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.