Immigration Control (Gross Human Rights Abuses) Bill [HL]

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, I support this Bill in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and commend her for introducing it with all the persuasiveness and passion that has made her one of this country’s great advocates. Of course, she is an advocate for great causes, and this is one. It is perhaps particularly ironic that this Bill comes immediately after the last Second Reading, when we talked about unfortunate children at the mercy of events. It was about trying to open the door to enable them to come into this country, to be looked after and cared for. Here we are looking at the horrible fact that there are those who can relatively easily get into this country and bring their ill-gotten gains and indeed families with them, with remarkably little let or hindrance, when they have engaged in some of the most appalling and inhuman practices in their own parts of the world. I am as enthusiastic about dealing with the malefactors as I am in speaking for those who need our care and support.

This Bill is described as a Magnitsky Bill, but of course it is not because that is not the only case. I see the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, in his place and remember that in July 2013 he brought forward the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. There are many other such cases—and I note that the noble Lord is on the speaking list and look forward, as ever, to what he has to say about these things. This is not an isolated case—it is an ongoing, whole attitude and approach of Mr Putin’s regime. One might well say that there is a long history in that country going back to the days of the Soviet Union, where he was also a significant figure. But one of the big differences is that in those days the officials, whatever they did within the Soviet Union, tended to stay there. Now they steal from their own country and their own people and bring their ill-gotten gains and families to this country, inflating house prices in some places and certainly giving themselves a good life and all sorts of possibilities. We are permitting that to happen when we know it is wrong, but we do not have to; there are things we can do about it.

Often when things are happening that we are unhappy about—sadly, there are many of them in the world at this time—we are unable to do anything to make a difference. But it is clear that in this case, we can make a difference. When the Magnitsky Act was passed, the response from Mr Putin and his colleagues was strident: it clearly had had an impact. When he spoke in December 2012 at a press conference, it was clear from what he said and the way he said it that this was really striking home. Indeed, the Russians produced their own anti-Magnitsky Act. It was a strangely ironic thing, because they blocked the adoption of Russian children by people from the United States. There is something seedy, unpleasant and vile about that kind of response, and it tells us something about the spirit from which it comes.

It is clear to me that this is something we can and should do, and I am glad we have the opportunity presented to us to do just that.