Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

208: After Clause 56, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to enforce maritime safety in United Kingdom waters or the UK search and rescue region(1) The Secretary of State must take all reasonable steps to enforce the provisions of Part IV of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 (safety) against any migrant vessel operating in United Kingdom waters or the UK search and rescue region that is dangerously unsafe and being used to transport persons to the United Kingdom.(2) The Secretary of State must issue guidance to maritime enforcement authorities (including the Border Force, His Majesty’s Coastguard and Maritime & Coastguard Agency) about the exercise of powers under sections 95 and 98 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 (detention of, and offences relating to, dangerously unsafe ships) in relation to migrant vessels in the English Channel.(3) It shall be the duty of any designated maritime enforcement authority to act in accordance with the guidance issued under subsection (2) and to cooperate in the detection, detention and prosecution of migrant vessels and persons who commit an offence under section 98 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 (owner and master liable in respect of dangerously unsafe ship) in respect of a dangerously unsafe migrant vessel.(4) For the purposes of subsection (1)—“dangerously unsafe” has the meaning given in section 94 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995;“migrant vessel” means a ship being used for the unlawful or clandestine carriage of persons by water with the intention of facilitating their entry into the United Kingdom (whether or not those persons intend to claim asylum);“ship” has the meaning given in section 313 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 and includes any small boat or other vessel used in navigation for carrying persons by sea.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to impose a clear duty on the Government to leverage existing maritime safety law as a deterrent against dangerous small-boat crossings in UK waters.

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[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 208 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Dubs, I will also speak to my Amendment 208A. This is a rather odd end to this part of the Bill, but it relates to the issue of saving lives across the channel, regardless of whether the people whose lives may be saved are asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, people in fishing boats who have sunk, or whatever. It comes from a very interesting report that I received earlier this year from Captain Matthew Schanck, Integrated Maritime Policy for Managing Maritime Migration in the English Channel: A Comprehensive Approach. If my noble friend has not read it, he can have my copy when I have finished with it. The captain raises two issues, both of which need further study.

The first is that we have a duty in this country to save people’s lives if they are at risk in the sea. The Merchant Shipping Act 1995 already prohibits taking dangerously unsafe vessels to sea, with quite severe penalties—two years’ imprisonment and £50,000 fines, I believe. Of course, this would cover most if not all of the vessels that come across, which many people want to try to deter, shall we say. What amazes me—perhaps my noble friend can confirm this—is that there seem to have been no prosecutions since the 1995 Act, apart from one, of a gentleman called Ibrahim Abah, which led to an arrest but under different merchant shipping legislation. Those people who are coming across in whatever vessel in whatever direction for whatever purpose should have a safe captain or skipper on board, and if they do not, they are liable for prosecution. Perhaps my noble friend will be able to inform me why there have not been any prosecutions, as far as I can gather.

The second amendment relates to search and rescue—SAR—enabled boats, which I am afraid are not fit for purpose. At the moment, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution does a wonderful job, mostly from the Dover lifeboat station, picking people up out of the sea, as does the coastguard, the security ships and things like that, but it is very difficult picking large numbers of people out of the sea, as some noble Lords will know. We have nothing that makes that particularly easy. Captain Schanck produced some very interesting statistics. Greece has 250 SAR-enabled boats, 8,000 staff and 8,500 miles of coastline. Italy has a similar number. We have no SAR-enabled boats, 400 staff, who of course are all shore based, and a 7,700-mile coastline. I am not being critical of the coastguard, because it does a fantastic job, as does the RNLI, but it lacks the right equipment and control to do the job properly. One example is that the coastguard, which is responsible for co-ordinating rescue, has no ships of its own, so it has to call on other ones.

Reading Captain Schanck’s excellent paper, one suddenly realises that, yes, there is a lifeboat, but getting people to climb over the side of a lifeboat when they are in their 50s, or 100s, is actually very difficult. It is possible to procure or build specialist SAR equipment when it is necessary, which they have done in other countries, but we have not. My noble friend will probably say—if he is still awake and listening to me; I am sorry about this—“Well, who is going to fund this new equipment?” I think the coastguard should be put in charge of all the rescue arrangements, including having the equipment to deal with it.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Berkeley for bringing forward his amendment and for taking the care to put on record in Committee the concern that he has on behalf of those people who are, sadly, dying or being put at risk at sea. I can give him the assurance that, if he wants to pass me Captain Schanck’s report at some point, I shall make sure that it is put into the system so that we can examine the detail and, if there are issues to which I can respond post that, I shall certainly do so.

The purpose of this Bill is several-fold, but there are two particular examples in the Bill that are of importance in relation to what he has put on the table before the Committee. The first is the role of the Border Security Commander, which I shall come on to in a moment—and will, I hope, answer the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has raised as well. But I draw his attention to Clause 18, which we considered earlier, which provides a specific new offence of endangering another during sea crossings to the United Kingdom.

Amendment 208 would introduce a duty to take all reasonable steps to enforce provisions of maritime law relating to the safety of vessels in relation to small-boat migrant vessels, and to introduce guidance on maritime powers. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, I do not think that it is responsible for us to regulate the use of small boats across the channel; our job is to smash the gangs and the business model that is driving people to use those small boats. But there is also—and I hope that it is helpful to my noble friend to say this—existing maritime law in force. We should use all tools available, legislative or otherwise, to address unsafe vessels and particularly to deal with the protection of crew, passengers and other water users for whom small boats can also provide some concern and danger for life at sea.

Turning to Amendment 208, the strengthening of the border command is important, and this goes to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. The new border command established by the Bill is responsible for co-ordinating border forces, maritime command and His Majesty’s Coastguard for the purposes of border security. The Border Security Command established by the Bill provides strategic cross-system leadership across current and future threats, not just for Border Force, but for all agencies playing a vital role in protecting our borders and going after the people-smuggling gangs. That is, I think, the spirit of what the amendment is seeking, and that is what Border Security Command is trying to do.

In addition, my noble friend will be aware that the Joint Maritime Security Centre, established in 2019, is designed to co-ordinate and consolidate maritime security activity and information under the sponsorship of the Home Office Border Security Command, but also involving the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Defence. The JMSC is the UK’s centre of excellence for maritime security. I have myself had meetings at its headquarters in the past 12 months. It provides 24/7 monitoring and reporting of global waters, it plans the response to maritime events, and it looks at UK global maritime threats and sanctions-related understanding. To achieve this, the JMSC engages with a range of national and international maritime security partners, including military and law enforcement partners, and will also discuss with voluntary organisations such as the RNLI what is happening in the channel. So I understand why my noble friend has brought this amendment forward, but I argue that the new body would be essentially a duplication and is not required. The Border Security Command will be drawing together expertise across the border security system to ensure effective collaboration and a strong response to border security threats, building on the expertise and collaboration of relevant local agencies.

I say again to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that in relation to Clause 3, DfT is on the board of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, so there is that link and the assumption is that there will be close co-operation.

I am grateful to my noble friend for bringing this amendment forward. I will certainly make sure that the Home Office Minister responsible for this policy area gets sight of the report referred to, but I hope that, with those assurances, my noble friend is able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his comprehensive responses, which I shall read with great interest. On first reflection, it all sounds like a positive way forward, although I will have to investigate whether the right equipment is being procured and used, because people cannot rescue large numbers of people floating in the sea if they do not have the right equipment. But on that basis, I am very grateful to him and to other colleagues who have responded, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 208 withdrawn.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I will draw us back to the amendments before us. Amendment 35 requires the Secretary of State to collate and publish detailed data on overseas students whose visas are revoked due to criminal offences, and raises several important questions concerning data collection accuracy, resource allocation and the practical application of policy. The intent of the amendment is clear: to provide essential data to evaluate risks and ensure individuals who commit crimes are removed.

I almost have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, for not getting answers to the questions he has asked time and again. What remains is that we have to look at the necessity of the subjects of those questions and their implementation. If the object of the amendment is to provide the data necessary to design efficient public policy, the first question must address the existing statutory landscape. The answers that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, got suggest that the Home Office did not collect the data relating specifically to student visas and criminality. What specific, new infrastructure or operational commitment would be necessary to collate this information reliably, particularly as the Minister implied that the Home Office already publishes a

“vast amount of data on immigration”—[Official Report, 26/6/25; col. 440.]

in regular publications that cover these themes?

Secondly, the amendment would require the publishing of figures on visa revocation, detention and deportation following a criminal offence. Given that 14,000 people who originally entered on a student visa claimed asylum in the latest year reported, and considering that subsequent detention or deportation is often tied to the outcome of complex asylum or human rights claims rather than solely the original criminal conviction or visa revocation, how will the published data accurately distinguish between detention related directly to government removal actions versus detention protracted by pending asylum appeals or other legal challenges? The Immigration Rules already provide for the cancellation of entry clearance and permission to enter or stay when conditions are breached. Would a statutory duty to publish retrospective data fully address the underlying problem, or would resources be better focused on the proactive enforcement and timely application of the existing Immigration Rules?

Thirdly, the amendment mandates that the published data

“must be broken down by nationality”.

That is intended to highlight countries associated with a high risk of abuse of the visa system, allowing the Home Office and universities to take risk into account when making decisions. What specific safeguards will be put in place to ensure that the publication of criminality data, broken down by nationality, does not lead to profiling or unfair discriminatory practices against students from those nations who are law-abiding citizens, especially given the clear parliamentary intention to use the data to identify countries of particular risk?

Amendment 35C, which is yet to be introduced by the Conservative Front Bench, proposes that the Secretary of State must declare an asylum or human rights claim inadmissible if the claimant entered on a student visa, applied for asylum more than two days later and there is “no evidence” of materially changed political circumstances endangering their life or liberty. This measure is flawed both practically and legally, and we must oppose it for three key reasons.

The proposed new clause establishes a near-automatic system of inadmissibility for a specific cohort of asylum seekers. The approach is inherently problematic because it fails to process cases based on individual merits and lived experiences. There is no substantive consideration of the asylum or human rights claim. Even if the primary motivation for the amendment is to counter visa abuse, refusing a person’s asylum claim without consideration of the merits and/or risks, placing the UK in breach of its obligations under the refugee convention, specifically the prohibition on refoulement, is a matter of serious concern.

The amendment conflates asylum and human rights claims. Many human rights claims are founded not on a country’s general safety but on an individual’s personal connection to the UK, such as family ties. Automatically barring these claims simply because a person arrived on a student visa is an anomalous and unjustifiable imposition of a blanket ban.

The proposed new clause explicitly states that the inadmissible declaration is not a refusal of the claim and, as such, no right of appeal arises. Furthermore, it declares that the decision is

“final and not liable to be questioned or set aside in any court”.

Such provisions, which seek to exclude judicial review—we are going to have plenty of those today—of immigration decisions and to remove the right to appeal are repeatedly condemned as unconstitutional and contrary to the ECHR, which is of course part of our domestic law.

The intention behind the amendment may be to clamp down on those abusing the student visa route, especially concerning the 14,000 who claimed asylum after entering on a student visa in the last reported year. However, this absolute inadmissibility straitjacket would be functionally unworkable, echoing the failures of previous legislation. This amendment is ineffective, inhumane and legally unsound.

Amendment 71 seeks to fundamentally alter the established visa penalty mechanisms contained within the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. The stated intent of the amendment is clear: to force the Government to impose visa penalties immediately if a country fails to co-operate on removals or the verification of identity of its nationals. While we share the desire to see prompt and effective removal of those who have no right to be here, the amendment risks undermining that very objective by destroying the necessary operational discretion essential for effective diplomacy and returns policy. The mandatory penalty system removes the ability to use engagement, diplomacy and other means to successfully unblock co-operation with other countries. We simply cannot tie the hands of a Secretary of State with a rigid system that risks damaging international relations without guaranteeing an increase in removals.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, before the noble Lord finally winds up, I have two points to make. One is in respect of the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, about Written Answers. We have all had many of them, and they have sometimes been useful and sometimes been awful. This is a problem of not just this Government; it goes back many years. The answer is just to keep going, but I sympathise with the noble Lord.

I am a member of the Science and Technology Committee of this House. We spend a lot of time talking about the shortage of researchers and students coming into our universities. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, is a very good example of how to come in properly; he passed all the exams and made a career of it. But there are an awful lot of other people who do not get here because of the difficulties, cost and delay of these processes.

I do not think it really matters how they come. It is easy to criticise people because they come in a small boat or because they get a visa in some other way. We really need to look and see how we can attract the best possible students in the world to help our research and technology industries here. We have got the opportunities from many who would prefer to leave the United States at the moment. All over, if we do not get the students, we are not going to achieve our academic success. I do not think the amendments in this group are the way forward.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 35 from my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Amendment 71 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Cameron of Lochiel. We have seen disturbing instances of very serious offending by non-UK nationals on student visas. For example, there is the case of Zhenhao Zou, a Chinese national and PhD student at University College, London, who was convicted in March 2025 of multiple rapes of women in the UK and China, and who is now serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 24 years.

The existence of such a case shows that the student route is not free of risk, yet we currently have no published data on how many overseas students commit crimes, have their visas revoked or are deported. Without that transparency, Parliament and the public are effectively working in the dark.

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[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I too, like my noble colleague, have not intervened on this Bill until now, but I feel compelled to, having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. If anybody has a right to speak on this issue, he has. If we have a duty to listen to anyone on this issue, our duty is to listen to him. A Labour Party activist, a trade unionist in my village, used to have a saying that anything that is morally right cannot be politically wrong. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is morally right, and we should support it.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend’s amendment. He has, obviously from personal experience, a great fount of knowledge of the difficulties that people are facing, coming from different parts of the world to this country, or trying to. He has studied over the years the different ways of trying to get here. It is not just in small boats; they could equally well be seeking asylum in another way. Bringing together a family, which was done by a small number of people—100—last year, is something on which I think we must support him. Let us hope that he carries on with getting as many families reunited as he can, wherever they come from. I shall certainly support him if we end up in a Division Lobby.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, it falls to me to say thank you to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for taking this so far. I have had the temerity—he knows I have said this to him privately—to say that he probably ranks in this Chamber as a national treasure. That is because—I know he will not like it—if you have had his experiences and you have devoted your life to ensuring that the chance that you have had in life is given to others, you cannot fail to support this amendment. It is absolutely fundamental that children should have the right to be with their parents, and it is fundamental that we are currently denying them that opportunity. This amendment is so tightly written and so tightly executed that it is not going to take a large number of people: it is not going to take huge numbers from all over the world, it is a small number of children.

Those of us who have been on the beaches and in the background in Calais and Dunkirk know that children sometimes find themselves there in the most appalling circumstances. What are you to do as a parent if you have a child whom you cannot get to come to you? That is the most terrible thing you could possibly imagine to impose on parents. So I have no doubt that the empathy of this House is not just for the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, but the causes he has put forward and this very tight amendment. It deserves the support of all sides of this Parliament and I hope the noble Lord will put it to a vote so we can all vote for it.