Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Anna Turley and Catherine Fookes

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Anna Turley]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about democracy in this country. The Government have a majority because that is what the British people voted for in 2024, but the importance of this Committee for us is to listen to challenges and criticisms. I hope Opposition colleagues will recognise that we may not always agree, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we listen and take things very seriously. There is a long process to go through on this Bill yet. There may well be more changes as we go. I hope he feels valued and respected within this Committee, because his presence is certainly welcome.

[Catherine Fookes]

I gently remind the hon. Member for Wimbledon that his party has abstained at every Division. What does that mean about their partaking in democracy? They cannot seem to choose a side.

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate that, but I will make some progress, because I want to maintain our focus and seriousness, showing the hon. Member for Wimbledon that we respect and will respond to his challenges. He asked about the status of people who are not “lawfully staying” and cannot be removed. At the moment, there is a vacuum and a free-for-all. The purpose of the Bill is to introduce clarity to the law. They will be a refugee who is present but not lawfully staying, as clarified in the Bill.

The hon. Gentleman also, rightly, mentioned the challenge from the UNHCR that this clause conflates two issues: article 33(2) and “lawfully staying”. We are confident that our interpretation is compatible with the refugee convention. The convention refers to a variety of attachments that a refugee may have to the UK. Where a refugee commits a particularly serious crime, we are satisfied that they have forfeited the lawfully staying attachment, even if states have reached similar interpretations in their own provisions of entitlements under EU law.

I turn to new clause 61, tabled by the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire. The new clause concerns enabling the removal of refugees who pose a danger to national security, or who have been convicted of a particularly serious crime and pose a danger to the community. Article 33(2) of the refugee convention allows this sort of refugee to be removed, notwithstanding the convention’s usual protection against refoulement. Removal, however, may still be prevented by the UK’s wider international obligations. The hon. Gentleman’s new clause seeks to address that issue. In practical terms, new clause 61 would disapply the Human Rights Act, including articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR, thereby enabling the Secretary of State to remove any person who falls within the ambit of the proposal under clause 22 of this Bill, and prevent a UK court from treating any such removal decision as unlawful.

The trouble with new clause 61 is that disapplying the Human Rights Act domestically does not disapply our international obligations, nor does it remove the jurisdiction of the ECHR, address interim measures issued by that court, or remove other relevant international obligations, including under customary international law or the prohibition on refoulement set out by the UN convention against torture. Conservative colleagues may reach for the easy response of, “Leave the ECHR.” We have had interesting discussions throughout Committee on that. Although I completely understand the emotion and desire to ensure that those who commit crimes in this country are not protected by human rights courts, it is important to understand how we got here and the situation into which the ECHR was born.

As the Minister for Migration and Citizenship, my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White), powerfully put it in a debate last week, a previous member of the Conservative party, Sir Winston Churchill, was the first champion of the convention, which upheld basic human rights following his experience of standing up to the tyranny of the Nazis during the second world war. Some 13 million people were murdered, and in the face of that, the European convention of human rights defines what we mean by “never again”.

The ECHR includes freedom of assembly, freedom to a fair trial, the prohibition of torture, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and the right to life, including the right not to be murdered in one’s own state. That is what the Nazis did and that is where the ECHR comes from. Those principles remain essential. The only two countries that have chosen to stay out of the ECHR are Russia and Belarus. By leaving the ECHR, we throw away protections against show trials and political persecution. We will not hand over our freedoms to the whims of tyrants and dictators.

That said, the current situation is not perfect. Many of our constituents are concerned that their human rights are being violated by individuals in this country, and we know there has been over-interpretation. Through the Bill, we are seeking to correct the problem. Last year, the Home Secretary committed to overseeing reforms to bring the ECHR into the modern age. She committed to make the ECHR work for everyday people and ensure that the human rights of individuals who have been wronged are upheld above the rights of those who choose to commit unspeakable crimes.

This Government intend to stand with the principles of Churchill. This Government will continue to build a fair and controlled immigration system that is free from abuse. The issue is not the existence of the convention but the way in which it has been applied over time. That is partly what the Bill seeks to address. We do not fix it by walking away and leaving the UK isolated—by throwing away our global moral and ethical leadership. We sort it out by restoring the right balance and ensuring that the system works as intended.

That is why all 46 members of the ECHR adopted the Chişinău declaration in May, which creates a solid basis for reform. That gave us a really good opportunity to go further in terms of removals and deportations. It was a shared view on maintaining public confidence. That is really important—this is about ensuring that the EHCR operates as it was intended.