Windrush Generation: 75th Anniversary

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Friday 7th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I am grateful to His Majesty’s Government for the opportunity to debate this important anniversary. On 22 June, together with the Archbishop of the Province of the West Indies, I had the privilege of welcoming to the national service at Southwark Cathedral Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, bishops from the Caribbean and England, other church leaders, members of the community and, prominently, members of the Windrush generation and their descendants. It was a witness to and thanksgiving for 75 years of change in Britain, the contribution that those pioneers made, how we have changed as a nation and the burdens we have made that generation bear.

The previous week, I attended a reception hosted by His Majesty the King at Buckingham Palace, at which the portraits he had commissioned—we have heard about them—of members of the Windrush generation were exhibited. We not only marvelled at the art but met both sitters and artists. As many of your Lordships will know, the King has previously commissioned series of portraits down the years for those engaged variously in the Battle of Britain and the D-day landings, as well as for those who survived the Holocaust. In each case, we witness in paint people who are the product of extraordinary lives and whose essential character is distilled on to canvas for future generations to remember, interpret and cherish.

Although each piece is by a different artist, this latest exercise in portraiture, now on exhibition in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, has a common feature of the miracle of human personality into old age—something that I am sure this House will appreciate. Many convey extraordinary power and joy; others, a quiet strength, with struggles along the way chiselled into their features. Portraiture reminds us of the intensely personal nature of life away from the great aggregates that normally determine policy. Here are lives that speak of what Governments and communities did in the past and how we treat them now.

It further reminds me of two photographic exhibitions: the first, by the photographer Jim Grover at the OXO Tower on the South Bank, marking the 70th anniversary of Windrush; and the second, a current exhibition also by him at Clapham Library in the Mary Seacole Centre on Clapham High Street, running until September. It includes an image of the war memorial to African and Caribbean servicepeople of two world wars, which was installed in 2017 in Windrush Square in Brixton in the heart of the global diocese of Southwark.

The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, spoke of the magnificent Windrush monument unveiled last year at Waterloo. That is really where we come in with Windrush. The “Empire Windrush” was a prize of war, a German liner renamed after a river in the Cotswolds that returned many ex-servicemen—for many of the Caribbean travellers on board had served in the RAF—to Britain, whose factories, mines and services faced shortages and whose infrastructure was worn out or in ruins. They were adventurous but not needy. The fare was £28 and 10 shillings—it is rare now to find a group such as your Lordships’ House that knows what I mean when I say “10 shillings”—which was a substantial amount, for the average industrial earnings then were less than £6 a week. The Colonial Office billeted them in my diocese in a deep shelter at Clapham South, and the nearest labour exchange was in Coldharbour Lane in Brixton. Hence the association with the area was established. They received a warm welcome from the nearby church of St John, Angell Town. Would that all the churches our friends visited had extended them the same welcome. In many they were rejected and, sadly, that welcome was not to be their experience—a cause of lament, shame and sorrow.

The legacy of the last 75 years is still with us. There are still disproportionate outcomes for which there is no ready or reasonable explanation. In the instance of what we call the Windrush scandal, Amelia Gentleman of the Guardian had been publishing articles setting out the problem with unsettling clarity for months; it is good that her book is in the Chamber. The immediate proximity of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in April 2018 made it impossible to ignore what she was saying. The Home Office and the Prime Minister made a public acknowledgement of the wrongs that needed to be righted.

Yet we need to note that, of those affected, only one in four of those who applied to the compensation scheme has received any compensation. The speech from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, was telling; 41 individuals who made an application have died while waiting for their claims to be processed. It is worth reminding ourselves that the imposition of what was originally deemed a hostile environment by legislation in 2014 and 2016, requiring proof of a right to remain, has deprived individuals of jobs, homes, benefits and their health. In at least 83 cases—the final total is unknown—individuals with right of abode or indefinite leave to remain were unlawfully deported by the Government.

As one official remarked recently, it represents the crumbling of lives as the weight of unfairness and impossibility is forced upon these people. To have to provide some of the very same documentation that was demanded to prove a right to remain in order to receive compensation leads me to deep concern. It is also a matter of regret that the current Home Secretary decided to drop the Government’s commitment to follow through on the recommendations from the Williams inquiry to establish a migrants’ commissioner; surely that is needed. Reconciliation events have also been dropped, as has the commitment to strengthen the powers of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. A commitment made is better when it is honoured.

I am grateful once again to the Government for facilitating this debate, on a remarkable generation who changed this country for the better. Those of us who live in the midst of great diversity need to articulate a narrative of appreciation and respect for the contribution of those who have helped us become the nation and people we are—equal in dignity, humanity and status, in this United Kingdom of different nations and peoples. We encourage the Government to widen its declaration of appreciation and to express a much deeper appreciation of the positive benefits of immigration, which has in so many ways blessed, enriched and changed our national life and identity.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 85D in this group and have added my name to Amendment 85C from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and the noble Lord, Lord McColl. I have also tabled opposition to two clauses standing part, because we on these Benches oppose the whole approach to modern slavery and trafficking in the Bill. We oppose every clause in the Bill and have tabled that opposition because it is not a matter of tweaking, although the amendments draw attention to some particularly egregious provisions.

Clause 25 is about suspension and renewal, but its very existence, sunsetting after two years, indicates, as the JCHR noted, that the Home Office recognises the severity of the provisions. They may be short term, but they will not feel that way to victims and survivors. Can I just say how much I admire the work that the JCHR has done on the Bill? It has produced a splendid report, which I am afraid I flicked through to find the bits relevant to today—but then I am human, and the whole of it will get read.

What evidence is there of abuse of the system? Assertion is not evidence. What evidence is there that victims of modern slavery are likely to be a danger to the public or a threat to public order? Is it really appropriate for a Minister, having sunsetted a provision, to revive it by regulations? A lot of constitutional points arise in the Bill. Mind you, I would rather see it sunsetted before the sun even rises.

When the Bill was starting its passage through Parliament, I was in a taxi and the driver inevitably wanted to tell me what Parliament should be doing. On the subject of small boats, he said he was concerned that his children should be safe from all the terrorists arriving in small boats. He was hearing the message that the Government wanted him to hear. Actually, we had quite a reasonable conversation about asylum seekers and he was very receptive to a number of the things I said, but it brought home to me just how dangerous the Government’s messaging is: it is dangerous to individuals, dangerous for cohesion and integration, dangerous in the attitudes it fosters and much else.

As the JCHR said, how can the modern slavery clauses be applied compatibly with Article 4 of the convention, which places on the state positive obligations that are absolute and cannot be derogated from? A similar point arises with ECAT. The JCHR recommends that Clause 21 be removed, and although I took a little comfort from the fact that our instincts were backed up, that does not achieve it, of course. As the committee said, there should at least be no removal of asylum seekers until a “conclusive grounds” decision has been made. As Amendment 85D indicates, one of our concerns is the recovery period, as it always has been. For many victims, 30 days is nowhere near enough for them to recover. There being no period for recovery at all is far worse.

Amendment 90 refers to co-operation with investigations and proceedings. The point that occurred me a day or two ago follows on from what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has been saying. I do not think the point has been made that the absence of the victim may jeopardise proceedings in a number of ways, including because the victim is not available for cross examination, either in person—that is always best—or by video link if that is what the Home Office envisages. I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister: what is envisaged? Are the Government confident that it will always be possible to give evidence by video link, given the countries to which asylum seekers may be removed? Is this to be a provision in removals agreements? It seems to me that not a lot more than lip service is being paid to the importance of tackling smuggling and trafficking gangs, improving the conviction rate and securing remedy for victims. Nothing in the Bill will increase the efficiency of all those things.

Finally, I want to say a word on Amendment 146 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, which addresses the absence of an Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. I hope we will not hear from the government Front Bench that a new commissioner will be appointed “in due course”. The lack of an appointment for over a year now makes the Government’s lack of real concern about modern slavery very evident.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, Amendment 88 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is supported by my right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester, who regrets that she is unable to be here today. There is much similar ground in this amendment to others, but this amendment focuses specifically on victims of sexual exploitation.

The Bill directs that victims of modern slavery, including victims of sexual exploitation, shall be subject to detention and removal to their own country or to a third country. As we have heard, the principal exception to this is if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the individual is co-operating with criminal proceedings and that their presence in the United Kingdom is necessary for this to continue. We know that the Government have committed to victims of sexual violence and exploitation in this country. The UK ratified the 2011 Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence only last summer and there has been much work done over the past few years to increase awareness and tackle perpetrators. To deny those who have arrived here safety and protection is a regressive move.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I want to make two quite separate points. I pick up on what the noble Lord just said; have the Government looked at what is really happening on the ground, the numbers of people currently waiting to be removed—that is a very large number—and the numbers coming in? How on earth are they going to get people away? Where they are going and what is going to happen was set out in much greater detail on an earlier amendment.

What worries me as I have sat listening, today in particular but really throughout the debates on the Bill, is that I do not think the Government have yet put their mind to the problems of numbers and how on earth they are going to get rid of these people, if I may put it rather bluntly.

The second point, which is so much more important, relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, just said, and I not only support him but admire him enormously for saying it. As I said on another Bill some time ago, I remind the Government that the Home Secretary is not a corporate parent, nor indeed at the moment is the Secretary of State for Education. The concept of the corporate parent is to be found in the Children Act 1989, as a local authority. Currently, the Government are expecting to deal with sometimes quite young children. I think they are concentrating on the 16 and 17-year-olds who are coming through and are not looking at a minority—but probably a relatively substantial minority—of children who are much younger. They have to be looked after. I do not want to repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, but it is crucial that they be looked after. The only corporate parent who can care for them is in fact the local authority where the children are. It is about time the Government started to look at not just the best interests of the children, which is so obvious—it worries me that I keep having to talk about that—but the points that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, made, which really should strike home.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I support Amendments 61 and 62 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord German, and welcome the opportunity to discuss what rules and regulations His Majesty’s Government will adhere to when selecting a site for the purposes of detention. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham had intended to speak but is unable to be here for this group of amendments; I am glad to be here in his place. I am grateful to Medical Justice for sharing how existing legislation governs both the nature and operation of detention centres. As it is a detailed policy area, I will focus my time on the context for these amendments while also posing questions to the Minister.

First, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham explained at Second Reading, the Bill before us changes the nature and scope of detention considerably. It moves detention away from an administrative process to facilitate someone’s removal to a punitive system of incarceration intended thereby to deter asylum seekers from travelling to the United Kingdom. Deterrence, as we have seen, is a key theme stressed by the Government, albeit no evidence or impact assessment has been adduced in its favour. This shift towards incarceration signals a major transition in policy, but in embarking on this shift in the purpose of detention, the Government leave us with a lack of detail on what rules and guidance will be adhered to when the Secretary of State is selecting a place of detention.

However, the Minister replied on 26 May to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham’s Written Question that individuals can be detained for immigration purposes only

“in places that are listed in the Immigration (Places of Detention) Direction 2021”.

I know that the right reverend Prelate was grateful for that answer. Furthermore, the Minister stated:

“All Immigration Removal Centres … must operate in compliance with the Detention Centre Rules 2001, this includes any additional sites that are opened as IRCs to increase detention capacity”.


Can the Minister therefore say whether it will remain unlawful for the Government to authorise places of detention outside those specified in the direction?

Secondly, will the Minister explain how the power granted by Clause 10 to the Secretary of State to detain people

“in any place that the Secretary of State considers appropriate”

marries up with the Immigration (Places of Detention) Direction 2021? The Minister may understand my concern that the power to deprive a person of their liberty, and how and where someone is detained, should be constrained by law and not the discretion of a Minister of the Crown, or anyone else.

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The detention of this already vulnerable group increases the risk of retraumatisation and there is a risk to their long-term physical and mental health. On Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, talked about the fact that victims must be identified because that enables them to be supported. In turn, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has referred to several times, that affects the willingness and ability— ability is important too—to engage in investigations and prosecutions. This group of people is very much at risk of retrafficking and further exploitation, and needs the protection that these amendments put forward.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendments 59, 63, 64 and 67 which, as has been demonstrated, have strong support from all quarters of this Chamber. It was the intention of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham to speak to these amendments but he is unable to be in the Chamber tonight.

I believe that the strength of opposition to any change in the current detention limits for both accompanied and unaccompanied children is because it is one of the most alarming and unedifying provisions in the Bill. Ministers have set out what they see as the need to detain children for immigration purposes in order to ensure that we do not inadvertently create incentives for people smugglers to target vulnerable individuals. Were this the case, then there would be a case for considering some sort of remedy. However, yet again we have been provided with no evidence that this is the case.

Building an asylum system with deterrence diffused throughout, as described by His Majesty’s Government, has led to this inappropriate proposal to restart detaining children, potentially for an unlimited period. As the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, said, it was a Government led by the party currently in office who took the brave decision to end the routine detention of children. That was against significant departmental pressure to retain the practice. How have we arrived, just 10 years later, at the conclusion that the well-being and welfare of children can now be sacrificed in consequence of the need to control migration?

In a rare admission to an evidential base for policy, on Monday the Minister referred to most persons deemed children in these categories being around the ages of 16 and 17. I accept his assertion on this point. However, as was said then, some children as young as 10 are involved.

The noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, elegantly set out the impacts of detention of children. Studies show that the inescapable institutional nature of detention is traumatic for children and detrimental to the child’s physical and mental development. The Government are fully aware of the damaging impact of detention on children. I quote from one small section of the Home Office’s Assessing Age guidance, published only this March:

“Failure to adhere to the legal powers and policy on detaining children can have very significant consequences, for example … detention can be extremely frightening for a child, with their perception of what they might experience potentially informed by previous negative experiences of detention”.


It needs to be said explicitly that the Government will be sanctioning an intolerable level of emotional distress for the most vulnerable children. Understandably, a child will ask themselves, “What must be wrong with me to have been subjected to such conditions?”.

The Prime Minister stated that the Government’s objective behind the Bill is not the detention of children. None the less, that is what the Bill does. Given the Prime Minister’s just objective, why has the 2014 requirement that child detention be for the shortest time possible been expressly removed? In the year to March 2023, more than 8,000 children entered the UK who would meet Clause 2 conditions and who therefore could be detained indefinitely. In the first three years of the Bill’s operation, this may mean that up to 25,000 children will be deprived of their liberty. Should the deterrent effect of the Bill—about which we currently have no modelling whatever—fail, surely the 2014 requirement must be retained.

The Home Secretary bears a legal duty to safeguard children. Home Office guidance makes clear that this duty requires a demonstration of fair treatment that meets the same standard that a British child would receive. Would we tolerate the Bill’s proposals for our own children or grandchildren?

I welcome the amendments made in this area in the other place, but they do not go far enough. Legislating for the option to place limits on detention and for these limits not to be specified in the Bill is simply not adequate. It is an area that cannot remain entirely at the discretion of a Secretary of State, and children must have a means of challenging the lawfulness of a decision. Also, there have been no equivalent provisions for children within families. Why is one child different from another? Children will be detained after they have fled unimaginable horrors at home or been trafficked against their will. Children will be born in detention and others will have their futures shaped by it. It is the hope on these Benches that we are better than this and know what is right, having banished this immoral practice before. It will take real courageous leadership to change course, but we must. There is concern among my brother and sister bishops about the state of the nation’s soul if we tread so easily down this path.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, that was a powerful intervention by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, whom it is a privilege to follow. I pick up a point he made a few moments ago about the amendments that were passed on Report in another place. Like him, I welcome those amendments but do not believe they go far enough. Nevertheless, the House of Commons recognised in those amendments that the power to detain unaccompanied children under the Bill should be exercised only in the circumstances specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State. Those regulations may include a time limit on such detentions, but the Bill neither requires nor establishes what other restrictions on detention will be put in place.

This is why the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made about the use of the affirmative resolution is so important. As things stand, the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee was right to say that, given the importance and the sensitivity of the subject matter, if regulations are made concerning the detention of children, the affirmative resolution procedure should apply. I hope that, when the Minister responds, he will deal specifically with that point and perhaps discuss with us how Clause 10 might be amended to take into account what the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee suggested.

I turn now to the substantive points made in the wonderful speeches by the noble Baronesses, Lady Mobarik and Lady Helic, from the Conservative Benches. I hope that the Government will take into account the arguments that they have placed before your Lordships tonight. There is an echo of what they said in the evidence from the UK Committee for UNICEF, to which I referred in an earlier intervention, which said this about Clause 10, permitting the detention of children both unaccompanied and in families:

“This is not compatible with international standards and also risks undermining the great progress that the UK has achieved in working to end immigration detention of children since 2010”.


That point was made eloquently by both noble Baronesses, who do not want to see the clock turned back.

Whatever limits on the detention of children are made in regulations issued by the Secretary of State, they are unlikely to be sufficient to meet the requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 37(b) of the convention establishes the general principle that a child may be

“deprived of … liberty … only as a … last resort and for the shortest … period of time”.

The UK Committee for UNICEF says:

“Two relevant UN Committees have stated that the possibility of detaining children as a measure of last resort … is not applicable in immigration proceedings as it would conflict with the principle of the best interests of the child and the right to development … The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment has stated that ‘within the context of administrative immigration enforcement … the deprivation of liberty of children based on their or their parents’ migration status is never in the best interests of the child, exceeds the requirement of necessity, becomes grossly disproportionate and may constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of migrant children’”.


The power to detain unaccompanied children pending removal or a decision on whether to grant them leave to remain would no longer be subject to the 24-hour time limit and other protections currently provided in Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971. The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, noted that this time limit was established by law

“because widespread evidence showed the long-lasting damage that detention has on children’s lives”.

The Government have stated that the detention of unaccompanied children will be

“for the shortest possible time in appropriate detention facilities with relevant support provisions in place”.

In an echo of what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said earlier, I simply press the Minister to say what that word “appropriate” actually means. Please spell it out, because it has no definition as things stand and we are being asked to agree to something pretty awesome in this Bill tonight. That is why the speeches by the noble Baronesses, Lady Mobarik and Lady Helic, are so important and the Government should take proper note of them.

--- Later in debate ---

Returning to Amendment 68, I fear that the Government’s obsession with deterrence, such that they intend to make life as grim as possible for all those who seek asylum in the UK through irregular means—not just small boats—regardless of vulnerability, means that they have lost all sight of humanity. I implore the Minister to think again and accept what is really a very small amendment but one that could make all the difference to the lives of pregnant women and their unborn children. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who has expertly outlined why these amendments are needed. My good friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester has added her name in support of Amendments 68 and 70, and regrets she is not able to be here to give her support in person. I share her concern about the impact of detention on pregnant women in particular, impact which we know is considerable. Others will rightly draw attention to the impact on children, and the suggestion of the use of force against either group is unspeakable. His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons advises that there

“is no safe way to use force against a pregnant woman, and to initiate it for the purpose of removal is to take an unacceptable risk”.

I turn now to Amendment 68, which is a preservation amendment. This simply asks that the Government maintain the status quo. In 2016, the Immigration Act introduced a 72-hour time limit on pregnant women’s detention, which saw the numbers detained drop from 99 in 2014 to just seven in 2021. It is alarming to think that we may see numbers rise, and the consequences are disturbing. According to research by Women for Refugee Women,

“women seeking asylum who are pregnant are an extremely vulnerable group. Many have experienced trauma such as rape, trafficking and torture, and have significant physical and mental health issues”.

I appeal to the Minister to consider also the well-being of the unborn child involved. The Royal College of Midwives has said:

“The detention of pregnant asylum seekers increases the likelihood of stress, which can risk the health of the unborn baby”.


Antenatal care and support provided to women who are detained has often fallen short of the care normally available to pregnant women.

Research by Medical Justice found that in Yarl’s Wood, women often missed antenatal appointments. Some had no ultrasound scans while detained, and women did not have direct access to a midwife and could not request visits. In recent years we have seen the devastating consequences of holding pregnant women in prisons. These facilities, including detention centres, are on the whole not set up to provide the necessary health and welfare oversight. This violates women’s dignity and puts lives at risk. The indefinite detention of pregnant migrant women, who are often extremely vulnerable and the victims of abuse and trafficking, is a very worrying and regressive move. The implication that force may be used against them, and against children, is beyond words. I hope wholeheartedly that the Committee supports these amendments and that His Majesty’s Government give them the consideration they so justly merit.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

I thank noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for putting forward Amendments 68 and 70, to which I have added my name. I also support Amendment 76A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. Let me address Amendments 68 and 76A first.

I made a strong case at Second Reading as to why pregnant women should not be detained. I followed this up with a letter to the Minister. In the letter, which I sent on 19 May, I acknowledged that the Minister has a difficult job in trying to tackle illegal migration but inquired about the following points. I asked about what the Minister had said in his opening comments at Second Reading. He said:

“More than 45,000 people came here by small boat last year. The overwhelming majority of arrivals were adult males under the age of 40.”—[Official Report, 10/5/23; col. 1781.]


This suggests that there were only a small number of women. However, I asked for clarification to understand fully the numbers. If the number was indeed small, then the number of pregnant women would have been negligible. I therefore asked also for evidence of how many pregnant women had entered the UK illegally and whether there had been sharp rise in the figures. I asked this because if not detaining pregnant women was going to act as a magnet, we would have seen the sharp rise suggested by the Government. I chased up a response yesterday and was informed that a draft letter has been prepared and is going through final checks, and I will be receiving it soon. I wonder whether there could be a response today to my points.

It seems obvious that there are probably only a few pregnant migrant women coming to the UK every year, but of course I am happy to be corrected on that point. If the Government are trying to make a case that not detaining them would act as an incentive for more smugglers to bring pregnant women into the country or act as a magnet, that does not stack up. What assessment has been made to arrive at that conclusion?

EU Settlement Scheme

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I entirely agree with my noble friend and can reassure him that the department works very closely with our colleagues in Brussels in relation to the protection of the rights of UK nationals within the European Union.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that a positive move to implement the High Court judgment may help in bilateral representations where British citizens find themselves disadvantaged by the application of the immigration laws in certain EU countries where residence was not hitherto a problem?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I entirely agree with the right reverend Prelate that clearly it helps that the Home Office works very closely with those in the Commission in relation to the respective rights of citizens in each other’s countries.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for securing this debate and setting out for us with his habitual clarity the issues at hand. I am particularly saddened to hear that the good name of a distinguished former Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath, has been traduced in the way that the noble Lord has described. However, I wish to approach this debate with a different focus.

Any hierarchy, any delivery of service, any public-facing organisation is fraught with multiple expectations and with the frailties and capacities of those who lead. For instance, diocesan bishops have wide discretion but are constrained by resource, custom, law, synodical structures and vocation.

The issues around effective delivery and of accountability in policing are very old. Historically, constables were at the direction of magistrates, who continued to sit on watch committees and police authorities until recent times. However, the growth in the size of forces and their operational complexity fuelled a sense of operational independence, away from political interference and amateur direction. It also allowed for co-operation at a national level where crime issues crossed county borders. Direct local accountability was seen to threaten professionalism, and it threatened the fight against crime nationally.

However, a police service insufficiently accountable fostered a culture apart from public concerns. In some places, it allowed corruption to be covered up and prejudices to become ingrained, and performance to become unchallenged. The alternatives, it seems, were national direction or local accountability, and the Government in 2011 opted for the latter by sweeping away local police authorities and replacing them, as we have heard, with directly elected police and crime commissioners.

Of the several commentaries on the progress of this innovation, the research commissioned by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in 2018 bordered on the excoriating. The more recent article by Simon Cooper in the journal Policing is more nuanced. It provides evidence for the sort of direct accountability and scrutiny the Government hoped for and for greater efficiency of action, but there is concern over idiosyncrasy of decisions, the increase in the removal of chief constables and the reluctance of suitable applicants to replace them.

This brings me to the special case of Dame Cressida Dick, who announced on 10 February this year that she would step aside as Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis in the midst of publicly expressed concerns about recent actions by the force. My thoughts on the matter are in no way related to the merits or otherwise of how the then commissioner carried out her role. Like others, however, I am concerned at the deficits in the process of removing her, identified by Sir Tom Winsor in his report of 24 August on her resignation, which was commissioned by the then Home Secretary—I have lost track of which one.

According to the former Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Dame Cressida was informed that morning that the mayor would publicly announce that same afternoon his lack of confidence and intention to begin the statutory process of removal. She had until then to act, and chose to go. The mayor, for whom I have a good deal of respect—in fact, a very great regard—has alluded to an “apparent degree of bias” in the report. There are questions about leadership and protection of the Metropolitan Police, but it remains the case that the process set down in Section 48 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 was not followed. The commissioner was not suspended. The commissioner was not formally informed of an intention that she should retire or resign and was given no opportunity to respond, and the Home Secretary’s consent was not obtained to remove her. Virtue lies in following agreed procedures when it is inconvenient to do so, not just when it is easy, especially when one is talking about a service which, in turn, is about ensuring law and order. I remain saddened and disappointed that this happened in this way.

There is some merit in examining a revision of the regulations applying to police and crime commissioners and mayors under the Act, or a code of practice on its operation, and I hope the Minister might indicate some willingness move in that direction.

50th Anniversary of the Expulsion of Asians from Uganda

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Popat, on securing this debate, marking as it does a significant and tragic episode in the history of Uganda, an important event in the history of the United Kingdom and an enduring part of the lived experience of thousands of our fellow citizens, as the noble Lord so eloquently demonstrated.

Many of us are old enough to remember the news footage, the feeling of injustice, the sense of a world out of kilter. After Idi Amin made the fateful speech on 4 August 1972, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Michael Ramsey, denounced what he called the “dreadful racialist policy” in a BBC broadcast. He was to make available a cottage in the grounds of Lambeth Palace to a displaced family. But compared with the dispossession and sometimes violence shown to those to whom Uganda was home, our discomfort was small indeed. It is a testimony to Ugandan Asians what they achieved in the years that followed. I am glad to see that my fellow bishop, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, the former Archbishop of York, spoke in this debate. We have all been edified by his wisdom and direct experience.

I want simply to look over some of the unintended consequences of those years and the then Government’s response. It was the Colonial Office’s intention in the late 1950s that the territories of east Africa should realise independence in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The watershed speech of Mr Harold Macmillan, known as “Winds of Change”, on 3 February 1960 signalled a major change of policy and pace. Tanganyika gained independence in 1961, and Uganda and Kenya each in the next two years.

Each had a colonial legacy of a population from the Indian subcontinent, particularly in Kenya and Uganda. As we have heard, this population was initially recruited largely to build the rail link from the interior of Uganda to Kenya. Those who stayed and those who followed them, particularly from Gujarat and the Punjab, dominated commercial life and prospered. Indeed, those who then settled in the UK have made a magnificent contribution to the economic, political, sporting and societal well-being of this country.

However, the crisis that erupted in 1972 was to some extent exacerbated by decisions in the previous decade. The first restrictions on Commonwealth citizens were imposed in 1962. The rapid shift to independence in the early 1960s in east Africa allowed white and Indian residents to opt for local passports or to remain citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies, as citizenship was then defined. Most Asians decided on the latter, fuelling further suspicion in newly independent Kenya and Uganda.

Local discrimination needed little encouragement, but fears of British passport holders arriving here en masse—there was film footage of dinner tables where meals had been abandoned by people apparently fleeing to the airport—lead to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 securing parliamentary passage in just three days. Unrestricted entry with such a British passport was now limited to those born in the United Kingdom or with a parent or grandparent born in the UK—the so-called patriality requirement. Instead, special vouchers were issued to heads of households among east African Asians to regulate the flow of migrants to the United Kingdom.

The Act was a controversial step, widely condemned as racist, but regrettably popular at that time. Patriality was then defined as right of abode in the Immigration Act 1971. The retention of such passports allowed Amin to dismiss any responsibility for those he had dispossessed and to demand that the British Government take responsibility instead. It is to the credit of the Heath Government that they acted so swiftly and with compassion and good purpose.

We should look at what was achieved. The Uganda Resettlement Board, under a former Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, set up and administered 16 temporary resettlement centres. By 31 March 1973, more than 28,000 people had passed through its hands. It undertook a good deal of liaison with local authorities and the charitable sector, not least with the Uganda Asian Relief Trust. Each family was visited by the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service. Those entering the country were given advice on benefits, including on that most valuable provision, exceptional payments.

In our own day, I can plead only that our Government now show the same compassion to those in desperate need of welcome, safety and security, and look to the past as the evidence that they will greatly bless our nation.

Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord knows I am on quite delicate territory, because legal proceedings are ongoing. I repeat the earlier words of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, who described our legal system as

“the best in the world.”

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, in response to the Home Office Oral Statement, we on these Benches ask if it is not immoral that those who are to be deported to Rwanda have had no chance to appeal or to reunite with family in Britain. Is it not immoral that they have had no consideration of their asylum claims, recognition of their medical or other needs, or attempts to understand their predicament, given that many are desperate people fleeing unspeakable horrors? Would the Minister welcome the very good work done in parishes up and down the country in support of refugees and asylum seekers—endeavours that are strongly endorsed by these Benches? In the light of the Home Secretary’s challenge to articulate more clearly alternatives to government policy, I ask the Minister what consideration Her Majesty’s Government have given to humanitarian corridors, as practised in France and Italy, and in which churches have played a prominent part.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, we had a good discussion on morality yesterday. As I said then, and shall say now, I think it is not moral to not do everything you can to prevent people drowning at sea or being delivered into the hands of criminals; I do not find that moral at all. On alternative humanitarian corridors, we have provided resettlement schemes for our Afghan, Ukrainian, Syrian and Hong Kong friends who are fleeing regimes which put them in danger. They are the sorts of things that we are doing. There are safe and legal routes. It is perfectly legitimate to say that we should widen the safe and legal route so that literally anyone can come here, but we have to tailor our hospitality and our refuge to the people who need it most, and that is what we are doing. However, I will not let this go by without thanking the Church for the work it does in supporting those in need.

Asylum Seekers: Removal to Rwanda

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, we have brought 200,000 people here since 2015. As for the Permanent Secretary’s comments, he made it clear that he considered it “regular, proper and feasible” for the Home Secretary to make a judgment to proceed with this policy

“in the light of the illegal migration challenge the country is facing.”

It is the responsibility of the Permanent Secretary as principal accounting officer to ensure that the department’s use of its resources is appropriate and consistent with the requirements set out in Managing Public Money. The reasons for writing are set out clearly in the published letter.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, following the Minister’s opening words, I presided at a midnight mass to commemorate the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire at All Saints West Dulwich, which went on until the early hours of this morning, so I was grateful for the tribute she paid.

Bearing in mind the force of today’s letter in the Times signed by all the serving Lords spiritual, will the Minister acknowledge, contrary to what some of her colleagues have said, that the Bishops and others have offered alternatives—in particular, safe and legal routes which are unavailable to those who wish to apply from countries such as Iran, Iraq and Eritrea? Secondly, will she inform the House how removals may go ahead if the monitoring committee, set out in the memorandum of understanding to scrutinise processing, reception, accommodation and post-asylum treatment, does not exist? Finally, on the use of language, does the Minister agree that there is no such thing in law as an “illegal asylum seeker”, only an asylum seeker?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his points. As I have outlined, our safe and legal routes have been extremely generous to those who most need our protection—those from Afghanistan, now those from Ukraine and previously those from Syria. Our routes have been very generous. Sometimes, in suggesting expansion of safe and legal routes, we are opening up the country to something that might be quite unmanageable. However, we stand by our duty and our wish to provide refuge to those who need it most. I cannot go into any detail on processing because, as I said, a legal process is ongoing, but details of the process are available online.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, the late Sir Winston Churchill said:

“To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”


I consider that a useful maxim for any Government’s programme, both to build up and, in modern speak, to level up. With that maxim in mind and looking at the Government’s concern in relation to the Human Rights Act, I say that the recently introduced measures on migration and further proposals on public order will inevitably impact adversely on the welcome of refugees, including Ukrainians, and on legitimate protest. I regret that we did not hear of specific action to insulate homes to tackle the energy crisis and measures to alleviate rising poverty, not to mention action on the climate crisis—in particular, an end to new fossil fuels. We must not allow these vital changes to be eclipsed by the Russian military escapade and its consequences in Ukraine.

However, important as that all is, I wish to focus on those elements in the gracious Speech that promise to address the balance between the operation of the courts and the legislature and to do so through a Bill of Rights. I note with appreciation the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and other noble Lords.

It is clear from the Government’s own publications on this that, in our uncodified constitution, our enjoyment of rights is rooted in common law, the assertion of community rights and parliamentary supremacy. Indeed, it was the leadership of Archbishop Stephen Langton that gave focus to the grievances that wrought the Magna Carta from King John. Our 17th-century Bill of Rights of 1688, which purported to assert our ancient liberties, rather gloriously predates the American constitution by a century. The Bill of Rights was designed to prevent coercion by the Executive and ensure the rule of law, a term first used in that century. This Government, in their consultation last December on a modern Bill of Rights, make the point that those contained in the original Bill of Rights are

“generally framed as limitations on the government not as rights pertaining to individuals.”

This is true, but it is also the case that the intense sense of grievance that preceded the Glorious Revolution was rooted not only in constitutional conflict but in specific injustices and fears experienced by so many. It was only later that it became established that Ministers required the active confidence of the House of Commons, and later still that the most effective way of achieving it was through fixed groupings of broadly similar views bound by interest and self-discipline to attain majorities. Not until 1906 were the Standing Orders of the other place amended to give the Government control of the Order Paper to control the business of the House of Commons. Thus, in our system, the historic check of the legislature on the Government has always and continues to be a matter of dynamic friction, to put it in the most neutral way possible.

The Government’s own independent review of the Human Rights Act, chaired by Sir Peter Gross, attests to the high regard in which UK courts are held. The incidents which have caused the Government so much concern in terms of so-called mission creep by UK courts or the European Court of Human Rights are not less than 10 years old. Governments must expect to lose cases. For example, the Law Lords rejected indefinite detention without charge or trial in terrorist cases for foreign nationals in 2004, but do we not acknowledge now that an appropriate balance was struck? Instead, we see increasingly in other systems the rule of law being suborned and the undermining of an independent judiciary. Edmund Burke put it well when he said:

“Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.”


Our legislature, our Government, our courts and indeed our constitution will flourish all the better if we nurture a determined respect for our institutions and commit to living out the highest ideals in their operation. A healthy democracy is not about the corralling of a majority but about how each and every one of our representatives behaves, including ourselves, and how they regard all other aspects of our common life. On occasion, that will involve a proper restraint on personal interests, and at all times respect for those of others, including those with whom we may disagree. I contend that intentional appreciation of our institutions, which of course includes those of government and Parliament and greater caution—not undoing checks and balances, nor the protections evolved for good reasons over centuries—would help to instil a stronger culture of both individual as well as of corporate responsibility. I believe that is Her Majesty’s Government’s avowed aim—certainly on good days. It would be a more laudable focus than a Bill constraining the courts in favour of the Government.

Immigration Rules: Statements of Changes

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, for securing this important debate on his Motion to Regret. Last year, several Members of your Lordships’ House cautioned against the major extension of the Government’s capacity to make law with minimal recourse to Parliament in the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act. Today, at the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, and not of Her Majesty’s Government, we have 90 minutes to examine three statutory instruments relating to the Immigration Rules, one of which runs to 507 pages. All three were subject to the negative resolution, which involved little or no scrutiny of such important areas of life. Your Lordships’ House last defeated Her Majesty’s Government by praying against a negative resolution 21 years ago. Is the Minister satisfied with the level of scrutiny that these statutory instruments have received? Would she agree with me that it would have been better to publish them first in draft and to seek the views of both Houses in a debate?

My detailed comments are confined, because of time, to HC1043. They revolve around three questions to the Minister. First, do these rules meet the Home Secretary’s aspirations for her department’s handling of cases post Windrush? Secondly, are they feasible to implement? Thirdly, are the rules in HC1043 consonant with our obligations under the convention and protocol relating to the status of refugees?

We read in the Explanatory Notes to HC1043 that the purpose of this instrument is to

“Enhance our capacity to treat as inadmissible to the UK asylum system asylum claims made by those who have passed through or have connections with a safe third country.”


I should be grateful if the Minister would explain how an automatic presumption of refusal is compatible with the Home Secretary’s ambition, in her response to the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, for a Home Office that

“sees the ‘face behind the case’.”

On returning people to such safe countries, we did not negotiate to remain part of the Dublin regulations. We have no bilateral agreements with any European country with which to enforce these rules. In the absence of Dublin, are the Government engaging in blarney? The Home Office today published statistics for the first quarter since the rules came into effect, alerting us to the fact that 1,053 people were issued with notices of intent, meaning that the department is looking at the possibility of return for these people. It records that none has been returned on inadmissibility grounds. Will the Minister explain the mechanism for returning such individuals in conformity with the rules but in the absence of any agreement to do so? Will she concede that the rules on inadmissibility are unworkable?

I should say, before I ask my final question, that I understand the Government’s animus against people smuggling—that is terribly important. Lastly, it is reasonable to suppose that most people seeking safety find refuge in the first safe country they reach, and they do. However, there are always reasons why some do not. What the Home Office might consider safe is not universally experienced as such. There are also linguistic, cultural and family ties to be taken into consideration in seeking a destination, as well as access to routes. Furthermore, the refugee convention makes no such requirement of those fleeing persecution that they must do so in a specified geographical radius. To do so would be to burden many countries already dealing with enormous refugee issues.

Therefore, by making in law an automatic presumption against any claim from someone who has not arrived in the UK, except in a prescribed manner and prescribed place, is the Minister confident that we meet our obligations under international law? Would it not be far more effective to establish effective and legal routes which asylum seekers can readily access? That would reduce the demand upon which organised crime is currently feeding. I look forward to the noble Baroness’s response.