Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Borders (Lord Murray of Blidworth) (Con)]

My Lords, this Bill sets out a duty on the Secretary of State to make arrangements for the removal of a person who has arrived in or entered the UK illegally and satisfies the four conditions set out in Clause 2. In the majority of cases, formal returns agreements are not required in order to carry out removals. Most countries co-operate with returns, and these relationships are managed through official-led engagement with immigration counterparts in receiving countries and through consular services based in the UK. Returns agreements can be a useful tool to solidify or improve returns co-operation and are sometimes requested by the receiving country. We carefully consider whether it is beneficial to enter into negotiations to formalise a returns relationship, having regard to the potential requests that the other side would seek to incorporate into an agreement, such as a liberalisation of the UK visa requirements in respect of their nationals.

As of May 2023, the Home Office has 16 returns agreements in place. Recent additions to the list include Albania, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. Just last week, the Prime Minister announced the start of negotiations on a new returns agreement with Moldova. A number of these agreements are sensitive, and receiving countries might withdraw co-operation if they are publicised, so it would be detrimental to formalise and publish all such agreements. There are also some countries where the existing security and country situation might prevent returns taking place, such as Sudan and Afghanistan. We continue to monitor the situation closely in those countries with a view to resuming enforced returns as soon as is practicable and safe.

I should add that, while returns agreements have a valuable role to play, they are not silver bullets. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has, in terms, accused this Government of ripping up the Dublin convention, but may I just remind the noble Lord that the UK was a net recipient of migrants under the Dublin scheme? As my honourable friend Tim Loughton said in the other place:

“In the last year that we were covered by the Dublin convention, before the pandemic struck, we applied to the EU for 8,500 returns under that returns agreement and only 105 were granted—that is 1.2%—so what he says is complete nonsense. It did not work when we were in the EU, and he is now expecting to magic up some agreement that the EU will not give us anyway”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/4/23, col. 792.]


Mr Loughton was, at that time, intervening on the speech of Stephen Kinnock in the other place.

In addition to the returns agreements, we also have our world-leading migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda. I remind the House that there is no limit on the numbers that can be relocated to Rwanda under the partnership agreement.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, cited various figures, including in relation to the current asylum backlog. I remind noble Lords that, under Clause 4, any asylum claims made by persons who meet the conditions in Clause 2 are to be declared inadmissible. It is, of course, important to deal with the current backlog. The Prime Minister announced today that the initial decision legacy backlog is down by over 17,000, but there is no correlation between these legacy cases and the cohort to be removed under the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, asked about the impact assessment for the Bill. We have already published the equality impact assessment, and we will publish an economic impact assessment in due course. Noble Lords will have to wait patiently for the economic impact assessment. In the interim, I do not propose to comment on impact assessments issued by NGOs or leaks in the media.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I have a very important question. The noble Lord and government Ministers keep saying from the Dispatch Box, here and in the other place, that certain things will happen if the Bill goes through. Has the Home Office actually completed an impact assessment which clarifies exactly what the Minister is saying?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Certain things will happen when the Bill goes through; the system described within it will take effect. I assure the noble Lord that this is something that the Home Office expects to happen—that is, that returns will be effected in accordance with the duty imposed on the Secretary of State.

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[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Regardless of when the impact assessment will be published, the Minister keeps restating issues as fact. I therefore ask: have those facts been determined by a completed impact assessment that he and his colleagues have seen and signed off?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid I cannot do more than say that the impact assessment will be published in due course.

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[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate when I came into the Chamber this afternoon, but I heard the opening remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher—a powerful beginning to this debate—who spoke about the accommodation provided now for unaccompanied migrant children. I was further motivated to take part having listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in which he referred to these same matters.

Since 2021, 4,500 unaccompanied migrant children have been placed in hotels, some as young as 10. Some 200 have gone missing and have not been found. In Britain, when a child goes missing, does it not affect all of us? Is it not the first item on the nine o’clock news and on the front page of every newspaper? However, 200 of these children have gone missing and have not been found again. A recent whistleblower who worked at the Home Office-run hotel in Brighton highlighted the harm that he saw these children facing. He said they were being picked up in the streets, presumably by traffickers, and have not been found again. He said that there were reports that the children had been subjected to emotional abuse and degrading treatment by the staff in the hotels.

Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 gives local authorities—and them alone—statutory protection powers for children. I have been asking for some time by what power the Government put these children in hotels, ignoring Section 20, and what Act of Parliament gives them that power. I have asked a number of Oral Questions and four or five Written Questions. In my latest one I asked His Majesty’s Government

“under which legal provision the Home Office has assumed child protection powers for unaccompanied migrant children”.

The Minister did me the courtesy of replying:

“We expect local authorities to meet their statutory obligations to children from the date they arrive in the UK. The best place for these young people is and will remain within a local authority care placement”.


On that, we are in total agreement. He went on:

“The Home Office is not currently in the position of corporate parent to any unaccompanied child”.


My question is simple. By what Act of Parliament—by what power—do the Government ignore Section 20, place these vulnerable children in hotels and leave them? Two hundred have gone missing. Shame on us.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I want to show the importance of impact assessments. This goes back slightly to the discussion we were having under the last group of amendments, because only one impact assessment for the Bill has been delivered: the equality impact assessment, which talks about age. That is why I support many amendments in this grouping, particularly those in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.

Once you read the equality impact assessment, it starts giving you a real indication of what the Government’s thinking is for putting children—whether unaccompanied or with families—into this Bill and the impact they believe it is going to have. The first issue, they say, is that it is not direct discrimination against these young people; they call it indirect discrimination. It is quite direct when you are not allowed to stay in the country; it is quite direct when you are going to be detained at the will of the Home Secretary; and it seems quite direct that when you get to the age of 18 you are going to be told to go, never come back and never claim British citizenship. That does not seem like indirect discrimination; it seems very direct.

The equality impact assessment says:

“Any differential impact on these age groups is the result of a person’s conduct and is justified and proportionate in order to achieve the legitimate aims of controlling migration and reducing crime”.


The aim of putting children in is to cut not just migration but crime, which is quite interesting, because on 27 April I asked a Written Question:

“To ask His Majesty's Government, for each police force in each of the last two years, how many crimes were committed by people who arrived by small boat crossings; and for each police force, what percentage of total crimes committed that figure represents”.


Based on the Government’s equality impact assessment, they will have those figures, because it is going to reduce crime. The answer I got from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, was:

“The Home Office collects and publishes information on the number of crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales. This information can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables. The Home Office does not hold information on perpetrators of crime who have arrived by small boat crossings”.


There is no evidence. I ask the Minister: what evidence do the Government have that including children, either accompanied or unaccompanied, will reduce the crime rate in the UK and by what percentage? It is in their equality impact assessment, so surely the Government have figures for that, otherwise it is just untrue—it is absolutely false.

The great and fascinating thing about this equality impact assessment is that it says: “The Department’s view”—not its evidence or empirical studies, but its “view”—

“is that the Bill should”—

not will but “should”—

“have a deterrent effect which can”—

not will or must, but “can”—

“result in fewer unaccompanied children arriving in the UK by dangerous and unlawful means”.

That is a nice sentence. There is no evidence; there is no study; there are no figures. It is a statement. I did some research, and I am very pleased that the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium has also done some, because the only significant research I can see was done in 2018 by the UNHCR, which was called Destination Anywhere. It was a review on the reasons why unaccompanied children choose the UK. I use the word “choose” inadvertently. The evidence does not support the Government’s assumption—this equality impact assessment is an assumption, not fact, as the words show—that an effective ban on asylum claims for children will stop children travelling regularly to the UK.

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[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, Clause 3 sets out the power to remove unaccompanied children. This power will be exercised only in very limited circumstances ahead of an individual reaching adulthood. As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, outlined, these include: reunion with the child’s parent; where the person is to be removed to a safe country of origin; where the person has not made a protection or human rights claim; or in other circumstances specified in regulations. If an unaccompanied child arrives in the UK illegally from a safe country of origin, they may be returned to their country of origin before they are 18. Of course, any such decision would be taken on a case-by-case basis.

I reassure the Committee that officials and Ministers take these decisions very seriously, with due concern for the sensitivities that have rightly been outlined by the Committee. But we need also to have in mind the profile of those who come on small boats. For context, I remind the Committee that—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Perhaps I can take the noble Lord’s question in just a moment. For context, I remind the Committee that the majority of unaccompanied children who claimed asylum in the UK in 2022 were aged 16 or 17. Where there is a dispute about age, half are found to be adults.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I hope the Minister will stop this characterisation of the effects of this Bill as being just on those who arrive by small boats. He just did it again then. Is it not the case that this affects everybody, regardless of how they get here? It is not just small boats.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Clearly, this Bill affects every person who falls within the four categories described in Clause 2, and that is all people who enter by any illegal method. Of course, at the moment, as we know, the majority of such entry is effected by small boats.

For any unaccompanied child who is removed while under 18, we will ensure that adequate reception arrangements are in place where the child is to be removed to. It is not simply a case of putting them on a plane back whence they came.

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[Lord Scriven (LD)]

In trying to answer my question, the Minister just reiterated what it says in the equality impact assessment. It was an important question. If the central tenet of the Bill is that children—accompanied or unaccompanied—not being given any dispensation will act as a deterrent, where is the evidence for that? In answering, the Minister said that this was the view of the department. Well it is the view of some children that the tooth fairy exists but, looking at the empirical evidence, it is quite clear that this may not be so. My question is clear: on what empirical evidence is the view of the department built, and when will this House get to see that evidence?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

It is a fairly standard rhetorical tool to ask where the evidence is but in this kind of field we have to operate looking forwards as to what might happen as a consequence of legislation, applying our own experience, and particularly that of the department in administering the UK border. It is the department, I would suggest, that is in a position to come to a view on these matters. It is not simply a case of some unqualified person reaching that assessment. The net effect is that it is the opinion of the department—

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

It is the opinion of the department that a person would not pay a people smuggler to cross the channel if they were going to be detained and removed. It stands to reason, whatever the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, might shout from a sedentary position.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

So the Minister agrees that this is not just about small boats; this is about the whole refugee and immigration system. Where is the evidence that the provisions in this Bill will meet the central issue that the Government wish to address and act as a deterrent to children, whether accompanied or unaccompanied. Where is the evidence?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Obviously, as these provisions are not in force, there is no evidence of the impact of these measures. The noble Lord appears to require me to look into a crystal ball. We can make reasonable conjectures about the effect of these measures, and that is what we have done.

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[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

That is not the case. Much as we might wish it to be, the simple reality, I am afraid, is that our modern slavery protections are being abused. The measures in the Bill directly address that.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

If they are being abused, what is the percentage success rate of people who were referred in the last two years?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid that I do not have those statistics to hand, but I can write—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I can help the Minister. I think it is 82% and 91%, on average. The issue is therefore that, once these cases have been looked at, the Home Office is granting people asylum based on them being part of the modern slavery system.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that there are two stages to the process—a reasonable grounds decision and a conclusive grounds decision—and different statistics. A light touch has hitherto been applied in relation to reasonable grounds. I will need to look into the precise statistics and revert to him on that. I am afraid I do not recognise those statistics immediately, so they will require further research.

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[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I cannot remember the exact numbers, but if the noble Lord looks at it the conclusive grounds is the number which matters, and that is extremely high.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

When the Minister replies to me, can he ensure that a copy goes to the Library, please?

Passports: Strike Action and Voter ID

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank my noble friend; he is indeed correct. Some 20 forms of identity document would suffice including: a passport—needless to say—issued by the UK, any of the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, any British Overseas Territory, an EEA state or Commonwealth country; a national identity card issued by an EEA state; a driving licence; a blue badge; an older person’s or disabled person’s bus pass; an Oyster 60+ card funded by the Government of the United Kingdom; a Freedom Pass; a Scottish national entitlement card; a Welsh concessionary travel card for those aged 60 and over or disabled people; a senior, registered blind, blind person’s, war disablement, 60+ or half-fare SmartPass issued in Northern Ireland; or an identity card bearing a proof of age standard. I do not think I need to carry on.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, could the Minister say why the young person’s bus pass and railcard was not on there?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Plainly, that was an issue that the noble Lord should have raised—and no doubt did raise—during the debate on the Elections Bill. It is quite a long way from the topic of this Question, which is about the strikes by the PCS.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The Home Office very much wishes to stop the use of hotels. I hope there may be some announcements on that in the near future.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Does the Minister think it is humane and shows the sense of Great British compassion that, under the provisions of this Bill, an unaccompanied child fleeing war and arriving on these shores at the age of seven will, 11 years later at the age of 18, be deported to another country and have no automatic right of return to the country in which he or she has been for 11 years and made his or her life?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

This is a scheme to prevent illegal immigration. That person would need to have paid a people smuggler to bring them across the channel. For the scheme to be coherent, age alone cannot automatically exclude membership from the cohort for removal.

Asylum Seekers: Accommodation in Hotels

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid that I must disagree with the right reverend Prelate. The reason for the number of people in hotels is the number of people crossing the channel illegally and causing accommodation to be needed. It is not simply a question of a failure to determine their asylum claims, not least because those whose claims are determined are then accommodated by local authorities in very similar types of housing.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, those statistics are not correct. The House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee showed that, from quarter 2 in 2017 to quarter 2 in 2022, applications were up by 103%, but in the same period the backlog had quadrupled, particularly for those waiting over six months. The committee came to the conclusion that the slow processing of applications had been a bigger driver of the increase in the backlog than the number of applications. Why does the Minister not know that, and why does he not start dealing with that issue, which is causing people to be held in hotels?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The question we are addressing today is about the reason for the number of people in hotels, and I say again that the reason is the number of people crossing the channel. When we bring forward our Bill, the message will go out and the business model of the people smugglers will be smashed. I encourage the noble Lord to support the Bill.

Children Seeking Asylum: Safeguarding

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Scriven]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to safeguard unaccompanied children seeking asylum, and prevent them going missing from hotels.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice, and in so doing point out my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Murray of Blidworth) (Con)]

The rise in small boat crossings has meant that we have had temporarily to accommodate children in hotels while local authority accommodation is found. When a child goes missing, a multiagency missing persons protocol is mobilised. Many of those who have gone missing are subsequently traced and located. We must end the use of hotels, and as such we are providing local authorities with children’s services the sum of £15,000 for every eligible young person they take into their care from a UASC—that is, an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child—hotel by the end of February 2023.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. As the chief constable of Great Manchester Police has said, these vulnerable young people are going missing after they have been snatched by those involved in drug crime and child sex trafficking. Experts indicate that the present system is not working as well as it should and suggest one major change that the Home Office could implement. That is that the Home Office becomes the corporate parent of those young people until such time as the local authority has completed the assessment and arrangements have been made. Will the Home Office look into that and implement it?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

There are many reasons why children go missing from care generally. This is true also of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. We are not in a position—and it would be wrong—to make generalisations regarding the reason for their going missing. I will take back to the department the suggestion that the Home Office could become a corporate parent.

Spousal Visas: Processing Times

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I say to my noble friend, as I have said to other noble Lords, that I hope that normal visa services, in terms of delivery times, will return in due course, but we are prioritising the Ukrainians at the moment.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

In answer to my noble friend Lord Paddick, the Minister answered the first part of his question. The second part was: as a result of Ukraine, what is the detriment in the number of outstanding applications from other people waiting for visas? Could the Minister please answer that part of the question?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, are absolutely right that it is to the detriment of other visa schemes— student and spousal visas, for example—and, as I said, we hope to get them back on to a more normal footing in due course.

Mr Mike Veale

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Thursday 7th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I think my noble friend will concede that there is a process under way and that misconduct hearings must commence within 100 working days of the officer being served with a notice. But the legally qualified chair does have the power to extend the period of time when they consider it in the interest of justice to do so. It is a decision entirely for the chair, and it would be inappropriate to comment on such a decision.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I will follow on from the excellent question from the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. The contract that Mike Veale has with the Conservative police and crime commissioner in Leicester, under which he has so far been paid £35,000, includes a clause that says that part of his role is to hold the chief constable of Leicestershire to account for implementation of crime strategies. Does the Minister agree that it is totally unacceptable that the chief constable of Leicestershire, with an unblemished record, should answer to someone facing a gross misconduct hearing?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it is a matter for the office of the PCC, and it would not be appropriate to comment further on this matter.

Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

We know that Northern Ireland has been very generous in resettlement. I have not been party to any of these discussions but I am sure they are ongoing, because Northern Ireland will of course want to play its part.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, a five year-old boy whose family had fled the Taliban, Mohammed Munib Majeedi, fell to his death from a hotel in Sheffield last year. The Metropolitan hotel in Sheffield had been condemned only a few months earlier by the Home Office as “unsafe and unsuitable” for refugees to stay. Why, therefore, did the Home Office allow this family to stay in such a hotel?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord highlights a terrible event in Sheffield. We need to ensure, first, that the quality of accommodation is of a standard and we avoid such terrible incidents, and, secondly, that we ensure that we get people into permanent accommodation.

Abolished Offences

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, for whom I also have the highest regard; we have worked very constructively over the years. I have his Bill in my pack and look forward to reading it. He is absolutely right to say that this is about women and men—it is equality before the law that is so important. On the timetable, I know that we are doing a review of the offence of soliciting and intend to publish the outcome during the summer. The noble Lord will also know that two Bills are coming up, and I am trying to gauge whether the timetable for those would be in line with the outcome of the review.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has from the Dispatch Box used the words that we require “suitable legal criteria”, saying it is “complex” and not that “simple”—yet two parts of the United Kingdom have laws enacted on this issue on a wider disregard scheme, and in 2017, Professor Paul Johnson gave a full list of draft regulations, including legal definitions. Will the Minister please spell out in more detail what else the Home Office requires to get this Bill through, rather than, as it seems to many of us, dragging its feet?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, we are not dragging our feet. We are working with Paul Johnson and others to try to ensure that regulation provides for that equality before the law. We are going through offences which go back decades to see whether they are in line with the disregard and considering offences that people bring to us to see whether they are in scope as well.

Police National Computer

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

We have just seen from the previous question that there is a bit of contradiction in some of the points raised by noble Lords on the Opposition Benches. Personally, I would allow my data to be kept for as long as anybody wanted for the purposes for which it might be used. Those pleas from the Opposition Benches have certainly been quite contradictory over the years.

[Lord Scriven (LD) [V]]

My Lords, we now know that a weekly weeding session from the database owned and operated by the Home Office takes place for DNA and fingerprint records, and this has links to local police force databases. The Minister answered a Written Question that I tabled by saying:

“The police in England and Wales cannot at present automatically wipe facial images at the point when a person is determined to be innocent.”


So why are “no further action” facial recognition images not included in the Home Office’s weekly weeding?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Facial images have to be manually removed from the database, whereas the DNA database allows for automatic deletion. That is the answer.