Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, colleagues in the other place and in this House have raised concerns about this Bill—from the impact it may have on the victims of human trafficking, undermining the work done and progress made in that area, much of it led by my noble friend Lady May, to concerns over the provisions that may criminalise asylum seekers rather than those who seek to exploit them, the expansion of counterterrorism measures and the lack of an attempt to deal with the vexed issue of no safe routes for those fleeing persecution.

I am sure that many of these and other concerns around the Bill will be debated in detail in Committee—but today I want to focus on how we debate this policy area, the consequences of what we do in Parliament and in government and its real impact on people’s lives. I do not put forward an ideological position on migration: I am neither for open borders nor for ever-increasing draconian measures that seem not to achieve their stated aim, instead often raising the temperature on this issue and then agitating further a disappointed public.

In a former life, I have represented both the Home Office and applicants in immigration proceedings. However, I am pragmatic enough to acknowledge, as I presume most in this House would, our demand for a constant supply of a Labour force over decades to underpin our economy. It has meant that we have tolerated the numbers. Like most in our country, I simply want a system that works, does not oversell and underdeliver, ensures that we meet our international obligations and is in line with our stated values.

Migration, the movement of people, which both in the UK and around the world is overwhelmingly legal, has always existed—the movement of people between different geographical areas across boundaries during the years as seasons changed; the movement within state boundaries from rural to urban areas in recent centuries; and the movement in the past of large numbers of Europeans, from the global North to the global South, the global East and elsewhere. From the mid-1800s to the First World War, it is estimated that up to 20 million people migrated from the United Kingdom. Over a period of 80 years nearly 50% of the British population moved, travelling to parts of the British Empire, colonising lands and establishing settled communities.

This was not unusual; the same pattern was seen across most European nations. Some 48 million indigenous—to use the description used by my noble friend Lord Lilley—Europeans left Europe to become permanent communities across the globe and now rightly call themselves indigenous there. These numbers and percentages far exceed the subsequent migration back from many of our old colonies, including many like my grandfather, who some 70 years ago arrived in the UK, starting his “on these islands” relationship with Britain, his actual relationship having started many decades before then as a subject in British colonial India, which included over two decades of service in the British Indian Army. He was the embodiment of what the now Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, passionately said in 2018 in the other place:

“We are here … because you were there”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/4/18; col. 9WH.]


Indeed, it was only after the Second World War that Europe stopped becoming the source of most migration, starting to become a migration destination.

I raise these issues for context, for proportionality and for us to consider the statements we make and will make as these changes are introduced and the Bill passes through both Houses; statements such as those suggesting, as many have done already, including in the Explanatory Notes, that what we are seeing is unusual or unprecedented. It is neither, if we look at history. Facts, stats and language matter: as my noble friend Lord Harper said in his excellent maiden speech, tough measures in moderate language. It matters because it leads to better debates, better policy and better policy-making, and ensures that migration policy remains just that, not a cloak for culture wars and division.

We need to be mindful of the impact on all communities in the UK and how what we say in positions of power can green-light dangerous behaviours in those with malign intent. It has consequences for cohesion and can become a platform for extremist views. How we have developed our policies in the past has not necessarily worked. The race riots post-Southport showed us how quickly people from racial minority communities became migrants, became asylum seekers, became illegals, became security risks, and how our fellow citizens, British Muslims, became fair game. After all the sloganising during the Brexit decision, we neither took back control of our borders nor reduced the numbers coming into our country, with legal migration increasing from around 500,000 to 700,000 annually to 1.3 million in 2022 and 1.2 million in 2023. However passionate and at times inflammatory the rhetoric, not only did the policy of restricting and reducing numbers simply not happen; in reality, the opposite did.

In conclusion, I urge noble Lords to be careful in the language we use during these debates; to be accurate in our facts; to base our arguments on evidence, not ideology; to focus on outcomes, not political posturing; to tell the full story on migration; to speak of numbers and needs, not composition and culture; and to find a way to talk about migration that is inclusive of all our fellow countrymen and women. We owe it to all of them to get this right.