Nationality and Borders Bill

Judith Cummins Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab) [V]]

The Government state that this Bill is necessary to deter irregular journeys and increase the fairness of the system in order to support those in need of asylum. I think that most of us in this House agree that the system needs to be fairer. Lengthy waits for asylum applications to be processed are the norm, immigration detention is often indefinite, and modern slavery and trafficking survivors are routinely detained. As the Red Cross states, removing support and raising the penalties for those who arrive irregularly does not address the underlying reasons why people seek safety in the UK.

This Bill is brutal. It in effect punishes those desperate souls who often genuinely flee persecution, famine and war in the hope of safety. The Refugee Council has stated that

“the actual effects of the bill in its current form will be to punish refugees who have been recognised as such under international law, and actually reduce safe and regular routes to the UK as refugee family reunion rights become more limited.”

One of the most dangerous parts of the proposals is that someone’s means of arrival will determine how worthy they are of protection in the UK. Asylum seekers arriving through anything other than resettlement will receive a lesser form of protection, including temporary status, no access to financial support and limited rights to family reunion. In fact, the new proposals plan to criminalise anyone arriving irregularly, not through official channels. But as we all know, people fleeing atrocities are rarely afforded the luxury of arriving through official channels. As the UN Refugee Agency has confirmed, this principle is in breach of the refugee convention.

These are cruel and unworkable plans. I agree with Amnesty International:

“Instead of introducing this piece of utter legislative vandalism, what the Home Office should be doing is establishing safe routes for the relatively few people escaping persecution who wish to seek asylum here…This reckless and deeply-unjust bill is set to bring shame on Britain’s international reputation.”

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Liz Saville Roberts.

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[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con) [V]]

I am pleased to have the chance to speak in this debate, although I regret the fact that the time limit means my comments will be brief.

This important Bill aims to provide a fair and safe asylum system and give greater rights and protections to those who have legally sought asylum in the UK. It seeks properly to control our borders and thereby strengthen our national security, and it will clamp down on some of the most despicable criminals: the gangs who make money from people smuggling and modern slavery. For me, that is the most important provision in the Bill.

Everyone in this place should back any measures that will stop the trade in human misery. We all remember the tragic deaths of migrants who have paid smugglers to cram them into lorries without sufficient ventilation. We have seen people with no sailing experience who have paid to be piled into unseaworthy vessels—often nothing more than a dinghy—and then pushed offshore to make a dangerous and, tragically, often deadly sea crossing. It is the duty of our Home Secretary to take any measures she can to stop these perilous attempts to enter UK, and I thank her for her clear commitment to reform the system and stop the organised criminals. Let us be clear: while such journeys are deemed to be viable, others will attempt the same journeys. We must act to stop them.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said, many who seek to come to the UK by illegal routes are economic migrants. If I had more time, I would speak about the work that the UK is doing in trade and education, and the work that we should do to help developing countries to really develop, so that people all over the world can have prosperous, fulfilling lives for themselves and their families.

I was deeply disappointed by the shadow Home Secretary’s remarks about the Bill creating a more discriminatory asylum system, because by not supporting measures in the Bill he would allow the current system to continue. He must surely look at the current system and see the clear discrimination against older people, disabled people, women and children—against anyone unable or less able to make long, arduous, dangerous journeys.

As I have only a few more seconds, I conclude by saying that we should all want a fair and just asylum system, and such a system does not say that if people are young enough, fit enough or brave enough, they can get ahead and jump the queue. A fair and just asylum system does not reward organised gangs of criminals for putting vulnerable people’s lives at risk. A fair and just asylum system is not this perverse and deadly real-life “Hunger Games”. That is why we must act and why I support the Home Secretary’s measures. I commend her determination to stop these vile, inhumane practices.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Patrick Grady.

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[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Judged while seeking justice. Criminalised while fleeing criminals. Expelled while being exploited. Scapegoated while escaping some of the worst violations against human dignity or human rights. In breach of global agreements. The words in the Bill should never enter the minds of anyone, let alone those entrusted to protect us. They should never be echoed in the Chamber, let alone be brought forward in legislation. In our country—the place that founded human rights—the Government have reached the depths of stigmatising people fleeing war, terror, trafficking, climate catastrophe and, yes, destitution, judging them on how they arrived, not what they have left. As the Government play on the global stage by cutting aid to the world’s poorest and removing their last hope of being able to stay home and support family and community, play with our climate, which is burning our planet and every grain that could feed the most destitute, play war by selling arms while walking away from building peace, fail to use their voice, power and influence on the global stage to stem some of the worst violations against humanity, and preside over a broken asylum system and do not fix it, they must recognise their contribution to the decimation of the global order before pointing the blame at its victims.

From centuries of imperial abuse to withdrawing from reparation today, the Government are now prepared to suppress a small number of the 80 million people forced from their homes and land without shelter or hope. They are prepared to criminalise people who, for the want of safety and survival, and some just to be reunited with their families, have been subject to criminal gangs. Worse, the Bill will stop people even fleeing danger as the Government force them to apply to enter the UK from a place of peril or some offshore hidden place, creating more risk, more trauma and more harm.

I appeal to all Government Members not to tread those dark paths. I appeal to all who say they live by a moral code and are here to further justice and advance human rights not to support their Government tonight but to uphold our British values, which welcome the repressed and offer people somewhere to live safely. I am so proud to represent York, the UK’s only human rights city and a city of sanctuary, where we put the needs of others before our own, tear down walls and create bridges, and take care of those whose stories break us as they recount the trauma they have endured in their lives. We listen and we act. We quicken our resolve to speak up and stand up for human rights and against violations and abuses. That is why I speak out to oppose this oppressive legislation and say: not in my name.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Sir John Hayes.

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[Sir John Hayes]

As my hon. Friend may know, I am a former maritime Minister, and it absolutely right to say that the agreement that we have with the International Maritime Organisation to rescue people at sea is also being exploited by unscrupulous people, and we need to be mindful of that fact.

This Bill goes some way to addressing the huge gulf that exists between public perceptions and those of the liberal establishment that has too much say about too many things in this country. Criminal gangs and desperate economic migrants know that every time bleeding-heart liberals oppose tougher penalties and tougher measures—and so blur the distinction between those in genuine need and those who break the rules—they do immense harm to the cause of genuine asylum seekers.

Finally, let me say a word about foreign criminals, who have been mentioned. In 2010, there were 4,000 foreign criminals here; now, there are 10,000. Surely every one should be deported. We do not want to import crime into our country. We must take back control and we must pass this Bill to do so.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Angela Crawley.

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[Lee Anderson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. That is absolutely right. I spoke to Janis’s family last week in Ashfield, and they made exactly that point. I will feed that back to them when I get back to Ashfield this weekend.

We have always been a welcoming and tolerant country that has reached out to genuine refugees from all over the world, but just like Janis’s family in Ashfield, most people in the UK do not accept that people travelling here from France in dinghies are genuine asylum seekers—[Interruption.] They are not genuine asylum seekers. We know that many of them have been trafficked with a clear instruction on how to claim asylum once they get here. That is because our asylum system is not fit for purpose, and this Bill stops that.

The Labour party and the Opposition want to bring back free movement. They dislike our points-based immigration system, and now they are going to vote against a Bill that protects our borders and helps us deport foreign murderers and rapists. They will always vote against the British people. This new Bill will ensure that people in genuine need, like Janis all those years ago, get the help they need, and the greedy lawyers and the human traffickers will be told, “No more.” We owe it to people such as Janis who are suffering today to ensure that we have a fairer system that offers genuine refugees a safe haven. This Bill does that.

We have nothing to be ashamed of in this country. We are a kind, tolerant and welcoming country. That is proven by the number of people who risk their lives every single day to get here. If Janis’s family can see that the current situation is unacceptable, surely the Opposition should see that too.

I give a massive thanks to the Home Secretary, who has stuck to her guns. She has listened to the British people and delivered. Opposition MPs want to travel into reality. I will offer this opportunity to all of you now sitting there now with those glazed expressions on your face: come down to Ashfield, come speak to some real people in my towns and villages, and the message you will get will be completely different from the message you are feeding into this House. I am here because of you lot and the attitudes you had in 2019. We are getting tough on crime, we are getting tough on immigration and we are getting tough on law and order.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Stephen Timms.

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[Jonathan Gullis]

I have the greatest respect for the people of Glasgow, their council and their MPs, because they have got involved in the asylum dispersal scheme, and they deserve full recognition and credit for that. That is just like how Stoke-on-Trent has wrapped its arms around the people who have come to this country in need and looked after them. But we have simply said that our NHS, local schools and local council services cannot do this any more and it simply has to come to a point where fairness is applied equally. I say to the hon. Lady again that if all the SNP councils that are not in Glasgow want to, they can meet the Minister and get the asylum dispersal scheme signed up to and we can share the load across our country.

But let us talk about the Labour party, who will listen to the woke mob on Twitter rather than listening to the people in former red wall seats. The Labour party wants to sign back up to free movement, which its leader spent years arguing for when trying to block Brexit. He also believes that immigration controls are racist. I suggest that the Labour party champagne socialists of north Islington, whose Labour-run council had not given accommodation to a single asylum seeker by the end of 2020, and their leftie sponging lawyer friends who soak up taxpayers’ money by preventing foreign criminals from being deported should get out and talk to some real people rather than worrying about their likes on Twitter. The truth is that the people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke want to take back control and this Bill delivers that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Allan Dorans.

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[Allan Dorans]

It is a safe country, but these asylum seekers are travelling from war-torn countries where their lives are in danger.

“We cannot close the door and instead we need to call out this policy for what it is—xenophobic populism which exploits people’s fears of the outsider.”

Those are not my words, but the words of Susan Brown, a leading member of the Church of Scotland and honorary chaplain to the Queen in Scotland, after seeing the consultation paper on the Bill. Susan clearly does not believe in myths, such as that immigrants are a drain on the NHS and the benefits system or that they bring increases in violent crime with them. For her, this is about being the kind of people we would want to be, treating others as we would hope they would treat us and our families were the roles reversed.

Some may argue that strict immigration policies are necessary to protect our borders and our country from the effects of immigration. However, on our NHS staffing, migration is good for the NHS. Migrants are an essential part of the healthcare workforce. They are the consultants, doctors, nurses, porters, cleaners, canteen staff and other people who look after the nation. 13.3% of NHS staff in hospitals and community services in England reported a non-British nationality. Among doctors, that proportion is 20.4%. Many doctors trained abroad and, in March 2019, 20% of GPs in England qualified outside the UK. Immigration is a necessary part of the British way of life.

On healthcare, the demand among migrants to the UK is lower than among the UK-born population, except among in-patients for childbirth. In Scotland, migrants from outside the UK are in general young and have low healthcare needs. Consequently, there is little evidence of increased demand for health services. On benefits, foreign-born people are less likely to receive key Department for Work and Pensions out-of-work benefits than UK-born people. On crime, in Scotland, statistics for individual crime participation tend to show that migrants are less likely to commit crime than observably similar people who were born in the United Kingdom.

I return to Susan Brown of the Church of Scotland, who said:

“What we need is political leadership which acknowledges and allays people’s concerns and promotes the importance of human life and dignity…This means giving asylum seekers the right to work…Establishing safe passage routes or humanitarian corridors to the UK for those that need sanctuary…and…support for individuals to alleviate destitution and poverty.”

In conclusion, I urge the Government to seriously reconsider many aspects of the Bill and to adopt a more appropriate economic and humanitarian approach to nationality and immigration.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Jack Brereton.

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[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab) [V]]

There is only one thing on which the Home Secretary and I would agree today, and that is that we have a failed and broken immigration system that costs far too much money. But that is because of successive Conservative Governments, who have failed it and broken it, and an incompetent and chaotic Home Office that continues to preside over it. When they constantly have to pay out claims for wrongful decisions and they outsource immigration detention and asylum accommodation, it costs money and causes misery. When more than 50% of those in immigration detention actually end up staying in this country, what an absolute waste. Extending the immigration detention estate will only enrich companies such as Serco and G4S, which is why the plan makes no sense to me. The pandemic has proven that it can be managed in another way. If the Government want to save money, they should simply end immigration detention.

This horrendous piece of legislation, hailed as a solution, does nothing to resolve these issues. It does nothing to create safe routes for refugees, nothing to end the hostile environment, nothing to end the danger of unsafe asylum accommodation and nothing to address the bureaucratic hurdles that leave people without documentation through no fault of their own.

We are living through an age of mass displacement driven by war, poverty and climate breakdown. Under the refugee convention, anyone seeking asylum should be able to claim in their intended destination or another safe country. Asylum seekers are under no obligation to seek refuge in the first country they arrive in, and there are a number of reasons why they may not do so.

At times like this, the Government should not be dodging their moral and legal obligations to accept their fair share of refugees. Instead of creating a fair and humane system, this Bill, coupled with the Government’s new plan, discriminates by distinguishing that whether people are fleeing from persecution is irrelevant compared with how they arrived. Does the Home Secretary realise that a trafficked woman cannot stop and ask her handler to ensure that she arrives under the correct documentation? LGBTQ people and those fleeing political and religious persecution cannot do a Google search to find out what mode might be considered the most favourable. An unaccompanied minor stripped of everything and everyone they know does not have the luxury of ticking the correct box. These people are fleeing conditions some of us could never imagine. These plans will limit the options of those most in need and create a two-tier system that will ruin lives.

It is 100% a misrepresentation to say that the legislation meets our obligations under international law. Do not take my word for it; the House has heard time and again today about the view of the United Nations, and the opinions of those lawyers who the Home Secretary seeks to demonise. I want all those campaigners and lawyers who continue to support migrants’ rights to know that, no matter what is said about them on the Conservative Benches, they are absolute heroes. Long after the Government are done away with, they will be on the right side of history.

This Bill is yet more of this Government’s authoritarian agenda, turning away the most vulnerable. As the late, great Tony Benn once said:

“The way a Government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.”

Only safe and legal routes will—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I call Matt Western.

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[Matt Western]

I am afraid that I want to let everyone speak this evening.

Let me give three clear examples of how the Bill will contribute to weakened protection for asylum seekers. First, clauses 16 to 20, requiring them to provide evidence supporting their claim by a specific date, appears to be almost entirely arbitrary. Indeed, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association has said that those clauses ignore the practical difficulties faced by many asylum seekers. Secondly, clause 24, which allows the Home Secretary to accelerate appeals when she thinks they would be disposed of expeditiously, grates against both article 34 of the UN refugee convention and the principles of natural justice—the very principles on which our legal system is founded, signed into force by the Attlee Government. It is more than regrettable that the convention appears now to be held in such little regard by this Government. Thirdly, not only will the Home Secretary have a much wider arsenal of powers at her disposal, but the Bill authorises decision makers to decide on the balance of probabilities, rather than on the basis of reasonable likelihood, whether a person claiming asylum has a well-founded fear of persecution.

Let us be clear: this amounts to an unnecessary raising of the legal bar for asylum seekers to succeed in cases. I struggle to see a valid policy reason for such a move, in the light of the Home Secretary’s commitment to upholding the apparently long, proud tradition of providing a home for people fleeing persecution and oppression. The answer lies not in raising the bar disproportionately high for asylum seekers to overcome, but in a more holistic approach to the support offered. It is not just our footballers who see this divisive Government for what it is; the public are more compassionate than the Government, and they seek a fair, compassionate system to provide for those in need.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Richard Fuller.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Judith Cummins Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con) [V]]

The reason we need to take action through this Bill today is not, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) said, because the country is overwhelmed, but because the system is both broken and unfair. It is obvious it is broken to everyone who sees on TV every summer large numbers of people risking their lives as they are trafficked from France, a safe country, to the UK. The system is broken because it is leading to people profiting from putting others’ lives at risk and to people putting to sea in dangerous vessels. It is unfair to those who have played by the rules. They have often jumped through a lot of hoops, paid a lot of money and done everything right, and then they see other people pushing to the front of the queue as economic migrants, despite not following all the rules. Ultimately, we have to insist on a system that is rule-based and set our own rules on who comes to this country. If we are to do that, we have to crack down hard on illegal migration and those who profit from it.

Therefore, I welcome the measures in the Bill. I welcome the extra resources for Border Force to police channel crossings. I particularly welcome the extra life sentences for people traffickers—it is amazing that that is not the case already. It is right to bring those in for people who are profiting from others’ misery and from others being put in extreme danger as they cross the channel. It is right to bring in those tougher penalties and in the legislation to increase the penalties for those who return after being the subject of a deportation order. Those who break the rules in that way again should clearly be the subject of stiffer penalties.

I also welcome, as many of my constituents will, the measures to reduce the vexatious claims that see people potentially taking legal action, even though on the steps of a plane, with the endless appeals and poorly merited cases that people use to clog up the system, slow things down and waste lots of people’s time and taxpayers’ money. We have to have a decision-making system that is not only fair, but makes clear decisions and does not lead to endless legal processes of a kind that many of my constituents are certainly frustrated by. It is also right that we have tougher measures to limit visas for those third countries that are not co-operating with us. If other countries do not want to help us and are not taking back their nationals who are being deported—they are not taking back their own citizens from this country—we have to be more symmetrical about things and look again at the visa rules we have for those countries.

I am proud to support this legislation, which ends a broken system, reduces the chance of people having their lives put at risk and ends some basic unfairnesses in the system that have gone on for far too long. It is a Bill that I am very proud to support.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Helen Hayes.

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[Joanna Cherry]

I am sorry, but I am coming to an end.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Alyn Smith.

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[Alyn Smith]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that point. I hope I have made it clear that there are parts of the Bill to which we are more amenable. I do not deny the work that has been done internationally, and I do not deny that this is a problem that needs to be fixed, but I see nothing in the Bill that will make it better, and I see plenty of things that will make it worse.

Clause 29 alters the criteria for well-founded fear of persecution. Again, the Law Society of Scotland is pretty trenchant:

“In summary, we take the view that the change in clause 29 appears to go against the intention of the New Plan for Immigration, and flies in the face of 25 years judicial scrutiny.”

Clause 38 expands the criminality of assisting refugees, removing the existing limitation that it is only an offence if the assistance is given for gain, thus effectively extending the penalty to any good Samaritan. The Law Society of Scotland says:

“We are…concerned about…Ships’ Masters who save asylum seekers from drowning as they are obliged to do by…Article 98 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea”.

This is a problem to be fixed, and it is a problem that can be fixed, but it is a system that has been entirely home-grown. In our view, the idea that the UK needs to implement what we believe to be flawed legislation is based on a flawed premise. There is a need for legislation to reform the UK’s awful immigration, nationality and asylum laws—we can agree on that—but this is not it. If the Bill is passed tonight—and I hope it will not be—it will not be passed in Scotland’s name, for Scotland can do better on this and many other issues.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I am changing the speaking time limit to seven minutes, with immediate effect.

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[Mr Holden]

No, I am not giving way to the hon. and learned Lady. I have already given way twice.

Far too often we see made-up claims. And then, time after time, they come back with different claims put in different ways. “I was this age at that time, and now I’m a different age. I was claiming under those conditions, and now I’m claiming under these conditions.” It is absolutely mad.

I can understand why Opposition Members, who supported people like Phil Shiner in the past, are now defending exactly the same system today. It is absolutely crazy, and it was at the time. I am glad the Government have moved on from those systems under Phil Shiner and we are going to tackle some of the same issues today.

There are three key elements that are particularly great to see the Government tackling. One is boat interceptions. It is interesting to see that we are learning from international examples. We are learning from the Australian system, where they have had terrible issues over the years with people coming. They do not have people arriving by boat in Australia any more, because they have dealt with the system.

We are also looking at the offshore processing of claims, and it is similar to the Australian system. They do not have the same problems that we do today. They do not see people dying in their channel any more—the channel between Australia and Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

Opposition Members seem to think that this is a price worth paying. I do not think it is. The Government, more than any other Government in Europe, are doing the right thing in supporting legal routes from refugee camps. That is exactly what we need to see here.

Let me turn to immigration offences and enforcement. People are also fed up of seeing those who have come to the UK and been deported coming back again, and it is right that we are enhancing the sentences for such people—not only when they are initially deported, but if they come back again, when the sentences need to be tougher still. How can Opposition Members not support those sensible provisions on illegal migrants who have been deported? Surely constituents, whether they are in Consett or in Glasgow, support those sensible measures. They want a sensible immigration system whereby people come to the UK based not on their ability to get here, but on their need. That is what Conservative Members put forward every time—the need of the people in the refugee camps, not the need of the young men who can just make their way here.

The Bill, in the broader sense, also tackles modern slavery. That is a great step in the right direction on what is a real issue in parts of the country. I remember speaking to some long-standing police officers in my constituency who had dealt historically with cases of trafficked women and the horror that they went through. Often, those people disappeared into the system after being smuggled here illegally, so the Bill is taking a sensible step.

We are including a sensible framework to determine the age of people coming over to this country. We cannot have a system whereby someone can destroy the documentation that proves their age but is then able to claim to be whatever age they wish.

We are also including a good-faith provision. People should act in good faith with the Government when they are determining an application. How can the Opposition oppose good faith? It seems like a really sensible thing to me.

I am delighted to support the Bill on Second Reading. It will deliver exactly what my constituents want—a fair, balanced immigration system.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Richard Burgon.

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[Jonathan Gullis]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your advice. The hon. Gentleman has thrown the slur of racism at the Conservative Benches throughout his speech, yet he was a key leading member of the Labour party that was found to be institutionally racist at its core due to the antisemitism that took place. I ask for your ruling on whether that—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. That is just a point of debate. It is not a point of order. Moving back to the debate, I call Kenny MacAskill, and there will be an immediate time limit of eight minutes.