Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Lilley Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, it is my great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who is a person on those Benches I have the most respect for when he speaks about these subjects, which he does without cant and with a great deal of knowledge and credibility.

It is important to remember that although illegal immigration attracts the most public attention, it is only a fraction of total immigration. Legal immigration is continuing at a rate which dwarfs anything we have known in our history. Indeed, it dwarfs all previous waves of immigration put together, and it will transform our country by the middle of this century or soon after. It could mean that the indigenous population will be a minority, strangers in their own land, to coin a phrase. I think that will be as much regretted by those who have come to live in this country, who wanted to come here because of the traditions that had grown up over centuries and did not really want to see them dwarfed into minority status.

The case for mass immigration was economic; when made by Tony Blair, he claimed it was necessary to promote growth and fill vacancies. Over the two decades since then, we have experienced the highest influx of migration in our history, the slowest rate of growth since the Middle Ages, and vacancies have doubled. So the thesis was absolutely discredited. But illegal immigration raises moral rather than economic issues, and I want to ask a question about the moral basis which appears to underpin the Bill.

The Minister explained that this Bill does two main things. It purports to strengthen the measures to “smash the gangs”, which, if successful, would presumably prevent migrants reaching these shores, and it removes from the statute book the Rwanda Act, which aimed to deter migrants from coming here. Why is it morally acceptable to try to prevent people leaving the beaches of France to come to the UK, but immoral and unacceptable to deter them from leaving France to come here?

We know that prevention does not work—Saturday saw nearly 1,200 people arrive by boat in a single day. Most measures in the Bill, supposedly designed to beef up prevention, appear trivial. The border security commander will be made statutory, but he will have no troops to command, only the power to convene existing operational agencies, which, I would have thought, was the duty of the Minister. He will have to produce a strategy—a frank admission by the Government that they do not themselves have a strategy. But even if these measures have some practical impact, it is clear that tens of thousands of asylum seekers will continue to cross the channel—unless, that is, the Government succeed in smashing the gangs. Then what happens? Does that mean that no asylum seekers would be able to reach this country, and there would be no one to facilitate their journey, or would they be able to come without the help of the gangs? In which case, why do they not do that now, if these gangs are so cruel, vile and horrible? There is a clear conflict within the Government’s policy. Either their policy will work, in which case it will stop people getting here and claiming asylum, or, as we know, it will not really work and will have precious little effect.

By contrast, we know that deterrence can work. Once it was made clear that Albanians would be returned to Albania, the number of arrivals from that country, or at least purporting to be from that country, plummeted. When Australia demonstrated the certainty of being returned to Indonesian waters, the influx into Australia ended. At present, given the choice between staying in France and coming to England, many migrants are prepared to take the risky crossing. But does anyone believe that, if they knew the choice was not between France and Britain but between France and Rwanda, they would opt for Rwanda? They would stay in the EU, if not in France. So, prevention will not stop illegal immigration, which means lives will continue to be lost, whereas deterrence has the potential to start to work and therefore save lives. So I repeat my question: why is prevention morally acceptable but deterrence immoral and unacceptable?

The Minister asserted that the Rwanda scheme was unworkable. He did not explain why or in what ways. Those who operated the Australian system believe that Rwanda is eminently workable, and other countries are looking at it and are attracted to it. But in any case, it is a bit rich to say that the Rwanda scheme would not work when prevention manifestly has not worked here or anywhere else.

The noble Lord, Lord German, speaking for the Liberal Democrats, argued that we should create safe and legal routes. That is often presented as if it is largely going to solve the problem of migration. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, argued the same; it is indeed a springtime tune from him, or rather, he advocates safe and legal routes in all seasons. The suggestion is that somehow, the people who would have come by boat will come by these safe and legal routes. Some of them might but many would not, and many would be refused and would then still want to come via the boats. But, once these safe and legal routes are established, many other people who at present do not attempt or consider attempting the crossing will apply. So the total number of people coming is bound to increase significantly.

I would like to know whether those who are advocating this as if it is a soft option would be happy to see these additional people coming by safe and legal routes ending up in Liberal Democrat constituencies, for example. I suspect they would find that their voters—who are never told at the local level that it is Lib Dem policy to increase the number of people coming to this country—would be very unhappy about what is proposed.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The time is up.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right. I shall sit down.