Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness that this feels a little like a Second Reading debate today, but there are two good reasons for that. First, quite a bit of time has passed since we last met in this Chamber to discuss this subject and, secondly, an awful lot has happened politically. I was fascinated to see, for example, the kite being flown around digital ID cards, which is an incredibly important subject and has a huge bearing on the question of illegal immigration and control of people once they are in this country. I think it is very fair that we have a very wide-ranging debate having kicked off this day in Committee.

When we started looking at this Bill, much of the commentary was that the Bill was thin. I think we spent two days or a day and a half talking about the border controller—essentially a renamed civil servant with pretty much exactly the powers that they had previously. The Bill was not substantive. Since then, we have heard the Government floating various potential initiatives around digital ID cards, the ECHR and reform of family access—if I can describe it as that—so this is very much a moving target. It almost feels as if there is an argument to pause this Bill while some of these initiatives are worked through.

We also really need to be frank about the nature of the situation and the pull factors which drive people, for entirely logical reasons, to choose the UK as their destination of choice. The Minister and I have had a number of interactions to try and get to the bottom of why the Government believe that the UK is so popular among those who go through a number of other countries to arrive here. I am not satisfied: I am not convinced that I have had really a full answer to that question. I think some of it, as my noble friend says, lies around the very low chance of being deported from this country if one arrives in a small boat.

My noble friend Lord Murray in his Amendment 203J at least has come forward with a really substantive suggestion. Whether that works legally or not, I am absolutely not the person to opine on. When I saw the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, anxious to rise to his feet, I thought a massive torpedo was going to be launched from the Cross Benches into the middle of that amendment. A number of us over here sort of scratched our heads and thought, “Have we heard correctly?” We were delighted that we had, because I think we really are all on the same side here—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Very rarely.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

We are very rarely on exactly the same side as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti— I will certainly accept her correction. I think the noble Lord, Lord Empey, described the overall situation brilliantly—we cannot just do nothing or scratch around at the edges, which is an awful lot of what this particular Bill is about. We need to look at different situations and different solutions, and that is why I very much look forward to the Minister’s response to my noble friend’s Amendment 203J.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hardie (CB)]

My Lords, I may have misunderstood him, but did the Minister say that the Government would consider derogating from Article 3?

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

We cannot.

[Lord Hardie (CB)]

I know that. I may have misunderstood what the Minister said, but, if that was the case, I point out that that is not possible.