Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I wish to speak in support of Amendment 165.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

I do apologise.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the Lib Dem amendments but I want to speak in particular to Amendment 177. I thank the noble Lord for giving way.

The proposition here is a very simple one. It is that asylum-seeking children should be enabled to join refugee family members who are in the UK. This amendment is very straightforward and I am grateful to the many NGOs which helped me draft it. I am also very grateful to the other signatories—the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—for their support. I am influenced by the speech that the Prime Minister made at the Labour Party conference. I do not want to bring too much in the way of party politics into this debate, because I am seeking to get support from all parties, but he made a speech in which he talked about asylum seekers, refugees, human rights, and so on, which I think was very important.

I believe that the proposition in this amendment is a fair one. It will have some effect in reducing the number of people seeking to come over in boats and, above all, it will influence public opinion. I am aware that public opinion is in a volatile state at the moment, but I believe that if the point is put to the British people that what we are seeking to do is to enable children to join their family members in this country, most people in this country would say, “Yes, that is a reasonable and fair proposition”, even if they are hostile to some other aspects of present policy on asylum seekers and refugees. I think public opinion would come on board, but there is a history to this.

At the time we were leaving the EU, I tabled an amendment saying that we should achieve something very similar to what is in this amendment. It was an amendment that was accepted by this House. It was accepted by the Government and was part of the 2017 Act. It was then taken out in the 2019 Act, for reasons which were never made clear to me. Although I had meetings with Government Ministers about it, it was never clear to me why they had gone back on it, beyond the fact that they said, “It will be all right. There’ll be other ways for child refugees to join their families”, but of course there were not and there are not.

There is a positive history to this, because of the way it went through: it passed the Commons, so the Conservatives supported it. The Lib Dems supported it and many Cross-Benchers and Bishops supported it—and, of course, the Labour Party supported it. Are all these groups going to say no to this similar amendment? Are they going to say, “We have changed our minds”? Now, I know that the Lib Dems will not; I am not sure about my friends on the Labour Benches. We will have to see what happens. I look to my noble friend the Minister to see what he is going to do. I have had a discussion with him about this and will have another in the next little while.

The proposition is so simple. I do not believe that even the extreme right of British politics could criticise the concept put forward in this amendment. It seems to me that we have public opinion on our side; we ought to have all parties of this House, and the Commons, on our side, and it ought to become the law of the land. Goodness me, it would be a sign that we have not turned our backs entirely on the basic principles that have underpinned our attitude to human rights, refugees, and so on. It would be quite a bold step but a fairly easy one, in one way.

Of course, family ties are one of the key reasons why children make the dangerous journey. Again, I am not saying that it would stop all the boats—we would have to have a wide range of measures to stop the boats—but it would certainly help and be a generous move by us to show that we can accept people who are so vulnerable.

On the figures, although there is some difference of opinion between the Government—the Home Office—and me and some NGOs, such as the Refugee Council and Safe Passage, in fact the number of children who would be affected by this is very small. The principle is important, and I am not playing a numbers game, saying, “It’s okay because it’s small. It wouldn’t be okay if it was more”. There is an important principle here, but in practice it would affect fewer than 2,000 visas in the first year, I think, and possibly 200 to 300 in the second year. I repeat: the principle is important. It would show that as a country we have not turned our back on the rights of at least some asylum seekers, and we have not turned our back on some elements of the Geneva conventions and some of the human rights measures we have supported.

Unless something dramatic happens, I plan to bring this amendment back on Report. I think the Minister knows that that is my intention. It seems that the Government have three options. They can accept the amendment, which is of course what I would ideally like to see happen—they may want to tinker with the wording, as Governments like to do; they may wish to modify it, but they would have to be careful because modification can either be a way of improving something or it can be a negative; or they may reject it.

We will have to see what happens on Report, but I am conscious that, if the Government decide to oppose this, it will be embarrassing for them to oppose a policy that the same party accepted in the Commons not that long ago. It would be embarrassing for the Government not to do it, but it would be a sensible gesture anyway, because it would show that we do not have to be victims of the sort of publicity that the extreme right in British politics is putting forward, and that we have the strength to stick by our principles. At least there would be one group of people—namely, very vulnerable children—helped by this measure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, is saying about immigration. It is in the press every day and it is a serious issue that the public care about. However, he spoke a great deal about adults and, on this, we are particularly talking about children.

I hugely admire the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for the valiant work he has done over so many years. I support family reunion, and I particularly support his amendment. Some years ago, with the help of the NGO Safe Passage, Fiona Mactaggart, then an MP, and I went to Calais and met children. We did not meet any grown-ups who were trying to get to this country; we met entirely children. I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, that it was not 17 year-olds we were talking to; they were 10, 11 and 12 year-olds who were anxious to join their families in this country.

Until Brexit, this country—under Dublin III, I think it was—allowed children to join their parents. To the credit of the then Conservative Government, that was going to be continued. It was then stopped. It seems to me that, with one voice, this Government are talking in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill about the best interests of children and saying that the welfare of children is paramount. Does that stop at this border? Does it mean that if a child comes from Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan or Afghanistan—countries where the greatest conflicts are at the moment—that child does not merit their best interests being considered? I absolutely do not believe that that is the view of this Government. Whatever may be said about this Government, in the past they have shown a huge degree of compassion in all sorts of situations. Although I may not agree with much that the Government say, I have admired the party over many years for its approach. For this Government to say that they will no longer allow foreign children to come to this country to join their parents would, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, be shocking—I use his word.

It would probably be wise to support the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, rather than go too far in saying how many relatives could come and join children who are already here. I worry about children put into care in this country if they do not have their families—of course I do; but I worry a great deal more about children living under the trees in a cold Calais winter, wanting to join their families here. That is the group we should worry about. That is the group that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is primarily talking about.

I find it incredible that this Government will not recognise that some children whose families are already here cannot come and join them, as successive Governments have allowed for so many years. I find it truly sad, if that is what the Minister is going to say.

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for trying to get in before sponsors of amendments. I apologise to the Committee that my other public commitments have not allowed me to participate in this Bill to date.

I could not let this opportunity pass to pay tribute to my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who has been a tireless campaigner on the issue of family reunification and who, together with my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, has authored a number of Private Members’ Bills with content similar to that in Amendment 165, which I support. In my opinion, this amendment that has been revised, refined and honed to perfection as a result of the extensive previous debates in this House.

I wish to make only two points. First, if there are issues with excessive immigration, asylum seekers are only a very small proportion of that problem. Secondly, the so-called push factors prompting people to seek asylum are far greater than any hypothetical pull factor—something that the Minister may say. I agree with the noble and learned Baroness in her comments about a lack of evidence to support this suggestion of pull factors.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, makes general comments about small boat crossings and foreign criminals trying to illegally enter the country. Amendment 165 is not about undocumented migrants; it is about children who have already been given refugee status, who should be allowed to be reunited with their family members. Perhaps in the absence of documentation, something the noble Lord mentions, family links could be established by DNA test, if necessary.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has comprehensively and convincingly made the arguments in favour of this amendment, which I wholeheartedly support.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 166 from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, would not only oblige the Secretary of State to change the rules under Section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 to accommodate her proposed new clause but would extend the type of relatives who could enter. As well as those allowed under Appendix F—dependent children under 18 and partners and civil partners—which was, as noble Lords will know, suspended in September 2024 pending review, it would mean that others would be added to the list of those who could enter and remain in the UK: parents, adoptive parents, unmarried partners and children as old as 25. This is in relation to persons, not the amendments on children. Because the people of this country have no appetite for increasing the scale of immigration but want the numbers cut—and have made this increasingly clear—I support my noble friend Lord Jackson’s amendments to Amendment 166, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I have added my name to Amendments 167 to 171.

I would like to disassociate myself from comments which suggest that the majority of people in this country who want immigration cut and controlled are of some extreme disposition. Time and again I hear references to the “far right” or the “extreme right” or something else. Most of these people are ordinary people who have seen their communities torn apart very often, and they explain it on television perfectly clearly and lucidly. They are not put up to anything. They are worried about their children and what is going on in their local hotels. They are not extreme people. If any of your Lordships had young children going to school near an asylum hotel in which problems arose with people in that hotel, I do not think they would be considered extreme for raising the concern at Questions, as we can. We have a voice, but the people of our country will not have any voice until the next general election. I am sorry for slightly digressing.

I support these amendments not just because Amendment 168 would be a deterrent to foreign criminals coming in nor just because Amendment 171 would ensure that the aim of securing the border is inserted into the Bill, but because they would curb the numbers coming in rather than escalate them. In the year ending this June, 108,138 people claimed asylum. This is an 18% increase on the previous year and a fivefold increase on the numbers since 2022. Of this total, 84,231 were main applicants but 23,907 were dependants—the highest annual number of applications ever recorded, except for one other year.