Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 10th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will be brief, because I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, particularly about the position of domestic migrant workers. This is something we will come back to at later stages of the Bill, but as the noble Baroness has raised it now, I just put on record how much I agree with her. The noble Lord, Lord German, and I recently met with Kalayaan, which does so much extraordinary, wonderful work in this field. We were reviewing with it how things have changed—and what else needs to be changed—in the years that have passed since 2015. I have with me a publication it issued called 12 Years of Modern Slavery, the Smoke Screen Used to Deflect State Accountability for Migrant Domestic Workers.

I know that the Minister agrees with Kalayaan’s 2015 findings, because there is a photograph of the Minister and me, both of us looking considerably younger, alongside our redoubtable friend, now retired from this place, Lord Hylton. We were celebrating the passage of the 2015 legislation but recognising that more still needed to be done. I will not quote at length from the report. If the Minister has not seen it, I will be more than happy to share my copy with him, so that he can study the photographs and see the effects of too much engagement with Bills such as this.

The report says:

“Government data tells us that from 2005 to 2022, the number of visas issued to migrant domestic workers has remained consistent at around 20,000 per year”,


so this does affect a significant number of people doing significant work. Kalayaan urged the Government to take immediate steps to amend the Immigration Rules and reinstate the rights provided for under the pre-2012 visa regime. Among those is the right to renew a domestic worker visa annually, subject to ongoing employment. That is a reasonable demand. I hope that at some stage during the proceedings on the Bill, the Minister will see whether there is a way to address that issue. So I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has said.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on a couple of the amendments in this group.

I was listening very carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said on the information-sharing provisions in Clauses 27 and 28, which her amendment refers to. It would be helpful, certainly for me, if the Minister when he responds could be clear about the scope of those two clauses. My reading of Clauses 27 and 28 is that the HMRC data that is allowed to be shared under those provisions is that gained purely through its customs functions, not through its other activities. I am unclear about how that would help—or not—in the very important issues that the noble Baroness raised about the protection of workers and, rightly, the need to crack down on those who abuse people’s immigration status and employ them when they have no right to work in this country.

I very much support strengthening the law in this area and sharing information to support that, but I am unclear on the customs function. The customs data helps strengthen the case about combating organised criminal groups and their transporting of funds and the supplies they use to do this trafficking. That seems to be the purpose of the clause, so it would be helpful if the Minister could flesh that out.

I strongly support my noble friend’s Amendment 188. Whether we support them or not, we should go back to the purposes of the GDPR and the human rights legislation, particularly the GDPR data. The intention of that legislation is absolutely right—that we protect the information of people who are legitimately in the country. However, we should not use that legislation to protect those who are here illegally or who are criminals trafficking in human beings and abusing our laws. It would be much more helpful if that legislation was not used to protect them. Therefore, I very much support my noble friend’s amendment. I know he will set it out in more detail; I just wanted to add my support and to raise the question that arose from the noble Baroness’s contribution.

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I come back to the basic principle of the Bill, which is the gangs. We are trying to secure action against criminal gangs that exploit vulnerable people in the first place, and the provisions of Clauses 27 to 31 in the Bill are designed to do just that in a data-sharing way.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Can I probe the Minister on the point he made in response to my noble friend’s amendment on data sharing and the GDPR? The Minister said—and I understand why he said it—that he felt my noble friend’s amendment was unnecessary. Is he able, either today, in writing or on a future day, to reassure the House that there are not cases where we are dealing with foreign criminals or those who have entered the country illegally where either his department or relevant officials are stopped from dealing with them because of that? Is he basically saying that it is not a problem—that there are no cases of dealing with criminality or these gangs where there is an information-sharing problem? If he is happy to reassure us that there really is not a problem and the existing GDPR framework works effectively, then clearly that is very reassuring. Is he able to say that?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I will look in detail at the Hansard report of the contributions that have been made today and reflect on them, but my assessment is that I can give the noble Lord that assurance. If there is any difference in the detail that he has mentioned, I will double-check with officials to make sure that we are clear on that.

The noble Lord should know, and I think he does know, that one of the Government’s objectives is to turbocharge the removal of foreign national criminals with no right to stay in the United Kingdom after their sentence, and indeed during it, and to ensure that those with offences that are a bar to their entry to the United Kingdom are monitored and acted on accordingly. That is an important principle. Without rehearsing the arguments around that with him now, I can say that the past year has shown that we have had an increase in the number of foreign nationals who have been removed, and it is our objective to try to do that.

To give the noble Lord reassurance, I will ensure that my officials and I examine the Hansard report, and, if the reassurances I have given are not sufficient for him, he has the opportunity to revisit this issue on Report, as does the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. In the light of that, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment, and that she and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, do not press their other amendments.

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It strikes me that, often, where we have no embassies, we rely on the embassies of other, friendly countries. We also rely a lot on United Nations personnel to do the tasks for us in a joint way with the Government, as I observed in Cairo, when literally hundreds of thousands of people escaped from Sudan and turned up at the doors of the United Nations. This seems a very practical option now. My question is whether the Government are mindful that there are people who can deliver this on their behalf. When you take biometric information, it is transmitted electronically anyway, so it can be checked anywhere in the world. The biometric information is being brought closer, which means that people will no longer have to cross borders not just once but twice—from one country to another, or perhaps from a nearby country—without their documentation, or without being able to fulfil all the requirements that make matters so difficult for them. It is not about increasing the number of people who come into this country; it is about making it safer. I hope the Minister will see that and will give us some indication as to whether the Government are prepared to take this matter forward or even to accept my noble friend’s amendment.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I just have a few points to make on the amendments and the contributions that have been made, which I hope means that the Minister can make sure he covers them when he responds.

On the first two amendments, on family reunion, I support the concept and did a lot to support it when I was Immigration Minister. Just to give a balanced argument, though, it is important that we collect biometric information to make sure that the people who are applying are who they say they are. That is of course the reason why—the Minister will confirm this—it is important to get the biometric information before the application is submitted, so that you know that the person making the application is indeed entitled to do so. Clearly, it would be helpful to make it easier to collect that biometric information.

Of course, one challenge with the list of countries read out earlier by noble Lords is that we often do not have our own personnel in those countries, for very sensible reasons. In making it safer for those applying for family reunion, we must obviously be mindful of the risks that might be run by British officials in collecting the biometric information. There are some countries where it would be problematic to do so, because we simply do not have people. I am therefore not sure that it is quite as straightforward as some noble Lords have suggested, but I suspect that, given the progress of technology and the point made by the noble Lord, Lord German—that a lot of this equipment is now much more advanced, portable and transportable—we can make some improvements. I will therefore listen carefully to what the Minister has to say about how we can make things easier for people with a legitimate family reunion claim, while also maintaining our border security.

I want to pick up on one point that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, made—I understand why he made it—about data protection and protecting the rights of children. I think there is a bit of a danger here of focusing on the process and forgetting what the point is. If a child, someone over 16 but under 18, is coming to the United Kingdom in order to get to a safer location, we obviously need to be satisfied that they do not present a risk and are not a criminal or a terrorist from abroad—we know, of course, that in many countries, you can be those things while still being a child. If we are not careful and we overdo the GDPR aspect, for example, the danger is that we will not take the biometric data from the child, or that the circumstances will be such that doing so is problematic. In not doing so, we would not then be able sensibly to give that child safe protection in the United Kingdom—we would be cutting off our nose to spite our face.

There is a balance to strike here. If the point of the exercise is that that child is able to get a successful asylum claim and come to the United Kingdom and be safe, we should not let what are otherwise sensible information protections get in the way. There is a risk of missing the point, and there needs to be a bit of proportionality and balance here.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I agree with the general thrust of the argument the noble Lord, Lord Harper, is putting to the Committee. He talked about getting the balance right, and that is really what I was arguing. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that these are children or young people, and we owe them a duty of care. We should get the balance right and not categorise them all as potential criminals or as having been involved in acts of terror or criminality. However, I recognise that there is that potential, and therefore, as he says, we have to get the balance right. We do not want a general disapplication of protections. We want to know that they are going to be used in a measured and sane way.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

As a supplement to that, I add that the balance is already there in the international standards, in things such as making sure there is an appropriate adult present. That does not harm any of the ambitions of the noble Lord. It is just what we would normally expect for minors.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am grateful for both of those interventions. In the clause as set out there are provisions to make sure there is an appropriate person who is not a representative of the government present. All I was saying is that it is important we do not lose sight of the purpose of this exercise, which is to enable people to come to Britain, where they are legally qualified to do so and do not present a risk to us. That is an important balance to strike.

I strongly support the thrust of the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, about the use to which this information should be put. In the modern world, with the way we can process data, my experience of how we use it is that it is done in a proportionate way. Checking information against databases protects people. Our security agencies are not interested in, and do not have the resources to spend their time worrying about, people who do not present a threat to the country. The big challenge is dealing with those who do. The noble Lord set out some very important questions, which I hope the Minister can deal with when he closes. I wanted to put that in context, so that the Minister covers it when he responds.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I did two years of Roman law, which did not stick, but the mens rea in criminal law did stick. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I are very much on the same page here. He did not quote the rather neat line from his committee’s report: that it considers that the

“precursor offences would benefit from greater circumscription”.

I thought that was very circumspect, and rather typical of the careful language our Select Committees use.

My Amendments 32, 42 and 53 are, if you like, more instinctive and a bit more amateur; the noble Lord’s are technically better, and I am happy to support them. My amendments go to the words “suspects” and “suspicion” in Clauses 13, 14 and 16. That is a very low threshold, with the burden being on the person charged to show beyond all reasonable doubt that they had a reasonable excuse. I looked up the definition, and the Oxford English Dictionary defines to “suspect” as to

“imagine … on slight or no evidence”,

and

“to believe or fancy to be guilty … with insufficient proof or knowledge”.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, on the first day in Committee, working from a superseded group of amendments—although it was not his fault—described all the amendments in the group, which included these, as being “well meaning”. I choose to take that as a compliment, although I am not sure that it was intended quite directly as one. He said that they would

“significantly change the burden of proof in respect of evidence”.—[Official Report, 26/6/2025; col. 447.]

Exactly, and that is the point. These are criminal offences with substantial penalties, and that should require a high burden of proof. I am very uneasy that, in the circumstances, a term that I could describe as casual does not require much from the prosecution. We will come to the content later, but I will raise this point whatever the content of the offence.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and have a great deal of respect for the side of the argument he is coming from. But the piece missing from his argument, and from that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is the concept of deterrence.

What the Government are trying to do, as far as I understand it—the Minister will correct me if I have got this wrong—is to put in place a framework that actually stops the organised criminal groups, as well as those who pay them and those who help facilitate that immigration crime. The intention is to stop them doing these things in the first place, and there is a balance to strike between the criminal law regime you put in place and the penalties. It needs to be sufficiently tough that you actually deter people in the first place.

The Joint Committee’s report says that the

“scope is broad, the thresholds are low, and the penalties are high”.

That is correct, but that is because the Government are trying, I think—and if so, I support them—to set those penalties so that people are deterred from trying to cross the channel. Let us remind ourselves that they are doing so from a safe country. They are not fleeing persecution in France; they are already in a safe European country. They may have been fleeing persecution in the country from which they originally came, but they are now in a safe European country. Of course, we also know that a lot of the people undertaking these journeys are not fleeing persecution at all; they are travelling, perfectly understandably, for economic reasons, but those are not reasons we should allow.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

Is it not sensible to look at it from the point of view of the person who may be undertaking the action? If there is to be deterrence, you have to look at it from that point of view. Whatever your objective, you have to look at it from the point of view of the person who may be affected; otherwise, you cannot assess whether there is a deterrent effect. Does the noble Lord think that people who reach the northern shores of Europe are as aware of the detail of legislation as his argument would require them to be?

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I shall address both the points the noble Baroness has made. On the first, in one sense I am very much looking at it from the point of view of the participants. I want them to be clear that carrying out that particular set of actions would indeed be an offence with a significant penalty, because I want them to then conclude that they do not want to do that and do not want to cross the channel to the United Kingdom from the safe country in which they currently reside. That is the point of the legislation.

On the second point, I am clear, having had some experience of running the immigration regime, and particularly of the development of technology, that the noble Baroness will find that most of the people concerned have mobile telephones and are very well aware of what is going on. There are many groups out there that provide detailed information to migrants about the law and those who can facilitate their being smuggled into the United Kingdom. They are very well aware of changes we make and of the legal position. We were very well aware—I am saying this only because it has just occurred to me—that in the run-up to the election, lots of communications were being made with people in northern France about the likely outcome of that election and whether they should stay put or make the crossing to the United Kingdom. They are very well aware of what is going on, and that is very relevant.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

The example that Liberty gave—the committee did not invent it—is built on a statement by the committee that:

“There is no express distinction in clause 16 between those who engage in such conduct as smugglers, and those who engage in such conduct as asylum seekers, victims of modern slavery, or persons (including children) who may be coerced into carrying items such as phones”.


I am sure that, with his experience, the noble Lord will accept that that is the case. It is about trying to find a balance, so that we can deal with those making money from creating the circumstances to smuggle people in and out of this country and those who are genuine, including children like those whom the committee describes.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

The noble Lord makes half a good point. I agree with him on people who are victims of modern slavery. I think my noble friend Lady May will speak to some amendments on that in later groups.

I am sorry if this disappoints noble Lords, but the fact that the example in the report was given by Liberty does not strengthen the case, in my humble opinion, but somewhat lessens it. When I was Immigration Minister, Liberty spent most of its time trying to undermine our immigration legislation and argued for not protecting our borders. It failed to understand, importantly, that if the British public do not think that we have a robust immigration and asylum system then they will become increasingly intolerant of protecting people whom I believe should be protected. You command wide public support for people genuinely fleeing persecution, for whom we should provide refuge, by being clear that we have the ability to stop those who are not entitled to that protection coming to our country and making a mockery of our system. Organisations in favour of our looking after genuine asylum seekers and people who would meet the test of being a refugee should sometimes reflect that being uncritical, as I am afraid many of them are, about those people attempting to come to the United Kingdom damages the public’s view and our ability to have a system that genuinely helps those who need it, as everyone then gets swept up because the system is not working.

Finally, I may have misunderstood the noble Baroness—I am very happy to take an intervention if I have it wrong—but, on her amendments probing the removal of the defence, she said that she wanted the prosecution to have to make the argument. She said that the current drafting means that people would have to prove their defence beyond a reasonable doubt. That is not my understanding of how this works. It is for the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that somebody is guilty of an offence and the legislation, as drafted, provides that there are defences that people can offer as to why they may have conducted themselves in a certain way. Unless I have misunderstood something very badly, that does not require the person to prove their defence beyond a reasonable doubt—all they have to do is, in setting out the defence, raise at least a reasonable doubt with the court that they were not guilty of the offence. That seems the right place to have the test in our criminal justice system. As currently drafted, the legislation does not have the effect that she thinks it does.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

We debated the reverse burden of proof on the first day in Committee. I certainly do not take it from any of the briefings I have had, or from previous debates on the reverse burden of proof in other Bills, that it is as the noble Lord described it. As I understand it, you are charged and then you have to put forward a defence if you believe you have a reasonable excuse—which you have if there is sufficient evidence of the matter to raise an issue and the contrary is not proved beyond reasonable doubt. It therefore throws the “not proved beyond reasonable doubt” on to the defence. Presumably the CPS, in the usual way, would have to believe that the public interest test is met and so on, but it upends the normal way that we do things.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am grateful for that explanation. As I explained to the Committee, I could not be here on the first day but I have read through the debate and I am afraid I did not agree with that then either. I just do not buy that that is what this does. The prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that somebody is guilty of the offence. In the legislation as drafted by the Government, somebody can offer a defence and all they have to do for that defence to be successful is create a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury. That does not reverse the burden of proof at all.

To pick up on the point in the amendment about changing “knows or suspects” to “intends that, or is reckless”, if you know or suspect something untoward is going to take place, that is a reasonably decent idea that someone should not really be doing it. If I know or suspect someone is going to commit crime, it is probably not very wise if I provide them with equipment that would enable them to commit that crime. I do not really see why I would want that test to be much higher. Let us remember that we are not trying to criminalise people who are thinking about doing this; we are trying to say to them, “If you do this, you will be committing a criminal offence and we’d like you not to do it”. That is the purpose of this. Ministers would be delighted if they did not have to prosecute anybody—certainly none of the people contemplating crossing the channel. They want to put in place a deterrent regime that stops them doing it. That is the objective of the legislation. Weakening it would just remove that deterrent effect and we would get back to the position in which we do not have control of our borders, significant numbers of people cross the channel and undertake unsafe journeys, and the British people have no confidence in our immigration and asylum system, which would damage it for the legitimate refugees for whom we want to provide proper protection. We can only do that if there is a system that commands public confidence.

If I have understood what the Government intend to do, I respectfully suggest that the Committee should not support the amendments tabled by noble Lord and noble Baroness. We should stick with the wording in the Bill.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I can be very concise, mainly because I agree almost entirely with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Harper, said. We should not lose sight of the fact that this whole issue is a real concern to the public. They think we are being made fools of and they are largely right. It is time that the law was tightened up and the authorities got a grip on the situation. I support the Government’s drafting and I hope it will be widely supported.

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[Lord German (LD)]

I think the answer is related to the nature of the offence which is before us. An offence which is punishable by a 15-year maximum jail sentence is a very serious and big crime to have committed. To put it simply, the suspicion threshold is seldom applied in our criminal law because such a low threshold —the noble Lord was saying that there are examples—is a disproportionate response to where someone has not been intending to commit a crime and with such a disproportionate sense of what harm they might be doing. The balance between the nature of the offence and the nature of the judgment which creates that offence is what is disproportionate.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

In this discussion about reverse burden of proof, something is being missed here, which is why the knife example the noble Lord gave was not a good one. There are two parts to the test in Clause 13, which is that you have to have supplied the article but also have to know or suspect the use to which it is going to be put. So it is not just enough for somebody to show that you did the thing; the prosecution has to prove that you knew or suspected something as well. So that is not a good example, and therefore it does not flip the burden of proof around. It still lies with the prosecution.

[Lord German (LD)]

I did not use the example of a knife. I can refer the Member to the Hansard of the previous day in Committee, which I have already apologised for not being at it because I was working with colleagues on immigration matters in another parliament at which this Parliament is represented. It would be unwise to try and deal with arguments that we had last week, of which I was not a part, but I simply say that the relationship between the offence in this case and the threshold which is being put before it is not significant. I suspect that we will treat and think about this throughout the course of the debate on the whole Bill today when we relate ourselves to the fact that this is meant to be aimed at the smugglers.

One of the things in common to all the people on the north coast of France, who represent so many different parts of the structure that is trying to stop the people taking these dangerous routes, was that they were concentrating on the smugglers. Everything was determined in terms of how they could get at the smugglers, and protecting human life and being humane in what they do as well.

The challenge in the Bill as we go through, and to the Minister, who I hope will give me a hopeful reply on what the man in the next room is saying, is the fact that this is a distinction between making very powerful offences for challenging those who are guilty of this horrible crime of taking people in terrible conditions on what are very dangerous routes indeed.

I have just one final point about the messages which smugglers send to the people who are going to be smuggled. I am sure they will not be saying, “You’d better be careful: the British are changing their laws in these directions”. As we were told by those who intercept their telephones in France, it is much more about where they should go and what they should avoid going to, what they should avoid doing and what they should do in terms of getting their journey. That is really the whole challenge from the smugglers. I welcome the response from the JCHR on the reason why, unanimously, it posed and passed these resolutions.

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[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for the way in which he has dealt with this group of amendments and for the thorough response he has given to your Lordships in Committee this afternoon. For the avoidance of doubt, I reiterate that the Joint Committee on Human Rights welcomes the overall aims of the Bill—to deter organised crime and prevent the loss of life at sea. It is right that the Government do all they can to ensure there is a legislative framework in place to help eradicate this dangerous criminality. All of us who have spoken in the debate today are agreed about that.

The issue comes down to one of judgment about whether it is preventive, whether it is a deterrent and whether it will really make any difference to those who will anyway try to break these laws. Are we doing the right things to combat this criminality? I do not know all the answers to that any more than the Joint Committee on Human Rights does, but I am grateful for what the Minister said about the importance of the report the committee produced and many of the questions we have rightly raised.

In parentheses, I am glad that organisations such as Liberty take these issues as seriously as they do. They gave very valuable evidence to the committee during its inquiry. You do not have to always agree with the positions of NGOs or groups to know that they are part of the civic response to issues of this kind. We are very fortunate to have such organisations in our country.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, if the noble Lord would give way on a point of agreement, I would be grateful to him. To be clear, I am also grateful that organisations such as Liberty exist and that they have views on things—I just do not agree with them. I too am very grateful that we live in a country where such organisations exist and have contrary views. On that point, we are in complete agreement.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I was about to say that I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, for the other points he made but, yes, we are agreed about that too. I thank his noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and, on the Front Bench, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for the way in which they put their arguments this afternoon. I was not surprised by those arguments, which were put quite eloquently in our committee, incidentally, as some here will almost certainly remember, by the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, who was of course a Minister in the last Government. We can disagree about these things without having to fall out over it.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Green. We do not agree about many of these questions, but we know there is a public conviction that wants something done about illegality. That is why I argue for safe and legal routes, which my noble friend and I disagree on. We have to find other ways forward of tackling the root cause. I can sound like a broken record about this, but there are 122 million displaced people in the world today and that has doubled in the last decade. If we do not deal with the root causes, we will go on introducing Bills such as this indefinitely, ad nauseam, and will still not get to the root of dealing with the problem.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, presented the arguments perfectly as she always does. I strongly agree with her remark that we are taking these actions on slight or no evidence. She said that it does not require much for a prosecution. We must not emasculate our laws or commitments to things such as the refugee convention to try to tackle something we all know needs to be tackled; it is a question of striking the right balance.

I have listened to what the Minister has said in Committee this afternoon. He is right that we should all reflect on this. I look forward to seeing what he has to say to the Joint Committee when he publishes his response. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Harper (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the committee for the very thorough discussion they have had on the issues in the amendments. I have three points to make on what the noble Lord said. He will be pleased, I hope, that on at least one of them I am in some measure of agreement with him.

I have some measure of agreement with the amendments that talk about those who have been trafficked. There is quite an important language point here on trafficking and smuggling. I make a distinction between those who have chosen to pay people smugglers to facilitate their journey across the channel and entry into the United Kingdom and those who have been forced to do so against their will. I have more sympathy for the aspect the noble Lord spoke about—where they are not party to their trafficking. I think the use of “trafficking” in this case is very important. There is a distinction, and I am more sympathetic to that.

As the amendments are currently drafted, they would sweep up a number of conventions. I am just about to move on to the bit where I part company with the noble Lord. If he—or the Minister—were to come back later in the Bill with something to tighten up the protections for those who have been trafficked, that would be welcome.

Where I part company with the noble Lord—there has been extensive discussion and, to be fair to the Joint Committee, it acknowledges that there are different views on this—is on Article 31 of the refugee convention. It protects refugees who come directly from the state where they face persecution. There is a very extensive discussion in the Joint Committee’s report on what coming directly means and the extent to which you are allowed a stopover—brief or not. It quotes some eminent legal views that a brief stopover—in other words, in France—does not stop people coming to the United Kingdom. But it also says that that view is not universally shared. I have to say, it is not a view I share.

I think it is one of the reasons the public find this issue so troubling. I do not think the public have a problem with people who come directly from a state in which they are fleeing persecution and we give them support. I will cover two examples where I accept there were safe and legal routes. When I was a Member of Parliament, literally nobody in my former constituency had a problem with the route we created to protect those fleeing from Ukraine. Not a single person wrote to me complaining about that, because people saw that they were coming directly from a country that was at war and had been invaded. We created a route, and they supported that. Similarly, we had a scheme which enabled people, who we had a historical obligation to, fleeing the communist regime in Hong Kong to come to the United Kingdom.

This is a problem because you have people in France who have come through a number—not just one—of European countries across land. They have entered the European Union in Greece and have come through a number of safe countries, spend quite a bit of time in France, then make a journey to the United Kingdom. I think a lot of people think that is not the situation envisaged by the refugee convention. They feel that that is our country being taken advantage of, which is what causes this pushback. That is what the Bill is trying to stop and there is a legitimate debate about that.

It may be that we need to have a sensible international discussion about whether the 1951 convention is fit for purpose in the circumstances the noble Lord set out, where there are 120 million or so people who are refugees. They cannot all be accommodated in countries such as the United Kingdom. If we were to try to do that, we would find no support among the public and we would stop people who had a legitimate reason to be here.

There is one part of the reasonable defence thing here where I think that the Government are perhaps being a little too generous. There are people who do not charge for their services who are genuinely well meaning; there are other people who fundamentally do not agree with having borders or Immigration Rules and sticking to them. The rules in the Bill are a little too generous. They do not have to be part of smuggling gangs but those organisations that are set up in France to make it easier for people to make those journeys should not be let off any culpability in this, whether or not they are charging for their services. If you know that people are making journeys that are unlawful and dangerous, and if you are helping people to do that, we should try to deter you. There is a legitimate argument about whether the Bill gets everything right, and people may argue that the penalties are too harsh or that this is not the right way in which to do it. But I think that there should be some sanctions.

Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025

Lord Harper Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

No.

This SI goes directly against the promises made by Ministers when the anti-terror laws were introduced. The then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, clarified that if direct action groups

“do not engage in serious violence … the new definition cannot catch them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/12/1999; col. 227.]

The current definition of terrorism includes property damage to cover

“actions which might not be violent in themselves but which can, in a modern society, have a devastating impact”.

Based on what the Minister has said and what the Government have told us, Palestine Action’s activities have not had the potential for a “devastating impact” on society, and nor have its activities included a pattern of serious violence. Yet the Government are putting it into the same category as Islamic State and al-Qaeda, setting an incredibly dangerous precedent that will impact on numerous peaceful campaigning groups. There is a long and noble tradition—

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Is the noble Baroness prepared to answer questions about—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

No, sweetie. Noble Lords can come in at the end, okay?

There is a long and noble tradition of the use of direct action by protest movements, including the suffragettes—yesterday we celebrated the anniversary of the Equal Franchise Act, when women were finally given the right to vote—anti-apartheid protests, Greenpeace and peace campaigners such as CND and the women of Greenham Common. I ask the Minister: under the Government’s proposal, would they also be retrospectively branded as terrorists? What about Queen Boudicca, a freedom fighter for the British tribes under the Roman yoke? This Government would call her a terrorist and say there is no place in British society for her, either.

Campaigners committing criminal damage have been annoying the public and Governments for well over 100 years. The police take them to court, the newspapers owned by rich people condemn them and occasionally we get a change in government policy. That is rather how our damaged democracy has been working.

I completely agree that democracies have to defend themselves against violent attacks on their citizens aimed at furthering a political cause, which is why we should be uniting to proscribe the other two groups that the noble Lord has described. But democracies have to defend themselves against politicians choosing censorship as a way of silencing opposition to unpopular policies, which is what I think the Government are doing here.

That brings me to my most important point. This proscription order undermines the entire consensus behind our country’s anti-terror laws. I ask the Minister and every noble Lord whether they can name another group that they are about to proscribe that has hundreds of thousands of British people following it on social media. What exactly does the Minister think will happen to that support for Palestine Action from such a large swathe of British people who suddenly feel, after Wednesday, when the order takes place, that they might be affected if they morally oppose genocide and the terrorism laws being used to defend what is morally wrong? I do not agree with everything that this group has done, not by any means, but when I hear that businesses have been stopped supplying arms to the Israeli military in Gaza, I feel happy that that has happened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I simply want to make what I hope is a helpful point to the House. In case noble Lords have not seen it, four individuals have now been charged with the alleged offences at Brize Norton. As a new Member of your Lordships’ House, I have to confess that I am not entirely certain what the sub judice rule is in the House, but it seems to me that we ought to exercise a certain level of caution in commenting on that specific offence for fear of prejudicing the trial of the four individuals who have been charged with those offences as of last night.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

I totally agree with the noble Lord, but it is like that that they have been charged. There are plenty of other criminal offences that such activity could attract rather than treating young people as terrorists because they feel frustrated about the failure to stop mass killings and bombings of Palestinians in Gaza. That is the point I am making. There is plenty of ammunition in the legal armoury to do that.

--- Later in debate ---

I support the statutory instrument before us today. Unfortunately, we are in a post-truth world. I suggest that people deal with just facts. What I have outlined today are the facts, not what people want to think the facts are to fit their narrative.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as I had a recent trip to Israel, organised by Conservative Friends of Israel, to learn more about the consequences of the terrorist events of 7 October.

I had not intended to speak in this debate had it just been the statutory instrument in front of us. I was provoked into doing so by the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, which I think is misplaced. I have to say that my experience is that, when Members advance arguments and are not willing to take questions, it is usually the sign of a very weak argument. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for taking an intervention. That shows somebody who has confidence in their arguments and is prepared to have them challenged. The fact that the noble Baroness was not even prepared to take an intervention from a single noble Lord I think demonstrates that she does not actually think her arguments are that strong.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Of course I will take an intervention.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord had little choice then.

First, I think it is entirely inappropriate in this discussion, which is fraught enough, to assume you know which side people are on around the Israel-Gaza situation. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and I disagree wholeheartedly, but I agree with her that there is real concern over this particular issue. Secondly, when you are trying to make a contribution and are heckled, with people standing up and calling out, and you are basically on a minority side, I think it is perfectly respectable for noble Lords to accept that you do not want to take interventions. To draw any other conclusion from that has a really unpleasant, nasty vibe about it.

I am actually shocked. I am generally on the side of the people backing this proscription. At one point, listening to the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, I thought maybe people were being proscribed for misinformation. I have got to the point now where I do not know what the terrorist act is. However, I think it is completely wrong to assume that there is cowardice involved in not taking points from other Members.

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

I suggest we take the heat out of this a bit. Interventions are welcome, but noble Lords are not obliged to take them, and they should be brief.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said I was making assumptions about what views people have about Israel or Palestine. I do not think I made any assumptions about that at all. I just happen to think that, in a debate, it is helpful if people take questions and listen to the arguments of others and are prepared to deal with them. That is how in a democratic forum you test arguments. I think it is very helpful, and perfectly reasonable, for people to draw conclusions from the fact that people are not prepared to have their arguments challenged. That is all I was saying.

Let me come to the Minister’s opening remarks. I strongly support the proscription of all three organisations mentioned in this statutory instrument. I am going to limit my remarks to Palestine Action, as that is the subject of the noble Baroness’s regret amendment, and draw attention to and support several things the Minister said.

In part two of the amendment, the noble Baroness talks about the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation and mentions property damage. The Minister made it quite clear that, on multiple occasions, this particular group has been involved not just in property damage. The attack against the Thales factory in Glasgow caused over £1 million pounds-worth of damage and caused panic among the staff, who feared for their safety as pyrotechnics and smoke bombs were thrown into the area to which they were evacuating. When passing custodial sentence for the perpetrators, the sheriff said that throwing pyrotechnics at areas where people are being evacuated to cannot be described as non-violent.

It is very clear that this organisation is careless about the effects of its actions on people. I am not going to draw attention to the specific event that is now the subject of criminal charges, but once you start attacking the defence assets of the United Kingdom—the people and property designed to keep this country safe—you cross a line. That is a line that peaceful protesters do not cross, and it helps support proscription.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

In that case, would the noble Lord have proscribed the Greenham women?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am talking about this statutory instrument. I will not go back over historical cases. I am talking about this particular case and the noble Baroness’s amendment; otherwise, we will, frankly, be here all day and trying the patience of noble Lords.

Let me pick up the rest of the noble Baroness’s regret amendment, because that is what we are debating. The first part of it talks about undermining civil liberties, including civil disobedience. Nothing in this statutory instrument stops people carrying out acts of civil disobedience. This is about people who are specifically going about breaking the criminal law in a way that meets the test of terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2000. That is not triggered by people carrying out acts of civil disobedience. I listened carefully to the noble Baroness’s speech, and she did not set out any evidence to support the first part of her regret amendment.

The second part, I have just dealt with. The third part is about suppressing dissent against the United Kingdom’s policy on Israel. Again, proscribing this organisation does nothing to stop people protesting about any aspect of the conduct of the Government of Israel in any way. People can contact their elected Members; they can go on demonstrations; they can do whatever they want in the media and all sorts of other things, but what you cannot do in a democratic country is use violence. Other examples were given in the debate in the other place yesterday of members of this organisation going out, tooled up with weapons, and being charged with offences that threaten other people. That is not a legitimate way to carry out dissent in a civilised country. As we know from this debate about the conduct of the Israeli Government and what they are doing both in Gaza and on the West Bank, nothing in this order stops people having views on both sides of that argument, both inside Parliament and outside. Again, the noble Baroness did not set out in her argument any evidence to support that part of her regret amendment.

In the final part, the noble Baroness says that the order

“criminalises support for a protest group, thereby creating a chilling effect on freedom of expression”.

She refers in that part of the amendment to this organisation as a “protest group”. It is not a protest group. As the Minister set out very clearly, it describes itself as “not a non-violent organisation”. So, in its own words, it accepts that it uses violence. That is not a legitimate protest group. Again, there is nothing in this statutory instrument that in any way stops people having freedom of expression and carrying out protests. Again, the noble Baroness did not provide any evidence to back up that part of her amendment.

There are four parts to the noble Baroness’s regret amendment. She has not made out a case with any evidence to support any part of it. I urge her to withdraw the amendment and allow this statutory instrument to reach the statute book so that the country can be safer from people who are willing to use terrorist methods to make arguments, while leaving the rest of us free to use the democratic means at our disposal on these important subjects.

Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) (Relevant Public Authorities and Designated Senior Officers) Regulations 2025

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Grand Committee

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

My Lords, it is a pleasure to be here today to bring forward these regulations, which are enabled by the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, during the passage of which some nine years ago I recall sitting for many hours. The IPA provides a framework designed to protect the public by giving law enforcement and the intelligence services the tools they need to prevent, detect and prosecute crime. It also safeguards the privacy of individuals by setting out stringent controls over the way the IPA powers are used.

Communications data reveals the who, where, when and how of a communication but not, I emphasise, its content, such as what was written or said. CD is routinely relied on as evidence in 95% of serious organised crime investigations and has played a significant role in every major terrorism investigation over the past decade.

These regulations will update the public authorities listed in Schedule 4. Only those public authorities listed in the schedule are permitted to use the CD powers in the Act and therefore have the authority to compel communications data from telecommunications or postal operators. In addition to this safeguard, Part 3 of the IPA sets out the specific statutory purposes for which the communications data may be acquired by the relevant public authorities. The Communications Data Code of Practice provides guidance on the process of making a Part 3 application under the Act, which ensures that the power is used only when it is both necessary and proportionate. The IPA requires public authorities to have regard to the code in the exercise of their functions.

These regulations add 11 new entries to the schedule: the Intellectual Property Office, an executive agency sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology; the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency, an executive agency sponsored by the Department for Transport; the Security Industry Authority, an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by my department, the Home Office; Counter Fraud Services Wales, an organisation hosted by the Velindre University NHS Trust; the integrated corporate services counter fraud expert services team—a bit of a mouthful—situated within the Department for Business and Trade; the integrated corporate services counter fraud expert services team situated within the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; the counter fraud and investigation team situated within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; and the South East Coast Ambulance Service, the North West Ambulance Service, the West Midlands Ambulance Service and the East Midlands Ambulance Service.

Except for the four ambulance trusts, the public authorities to be added are all new entrants to the schedule and to CD powers. Following their addition to Schedule 4, the seven newly added public authorities will be able to apply for an independently approved authorisation via the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office, which, if granted, can be used to compel tele- communications or postal operators to disclose CD for the purposes set out within their designation in Schedule 4. They will not be given the power to internally authorise CD applications.

The four entries relating to the English ambulance trusts retain their CD powers and the ability to internally authorise applications. The umbrella definition of “an ambulance trust in England”, which included a total of 10 English ambulance trusts, has therefore been removed and replaced with the four named individual ambulance trusts. Therefore, six English ambulance trusts will be removed from the schedule because they have confirmed to us that they no longer require those CD powers. The Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust and the Scottish Ambulance Service board will also be removed from the schedule, having confirmed that they no longer need to retain their CD powers.

This SI makes no change to the ambulance service in Northern Ireland and its designation in the schedule. The regulations will amend the Insolvency Service’s designation to include the Department for Business and Trade following the machinery of government changes. There is no change to the Insolvency Service’s ability to acquire CD for the purposes already listed in Schedule 4.

In summary, communications data is vital for evidence in criminal and national security investigations. These changes will enable the aforementioned public authorities —I have mentioned them in this introduction—to carry out and fully work through their essential statutory duties in order to safeguard the public from threats. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will not detain noble Lords for long. I have three questions for the Minister. First, I want a little detail on the process that is undertaken by the department. Who triggers the review into which organisations have these powers, whether that is as a result of requests from organisations that currently do not have powers but require them or whether it is a periodic review that the department will undertake? It would be helpful to know a bit more about the process.

Secondly, I have a question on the powers that are now given to the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency, which is an executive agency of the Department for Transport. I have looked at those powers and at the other parts of the Department for Transport that have similar powers. They all seem very sensible, so I support the change that is being made. My question is on the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency, which is another executive agency of the Department for Transport. As far as I can tell, it does not have these powers, but I would have thought that the same arguments that apply to the DVSA—around public safety and the criminality involved in, for example, forging driving licences, which are important identity documents—would also require the use of communications data. Why has the DVSA been given these powers and not the DVLA? Surely the arguments for one are also true in the case of the other.

The other area is that provoked by the report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on the arguments around the ambulance trusts. It makes a reasonably coherent argument that there seems to be some inconsistency. I understand that organisations that require these powers must demonstrate that they have a compelling need and that they have appropriate compliance activities in place. It seems a little odd, therefore, that the powers are being removed from all the ambulance trusts in England. They are being restored for four of them but I do not understand, because there is no detail set out, what it is about those four that means that there are compelling needs that do not apply to the others. Also, of the four that are kept, only one had requested to keep the powers; the others had not expressed a preference. Given that organisations are supposed to have a compelling need in order for them to have these powers—I remember the debate when, as the Minister set out, the Investigatory Powers Bill was going through both Houses of Parliament; I was Chief Whip at the time—it seems to me that, in the case of three of those ambulance trusts, the compelling need case cannot have been made because they did not respond to say that they needed the powers. The powers appear to have been left with them only because they had not specifically said that they did not want them, but that does not appear to be the legal and policy test applied by the department. I would be grateful if the Minister could set that out.

I have a final point on resourcing. The instrument and its Explanatory Memorandum say that there is going to be an increase in requests made to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office because all these organisations will need approval to use these powers. The assessment by the department says that it expects those requests to be minimal, but it does not set out the basis on which it has reached that conclusion. Obviously, there are resourcing requirements that will flow from that, so it would be helpful if the Minister could set out the basis on which that conclusion was reached.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for the short and useful debate. As my noble friend Lord Jones, who I have known for a very long time, said, it is useful to challenge the Executive on a number of matters to date.

If I may, I will start with my noble friend Lord Jones, who made an all-encompassing comment regarding the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. The current IPC is Sir Brian Leveson. He will be well known to Members of this House and has served in a number of capacities, including as a High Court judge. The commissioner is assisted by a team of 13 commissioners, who must all have held senior judicial office. Together they are responsible for the use of investigatory powers by public authorities. They are supported by a body of civil servants, known as the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office, which includes authorising officers and inspectors. Self-evidently, as I mentioned earlier, they were put in place by the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. Their responsibilities include a statutory obligation to inspect the use of certain investigatory powers and to exercise delegated functions, as part of which they independently review communications data under Section 60A applications submitted by public authorities.

My noble friend touched on a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, on the budget. In the financial year 2023-24, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office operated within a budget of £15.74 million, of which it spent only £13.06 million. That was confirmed in the IPCO annual report 2023, which was published in May of this year. I hope that helps my noble friend.

I am grateful for his service, not just in both Houses but on the Intelligence and Security Committee, and for his kind words about my service. I hope that also answers in part the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Harper—who I will come back to in a moment—and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower.

The noble Lord, Lord Harper, made a very valid point about what the process is for a public authority to be added to Schedule 4. Public authorities can be added to Schedule 4 either through primary legislation or by the use of a delegated power provided at Section 71. The delegated power provided at Section 71 provides that we have an enhanced affirmative procedure, which includes the requirement for a 12-week statutory consultation with the Investigatory Powers Commissioner.

The changes being made here are, in a sense, the result of the bodies themselves asking either to be included or removed from the Act. If they wanted to be added to Schedule 4, they had to supply a very comprehensive business case that officials in the Home Office have examined and evaluated in some detail. The Home Office has then had to include a 12-week consultation process with public authorities and the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. In this case, the consultation period for the new additions began on 23 October 2024 and completed on 17 January 2025. The IPC agreed that the seven public authorities had made a clear case for access, and the IPC response informed the Home Secretary’s policy assessment to include the amendments in the regulations that we have put before the Grand Committee today.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I would be grateful if the Minister would allow me to probe this a bit further. To be clear, on the ambulance trust, given that the wide-ranging power for all ambulance trusts in England already existed in the schedule, what exactly was the trigger for a consultation? These trusts already had the power; this just changes the way the power has been described in the legislation. Further, if there was some kind of interaction between the trusts and the department and some trusts specifically asked for this, for those that did not, given that there was a conversation and a consultation process and there is supposed to be a compelling need, why has the power been left in place for those ambulance trusts that did not say they needed it?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord puts his finger on the point that, originally, all ambulance trusts were included in the schedule. As part of their general reflection, the six English ambulance trusts that are being removed by the regulations today specifically said they do not need those powers anymore. That left Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Wales equally said they do not want the power, so they are being removed, and Northern Ireland has not requested removal and therefore is in the schedule.

Of the four remaining trusts, one of them determined that it wanted to retain the powers under the Act. Again, as part of the consultation, that went through the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office, which agreed. Three of the trusts did not respond to the Home Office in relation to the consultation and discussion that we had. They had not requested to be removed. We asked them if they wanted to stay on, and they have not responded. For the safety of the Home Office’s reputation and for the security of reducing risks, we have left them on, but we will continue to press them to ensure that, if they wish to be removed, they can be.

I have discussed already with officials that I think we should be going back to those trusts again. We can bring a further instrument forward, but I do not think it is appropriate that we take them off because they have not responded. There is an argument about whether they should have responded—that is a legitimate challenge to put to me and to the Home Office, and I am having discussions on it internally—but I do not want to take them off in case that decision was just a slip between cup and lip.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am grateful for that answer. I can certainly understand—and do not necessarily disagree with—a safety-first approach from the Minister. I have one further question: given that ambulance trusts broadly all do the same thing, has the Home Office or the health service undertaken any work to understand for what reasons those trusts that have wanted to keep the powers are using those powers, to test whether they are actually necessary? If they are necessary, for what reason do those trusts that do not want the powers, or have not asked for them, not need them? It does not seem entirely obvious why some ambulance trusts would need the powers and some would not.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

That is a fairly valid challenge. The decision to apply is for the ambulance trusts. They were initially all included. Some have determined that they have not used this power, and therefore they do not wish to have it any more. One trust has maintained the power because it wishes to use it, and three have not responded, so we have kept them on just in case because we do not want to risk operational errors.

The type of purpose that they could use it for may well be, for example, that an individual who comes into contact with the ambulance trust is in the middle of a mental health episode, is disorientated, does not know who they are and is not aware of where they are, what they have done or where they have been. There could be individuals who are involved in alcohol intoxication. There is a range of reasons why there might need to be access. As it happens, the vast majority of trusts have said they do not need or want this power. If one trust has said it wants to retain the power, it is reasonable that we assess that further downstream. But the determination is that the trusts themselves decide whether they want that power. Therefore, we are making sure that there are no operational risks in that.

On removing the authorities that did not respond, I am not particularly pleased that we did not have a response from three authorities—I will put that on the record. They should respond accordingly. But there is always the danger that, if we took them off now, they may end up using their powers without realising they do not have them any more. They may find themselves in a litigious position, and I do not want to see that either.

For the moment, that is a very valid challenge and this should be kept under review, but that is the logic behind it—if that helps the noble Lord.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. She started off her speech so well with her kind remarks about a speech that I had not yet given. Having listened to the rest of her speech, I fear that this is one subject on which she and I are destined not to agree.

It is a great privilege to be a Member of this House and to have the opportunity to continue in public service. I thank Black Rod and her team, the doorkeepers, the clerks and the Lord Speaker’s team, who all made me very welcome before my introduction and subsequently. I also thank the catering team, who looked after my guests so very well. I should also thank, for supporting my introduction, my noble friends Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Taylor of Holbeach, as well as my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie, who, whether or not he thinks it an honour, has been assigned as my mentor to keep me out of trouble.

Although I served in the other place for 19 years, I am well aware that this House is very different. I fear that this is the time to make a confession. In the coalition Government, the Liberal Democrats, as a matter of great principle, insisted that the coalition Government tried to reform your Lordships’ House. I was the lucky junior Minister tasked with preparing a Bill to elect this House. Noble Lords will be aware that this was kiboshed by my then colleagues in the House of Commons, who saw that it was a threat to the primacy of the House of Commons, and that Bill made no further progress. However, since I have been here, I have been very pleased to see that so many of those Liberal Democrats whom I worked closely with in the coalition Government have felt able to serve in this House for many years. I hope to see them here for many years into the future. There is hope for us all.

After the coalition Government, we had the election in 2015, at which the Conservatives won our first majority for 23 years. My noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton asked me to be the Government Chief Whip. I hope your Lordships will indulge me: I should put on record a tribute to the late Sir Roy Stone, who was my principal private secretary when I was Government Chief Whip. He served in that capacity for over two decades. A finer and wiser public servant you could not wish to find. All those who came across him professionally will miss him, but the biggest loss will be felt by his family—his wife Dawn and his children, Hannah and Elliott. A fulsome tribute was paid in the other place. I wish to put mine on the record in your Lordships’ House.

When I was Government Chief Whip, I worked very closely with my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach, who was the Government Chief Whip here. He made it clear to me that whipping in your Lordships’ House is a much subtler art than it is perhaps at the other end of the building. You do not have the same tools at your disposal. However, I did not realise quite how different it was until I sat in on my first few sessions of Oral Questions here. I marvelled at the magical abilities of the pen of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, which is amazingly able to select who can speak when there is a clash. I felt a certain level of envy that I did not have that power when I was the Government Chief Whip at the other end of the building. I suspect that his pen is authoritative, because noble Lords think that he exercises it with a certain amount of fairness and judiciousness. I hope that level of fairness extends, perhaps especially, to those of us who have been Chief Whips, so that we get a fair crack of the whip.

Turning to the subject matter at hand, I have some experience in this, having served as Immigration Minister when my noble friend Lady May was Home Secretary. The Minister shadowed our home affairs team for a number of years. A couple of weeks ago, he referred in this House to Labour having always had a very robust policy on migration. My noble friend and I were a little surprised. We had not spotted that enormous support when he was in opposition. However, it is always nice to see a sinner repenteth.

On this Bill, I will say a couple of things. First, when I was the Immigration Minister, I tried, as I know my noble friend Lady May did, to put in place tough measures but talk moderately and reasonably about this subject. I feat the Government are in danger of doing the opposite—talking tough but not having sufficiently tough measures. I will draw out a couple. First, we have seen illegal migration via small boats rise by 30% since the election and, secondly, the Government have removed with this Bill the deterrent, the Rwanda scheme, without replacing it with an alternative. There is not time now to dwell on these matters, but I give the Minister notice that I will be doing so in Committee and on Report. I look forward to our clashes perhaps across your Lordships’ House in due course.

Refugees from Ukraine

Lord Harper Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

Yes, and that is exactly what we have been doing.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I welcome what the Home Secretary said about combining security with a generous approach, both of which are essential and must be delivered. In my experience of the Home Office, officials there who are focused on the protection of our country respond well to clear and decisive leadership, so may I check something so that it is clear? Does the Home Secretary retain overall responsibility for the whole of our refugee policy, including the humanitarian sponsorship scheme? People should know where the buck stops. When does she expect to come to the House to set out further details on that scheme?

Ukraine: Urgent Refugee Applications

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

The hon. Lady will realise that it would not be appropriate for me to go into the detail of individual cases on the Floor of the House, but I am very happy to speak to her afterwards to see what we can do to resolve the situation.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

As a former Immigration Minister, I am very sympathetic to the need to do appropriate security checks. I have publicly defended the Government on this issue, but we need to grip the pace of this, which will require Ministers to take decisions to move things along quickly.

The Home Secretary announced the humanitarian sponsorship route a week ago. I heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) said about weeks or months, but I was thinking about days. I expect a Minister to be at the Dispatch Box by Thursday to set it out. We have to start working at the pace these events require, so will the Minister commit to an update on the humanitarian sponsorship scheme on Thursday?

[Kevin Foster]

The Government will be happy to update Members on Thursday on what is happening, whether through a “Dear colleague” letter or another appropriate forum. We intend that it will be weeks, not months, before we start welcoming people into the UK. This will be an unlimited offer that reflects people’s generosity, but I appreciate that we now need to get on and get it launched.

Ukraine

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

This statement is specifically about Ukraine, and the measures I have announced today will build on the wider work that is taking place in Government. We are operationalising the schemes, and there will be further announcements about the wider work, the sponsorship scheme, and things of that nature that will be brought forward. All our work on humanitarian aid relief, resettlement and support of refugees is based on our work directly with the Ukrainian Government and countries in the region.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the changes that the Home Secretary has set out, and I say gently to SNP Members that it is important to keep biometric checks in place. I still remember what happened in Salisbury. The Putin regime will not hesitate to send agents here to kill British citizens, and it is the Home Secretary’s job to ensure we keep people safe. I commend the work that our intelligence agencies have done to give us advance notice of what was going to happen. I urge the Home Secretary to continue looking at that intelligence, so that we keep our offer flexible and commensurate with the threat faced by our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Lord Harper Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

The incident that my hon. Friend mentions is a timely reminder, and our sympathies are very much with the victims and their families and friends. I will come on, if I may, to the important point that he raises about the distinction, or lack thereof, between the so-called political and military wings.

The threat posed by terrorist organisations varies depending on each group’s ideology, membership and ability to train members. Groups such as Hamas train members in terrorism, as well as preparing and committing terrible acts of violence against innocent members of the public. We have a duty to our allies, as well as to our own people, to tackle groups that inspire and co-ordinate terror on the international stage. Although we can sadly never entirely eliminate the threat from terrorism, we must always do all that we can to act against and mitigate the danger it poses, and to seek to keep the public safe.

Some 78 terrorist organisations are proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000. Thanks to the dedication, courage and skill of counter-terrorism policing, and our security and intelligence services, most of these groups have never carried out a successful attack on British soil. Proscription is a powerful tool for degrading terrorist organisations and I will explain the impact that it can have shortly. We propose to amend the existing listing of “Hamas-Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades”, or Hamas IDQ, in schedule 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to cover Hamas in its entirety.

Under section 3 of TACT 2000, the Home Secretary has the power to proscribe an organisation if she believes that it is currently concerned in terrorism. If the statutory test is met, the Home Secretary may then exercise her discretion to proscribe that organisation. The Home Secretary considers a number of factors in considering whether to exercise her discretion. The relevant discretionary factors for Hamas are: the nature and scale of an organisation’s activities; the specific threat posed to British nationals overseas; and the need to support other members of the international community in tackling terrorism.

The effect of proscription is to outlaw a listed organisation and ensure that it is unable to operate in the UK. Proscription is designed to degrade a group’s ability to operate through various means, including: enabling prosecution for the various proscription offences; under- pinning immigration-related disruptions, including the exclusion from the UK of members of groups based overseas; making it possible to seize cash associated with an organisation; and sending a strong signal globally that a group is concerned in terrorism and is without legitimacy.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

On my right hon. Friend’s latter point, is not one of the strongest reasons for proscribing the whole organisation to strengthen the role of moderate Palestinians and the ability of the Palestinian Authority to come to a peace agreement with Israel, and to send a clear message that extremists, who do not accept the existence of Israel and want to use violence, have no place in this process? Is not that one of the strongest benefits of the proscription that my right hon. Friend is setting out?

[Damian Hinds]

The signalling and messaging are important, as are the practical effects of proscription. I will come briefly to the middle east peace process, and our continuing hopes for a peaceful and sustainable future for all.

It is a criminal offence for a person to belong to, support or arrange a meeting in support of a proscribed organisation. It is also a criminal offence to wear clothing or carry articles in public that arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation. The penalties for proscription offences are a maximum of 14 years in prison and/or an unlimited fine. Given the wide-ranging impact, the Home Secretary exercises her power to proscribe only after thoroughly reviewing the available evidence on an organisation. That includes open source material, intelligence material and advice that reflects consultation across Government, including with intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The cross-Government proscription review group supports the Home Secretary in her decision-making process. The Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe is only taken after great care and consideration of the particular case, and it is appropriate that it must be approved by both Houses.

Having carefully considered all the evidence, the Home Secretary believes that Hamas in its entirety is concerned in terrorism and the discretionary factors support proscription. Although I am of course unable to comment on specific intelligence, I can provide the House with a summary of the group’s activities. Hamas is a militant Islamist movement that was established in 1987. Its ideology is related to that of the Muslim Brotherhood combined with Palestinian nationalism. Its main aims are to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation, the establishment of an Islamic state under sharia law and the destruction of Israel, although Hamas no longer demands the destruction of Israel in its covenant. The group operates in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

--- Later in debate ---

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which I will return to at the end of my remarks if I do not run out of time.

First, we need to put the measure in context. The nearest parallel is the proscription of both wings of Hezbollah. In terms of practicality, our engagement with Lebanon is very much less than it is with Palestine and Israel. We are unable to talk to the four Ministries that have Hezbollah Ministers and the French are then seen as the lead western European nation in that space. Our relative position in the very troubled country of Lebanon—we have made difficulties for ourselves because of the extent of the popular support for Hezbollah in Lebanon—is significantly reduced from that.

Of course, Hezbollah is only part of the Government of Lebanon. The difficulty we are giving ourselves here is that the jurisdiction of Gaza is run by Hamas. Nearly 2 million people are administered by the local Administration, who, strangely enough, have their own security forces. If you were responsible for administering Gaza, you might rather need them in one form or another, otherwise you would find organisations such as Islamic Jihad or Islamic State providing security instead. This, therefore, is a complex and difficult question that we have to address. We have already taken a position on what is plainly the stupid, illegitimate and immoral mortaring of people where you cannot tell where the targets are, simply flying weapons over the wall, because you do not have the capacity to engage in that targeting of what would be legitimate targets under international law as resistance. Of course those acts are illegitimate. That is why they have been proscribed.

However, we need to be careful because people do have a right to resist, and we must understand that we are talking about an occupied people. The history is very long, going back to the Balfour declaration in 1917. We delivered half of the Balfour declaration, perhaps one of the great moral projects of the 20th century, where we gave the Jewish people, who had suffered the most appalling, the greatest crime in human history in the holocaust, as well as the pogroms and all the other oppression in European history and elsewhere, a safe place in the state of Israel. Obviously half of that declaration is undelivered—the bit that said it would not be done at the cost of the rights of the people already there. Of course it has been. That is undone. That is why we have the Balfour project, led by our former consul-general in Jerusalem, Sir Vincent Feen, who is working away to draw attention to the fact that the work is half done and the United Kingdom still has to deliver the Balfour declaration. There is a duty on all of us to try to ensure that we assist—perhaps for the 21st century—a great process of reconciliation between the Palestinian and Jewish Israeli people to enable it to be an example of a great moral project where people come together to forge a future together. That is my hope.

My personal position is that the two-state solution is long gone. In the end, this will be resolved only by the peoples coming together, with us enabling and helping that to happen. I fear that the order does precisely the opposite.

[Mr Harper]

I do not want to misunderstand my hon. Friend. I have listened to him carefully. I agree with his last point about Britain wanting to encourage the Palestinian and the Israeli people to come together and live in harmony. When he was talking about the indiscriminate attacks that Hamas sends into Israel, he seemed to say that the only problem with them was that they were not more accurately targeted to kill certain Israelis, that they indiscriminately killed other Israelis, and that, if they targeted the weapons more accurately, that would be sort of okay. Did I hear him correctly? I fear that I may have misunderstood him but can he put me right? If that is so, I find that an offensive and extraordinary thing to say.

[Crispin Blunt]

Let us be careful what we are addressing on that narrow point. Under international law, you have a legal right to resist. Not only is the use of those weapons unlawful because they are untargeted and indiscriminate; it is also fantastically stupid because it gives the Israelis’ argument about the threat they face from the Palestinian people its raison d’être. I deplore violence of any kind from the Palestinians because they are going to get smashed if they try to resist under international law. It is completely the wrong thing to do. That is why I want to work to give Palestinians assistance in finding a route to justice through using the law and the moral and legal authority that the Palestinian position has. Violence is a road to nowhere. That is why it ought to be condemned in terms of practicality as well as under the law where use of it is indiscriminate. But there is a position where resistance is allowed. For me, that “but” is wholly qualified by its stupidity, its inappropriateness and its uselessness in furthering the Palestinian cause. However, let us get back to the balance between the two sides.

The Israelis have been in gross breach of the fourth Geneva convention ever since the occupation of the territories in 1967, and the ensuing settlements are a grievous breach of international law. What has the United Kingdom done about it? What is the United Kingdom going to do about it? This is building the two-state solution out of existence; it is also taking territory that does not belong to Israel in a way that is proscribed by the Geneva conventions that came into force after the second world war.

Let us look at the contemporary position. Six non-governmental organisations have been proscribed by Israel. As I understand it, no evidence has yet been given to the British Government as to why that has happened. Why not? United Nations Relief and Works Agency funding from the United Kingdom is going from £70 million to £20 million, which puts a huge responsibility on civil society to try to make up the difference because of the desperate, desperate situation in Gaza. What will the motion do? It will have a terrible, chilling effect on putting anything into Gaza, because Gaza is administered by the organisation that we are about to proscribe.

Health Measures at UK Borders

Lord Harper Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I mentioned in my statement that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department of Health and Social Care are now supporting other countries around the world when it comes to gene sequencing and genomic testing capabilities, which will help to identify new strains and new variants. That is important, because it is a vital step in the global response, in terms of not just protecting our public here but identifying new and dangerous strains that could go around the world and then come to the UK.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I welcome the proportionate nature of the Home Secretary’s statement. May I take her back to the question I asked her during the urgent question yesterday? Given that these measures are to deal with the risk of a new strain of the virus coming to the United Kingdom that might not be susceptible to the vaccine, and given that the UK chief scientific adviser said that the virus will be with us forever, is this a permanent regime, with countries being added to and taken off the red list as appropriate? If it is not permanent, what is the trigger for removing it in the future?

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend asks a very important question. In terms of permanency, we are living with this virus; that is a fact. In better news, we are just weeks away from seeing people who have had the vaccine develop immunity, so circumstances are changing. We have known throughout this situation that things change, so we keep all our measures under review—whether it is changes to travel bans for specific countries or other measures, they will always be under review. The Government will not hesitate to take measures when it comes to preventing a new strain from coming to the United Kingdom once it has been identified and making sure that we take the right measures to protect the public. As I have said a number of times, at every stage we will keep the House informed and, importantly, we will make sure that advice is communicated to the British public, so that when things change, including at the border, they are kept informed.