Immigration and Asylum Bill (First sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

Q Would you reject the view that the referral system is exploited?

Eleanor Lyons: I would say that, from the evidence that we have seen—this has been looked at across the years by different Select Committees and academics—there is no evidence of widespread misuse of the system. Of the flights that did not go ahead in 2025 after 3 pm, that is less than 1% of the number of potential victims of modern slavery whom we identified in the UK last year. As I mentioned, if you make these sweeping changes in the legislation, you will also have a negative impact on all victims of modern slavery, in particular cases where we have taken too long to identify them. For example, the survivors of al-Fayed have reached out to me, and they have serious concerns, because we failed them; we did not identify them when we should have done. The Bill would have a negative impact on them, too.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

Q If I understand this correctly, the central point that you are making, Eleanor Lyons and Will Prescott, is that the issues that the Bill seeks to address are with not, in your view, so much the law as it stands, but the administration of that law—training, interpretation and the exercise of functions by all sorts of officials. If there are any issues, that is where they lie, rather than the substance of the law as it stands. Is that a fair summary of what you are saying?

Dr Prescott: We have talked about this in our report. You have to be very careful about the sequence in which you do this. At the moment, there are all sorts of gaps in identifying modern slavery victims. A lot of people in first responder organisations—as Eleanor mentioned, you cannot refer yourself into the NRM—are not aware of their responsibilities. There is no dedicated modern slavery lead and, because there is no dedicated lead, everyone is responsible, which in practice means that no one is responsible.

A lot of victims also do not necessarily realise that they are a victim of modern slavery. They obviously do not understand what their rights are. In particular, if they are in an unfamiliar environment and speaking to unfamiliar officials, they will not necessarily be comfortable discussing certain practices that have happened to them. If you are going to tighten the criteria, you really need to fix the gaps in the existing system first, before you look to a much tougher approach.

[Joe Robertson]

Q Does the Bill address the gaps you have just identified?

Dr Prescott: It does not really. There are some bits of the Bill that are quite welcome, such as requiring firms to outline the steps they need to take to reduce modern slavery in their supply chains. That is helpful to an extent, but it does not really address the issue of the lack of dedicated first responders in organisations, for example, and it does not deal with fixing the identification problem within the system that we were quite concerned about. I do not think it is quite there yet.

Eleanor Lyons: I do not think the Bill addresses the fundamental issues, because I do not think you need legislation for that. There is a challenge at the moment with the process, because we do not have that training consistently across first responder organisations. I do not think we have the substantial evidence we need to underpin a lot of the changes that the Bill is proposing. It undercuts a lot of work that has been done over the years to recognise that victims of all crime groups and of exploitation take a long time to feel comfortable speaking, and they may be scared to come forward. We are creating exceptional rules for victims of modern slavery that I think are fundamentally unfair.

I would say that the issue with tackling modern slavery in this country is that we do not have dedicated funding for police teams any more, and we have a modern slavery strategy that is over 10 years out of date. If we really want to tackle the issue, we need to look at those big picture things. The Bill is making it harder for victims to come forward, and it does not address the problem of the perpetrators of the crime. Actually, a lot of those things were introduced under previous bits of legislation, and there is already a struggle to enact them at the moment.

[Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)]

Q Good morning, everyone. I have a direct question for Vicky, following on from the previous question. In your submission, you welcomed the Government’s objective of creating a fairer and more efficient asylum system, but you raised concerns about several specific provisions in the Bill. Can you explain to us which aspects of the Bill present the greatest risk to refugee protection?

Vicky Tennant: Thank you very much, and thanks for referring to the observations we shared with the Home Secretary a few weeks ago. What we essentially said is that we are very supportive of the overall objective to improve the asylum system by making it fairer, more efficient and more sustainable, and we think there are elements of the Bill that move in that direction. The spirit of our observations was very much along the lines of highlighting where we felt it could be strengthened to better achieve those objectives.

Of course, as the UN refugee agency we are very focused on what the Bill means for protections and solutions for asylum seekers and refugees. We also very much recognise the importance of public confidence in a well-functioning system—and that means not just a fair and efficient process for refugees, but the ability to return people who are found not to be in need of international protection. It means safe, regular routes for people, so that they are not forced into these dangerous journeys that we are all so conscious of. It is also about facilitating co-operation with international partners to address the challenges. We are very much coming from the perspective of recognising the challenges, and we want to work with the Government to address those. We have approached our engagement with the Bill very much with that in mind.

The observations speak to a number of areas, three of which I would highlight in particular. First, there are the very extensive provisions that deal with the appeals system and the establishment of the new appeals body. From our perspective that is not, in itself, inherently problematic, but what is essential that the body will only be able to achieve the objectives of helping contribute to that fairer and more sustainable asylum system if it has the relevant expertise firmly embedded in both the profile of the adjudicators and the role that legal expertise will play in the adjudication process.

It is clearly important that the body both is, and is seen to be, independent of the initial decision-making process, and is transparent in terms of being open to public scrutiny, including on the quality of the adjudication process. Then there are the procedural safeguards, such as access to legal advice and support, and the possibility for those with protection claims to have an oral hearing. Those are all key safeguards, and they are really essential. What you want is accurate, high-quality decisions so that appellants are not then in a position of lodging more appeals to the first-tier tribunal. We are very happy, by the way, that the possibility of further recourse to the first-tier tribunal is there, but we do not want to see it overused either; we want to see high-quality decisions at the appeal stage and, even better, at the first instance stage. That whole area of appeals is one where we feel that more information and more elements could be provided to facilitate the consideration of the Bill.

The second area—I am going to mention three—is the provision that would allow recovery of the asylum support provided to asylum seekers while their claims are looked into. First, I would highlight that asylum seekers do not have the right to work, so in many cases they are forced to rely on that support. Secondly, they have no control over the length of the process, so they have no control over how long it will take to get a decision. A high proportion of asylum seekers are subsequently recognised as refugees, and essentially saddling them with the prospect of an obligation to repay what could be a really very large sum of money is not going to help to facilitate the integration process at the moment when they should be getting back on their feet. That is not in the interests of refugees, and it is also not in the interests of communities. We also believe that there is an issue of compatibility with the refugee convention. It is quite a technical issue, and we have set it out in detail in the observations. I can say more about that if you would like, but that is an area where we would urge another look.

The third area is in relation to article 8 of the European convention on human rights. In the observations, we have not gone into detail on all the aspects of the changes to article 8—the interpretation of article 8 that is embedded in the Bill. We would just highlight how it could potentially impact refugee family reunion. We should bear in mind that, because of their displacement, refugees have often been separated from families in very chaotic and difficult circumstances. One element of the Bill speaks to the presumption that one would normally have expected cohabitation with the family member being sponsored, but that is difficult in the refugee context—it is a difficult threshold to make. Particularly in view of the suspension of refugee family reunion—that bespoke route—we feel that that could have quite a harmful impact.

Those are the three areas. Clearly, the legislation is only one part of the overall answer, so it also has to be looked at in the context of the wider policy reforms that are being pursued. As UNHCR, we have been very pleased with the level of engagement we have had with the Home Office as these reforms are seen through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siân Berry]

indicated assent.

Helen Rance: No, I do not have those figures.

[Joe Robertson]

Q The Bill claims that it will have a deterrent effect on people coming to the UK illegally, but no matter how robust it might be, can it really have a deterrent effect when it seems so easy to set people off in boats from the north of France?

Helen Rance: Its deterrent effect would be the toughening up of the environment. The specifics of this Bill and the launching of boats from France are not specifically linked. This is the deterrent effect of making the UK less attractive in general. From this Bill alone, I cannot comment on the launching of boats.

[Joe Robertson]

Q Do you see it having any effect on where migrants might enter the UK and be received and intercepted by law enforcement? I ask because we see boat crossings now stretching as far down as Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. From your position, does anything in the Bill address the expanded geography of where organisations such as yours have to operate?

Helen Rance: There is nothing in this Bill that addresses the geography of where crossings leave from or arrive to.

[Tom Gordon]

Q I want to follow up on line of questioning of my colleague Siân Berry. When previous Governments removed safe routes from overseas, did the NCA see an impact on illegal activity by those exploiting vulnerable people? Do you feel confident that the Bill will reverse that?

Helen Rance: I understand the question, but I do not have the statistical figures over the last—