Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I agree with the noble Lord—he made the point comprehensively—except that he pulled his punches. Yes, the last line of Amendment 36 is very important, for the reason he gave, but it is a paradox because the effect of the Bill, if we pass it in its present form, will be to increase people smuggling. It will produce more deaths in the channel because, instead of opening safe routes, we are criminalising unlawful arrival. We are criminalising people who come undocumented and seek asylum. We are putting into group 2, where they are to be discriminated against, people who come indirectly even if they come by a regular route—say, on an airline. Tell me: how do you come directly from Kabul? How do you come directly from Syria, if that is your country of citizenship but you are one of the 3 million Syrians who are in Lebanon and Turkey?

It is a Catch-22 situation, since 90% of asylum seekers who come to this country do so from countries where we insist that the people coming must have visas or entry certificates, but we do not issue entry certificates to people who want to come and seek asylum. The effect of this Catch-22 is to make safe routes impossible and close them down. The only way to stop deaths in the channel is to create more safe routes but the effect of the Bill, if passed in its present form, will be to produce more deaths there. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, when he says that we do not solve the problem by passing laws but, if we pass the Bill in this form, we will make the problem a lot worse.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to briefly support what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has just said to the House about the importance of creating more safe routes and dealing with the Catch-22 he described. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, will recall that I raised with her the position of British embassies in parts of the world of the sort the noble Lord has just referred to and the role they might play in sorting out genuine asylum claims, which people cannot make. I gave the noble Baroness examples of the Yazidis and others in northern Iraq, which I visited in 2019, who, if they could have gone to a British post or embassy and had the matter dealt with on the ground, would have been saved much misery. I appeal to the noble Baroness to look at this question of safe routes and how we bring about a way in which incredibly vulnerable people are able to be sorted out and given a chance to come to places of safety and sanctuary.

I want to support what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said as well. So much in this Bill is about what can be described as the pull factors that the Home Office always refers to, but we have failed to give sufficient attention to the push factors that bring some of those more than 80 million who are displaced or refugees in the world today. There was a Cross-Bench debate only last month where Members from all sides of your Lordships’ House called for greater international efforts to be made, co-ordinating a campaign by the great nations in the way we have done over issues from COP 26 to Covid. Eighty million people displaced or refugees worldwide requires international action. We should be convening an international conference on that subject alone, and I would love to see this country taking the lead on that.

I would also like this country to take the lead in standing up to some of the internet companies that are referred to in Amendment 129, from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. It is outrageous that companies believe they can be above the law and do as they wish in enticing people—the kind of people the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, described—who feel they are destitute and at risk with advertisements for illegal routes to countries such as the United Kingdom. That is against the law; it should not require a new Act of Parliament to deal with it. I hope when the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, comes to reply to the debate, he will be able to tell us that more is going to be done about that now.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I would like to apologise to the House, the Front Bench in particular, the Minister and the movers of amendments in the next group, because I have a medical appointment, and under the conventions of the House, if I spoke in the next group, I would have to leave and be rightly reprimanded. I just want to say, under this group of amendments, just how much I have agreed with what everyone has said. I would have said something very similar in relation to Clause 11.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

I certainly accept the last part of that. Many countries in the third world are doing far more for people in serious difficulties than we are, and certainly far more in relation to their own incomes. But I would turn that round and say that if our aim is to help people in serious difficulty, of whom there are plenty, our money would be much better spent on the ground, on the food, shelter and medical attention that could be provided, rather than doing something fairly similar here at five or 10 times the price.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Can I ask my noble friend to return to the point about what might constitute a safe route? The specific example I gave the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, was about Yazidis and other minorities in northern Iraq who were faced with genocide. That was a category of people who could have been helped by our posts on the ground by dealing with their claims. To turn that into 80 million people all applying at British consulates and embassies around the world—that was not what anyone was suggesting. My noble friend asked for realistic proposals. Is this a proposal that he himself would be prepared to have a look at?

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, on the question of safe routes, which has just been touched on from both sides, the point is that by definition, they tend to include the whole family: a whole group of people tend to come together. That is part of the point of safe routes. The problem with illegal, unsafe routes is that 80% of the people who use them are young men, below the age of 34. That is a fact of life we have to put up with. We hope by means of this Bill to improve the rights of people who come by safe routes, and to discourage those who come by illegal routes who, by definition, are a dysfunctional family group.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

If I may answer my noble friend’s point, my answer to the Yazidis or particular problems of that kind—you will find them in Africa as well, of course—is to examine the situation that has developed, see how many people there are, where they are and how best they can be helped. That is certainly what our aid programme should be doing and what our missions should be advising on. I do not think that is the same as saying that we should consider shifting an entire community from northern Iraq to southern London.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Before my noble friend concludes, does he also agree that instead of constantly going on about the pull factors, we should be doing more about the push factors and maybe co-ordinating the kind of international conference that I was calling for?

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

I think there probably is scope for discussion between Governments as this problem becomes an increasingly serious one for countries, certainly throughout Europe. Yes, I would not be opposed to that but what I am calling for is some realism and not slogans.