Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Sixth sitting)

Chris Murray Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 6th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I very much welcome this element of the Bill on electronic devices. While clause 22 will give officers powers to seize digital devices that are believed to be used for the purpose of people smuggling, clause 23 gives suitably trained and accredited criminal investigators the powers to access the information on mobile devices, phones and laptops that will build the evidence base, history, connections and understanding of the routes of the criminal gangs.

Seizing and extracting data from mobile devices is a powerful tool already used by our security services. There are already established Home Office guidelines on this, and these clauses extend those powers and will help enable intelligence-led profiling of irregular arrivals. That key change will lead to greater opportunities to disrupt the trade of these awful gangs.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

I want to make just a couple of points on the seizure of phones. We have to be incredibly realistic about the threat that the country faces and how these things are organised. We have seen people-smuggling networks and trafficking networks developing in complexity and scale. It does not start in France; it goes all the way through European countries—our allies—and then through countries that are very difficult for us to engage with, including some countries that are at war and some that are hostile states.

The evidence from the National Crime Agency is very clear that the networks are organised by phone, and that that is the primary means by which these criminals orchestrate them. We know that they are evolving, so it is really important that we give officials the power to seize those phones not only to understand where these smuggling networks are coming from, which is the only way to intercede and save people in unsafe vessels, but to disrupt those networks later.

We heard a whole set of arguments earlier about the insufficiency of deterrents in stopping sea crossings. Professor Walsh from the Migration Observatory was really clear that the demand is inelastic. No matter how many deterrents we introduce, there will still be some demand rising to meet them. That is why disruption is so important, which we can only happen if we have the ability to seize those phones. There is a really important distinction between targeting the demand and targeting the supply of the ability to cross the channel.

On the point about whether the powers are applied on a blanket basis, they are not. The Home Office is clear that there will be statutory guidance. The people who seize these phones will be subject to the same rules that are already in place on the handling of material seized from any individual, and they need those powers. The point about family life and private life is absolutely fair, and it applies whenever someone’s phone is stolen, which is a wider debate that we have in society. The truth is, there is no capacity to only seize part of someone’s phone. We cannot seize only some data and not detect, for example, private text messages or family photographs. It is proper that the Home Office officials who seize such data are subject to the rules that we have in this country about protecting the data and returning it when it is decided that it is not required, but we cannot separate out different types of data, and we would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater if we did not allow the powers to seize it.