Illegal Migration Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. In order to have co-operation on return agreements, on alternative arrangements for processing or on any of those things, there must be proper standards in place, and other countries must respect those standards if they are to make agreements with us. Therefore, pulling away from the European convention on human rights makes those agreements more difficult, despite the fact that having those international agreements in place is one of the most important steps to dealing with the challenges we face.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

rose—

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

rose—

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[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and then to the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes).

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the right hon. Lady share my deep concern about the placeholder clause 49, which seeks to legislate to ignore ECHR interim orders lodged against this Government’s inhumane, morally abhorrent plans, to get around the fact that what the Government are doing is not compatible with our convention obligations? Does she agree that that will undermine our global standing and make it harder to make returns agreements or anything else that she describes?

[Yvette Cooper]

I think it adds to the chaos within this piece of legislation that the Government have not worked out what they want to do. As a consequence, they are undermining our reputation as the kind of country that stands up for the rule of law and leads the way in expecting other countries to follow the law and to do their bit as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

This immoral, deeply cruel and divisive Bill breaks international law, rides roughshod over human rights and shames us all. I would argue that it shames especially the Ministers who are deliberately and dangerously stirring up hatred with their vile and dehumanising language. I am pleased to associate myself with the reasoned amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy).

Let us have clarity on some of the facts. The UK offers safety to far fewer refugees per capita than the average European country, including France and Germany, and to far fewer than the countries neighbouring those from which 70% of the refugees from the global south flee. Behind the numbers and statistics are real people with lives, hopes, families and dreams. In the words of the British-Somali poet Warsan Shire,

“no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land”

and unless

“home is the mouth of a shark”

or

“the barrel of the gun”.

The bottom line is that, far too often, there are no other routes available to those fleeing violence and persecution, many of whom have family here with whom they want to be reunited. Locking them up is beyond cruel.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that the Bill

“would amount to an asylum ban”,

but Ministers simply do not care. They are even coming up with new ways to circumvent international law. The Bill explicitly gives them the authority to ignore future interim ECHR rulings, so even if a case were lodged in Strasbourg, they could still press on with detaining and criminalising asylum seekers while the courts are deciding—a process that can take up to three years.

The Government do not care whether the policy works—that is not what it is about. It is about dividing and ruling; it is about stoking cultural wars; it is about picking a fight with the European Court of Human Rights for cynical electoral gain. The Government certainly do not care about the human beings caught in the crossfire. If the Government seriously wanted to protect the lives at risk from small boat crossings, they would back more generous family reunification rights and support safe, functioning routes.

I have a constituent whose wife and daughters are stranded in Turkey, having fled Afghanistan in August 2021. They do not have the documents to apply for a family visa, and they are not eligible for the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. They have played by the rules for the past 18 months and are desperate enough to consider crossing the channel to be reunited. Government Ministers have not lifted one single finger to help. Even those who are eligible for the ACRS cannot make it work. Not one Afghan has come to the UK via pathway 3 of the ACRS since it opened in June last year.

On the front page of the Bill, the Home Secretary invites Parliament to rip up international law. The only act of a Parliament that has any kind of moral integrity would be to rip up her illegal and immoral Bill, which has no place in statute.