Nationality and Borders Bill

Earl of Leicester Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Earl Leicester (Con)]

My Lords, we are an island race and have been subject to many waves of immigration and invasion—some welcome, some not. I leave your Lordships to decide into which category they place the Vikings, Romans, Normans and Huguenots. Actually, I think that on the whole, notwithstanding a few short-term difficulties, these have generally been positive. The Huguenots came at the rate of a thousand a year over, say, 50 years. Of course, the population back then was much smaller. In the 18th and 19th centuries, all those Anglo-Saxon-sounding bankers arrived in London, such as the Schroders, Warburgs and Rothschilds. Then, after World War Two, there was the Windrush generation. Incidentally, I am pleased to see that Part 1 of the Bill appears to attempt to right the terrible wrongs of Windrush. I say the above to demonstrate my support for economic immigration. It has been a necessity in our country, but it must be subject to rigorous control, with checks and balances, and it must suit our country.

There are 80 million displaced people in the world, so it is clear that not everyone who wants to come to the United Kingdom can do so. The current system is collapsing. Indeed, in the New Plan for Immigration published in March 2021, the Government described the UK’s in-country asylum case load as being at an “unsustainable” level. It stated that 109,000 asylum cases were in the system; of those, 52,000 were still awaiting a decision at the end of 2020. Some 5,200 had an appeal outstanding, and 41,600 cases were subject to removal action—the highest level since records began in 2011. In 2013-14, this cost the British taxpayer just over £0.4 billion. In 2020-21, it is costing the taxpayer just under £1.4 billion.

The number of decisions made per year has been falling, despite an increase in asylum casework staff. Indeed, there has been a 46% increase in the number of those staff at the Home Office since 2014-15, when there were 409, to 597 four years later. To further compound the situation, productivity has reduced from a peak of around 18 principal stages completed per staff member per month in 2015-16 to an equivalent figure of only seven per month only four years later. There has been much criticism of the Home Office during this debate. These figures add to that criticism, and I add mine. Of the 29,500 applications made in 2020, only 14,400 decisions were made—granted, the pandemic doubtless had some part in this reduction. But, of course, this all adds to pressure on the system.

While successful application rates between 2004 and 2009 averaged 34%, in recent years that has increased and improved to 48%. Compare that to the 20% rate in France—no wonder immigrants do not bother stopping in Paris but head straight for Calais. Indeed, many applications for asylum in the UK come from people who have had their applications in other European countries turned down. But no one arriving in small boats is fleeing persecution in France.

A related problem highlighted by the Home Secretary is that the persistent failure to enforce our immigration laws, as reflected by the woeful removal statistics—I believe it was only about 2,500 last year—is eroding public trust and disadvantaging vulnerable people who need our help. According to Migration Watch, 79% of British voters think that the Government are handling immigration poorly. We are lucky to have the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, president of the independent Migration Watch, here in this Chamber, giving us some hard-hitting facts on the levels of migration in this country.

I welcome the Government’s introduction of much of this Bill. It is high time we dealt more robustly with people trying to access our country illegally. This should allow the Home Office more time to deal more compassionately with more deserving cases and, most importantly of all, to prevent the tragedies of the like we saw in the channel in November.