Borders and Asylum

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord heckles from a sedentary position. We have been in office for 13 months now, and we have taken action—which relates, as I will come to, to what the noble Lord, Lord German, said—to establish a border command under the immigration Bill, to put in new powers to tackle small boats, which will be taking place shortly, and to scrap the Rwanda scheme that his Government put in place, which wasted £700 million of taxpayers money and removed, from memory, two people, both of whom went voluntarily. We are now using that resource to up the amount of money we are investing in speeding up asylum claims. In speeding up asylum claims, we are doing what we should be doing: assessing people and determining who has asylum and who does not.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned some figures in his contribution. Some 35,000 people with no right to abode in the UK have been removed in the past 12 months. That is up on his Government’s performance—a 28% increase in failed asylum seekers being removed. We have had a 14% increase in the removal of foreign national offenders, and an increase of 50% in the number of illicit work raids that we are undertaking to make sure that we maintain standards in employment.

I am afraid the noble Lord cannot get away from the fact that in 2015 there were very few hotels in operation, and we reached a massive peak under his Government. We are trying now to reduce that peak by closing hotels, and we are doing so by speeding up the asylum claims that he and his Government allowed to remain. So, with due respect to the noble Lord, I am not going to take lessons from him on how to manage asylum, immigration or small boats when the problems that we have inherited are ones that his Government and his Home Office oversaw as a whole.

However, the noble Lord asked some reasonable questions, and I will try to establish some information for him. He asked about the new commission that we are establishing. We will set out further details on it in due course and ensure that we clarify and put into the public domain the roles the commission will have. We will ensure that the commission is paid for with existing departmental budgets, so there is no extra cost to the taxpayer for that. To the point made by the noble Lord, Lord German, we will ensure that people have time to have rigorous training in decision-making and expertise to make decisions on appeal cases. I say again to all noble Lords that we are doing that to speed up the asylum appeal process that led to the highest asylum backlog in the history of asylum backlogs, under the Government of the noble Lord, Lord Davies. We are trying to speed up those claims because, ultimately, we need to determine someone’s right to abode in the UK under asylum, and if they do not have a right then we need to remove them. The previous Government did neither of those things to any effect.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned the French scheme. Noble Lords will know that under the previous Government no attempts at all were made to discuss with the French the issue on the beaches of France in relation to small boats. The noble Lord again shakes his head. Perhaps at some future time, when he gets an opportunity, he could write to me and tell me what agreements were struck with the French regarding small boats and beaches. There were none, and because there were none, we have had to pick that up. Over the past 12 months we have negotiated with the French, and we have a returns agreement in place. That agreement is a pilot scheme. It has not yet removed people to a great extent, as the noble Lord knows, but it is a pilot that we are monitoring and evaluating. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord German, we intend to remove and exchange the first individuals under the scheme by the end of this month. The pilot will be evaluated and monitored, and I hope it will prove a benefit.

As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, knows, because I tell him every time we have this discussion, we have had agreements with the French, the Belgians, the Dutch—the Calais Group—to take action. We have established a proper agreement with the Germans for the first time, to look at how we can stop boat manufacture and sale upstream, and we are putting extra effort into bringing people to justice so that we now have people before the courts for people-smuggling offences. There is going to be a difference between us because the noble Lord, Lord Davies, believes in the Rwanda scheme and I do not, but ultimately it is about delivery on these issues, and this Government, 13 months in, are beginning to deliver on them.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord German, for his welcome for some of the measures in the Statement. I welcome his support over Border Security Command, the speeding up of asylum claims, the new powers in the Bill and the pledge to close hotels, because he is right that we need to ensure that we speed up the asylum backlog left by the previous Government. Those matters are in train at the moment, and we will continue to examine them.

As I have already mentioned, the French scheme will run in pilot form until the end of this month, but we hope to secure some action on that very quickly. I hope the issue regarding the new scheme of the appeals board, which I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord German, and have already mentioned in response to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, is good.

I understand that the noble Lord, Lord German, has concerns, which I recognise, about the family removal issue. I say to him that we intend to ensure that, at a date very shortly in the future, we bring forward a statutory instrument that will end the family reunion issue on a temporary basis while we review family reunion for a longer period. We are doing that for the straightforward reason that the number of family reunions has increased dramatically. I shall give him the figures now: over the seven years from 2015 to 2022, approximately 5,500 individuals were granted refugee family reunion each year. In 2024, 19,709 individuals arrived via this route—a 111% increase, which is just not sustainable. We need to review that, work on it and take action accordingly. At a date very shortly, we will lay a statutory instrument that will suspend the scheme and we will bring forward a revised scheme at a date in future when we are able to do so. The suspension is temporary while we undertake a full review and reform of current family rules.

In the meantime, the noble Lord, Lord German, has asked a legitimate question: what do individuals who want to have family reunion do? They are quite able to apply as of now. Whenever the new scheme comes into effect, we will honour family reunion applications to the date when the scheme was suspended. We will then be able to examine any further family reunion routes through other means on the normal route for family reunion that will take place. We will bring forward in very short order a revised scheme that I hope will address some of the issues that, in my view, need to be tightened.

I say to all noble Lords that there is a common issue here and we should try to address it. That is what I am trying to do with the proposals before the House today.

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

Before we move on to the 20 minutes of protected time for Back-Benchers, I want to make it clear that this is 20 minutes for Back-Benchers only and that the form of the Back-Bench contributions should be questions on the Statement and not speeches.