Illegal Migration Bill

Beth Winter Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady]

A constituent contacted me recently and said that I seemed to be speaking an awful lot in the Chamber about immigration and asylum issues. I suppose that that is correct, but then that is because the Government allocate so much time in the Chamber to immigration and asylum issues. This is the third major piece of primary legislation on immigration since 2015. However, the majority of constituents—hundreds of constituents—who get in touch with me on each of these pieces of legislation tell me just how disappointed, if not horrified, they are at the Tory UK Government’s attitude to people who come here seeking refuge.

In rejecting all the Lords amendments before us today, the Government are showing just how hostile an environment they want to create—not just for asylum seekers, but for almost anyone who wants to make their home here in the UK. The fact that they will not accept Lords amendment 1B, which is a considerably softer version of what we discussed last week, demonstrates that. If the Government are truly committed to the international conventions listed in the amendment—particularly the 1951 refugee convention—they really should have no problem agreeing that they will form part of the interpretation of the Act when it comes into force.

I have also heard from constituents who want to ensure that LGBTQ people who arrive here from places where they can face imprisonment for simply being who they are cannot be removed to those countries. That is what the Lords are seeking to achieve in Lords amendment 23B. Accepting that amendment would save time and public money because otherwise, by the Minister’s own admission, claimants would have to make suspensive claims against removal to their country of origin. That is what the Minister says he wants to avoid. He wants to avoid loopholes and needless court cases. In that case, he should support Lords amendment 23B.

The amendments that seek to protect children from indefinite detention and that maintain human trafficking protections speak for themselves, as does the Government’s insistence on rejecting those amendments. The Government keep asking those of us who are opposed to the Bill for alternative proposals for dealing with irregular arrivals, and these are clearly outlined in Lords amendment 102B and in the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury’s amendments 107B and 107C. The Minister keeps saying that he wants to establish safe and legal routes. Well, that is what Lords amendment 102B will require him to do. I have met many asylum seekers through the Maryhill Integration Network and elsewhere who would much prefer to have come here from Eritrea, Iran or other countries that have been mentioned today through a safe and legal route, rather than the risks, costs and desperation of coming on lorries and boats.

The archbishop’s proposals for the development of a strategy on refugees and human trafficking are perhaps the most straightforward and easily implementable of all the clauses and amendments so far. The Government regularly accept amendments requiring them to publish strategies and reviews on all kinds of legislation. Perhaps they do not want to support this one because the transparency and accountability that would come with requiring the Government to undertake a long-term analysis and make a long-term plan in response to global population flows would reveal the true hollowness of the rest of their proposals—the inhumanity and the self-defeating implications of the hostile environment.

Millions of people will be on the move in the coming years and decades. They will be fleeing wars that we have financed and climate change that we have helped to cause. Experiences in southern Europe and the American midwest this week suggests that they will not just be moving from the southern hemisphere either. Nobody is saying that the United Kingdom should have completely open borders and take unlimited numbers of migrants, but we have to be prepared to take our fair share, just as other countries welcomed refugees fleeing famine and clearances on these islands not that many generations ago.

If Government Ministers and Back Benchers truly respect the role that the House of Lords is supposed to play in the UK constitution, they really ought to listen to the messages that their lordships are sending today and will send in the days to come. As it stands, people in Glasgow North and across Scotland are listening to the rhetoric of the Conservative Government and deciding that they want no more of it. They will be seeking the safe and legal route to independence as soon as possible.

[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I will begin by putting on the record my complete opposition to this horrendous Bill in its entirety. It is cruel and inhumane. It will put people at serious risk of further exploitation. It is stoking division within our society, and it undermines constitutional principles and human rights.

We are here today to focus on amendments, so I will briefly say that I support all the Lords amendments before us, particularly Lords amendment 1B, which others have already spoken about, in the name of my friend Baroness Chakrabarti. The amendment sets out the Bill’s intention to comply with a host of human rights conventions, including those with regard to the protection of human rights and the rights of the child, and against trafficking human beings.

It is vital that we underline our commitment to human rights, and, to quote the First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford,

“provide a warm welcome to all of those who seek sanctuary”.

That is particularly important as accommodation sites that have been identified by the Home Office for asylum seekers become targets for protests by the far right. That is happening in Wales at the moment. Amendment 1B is a modest and uncontroversial amendment. The Lords have backed it twice. More than 70 organisations have stated their support. The Government must yield and stop voting it down. If the Government are, as they say, confident that the Bill is compatible with the UK’s international law obligations, there is nothing to fear from the amendment.

I also support Lords amendment 102B in the name of Baroness Stroud, a Conservative peer, which provides for a duty to establish safe and legal routes. This is, again, a modest and uncontroversial amendment that could make an unsupportable Bill slightly better. We need to go much further. We need to expand safe routes, as organisations such as the Refugee Council, Care4Calais and the Public and Commercial Services Union have argued, in line with the amendment. We also need to tackle the backlog with a fair, humane and speedy processing system.

The Government have lost control over the asylum system. Their “stop the boats” rhetoric will not stop the boats because people are genuinely seeking asylum from war and poverty, and nobody would go on a boat, risking their life, unless they were desperate. We should be welcoming people to our country. What is contained in the Bill does not represent the type of country that I want to live in, or that I want my children or grandchildren to live in. What I and millions of others want is a country and society that is based on care, compassion, kindness, generosity, respect, inclusivity and, yes, solidarity.

I support today’s Lords amendments, which should be accepted, but if the Bill is passed this week, I and many others in this House—and, more importantly, outside it—will continue to oppose and campaign against this appalling piece of legislation at every opportunity.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I have to reduce the time limit to four minutes. I call Claudia Webbe.