Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I hope my noble friend is listening, because I hope he will realise that he too is an inheritor of a great Conservative tradition; we must not be a Government who turn our back on that. Of course, the problem that the Bill is seeking to deal with is real, but it can be dealt with using a greater degree of sensitivity, generosity and, I dare say, Christianity. I urge him to take on board the points that have been made this afternoon, particularly by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I will return to the amendments, particularly Amendment 22. I think that the Committee will permit me to refer briefly to the impact assessment argument, because it has a particular relevance to Amendment 22. The charity Safe Passage, some time after the Bill was first published, sent a freedom of information request to the Home Office to ask about the number of unaccompanied children who would be affected by the Bill—that is to say, those arriving in the UK through irregular means, including via small boats. The response stated that

“the Home Office does not hold the information you have requested. Whilst our reporting centres can ascertain the age of someone at the point of an event, we cannot establish from our electronic datasets who is accompanied or unaccompanied”.

That means the Government have no idea of the number of unaccompanied children that will be impacted by the provisions of the Bill.

I do not think that I need to say any more—because the argument about the impact assessment has been well aired already—except for one further thought. If the Government have no idea what the effect of the Bill will be, or any particular part of the Bill, I do not understand why they are putting it forward. That point has already been made, but it still puzzles me.

The point of my amendment is to exempt from inadmissibility claims for unaccompanied children, as has already been referred to in some of the other amendments. Under Clause 4(2), those claims will not be considered; they will have no right of appeal; and there will be no possibility of considering such a claim. Although the argument has already been put forward in some of the other amendments, it is a fundamental point, because the children from the countries with very high grant rates for refugee status are forced to make dangerous journeys because there are very limited options for safe routes to the UK. Many of the children come from those countries, and, of those children who have had their cases determined, the vast majority were permitted to stay and rebuild their lives in the UK under the present legislation. That means that the equivalent of those children who are now coming would not be allowed to stay, regardless of the merits of their claim under either the 1951 Geneva convention or the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I want to make two or three other points. If a child is to be removed on reaching their 18th birthday, unless they are actually in detention they will quite sensibly say, “I do not want to go back. I am frightened of going back to where I escaped from”. They will disappear—of course they will. We would all do that if we were in their position; we would not hesitate. It seems to me that we are in danger of saying that we are going to lock them up until their 18th birthday before removing them. It is a preposterous policy.

The Government’s history on children has been somewhat mixed. I remember in the 2016 Act I put forward an amendment for unaccompanied children to come here, and it eventually passed both Houses—it went back once or twice—and became part of the Act. The Government then said: “Ah, but it applies only to 480 children”. That was an arbitrary figure, plucked out of the air, for which there was no rationale at all, except that the Government said that local authorities could not provide foster places, which was quickly disproved.

We then got on to the 2017 Act, at the time when the future of the Dublin treaty—or certainly the parts under which asylum-seeking children in one EU country could claim to join their families in another EU country—was in jeopardy. We passed an amendment in this House that the Government should negotiate to retain the provisions of the treaty. That was eventually accepted, having gone through both Houses. In the 2019 Act, the Government simply removed it. Without wishing to go into long periods of history, I was incensed about all these things but particularly incensed about that.

An upshot was that I was invited to a meeting with three government Ministers and seven officials, including one from the Cabinet Office, to engage in a discussion about the rights of children. I found that quite flattering—I thought the odds of 10:1 were quite favourable to me, given who was on the other side. I was given assurances. One of the Commons Ministers said: “Don’t you trust me?” I looked him in the eye and I lied: “Yes, I trust you, but I don’t trust the Government”—so it was half true—“And anyway, who is to say that you will be in your job in few weeks’ time?” He was not; he was moved on, and I am not sure whether he is in the Government now or not. But I was given certain assurances that were not adhered to, and the number of unaccompanied children who came fell rapidly from that point on.

The Government have in the past given assurances about unaccompanied children and they simply have not stuck to them. That is why I believe that this amendment is important. It will protect the rights of some of the most vulnerable young people fleeing from appalling horrors such as war, enforced conscription into armies, threats of torture and parents being killed. These are terrible things, and we are saying to them that it they get to this country other than by a prescribed route, of which there are hardly any, we will not consider their claim. That is appalling.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group because they are at the heart of whether or not we are acting in conformity with our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which I believe we are not. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has most helpfully brought to our attention the view of the committee set up to watch over the application by all 192 members of the UN to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Its view is negative.

I am well aware that the United Nations does not have any enforcement powers in this matter—sadly, perhaps—but that does not mean that the British Government, which is usually a member of the UN in good standing and good faith, can simply ignore the views of the committee that was set up to watch over this legislation. To do so will have quite serious consequences in a much wider field, because there are plenty of members of the United Nations who shelter behind the lack of enforceability of the UN, whether it is in the Security Council or elsewhere, to do things that we, quite rightly, condemn outright, whether in Ukraine, the Taiwan Strait or wherever. The cost to this country of simply riding roughshod over our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is therefore quite serious.

The Minister will no doubt remind us that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is not incorporated into our domestic law. That is correct, but it was ratified by this country. How do we know that it was ratified, and how do we know that it covers all the provisions which this legislation is at variance with? Because we made two or three rather small, explicit reservations from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, none of which is relevant to the present matters we are debating—they relate to enrolment in the Armed Forces, education and so on. We accepted all the rest, and we ratified it and told the United Nations that we were going to apply all the rest. Now, we are going back on that.

I hope the Minister will not simply tell us that his opinion and that of the Home Office is that we are not infringing any of these obligations. I do not honestly think that that cuts any ice at all. I would be delighted if he would take, one by one, the articles cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and my noble friend Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, and explain why he has a different interpretation of those provisions. I say that more in hope than expectation, because the Minister does not seem to like answering specific questions of that sort. However, I hope on this occasion he will overcome his reluctance to do that and will address these problems. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is a serious matter. It is bringing better conditions for children worldwide. It is being used as an instrument to strike down all sorts of discrimination, and here we are building up new sorts.

--- Later in debate ---

That is indeed so, but my question is of a more prosaic nature: what happens when a declaration of inadmissibility is made under Clause 4, and a court subsequently determines, after hearing a factual suspensive claim under Clause 42, that a mistake of fact was made in determining that the person in question met the removal conditions? Justice surely requires that the declaration of inadmissibility, having been made on a false premise, should be rescinded and the protection claim or human rights claim allowed to proceed. I hope that the Minister will agree, but I do not see any mechanism to that effect in the Bill. Can the Minister, either orally or in writing, show me where that is? If there is nothing there, will he undertake to look at whether this point could usefully be clarified in the Bill?

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I will endeavour not to repeat some of the arguments that have already been put forward; it is a challenge that most of us have failed, and I will probably fail it too.

In the Bill, there is an unprecedented step that it would make any asylum application made by someone who arrives irregularly in the UK permanently inadmissible. If declared inadmissible, they cannot subsequently enter the UK’s asylum process. That means that they are out of the system for ever, simply because of the method by which they have arrived in this country. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that the Bill

“would amount to an asylum ban”,

as it would the extinguish

“the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom for those who arrive irregularly, no matter how compelling their claim may be”.

The UNHCR goes on to say that, if other countries followed suit, we would see an end to refugee protection. That is a pretty dismal comment, but I have no reason to doubt that the UNHCR is accurate in its assessment. I repeat something which should be beyond argument: the UNHCR knows about the 1951 convention, and surely the UNHCR must be seen as the guardian of that convention. So if the Government are going to disagree with the UNHCR, they have to be on pretty firm grounds before they do so.

I will not repeat the conditions stated in Clause 2—we are familiar with them—but I will note that, even if people cannot be removed from the UK, their claims will still be permanently inadmissible. That is a significant change from the current inadmissibility scheme put in place after the UK’s exit from the EU as it also left the Dublin system. Under this scheme, if the UK Government believe that somebody did claim or could or should have claimed asylum in another country, their asylum claim could be potentially deemed inadmissible. However, the current scheme requires another country to have agreed to take the person before the inadmissibility decision can be made. The Home Office guidance on the inadmissibility procedures says that getting an agreement should take a maximum of six months in most cases. We are in a situation where there can be no progress for those individuals, except in this very negative sense.

The Home Office’s own statistics—I rely on the Refugee Council for some of this information—show how rare an occurrence this is. Between January 2021 and the end of December 2022

“of 18,494 applications that were potentially inadmissible only 83 inadmissibility decisions have been served”,

with only 21 removals. As a result, nearly 10,000 people have had their claims subsequently admitted into the UK’s asylum system following an unnecessary delay.

This Bill changes the current inadmissibility system by removing the requirement to have a removal agreement in place with another country before an inadmissibility decision can be reached. Instead, it makes any claim automatically and permanently inadmissible. It does not give the Home Secretary any discretion to consider the claim, and indeed the noble Lord in the previous speech challenged the Home Secretary’s lack of discretion in these procedures.

The Bill does very little to make it likely that more people will be able to be removed. Clause 5 allows people from 32 countries designated as safe countries whose asylum applications have been ruled inadmissible to be returned to their home country. Nationals of all other countries outside this list cannot be returned to their home country. This includes someone whose claim is highly likely to be successful, such as an Afghan or a Syrian, or someone whose claim could potentially be refused if it was actually processed. Instead, they can be removed only to one of the 57 third countries listed in Schedule 1 to the Bill. However, the agreement with Rwanda is the only removal agreement that the UK has in place that includes third country nationals, and the legal and tactical challenges faced by that scheme are well documented. Even if it becomes operational, it will not be possible to remove the thousands of people whose claims are deemed inadmissible to Rwanda.

We are in a real difficulty with this situation. The Home Office has yet to set out how many people it believes will be impacted by the Bill, as we have already discussed. However, given the current 0.7% success rate of removing people under the inadmissibility process, the Refugee Council estimates that at the end of the third year of the Bill between 161,000 and 192,000 people will have had their asylum claims deemed inadmissible but not yet have been removed. They will be unable to have their asylum claims processed, and therefore unable to work, and will be reliant on Home Office support and accommodation indefinitely, which is predicted to cost between £5 billion and £6 billion in the first three years. They will be stuck in a permanent limbo. I hope the Minister can explain how they can get out of that limbo, unless the Government suddenly produce a range of countries with which return agreements have been agreed.

This is a pretty miserable clause in a miserable Bill. I believe that this amendment could go some little way towards making the Bill somewhat less bad than it is.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I have signed some amendments which were tabled by my noble and learned friend Lord Etherton, who has asked me to apologise for his absence today. I am not going to speak to those in any detail because, as is typical of my noble and learned friend, the explanatory statements which he has added to those amendments say it all, and make them very easy to understand.

What concerns me about this debate is that it has a degree of abstraction which perhaps conceals what really lies in front of the debates we are having. Recently, I went to a meeting to discuss asylum and refugee status in one of our cities. Present at that meeting was a woman in her 30s, with three children, who is living in a hostel in that city. She has now been waiting for 10 years—with her children, some born after her arrival here—to know the result of her wish to be treated as an asylum seeker.

The Minister earlier today—it seems like many hours ago but it is probably only about two and a half—referred, when he was answering an intervention, to an emergency having occurred. If that is an emergency—because this Government have been in place for well over 10 years—then it makes the creation of a baby elephant seem like the speed of sound. It has happened on their watch. Why? In truth—and it is long before the Minister became involved in these issues and became a valued Member of your Lordships’ House—they did not do what they needed to do to anticipate what was going to happen. That is why cases such as that of the woman I referred to took place.

In another city, I met a young man, now in his mid-20s, who had arrived in the United Kingdom illegally in the back of a lorry. He climbed out of the lorry and had nowhere to go. He slept in a doorway and the next day he did what he was told was a good thing to do and went to the local police station and asked the police for help. As it happens, they were very sympathetically disposed to him. He was then about 17 and a half. He was refused permission to remain in this country and he was refused asylum. He appealed and his appeal was allowed. I am delighted to say that the reason he came to see me was that he is about to start a career as a barrister. This is obviously a very good thing for anyone to do, as I would say, and I know a number of noble and learned friends, including the Minister, will agree with me when I say that. I am trying to discourage him, as a sort of mentor, from doing only asylum work because there is so much more to do as a barrister. I may be winning that battle. That is the actuality we are dealing with in these cases.

What we are facing here, to use the Minister’s words, is apparently an emergency to oust the use of judicial review. Before I got up to speak, we heard three really superb speeches. I do not want to repeat everything that was said but I agree with it all. All those speeches demonstrated, I suggest, that the ouster of judicial review, as has been the approach of the courts and indeed of Parliament over the decades, should happen only very rarely. It is not unheard of, but it should happen only very rarely when the necessity to oust judicial review is demonstrated and, above all, when it is fair and proportional to do so. Surely the ouster of judicial review is neither fair nor proportional in a situation in which we find many cases coming before the courts but it is not the fault of the real people who want to go to those courts. Let us not forget that a very large number of that cohort are allowed asylum and refugee status when they go to the courts. This is not an unworthy cohort going to court for the sake of it; people often win their cases. Do we in your Lordships’ House, with so many experienced people, particularly those who have seen the courts in action, really want to oust that activity of the courts?

Let us look at the figures for a moment. I know that there are many cases in tribunals. I have never had the advantage of serving as a member of the asylum et cetera tribunal or Upper Tribunal but I have had the privilege of serving as a deputy judge in the Administrative Court for many years, dealing with many asylum cases. I think everybody imagines—I wish to disabuse the non-lawyers in the Committee—that these cases are all run into the ground by long-winded lawyers such as myself who try to make the cases run for ever and ever in order to enhance our fees; the sort of Daily Mail “sidebar of shame” view of what lawyers do.

Let me tell your Lordships what happens in the Administrative Court. A judge turns up for a day’s sitting and often starts with paper applications. About 11% of the cases have already been filtered out as being totally without merit and do not even come before the judge doing the paper applications—the paper apps, as they are called. The judge then spends the day in his or her judge’s room dealing with the paper apps, usually dealing with about 12 in a day—maybe a few less, maybe a few more. They take therefore very little time at all.

Net Migration Figures

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The noble Lord neatly identifies the balancing act that needs to be performed by the Government on net migration. Clearly the Government cannot permit circumstances to arise where employers utilise foreign labour over domestic labour for the pursuit of greater profit. Of course, the countervailing factor is the availability of labour. The Government are obviously aware of these issues and make their decisions accordingly.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that, of today’s high figure, asylum seekers account for approximately 8%, and that, even if the Bill we discussed yesterday and will discuss the week after next were to reduce that figure to zero, it would make virtually no difference to the net migration figures?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The whole point of the Illegal Migration Bill is to prevent dangerous and illegal journeys across the channel and by other routes. It is addressing a different, specific issue, obviously with the added benefit that eliminating illegal migration would go towards the reduction of the net migration figure. But it is not suggested that the Bill is the sole answer to the problems arising from excessive net migration.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

That is the first time I have heard the word used. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, used the word “interesting”, which is at least better than “expensive”, which is the usual word used. On that, perhaps I should sit down.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, as a non-lawyer, I have found the last few minutes absolutely absorbing. I have learned a great deal without having to pay any tuition fees. I shall peruse Hansard with a great deal of interest and will advise any law students to do the same.

Although I am not a lawyer, I will make two brief comments. For some years, I have served on the British delegation to the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. It is slightly different from the Council of Europe, but it involves a lot of discussion nevertheless. I serve on its migration committee and we have had a lot of discussion about how we do things in this country and about how other countries behave.

What I have noticed in recent years is that the respect which we as a country have earned has been somewhat diminished, and I am asked, “Why are you doing this?” and “Isn’t this a departure?”. I remember some years ago, when we still had a lot of respect, I was asked what I thought in terms of the British experience of the rule of law and so on and how I would approach a particular issue; I ventured to indicate how I thought we would do it. But those questions are not being asked any more. We are no longer treated as a model that has earned international respect because of abiding by the rule of law and doing things properly and openly.

I would have thought this Bill has debased our reputation, certainly in countries that follow these issues, and I think that is a matter of enormous regret. I used to take pride in the fact that, in international gatherings, I came and represented a Parliament of a country that was treated well by other countries. They regarded us as an example to follow, and I fear that that is much less the case than it used to be.

I will briefly make one other point about public opinion. Of course, I am aware that what we do and what public opinion thinks is crucial. We cannot just act as if public opinion did not exist. I remember when I introduced an amendment in 2016 about refugees—Theresa May was then Home Secretary—public opinion influenced the Government’s attitude. Initially, she asked me to withdraw my amendment, and I said I would not and then public opinion woke up to what was happening: it was the television pictures of the Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, drowned on a Mediterranean beach.

I have told this story before. The amendment was going through and I heard somebody shout at me in the street. Now, we know that normally, when people shout at us in the street, it is abuse because we are politicians. In this case, a woman shouted out: “Keep going with your amendment”. It made me realise that public opinion is not monolithic and opposed to refugees; it moves with the times. The sad thing is—I am not allowed to call anybody a liar, am I?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Yes, go on.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

I shall be very careful—I do not want to be thrown out of here. During the referendum campaign, Boris Johnson said that if we did not leave the EU, 70 million or 80 million Turks were poised to enter Britain. That inflamed public opinion and moved it away from sympathy for immigrants, and indeed for refugees, as the public do not always distinguish between the two. It made me realise that public opinion can move about, but it is important. I have said all along when I have talked about refugees that it is important that we explain what is going on in such a way that public opinion is on our side.

On Amendment 4, I believe that the British public on the whole, if it was explained sensibly and objectively, would say, “We understand why we adhere to these international treaties, why they matter and why they are important”. I fear that, when eminent members of the Cabinet talk about “invaders”, they seek to poison public opinion and make it less sympathetic to how we treat asylum seekers and refugees. I think that is very sad indeed. The language we use too often does influence public opinion and I hoped at least some of this debate would have gone the other way. I think those of us who believe in the 1951 Geneva convention and the other international agreements have a responsibility to try and explain the issues in such a way that British people understand what is at stake. I believe there is a great deal at stake here.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we support the clarifying amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, and my noble friend Lady Ludford has explained at length the reasons for her Amendment 2. I, too, will read the official record in an attempt to understand the points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Sandhurst and Lord Wolfson of Tredegar. Having done that, I may just leave that to the lawyers to argue among themselves.

However, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, has said, if this Bill is not compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights, then the Government should say why or which bits of it are compliant. If there is a precedent for the Government to say that a Bill is not in compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights—the precedent set in the 2002 Act—then surely the precedent set by the 2002 Act is that the Government also say which bits of the Act are not compliant with the European convention.

Asylum Seekers

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Dubs]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how many asylum seekers are awaiting a decision about their status; and in the last 12 months, (1) how many have been granted asylum, and (2) how many have been removed from the country.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Dubs, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

Albanian Asylum Seekers

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dubs]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how many Albanian asylum seekers are currently waiting for a decision about their claim; how many applications have been accepted in the last 12 months and how many have been refused.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Murray of Blidworth) (Con)]

As of 30 September 2022, there were 19,897 Albanian asylum cases pending an initial decision. In the year ending September 2022, 334 decisions on asylum claims from Albanian nationals were grants and 318 were refusals.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for those figures. He will be aware that I tabled my Question long before I knew that the Prime Minister would make a Statement on this issue this morning. His Statement suggested to me that the Conservatives must have been in opposition for the past 12 years, but I will let that one go. I have two questions. Will the Minister confirm that, even if we are going to move to a fast-track approach for Albanians, which the Labour Party has already supported, that does not mean that an individual claimant will not have his or her claim properly considered? Secondly, will the Minister confirm that referring to asylum seekers as “illegal immigrants” is totally the wrong term? An asylum seeker cannot be illegal, even if he or she flees for safety to another country.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. As ever, he is very à la mode and clearly foresaw that there would be a Statement by the Prime Minster. I will answer his two questions. First, on the fast-track removal of Albanians, as the Prime Minister made clear in the other place, the new deal with Albania will allow us to return people with confidence that necessary protections will be provided for genuine modern slavery claims, in line with our international obligations. Of course, Albania is already a scheduled safe country under the 2002 Act, passed under Mr Blair’s Administration. On the noble Lord’s second question, on the term “illegal immigrant”, that nomenclature derives from the provisions in Nationality and Borders Act, which make it an offence to enter illegally.

UK Asylum and Refugee Policy

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Friday 9th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on her excellent maiden speech. She brings with her a great deal of experience of the sort we want to hear more of, both from the voluntary sector and from local government, and I am sure she will make outstanding contribution to future debates. I also welcome the fact that she has chosen this particular debate to make her mark, and I hope she will contribute to many of the discussions we are going to have on asylum and refugee policy in the future. This is not the end of it—there will be many more debates.

I must also say how delighted I was when I learned that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury had chosen this subject, of all possible subjects, for his debate this year. It is one we have all been talking about, it is an issue that matters, and it gives us a chance to talk about many of the things that are relevant and which he raised in his excellent speech this morning.

The refugee issue is testing our humanitarian principles to the ultimate. Our response will determine what sort of country we are, what sort of country we want to be seen as, but particularly how we value our fellow human beings who have suffered greatly from persecution due to wars and conflicts. We have to stand firmly behind the principles established by the most reverend Primate this morning.

There is a plaque off Central Lobby in the House of Commons which is a thank you from the 10,000 children who came on the Kindertransport to this country in 1938 and 1939. It is a thank you from the people—I was one of them—whose lives were saved by the fact that this country took them in. There are other people today whose lives have been saved because we are taking them in. I agree with the most reverend Primate that of course we cannot take everybody, but we should accept our share of responsibility.

There is both a positive and a negative side to all this. The positive is that there are some wonderful people, groups and organisations. I will mention just four of them. The faith groups have stood firmly by the principle that we should treat our fellow human beings decently—all of the faiths: the Church of England, Jews, Muslims, and so on. They have all stood firmly by the need for us to be supportive of our fellow human beings. I find it exhilarating and rewarding to talk to schools. Sometimes, when I talk to schools about what is going on, I can hardly stop the children leaving school and rushing off to Calais to help refugees, which is not what the teachers want. The fact is that, in the jargon, they get it. They really get it—more than most people. Also, there are the NGOs that work with refugees. Safe Passage is one of them, and there is the Refugee Council, of which I am a patron, but there are others as well, such as Care4Calais. They are doing an excellent job of being supportive of their fellow human beings.

Lastly, there are the ones who often tend to be forgotten. In visiting some of the refugee camps, or what is left of them in Calais and on the Greek islands, you come across the volunteers—many from this country but not exclusively so—often young people who are willing to devote a year or two of their lives to help their fellow human beings. They do not get all the accolades or the praise, but they should. It is a tremendous sign of how young people are prepared to work for the most vulnerable of their fellow human beings in difficult and uncomfortable circumstances.

In looking at the asylum and refugee issue, I, among others, have clearly said that this must not be the property of one political party; we have to look across the board. What I found with some of the amendments and arguments in which I got involved was that even Ministers came up to me and said, “Never mind: keep going with your amendment”, even though the official government policy was to deny the amendment. That was pretty exhilarating. I said to one or two Ministers, “But you shouldn’t be saying this to me.” I know for a fact that at quite senior levels there was support for some of these amendments. The Government are not monolithic—they are not saying, “We only have one view on this”—and I am delighted.

Having said that, it is important, in order that we can welcome vulnerable people to our communities, that senior people in government send out the right signals. Public opinion needs to be won over to the arguments we heard from the most reverend Primate this morning. Public opinion matters. It was public opinion that persuaded the Government to accept one of the amendments I put forward, because public opinion was pretty forceful. I remember walking down the road in west London, and somebody shouted at me. Normally, when people shout at politicians it is hostile, but this was not. A voice said, “Keep going with your amendment.” I took a great deal of comfort from that. Although I get a few hostile emails and so on, the number of supportive messages from the public far outweighs the hostility. Maybe that is not a good statistical sample, but I believe that one of our challenges is to keep public opinion on our side. I remember how, at the time of that amendment, public opinion was won over at the sight of a Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, drowned on a Mediterranean beach. Public opinion responded to that positively, and that helped to sway the argument.

However, we have voices going the other way. The most reverend Primate referred to the use of “invaders”. Throughout history, invaders have been the enemies of this country. We should not regard people who come here for safety as the enemy.

I finish with two brief comments. I went to a large refugee camp in Jordan called Zaatari. That camp is physically better than many because it has electricity, sanitation and prefab buildings. I got talking to a Syrian boy who had just finished his education in the camp. I asked him, “What now?” He said, “I can’t get a job in the camp or outside the camp. What hope is there for me?” One of our main responsibilities is to give hope to our vulnerable fellow human beings. It is hope that is important.

Secondly, as somebody who came here as a refugee, let me say that this country has been pretty terrific to me. I value that, and I know that the refugees who come here today also value being able to live in this country, find safety, get on with their education, get work and become part of our local communities. Surely that is the aspiration we should all aim for.

Asylum Seekers: Accommodation

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I hear what my noble friend says. Clearly, the recently concluded negotiations with the French concerned the use of Border Force officials within the French detection mechanism on the French coast, but I will certainly take back my noble friend’s suggestion to the Home Office.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I was at Manston last week and I have two questions. First, how many of the people currently at Manston have been there longer than 24 hours, which is the designated time? Secondly, the Minister said that the Home Office would endeavour to inform local authorities. I was in Oxford last week, where I was told that 200 people had arrived from Manston and there had not been a word of warning or consultation with the local authority.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I, too, was at Manston last week and I am sure that he will share my admiration for the hard work of the staff at Manston in very difficult circumstances. I can assure the noble Lord that the current figure for those at Manston as of 8 am this morning was 1,428. I am afraid that I am unable to give the noble Lord information about the longest period of any person detained there. I will endeavour to find that information and write to the noble Lord. On the noble Lord’s Oxford question, I am afraid I do not know the answer but I will find out and write to him.

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.

Rwanda Asylum Partnership

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dubs]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether it is still their policy to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I think I am right in saying that this is the Minister’s first appearance in this post, so I welcome him and warn him of trouble to come.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government remain committed to delivering the partnership between the UK and Rwanda, so we can break the business model of people smugglers and prevent further loss of life in the channel. Working together, the UK and Rwanda will help to make the immigration system fairer and ensure that people are safe and enjoy new opportunities to flourish.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, that is of course the standard Answer. I had hoped for a little bit of a U-turn on this issue, but it seems there will not be one. The Government say that this is fully in accordance with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, but the UNHCR disputes this. There is no basis in international law for our doing this, and we are made to look foolish and in breach of our normal traditions of human rights and a humanitarian approach to refugees. Is it not time for the Government to think again? This is not going to happen in any case, because the lawyers are going to stop it.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I remind noble Lords that Rwanda is a state party to the 1951 UN refugee convention and the seven core UN human rights conventions. It is also worth pointing out that, in September 2019, the African Union, the Government of Rwanda and the UNHCR signed a memorandum of understanding to set up an emergency transit mechanism to evacuate refugees and asylum seekers out of Libya. The EU has provided support and donated €12.5 million to the ETM through its emergency trust fund. The UNHCR also stated, in a 2020 press notice, that

“Rwanda has been welcoming refugees for over two decades … The country offers a safe and protective environment to all asylum seekers and refugees.”


There seems to be a degree of inconsistency in the UNHCR’s opinion.

Rwanda Asylum Partnership: Removal of Unaccompanied Children

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Lister for initiating this debate. I should say that I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, where we have been looking at this issue. Although we are mainly looking at the Human Rights Act, we have had some time to look at it. I thank also the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium for its very helpful briefing.

Perhaps I may answer a question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley. At least one Afghan boy in Calais said to me that the reason he had made the journey and left Afghanistan before the Taliban took over completely was that they were busy recruiting young men into their armed forces. He and his family had no wish to fight for the Taliban, and therefore the family helped him to flee and paid the money. That seems to me a worthy example of why somebody becomes a refugee.

I do not believe that the memorandum of understanding on Rwanda has been properly debated. This is our first chance to have a debate on it at all, but the absence of such debate, with just little bits in Question Time, seems quite unsatisfactory for such a controversial policy, one which is widely opposed by so many people. There was a reassurance given by the Government that children will not be removed to Rwanda. We will take that at face value; we have had other assurances about children before. It was said clearly, so we had better take the Government’s word for it, but now they are trying to finesse it by arguing about the age of children.

What happens if somebody who arrives under the age of 18 then becomes 18 while waiting for their asylum claim to be sorted out? Does that mean they become automatically liable for removal to Rwanda, or will that be taken into account? What about young people in Calais trying to come to this country by legal means, which have mainly been closed to them? What happens to them if they have been in Calais, perhaps for a year, and then become 18? Are we going to say to them, “You’ve reached 18—you have to go to Rwanda”? This underlines why the policy is so unsatisfactory; it seems not to have been properly thought out. What happens if a person is sent to Rwanda and is adjudicated not to be an asylum seeker? We have never heard what happens to them then. Are they sent back here, or do they stay in Rwanda but not as an asylum seeker? These are the issues which require proper debate.

My knowledge of age assessment is that it is a very unsatisfactory experience. When the Home Office was doing it, I was told by a mother looking after a Syrian refugee girl that the girl had to go for an age assessment to the Home Office. The mother asked if she could go into the interview with the child and was told “No.” The result is that a child—I think she was 15 or 16—was put through a most unpleasant interview and came out of it absolutely traumatised. If a young person is a criminal, they are allowed to have either a parent, guardian or lawyer with them, but we do not allow that for asylum seekers. That seems absolutely perverse. Maybe it does not happen like that anymore, but I found that a very shocking experience.

There have been examples brought to light where young people have been detained under these provisions and given notice of intent for removal, even though their age assessment has not been completed. A long journey across several countries might make people look a lot older than they are. It is pretty difficult to have an accurate age assessment, and we should be understanding of what people have been through. This is a totally unsatisfactory policy and I hope the Government will climb down.