Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I just want to make three very brief points. First, I strongly agree with my noble friend Lord Kirkhope that ping-pong should not be an endless game. We should focus today on the two things which are recent and have come to our attention since the Bill came before us.

The first is dealt with by Amendment D1, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, and supported by my noble friend Lady Stroud. The Government have very rightly said that Ukrainian refugees should be able to work when they get here—so they should. We do not need a different policy for other asylum seekers—a point made very eloquently by my noble friend Lady Stroud. I think we can focus on that today.

The other thing, of course, concerns Rwanda, where I strongly sympathise with the points made by my noble friend Lord Hailsham. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the policy—and I strongly sympathise with the brief but trenchant intervention of Theresa May in the other place—it ought to be for Parliament to make the ultimate decision. To my mind, the right reverend Prelate’s amendment is far too long; my noble friend Lord Hailsham’s is straight and to the point. If we are to deport asylum seekers from this country to a third country, it should be with the approbation of both Houses. I hope this House will not indulge in too many votes tonight because we have to observe, as my noble friend Lord Kirkhope said, the constitutional conventions and proprieties which mean that ping-pong should not be an endless game.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the bulk of these amendments, particularly the Motion moved by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti. I want to make some very brief comments because this is not a Second Reading debate, thank God.

I think the Minister said that the practice of claiming asylum in the first safe country one reaches is accepted Europe-wide. I would challenge that because the bulk of the refugees who have come to Europe have come through safe countries, whether they are the 1 million Syrians who went to Germany or the Ukrainians who are on their way to this country and elsewhere. That proposition, I am afraid, does not stand.

One theme that I have noticed in the debate this afternoon is the question of the validity of the 1951 Geneva convention. The Government, while accepting the convention in theory, seem to be challenging it all the way along the line. When the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees makes a statement about the Geneva convention, we should be very careful before we challenge it, because who else has the international authority but the keeper of that convention: namely, UNHCR? When the UNHCR is critical of what is happening as regards Rwanda, we should listen to it.