Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Stuart C McDonald

2nd reading
Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Let me start with two thank yous. First, let me put on record my party’s gratitude to the intelligence services and law enforcement organisations that work so incredibly hard to keep all our citizens safe in the face of constantly changing and developing threats. Secondly, I thank all those who took part in the reviews of the 2016 Act that have informed the Bill. However, as Lord Anderson said in his own review, they should be a starting point for parliamentary scrutiny and debate rather than a finishing point.

Although any opportunity to revisit and improve the 2016 Act would generally be welcome, my party has serious concerns about certain provisions in this amendment Bill. In short, while it is constantly presented as “updating”, and as protecting and making efficient pre-existing powers, we fear that the reality is a very significant expansion of what are, we must remember, already extraordinarily wide powers by international standards. There are significant privacy and human rights risks, and the danger of increasingly widespread suspicionless surveillance. We fear that we may be handing invasive powers to intelligence and law enforcement agencies not because the powers are necessary or essential to their work but because they are convenient, and that is not striking the right balance.

All this is consistent with the very detailed and principled privacy and human rights concerns that my party raised in relation to the 2016 Act itself—particularly in the speeches made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), who is here to take part in the debate again today. As will be the case today, we did not oppose the Second Reading of that Bill, but in the absence of important amendments, or concessions and reassurances—again, as with the 2016 legislation—we keep open the option to oppose the current Bill at a later stage.

Today I will focus on concerns relating to bulk personal datasets, and on notices relating to changes in telecommunication services. I will also briefly flag up our concerns about internet connection records and changes to the offence of unlawfully obtaining communications data. My party also believes that this Bill provides an opportunity to revisit the whole issue of snooping on parliamentarians, if we are bold enough to take it.

I shall turn first to bulk personal datasets and part 7 of the 2016 Act. In short, we struggle to see that the proposed changes have been shown to be necessary. We fear that they will instead create even larger gaps in the oversight regime in relation to these capabilities. A whole host of concerns arises in relation to the provisions of clause 2 and the concept of data in relation to which there can be

“low or no reasonable expectation of privacy”.

Bluntly, I struggle to see how a decision maker is supposed to assess people’s reasonable expectations of privacy, and when we say “people” we can be talking about hundreds or thousands of people or potentially several million people. Within that group of individuals there will be many varying attitudes to further privacy, and the data related to individuals could vary hugely from the mundane to the deeply personal. It may be that there is supposed to be some type of “reasonable person” test applied, but is that reasonable person black, gay, Jewish or indeed a trade unionist? How are potentially very different subjective attitudes to be accounted for? These might seem like odd questions, but the experience in the United States of America, where a similar test is involved, proves that these questions are very real indeed. Is it a general question of privacy in relation to the data or a more specific question of expectations of the use of that data by intelligence services? What precisely is low expectation? This seems to be an impossible assessment to undertake in any realistic or meaningful sense.

[Joanna Cherry]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments earlier. As usual, he is making a very forensic speech. On this issue of a reasonable expectation of privacy, does he agree that clause 2 and clause 11(3) seem to be based on a legal misunderstanding that people lose their right to privacy when they happen to share certain information with someone else? He will be as aware as I am that that runs contrary to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and that, by contrast, the Court has actually said that privacy includes

“the right to establish and develop relationships with other human beings”.

Does he agree that it is important to ensure that this Bill is commensurate with our obligations under the European convention on human rights?

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Stuart C McDonald

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I absolutely forgive you for that, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I offer my apologies to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. I look forward to hearing her remarks shortly.

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and I echo everything she said about modern slavery. I would like to say it is a pleasure to be taking part in a debate on this Bill again, but unfortunately it most definitely is not. Members will not be surprised to hear that the position of my party is that this remains a rotten, utterly misconceived and cruel Bill that will not stop boats but will cause immense human suffering to people who have fled persecution and harm. For the reasons we have just heard, it is a traffickers charter. It has been rushed through Parliament in a most appalling way, without consultation or proper scrutiny.

Although the House of Lords has done some decent work to date, forgive me if we are not popping the champagne corks at this stage. The 20 Lords amendments add a bit of polish, but they barely scratch the surface of the problems with the Bill, and experience tells us, unfortunately, that their lordships will be bargained down to three or four moderate concessions. They have already passed up the chance to refuse the Bill a Second Reading, with Labour peers abstaining for utterly unconvincing reasons. If it was a revising Chamber with any sort of teeth or credibility, it would at least be using its powers to delay this Bill and let voters decide this issue for themselves at the next election.

In that context, it is vital that we remember during today’s debate and the whole ping-pong process that only one solitary sentence in the Government’s 2019 manifesto referred to asylum. It was a very benign sentence:

“We will continue to grant asylum and support to refugees fleeing persecution, with the ultimate aim of helping them to return home if it is safe to do so.”

That was it. This Bill, and every single one of the Government’s motions to reject the Lords amendments, is completely and utterly contrary to that pledge. Without the amendments, the Bill will essentially stop the grant of asylum to almost anyone. Instead of offering support or an assisted return home to most refugees, it will enforce unlimited detention at the whim of the Home Secretary, permanent limbo, or threatened removal to Rwanda. Even children and trafficking victims are not to be spared, and the consequences for them will be horrendous.

This outrageous Bill, which rides roughshod over international law without any electoral endorsement, is precisely the sort of Bill that the House of Lords should be voting down and delaying. We can make that less necessary by agreeing to all the Lords amendments. That is the least we should do, and it really should not be too much to ask.

As we have heard, we are talking about amendments that will ensure compliance with our international obligations under vital international treaties such as the refugee convention, the European convention on human rights, the trafficking convention and the convention on the rights of the child. We are talking about basic respect for the rule of law, and my party wholeheartedly endorses Lords amendment 1, which incorporates those obligations into the Bill.

[Joanna Cherry]

When the Minister was asked about Lords amendment 1, he said that it “goes without saying” that the Government adhere to their international obligations, but they have not been able to certify the Bill as compatible with the ECHR and the cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights, under my chairmanship, said that the Bill risks breaching a number of our binding international human rights obligations. Is it not the case that, as things stand, the only way we have of putting that right is to support Lords amendment 1?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I absolutely agree. The most obvious example—I would say it is blindingly obvious—is the trafficking convention. That says that we must provide support to victims of trafficking, yet here we have a Bill that says the opposite. We are going to say, “Victim of trafficking or not, you are not getting support.” That is a blatant contravention of the trafficking convention, and that is why we need the treaties in Lords amendment 1 incorporated into clause 1.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Stuart C McDonald

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

The Minister has taken a careful note.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I notice the Minister is listening very carefully indeed.

Why is there a “compelling evidence” requirement? More importantly, is that not totally inconsistent with the test of real risk? That is the point of amendment 83. The danger is that even a probability of “serious and irreversible harm” will not be enough because of the type of evidence that can realistically be provided in the ludicrously tight timescale provided for.

On timeframes, we have various amendments to challenge the time periods that have been formally set out by the Government. The notion that eight days is enough time for an application is for the birds, as we know from the chaotic processes used during previous attempts to remove people to Rwanda, when many who were served notice barely understood what was happening. Language barriers, difficulties in access to solicitors and legal aid, the requirements of prescribed forms and demands for compelling evidence in the application mean that eight days will never happen. Those processes give rise to the risk that even those who could in theory make a challenge will miss out unjustly.

On that very important point, can the Minister provide clarity on how he will ensure that legal advice is accessible and, importantly, what his Government’s position is on the availability of legal aid? Those are hugely important issues that are not really touched on in the Bill.

Given the ludicrously restricted timeframes, the restrictions on “out of time” claims in clause 44 are frightening. Our amendments from amendment 101 onward seek to challenge that. This time “compelling evidence” of a “compelling reason” for missing the eight-day deadline is required. What on earth does that mean? Is an inability to understand the notice, language difficulties or the impossibility of finding a solicitor sufficient? More fundamentally, are the Government saying it is okay to remove someone who is certainly going to face “serious and irreversible harm” just because they were a few hours late with the paperwork and did not have a decent excuse for that? It makes absolutely no sense.

The seven-day timeframe for appeals to be lodged in clause 47 is equally absurd for all those reasons. Again, how will access to legal advice and legal aid be ensured? Who did the Government consult when putting together that challenging timeframe? Why have the Government chosen to bypass the first-tier tribunal? Why are the Government suggesting using first-tier employment law judges to assess difficult issues of removal and serious harm?

Some will have an even more difficult route to challenge a refusal if the Home Secretary decides that a claim is “clearly unfounded”. The clauses do not seem to make any sense. If, as seems to be the case, to make a valid application someone needs to provide compelling evidence of harm, it is difficult to see how any valid application containing such compelling evidence can be deemed clearly unfounded. Going beyond that, the grounds for appeal to the upper-tier tribunal are, again, objectionably difficult. Just to get permission to appeal, compelling evidence of serious or irreversible harm is required, assessed on the papers with no further right of appeal. Our amendments to clause 43 seek to rectify that.

We object to the Bill instructing the tribunal how to do its work, in particular how to make assessments of fact. Judges—not the Secretary of State—should determine what new matters can be considered, and what evidence and facts are relevant to their decisions. Our amendments to clauses 46 and 47 and various other clauses seek to protect the independence of the tribunal. We object strongly to the ouster clause in clause 48, in particular the restrictions on the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court of Session.

Amendments 100 and 108 seek to challenge restrictions on onward rights of appeal. These are serious and significant issues of profound importance. Removing the oversight of the courts is unacceptable and unconstitutional. We had a well-developed and functioning system of appeals and judicial oversight. The Government should stop dismantling it. Instead, the Bill will leave most people seeking to assert their rights able to do so only after they have been removed. The notion that such challenges can be successfully undertaken from thousands of miles away is absurd.

The fundamental question is, what happens if someone is successful in making a suspensive case? All that clause 45 states is that they cannot be removed; it does not allow them access to the asylum process or any other assessment of their case. They, like tens of thousands of others who cannot be removed simply because there is nowhere to remove them to, will be left in limbo—a limbo that is disastrous for the taxpayer but life-destroying for the individuals involved. A desperate outcome from a desperate Bill.

Finally, although we support almost all the other amendments and new clauses tabled by Opposition Members, we have concerns about new clauses 23 and 25. New clause 23 would require the Secretary of State to use her broad discretion to put in place a fast-track asylum procedure for so-called “low grant-rate countries”. It contains an amazingly wide definition of a low grant-rate country, which would include nationalities where 49% of applicants had successfully sought asylum.

New clause 25 has aspects that are fine, but crucial to what it tries to do are co-operation agreements for the removal of people who have had claims declared inadmissible. However, there is no definition of “inadmissible” separate from the definition in clauses 2 and 4. That goes to the heart of all of the problems with the Bill. We will continue to listen carefully to what is said about those new clauses, but we are concerned that they need further work.

In short, we oppose every aspect of the Bill. We object to the outrageous timeframe for its consideration and to the lack of impact assessment before we debate it. Our amendments try to mitigate some of its worst aspects but, ultimately, it remains an unlawful Bill completely and utterly beyond repair.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Stuart C McDonald

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

I am not sure the Minister is right about that. I think what he is trying to say is that the police officer could have a highly subjective view prior to stopping, and a highly subjective view is not a reasonable suspicion. We took all these matters into account in our report.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I think what the Minister is trying to point out is that before the 24-hour period where the suspicionless stop and search can come into force, there has to be a reasonable belief that somebody somewhere in the locality may commit one of these wishy-washy offences. If that happens, then everybody in that locality can be subject to suspicionless stop and search. I am afraid that is just not an adequate answer to the fact that everybody in that locality could be subject to suspicionless stop and search. It is nonsensical.

[Joanna Cherry]

The Minister must know that we are still bound by the European convention on human rights. Clearly, from what the Home Secretary said earlier this afternoon, some Government Members are trying to find a pretext to take us out of the convention, but we are still bound by it just now. The Minister must know that in order to interfere with freedom of assembly or freedom of association, under article 11 the interference has to be lawful, necessary and proportionate. What my hon. Friend just described is not lawful, necessary and proportionate.

National Security Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Stuart C McDonald

2nd reading
Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which we will have to look at. There are other provisions in legislation that provide protection for those involved in the work of agencies, so we do not think that the case for this new carve-out has been made at all.

Part 2 will also need close scrutiny; we turn here to state threats prevention and investigation measures. I do not think that any of us here should ever feel comfortable about curtailing people’s liberties by ministerial fiat rather than as a punishment for a proven crime. In fairness, I think the Home Secretary recognised that in her speech. We have come to accept that such “prevention and investigation measures” are a necessary part of the fight against terrorism. Our position on TPIMs has been to cut their wings, improve oversight and limit their invasiveness, rather than to do away with them altogether. It may be that we end up with STPIMs as well, but we will probe the Minister closely on the case for requiring them at all.

Ministers always promise—the Home Secretary did today—that powers will not be used inappropriately and excessively. That is welcome, but they should not have the power to do things that are inappropriate or excessive in the first place, because those who follow them into office may take a different view of what is inappropriate or excessive. Restrictions have to be in the Bill rather than in ministerial undertakings.

Part 3 is also a mixed bag. We absolutely see the need for freezing and forfeiting damages that could be utilised for terrorism. There could also be an arguable case for powers to reduce damages in certain national security proceedings, but we will examine that closely. On the other hand, there is a real question over whether courts already have sufficient powers and whether there are sufficient safeguards and processes that prevent undeserving cases from winning damages in the first place, so we will again press the Minister on that.

Much less persuasive is the case for restricting legal aid in utterly unconnected proceedings on the grounds of a past conviction for terrorism. That was raised by the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), and I am very sympathetic to that while recognising that this is one of the few “England and Wales only” provisions.

As we heard, we need to scrutinise not just what is in the Bill, but what is not—or not yet—in it, and two issues are particularly important. As has been touched on, the Minister and the Home Secretary have set out that the foreign agent registration scheme will be amended. Various complaints have been made about that not being in the Bill as we debate it today.

I return to my experience during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022—a slightly more acrimonious piece of legislation. Having really important provisions about citizenship and age tests being introduced at pretty short notice in Committee meant that we did not have the chance to ask witnesses about them or to get briefings about them from important organisations.

Something as important as the foreign agent registration scheme needs more than a couple of days before a Committee sitting if we are going to give it proper scrutiny. I am very sympathetic to the idea of allowing us some time on the Floor of the House to debate the details. In principle, the idea is very welcome and the provision is required. However, as we all have acknowledged so far, there will be very tricky lines to draw in the sand between those who should be required to register and those who do not. We must also guard against having a massive Henry VIII clause that simply leaves it to the Government to set out the scheme at a later date. That would not be acceptable either.

Also missing from the Bill—this is apparently not going to be amended by the Government—are updates to the Official Secrets Act 1989 or any concept of a public interest defence to charges under it. As we heard, that Act is almost as out of date as the other laws that we are updating through the Bill. The Law Commission was clear that a public interest defence was required to ensure that the Government were not able to abuse legislation as a

“cloak to mask serious wrongdoing”.

It suggested a statutory commissioner to investigate allegations of wrongdoing or criminality made by civil servants or members of the public where disclosures of such concerns would be an offence under that Act. We support those ideas on the type of provisions that look under the bonnet, as I referred to earlier.

[Joanna Cherry]

As usual, my hon. Friend is giving a considered speech and I support everything that he has said so far. Notwithstanding the Government’s reluctance to use the Bill as a vehicle to introduce a public interest defence, it is likely that a cross-party amendment would seek to do that at some point. Will he confirm that the Scottish National party—our party—would support that?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Yes, absolutely. The versions of such an amendment that I have seen look very promising and we would like to give our support to that if we can.

In conclusion, we need a Bill, and we certainly support this Bill on Second Reading. However, there is a lot for us to get our teeth into, both in terms of what is in it and what is not. We look forward to engaging critically but constructively on all these issues as the Bill progresses.

Refugees from Ukraine

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Stuart C McDonald

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Nobody on these Benches is suggesting that no checks should be required. I will come to that later in my speech. The Irish carry out checks on people coming in, although I do not have the details of how they arrange the accommodation thereafter. Nobody is suggesting that this should be a check-free or security-free process.

Iryna Terlecky of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain told the Home Affairs Committee that

“it is quite an indictment of the system and how it is working that everybody needs an immigration lawyer, and this is just for family members coming over”.

That is why we believe that the requirement for a visa should be waived. We simply do not have the infrastructure to process them fast enough. The Ukrainian ambassador, whom we recently welcomed into this Chamber with a well-deserved standing ovation, said to the Home Affairs Committee on lifting visa requirements:

“We will be happy if all the barriers are dropped for some period of time when we can get the maximum of people. Then we will deal with that, and my embassy is here to help: to organise for those people”.

These calls are supported by the Governments of Scotland and Wales, as well as by numerous organisations here including the Refugee Council, the Scottish Refugee Council, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, the Red Cross and many more. They also have public support, with one recent poll showing 60% in favour of, and just 15% opposed to scrapping the visa requirements.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) pointed out during Monday night’s petition debate on a similar subject, not requiring an advance visa for someone travelling here is far from a novel idea. Many thousands of people arrive in the UK each and every day without having obtained a visa in advance. Around 90 countries operate this system, from Brazil to Botswana and Malaysia to Mexico, as well as the whole European Union. Many people will have biometric passports and many will not, but the border functions smoothly enough. That does not mean there are no security checks. We run checks on advance passenger information provided by the companies bringing people in on ferries, trains and planes, and there are checks at the border. Biometrics can still be taken, by using apps for those who can, by reusing biometrics for people who have been here before, or by doing the biometrics at the border on or after arrival. And as the ambassador said, we will have the assistance of the Ukrainian Government in doing the checks.

Salisbury has been invoked in this Chamber, but while that illustrates what Putin is capable of, it has nothing to do with visas. Neither in that outrageous attack nor in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko was there any requirement for the murderers to use anything other than a Russian passport with a false identity and to seek a visa for the UK directly. The security concerns that we have heard about are hard to pin down. In the reports of the Home Secretary’s embarrassing representations to Ireland, reference was made to briefings about gangs. Here, Minsters have spoken about “false documents”. Other briefings have blamed No. 10 for blocking Home Office proposals to simply waive visa requirements. If that is so, the Home Office was clearly not overly concerned about the security challenges that have repeatedly been referenced. None of these concerns can be ignored, but in the grand scheme of things the Home Office has done nothing to persuade me or my colleagues—or, I suspect, Members right across the House—that security justifies keeping those fleeing persecution at arm’s length, potentially for months on end.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

As usual, my hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Is he aware of the views of Lord Peter Ricketts, the former national security adviser, who has said that because the majority of refugees coming to this country are women and children, we should take

“a much more humane and open approach…and should not be requiring visas”

and that we should do the security checks after they get here? Is my hon. Friend anxious, as I am, to hear from those on the Government Front Bench why they think Lord Peter Ricketts is wrong?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree with my hon. and learned Friend. I know that she made a similar point in Monday night’s debate, and that she is still waiting for a response to those concerns. We expect to hear that response today.

At the end of the day, we are not the ones asking the Government to do anything wild or outlandish. It is the Government who are asking us to go along with a policy that is totally out of kilter with that of our neighbours and with public opinion and that does not meet the urgent humanitarian challenge that we face today. I very much fear that we will regret it if we do not waive these visa requirements, and we should encourage the Government today to take action on that.

As the motion states, we welcome the further extension to the family scheme and the launch of the sponsorship scheme. I know that hon. Members will have a million questions to ask about them, some of which we were helpfully able to put directly to the Minister this morning. I will briefly touch on just a couple. As I argued this morning, I see no reason why many thousands of Ukrainians who are here on time-limited visas should be excluded from bringing relatives in on the family scheme, whether they are students, workers or visitors. There will be particular issues for seasonal agricultural workers in accessing even the sponsorship scheme, given the accommodation that they are generally provided with. I welcome the fact that Lord Harrington told the Committee this morning that he would give that matter his consideration, because we could be talking about 10% to 20% of the Ukrainian diaspora here being in that very situation and still struggling to be joined by any family at all. It is important that we resolve that.

We must also resolve the issues around people’s leave to remain here as early as possible, preferably matching it to the leave to remain that people coming in are being offered, rather than giving them just a few months until the end of the year. There are other questions about the nature of the leave to remain that people are being offered and about what happens at the end of the three years. There are questions about the safeguarding and protection of vulnerable people entering on the sponsored route. What happens if a sponsorship breaks down? What happens at the end of the six months? Colleagues will speak in much more detail about these points, but we offer our questions and criticisms constructively, because we all want to see these schemes work.

As I have said, our fundamental disagreements with the Government are over their stance that visas should still be required at all. Our other fundamental disagreement is about the Nationality and Borders Bill, which will come back to this House next week when we will debate the Lords amendments to it. That legislation is predicated on a totally misguided belief that refugees must always seek asylum in the first safe country, and that those who do not must be criminalised, offshored and stripped of their rights to family life and public funds. This last month illustrates as never before in the starkest terms the importance and relevance of the refugee convention, 70 years on, and also how the anti-refugee Bill is simply not fit for purpose. We will be constructive critics wherever we can, but on those two fundamental points we are absolutely clear: scrap visas for Ukrainians, and scrap the anti-refugee Bill.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Stuart C McDonald

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Rather than fixing the broken asylum system, the provisions in this part of the Bill risk breaking it all together, endangering, criminalising, delaying, warehousing, offshoring and depriving of their rights those who simply seek our protection. The Uyghur, the Syrian and the persecuted Christian I spoke about on Second Reading, as well as the Afghans who are now in danger because of events subsequent to that debate, all face those bleak impacts despite our best efforts in Committee.

Contrary to the claims that the Bill is about safe routes, it actually does not add a single one, while threatening to restrict vital family reunion rights, pushing more people towards smugglers and dangerous crossings.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his forensic work on the Bill in Committee. He correctly says that the Bill does not propose any new safe legal routes, but there is one provision that does—new clause 10, in the name of the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), of which I am a co-sponsor. It proposes having a humanitarian visa that people could apply for in France so that they could start the process of coming to the United Kingdom there. Can my hon. Friend confirm that SNP MPs will support new clauses 10 and 11?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for her intervention, and I am happy to confirm that the SNP will support them. Indeed, there are a range of new clauses from both sides of the House, from Back Benchers in particular, that seek to add safe routes, and they all have our support. For our part, we have tabled new clause 35, which would expand refugee family reunion in a way that this House supported in 2018 in the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil).

Our other proposals try once more to limit some of the harm that the Bill will do at every stage in the asylum process. However, let me first welcome the amendments from the Joint Committee on Human Rights and others regarding the appalling maritime pushback clauses and the criminalisation of rescuers—provisions that risk serious harm even before an asylum seeker is able to enter the asylum process.

For those seeking asylum in the UK who do get here, is it not outrageous that they will be criminalised under an offence in clause 39 punishable by up to four years in prison? That is why our amendment 116 states clearly and simply that if Afghans, Syrians, Uyghurs, Christian converts or others are at risk of persecution in their countries of nationality, their mere entry or arrival for the purposes of seeking asylum is not a crime. Is it not extraordinary that that very idea has to be debated?

Clause 11 means that, having faced the criminal justice system, our Afghan and his colleagues will be stuck in one of the Government’s asylum warehouses. We say that we should not go down that path—a path that the Irish have just rejected as utterly failed and that brought shocking results at Napier Barracks—and that we should make community dispersal work. Our new clause 36 would ensure that dispersal authorities get the funding they need to undertake their vital role.

Clause 15 means that, stuck in that warehouse, the Syrian and his colleagues will have to wait for months on end before their asylum cases are looked at, because their claims will be deemed inadmissible under a ludicrously broad range of criteria that will allow the Home Secretary to say that another country should take responsibility—even if there is not the remotest chance of that actually happening, there is no real reason why it should happen or there are strong reasons, such as family ties, why the claim should actually be considered here. The Home Secretary could even insist that a human rights-abusing country that pays no more than lip service to the refugee convention should take charge, even when our Syrian or Afghan has absolutely no connection to that country whatever.

Amendments 132 to 142, drafted with advice from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, seek to put the necessary safeguards and restrictions in place. We are not saying that it is never appropriate for other countries to be asked to take over responsibility, but crucial safeguards must exist, and they are absolutely nowhere in this Bill. Already this year, 7,000 or so people have had their claims put on hold through inadmissibility procedures. Just 10 were removed. The remaining 6,990 are either still waiting or have been moved into the asylum process. They have been waiting for absolutely no good reason at all and almost certainly at a cost of tens of millions of pounds to the taxpayer. The whole set-up is absolutely ludicrous.

Having toughed out the additional delays, the Uyghur and his colleagues will find that it is the Home Office that finally considers their asylum claims, but we ask why. Time and again the Home Office has shown itself as not fit for purpose, which is why new clause 37 asks us to look to the Canadian model of an independent asylum decision-making body, to ensure that protection claims no longer suffer from political interference and politically motivated targets. Sadly, far from supporting independent decision making, a whole series of pernicious clauses in the Bill would see this Parliament telling decision makers what inferences to draw about evidence provided as part of a claim. We say, “Leave assessments of evidence to the decision makers who actually see it. We don’t get to see it.” That is why amendments 118 to 120 seek to remove clauses 18, 21 and 25.