Immigration Bill

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak on the question of whether Clauses 17 and 18 should stand part of the Bill. Clause 18 proposes the creation of an offence of driving when unlawfully in the United Kingdom. Clause 17 proposes related search and seizure powers to be used by the police, immigration officers and others. I shall look at the practical, real-life implications of the driving provisions set out in the Bill.

We already have a law—Section 163 of the Road Traffic Act 1988—which allows for road traffic stops to be conducted by police without a reason. Traffic stops affect BME people disproportionately and are seen by BME drivers as a discriminatory tool. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, mentioned, a survey conducted by HMIC in 2014 found that 7% to 8% of white drivers had been stopped in their vehicle in the last two years, compared with 10% to 14% of black and minority ethnic drivers. Some 70% of black respondents agree or strongly agree that the police unfairly target people from an ethnic minority for traffic stops.

This is an incredibly serious problem for the police, who must command the trust and confidence of the community that they serve. But rather than addressing the issue, the Government intend, through the powers in the Bill, to pave the way for routine immigration checks during traffic stops to ascertain whether an individual is driving while an illegal immigrant. Noble Lords do not need to take my word for it: Met Chief Superintendent David Snelling told the Public Bill Committee in the other place that this is how he thinks the power would work in practice.

It is not hard to foresee the impact of such a move on police/community relations: police conducting traffic stops—which disproportionately affect BME drivers—and checking on their immigration status; police and immigration officials interchangeably searching individuals and their premises for driving licences on the basis that the individual is suspected of being here unlawfully. The Government’s Policy Equality Statement says that a decision to search a driver or their premises cannot be based on race, but, as the Race Equality Foundation points out:

“This ignores current evidence on car stops”.

It is small wonder that, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, the National Black Police Association warned that the Bill could return the UK back to,

“the bad old days of the SUS laws”,

and create,

“the conditions for making every person of colour in the UK a priori suspect, and a potential illegal immigrant”.

Many members of the House have lived through times when relations between the police and BME communities were in a critical condition. It is often in the area of powers to stop, search and question individuals that the spectre of discrimination has grown up. In his 1981 report, Lord Scarman identified unquestionable evidence of unfair stop and search being used on black people under the notorious sus laws. In 1999, the Macpherson report identified a clear core of racial stereotyping in stop and search, noting:

“If there was one area of complaint which was universal it was the issue of ‘stop and search’. Nobody in the minority ethnic communities believes that the complex arguments which are sometimes used to explain the figures as to stop and search are valid. In addition their experience goes beyond the formal stop and search figures recorded under the provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, and is conditioned by their experiences of being stopped under traffic legislation, drugs legislation and so called ‘voluntary’ stops”.

The Government argue that this new offence is about cracking down on unlawful immigration but it will affect countless British citizens. Inevitably, black and Asian Brits will bear the brunt. The enforcement of this offence, together with lax traffic powers, will lead to discriminatory interference with the right to private life of these citizens.

Provisions allowing for intrusive, discriminatory stops have continued to be one of the greatest flashpoints for police and BME communities, but in recent years significant progress has been made. The Home Secretary has played her part by taking positive steps to reduce the discriminatory impact of stop and search. In 2014, she told Parliament that,

“nobody wins when stop-and-search is misapplied. It is a waste of police time. It is unfair, especially to young, black men. It is bad for public confidence in the police”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/4/14; col. 833.]

She is right, and I hope that she can be persuaded to bring the same insight to the provisions of this Bill.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

I support the amendments to Clause 17, not least because alienating youths born and bred in this country results in their choosing to leave it to fight with groups that accept them, be it in terms of their creed or their colour. The measure will create active enemies of this country. It is unwise to do that to young people raised in this country with hope who then find themselves treated as terrorist suspects.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I share some of the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, who sketched out the problems with enacting this clause. As the Government rightly tell us, reasonable suspicion is a well-established precept in English law and policing practice. However, this does not mean that it is infinitely elastic in its application. A prior question needs to be asked when legislating: is it applicable in this circumstance, and with what effect?

This House is entitled to ask the Minister to consider that there will be circumstances where to exercise such judgment will involve the very real danger of identifying individuals who have leave to remain or who are not even subject to immigration control. Surely that would be an intolerable imposition. We know all too well that our fellow citizens do not take to being stopped for unfounded reasons.

Thus I return to the question I asked at Second Reading, which was not to query the idea of reasonable suspicion in all its existing applications but simply to ask what will constitute reasonable suspicion in these circumstances. A concrete example from the Minister would help.

The peril of such a path is made all the more obvious by the knowledge that alternative powers already exist, without this sort of provision. I trust that the Government will listen to the concerns expressed in this House about this clause and remove it from the Bill.