Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Robert Neill and Stephen Kinnock

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I simply note that the Immigration Minister was on his feet for one hour and 15 minutes. There was plenty of context and background in his comments, too. We need to understand that the Bill has been brought forward against a backdrop of crisis and chaos and it is important that we have that on the record.

Interestingly, the Prime Minister seems to have concocted a new solution, which is simply to allow asylum seekers to slip off the radar, never to be seen or heard of again. The Government claim that their decision-making rate has increased and that they are getting on with clearing the backlog, but the reality is that more than half of the so-called asylum decisions are withdrawn applications or so-called administrative decisions. In other words, asylum seekers are melting into the underground economy, and many of them will never be heard of or seen again by our authorities. The Government are just letting them go. Withdrawals, as a proportion of completed cases, have increased from 20% to 55% on this Prime Minister’s watch. If that is not turning a blind eye to people absconding and disappearing into the system, I do not know what is.

It is against that backdrop of crisis and chaos that Ministers introduced the legislation before us this afternoon. As we have consistently pointed out, the Bill will only make a terrible situation worse. Far from cleaning up the awful mess that has built up over 13 years of ineptitude, it will simply grow the backlog, increase the cost and ensure that people smugglers are laughing all the way to the bank.

At the heart of the Bill are two instructions to the Government—to detain and remove every asylum seeker who comes to the UK via irregular routes—but with our asylum accommodation capacity already at breaking point, where on earth will the Home Secretary detain them? And with her unworkable Rwanda plan in tatters and with negotiations with the EU on a successor to the Dublin regulation nowhere to be seen, where on earth is she going to remove them to? We therefore commend the work of all the Lords and Baronesses who have sought to improve this profoundly flawed and counterproductive Bill. They really had their work cut out for them, given that the Government were defeated a staggering 20 times in the other place.

Amendments throughout the Bill’s passage have focused on mitigating its most egregious excesses, while trying to steer the Government in the direction of Labour’s five-point plan to fix the broken asylum system that, despite their protestations, Conservative Members know full well is a comprehensive agenda based on hard graft, common sense and quiet diplomacy, rather than the headline-chasing gimmicks they have come up with. Our plan includes repurposing the Rwanda money to the National Crime Agency to recruit a specialist unit of officers to tackle the criminal gangs upstream. Lords amendment 103, in the name of Lord Coaker, places responsibility on the NCA to tackle immigration crime.

Of the other substantial Lords amendments, the majority seek to prevent the utterly unnecessary attacks on some of the most vulnerable people in society, commit Britain to complying with international law, or seek to find long-term solutions to the global asylum crisis via international solutions and controlled and managed routes.

To ensure that Britain meets its obligations under international law, we support Lords amendment 1, which adds a requirement that nothing in the Bill should require any act that would violate the UK’s relevant commitments under international law. We are extremely concerned that the Government are subjecting unaccompanied children to the so-called hostile environment. While the Minister paints over Mickey Mouse murals, we on these Benches want unaccompanied children to be treated with respect. That is why we support Lords amendment 33, which retains the current 72-hour limit on the detention of children, and Lords amendment 31, which retains the current 24-hour limit on the detention of unaccompanied children, both in the name of Baroness Mobarik. We do not believe the Government’s concessions offer enough.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I was superficially attracted to Lords amendment 1, but will the hon. Gentleman consider these two points? First, it is an established principle of interpretation that the courts will always read statute in accordance with international convention obligations, as far as it is possible to do so—that was most recently established in the Assange case. Secondly, Lord Wolfson raised the point in the other place that the effect of clause 1, as amended, however intended, is substantively to entrench or incorporate those conventions in UK domestic law. Surely that is not something that should be done through an amendment to an Act of Parliament. There may be arguments for or against it, but that is its effect. It is not an interpretive clause but an incorporative clause, and some of us have a problem with doing it in that way at this time in this particular Bill.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the Chairman of the Justice Committee for that intervention. Let us not forget that page 1 says the Government cannot confirm that the Bill complies with international law. I also remind him that we are dealing with a Government who seem to be more than prepared to break international law, with the Northern Ireland protocol being just one example. I am afraid it is just not possible to take the Government’s word on trust or at face value, which is why additional safeguards have to be built into the process.

Lords amendment 8, in the name of Lord Dubs, seeks to ensure that asylum and human rights claims from unaccompanied children who are exempt from the duty to remove are treated as admissible, and Lords amendment 50, in the name of the Bishop of Durham, limits the Secretary of State’s power to transfer a child out of local authority care and into accommodation provided by the Home Office to cases where to do so is

“necessary to safeguard and promote the welfare of the child.”

We are also determined to protect vulnerable women, particularly those who are pregnant or victims of modern slavery. In that spirit, we on these Benches support Baroness Lister’s amendments 37 and 38, which retain the 72-hour limit on the detention of pregnant women. We are less than satisfied with the Government’s concession on this point.

We support the amendments that protect victims of modern slavery, including Lords amendment 56 in the name of Lord Randall, which exempts victims of modern slavery from being removed and from being denied access to support during the statutory recovery period, and Lords amendment 57, tabled by Lord Carlile, which removes the Bill’s presumption that it is not necessary for victims of modern slavery to remain in the UK for the purposes of co-operating with any criminal proceedings against alleged perpetrators. That of course might sometimes be the case.

Ultimately, the Government need to accelerate the national referral process as a matter of urgency because the average wait time is 553 days, which is unacceptable. The Immigration Minister’s incorrect comments on modern slavery have been well documented, and he was recently rebuked yet again by the UK Statistics Authority for making those unfounded claims.

The constant stream of factually incorrect claims distorts the debate and plays into the hands of the people traffickers. I strongly encourage us to start seeing the facts and evidence before us as the basis for debate, otherwise there is such a danger that the Bill will turn into a traffickers charter, with the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister effectively enabling the criminal gangs.

We also support Lords amendment 23 in the name of Lord Etherton, as we cannot have a situation in which we remove LGBT refugees to third countries with Governments that pursue homophobic and transphobic policies.

I stress that, on these Benches, we are strongly committed to working with our international partners as we seek to find long-term solutions to the global migration crisis. In Committee and on Report, we tabled an international co-operation amendment to connect the need to achieve a returns deal with the EU and France for small-boat migrants with the need for Britain and other European countries to play our part in giving sanctuary to genuine refugees in need of our support, starting with those who have family in the UK. This remains our commitment for when we enter government.

To that end, we support Lords amendment 104 in the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which requires the Government to publish a 10-year strategy on countering human trafficking and responding to international refugee crises, and Lords amendment 102 in the name of Baroness Stroud, which places a duty on the Government to establish safe and legal routes to asylum.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Robert Neill and Stephen Kinnock

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

It is truly an honour to be standing in front of you, Mr Deputy Speaker, in my new role as shadow Minister for the armed forces.

I pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), who recognised the essential contribution made by our armed forces to the safety and security of our country and who played such an important role in scrutinising this legislation.

In my previous role as shadow Minister with responsibility for Afghanistan, I recently stood at the Dispatch Box to commend the courage, dedication and professionalism shown by our armed forces in the most challenging of circumstances. Two weeks ago I was pleased to pay tribute to those who served in Operation Pitting when they visited Parliament. This House, our country and the free world owe a huge debt of gratitude to those service personnel who, for 20 years, prevented terrorist attacks from being launched from Afghanistan and who secured opportunities for women and girls that would never have been possible otherwise. I thank them for their heroic service.

I look forward to engaging with the Minister. I assure him that I will support him when his Department is doing the right thing, but I will also hold him robustly to account when the Government fail to stand up for our armed forces or to act in the national interest.

As the Opposition have noted throughout its passage, this Bill is a once-in-a-Parliament opportunity to tangibly improve the lives of our armed forces personnel, veterans and their families. I know they are held in the highest regard by Labour and by all on both sides of the House. For them and for all others who have served, we have a duty to make this legislation provide the very best.

Labour supports this Bill in principle, but we have consistently pressed the Government to ensure they match their lofty rhetoric with tangible action. As it stands, the Bill is a missed opportunity to deliver the laudable promises made in the armed forces covenant for all personnel, veterans and their families. That is why I am pleased that the amendments passed in the other place so closely mirror those that Labour pressed during the Bill’s Commons stages. I therefore hope the Government will take this opportunity to think again.

Lords amendment 1 would ensure that the most serious crimes, including murder, manslaughter, domestic violence, child abuse, rape and sexual assault with penetration are tried in the civilian courts when committed in the UK, except when the Attorney General has given consent. For too long, it has been clear that the investigation and prosecution of these crimes within the service justice system simply does not work. The latest Ministry of Defence figures show that, from 2015 to 2020, the conviction rate for rape cases tried under courts martial was just 9%, whereas the latest data available suggest that the conviction rate was 59% for cases that reached civilian courts, with considerably more cases being tried each year. More than three quarters of victims were women, and seven in 10 victims held the rank of private.

Lords amendment 1 directly addresses the treatment of women in our armed forces, which is rightly receiving public attention, and it is an issue that disproportionately affects women in the lower ranks. Until there is fairness, transparency and justice in these cases, the actions of a tiny minority will be allowed to tarnish the reputation of our world-class armed forces.

[Sir Robert Neill]

Those statistics bear out a significant concern that also exists in the civilian jurisdiction. There is a disparity in parallel authorities between victims and perpetrators. Does the hon. Gentleman think we should be particularly anxious to ensure that the same protection, the same support and the same procedural devices to protect witnesses—screens, special measures and so on—are available were any of these cases to be heard in a court martial setting as opposed to a civilian setting, where they would automatically be available? The position of the private soldier is not dissimilar from the position of the employee who is taken advantage of by her boss, for example, or something similar. There is a strong case for seeking to ensure equity, in whichever court a case is tried.