Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

Lastly, in discussions on previous amendments there was much talk about public opinion. I believe that the British public are essentially humanitarian, and if they are given these arguments they will say, “Yes, we support that. We support family reunion, particularly for these children. Let’s go for it—we don’t agree with the Government.” Public opinion is on our side, so let us make sure that the Government listen to that public opinion.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in what he has just said. I was one of the signatories of the original Dubs amendment, as it became known. It is a pleasure to follow him this evening and endorse his remarks, as well as those of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. I also support and have signed Amendment 50, which is being proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. My Amendment 51 is an all-party amendment. I declare my interest as a patron of the Coalition for Genocide Response, and my involvement in various relevant all-party parliamentary groups.

Amendment 51 has its origins in northern Iraq, where on 3 August 2014 ISIS attacked Sinjar, killing thousands of Yazidis, abducting thousands of women and girls, and forcing the rest to flee. This attack on the Yazidis was followed by mass atrocities in the Nineveh Plains, from where people were forced to flee or to die. People who were different, including gay people, were thrown from high buildings, prisoners were burnt in metal cages, women were raped, and homes were looted. These atrocities then intensified in their number and scope.

In 2019, I travelled to northern Iraq and met Yazidi leaders and members of other minorities; I took statements and evidence. It was truly shocking to hear first-hand accounts of the terrors to which human beings had been subjected. To hold to account those responsible for atrocity crimes, the 1948 convention on the crime of genocide lays a duty on us to protect, prevent, punish and—since the Bosnian genocide—act from the moment it is believed that this ultimate crime of crimes is being perpetrated.

In 2016, believing a genocide to be under way, the four signatories of this amendment tonight did precisely that and acted. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, the noble Baroness, Lady Cox—who is currently in northern Nigeria, collecting evidence on atrocity crimes—the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and I jointly tabled an amendment, calling on the Government to provide a safe and legal route for Yazidis and others dying at the hands of their tormentors. We failed to convince the Government to support it.

However, during that debate, and again in Committee on this Bill, we have again argued that our asylum procedures should create a specific category to help those judged to be at immediate risk of genocide. This amendment would leave the adjudication of whether a genocide was under way to a judge of the High Court of England and Wales, a route suggested to me by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead. It was supported as a principle during proceedings on the Trade Bill in 2021 by three-figure majorities of your Lordships’ House and only narrowly defeated in the House of Commons, in what I think was the closest vote of the Parliament on a House of Lords amendment.

Genocide is defined in Article 2 of the 1948 convention on the crime of genocide. Winston Churchill said that the horrific nature of the genocide of the European Jews, the Holocaust, was a crime so unimaginably monstrous that it did not have a name; a Jewish Polish lawyer, who lost over 40 members of his family in the Holocaust, gave it one. Despite the term being named and defined, we nevertheless refused to empower a United Kingdom court to pronounce on it, while knowing that routes to the International Criminal Court are invariably blocked by vetoes.

But the House should note that, as recently as in November 2021, a court—a German one, in Frankfurt—did finally put a name to the crimes committed by ISIS against the Yazidis and others. It convicted a man who had bought a five-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave, and then chained her up in the hot sun where she burnt to death. The court convicted him of genocide. On International Women’s Day next Tuesday, we should recall that little girl and the estimated 5,000 young Yazidi women and girls abducted by ISIS, who suffered horrific and prolific sexual abuse.

Tonight, we have the chance to do something practical, which we have failed to do thus far. Despite all the evidence and a vote in the House of Commons declaring atrocities against the Yazidis to be a genocide, we have still not recognised this as a genocide and we have failed to create a safe or legal route to enable safe passage for those who are so grievously at risk. As I said at Committee:

“Reports suggest that among those resettled to the United Kingdom, there have been no Yazidis whatever and no Christians from northern Iraq—none. I would be most grateful if the Minister could tell us what the numbers are, or, if she does not have them, perhaps she could arrange for us to receive them between now and Report”.—[Official Report, 8/2/22; col. 1484.]


I hope we will be given those figures today.

In January, I asked for a bespoke humanitarian visa scheme for Uighurs and was told:

“While we sympathise with the many people facing difficult situations around the world, we have no plans to introduce a bespoke humanitarian visa scheme for Uyghurs.”


But sympathy alone is not enough. The Foreign Secretary herself has said that there is a genocide under way in Xinjiang; the House of Commons has voted to say there is genocide under way; and American Presidents, present and previous, have said there is a genocide under way. Does that not at least require a bespoke scheme to help some of those affected?

This amendment is modest: it will not be able to help the millions of people caught up in the pestilential nature of persecution, demonisation, scapegoating and hateful prejudice evident in the recent genocides in Iraq and Syria, the razed villages of Rohingyas in Burma/Myanmar, or the concentration camps of Xinjiang. It will not in itself stop the hauntingly cruel elimination of innocent humans being murdered because of their religious, ethnic or other identity. This amendment will also not be able to save every life—but it will save some.

In Committee it was suggested by my noble friend Lord Green that the amendment would potentially open the door to millions of people. The signatories of this amendment have listened to that argument, and we have addressed it. Proposed new subsection (4) in the amendment now gives the Secretary of State the power to use regulations to cap the number of people granted asylum under this scheme in any calendar year. That is not unlike what we are doing over Syrians, Afghans or children. If this amendment had been passed in 2016, it would have saved the lives of some of the Yazidis, Christians, gay people and others who were targeted by ISIS.

In 2016, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said:

“I say to my noble friend the Minister: throw away the brief from the Home Office and go back to the department and tell it what has been said this evening. I am certain that, despite the media coverage and the information that is available, people in this country have no idea of the extent of the horrors that are being perpetrated”.—[Official Report, 3/2/16; col. 1894.]


I therefore hope that tonight the House will send this amendment to the House of Commons, so that an injustice can be put right and a safe and legal route opened for small numbers of people, to be determined by the Home Secretary, who are subject to what we declare to be the crime above all crimes, to which we are treaty-bound to do something about. We are also bound to them by laws of common humanity. I hope we can do rather more than simply express our sympathy and sentiment.

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Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

51: After Clause 37, insert the following new Clause—
“Conditions for grant of asylum: cases of genocide
(1) A person seeking asylum in the United Kingdom who belongs to a national, ethnical, racial or religious group which meets the criteria, in the place from which that person originates, set out in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide made in Paris on 9 December 1948, must be presumed to meet the conditions for asylum in the United Kingdom following an application to the Court from a non-governmental organisation (registered as a charity in the United Kingdom) representing such a person or group of persons belonging to a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.(2) The adjudication of whether the group to which the person seeking asylum belongs meets the description specified in subsection (1) must be determined by a judge of the High Court of England and Wales after consideration of the available facts.(3) Applicants for asylum in the United Kingdom from groups designated under this section may submit their applications and have them assessed at British missions overseas.(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations place a cap on the number of people granted asylum under subsection (1) in any given calendar year.”

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to test the opinion of the House.