Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th February 2024 Lords Chamber

It appears that our much-admired Modern Slavery Act and the process for identification of victims are no longer available for anyone who comes to this country other than through the very limited safe routes. The possibility of prosecuting traffickers will also be dramatically reduced. These amendments are intended to give some support to those who are or are about to be victims of a hugely profitable and odious trade in men, women and children. I ask the Government to listen and exempt them from removal from this country.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord German, could not move the amendment in his name. I can tell that House that he is a marvellous chairman of the Parliament Choir and has an unrivalled ability to speak the poetry of Dylan Thomas with all the Welsh fervour that it demands.

I understand the good intentions of those who are putting forward the amendments in this group, but I fear they suffer from a real difficulty. In particular, in Amendment 23 the new subsection (1A)(c) would exempt a person who is

“a victim of human trafficking”.

The problem with that is that it drives a coach and horses through the Government’s intentions, which are, of course, to draw the category for exceptions extremely narrowly, so that most people do go to Rwanda, and therefore it is a definite deterrent to people leaving France and trying to get to this country as illegal immigrants. That is the whole point of the legislation, and it needs that sharpness and narrowness of exclusivity to achieve that aim. I fear that, in the hands of any sensible immigration lawyer, simply saying that the person might be a victim of human trafficking opens the whole thing to abuse.

I make that point because I have just been reading in the newspaper this morning that the Home Office is about to buy, or has bought, 16,000 homes in this country to house those illegal asylum seekers who are at the moment in hotels. It wishes to transfer those people, because of the public cost, to residential houses or flats, and that is what it is proposing to do. This housing they are taking is social housing and private rental housing, particularly in areas such as Bradford, Hull and Teesside, which are low-rent areas and obviously comparatively deprived areas. I think this shows the domestic consequences of allowing in the present number of illegal migrants and why the Government have to bear those in mind as well as our undoubted sympathy for those who may be suffering from human trafficking, slavery and so forth. These factors clearly have to be balanced; the domestic responsibilities of the Government with the concern for illegal immigration of this kind. I hope the House will bear that in mind when it considers these amendments.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, can he answer a question? Under Home Office figures, 78% of those people who have been referred to the national referral mechanism for being trafficked or in modern slavery have been successful and, by definition, a woman who is trafficked here—not smuggled but trafficked—will be unaware of the final destination. It will be against her will. How will she be deterred by this Bill?

[Lord Horam (Con)]

She will be deterred because the Bill is designed to send people to Rwanda, with a very narrow area of exemptions for those who cannot be sent to Rwanda. That is the way it will operate. Obviously, it will need to be spelled out, and the Government will have to put behind it all the explanations they can through modern social media et cetera to get across the message to the people who are at present in France that there is a real possibility that they will end up not in the UK but in Rwanda. That is how it works. That is how it is supposed to work, and I submit that widening it to all these other possibilities will detract from that deterrent element and therefore destroy the purpose of the Bill, with the domestic consequences that we can see.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, it is extremely difficult to debate anything in the Bill if the only answer of those who are happy with it is, “It is all very difficult, and therefore we have just got to do it as we are saying, because we really cannot deal with any of the details”. I have to say to my noble friend that the fact that we are talking about people who come to this country not illegally but involuntarily means that we are not talking about people who are going to be deterred by anything. They do not want to come here, so the question is how we deal with those.

I must say I am a bit tired of having to remind this Government of what it means to be a Conservative. I had to do it earlier, on the single market, and I am now doing it on this. We have a reputation in the world because of our Modern Slavery Act. It was a brave and important thing to do. It was welcomed across the whole House. I am proud that it was a Conservative Government who did it. I am not proud that there is a Conservative Government undermining that, when we know that more than three-quarters of those who appeal in these circumstances are found to be right in their appeal.

We also know that appeal is very difficult. We know how many people who are trafficked do not get into the system because of the nature of trafficking. Those of us who sit in our comfortable places might just think, on Ash Wednesday, that this is a moment to reach out to those who are uncomfortable and not able to speak up for themselves. There are few people who are in a worse position than those, so on what possible moral basis do you threaten to send them to a country which has not signed up to the international agreement on modern slavery, has twice as many modern slaves as we do—and we admit that we have many whom we have not traced—and has a history of ignoring this problem? How on earth can we defend that on a moral basis, leave alone a practical one? What the blazes is the use of claiming that there is a deterrent effect when the person you are talking about is not in a position to be deterred because they have been taken up by someone who has made those decisions for them?

I believe we cannot allow the Bill to go through without some serious consideration of this point and make sure that we do not allow our country to be let down in this way.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness; I was not intending to touch on Northern Ireland, but she is right that this does touch on the Windsor agreement and on our obligations to Northern Ireland, which are separate from those of the rest of the United Kingdom. I commend that section of the report. These are not my opinions; the report does touch on that question.

The noble Baroness also asked about our other obligations. We have many obligations, not just under the refugee convention but under the ECHR, to which she has just referred. The Government on this Bill, as on the Illegal Migration Bill, decline to give a compatibility statement because they cannot say that it will be compatible—although I know Ministers take a contrary view that there is uncertainty around that. However, if there is uncertainty, we must be very careful where we tread.

On the issue of our international reputation, I was very struck by the statement made by the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, which is referred to in the JCHR report. He justified what he was intending to do and has done in sending back 430,000 Afghan refugees to Pakistan. He said it was modelled on what we were seeking to do in the British Parliament. So, even though we know that is casuistry and extreme, nevertheless we can see where this argument can lead and the way in which it be used. So, yes, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, our international reputation can easily suffer.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark got to the heart of this when he said that legislating that Rwanda is safe does not make it so. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, touched on that point. Just saying an apple is a pear does not make it such. Saying that a dog is a cat does not make it such. It may be your opinion, but it is not true—and that is surely what we have a duty to try to do in this place.

On process, procedure and governance, during our debates on the Illegal Migration Bill and the treaty, I complained that we had not been treated properly as a Select Committee in the way you would expect Select Committees to be treated. Suella Braverman, the then Home Secretary, declined to appear before the Select Committee. We did not see James Cleverly in the context of this Bill. However, we did see the Lord Chancellor, Alex Chalk, and I pay tribute to him for the way he delivered his evidence and took the questions we put to him. As the noble and learned Lord has just said, it is the duty of the Home Secretary of the day to explain the intentions of legislation. If there is anxiety about something as important as a compatibility statement, they should explain why they feel unable to give it.

My noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich rightly said that we are ill-equipped to make these decisions in Parliament. I did not serve as long as the noble Lord, Lord Howard, although we have the distinction of contesting the same parliamentary seat in the heart of Liverpool on separate occasions, or as long as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, but I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, said about the way in which legislation has traditionally been dealt with in another place and here. I cannot remember Select Committees being treated by Secretaries of State in the way that I have just described. Thinking all the way back to the British Nationality Bill 1981, on which I spoke many times, there were opportunities to hear the arguments, to discuss the implications and to make appropriate amendments. I have not felt that about this legislation or that which preceded it. I think it has been pushed through in a pell-mell way, bringing to mind the thought that, if you enact legislation in a hurry, you will end up repenting at some leisure.

Let me take noble Lords to page 15 of the report, which comes down to the role of the UNHCR and safety. “As of January 2024”, therefore as recently as last month,

“UNHCR has not observed changes in the practice of asylum adjudication that would overcome the concerns set out in its 2022 analysis and in the detailed evidence presented to the Supreme Court”.

The Supreme Court, not the House of Commons or the House of Lords, relied on the UNHCR when it came to a decision about questions of fact. The report states:

“UNHCR notes the detailed, legally-binding commitments now set out in the treaty, which if enacted in law and fully implemented in practice, would address certain key deficiencies in the Rwandan asylum system identified by the Supreme Court. This would however require sustained, long term efforts, the results of which may only be assessed over time”.


Well, clearly, we have not had the time to make those assessments, and again we are being urged to rush pell-mell. I will not detain the Committee much longer. One witness, Professor Tom Hickman KC, said:

“Parliament is effectively being asked to exercise a judicial function, to assess evidence, to look at detailed facts and, effectively, to distinguish the Supreme Court’s judgment, to say that things have moved on and it is not binding on Parliament—I do not mean in a non-legal way—in making its judgment. In my view, that is an inappropriate exercise for Parliament to conduct. It is a judicial function”.


This view was echoed by Professor Sarah Singer, who is quoted in paragraph 57 as saying:

“To contradict the Supreme Court in this way is, perhaps, not showing the respect to the court that should be owed as a constitutional principle”.


I conclude with the summary on page 35, which says:

“We have considered the Government’s evidence that Rwanda is now safe, but have also heard from witnesses and bodies including the UNHCR that Rwanda remains unsafe, or at least that there is not enough evidence available at this point to be sure of its safety. Overall, we cannot be clear that the position reached on Rwanda’s safety by the country’s most senior court is no longer correct. In any event, the courts remain the most appropriate branch of the state to resolve contested issues of fact, so the question of Rwanda’s safety would best be determined not by legislation but by allowing the courts to consider the new treaty and the latest developments on the ground”.


For all those reasons, I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has done noble Lords a great favour in bringing these amendments to us in Committee. She has already shown her willingness to think further about whether they might be applied in other ways. That surely is what Committee stage is all about. The tone that has been struck in the course of this debate behoves noble Lords to think very deeply. I commend this report to the Committee.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the tone of this debate, particularly in relation to the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. I warmly welcome her obvious desire to find some way forward in this difficult area, which we certainly need to do, but I am afraid there is a rock—a difficulty—in the way of her amendment. It makes a classic mistake: taking two separate organisations with different objectives and obligations, and placing one with a veto over the other.

According to my reading of the amendment, the UNHCR would in practice have a veto over what the UK Government can do; this is the difficulty. The noble Baroness used the word “stalemate”, but her proposals would also lead to a stalemate while the UNHCR went on for ever, we know not when, saying whether Rwanda was safe. There would be debates, hostilities and probably no eventual consensus as to whether it was safe. Surely a more sensible way forward would be to take existing circumstances and practice, and for each side to engage properly and responsibly with the other.

We have obligations to the UNHCR; we are obliged under the refugee convention to engage with the UNHCR, and so we should. We are obliged to take account of the social and humanitarian consequences for refugees, and so we should. But, equally, the UNHCR should take into account the real responsibility of Governments to defend their borders in the sensible way that their own democracies would expect. If we can get the two working together, something sensible may emerge from that.

It already has in Australia. I wish we would not always be quite so insular. For 10 years now, Australia has been operating an outsourcing policy of the kind to which the UK aspires. It started off in precisely the same way—with precisely the advocates on each side—that we did. In the end, the Australian Government invited in the UNHCR at three different levels: the prime ministerial level, the ministerial level and the ordinary regional level of civil servants and so forth. They came to an agreement on how it should work.

Not only that but the UNHCR, as a consequence of its willingness to get involved, had leverage. It got out of the Australian Government more legal routes for genuine asylum seekers, and the same should happen here. Our legal routes for asylum seekers are at present wholly unsatisfactory, because they are confined to a small number of countries and most countries are excluded.

My view of a proper immigration policy has always been that there should be a settled cap on how many we should bring in, which we put publicly to the people every year in Parliament. Within that cap, the priority should be genuine asylum seekers and only thereafter economic migrants or people joining their families here. That is the right way to approach a total immigration policy, of which this is numerically only a very small part.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests, in that I am supported by the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project. We have strayed very widely across the whole of Clause 1 in this debate. Of course, what we are here to do is to discuss the specific amendments before us. However, I start with the assertion that this Parliament finds Rwanda safe. I looked up in the Companion to see what the role is of resolutions of this House, and it is the resolution of this House that is the determination of this House—and the determination of this House at the moment is that Rwanda is not safe. That is the view on which the Government are trying to make us change our minds, so we need to bear that in mind first of all.

The second, broader point that has been drawn out, largely by the noble Lord, Lord Horam, was the issue of offshoring versus offloading. We had that debate at Second Reading, and I think what the noble Lord, Lord Horam, was talking about was offshoring, when you make the determination about whether people are right to come here, and then they come here. But this is not offshoring; this is offloading, whereby the Government hand over the responsibility to another country to be able to accept them, there is no way back, and it is a permanent situation.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I think the noble Lord means “outsourcing”, and it is precisely what the Australians do.

[Lord German (LD)]

Indeed: what the Australians did was to check whether people were ready to come to Australia.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

They handed that responsibility over to the Government of Nauru and the Solomon Islands.

[Lord German (LD)]

No, they did not. I am sorry, but the facts are otherwise. The essential point is that they were doing this work—whatever the noble Lord thinks the situation was, it is not what I think, but we can check the facts—in order that people could be admitted to Australia. That was the point; they were doing it somewhere else in order that they could come to Australia.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not think the Committee needs to apologise for an element of repetition and even circularity in contributions on the various groups, because that is the nature of the Bill before us. It is a relatively short Bill, but its provisions are interconnected, as are the different approaches that Members of the Committee have taken to amend them.

Let us take stock for a moment, because we have been on a bit of a stream of consciousness. Members of the Committee have expressed different opinions about whether offshoring per se is acceptable. To my mind, the exchange we have just heard reveals that we do not currently have legal authority in the UK that says that processing asylum claims in another country is unlawful. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, on that, but I have to say that my instincts are with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, on the fact that this is going to be debated for many years to come and we have not had higher court determination of it. It is a debated point internationally. That is a point we can put aside for the moment. There is another question in this Bill, about what is and what might be in the future.

I think that most Members of the Committee have either agreed or even reluctantly conceded that what is is a little different from what we are working on and what might be in the future, which then takes us to how we change the future and how we evaluate changed facts in the future. Then, under the scheme of what is before us, there is first the question of the treaty and then the question of the Bill before us that the Government propose to make an Act. I think there is some considerable support for Amendment 14, which says that the treaty—which is currently a very important trigger in the Government’s scheme, because it is the treaty coming into force that makes the Act come into force—needs to have been effectively implemented, so that facts change on the ground in Rwanda before even the treaty that is the current trigger for the Act can come into force. I certainly agree with that. There are different approaches in the amendments as to how that should be measured, but I think it is just logical that until the treaty, as suggested by your Lordships’ International Agreements Committee, is effectively implemented, even under the scheme of the Bill as drafted, the Act should not come into force.

Then we have a range of amendments offered in subsequent groups about what commencement should look like in the Bill, and later we will have very important debates about judicial oversight and not ousting the jurisdiction of both domestic and international courts.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I have two points. First, to correct the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, there is precedent in the Australian situation, in that, under the Australian rules, the Government of Nauru make the decisions, with assistance, training and support from the Australian Government. The Rwanda situation is exactly the same. We are trying to bring in training, support and assistance to the Rwandan Government, so the two examples are exactly the same. Australia’s, which has been working successfully for 10 years, has all-party support and is hugely successful. If I may repeat the point I made earlier in the day, there is a great prize here: if we can get genuine agreement on this subject, there is the prize of having a proper, whole immigration policy which the whole country can support, not just this Rwanda business.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I hate to cross swords with the noble Lord, but I am afraid that what he is saying is factually incorrect. The Australian hearings in Nauru are for asylum in Australia. The hearings that the Rwandans would carry out in Rwanda for people who came here would be for asylum in Rwanda.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

The people who are being investigated in Nauru want to go to Australia. Similarly, the people who will be investigated in Rwanda want to come here. The situation is exactly the same.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Within that debate about processing and offshoring is a question as to whether, if you succeed in your asylum claim when you are processed over there, you then stay over there or come back to the country from which you are sent. That is a crucial debate that is being fudged here.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

The situation here is exactly analogous to that in Australia, which has been working successfully for 10 years.

The other point in this debate, in reference to the interesting amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is the importance of the monitoring. I agree with him and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that the more transparent and obvious this is, the better it will be for everyone. Fundamentally, we cannot expect the law to do everything. We all know that there are many laws which are not adhered to in practice. It may go wrong on the ground floor in a way that lawyers, for all that has been said in the treaty, are not aware of until it is too late. You therefore need a strong monitoring committee whose information is available to this House and the general public, because you cannot do it any other way. The law cannot encompass what may happen in future.

That is a crucial point from this debate. I would have thought that my noble friend the Minister could accommodate the relative transparency of the monitoring committee, which has independent people on it. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, may not like some of them because they disagree with him, but the committee is none the less independent. Precisely because of that, it will have people of differing views. The Government should look at that in response to the tone of this debate.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I will speak in favour of this group, particularly Amendments 6, 14 and 20, but I wish to avoid the circularity, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, was saying, that has been inevitable on something so interconnected.

The Home Secretary has said that

“we will not operationalise this scheme until we are confident that the measures underpinning the treaty have been put in place; otherwise, the treaty is not credible”.

This set of amendments enables this approach, so if the Government are not willing to accept these amendments, can the Minister explain how they will ensure that the obligations of the treaty—to quote the treaty itself—

“can both in practice be complied with and are in fact complied with”?

This is an even more pertinent question since any recommendations arising from the monitoring arrangements in the treaty are non-obligatory. To take just one example from the Government’s own evidence pack, a new asylum Bill is required in Rwanda before an assessment of the implementation of the treaty can be made. When will this legislation be published and will it be, to use the official term, fully operationalised before any flights take off?

Much wisdom has been articulated in this Chamber today. I urge the Government to listen and act accordingly.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 28th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

Noble Lords know that I am not. The point has just been made that the public do not understand this—they are furious and the Government’s reputation is suffering severely. Effective action is essential, but that will be only harder if this amendment is approved. I trust that this House will ensure some flexibility on the legal front in order that a very serious matter may be addressed practically.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, some extreme language was used throughout Second Reading and Committee and there was very strong emotion. I understand that, because the Bill evokes strong feelings, but I suspect that, beneath all that, there may be more agreement than has been visible in our debate today and in previous debates. The spokesman for the Opposition has not added his name to this amendment and they did not oppose Second Reading, I suspect because there is an understanding that this is a difficult problem that any Government have to deal with. Any Government of whatever stripe have to take protecting the country’s borders extremely seriously.

A great deal of agreement underlies all this. For example, we all agree that there should be better-organised legal routes for genuine asylum seekers than there are at the moment. The main difference between the two sides in this debate is over the role of deterrence. The Government argue that we will not succeed in handling this problem unless there is an element of deterrence.

To bring it up to date—I will respond to the Chief Whip’s desire to be quick—we now all have the impact assessment, which we did not have until the day before yesterday, which points out the Australian example. Australia brought in a law very similar to this, which gave its Government the power to detain people and turn them around, in their case to Nauru and the Solomon Islands—in our case it is to Rwanda—within 48 hours. I asked the Government, reasonably, why we are not doing this. They pointed out that the Australians do not have to pay any regard to the European Convention on Human Rights, whereas we do. In their view, to comply with that, we could not reasonably turn detainees around within 48 hours; we would have to take at least 28 days, as is in the Bill at the moment.

I do not know whether the Government have ticked every box and crossed every T in relation to the ECHR, but it is quite clear that they have made a big attempt to do so. They have clearly taken on board the spirit of what we have agreed, even if not the letter of the law. The Government are in discussions with the European court about the convention. I am interested to know what the Minister can say about the state of those discussions. It is not only the UK but other countries—Italy, Spain and France—that are in discussion, because this is a new problem which is not covered by the original convention. We have to take that into account and realise that there is a real problem here, which is not a lot to do with immigration but is about border control more than anything else, which any Government will have deal with.

In relation to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, the Bill in its unamended form, as it is now, passed the Commons with a majority of 59. There is huge public support for what the Government are attempting to do. The latest YouGov poll showed 60% as saying that illegal migrants should not be allowed to claim asylum in this country; only 20% said the reverse, and 20% were undecided. We have to take that into account. As Matthew Parris, who is no one’s idea of a right-wing nutcase, said recently in an article:

“If you oppose the government’s plans to send away those who land, then whether or not you know it you are advocating an indefinite continuation of migrant deaths. And that is cruel”.


It is indeed cruel to allow that continue.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the refugee crisis in a global one and any sustainable solution needs to be international. If we do not comply with our international obligations, as set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, we are unlikely to achieve the international co-operation necessary to deal with the crisis. I am afraid I do not agree with the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that because other countries do not abide by their obligations, we should not abide by ours either.

The noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, talked about the cost. The Government’s own impact assessment says that implementing the measures in the Bill will cost the country more than the status quo. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, the impact assessment says there is an “academic consensus” that there is no evidence that the measures in the Bill will have a deterrent effect. Opinion polls may say that illegal migrants should not be allowed to settle in the UK but we are talking about genuine refugees; we are not talking about illegal migrants.

We support all the amendments in this group and Amendment 5 in particular, which we will support if the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, chooses to divide the House.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Horam Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate our maiden speakers on their excellent contributions to the debate. We are really delighted to have them with us. In this final speech from the Back Benches, I will say a few words about the threat to the union from the Scottish National Party.

I am an Englishman, born and brought up in England. None the less, like many of us, I have connections with other parts of the UK; my mother has Scottish connections. Indeed, I remember vividly that, when I was made Health Minister in the John Major Government, the Chief Medical Officer at the time was Kenneth Calman—subsequently Sir Kenneth Calman, chairman of the Commission on Scottish Devolution. He came into my office and said, “Minister, are any members of your family medical professionals?” He was clearly fishing. I said, “Well, yes, there are quite a few actually; indeed, one of my relatives is a GP in Cambuslang”—if that is how you pronounce it. I said, “Not only that, my mother is part Scottish”, and mentioned her maiden name. He said, “Do you realise, Minister, that your mother’s family are hereditary physicians to the Lords of the Isles?” I have no idea whether this incredibly venerable position actually exists except in his romantic imagination. I assume all Scots are romantic by nature; perhaps not.

The SNP is, of course, a serious threat, but I believe we have a number of positive things going for us. The first is time. One year, maybe two or three years, is the sort of time we have available to come back with some strategy—and, my heavens, we need to do that.

Secondly, the economic penalties of independence have become much more apparent. One is well aware from the Brexit debates that things like Project Fear and all the rest of it matter little when questions of emotion come into play. But on any sensible analysis, the situation for Scotland is far worse than the UK’s was in relation to the European Union. For example, the whole question of currency or the funding of the public sector are issues which did not face the UK when we left the European Union. I think we can also use these obvious problems to flesh out exactly what they mean by independence. There are many unanswered questions which we should force them, on the defensive, to answer. Surely we cannot have another debate as ignorant in many ways as the Brexit debate was; surely we have learned something from that.

Thirdly, there is the opportunity to change the terms of the debate. The Prime Minister started this with his call for all four leaders to meet to discuss post-pandemic planning—team UK, et cetera. Gordon Brown followed this up with a suggestion of a meeting of national and regional leaders, and this could be built on. After all, we have the great advantage of the unwritten constitution; we can do things with it without having to go through the due legal process of a written constitution. So why do we not make this meeting of the four leaders of the four nations a regular occurrence with a regular agenda, going through the various capital cities, with a different chairman each time? Obviously, there are dangers in this. There are risks involved in that sort of thing—for example, the opportunity for grandstanding. We all know what politicians are like. There is the opportunity for needless disagreement, point scoring, et cetera. Indeed, some people may simply not turn up. There are also problems for the UK. If we are serious about giving this sort of influence to the four leaders, it will inevitably impinge on things which are, at the moment, purely UK responsibilities. They will have influence in other areas beyond devolution and the devolved powers.

But if we are serious about working as four nations together, this is an opportunity to build up something which has really creative potential—the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, made a similar point just now. If we can get everyone to understand that there could be a productive and co-operative balance between the four nations and that there is a better alternative, both in terms of security and the balance of freedom and security against the upheaval and uncertainty offered by the SNP, there is something here which could be sensibly put forward.

Finally, we should also remember that, even after all this time and all the work by the SNP to change opinion, it is still 50:50 between staying and leaving. Indeed, I saw recently in an opinion poll that independence is only eighth in the list of priorities of the Scottish people. So with the possibility of leaders like Gordon Brown and Ruth Davidson and a whole host of excellent MSPs in Scotland, we have the opportunity of setting out a clear way of co-operating between the four nations—but we have to start on it very soon.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Horam Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, this particular section of the Queen’s Speech is always a bit of a pot-pourri of issues because of the extensive responsibilities of the Home Office, the other home departments and the Justice Department. I extend my sympathies to my noble friend Lady Williams, who must contend with responding to 50 speeches on a wide range of subjects. I am afraid that I am about to add to her difficulties, for which I apologise, by raising yet another subject that has not been discussed much so far: the contentious issue of immigration. I do so because it is my view that no Government—neither the present Government, nor the coalition Government or the Labour Government that preceded them—have handled this issue well in recent times. They have handled it so badly that it has contributed to the distrust of the political and constitutional system that has been much commented on in the course of our debate.

However, with Brexit, there is an opportunity to reset our policies in this area to ones that are more sensible and command greater public support. This can be done in a number of ways. First, the Government should look not just at immigration per se but population trends as a whole—in short, the entire demographic picture of the country. The fact is that we are a very crowded country. For example, England is twice as heavily populated as Germany and three and a half times as heavily populated as France.

Moreover, the population of the UK is growing at its fastest rate in more than a century. The central forecast of the Office for National Statistics is that, if this growth continues, we will over the next 10 years add the equivalent of the populations of Greater Manchester and Birmingham to existing populations. I recommend to the House my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts’s excellent pamphlet, Britain’s Demographic Challenge, which spells out some of the consequences of this extraordinary prospective increase in population. I accept that this is just a forecast, of course, but it is the central forecast of the main government forecasting body. Is this what we want? Is this what the public want? Not according to surveys of public opinion. The latest ones on this subject indicate that three-quarters of our present population think that the country is already overcrowded, and more than 70% think that the net immigration figure should be reduced to tens of thousands a year.

Secondly, we need to pay much more attention to the questions of social cohesion and quality of life, as opposed to the economic aspects of immigration. For example, the main body that the Government consult on immigration issues—it is referenced throughout the White Paper on immigration, produced in December last year—is the Migration Advisory Committee. However, with one exception, all the committee members are university economists. I am a graduate of the dismal science, so I am not likely to underestimate the value of good economic advice, but, frankly, that is ridiculous. The committee needs some social scientists, a local authority representative, a geographer—perhaps even someone from Population Matters, the organisation headed by Jonathon Porritt and Sir David Attenborough, because population is also a climate change issue. Certainly, a more holistic approach to this issue, rather than a purely economic one, is required.

Thirdly, in the course of their discussions on immigration, the Government have mentioned the example of Australia. Australia’s points system is actually not dissimilar to our own, but it has something that we do not have: an immigration planning programme and system, which sets out the number of permanent visas in a budget every year. The total is broken down into various categories—skilled workers, unskilled workers, families, et cetera—and there is some flexibility for trade between the various components. Canada, another country with extensive immigration experience, does much the same. It seems to me that we should learn from these countries with real experience in immigration of a kind that, until recently, we did not have.

Finally, all of these countries make a point of presenting the annual immigration plan to their Parliaments for an annual debate. I would prefer, as I have suggested, to look at the demographic picture as a whole rather than purely just immigration, but whichever way it is done, the idea of a kind of Budget statement and debate with parliamentarians, whatever their views on the subject, being able to dissect government policy, the reasons for their approach, and to come to conclusions. If this policy framework or even something like it was set up, we would have a system that was more accountable and transparent. In my view, it would give us a chance to have more sensible and sustainable population and immigration policies with a better balance between economic, social and environmental concerns. It might also reduce the distrust of ordinary people of government which, as I have mentioned, is now so evident. It would, in short, be good government—and, my heavens, we need some good government today.

Further Developments in Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

Lord Horam Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, we are in a mess. Apart from the effect on our external reputation, as expressed so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, what dismays me as much as anything else is the amount of time we have had to spend on this subject at the expense of other critical subjects, such as sorting out universal credit, skills or apprenticeships.

In economics, there is the concept of opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of Brexit has already been extremely high. Add that to the business cost: I noticed this morning in the Daily Telegraph business section—which has a rather more factual approach than its editorial side—that nearly £1 trillion of assets have been taken out of this country already, largely to Dublin or Luxembourg. Add that to the administrative cost to both businesses and government and the overall cost is very big indeed. Sadly, as has been pointed out, that will continue for several years to come.

We need decisions. Indeed, I am almost in the position of my colleague in the other House, Sir Oliver Letwin, who said that any decision would be welcome at this stage. Of course, that is dangerous; politicians will recognise the moment when some humourless ideologue has been going on for so long on the subject that all reasonable people just want to give in to something they later regret. I hope that we will hang in there and continue with the debate, even if it means more debates such as this one.

In my view, we should support the Prime Minister’s plan. I am with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. It is obviously flawed but it gives us a transition period in which we can look at the situation. Frankly, even the disadvantages of the backstop were exaggerated. There is no incentive for the European Union to keep the backstop going because it would mean that we could stay in the customs union and pay no costs. It is ludicrous to think that it would want it to carry on. It will be in our mutual interest for us to get out of it when it is appropriate to do so.

However, we know the situation. The Prime Minister’s plan may not go forward, in which case there will be no deal—or no overarching deal, as the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, pointed out. That will be disruptive. In the “told you so” section of his speech, my noble—and good—friend Lord Bridges pointed out how little had been done in the time available: so little, so late. We in this Parliament should always remember the truth: the people who are most disrupted are not us or Members of the other place, but the most vulnerable in society—that is, the illest, the poorest and those least able to resist the sort of disruption that is likely with a problem departure from the European Union.

Hard-line Brexiteers say, “Well, we can use WTO terms, no problem”. Very few people use WTO terms, per se. For example, between the European Union and the United States, there are no fewer than 100 sectoral agreements. All of that has to be reproduced in new schedules so it is hardly surprising that Liam Fox, who was so insouciant earlier in his career as International Trade Secretary, is now one of those who are strongest in favour of saying that we must support the Prime Minister’s deal. He knows the score. The fact is that we need that agreement and the trade agreements that will flow from it.

I remind the House that in coming out of the European Union, we will go into a situation where we will have to sell the idea of doing a deal with a country of 65 million people rather than a unit of 500 million people. That will be especially difficult and we do not actually know what our future relationship will be with the 500 million people who remain in the European Union. I suspect that the Prime Minister, who is a very responsible person and deeply conscientious, will be very unlikely to allow a no-deal exit to happen, as Yvette Cooper has said. We are therefore back with the votes this week. A lot has been said about what the opinion polls are going to say, but we do not know enough about what the Commons is thinking as regards the various alternatives. MPs should be given the chance to hold some indicative votes to determine whether there is a solution that commands a majority vote in the House of Commons.

We know broadly what the two alternatives are. One might be called Norway and include a customs union, while the other might be called “clean break Canada” or whatever. Those are the two alternatives. They have been described by the columnist Matthew Parris as either humiliation or ruin. I do not go along with that—Matthew is getting slightly overwrought in his present concerns—but we do have to decide between those two alternatives. There are responsible and sensible arguments both ways, but we should know what is likely to go through the House of Commons. As the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, pointed out, what is the point of going back to the European Union if you do not know what you are going to get through your own Parliament? We cannot make that mistake again. We have to find out what the Commons thinks by some form of indicative vote. If the Government cannot manage, frankly, the Commons will have to, and the sooner the better.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Horam Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, as they review their tactics in the negotiations with the European Union after what, it must be said, has been a rather inauspicious start, the Government could do worse than thumb through The Art of the Deal, written or perhaps ghost written by President Trump. A central point he makes is this: never take anything off the table unless you absolutely have to. Unfortunately, in her Lancaster House speech the Prime Minister took off the table the single market and the customs union. I think he would regard that as a rather serious opening error. Fortunately, all is not lost because the Prime Minister also said that she wanted a “deep and special relationship” as well as a frictionless non-tariff arrangement with the European Union.

When the trade negotiations start in earnest this autumn, I suggest to the Government that they should lead off with this point. How do we keep what is obviously in the interests of both sides? How can we retain the essence of what has been examined so laboriously and achieved over many years by both the European Union and by ourselves? As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said earlier in the debate, if we want a positive result, we have to make a positive suggestion. Obviously at some stage we will have to make the point that we have concerns about immigration and the position of the European Court of Justice, but that can come in after we have established a positive framework for carrying on to our mutual advantage. I sincerely believe that such a constructive approach will be more likely to evoke a more serious response than harping on about what we will not do. That will simply put people’s backs up as well as put them in a negative and defensive mood.

The second point I take from the Trump manual of how to do deals is always to have a plan B. Fortunately, there is a plan B. As my noble friend Lady Finn said earlier, it is widely thought on all sides that it will be nigh on impossible to complete a full deal before March 2019, so we will need an interim deal which keeps things moving and minimises disruption. The recommendation of the European Union Committee of the House, on which I am delighted to serve, made in its report published in December last year on the trade options for Brexit, is that we should stay inside the customs union. Remaining in the union would give certainty to business, it would help with the time-limited supply chains that are now common in the car manufacturing and aerospace industries, and it would deal with the Irish question. It appears to have the support of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Labour Brexit spokesman, Sir Keir Starmer, as well as, expressed in the course of this debate, that of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, whose amendment I think is extremely sensible. Let us also say that global Britain can thrive within the existing framework. There is no need to make new trade deals because we can thrive as it is; look at Germany, which is doing rather well.

My final point taken from the Trump manual of how to do deals is to make a realistic assessment of your strengths and weaknesses by comparison with your negotiating partner. It is clear that in this case we have the weaker hand, but the European Union has one weakness—it needs money. A Commission paper published today points out that Brexit will leave a very big hole in the budget. We are, unfortunately, in debt to the tune of £1.8 trillion at the moment, but as a country we can borrow long, over a period of 20 or 30 years, at low interest rates. We have just forked out £1 billion to the Northern Ireland Government, so in those circumstances another £40 billion to £50 billion to the European Union would, frankly, be a steal for a good trade deal. It would cause apoplexy at the Daily Mail, but that would only add to our fun, would it not?

Obviously, I hope profoundly that the Government can get a deal, even if it is only an interim agreement. I am sure that that is where the centre of gravity of opinion is both in Parliament and among the people. They accept Brexit, but they want as seamless a Brexit as can possibly be achieved. There are those who want a hard Brexit or even no deal at all, but does anyone seriously imagine that, after seven years of belt-tightening, the British people are in a mood for the disruption and chaos that that would cause? Any Government which went down that path would quickly find themselves deeply unpopular. It is certainly not a route that a Government with no majority in Parliament can seriously take.

I wish my colleagues all the best in their negotiations, and particularly now that she is back in her place in the House, my noble friend Lady Anelay, who is reprising her position as a Minister of State. We all know in what high regard she is held, and we wish her well. But the Government must up their game and show far more skill and flexibility if they are to bring home the deal that Britain so badly needs.