UK Asylum and Refugee Policy

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Friday 9th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, in whose diocese I live and worship. He made an excellent speech. I have never heard him give a sermon; perhaps we can put that right at a later date. I agreed with quite a lot of what he said—surprisingly. I regard his predecessor, Tim Stevens, as a friend; I hope Tim Stevens regards me as a friend as well.

My view is as a still-loyal member of the Church of England. On Sunday I heard an excellent sermon from David Hebblewhite, who the right reverend Prelate might know, in Stanford-on-Avon on the origins of the Christmas stocking. How many people here know the origins of the Christmas stocking? I did not until then and I am 71. My view is that we need a spiritual and moral dimension to politics, government policy and legislation. It is a minority view, but I therefore support having an episcopal Bench in the House of Lords and having an established Church—and I will continue to do so. I welcome the right reverend Prelate. Another of his predecessors, Guy Vernon Smith, married my mother in Cosby—twice, unfortunately, because her first husband is on the war memorial. I hope to see more of him here and in Leicester.

I applaud the two serving most reverend Primates for their excellent sermons at the Platinum Jubilee service and Her Majesty’s funeral. These occasions showed the Church absolutely at its best and, frankly, rising to the occasion, so I thank them for that.

I speak as a member of the Church of England and a Christian—but not worthy to preach, I assure noble Lords, and my faith is a private matter. I will give at least one view today: a view from the pews. It is not my intention to attack either the Church or the bishops, so I shall ask questions that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury might have time to address at the end.

I agreed with a lot that the most reverend Primate said today. In April, he said:

“love your neighbour as yourself. For me, that is the standard by which we must treat those seeking asylum.”

I agree. This brings me to the question that prompted that most powerful parable of the good Samaritan. Who is thy neighbour—or, on this occasion, who is a refugee? Refugees typically return when it is safe to do so, like the Holy Family, which my noble friend Lord Cormack mentioned. I absolutely accept the direction in the lesson in Matthew, chapter 25, that we have to show compassion but there is huge pressure on our borders, services and infrastructure, caused by people who understandably want a better life. They want to come to Britain, which is a fantastic country—although, if you heard some in this Chamber, you would think it was the most awful place and you could not think why they would want to come.

I will focus particularly on small boats in the channel, which is of course very close to the most reverend Primate’s diocese of Canterbury. We have heard about smuggling by criminal gangs, and nearly half the people who have come across the channel in the last five months have come from Albania, via France. Albania is a safe country—I am not sure about France, although people go there on holiday, and I have been there and to Italy, Greece and Germany. But are people being persecuted in either Albania or France? They come here because we welcome them—we give them accommodation, benefits, et cetera. Frankly, we are extremely generous, which is why they do not want to stay in France, which is less generous.

The Albanians are instructed by their people smugglers to say that they are victims of trafficking, against the human trafficking Act. Those from the Middle East or from countries that outlaw homosexuality are to say that they are apostates or gay, so that they cannot be sent back. Anyone that can credibly do so, even if he or she is 25, says that they are children. I fear that we are being taken for fools—largely by smugglers, who know their market, if I can put it that way—just as Emad al-Swealmeen took the clergy at Liverpool Cathedral for naive fools when he said that he had converted to Christianity and was confirmed, having been supported by Asylum Link. He then took a bomb in a taxi to blow up the Remembrance Day service in Liverpool Cathedral. Please let us be sensible, not naive.

One reason that people want to come here is our history and culture, which my noble friend Lady Stowell referred to. I am very proud of the welcome that we gave to Jewish refugees from the pogroms in Poland and Russia in the late 19th century and in Germany in the 20th century, but, as a result, we are literally changing the way our country carries on and its culture, through mass migration.

There are distressingly many people who do not share our values and liberal attitudes—let us not pretend that everyone does—so let me ask some questions on, for instance, culture. I missed this, but did the Church or bishops lobby to continue having daily acts of worship in schools? Noble Lords may think that unimportant but, pace Church schools, very few state schools now have a daily Christian service and hymn. Of course, the most basic loss to culture is that people do not know those glorious hymns, and they now sing “Sweet Caroline” at matches rather than “Abide with Me”—noble Lords many not think that important, but it is a pointer. What is the Church of England planning to do to reverse the decline in Christian belief? Bishops will be irrelevant if no one believes in Christianity. The worst news this month was the fact that there has been a huge decline in those who call themselves Christian, which of course relates to education.

Does the most reverend Primate believe that the Church is institutionally racist? If it is, I do not want anything to do with it—but we hear bishops say that. Also, why was the ordinand Calvin Robinson kicked out? I do not know him, and he may be very unsuitable, but his story is coming out and it is not good.

I will give an illustration that is closer to home, though I do not wish to embarrass the right reverend Prelate whom I follow. I live in a group of 11 parishes, and we have had no resident priest for three and a half years, so I travelled over 10 miles on Sunday, burning fossil fuel. But there are two bishops in Leicester, the population of which is now apparently only 32% Christian. I note that the people whom I see in church—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, this is perhaps a good time for me to remind noble Lords about the speaking time.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

Some 100 years ago, every parish had a resident priest—and no bishops, because the diocese was founded only in 1927. I will sit down, but I have to say that, as a loyal member of the Church of England, I frankly hope that the most reverend Primate might commend the people and Governments of this country and his flock nationally and in Kent for the generosity and hospitality that we have shown over the last half-century to the over 10 million people who have settled here, every one of whom has been a stranger in this land.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the most reverend Primate for encouraging us to consider the question of asylum from a moral position, but I warn those who made such interesting maiden speeches—I warmly welcome them—that debates in this House are not always so erudite or ethical.

One concern when we discuss this topic is how we are regularly urged to deploy our moral sentiments in feeling compassion for refugees. Is it emotionally manipulative to suggest that policy should be decided by such one-sided emotional concerns? There are millions of people who could have their lives enhanced by living in the UK. When I watch the news and see the plight and suffering of those around the world, I am tearful and want to do something desperately, but, as the most reverend Primate admits, we cannot take all the world’s suffering as refugees here. We have to prioritise, and that does not make us immoral. I therefore feel uncomfortable when some accuse those who raise concerns about the numbers arriving in small boats of lacking a disposition of generosity or not caring. Is not that demonising and dehumanising language too?

Let us not pretend that this is an easy moral question. For all the moral righteousness expressed here, I ask what the moral difference is between a man fleeing a war-torn country, which is considered legal, and a man fleeing grinding poverty, which is not. This highlights a moral problem thrown up by the asylum system: it treats the cause of someone fleeing a country as the basis for creating deserving and undeserving migrants. It implies somehow that a refugee is a victim worthy of our generosity, unlike economic migrants.

I am not sure the fashion for emphasising that Jesus was a refugee helps, if I am honest. It feels like a bit of a cheap shot. Did not Christ allegedly die for us all? This sanctifying narrative and the present system definitely incentivise anyone arriving to follow the script and claim they are refugees, but, as explained so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, people arrive without papers or with letters from tyrants as evidence. There is a problem: the system is open to abuse.

If the host authorities say they will give asylum to Syrians, those from the Middle East will inevitably claim to be Syrians. If the rules say asylum will be given to under-18s, young-looking 20-somethings will understandably claim to be younger. In 2016, the Church of England clerics warned about fake conversions from Islam to Christianity. In Nick Timothy’s major report published this week, he notes that modern slavery laws are being “abused”. It is now standard advice, especially for those coming from Albania, to claim they are victims of trafficking.

Noting those truths is not about blame. I do not blame people for trying their luck—they want a better life—so there are no accusations of “scroungers” or “invaders” from me. But it is simply disingenuous to suggest that the objectivity of the law is not being strained when determining asylum status is so difficult. I am especially worried when we gaslight the British public, who feel that some are gaming the system—and they are right to think that. They also believe that, no matter how many times they vote for control of our borders, they are being ignored at the expense of asylum seekers.

When people considered the original 1951 convention on refugees, the spectre of those fleeing the Holocaust death camps informed the spirit of “never again”. Many Jewish refugees were, shamefully, turned away. British citizens understand that, and they understand those fleeing the bombs and terror of Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine and our obligation to those escaping the Taliban in Afghanistan, and so on. They are more than welcoming, but they are also understandably upset about the 40,000 currently crossing the channel, who they know are not fleeing from the terror of the Nazis or the Taliban, but who are leaving peaceful France.

They are right as well to ask British politicians about their priorities. Did your Lordships see the film of the recent public meeting in Skegness, called by the mayor in response to the local seaside hotels? There was a lot of hostility in that meeting, but it was aimed not at refugees but at the local MP. It was frustration at a system where, without consultation, asylum seekers in their midst were being given free accommodation, utilities and three meals a day, while local people face desperate times and the brutal reality of austerity. Homelessness is on the rise in the town, and the veterans sleeping rough in Skegness also deserves our compassion; the interviews with them were heart-breaking. Of course refugees are not living in five-star hotels, and I am not suggesting that, but can we also empathise with citizens who cannot get to see a GP, get into A&E or get medical treatment for chronic pain when they are told that medical services are being made available to refugees in local hotels?

Dismissing the plight and aspirations of our own citizens, so well-articulated by the noble Baronesses, Lady Stowell and Lady Stroud, is just as divisive and mean-spirited as using the language of invasion. This issue requires that we deploy a full range of moral principles. Our duties stretch beyond compassion for migrants. If we flaunt the democratic duty to uphold the integrity of national borders and treat the social cohesion of settled communities as a distasteful, inconvenient obstacle, we indeed risk a backlash against all refugees and migration schemes, which would be terrible. In my view, we need a complete overhaul of the laws on the issue. At present, who is in control?

In his foreword to the recent pamphlet From the Channel to Rwanda: Three Essays on the Morality of Asylum, Doctor Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, wrote:

“if people smugglers can simply nullify carefully thought-through and debated legislation and policy by landing people in small craft on the beaches in Kent, this cannot indefinitely be acceptable in a democratic and law respecting nation.”

I think Nick Timothy is right that, if human rights laws or the 1951 refugee convention prevent us democratically deciding our priorities, we must be prepared to leave both if necessary. Those who disagree, who think there should be more refugees, should argue for that democratically and push that up the next election’s list of things to be debated.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Baroness has run out of time.

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[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, the end is nigh—not for all refugees, but possibly for lunch. I start with the unfortunate remarks of the senior lady-in-waiting last week. She asked a visitor, “Who are you and where are you from?” Perhaps the questions were not entirely innocent. We all have a tendency to inquire about other people as a sort of defence against the unknown, but the other person may read the defence as a form of attack or even racism. It is not racism, it is ignorance and fear. It can happen to any of us, we just have to try hard to get to know each other; our upbringing and training surely demand it.

The Church, as the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, said, refers to this as: “Who is my neighbour?” It is a perennial question. The answer, of course, is everyone, including those tens of millions of migrants and asylum seekers who at times seem to be coming towards us. We have a reputation for welcoming refugees, as we have seen, and recently we have gratefully received compliments from refugees about this country. There are many reasons why people want to come. Albanians seem to be the most self-assured—even though they might not have those smart number plates any more—but they have no real reason to leave Albania except that they can earn so much more in the UK. Can we blame them? This is why I am very tempted by the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Desai.

The numbers have recently felt overwhelming; we must accept that. We need to congratulate the Government on some of the resettlement schemes, which have at least secured more orderly arrivals. The UNHCR’s Syria scheme has had some success, if only after much pressing from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and others in the House. The Ukrainian scheme is not really equivalent, but it has undoubtedly worked well until now. However, the scale of the Afghan exodus last year took everyone—and certainly the Government—by surprise. No one could say that was a satisfactory operation, but there were some remarkable rescue stories, including the evacuation of women judges by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. Today, there are many women in hiding from the Taliban who would or should qualify for resettlement. May I ask the Minister what is happening to these resettlement schemes? Why are they falling short?

At the other end of the scale, there are the many asylum seekers outside these schemes, especially those living on charity or detained indefinitely, awaiting removal. In many cases, these are people from war-torn countries such as Sudan and Somalia which are on the margin of the convention, fleeing drought and poverty as well as persecution. They struggle to claim asylum, having few documents—not always for the reasons just given—and little evidence of their past life and treatment.

The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, described the amazing work of the charities which toil to make people’s lives more tolerable. Church members, lawyers, experts in torture, NGOs and campaigners of every kind condemn the treatment meted out to these refugees. The waiting lists for the courts are lengthening just as they are in hospitals.

Almost one-fifth of those claiming asylum are children under 18, including many who are wrongly treated as adults. The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and others mentioned this. The Helen Bamber Foundation, a very respected body, is concerned that too many young children are kept for long periods in hotels without proper care.

Every Peer has admitted that the Home Office sometimes appears to be seizing up, unable to cope with the numbers and lacking the necessary skills. Under successive Governments, it has been called a shambles. This is a national crisis; is it not time for more co-operation between the political parties? I am also concerned that funding is being diverted from the aid programme, but that is another subject.

I hope the Minister will respond to the practical suggestions that the UNHCR put forward last February to improve registration and screening and avoid where possible the unpleasant side of forced removal and inadequate protection. Why are the Government not making more use of schemes which are still behind pre-pandemic levels?

Is the answer to deter or restrict refugees? Possibly, but that has not worked either. We have talked about

“real and accessible safe routes”,

but I do not think even Amnesty is right about that. What are the alternatives? Can the Minister present some? There are some utterly wicked traffickers, as we have heard.

Returning to the Church, I sincerely thank the most reverend Primate for inviting us to hear his very cogent pre-Christmas reflections. We have also heard three splendid maiden speeches and the personal experiences of some Peers. I especially commend, in her absence, the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, who talked very movingly about the Yazidis.

The most reverend Primate may think, as I do, that Anglicans could further improve our rather dismal attitude to strangers. “Diversity” is now the cover word, but I will not go into all that. The Church could do more to include other religions in Prayers, for example. We need to do more work on our church services. Some of us are still singing old lines such as

“Lands of the East, arise,

he is your brightest morn”,

or, worse than that,

“O’er heathen lands afar

thick darkness broodeth yet”—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Could the noble Earl bring his comments to a close? He has exceeded the speaking time.

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[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Forgive me, I am afraid I really must make progress. I am sorry to decline the noble Lord’s intervention.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I fear we really must make progress at this stage. We still have to hear from the most reverend Primate Archbishop of Canterbury.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid that time does not permit me to address all the issues raised by noble Lords. However, I fully understand that this is and will remain an emotive issue for many. Although our compassion may be limitless, our capacity, resources and infrastructure to help people are finite.