Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord German Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 8th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a very brief point in addition to that one. It is interesting that we have just came out of a debate on a group of amendments that address the rule of law and legal advice. Around the Committee, there was a strong view that people should have representation, that they should be able to make their case and that their case should be heard. What we have before us now is a group of amendments in which there is absolutism without any sense of balance or proportionality. The case of coercion, which my noble friend has just discussed, makes it incredibly difficult for anyone who believes in the rule of law and in due process to support these amendments, particularly when we are told that the criticism largely comes from the Daily Telegraph.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I will respond, with all due respect, to the noble Lord’s comments about minors. We should bear in mind that this amendment would apply to people who would be subject to the provision as adults, not children, when sent into the prison estate. They would be subject, for instance, to pre-sentence reports and background information being provided if they were young people, but, in essence, they would be adults. They would be at the top level of criminality, because they would be incarcerated in respect of a custodial sentence. In other words, they would have committed pretty serious offences; they would not have been sent to prison for not paying their TV licence or for speeding. Therefore, for the noble Lord to conflate the two is wrong. This is something that the British people are looking to the Government to take action on. They look at other jurisdictions and simply cannot understand why other jurisdictions are in a position to take robust action to remove people who have committed persistent criminal offences in their country.

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[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I am speaking on behalf of my noble friend Lady Ludford, who unfortunately cannot be in her place today. In doing so, I pay tribute to her tireless advocacy for EU settled status holders. I also thank the3million for the brilliant work that it does representing EU citizens in the UK and for its support and briefing.

The amendments in this group seek to protect the rights of holders of EU settled status and ensure that the procedural safeguards provided for under the withdrawal agreement apply to them all. I should say at the outset that we welcome Clause 42, but we believe it would be significantly improved if the Government took on board the key elements of our amendments.

The problem that Clause 42 seeks to address arises from the creation of two distinct groups of EU settled status holders: those whom the Government have determined the true cohort, who had permanent resident rights or were exercising treaty rights at the end of the implementation period, and the extra cohort, those who were not exercising treaty rights but who were granted settled status based on simple residence at the end of the implementation period. The Government did not tell settled status holders which cohort they were in as they never tested for true cohort membership when granting settled status. Regardless of cohort, the grant of settled status states specifically that it is issued under the withdrawal agreement, even though the Home Office argues that that is not the case for the extra cohort. Nevertheless, the Government claimed that as they did not intend to distinguish between the two cohorts, the existence of two cohorts had no material impact. Subsequently, the outcome of litigation required that some government services could be accessed only with proof that the person concerned was part of the true cohort. This requires them to prove the exact legal status of their residence on 31 December 2020, and this is increasingly difficult as time marches on.

Clause 42 seeks to legislate to end this distinction between the true and extra cohorts, and to fulfil the Government’s commitment that they would not treat the cohorts differently. It does that by granting a separate route to withdrawal agreement rights for the extra cohort via this Bill. In intention it is therefore extremely welcome. However, there are elements of the clause that undermine the Government’s own objective and create further difficulties. It is these difficulties that our amendments seek to address.

First, Amendment 144 would delete Clause 42(2)(c), as this is foundational to the issue. The subsection gives the Home Office the power to remove settled status without affording status holders the procedural safeguards provided by the withdrawal agreement where it believes that settled status was granted in error, even if that error was the Home Office’s.

This is wrong, for several reasons: first, because it is wrong for the Government to remove status from someone who applied in good faith without committing fraud or misrepresentation of any kind and who has been building their life in the UK over many years. If the Home Office has made an error in the original decision, it is one that it needs to live with rather than visiting that error on others and potentially causing huge disruption and misery.

Secondly, it is wrong because it allows the Government to execute this decision without applying the procedural safeguards which exist to ensure that status is not unjustly removed, and which are provided under the withdrawal agreement. This is because, where the Home Office thinks status is granted in error, it does not issue a decision to remove the status; if it did, people would have procedural safeguards, as the Home Office would need to have applied a proportionality assessment and the status holder would have a right to appeal.

Instead, what the Home Office does is to allow the status to expire. This sidesteps a proportionality assessment, which would otherwise be required, and denies the right of appeal. The Home Office says that this is a helpful thing to do, to give people a bit more time before their status is lost, but in fact it is letting status holders slide off a cliff without any of the withdrawal agreement safeguards. This must not be allowed to happen, fundamentally because the Home Office may well be wrong in its assessment that the status was granted in error.

Does the Minister accept that there is no right of appeal on the specific decision to allow a person’s status to expire on the basis that the pre-settled status was granted in error? Is a withdrawal agreement-compliant proportionality assessment made before a decision is taken to allow status to expire? If it is not applied, does he accept that the Government will be in breach of the withdrawal agreement should it transpire that they wrongly asserted that pre-settled status was granted in error? The fundamental issue here is protecting people’s rights to safeguards under the withdrawal agreement.

Thirdly, the subsection could also invite any government department or public body to revisit a grant of settled status to decide whether the individual can rely on withdrawal rights by assessing a person’s legal position on 31 December 2020. That is precisely what the clause is supposed to avoid.

I turn to the other amendments in this group. Amendment 142 would ensure that

“all persons granted residence status in the UK under the EUSS, which has not been cancelled, curtailed, or revoked”

benefit from Clause 42—not only those with extant settled status. This is to ensure that rights under the withdrawal agreement are maintained for those whose status is varied—for example, if they have been forced to give up settled status to access protection as victims of domestic abuse—those whose pre-settled status has expired because of a failure of the automatic extensions and those whose settled status has been deliberately expired rather than revoked.

Amendments 143 and 145 would address the situation for those granted settled status under EU derivative rights; that is, those rights which were established outside EU directives through case law, which are known as Zambrano, Ibrahim/Teixeira and Chen rights. Zambrano rights holders are not protected under the withdrawal agreement, and these amendments would maintain that situation, but they would ensure that Ibrahim/Teixeira and Chen rights were covered by Clause 42.

In conclusion, these amendments would clarify the law. They would give certainty and reassurance to settled status holders and would ensure that the Government’s stated intentions had effect.

Finally, before I sit down, I want to raise with the Minister a related issue of serious concern about the lack of transparency of the Home Office over the effectiveness of its digital immigration systems, which directly impact settled status holders. On 22 July, I tabled a Written Question asking how many reports had been made through the “Report an error with your eVisa” online form in each of the past 12 months. The Minister replied on 30 July, saying:

“The information requested is not currently available from published data and could only be collated and verified for the purposes of answering this question at disproportionate cost”.


The idea that the eVisa IT system cannot generate a report of how many error forms it has received for anything above a minimal cost is, to my mind, absurd. In any event, this is critical information for policymakers and those who scrutinise them. If officials and Ministers do not have this data, how can they know how their systems are functioning?

Perhaps they do know the answer, and they just will not tell us. In replying to a similar question in a letter to the 3million group, the Home Office gave a different answer. It did not claim that the data could be provided only at disproportionate cost. In fact, it stated that it intended to publish the requested data on the volume of error web form requests in due course. We all know what “in due course” means, or, more precisely, we do not know what it means at all.

I hope the Minister will address this issue in his answer and tell us when the data will be published. We cannot have faith in ministerial assurances that errors in the eVisa system are not a significant problem if the Government are not able or prepared to share the data. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to this issue and to the points raised on the amendments. In the meantime, I beg to move.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to support these amendments in the names of my noble friends Lady Ludford and Lord Oates. We support Amendments 142 to 145, as they would safeguard the rights of individuals granted status under the EU settlement scheme, ensure the proper application of the withdrawal agreement, prevent arbitrary removal of status, and uphold procedural safeguards.

It is worth just stating what those safeguards are. There are four of them: first, the Home Office must notify the person of the decision that their status will be removed; secondly, the Home Office must explain the grounds on which that cancellation decision was taken; thirdly, the Home Office must take proportionality into account before removing their status; and, finally, the individual would have a right of appeal against the decision to remove their status.

Amendment 142 would ensure that

“all persons granted residence status in the UK under the EUSS, which has not been cancelled, curtailed, or revoked”

benefit from Clause 42 even if they are not already direct beneficiaries of the withdrawal agreement. This is crucial for some groups because there are those whose EUSS status might be varied; for example, to access protection as victims of domestic abuse under a different immigration route. It clarifies that these individuals should be deemed still to have directly effective withdrawal agreement rights.

Amendments 143 and 145 focus on those who obtain resident status by the various routes under the EUSS. While the Home Office suggests that these individuals are already part of what is called the “true cohort” of beneficiaries, there may be a minority whose grants were based on caseworker discretion and would not otherwise fall under this cohort. Amendments 143 and 145 ensure that such individuals who have built their lives in the United Kingdom in good faith are also included within the personal scope of the withdrawal agreement without undermining the Government’s overall policy intention to exclude certain other routes.

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[Lord Deben (Con)]

I do not understand why one should object to protecting people with these four protections in circumstances in which it appears that the Home Office has made a mistake. It seems to me that the most unsuitable moment to remove the protections is when the Home Office has made a mistake. Indeed, if the Home Office has made a mistake, one would hope there would be greater protections because there was a mistake.

[Lord German (LD)]

The noble Lord is correct. If the Home Office recognises it has made a mistake, then it should apply the protections which are provided by the withdrawal agreement, which is precisely the major point that is being made in this set of amendments. Amendment 144 would ensure that all actions related to EUSS status are subject to clear procedural safeguards, as laid out in the withdrawal agreement.

Taken together, these amendments reinforce fairness and legal certainty for EUSS beneficiaries, ensuring that administrative decisions respect individual rights and that the procedural safeguards are consistently applied.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I have very little to add except that I await the explanation from the Minister with great interest. The amendments in this group and Clause 42 itself concern the rights of those granted settled status in the UK under the EU settlement scheme after the UK left the EU. As the noble Lord, Lord Oates, has ably explained, there are a number of avenues for an individual to apply for this scheme. As I understand it, the impact of Clause 42 is to standardise the rights applicable to EU, EEA and Swiss citizens who are granted leave to remain under the settlement scheme so that they can rely on them under UK law. Subsection (2) of the clause defines precisely who this applies to, and Amendment 142 seeks to amend that. I am not quite certain of the intent behind that, because the language is very similar to the original text, so I think it is essential for the Minister to clarify what Clause 42 lacks that makes these amendments necessary.

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Amendment 203D follows from others in the group to provide for a review of the rights of people who do not have indefinite leave, who have experienced labour abuse or who, having protested or reported abuse, have lost employment as a result of that. Not to be prepared to review the overall issues around this subject would indicate an attitude which would be quite hard to justify. I beg to move.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 151 and 152 in my name, and Amendment 154 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, which I have signed.

I will begin by explaining to the Committee the whereabouts of the other signatories. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has had Covid—caught here, I am afraid, in meetings last week. She is very unwell but recovering at the present. It is a great shame that she was not able to speak to these amendments. Perhaps more worrying, of course, was the accident that I know most noble Lords will have read about in the newspaper, which involved the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, who suffered at Victoria station from the bus that drove off the road. He has some serious injuries. I am not in a position to say whether he is making a speedy recovery, but he has replied to emails, so that says something of his perseverance. The Committee might wish to offer him every best wish in recovering swiftly from that accident.

These are very important amendments for many noble Lords around the Committee, because they concern how we can do a number of things that are currently on the agenda for the Government all in one go. Tens of thousands of people are currently banned from working while awaiting an asylum decision and are made forcibly dependent on the state for support, which is often inadequate; for accommodation, which is often overpriced; and for subsistence. Spending on hotel accommodation alone costs us £8 million per day.

The Government’s policy includes five priorities: first, to reduce the asylum support budget; secondly, to reduce or eliminate the number of asylum seekers accommodated in hotels; thirdly, to reduce child poverty; fourthly, to reduce the homelessness burden on local authorities of newly recognised refugees; and, fifthly, to reduce the number of people claiming state benefits. Amendment 151 addresses all those priorities. Enabling asylum seekers to work will reduce the asylum support budget and enable people to earn money, so that they can pay their own accommodation costs. Giving people this support enables them to make the best choices for themselves and their families. It would also help cohesion between host communities and asylum seekers if they are seen to be paying their way.

Visible delivery is what the Government need, and this policy could contribute to that if communities see hotels being closed. Working will help those asylum seekers who get refugee status—which is somewhere in the region of three-quarters—to stand on their own two feet much quicker than if they had been languishing in a hotel for months or years. This would be very helpful to local authorities with their obligations to homeless people and to the DWP benefit budget.

I understand what the Government’s responses to this will be. First, I am sure that the Minister will tell us that this will be a pull factor. However, having asked this question frequently, including in this Chamber, I have found that, in reality, there is no available evidence that supports the argument that it is a pull factor—that is an assumption. All the available evidence suggests that employment rights play little or no role in determining people’s choice of destination when they are seeking safety and are largely unknown to people seeking asylum before they arrive here. Without the evidence, the UK currently has one of the most restrictive working policies compared to our European neighbours. Lifting the ban on work would bring the United Kingdom in line with other OECD member states. In countries such as France, Spain, Italy and Germany, people seeking asylum gain the right to work much earlier—after six months, three months or, in some countries, even earlier, such as in Belgium.

The second reason that the Government push back against this policy is because they believe that we are already reducing the list of people who are seeking asylum. They argue that we are improving our processing and getting appeal times tighter, so the work will not be needed at this stage. Although the Government aim to process all asylum claims within six months—a welcome ambition in a system where many people wait for years for an outcome—we must be realistic. When the current ban was introduced in 2002, the then Government made an identical argument about processing times, and the six-month target was not met. The proportion of people waiting six months or more for an asylum decision has risen sharply over the last decade, from one in four, or 25%, at the end of 2014, to 59% at the end of 2024. No matter what the Government are doing—they may be reducing the processing time—we still have large numbers and long waits.

There is also no reason that faster application processing and enhanced working rights must be mutually exclusive policies; in fact, they should be complementary. This policy would allow people to apply for work sooner. It would not only improve their lives but enable them to contribute to the economy, reduce public spending on the asylum system and bolster community cohesion. Legal working of this sort is to be entirely separated from the idea of illegal working, which the Government of course want to crack down on. The Government can contain legal working and make all the necessary provisions for it.

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We have talked about illegal working. It is worth reflecting on the fact that, by stopping people working, we cause ourselves a problem, because we put people into a situation where they are vulnerable to those who come along and recruit them into the illegal economy. Predatory action relies on people looking for opportunity, so we strengthen that illegal economy in the country, with all the consequences for those individuals and for wider society. I ask noble Lords to consider supporting the amendment today.

[Lord German (LD)]

The noble Lord has reminded me that I have not declared my interest as also being supported by the RAMP organisation.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

I very much agree with what my noble friend Lord Rees and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, have said. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord German, for reminding us that our good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has been injured. We wish him a speedy recovery. He plays such an important part in our debates.

When I have talked to people claiming asylum in this country, they have had two main wishes: either they want to complete their education, which has been damaged through difficult journeys here and dangers in the countries they have fled from, or they want to work. They want to work because it is the right thing to do; they want to contribute to our society. There is this idea that they want to benefit from benefits but, frankly, I have never heard that. I am quite convinced that when they say they want to work and contribute to this country, they are telling the truth.

Then there is the argument about pull factors. I have heard that argument used about every single group of people we might be talking about. When I was discussing child refugees many years ago, I was told that if those children come, others will follow. It is the argument that Governments have used since the beginning of time, and I am just not convinced by it. There are much stronger arguments the other way.

The point about other EU countries is important. If our labour market is such that people want to come here, why is it that other EU countries which allow people to work do not appear to have a pull factor? I think we should get in line with other countries instead of being different.

The noble Lord talked about people being willing to work for lower wages. Yes, but I think that is regrettable. I believe and have argued before that it is up to the trade unions as much as anybody else to ensure that people do not work below the proper wage level for the industry they are in. It is difficult. I know that today may not be the best day to argue the case for trade unions, but I believe that it is important that people do not undercut wages. It should be done by strength and unity at the workplace.

Finally, I am interested in the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made about ID cards. It is becoming higher up on the agenda and we shall all have to consider it very hard indeed. I agree with all the amendments, apart from Amendment 154A. The denial of the right to work has been so fundamental for many years; for heaven’s sake, let us deal with it sensibly.

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Moved by

[Lord German]

164: After Clause 48, insert the following Clause—
“Additional safe and legal routesThe Secretary of State must, within six months of the passage of this Act, make regulations to—(a) provide an increased multi annual quota for the safe and legal route provided by the UK Resettlement Scheme through which refugees and other individuals requiring international protection can enter the UK lawfully, and(b) specify additional safe and legal routes under the UK Resettlement Scheme through which refugees and other individuals requiring international protection can enter the UK lawfully.”Member's explanatory statement
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to make regulations specifying additional safe and legal routes under the UK Settlement Scheme, under which refugees and others in need of international protection can come to the UK lawfully from abroad.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 164, I will speak to Amendment 173, which is also in my name. Both amendments are measures that seek to address the significant gap in this Bill: the lack of safe and legal routes for those seeking protection in the United Kingdom.

While we welcome the measures in this Bill aimed at tackling criminal gangs and reducing deaths in the channel, the Bill as currently drafted is, as described by the Minister, designed to “beat” or “smash” the gangs—depending on the language the Minister was using at any given time. The Bill is therefore heavy on the supply side, taking strong measures to deal with the smugglers and gangs, but light on actions to support asylum seekers on a safe journey to the United Kingdom, thereby denying the smuggling gangs their trade. This imbalance is concerning. We on these Benches support a controlled, humane, ordered and planned migration system that encompasses both stopping dangerous journeys and creating safe routes to asylum.

Of those who currently travel here by small boats, 74% are successful with their asylum claims—and that is before any appeals are even considered. That is evidence that many arriving via dangerous routes are genuinely in need of protection, yet they currently have a negligible or non-existent way to enter this country safely. The path to securing our border, as described in the Bill, will not by itself curtail irregular migration. Having safe routes must be an integral part of our strategy to try to divert people from the treacherous routes that they choose.

This does not mean an open border. It means that we can more effectively control the numbers who come. The Hillmore agreement with France is a currently small-scale example of a safe route. If you want to reduce the numbers of people fleeing persecution who use smuggling networks to reach the UK for protection, they need to have an alternative route that changes their calculations and decision-making. I will return to the French example later.

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I hope that those explanations and assurances that I have given set out the Government’s position clearly. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I was fascinated by what sounded to me like illogical statements. Can I be absolutely clear? My question was whether, under the UK resettlement scheme, the quota offered to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in this year—2025—is zero. I asked how many, and no answer was given to that. If the answer is zero, it is wrong to claim that the UK resettlement scheme is open, because there is no vacancy for anybody to be coming under that scheme.

It is also incorrect, surely, to say that the UK resettlement scheme is one where people can choose to get in the queue. It is UNHCR system that will choose the people who come into that settlement scheme, in discussion with the UK Government. If I am incorrect and a quota has been issued to the UNHCR for 2025, I am happy to withdraw what I have just said, but if I am correct and there is not quota yet issued, it is wrong to say that that scheme is open until a quota has been issued, because that is the way it works.

The other thing I would like to follow through in logical terms is the agreement with France—the Hillmore treaty. The Hillmore treaty, as I understand it, requires triaging of people in France who will then come to the United Kingdom. Under our law, as the Minister said, you can come to the United Kingdom only in order to make an official claim; in other words, it is a triaging point. There will be people in France, who will triaged to find the most suitable candidates to come. They then have to come to the United Kingdom and when they do they get the final asylum claim determined. If it operates in a different way from that, I am happy to be told, but everything that has been said by the UK Government indicates triaging of the sort I have described.

The humanitarian visa scheme I have described is only an expansion of that: it is one where we would determine whether someone has a really good case to make and then they are permitted to come to the United Kingdom to make that case—for a short period. If the period is too long, that is fine. The reason it is there at the moment is because that is the time span that the UK Government set for determining an application.

With those questions deeply in my mind, I realise that we will perhaps have to rephrase how we approach this and come back to it later in the course of the Bill. If, however, I have wrongly asserted what the Minister said to me, I would be happy to receive a note saying that there is a quota and that the Hillmore treaty will not triage people in France. If I am right in those two things, I would be happy to proceed. If I am wrong, I would be happy to receive a note to say that I am incorrect. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, if I may, I first thank the new Minister for his response to the amendments that I placed before the Committee. All I can say is that one man’s flexibility is another man’s uncertainty. I raised the uncertainty for people who have disrupted their lives and are resettling their lives by coming to another place to rebuild. It is very disruptive to have no certainty, so I urge the Government to think again about this business of flexibility.

Certainly the position going forward should at least be to give security to those who have already arrived—the security of knowing that they can make plans for their children, their education and so on, and have some knowledge of what the limits are. They have always expected, after five years, to have that security of tenure.

From my contact with Ukrainian refugees here, there is absolutely no doubt that they want to return to their country. They want to see peace and justice in the settlement that reaches the end of this war, and that is the encouragement that all of us would give, but that is not what they are seeking. They are seeking the confidence of knowing that the Government will continue their commitment. I was very reassured by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, who indicated that his Government were very much there at the beginning in supporting Ukraine and were then followed by Labour in government. We are providing that strong commitment to the people and nation of Ukraine that really gives some confidence to those who are here, living in uncertainty but wanting to return, to know that they can be here for as long as it takes.