Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Chris Murray and Susan Murray

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. The Liberal Democrats would like to introduce new clause 7, because we want to strengthen cross-border co-operation and Britain’s role in that process. We also believe that we need to reverse some of the last Government’s roll-back of provisions to tackle gangs involved in modern slavery. The new clause would require the border commander to meet the executive director of Europol every three months, which would help to achieve those goals.

[Chris Murray]

Before I was elected and before Brexit, I was the justice and home affairs attaché at the British embassy in Paris. I helped to co-ordinate engagement between the Home Office, the French Government and Europol. I do not know how much the hon. Lady knows about how Europol functions, but it has a lot of operations and is a very busy organisation. It would frequently take us more than three months to arrange a meeting. Would the new clause not put civil servants at risk of breaching the law just because they could not set up a meeting fast enough?

[Susan Murray]

That is a really important point. If the new clause were accepted, civil servants would perhaps have to look at ways to schedule meetings in advance so that they were not done on an ad hoc basis.