Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I take that point.

On the main point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, I sympathise with his point about the changes in the Immigration Rules. They have been extensive; there has been a huge number of changes—almost every few months, frankly—and they are practically incomprehensible. It is a paradise for lawyers; the detail they go into and the language they use is virtually incomprehensible. The noble Lord who spoke for the Opposition is nodding with some feeling on that. It is incredibly difficult to understand what is going on half the time. For heaven’s sake, there must be some way of simplifying all this for the ordinary person in the street.

I wish, more than anything else, for some transparency. I am in favour of a transparent framework for asylum seekers and economic migrants of all kinds, which would be debated in the House of Commons annually. You would have a cap for a year; it would be looked at, people would understand where it came from and particular interest groups would be consulted. We could do that for the year and then look at it again to see what had happened—what had gone wrong, what had gone right and so on. We could have an annual debate, like the Budget debate—although perhaps not as long; maybe a day’s debate—in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, so that everyone could have their say about this. It would be a much more transparent and sensible way, and it could deal with some of the ignorance and myths, which, as my noble friend Lord Lilley pointed out, surround this whole subject of immigration and asylum seeking.

Having said that, I do not disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, on his point in his Motion. The fact is that there is a huge problem here of human trafficking—we all know that; it is an international business. The smugglers—they are smugglers in effect—started off with drugs and tobacco and so forth, and now they deal in human beings. It is an international trade and all western European countries are facing this difficulty. It is completely illegal and to deal with it you really have to make a differentiation in law. You cannot deal simultaneously, in the same breath, with people who abide by the rules and who come here under acknowledged schemes, such as the Ukrainians, the Hong Kong people, the Afghans and so forth—they are large in number and we admit them freely and gladly to this country—and people from Albania who pay someone £2,000 to illegally enter this country. You cannot treat those people on the same basis; it is impossible to deal with the human trafficking and have the same legal basis for both activities.

Secondly, on safe routes, again, my noble friend Lord Lilley made the point that there is quite a large number of safe routes into this country. How far can you really expand them, realistically? Even now, Manston camp is taking in 3,000 asylum-seeking people, and it is really capable of taking only 1,000. With hotels in the north of England and the Midlands full of asylum seekers, we are now getting to the point where the hotels can no longer take them, because they want to do ordinary tourist business, so local authorities will be asked to take more. That means that council properties will be consumed by asylum seekers and will not therefore be available to local people. Of course, inevitably, it is the poorer parts of the country where all these people end up; they do not go to the Cotswolds or Hampstead because of the house prices. They end up in Blackpool, Middlesbrough or Darlington. Therefore, ordinary people—very often the poorest people—suffer the consequences. In all conscience, we have to consider that, as well as our natural and understandable concern about the position of genuine asylum seekers.

My final point is that, however many safe routes you have, there will still be trafficking across the channel, and people saying to those in Albania, Afghanistan or wherever, “We can get you into England—if you pay us a couple of thousand quid, we will get you across the channel.” However many safe routes you have and however much you expand that—I do not think that it can be expanded too far, for all the other reasons I have given—it will happen none the less. Therefore, there must be some system of deterrence, and I believe that the Government’s proposals—which have not yet come into practice of course because of all the legal objections—are the only answer to deterring people totally.

We are already seeing that some Albanians have decided not to apply for asylum in this country because they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda. They have been sent within 24 hours back to Albania under the agreement that we have with the Albanian Government. In a small way, even despite all the legal problems and judicial reviews and so on, you can see a deterrent factor working. The Government are pursuing the right angle here; it is not working in practice at the moment because of all the judicial reviews and legal difficulties, which is a great pity.

We are in a democratic society, where there is a clear public will to deal with illegal immigration. The Government—the major party—have voted it through the Commons and we have voted the Bill through the House of Lords. For it then to be stopped, potentially for months and months, by judicial activity, makes it seem that democracy is not working properly. That should not be allowed to happen in a functioning country such as ours. On that basis, I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, despite understanding his desire for the whole issue to be treated with great humanity, with which I would agree.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, on securing this debate; I very much agree with what he says about the Immigration Rules.

Before going too deeply into the details, I want to say that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Horam, about the complexity of the Immigration Rules. They are so difficult. I chanced upon a document produced by the Law Commission—I do not know how long it has been out; it does not have a date. It says at the beginning that the Law Commission was asked to review the Immigration Rules to identify ways in which they could be redrafted to make them simpler and more accessible. The one thing I can say about the rules we are debating today is that they are certainly not simple or accessible. I have read them about three times, and I have read the explanation of the rules about three times, and I am still not very much the wiser. I commend to the Home Office the Law Commission’s report. If it was written some time ago, it is still very much up to date. The idea is that the rules should always be drafted in such a way that they are meaningful and comprehensible.

I will comment very briefly on one or two things that have been said. I am personally very much in sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, said about identification. I do not think that I can bring my own Labour Party with me on this, but I believe that, in terms of the rights of individuals, it would be an improvement. If any noble Lords have tried to open a building society savings account, they will know of the number of documents that one has to produce as evidence that one is who one is—sometimes, I just take my passport with me, as it is a lot simpler than anything else. I also have a little advice: when one is moving house, make sure that your wife or partner is also named on the utility bills, because there comes a point when you have to produce evidence for her as well—or the other way round. I have gone through this in getting a blue badge for my wife; it is complicated, because one has to get all this evidence. ID cards might well be helpful, and we should debate that more fully another day.

I was a little surprised by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, when he said that more people claim asylum in the UK than in France. I was not aware of that. It was my understanding—and the Minister may be able to give us the figures—that of the people arriving in France, far more claim asylum in France than seek to come to this country to claim asylum here.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

I am sorry if I was unclear. I said that of those who make a claim in France, only half as many are granted asylum on first application as in the UK.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I think that is an argument on my side rather than on his, though, is it not? If more people who get to this country are given refugee status because of the claim they have made, surely that is an argument to say that we should look differently at groups 1 and 2, which would lessen their chances, if I have understood it correctly. At any rate, my proposition is that the majority of people reaching France claim asylum in France; only a minority seek to come here. It is surely the lack of safe and legal routes from France to this country that has given the traffickers a field day. The answer must be to have a better relationship with France and to do this on a more co-operative basis. Rather than simply criticising the French, I think we have to co-operate with them as the only way to move forward.