Borders and Asylum

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, the wave of protests over the summer in opposition to the continuing use of hotels to house asylum seekers has evidently forced the Government’s hand. They have now been in office for over a year and, unfortunately, the situation at the border has deteriorated. We have seen some 29,300 people cross the channel in small boats to gain unlawful entry into the UK since Labour took office—the highest ever figure.

Regrettably, the Home Secretary did not offer an explanation yesterday as to why she thinks these figures have increased. Might I suggest to the Minister that the reason illegal crossings have reached a historic high is because the Government scrapped the Rwanda deterrent before it was even able to begin repealing most of the Illegal Migration Act and have failed to effectively implement policies to deter those who would attempt the crossing?

One major policy the Government have pursued, the returns deal with France, has yet to bear any results. The Home Secretary has stated that the Government are moving faster than the Conservatives were with Rwanda, obviously forgetting that the reason the Rwanda policy was delayed was because the Labour Party voted against it over 130 times. Although I appreciate that it is early days and this is just a pilot, can the Minister confirm when the Home Office will be sending the first people back to France? Is there yet a timeframe in place?

In the Statement, the Home Secretary stated that the Government have removed 35,000 people with no right to be here. Unfortunately, that statistic is highly misleading. The Home Office data for the year ending June 2025 shows that enforcement returns—people who are subject to removal or deportation by the Home Office—for the previous year stood at 9,072 people. The number of voluntary returns—those people who were liable to be removed but chose to leave the UK before being deported—was 26,761. It is the combination of these two figures that make up the 35,000 returns claim. Clearly, the vast majority of returns are therefore voluntary returns, not enforced deportation action by the Home Office. Is it not highly misleading for the Government to claim that they have removed 35,000 people when in fact most of those left of their own accord and they have only removed 9,072 people themselves? The figure is being used to mask the reality of failure to get a grip on the crisis at the border, smash the gangs and close down all remaining asylum hotels.

The Home Secretary—I am sure the Minister will not fail to repeat this—made the point that the hotels were opened under the last Government, and that this Government have been taking action to close them. Unfortunately, what she omitted from her Statement was that the previous Government were taking action to reduce the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels. From the peak of 56,042 in September 2023, we reduced that number to 29,585 in June 2024, but since this Government have been in office, that number has only increased. It jumped to 38,079 in December of last year and, as of 30 June, stands at 32,059. That is a 7.7% increase from when the Conservatives left government.

Furthermore, in the run-up to the election, the Conservative Government closed down 200 of these hotels. Had that rate of closure continued, there would be no hotels housing asylum seekers today. What is evident is that this Government have not continued with that pace of closure; nor are they taking enough action to deter and remove those who enter this country illegally.

The Home Secretary repeated the claim several times during her Statement in the other place that the Opposition are “resisting” and “opposing” the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill in this House. She even insinuated that we are attempting to slow the passage of the Bill. I must say to the Minister that I take issue with that characterisation. We have had three days in Committee on the Bill so far and are due to finish Committee stage next Monday—one day earlier than initially scheduled.

On a number of aspects, including the new immigration offences, we have supported the Government trying to toughen up the system. Indeed, I welcome the announcement in this Statement that the Government will be pausing refugee family reunion to tackle the large increase in the number of people applying to bring family members to the UK after a very short period. What we do resist, however, is the Government’s opposition to many of our proposals—or perhaps I should say “previous opposition”, since much of what the Home Secretary proposed yesterday has already been raised in this Chamber by those of us on these Benches.

This morning, the Home Secretary mentioned the number of students who arrive in the UK on a student visa and then go on to claim asylum, stating that she wants to “clamp down” on this “back-door” route. I entirely agree, which is why I tabled Amendment 193 to the border security Bill, which would prevent any person making an asylum claim more than one year after they have entered the UK. This would prevent precisely that scenario occurring. It has yet to be debated, but I am sure that the Minister will support it when we come to debate it.

One of the main announcements in the Statement is the establishment of a new body to deal with asylum and immigration appeals. If this is established quickly and efficiently, it may be able to help reduce the processing of appeals. However, several questions remain. Will this body deal only with administrative appeals made to the Home Office, or will it also deal with judicial appeals, which are currently made to the asylum and immigration chamber? Secondly, will the Government now be supporting our further Amendment 138 to the border security Bill, which would prevent a person appealing against a deportation order made under Section 32 of the UK Borders Act?

Finally, can the Minister confirm how these changes will be made, and when? Will the Government be bringing amendments to the border security Bill on Report in this House to implement these new policies?

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches agree with the Government that the Conservatives “trashed” our asylum system, leaving the backlog spiralling out of control. We also agree that there is no silver bullet to deal with that failure. However, the Government have so far failed to get a grip on the problem as a whole. There may be a glimmer of hope that a comprehensive policy will emerge from the content of this Statement, so we will scrutinise carefully any plan that flows from it. But the real solutions lie in speeding up processing, so that those with no right to be here are swiftly returned, providing safe routes to claim asylum, and ensuring that those with valid claims can get jobs, integrate and contribute to the community.

However, the closure of the family reunion route, albeit temporarily, is a sign that the Government are responding to current events rather than laying out what the complete reform would look like. We are deeply concerned by proposals to tighten family reunion rules and by what we are told will be the reduction of the move-on period from 56 days back to 28, much to the dismay of local authorities throughout our land. The Home Office itself acknowledges that a lack of safe alternative routes contributes to small boat crossings, so cutting these routes risks making that crisis worse. Refugees are not at an equal starting point. They have been forced to leave their homes and families, often in grave danger, and family reunion is crucial for their settlement and integration. What assessment has been made of the risk that tighter family reunion rules will push more families into the hands of people-smuggling gangs?

Regarding the new independent body and fast-track appeals, how will it be resourced to meet the 24-week target, and will there be a recruitment drive for asylum caseworkers to ease the backlog? Given the similarities of these roles to those of JPs, what timescale have the Government got in mind for, first, identifying suitable candidates and, secondly, training them in the legislative framework to undertake such duties? Furthermore, can the Minister guarantee that local authorities will be properly funded by government to support asylum accommodation, rather than having it imposed without consultation? We need a humane and efficient system, not one that continues to fail vulnerable people.

The UK-France returns deal, as we apparently know now, will see its first exchange of people at the end of this month. Can the Minister give us some idea of the timescale for expanding what looks like very small numbers at the beginning?

Finally, what safeguards will ensure that the fast-track appeals process proposed does not compromise fairness or lead to more judicial reviews later? Refugees are entitled to be supported as well. It will be interesting to note what the Government propose to be the manner in which that system will actually proceed.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to His Majesty’s Opposition and to the Liberal Democrats for their initial questions.

I will start, if I may, with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. He makes the allegation that the Government are responding to the protests that have taken place around the country in August of this year, which were relatively small in number. I reassure him that the Government have a very strong plan to remove the mess in which his Government left the asylum system, the hotel backlog and the small boats crisis. The actions that we are taking are part of a long-term wider plan, which includes the immigration Bill that we will debate further tomorrow, to ensure that we resolve this issue in a way that meets our international obligations and, at the same time, deals with the issues that we all have a common interest in removing. I remind the noble Lord that this August saw the lowest number of boats for that month for four years.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

That is one month.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord heckles from a sedentary position. We have been in office for 13 months now, and we have taken action—which relates, as I will come to, to what the noble Lord, Lord German, said—to establish a border command under the immigration Bill, to put in new powers to tackle small boats, which will be taking place shortly, and to scrap the Rwanda scheme that his Government put in place, which wasted £700 million of taxpayers money and removed, from memory, two people, both of whom went voluntarily. We are now using that resource to up the amount of money we are investing in speeding up asylum claims. In speeding up asylum claims, we are doing what we should be doing: assessing people and determining who has asylum and who does not.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned some figures in his contribution. Some 35,000 people with no right to abode in the UK have been removed in the past 12 months. That is up on his Government’s performance—a 28% increase in failed asylum seekers being removed. We have had a 14% increase in the removal of foreign national offenders, and an increase of 50% in the number of illicit work raids that we are undertaking to make sure that we maintain standards in employment.

I am afraid the noble Lord cannot get away from the fact that in 2015 there were very few hotels in operation, and we reached a massive peak under his Government. We are trying now to reduce that peak by closing hotels, and we are doing so by speeding up the asylum claims that he and his Government allowed to remain. So, with due respect to the noble Lord, I am not going to take lessons from him on how to manage asylum, immigration or small boats when the problems that we have inherited are ones that his Government and his Home Office oversaw as a whole.

However, the noble Lord asked some reasonable questions, and I will try to establish some information for him. He asked about the new commission that we are establishing. We will set out further details on it in due course and ensure that we clarify and put into the public domain the roles the commission will have. We will ensure that the commission is paid for with existing departmental budgets, so there is no extra cost to the taxpayer for that. To the point made by the noble Lord, Lord German, we will ensure that people have time to have rigorous training in decision-making and expertise to make decisions on appeal cases. I say again to all noble Lords that we are doing that to speed up the asylum appeal process that led to the highest asylum backlog in the history of asylum backlogs, under the Government of the noble Lord, Lord Davies. We are trying to speed up those claims because, ultimately, we need to determine someone’s right to abode in the UK under asylum, and if they do not have a right then we need to remove them. The previous Government did neither of those things to any effect.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned the French scheme. Noble Lords will know that under the previous Government no attempts at all were made to discuss with the French the issue on the beaches of France in relation to small boats. The noble Lord again shakes his head. Perhaps at some future time, when he gets an opportunity, he could write to me and tell me what agreements were struck with the French regarding small boats and beaches. There were none, and because there were none, we have had to pick that up. Over the past 12 months we have negotiated with the French, and we have a returns agreement in place. That agreement is a pilot scheme. It has not yet removed people to a great extent, as the noble Lord knows, but it is a pilot that we are monitoring and evaluating. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord German, we intend to remove and exchange the first individuals under the scheme by the end of this month. The pilot will be evaluated and monitored, and I hope it will prove a benefit.

As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, knows, because I tell him every time we have this discussion, we have had agreements with the French, the Belgians, the Dutch—the Calais Group—to take action. We have established a proper agreement with the Germans for the first time, to look at how we can stop boat manufacture and sale upstream, and we are putting extra effort into bringing people to justice so that we now have people before the courts for people-smuggling offences. There is going to be a difference between us because the noble Lord, Lord Davies, believes in the Rwanda scheme and I do not, but ultimately it is about delivery on these issues, and this Government, 13 months in, are beginning to deliver on them.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord German, for his welcome for some of the measures in the Statement. I welcome his support over Border Security Command, the speeding up of asylum claims, the new powers in the Bill and the pledge to close hotels, because he is right that we need to ensure that we speed up the asylum backlog left by the previous Government. Those matters are in train at the moment, and we will continue to examine them.

As I have already mentioned, the French scheme will run in pilot form until the end of this month, but we hope to secure some action on that very quickly. I hope the issue regarding the new scheme of the appeals board, which I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord German, and have already mentioned in response to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, is good.

I understand that the noble Lord, Lord German, has concerns, which I recognise, about the family removal issue. I say to him that we intend to ensure that, at a date very shortly in the future, we bring forward a statutory instrument that will end the family reunion issue on a temporary basis while we review family reunion for a longer period. We are doing that for the straightforward reason that the number of family reunions has increased dramatically. I shall give him the figures now: over the seven years from 2015 to 2022, approximately 5,500 individuals were granted refugee family reunion each year. In 2024, 19,709 individuals arrived via this route—a 111% increase, which is just not sustainable. We need to review that, work on it and take action accordingly. At a date very shortly, we will lay a statutory instrument that will suspend the scheme and we will bring forward a revised scheme at a date in future when we are able to do so. The suspension is temporary while we undertake a full review and reform of current family rules.

In the meantime, the noble Lord, Lord German, has asked a legitimate question: what do individuals who want to have family reunion do? They are quite able to apply as of now. Whenever the new scheme comes into effect, we will honour family reunion applications to the date when the scheme was suspended. We will then be able to examine any further family reunion routes through other means on the normal route for family reunion that will take place. We will bring forward in very short order a revised scheme that I hope will address some of the issues that, in my view, need to be tightened.

I say to all noble Lords that there is a common issue here and we should try to address it. That is what I am trying to do with the proposals before the House today.