Death of Ann Widdecombe

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord and, may I say, he is one of my favourite bleeding-heart liberals as well. But, that said, his point is vital. Essentially, this is about expressing our political differences in a way that understands our basic humanity. Whatever the circumstances, and we cannot speculate as to how and why Ann was murdered, she held her arguments in a way that understood that humanity underneath.

I hope that we can look at how we can develop that still further. I know that other government departments will continue to look at how we can support the development of mutual understanding and parliamentary democracy in a way that respects differences and respects the individuals concerned. To reflect further on what the noble Lord, Lord True said, we want to look with the House authorities at Operation Bridger as it works currently for MPs. It is also worth us examining the lessons to be learned for individuals in this House and that is something the Home Office is quite happy to do in due course.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord True, and thank the Minister for what he said about our friend Ann Widdecombe. There has been much conversation in the media about whether the Government or the police take seriously the protection of those in public life. I know from my own experience, both in the Home Office and as a Minister, that they absolutely do. Members of Parliament receive enormous numbers of threats, some credible and some not. Can the Minister say one or two things about what the Home Office and the police do, and take seriously, to assess what is credible and what is not, and to put in place both the appropriate steps to advise those in public life and the necessary measures to protect them? Threats to people in public life are not just an attack on them but an attack on democracy and therefore the public. It is important that that protection is put in place.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments. He will know that Operation Bridger was established and, since 2024, the Home Office has funded a full-time network of national official advisers across all territorial police forces in the UK to bolster the Operation Bridger network. Each officer appointed by each force, funded by the Home Office, is a dedicated point of contact for MPs and, indeed, for candidates. In specific instances, such as by-elections, the police make assessments of the security threats, as they would have done in Makerfield recently and as they will do in the Clacton by-election that is occurring in August. There is a greater level of support for MPs now within constituencies than ever before. All MPs are advised to report incidents to the police and to reference Operation Bridger. The police will then do what I expect the noble Lord would do: triage those, look at what are serious, credible threats and take action accordingly, independently of government and of the House. As I mentioned, we will examine how the House of Lords can be involved in that as well.

Immigration and Asylum: Appeals

Lord Harper Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Bill will be published tomorrow and will establish the framework for the body and examine in detail the issues my noble friend has raised. My right honourable friend who is dealing with these matters is cognisant of the fact that the independent body will be responsible for monitoring qualifications and standards. I am happy to answer questions on that once the Bill has been published. I am not in the position today to be able to do that.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I accept that the Minister is a little frustrated, but this is what happens when you trail things in the media ahead of a Bill being published. He cannot expect people not to have questions. If he does not want questions in advance, he should not do the trailing. In the trailing in the media, it was said that the body the Government are looking to establish will be like the magistracy. The problem in this case is that people often come to asylum decisions with very clear views, either against people claiming asylum or very pro people claiming asylum. If the adjudicators are members of the public, how will the Government guard against them bringing those preconceived ideas to determining these important legal questions?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

If the noble Lord, as a past Cabinet Minister, has never trailed anything, I trust that he will stand up now and tell me that that is the case. I rest my case. But he raises an important point. The key issue is that all members of the new independent immigration appeals authority will have the required training. Decision-making expertise to make determinations will be part of that process of skills and experience. The body will be established in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Public Bodies Handbook. We are currently considering accountability and governance structures, including the body’s relationship with Parliament and with the Government. We will safeguard independent decision-making. I return to the trailing: the noble Lord has only 23 hours to wait for the publication of the Bill. I look forward to engaging with him on it in due course.

Southport Inquiry

Lord Harper Excerpts

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his comprehensive answers. He is of course absolutely right that, for many of the recommendations, the Government must take the time to think through their response to get it right. However, people looking at the Fulford report will have noticed the systemic failures. One of the things they will be concerned about is whether there are currently people who present a risk to the community, who may not have been referred to Prevent, who are going to fall through the cracks. That is an urgent matter.

Is the Minister confident that the welcome steps that the Government have already taken to strengthen the way Prevent works, and the other changes they have made, will capture any of those individuals in the system? Can he provide that assurance to the House—or is there more in a short-term way that the Government need to do to check that no-one has already fallen through the cracks who may present a risk to the public?

Police Reform White Paper

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

There is a lot in there. The main thing I can say to the right reverend Prelate is that the purpose of our policing is to have the police working with the community at a local level. That is why we have to focus on neighbourhood policing, why we have put in an additional 13,000 officers over this Parliament, and why we are on 2,500 to 3,000 currently in terms of increasing neighbourhood policing, taking people away from warranted officers doing back-room jobs into warranted officers doing front-line policing and community reassurance. That is why the basic issues, as I have said before, of shop theft, anti-social behaviour—things that happen in the high street or on the estate—should be the focus of the local police force.

How do we better deliver that? Do we look at that in a regional context? Whoever takes over this examination of regional force levels might look at a region and say, “We need to have this as a force size for this region because there’s a synergy between this city and that city and this regional area”, but underneath there is still that local neighbourhood police model. We are trying to ensure that we have local governance that is better than the patchwork we have and, at the same time, we will look at the national challenges and ensure that the Police Minister and/or the Home Secretary sets some realistic targets but does that in conjunction with the police. Ultimately, we get asked all the time in this House what we are doing about shop theft and anti-social behaviour. Some level of co-operation and ambition has to be set between the Home Office centrally and the local police forces, but they still have to operate independently and manage their resources in a way that gives them local community confidence.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful that the Minister is leaving the British Transport Police alone. In my experience, it works very well and is led by an outstanding chief constable. I may have missed it, but I am not sure he said where royal protection is going to sit in this tier of policing. It is a significant cost, particularly for a county such as Gloucestershire, where we are blessed with a number of members of the Royal Family, including one of the homes that belongs to His Majesty the King. It is a significant cost to the force.

My real concern is that raised by the noble Baroness, Lady May, about accountability. We already have an issue with police being abstracted from rural areas to do public order policing in big urban centres. If we have larger police forces, I can see that getting worse. How are we going to make sure that rural communities get the level of policing that they deserve and, importantly, that they pay for through their council tax precept, without a democratically elected leader at a very local level?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Starting with the question of royal protection, if the noble Lord will forgive me, I will not comment on that, because we do not normally comment on those issues in a public way. At some point, we will obviously make some further statements on it, but I do not wish to open that discussion now. On his comments on rural funding, we are as part of this proposal looking at reviewing the formula that currently exists within police funding. The police settlement that we announced a couple of weeks ago put significant additional resources into policing, but we recognise the need to modernise the funding formula, so part of the review that we are undertaking now will be on how we do that very task.

At a local level, there will still be somebody accountable politically for policing, but what I am trying to do, and what we are trying to do in the Home Office, is address the fact that at the moment we have police and crime commissioners, which is a patchwork model because of the advent of mayors. We have another pile of mayors coming on stream very shortly. We have some areas where there will not be a mayor, but nor will there be a police and crime commissioner in future, so we are still going to review those organisational models. At the end of this process, there will still be somebody who is accountable for policing, but not in the directly elected way, solely on police and crime issues, as the police and crime commissioner currently is.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I will take that as a comment for me and the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, to reflect on, but I maintain the position. The police have a difficult job. Legislation is in place currently, and the proposals brought forward would replicate that. I am trying to sit down, but I see the noble Lord, Lord Harper, so once again I will take an intervention.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Very briefly, in the spirit of trying to be helpful, and in answering my noble friend Lord Attlee, one of the things that was very helpful in my time at the Department for Transport was that National Highways sought a pre-emptive injunction to set out certain behaviours that should be prohibited and was successful in getting that, which was very effective at giving the necessary tools to the police to keep the motorway open.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for that contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Harper. I add that into the mix of the debate today, but I still come to the conclusion that existing legislation, however it is interpreted, covers this. Therefore—for the last time, I hope—I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 24th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I really do not envy the Minister in this situation. Obviously, we have debated this issue on a number of occasions; it was debated in the other place last Wednesday.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since the Second Reading of this Bill in the other place and in this House—even more so, it is fair to say, since the Home Secretary unveiled her new policies on the asylum system and immigration policy, which, in many respects, supersede this Bill as it currently stands. I mention this because it is my firm view that, had this amendment been debated several months ago, with this Home Secretary, it would undoubtedly have been accepted; indeed, the Government may also have been minded to put down a similar amendment to my own.

We can potentially be cynical about the new policies that have been developed by the Home Secretary. Some may say that they are performative smoke and mirrors—that, in the absence of a policy to leave, or at least to derogate from the ECHR, they will rely on discretionary powers; that there will be little deterrent effect; and that far too many loopholes were still in place, even with the new policy—or we can believe that it is a genuine and workable programme to tackle uncontrolled immigration. We shall see, but let us take the Home Secretary at her word.

One of the key aspects of the Home Secretary’s new policy is a new work and study visa route. On Report, the noble Lord, Lord German, asked this: if we cannot collect data on student visas and criminality, how can we properly assess the risk of abuse of the visa system when the Home Office and universities are obliged to take such factors into account in their decision-making? Also, if we do not collect all the relevant data, particularly with respect to students, we cannot—this was articulated by the Home Secretary—pursue a policy of visa bans for countries that fail to co-operate with returns policies.

These are issues of openness and transparency. The Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Lemos—failed to reassure us on Report. He actually supported the thrust of our argument when he stated:

“I entirely accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, that without proper information on this and a number of other matters, it is very difficult to have an informed public debate”;


as I said earlier, the Government could have moved their own amendment, but they have chosen not to do so. The Minister also said:

“The Home Office does propose to publish more detailed statistical reporting on foreign national offenders subject to deportation and those returned to countries outside the UK”.—[Official Report, 5/11/25; col. 1944.]


More to the point, the Minister was unable to address the substantive point made by my noble friend Lord Harper about information collected on the propensity of different nationalities to commit crime. I understand that he has received a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Lemos. We look forward to a clearer answer on that particular question; perhaps my noble friend will reference it should he choose to speak in this debate.

Your Lordships’ House will be aware that many other jurisdictions routinely collect, collate and publish this type of data. Examples include Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; the Department of Home Affairs in Australia; and the United States’s SEVIS, or student and exchange visitor information system. All of them publish this data as a matter of routine. The question is: if we already have this data, why not publish it to enable proper, informed debate and fact-based policy-making? Ministers have failed—both here and, last Wednesday, in the other place—to articulate a coherent rationale for resisting this sensible, practical and helpful amendment to the Bill. With all due respect, their arguments were threadbare, to say the least.

Surely the acid test are the answers to two questions. First, will this amendment damage or impede the central premise of this Bill? Secondly, will the amendment help His Majesty’s Government develop public policy, which is of significant public concern, based on real-time, robust empirical data? For the benefit of the Minister, the answers are no and yes. Even now, the Minister can accept this amendment and break free of what I described earlier as a significant culture of secrecy and obfuscation in respect of this data. If Ministers want to be taken seriously and to restore trust in their proposals and policies, they can make a good start in good faith by conceding what would be, in the great scheme of things, a minor amendment. On that basis, I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Jackson’s Motion for several reasons. The first is that he set out a compelling case for why this data should be both collected, if it is not collected, and published so that we have a much clearer idea about the nature of student visas. I did not hear any compelling reason, in our debate on Report, why that should not be the case.

In the House of Commons, when they debated this matter last week, the Minister went out of his way to say that

“the Home Office already publishes data on a vast amount of migration statistics, including information on visas, returns and detention”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/11/25; col. 790.]

He said that it is all “kept under review” and so on, but he did not actually give us a reason around this particular set of data. First, he did not tell us whether it is collected. He also did not tell us whether it was going to be published; actually, he did not come up with any reasons as to why my noble friend’s amendment could not be accepted. I certainly do not think that, either on Report here or in the House of Commons, Ministers set out any concerns about the drafting of my noble friend’s amendment—so it cannot just be that it is okay except that it is terribly badly drafted, in which case, of course, Ministers could have taken it away and used the skills of the Government’s parliamentary draftsmen to have it improved. That is the first thing; I cannot see any reason why we should not accept it.

If the Minister were to suggest that he would be happy to publish it, I cannot see why we should not just put the amendment in place. This Minister is a very fine Minister—we like him very much, and he is very robust—but, sadly, he may not be the Minister for ever.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Harper (Con)]

It is not that unfair to say that he may not carry on being the Minister for ever; indeed, he may not want to be the Minister for ever. He has another piece of legislation on borders coming very soon. He may say that he is going to publish it but it would be better, I think, if it were in statute so that, whichever Minister or Home Secretary is there, we could be sure that this information was going to be published.

There is a reason for that. As my noble friend said, we had quite a debate about two different aspects of this on Report. The first was about specific data on criminality, while the second—I raised this issue—was about what information Ministers collected to make decisions on student visas. I recollected that, when I was an immigration Minister serving in the Home Office under the leadership of the then Home Secretary—my noble friend Lady May, who is sitting in front of me—it was absolutely the case that the Home Office collected data about the propensity of different nationalities to overstay and the risks that were presented. That information was used in both the information that was sought and the judgments that were made on accepting people to come to the United Kingdom—quite rightly—to make sure that we had robust borders.

As my noble friend suggested, I got a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, after that debate. I had asked two questions. One was about the information collected on the propensity of visa applicants to commit crimes. The second was about risk assessment in student visa decisions; the second one is most pertinent to this debate, of course, but they are linked.

On the first one, the Minister answered the question, but it was not a very good answer, which is why I am a little sceptical about whatever assurances we may hear from the Dispatch Box. He said:

“In accordance with the public sector equality duty, the Government’s policies do not unduly discriminate against people based on their protected characteristics, which includes on the basis of nationality”.


He specifically said:

“The Home Office does not collect data about the propensity of different nationalities to commit crimes”.


So there seems a bit of a gap in the information that is collected. It may be that Ministers will publish information about the numbers of specific individuals, but my question was about whether that information is used to make judgments about whether particular nationalities are more of a risk. That does not mean that you have a blanket ban against people, but it might mean that you ask some more searching questions if particular nationalities are a risk. It sounds as if the Government do not intend to do that at all.

The most worrying thing was the question I asked about whether the Government about what information was collected to do those risk assessments for student visa decisions. Answer came there none in this letter, which was purportedly an answer to my question. The only conclusion one can come to is that the Minister did not want to put down the answer because it would be that no information is collected and there is no risk assessment. There definitely used to be a risk assessment so, if there is not one now, I do not know when it stopped, but that is very much a step backwards. So, for both those reasons, it makes no sense.

What the Minister said in his reply to me—that the Government do not make decisions about people based on their nationality—does not seem to accord with what the Home Secretary announced just last week. She said that the UK would stop granting visas to people from Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—that is a blanket ban on every individual from those countries—if their Governments did not start rapidly co-operating on removals. On that issue, I happen to agree with the Home Secretary—I think that is a sensible policy—but it is not consistent with what the Minister said in his letter about not unduly discriminating against people based on their nationality, unless, of course, “unduly” is doing quite a lot of work—perhaps more than it bears—so I am a bit sceptical.

If the Minister stands up and says that he will publish the data, as my noble friend says, I would be much happier if that commitment were put into statute. We need not delay the Bill. We broadly do not think it will make as much positive difference as the Government do, but there is lots in it to be welcomed. I do not want to hold it up, but we need not hold it up at all because the Minister could just accept my noble friend’s amendment and then we would be done. However, if he is not prepared to accept it, I fear we must test the opinion of the House. That will ultimately be up to my noble friend, but, based on the letter that I have had from the Minister, I am certainly not—at this stage, at least—persuaded that we do not need to go a little further.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I do not imagine that I am the only Member of this House who is very often irritated by a Commons reason in this sort of situation that says, “We don’t agree because we don’t agree”. On this occasion, we have a reasoned reason with which I, for one, certainly do agree: that it is not,

“appropriate for there to be a statutory requirement to publish the data”.

There is a place for something other than statutory requirements, and I think this is one of them.

I agree with a couple of things that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, said. I do not know that anybody ever envies a Minister in the Home Office. More seriously, we have largely been overtaken by the announcements that have come from the Home Office in quite a stream since we started work on this Bill. It has made it very difficult to deal with the Bill.

I also want to talk about the amendment itself. It does not give a context. It could, for instance, have added that there must be the collation and publication of the number of overseas students who—I summarise—have remained in the UK and succeeded in their contribution to the success of the UK. The data referred to suggests no comparator with British citizens, and my real objection to this amendment is that I do not want to appear to assume that criminals are overrepresented in the overseas student cohort or, bluntly, that immigrants include a particularly large number of criminals. The starting point for this amendment makes me deeply uneasy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, for tabling his amendment, but I hope that I can persuade the House that no Division is required. We will see. I hope to persuade the House of that in due course.

The Bill returns to this House having been considered in the other place on Wednesday 19 November, during which the government amendments to the Lords stages of the Bill were approved by the elected House of Commons. As the noble Lords, Lord Harper and Lord Jackson, mentioned, migration policy is a fluid issue. There are always issues that we are bringing forward. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has brought forward proposals that I spoke to in this House on Thursday 20 November, and there is a further Statement on legal migration issues tomorrow evening in this House, if Members wish to participate and hold the Government to account still further.

As noble Lords know, Amendment 37 from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, was taken to the other place having been approved by this House. The other place rejected that amendment, which would mandate the Home Secretary to collate and publish statistics on the number of overseas students who have had their student visas revoked as a result of the commission of criminal offences, the number of overseas students who have been deported following revocation of their student visas and the number of overseas students detained pending deportation following the revocation of their student visas.

I maintained at the time—and, dare I say it, without wishing to provoke the noble Lord to press this to a Vote, I maintain still—that there is no requirement in primary legislation and it would be unnecessary. It would undermine the mechanisms in place to ensure the appropriate publication of statistics in full so that the context of migration statistics already published is known. I note the view put forward by the Liberal Democrat Benches in the debate in the other place that the amendment would not help to tackle organised crime nor improve border security, nor would it strengthen the Bill. As I set out when debating the amendment in Committee and on Report, the Government see the value of transparency, hence the vast quantity of statistics that the Home Office already publishes on a regular basis, in line with the Statement of Compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

The Home Office regularly reviews the official statistics being published and takes into account a number of factors including user needs, the resources required to compile the statistics, and the quality and availability of such data. I again confirm for the House that having requirements in legislation is not needed or appropriate. While I recognise and value transparency, it is critical to ensure due process for the accuracy and quality of data, which can be achieved within existing mechanisms for official statistics to be released.

However—this is where I come to my “however”—I note the interest in this topic and am anxious to try to make some progress. I do not wish to have further ping-pong between both Houses, if at all possible. I can therefore make the commitment to the House tonight that, subject to the proposed new clause not being included in the Bill—in other words, the amendment to the Motion not being pressed this evening by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson—the Government will review and publish the data held on the number of students who have had their visas revoked due to criminality. These statistics will cover a defined period and will be broken down by nationality of the offender, as was stipulated in the noble Lord’s original amendment. I hope that this commitment will provide Members of the House with reassurance that the Government take seriously the importance of transparency in the immigration system through the publication of statistics.

The proposal I put to the House tonight provides what I would argue is an achievable, non-legislative solution to what the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and others have called for. This approach will embed publication of the requested data in the wider mechanisms for Home Office publication of statistics, ensuring that the outcome is of high quality and is appropriately produced along with other data. I urge Members of the House to support this approach by approving Motion A.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I will be the bad cop here and then potentially my noble friend can be the good cop, if he wants to.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, can he confirm that all the data mentioned in the amendment that my noble friend had on the Order Paper is going to be published? Secondly, given that this was debated in the House of Commons just three sitting days ago, why is it that the Minister in the House of Commons did not just make that commitment then? I have a problem if it is only with the threat of an amendment being passed that the Minister is prepared to come to the Dispatch Box to make the commitment; that makes me a little suspicious.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Oh, give over, please. The whole purpose of having this House and the other House discuss amendments and have ping-pong is to achieve a compromise between what this House wants to do and what the other House wants to do, and to try to find a solution. The noble Lord says that the Minister in the other place said X three days ago. Well, I am saying this today. If he does not want to accept it then we can have a discussion and he can press for a vote, and we can see how people this House vote and where we are.

Sometimes I despair. We are actually trying to move things on to meet the objectives of the noble Lords, Lord Jackson and Lord Harper, and he still does not want to accept the Christmas presents I am offering him. I am telling him today that we will, as I have said, provide information on student visas revoked as a result of the commission of criminal offences, the number of overseas students who have been deported after the revocation of their student visas and the number of overseas students detained pending deportation. That is what the information is. Work will commence immediately, with a view to publication by the end of the financial year. Should this work identify that additional time is required, an update will be provided.

We are trying to meet the objectives of the request from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson. I hope that the noble Lord will take this as a democratic parliamentary decision between the two Houses to achieve the aims of one small amendment at the end of a lot of consideration of the Bill to date.

Asylum Policy

Lord Harper Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

On the question of Article 8 claims, Article 8 is a qualified right, which means that interferences with it can be justified where it is proportionate to the public interest. We will bring forward primary legislation with a definition of family life for the purposes of Article 8. On Article 3, we will work with partners to reform the application of the ECHR’s prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment. Both of those are potential tweaks, which will be subject to legislation and consultation, but which we believe can be done within our international obligations. We are not the Official Opposition who wish to withdraw from those international obligations; we wish to maintain them. But I think it is fair, open and proper that we can examine legislation to tweak them.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, there is not a word of the Prime Minister’s foreword to this Statement that was not true on the day that he became Prime Minister. It is welcome that the Government have got to where they have. The Minister referred to our record; my recollection is that, every time we proposed tough things, they were opposed by the party opposite. I do not remember us ever being challenged because we were not being tough enough.

My question is this: having read through the Statement and the policy document carefully, there are a number of measures that require changes to the Immigration Rules, which is obviously secondary legislation, but there are also a number, as has just been referred to, that require amendment to primary legislation. Certainly, my sense of the Home Secretary’s demeanour is that she feels that this is a very urgent matter to deal with. Has the legislation been drafted and is it ready? When is it going to be introduced? Will it be introduced in this Session to carry over or will it have to wait until the next Session of Parliament? If the latter, it does not strike me that the Government are treating it very urgently.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I remember serving as the noble Lord’s shadow about 10 or 11 years ago, when he was the Immigration Minister and we were both Members of Parliament. I supported a number of the measures that he brought forward then, which were very difficult. We, too, will take some very difficult decisions, and I hope to take Members of both the Government’s party and opposition parties with us.

On the question of legislation, he will expect me to say this, but I am going to say it anyway: legislation will be introduced in due course. I cannot comment on legislation in the second Session yet, but legislation will be introduced in due course.

Police Reform

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Police and crime commissioners across England and Wales will be abolished at what would have been their next election. There will not be another election for police and crime commissioners, which means that they will serve out their term of office until early May 2028, when the election would have been held. In the meantime, we will be establishing further discussions. That abolition requires legislation in this House, which will be brought forward at a suitable time. In the meantime, we will discuss with this Administration in the Senedd and whoever forms the Administration after the election in May how we manage a policing board and local government involvement in the management of police forces in Wales.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the introduction of powers going to mayors where there are mayors. That remains the democratic accountability. Can I ask the Minister to think again about policing boards, though? That did not work in the past. It is very important that there is proper democratic accountability for priorities and budget setting. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Government just want to get rid of a set of difficult elections ahead of the next general election.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I take issue with the noble Lord’s last point. This is a very difficult decision. Remember, we are abolishing 17 Labour police and crime commissioners who are doing a good job and would have been seeking re-election in that year, along with a number of other party-political and independent PCCs.

We are trying to support the mayoral model. As I mentioned earlier, there will be a list of new mayors in 2027. There are existing mayors in place who do not have police powers, and there are existing mayors in place who do have police powers. I intend to ensure that we minimise the number of boards by maximising, wherever possible, the mayoralties. That has to be done in conjunction with discussions over time. This House will have an opportunity to discuss this, because it has to be facilitated by legislation.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, we listened to the right reverend Prelate talking about coming to this country, as indeed did the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu. Just think for a moment: the right reverend Prelate and her parents arrived in this country as refugees from a place they could not go back to, and where, I seem to remember, the right reverend Prelate’s brother had been murdered. If they had come to this country illegally, would we really have sent them back, as being of bad character? If one thinks about it, it is quite extraordinary.

As Members of this House will know, like the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, I was a judge. I spent a lot of my time hearing evidence, often from people of bad character. Bad character is, of course, a wide definition. Technically, I suppose, you are of bad character if you speed: to that I admit—on more than one occasion. Are you of bad character if you are fleeing a place you had to leave because you might otherwise be dead, and are coming to this country by the only means you could? Let us bear in mind that the places people can go to in order to come legally to this country are almost non-existent. Consequently, nearly every refugee to this country comes illegally. Are we to say that doctors, lawyers, nurses, accountants, all people fleeing for good reason, are to be treated as being of bad character? I say to all Members of this House: we really need to reflect every now and again on what comes before this place and what we ought to do.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry that I am not able to support the right reverend Prelate on the first occasion she has tabled an amendment, and hope that I will be able to do so on future occasions. I will make a few points to balance the argument.

The right reverend Prelate and one or two noble Lords who spoke in favour of the amendment put the case on behalf of the individual seeking citizenship. The amendment refers to citizenship, not to sending people back—that is important to bear in mind. The amendment is also about the decision the Home Secretary and her officials have to make in protecting the rest of the country. They have to make a judgment on whether someone should be granted citizenship. The right reverend Prelate referred to the way in which decisions are made regarding children and the assurance the Minister gave before. Given that over 256,000 people have been granted citizenship this year, it seems that the department is not being overly harsh in its decision-making when it grants citizenship on that scale.

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[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this group speaks to an incredibly important issue in the current asylum system. As it stands, there is no standardised method for verifying the age or identity of those who enter the country illegally. These amendments seek to correct that and give the relevant authorities the power to mandate an age test where they consider it necessary. It cannot be right that a person is automatically assumed to be a child if their age is doubted or they lack documentary evidence. We currently exist within a system that grants people claiming asylum innumerable privileges once their applications are processed. People are given a roof over their head, food, electronic devices and many other amenities. Social activities are often offered. Those who need it have access to healthcare. Children are put into schools. Surely the least we should aim for is ensuring that these privileges are not overprescribed to people who should not qualify for them.

The current process does not, unfortunately, provide for this. If the authorities doubt whether someone is of the age they claim to be, there is no lawful way demonstrably to prove the truth. They must give the benefit of the doubt to the age-disputed person, while the same person can avoid taking a definitive scientific age assessment by denying consent. What is worse, incentives exist for people to lie and game the system. It is well documented that asylum NGOs advise that applying as a child offers a better chance of being accepted. A GB News investigation demonstrated a spike in asylum applications, across all nationalities, of people claiming to be 16 or 17. This is what happens when we offer asylum to children and do not include the necessary safeguards.

The result of this system is that many adults are incentivised to masquerade as children, giving themselves a higher chance of being accepted. The state, in contrast, has no way to challenge these people. The prerequisite of consent essentially gives the age-disputed person control over whether they are found to be lying. The consequences have been dire. Take Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, a proclaimed 14-year-old Afghan who, unbeknown to the state, had shot and killed two men in Serbia on his way to claim asylum in Britain. He was placed in a secondary school and was moved to another school after being found with a knife, there injuring a pupil. Then, two years after arriving in the country, he fatally murdered aspiring marine Tom Roberts in a knife attack. Abdulrahimzai was actually 19 when he entered the country. I understand that this is an extreme case, but it highlights the importance we must give to verifying the identity of those who illegally enter the country. If someone is willing to lie at the very first hurdle, who is to say we can trust them in society afterwards?

Verifying the person’s age is the first step to solving this. It prevents adults being placed in schools among children and highlights potentially illegitimate claims from those attempting to game our generosity. Amendments 63 and 64 achieve this balance. Those claiming asylum would still be given the opportunity to state their age and would not automatically be required to take an age assessment. However, the discretion would ultimately lie with the relevant authorities. If the age of a person is doubted, powers would exist to scientifically test their age without being obstructed by consent claims. This is the bare minimum we should expect from a system that is being perpetually defrauded. Removing the requirement for consent takes the process out of the hands of the asylum seeker, encourages honesty and trust, and disincentivises fraud. That is what an asylum system should aim for.

I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister has to say about this. In the meantime, I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to support my noble friend Lord Davies. I will also acquaint your Lordships with the information the Government set out in July when the Minister for Border Security and Asylum said what the Government were doing on some of the technology. We discussed in a previous group the potential for artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology to make a big change in this area, and I argued that we should leave open that opportunity. The Minister in a Statement earlier this year confirmed that testing was under way, and said that,

“subject to the results of further testing and assurance … Facial Age Estimation could be fully integrated into the current age assessment system over the course of 2026”.

I do not think the Government’s current position on setting out regulations is that far away from my noble friend’s.

There is a potentially big advantage of this technology, in that previously available scientific tests were not particularly accurate and were medical or invasive in nature, involving MRI scans or X-rays, for example. There are some legitimate reasons why you would not want somebody to be forced to undergo that sort of procedure, and their refusal to undertake such might not be held to be unreasonable. With artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology, there seems to be a very weak case, if any, for refusing to undergo such a test. Subject to the testing being in order, I hope that, if the Government bring it in, they will not give people the opportunity to refuse to undergo it; I see no legitimate case for that. If testing gives Ministers accurate information about somebody’s age, I hope that they will make it mandatory and that if someone refuses to take the test, the presumption of their being a child can be overturned and they will suffer a consequence for not using that technology. So I hope the Minister can update us on how that testing is going and on whether the timeframe the Borders Minister set out earlier this year, hoping that this technology could be rolled out next year, is still on track.

I very strongly support my noble friend’s two amendments.

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I feel as if we have been around this one a fair number of times. I am very much looking forward to the Minister saying what he can about AI facial recognition technology, but I want to remind everybody that the Home Office’s own Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee has made it very clear that no method, biological or social worker-led, can determine age with precision. We really need to be very clear about that. Biological evidence can test only whether a claimed age is possible; it cannot set a hard line under or over 18. It is important that we recognise that. AI technology may be able to bring us something, and I know the Minister has said that he is going to tell us more about it. Meanwhile, I think we should resist these amendments very hard.

The reason for that is that the sort of scientific methods, such as X-ray and MRI, that were proposed before—and were on some occasions in use—are unethical. Doctors, nurses and all health professionals will say that using X-ray, in particular, or any kind of radiation for a purpose that is not for the benefit of the individual concerned is unethical. I think many noble Lords know that I have spent much of my working life in and around health services, so I have met a lot of doctors in my time. I have not yet met a single doctor who believes that using either radiation, as X-rays, or MRI for the purpose of age determination is an ethical thing to do.

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[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendments in this group and will briefly speak to mine, which would strengthen the amendments laid by my noble friends on the Front Bench. They have the objective of restoring public confidence in our asylum system. Amendment 65A would ensure that no modern slavery claim could be made by those who arrive under the conditions set out in Amendment 65 and that we eliminate loopholes where we know or suspect that a strong risk exists of bogus asylum claims. Amendment 77A would make it clear that the proposed third-country removal centre would also process any modern slavery claims for those who could not be returned to their home country, for whatever reason.

As a package, in addition to my amendments that I discussed earlier in these debates—I will not repeat myself—this would ensure that the public have confidence that we are supporting genuine victims of modern slavery, not those who seek to use our generous provisions to prey on vulnerable people or those who, for their own evil reasons, decide to exploit our asylum laws to get a fast track into the country under the guise of being modern slaves and then go on to lodge bogus asylum claims. The public are rapidly losing trust in the state to protect our borders and we need to take determined, radical action. I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendments put down by my noble friend Lord Davies. I will focus in particular on proposed new subsection (2)(b) in his Amendment 65, which would make it clear that, if someone does not come directly to the UK from a country in which they were threatened, they are not covered by the refugee convention. I strongly support that and we have debated it earlier on this Bill.

It may or may not surprise your Lordships to know that it is also the view of the Government. In a letter that the noble Lord, Lord Katz, sent to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, following our debate in Committee on Monday 13 October, in response to suggestions she made in her amendments, he said that the refugee convention

“is quite clear about the need for migrants to ‘come directly’ to benefit from the protections it affords them. In reality, not a single small boat that has reached the UK has set out from a dangerous country where migrants could not be reasonably expected to claim asylum. France, Belgium and the Netherlands are all signatory to the Convention and are entirely safe countries with functioning asylum systems of which migrants are able to avail themselves”.

I could not agree more with the Minister in that interpretation of the refugee convention, which is effectively what my noble friend has set out in his amendment. Given that the Government’s view is that Article 31 of the refugee convention should be interpreted narrowly in that sense, I hope the Minister will support my noble friend’s amendments and, even if he feels that something in their drafting is not absolutely spot on, he will none the less come forward at Third Reading with an amendment that would correct the drafting and put into statute the sentiments set out in that letter, with which I entirely agree.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, it is all very well saying that people who have come from a safe third country are not entitled to asylum here. That is the law; there is no doubt about that. The difficulty is in removing such people. These amendments provide no assistance in relation to that. People who have come here from France and Belgium, which are of course safe countries, cannot be removed to those countries—those countries will not have them back, other than under the scheme that the Government have agreed with France. So they cannot be removed there.

They are also not to be given asylum under these amendments, so are they to be removed to their own country? Are we really going to remove people who have arrived here unlawfully to countries where they face persecution? That seems intolerable to me. The problem is not saying that these people are not entitled to asylum; the problem is removing them from this country and these amendments make no contribution to that.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 71A is an amendment to Amendment 71 in the names of my noble friends on the Front Bench. It should be seen in the context of my comments about modern slavery in the debate on Monday. This modern slavery system now supports more foreign citizens than it does British citizens—something that the public, I am sure, are not aware of and would rightly be concerned about if they did. Modern slavery victim support is a multi-million pound cost to the public purse, as well as having an untold cost in human misery. In fact, between 2016 and 2023, the Home Office spent over £40 million through the modern slavery fund to combat modern slavery overseas and reduce the threat of human trafficking to the UK, including from Albania and Vietnam. British taxpayers are funding these projects, but they evidently have not worked, so it is time for a different policy.

The top nationalities referred to the NRM now relate to Albania, Vietnam, Eritrea, Sudan, India, Iran, Romania, Nigeria and Ethiopia. But those who have been a victim of crime in this country commonly feel that their support by the British state is inadequate, and I am sure the general public would agree that our own citizens should come first, before we distribute generous welfare to people from those countries that I have just mentioned. Therefore, my amendment adds an additional visa penalty to those that are set out in my noble friends’ amendment and would ensure that those countries which do not do enough to tackle upstream causes of modern slavery, and therefore export their victims to our shores, feel the pain of not having done enough by having their visa access restricted. It is simple: if we are providing the carrot of visa access, we should ensure that we have a good, strong stick.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Jackson’s Amendment 35 and to pose a few questions to the Minister. I will not repeat what my noble friend said; he set out the case very compellingly.

I note from a Written Answer that the Minister said:

“The information requested is not available from published statistics”.


I am sure that is true; the Minister will have given a truthful answer. However, what information does the department collect that it does not publish?

When I was Immigration Minister between 2012 and 2014, we were very clear about the importance of overseas students. We wanted them to come here, but we also wanted to make sure there was no abuse. The department at that point collected a lot of information about the risks involved in students coming here from a variety of countries, including, for example, the risk that they would overstay their student visa. We used that risk information to focus our checks when those students were applying for visas. I presume that work still exists. Has the department done any work on collecting information on the behaviour of overseas students in the United Kingdom—for example, criminality or other offences—that it does not put in existing published statistics? If it does collect that information, can it make it available? If that information is used by the department in decision-making and assessing risk, it is presumably good enough—even if it is not perfect and does not meet the criteria for published statistics—to be shared with Members of your Lordships’ House.

Those are detailed questions. If the Minister is not able to, or does not, answer them today, I am sure that either myself or my noble friend Lord Jackson, in his typically assiduous way, will table some Written Questions to follow them up. With that, I strongly support his amendment.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s Amendment 35. We really need the data to understand the problem and how efficacious our measures to control it are. My noble friend asked a number of different questions in a number of different ways, and he has not been given the information the House requires. We need to understand why that is. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, is not in his place, because I was about to pay him a compliment. I managed to extract a truly startling statistic from him when I asked what proportion of people in these circumstances—those who have arrived through what is now termed irregular routes—are removed from the country against their will. The answer was 4%, so there is a 96% chance of success in remaining.

In order to understand the reasons why people typically want to come to the UK, one needs to understand the strength of the regime that deals with those applications, and the chances of staying versus being deported or removed from the country through one means or another. Unless the Government can really come forward and answer my noble friend’s question, or agree to his amendment, it is very difficult to take seriously the actions the Government are taking. We know that the Government do not know who is in the country at any one time; our systems do not record exits from the country as they do people coming in. It will probably lead us to a much wider discussion about how we can get the data and know who is here and who has overstayed the terms of their visa. It is entirely reasonable for my noble friend to ask those questions, and it is the Government’s duty to respond in detail.

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[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I am sure the noble Lords opposite will also recall that we discussed these amendments in Committee at midnight. This debate is rather better attended and has rather more contributors than that one—but we were not turned into pumpkins anyway. Let me see how I go. I heard from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, the long list of his previous attempts, so let me have a try.

Starting with Amendment 35 from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, at the outset I should say, as many noble Lords have acknowledged—including the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley—a vital economic and academic contribution is made by international students to this country. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, nodding too. I take very seriously the challenge from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, that we should not taint everyone with guilt by association. That is absolutely central to the argument we want to make.

As your Lordships know, the Immigration Rules already provide for the cancellation of entry clearance and permission to enter or stay where a person has been convicted of a criminal offence in the UK or overseas. Where a student’s permission is cancelled, as a person without leave to enter or remain, they are liable to removal from the UK. Foreign nationals who commit a crime should be in no doubt that the law will be enforced, and where appropriate we will pursue their deportation. I think I said in Committee that I know from my previous life, as the lead non-executive director of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, what an important priority that is.

On the specifics of the amendment about publishing data, as was set out in Committee, the Home Office already publishes a vast amount of data on migration statistics, including information on visas, returns and detentions. I hope your Lordships do not think this frivolous, but if rather more attention were paid to the data that the Home Office publishes already, we might have a better-informed debate about some of these issues than we do.

I want to respond both to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, and the follow-up from the noble Lord, Lord Harper. We do publish stats on the number of asylum claims from people who initially came to the UK on a visa, by the type of visa on which they entered, in our quarterly immigration system statistics. In relation to the question from the noble Lord, Lord German, we also publish asylum data on routes and nationalities separately. Before the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, takes his decision about whether to divide the House, it is important that we are at least clear about what is currently published. I hope it is some reassurance to the noble Lord that this Government recognise that there has been heightened interest from parliamentarians, the media and the public in learning more about the number and types of criminal offences committed by foreign nationals in the UK, and about what happens to foreign national offenders after they have been convicted and completed their sentences. We discussed it only the other day.

The Home Office is assessing what more can be done to improve the processes for collating and verifying relevant data on the topic of foreign national offenders and their offences, and to establish a more regular means of placing that data into the public domain alongside other Home Office statistics. I entirely accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, that without proper information on this and a number of other matters, it is very difficult to have an informed public debate. The Home Office does propose to publish more detailed statistical reporting on foreign national offenders subject to deportation and those returned to countries outside the UK. I think I have gone a little further than I did in Committee, and I can give the noble Lord that assurance.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Can I just press the Minister on my specific question, which was not just about the published data but about the information that the department collects to make decisions about the risks from people applying for student visas? Does it collect any information at all about the propensity of people from different nationalities to commit crimes and use that in its risk-based approach when making decisions about student visas?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harper, for reminding me about that specific point. As a former Immigration Minister, he is much more familiar with the data than I am, or at least what it was when he was there. I take very seriously the general point about data for risk assessment, and I understand what the noble Lord is driving at. I cannot give him that information today, but I will be very happy to write to him. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, might raise a wry smile at yet another letter from a Home Office Minister, but on the specific question about risk assessment and data that is collected for it—which is different from the specifics of some of the data that I have already discussed—I will be very happy to write to the noble Lord.

Amendment 35C from the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, seeks to widen the scope of existing inadmissibility powers so that any claim made by a holder of a student visa lodged more than two days after they arrive in the UK must be declared inadmissible, unless there is evidence that political circumstances have changed in the person’s home country such as to endanger their life or liberty. I acknowledge that the noble Baroness has recognised some of the questions that were raised, not just on our side but from her own Front Bench, in the way that the amendment is now presented to the House, and that there has been a change there. But I am afraid that the other objections I raised in Committee, which the noble Baroness set out, still remain. Let me try to explain a bit better.

The likely consequence of the amendment—I think the noble Lord, Lord German, referred to this—would still be to refuse to admit claims to the UK’s asylum system, but without an obvious way in which to return those individuals who make them without potentially contravening the key principle of non-refoulement in the refugee convention. The noble Lord, Lord German, referred to that. This would still, I am afraid, leave any affected individuals in a state of limbo with no certainty, and—this is the point that makes for the difficulty—we would have no certainty as to whether they qualified for refugee status. It is not just a question of where they would be returned to and whether that would be safe; it is about whether they would be able to claim refugee status at all. The Government’s view is that sorting that out would potentially prove extremely cost ineffective, so I am afraid the view of the Government is that it just would not work in practice.