Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to reinforce what others have said about the Bill being an affront to human rights and civil liberties. It is an anti-refugee Bill and an anti-asylum Bill and whatever the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, said about dismissing the concern for common humanity, it is a display of a lack of respect for our common humanity. What terrible detriment to the humanity of British people comes about from providing shelter to those fleeing persecution? What possible terrible detriment to the British people happened as a result of offering shelter to those who were fleeing Nazism and the concentration camps? The very idea of pushing boats back to the French coast is totally contrary to international and maritime law, as we have heard—but we do not even have to talk about its unlawfulness; it is about the morality of it.

Similarly, when we talk about offshoring and that proposal, it is not just unworkable, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, was saying; it, too, is a dereliction of our national duties under international law. How are people going to access legal advice of a proper standard that we would be able to rely on confidently? As others have said, the Bill creates a two-tier system for asylum seekers. To criminalise those who come to the UK because they have not secured advance permission is unconscionable, especially when there are no safe routes for most people to get here. People who are fleeing are coming in desperation; they are in fear of their lives and they take the most incredible risks to find sanctuary. When people speak, as the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, did, about the cost of doing so, it is often about whole communities putting together money in order to make it possible for that person to escape likely death.

The Bill does nothing to create legitimate ways of getting those who are at grievous risk to safety. It opens up, in fact, greater possibilities for traffickers and those who exploit those who are at risk. In September and October of this last year, along with a little team of lawyers from the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, which I direct, we evacuated 103 women—Afghan judges, lawyers, journalists and others—out of Afghanistan with their families. They were desperate because they were on Taliban kill lists and we have had to struggle desperately to find final destinations for them around the world. We are still waiting for the promised resettlement scheme here for Afghanis; it still has not come into existence.

The Bill in its current form would have prevented my Afghan women coming to the UK. My Afghan judges are evacuated in Greece, Greece having agreed to be a lily pad, a temporary landing place, but they would be group 2 refugees, which means that they would have to stay in Greece because, of course, it is a safe country to all intents and purposes. Desperate women are also in communication with me still who escaped over the border into Pakistan, Iran or other neighbouring countries. They, too, would be group 2 refugees, even if they have a relative who lives in this country who is willing to receive them. Of course, Clause 15 makes it inadmissible to claim a special connection even if you have relatives in this country.

The Minister is right that there is a crisis in the immigration system, but this Bill is not going to solve it. Around half of immigration appeals against Home Office decisions are successful in the First-tier Tribunal. One-third of judicial reviews against the Home Office are settled or decided in the claimant’s favour. That tells you something loudly and clearly about the quality of the original decision-making in the Home Office—it is abysmal. The starting position is to say no when people apply to enter this country. So, in asking for ideas of how to improve the system, if you want to run a well-run system there has to be better early decision-making, access to proper legal advice and properly run courts and tribunals. But, instead of strengthening early decision-making, the Home Secretary is weakening appeals, creating fast-track processes that are unlawful and increasing her own arbitrary powers, taking to herself the power to accelerate hearings at such speed that there are likely to be illegal outcomes.

There is a whole set of clauses that I could refer to which deal with putting at speed decision-making without the proper legal advice that would make decisions safe. There is a whole set of proposals that we should be concerned about. I want to reinforce what was said by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, about how people who have been trafficked and have come here are modern-day slaves, yet the discretionary leave to remain system is not working for them. In the past five years, only 7% of those of 6,000 survivors have been given discretionary leave. I hope that this Bill will accept amendments to change that, because it has got worse under the current Home Secretary. Likewise, I hope that Damian Green’s amendment in the other place to accept more of the young from Hong Kong might be considered.

Efficiency cannot be bought at the price—

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am very sorry, but there is a five-minute Back-Bench speaking limit. Everybody else is managing to keep more or less to it.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

I hear the noble Lord. Efficiency cannot be bought at the price of reduced fairness. My advice to government is: improve the quality and accuracy of first-instance decision-making and bring back proper legal aid in this area of law.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I accept that point, but I do not accept the point that large centres cannot work if they are properly designed and managed. That is not necessarily a reason for rejecting the possibility of there being larger reception centres, albeit that they may be built around buildings that have existed before.

When my noble friend the Minister replies, I am looking for her to say that we have no more Napier barracks hidden away somewhere, that we are moving in the direction of travel given by the right reverend Prelate and that, with that provision, we should continue to be prepared to provide centres that may be larger because they answer some of the requirements and traumas that those unfortunate people are experiencing.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments and pay tribute to those whose names are attached to them, because they all raise important issues. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that there was something of a Freudian slip when he suggested that we were here dealing with illegal immigrants. Perhaps the tabloid newspapers are having too much of an effect on his view of what is happening.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

Surely in many instances we will not know the state of their claim when those people are accommodated in the reception centres. They will not know, and we will not know, what their status is.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

It was the assumption that we were talking about illegal immigrants. The vast majority of the people coming through are asylum seekers and have good reason to be seeking asylum.

The reason I got to my feet was not really to reprimand the noble Lord, Lord Horam; it was to raise a question that came from my own experience. When it became public that we had been evacuating judges and prosecutors from Afghanistan, because they were in mortal danger, to a lily pad—a temporary location—in Greece, the number of communications I received from people and families up and down the country with additional accommodation and offering to make it available to any of those seeking refuge from persecution was extraordinary. I know that the answer will be given from the Front Bench that of course we encourage people to contact a central line and to put their names down to say that they might make such an offer, but many of those who contacted me, where I gave them that advice, told me that no one had ever contacted them. I just wonder whether the good will of the British people who could offer accommodation is really being tapped into, rather than piling people into camps such as this one.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

There was concern in Committee about the impact this clause would have on vulnerable groups—for example, faith groups.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I am not sure that one generally takes questions on Report. I am newer than the noble Baroness, and I do not want to be rude; equally, I want to maintain the approach of the House.

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[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, since post Brexit, the EU’s Dublin III regulation no longer protects the rights of unaccompanied children. Therefore, along with many of your Lordships, I strongly support this measure, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who has very simply and eloquently indicated that it is a matter of honour that an equivalent to the Dublin regulations should now by us be put in place.

Any ambiguity would thereby be removed and instead we would make sure, as the Dublin regulations used to, that unaccompanied children and certain other people in Europe are able to come here for asylum if a close family member should already be in the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group. I particularly want to mention the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Dubs, and spoken to powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about the importance of reunion of families.

As some noble Lords will know, I have recently been involved in the evacuation of women judges from Afghanistan. The first flight that I was involved in getting the women out on had 30 women on it. Unfortunately, I was woken at 5 am by a call from our point man at Mazar-i-Sharif airport, who said that the husband of one of the women judges had an out-of-date passport. It was not long out of date, but it was out of date, so he would not be allowed on the plane. I spoke to the woman judge, who I had got to know through her desperate communications with me. She was weeping, and I could hear her children weeping. I told her to get on the plane with her children and that I would do everything I in my power to get her husband to join her.

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Moved by

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

50: After Clause 37, insert the following new Clause—
“Emergency visas
(1) The Secretary of State must, within a period of six months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, amend the immigration rules in order to ensure that persons at particular risk are entitled to enter the United Kingdom and be provided with temporary abode.(2) For the purposes of this section, “persons at particular risk” include—(a) a human rights defender who is at an imminent risk to his or her life;(b) a person who is targeted because of their protected characteristic and is at an imminent risk to his or her life.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would allow persons at particular risk to be able to be provided with safety in the UK, in line with the Government’s commitments from 2019.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

Having heard the response of the noble Baroness, I would ask that she might indicate whether she would be happy to meet with me to discuss the delay in the operation of this, because I understood from what she said that Covid had got in the way of perfecting this emergency visa arrangement with the UNHCR. I would like to know how expeditious that can be, and it may be by sitting with the noble Baroness and having a conversation we can resolve that. So I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I am sorry, but the noble Baroness has spoken to the amendment. I must now put the Question.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

I was just asking for an indication from the Minister; I am with withdrawing my amendment.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will be able to withdraw her amendment after the Question has been put.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

That is correct. It is now in the hands of the noble Baroness: does she wish to seek leave to withdraw?

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

I seek leave to withdraw.

Amendment 50 withdrawn.