King’s Speech

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, in the gracious Speech His Majesty said only this about the thorny topic of immigration and asylum:

“Legislation will be introduced to increase confidence in the security of the immigration and asylum systems”—


nothing else. That is perhaps unsurprising, given the likely choppy reception that the trailed proposals will have from the government Back Benches in the other place and indeed, if the recent SIs that we have just passed are anything to go by, from the government Back Benches in your Lordships’ House.

The proposed Bill is a start. I welcome it and I look forward to continuing to support the Minister, but the present proposals do not go far enough. It is doubtful that the new Bill will achieve its objective to increase confidence in the security of the immigration and asylum systems. The noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, said of the Government’s policy in her opening today:

“We will not hesitate to remove those with no right to be here”.


As we will see, that resounding rhetoric does not seem to match the facts. Time permits consideration only of one issue that demonstrates these conclusions. The Times reported on 26 April and 6 May this year that FoI requests had revealed the following:

“Britain returned a total of 11,629 rejected asylum seekers last year. Over the same period a total of 80,264 asylum seekers were refused asylum”.


The figures

“revealed that migrants from countries most likely to cross the Channel in small boats were among the least likely to be returned home”.

For Eritreans, the most common nationality among small boat migrants last year, the proportion of failed asylum seekers returned was just 5%; 1,269 asylum seekers presented in the UK and were refused asylum but just 64 were returned. In relation to Afghanistan, 7,330 Afghans were refused asylum last year but just 115 were returned. From Ethiopia 876 were rejected but only 15 individuals returned, giving a return rate of 1.7%. The figure for Iran was similar, only 1.8%, and for Somalis it was 1.5%. Even for Sierra Leone the figure was less than one in 100, while for Cameroon 1.5% of failed asylum seekers were returned. Even Rwanda, designated as a safe country by statute in the last Parliament, saw a return rate of failed asylum seekers of just 2.6%.

The largest cohort of failed asylum seekers in the UK are from Pakistan. Last year 10,853 people from Pakistan were refused asylum, but only 445 Pakistanis were returned to Islamabad in the same period. This is so notwithstanding that the UK and Pakistan agreed an asylum returns deal in 2022. Indeed, it is of note that nearly 200 failed Pakistani asylum seekers were living in taxpayer-funded accommodation as of December 2025.

The central point is that, if failed asylum seekers can stay here anyway, then it renders largely useless our very expensive and time-consuming asylum application and appeals process. Further, this state of affairs plainly creates a very significant pull factor for migrants to enter illegally, by small boat or otherwise, because they know, as is abundantly clear from the statistics, they are unlikely to be removed even if their asylum claims are rejected.