Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 28th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hendy]

42: Clause 7, page 11, line 7, at end insert “so long as P is accompanied by a suitably trained and qualified escort with the powers of a constable”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would require a person (who may be a child) subject to removal to be accompanied by an escort trained and employed for this task and with the power of arrest.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 42 I will speak also to Amendments 45, 48 and 85 in the unavoidable absence of my noble friends Lord Davies and Lord Woodley. I have added my name to those amendments.

Clause 7(12) imposes a statutory duty on a captain of a ship or an aircraft, a train manager or a vehicle driver that, on the instructions of an immigration officer, they must prevent a particular person disembarking or they must detain a particular person. These duties go significantly beyond the existing duties on captains of aircrafts and ships in the Immigration Act 1971. If one of those postholders fails to fulfil that statutory duty, Clause 9(2) of this Bill will make it a criminal offence. This new statutory duty and the threat of criminal prosecution are likely to create major problems for the staff involved.

I appreciate that we have been discussing matters of fundamental human rights until now. These are more prosaic issues, but nevertheless significant for those affected. These amendments are designed to alleviate the difficulties caused for the staff to whom the clause is directed. I would be grateful if the Minister would explain precisely how, in the absence of such amendments, these problems will be overcome. I will give the House five examples of issues that might arise and need addressing.

First, all these jobs are safety-critical, and the individuals performing these functions have statutory safety responsibilities. What if those health and safety duties required all the passengers on a ship, train or bus to be disembarked? For example, if a train breaks down, the duty of the train manager is to make the train as safe as possible, disembark the passengers and take them to a place of safety.

The second issue is the problem of identifying the passenger or passengers who are to be prevented from disembarking or to be detained. The captains of scheduled air flights and cruise ships will have lists of crews, passengers and so on, but how is the manager of a crowded train or ferry to find the passenger concerned? The inevitable result is that the entire complement of passengers on the train or bus will have to be detained.

Thirdly, whether the individual is identified or not, the only way of detaining him or her, or preventing them getting off the train, is to keep the doors closed. How will the manager explain to the passengers on a train arriving into King’s Cross from Glasgow that the doors must remain closed until there are security staff or immigration officers to vet the passengers coming off and detain the individual they have identified? What of the consequences to the train operating companies? Are they to be reimbursed for the compensation payable to passengers or Network Rail in the event of consequential delays?

Fourthly, assuming the passenger has been identified by the train manager or coach driver, how will they physically detain them in the absence of any training, skills or desire to engage in physical violence? How and by whom will they be compensated should they be injured?

Fifthly—this is my final example—what will happen if the French driver of a Eurostar arriving into St Pancras, or the Irish driver of a train from Belfast to Dublin, does not keep the doors shut and prevent an individual disembarking? Is it proposed that there will be extradition proceedings if the foreign train manager goes back to their own country? Your Lordships will look in vain for the answers to these very practical questions in the impact assessment.

Paragraph 67 and Annexe A of the assessment deal with extra costs of escorts and other hired staff, but there is not a word about extra payment for the poor souls identified in Clause 7. Paragraph 84 recognises that

“there may be an increase in the level of disruption observed in detention prior to removal”,

but there is not a word about how the Clause 7 staff are to cope with such disruption. Paragraphs 117, 132 and 145 report that the Bill imposes no costs on business, but there is not a word about the costs of, among other things, delays to aircraft, ships, trains and buses as a consequence of preventing the disembarkation of passengers.

No doubt the Minister would wish these amendments not to be pursued, but if so, I would be grateful for his full explanation of how these very pragmatic issues are to be addressed in the absence of these amendments.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, has clearly articulated a whole series of practical difficulties with the duties to be imposed on transport workers. From what the noble Lord said, it appears that the Government have quite clearly not thought through the consequences of the duties they intend to place on, for example, train managers. I will listen carefully to any argument the Minister might have that the duties imposed by the Bill go beyond existing duties but, clearly, subjecting these workers to being potentially convicted of a criminal offence for failing to act in accordance with the Bill, while not providing them with any advice, let alone training or equipment, in order to carry out their duties requires some explanation.

--- Later in debate ---

In summary, there is nothing novel in the provisions in Clauses 7 and 9 as they apply to transport operators. We are simply carrying across the provisions from the Immigration Act 1971, which have operated without difficulty for over 50 years. That being the case, I hope that I have answered all the questions and invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have spoken in this short debate, which I will not prolong. I will indeed withdraw the amendment, but there is one point which I would wish to pursue.

The Minister says that this is really a reiteration of powers which already exist under the Immigration Act 1971. I am not an immigration lawyer and am not on familiar territory but, as I understand it, the 1971 Act and the schedule to which he referred impose duties on the captains of ships and aircraft to detain or to prevent disembarkation; it does not impose those duties on the managers of trains or the drivers of buses and lorries. That is what is new and what takes us beyond what was formerly there. If I am wrong about that, no doubt the Minister will write to tell me that I am ignorant of immigration law, which I may well be.

However, if it is right that the duties go beyond, in being extended to train managers and bus and lorry drivers, that is quite a serious extension. One thing is clear: train managers, bus drivers and lorry drivers will not be skilled or qualified in detaining people who are accused of illegal behaviour. They will not have the skill set to deal with that situation. What we have not heard from the Minister is how those people are going to deal with that and what will happen if it conflicts with some statutory duty that they have. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 42 withdrawn.