Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 57, in my name and those of other noble Lords, to whom I am grateful for their support. I am also grateful to the Refugee Migrant Children’s Consortium for all its help and to my noble friend Lady Longfield, who cannot be in her place but who has written to my noble friend the Minister in support of the amendment, drawing on her experience as a former Children’s Commissioner for England. I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for finding the time the other week to discuss some of this with some of us. I should make clear my support for Amendment 27 and everything that has been said so far.

This amendment is focused on the age of assessment of children at the border. It would create safeguards for asylum-seeking children whose age is in dispute and would set limits on the use of scientific or technological age-estimation methods, which I believe the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger and Lady Hamwee, will cover. It would also provide for an annual report to Parliament.

To recap the case very briefly, as we have heard, the Home Office continues to assess incorrectly as adults a significant number of asylum-seeking children arriving in the UK based on a quick visual assessment of their appearance and demeanour. This has serious consequences—some have already been outlined—which include significant safeguarding risks when children are placed in accommodation with adults without appropriate safeguards, including the oversight of child protection professionals.

Concern has been expressed about this by the Children’s Commissioner, Ofsted, the British Association of Social Workers and, just last week, the Home Affairs Select Committee, which called it a “serious safeguarding issue”. Yet the Home Office appears to be more concerned about the potential risk of an adult masquerading as a child being housed with children even though child protection professionals will be present in those circumstances.

The Select Committee made it clear that it did not share the Home Office director-general of customer services’ confidence in the current system. In his recent inspection report, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration highlighted that over a decade of concerns around the Home Office’s “perfunctory” visual age assessments remain unaddressed, and that questions about policy and practice “remain unanswered”. He noted that

“inspectors were surprised at the lack of curiosity from individual officers and corporately about decisions that were subsequently disputed and overturned, and at the view that there was no learning to take from the later assessments”

made by local authority social workers, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, referred. I welcome the fact that the Government have accepted all the chief inspector’s recommendations and that they are working to improve the data, which have been woefully poor hitherto.

I simply draw attention now to what the chief inspector described as his “overall message”, namely that the Home Office

“should look to work more closely and collaboratively with external stakeholders”,

among which he included NGOs,

“as much as possible in designing and delivering its processes”.

Thus, his first recommendation was that the Home Office should:

“Produce a stakeholder map and engagement plan that takes full account of the practical and presentational value of involving external stakeholders”,


including non-governmental organisations,

“in the development and delivery of relevant policies and best practice, including but not limited to input into and implementation of each of”

each of his other recommendations.

How does my noble friend plan to respond in practice to this recommendation? Will he agree to the establishment of a task and finish group that includes NGOs, notably members of the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, to work with officials on taking forward the chief inspector’s recommendations? I understand that such collaboration has existed in the past but was ended about 10 years ago, so it would not be setting a precedent. I know it would be warmly welcomed by stakeholders, especially if provision were made to hear from those with direct experience of age disputes. The proposal was also supported by my noble friend Lady Longfield in her letter to the Minister.

I have made it clear to my noble friend the Minister that I do not plan to push the amendment to a vote. However, I will be very disappointed if he is not able to agree to this very modest proposal, which does no more than embody the spirit of what the chief inspector has recommended.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will not speak for very long on this, I hope. I also hope that the Minister does not feel that this is becoming a pattern—I am largely on the same side as him on this issue—and that I can bring a little bit of balance to the debate. Both noble Baronesses have mentioned the chief inspector. I looked carefully at his very balanced report. There are points on both sides. It is worth putting some of them on the record that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, did not.

The chief inspector made the point that accurately assessing the age of young people is undoubtedly difficult. It has always been very difficult. It was difficult when I was the Immigration Minister between 2012 and 2014. The same debates that take place now took place then. It remains difficult. One of the reasons it is difficult is because there is an incentive in the system because, rightly, we treat children differently from and more generously than we treat adults. If you are not careful, adults game the system and say that they are children when they are not. That is a problem: first, because you are putting adults in an environment with children, which does present a child protection risk; and, secondly, it enables adults who have entered the country illegally and inappropriately to try to avoid the consequences of their actions. That brings the system into disrepute, which is not good for anyone.

The inspector makes the point that the Home Office gets some of its initial age decisions wrong and that it would be helpful if both sides accepted that. That is a point for the Minister to recognise: it is difficult and the Home Office does not always get it right. Importantly, he also said that the debate would be better if the Home Office and its critics could agree that some migrants lie about their age and that not to attempt to make some form of initial age assessment—which both noble Baronesses have criticised—risks incentivising more to do so. There is a balance to strike here.

I am pleased that these two amendments will not be pressed to a vote because I would not be able to support them. Amendment 27 seeks to put a bright-line rule in place which will strengthen the incentive for anybody to claim that they are a child because it would mean that they went automatically into the process and were treated as a child until it had been shown that they were not a child. That would make the Home Office’s job, on behalf of us all, to have a functioning immigration system even more difficult.

My concern about Amendment 57, given today’s fourth Oral Question and the pace of technology, is that subsection (3) of the proposed new clause does not specify how we should use technological methods of age estimation, including facial age estimation, saying that they must not

“be used as the sole or primary basis for determining age, or … override the presumption”

that someone is a child.

My problem is that the pace of that technology is such that I do not think we should be ruling out its use as the determining fact in statute. My understanding—I am sure there are AI experts in the House who can correct me if I am wrong—is that this technology can get somebody’s age within a few years of the true age. I accept that that is quite important when a person is on the boundary between being a child or an adult, but the point is that that is pretty accurate and who knows where that technology will have gone in a few years? If we had a very accurate method, perhaps with other things, of determining somebody’s age, I would not want there to be something in primary legislation which ruled that out, given all the complexities around that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly set out why I do not think this is a particularly helpful amendment, which I am sure the noble Baroness is not entirely surprised to hear. Despite what she said, I am not sure the amendment is entirely intended to be helpful.

This is an area in which there is a balance to strike. The noble Baroness is quite right that the Illegal Migration Act shifted the balance—a little—in favour of the Home Secretary; the balance had drifted too far in the other direction. I strongly support the need for some limits and constraint on the ability of the Home Secretary to use detention powers, but if you are not careful, those who try to frustrate the system inappropriately—people who have no right to be here—will use the rules to frustrate an attempt legitimately to remove them from the country.

I saw many cases of people who had no right to be in the United Kingdom, and who had failed on a number of occasions to stay here through the legal processes, using this as another tool. If you have strict, bright-line rules, the danger is that people game and frustrate the system. The Home Secretary does not want to detain more people than is absolutely necessary; there is a very significant cost in doing so. As she well knows, the Home Office does not have an unlimited budget, but it is necessary to have these powers.

Certainly, the powers that were in place before the provision the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is trying to repeal needed strengthening. As I said, this moves things in the direction of the Home Secretary, but as with all the Home Secretary’s powers, she has to exercise them in a reasonable and lawful manner, and all the decisions she takes are challengeable by judicial review.

The Illegal Migration Act still refers to whether the detention is “reasonably necessary”. It still has that test, so the Home Secretary has to exercise that judgment. If somebody feels that the Home Secretary has got that judgment wrong, it is still open to them to challenge it. However, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that the balance has shifted in favour of the Home Secretary.

I come back to what I said in the earlier group: there is a balance to strike here. Much of the debate so far is coming from one particular angle. I do not criticise the noble Baroness for doing it, but the other side of the argument needs to be put, so the House can hear a more balanced argument. We need a firm system which allows people to come to and stay in the United Kingdom if they are following our rules or have a legitimate asylum claim; equally importantly, where they do not, they should not be able to use rules and regulations that are there to protect people, in order to frustrate the legitimate exercise of that power.

To all those who want an asylum system, or one that allows people to come here legitimately, I urge them to be careful what they wish for, because we are getting to the point where the public are losing patience. Ministers are ultimately accountable both to the House of Commons and to the House of Lords, but if the public do not feel that Ministers are accountable, or if they feel that they do not have the powers to deliver a system the public want to see, public belief and confidence in the system will disappear, and that would be very dangerous. Those who want a more liberal system would rue the day that that happened.

Therefore, having that balance is necessary. The changes made in the Illegal Migration Act to the powers on detention moved in the right direction. The fact that the Government, despite doing a pretty wholesale removal of the powers in that Act, have not removed this one suggests that Ministers think that shift in the balance was sensible. I therefore hope that it remains in place. Regretfully, if the noble Baroness presses her amendment to a vote, I will not be able to support it. I hope she understands why, and I suspect it will not be a surprise to her to learn that I am unable to support it.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, we should of course be aware of public feeling, but we should also not inflame it. We need to be careful with that. The noble Baroness’s Amendment 32 seeks to leave out Clause 41(17), which states that the amendments made by most of the subsections in that clause

“are to be treated as always having had effect”.

We should be very wary of the retrospectivity contained in them. The Constitution Committee, of which I am a member, is about to finalise, I hope, a report on the rule of law, and we point to retrospectivity, or retroactivity—I am never sure whether there is a difference—as threatening the rule of law, along with legal certainty and so on. I am therefore glad that the noble Baroness tabled this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, would the noble and learned Baroness agree that it could also be described as extreme that, as per Amendment 72, a deportation order would not be subject to appeal under the two Acts cited, or any other enactment, and that:

“A deportation order made under this section is final and not liable to be set aside in any court”?

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I support both these amendments. It is sensible that we set a presumption that those who are here effectively as our guests have to follow the rules. Insisting that they be deported if they commit crimes strikes me as very sensible. Putting it in statute is important. We have done this before in the past, when we were having problems with courts interpreting very broadly some of the human rights legislation around people’s right to a family life. We made some clear rules and put them in primary legislation in the Immigration Act 2014, and that largely—not entirely—dealt with those problems. There was a rule in there that if you were given a prison sentence of a certain length, you had to be deported. This is a logical extension of that. It would strengthen the Government’s hand in a number of the cases that my noble friends Lord Jackson and Lord Cameron set out, where Ministers sound as frustrated as the rest of us that they are not able to deport people, or, if they are, only after a very lengthy legal process.

To pick up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about challenging the deportation, my noble friend’s amendment is drafted as such because the person concerned would have had the opportunity under the criminal law to challenge his sentence if there was some issue with the legal case, but, having been convicted of the criminal offence concerned, it should follow that they are then deported. You should not get a second bite of the cherry to have, in effect, another appeal when you have already had the chance to appeal against the sentence in the first place.

The other benefit of these amendments is that, although initially they would indeed be challenging for the Government for the reasons that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, set out, including around where you can send people back to, the proposal would force the Government to do two things. First, it would force them to engage with some of the countries where returning people is more challenging. You can do that by sending people back before they finish serving their sentence—you have a prisoner transfer agreement, where they can go back to their home country and continue serving the sentence in that country, before their release from prison. That is the preferable outcome, where they still have a measure of justice.

The second thing the proposal would do is force the Government to confront the cases that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, set out. I accept that they are challenging, but it cannot be right that, because somebody is from a certain country, they can come to the United Kingdom, commit any level of criminality and, once they have finished their prison sentence, we cannot get rid of them.

We should force the Government to confront two tests. The first is to ask whether someone who comes from a country that we do not deem safe should forfeit the right to not be sent back to it by their conduct.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I will address the second test after I have given way to the noble and learned Baroness.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

What about careless driving? The noble Lord is dealing with people who have been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, but the wording of this amendment would include careless driving.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I suggest that careless driving is not a trivial offence. When I was Immigration Minister, I dealt with a father who had lost his child because of someone’s poor driving. We were struggling to remove that person from the country for a similar reason to that which the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, set out: they were an EU national, and there was a stricter test about whether you could remove them. I have to say that that father who had lost his child thought that that driving offence was really serious, so I would not trivialise it at all.

The second test is that, if we cannot deport someone to the country from which they came, we should look at whether there is an opportunity, as we set out in our Rwanda policies, to deport them to another safe country. It is very clear that the British people do not want serious criminals who have come to this country staying here. We can have a debate about the detail of this, but the principle is very clear. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will address the principle of whether he thinks that people in the circumstances set out by my two noble friends should be able to stay here.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I want to follow the argument that the noble and learned Baroness tried to raise. Looking at the wording, I am afraid that the process would still be very long. The proposed new clause in Amendment 34 states:

“Where a person to whom this subsection applies is convicted of an offence, the court must sentence the person to deportation from the United Kingdom”.


Let us say that this person has committed grievous bodily harm and has been tried, and the jury say that he is guilty and so he is found guilty of the crime that is committed. The noble Lord is saying that, immediately, that same court must sentence this person to deportation. But the person who has been convicted in this country has a right of appeal. They may challenge the way the jury was selected, the way everything happened and the sentence itself, saying that being sent back to the very dangerous place that they left is condemning them to death. Should the process of appeal still happen, what the noble Lord is saying would not happen immediately.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

That was quite a lengthy intervention, with a number of points. The case raised by the noble and right reverend Lord about a country that we would normally deem not safe is a perfectly reasonable one. But, as I said, my challenge back is this. Is there any offence that people who come from certain countries to which we would not normally return them can commit that is of a level of seriousness that we think should make them immune to being sent back to that country? I believe that there are certain offences that people commit for which it is reasonable that they forfeit the right to stay in the United Kingdom. That is a perfectly reasonable case.

It may be that the wording in these amendments is not entirely perfect, but the argument that we are having is whether, if you come to this country and you commit a serious sexual offence, for example—as in my noble friend’s example—or you murder or rape somebody, you should be able to stay here for ever because the country from which you came is not ideal and we would not normally send you back to it. That is a debate worth having. I think the general public would take a much more robust position in those cases than many Members of your Lordships’ House would feel comfortable with.

Finally, I challenge the Minister, as my noble friend Lord Jackson did, having got in before me, to respond to the points in the debate we had earlier about what the Government will do to bring forward amendments or changes to how they interpret human rights legislation to give them a better chance—I am assuming the Government will not accept these amendments—of removing people who we know the Government would like to get rid of. In the case that my noble friend Lord Jackson set out, it sounded to me as though Ministers were very frustrated—as frustrated as he is. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think I could be accused of being extreme on these issues, and therefore I want to apply a very serious matter here. This is an issue that most disturbs people in Britain. There are those of us who are determined to protect a multiracial society, who strongly believe in people living with each other and who are proud to have their grandchildren educated with a wide range of different backgrounds in schools that care about that. We are very concerned when we do not deport people who have been guilty of offences, because it is felt by the majority of people in Britain not to be sensible to keep in this country people who have committed offences.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 28th October 2025 Lords Chamber

That is a key point. We want to know not only what has happened in the past year but what lessons have been learned and how to improve activities in the future. We cannot wave a magic wand and get back the days when, for 10 years, we had a British director of Europol—those were the good days—but we can at least do better than make the best of a bad job and try to make this a priority. By imposing a requirement on the Government to report, I hope that would provide an incentive to pursue a more structured and formalised relationship with Europe in order to catch more organised criminals.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will start my remarks on this group where the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, finished, since that seems the most convenient way to do it. I will not rehearse my arguments on Amendment 26 at length because I spoke to it in Committee.

On co-operation with Europol, which is very important, I shall make two points. First, the Government’s motivation to co-operate with Europol is because they want to deal with the problem, and I do not believe that the necessity to produce a report will change that dynamic. If the Government did not want to co-operate with Europol because they did not think it was important, I do not believe that having to prepare a report would change their mind either. I do not think it will achieve very much.

Secondly, as I said in Committee, the danger is that this then skews attention towards Europol. We know that border security is not just a European problem. Obviously, the small boats issue—the visible bit of it—is a European problem, because that is where the boats are coming from, but the people in them are not all starting off from France. This is a global problem, and these organised crime groups are global in nature. If we start putting legislation in place that forces the department to start overly focusing on one area to do bureaucratic tasks, we will skew its resources. I want the Home Office and the Government to choose which agencies they partner with, and the work they do, based not on the need to produce bureaucratic documents but on the security threat to our border. That is best left to the judgment of Ministers and those in post, so I respectfully suggest that this is not a wise amendment.

I turn to Amendments 1 and 2 tabled my noble friend Lord Davies. Unfortunately, I was not in the Committee stage debate when the Minister put this forward, so I had a look at the arguments. I confess that I am not entirely clear how designating a civil servant—or, indeed, anyone with this title—makes a meaningful difference, other than perhaps presentationally, to our ability to secure the border.

I pick up the point that my noble friend made about the pace at which the Government are giving this individual powers. Having looked at the Bill again, it is noticeable that this person does not have the ability to co-ordinate. The ability to co-ordinate or direct members of the Armed Forces is excluded—that power effectively remains with Ministers. In addition, the intelligence agencies of our country are not counted as partner authorities for the purposes of the Border Security Commander either, so those responsibilities effectively remain with the Home Secretary and other Ministers.

In terms of the role, and this is why who gets the role matters, effectively strategic priorities for government departments are set not by officials—well, they should not be set by officials—but by Ministers. I understand in one way why the Government are making sure that this person is a civil servant, because they are therefore clearly being directed by Ministers, which is right. However, if they are a civil servant being directed by Ministers, giving them a fancy title is basically just window dressing; it does not have any meaningful effect. My noble friend is therefore right to argue that this does not really have a meaningful role.

If we take the Government at their word, from the way it is presented as the starting point of this Bill—in that they want this individual to have a powerful role where they can make a meaningful difference—then Amendment 2 asks some good questions about whether the type of person we want doing this role and their previous experience should be in the nature of law enforcement or military command in some way. It may be that, over time, the Government can build this role —as well as the board that the Border Security Commander would chair and the structure they will put around them—into a meaningful law enforcement and crime fighting capability.

That seems to be the Government’s ambition, in which case Amendment 2 has quite a lot of merit, but making the person a civil servant does not achieve that. Just for the avoidance of doubt, this is not in any way to denigrate civil servants; when I was in the Home Office, I was always very impressed by them. It is just making the point that in our democratic system, setting strategic priorities and co-ordinating between different agencies, some that are responsible to the Home Office and some that are not, is really a job for Ministers. In the end, the responsibility for securing the country’s border is the Home Secretary’s responsibility. You can appoint somebody with whatever title you like and whatever background you like, but, in the end, that is the fact. The strategic priorities for the department are set by the Home Secretary, and everything else flows from that.

It seems to me that the Border Security Commander as set out in the Bill is really neither one thing nor the other. Either the Border Security Commander is effectively the Home Secretary and sets clear priorities, setting a very clear direction in the department and delivering on what we are led to believe is the Government’s or the Home Secretary’s number one priority, or that is not the case, and you try to create a meaningful role that people understand has that important focus in the same way that people can see that the heads of the Armed Forces or Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police have a very important leadership role—but in which case that person probably should not be a civil servant and should come with a different type of command experience. So it seems to me that the role set out in the Bill is neither one thing or the other.

My noble friend’s amendments test that point, and I would certainly like to hear from the Minister about which direction this role is going to go in. Is it effectively just going to be working for the Home Secretary, which is perfectly fine, in which case a lot of this is just window dressing, or is it really intended to make it a meaningful, authoritative, powerful role in Whitehall, in which case the person’s qualities need to be somewhat different than is set out by making them a career civil servant?

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not quite sure where the noble Lord, Lord Harper, is ending up in his consideration of Amendments 1 and 2. On any view, the crisis has got worse and worse with regard to the arrival of masses more immigrants coming across in small boats and the inability to identify and arrest these criminal people-smugglers. I am afraid I cannot give examples because I have not had time to think about it, but I do recognise one example: the modern slavery commissioner is completely free from the Civil Service, as indeed was her predecessor. This suggestion advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, seems sensible, and therefore I want to hear what my noble friend the Minister has to say about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lords who have tabled these amendments to allow us to have this discussion again on the Border Security Commander. Let me lay to rest one allegation straight away. This is not a gimmick. This is a serious piece of government policy to put in place a co-ordinating Border Security Command designed to co-ordinate activity across the board, including relations with our security services.

In answer to the noble Lords, Lord Davies, Lord Harper and Lord Swire, and my noble friend Lord Hacking, to date it has secured £150 million of funding; has improved the number of Border Security Command officers to 227; has brought together world leaders from over 40 countries to mobilise the international fight on immigration crime; has disrupted criminal networks; has improved intelligence and strategic coherence; has led an international effort on an anti-smuggling action plan; has signed a proposal with Germany and the Calais Group in France; has launched a new sanctions regime focused on organised crime; and has supported the development of the plans that are being put into the Bill for the Home Secretary.

To answer the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, on the functions of the commander, Clause 3(4)(b) states that the commander must

“obtain the consent of the Secretary of State to issue the document”.

There is obviously some discussion with the Secretary of State. Ministers set their priority. If the Secretary of State does not agree with the proposed plans, potentially that consent will be a matter of discussion and arrangement. The key point is that there is an official appointed by the UK Government to co-ordinate those important Border Force control issues on border security, to tackle organised immigration crime and to end the facilitation of dangerous small boat crossings.

Yes, it is a difficult task. As the noble Lord, Lord German, has said, it has been inherited from the previous Government. The noble Lord, Lord Swire, asked why we did not employ people to tackle the backlog. Well, let me inform him that we are: we have put about 1,000 extra staff into doing what he has suggested the House does today. The allegation that I want to nail down is that this is a gimmick. It is not a gimmick. It is a serious piece of work that requires an important role in government to secure that work.

Amendments 1 and 2 relate to the Border Security Commander and seek to remove the requirement that the Border Security Commander is a civil servant. With due respect to noble Lords, there is a slight misunderstanding. The noble Lord, Lord Swire, argued that we should potentially be drawing on somebody from a wider background. The current Border Security Commander was a senior police officer in the Metropolitan Police and, if this Bill is passed, he will be a member of the Civil Service. The Bill does not require that the post of Border Security Commander be reserved for existing civil servants. Indeed, the current officeholder was recruited externally.

Ultimately, given that the role sits within the Home Office and given that the commander leads a directorate in the department, the commander is a civil servant by that position: it does not mean that they have to be a civil servant by recruitment. There is no requirement that any future recruitment exercise would not seek to identify the most suitable candidate, irrespective of background. Therefore, the amendment is unnecessary.

Amendment 2 seeks to specify the prior experience required to be eligible to be appointed as Border Security Commander. It is important that we have the best talent. There are no limitations on that talent. In the event of a vacancy arising—at the moment, there is no vacancy—the Government have been clear that the Border Security Commander is responsible for requiring step change in the UK’s approach to border security, providing a long-term vision, bringing together those individuals, providing leadership and maintaining the integrity of our border and immigration systems, domestically and internationally. That role is reflected in the Bill. The Bill puts the commander on a statutory footing and gives that legal back-up. It has been crafted to ensure that we have the best possible candidate for the role.

The noble Lord, Lord Swire—

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I have a very short question. I have listened very carefully and the Minister has been very clear about the nature of the role. What powers will the Border Security Commander have when this Bill becomes law that they do not already have by virtue of being a civil servant reporting to the Home Secretary?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Again, I think the noble Lord misunderstands the focus of the Bill. The Bill is giving statutory footing to what is now happening. There is a Border Security Commander in post. That Border Security Commander has the roles that we have outlined here, but this puts the post on a statutory footing.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Can the Minister just set out clearly what difference that makes in the real world to dealing with any of these problems? Otherwise, it is just a piece of window dressing.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Let me just say to the noble Lord that I have been through a list of things that the Border Security Commander is doing now—

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Without legislation.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Without legislation, but the statutory footing is there to put that position on a statutory footing and to put in place the statutory requirements to produce an annual report, to have the consent of the Home Secretary and to have some accountability to this House. The noble Lord can press the Minister as much as he wishes. I have set out the concrete things that this Border Security Commander has done in the 15 or 16 months that we have been in office and since we appointed Martin Hewitt to the post. It is a good record. These things would not have been done without his activity. The French agreement, the German agreement and the work in Iraq have been done because the Home Secretary enabled them. This was done without statutory backing, but it will be stronger with that statutory backing on the issues of the report, et cetera, to allow the Border Security Commander to do those things. I hope the noble Lord welcomes that but, if he does not, he can vote accordingly, as I always say. Vote accordingly and we will see what happens with those issues. But, ultimately, that is what we are trying to achieve.

The noble Lord, Lord Swire, made an important point about Jo Rowland. I place on record my thanks to Jo for the work that she has done. She has left not through the factual issues that the noble Lord, Lord Swire, mentioned, of failure, but through personal choice to pursue another job outside the Civil Service. That happens all the time with individuals. She has chosen to do that. The Home Office thanks her for her contribution during her time as a civil servant. She was not a civil servant before she came to the Home Office: she worked in the private sector. It is a perfectly legitimate thing to do and we should not let it lie that she has left because of any failure in that position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

He is acting under the authority of the Home Secretary. If the noble Lord looks at the Bill, he will see that the statutory functions that it provides set out the terms of appointment and designation, as well as the functions, reporting mechanisms and responsibilities of the commander in relation to things such as the intelligence services—which, just for the record, are themselves employing world-class capabilities. Those capabilities, and the people behind them and their operations, are necessarily secret. However, I can confirm that, where it is appropriate, the agencies will be supporting the Border Security Commander in their work, and that they will be subject to the same authorisations that exist currently within a robust oversight regime. There is a whole range of things going on. The Bill is a focus to put them on a statutory basis. I do not think that the amendments, helpful though they are to tease out this discussion, are necessary for us to achieve our objective.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

The Minister just said something that I do not think is in the Bill. He talked about the security services. In Clause 3(3), on the functions of the commander, the Bill says:

“A partner authority must have regard to the strategic priority document in exercising its functions”.


Later, in Clause 3(6), the Bill specifically says that the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ are “not partner authorities”, so they are not obligated to follow the strategic priorities set out by the Border Security Commander. That is correct, because they should be following the strategic priorities set out by the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary respectively. I am not sure that what he said about their working together is quite right.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

By his own admission, the noble Lord did not attend Committee. It is the pity that he did not, because he could have raised some of these questions then. If he chooses to raise them now, on Report, I will give him the same answer. The Border Security Commander is working closely with the security services, and they have authorisation directly from the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary. Quite evidently, when they—or in this case he—are drawing up a plan to examine what needs to be done to solve the common issue of reducing small boat crossings, bringing criminals to justice and helping to speed up the asylum removals that the noble Lord, Lord Swire, referred to, then they are going to discuss and work with the security services. I am straying into a Committee-type session, which the noble Lord did not attend. I would rather stick to Report, which the noble Lord has attended. I think I have answered the questions that he has put before the House.

Turning to Amendment 26, if we return to the position we were in in 2016—which the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and noble Lord, Lord German, would have wished we maintained—we would still be a member of Europol. On a personal note, when I was a Member of the House of Commons, in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 I argued that we retain the capability of Europol and CIS as part of the EU-UK withdrawal agreement. That did not happen. But it is important that we ensure, post-Brexit agreement, that we have as close co-operation as possible with Europol on information gathering and criminal justice delivery capabilities—which the noble Lord and the noble Baroness mentioned. That is important. As we said in Committee, we have a strong existing relationship with Europol. We have around 20 permanent members of staff who work at the multi-agency liaison bureau at the agency’s headquarters in The Hague. The noble Lord asked whether we should have some Europol people here. We currently do not. That is a matter for discussion. Where we are now may be a matter for regret. I voted to remain, but we are where we are. Europol remains an independent organisation. It is accountable to the members of the European Union, and it produces its report to the European Union.

I say to the noble Baroness, and to the noble Lord who supports her, that the proposed new clause in her amendment would require reporting on all aspects of our co-operation with Europol. Ministers, including me, will regularly update Parliament on international law enforcement co-operation, including with Europol. We publish annual minutes of UK-EU specialised committees that monitor and review our trade agreements, including with Europol.

I am mindful that Europol is not a UK body. It answers to the European Commission and its member states, so bilateral co-operation may sometimes be something that we cannot publicly report on. It is not for us to report on some of the issues with Europol, because that is what Europol does. As the noble Baroness mentioned, once upon a time, in days gone by, we did have a British senior official leading Europol. That has changed; we are in a different world now. I assure her that the focus remains on disrupting organised crime, protecting vulnerable people, securing our borders and working in co-operation with Europol to achieve those objectives. To go back to the role of the Border Security Commander, one of his key roles is to oil the machinery of that operation, and work with colleagues who are directly operationally responsible, to make sure that we engender co-operation at a European level.

I therefore respectfully say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that Amendments 1 and 2 are not necessary, and I ask him not to press them. Amendment 26, from the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, is asking for things that we do not need to do, because we in this House are, in a sense, accountable for that relationship. I cannot report on all matters, but I get the spirit of what she is trying to say. On behalf of the UK Government, I want to have the closest co-operation possible with Europol and the European agencies, because we have a joint interest in tackling the criminal gangs and stopping individuals being exploited in those crossings.

--- Later in debate ---

There is a framework for lawful immigration advice provided by authorised professionals. It is hard enough to practise in this field—or indeed to become a client, because you cannot find anyone to act for you on legal aid terms. Adding a risk for lawyers is surely not the sort of deterrent that the Home Office has in mind, especially when it affects access to justice and therefore the rule of law. I know the Minister will say that the Government are not going to target individuals who act professionally, as he did in Committee. This Government will not, but another Government might, as I am sure he said in the years when he was in opposition. I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to speak briefly to support government Amendments 10 and 11 and pick up a couple of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made. I think we kicked the first point around a bit in Committee so I will not overly repeat my points from then. We said then, and I think it has come out in the debate so far, that the point of this legislation, which I strongly agree with, is very important. The substance of a lot of the Bill is about increasing the deterrent effect of the law, although I may not have agreed with what I continue to think is the rather cosmetic Border Security Commander.

We want the offence here. I want it to be quite broad because I want it to put off people helping to facilitate offences and then pretending that they are not. I think the noble Baroness or somebody else gave a similar example in Committee. I do not want people assisting people to commit immigration offences. In this case, it is helpful for it to be a broad offence. We are trying to deter people from helping people.

My reading of the case that the noble Baroness set out is that an offence would be committed only if the person supplying the article, the phone in this case, had a reasonable suspicion that an immigration offence was going to be committed. If they did, then I want them to be concerned that they would be committing an offence and therefore not supply the device. That is the point of the exercise. If it is not going to do that, there is really no point in passing this legislation. It is supposed to be setting out tough offences that deter people from such activity.

I would make a similar point on Amendment 12, about lawyers. First, I do not know whether the position has changed enormously—I suspect not given some of the other things the Minister has said—but I had not noticed any shortage of people providing immigration advice when I was Immigration Minister. There seemed to be a never-ending supply of people who would assist people to breach our immigration rules and outwit our Home Office lawyers and so forth. There may have been a massive drying up of such people, but, based on the number of cases and the battles that the Home Office undertakes, that is highly unlikely. I do not think there is a shortage of lawyers who provide advice for people in this area.

Secondly, if someone is providing legal advice about what somebody has done and their legal position, then they are not going to be caught by this offence. This offence is about people providing advice that will facilitate immigration crime. It is not the function of a lawyer following the professional standards that lawyers are supposed to operate under to provide legal advice that enables people to commit crimes. If this clause as drafted by Minister’s officials and draftsmen stops a lawyer providing advice about how to commit a crime, I am very pleased, because they should not be doing it.

I do not see any legitimate legal service that a lawyer should professionally be providing that will be caught by this clause. It seems to me that it will catch only people operating on the margins and pushing the envelope about what they are doing and what they are facilitating. It is not the lawyer’s job to help people commit criminal offences. That is absolutely not what lawyers are supposed to be doing, so the clause as drafted in the legislation is fine as it is with its breadth. I know that the noble Baroness said she would not press them, but I would oppose the two amendments from her and think the Bill is better without them.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to defend lawyers. I do not why I should be doing this, but it struck me to do so here, as it did on the previous set of amendments.

In Committee, the Minister assured us that

“the list of reasonable excuses in this clause is non-exhaustive””—[Official Report, 8/7/25; col. 1287.]

and that legitimate activity should not be captured. However, relying on ministerial assurances of the good sense and discretion of the CPS is insufficient when it comes to framing criminal law. That is why it has to be represented in the Bill or by regulation, or some other way, that we are not talking about that here.

I advise the noble Lord, Lord Harper, that it is very difficult to find sufficient lawyers to deal with the case load that is before us, which is affecting the backlog as well, of course. I will not go into the reasons why that has happened, but it is certainly not easy. The actual penalty would be 14 years’ imprisonment, if a lawyer was caught in it, so it is a very serious matter. If we fail to include explicit protection, we risk imposing deterrents on the exercising of proper legal practice in this field of the law. I support my noble friend Lady Hamwee in that objective in her amendments.

I want to speak to government Amendment 11 because while we may have had a different agenda of items, which my noble friend was talking about, at least I think I know what I am talking about here. I know that razor blades on safety razors are particularly dangerous. There are ways in which you can deal with that matter but there is also the alternative of some form of electric device, which can do the job as well, as we know. You might need a wire, but you can also operate them by battery; those ones are much cheaper. I can assure the House that that is my personal experience in this Palace, when you come from a different part of the country from London. However, I would like to know what explanation there will be for how people can shave. The Red Cross has raised that issue and I am sure that the Government have an answer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I do not want to go over points that have already been made and which were made in Committee at greater length. However, I think it notable that work done by lawyers cannot, in the Government’s mind, be explicitly referred to. Perhaps I am particularly influenced by the work the Constitution Committee, of which I am a member, is doing on the rule of law, or maybe not.

The noble Lord, Lord Harper, said that a lawyer should not set out—I am paraphrasing—to support a criminal activity by his client. I do not think things are that black and white. Everyone is entitled to a defence. With items such as the documents and information referred to in Clause 16, the client is entitled to have the reason for having those argued, or to argue whether they fall within Clause 16(1). It is a case of blame the lawyers again—“let’s kill all the lawyers”. It is a point of considerable principle to me that the rule of law should be upheld, and that includes citizens being entitled to be supported by lawyers. However, I beg leave to withdraw—

[Lord Harper (Con)]

The noble Baroness implied that I am being pejorative about lawyers; I am not. If lawyers are doing what they are supposed to do, there is no problem at all. This clause specifically states that the person would be committing an offence only if they were collecting the information or using it in order to prepare for an offence. Somebody doing legitimate legal activity is not committing an offence. I strongly support the rule of law and lawyers doing legal work, just not lawyers who think their job is to facilitate immigration crime. I think the clause is therefore very well drafted.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I remind noble Lords that concluding speeches to press or withdraw an amendment should be brief and should not be subject to intervention. That is a normal courtesy of the House, according to the Companion.

--- Later in debate ---

I invite the House to accept that we live in a world where social media generates crime. This series of amendments is brought specifically in relation to the field of immigration—I admit, late in the day—but it is an important vehicle. I hope the House will support these measures. I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support what the Minister said and this group of amendments. I have a couple of questions, but he set out clearly for your Lordships’ House the scope of the use of online tools by organised crime groups to facilitate these offences.

I think that the Minister touched on the gaps in the law around having to be specific about certain offences. It would be helpful—either when he sums up, or perhaps he could write to us—to give us one piece of data on the interviewing of those who committed offences in scope. It would be useful to know about the existing scale of the use of this type of material, or the extent to which it facilitates immigration crime. I do not know whether it is that easy to set it out, but I am keen to understand, when these offences become law, the potential reduction in the crime committed as a result of it. He may be able to help us now.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As I said in my introductory remarks, from debriefing, around 80% of people say they had an initial contact, inquiry or facilitation via social media. In essence, that means that potentially 80% of initial migrant crossings are generated through contact via social media. As with any crime, it is difficult to say what the target for reducing that would be, but the point is that it is not currently an offence. If this legislation is passed, it will be, and that gives us scope, in co-operation with partners, to go upstream. If those individuals are abroad, as the amendments later in the group suggest, then in countries where we have extradition agreements, and if we can find the individuals, we can bring them to justice.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister. I did listen and—he should not worry—I am not trying to pretend that he thinks that therefore we can reduce offences by 80% overnight. It would just be helpful to have a sense of what impact this might have. I also welcome the extraterritoriality clauses, because he is right that it means that we can use extradition offences, but we can also use some of the other tools that we have at our disposal once we can demonstrate that there are offences.

My specific question picks up Amendment 14. I agree with the Minister that there should be defences, or carve-outs, for internet service providers that are carrying out their lawful activities. I want to probe him specifically on subsection (1)(b)(ii) of the new clause inserted by the amendment, which states:

“An internet service provider does not commit an offence … if the provider does not … select the recipient of the transmission”.


I want to probe this a bit. If the algorithms or techniques used by service providers or social media to push messages at people are set up so they push some of these unlawful messages, is that activity—because they are in effect selecting the recipient of those messages—potentially an offence? By the way, for the avoidance of doubt, if their algorithms are pushing messages that facilitate crime at people, then, arguably, they probably should be falling foul of this, because we want them to then take steps to make sure that their algorithms are not pushing these messages at people. I just wanted to test the extent to which they would be liable.

I have a final comment. The noble Lord is right to distinguish between those creating this material that is facilitating offences, but what liability is there if those providing those internet services are involved in this activity? The offences at the moment include imprisonment, which can be used on people but not on corporate bodies. There are also fines involved in this.

One of the debates we had on what became the Online Safety Act, which the noble Lord mentioned, is that, to get these offences to bite on large global corporations with turnovers and profits of many billions of pounds, there must be quite draconian financial penalties to get them to sit up and take notice. There was a big debate about that when the Government of which I was a Member, and the subsequent Government, were passing the Online Safety Act and the subsequent legislation.

I therefore want to understand this: if there were social media or internet service providers who were helping this, or not taking steps to mitigate this, what offences would they potentially be guilty of? Does the Minister think the potential sanctions are sufficient that those organisations, particularly those based overseas and not easily reachable by our legislative tools, would be sufficiently able to be reached by them?

Just so the House is not in any doubt, I say that I strongly support this range of amendments to create these offences. It is quite clear that, in all the coverage you see of all the people coming into the United Kingdom illegally, they all have phones and electronic communication devices: it is a key part of how these crimes are committed. I strongly support the law being strengthened to deal with it and the Minister has my support.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I also commend the Government on bringing forward this suite of amendments. My remarks will follow and parallel quite closely those of my noble friend Lord Harper.

This is a very difficult area of the law. Social media and the internet are very fast-evolving and extremely difficult to define. So the approach that the Government have taken recognises that this is essentially criminals advertising criminal services—theirs over the next gang’s—and it ought to be addressed. We ought to focus on it, for two reasons. The first is to try to tackle the individuals and organisations behind these activities. The second is to try to get them taken down as soon as possible. We know that is extremely tough to achieve—we have seen it in other pieces of legislation—but that does not mean that we should not try. I certainly think we should.

I am also with my noble friend Lord Harper on his applying a modicum of pressure on the Government by asking how effective they believe these provisions would be. When I asked that very question on a previous amendment, I was given an answer which essentially said, “Well, even if they save one crime, that’s good enough”. The Government should really come forward with a slightly more comprehensive argument. Although, on this suite of amendments, I am less bothered by that, because it is perfectly obvious that what we are talking about here is a large-scale, international, very sophisticated criminal enterprise.

One of the things we have not talked about that much in the House during the passage of this important Bill is the fact that people coming here through these means are very often paying very considerable sums of money indeed: these are not trivial sums. We tend to lump people into groups or buckets and forget that they are often making a very conscious choice, looking at the price and the chance of being either diverted or sent back when they arrive in the UK. From the information that the Minister provided to me by way of a letter, we know that the chances of being removed are around 4%— there is a 96% chance of being successful in remaining—so we have a huge prize for people who wish to come to the country through illegal means and we need to do everything possible to disrupt that. So I hope the Government have got more or less the right approach and I wish them every good fortune in the effectiveness of those amendments.

Alleged Spying Case: Home Office Involvement

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I can say to the noble Lord that the Government are extremely disappointed in the outcome of the event not going to trial, but that is not a matter for the Government or the Attorney-General. The independence of the Crown Prosecution Service and the DPP is central. They have taken that decision. I and the Government find it very frustrating, but that is the decision that has been taken. If the noble Lord had expected me or any other Minister to interfere in that decision, we would certainly be quite rightly roasted in this House for interfering with judicial independence.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, the reason why the Minister may be a little frustrated that Members of the other place and this House keep asking questions is because he does not give straightforward answers. Let me try to ask again the question that my noble friend on the Front Bench asked: was the Home Secretary aware of the impending collapse of the case before it was made public, and did she or any official or special adviser acting on her behalf take any steps to inquire about whether the Government could strengthen the evidence that was with the Director of Public Prosecutions? It was asked five times yesterday and the Minister answering did not give a clear answer. Can this Minister do better?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I will always try to give this House a straight answer. Let me give the noble Lord a straight answer. On 14 August this year—the final date for the evidence to be submitted—the evidence was submitted to the CPS by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The current Home Secretary did not take office until after that date and the previous Home Secretary had not seen the evidence. No Minister or special adviser interfered in the decision that was taken by the CPS.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

That is not the question I asked.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord said that it is not the question he asked. I am giving him a response on behalf of the Government that the information supplied on 14 August was the case information. The current Home Secretary, her spads and us Ministers have not interfered with anything to do with that decision. When we learned about that decision we came to inform this House, as my honourable friend did in another place.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

I thank my noble friend and the noble and learned Baroness for their interventions. What I was saying is that the country has always been sympathetic and fair and accommodated people fleeing here when their lives or liberties have been in danger. However, mass global movement now poses a threat to stability in western democracies, not just Britain’s but that of other western European countries, particularly Italy, Germany and France—the founder countries of the European Union. If we are to continue to give a sympathetic hearing to those who have a real claim, we must avoid extending the potential numbers so that in addition to children under 18 and a spouse, a whole extended family plus anyone judged to matter to the person’s psychological or other well-being can come in.

We do not have a right to defy the clear wishes of the people of this country, who pay the bills for housing and for the Home Office, asylum and Border Force officials. My noble friend has referred to some of these costs, but the policing, the courts—which are clogged—the appeals system, the housing and subsistence of large family groups all cost money. Many individuals or families, when they leave Home Office accommodation, must be supported from the benefit system.

In the first quarter of 2025, more than 4,000 refugee households in England were recorded as homeless, meaning that either a single person or a family unit had applied for support after leaving Home Office accommodation—figures similar to the previous quarter. With the sort of expanding family as proposed in Amendment 166, what would the housing, accommodation and benefit bill then be?

I conclude by proposing that, even if the Government are tempted by Amendment 166 in the name of the noble Baroness, my noble friend’s Amendments 167 to 171 should be accepted in order that the Government can help bring the numbers down and stop them escalating.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to agree and disagree with a variety of noble Lords. I am sad to say that I often do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, but on one particular thing he said, I strongly do, which is that since this Bill was introduced into Parliament, the Government’s policy on this area has evolved—with is probably the politest way of putting it—and it would be helpful to your Lordships’ House, if not today then certainly before we have the two and a half days of Report, if the Minister could set out clearly what the Government’s current position is and what we are amending or changing. That is a very sensible point, and it is difficult to have this debate with an ever-changing legal undercurrent, particularly since many of these laws are not in primary legislation but in secondary legislation, which is therefore more capable of changing. I always think it is useful, where there is agreement, to put that on the record.

It is also worth saying that, in this group, two different things are being talked about. I have more sympathy with the amendment put down by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, on unaccompanied children currently outside the United Kingdom looking to come to the United Kingdom to be reunited with family members. That is a completely different proposition from that in Amendments 165 and 166, which is about taking children already in the United Kingdom and widening the scope of those who can come here to join them.

This is an area of policy, as the Minister knows very well, which is incredibly litigious, and it therefore matters what words we agree, the scope and breadth of them and the clarity of them. I therefore wanted to draw your Lordships’ attention to a number of concerns that I have about the specific words in the amendments.

In Amendment 165, on the reference no recourse to public funds, it is worth pointing out to the House, because it is repeated on a number of occasions, that that does not include the National Health Service, which does not count as a public fund.

One of the areas that this amendment seeks to expand, according to the explanatory statement, is bringing in grandparents to accompany family members and a whole bunch of dependants. That is important because, generally, the consumption of health resources is not equal across somebody’s life. People consume more resources as they get older. When I was Immigration Minister, I saw a number of cases in which somebody was trying to bring an elderly relative to the United Kingdom, being willing to support them in the normal sense of that word, to accommodate them and put them up. What they would not accept is that we, the taxpayer, would be liable for their health costs, which in some cases are very significant indeed.

People do not mind paying for very significant health costs for elderly people who have spent their life in the United Kingdom and have made a lifetime’s contribution, but bringing someone elderly to the United Kingdom and the NHS and the taxpayer potentially having to pay for their health costs, when they have made no contribution over their lifetime, has to be borne into account. There is no recognition of that in this amendment. I did not want the Committee to miss the fact that although it says

“no recourse to public funds”,

which is of course an accurate characterisation, it is worth reminding people that

“no recourse to public funds”

does not exclude provision of healthcare, which does not count as a public fund in the legal definition, and the NHS generally does not deny health treatment to somebody because they cannot pay for it.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

Does my noble friend consider that the fee of £700 that we now charge those on student visas for access to the NHS is too low, given that the average spending of the NHS per patient is around £3,000?

[Lord Harper (Con)]

On that point, briefly, it is good that we have the surcharge. It was brought in under one of the pieces of legislation I was responsible for in a former life. We can argue about the amount. For younger people in their late teens and early 20s, it is probably a reasonable amount of money. We looked at the costs at the time, and that cohort of people do not bear a huge weight on the health service—but they have some cost, and it is right that they meet some of it.

The second definitional point I want to touch on is in Amendment 166, about the use of the language “unmarried partner”, where I strongly agree with my noble friends Lord Jackson and Lady Lawlor. In my experience, that would be a massive red flag to anybody who wishes to come to the United Kingdom and make a definition. There is no way of proving or disproving somebody’s connection with such loose language. Spouse and civil partner are very clear. They can be evidenced, and documents can be produced to do that. As soon as you say “unmarried partner”, almost anybody can be said to fit into that category and there will be almost no chance of the Home Office making refusals on that basis—it will just be a large chasm.

I also support my noble friend Lord Jackson in Amendment 171, adding into the list

“the importance of maintaining a secure border”.

There is a very long list in Amendment 166, but they are all—in one way—things that the Secretary of State should consider, which would mean that the Secretary of State would have to let in more people. If the Secretary of State is making a judgment, it is very helpful to have a balanced list to weigh up.

I hesitate to say this in your Lordships’ Committee—there are so many lawyers here—but the problem with having the catch-all at the end, saying “any other matters the Secretary of State considers appropriate”, is that, certainly when we were drafting things, as soon as there is a list and things are not in it, weight is put on the fact that they are not in the list. If there is a very long list all in one direction, it is very helpful to put in that the Secretary of State also has duties to protect the border, because that enables the Secretary of State to put proper weight on that consideration in a way that is capable of withstanding legal challenge.

I will pick up another issue on language: the reference to adoptive parents and adoptive siblings in Amendment 166, which clarifies that it also includes “de facto adoption”. I have no objection to people bringing in adoptive members of their family, where that has gone through some legal process, but if it is de facto and there has been no legal process, it again becomes very difficult for decisions made by the Secretary of State to be upheld in the courts. If we do not have some kind of process, this becomes an open door.

Finally, reasonable-sounding language has been snuck into Amendment 165 with the reference to “any dependants”. If a child is in the UK, we define someone who can come and join them. That sounds very reasonable, but that person can then bring any number of dependants with them. Although it says that there would be no recourse to public funds, which we might discuss in relation to housing costs, there are a number of things that I think most people would consider were public funds, such as the NHS and universal credit, but that are not counted as public funds in that definition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lady Brinton, for very sad personal reasons, I shall speak to the amendments in her name, which I have also signed, and do my best to replicate what I think was her intention when she tabled them.

First, I need to say that the Government have already slipped a pass, in a way, by announcing on 30 September that they are intent on having the first ever fair pay agreement for care workers—the Government’s press release was announced on that date. I also notice that this agreement will not take place, and the fair pay agreement will not come into force, until 2028, so there is a small gap of what happens between now and 2028, when the new regime comes into place.

In the meantime, we have what we have been calling a fair wage for care workers. We have classified it as a carers’ minimum wage, which I think suits the style in which the Government are attempting to deal with this matter. The challenge of managing migration, particularly within the health and social care sector, requires solutions that address both workforce needs and the ethics of recruitment. Obviously, we must address the reliance on migration by focusing on domestic reform. I think all that is in accord with the Government’s intention, and of course the core area for intervention is the issue of pay and conditions for domestic carers, which directly influences our reliance on overseas recruitment in this sector. The minimum wage would significantly impact migration levels in social care by tackling the underlying drivers of domestic workforce shortages.

The policy case is clear. Vacancies in the social care workforce are driven largely by poor pay, terms and conditions. I do not think that the Government disagree with that, because their announcement was made to deal with it. That leads to low domestic recruitment and retention rates. Poor pay, and often sub-minimum wages in the worst workplaces, have allowed reputable employers which look after their staff to be undercut. There are significant concerns over abuse and exploitation of individual workers. The Government have already committed to tackling these issues, through their fair pay agreement, to empower worker and employer representatives to negotiate improvements in terms of employment. A specific carers’ minimum wage would be a decisive step in this direction. This policy links directly to the Government’s stated intention to end overseas recruitment for social care visas and to address the long-term reliance on overseas workers by bringing in workforce and training plans for sectors such as social care. Improving pay and conditions would make these roles more attractive to UK residents, reducing the pressure on the Government to rely on international recruitment.

The recent expansion of the health and care visa route triggered a sharp increase in migration for below degree level jobs, rising from 37,000 in 2022 to 108,000 in 2023. Following concerns about exploitation and subsequent scrutiny, the number of health and care worker visas granted for main applicants and dependants fell significantly in 2024. Implementing a statutory minimum wage would cement the move away from reliance on low-skilled migration by addressing the root cause of domestic vacancies. This amendment simply asks the Government to

“within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, lay before Parliament a report on the impact of introducing a minimum wage for carers on levels of net migration”.

That would mean that we would be able to see what the situation was and to understand the direction of travel that the Government laid out in their announcement of 30 September.

It is important that we measure the success of using domestic labour market improvements to regulate immigration in this key sector. It is important to find a balance between one and the other. With an ageing population, as part of this strategy on social care there is obviously going to be an increase in the numbers of people required to undertake duties of care, particularly in the home. Social care will naturally be an increasing requirement on our workforce, so improving the pay and conditions of UK-recruited care workers and the corresponding level of vacancies that would then need to be filled through migration, and understanding the gap in numbers between those who will come into the marketplace as employees from the domestic market against those who are currently in the migration market who are undertaking these roles, would be the purpose of this report.

It is a straightforward request for a report that will help us to understand the direction of travel, and I think it would be in accordance with what the Government are proposing anyway for 2028. I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, there are two amendments in this group, Amendments 175 and 176, and I will speak briefly to both.

On the first, in my spirit today of agreeing with people where I can agree with them, I do not think there is a massive disagreement between us on the link between wage levels and migration; I just think that the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord German, has just moved has got it rather the wrong way round. If we are talking about the labour market generally—I will come on to carers and the social care workforce in a minute—I think we actually start by limiting migration, which then forces employers to think about how they are going to attract the relevant staff and to stop thinking about bringing them into the country as their first resort. There should be some challenge in the system that says to employers, “There are circumstances in which you can import labour from overseas, but you have to jump through some hoops and demonstrate some shortage and some reason why those people cannot be recruited domestically”. I think that that is the right way of approaching it.

I just say in passing that when we were in government and I was Immigration Minister and we used to say that, those on the Opposition Benches, both Labour and Liberal Democrat, used to come up with all sorts of reasons why we should just let lots of people in. That was when we were a little bit more robust in controlling migration, when my noble friend Lady May and I were in the Home Office, where we robustly controlled such things. There is a challenge in the social care sector, of course, because a significant amount of the costs that would be borne by an increase in wages are of course not borne by the private sector, in effect, because there is a lot of public money used to pay for this.

The thing I have not heard from the Government when they talk about increasing wages in the sector—which may well be the right thing to do—is who is actually going to pay for it because that will drive up the cost of delivering social care, and not just for older people. The noble Lord was right to mention older people, but of course more than half of the public money that is spent on social care is spent on those of working age, so one has to think about both aspects. I do not disagree with him about the link between wages and migration, but where I do not think this amendment is very helpful is that it starts by assuming that you import people as the default and then you have to change the labour market to deal with migration. Actually, we control who comes to the country and we should set some tough rules about who you can bring in. That then drives the market to have to change the wages that it pays people, or the skills that it trains them in, to be able to deal with them.

That flows nicely on to the second amendment in this group—I am not quite sure why the noble Lord did not touch on it. Amendment 176 is about exempting NHS workers from the immigration skills charge. I chose to speak after he had spoken as I was hoping he would explain the point of that amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, without any prior liaison with the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, I must admit, I strongly support her amendment. I do not have experience of translation or interpretation in the asylum system, but 15 years ago I was the lead Member of the European Parliament on a directive on translation and interpretation in the justice system, and I was very proud to have led on that. As an MEP, one depended a great deal on professional translation and interpretation services for the wheels of legislative work to run as smoothly as possible. In that sense, one was in a natural environment for understanding the importance of linguistic support.

I support the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on both arms of her argument for properly professionally qualified interpreters and translators. It is not good enough to use Google Translate or have someone who claims to know a bit of the language when you are dealing with the need for precision and clear understanding; it is imperative to have people who are qualified professionals who can bring that necessary rigour into the procedures and proceedings. That is for two broad reasons: first, in the interests of justice and fairness to the individual concerned, so that they know what is happening to them in what may be an extremely confusing and distressing experience; and, secondly, as the noble Baroness said, it would be good for the Home Office, because if you do not have efficient and accurate translation and interpretation, there are risks of something being misunderstood, possibly leading to disagreements, further proceedings and litigation, so you are not going to save any money from that original penny-pinching. This would be an investment not only in justice and fairness but in efficiency and good administration. I hope that the Minister will give a positive response to this.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, referred to retained EU law. I have not managed to follow whether the 2010 directive on translation and interpretation in the justice system is still part of our law; the noble Baroness is nodding, so I am hopeful that it is. Regarding retained EU law, in the last 10 years one has mercifully forgotten some of the late-night proceedings on various Bills and horrible Brexit stuff. I hope it is part of our law, because the noble Baroness is quite right that relying on common law and the ECHR will not cut the mustard. There is an article in the ECHR about the right to a fair trial, but it is too broad and general, as I remember from working on the EU directive, which built on that foundation to spell out exactly what could be expected in respect of translation and interpretation in the justice system, which is what we need to do.

I reiterate my strong support for this amendment. I hope the Home Office and everybody else can see it not as some kind of wishy-washy desire to be nice to people but as an essential tool for the Home Office to make sure that its procedures are effective and cost-effective.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, on this amendment I had not decided whether I wanted to say anything about it until I listened to the debate. I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, will recognise that I see some positive things in it and some areas where the Minister can perhaps work on helping to shape things. First, though, I am probably as surprised as the Minister that there was so much concern for the Home Office—that is probably a new thing and something that will not happen very frequently.

Listening to the argument, I was struck by two things. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, about the need for those going through the system to understand what is going on and for things to be properly translated and interpreted for them. On that, we are in agreement.

However, there are a couple of areas where I would like to hear from the Minister. The first is about the extent to which the Home Office already delivers that level of support to those going through the system and where the gaps are. In other words, what will the cost be of delivering the amendment as set out here or something like it? Is there a big gap that we are trying to cover here?

Secondly, the amendment is a bit prescriptive about how the services should be delivered. I accept that the noble Baroness threw out the reference to Google Translate, which was picked up, and I am not suggesting that that is the way of delivering this. However, I do not think it is sensible for the way public services are delivered to be set out in primary legislation. Artificial intelligence is moving very quickly and, while we may not think it should be a complete substitute, I think it seems perfectly sensible that both Home Office staff and people representing those going through the immigration system may well use artificial intelligence tools to help them be more productive and more cost-effective. I would not want the legislation to be so prescriptive that it ruled that out. We cannot just put to one side the cost of delivering these services. Once we have listened to the Minister’s response, the Home Office may wish to think about whether there is a gap to be covered and whether there is a way of drafting an amendment that recognises the importance of properly qualified staff—which is exactly what the noble Baroness is driving at—while allowing for the use of technology and for those services to be delivered in a different way in the future. We should not try to shut off those benefits.

My final point is about one danger that the noble Baroness did not touch on. As the amendment is framed as giving rights to people, what would happen if these services were not delivered? As a former Immigration Minister, I am afraid this looks to me like another example where, if something was not delivered to the standard required, there would be an opportunity to legally challenge a Home Office decision. It may be that the Home Office should not fail on things like making sure someone understands their deportation decision, but I do not think it is sensible to allow someone to successfully legally challenge the Home Office on, for example, the failure to properly explain the accommodation that was being provided. It would just open up a whole other range of areas that very litigious people could use to drive a coach and horses through our Immigration Rules. If the Home Office is going to bring something back to reflect the perfectly sensible concerns that the noble Baroness set out, which I share, it needs to have something in it that recognises what happens if it is not possible in all cases to deliver those services, what would then be the ability of someone to challenge those decisions.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and, to an extent, the noble Lords, Lord Harper and Lord German, for raising this matter of both practical importance and human dignity: the provision of translation and interpretation services within the Home Office.

The Government’s immigration White Paper rightly underscores the importance of English language proficiency as a cornerstone of successful integration into British society. We believe, as I am sure not only the noble Baroness but all noble Lords will agree, that the ability to speak English empowers individuals to participate fully in our communities, to contribute economically and to build meaningful lives in the United Kingdom.

However, obviously, there are circumstances where the needs of both protection and expediency trump this proposal. As we have already heard from noble Lords, particularly from the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, there are individuals for whom translation and interpretation services are essential to enable them to access care and to begin the long journey of recovery and justice—for example, dealing with young women who have been trafficked to the UK against their will, suffering abuse and exploitation. The Home Office has a duty to uphold the high standards of delivery of these services. It is not merely a matter of administrative efficiency but of moral and legal obligation.

Paragraph 339ND of the Immigration Rules already makes it clear that the Home Secretary must provide, at public expense, an interpreter wherever necessary to allow an applicant to submit their case. This includes the substantive asylum interview, a moment that can determine the course of a person’s life.

Noble Lords may be aware that, in the other place, an MP elected on the Reform ticket asked a number of His Majesty’s Government’s departments not to provide such translation services. I, for one, believe that the Government regret that approach. Both natural justice and respect for the rule of law are essential characteristics of our system and our society, and we will not undermine these principles. As I said, we understand the importance of providing proper interpretation services, not simply so that asylum seekers can access the system adequately but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, pointed out, so that the system makes the right call the first time round.

Moreover, in the context of criminal investigations undertaken by Immigration Enforcement, the principle of common law and the European Convention on Human Rights both affirm that a defendant must understand the charges against them and be able to mount a proper defence. This is not optional extra, and we do not treat it as such. As I said, the current Immigration Rules make clear the need to provide interpretation services. For instances where we do not provide translation services within the asylum process, claimants can utilise legal representatives to support them. Furthermore, Migrant Help’s asylum services, which are available 24 hours a day, offer free, independent advice, guidance and information, including full interpretation services.

We have had some discussion about funding, and noble Lords will appreciate that value for money remains a guiding principle for this Government in public service delivery. We must therefore ensure that language services are cost effective, and the Home Office is committed to assessing language service needs and spend to ensure we deliver both fiscal responsibility and a compassionate, practical approach to translation. We understand well the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, about penny-pinching undermining the integrity of the system. The noble Lord, Lord Harper, asked about the cost gap in the sense, I suppose, of a counterfactual situation. I am not sure that any assessment has been made of that additional cost gap, but I will go back and ask officials whether that has been the case.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Having listened to the Minister, I am not sure that there would be much of a gap. However, this is what I was driving at: based on what rights would be put in place by this amendment, compared to what is already delivered, what will the gap be? Listening carefully to the Minister, he seems to me to be saying that, certainly in the Immigration Enforcement pieces of that list, the services are already delivered, so it may just be an argument about the quality of that service, which I think the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, was pushing at. It may be useful for your Lordships’ House to understand whether there are areas here that are not specifically about Immigration Enforcement and where there may be a gap.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord. Indeed, that was what I was getting at. I am not entirely sure how easy or practical it is to make an assessment of the upgrade to professional services and what the additional cost would be. However, as I said, I will go back and talk to officials to see whether an assessment has been made.

In a similar vein, I am afraid to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, that I do not have to hand any sufficiently watertight briefing on the EU retained law aspect of her question. However, I will go back and talk to officials and write to her with a fuller explanation, rather than risking some barrack-room lawyership on my feet this evening.

In conclusion, I thank the noble Baroness for raising her amendment and giving us the opportunity to discuss the importance of high-quality services provided by the Home Office, as well as the importance of high-quality translation services for people who are rightly seeking asylum and need that support to access our system adequately. The points raised today reflect our values as a nation and our commitment to upholding the rights and dignity of every individual. Given the points I have outlined, and the fact that our Immigration Rules already make clear the obligation of the Home Office to provide translation and interpretation services where necessary, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has good intentions with Amendment 184. I can see that it is probably not going to gain a lot of traction with the Minister, but I think that she has been pushed towards this position because there is such undermining of our commitment to the refugee convention. Speaking personally—I do not know whether my Front Bench colleague, my noble friend Lord German, agrees with me because I am afraid I have not checked with him—I see considerable merit in the wording of Amendment 185 because it seems to me that it should be a broad defence to prosecution that someone comes under the terms of Article 31(1) of the refugee convention, yet what we have at the moment is a patchwork, and the noble Baroness well described it. Someone who comes with forged papers is treated in one way, and someone who comes with no papers is treated in a completely different way, and that seems to me to be an unsustainable position. I think a clean assertion without all these caveats and exceptions has considerable merit, but, again, I fear that the Minister might not be persuaded. I have a lot of time for the motivation and some of the wording of what the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, is trying to do. I think she would not have to mount this effort if it were not for the assaults that are taking place on the refugee convention.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I am perhaps not as warm towards this amendment as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, just was. It seems to me that it does give away its intention in the title,

“Primacy of the Refugee Convention”,


which fundamentally is an assault on whether we think Parliament has primacy in our view. Of course I will give way, although I have not got very far in my argument.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

As a point of information, does the noble Lord realise that the title,

“Primacy of the Refugee Convention”


is directly adopted from the Conservative’s Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993, as brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, and implemented by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne?

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I was not aware of that, but I am not sure it changes my argument. As we have just discovered by listening to the debates about Article 31 of the convention, part of the issue here is that the interpretation of the words is contested, as we heard from the points my noble friend Lord Murray set out when he talked about restoring what he feels is the original definition—indeed, that has already been done in the Nationality and Borders Act, which I think has about half-a-dozen interpretation sections interpreting parts of the convention—and from what the noble Baroness said when she disagreed that that was the original intention.

The whole point is that, if there are disputes about what the convention means, somebody has to decide what it means. It can be either be courts and judges or Parliament setting out what we think we have signed up to and being clear about that, and Parliament has done so in a number of cases. If you put this amendment into statute, it would effectively say that judges could assert that what Parliament said was not the interpretation of the convention and a judge would decide what to do.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said that she has been careful to word this amendment so that the court could not strike down primary legislation. If I may say so, I do not think that is a terribly good safeguard, because an enormous amount of our immigration legislation is not primary legislation but secondary legislation. All the Immigration Rules are secondary legislation made by Ministers using primary legislative powers, so unless there is something explicitly in the primary legislation which gives Ministers powers to make Immigration Rules that specifically forbids a court being able to do this, if this amendment were carried, a court could strike down our Immigration Rules.

That would in effect mean judges, not Ministers, making the decision. Of course those Immigration Rules are not just made by Ministers; Ministers draft them, but they are put before both Houses of Parliament and approved by Parliament. In the end, my contention is that, if you want to have an immigration system that carries the support of the public, decisions have to be made by people who are accountable to the public.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, talked about the convention being chipped away. Part of the issue is that a large number of members of the public do not think that it works for them. They think that people can come to this country as economic migrants, put their hands up and say that they are asylum seekers, and that that somehow gives them a free pass.

When I was Immigration Minister, I argued that we should have a tough system that lets people with a good claim stay but is clear that, where people do not have a good claim, we will kick them out. All that the charities that end up supporting them do is damage the public’s support for our asylum system. If people think that this is a way of getting around the system for economic migrants who get here, and that courts interpret the legislation in a way that is not intended by Ministers who are accountable to Parliament, it damages public support for the very principle that the noble Baroness is setting out; that is incredibly damaging.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way a second time. My point is on not the big stuff around public opinion but the specific question of the danger of courts striking down the Immigration Rules. Does the noble Lord realise that the 1993 Act, which he said a moment ago does not really matter, is still in force; and that the provision I cited already prohibits the Immigration Rules breaching the refugee convention?

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Parts of the Act are still in force, obviously, but, if what the noble Baroness says were true, there would be no need to have her amendment. The fact is that, if you say that the courts can decide that the convention—as they interpret it—can override legislation, that is damaging. The world is a very different place now from what it was in 1951 when the convention was adopted. You have to reflect that by democratically accountable Ministers and legislators making decisions about how we interpret it in the modern era; that is how you strengthen the principles underpinning it, but in a way that works in the modern world. If you do not do that, you will just have more people thinking that the whole thing is nonsense and that we should pull out of it. Actually, I do not think that we should pull out of it—it needs work and it needs to be amended, but we also need to interpret it correctly. My noble friend Lord Murray’s amendment, which sets out a definition that is relevant in the modern world around people who pass through a number of safe countries then choose to come to the UK, is sensible; it would, I think, have the support of a large number of people in the United Kingdom.

In the end, the decision on whether that is the correct interpretation of the convention should, in my humble opinion, be taken by Ministers and by Parliament. It should not be taken by judges being able to insert their interpretation of the 1951 convention, as it was drafted for a very different world, and how they think it should be interpreted now. That would be a retrograde step and would not do what the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Ludford, are trying to do. I think that they are frustrated that the public do not support the provisions of the convention and they are being chipped away at, but what the noble Baroness is proposing, supported by the noble Baroness opposite, would actually make things worse, not better. If the public think that the asylum system is not under any democratic control and that decisions are taken by courts, not accountable people, the system will become less supported by the public—not more—and the whole thing will unravel. If you believe in an asylum system, which I do, and you want to strengthen it, you have to allow democratic institutions to reflect the world in which we now live, not the world in which the convention was drafted. If you do that and make it a convention that is able to be interpreted in the modern world, you strengthen it and make it more likely to succeed than doing the opposite.

For those reasons, it would strike at the primacy of Parliament to put this into law, but it would also do something that I think, fundamentally, both noble Baronesses would not support: it would weaken public support for the asylum system, which, in the end, they will come to regret.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I think that he is misrepresenting me, but I will not linger too long over that. I have absolutely nothing at all against, for instance, this Government wanting to go to Strasbourg to seek to change the wording of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights —good luck with that—but it is also open to them to analyse, as I think they are doing, whether Article 8 on the importance of family considerations is being wrongly interpreted or implemented in British tribunals and courts. They are then completely able—I do not oppose this being done—to issue guidance to the court on the analysis, interpretation and application of Article 8. I am sure that there are similar articles of the convention where that could be done.

What I think the noble Lord, Lord Murray, is doing in his amendment is rewriting the refugee convention, which is a different matter. I am not up for rewriting things, but I am perfectly prepared to see guidance issued to the courts if they are overly generous or wrong in their interpretation. I certainly want precision and integrity in the law; if the noble Lord is trying to imply that I do not, I reject that.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I had sat down but, given that the noble Baroness intervened on me, I will make a brief response since we have gone over the time—although that was largely to do with her rather than me.

I was not saying that the noble Baroness was in favour of imprecision; I was saying that it is about who decides what things mean. I think that Parliament should decide what they mean. It can keep the convention updated with the modern world, rather than courts doing that in a way that is not compatible with the views of the public. That is all I am saying; it would fundamentally strengthen the convention that we have signed up to and is likely to keep it in force for longer, with the support of the public. That is the thrust of my argument. I am content to leave it there.

[Lord German (LD)]

Let me go briefly through my quick summing up of what I have heard.

It seems that there are those who wish to leave things as they are; those who wish to have a more relaxed regime in terms of getting further from the convention; and those, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, who want to lock them together. We have just heard those three different positions but I have never heard, except from my noble friend Lady Ludford behind me, the view that what you can do is to seek to change, alter or amend while seeking definitions of “internationally”. After all, this is an international document that we signed up to. If we believe that we are on our own in this world and that there is nobody else who will support us in making any changes, then, surely to goodness, we are not going to be stuck in saying that everybody else is out of step except us. That is not an argument I can accept.

The crucial issue here is how we make the best use of the convention and of our laws with it together. Whether or not we change from the position where we are now to a more fundamental change, in wrapping the two together, is an issue that requires a lot of debate and discussion—and by wise heads who are in this area—but it seems that what we have is a suspicion, which I can hear from those on my right, that we need to slacken our application of the refugee convention. In the sense that we have not tried to seek accommodation with others who might feel the same way, that strikes me as an incorrect way of dealing with something that has been integral to our law and integral to the way in which we operate for such a long time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I think we know from our experience of asylum seekers and migration that, generally speaking, one cannot take that almost continuous journey through many countries from a place, as indeed my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti set out in greater detail and with a greater grasp of geography than I can muster at this time of night, where people could potentially not be seen to have stopped in a safe country. We know that that does not happen and I think it would be a reasonable interpretation, not so much of the convention but just of the reality of what happens, that if we were to take on the interpretation as set out in the noble Lord’s Amendment 203I, we would be taking in practically nobody. That is not, as I say, the intention of this Government’s policy towards asylum seekers, refugees and migrants.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

The Minister is presenting one counterfactual, which is that we would take almost no one in. The alternative is to do what we did, which is Ministers make decisions about quite large groups of people that we take in. I just point to our Afghan schemes and our schemes for Ukrainian refugees and British national passport holders from Hong Kong. Those were very significant and there is something very important about them: because they were decisions taken by people who were democratically accountable, supported by Parliament, they were largely supported by the vast majority of the British public. I think that is a better model than having a convention which is interpreted by courts in a way that the public do not support. I think that is a better alternative model and one which we delivered in practice with considerable public support. It is a better model, and I urge him to support it.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

To be clear, I was not talking about schemes that were set up for specific groups of people in specific situations, such as those from Hong Kong, Ukraine or Afghanistan, which the noble Lord mentioned. Indeed, I am absolutely clear as well that I do not disagree with him or the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, on the principle that we would not want to leave that purely up to the courts rather than having it as part of legislation that has been proposed by Ministers and supported by both Houses of Parliament. I do not disagree with that, but the counter-counterfactual is also the case: if we excluded anyone who passed through any country in which they could reasonably stop, as a safe port of call, then we would not be taking anybody else in outside those established schemes. I do not think that is a reasonable, practical interpretation of the facts on the ground. For that reason, I am afraid that we will not be able to support Amendment 203I from the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth.

Before I finish, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, had the courtesy to say that she would not be able to be in her place until the end of this stage of the debate. She took the opportunity when speaking to rail against the increasing authoritarianism and blaming of refugees for all the ills of this country. I urge her, and indeed all noble Lords, if they think this is the case for this Government, to read carefully the words of our Prime Minister in his leader’s speech to the Labour Party conference. He set out a clear case, with humane and progressive reasons, for controlling borders. Indeed, I point to the words of our new Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood. She is very clear that for people from, as she says, an ethnic minority, having a controlled system of borders is a good thing. There is nothing progressive about insecurity, whether insecurity of income, on our streets or on our borders. This Government were elected to tackle all three things, and we are determined to tackle them.

Given that, and given the time of night, I will conclude and ask the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Murray, not to press their amendments.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 8th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I was not able to be here at the opening of the debate on the earlier group, so I hope noble Lords will forgive me if anyone else has already said this, but I was delighted when I walked into the Chamber and saw the noble Lord still in his place. I have worked very closely with him on these matters over the years and I am pleased that his qualifications have been appropriately recognised over the weekend.

I certainly support the thrust of these amendments, and I will come on to the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in a moment. They are important because the public believe that, if you are in the United Kingdom and you are not a British citizen, you owe some obligations and responsibilities to the country that has provided you with a home. People generally feel that if you come to the United Kingdom and you are here lawfully, and you subsequently break the law, it is something we should deprecate. There should be some consequences, and we should set a very clear expectation that those who come here under the Immigration Rules and who are not British citizens are expected to be exemplary in obeying the law. It is both a sanction, as the noble Lord said, and something that sets an expectation about behaviour. That is ultimately the thrust behind the amendments from my friends on the Front Bench and my noble friend Lord Jackson.

To pick up one point my noble friend Lord Jackson made, and I hope the Minister can cover it in his response, I believe the issue around Irish nationals is that they have unique legal status here that is not connected to the Republic of Ireland’s membership of the European Union. It is to do with our entwined history and the Act which set up the Irish Republic—or separated it from the United Kingdom. That is therefore a more complicated position and it would be helpful if the Minister could deal with that when he responds, because my noble friend made some points that the public would not necessarily understand.

I want to pick up some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, which I thought had some merit, and which have been considered previously by Ministers. I was pleased that my noble friend Lord Jackson referred to the very successful deportation period in 2012—I just throw out as an aside that that was when I happened to be the Immigration Minister and responsible for such matters; I will just leave that there. When we toughened up the legal regime in what became the Immigration Act 2014, we contended with exactly the points that the noble Lord raised, about whether you put an absolute position in the legislation or allow any judicial weighing-up of these factors at all. I agree with him that there is a role in allowing there to be some judicial oversight, and we did that in the Immigration Act 2014; we said that if you were sentenced to over four years in prison, you must be deported unless there were compelling reasons over and above the two exceptions set out in the Act. This was to circumscribe the ability of judges to use Article 8 to allow people to stay here at the drop of a hat.

Where I part company with the noble Lord is that I do not think that the Government’s current plan to simply set out in guidance, or some non-statutory mechanism, directions to judges is going to be adequate. When we looked at this, we found that because the Immigration Rules are set out in secondary legislation, courts felt very confident about inserting their judgment on whether people should be removed from the country. We put the balancing arguments—particularly those for Article 8—in the primary legislation, which set out some exceptions and the need for compelling circumstances. The effect was that judges, as they properly do, put a great deal of weight on what Parliament said, rather than what Ministers put into secondary legislation.

Therefore, if my noble friends withdraw and do not move their amendments today, I urge the Minister to think about coming back on Report—we can think about that as well—with something tougher than simply guidance, advice or directions for judges. My experience is that, unless you put it in the legislation, it does not have the desired effect.

Appeals in this area of law are different than in others because, if somebody is in the United Kingdom unlawfully or if we are trying to deport them, it is in their interests for the appeal process to take as long as possible, because for every day the appeal process is not concluded, they are able to stay in the United Kingdom and effectively achieve their objective. That is not like the situation in other areas, where they do not have an incentive to make the process go very slowly. Therefore, we need to do something in the legislation.

The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has a point when he says that there should be some element of judicial discretion. The challenge, of course, is that as soon as you allow there to be any, it is very easy for that to creep along and for judges to widen it. Then we get all the cases we read about in the paper that bring the law into disrepute.

Therefore, the expert drafters in the Home Office—whom I know are there—should bring forward some tightly drawn amendments that achieve the spirit of what my noble friends have put on the Marshalled List but that perhaps allow some judicial discretion. I was certainly told that, by allowing some judicial discretion, you actually strengthen the power of the statute, because it means that the courts will not seek to overturn it in creative ways, because they feel that justice can be done by following what is in the law. That is perhaps the approach I would urge the Minister to take as he puts together his response to this and what he may come forward with on Report.

Of course, I am more hopeful about the Minister bringing something forward on Report than one would perhaps normally be in this debate because, having seen some of the opening remarks of the Home Secretary, I note that she seems very taken with the idea of a more robust approach to removing foreign national offenders in particular from the country.

I hope the approach I have set out, taking inspiration from what my noble friends have done, is something that the Minister will find meets favour with his new boss in the Home Office. I therefore commend these amendments in moving the debate in the spirit I think the public would wish.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful, as ever, to the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Jackson, for their amendments. I echo the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Jackson, about my noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede. He has served his party and Government over many years, and he deserves to be recognised for the efforts that he has put in. I am pleased to endorse those sentiments from the Committee today, not least because I have shared an office with him for the past 13 months of my term in this Government. I will pass on the Hansard reference to him, so he can read the responses himself.

Foreign nationals who commit crime in the UK should be in no doubt that the law will be enforced and, where appropriate, we will pursue their deportation. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, mentioned this in passing, but it is worth placing it on record that 5,179 foreign national offenders have been deported in the 12 months between July 2024 to July 2025—a 14% increase on the previous year.

On a personal note, I am grateful for the comments about my continuing tenure in this job. I am commencing my 15th year as a Minister, 28 years overall as either a Minister or a shadow Minister, which is quite a long time. I have been around this block several times and I can recall, on foreign national prisoners, going to Nigeria in 2008 and negotiating a foreign national prisoner transfer with the Nigerian Government. Because this falls within the MoJ, I will update colleagues in due course about any potential new prisoner transfer agreements being developed.

Amendment 138 seeks to prevent any challenge—this is a key point from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—to an automatic deportation decision and to prevent a deportation order being made when there is an appeal against a sentence. Amendment 203A, from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, seeks to prevent any appeal against deportation; I will refer to the circumstances around that in a moment. Both amendments would remove any challenge to deportation and would, if nothing else, be contrary to the withdrawal agreement, which the previous Government negotiated and which requires us to provide a right of appeal against deportation for beneficiaries of the withdrawal agreement.

For other foreign national offenders, the right to appeal deportation was removed by statute in 2014 by the previous Government. Appeals can now be made against only the refusal of a human rights claim, the refusal of a protection claim or a decision to revoke a protection status. In any event, the amendments would be contrary to Article 13 of the ECHR when read with other rights. We can have a debate about the ECHR, and I am sure that we will, at the moment, the amendments would be contrary to those rights. It would also be unconstitutional and contrary to the ECHR to deny courts the ability to set aside a decision by the Secretary of State when such a decision may be manifestly wrong. This Government take citizens’ rights very seriously and we continue to work constructively with the EU to ensure that we meet our obligations under the withdrawal agreement.

Amendment 203A, from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, would also undermine the UK’s agreement with Ireland on the deportation of Irish citizens. There is a range of legislation around that, but since 2007, public interest has been the qualifying matter. Irish citizens are exempt from automatic deportation, except in exceptional circumstances where the Secretary of State can determine that it is in the interests of the public at large. It would also undermine the protections against deportation afforded to certain Commonwealth nationals. It would set an artificial deadline for the making of a deportation order, preventing any leave being granted to a person who made a successful human rights or protection claim.

Amendment 139 seeks to extend automatic deportation to any foreign national convicted of an offence in the UK or charged with an immigration offence, without consideration of their human rights. As the noble Lords, Lord Oates and Lord Pannick, mentioned, it would remove protections for under-18s and victims of human trafficking. It would also require a court to pass a sentence of deportation to any foreign national convicted of an offence in the UK. In my view, these amendments would not be workable and would be contrary to our international obligations.

For the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I say again that the Government are committed to the protection of human rights and to meeting our international obligations. The Prime Minister has made clear that the United Kingdom is unequivocally committed to the ECHR, and these amendments would not prevent persons being deported from raising human rights claims with the European Court of Human Rights. They would deliver nothing except the outsourcing of deportation considerations to Strasbourg and would slow down the removal of those being deported. The amendments would also undermine our obligations to identify and support victims of trafficking, as set out in the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, of which we are a signatory.

I hope that noble Lords are getting the general sense that I am not going to be in favour of the amendments. I can continue, should noble Lords wish me to do so.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

The Minister has made very clear his approach to the amendments, but I want to press him a bit. The Government accept that in some cases the courts are not drawing the lines in the right place, which is why the Government have suggested, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, referenced, that they will issue further guidance to courts to make these decisions and draw the lines in a different place. Is guidance going to be sufficient to alter where judges make these decisions, or do we need to change the law? The Minister may not agree with these proposals, but I would argue that you do need to change the law. If he does not think that these proposals are okay but thinks that courts are not getting it right at the moment, the Government should bring forward their own amendments on Report. I suspect that this House will give them a fair hearing.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises perfectly valid questions. I was clear to the House and have been today to the Committee that the Government will examine the European Court of Human Rights Article 8 requirements. We will be issuing guidance on that and have some further discussion on what that means in practice. We are still considering those matters, but we not minded at the moment to bring forward legislation—and I am certainly not minded to support, for the reasons that I have said, the amendments from the Opposition Front Bench and from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson. I hope that I have been clear on that.

We are committed to reforms across the immigration system. It is right that we take action against foreign national offenders in the UK before they get the opportunity to put routes down in the UK. We will do what we can to protect local communities and prevent crime. We will simplify the rules and processes for removing foreign national offenders and take further targeted action against recent arrivals who commit crime in the UK before their offending can escalate.

Later this year, as the noble Lord is intimating, we will set out more detailed reforms and stronger measures to ensure that our laws are upheld, including streamlining and speeding up the removals process. We will table legislation to strengthen the public interest test, to make it clear that Parliament needs to be able to control our country’s borders and take back control over who comes to and stays in the UK. We need to strike that balance between family rights and the wider public interest. That is why we will clarify Article 8 rules and set out how they should apply in different immigration routes so that fewer cases are treated as exceptional. We will also set out when and how a person can genuinely make a claim on the basis of exceptional circumstances.

Amendment 139, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, seeks to amend the penalty for immigration offences in Section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971, replacing this with a sentence of deportation and removing the lack of knowledge as a defence against these offences. We have been clear in our response to the sentencing review that we will reduce the use of short sentences and increase the use of suspended sentences, so there will be a significant reduction in the number of such offenders being sent to prison. Foreign nationals convicted of immigration offences can be considered for deportation at present, and we will act to ensure that such action is taken in future.

Removing lack of knowledge as a defence will likely result in consequential deportation decisions being subject to more ECHR challenges, resulting in delay, the consequence being fewer successful removals.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

To pick up on a point made by the Minister, he confirmed that the Government are undertaking this review of Article 8 and how it is interpreted by the courts. He also said that, if necessary, the Government would bring forward legal provisions to put reforms in place. We have a bit of time before Report, with another day in Committee in October and Report a little bit after that. Can I urge the Minister to speed up that review? If it is necessary to put into statute any changes in how Article 8 is being interpreted, he can then bring that forward in this legislation, to take advantage of bringing those reforms in urgently, rather than waiting for another piece of legislation to come down the track in a year or two.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

We keep all matters under review. This will go at the pace that it goes at. We will be making further announcements in due course on how we will review Article 8 and the issues that will result accordingly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, for her interesting statistics. As a former chairman of a university court, I find high student numbers a cause for delight. I am not quite sure why we should see it as bad news; the university sector as a whole finds large numbers of students wanting to apply from abroad rather good news, and so do I.

I would like to put a question to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, about Amendment 198, on which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has expressed some doubts. I am struck by the plight of the British Romeo, who happens to go to Verona and meet Juliet. Not only does he have to tell her that they have to wait until they are both 23—the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—but they have to wait until he is earning £37,750 a year and until they have already been married for two years. Even then, they cannot be sure, because they have to get a place in the quota. The quota for Italy will be 7% of an unknown number, to be determined at some future annual date by the Secretary of State. So, they would be well advised to get up very early on 1 January, two years after they got married, and register their application to come to this country. On what basis, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Davies, does one pick 7%, and on what basis is the Secretary of State to pick the annual number?

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I want to touch on three matters—two to do with these amendments and one of a more topical nature. We have at previous stages of this Bill talked about the ability of the Government to remove people from the country. Amendment 199 touches on illegal removals. The Minister has been very keen to champion the deal the Government have done with France. Given that the French Government have, just a few moments ago, been voted down by the National Assembly and therefore collapsed, I wonder if the Minister, as he has been in post—I am sure the Home Office will have given it a great deal of thought—could comment on what impact, if any, that will have on the deal that the Government have done, whether in substance or the speed with which they will be able to implement it. That would be both of interest to the Committee and relevant to this legislation.

I strongly support Amendments 141 and 141A, from my noble friends Lord Jackson and Lady Lawlor, because they are about making sure that we better understand the system. While I welcome students who come here to go on good courses, who are here to study, it is useful for us to know if those students are breaching criminal law. I will not rehearse the arguments that my noble friend Lord Jackson made so eloquently, but there is a very good reason why having this data is helpful: one of the things that the Home Office pays a great deal of attention to, when it is making judgments about granting student visas in the first place, is looking at countries where there is a high risk of abuse. It puts a great deal of weight and expectation on universities to ensure that students are genuinely here, that they are competent to study courses and that they are going to study those courses when they get here. If the data highlights countries that are a particular risk, it would enable the Home Office and universities to take that into account when they are making decisions; it would tighten our immigration system and it would make sure that people are genuinely coming here to study—which is, of course, the reason they have been given the visas. So I strongly support both those amendments.

I also support Amendment 199. There is an argument for it—the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, was not enormously persuaded, but I will just give him one argument for where it might be helpful. One of the things that the Home Office finds difficult at the moment is when it wants to deport people to countries that will not have their nationals back. This is internal government politics, but I suspect that the Home Office is very keen to implement those visa requirements. I do not know—and I would not expect the Minister to confirm this at the Dispatch Box—but I suspect that other bits of government, such as the Department for Business and Trade and perhaps the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, are not very keen on implementing those visa sanctions. They would come up with all sorts of compelling reasons—for them—for why the Government should not do so. The countries know this, and they also make those arguments about why we would not want to implement those visa sanctions—damage to our trade and all sorts of other reasons.

This provision may be helpful when Ministers are having those conversations because, by making it mandatory, if the country will not up its game and if is not willing to take back citizens who are not entitled to stay in the United Kingdom, the Government can explain to those countries that their hands and discretion have been fettered by Parliament. Therefore, the only possible sensible course for that country is to improve its compliance and, frankly, do what it is required to do by its international obligations, which is to take back the citizens who are not welcome here. So I think there is a very sensible argument. It may be that the drafting of this amendment can be improved, and the noble Lord is well qualified to help with that.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Is my noble friend as pleased as I am by the news that the new Home Secretary is a keen reader of the amendments that His Majesty’s loyal Opposition have put down on this Bill? The top story in the Times today is:

“Mahmood plans visa crackdown on countries that won’t take back migrants”.


Is she a sinner repenting, and is my noble friend full of joy about this?

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am very pleased that my noble friend Lord Jackson raised that, because I read that piece this morning and it is part of the reason why I was keen to speak on this amendment. In the debate that was going on this morning, our friend the shadow Home Secretary was challenging the new Home Secretary on this. She hit back and made the point that this permissive power had been in place for some time and had not been used for the reasons that I set out and because of all the other arguments that will be brought forward in government about why you would not want to disturb the relationship between the United Kingdom and the other country that is refusing to take back its citizens. It was interesting to note that the Home Secretary appears a little more seized of using this power.

We are trying to be helpful here because—I do not know, but I suspect—when she has these arguments inside government and expresses her intention to use this power, she will get quite a lot of push-back from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and from the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Secretary, who perhaps may not have remembered that, just a short while ago, she was responsible for these important matters in the Home Office; it is amazing how quickly Ministers forget when they change departments. The Business Department and the new Business Secretary will be making the point about our important commercial relationships. Actually, the new Home Secretary may well welcome the strengthening of her hand that would be put in place by the Government accepting Amendment 199.

When the Minister responds, even if he does not like the specific drafting of the amendment on the Marshalled List today, and given what my noble friend Lord Jackson said about the Home Secretary’s views, I hope that he gives it a fair wind and commits to come back with a government amendment on Report. If he does not, perhaps we will discover that the Home Secretary’s tough words are just that—words.

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

My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Harper, will forgive me, I will not comment on the consequences of the fall of the French Government on this legislation or any other. My noble friend Lord Hanson has been a Minister for 15 years; I am of a rather more recent vintage, like a cheap wine, so, if the noble Lord does not mind, I will pass on that. But I have not the slightest doubt that it will be the subject of further debate and comment in your Lordships’ House before too long.

Amendment 198, from the noble Lords, Lord Davies and Lord Cameron, proposes a cap on the number of entrants of partners and proposes amendments to the immigration requirements for a partner of a person present and settled in the UK. I will set out the overall position. The Government are very clear that net migration must come down, and the swift return of those with no right to be in the UK forms a key part of a functioning migration system that commands the confidence of the British public. The provision for family members to come to or stay in the UK is set out in the Immigration Rules, so this is not, strictly speaking, the correct legislation for this debate. But the Government’s position is clear: we support the right to family life and we value the contribution that migrants make to our society. As a migrant myself, I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities that I have had in this country. Like so many others, I have an ineradicable respect and admiration for British institutions and values. Perhaps that is why I am here today.

The noble Lord, Lord Harper, talked about the expectations of immigrants. I entirely endorse those remarks but, as an immigrant myself, I should also say that, in large numbers, immigrants are happy and proud to fulfil the expectations that he sets out.

However, this commitment to supporting the right to family life must be balanced, as we all know, by a properly controlled and managed immigration system that commands public confidence. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, commented on earlier amendments that there is a great deal of consensus on these points. Our immigration system welcomes people from across the globe to come to the UK to join family here, and it is right that we continue to enable family migration.

To ensure financial independence, the family rules include financial requirements. The minimum income requirement is currently set at £29,000. On 10 June, the Migration Advisory Committee published its independent review of the financial requirements across the family route. The report is now under review, and we will consider the recommendations made by the MAC.  The Home Secretary will respond to the review in due course.

Refugee Accommodation: Move-on Period

Lord Harper Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I always find it fascinating that the Opposition continue to raise these questions with the Government, because if I wind the clock back to 2016, there were no hotels in use for asylum accommodation. Asylum claims rose dramatically under the previous Government and only a couple of years ago asylum hotels reached a peak of over 400, which is starting to fall now. We inherited that massive number and are trying to deal with that backlog of asylum claims, and the asylum issue as a whole, in a proper and effective way.

For me, community cohesion means the best way to deal with that is to speed up asylum claims, to ensure we close those hotels as a matter of some urgency and to determine who has the right to asylum in this country. We then give them a 56 or 28-day period of settlement and remove those individuals who have no right to reside in this country, their asylum claim having failed. With due respect to the noble Lord, the previous Government failed miserably on all those things. We are trying to do them.

People have a right to protest. But people also have a right to understand why and how we are dealing with this issue and what we are doing to resolve it to maintain community cohesion so that people welcome those who are fleeing persecution, war, starvation and the other forms of economic misery driving them to seek asylum in Europe and this country.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the Minister, when he refers to hotels, that in the last nine months of the last Government we halved the number of hotels being used to accommodate asylum seekers. That fall came to a grinding halt when the present Government came to power.

I draw the Minister’s attention to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Young, because I do not think he answered it. My noble friend asked what the consequences are, for those granted refugee status in asylum accommodation who fail to leave when they are supposed to, of their failure to leave that accommodation.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

With due respect, I thought I did try to answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Young. Heads are shaking, but I am accountable for my answers. At the end of that 28 or 56-day period, individuals will have to leave that accommodation. That is a consequence for them. We have given support, determined their asylum application and given a transition period, and then that asylum claim has been approved so people need to move on.

I will challenge the noble Lord back. At the peak in 2018, under his Government, there were 400-plus hotels in use, reduced to 210 now. In the past year we have saved £1 billion of taxpayers’ money, over and above what the previous Government—the noble Lord sat in the Cabinet—expended. That £1 billion is better spent on speeding up asylum claims and making sure we determine them as a matter of some urgency.

Palestine Action Protests: Arrests

Lord Harper Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The terms of the proscription order are clear and were passed by the House of Commons and this House. However, ultimately, the charging decisions and whether to seek permission from the Attorney-General remain the responsibility of the Crown Prosecution Service. It is not for me to direct it or to comment on that—but the terms of the proscription order are clear, and it does not include legitimate protest in a free, fair and peaceful way around the issue of Palestine.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, when we debated this issue in the House, we made it very clear that there was a distinction, as the noble Lord, Lord Walney, has just said, between campaigning in favour of the rights of Palestinians, which is absolutely allowed, whatever your views about it, and supporting proscribed organisations. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, in his Question on the Order Paper made it clear that he was objecting to people being arrested for supporting Palestine Action, but in the question that he has just set out he suggested that people were being arrested for expressing support for the Palestinian people. Those are two very different things. The Minister was clear. Can I say that those people who support proscribed terrorist organisations should meet the full force of the law, and can he make sure that they do so?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The purpose of Parliament, both the House of Commons and this House, is to pass legislation. We have done that with overwhelming majorities in both Houses of Parliament in favour of the proscription order—and the proscription order is clear. However, I am also clear that we must not conflate terrorist activity with legitimate pro-Palestinian support. People are free to support Palestinian rights and sovereignty, and there are means to do it without being a member of or a supporter of Palestine Action. I cannot be clearer from this Dispatch Box.

UK-France Migration: Co-operation

Lord Harper Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises a very important point on some of the pull factors and the illegal grey market and black market in employment. She will know that we spent a lot of time last night on the Employment Rights Bill. That is partly to ensure that we undertake those standards. At the Home Office, we have been engaged over the past six months in an active programme of cracking down on illegal working, removing people who are found to be working illegally and taking action against individuals who have been involved in providing that illegal work. I can supply figures to her after this discussion on the success rates of those actions.

The noble Baroness mentions ID cards. I have said many times in this House that I was a Minister in the Home Office when we had ID cards. They were scrapped by the coalition Government. There are no plans to return to ID cards, but, self-evidently, we want to ensure that we have biometric and other data for people arriving in this country, and that data is collected at a local level. The question of remittances is one that I will reflect on after this discussion, but we have to ensure, from my perspective, that the pull factors are dealt with. The key focus of the Government is to get international co-operation to smash the gangs that are dealing with the aftermath of some big worldwide problems, exploiting people, selling them false promises, putting their lives in danger and allowing people to enter illegally. We believe that on an international basis, we should have that co-operation to manage those pressures in a more positive and constructive way.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I do not blame the Minister for slightly having a bit of fun at our expense at this stage in the political cycle. However, I caution him, given that in this Government’s first year the number of people crossing the channel has gone up by 40%, that when he eventually has to return to a proper deterrent scheme it will be on these Benches that he receives the support that he needs, not from elsewhere in the House. I suspect he may need our support later in the Parliament.

I have some specific questions about this scheme. First, in her Statement to the House of Commons, the Home Secretary said:

“The Prime Minister and French President have set out their expectation that that pilot will be operationalised”—


ghastly word—

“in the coming weeks”.

She was very unspecific about how many weeks—there is clearly a large difference between four weeks and 52 weeks, for example. Can the Minister give us a bit of clarity about the sort of timescale they are thinking about? Is it a month’s time or more like six months’ time?

Secondly, as the Minister referred to, the Home Secretary said that the Government will be trying a number of approaches—very sensible—and seeing what works, and then they will want to scale up the numbers. What sort of timescale are they thinking about for running the pilots? My noble friend Lord Davies of Gower was right: if the numbers remain low—I noticed that the Minister sort of confirmed the figure of 50 a week, or at least he did not resile from it—for several years then that will be no deterrent at all. Unless the Government are going to start the pilots quickly and ramp them up quickly, this has no chance at all of deterring anyone.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. Let me put him at ease. I am not having a bit of fun with the previous Government; I am imploring the House to understand what the pressures were under the previous Government, the lack of action—that is a political opinion and my view—and how, as well as the borders and security Bill, the measures that we have taken with Belgium, Holland, Germany and, in this last week, France, in the agreement between President Macron and the Prime Minister, are designed to do what the whole House has a shared objective on, which is to reduce the crossings, hold those criminals to account and break their business model. That is what we are trying to do.

The noble Lord asks when the scheme will come into play. We plan to do the scheme by the summer, which is a definitive date. I suspect that the proposal is for the next five to six weeks, but the summer is our aim. We have not yet set a date to monitor and evaluate the pilots, but, self-evidently, it is in the interests of France, the UK and the people who are being trafficked to smash the gangs as soon as possible and ensure that we provide an upscaling of the scheme as soon as possible. I hope the noble Lord will give a fair wind to what I think will still be a deterrent. We will return to that after the Recess, to be questioned and subject to scrutiny in September, which I regard as the early autumn and late summer.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 10th July 2025 Lords Chamber

These amendments provide some specific suggestions, such as reporting on what is happening, and itemising the actions and operations that are the subject of UK involvement, particularly on smuggling, for the UK to provide sufficient resources to enable our agencies to participate in Europol projects and operations. Aside from saying that these are brilliant amendments and he will accept every word, I would like to hear from the Minister, in fairly concrete terms, where exactly we are in co-operating with Europol. We have probably heard quite enough about pledges, aspiration and intent. A little flesh on the bones would not go amiss. I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I have some points to make on these amendments and some questions, which the Minister or the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, may be able to deal with at the end.

Amendment 100 proposes a requirement to produce an annual report. I am broadly not in favour of these. They seem to just dump a load of bureaucracy on departments, which then have to set up a team of people who spend all their time producing glossy documents that nobody reads, and it takes up a lot of time. I sort of understand why she said it, but the noble Baroness said that, if you have to produce a report, you then have to do some things to put in the report. I do not want the Home Office doing things just to put them in a report. I want it making sensible decisions on our strategic policing choices and doing those things, not things to fill a report up. There is a danger in putting in statute stuff that you have to do. These are not suggestions that the noble Baroness’s amendment is making; departments would have to do them as a priority over other things because it would be a legal requirement. I am not awfully keen on that.

I am not entirely clear—by the way, this is not a request to make the proposed new clause broader—why the noble Baroness has picked just Europol. The problem with organised crime gangs and international groups—Europol deals with not just trafficking but drug trafficking, human trafficking, terrorism and cybercrime—is that these things are global problems, not European problems. Europe as a key territory for us in the issue of people trafficking, but it is not the only place people come from.

We should remember that, large though the small boats problem is, it is still the case that the majority of people who come to the United Kingdom seeking asylum are not coming on small boats but getting here by some other mechanism, including those people who do not have a legitimate claim for asylum, and they are coming from countries around the world. Having this skew towards co-operating with just Europol would be unhelpful. I want Ministers and law enforcement agencies to decide which international agencies they are going to co-operate with based on the threat assessment to the United Kingdom, not based on a statutory provision to have to co-operate with one and not the other.

Specifically in Amendment 101, about a joint task force, particularly concerning is subsection (3) of the proposed new clause. The amendment as a whole would force the Secretary of State to set up a joint task force, but, on what the task force has a duty to do, it says that that has to do with

“matters which the Secretary of State or Director of Europol deem appropriate”.

Fundamentally, it is not right that the director of Europol in effect gets to pick the priorities on which the Secretary of State is then forced to spend resources and focus, even if the Secretary of State does not agree that those are the things she wants to focus on. I want Ministers to remain accountable to Parliament and to make decisions that they think are appropriate and justify them accordingly. This would, in effect, give the director of Europol the ability to direct the resources of the British Government and the British taxpayer, which I do not think is appropriate.

I turn to the last amendment in this group, Amendment 206, about participation in Europol’s anti-trafficking operations. It does not specifically say, but I presume by that we mean human trafficking operations, as opposed to drug trafficking operations. The amendment again would force the Secretary of State, using the word “must”, to

“provide adequate resources to law enforcement agencies for the purpose of enhancing their participation in Europol’s anti-trafficking operations”.

That means operations that Europol is doing. It does not give the Secretary of State discretion to make a judgment about whether she thinks that we should focus our efforts on those anti-trafficking operations but forces her to make available resources, whether she thinks that is appropriate or not—and I do not think it is.

The scope and territorial extent of the Bill is the whole of the United Kingdom: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I am not entirely certain why, for the purposes of proposed new subsection (1), the law enforcement agencies include only the National Crime Agency, police forces in England and Wales, and the BTP. Excellent force though the BTP is—I had some responsibility for it in the past—I do not know why Police Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland are not included. Look at the breadth of Europol’s operations. It seems to me that Police Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland will be absolutely interested in countering terrorism, cybercrime, drug trafficking and human trafficking. Particularly given Northern Ireland’s position, with a land border with a part of the European Union, it seems to me extraordinary that the amendment does not include the Police Service of Northern Ireland. That is an omission. There is a danger once you start listing things in primary legislation. My understanding of how interpretation works is that, by not including things in a list, you make it less possible for them to have the powers than if you had not had a list at all.

Much as I understand the objective and think it perfectly reasonable—to improve co-operation with our partners in other countries on what is, inevitably, a transnational crime—the focus on Europol, and then not looking at other organisations and international law enforcement bodies we could be partnering with, would skew our focus. Ministers ought to be able to make judgments about where we put our resources. We do not have infinite resources. Ministers should have to decide, and law enforcement bodies should be able to choose, where the threats are and what the priorities are on an operational basis, day to day and month to month, not by looking at primary legislation.

I think the fundamentals are misconceived, but there are quite a lot of problems, even if you thought that the fundamentals were not misconceived, in the way that the amendments have been drafted. I hope the noble Baroness will not press them. If she comes back on Report with amendments crafted in perhaps a more focused way, we could look at them further. However, in the way they are set out at the moment, they are not going to deliver the objectives she is hoping they would. I hope the Minister can touch on some of those points when he responds, and the noble Baroness may want to address them when she winds up at the end of this group.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for that helpful information.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Forgive me, but I just want to be clear, because I think the noble Baroness may have, I am sure inadvertently, misunderstood me. I am very supportive of us co-operating with Europol. We did when I was in government as Immigration Minister, we do now, and I want us to continue to. I also want us to co-operate with law enforcement agencies around the world. What I do not want to do is fetter either agencies or the Government by skewing priorities towards only one of them. I want them to co-operate with all relevant agencies and make those decisions based on the threat assessment and the operational need. I want to do all those things, but I am very supportive of our co-operation with Europol and always have been. I do not want her to run away with the impression that I am not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Swire’s two amendments, which are well-intentioned, well drafted and have the right approach. Strengthening the ability of state agencies to be able collect this information would be very helpful.

However, at this point, I part company with my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough, which I do not do very often. I will not allow him to tempt me at length on this, but I do not agree with him at all on ID cards. I hope she does not find that it damages her reputation, but I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, on this point. She asked the right question: how does having ID cards solve any of these problems?

In his excellent introduction, my noble friend Lord Swire highlighted that we already require people who come to this country as migrants to have identity documents and that their biometric information is on a database. We require those who employ them, for example, to check their employment status. There is a gap in that, which we will come to deal with in later groups on Clause 45. The Government rightly are looking to strengthen that to include not just traditional employment models but some of the new employment models that are not currently captured but which have been highlighted publicly, including by the shadow Home Secretary, when talking about the problem that the gig economy, for example, and those who deliver things are not captured by the traditional models. That is important, but we already require people to check that information. Those employers who are operating illegally and choose not to do it still will not do it even if we have ID cards.

My worry about ID cards—and then I will stop talking about them, because it is not strictly within the scope of these things—is that you put the burden on those of us who are lawfully in the country and who should not have to keep being asked for ID when we have the right to use such services. All the public services that we access, including the NHS—except, rightly, for emergency care—the DWP and so on, require you to evidence that you have a right to be in the country and to access those services. We rightly do not insist that the NHS does it for emergency care, but, if you go to a hospital for planned treatment, they will check that you are entitled to have free NHS care. They may not always do so, but they are legally supposed to—those checks already exist.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I have to ask my noble friend a fundamental question. Regarding the biometric data that we currently retain across all the agencies of government, if that system is working, why have the Government—and indeed the previous Government, who he served and I supported—no idea how many illegal immigrants there are in the country? Why do they have no idea of the veracity of the estimate that one in 10 of the 9 million people in Greater London are illegal immigrants? We simply do not know the numbers. ID cards may not be perfect, but they may go some way to enabling us to have a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the challenge facing us in the delivery of public services. At the moment, we are flying blind and cannot use the data. The Government simply do not know how many people are in the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I was coming to this. This is where I do agree with my noble friend. There is a big difference between having ID cards—which, in effect, puts the burden on the rest of the population and would not materially affect how we deliver services or protect ourselves—and data. His point about the state needing to be better at collecting and using data is a very good one. I was always sceptical about the state using data, but we have seen how the private sector uses it effectively to deliver better services.

Having had some responsibility in the past for some of our agencies and having used their services, I know that people sometimes have concerns and have the “big brother” conversation. One thing I know is that the powers of our intelligence agencies, for example, are on a legal footing under the Investigatory Powers Act. There are very clear controls within which Ministers, who are accountable to Parliament, have to make decisions. In the past, I have signed warrants for intercepting communications, and there are very clear rules about how that works. All that is overseen by a judicial check, to make sure that the law is being enforced properly.

I think there are appropriate safeguards and that we could do a better job in collecting and using data and delivering services. The private sector does a much better job at this. This is true across government, not just in the Home Office but in the NHS and other organisations that use data. I distinguish between the two points. I absolutely support collecting and using data to deliver services, but I do not think it follows from that that we will have to require people to carry identity documents.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

To adjudicate between my noble friends Lord Harper and Lord Jackson, I think that my noble friend Lord Harper has a point. We can do something short of full-scale electronic data collection and the identity card system. The problem at the moment, frankly, is the cost, and it was a problem at the time. My noble friends may recall the cost—I think it was £3 billion or something of that order—to install a full ID system all those years ago, during the Blair Government. God knows what the Chancellor of the Exchequer would do if she was suddenly presented with the cost of a full ID system. However, I agree with my noble friends Lord Harper and Lord Swire that we need more data, particularly in the area of immigration, where we simply do not know what is going on, in London or anywhere else.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his attempt to adjudicate between me and my noble friend Lord Jackson. He makes a good point. This is where the state needs to get much better at using data to make policy decisions—by the way, this is not a criticism of the current Government; we had our challenges in office as well—and operational decisions, deal with threats and be nimble enough to recognise that those threats do not remain static but change. The state has to be much better at altering its focus to deal with the threats as they face us today.

I regret that I disagree with my noble friend, as I try not to do so, but I strongly support my noble friend Lord Swire’s amendments, and I hope that they will get a fair hearing from the Government. Even if the Government do not like the way they are drafted or whatever, I hope they will take them away and have a think about whether my noble friend’s amendments make a good point and could be incorporated into the Bill in due course.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for tabling these amendments relating to the provision of biometric information by those seeking entry into the United Kingdom. I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Harper and Lord Jackson for that interesting duel, which contributed greatly to this debate.

Amendment 102 would extend the powers under Section 141 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 by mandating the collection of biometric information from those awaiting deportation, those who have been arrested for an immigration offence and asylum seekers. Currently, the ability to collect fingerprints from such people is optional, and therefore we cannot be certain that immigration officers are collecting enough information to enable sufficient protection of our borders. My noble friend’s amendment goes further and would require the fingerprinting of everyone who is not a British citizen who seeks to enter the country. My noble friend has raised this issue on numerous occasions, and he is right to do so. If we do not know who has entered our country, and indeed who is already here, we cannot take adequate measures to prosecute crimes and deport those with no right to be here.

Importantly, my noble friend is proposing that we use biometric information primarily in cases where the person in question has failed to provide us with any other form of identification that would show who they are, where they came from and why they wished to enter the UK. These are not needlessly intrusive questions. Noble Lords who are lucky enough to travel abroad this summer will be asked exactly those questions, and rightly so. Every nation has to understand who is coming in. As I have mentioned before, the consequences of not knowing can be dire. I remind noble Lords that the massive Iranian terror attack, which was only just intercepted, was plotted by those who arrived without paperwork on small boats and in the back of lorries.

It is a matter of national security that we know who is entering the UK. My noble friend Lord Swire has proposed a sensible amendment to this Bill, which would give our law enforcement agencies the information they need to begin to build up this picture.

Amendment 149 is also built on this principle and seeks to introduce robust powers, allowing immigration officers to search for, seize, retain and make use of identity documents for certain categories of non-British nationals and to issue biometric registration cards in their place. This amendment once again speaks to the fundamental principle of border security: that we must know who is trying to enter the UK and where they are from, and try to determine why. The amendment has clear provision for returning all documents once the relevant period is passed and is a sensible proposal designed to ensure that our immigration officers have access to as much information as possible when making the decisions needed to safeguard our borders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Perhaps I can help the noble Lord. If he was in the building, he would have voted that particular way; otherwise, he would not have been a Northern Ireland Minister for very much longer. However, it is immaterial whether he was in the building or not; the Government he supported voted to abolish ID cards. Let me put that to one side, however; it is a debate for another day.

The proposed new clause in Amendment 102 is intended to require all foreign nationals to provide biometric information on arrival to the United Kingdom or face arrest if they fail to do so. I have no problem with biometric information and using it to secure our borders and protect the public. I have no problem with the fact that it is already a cornerstone of our immigration system, as it enables us to identify foreign nationals who are coming in and out of, or staying in, the United Kingdom. Individuals who seek to enter the UK are required to provide biometric information as part of their application for entry clearance or, indeed, an electronic travel authorisation. This allows us to do what I think the noble Lord wants us to do: to verify identity and assess suitability before arrival. We already compare applicants’ fingerprints against immigration and law enforcement databases, and that already enables us to identify those who may pose a threat in coming to United Kingdom. Requiring biometrics to be provided before a person travels to the UK also reduces the need for Border Force officers to deal with people who pose a threat on arrival.

Where a person arrives in the UK without the necessary entry clearance or electronic travel authorisation, we already have existing powers to capture their biometric information, and we can use reasonable force where necessary to do so. We already check biometrics at the UK borders, using e-gates that can match facial images to images contained in passports. For visa holders, we check their fingerprints at the primary control desks. Let me remind the Committee that the Government remain vigilant in their duty to protect our borders. As recently as March 2025, we introduced new legislation which significantly enhanced our ability to collect such biometric information at the border.

I know the noble Lord has good intentions, but were this new clause to be enacted, all foreign nationals would need to provide their biometric information, including people who are normally excused. This would include people who are physically unable to enrol with their biometrics or who are exempt from immigration control, such as sovereigns or heads of state, and that is neither practical nor proportionate.

For me, this is a key issue. The noble Lord and I are both former Northern Ireland Minsters, so he will know that under the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. As part of the common travel area arrangements, the UK does not operate routine immigration controls on journeys within the common travel area, and no immigration checks are undertaken. Under his new clause, we would be unable to implement a policy of taking everyone’s biometric information as they enter Northern Ireland from Ireland without introducing a hard border. I do not think he wants that, but that is what the new clause would mean.

Turning to Amendment 149, on seizing identity documents—

[Lord Harper (Con)]

If the Minister thinks that my noble friend’s amendment has some merit, one way of dealing with this issue as the EU implements its EES checks would be to exchange biometric information with the Irish Republic so that, as people come into the common travel area, we can collect that information. Earlier, we talked about sharing information with our European partners. Dealing with the issue in this way does not require a hard border on the island of Ireland, but it hardens the border around the common travel area, which I think would be welcomed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Horam (Con)]

That is not true; it was offloading as well, because the decisions were taken by the Government in Nauru at the behest of the Australian Government, although they obviously had a back-up situation and did not entirely hand it over. However, if the noble Lord will look at it, he will see that it was very similar to the arrangements with Rwanda. As he will recall, we had not only arrangements with the Rwandan Government but a back-up arrangement—a monitoring committee—which he acknowledged during those debates was composed of the most distinguished international lawyers and so forth, who would check whether anything was going wrong.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I want to draw my noble friend back, in case noble Lords missed it, to the very interesting political point he made—which I can validate from conversations I have had with a member of the Australian Government—that the Australian scheme was introduced by a Liberal Government, the equivalent of the Conservatives, and then reversed by a Labor Government, who realised that they had made a terrible mistake and, when they came back into government, wanted to keep the scheme. Does he think that might be this Government’s experience in trying to deal with this important issue?

[Lord Horam (Con)]

Exactly. It is such a pity. We made the point on ID cards just recently that one of the worst aspects of our system of government is new Governments coming in and instantly reversing policies carried through by the preceding Government. ID cards were an example where my noble friend Lord Jackson admitted that we might have been wrong. In some cases, we were right, by the way—we should have cancelled HS2. My noble friend Lord Harper might not necessarily agree with me there. None the less, sometimes new Governments can get it right as well as get it wrong, but the constant changing of policies of this kind between Governments is a real issue. Australia got it right: the Liberal Government brought it in; the Labor Government then rejected it and realised they were wrong. The Liberal Government brought it back, the Labor Government accepted it, and they now have a bipartisan approach which, in effect, means there is very little illegal immigration into Australia. It is the only extant example of this problem being dealt with.

Not only that, but the success of the bipartisan approach in Australia enabled them to go on to deal with legal immigration very transparently. There is a debate every year with a proposal from the Government on how many legal immigrants should be accepted into the country, broken down by different categories— students, families, workers in various categories, asylum seekers and so forth. That is then is debated in parliament and a view is taken. That is a model of what we are all trying to achieve here. If we could get to that position here with a bipartisan approach and an open debate every year in Parliament, that would be wonderful. This may seem like “Monty Python” land in some ways in its fantasy, but it is a reality in Australia.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Horam (Con)]

It was never deployed as a deterrent. As my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower said, it was never put into operation. The idea that the Minister can say that it did not work is nonsense, because it was never actually tried. First, there were all the judicial reviews and additional challenges that were sustained, and then there was the general election, so it never actually happened. It is a myth to believe that it somehow did not work or that it was not a deterrent. We do not know, frankly.

The great pity about all this is that we will never know whether it would have been a deterrent. I fully confess that I do not know whether it would have acted as a deterrent or not; no one could say until we saw the effects. Indeed, in the case of Australia, it was quite a long time before people realised that this was an effective deterrent. It took about 10 years before it was fully realised that this did work and was a means of doing it, and that would likely have been the case here. A policy without a serious deterrent is not really a policy at all; that is the problem.

I am sure the Minister will say that what the Government are now doing with France has considerable potential as a means of deterring people from coming across, but that depends on relations with France. I am all in favour of having favourable relations with France. I believe that the UK and France are particularly important countries in the European context these days, and I fully commend what happened over the last couple of days—I think King Charles in particular played a blinder in bringing the countries together—but none the less, we have to look at whether this will work as a deterrent. I understand that the talks on this are going on this afternoon, and that therefore the Minister may not have much information and may be unable answer questions, but currently only 6% of people will be sent back under this scheme. It is hardly a deterrent to say that 94% of people will stay here and only 6% will be sent back.

Obviously, it is sensible to start in a small way and ramp it up as time goes on, and I am sure that the Minister will argue that, but if you have a whole gamut of people coming over and only a small proportion are returned, what sort of deterrent is that? Will it not also fall foul of the problems that the previous Government had, where any individual who is asked to go back to France immediately has recourse to a lawyer who seeks to keep them here, and maybe succeeds in that effort, and therefore the whole scheme begins to unwind in a morass of legal challenges? That is what happened to the last Government: they became bogged down in a whole series of legal challenges. That is the danger, and that is why we are becoming afraid of the ECHR. The Government have had a year to think about all this. Unless they have a clear plan that encompasses these other extraneous elements that protrude into the problems they have, there is no serious possibility of stopping the boats.

Therefore, while I understand why the Government, having decided not to go ahead with the Rwanda plan, have given themselves the resources that were devoted to Rwanda and used them in a new way to develop the Bill, they will have to go very much further if they hope to stop the boats. I am afraid that we need a much more decisive, thorough and holistic approach to this problem than that we have had so far.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower. Unlike a number of noble Lords here, I was unable to take part in the earlier iterations of debate on the Bill. I was a very strong supporter of it, but, as a member of the Government, it was not within my area of responsibility, and I was, sadly, excluded. Therefore, unlike others, I relish the opportunity to volunteer my support for it this afternoon.

Fundamentally, this argument is about whether or not you believe in the deterrent effect. As was mentioned in Tuesday’s debate, and on previous occasions, the challenge we face—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Alton, highlighted this in the Joint Committee’s report when he was introducing his amendments earlier in the week—is the enormous number of displaced people around the world who, under the refugee convention, would potentially have a claim for asylum. The fact is that those volumes cannot all be accommodated here. The extra challenge we get from the issue of small boats crossing the channel goes directly to one’s interpretation of that convention; this was the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, raised when she talked about people coming across the channel from France.

It is the Joint Committee’s view, but it is not a universal view and it is not my view, that the refugee convention protects people fleeing persecution who come directly to the United Kingdom. Most of these people enter the European Union on the southern borders, so they have crossed—

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I will finish the point and then of course I will take the noble Baroness’s intervention. They cross a number of safe European countries before they get to their final safe EU country of France. I absolutely accept that a number of them—not all of them; some of them are economic migrants—are absolutely fleeing persecution, but they have not come directly to the UK, and therefore I do not feel that they benefit from the protection of the convention. On that point, I will take the noble Baroness’s intervention, and then I will make some progress.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord. It is not simply what I say or the Joint Committee on Human Rights says; it is the UN High Commission on Refugees, which is given the responsibility of overseeing the refugee convention. It is very clear that the Rwanda Act went against that convention, and it does not accept this interpretation of what coming immediately from a safe country means.

While I am up, the noble Lord talked about all these people coming here, but what proportion of asylum seekers do we in this country take in, as opposed to other European countries? My understanding is that we are not a country that is taking more than our share.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I shall deal with those points briefly. First, I do not accept that the UN is the arbiter of what the convention means. It is our job in this House and the House of Commons to make laws and set out our immigration policies. We should not subcontract that to outside organisations that sometimes have a very eccentric view of the world, and it is not one that is supported by the British people.

This comes down to the point about numbers. I am a strong supporter of our long tradition of taking genuine asylum seekers and refugees in the United Kingdom, but we can do that only if we retain public support for it. I say to those who oppose stronger and tougher controls on who can come here and make it clear that it is only people who follow our laws that they are in danger of forfeiting that public support and confidence. If we do not deal with this issue, at some point—and I think we are getting very close to it—the public will say, “We just don’t want anybody. We’re not interested in their circumstances. We’re not interested in what’s happened. We want to control the number of people that are coming here”. I think that would be a tragedy. I say to those who oppose tougher border controls that they are running a real risk of altering public opinion so that it does not support it.

When we get these schemes right—I referenced earlier in the week the scheme that we set up for those fleeing the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine—they have huge public support. In my part of the world, I had no complaints about the Ukraine scheme. But when people think people are taking the mickey out of us, as they do with these small boat crossings, public support is not there and is not supportive. In a democracy, we should be mindful that we have to carry the public with us.

On this issue of deterrence, I think you have to have a deterrent. My noble friend demonstrated earlier the success in Australia. It was very telling that one political party in Australia opposed the scheme, and then when it came back into government it recognised that it was necessary. Although it would be politically convenient if that happened to this Government—if, in the end, what they are proposing was a failure and they suffered some political damage from it—the bit of me that wants my country to be successful, having had some responsibility for our borders in the past, does not want that to happen. I want to get this right. If we had won the election and been able to implement the Rwanda scheme, it would have been a deterrent. It would have sent a very clear message to people that paying thousands of pounds to people smugglers to cross the channel was a fruitless endeavour. The one thing we know about the people who pay people smugglers is that they expect to get what they pay for and, if they were not able to get to the United Kingdom and stay here, they absolutely would not have carried on paying people smugglers and that business model would have collapsed.

I completely accept that it was perfectly reasonable for people to disagree with the Rwanda scheme in the way that it was set up, whether it was Rwanda or a different country, but the problem the Government have is that Clause 37 repeals our scheme and, as my noble friend said, replaces it with no alternative deterrent at all. We have just seen this afternoon what the Prime Minister has announced. Obviously, we have not seen all the detail—we have just seen the headlines—but a one-in, one-out scheme has now been announced. The problem with that is twofold.

First, as my noble friend said, I am not sure what the legal underpinning of that is. It would be helpful if the Minister could set out whether the scheme that has been announced today, in both its pilot and its full form, will require any further primary legislation to make sure it can be implemented, and if it does need primary legislation, whether it is going to be inserted into this Bill before it leaves the House. Also, I fear it will be subject to enormous legal challenge and the Government will have exactly the same problems as we had with the Rwanda scheme. It will take them ages to be able to scale it up. The final flaw is that the public want to stop the volume of people coming here and, although a one-in, one-out scheme might alter the composition of the people coming, by definition a one-in, one-out scheme will not reduce the numbers. If we can only send somebody back to France and get another person, we might change who they are, but we are not going to deal with the numbers problem at all, so for a lot of the public the scheme will be a failure by its very definition.

As I said, I strongly support what my noble friend said. I think the Government are making a terrible mistake with this clause—not from my perspective, but from their own perspective. They are going to find that, welcome though some of the measures in this Bill are that support the powers the Government have—I have already referred to some of the later clauses that strengthen the controls on those working illegally, and where the Bill has measures in it that are strengthening the system, I support them—completely removing a deterrent without putting anything in its place, not amending it but completely scrapping it, is a mistake, and I fear that the Government will come to regret it. That will not be a good thing. It might be a short-term political advantage for us, but it will not be a good thing for the country. I would rather, if they had some disagreements with the detail of the scheme, that they had reflected on that and altered it.

If there was a clause here that was making changes to the Rwanda scheme—for example, the way it was dealing with the processing, or maybe even picking up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about who did the processing—that would have at least been an argument that we could have entered into, and it would have been a better argument than scrapping it overnight without anything at all to replace it. I fear the Government will come to regret having done so. We will know from the robust remarks of my noble friend that we did our best to stop them making that terrible mistake. I only hope that we are not proved to be correct.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I remember those long evenings over the last two years when we debated the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024. The words of Pyrrhus come to mind, because noble Lords on the then Opposition Benches, particularly the Cross-Benchers and the Liberal Democrats, eventually prevented the Act from happening by a circuitous route. As Pyrrhus said, “One more such victory and we are doomed”. I think that the Government will reap the whirlwind of overpromising to smash the gangs and potentially not delivering.

It is important to make the point again that there is no plan B. We have spent £209 million this year giving money to the French, and yet we are told that we might send back 50 illegal migrants a week. That is one in 17 migrants. At the time when the Rwanda policy was developed, the number of illegal entrants crossing the channel was 45,700 in 2022. We are now in a position where we have had a 55% increase in those channel crossings in the last year, so it is not working.

Of course, my noble friend Lord Horam is right to make the point that it is impossible to judge the efficacy of the policy because it was never rolled out properly. It is no good the Minister complaining about that because his Government, for purely cynical political reasons, decided to draw a line in the sand and curtail and end the scheme. The scheme was popular with the public. Even after the Supreme Court hearing and judgment in November 2023, a Savanta poll found that 47% of people supported it and only 26% were against it.

For too long, our asylum system had been overwhelmed by those who sought to abuse our generosity and bypass legal immigration routes. The current system was not only unsustainable—it still is—but fundamentally unfair to those who follow proper procedures and wait patiently for their applications to be processed through legitimate channels. The Rwanda scheme was always about breaking the business model of people smuggling. The Rwanda partnership addressed the root cause of this crisis by fundamentally disrupting the business model of the criminal gangs that profited from human misery—I think we agree that that is the number one priority.

When people understood that making dangerous channel crossings would not lead to permanent settlement in the UK, the economic incentive for these perilous journeys disappeared. This was not merely theoretical: as my noble friend said, there have been examples of countries working together—Australia, for instance, but also Denmark and Israel—to return irregular or illegal migrants. Far from abandoning our humanitarian obligations, the legislation strengthened our ability to help those most in need. By creating an orderly, managed system, we could better focus our resources on genuine refugees who required our protection. Rwanda, as a safe third country with a growing economy and commitment to refugee protection, offered a new life with dignity and opportunity.

The Act reasserted parliamentary sovereignty in matters of immigration policy. The British people voted repeatedly for Governments committed to controlling immigration. This legislation ensured that elected representatives, rather than foreign courts—I know some noble Lords do not like that term—determine how we implement our policies.

There were economic benefits. We always hear from Ministers how expensive the Rwanda scheme was, but, actually, by the time of the general election, the National Audit Office found that we had spent something like £318 million. That is not an insignificant amount of public money, of course, but the Minister quotes a £700 million figure—I would like him perhaps to write to me to outline how he gets that breakdown, because I am not sure that the NAO would necessarily agree with him. But we are now spending £4.7 billion every year on the asylum system and hotels. So, on a cost-benefit analysis, a scheme that potentially reduced the pull factor was probably better value for money.

The legislation demonstrated Britain’s commitment to international co-operation in addressing global migration challenges. Of course, the Government approved of this in principle. In May, we saw the slightly unedifying sight of the Prime Minister travelling to Albania to go cap in hand to the slightly dubious Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, seeking offshore processing facilities in Albania. Unfortunately, he was several months too late. The Italian Government had gone in before and the charms of Madame Meloni surpassed those of Mr Starmer—I cannot think why. The Government obviously believe in the principle of offshoring the processing of asylum seekers, and it is disingenuous to say that that is not the case. We wish them well if they wish to pursue other opportunities to explore working and collaborating with other countries.

The safety of Rwanda Act 2024 represented compassionate but firm governance—compassionate towards genuine refugees who deserved our protection and firm in our determination to prevent abuses of our asylum system. The legislation delivered on our manifesto commitment of 2019.

But as I said, Labour Peers, Cross-Benchers, Liberal Democrats and Bishops—all unelected and unaccountable —conspired to thwart this legislation; to undermine, traduce and attack the Bill at every turn; not to improve it or to scrutinise it but to wreck it. We should not be surprised at the specious claims by lawyers in this House that the legislation was “unlawful”, which demonstrated their own anti-democratic inclinations and propagated the fiction that unelected courts have sovereignty over our own elected Parliament and a Government with a strong electoral mandate. That is completely wrong. Parliament is supreme, as a casual reference to Sections 7 and 23 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 makes clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Politics is about the exchange of views and ideas and the delivery of policies. I think we have reached an impasse. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, and Opposition Back-Benchers think that the scheme would have worked, and the Government think that the scheme was expensive and would not have worked. That is the clear blue—or red—water between us on this. I am grateful for my noble friend Lady Lister’s support for the Government in taking the steps that we have taken.

The UK will also exit the UK-Rwanda treaty as part of ending this partnership and it is therefore appropriate for the Government to repeal the safety of Rwanda Act. Clause 37 will achieve this. In doing so, it is also important that we address the issue that has been endemic in the discussion we have had today, that somehow this was a deterrent and the removal of this clause and the removal of the scheme will therefore end that deterrent. I just refer noble Lords to Clauses 1 to 12 of this Bill, which establish a new Border Security Command and put in place resources of £150 million and £280 million over the next few years to establish very strong action on the meaningful issues that are important to us all.

We have created co-operation with the French, Dutch, Germans and Belgians through the new Border Security Commander on tackling the small boats at source. There is the work that the border commander has been doing with the French Government as part of the preparations for today’s conference between the President of the Republic of France, the Prime Minister and other representatives. There is also the work that the Government will do under Clauses 13 to 17 of this Bill to create new offences to bring people to justice if they provide activity on the issue of supplying articles, handling articles, collecting information and offences committed outside the United Kingdom. There is also Clause 18 on endangering another during the sea crossing to the United Kingdom, as well as powers to search on electronic devices to bring people to justice in that way. This Bill is full of deterrent activity that, if and when implemented by the Government after being passed by both Houses, will make a real difference.

I am pleased to say to the House that, hot off the press today, the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic of France have now finished their deliberations and, speaking with the President at a news conference just a few moments ago, the Prime Minister has confirmed a new UK-France returns pilot scheme. The Prime Minister has said that the scheme will come into force in a matter of weeks. Migrants arriving via small boats will be detained and returned to France in short order. In exchange for every return, a different individual will be allowed to come here via safe and legal routes, which individuals in this House have been pressing this Government to have. There will be strict security checks, open only to those who have not tried to enter the UK illegally. The suggestion is that, under the pilot, 50 people per week will be sent back to France across the channel—as I recall, even in this very week alone, that will be 46 more than left under the Rwanda scheme.

For the first time since we left the European Union, the UK has secured a bilateral agreement with France to pilot the return of illegal migrants across the channel. This tightly controlled pilot will be, I hope, the premise for further action downstream. The UK-France summit today has seen both nations strengthen co-operation on border security. We know that there is no silver bullet on this issue. We know that the returns pilot is part of a border crackdown, but it is the culmination—and this goes again to the value of the Border Security Command in this Bill—of six months’ work by the Border Security Commander with the Home Secretary, my right honourable friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, the French Interior Minister and the French-established new Compagnie de Marche. That is real progress in developing real, positive action. I can even go back to our discussions about Europol earlier today, on ensuring that we tackle smuggling gangs and disrupt their business model, that we have stronger law enforcement and that we dismantle this multi-million pound black market. This is not just about gangs; it is about lives.

The Rwanda scheme was ineffective, costly and did not deliver. The Government’s proposals in this Bill, and the statements by the Prime Minister and the President of France today, will add greatly to the potential to impact this heinous crime and business.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Can I just check, now that the Prime Minister and the French President have announced the details of the scheme, whether the Minister’s contention is that what has been announced today—once it has had a pilot and been scaled up—is, in effect, the Government’s attempt to put in place a deterrent that he thinks will, over the term of this Parliament, have the desired effect of driving down the number of people crossing the channel to effectively as low as you can get it? Is that his contention?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Government are doing a range of things. The border security Bill is one of them. We have put the £150 million and £280 million for future SRs into the Border Security Command. Our work with the French so far has prevented 12,000 crossings this year alone through joint patrols and intelligence services. We are funding a new unit of specialist officers to increase patrols. We have a new specialist intelligence unit stationed at Dunkirk being launched today. Additional drone pilots are being launched. We have funded an extra 100 specialist National Crime Agency intelligence officers who will be stationed with Europol—to go back to the points that we mentioned earlier.

The NCA has seized 600 boats. Germany is already looking at changing its laws because of action that we have taken with the Border Security Command. We have put in place a landmark agreement with Iraq. We have practised and worked through illegal working raids. Arrests have increased by 50%. We have boosted asylum decision-making. Since the election, 30,000 people have gone back—a 12% increase since the previous Government. We have work upstream with Vietnam and Albania to stop people making the journeys from those countries in the first place.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

So he really cannot say.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Look, if we are going to talk about more people coming, can we go back to 2016? Can the noble Lord tell me how many people arrived on a small boat in 2016, compared with July 2024? I will tell him. There were 400 in 2016 and over 30,000 in 2024. We have a legacy of complete and utter failure by that Government, of which he was a significant member in the Cabinet. These are strong, practical measures; the Rwanda scheme was not, which is why I commend Clause 37 to the House. I ask the noble Lord to reflect on what we have said. If he chooses to vote at some point to remove Clause 37, I and, I think, many other Members of this House will stand together to oppose him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who is not in her place, I will move Amendment 102A and will speak to the consequential amendments, because I was planning to speak in support of this amendment.

I had assumed that the noble Baroness would be here to explain it, so I will briefly quote from briefings that some of us have received from ILPA, BID and Detention Action. The briefing says:

“Section 12 IMA, since 28 September 2023, has sought to enable the Executive to (a) decide the reasonableness of the length of all forms of immigration detention, intending to overturn an established common law principle which provides for judicial oversight over the length of detention as an important safeguard against arbitrary detention, and (b) continue to detain persons after the reason for their detention (pending examination, removal, or deportation order/decision being made within a reasonable period of time) falls away”.


I probably will not be quite as helpful to my noble friend the Minister as I was on the previous group, but I will start by welcoming the repeal of most of the Illegal Migration Act; needless to say, I do not support the other amendments in this group. However, the omission of Section 12—one of the very few sections to survive—is worrying, because I fear it may reflect an attitude towards detention that I had hoped we had seen the back of with a change in government.

We will be returning to the question of detention and the case for a time limit at a later date but, as I will probably be away then, I hope the Committee will bear with me for raising some more general points about detention. In justification, I cite the UNHCR’s observations on the Bill. It emphasises:

“Detention of asylum-seekers and refugees should be a measure of last resort and both necessary and proportionate in each individual case”.


It therefore recommends the repeal of Section 12 of the Illegal Migration Act, which it fears could mean in some cases detention for periods inconsistent with standards in international refugee and human rights law. Previously, it had pointed to the policy of indefinite detention as a key point of concern. This concern has to be the greater so long as Section 12 remains on the statute book.

It has been a full decade since the inquiry into the use of immigration detention on which I served, established by the APPGs on refugees and migration, called for a 28-day time limit on detention. It argued that detention should be an absolute last resort, with a presumption in favour of community-based solutions. It is depressing that, despite countless reports, including that of the official Brook House inquiry, making the same case in the intervening 10 years, here we are again.

One of those reports was by the Home Affairs Committee in 2019, chaired by the now Home Secretary. It pointed out that the UK is the only country in Europe without a limit on the length of time someone can be held in immigration detention. Having reviewed the evidence, it concluded:

“There is a rapidly growing consensus among medical professionals, independent inspectorate bodies, people with lived experience and other key stakeholders on the urgent need for a maximum time limit”.


The committee called on the then Government to

“bring an end to indefinite immigration detention and to implement a maximum 28-day time limit with immediate effect”.

That was in 2019. Of course, nothing happened. One has to ask: what has changed the Home Secretary’s mind?

The consensus is still very much there. Indeed, the evidence of the harmful effects on health, particularly mental health, has mounted, including last year from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Moreover, as Refugee Tales, which met with some of us the other day, found during its walking inquiry into immigration detention, the damaging impacts last long after release. It notes that:

“For those with lived experience, ‘detention never leaves you’”.


A series of reports by Women for Refugee Women over the past decade have underlined the particularly damaging impact of detention generally on women, the majority of whom are survivors of rape and other forms of gender-based violence. Their most recent report warns:

“Locking up women who have already survived serious violence and abuse retraumatises them, causing profound and longlasting damage to their mental health”.


Shockingly, its latest research found that despite the Home Office banning such practices, male detention centre staff still subjected women in intimate situations to constant supervision.

For a brief period, the previous Government flirted with alternatives to detention with two pilot schemes. In an assessment of these pilots, the UNHCR wrote that:

“Alternatives to Detention provide a people centered approach to supporting asylum seekers whilst waiting for case resolution without any evidence of a reduction in compliance with UK Home Office directives”.


The evidence from the pilot shows significant improvement in the mental health and well-being of participants and that alternatives to detention are cheaper and offer better value for money compared with the cost of detaining asylum seekers. One would have thought that would appeal to Governments of any persuasion.

It was thus disappointing that, when we debated the guidance on the detention of vulnerable persons last October, my noble friend the Minister told us it was the new Government’s policy to “expand the detention estate”. Apropos of that, I understand that the review of that guidance is still ongoing. Can my noble friend the Minister give me an assurance that any changes it proposes will strengthen, and not weaken further, the safeguards for vulnerable people in detention?

Just about finally, returning to the question of indefinite detention, whenever I raised the issue with Ministers in the previous Government, I was met with the semantic response that detention is not indefinite because it comes to an end. We all know that, in this context, “indefinite” means without a specified end or time limit. I hope this semantic distinction did not lie behind Minister Eagle’s recent response to an Oral Question, when she stated:

“Immigration centres are not used for indefinite detention”,—[Official Report, Commons, 2/6/25; col. 18.]


because, if there is no reasonable prospect of removal, the person has to be released. Yet in the year ending 31 March 2025, just over a third of those leaving detention had been held for 29 days or more, and as many as 533 for six months or more.

I trust that my noble friend will accept that we do apply indefinite detention, with important, limited exceptions, in this country. I hope he will acknowledge the harm that this does to those affected. Will Members of your Lordships’ House still have to be making the case for a time limit and minimal use of detention a decade on from now?

In conclusion, repeal of Section 12 of the IMA is the absolute minimum needed to even begin to meet the UNHCR’s concerns, echoed by the JCHR, which, like the UNHCR, also called for its repeal:

“to restore certainty and ensure compliance with Article 5”

of the ECHR. This point is underlined by the Bar Council, which, along with numerous other bodies, argues for repeal with reference to the rule of law and access to justice.

I hope that my noble friend will give serious thought to this, and also to the case that will be made in later amendments for a clear time limit and the development of alternatives to detention. I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to oppose this amendment. I am afraid—and she will not be surprised, I suspect—that I broadly disagree with everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has just said. Let me set out the reason why.

First, she mentioned that the Home Secretary changed her mind and wondered why that might have been. I obviously cannot get inside the Home Secretary’s mind. I suspect what has changed, between chairing the Home Affairs Committee and now, is that she is now the Home Secretary and responsible for protecting the borders and the security of the United Kingdom. Whoever holds that responsibility is sometimes confronted with reality; despite things that they might have liked to have done, they are confronted with the reality of keeping the country safe. What the Home Secretary, I suspect, will have realised is that there is a cohort of people here who she thinks should be removed, as they have no legal right to be here, and she has realised that unless you detain them, you are not able to carry out your functions of keep the country safe.

Now, I do not know whether that is the reason why—the Minister may or may not confirm it—but I suspect that the realities of office have changed her mind, for this reason. We do not detain people indefinitely. The power to detain people is in order to facilitate their removal from the country and to protect the public. The Home Secretary has to have reasonable grounds to believe that, and people are able to challenge that through the judicial process.

The noble Baroness quoted some statistics; I will quote the same statistics but the other way around. Two-thirds of people are detained for 28 days or fewer. It is true that some people are detained for a long period of time. In most of those cases, the reason for the lengthy detention is the responsibility of the individual themselves: it is because they are trying to avoid being removed from the country that they have no legal right to be in, throwing up legal challenge after legal challenge. That is the reason why they are detained. If they wish to cease being detained, they could comply with the deportation order that they have been issued by the Home Secretary, get on a plane and leave the country. It is the fact that they do not wish to comply with the law that means they are held in detention.

The Home Secretary must have a reasonable belief that she can ultimately remove them—otherwise, she would not have the legal power to detain them. If we were to have what the noble Baroness suggests, which is a fixed statutory time period of 28 days, all that would do would give a bigger incentive to people with no right to be in this country to legally challenge decisions. Unless you could get all those legal challenges heard and decided within 28 days, all those people would have to be let out of detention, and we would cease to be able to remove any of them from the country. That would include some people who are not just here illegally but a present danger to people in this country. I strongly support the ability of the Home Secretary to detain people and not to have a fixed time limit, which would simply be an incentive for those people to delay.

If the noble Baroness looks into the details of who stays here in detention for a long period of time, it is people trying to avoid having to leave the country when they have no right to be here, throwing up legal challenge after legal challenge. The alternative way of dealing with it, if you really want not to detain people, is to reduce the opportunities for them to challenge the decision, and for deportation orders to be able to be carried out swiftly. Then we would not need to detain people. I am afraid that I suspect the Home Secretary has realised that detention is necessary to protect the public and to make sure that we can enforce the necessary deportation decisions.

I understand why people do not like it, but I am afraid it is a bit naive to think that everyone who comes to this country, or who overstays their welcome and is in this country without legal authority, goes when they are asked to. You sometimes have to use the power of the state and detention, and you sometimes have to enforce their removal, because otherwise they do not go. If you do not demonstrate that you have a robust system, you will have even more people coming here because they think that, once they get here, they are never going to be removed.

One of the important reasons for having a deterrent is that, if you look at the total number of people we remove, you want to get to a position where the balance between enforced removals and those who go voluntarily is much more in favour of those who go on a voluntary basis, because it is quicker and cheaper for everybody, but that happens only if people realise they are going to have to go at some point. If people think they can get away with staying when they have no right to be here, we have to use the powers that we have at our disposal. I accept that it is not ideal, but I am afraid there are limited choices for Ministers if they want to enforce a robust immigration system. Detaining and removing people where necessary ensures you command the confidence of the public that you have a robust system. If that confidence disappears, the public will not support anybody coming here, whether legally or not. As I have said in debates on earlier clauses, that would be a tragedy.

[Lord German (LD)]

I support the amendment for the removal of Section 12 and will address one or two of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Harper, made. I agree with him that voluntary methods of return are obviously the best. They are usually done very speedily and without fuss. When the explanation is provided and people have had the chance to have that internal conversation, they work very well indeed. So I would put that as a number one factor in this whole issue of how you remove people.

--- Later in debate ---

The canter through all this does not really do justice to the situation, and I hope that the organisations and, indeed, victims who are aware of this debate will understand that compressing the arguments does not mean that their situation is not fully recognised and that there is not huge concern for them. I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, on the overall issue, I strongly support the various provisions in legislation to make sure that victims of modern slavery and trafficking are properly protected. There is, however, a balance to strike, because the people we want to protect are actual victims of modern slavery and trafficking. We have to be very careful because, if you have a blanket exemption for anyone who claims to be a victim of modern slavery and trafficking, you just create a massive gap in our laws where anybody who is then intercepted ends up claiming to be a victim of modern slavery and trafficking to avoid being removed from the country. That has two incredibly damaging consequences. One is that they are able to undercut our immigration control, but they also damage public support for and acceptance of genuine victims of modern slavery and trafficking. We have to have a system which recognises that there are many bad actors out there who will take advantage of every weakness in our legislation.

I do not support the first amendment in this group, which seeks to get rid of the Home Secretary’s ability to remove people who have sought to use modern slavery protections in bad faith: the sorts of people I have talked about who try to use these provisions, where they do not apply, to try to avoid our immigration controls. I think it is reasonable that the Home Secretary is able to do that. I know from my experience, and I have no reason to suspect it is now any different, that the officials in the Home Office who look after this area of policy are expert, competent people who do their very best to try to make these decisions.

I have met victims of modern slavery. I met the people who implemented this legislation when my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead was Home Secretary and I was in the Home Office, and I have a lot of confidence that they get the decisions right—not in 100% of cases, because people are not perfect, but I think we have a good system—but we have to have the power to deal with people who act in bad faith.

Amendment 117 repeals a whole bunch of sections of the Nationality and Borders Act that actually provide the protections for victims of modern slavery, such as their ability to get leave to stay in the United Kingdom for a period of up to 60 months and to have a recovery period. Those are all very valuable protections that ought to remain, so I do not support that amendment.

Very briefly, given that my noble friend Lady May is not able to be here, I briefly support the thrust of her amendment, Amendment 183. That looks at making sure that people who are victims of modern slavery and perhaps have committed criminal offences but under duress are not then punished for a second time as a result of only having committed those offences under duress.

I think that amendment has a lot of merit. If my noble friend Lady May were to bring it back on Report, I would consider supporting it. If there are any flaws or weaknesses in the way it is drafted, it would be good if the Minister were able to set them out today or would engage with my noble friend and the people who have supported the amendment to deal with them so that we could have an agreed position on Report.

With those relatively brief comments and mindful of time, I will sit down.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 172. I would genuinely press the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to elucidate the meaning behind it, because I find it quite confusing. The amendment seeks to prevent the proper authorities gaining any information about a person. I read the wording very carefully. It refers to

“suspected victims of slavery or human trafficking”.

It could be that that status changes, and that a person was originally suspected of being a victim but when further inquiry took place it proved not to be the case. Therefore, I find it odd that under this restrictive amendment—I am happy to be disabused if I have got it wrong—a public authority would be speaking to, for instance, adult social care or adult social services, children’s services and others but would be prevented on a statutory basis from talking to anyone else on the chance that, somewhat down the line, that person may have criminal charges laid against them. At that stage, they may be found not to have been truly a victim of slavery or human trafficking.

To specifically rule out

“a customs official ... a law enforcement officer … a UK authorised person”—

I am not entirely certain what that is—or

“the government of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom”

seems pretty draconian and restrictive. Perhaps the noble Baroness might wish to enlighten us about the meaning behind this amendment. However, for the reasons I set out, I do not think it would be appropriate to incorporate it into the Bill, and on that basis, I oppose it.