Greece, Italy, France, Spain and so on. One thing I am sure noble Lords have said in the past is that, when looking at this, we should not simply confine ourselves to what we think is right. We should look abroad to see how other countries have tackled it. Some countries have had some success, some have had less success, but it would be foolish to ignore what is happening abroad and what methods they are trying.

For all those reasons, it is just common sense to keep the wording of the Bill as it is at the moment to give the Government the opportunity to explore a number of different avenues, some of which, I agree, may not turn out to be very sensible, and some of which may be more productive. To stop this now and to exclude some aspects because there are unanswered questions at this stage, when the Government are clearly in negotiations on this—they are half way or quarter way through the process; I do not know—would be foolish in the interests of looking at the whole picture.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, often makes the point that this aspect of asylum seekers and refugees coming across the channel is only a small part of a much larger picture of migration; I think he used the figure that asylum seekers make up 6% of those coming over. But we have to get back to the bigger picture of what is happening on migration. By the way, I include Ukraine in that. Obviously, we all hope that no Ukrainian has to find a way across the channel via a smuggler. We hope that this country will be generous enough to deal with all those coming here properly. As I understand it, the Prime Minister said at Question Time today that he had been in discussions with the Poles, for example, about how Britain could help the Polish Government to deal with the massive influx they have had over their borders. That is an entirely separate issue which I hope we can deal with far more generously than so far.

I think this is a distraction, if you like—a difficult and problematic distraction from a very much bigger picture, which I hope we can return to if we really can solve this. But I urge the House not to rule out any particular measure, however difficult it may be and however many questions it may pose, at this stage.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak rather briefly; it seems to me that brevity has a very wide definition. Let me just say that outsourcing is entirely unacceptable. I would like to see the back of this clause and schedule; they should not be in a Bill dealing with asylum or refugees. As I said in Committee, this will place vulnerable people again at risk. I give the simple example of someone who might be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender ending up in a country to which they are outsourced where they could be criminalised, persecuted and under real threat. What kind of signal do we send to the rest of the world when we treat vulnerable people in this way? I support all the amendments in this group. I think that is brief enough.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 1, to which I have added my name. I declare an interest as a vice-chairman of the Chagos Islands (British Indian Ocean Territory) All-Party Parliamentary Group. How do the Government have the neck to condemn others for far less, while at the same time standing condemned by both the International Criminal Court and the General Committee of the United Nations for refusing to allow the Chagos Islanders and their descendants citizen rights to return to their homeland, despite promises that they would be allowed to do so after 30 years? I remember, as long ago as 2013, reading out a letter from a Pentagon Minister to the then Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister saying that the Pentagon had no objection to the return of the islanders to Diego Garcia, being used to having indigenous people living alongside island military bases in the Pacific.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I must correct the noble Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in one regard: the Lib Dems could have done something about this when they were part of the coalition Government. I am not particularly pointing to the Lib Dems: we are all guilty of the shame of what has happened to the Chagos islanders. All three parties, I am afraid, have done nothing to deal with the dreadful situation the Chagos islanders find themselves in as a result of successive Governments of all parties. I hope that my noble friend the Minister—he is having a hard time today, now having to answer this question as well as previous ones, and I really do feel sorry for him—can offer us some hope in this matter today.

My noble friend Lady Williams explained when we discussed this issue previously that the problem is that what we are asking for runs counter to long-standing government policy. However, the truth is that we ourselves created this situation. Surely, long-standing policy should be flexible enough to deal with a problem which we ourselves created. There is no group of people other than the Chagossians in this situation, and that is why we have to be flexible. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has looked again at this amendment and drawn it ever more tightly, so that fewer additional problems can arise. I commend her on that effort.

We know from events such as the Windrush scandal that issues such as this are a matter not just of law but of how individual cases are handled in Home Office administration. I do not criticise that administration because I know from my own experience as a Member of Parliament how difficult such cases can be to deal with, and I often sympathise with it regarding the decisions it has to make. However, I would like the Chagossian community to be given some particular form of access to government. Perhaps an officer should be allocated to deal with their problems on a regular basis, so that there is a point of contact in the Home Office whom they can go to as a matter of course. I found during my previous experience as a Member of Parliament that this can make a huge difference to those who often simply want to contact in an easy and friendly way people who understand their problems, having been long versed in them.

I hope that my noble friend the Minister can give us some succour on this administrative issue, as well as on the legal matters. This issue is not going to go away.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. This would be absolutely the right thing to do at this time, in order to demonstrate UK leadership. When it comes to long-standing government policy, we are a democracy and we should evolve, and policies should evolve with it. These people deserve our support in being given the right to go back to their homes. If we are to have any standing in the world, let us show that leadership today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the new clause proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, but we need to do a belt-and-braces job here. I am afraid we have to go back to the issue of compatibility and “Oh yes it is; oh no it isn’t.”

In Clause 11, we are introducing something entirely new. This two-class categorisation of refugees—the real refugees who came direct and the class 2 refugees who did not—is not anywhere in the refugee convention. None of that is in the refugee convention. The Government say that it is all perfectly compatible with the convention and assert that it is our right to interpret the convention in this new way, differently from the way that it has been interpreted up to now by our courts, differently from the way that the UNHCR, the custodian of the convention, interprets it in its authoritative judgment on our Bill, and differently from the way in which 146 signatory states interpret it.

We did the “Oh yes it is; oh no it is not” game at length in Committee and the Government stuck to their view, but I think it is fair to say that the Committee found it rather hard to understand the Government’s view. I wondered whether the Minister perhaps let the cat out of the bag when he told us:

“It may … be”—


to be fair, he did put it tentatively—

“that a convention entered into in 1951 is not absolutely suitable for the world of 2022.”—[Official Report, 8/2/22; col. 1463.]

Tonight, we heard the Minister seeming to hint that it might be time to review the convention as if it was in some way out of date. I could not disagree more.

I refute the Minister’s contention in one word: Ukraine. Life itself—zhizn’ sama, as a Russian would say—refutes the Minister’s contention. In the world of 2022, we see these hundreds of thousands of people—now over 500,000, the UNHCR says—abandoning their homes, trudging the motorways, crowding on to the trains, fleeing the tanks and rockets, and streaming into Poland and Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Romania. Are they refugees? Yes, of course they are refugees, just like the Hungarians in 1956 and the Czechs in 1968. Are they entitled to refugee convention rights? Yes, of course they are. But if the Bill, including Clause 11, is enacted or had been enacted, any of them who wanted to come to this country could be only group 2 refugees, without full convention rights, because they had not come directly from Ukraine and could have asked for asylum in Poland or Hungary. That is even though there are no direct flights from Ukraine, and even though we say Ukrainians have to have visas to come here—although we do not issue visas to asylum seekers.

The key point for the House tonight is that there is nothing in the convention or, as I understand it, subject to correction from the legal authorities round me, anywhere in international law requiring an asylum seeker to apply in the first safe country they reach. This, the rationale for Clause 11, is a Home Office invention. The convention sets only one test: not how the refugee got here, but why. What was it that drove him to come here? Was it a well-founded fear of persecution back home? That is the question. But if Clause 11 is approved, that question or test becomes redundant and irrelevant because, no matter what horrors he is fleeing from, if a refugee did not come here directly he could be only a group 2 refugee, subject to the harsher regime, detention and offshore processing set out in all the subsequent clauses that we are also going to have to look at closely, in my view. This just will not do.

My concern is with the refugees but also for the reputational damage we do to ourselves, if we go down this road, and the practical consequences for the refugee convention. Suppose our new invention caught on and other countries started following suit. Well over 20 million refugees are in countries contiguous to their homelands—just across the border—and nearly all these countries are developing countries. Suppose the convention were in future to be interpreted by all and sundry to mean that the exiled Syrians and Iraqis must always stay just across the frontier in Lebanon or Jordan, and that the Afghans must always stay in Pakistan, but the developed world can wash its hands of these problems and leave it to the Jordans and Pakistans, because the refugees could never move on and obtain asylum elsewhere. The only places they could obtain asylum were in the Jordans and the Pakistans.

What would the consequences of that be? They would be disastrous for the first host country; there are 1.5 million people in Lebanon from Iraq and Syria, and more than that from Afghanistan in the camps around Peshawar in Pakistan. We would be saying that Pakistan and Jordan are going to be stuck with that for ever, as far as we are concerned. It would be disastrous for the refugees, too.

If this doctrine caught on—if it were the general reading of international law that first hosts had sole responsibility—anyone seeking to flee persecution would find the gates of freedom clanging shut in their face. If we leave Clause 11 in the Bill, we do not just betray our values and trash our reputation, we could kill the refugee convention, sadly, though we need it in the world of 2022 as much as ever. I propose that Clause 11 be deleted.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, we had a long debate on this subject in Committee, so I shall be brief. We ought to remember throughout what the Bill was originally about. It is fundamentally about stopping, or curbing, the channel migrants. Obviously, we hope to do it in a sensible way. If we could have an agreement with the French, the Belgians or the Dutch to deal with this in a bipartisan way, that would be ideal, but none of us is very optimistic, particularly before a general election in France and so on.

We need other options: a plan B, or maybe a plan C. I agree that some of them stretch the credibility of what any Government would want to do, because the problem of the cross-channel migrants is indeed very difficult to deal with. You have to deal with them separately because, however sympathetic one may be with people in the hands of traffickers coming across the channel for whatever reason, it is a difficult way to come across. It is unsafe, they are clearly behaving illegally—it is against the law to enter this country in that way—and they are doing so in a very public way. Every night on television, you can see people coming across the channel and on to the beaches in Kent and so forth. They add to the number of people the Government have agreed to accept by proper routes—the Chinese from Hong Kong, the Afghans and, now, Ukrainians. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I hope we will have a generous scheme to allow Ukrainians who wish to come here to do so, just as I hope that Europe will have a generous scheme. I suspect and hope that they will come here only temporarily.

Coming across the channel is an open-ended and uncontrolled method and, if successful, encourages even more to come. Last year, 29,000 came; the prediction is that 60,000 will come this year. That is more money for the traffickers. The traffickers now make more money out of human beings than they do out of drugs, which will increasingly be the case. If we allow that to carry on uncontrolled, it makes it more difficult for local authorities, which have to deal with these people—housing them, making welfare arrangements, schooling their children and dealing with their families.

They add to the problems in the most disadvantaged parts of the country. It is not the leafy areas of Hampstead where these people end up; it is in places such as Blackpool, Stoke-on-Trent, Middlesbrough and Doncaster. I was talking to a red wall MP from the north-west. Blackpool has five of the eight poorest wards in the country; it has real problems. There is fury on the streets of Blackpool at the way they are being dumped on with people such as the migrants who come across the channel. They do not understand why they have to receive them.

The levelling-up agenda, which is central to this Government, is set at nought when that situation is arising in the areas of this country which need to be levelled up. It makes a proper, organised, rational immigration policy more difficult. As my noble friend Lord Hodgson said in a previous debate, informed consent—the consent of the people—is essential for a rational, substantiated and long-term immigration policy. If we do not have a policy that people are comfortable with, in the long run, we will not sustain it.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

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

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 57, 59 and 60 in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger and Lady Hamwee, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. I also express broad support for the other amendments in this group. The amendments reflect the concerns of the British Red Cross together with many other organisations, and I am grateful to them for their help. Together, the amendments would place restrictions on who could be accommodated in the accommodation centres proposed under Clause 12 and for how long, the numbers to be accommodated in a centre and the sleeping arrangements, and would ensure that if children were ever accommodated in those centres, they would not be prevented from attending local maintained schools.

Under Clause 12, as signalled in the new plan for immigration, accommodation for asylum seekers will move from what has been the dominant dispersal model, in which asylum seekers are housed in local communities, to accommodation in reception centres, using a power provided by the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. No detail has been provided, so one purpose of the amendments is to try to elicit more detail than was provided in the Commons. In particular, how many accommodation centres are planned, and where? Will they be purpose-built or will they use existing sites such as Napier barracks? What criteria will be used to decide whether such existing sites are designated as accommodation centres or contingency accommodation?

What the Government have made clear is that they will use Napier as asylum accommodation for a further five years, and that this will allow testing and piloting to inform the final design of how accommodation centres will operate. In view of the High Court judgment about the inadequacy of the accommodation provided, and having sat on an inquiry held by the APPG on immigration detention into quasi-detention centres, I find the idea that Napier could provide the model for future accommodation centres profoundly worrying.

The evidence we received—both from stakeholder organisations and from those with experience of living in Napier or in another centre, now closed—was overwhelmingly negative. Typically, such centres are in remote areas. This spells isolation and a lack of easy access to support services. It is not conducive to integration. On the contrary, it creates what HOPE not hate describes as “targets of hate”. It warns that the use of such centres is likely to lead to increased harassment of asylum seekers.

As noted in the joint evidence from Doctors of the World, the Helen Bamber Foundation, Forrest Medico-Legal Services and Freedom from Torture, the use of dormitory-style accommodation means a total lack of privacy. This can be particularly problematic for LGBTQ+ residents. It also results in serious sleep deprivation for many. The impact of this deprivation on mental health and well-being was described very powerfully in evidence to the inquiry by those with experience of Napier barracks.

The use of former military barracks can be retraumatising for those who have suffered abuse and torture. As a dozen organisations, including Doctors of the World, the Helen Bamber Foundation, the BMA and various royal colleges warned the Home Secretary in a joint letter, this makes them inappropriate for people seeking asylum. They also warned that the kind of accommodation centres envisaged represent a real public health risk and impede adequate medical care.

It was clear from our inquiry and from the experience of a range of health and refugee organisations that such accommodation is bad for mental and physical health. It undermines any sense of agency and hope. According to the Helen Bamber Foundation,

“the use of institutional accommodation of this type is extremely harmful to survivors of torture”

and its features

“have the same impact as open prisons with groups of people with little to motivate or occupy themselves becoming increasingly desperate.”

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Refugee Council has warned:

“Proposals to extend these forms of accommodation are ill-thought out and dangerous, and undermine the UK’s duties to support and protect those making asylum claims.”


It advised that international examples of the use of congregated settings, including in the Republic of Ireland, have shown that this kind of accommodation is completely inappropriate for housing those seeking asylum.

The amendments will not prevent the use of such accommodation centres—the power for which stems from earlier legislation, as I said—but they would go so way towards addressing their most inhumane features. Amendment 57 would, with some additions, give legislative force to what is supposed to be current policy—of not housing groups with particular vulnerabilities in such accommodation. Our inquiry, British Red Cross research and the experiences of stakeholders all indicate that, all too often, people with vulnerabilities are housed in such accommodation. It is therefore essential the safeguards are spelled out in the legislation. In the absence of such legal safeguards, what assurances can the Minister give that the use of accommodation centres will be accompanied by more robust screening and protection than exist at present?

With regard to children, in the Commons Committee, the Minister assured Members that the Government had “no intention” and “no plans” to accommodate children. Welcome as such assurances are, they are far from a cast-iron guarantee. We need to spell it out in the legislation. I do not see why the Government would resist this—if this is their intention. I invite the Minister to give an absolute assurance on the record.

Without a firm—preferably legal—guarantee, Amendment 60, which assures children’s access to local maintained education facilities, is still needed. At present, Section 36 of the 2002 Act prevents a child who is resident in an accommodation centre being admitted to a maintained school or nursery. Section 29 allows for education to take place within the centres. The prior information notice for accommodation centres, published by the Government last August, includes provision for education services. It surely cannot be in the children’s best interests to segregate them from children in the local community in this way.

Amendment 56 would limit the number of residents in any one centre to 100. The larger such centres are, the less the residents feel that their humanity is recognised and the more likely the centres are to attract hostile attention and to work against social cohesion and integration. In the Commons Committee, the Minister said that such a limit would undermine a key objective of resolving asylum cases more quickly on site. It is not clear how it would do so. Could the Minister please explain?

The other part of the amendment would ensure that residents were not required to share sleeping accommodation with anyone to whom they were not related. This reflects a recommendation made five years ago by the Home Affairs Select Committee—that room-sharing should be phased out across the asylum estate. It would help address lack of privacy and public health concerns.

The Minister was rather dismissive of this in the Commons Committee, but he did not seem to appreciate what it is like for people seeking asylum to be housed in dormitory-style accommodation, as opposed to sharing a bedroom in accommodation in the community. It is all very well saying, as he did, that torture survivors receiving treatment should not share sleeping quarters, but in practice, all too often, inadequate screening means that torture survivors and others who are vulnerable do so.

Amendment 59 would remove the power given to the Home Secretary in Clause 11 to increase the maximum period for which someone can be accommodated. At present, there is a limit of six months in most cases. The Explanatory Note gives no indication as to how the new power might be used, other than to argue that it provides flexibility. The UNHCR has expressed concern that, unless there are necessary safeguards and support services, prolonged accommodation in such centres is likely to harm well-being, increase the need for future support and delay refugee integration. The 90-day limit in the amendment reflects current practice at Napier. We know the damaging impact on mental health caused by the absence of any clear time limit. It should not be replicated in accommodation centres.

In conclusion, I will quote from residents of Napier and of Penally, which is now closed. One told the APPG inquiry:

“When I arrived, the fear completely overwhelmed me. The design of the camp was oppressive, the high fences, the sheer numbers of people, the security who … looked like they were from the military. It was terrifying and I could feel it through my whole body. It reminded me of the military camps in [my home country]. I was in complete shock for the first few days. I did not sleep at all … It reminded me of [my home country] and I could not function.”


Another suggested:

“It would be difficult to design a system that more perfectly delivers despair and deteriorating human health and mental capacity than these asylum camps.”


A third said:

“I did not feel like a person when I was there.”


These quotes show quite clearly the experience of dehumanisation. The JCHR suggested, in one of its reports on the Bill, that such dehumanisation and distress are not inevitable in accommodation centres. It also made it clear that it was imperative that the Government learn from the poor treatment of asylum seekers housed in former military barracks. The amendments in this group give the Government the opportunity to demonstrate that they have learned from the overwhelming evidence of the damaging impact of such accommodation. I beg to move.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly welcome my noble friend’s initiative in building and setting up reception centres of this kind. I appreciate that the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and others, are, in effect, probing amendments to find out more about the Government’s exact intentions. I fully understand that. It is perfectly reasonable.

I do not think that the noble Baroness objected to the principle of reception centres of this kind. At the moment, first of all, people are visited on local authorities, which are asked to accommodate them. Inevitably, these are not local authorities in London and the south-east, where accommodation costs are very high, but in areas such as the Midlands, the north-west and the north-east. I come from the north-west, so I know it particularly well. Here there is the largest concentration of people of this kind in council flats and so forth. They are, in effect, in competition with local people on the council waiting list, who may be rather resentful if they find they are asked to wait rather longer because of the need to accommodate people who have just come across the channel on a boat. This is not conducive to good community relations, as well as being quite unfair on people who have long been resident in this country.

Secondly, if they cannot be accommodated by local authorities—indeed, it is increasingly difficult to find appropriate council accommodation because of the shortage of housing, even in areas such as the north-east and north-west—they are sent to local hotels. I know this particularly well because I happened to spend part of my youth in Southport. Southport has a splendid main street called Lord Street. The Committee may not know it, but it was visited by Louis Napoleon, the Emperor of France, when he was in exile in this country before he became the emperor. On the basis of Lord Street, he created the Champs-Élysées in Paris. In Southport we always think of the Champs-Élysées as being the French Lord Street.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments and pay tribute to those whose names are attached to them, because they all raise important issues. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that there was something of a Freudian slip when he suggested that we were here dealing with illegal immigrants. Perhaps the tabloid newspapers are having too much of an effect on his view of what is happening.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

Surely in many instances we will not know the state of their claim when those people are accommodated in the reception centres. They will not know, and we will not know, what their status is.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

It was the assumption that we were talking about illegal immigrants. The vast majority of the people coming through are asylum seekers and have good reason to be seeking asylum.

The reason I got to my feet was not really to reprimand the noble Lord, Lord Horam; it was to raise a question that came from my own experience. When it became public that we had been evacuating judges and prosecutors from Afghanistan, because they were in mortal danger, to a lily pad—a temporary location—in Greece, the number of communications I received from people and families up and down the country with additional accommodation and offering to make it available to any of those seeking refuge from persecution was extraordinary. I know that the answer will be given from the Front Bench that of course we encourage people to contact a central line and to put their names down to say that they might make such an offer, but many of those who contacted me, where I gave them that advice, told me that no one had ever contacted them. I just wonder whether the good will of the British people who could offer accommodation is really being tapped into, rather than piling people into camps such as this one.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Can I ask my noble friend to return to the point about what might constitute a safe route? The specific example I gave the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, was about Yazidis and other minorities in northern Iraq who were faced with genocide. That was a category of people who could have been helped by our posts on the ground by dealing with their claims. To turn that into 80 million people all applying at British consulates and embassies around the world—that was not what anyone was suggesting. My noble friend asked for realistic proposals. Is this a proposal that he himself would be prepared to have a look at?

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, on the question of safe routes, which has just been touched on from both sides, the point is that by definition, they tend to include the whole family: a whole group of people tend to come together. That is part of the point of safe routes. The problem with illegal, unsafe routes is that 80% of the people who use them are young men, below the age of 34. That is a fact of life we have to put up with. We hope by means of this Bill to improve the rights of people who come by safe routes, and to discourage those who come by illegal routes who, by definition, are a dysfunctional family group.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

If I may answer my noble friend’s point, my answer to the Yazidis or particular problems of that kind—you will find them in Africa as well, of course—is to examine the situation that has developed, see how many people there are, where they are and how best they can be helped. That is certainly what our aid programme should be doing and what our missions should be advising on. I do not think that is the same as saying that we should consider shifting an entire community from northern Iraq to southern London.

--- Later in debate ---

However, the short point, which others will make too, is that Clause 11 needs to go.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to introduce into this debate a subject about which we have heard almost nothing so far: the views of the British people. We are, after all, the upper House of the British Parliament. Their views should be heard.

I have some figures here from the latest YouGov poll on the subject of immigration. The interesting thing is that immigration is now regarded as the third most important subject after health and the economy—even more important than Covid, curiously; I am not sure about that but, none the less, that is what it says. A previous YouGov poll said that 70% of people thought illegal crossings were a serious issue, so the public are well aware of the issue; indeed, they have been seeing it every night on television, particularly during last summer. Some 63% said that illegal immigrants should not be allowed to settle here while 60% said that they should be removed. In a June 2021 YouGov poll, 60% said they thought that illegal immigrants should be banned from claiming asylum, while only 20% thought they should be allowed to claim asylum. Some 64% thought it was fair to remove people who come from safe countries, while only 15% thought it unfair. Those are opinion polls so take them for what they are worth—we all have our views about opinion polls—but they are a snapshot of opinion in the recent past.

My own view is that, on an emotional subject such as immigration, you need to develop a policy with which the British people are comfortable. If you do not have a policy with which the British people are comfortable, it will not be sustainable in the long run. I point that out to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who understandably made a point about our international obligations. If we had had a policy on immigration more widely that the British people had been comfortable with in the last 20 years, we might not have had Brexit. Sadly, whether we like it or not, immigration was a huge issue in the Brexit debate. I put it to the noble Lord that the extent to which people’s views on immigration were ignored was a factor leading to the decision that we took. I am a remainer, so I regret that.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I wonder if I could ask the noble Lord two questions. First, obviously public opinion is always relevant, but does he concede that, by definition, someone who is a genuine “refugee convention” refugee is not and never was an illegal immigrant? Secondly—again, this goes to the comments made about opinion—does he agree that opinion is something that the people with the privilege to be in this place, and certainly those in government, play a role in shaping and leading as well as hearing?

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My point is that we should pay regard to opinion but it is rarely mentioned in debates about immigration—almost never, in fact. There is a case for putting forward what the British people think about this, whether you think it is right or wrong. I do not think it is wholly right but, none the less, we have to take it into account. We have eventually to reach a position where the British people are comfortable with the Government’s policies; in my view, that is what the Government are trying to do.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I agree that public opinion is incredibly important but, at the same time, we are meant to be leaders; even here, we are meant to lead. Quite honestly, if you asked the British public, they would probably want hanging back; that is still very popular in some parts. Then, of course, there has been a lot of scaremongering by right-wing groups of all kinds, including parts of the Tory party—the ERG and so on—that have misrepresented a lot of what is happening with the refugees who are crossing the channel.

I am one of those people who agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Kerr—actually, is he learned? No, sorry—that a lot of these amendments are picking at a scab and there is no point in doing that because it just makes it worse. We have to get rid of Clause 11 because it just makes life harder for refugees and, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, we are not—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Sorry. I disagree with the noble Lord.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I think there has been plenty of leadership on this issue over the years. People who have supported a pro-immigration policy—or a relaxed immigration policy, whatever you like to call it—have been pretty vociferous over the years; they have not been quiet. We have known what they think. There has been lots of leadership. Leadership is an issue at the moment but I had better not go too far into that. None the less, the people who support an expansive and comprehensive immigration policy have been vociferous; it is the people who are against it who have had their views ignored.

I read a book about Dagenham the other day, written by a Labour activist, which pointed out the comprehensive effect of immigration in Dagenham over a 10-year period. It went from being 85% white British to less than 50% white British and the local joke was whether if you went into a shop anyone there would speak English. People appealed to the Labour Party, because it was the Labour Party that introduced these policies, and were ignored. Dagenham, a long-standing Labour seat, nearly voted Tory in the last general election—and would have done, if not for the Brexit vote—because people had been ignored on the issue of immigration. For them, immigration had simply gone too far, too fast.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I will not take another intervention, if the noble Baroness does not mind, as I have given way twice and want to finish what I am saying. I do not want to go on too long.

This House has to take into account that the silent majority have very clear views about this which they have held consistently for a long period and which have not been heard, and this has had a major effect on the policy positions of the country. In my view, it has had a deleterious effect, unfortunately; I would rather we had stayed in the European Union, but that is the fact we have to face.

It is generally admitted that we are now dealing with a very difficult, specific problem, one aspect of the whole immigration problem, namely illegal crossings of the channel. It is a small part of the problem that creates a bigger problem. Many people have raised wholesale migration, which I understand is a huge issue which is tackled in many different ways—through international development policies, as well as immigration policies, and so forth. However, there is a specific problem here which any Government of any colour would have to tackle, namely people smuggling people—not brandy, tobacco or commodities, but people—into this country illegally, day after day, against the law. That is something that no self-respecting Government can ignore; they simply cannot.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Horam, makes a fair point: we must certainly take account of public opinion. But I think he should take account of the extent to which political leaderships affect public opinion. The history of the last decade is a history of one of our great parties swinging right on issues of immigration. It is a history of a referendum campaign, where one side argued that 80 million Turks were going to come and there was nothing we could do to stop them. It is a history of a period in which we have constantly been told that we are beleaguered and the target of innumerable people who wish to come here. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, explained earlier in the debate, we are well down the league table in per capita terms for hosting immigrants of any hue. It is not good enough just to say, “There go my people. I am their leader; I must follow them.” We are capable of influencing public opinion and that is what we should be trying to do. I will give way in a second—

[Lord Horam (Con)]

Can I just—?

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

Order!

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I am not sure who is interrupting whom. If I am interrupting the noble Lord, I will stop.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

With due respect to the noble Lord—I really do have great respect for him—I do not think we want to go through the whole business of Brexit again. My point is a simple one: we have to pay regard to British opinion. It is not as though people are manipulated; they have their own views. They are perfectly capable of taking a sceptical view of some of the people who have tried to make them do things in the past, frankly. They can form their own views—I am sure the noble Lord would agree. I was trying to narrow it down to this particular point on the problem of illegal immigration which, in my view, any Government would have to deal with, whatever their nature or colour.

As the noble Lord who initiated this debate said, many countries are tackling this problem in quite horrific, awful ways. In comparison with what they are doing, what we are doing is completely rational and sensible. It is trying to make a distinction. There are those who are coming in legally and properly, by the routes which are well known. We have a very good record on that, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, in comparison with the rest of Europe. We have not only a reasonable number of people coming in by the normal asylum-seeking routes each year but also the consequences of the Commonwealth, for example our links with Hong Kong, with up to 90,000 people having already accepted the chance to come here from Hong Kong. That is something which Germany, France and so forth do not have the same problem with.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, since an illustration I gave has been added to the discourse of the noble Lord, I feel I must interrupt. While I was painting the pig with lipstick—a squirmy pig, very difficult to hold fast to—I certainly listed a number of the horrendous ways in which countries are departing from the principles of the 1951 convention, but also added our own, which are equally nefarious and certainly not to be presented in a positive way.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I think that is a matter on which the Government will no doubt make their position plain. As I understand it, they do not believe that they are departing from the international convention of 1951. Of course, many other countries have taken similar positions. Australia, for example, has divided people into those coming in in the normal, legal way and those coming in illegally, and that has not been denounced by the United Nations. Japan has done the same thing and, interestingly, the Social Democrats in Denmark are about to too. In Australia, they have a cross-party agreement on the immigration policy. I think the Labour Party ought to be more careful in its view of this because it may well become the Government in future and it will face the same problems which the present Government face. These are not only problems which the Government must face simply to be responsible and give people a sense that they control things and that borders mean something, which is their bottom-line responsibility, but also the issues of immigration.

With what we have here, if we can reduce it to the particular problem which the Government face on illegal immigration across the channel, the approach they are adopting helps, first, to deal with the pull factor, by pointing out the advantages of the normal asylum-seeking methods of getting into this country, on which this country has a good record; and, secondly, to dissuade people from adopting the illegal methods which they are at present forced into using.

The noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Kerr, made the point that they are economists, and I am an economist too. The problem is that, if you expand safe routes, you can never expand them wide enough to take account of all the people who want to come here. That is a simple fact of demand and supply, if I may say so, well known in economics. That is the problem which the Government face. As the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, mentioned in a previous debate, you have to have some limit on the number of people coming to this country for good population control reasons. If you decide on a limit and people are comfortable with that, you can decide how many immigrants will be allowed into the country in any one year and then deal with the problem of illegal immigration. In my view, that is the right order in which this should be dealt with, and I believe the Government are following exactly that policy.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is interesting—

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being able to speak at Second Reading. I strongly support Amendment 11, which has cross-party support. I speak as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands.

My noble friend Lady Lister explained powerfully and clearly the position of this small number of people, whose ancestors were wrongly deported from their island homes and who have been caught up in big-power politics, denying them the basic human rights that we in your Lordships’ House enjoy. The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, gave the whole context.

The fact is that, although all UK Governments agree that the exile of the Chagossians from their island homes 50 years ago was wrong and unjust, the present Government continue not to allow resettlement. They cite a range of reasons for continuing this injustice, including conservation, finance, feasibility, security and defence. This is irrespective of the fact that it is well known that the American base on Diego Garcia would not be threatened or impeded by resettlement on the 54 outer islands. Indeed, the UK Government committed in their 1965 Lancaster House agreement to returning the territory

“to Mauritius when no longer needed for defence purposes.”

The outer islands are not part of the defence framework. Conservation could be maintained by the Chagossians, as happens in other marine conservation areas, and there are various avenues for assistance with resettlement costs.

It is political will and respect for human rights that are lacking. This Government are acting in defiance of the UN charter on decolonisation and United Nations General Assembly resolutions, and contrary to the opinion of the International Court of Justice and the decision of the tribunal of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, in their obdurate refusal to countenance resettlement for this, I repeat, small number of people.

The all-party group strongly supports the international rule of law and the right of return. In respect of this amendment, which follows from all the events we have set out, we firmly believe that, until resettlement is permitted, Chagossians should not have to endure having loaded on them the further injustices that this amendment would remove: the separation of families, deportation and the unreasonable costs of excessive fees. The Government adopting this modest amendment, Amendment 11, would at least go some way to ameliorating the acknowledged injustice that Chagossians have endured by their exile.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, as I did this morning, I express great sympathy for the point of view expressed so eloquently and passionately by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. As she rightly said, the amendment moved in the other place was voted down because it contradicted one of our long-standing, century-long principles for who becomes a British citizen. However, as she pointed out, the new amendment deals with the point made in the other place by putting a limit on the applicability of the proposal, which is good. So we are in a better place than we were then. The noble Baroness also offered to talk, if possible, to see whether there is any other way forward on this problem.

I am also a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands. I have great sympathy for their position; it is indeed a terrible plight. An evil deed was done to those people. We are talking about perhaps only 500 people now in this context; there are more Chagossians in history, but there are only about 500 of them in this particular category at the moment.

Of course, the real villain here—my noble friend the Minister will be glad to know this—is not the Home Office; it is the Foreign Office, which, frankly, behaved disgracefully. When it examined this matter, the International Court of Justice voted 116 to six against us. For heaven’s sake, you can hardly have a bigger majority than that; I suppose you could have 192 to one or something—that is how many nations there are in the United Nations—but it was a comprehensive defeat. Not only that but, as previous speakers have pointed out, the United States Government are helpful on this matter, and the Mauritian Government have pointed out that they are willing to give the US Government a 99-year lease if they wish to carry on having a base on the island. Every base is covered. There really is no case for the Foreign Office to resist doing the right thing. Frankly, it is costing us in the international arena when we are so completely in the wrong on this issue.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts raised the issue of the UK population. The House may have seen the recent article by Michael Palin, the actor and global traveller, in the Spectator, where he pointed out that when he was born, in 1943, there were 2.3 billion people in the world and now there are nearly 8 billion—an almost fourfold increase. That tells you a lot, he rightly said, about the causes of global warming. However, it also tells you a lot about the causes of mass migration, which has been a phenomenon of this century. Much of the population growth has been in less developed countries, where young men—most migrants are young men—despair of their future in their own country and seek a solution in a richer and safer country. Where there is that demand, you will get ruthless operators who promise young men that they can get them in, hence the flimsy boats crossing the Med and the channel. This is illegal activity that no responsible Government can ignore or condone. It is a problem for all developed countries. It is a challenge to the authority of an elected Government which any responsible Government, of whatever political colour, has to respond to. That is a fundamental point about the whole Bill.

In addition, if unchecked, migration increases inequality and unfairness in recipient countries such as the UK. Obviously, most of the migrants go to the poorer parts of the country because that is where the cheaper housing is, and that multiplies the problems of poorer councils in finding accommodation, schools and GP services for the existing population as well as the immigrants. The devastating effect that the mass migration unleashed by the Blair Labour Government has had on some working-class communities is well set out in the book by the labour and trade union activist Paul Embery in his study of his home area of Dagenham.

Today the spotlight is on illegal immigration. As we have all said in the Chamber, we the British people are kind, tolerant and humane, with a good record in dealing with both economic migrants and asylum seekers. However, illegal immigration on the scale we see today is undoubtedly deeply unpopular. Opinions from YouGov and so forth have been quoted already. In November 2021—only two months ago—a YouGov poll said that the Government were in fact too soft: a warning to my noble friends on the Front Bench.

The Bill is clearly an effort to get a handle on the problem—an attempt to give a legal framework for necessary action. However much we may sympathise, as fellow human beings, with economic migrants or asylum seekers, our first duty as British parliamentarians is to the people of this country, particularly those living in parts of the country that are having to bear the burden of this phenomenon. We must listen to the people’s views and develop an immigration policy with which they are comfortable.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, mentioned Australia, the only country that has been successful in resolving this problem. There, the Liberal Government introduced offshore processing in 2001. This was successful, but the incoming Labor Government dismantled it in 2008. There was then a huge wave of immigrants and the Labor Government hastily reinstated offshore processing. Then the Liberals won the next election and brought it in more effectively. They strengthened the policy and, as a result, the 50,000 immigrants a year who were coming in by boat to Australia are now practically zero, and the costs have fallen dramatically. Inevitably, the policy now has all-party support. I have spoken at length to the head of the Australian Border Force, who says that the essential message it got across to potential immigrants was “You will not get into Australia”. Once that was understood, the people traffickers had no clients and their business model collapsed.

The fact of the matter is that the Bill is a necessary response to a difficult problem. We know that obviously there are practical difficulties in, for example, thinking about replicating what happens in Australia here, but that does not mean that we do not have to try. It is sensible and responsible, it has strong support in the country and in the other place, and it certainly has my strong support.

Immigration Rules: Statements of Changes

Lord Horam Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, many of your Lordships will have had great pleasure from reading a book by the American author Bill Bryson called Notes from a Small Island. It is an apt title: we are a small island. When the American forces came to England in the Second World War, the troops were briefed about our country. The first line of the briefing was, “Think South Carolina”—because it is exactly the same size as England. Of course, the big difference is that South Carolina, even today, has only 5 million inhabitants; we have 56 million inhabitants in England.

We are a very crowded country, so population policy is very important to us. Since net immigration accounts for about two-thirds of population growth, immigration policy is especially important. That is one reason why I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Green, has put down his regret Motion today, and I support him in doing so.

The UK has always had a substantial amount of immigration, and many people who originated overseas, or whose parents did, have made brilliant contributions to this country in many different fields—business, academia and, most recently, healthcare. Until 20 years ago, all this was accomplished with a net immigration level of no more than 50,000 a year which, although there were a few incidents, was largely accepted. The change came when the Blair Labour Government introduced, without consultation, a whole raft of measures to increase immigration, as a result of which the net annual rate soared from less than 50,000 to over 300,000 a year. This is not just immigration; it is mass immigration.

The difficulty has been that the new immigrants went into poorer, working-class areas, because that is where housing was affordable. The result was devastating for many working-class communities. The effects on Dagenham, for example, are described by the Labour and trade union activist Paul Embery, a native of that area, in his book, Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class. The local people appealed to the Labour leadership for help, but it did not listen—which is one reason why the Labour Party has lost so much working-class support.

That is a problem for Labour, but it became a problem for the whole country when immigration became such a big issue in the European Union referendum. There was a direct line between the neglect of immigration issues by the liberal elite and the vote to leave the European Union, which has had such momentous consequences for our country and is so deplored by that same liberal elite.

Since 2010, the coalition and Conservative Governments have had the task of dealing with this problem. So far, they have not done well. The numbers had not come down before the pandemic. But I do believe that the present Home Secretary, unlike so many of her predecessors, understands the problem and is giving it the attention it needs, most recently in this week’s strategic document.

This is a sensible basis for policy-making, but I would add a number of riders. First, the issue of immigration is looked at almost exclusively from an economic perspective at the moment. The members of the Migration Advisory Committee are almost all economists. I am an economist myself, so I am not likely to underplay their importance, but this is wrong. There are demographic, social and environmental viewpoints which are equally important in looking at this issue. As my noble friend Lord Hodgson said, we need a democratic authority staffed by demographers, social scientists, environmentalists and climate change experts as well as economists, and they should be asking, “What is the right number of people for these crowded islands?”

Secondly, we should wind down as soon as feasible the separate health and care visa. Why are we, a rich country, continuously recruiting doctors, nurses and care workers from poorer countries that have fewer of them per head of population and need them more than we do? Where is the morality in that? Should we not think of the effect we are having on these countries by taking their skilled workers, as well as our own selfish interest? Why have the NHS and medical colleges so totally failed in their manpower planning that more than 40% of doctors in the UK come from overseas? In Germany and France, it is less than 10%.

Finally, a cap should be set on the number of work visas issued, just as it is in other countries such as Australia and Canada that use the same points-based system as we do. We need that cap, because we need employers to concentrate not on the lazy option of recruiting overseas but on improving the skills of the settled population. Improving people’s skills, particularly in left-behind areas, is at the heart of the levelling-up agenda. Just at the point where we are making real progress in the number and quality of apprenticeships and the funding of further education, it would be foolish to take the pressure off employers in this area.

Of course, I accept that the current immigration situation is rather unreal as a result of Covid, but the Home Secretary has promised a review next year of how the new system is settling in. When that happens, I hope that my noble friend and the Home Secretary will look carefully at the points I am making, because they are certainly supported by many Members of this House, and by even more Members of the other House. If they are properly taken into account, we will have a policy which works in the long-term interests of the British people in this small island of ours. That is what the people themselves have for a long time been calling for, and this time they should be listened to.