UK Asylum and Refugee Policy

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Friday 9th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, in whose diocese I live and worship. He made an excellent speech. I have never heard him give a sermon; perhaps we can put that right at a later date. I agreed with quite a lot of what he said—surprisingly. I regard his predecessor, Tim Stevens, as a friend; I hope Tim Stevens regards me as a friend as well.

My view is as a still-loyal member of the Church of England. On Sunday I heard an excellent sermon from David Hebblewhite, who the right reverend Prelate might know, in Stanford-on-Avon on the origins of the Christmas stocking. How many people here know the origins of the Christmas stocking? I did not until then and I am 71. My view is that we need a spiritual and moral dimension to politics, government policy and legislation. It is a minority view, but I therefore support having an episcopal Bench in the House of Lords and having an established Church—and I will continue to do so. I welcome the right reverend Prelate. Another of his predecessors, Guy Vernon Smith, married my mother in Cosby—twice, unfortunately, because her first husband is on the war memorial. I hope to see more of him here and in Leicester.

I applaud the two serving most reverend Primates for their excellent sermons at the Platinum Jubilee service and Her Majesty’s funeral. These occasions showed the Church absolutely at its best and, frankly, rising to the occasion, so I thank them for that.

I speak as a member of the Church of England and a Christian—but not worthy to preach, I assure noble Lords, and my faith is a private matter. I will give at least one view today: a view from the pews. It is not my intention to attack either the Church or the bishops, so I shall ask questions that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury might have time to address at the end.

I agreed with a lot that the most reverend Primate said today. In April, he said:

“love your neighbour as yourself. For me, that is the standard by which we must treat those seeking asylum.”

I agree. This brings me to the question that prompted that most powerful parable of the good Samaritan. Who is thy neighbour—or, on this occasion, who is a refugee? Refugees typically return when it is safe to do so, like the Holy Family, which my noble friend Lord Cormack mentioned. I absolutely accept the direction in the lesson in Matthew, chapter 25, that we have to show compassion but there is huge pressure on our borders, services and infrastructure, caused by people who understandably want a better life. They want to come to Britain, which is a fantastic country—although, if you heard some in this Chamber, you would think it was the most awful place and you could not think why they would want to come.

I will focus particularly on small boats in the channel, which is of course very close to the most reverend Primate’s diocese of Canterbury. We have heard about smuggling by criminal gangs, and nearly half the people who have come across the channel in the last five months have come from Albania, via France. Albania is a safe country—I am not sure about France, although people go there on holiday, and I have been there and to Italy, Greece and Germany. But are people being persecuted in either Albania or France? They come here because we welcome them—we give them accommodation, benefits, et cetera. Frankly, we are extremely generous, which is why they do not want to stay in France, which is less generous.

The Albanians are instructed by their people smugglers to say that they are victims of trafficking, against the human trafficking Act. Those from the Middle East or from countries that outlaw homosexuality are to say that they are apostates or gay, so that they cannot be sent back. Anyone that can credibly do so, even if he or she is 25, says that they are children. I fear that we are being taken for fools—largely by smugglers, who know their market, if I can put it that way—just as Emad al-Swealmeen took the clergy at Liverpool Cathedral for naive fools when he said that he had converted to Christianity and was confirmed, having been supported by Asylum Link. He then took a bomb in a taxi to blow up the Remembrance Day service in Liverpool Cathedral. Please let us be sensible, not naive.

One reason that people want to come here is our history and culture, which my noble friend Lady Stowell referred to. I am very proud of the welcome that we gave to Jewish refugees from the pogroms in Poland and Russia in the late 19th century and in Germany in the 20th century, but, as a result, we are literally changing the way our country carries on and its culture, through mass migration.

There are distressingly many people who do not share our values and liberal attitudes—let us not pretend that everyone does—so let me ask some questions on, for instance, culture. I missed this, but did the Church or bishops lobby to continue having daily acts of worship in schools? Noble Lords may think that unimportant but, pace Church schools, very few state schools now have a daily Christian service and hymn. Of course, the most basic loss to culture is that people do not know those glorious hymns, and they now sing “Sweet Caroline” at matches rather than “Abide with Me”—noble Lords many not think that important, but it is a pointer. What is the Church of England planning to do to reverse the decline in Christian belief? Bishops will be irrelevant if no one believes in Christianity. The worst news this month was the fact that there has been a huge decline in those who call themselves Christian, which of course relates to education.

Does the most reverend Primate believe that the Church is institutionally racist? If it is, I do not want anything to do with it—but we hear bishops say that. Also, why was the ordinand Calvin Robinson kicked out? I do not know him, and he may be very unsuitable, but his story is coming out and it is not good.

I will give an illustration that is closer to home, though I do not wish to embarrass the right reverend Prelate whom I follow. I live in a group of 11 parishes, and we have had no resident priest for three and a half years, so I travelled over 10 miles on Sunday, burning fossil fuel. But there are two bishops in Leicester, the population of which is now apparently only 32% Christian. I note that the people whom I see in church—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, this is perhaps a good time for me to remind noble Lords about the speaking time.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

Some 100 years ago, every parish had a resident priest—and no bishops, because the diocese was founded only in 1927. I will sit down, but I have to say that, as a loyal member of the Church of England, I frankly hope that the most reverend Primate might commend the people and Governments of this country and his flock nationally and in Kent for the generosity and hospitality that we have shown over the last half-century to the over 10 million people who have settled here, every one of whom has been a stranger in this land.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Archbishop of Canterbury]

My Lords, keeping to my sense of compassion, I shall have compassion on the train of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and do my very best to be as brief as possible. I will write where I do not answer questions——but probably not until after Christmas. I have higher claims.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

Why, what is going on?

[The Archbishop of Canterbury]

Not a lot.

First, I thank noble Lords for their extraordinary contributions. I cannot refer to all of them because so many of them were so excellent. This has been a remarkable debate; I am very grateful. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. They all contributed remarkably from their experience and have demonstrated the reasons why they are in this House. I thank them.

Secondly, I am not going to mention 90th birthdays—oh, I just have. I was not going to mention birthdays, which come round increasingly frequently, but I must say that I sat in awe listening to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I am sure that that is true for the entire House. His moral authority vastly exceeds that of anyone else here, going right back to the Kindertransport. It has been a privilege for me—and, I am sure, for everyone else here—to engage with him on this subject.

As the Minister rightly said, this is a very emotive and difficult subject. I am just going to throw out a few headlines. I had this issue in an earlier draft but I, or one of my advisers, took it out; I am now going to annoy them by putting it back in. I just wonder, in view of the level of difficulty of this subject and its immense importance—numerous noble Lords have emphasised this very strongly—whether it would not make more sense to have a separate department for immigration. It could focus on this issue rather than having it fall within the complexities of the Home Office, which, as we know, is one of the most difficult offices to lead.

That leads me to say that, in listening to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Murray, I felt a great deal of sympathy. It is a new and complex system that is being looked at. It is under serious strain, as he said. However, I say to him that affirmation is not evidence. He made a number of affirmations about what would be done, what has been done and what is being done but, certainly, other noble Lords tried hard to go for evidence. In letters that are written, it is important that we look at that.

I sympathise with his legal difficulties. Anyone in the Church of England would sympathise with people’s legal difficulties. I have just had a clergy discipline measure against me dismissed, thankfully. It was for not recognising a particular claimant who said that he was the living incarnation of the Lord God—I had ignored him more than 1,000 times and therefore should be dismissed from my post. In a totally strait-laced judgment after some months, the relevant judge dismissed the claim. Regarding his comment about the most reverend Primates the Archbishop of York and the Archbishop of Canterbury disagreeing with each other, there is nothing new about that. It is different from the iron discipline of the Conservative Cabinet, but we suffer what we must—the poor most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, in particular.

I am very nervous about venturing into economics but, with the noble Lords, Lord Horam and Lord Desai, I will dance into the minefield. My days in the oil industry were a long time ago. Maybe economics have changed since then, but it was said that the lowest-cost producer would always survive—there is such a thing as a law of supply and demand. If we have safe and legal routes, we automatically become the lowest-cost producer. That by itself will completely undermine the business model of the people smugglers. I throw that out as probably a wrong answer, but I do my best.

The Minister did not answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, about the assessment by the Foreign Office and others of what is going on in Rwanda. He said other things about Rwanda, but did not answer that question. It would be useful if he could write with an answer to the very clear question on why the Government’s assessment is so different from that of their professional Foreign Office advisers. We need some answers on that.

I agree with noble Lords who made a very strong and clear argument that we need to talk about asylum as distinct from migration. They are very different things. Asylum happens because of what happens elsewhere; migration happens because of what we choose to happen—around students, for instance, since most places do not confuse the two in quite the same way. Whether we allow or even encourage—even possibly compel—people in appropriate positions to take employment while they are waiting for claims is a question that, again, I do not think was answered. It was put forward by a large number of noble Lords and is extremely important.

I agree very much with the noble Baronesses, Lady Berridge and Lady Ludford, that I was wrong to suggest that we need to replace the 1951 refugee convention. We need a new convention and to keep the 1951 refugee convention. The point on that is very powerful. It was an error on my part.

I return, if I may, to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lilley. I sort of use my hotline to God, as he referred to it, but I regret to say that I appear to have been disconnected for not having paid the bill. All that I got when I pressed button 3 was a long recorded message, so I went back to the Bible. It may seem unusual but in fact, during my first speech and that of the other Members of this Bench, we all quoted only the Bible and no other form of hotline. So, who is my neighbour? We can answer the question by saying “Everyone is my neighbour, but it is not a logical consequence that everyone must come here”. The logical consequence is that we need to do all that we can to ensure that those who are suffering find their suffering reduced. That may well not include bringing them to a different country from the one in which they grew up.

My long experience of over 20 years in conflict zones, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, is that almost no one wants to be a refugee. They want to stay at home and build their country, as we do. They love the United Kingdom but not all of them want to stay here. We can see that when, thanks to the good work of the Home Office last summer, we had almost 700 Anglican Communion bishops from 162 countries coming here, with much help, and not one of them overstayed. Many of them live in war zones; most of them are never paid but live off the money they get from tilling some ground, while working under enormous personal risk, in intense poverty and much danger.

“Who is my neighbour?” is dealt with not only by asylum but by stabilisation—it is a great pity that the Government have almost abolished the stabilisation unit in the FCDO—by development, and by creating hope locally by addressing the kind of awful and heart-breaking situation spoken of by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson. That is what stops people coming.

The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, mentioned the upcoming Nigerian election. I am not going to develop that theme but I entirely agree with her and have spoken recently to the Foreign Office about it.

I will answer the particular questions of the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, by letter if I may, because they are not all directly connected with this service—sorry, this place; I do have a lot of carol services. To pick up the question asked by him and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Lilley—it may not have been him—about what we are doing to increase attendance at churches, we are working extremely hard. Yesterday evening, we had more than 100 people in my chapel to hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am very glad that there are atheists here in such profusion because it gives them a chance to hear that, and they might just be converted. You never know, but I do not think so—I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Cashman. We will see in our post-retirement existence whether we exist or not.

Finally, in my last minute I will talk about the Policy Exchange. The Policy Exchange document is interesting and is certainly worth reading; I commend it to the House. I do not agree with it any more than I agreed with an earlier Policy Exchange document which suggested that the best way to deal with levelling up in the north—particularly the city of Liverpool, where I was living at the time—was to move the entire population of Liverpool to Cambridge. That was in 2008. That was not very popular in Liverpool; I did not consult those in Cambridge. Policy Exchange has a valuable function in provoking ideas, but not always quite as a valuable a function in solving problems.

Once again, I thank noble Lords across the whole House for a remarkable debate and a huge number of wise ideas, which I will be going through; we will no doubt consider them at great length within the Church. With that, I wish noble Lords a good weekend and thank them very much.