Planned Deportation Flight to Jamaica

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I assure the noble Lord that all those considerations will be taken into account. Each case will be gone through to ensure that the right decision is made, because we are making life-changing decisions for these people. This is not a flippant decision to make. The noble Lord is absolutely right to raise that issue to ensure that we are rigorous in making decisions on who we will deport. Do not forget that these are serious criminals.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend and the Government are right to take a robust line with foreign criminals, but it must be at least doubtful how foreign people are if they have been here for an awfully long time and they probably thought that they were British citizens. Why is there such a contrast between the Government’s robustness on this issue and their failure immediately to deport people who come across the channel from safe countries on the continent who are manifestly foreign and have no legal right to be here? Why do they go through a lengthy process of considering whether they have any right to be here when they manifestly do not?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend asks a very valuable question. Most of the people we deport go to the EU. He is also right to point out that it is very difficult to deport people to some countries. We would, of course, not deport people to places where they would suffer human rights abuses.