Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts raised the issue of the UK population. The House may have seen the recent article by Michael Palin, the actor and global traveller, in the Spectator, where he pointed out that when he was born, in 1943, there were 2.3 billion people in the world and now there are nearly 8 billion—an almost fourfold increase. That tells you a lot, he rightly said, about the causes of global warming. However, it also tells you a lot about the causes of mass migration, which has been a phenomenon of this century. Much of the population growth has been in less developed countries, where young men—most migrants are young men—despair of their future in their own country and seek a solution in a richer and safer country. Where there is that demand, you will get ruthless operators who promise young men that they can get them in, hence the flimsy boats crossing the Med and the channel. This is illegal activity that no responsible Government can ignore or condone. It is a problem for all developed countries. It is a challenge to the authority of an elected Government which any responsible Government, of whatever political colour, has to respond to. That is a fundamental point about the whole Bill.

In addition, if unchecked, migration increases inequality and unfairness in recipient countries such as the UK. Obviously, most of the migrants go to the poorer parts of the country because that is where the cheaper housing is, and that multiplies the problems of poorer councils in finding accommodation, schools and GP services for the existing population as well as the immigrants. The devastating effect that the mass migration unleashed by the Blair Labour Government has had on some working-class communities is well set out in the book by the labour and trade union activist Paul Embery in his study of his home area of Dagenham.

Today the spotlight is on illegal immigration. As we have all said in the Chamber, we the British people are kind, tolerant and humane, with a good record in dealing with both economic migrants and asylum seekers. However, illegal immigration on the scale we see today is undoubtedly deeply unpopular. Opinions from YouGov and so forth have been quoted already. In November 2021—only two months ago—a YouGov poll said that the Government were in fact too soft: a warning to my noble friends on the Front Bench.

The Bill is clearly an effort to get a handle on the problem—an attempt to give a legal framework for necessary action. However much we may sympathise, as fellow human beings, with economic migrants or asylum seekers, our first duty as British parliamentarians is to the people of this country, particularly those living in parts of the country that are having to bear the burden of this phenomenon. We must listen to the people’s views and develop an immigration policy with which they are comfortable.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, mentioned Australia, the only country that has been successful in resolving this problem. There, the Liberal Government introduced offshore processing in 2001. This was successful, but the incoming Labor Government dismantled it in 2008. There was then a huge wave of immigrants and the Labor Government hastily reinstated offshore processing. Then the Liberals won the next election and brought it in more effectively. They strengthened the policy and, as a result, the 50,000 immigrants a year who were coming in by boat to Australia are now practically zero, and the costs have fallen dramatically. Inevitably, the policy now has all-party support. I have spoken at length to the head of the Australian Border Force, who says that the essential message it got across to potential immigrants was “You will not get into Australia”. Once that was understood, the people traffickers had no clients and their business model collapsed.

The fact of the matter is that the Bill is a necessary response to a difficult problem. We know that obviously there are practical difficulties in, for example, thinking about replicating what happens in Australia here, but that does not mean that we do not have to try. It is sensible and responsible, it has strong support in the country and in the other place, and it certainly has my strong support.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, there is obviously strong feeling on this issue across the House. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on the work that she has put into this over the years. It is an important campaign. I sympathise with all the remarks that have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others. This is an interesting and important issue. The problem is that the solution proposed does not work.

Very often, in these sorts of debates, it is proposed that the cost be related to the cost of registration or some aspect of that. The difficulty is that the cost can be manipulated. We never know what can go into the cost of producing a particular form or what overheads are involved. This is the difficulty; I have seen it again and again. In the end, the object is subverted by people manipulating the cost in such a way that they get the result they wanted in the first place.

My noble friend Lady McIntosh is right that we need some clarity from the Government in saying exactly what their proposals are in this area. I hope that when my noble friend the Minister replies and on Report we will get more clarity on this issue. I fully agree with the principle of what the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, is putting forward. The difficulty is with the suggestion that it should, first, be in primary legislation, with the inflexibility that it brings; and, secondly, that it is related specifically to the cost of registration, which can be manipulated. That is my concern and I hope the noble Baroness, who is about to rise to her feet with a charming smile on her face, will understand what I am saying.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his support of the principle, but is he suggesting that the Home Office would manipulate the cost in this way? The figure that we have is a Home Office figure. The Home Office tells us how much it costs to administer it, and therefore it seems reasonable that the fee should be linked to that. Ideally, I would like there to be no fee for this either, but that might be pushing things too far. Certainly, we are arguing for no fees for those who are in local authority care, but it is a Home Office figure, not a figure per person who is registering.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I appreciate that perhaps “manipulate” was the wrong word. I simply meant that events and costs can change over time. If you have it in an Act of Parliament, you cannot change it; you introduce inflexibility, which may in some instances work against you. Often the case is put forward that this is the right way to do it; I have seen a number of these instances, but it never works.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Forgive me, but is the noble Lord agreeing with me that, in relation to citizenship rights that the Government are seeking to confer on those who should have them, there should not be a fee at all?

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I am sorry, but I did not quite follow the noble Baroness’s point.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Perhaps I can clarify. We all agree that we should know what the figure is. We are also seeking clarification from the Government Benches on why the fee is almost double the cost of processing the work. That is where there is a bit of a mismatch, if I have understood Members correctly.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that there is no suggestion of putting a figure in the legislation. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, is suggesting that there should be no fee at all, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, does not mention any numbers at all in her amendment.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

You may not have a number, but costs can change from year to year; that is the point.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

Absolutely, and I understand that that might be the case, but that is not the essence of either of the noble Baroness’s amendments. If I have not explained it by the end of what I have said, I am sure that the noble Lord will come back to me.

We support all these amendments, and I am grateful to Amnesty and many others for their briefings. As we have heard, and as the Explanatory Notes explain, Clauses 1, 2, 3 and 7 are aimed at ending anomalies in British nationality law, such as allowing women as well as men to pass on citizenship at the time of birth, including where the parents are not married. They also aim to allow the Secretary of State to grant citizenship where a person failed to become a British citizen and/or a British Overseas Territories citizen because of an historical legislative unfairness, such as an act or omission by a public authority or other exceptional circumstances—the Windrush injustices come to mind. But all these measures come to nothing if those entitled to citizenship cannot afford to pay the required fees to correct the injustice; hence Amendments 3 to 7, 18 and 19, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Mcintosh of Pickering. The Government accept that applicants have been unfairly treated, but they then continue to treat them unfairly by charging, in many cases, prohibitively high fees.

I pay tribute to the sustained and tireless work of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, on this issue, and thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, who summarised previous debates in the House so well. Amendment 13, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, takes a slightly less generous approach than the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, but one perhaps more likely to be accepted, ensuring that the Home Office could charge only cost price for citizenship—still a considerable amount of money—or less in the case of children if the family cannot afford it.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being able to speak at Second Reading. I strongly support Amendment 11, which has cross-party support. I speak as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands.

My noble friend Lady Lister explained powerfully and clearly the position of this small number of people, whose ancestors were wrongly deported from their island homes and who have been caught up in big-power politics, denying them the basic human rights that we in your Lordships’ House enjoy. The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, gave the whole context.

The fact is that, although all UK Governments agree that the exile of the Chagossians from their island homes 50 years ago was wrong and unjust, the present Government continue not to allow resettlement. They cite a range of reasons for continuing this injustice, including conservation, finance, feasibility, security and defence. This is irrespective of the fact that it is well known that the American base on Diego Garcia would not be threatened or impeded by resettlement on the 54 outer islands. Indeed, the UK Government committed in their 1965 Lancaster House agreement to returning the territory

“to Mauritius when no longer needed for defence purposes.”

The outer islands are not part of the defence framework. Conservation could be maintained by the Chagossians, as happens in other marine conservation areas, and there are various avenues for assistance with resettlement costs.

It is political will and respect for human rights that are lacking. This Government are acting in defiance of the UN charter on decolonisation and United Nations General Assembly resolutions, and contrary to the opinion of the International Court of Justice and the decision of the tribunal of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, in their obdurate refusal to countenance resettlement for this, I repeat, small number of people.

The all-party group strongly supports the international rule of law and the right of return. In respect of this amendment, which follows from all the events we have set out, we firmly believe that, until resettlement is permitted, Chagossians should not have to endure having loaded on them the further injustices that this amendment would remove: the separation of families, deportation and the unreasonable costs of excessive fees. The Government adopting this modest amendment, Amendment 11, would at least go some way to ameliorating the acknowledged injustice that Chagossians have endured by their exile.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, as I did this morning, I express great sympathy for the point of view expressed so eloquently and passionately by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. As she rightly said, the amendment moved in the other place was voted down because it contradicted one of our long-standing, century-long principles for who becomes a British citizen. However, as she pointed out, the new amendment deals with the point made in the other place by putting a limit on the applicability of the proposal, which is good. So we are in a better place than we were then. The noble Baroness also offered to talk, if possible, to see whether there is any other way forward on this problem.

I am also a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands. I have great sympathy for their position; it is indeed a terrible plight. An evil deed was done to those people. We are talking about perhaps only 500 people now in this context; there are more Chagossians in history, but there are only about 500 of them in this particular category at the moment.

Of course, the real villain here—my noble friend the Minister will be glad to know this—is not the Home Office; it is the Foreign Office, which, frankly, behaved disgracefully. When it examined this matter, the International Court of Justice voted 116 to six against us. For heaven’s sake, you can hardly have a bigger majority than that; I suppose you could have 192 to one or something—that is how many nations there are in the United Nations—but it was a comprehensive defeat. Not only that but, as previous speakers have pointed out, the United States Government are helpful on this matter, and the Mauritian Government have pointed out that they are willing to give the US Government a 99-year lease if they wish to carry on having a base on the island. Every base is covered. There really is no case for the Foreign Office to resist doing the right thing. Frankly, it is costing us in the international arena when we are so completely in the wrong on this issue.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Can I ask my noble friend to return to the point about what might constitute a safe route? The specific example I gave the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, was about Yazidis and other minorities in northern Iraq who were faced with genocide. That was a category of people who could have been helped by our posts on the ground by dealing with their claims. To turn that into 80 million people all applying at British consulates and embassies around the world—that was not what anyone was suggesting. My noble friend asked for realistic proposals. Is this a proposal that he himself would be prepared to have a look at?

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, on the question of safe routes, which has just been touched on from both sides, the point is that by definition, they tend to include the whole family: a whole group of people tend to come together. That is part of the point of safe routes. The problem with illegal, unsafe routes is that 80% of the people who use them are young men, below the age of 34. That is a fact of life we have to put up with. We hope by means of this Bill to improve the rights of people who come by safe routes, and to discourage those who come by illegal routes who, by definition, are a dysfunctional family group.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

If I may answer my noble friend’s point, my answer to the Yazidis or particular problems of that kind—you will find them in Africa as well, of course—is to examine the situation that has developed, see how many people there are, where they are and how best they can be helped. That is certainly what our aid programme should be doing and what our missions should be advising on. I do not think that is the same as saying that we should consider shifting an entire community from northern Iraq to southern London.

--- Later in debate ---

However, the short point, which others will make too, is that Clause 11 needs to go.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to introduce into this debate a subject about which we have heard almost nothing so far: the views of the British people. We are, after all, the upper House of the British Parliament. Their views should be heard.

I have some figures here from the latest YouGov poll on the subject of immigration. The interesting thing is that immigration is now regarded as the third most important subject after health and the economy—even more important than Covid, curiously; I am not sure about that but, none the less, that is what it says. A previous YouGov poll said that 70% of people thought illegal crossings were a serious issue, so the public are well aware of the issue; indeed, they have been seeing it every night on television, particularly during last summer. Some 63% said that illegal immigrants should not be allowed to settle here while 60% said that they should be removed. In a June 2021 YouGov poll, 60% said they thought that illegal immigrants should be banned from claiming asylum, while only 20% thought they should be allowed to claim asylum. Some 64% thought it was fair to remove people who come from safe countries, while only 15% thought it unfair. Those are opinion polls so take them for what they are worth—we all have our views about opinion polls—but they are a snapshot of opinion in the recent past.

My own view is that, on an emotional subject such as immigration, you need to develop a policy with which the British people are comfortable. If you do not have a policy with which the British people are comfortable, it will not be sustainable in the long run. I point that out to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who understandably made a point about our international obligations. If we had had a policy on immigration more widely that the British people had been comfortable with in the last 20 years, we might not have had Brexit. Sadly, whether we like it or not, immigration was a huge issue in the Brexit debate. I put it to the noble Lord that the extent to which people’s views on immigration were ignored was a factor leading to the decision that we took. I am a remainer, so I regret that.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I wonder if I could ask the noble Lord two questions. First, obviously public opinion is always relevant, but does he concede that, by definition, someone who is a genuine “refugee convention” refugee is not and never was an illegal immigrant? Secondly—again, this goes to the comments made about opinion—does he agree that opinion is something that the people with the privilege to be in this place, and certainly those in government, play a role in shaping and leading as well as hearing?

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My point is that we should pay regard to opinion but it is rarely mentioned in debates about immigration—almost never, in fact. There is a case for putting forward what the British people think about this, whether you think it is right or wrong. I do not think it is wholly right but, none the less, we have to take it into account. We have eventually to reach a position where the British people are comfortable with the Government’s policies; in my view, that is what the Government are trying to do.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I agree that public opinion is incredibly important but, at the same time, we are meant to be leaders; even here, we are meant to lead. Quite honestly, if you asked the British public, they would probably want hanging back; that is still very popular in some parts. Then, of course, there has been a lot of scaremongering by right-wing groups of all kinds, including parts of the Tory party—the ERG and so on—that have misrepresented a lot of what is happening with the refugees who are crossing the channel.

I am one of those people who agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Kerr—actually, is he learned? No, sorry—that a lot of these amendments are picking at a scab and there is no point in doing that because it just makes it worse. We have to get rid of Clause 11 because it just makes life harder for refugees and, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, we are not—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Sorry. I disagree with the noble Lord.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I think there has been plenty of leadership on this issue over the years. People who have supported a pro-immigration policy—or a relaxed immigration policy, whatever you like to call it—have been pretty vociferous over the years; they have not been quiet. We have known what they think. There has been lots of leadership. Leadership is an issue at the moment but I had better not go too far into that. None the less, the people who support an expansive and comprehensive immigration policy have been vociferous; it is the people who are against it who have had their views ignored.

I read a book about Dagenham the other day, written by a Labour activist, which pointed out the comprehensive effect of immigration in Dagenham over a 10-year period. It went from being 85% white British to less than 50% white British and the local joke was whether if you went into a shop anyone there would speak English. People appealed to the Labour Party, because it was the Labour Party that introduced these policies, and were ignored. Dagenham, a long-standing Labour seat, nearly voted Tory in the last general election—and would have done, if not for the Brexit vote—because people had been ignored on the issue of immigration. For them, immigration had simply gone too far, too fast.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I will not take another intervention, if the noble Baroness does not mind, as I have given way twice and want to finish what I am saying. I do not want to go on too long.

This House has to take into account that the silent majority have very clear views about this which they have held consistently for a long period and which have not been heard, and this has had a major effect on the policy positions of the country. In my view, it has had a deleterious effect, unfortunately; I would rather we had stayed in the European Union, but that is the fact we have to face.

It is generally admitted that we are now dealing with a very difficult, specific problem, one aspect of the whole immigration problem, namely illegal crossings of the channel. It is a small part of the problem that creates a bigger problem. Many people have raised wholesale migration, which I understand is a huge issue which is tackled in many different ways—through international development policies, as well as immigration policies, and so forth. However, there is a specific problem here which any Government of any colour would have to tackle, namely people smuggling people—not brandy, tobacco or commodities, but people—into this country illegally, day after day, against the law. That is something that no self-respecting Government can ignore; they simply cannot.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Horam, makes a fair point: we must certainly take account of public opinion. But I think he should take account of the extent to which political leaderships affect public opinion. The history of the last decade is a history of one of our great parties swinging right on issues of immigration. It is a history of a referendum campaign, where one side argued that 80 million Turks were going to come and there was nothing we could do to stop them. It is a history of a period in which we have constantly been told that we are beleaguered and the target of innumerable people who wish to come here. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, explained earlier in the debate, we are well down the league table in per capita terms for hosting immigrants of any hue. It is not good enough just to say, “There go my people. I am their leader; I must follow them.” We are capable of influencing public opinion and that is what we should be trying to do. I will give way in a second—

[Lord Horam (Con)]

Can I just—?

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

Order!

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I am not sure who is interrupting whom. If I am interrupting the noble Lord, I will stop.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

With due respect to the noble Lord—I really do have great respect for him—I do not think we want to go through the whole business of Brexit again. My point is a simple one: we have to pay regard to British opinion. It is not as though people are manipulated; they have their own views. They are perfectly capable of taking a sceptical view of some of the people who have tried to make them do things in the past, frankly. They can form their own views—I am sure the noble Lord would agree. I was trying to narrow it down to this particular point on the problem of illegal immigration which, in my view, any Government would have to deal with, whatever their nature or colour.

As the noble Lord who initiated this debate said, many countries are tackling this problem in quite horrific, awful ways. In comparison with what they are doing, what we are doing is completely rational and sensible. It is trying to make a distinction. There are those who are coming in legally and properly, by the routes which are well known. We have a very good record on that, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, in comparison with the rest of Europe. We have not only a reasonable number of people coming in by the normal asylum-seeking routes each year but also the consequences of the Commonwealth, for example our links with Hong Kong, with up to 90,000 people having already accepted the chance to come here from Hong Kong. That is something which Germany, France and so forth do not have the same problem with.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, since an illustration I gave has been added to the discourse of the noble Lord, I feel I must interrupt. While I was painting the pig with lipstick—a squirmy pig, very difficult to hold fast to—I certainly listed a number of the horrendous ways in which countries are departing from the principles of the 1951 convention, but also added our own, which are equally nefarious and certainly not to be presented in a positive way.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I think that is a matter on which the Government will no doubt make their position plain. As I understand it, they do not believe that they are departing from the international convention of 1951. Of course, many other countries have taken similar positions. Australia, for example, has divided people into those coming in in the normal, legal way and those coming in illegally, and that has not been denounced by the United Nations. Japan has done the same thing and, interestingly, the Social Democrats in Denmark are about to too. In Australia, they have a cross-party agreement on the immigration policy. I think the Labour Party ought to be more careful in its view of this because it may well become the Government in future and it will face the same problems which the present Government face. These are not only problems which the Government must face simply to be responsible and give people a sense that they control things and that borders mean something, which is their bottom-line responsibility, but also the issues of immigration.

With what we have here, if we can reduce it to the particular problem which the Government face on illegal immigration across the channel, the approach they are adopting helps, first, to deal with the pull factor, by pointing out the advantages of the normal asylum-seeking methods of getting into this country, on which this country has a good record; and, secondly, to dissuade people from adopting the illegal methods which they are at present forced into using.

The noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Kerr, made the point that they are economists, and I am an economist too. The problem is that, if you expand safe routes, you can never expand them wide enough to take account of all the people who want to come here. That is a simple fact of demand and supply, if I may say so, well known in economics. That is the problem which the Government face. As the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, mentioned in a previous debate, you have to have some limit on the number of people coming to this country for good population control reasons. If you decide on a limit and people are comfortable with that, you can decide how many immigrants will be allowed into the country in any one year and then deal with the problem of illegal immigration. In my view, that is the right order in which this should be dealt with, and I believe the Government are following exactly that policy.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is interesting—

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 57, 59 and 60 in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger and Lady Hamwee, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. I also express broad support for the other amendments in this group. The amendments reflect the concerns of the British Red Cross together with many other organisations, and I am grateful to them for their help. Together, the amendments would place restrictions on who could be accommodated in the accommodation centres proposed under Clause 12 and for how long, the numbers to be accommodated in a centre and the sleeping arrangements, and would ensure that if children were ever accommodated in those centres, they would not be prevented from attending local maintained schools.

Under Clause 12, as signalled in the new plan for immigration, accommodation for asylum seekers will move from what has been the dominant dispersal model, in which asylum seekers are housed in local communities, to accommodation in reception centres, using a power provided by the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. No detail has been provided, so one purpose of the amendments is to try to elicit more detail than was provided in the Commons. In particular, how many accommodation centres are planned, and where? Will they be purpose-built or will they use existing sites such as Napier barracks? What criteria will be used to decide whether such existing sites are designated as accommodation centres or contingency accommodation?

What the Government have made clear is that they will use Napier as asylum accommodation for a further five years, and that this will allow testing and piloting to inform the final design of how accommodation centres will operate. In view of the High Court judgment about the inadequacy of the accommodation provided, and having sat on an inquiry held by the APPG on immigration detention into quasi-detention centres, I find the idea that Napier could provide the model for future accommodation centres profoundly worrying.

The evidence we received—both from stakeholder organisations and from those with experience of living in Napier or in another centre, now closed—was overwhelmingly negative. Typically, such centres are in remote areas. This spells isolation and a lack of easy access to support services. It is not conducive to integration. On the contrary, it creates what HOPE not hate describes as “targets of hate”. It warns that the use of such centres is likely to lead to increased harassment of asylum seekers.

As noted in the joint evidence from Doctors of the World, the Helen Bamber Foundation, Forrest Medico-Legal Services and Freedom from Torture, the use of dormitory-style accommodation means a total lack of privacy. This can be particularly problematic for LGBTQ+ residents. It also results in serious sleep deprivation for many. The impact of this deprivation on mental health and well-being was described very powerfully in evidence to the inquiry by those with experience of Napier barracks.

The use of former military barracks can be retraumatising for those who have suffered abuse and torture. As a dozen organisations, including Doctors of the World, the Helen Bamber Foundation, the BMA and various royal colleges warned the Home Secretary in a joint letter, this makes them inappropriate for people seeking asylum. They also warned that the kind of accommodation centres envisaged represent a real public health risk and impede adequate medical care.

It was clear from our inquiry and from the experience of a range of health and refugee organisations that such accommodation is bad for mental and physical health. It undermines any sense of agency and hope. According to the Helen Bamber Foundation,

“the use of institutional accommodation of this type is extremely harmful to survivors of torture”

and its features

“have the same impact as open prisons with groups of people with little to motivate or occupy themselves becoming increasingly desperate.”

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Refugee Council has warned:

“Proposals to extend these forms of accommodation are ill-thought out and dangerous, and undermine the UK’s duties to support and protect those making asylum claims.”


It advised that international examples of the use of congregated settings, including in the Republic of Ireland, have shown that this kind of accommodation is completely inappropriate for housing those seeking asylum.

The amendments will not prevent the use of such accommodation centres—the power for which stems from earlier legislation, as I said—but they would go so way towards addressing their most inhumane features. Amendment 57 would, with some additions, give legislative force to what is supposed to be current policy—of not housing groups with particular vulnerabilities in such accommodation. Our inquiry, British Red Cross research and the experiences of stakeholders all indicate that, all too often, people with vulnerabilities are housed in such accommodation. It is therefore essential the safeguards are spelled out in the legislation. In the absence of such legal safeguards, what assurances can the Minister give that the use of accommodation centres will be accompanied by more robust screening and protection than exist at present?

With regard to children, in the Commons Committee, the Minister assured Members that the Government had “no intention” and “no plans” to accommodate children. Welcome as such assurances are, they are far from a cast-iron guarantee. We need to spell it out in the legislation. I do not see why the Government would resist this—if this is their intention. I invite the Minister to give an absolute assurance on the record.

Without a firm—preferably legal—guarantee, Amendment 60, which assures children’s access to local maintained education facilities, is still needed. At present, Section 36 of the 2002 Act prevents a child who is resident in an accommodation centre being admitted to a maintained school or nursery. Section 29 allows for education to take place within the centres. The prior information notice for accommodation centres, published by the Government last August, includes provision for education services. It surely cannot be in the children’s best interests to segregate them from children in the local community in this way.

Amendment 56 would limit the number of residents in any one centre to 100. The larger such centres are, the less the residents feel that their humanity is recognised and the more likely the centres are to attract hostile attention and to work against social cohesion and integration. In the Commons Committee, the Minister said that such a limit would undermine a key objective of resolving asylum cases more quickly on site. It is not clear how it would do so. Could the Minister please explain?

The other part of the amendment would ensure that residents were not required to share sleeping accommodation with anyone to whom they were not related. This reflects a recommendation made five years ago by the Home Affairs Select Committee—that room-sharing should be phased out across the asylum estate. It would help address lack of privacy and public health concerns.

The Minister was rather dismissive of this in the Commons Committee, but he did not seem to appreciate what it is like for people seeking asylum to be housed in dormitory-style accommodation, as opposed to sharing a bedroom in accommodation in the community. It is all very well saying, as he did, that torture survivors receiving treatment should not share sleeping quarters, but in practice, all too often, inadequate screening means that torture survivors and others who are vulnerable do so.

Amendment 59 would remove the power given to the Home Secretary in Clause 11 to increase the maximum period for which someone can be accommodated. At present, there is a limit of six months in most cases. The Explanatory Note gives no indication as to how the new power might be used, other than to argue that it provides flexibility. The UNHCR has expressed concern that, unless there are necessary safeguards and support services, prolonged accommodation in such centres is likely to harm well-being, increase the need for future support and delay refugee integration. The 90-day limit in the amendment reflects current practice at Napier. We know the damaging impact on mental health caused by the absence of any clear time limit. It should not be replicated in accommodation centres.

In conclusion, I will quote from residents of Napier and of Penally, which is now closed. One told the APPG inquiry:

“When I arrived, the fear completely overwhelmed me. The design of the camp was oppressive, the high fences, the sheer numbers of people, the security who … looked like they were from the military. It was terrifying and I could feel it through my whole body. It reminded me of the military camps in [my home country]. I was in complete shock for the first few days. I did not sleep at all … It reminded me of [my home country] and I could not function.”


Another suggested:

“It would be difficult to design a system that more perfectly delivers despair and deteriorating human health and mental capacity than these asylum camps.”


A third said:

“I did not feel like a person when I was there.”


These quotes show quite clearly the experience of dehumanisation. The JCHR suggested, in one of its reports on the Bill, that such dehumanisation and distress are not inevitable in accommodation centres. It also made it clear that it was imperative that the Government learn from the poor treatment of asylum seekers housed in former military barracks. The amendments in this group give the Government the opportunity to demonstrate that they have learned from the overwhelming evidence of the damaging impact of such accommodation. I beg to move.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly welcome my noble friend’s initiative in building and setting up reception centres of this kind. I appreciate that the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and others, are, in effect, probing amendments to find out more about the Government’s exact intentions. I fully understand that. It is perfectly reasonable.

I do not think that the noble Baroness objected to the principle of reception centres of this kind. At the moment, first of all, people are visited on local authorities, which are asked to accommodate them. Inevitably, these are not local authorities in London and the south-east, where accommodation costs are very high, but in areas such as the Midlands, the north-west and the north-east. I come from the north-west, so I know it particularly well. Here there is the largest concentration of people of this kind in council flats and so forth. They are, in effect, in competition with local people on the council waiting list, who may be rather resentful if they find they are asked to wait rather longer because of the need to accommodate people who have just come across the channel on a boat. This is not conducive to good community relations, as well as being quite unfair on people who have long been resident in this country.

Secondly, if they cannot be accommodated by local authorities—indeed, it is increasingly difficult to find appropriate council accommodation because of the shortage of housing, even in areas such as the north-east and north-west—they are sent to local hotels. I know this particularly well because I happened to spend part of my youth in Southport. Southport has a splendid main street called Lord Street. The Committee may not know it, but it was visited by Louis Napoleon, the Emperor of France, when he was in exile in this country before he became the emperor. On the basis of Lord Street, he created the Champs-Élysées in Paris. In Southport we always think of the Champs-Élysées as being the French Lord Street.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments and pay tribute to those whose names are attached to them, because they all raise important issues. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that there was something of a Freudian slip when he suggested that we were here dealing with illegal immigrants. Perhaps the tabloid newspapers are having too much of an effect on his view of what is happening.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

Surely in many instances we will not know the state of their claim when those people are accommodated in the reception centres. They will not know, and we will not know, what their status is.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

It was the assumption that we were talking about illegal immigrants. The vast majority of the people coming through are asylum seekers and have good reason to be seeking asylum.

The reason I got to my feet was not really to reprimand the noble Lord, Lord Horam; it was to raise a question that came from my own experience. When it became public that we had been evacuating judges and prosecutors from Afghanistan, because they were in mortal danger, to a lily pad—a temporary location—in Greece, the number of communications I received from people and families up and down the country with additional accommodation and offering to make it available to any of those seeking refuge from persecution was extraordinary. I know that the answer will be given from the Front Bench that of course we encourage people to contact a central line and to put their names down to say that they might make such an offer, but many of those who contacted me, where I gave them that advice, told me that no one had ever contacted them. I just wonder whether the good will of the British people who could offer accommodation is really being tapped into, rather than piling people into camps such as this one.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

My contention is that what the Government are seeking to do is unworkable in practice and wrong in principle. That is why we have these amendments. I hope that the Government will think again, because we cannot be the only country that tears up the 1951 convention like this and says that it does not matter. It matters a great deal.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that there has to be some shared responsibility in Europe. In particular, his point about Greece, Italy and Spain was well made. They have had to bear the brunt of the inflow of asylum seekers to a very difficult extent, and I understand their problems. The noble Lord was also right that, whatever other solutions may be forthcoming on this very difficult issue, we will eventually have to have some agreement with the French. I am rather hopeful that, with the departure of the noble Lord, Lord Frost, we may have a better chance of reaching agreement—I say that with no malice to the noble Lord, Lord Frost, who I am sure did a very difficult job his way, but none the less, the fact that he has gone seems to me to be rather good news from the point of view of having a rather more diplomatic approach to France. I am glad that the Foreign Office in particular may now be in charge of that. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, will agree that it is probably better for the Foreign Office to have more say in this matter than under the previous arrangements.

What I am concerned about reflects what the Chief Whip said earlier on. Clauses 14 and 15 seem to do no more than bring into British law what we already had when we were in the European Union—that is all they do—using the Dublin regulations and the Spanish protocol. This is nothing more than a transfer. We have all the rights that we enjoyed when we were members of the European Union to take account of particular circumstances and difficulties which people may have in getting evidence and so forth. All these fairly extensive amendments are already taken account of by our existing rights, so I do not see how we can spend very long on these clauses, given that they really do no more than a transfer job.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord is right about EU arrangements. I remember as an MEP fighting hard on the inadmissibility provisions in EU directives. On the Dublin arrangements, my understanding is that the UNHCR is satisfied that those arrangements were compliant with the refugee convention. I contend that Clause 15 is not, hence I have put my name to some of the amendments in this group. My noble friend will propose that Clause 15 be removed altogether, as it fails to recognise the need to share asylum responsibilities with other countries in order for the international system to work effectively, but at least some changes to the clause are necessary, and so I have co-signed the amendments suggested by the JCHR, tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs.

Amendments 69, 70, 71 and 75 all seek to restrict and improve the operation of the scheme proposed in Clause 15. I also support Amendment 68, and convey the apologies of my noble friend Lord Oates, who has a conflict with other business. Clause 15 is about proposals whereby the UK would attempt to persuade some other country to take responsibility for the asylum applicant if it considered that there was a connection to that state, broadly defined, or even if there was no connection at all.

Amendment 69 seeks to ensure that the definition of “safe third State” means it affords the protection and rights to which the person is entitled, so there is no real risk of them experiencing persecution, a violation of their human rights or refoulement, and that there is access to fair and efficient asylum procedures and refugee convention rights. Amendment 70 seeks to ensure that any removal should be only to a state with which the person has a connection. Amendment 71 requires that, unless formal and legal binding return arrangements are in place with the state in question—such as was the case with Dublin, which is why the UNHCR gave it its blessing—and removal takes place within a reasonable period. Absent those conditions, there must be no declaration of inadmissibility and the claim must be considered in the UK. Amendment 75 removes and rejects the suggestion that the UK can remove a claimant to a country in which the UK Government think it would have been reasonable for them to have made a claim, even if they had never visited that country.

As I said, even if these four amendments were adopted, Clause 15 would still be flawed. It would create yet greater delays, backlogs and costs in the asylum system. As we keep saying, the Home Office says the system is broken yet it wants to shoot itself in the foot by having ever-more complicated and long-winded procedures. It would also create greater anxieties for claimants and disruption to the international system. Therefore, Clause 15 must be at least amended, if not removed.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I will follow on from what the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lord Kirkhope said. I will say a little bit on the Australian experience, which is the only relevant extant experience that we have at the moment.

What happened in Australia was that, in 2001, the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia, the equivalent of our Conservative Party, introduced offshoring as a policy. I have no knowledge of how it worked at that point—I just do not have any information—but it carried on until 2008, when the Australian Labor Party was elected in a general election and desisted from offshoring. After that, there was a huge increase in the number of boats coming into north Australia, up to about 50,000 a year, and, as a consequence of that, the Labor Government did a U-turn and reintroduced offshoring. Unfortunately, this was too late in terms of political consequences: it lost the general election, and, in 2013, a new Liberal and National Government came in, reintroducing offshoring and beefing it up, with the army and navy playing a role in all of that. That is the history of it.

It was then highly successful: the offshoring completely stopped the human traffickers’ business—they had no more scope to bring people over because people simply did not believe that they would get into Australia—and the whole thing was a success, so much so that the opposition Labor spokesman agreed that, essentially, the boats had been stopped by the offshoring techniques. Thereafter, the Australian Labor Party changed its policy, and the policy now has cross-party support in Australia—both the Liberal Party and the Australian Labor Party support it—and boats no longer go across from Indonesia to Australia. The policy succeeded.

As my noble friend said, it is perfectly true that there are some issues in Nauru and Papua New Guinea—essentially residual issues arising from previous years—which have been difficult to resolve. I am sure that we would all want those to be resolved quickly and properly for humanitarian reasons.

However, clearly the Government are looking at this. Of course, there is no guarantee at all that such a policy, which was successful in Australia, would be successful here—one cannot pretend that that is necessarily likely to happen. The fact is that, although the situation is the same, in that people are crossing by sea to England and the UK as they were to Australia, the geography and the politics are different, and it is quite possible that it would not work in British circumstances. That is the truth of the matter.

None the less, it would be a dereliction of duty if the British Government did not try to look at this and examine whether it can work. The first thing that they have to do is, as the Australians did, pass the relevant legislation that enables them to put this into practice and see whether it does, in fact, work. That is where we are now—we have not done anything about it, and it is not in place. It will not be in place until some time after we have passed this legislation—

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

Could my noble friend outline his thinking on, for instance, the proximity of Nauru to Australia and whether that is not more the equivalent of saying that France or another European nation would be the location of the offshoring, rather than, say, Rwanda, which is on completely the other side of the world? Could my noble friend perhaps acknowledge the differences and unpack that for us a little?

[Lord Horam (Con)]

Yes, I do acknowledge the differences, which is why I said that there is no guarantee at all that, even if this is tried, it will work in British circumstances. All I am saying is that it worked in Australian circumstances, the Government are clearly interested in this and, as I say, it would be a dereliction of duty if they did not put this among their options and pass the legislation that enabled us to try this out. That is where we are now.

I point out that, after the success of this policy in Australia, the Australian Government were enabled to expand the legal routes for asylum seekers to go to that country because it ceased to be controversial: immigration was less controversial as a consequence of the anti-boat policy being successful. The fact is that, as I have said before in these debates, if the public do not buy into the policy, you will have problems in persuading them to have more immigration. If they buy into it because they can see that you are controlling your borders, they have a more relaxed attitude to immigration and accept higher levels of it because they can see that they are in control of both the amount and the type of immigration coming in.

Therefore, there is a prize at the end of this for those who genuinely want to have more immigration, frankly, than we have at the moment, and if you can seem to be in control. What worries people is if you are not in control—if they can see clearly that people are behaving illegally getting here, jumping the queue and all the rest of it. In view of what the Whips on both sides have said, I do not want to go on any longer, but we ought to consider this in a rational and sensible way, as a clear option that any responsible Government of whatever kind should pursue; and I point out that, in Australia, for example, it does have all-party support.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, we have obviously been reading different things because everything that I have read and heard about the policy in Australia suggests that it is far from successful, and certainly not for asylum seekers themselves.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

If the noble Baroness reads the evidence given by the Australian high commissioner to the House of Commons—evidence-taking on a section of this Bill—she will find that much of what I have said is corroborated there.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I tend to give more credence to people on the ground, but there it is.

I share concerns that have already been raised about potential health and human rights implications and the general dehumanising nature of a power that allows the British Government, in the words of the UNHCR,

“to externalise its obligations towards refugees and asylum seekers to other countries with only minimal human rights safeguards”.

No doubt, we are talking about poorer countries on the other side of the world to which asylum seekers will be moved like cattle, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said.

I want to raise a few questions; some have been covered so I will not repeat them but build on them. First, with regard to children, who a number of noble Lords have mentioned, in the Commons the Minister assured Caroline Nokes, a former Immigration Minister, that unaccompanied children would not be transferred for offshore processing. When she asked about accompanied children, and about what would happen to a child who turned 18 during the process of applying for asylum, answer came there none. I hope that there will be an answer to those questions today.

Can the Minister also say what would happen to a child whose age is disputed? When we reach that group of amendments—probably around midnight, so it will be great scrutiny—we will hear of the widespread fears among medical and social work professionals and children’s organisations that Part 4 of the Bill will lead to many more children being wrongly assessed as adults. If so, I fear that many unaccompanied children could be transferred because it is not believed that they are, in fact, children. I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on that. Can she assure us that no young person will be transferred while the age-assessment process is going on?

Secondly, building on what the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, said, the UNHCR observes that the Bill

“is silent on what, if any, legal obligations the United Kingdom would consider itself to have”

towards asylum seekers once their asylum claims have been dealt with. It expresses concern that there is nothing in the Bill that confines the application of the changes to extraterritorial processing, which is the stated purpose in the Explanatory Notes.

Detention Action warns that, even if a third country’s authorities recognised the asylum seeker as a refugee, the Bill provides no power for the UK to re-admit them or grant them any form of leave. Can the Minister say whether this interpretation is correct? If it is not, can she assure us on the record that those who are deemed to qualify for refugee status will be readmitted to the UK—that is, the country from which they sought refugee protection—and explain under what legal power in the Bill they would be so readmitted? If Detention Action’s interpretation is correct, this is not simply about offshore processing, which is a euphemism, but, even more shockingly, it is about the Government wiping their hands of all responsibility for those who qualify for refugee protection via a claim for asylum—not short-term offshore processing but long-term deportation. If so, the case for Clause 28 and Schedule 3 not standing part of the Bill is that much stronger.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support Amendment 115, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, which I have co-signed. Of course, it aims to provide a safe route for unaccompanied children from countries in Europe and broadly reproduces what we all know as the Dubs amendment to the Immigration Act 2016. There have been warm words, deservedly, about the role and record of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs; what better way to put that into something concrete than for the Government to accept Amendment 115?

I support all the amendments in this group, but I will just speak in support of Amendment 116, in the name of a noble quartet of Conservative Peers, which would provide for “at least 10,000” refugees to be resettled annually. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has discussed the ins and outs of that figure, but it is better than 1,000 a year, which we hear was the low achievement last year. This figure happens to be Liberal Democrat policy, so I very much agree that it is a moderate and sensible amendment. As I say, I support all of the other amendments in the group.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure that I should support a Liberal Democrat policy this evening; none the less, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said about the importance of targets. I am sure that one of the reasons that local authorities are reluctant to accept more people is the uncertainty that they have at the moment. They genuinely have a shortage but, inevitably, they hold back when they do not know exactly how many are expected.

I have long argued for targets in this area; I think they are an important part of it precisely because you need sensible planning, frankly, and this could be a way forward. Whatever the numbers may be, we ought to have a proper debate each year on refugees, asylum seekers and immigration as a whole, in which the Government’s plans are set out and we can all make a contribution, in the Commons as well as here, and decide what should be the targets for the following year. This would give everyone, including local authorities, some confidence and certainty about what they are expected to do.

I am afraid I do not think that that will actually reduce the numbers of people coming across the channel—I am sorry to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, on this point—for the reasons that I spelled out previously. Demand is so great that people would still try to cross the channel, even if we expanded the number, for certainty, of people coming across under safe schemes. None the less, the idea of having transparency and target setting is very valuable.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

I will try to edit my speech as I go. I support Amendment 118, to which I was pleased to add my name. We all agree that we do not want unsafe journeys, and there is no silver bullet: the situation is complex. If a deterrent was really the answer, securitising the Eurotunnel and the ferry ports has not worked; it has just created even more dangerous routes. So we must have more safe and legal routes.

The major reason I support the idea of a humanitarian visa is that it is a further safe and legal route. It also addresses the issue of people coming from the countries where there are smaller numbers who face persecution and so on, for whom bespoke schemes are never going to be created. Last year, only 93 people arrived from Iraq, five from Yemen, none from Iran and 36 from Sudan. That is all those who were resettled last year. The focus became so heavy last year on Afghanistan and Hong Kong, through the BNO scheme, that all other refugees appeared to be forgotten, so we need this kind of visa. I hope the Minister will not pick holes in the way the amendment is worded because the point is that this kind of visa needs to be looked at.

I also speak in favour of Amendment 116—it is very nice to speak with the noble Lord, Lord Horam, on one occasion. During the Syrian crisis of 2015, a target was set of 20,000 and it helped galvanise everybody with a vision of what could be done. It helped local authorities to understand what kind of numbers they might expect and so on. We also saw through that process the creation of the community sponsorship scheme, so we came up with a new thing through a targeted number. Ten thousand is a number widely supported, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, noted, by huge numbers of refugee organisations because the UNHCR has identified that it is, roughly speaking, our fair share across the world. It is not a number plucked out of thin air but from looking at our fair share across the globe. I hope that we will hear positively the idea that it can happily include the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. I shall stop there because we need to keep moving.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 1, to which I have added my name. I declare an interest as a vice-chairman of the Chagos Islands (British Indian Ocean Territory) All-Party Parliamentary Group. How do the Government have the neck to condemn others for far less, while at the same time standing condemned by both the International Criminal Court and the General Committee of the United Nations for refusing to allow the Chagos Islanders and their descendants citizen rights to return to their homeland, despite promises that they would be allowed to do so after 30 years? I remember, as long ago as 2013, reading out a letter from a Pentagon Minister to the then Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister saying that the Pentagon had no objection to the return of the islanders to Diego Garcia, being used to having indigenous people living alongside island military bases in the Pacific.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I must correct the noble Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in one regard: the Lib Dems could have done something about this when they were part of the coalition Government. I am not particularly pointing to the Lib Dems: we are all guilty of the shame of what has happened to the Chagos islanders. All three parties, I am afraid, have done nothing to deal with the dreadful situation the Chagos islanders find themselves in as a result of successive Governments of all parties. I hope that my noble friend the Minister—he is having a hard time today, now having to answer this question as well as previous ones, and I really do feel sorry for him—can offer us some hope in this matter today.

My noble friend Lady Williams explained when we discussed this issue previously that the problem is that what we are asking for runs counter to long-standing government policy. However, the truth is that we ourselves created this situation. Surely, long-standing policy should be flexible enough to deal with a problem which we ourselves created. There is no group of people other than the Chagossians in this situation, and that is why we have to be flexible. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has looked again at this amendment and drawn it ever more tightly, so that fewer additional problems can arise. I commend her on that effort.

We know from events such as the Windrush scandal that issues such as this are a matter not just of law but of how individual cases are handled in Home Office administration. I do not criticise that administration because I know from my own experience as a Member of Parliament how difficult such cases can be to deal with, and I often sympathise with it regarding the decisions it has to make. However, I would like the Chagossian community to be given some particular form of access to government. Perhaps an officer should be allocated to deal with their problems on a regular basis, so that there is a point of contact in the Home Office whom they can go to as a matter of course. I found during my previous experience as a Member of Parliament that this can make a huge difference to those who often simply want to contact in an easy and friendly way people who understand their problems, having been long versed in them.

I hope that my noble friend the Minister can give us some succour on this administrative issue, as well as on the legal matters. This issue is not going to go away.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. This would be absolutely the right thing to do at this time, in order to demonstrate UK leadership. When it comes to long-standing government policy, we are a democracy and we should evolve, and policies should evolve with it. These people deserve our support in being given the right to go back to their homes. If we are to have any standing in the world, let us show that leadership today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the new clause proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, but we need to do a belt-and-braces job here. I am afraid we have to go back to the issue of compatibility and “Oh yes it is; oh no it isn’t.”

In Clause 11, we are introducing something entirely new. This two-class categorisation of refugees—the real refugees who came direct and the class 2 refugees who did not—is not anywhere in the refugee convention. None of that is in the refugee convention. The Government say that it is all perfectly compatible with the convention and assert that it is our right to interpret the convention in this new way, differently from the way that it has been interpreted up to now by our courts, differently from the way that the UNHCR, the custodian of the convention, interprets it in its authoritative judgment on our Bill, and differently from the way in which 146 signatory states interpret it.

We did the “Oh yes it is; oh no it is not” game at length in Committee and the Government stuck to their view, but I think it is fair to say that the Committee found it rather hard to understand the Government’s view. I wondered whether the Minister perhaps let the cat out of the bag when he told us:

“It may … be”—


to be fair, he did put it tentatively—

“that a convention entered into in 1951 is not absolutely suitable for the world of 2022.”—[Official Report, 8/2/22; col. 1463.]

Tonight, we heard the Minister seeming to hint that it might be time to review the convention as if it was in some way out of date. I could not disagree more.

I refute the Minister’s contention in one word: Ukraine. Life itself—zhizn’ sama, as a Russian would say—refutes the Minister’s contention. In the world of 2022, we see these hundreds of thousands of people—now over 500,000, the UNHCR says—abandoning their homes, trudging the motorways, crowding on to the trains, fleeing the tanks and rockets, and streaming into Poland and Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Romania. Are they refugees? Yes, of course they are refugees, just like the Hungarians in 1956 and the Czechs in 1968. Are they entitled to refugee convention rights? Yes, of course they are. But if the Bill, including Clause 11, is enacted or had been enacted, any of them who wanted to come to this country could be only group 2 refugees, without full convention rights, because they had not come directly from Ukraine and could have asked for asylum in Poland or Hungary. That is even though there are no direct flights from Ukraine, and even though we say Ukrainians have to have visas to come here—although we do not issue visas to asylum seekers.

The key point for the House tonight is that there is nothing in the convention or, as I understand it, subject to correction from the legal authorities round me, anywhere in international law requiring an asylum seeker to apply in the first safe country they reach. This, the rationale for Clause 11, is a Home Office invention. The convention sets only one test: not how the refugee got here, but why. What was it that drove him to come here? Was it a well-founded fear of persecution back home? That is the question. But if Clause 11 is approved, that question or test becomes redundant and irrelevant because, no matter what horrors he is fleeing from, if a refugee did not come here directly he could be only a group 2 refugee, subject to the harsher regime, detention and offshore processing set out in all the subsequent clauses that we are also going to have to look at closely, in my view. This just will not do.

My concern is with the refugees but also for the reputational damage we do to ourselves, if we go down this road, and the practical consequences for the refugee convention. Suppose our new invention caught on and other countries started following suit. Well over 20 million refugees are in countries contiguous to their homelands—just across the border—and nearly all these countries are developing countries. Suppose the convention were in future to be interpreted by all and sundry to mean that the exiled Syrians and Iraqis must always stay just across the frontier in Lebanon or Jordan, and that the Afghans must always stay in Pakistan, but the developed world can wash its hands of these problems and leave it to the Jordans and Pakistans, because the refugees could never move on and obtain asylum elsewhere. The only places they could obtain asylum were in the Jordans and the Pakistans.

What would the consequences of that be? They would be disastrous for the first host country; there are 1.5 million people in Lebanon from Iraq and Syria, and more than that from Afghanistan in the camps around Peshawar in Pakistan. We would be saying that Pakistan and Jordan are going to be stuck with that for ever, as far as we are concerned. It would be disastrous for the refugees, too.

If this doctrine caught on—if it were the general reading of international law that first hosts had sole responsibility—anyone seeking to flee persecution would find the gates of freedom clanging shut in their face. If we leave Clause 11 in the Bill, we do not just betray our values and trash our reputation, we could kill the refugee convention, sadly, though we need it in the world of 2022 as much as ever. I propose that Clause 11 be deleted.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, we had a long debate on this subject in Committee, so I shall be brief. We ought to remember throughout what the Bill was originally about. It is fundamentally about stopping, or curbing, the channel migrants. Obviously, we hope to do it in a sensible way. If we could have an agreement with the French, the Belgians or the Dutch to deal with this in a bipartisan way, that would be ideal, but none of us is very optimistic, particularly before a general election in France and so on.

We need other options: a plan B, or maybe a plan C. I agree that some of them stretch the credibility of what any Government would want to do, because the problem of the cross-channel migrants is indeed very difficult to deal with. You have to deal with them separately because, however sympathetic one may be with people in the hands of traffickers coming across the channel for whatever reason, it is a difficult way to come across. It is unsafe, they are clearly behaving illegally—it is against the law to enter this country in that way—and they are doing so in a very public way. Every night on television, you can see people coming across the channel and on to the beaches in Kent and so forth. They add to the number of people the Government have agreed to accept by proper routes—the Chinese from Hong Kong, the Afghans and, now, Ukrainians. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I hope we will have a generous scheme to allow Ukrainians who wish to come here to do so, just as I hope that Europe will have a generous scheme. I suspect and hope that they will come here only temporarily.

Coming across the channel is an open-ended and uncontrolled method and, if successful, encourages even more to come. Last year, 29,000 came; the prediction is that 60,000 will come this year. That is more money for the traffickers. The traffickers now make more money out of human beings than they do out of drugs, which will increasingly be the case. If we allow that to carry on uncontrolled, it makes it more difficult for local authorities, which have to deal with these people—housing them, making welfare arrangements, schooling their children and dealing with their families.

They add to the problems in the most disadvantaged parts of the country. It is not the leafy areas of Hampstead where these people end up; it is in places such as Blackpool, Stoke-on-Trent, Middlesbrough and Doncaster. I was talking to a red wall MP from the north-west. Blackpool has five of the eight poorest wards in the country; it has real problems. There is fury on the streets of Blackpool at the way they are being dumped on with people such as the migrants who come across the channel. They do not understand why they have to receive them.

The levelling-up agenda, which is central to this Government, is set at nought when that situation is arising in the areas of this country which need to be levelled up. It makes a proper, organised, rational immigration policy more difficult. As my noble friend Lord Hodgson said in a previous debate, informed consent—the consent of the people—is essential for a rational, substantiated and long-term immigration policy. If we do not have a policy that people are comfortable with, in the long run, we will not sustain it.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I spoke on this subject in Committee, so I will not make any more than a few brief remarks on Report. I cited the Australian example, which now has all-party support in Australia, for dealing with a particular form of offshoring.

The problem of dealing with cross-channel migration is undoubtedly very difficult, but it is not impossible; we have had some success in dealing with the problem of people coming across in lorries, which is one of the reasons they are now coming by sea. But the reason I cannot go along with my noble friend Lady Stroud is that if you are dealing with a very difficult, protracted and visible problem like this, you need to consider all the options available. Some of them will turn out, on closer analysis, to be impractical. It will turn out that you simply do not want to do some of them because of the reasons raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about some of the ramifications. Some of them may simply be politically impossible to do, but it is an obligation on the Government to explore every avenue to resolve this very difficult problem.

Also, this is clearly an international problem. It is not only Britain that is dealing with this issue; it is Greece, Italy, France, Spain and so on. One thing I am sure noble Lords have said in the past is that, when looking at this, we should not simply confine ourselves to what we think is right. We should look abroad to see how other countries have tackled it. Some countries have had some success, some have had less success, but it would be foolish to ignore what is happening abroad and what methods they are trying.

For all those reasons, it is just common sense to keep the wording of the Bill as it is at the moment to give the Government the opportunity to explore a number of different avenues, some of which, I agree, may not turn out to be very sensible, and some of which may be more productive. To stop this now and to exclude some aspects because there are unanswered questions at this stage, when the Government are clearly in negotiations on this—they are half way or quarter way through the process; I do not know—would be foolish in the interests of looking at the whole picture.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, often makes the point that this aspect of asylum seekers and refugees coming across the channel is only a small part of a much larger picture of migration; I think he used the figure that asylum seekers make up 6% of those coming over. But we have to get back to the bigger picture of what is happening on migration. By the way, I include Ukraine in that. Obviously, we all hope that no Ukrainian has to find a way across the channel via a smuggler. We hope that this country will be generous enough to deal with all those coming here properly. As I understand it, the Prime Minister said at Question Time today that he had been in discussions with the Poles, for example, about how Britain could help the Polish Government to deal with the massive influx they have had over their borders. That is an entirely separate issue which I hope we can deal with far more generously than so far.

I think this is a distraction, if you like—a difficult and problematic distraction from a very much bigger picture, which I hope we can return to if we really can solve this. But I urge the House not to rule out any particular measure, however difficult it may be and however many questions it may pose, at this stage.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak rather briefly; it seems to me that brevity has a very wide definition. Let me just say that outsourcing is entirely unacceptable. I would like to see the back of this clause and schedule; they should not be in a Bill dealing with asylum or refugees. As I said in Committee, this will place vulnerable people again at risk. I give the simple example of someone who might be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender ending up in a country to which they are outsourced where they could be criminalised, persecuted and under real threat. What kind of signal do we send to the rest of the world when we treat vulnerable people in this way? I support all the amendments in this group. I think that is brief enough.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, on Motion A, I am very pleased to be able to accept Amendments 1A and 1B in lieu of my original amendment. Together with assurances given on the record in the Commons, they will open up entitlement to British citizenship, which will be subject to neither a fee nor a good character test. They therefore meet the objectives of the original amendment. I thank the Minister for whatever part she may have played in helping achieve this change of heart, following the meetings she had with some of us and Rosy Leveque of BIOT Citizens.

I have two questions. When is it anticipated that applications can begin, and can the Minister confirm that it is still the Government’s intention to use some of the largely unspent £40 million Chagos support fund to help Chagossians settle here, and to help those already here who have welfare needs?

As well as the Government, I thank noble Lords from all Benches who gave such strong support to the amendment, and in particular those on the Government Benches, as I am sure their passionate support was key to encouraging the Government to think again. I thank the APPG on the Chagos Islands for helping to build that support. I also pay tribute to Henry Smith MP, who has long championed this cause in the Commons, and to the late and much-missed Lord Avebury, who first raised the issue in your Lordships’ House over a decade ago. His work to remove this and other citizenship injustices has been energetically continued by the BOT Citizenship campaign, especially David Varney and Trent L Miller.

Last but not least, I pay tribute to the Chagossians themselves, who have helped to spearhead the campaign, in particular Rosy Leveque and Chagossian Voices. The joy felt as a result of the government concession is summed up well in an email sent to me and Henry Smith from a Chagossian on Mauritius, who is longing to be reunited with his family in the UK. I will quote briefly a few lines:

“I am writing to you simply to say that words are not enough to express how thankful and grateful I am. I can’t stop crying with joy and happiness, and trust me when I say that many Chagossians in Mauritius and Seychelles are also overjoyed and overwhelmed by this result. Many of us have been keeping our grandparents’ birth certificates in a folder waiting for this day to come.”


The original injustice that deprived the Chagossians of their homeland and that perpetuates their exile remains and will rightly continue to be contested. However, I believe that all those who have contributed to the ending of the citizenship injustice done to the descendants of those for whom the Chagos Islands were home can feel pride today. I am sure that we all look forward to welcoming to the UK as British citizens the Chagossians who have been the victims of this injustice.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her leadership on this issue, the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who has pursued this for many years, and Henry Smith in the other place, who has played a notable part as well. Indeed, I also thank my noble friend the Minister and the Government, who have pursued this and given way on quite an important principle and made a unique situation for the Chagossians in this country. I now hope that the Foreign Office takes the cue from the Home Office and deals with the real problem, which is giving the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius—that is the real issue. We only got four votes in the United Nations on this issue—with 150-odd against us. It is a lasting disgrace, and I hope that the Foreign Office, which is not normally behind the Home Office on these issues, takes the cue accordingly.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I take the rare step of agreeing completely with the noble Lord, Lord Horam, particularly in his praise for the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who has worked so incredibly hard and has been so effective, as well as the Minister, who clearly smoothed the way for these changes. I will ask one question. One difference in the Commons amendment is that it does not state:

“No charge or fee may be imposed for registration under this section.”


So can the Minister tell me what fees or costs will be imposed on Chagos Islanders to rectify this injustice?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, there is a danger for a Green such as me in agreeing so strongly with two noble Lords from the opposite side of the Chamber—the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Horam—but it is not my fault; they have moved towards my position, just to be clear. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, made a wonderful speech.

I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on the other place having treated this House with “disdain”. It is worse than that. It is contempt. It is real contempt that they have not read what we have done. I say to the Minister that here we have some incredible legal advice, from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and the noble and learned Lords, Lord Judge and Lord Brown. It is free and it is good, so why are we not taking it? Why do the Government still resist that we are breaking the law if we allow the Bill to go through?

The brilliant Twitter lawyer, David Allen Green, often mocks the use of “for the avoidance of doubt”, because well-drafted text should not allow any doubt in the first place. However, the Government seem not to understand that this is what they are doing. They are opening an option for a lot of court cases, and they have slashed the amount of money that is going into the legal system anyway, so it will be very difficult to do those court cases. They are not just avoiding taking the advice of this House but allowing themselves to break the law. I do not understand why any Government would think like that.

If we are to comply with our duties and obligations to the refugee convention, we must vote for Motion C1.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I might offer a slightly different perspective. One of the difficulties that we have had with the Bill throughout is that we are considering things back to front. Normally, when there is policy proposal, you get a White Paper, then a period of consultation, then you come down to the details of the Bill when you can see in law what the proposals are and discuss them in detail. Here it is the opposite way round. We have a Bill, but we do not know what the policy is. Essentially, the Bill has come forward as an enabling Bill to allow the Government to address the issue of illegal crossings of the channel, so we are doing things the wrong way round. It is even worse than that; old hands here will remember the halcyon days when we had Green Papers, which proposed a certain progress of action. We would then have a White Paper setting out a government policy, and then we would have legislation. Here, we are doing it the wrong way round.

The reason is a fairly practical one, as I understand it. In this case, dealing with cross-channel migrants, we must deal with foreign Governments. We must have agreements, certainly with the French and possibly with the Belgians, Dutch and other countries that we want to deal with. That is the problem, and the practical reason why we are doing things the wrong way round.

It leads to a difficulty in that the Opposition rightly have questions which they want answers to, but the Government cannot answer the questions because they do not yet know what the policy will be. There is a package of measures, some of which we can imagine would work and some that would not work, but we do not know what those practical measures are. Equally, the Government have difficulties. They cannot answer some of the questions that are being put by the Opposition because they do not know what the policies are either. Certainly, we Back-Benchers are in darkness. There is a real problem there.

That has a bearing on the arguments which have taken place and which we cannot entirely resolve in this sort of debate. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made the point, which I think is the Opposition’s principal position, that the problem would be solved if we could open legal routes to all the refugees who wish to come to this country. The problem would be resolved that way if we had enough proper legal routes.

The Government’s position is clearly that this probably would not work, because even if you had large numbers of legal routes, if traffickers were still able to give the clear message to their victims that they could get into this country and could stay, work and have a life here, they would still be in business. That is a matter of practicality and judgment. Would having enough legal routes solve the problem? Remember that the traffickers deal not just with human beings but with drugs and all sorts of criminality. If they remained in business, doing business across the channel, you would still have this trade in human beings. That is the practical, judgmental issue at the bottom of this, and we do not know the answer because we do not know the package of measures that the Government will come forward with. We are looking only at the enabling legislation.

I fully accept the additional point that we must look at the effect on refugees of international law. I take the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, that there is a significant issue here. However, those who make that point must accept that the Government are equally sincere in thinking that there is an issue here on which they remain fully compliant with the 1951 convention. The noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, gave a very well-organised defence of the Government’s position, setting it out very clearly. I am not a lawyer so cannot comment on that. All I can do is accept the Government’s advice that they are compliant with the convention.

Finally, I agree with my noble friend Lord Cormack that there is a problem with the House of Commons considering these issues because of timetabling. This is a pervasive issue in the House of Commons. It has been there for years, and they have found no real solution to it. Just as we can go on for as long as we want and for as long as time and patience permit, they are timetabled for six hours or whatever it may be and, therefore, inevitably, immensely important and worthwhile issues such as this as compressed, very often into a few moments, with a ministerial response of a few minutes. This is wholly unacceptable. We have found no way round that, but we must deal with a situation as we have it. For example, in response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, the vote in the House of Commons was a majority of 98 against his proposal that there should be differentiation between group 1 and group 2—that decision to differentiate passed by a majority of 98 in the House of Commons.

That is a massive majority and reflects not just questions of law but the justified concern of the House of Commons about human trafficking across the channel. I am sure that we are all concerned about refugees not only from Ukraine but from other countries —everyone is concerned about that—but how we stop illicit human trafficking across the channel is a separate issue. Everybody is trying to do their best here; in some cases, the procedures that we have to adopt are very unsatisfactory but I hope that people accept that the Government are trying to do something that, in their judgment, is a practical answer. Even those who do not agree with them should understand that this is a matter of judgment. We will not know the full consequences for some time to come, until the Government’s policies are clear—but not to allow them to pursue their policy with the flexibility and elbow room that they need would in my view be a grave misjudgment.

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I speak in support of Motion E1 in my name, and refer to my entry in the Members’ register of interests and my connections with RAMP. I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the constructive way in which she has engaged with me since we last debated in this House the right of asylum seekers to work after six months. I will not rehearse all the arguments for extending the right to work as we have done that on multiple occasions, but I want to address some of the arguments that have been put forward by the Government. I am grateful to the Minister for sharing some of her concerns with me; I will briefly address three of these.

First, there appears to be a concern that, if we extend the right to work for asylum seekers, we will extend that right to those who are convicted criminals in their home country. Although only a tiny proportion of those who apply for asylum fall into this category, it is a legitimate concern. However, I do not believe that it should stand in the way of right-to-work reforms because all those in this category should be held in immigration detention anyway and would be unable to work by virtue of that status.

Secondly, there is a concern that this may encourage more mendacious claims; again, I believe that this has become an exaggerated argument. The figures as they stand find that 72% of people who apply for asylum get accepted on the initial decision before any appeals process has begun. This is a sign that the vast majority are not applying with mendacious claims but are genuine refugees. There is a danger that, in our current system, we are penalising these people by not allowing them to work and unnecessarily putting significant stumbling blocks in the way of their integration.

Thirdly, there is a concern about incentivising the pull factors; we have heard an awful lot about this. I once again believe that this is exaggerated, based on anecdote rather than raw empirical data. I also think that this adjusted amendment before the House today addresses any possible concern by introducing a four-year trial period with a review three years in to determine whether indeed there is any pull factor. This has the pragmatic benefit of meaning that we will be able to address existing labour shortages in the immediate term while giving the Home Office an opportunity to assess whether concerns that this contributes as a pull factor have any backing in meaningful empirical data. There are no studies that currently back this perspective.

In summary, the Government say that the amendment is not needed because, in the new system, all those coming by legal and safe routes would have an immediate right to work—but this actually supports the amendment. Why are we happy to give an immediate right to work to Ukrainians but not to others who come to this country? The Government say this is not needed because in the new system, even including appeals, the process will take only six months. That is great, but we are not there yet and, to my knowledge, we have never been there. The Government say this is not needed because the new system will be so clear that they will be able to focus on the backlog and on those who come in via alternative routes. Again, this sounds great but, at this moment, all evidence is to the contrary.

Even the new system for Ukrainians cannot flex or adapt quickly enough and already shows signs of significant strain. No one more wants the system to be sorted than me or other noble Lords, but we have waited many years to see it happen. There are between 60,000 and 80,000 people who need to be able to work; they should be experiencing a Britain that enables asylum seekers to rebuild their lives and create their own pathway from poverty to prosperity.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I shall add a little balance to this debate by speaking on behalf of the Government on this particular Bill. I speak in particular to Amendment C1 from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, Amendment B1 from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and Amendment H1 from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I say straightaway that I have great sympathy for the point of view they put forward in those three amendments. In particular, it is almost certainly the case that there are not enough legal routes for genuine refugees to this country. I recognise what the Minister said about the extent to which we have already accommodated refugees and the figures she quoted, but I still think that we do not have enough legal routes for the generality of refugees, leaving aside those from Hong Kong, the Afghans and Syrians and so forth.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made the point very well on the previous group of amendments that if we compare the number of asylum seekers to the number of economic migrants—the number of work visas, for example—that is the real problem: in numbers. It is numbers I am concerned about principally and not the number of asylum seekers, which is comparatively small. I would trade a reduction in the number of economic migrants—people taking work visas, particularly the golden visas we have heard about more recently as a result of the Ukraine war—for an increase in the number of legal routes for genuine asylum seekers. That would be a very sensible thing to do. Not only that but it would be humane. I would do it on the simple humanitarian grounds that some people need legal routes more than purely economic migrants.

But the problem with that argument is that it only goes so far. First, there is the capacity to absorb new immigrants, given where we are with a large number of work visas, family visas and undergraduate visas each year and, on top of that, the Ukrainians, those from Hong Kong and the rest, and particularly as most immigrants go into the poorer areas of our country. If you read about or experience, as I have done as a former Member of Parliament, the effect on housing, schooling and GPs in the poorer areas of this country of a rapidly increasing number of immigrants over quite a short period, you can see the anger and despair of ordinary British people dealing with this situation. You cannot leave that out of account, particularly when one of the Government’s major objectives is the levelling-up agenda, which is precisely to help those areas most affected by the number of immigrants coming into the country, whether those are the large number of economic migrants or the smaller number of genuine refugees.

Finally on this point, however many legal routes we may have, we will not stop the traffickers in human beings just by having more legal routes. We have to tackle the problem directly. While there is a way of getting to this country by paying somebody £2,000 or £3,000 to come across the channel, people will take that opportunity. That is the difficulty. While I respect the views of the Opposition and the independents that we need more legal routes, that will not solve the problem of the traffickers across the channel. That is why we have this Bill; we need to tackle that problem directly.

I fully agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on the important point they made about the 2001 refugee convention. I do not want this Government to step outside that in any way. It would be a tragedy if that happened. It should not be allowed to happen; I believe that it will not happen. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that there had been no really serious arguments from the Government against his position on this issue, but he must have heard the arguments from the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, earlier in this Bill’s passage. At some length and across several columns of Hansard, he set out in detail exactly what the Government’s position was. Surely the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, must agree that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, was very persuasive. He may not agree with him, but he was certainly persuasive in his full and detailed account of the Government’s position and why what they are doing remains within the refugee convention. That is the first point.

Secondly, lawyers such as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, are arguing this in theory and in absentia, being in the Chamber as we are. However, it has already happened in Australia, which has for many years had an offshoring policy agreed between all the parties. In the early stages of that process, its Government had to argue precisely what our Government are arguing now: that what they were doing by way of offshoring was within the 1951 convention and did not abrogate or step outside it in any way. There were court cases in Australia on precisely this point. The Australian Government won them all, because they showed clearly that they were not stepping outside the 1951 convention. So there is that evidence from another country which has done precisely what our present Government are doing.

In addition, the Australian Government did a sensible thing. Throughout the long development of their offshoring policy—it took two or three years; this is not something that will be resolved here overnight, perhaps not even in a year or two—they made a point of having a dialogue with the UNHCR, which is the guardian of the refugee convention. At every stage, they took the trouble to talk to not only the UNHCR’s headquarters in Geneva but to its local regional representatives and to allow them to inspect exactly what was happening in the offshoring areas and in Australia itself. This kept the UNHCR on board, if you like, so that it had no reasonable reason to disagree with what the Australian Government were doing. I hope that our Government will do exactly the same thing, because it is sensible to do so. We want the UNHCR to have an understanding that what our Government are doing is sensible and appropriate. We do not want to be excessively controversial.

There is a more general point about this Bill, which I have mentioned before. It is an enabling Bill. It simply sets the scene and gives the Government the power to do something. It is not the final policy. We are way off a final policy. For a start, we must have a sensible arrangement with France to deal with all this. I am sure that that will be a necessary part of any government policy. Having a sensible arrangement with France may be rather easier now that we know who its president is, but it will not be enough for Boris Johnson to say, “Donnez-moi un break, Emmanuel”. He will have to have a much more rounded policy, which may take several years given all the other issues we have with France on shipping, the Northern Ireland protocol and all the rest of it. It will take a long time to sort that out; it is far from finished.

Equally, on offshoring, although I hear what my noble friend the Minister said about what information is available, I still feel extremely vague about what is happening. I have no idea whether it will work. I have many questions about how this is going to be pursued. It may be a disaster for all I know. I think that a great deal will depend on how exactly it is executed. Again, the Australians, who did this, always say to me that it takes great effort to get these sorts of policies going because they are international policies involving other Governments and you have to get that all right.

So what we are saying here is that this is an enabling Bill. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, to think back to his period as a distinguished diplomat. He might well be saying to the Government, in these circumstances, “Keep the Bill as broad as possible. Give yourselves as much room to manoeuvre as possible, because you simply do not know what will come up in the course of these negotiations with France, Rwanda or whoever”. You have to allow for that and, if you find yourselves in a situation in which you would like to pursue a course of action but cannot, because the Bill simply does not allow for that and we do not have the legislation in place, it would be a disaster for the Government.

In that respect, we should consider that the Government do not have a final policy. We have an enabling Bill. Is it right for the Lords to prevent the Commons from even trying to have this policy, which may or may not eventually work? We should remember that, in the most recent votes on this, there was a majority of 70 or 80 in the Commons—more or less the government majority, without any dissent—on every single resolution put to it, against us and in favour of their arrangements. I cannot quote the present Attorney-General, but I can quote a recent one, Sir Robert Buckland. He is not necessarily any friend of the Government, as we know, because of the history there. He was the Attorney-General and is now the MP for South Swindon. He said that he worked with Priti Patel on the Bill and that

“it is in direct fulfilment of our manifesto commitment. There is no doubt in my mind about its importance and about the need for it to be passed.”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/3/22; col. 212.]

That was the view of a recent Attorney-General, Sir Robert Buckland, who is no one’s idea of a raving right-wing Tory.

Finally in all this, I think the Government should try to get as much consensus as possible, because I suspect this will be with us for several years—perhaps even over more than one Government, as it was in Australia. They should establish a forum for debate, where critics of the Government can talk and explain their worries and concerns. Maybe churchmen should be in it, and maybe the Refugee Council. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is a trustee of the Refugee Council, so maybe he should be on this forum. Something like that would be a means of discussion whereby we do not just talk at each other across the Chamber and in the newspapers, but talk seriously about this very important problem, which any Government of whatever description would have to resolve—namely, these illegal boat trips across the channel.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will be very brief after that monologue, which I found extremely boring. Forgive me if I am being rude; I do not know whether I am trespassing on any rules. But, really, if the noble Lord is coming to the Chamber, perhaps he could bring a speech and not choose to deliver some sort of long ramble, when we are quite short of time.

I am going to talk about Motion F1. I have listened to the Government and the Minister talking today about Rwanda and, quite honestly, I think their representation of Rwanda is extremely flawed. I draw the House’s attention to one report from Amnesty International, in 2021, last year, which produced a review on Rwanda that said that there were huge human rights concerns. For example, abortion remains illegal in most circumstances. The Government interfere in the right to fair trial, including torturing the accused, denying access to legal counsel and confiscating legally privileged material. They arrest journalists and opposition politicians, and there are deaths in custody.

What is happening? The Government talk all the time about stopping these trafficking gangs, but our Government are becoming a trafficking gang. They are going to take people abroad and leave them there. They are taking them to a country that has human rights abuses. This is inhumane and cruel, and I will be voting for every single amendment today, because the Government have overreached and are making themselves an embarrassment for us in the world.