Illegal Migration Bill

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

It is frankly frightening that we are at the second stage of a Bill that begins with an effective admission by the Home Secretary that the proposed legislation is not compatible with international law and human rights obligations. Yet despite this, the Home Secretary says that they want this House to go along with it anyway. The European convention on human rights is often misrepresented by the Conservatives and their media friends, but the facts are that it was drafted by the UK and it protects the rights of my constituents in Leicester East and of every one of us.

The Bill is frightening, not just for refugees but because it sets a precedent that the Government can simply choose to derogate our human rights with almost no route to legal challenge. Not even children are safe under this Bill. While it does not instruct the deportation of unaccompanied children, it does give permission for their deportation if the Government or the Home Secretary so wishes. This is monstrous legislation, and no assurances from Conservative Members can make it less so. Will the Home Secretary commit today to protecting the rights of unaccompanied children and to ensuring that they will not be deported under any circumstances?

Let us be clear: while the Government disguise the Bill under their “stop the boats” slogan, this legislation is designed to give them the power to pick and choose which people from which countries and regions can apply for asylum, whether they come by boat or not. Many would argue that this is racist legislation, allowing safe and legal routes for a select group but not for others in classic colonial divide-and-rule style. According to the Government, a person escaping torture, persecution or war—even those wars involving British-made bombs and weapons—who applies for asylum on arrival is already disqualified and automatically made ineligible with no right of appeal, and under this Bill, they will be deported.

Furthermore, the Bill gives the Government the power to detain for 28 days human beings who have committed no crime, with no right of appeal or right to apply for immigration bail. This is a state-sanctioned fascism. It is inhumane and cruel. It is beyond dispute that the Bill is an attack on internationally protected legal rights, but it goes even further to explicitly state that its purpose is to exclude certain human rights entitlements from the asylum process. The Bill states that certain human rights claims are made inadmissible. It is also a move by the Government to put themselves and their agents above the law. The late, great Tony Benn famously said we should watch how a Government treat their refugees because that is how they will treat UK citizens—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In fairness, I want to get everybody in, so please help each other and help me.

Illegal Migration Bill

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

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

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The provisions of the Bill are inhumane and punitive. It has not improved with the Government’s amendments sent to the other place, which the other place has rightly rejected, proposing their own counter-amendments.

The Government remain determined to allow themselves to detain and deport even unaccompanied children; to disqualify many refugees from even attempting to apply for asylum or to appeal against unjust decisions; and to give the Home Secretary sweeping powers to make new rules or apply them as the Government see fit. Even if every amendment proposed by the Lords was passed, this would remain an odious Bill, and one that shames this House and shames this country, but the latest Lords amendments would at least mitigate some of the worst harms of the legislation—legislation that the Home Secretary cannot even say is legal under international law.