Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, what rights people have when they come into this country—unlawfully, the Government claim, although some of us would disagree—is surely an essential part of this Committee’s consideration of the Bill. I know the Minister is a member of the Bar and has practised in criminal courts and elsewhere, so he will understand instinctively how important the question of rights is for people who have just come into this country, often in a destitute state.

We know that later in Committee we will debate legal aid and the Lord Chancellor’s duties. Those are important matters to be considered then but I wonder, given the speeches that have been made on this group, whether he has something to say about the Government’s attitude towards the rights of people whom he or others may not like, but who do have rights when they arrive in this country. Do we just say that there are no such rights—no right to any advice or legal aid, if that is necessary, because they deserve what comes to them—or do we take the more sensible and British attitude that anybody who ends up on our shores and is in trouble should be entitled to some advice?

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, broadly speaking, I support this Bill, but there are many things in it which give me cause for concern and we have now hit one of them. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned it—the extent to which the state can co-opt unwilling people to implement its legislation. Regarding those who happen to be the driver of a train or pilot of an aircraft that has on board what we are now going to determine is an illegal immigrant, how can we force such people to act as agents of the state in detaining them?

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned that this will come up in the next group but it is an important, fundamental point. I am not talking about the refugees but the many trade unionists who will be horrified at the thought of being co-opted as almost part of the police. This is not on. Before the Bill moves to the next stage, I hope the Government can come forward with some proposals which will exempt ordinary workers from becoming its policemen.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group all seek clarification of various issues. My noble friend Lady Hamwee rightly asked what priority is to be given to removals under the Bill, bearing in mind that the uncertainty is very corrosive of people’s mental health. She asked how P will give notice to the Home Secretary and spoke about the dangers inherent in oral notice being given. She said that that could easily be regarded as giving notice that they do not intend to make a suspensive claim, and she spoke about the danger of language difficulties, misinterpretation and so forth.

My noble friend Lord German and other noble Lords raised the question of requiring private individuals to carry out enforced removals. Most, if not all, will not have been trained in or compensated for undertaking the risks associated with forcibly removing people from this country. He also asked a very important question about consultation. Who has been consulted: trade unions, to which the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, referred, or the commercial organisations that are going to be required to undertake this work? There are other uncertainties, as my noble friend Lord German set out. It would be most helpful if the Minister provided answers to these questions.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has a habit of saying what many of us are thinking, but we may not be prepared to stand up and use her exact words. What I would say about Clause 7 is that it smacks of desperation.

--- Later in debate ---

I do not want to keep repeating the comments of my noble friend Lord Davies, but what impact assessments have the Government made of these proposals? Will transport workers be prosecuted? These are really important questions that need to be answered, especially when, as has been mentioned, the employers themselves, who are obviously at the heart of all this, were not consulted and do not support the proposals. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope he will make sure that workers are not held responsible for carrying out these outrageous proposals.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register. As noble Lords will know, I frequently get up to speak on the rights of trade unionists. I am also president of a trade union affiliated to the TUC.

The purpose of this discussion is to encourage the Minister to go away and, we hope, say, “Well, they made some good points there. We had better bring forward some amendments. We ought to change same of the provisions of this Bill because it really doesn’t work.” Hence, I am speaking in support of the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Davies.

In Amendment 57B, the noble Lord is seeking to delete the phrase

“the captain of the ship or aircraft, the train manager of the train or the driver of the vehicle must"—

not “can”, “should” or “might consider”, but “must”—

“if so required by an immigration officer or the Secretary of State prevent P from disembarking”.

Immigration officers are also in trade unions. They have a very difficult life. Who is going to decide what they actually order the captain of the aircraft to do? Anyway, if the aircraft is up in the sky and it is suddenly discovered that someone is on board who should not be, what is the captain supposed to do? The captain of the aircraft has two principal jobs: to bring the passengers safely to the destination, and to do the same for the plane. They are not prison warders.

In many cases, of course, if this happened mid-air, they would not have realised the situation when they took off. Those of us who have been around a long, long time and can remember the hostage crises of many years ago will know that the situation became apparent only when aircraft were actually in the air. I am not asking the Minister, “will they be prosecuted?” because the Bill says that they will. I want to know under what circumstances it is envisaged that prosecution will be brought, and by whom it will be brought. Will it be the DPP, the department or the Minister? What will be the aim of the prosecution?

Amendment 58A would delete, amongst other things, the phrase

“knowingly permits a person to disembark in the United Kingdom”.

What is someone in that situation supposed to do? If a train comes into a station, it is very difficult to stop people getting off it. Noble Lords who have travelled to Brussels will be well aware of the number of times it is announced over the Tannoy that “You must not disembark at this station”. If someone does disembark, however, has the driver knowingly permitted them to disembark simply because they have gone into a station? Should they have stopped in the middle of the countryside? I ask the Minister to look at whether there should be an indemnity for transport workers, so that these provisions are not used to prosecute them. If they are, why should any pilot take the risk of flying an aircraft that might have an asylum seeker on it? Rostering is voluntary: you do not queue up and say, “you go there”. That is where the weakness lies—I diverge slightly—in the minimum strikes legislation. You cannot order people to do things, not in a free society; and that is where we live.

I ask the Minister to talk to the transport unions and to his own department about what it is trying to do with this and whether it will actually work. What concerns me about this Bill, as with the minimum strikes legislation, is that we are progressing rapidly towards a fairyland where pass legislation that just will not work. It is not a good thing to do, because it does not breed respect for legislation. I, and many people in Britain, want illegal immigration to stop. There is a general feeling out there in the country, particularly among the trade union members that I deal with, that you should not be able to cheat the system. But you have to make this Bill work to achieve that, rather than just achieving headlines for the Daily Mail, and for us all to look smart. The challenge is to make this work, not to make it look good.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this provision, because when I read the Bill and saw it, I genuinely thought that it must have been a drafting error on the part of civil servants that Ministers had not noticed. Having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, move his amendment, and to the other noble Lords who have spoken, it seems very sensible to me that this be taken back by the Government before Report. I am amazed that there was no consultation with the trade unions on this issue, which really does affect their members’ livelihoods. If this went through, I can imagine how workers on planes, ships and other forms of transport would react, knowing that it could be used against them.

It right that this Chamber address this issue, being an advisory, revising Chamber that gets things changed that we think are obviously wrong. In addition to what has already been said about consultation, why has this not been discussed properly? As the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, has said, many trade union members believe that the way we deal with illegal immigration has to change, but this is not the way to do it. This bit of the Bill must be taken out. The Minister should accept that there will not be support for it in this House, and that the other place has not, perhaps, thought about this in a sensible way.