Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I very much support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Swire. As has already been said so well by him and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, this is an extremely sensible idea. The public, as well as ourselves and the House of Commons, are entitled to know where we stand and what is happening with the numbers.

I share, to some extent, the concerns of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, about the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, purely and simply because I wonder to what extent the National Crime Agency has actually been consulted on what its priorities are. I quite see the importance of giving this priority, and I totally support it, but I would be interested to know, before we make this a part of primary legislation, whether the National Crime Agency, which I happen to know has a large number of different duties and works extremely well in many areas in this country, sees this area as a priority.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, first, I address the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Swire. He wondered why the amendment had not captured the imagination of the House. Speaking for those of us on these Benches, the Bill is entirely focused on refugees and asylum seekers, who form a very small proportion—a tiny fraction—of the 1.3 million people given leave to remain in the country last year. So while I agree in principle with what the noble Lord says—that we should have a much firmer grip on the number of illegal immigrants in this country—his amendment is not germane to the Bill.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am very sorry, but on Report noble Lords are allowed to speak only once.

As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, the Bill is focused entirely on criminalising the victims of people smugglers and not on the people smugglers themselves. We intend to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker: if his amendment is carried, at least there will be one line, or a few lines, in the Bill that will focus on the real problem, which is the criminal people smugglers and those who are carrying out modern slavery and trafficking, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said, in effect, that this amendment was not necessary because under Section 1(4) of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, one reason for the National Crime Agency to exist is:

“The NCA is to have the function … of securing that efficient and effective activities to combat organised crime and serious crime are carried out”.


People smuggling, people trafficking and so forth are clearly organised and serious crime, but that then leads to the question raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about priorities for the National Crime Agency. The strategic priorities for the National Crime Agency are set out in Section 3 of the 2013 Act, which says:

“The Secretary of the State must determine strategic priorities for the NCA”.


I have looked at the current strategic priorities for the National Crime Agency, as set by the Home Secretary, and people smuggling, trafficking and people facilitating the sorts of things that the Bill is supposed to combat are nowhere to be seen; there is nothing in the strategic priorities about it. How can the Government say that it is a priority of the Prime Minister to tackle small boats coming across the channel when it is not a strategic priority set by the Home Secretary for the National Crime Agency? The only way we can get the National Crime Agency to focus on people smugglers is to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, which is what we on these Benches will do.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Stewart of Dirleton) (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 168 moved by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, seeks to confer on the National Crime Agency a specific function in respect of tackling organised immigration crime and to require it to maintain a cross-border people-smuggling unit. The noble Lord opposite has spoken powerfully today, as he did at previous stages of the Bill. I am gratified to hear the powerful expressions of support from the noble Lord and the Benches behind him for the Government’s commitment to addressing these repugnant crimes.

I have sympathy for the underlying aim of this amendment, in that we all agree on the need to tackle organised immigration crime, but I put it to the noble Lord that his amendment is unnecessary. As we have heard from noble Lords in the debate, the functions of the National Crime Agency are set out clearly in Section 1 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. I echo the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, who quoted from Section 1(4) of that Act:

“The NCA is to have the function … of securing that efficient and effective activities to combat organised crime and serious crime are carried out”.


At this point, I gratefully echo and adopt the points made by my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier. This function covers all forms of organised crime, and therefore includes organised immigration crime. Accordingly, adding the proposed new function would add nothing to the NCA’s remit. One reads in the NCA’s annual report of the range of activities in which it is already engaged to help address the problem of cross-channel people-smuggling gangs. That commitment also appears on the face of its website, which looks at border vulnerabilities, modern slavery and human trafficking.

As for the second limb of the amendment, which would require the NCA to establish a bespoke cross-border people-smuggling unit, I put to the noble Lord and to the House that this would undermine the operational independence of the NCA—a point made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. It is properly a matter for the director-general of the National Crime Agency to determine how best the agency is to be organised to deliver its statutory functions. In saying that, I again respectfully echo the point made by my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier from the Benches behind me.

I say in answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that the Government are committed to confronting serious organised crime in and against the UK. To help achieve this outcome, we have made significant progress in strengthening the National Crime Agency. The NCA’s budget has increased by at least 21% in the last two years to more than £860 million, which will help it continue to develop the critical capabilities it needs.

I will address a couple of specific points put by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in opening this section of the debate. He asked about the manner in which the activities of organised crime through social media are being addressed by the NCA. The National Crime Agency works closely with the major tech companies to take down organised and information crime-related content where it appears on social media. Between November 2021 and March 2023, the NCA made more than 3,400 referrals to social media companies regarding posts and accounts related to suspected organised immigration crime. Some 97% of these referrals have been taken down by the respective platforms. I hope that offers some grounds for confidence to the noble Lord as he carefully addresses the provisions of the Bill and his response.

The noble Lord also asked me about the number of prosecutions arising from this. I will go on to touch upon that subject as I move on to the manner in which the NCA’s work, along with that of our partners abroad in other jurisdictions, is organised and co-ordinated. The Government have a dedicated multiagency organised immigration crime task force, to which the NCA contributes and in which it participates. This task force is committed to dismantling organised immigration crime groups engaged in immigration crime internationally, including criminal networks that facilitate people smuggling from source countries to Europe and then to the UK, knowingly putting people in life-threatening situations. If I may, I will rehearse a couple of statistics that I gave to your Lordships’ House in Committee. The task force is currently active in 17 countries worldwide, working with its partners to build intelligence sharing as well as investigative and prosecution capability.

I will now address the specific question regarding prosecutions that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, put to me from the Front Bench. Since 2015 and the inception of Project INVIGOR, the United Kingdom’s organised immigration crime task force has been involved in more than 1,400 arrests both in the United Kingdom and overseas with, on conviction, sentences collectively amounting to more than 1,300 years in prison being imposed.

Following the pledge made by the Prime Minister on 13 December to stop the dangerous small boats crossings, the Government have doubled funding for the next two financial years for this task force. This increased funding has as its aim doubling the number of disruptions and enforcement activity against organised immigration crime and the criminal gangs that facilitate it.

As the noble Lord said from the Dispatch Box, he has had an opportunity to discuss these matters with the NCA, and I am grateful for his kind words in relation to Home Office Ministers for assisting with facilitating that. I hope that, in light of what he learned in that meeting and what I have been able to say from the Dispatch Box concerning the activities of the NCA, the desirability of maintaining its operational independence and the increased funding under which it is operating, the noble Lord will be content to withdraw his amendment.

I turn to Amendment 168AZA tabled by my noble friend Lord Swire, which would place a duty on the Secretary of State to publish a report on illegal migration, including statistics on the number of illegal migrants in the United Kingdom. I understand that my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth has also discussed this amendment with my noble friend following Committee. We recognise the importance of having clear and coherent datasets, but I invite the House to reflect on this: by the very nature of that body, it is not possible to know the exact size of the illegal population or the number of people who arrive illegally, so we do not seek to make any official estimates of the illegal population. I hear what my noble friend has to say about the way in which such figures might be gathered, but they would remain estimates.

My noble friend bemoaned the fact that his amendment has not caught the attention of your Lordships’ House and that the House has not demonstrated affection for it. In my experience, your Lordships’ House has demonstrated on many occasions its feeling for the importance of statistical evidence as a guide to policy-making. I hear very clearly what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier and my noble friend Lord Swire said about that. However, in circumstances where such figures cannot be known exactly, I invite the House to reflect that it would not be appropriate to pass my noble friend’s amendment in its current form.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 3rd July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, can the noble Lord explain why our courts, and our officials acting under their duties, reach such different decisions from the courts and officials on the continent? Why do we reject only 25% of claims for asylum, whereas France rejects 75%?

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, this is Report and that intervention is not appropriate, I am afraid.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

Whether it is appropriate or not—and I tend to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, on that subject—it seems to me that the noble Lord who just intervened has made a very selective judgment without analysing the continental cases that have taken place. I have given a fair description of what happens in our jurisdiction; it is the one that I regard well, and I hope that your Lordships will too.

--- Later in debate ---

I ask the Minister to reflect again on whether “compelling” could be more clearly expressed. If it is translated in one of these clauses, it needs to be done in all the others, which I have mentioned in my other amendments. That is my point and I cannot expand on it any further. It is a matter of fairness and proper notice to the person seeking to make these claims, so that they are not caught out by something that fails to achieve what the clauses require.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, for the reasons that both noble and learned Lords have explained, we support all the amendments in this group. Should the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, not get a satisfactory answer from the Minister, we will support him if he divides the House.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, the House will be aware that I support the direction of travel of the Bill quite strongly. It represents a serious effort—it may be a vain one, and will certainly be so if the Government accept all the loopholes in the amendments we have discussed this afternoon—to address an issue of considerable concern to our fellow citizens. But, although I support the direction of travel, that does not mean that I think it perfect in every sense. I will therefore take a minute to support Amendment 131, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead—to which he has just spoken—and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich.

I do not want to add to the background as the noble and learned Lord has obviously explained that very clearly. However, this does come under the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and I tried to draw to the attention of both Houses when we chaired the Delegated Powers Committee and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee respectively: the way in which power has been slipping through the hands of Parliament, with extensive and wide powers being taken by means of secondary legislation. Some might say that their use is improper, but let us say “extensive” for the purposes of this afternoon. Too often, these issues should have had a degree of scrutiny appropriate for primary legislation, and it is not satisfactory to introduce major issues of policy without that scrutiny.

We have to remember that we do need secondary legislation. Without it, the Government’s machine would gum up completely. But we need to make sure that its use is restricted to what it says on the tin—namely, issues of secondary importance. In my view, Clause 39, entitled

“Meaning of ‘serious and irreversible harm’,”


is of pretty fundamental importance.

I agree with the need for regulation. The world moves on much faster than the rather stately pace of primary legislation. That is why I could not support Amendment 132 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, and the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Paddick, because it seeks to delete the whole clause. We need some regulatory power. In much the same way, I am concerned about Amendment 130, because it opens up a whole series of other loopholes that impede the impact of the Bill as a whole.

In response to the wider powers that the Government are seeking under the present formulation, Parliament is entitled to ask for some limits on future ministerial power. Let me use the analogy of driving down a road. The Government are entitled to drive down the road, but in turn Parliament is entitled to ask for guard-rails—guard-rails that will ensure that a future Minister cannot swerve off into parts of—

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 28th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 42 I will speak also to Amendments 45, 48 and 85 in the unavoidable absence of my noble friends Lord Davies and Lord Woodley. I have added my name to those amendments.

Clause 7(12) imposes a statutory duty on a captain of a ship or an aircraft, a train manager or a vehicle driver that, on the instructions of an immigration officer, they must prevent a particular person disembarking or they must detain a particular person. These duties go significantly beyond the existing duties on captains of aircrafts and ships in the Immigration Act 1971. If one of those postholders fails to fulfil that statutory duty, Clause 9(2) of this Bill will make it a criminal offence. This new statutory duty and the threat of criminal prosecution are likely to create major problems for the staff involved.

I appreciate that we have been discussing matters of fundamental human rights until now. These are more prosaic issues, but nevertheless significant for those affected. These amendments are designed to alleviate the difficulties caused for the staff to whom the clause is directed. I would be grateful if the Minister would explain precisely how, in the absence of such amendments, these problems will be overcome. I will give the House five examples of issues that might arise and need addressing.

First, all these jobs are safety-critical, and the individuals performing these functions have statutory safety responsibilities. What if those health and safety duties required all the passengers on a ship, train or bus to be disembarked? For example, if a train breaks down, the duty of the train manager is to make the train as safe as possible, disembark the passengers and take them to a place of safety.

The second issue is the problem of identifying the passenger or passengers who are to be prevented from disembarking or to be detained. The captains of scheduled air flights and cruise ships will have lists of crews, passengers and so on, but how is the manager of a crowded train or ferry to find the passenger concerned? The inevitable result is that the entire complement of passengers on the train or bus will have to be detained.

Thirdly, whether the individual is identified or not, the only way of detaining him or her, or preventing them getting off the train, is to keep the doors closed. How will the manager explain to the passengers on a train arriving into King’s Cross from Glasgow that the doors must remain closed until there are security staff or immigration officers to vet the passengers coming off and detain the individual they have identified? What of the consequences to the train operating companies? Are they to be reimbursed for the compensation payable to passengers or Network Rail in the event of consequential delays?

Fourthly, assuming the passenger has been identified by the train manager or coach driver, how will they physically detain them in the absence of any training, skills or desire to engage in physical violence? How and by whom will they be compensated should they be injured?

Fifthly—this is my final example—what will happen if the French driver of a Eurostar arriving into St Pancras, or the Irish driver of a train from Belfast to Dublin, does not keep the doors shut and prevent an individual disembarking? Is it proposed that there will be extradition proceedings if the foreign train manager goes back to their own country? Your Lordships will look in vain for the answers to these very practical questions in the impact assessment.

Paragraph 67 and Annexe A of the assessment deal with extra costs of escorts and other hired staff, but there is not a word about extra payment for the poor souls identified in Clause 7. Paragraph 84 recognises that

“there may be an increase in the level of disruption observed in detention prior to removal”,

but there is not a word about how the Clause 7 staff are to cope with such disruption. Paragraphs 117, 132 and 145 report that the Bill imposes no costs on business, but there is not a word about the costs of, among other things, delays to aircraft, ships, trains and buses as a consequence of preventing the disembarkation of passengers.

No doubt the Minister would wish these amendments not to be pursued, but if so, I would be grateful for his full explanation of how these very pragmatic issues are to be addressed in the absence of these amendments.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, has clearly articulated a whole series of practical difficulties with the duties to be imposed on transport workers. From what the noble Lord said, it appears that the Government have quite clearly not thought through the consequences of the duties they intend to place on, for example, train managers. I will listen carefully to any argument the Minister might have that the duties imposed by the Bill go beyond existing duties but, clearly, subjecting these workers to being potentially convicted of a criminal offence for failing to act in accordance with the Bill, while not providing them with any advice, let alone training or equipment, in order to carry out their duties requires some explanation.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much agree with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, particularly with respect to whether what is included in the Bill is an extension of existing powers, or simply a reiteration of what was in legislation that preceded the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, did us a great favour in bringing forward a whole series of practical questions which the Minister started to answer in Committee. They are quite serious questions about the practicalities and, as the Minister knows, we have been concerned about not only some of our principled objections but also the workability of some of the clauses and powers contained in the Bill. It is worth reiterating, so it is on the record, what the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, said: the Government require transport workers—whether it be a lorry driver, a train operator, a train guard or a bus conductor—to act in an almost pseudo-police officer role to detain or search people.

If I were in that situation, I would be genuinely concerned about the implications. There are legitimate questions about the powers of detention, how long people would be detained, the use of force, and so on.

Can the Minister clarify one further point? His previous amendments added the words “immigration officer” to make the legislation consistent with later parts of the clause which refer to an

“immigration officer or the Secretary of State”.

Do the Government envisage any difference? Is that wording to cover any eventuality rather than any significant principled thing that the immigration officer could do that the Secretary of State could not, or vice versa? It would be interesting to know, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches support all the amendments in this group, for the reasons my noble friends have explained.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

The noble Lord has caught me out as I gather my notes.

Amendment 139A, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, spoke to, is about encouraging victims or witnesses to report offences. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham also spoke to this. I absolutely understand and support the sentiments behind that amendment. I thought I would reflect a little on my experience as a magistrate in Westminster Magistrates’ Court, where I remember that, about 10 years ago, we had officials from the Home Office sitting in our courts. They were basically there to try to pick up business to do with illegal migrants and asylum seekers, whether they be offenders, witnesses or people who just appeared in court.

It just so happened that one of my magistrate colleagues was a Home Office official—particularly, part of the Border Force organisation but within the Home Office. She explained to me that it was a pilot that had worked for three months, I think from memory, but which was stopped after that period because they just did not pick up enough business. It was not worth the officials sitting in court for that period. I thought that was an interesting reflection on the points which the noble Baroness made. I absolutely understand the point which she and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham made about people being reluctant to come forward, because of their distrust of the criminal justice system as a whole, However, my practical experience of that, as just described—and Westminster Magistrates’ Court deals with perhaps the most diverse group of people to pass through the doors of any magistrates’ court in the country—was that not a lot of business was picked up. That is my first reflection.

My second reflection is on Amendment 139B, regarding the implementation of the report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons on immigrants in detention centres. This also goes to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord German, about the Brook House inquiry. Again, a few years ago I was a lay inspector and in that role I went to Littlehey Prison with the then chief inspector. It was an unannounced visit and extremely illuminating to see the prison itself, which was a sex offenders’ prison, but also to talk to the inspectors about how they conduct their activities and how important it is to have unannounced inspections. The way they explained it to me was that the inspections need to be, on the one hand, unannounced, but perhaps even more importantly, regular, and there need to be follow-up inspections. The prison officers and governors whom I met were very sure that they would be continually inspected over a period of time. It would be a working relationship with the inspectorate to try to ensure that standards were kept up.

I am sympathetic to Amendment 139B, as it is a process; it is not a one-off. I very much hope that the Government have confidence in their inspectorate to put in place, over time, an inspection regime which is in-depth and can do its best to maintain standards, while identifying any shortcomings it may see on its inspections. Nevertheless, I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to offer our support from these Benches. The most reverend Primate has delivered what I would call a swerve ball: he has gone around the side of what is being proposed by the Bill and tried to find a route for what will follow it. He raised the issue of the Modern Slavery Act at the beginning, which we have debated in Committee as being something this Parliament has been very proud of indeed. All of that has been put to one side in order for the Government to make these short-term decisions.

It is interesting that, on many occasions, Ministers on the Government Front Bench have referred to the Bill as dealing with an emergency, whereas they have not yet recognised the context that what is happening is a global problem. The interesting figures at the beginning of the Joint Committee on Human Rights report on the Bill enlighten us:

“In mid-2022, the UN Refugee Agency … estimated that there were 103 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. Of those, 32.5 million are refugees and 4.9 million are seeking asylum — the highest number since the UNHCR was created in 1950. This number is likely to increase given the deadly conflict that has erupted in Sudan”.


Over the page, it says that we will not solve this on our own. Treating this as an emergency will never satisfy the issue that the Government are trying to address of trying to deal with the problem at source.

The Government say that they will stop criminal gangs with the Bill, but many in the Committee believe that this simply will not happen. Many of your Lordships believe that the Bill, as it stands, is as a gift to traffickers, who know that their victims will be too frightened of the threat of removal to approach authorities.

The logic behind the most reverend Primate’s amendment is quite clear to us, in relation to trafficking. It focuses on efforts to tackle the traffickers rather than penalise the victims. What most of us find most abhorrent about the Bill is that it tackles the victims to try to deal with a problem that is well beyond its reach. I absolutely support the view of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, on the supply chain process: it is just silly—not sensible—to think that it will work.

That is why we need a global and collaborative approach with international partners. That is what is needed when traffickers operate across national boundaries and borders. This amendment therefore addresses the question: what next? It puts co-operation front and centre of its approach and it seeks a role for the UK in which it is a leader, rather than a follower and a country trying to pull up a drawbridge. Trafficking is an abhorrent crime and we need to play our part in tackling the crime at source. It needs a global perspective and collaboration, rather than headlines with an election in mind.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, as other noble Lords have said, a 10-year strategy, implementation plan and associated measures are needed to tackle human trafficking, particularly, as the most reverend Primate’s amendment suggests, through international collaboration to deal with issues upstream and downstream—as the former oilman said. His experience of supply chains is similar to that of the noble Lord, Lord Deben.

However, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, raised a justified concern about the reluctance of other partners, who would be central to the success of such a strategy, if they believed that the United Kingdom were breaking its international commitments, whether regarding the European Convention on Human Rights or the European convention on trafficking. The most reverend Primate highlights the worrying slowdown in prosecutions for human trafficking, which must be reversed.

I have one concern about the most reverend Primate’s plan. I understand the need to establish a long-term strategy, but an incoming Home Secretary could thwart a 10-year strategy by asking Parliament to repeal any law that contains the provisions in this amendment. Sadly, enshrining a 10-year strategy in law does not guarantee its longevity, but it would make it more difficult to dislodge. That is why we support these amendments.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to address the Chamber briefly in support of the amendment before us from the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. My points will build on the excellent speeches and comments that have been made.

As others have said, this amendment presents the Government with a phenomenal opportunity. All our debate has been very contentious and will remain so when the Bill is on Report, but here is an opportunity, in one amendment, for the Government to take a different approach in line with the 10-year strategy that has been laid before us.

Let me say this as well: the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is right that this discussion deserves a wider audience. We ought to think about how we could generate that in the context of the Bill and perhaps in other ways to ensure that this issue gets the audience that it deserves. Why do I say that? I do so not only because I agree with it. Yesterday, we debated the purpose of this Chamber in a different context. We had a debate among ourselves and disagreement on the constitutional role of the Lords and what it should be with regard to legislation. As a relatively new Member here, I think that that is a really important role for this House to play.

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[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

For the reasons I have already given; shouting “why” from a sedentary position does not assist.

I am very grateful to the most reverend Primate for raising this issue. It is very important that the Committee has had a chance to step back and discuss these strategic issues in the way that it has. I am very grateful to him for affording us this opportunity to debate this issue but, having done so, I hope he will be content to withdraw his amendment. Of course, we will shortly consider the wider context of the refugee question.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

Just before the most reverend Primate responds, what I heard the Minister say from the Dispatch Box was that the Government do not believe in strategy, not that the Government oppose strategy being in primary legislation. Perhaps I misheard him.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

No, I certainly did not say that the Government do not believe in strategy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I will not repeat the comments I made on the last group, some of which equally apply here, but, as this is the end of Committee, I feel at liberty to repeat one of the remarks I made at Second Reading. I studied moral philosophy at university—Oxford, I am afraid—and one of the acid tests for whether something was morally right was: what would happen if everyone did the same thing? As the most reverend Primate said, if everyone followed the path that the Government propose to take with the Bill, the whole established global system for dealing with refugees would collapse. International collaboration to tackle refugee crises is essential, as are these amendments, which we support.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to make a short contribution on an amendment that we very much support. Before I make general remarks, I ask the Minister to reflect again on the importance of a strategy and why strategies can move between Governments, as I know from having seen Governments change. That does not mean that they stay exactly the same, and a strategic framework may not bind another Government, but that does not stop Governments producing strategies for themselves. I ask the Minister to reflect on that—I am sure that others who have had experience in government would bear that out.

I was reflecting more generally about the references to the 1951 refugee convention. I mention that because the world faced a global crisis in 1951, and what did it do? Visionary people came together to sort the problem out as best they could and to deal with the challenges that they faced. As the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, said, it was more than regional; it was global, affecting the global institutions and world powers, which had major conflicting differences—poverty and goodness only knows what else was going on, with countless millions of people displaced.

I am not saying that the world is currently in a post-World War II situation, but I agree with the most reverend Primate that we face a global crisis that cannot be solved by one country on its own—it just cannot. The world will be driven by a common interest, in some ways, to sort this out. Whatever we think of other countries, their own self-interest will drive them to sort it out. Countries will try to sort it out on their own, but they will not be able to.

Without being a prophet of doom about this, I say that things are going to get more difficult. I do not mean that we are at the edge of the end of the world, or anything like that, but you can see the impacts of regional and ethnic conflict as well as overpopulation, failing crops, the changing climate, water and energy competition and the food crisis, as well as millions of people moving—in fact, countless millions. I know that figures have been arrived at. Many noble Lords have been to parts of the world where it is unbelievable to see some of the poorest countries in the world dealing with millions of people. If those people came into some of the richest countries, I am not sure how they would deal with it. I went to Angola 20 years ago, after the civil war, and you just could not believe it. I went to one refugee camp and there were 1 million people in it—and that was internationally supported, so it was fantastic. I went to Jordan and the number of people who had flooded across the border from Syria into temporary camps there was unbelievable. There were huge numbers of people—and you can replicate that. I do not think that it is going to stop any time soon, and we need to understand how we are going to deal with that and cope with it. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, was quite right to point out the various impacts.

The most reverend Primate is not trying to say that therefore that means that the UK should just allow in anybody who wants to come—that is just trivialising the argument. Of course you have to have control and manage the situation. The point that the amendment seeks to make is that, if this is going to be sorted out—over and above the problem of the boats, which we accept needs to be dealt with—the UK is still a significant power. It is challenged at the moment through some of its attitudes to international conferences, conventions and treaties, but we are still a member of the United Nations Security Council, NATO and the Commonwealth, which we have not mentioned. When you travel, you recognise, understand and see the influence that the UK still has.

In backing the amendment proposed by the most reverend Primate, though the initiatives that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham has mentioned—with the Clewer Initiative and the Anglican community across the world—I say that in the end people are going to have to come together to sort this out. Somewhere along the line, it will need big, visionary people to stand up and say, “We’re going to do that”.

I am going to make this point—and I am going to take a minute on this issue. The argument in this country, which those of us who stood for election know is difficult, and the conflation between immigration, migration, refugees and asylum makes things actually really difficult, because it is all lumped together as one problem. Somewhere along the line, part of what a strategy does is to get people to step back and reflect. The British public, along with all the publics in the world, can do that. If people are presented even with difficult choices that they may not wish to confront, they are not stupid—they know that sometimes things have to be dealt with.

This is a really important point: people are decent. I know that sometimes they will rant and rave about how this is happening and they cannot believe that everybody is coming here, but I have seen myself, and I am sure that everyone has seen it in their own communities, that if you try to deport one family that has lived in community for a considerable period of time, there will be a campaign in that community to stop them being removed. That is because people are decent. If you look at it as individual children and grandparents, individual men and women, we all know from our own personal experiences that people look at it in a different way. All that the amendment proposed by the most reverend Primate is doing is to say that we should harness that and bring it together into a way of addressing a problem that we have as a country but which we have globally as well. If we do not try to sort it out globally, we will have a problem, because the problem will not go away—but it is a challenge that we can meet. This gives us an opportunity to develop a strategy that has at its heart using the privileged position that our country has as a world leader to be an agent for change in a way that would bring about a better world and offer hope to millions of the poorest people in the world.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Finally, I will reflect on the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington. I note to the noble Lord that there are now more bedrooms per person in the UK than there have ever been before. We have a housing crisis because of decades of failed housing policies. Refugees did not create those policies; refugees are not the problem—indeed, they could build some of the houses that we need. Let us focus on the problem of housing policy rather than bringing it into a debate on refugees.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we support all the amendments in this group. The issue of the millions displaced by war and persecution requires international co-operation, including the UK taking its fair share of genuine refugees. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham said, there are no safe, or deliverable, and legal routes for many, or most, genuine refugees. The Bill seeks to imprison and remove any genuine refugee who arrives in the UK other than by safe and legal routes that do not exist. We need humanitarian visas, as my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed has said.

Placing a cap on the numbers arriving by safe and legal routes at the whim of the Secretary of State is not acceptable, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has said. Any cap needs to be debated and set by Parliament. Rather than the Secretary of State being exempt from the need to consult if the number needs to be changed as a matter of urgency, it is exactly in times of emergency that we need debate and consultation.

In support of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, I say that if the UK secured a reputation for taking its fair share of genuine refugees, and had a widely publicised humanitarian visa scheme and a strong strategy for tackling people smugglers, an international agreement to address the global problem of those seeking sanctuary would be more likely to be negotiated. I ask the Minister to answer clearly in his response the questions raised by my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, about the situation facing young women fleeing Iran.

There was only one dissenting voice in the debate on this group, and that was from the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, on the Cross Benches. The noble Lord knows that I have some sympathy for the views he expresses about the pressure on housing and other services caused by immigration but, as I have said previously, we are talking about desperate people fleeing war and persecution. The noble Lord talked about 606,000 being the net migration figure last year. The Government actually issued 1,370,000 visas to people to come and stay in the UK, and that is an issue that needs to be addressed. The people coming across the channel in boats, which is what the Bill is supposedly all about, are a tiny fraction of the numbers that this Government are allowing into this country.

Most of the time, it causes me real distress to hear about these sorts of policies and the direction the Conservative Government are taking this country in. Yet it is heartening to know that compassionate conservativism is not completely dead. To hear the support for these amendments from Back-Benchers on the Government side is truly heartening, and I am very grateful for their support.

On family reunion, surely children looked after by their parents will be less of a burden on the state than looked-after children, let alone the other benefits to the children involved and society generally. Hard-working refugees are more than capable of looking after dependent parents, similar to UK citizens in that situation. I support Amendment 129 particularly, as well as the other amendments in this group.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been another very important debate on the Bill, on safe and legal routes. We support much of what has been said and the majority of the amendments in this group, particularly the one moved by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. I also mention Amendment 128C, which I thought was important, from the noble Baronesses, Lady Stroud, Lady Helic and Lady Mobarik, and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope.

I want to pick up what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, was saying. I thought that it was really important. I think his point was that there is a lot of intent but that it is important to see the obligations laid out, hence the importance of knowing when the Government will do certain things. The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, also made that point. Can the Minister confirm when he expects this to be operating? If it is 2024—again, I am not being sarcastic—is the expectation that it will be towards the end of that year? Can the Minister give any indication of when we can expect the safe and legal routes to operate, however they and the cap are arrived at?

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, also made the point that this is part of the Government’s solution to the chaos in the system at the moment. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made the point well: it is broader than just small boats. It is about the asylum and refugee system that we think should operate.

During the debate, I was particularly struck when I reread the first part of Amendment 128C, on the duty to establish safe and legal routes. This is why I was referring to what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay said. It says:

“The Secretary of State must, on or before 31 January 2024, make regulations specifying additional safe and legal routes”,


to try to put some sort of timescale on what is taking place. The Government say in Clause 58 that they will make regulations after consulting and so on, but, unless my reading is wrong, there is no timescale. The addition of a timescale would help significantly, for the operation of the system and for all of us to understand what is going on.

Can I also, in the spirit of early afternoon on a Wednesday, make a suggestion? The Government can reflect on it or ignore it. Obviously, they are making regulations on something really significant and important. If I have read the Bill correctly, it will be done by the affirmative process, so the regulations will be put and debated. I wonder whether the Minister could confirm that it is affirmative—my reading is that it is.

One thing that sometimes happens and which Governments have done in the past—and given the importance of this legislation, and all the various reflections that will change the primary legislation, or not, as we finish this process—when something is of significant importance or contentious, as this may well prove to be, is to publish the regulations. Because the regulations cannot be amended, to at least ameliorate the impact of that, Governments sometimes publish them for comment well before they put them for approval. They put them in a draft form and make sure that everyone is aware of it, then ask people for comments well before they put them for approval. The Government would take a view as to whether or not they would like to change them, but that is one helpful way for them to take this forward. Will the Government consider that?

Will the Minister also confirm what the regulations under Clause 58(1) actually involve? Will it just be a figure, or will they say how that figure has been arrived at, mention all the countries that may be involved, and so on? It would be interesting for us to know exactly what those regulations would involve and include. On the regulations, which are everything with respect to much primary legislation, will the Minister comment on my suggestion about having draft regulations well in advance, before they are put for approval? Will he say whether they are affirmative, and a little bit more about what they would actually involve? There is also the point about timescale and the very good point made in proposed new subsection (1) in Amendment 128C.

To move on to general points, in the Government’s safe and legal routes scheme as proposed, do they intend to have any sort of prioritisation, or will it be just on an individual case basis? I am interested whether the Government are going to talk about family reunion and high-grant countries and what their view is of any of that. How will the Government deal with the emergencies that may arise? I have read the clause, but could the Minister spell that out a little bit more? It has got slightly lost, so I also emphasise one of the points that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham made—the issue of children in all this, whether they are unaccompanied or not. We would be interested to hear what the Government have to say on that issue.

I have nothing much more to add to the many excellent points made by many noble Lords during this very important debate. I am really interested in the process with respect to the regulations, because in that will be everything. I am concerned that we do not just have a repeat of what has happened before, whereby the regulations are just put and there is no ability to debate or amend them. Any regulations being published well in advance so that we can at least debate and discuss them and try to change the Government’s mind would be extremely helpful.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

No, it does not surprise me that the noble Lord asked the Question. I had not noticed it, but the Answer does not surprise me. The serious point is that the Government are clearly working to figures—they have to be—but they are not sharing them with the Chamber. It cannot be that they are just making it up as they go along. Hence the probing amendment: let us know something about the consequences of the measures and how many detention places the Government are planning for. Presumably, it will be as many as they need because of the number coming across—whatever that will be. The whole thing is predicated on the Government saying, “It will deter people from coming; therefore, we won’t need many”. So what is the figure and the deterrence effect assumption that the Government are working towards?

Amendment 138 is just to understand what police co-operation is taking place to deter the criminal smuggling gangs and tackle the people smugglers. Again, we would like to know. According to the figures I have—it will be interesting to know the figures from the Minister—there have been just three to four convictions per month for people smuggling across the channel, including a halving in total convictions for smuggling since 2018 to just 135 a year. Can the Minister confirm those figures? Can he confirm that over the past 12 months, criminal smuggling gangs have made, according to estimates, £180 million? Can he also confirm what co-operation is taking place between all the EU member states and beyond to tackle the criminal smuggling gangs and deal with the people we would all wish to be prosecuted and jailed for their horrific actions? An update on that would be helpful. Presumably, that would also be in an impact assessment, so we could understand it.

Finally, my Amendment 139FD would insert a new clause requiring the Government to report on the number of those removed due to the passing of the Act. How many people are the Government assuming that they will remove? As I said, the whole Bill is predicated on detention and removal—that is the whole raison d’être—so what assumption do the Government have? As we asked on earlier clauses, where are these people going to be removed to? I know we have had the debates about proper conformity to treaties, human rights and all those sorts of things, but again, we need some statistics and facts about what the Government intend to do—where they intend to remove people to, but also the number they are seeking to remove.

We are moving beyond the stage of platitudes and rhetoric. We want some hard statistical evidence to back up what the Government are saying alongside their proposals. We cannot act; we do not know the statistics and the impact assessment is being denied to us. I say again: the frank reality is that the Government have figures within the Home Office that they are working to. The only people who are not having those figures shared with them are the people legislating on the Bill, and that, frankly, is simply and utterly unacceptable.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the main problem with the broken asylum system, which appeared to be working satisfactorily in 2010, is how it has come to create a disproportionately large backlog of those awaiting asylum decisions, set against a similar or smaller number of applications for asylum and a disproportionate number of failed asylum seekers awaiting removal. Amendment 132 seeks to address this. We will discuss with our Labour colleagues whether we should move to Report on the Bill in the absence of an impact assessment.

The Cabinet Office’s Guide to Making Legislation, last updated on 15 August 2022, says:

“The final impact assessment must be made available alongside bills published in draft for pre-legislative scrutiny or introduced to Parliament, with 80 copies sent to the Vote Office (30 of which should be marked for the attention of the Public Bill Office) and 10 to the Lords Printed Paper Office on introduction, and will need to be updated during parliamentary passage to reflect any changes made to the bill”.


Can the Minister say why the Government have not complied with the Cabinet Office’s Guide to Making Legislation in relation to this Bill?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly to the two amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Coaker. The new clause proposed in Amendment 139FA

“requires the Home Secretary to establish a process to fast-track asylum claims from safe countries”,

while the proposed new clause in Amendment 139FC

“seeks to require regular reports from the Secretary of State on progress toward eliminating the current backlog of asylum cases”.

As of March, there were 172,758 asylum seekers in the UK waiting an initial decision on their case, with 128,812—that is 75%—waiting longer than six months. The backlog is so extreme that the Government have tried to quietly drop a key measure of the Nationality and Borders Act to speed up 55,000 people who have arrived over the past year.

The purpose of these two amendments is first to re-establish, if you like, the fast-tracking so that the people who are very likely to succeed in their appeals are dealt with as quickly as possible and, secondly, to monitor the situation to see how it is progressing. In the press I read that Robert Jenrick, the Immigration Minister, said he believes that reducing the backlog would increase the pull factor for those seeking to apply for asylum. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government’s view is that by decreasing the backlog you are increasing the pull factor? People taking part in today’s debate would be very sceptical of that, but I wonder whether the Minister can confirm that that is indeed the Government’s view.

We have had a wide-ranging debate, and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, that the debate has gone far wider than the Bill and has been focusing on right to work and issues such as that, but what I seek to do in this brief contribution is to talk specifically to the amendments in my noble friend’s name, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we support all the amendments in this group. On Amendment 133 in the name of my noble friend Lady Ludford, it makes complete sense to ensure that asylum seekers are not a burden on taxpayers as soon as practicable. If the Government do not agree, perhaps they should ensure that claims are decided within the three or six months suggested in the amendment.

As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham says, a lot of asylum seekers who are granted permission to work send money back home, as it were. Surely that helps to ensure that people stay in the country where they are and do not add to the problem of asylum seekers.

On Amendment 150, there is no point in creating an even greater backlog until the Government have addressed the existing one.

On the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, fast-tracking claims from countries with high rates of success makes complete sense and any ongoing impact assessment should include the impact of the Act on the backlog.

The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, made a significant contribution and I hope she does not mind me responding to it. I think she is absolutely right that we have to bear in mind how all this is viewed by members of the British public, but we have already heard one noble Lord— I cannot remember who it was—saying that 77% of the public support allowing asylum seekers to work.

On the issue that the noble Baroness raised around job vacancies versus UK citizens who are jobless, the adult social care system cannot attract British workers, to the extent that the Government allow special provision for foreign workers to come in and fill those vacancies. The agriculture sector cannot attract British workers—for example, seasonal workers to pick crops—and the Government make special provision to allow foreign workers to come into the country. I do not know whether the figure that the noble Baroness quotes of 5 million is right, but the Government allow foreign workers to come in and do those jobs. Why can asylum seekers not do those jobs while they wait for their application to be decided by the Government?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

I will let my noble friend the Minister respond on behalf of the Government to the noble Lord’s point but, as he was responding to what I had argued, I have to say that what he has just described makes my point, if I may be so bold.

I argue that, yes, there may be schemes that are authorised for the recruitment of people from outside the UK for specific jobs, but that does not justify that we make those who arrive outside those schemes eligible for work. That would make crossing the channel a route that is seen as attractive for those who might not want to come and do those jobs in particular but certainly want to come here for economic reasons.

As far as the specific working environments that the noble Lord talks about, if the problem in those industries is that wages are insufficient, whether it is in the care sector or the food industry, then I argue very much that the employers need to address the wage issues to encourage more people to apply, if that is part of the barrier to people going to work in them in the first place.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I am not sure whether she heard the evidence provided by my noble friend Lady Ludford from the Home Office report, which said that providing work was not a pull factor in the way that the noble Baroness has suggested.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group all relate in one way or another to the operation of the asylum system. They variously seek to enable asylum seekers to work after three months and to reduce the backlog of asylum claims, an objective which we all share. Let me address each of these issues in turn.

Amendment 133, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, would enable asylum seekers to seek employment after three months. Asylum seekers are allowed to work in the UK if their claim has been outstanding for 12 months or more, through no fault of their own. Those permitted to work are restricted to jobs on the shortage occupation list which, in turn, is based on expert advice from the independent Migration Advisory Committee, about which we heard during the debate. The list comprises skilled jobs where there is an identified shortage which it is sensible to fill, at least in part, through immigration.

It is important that our policy approach distinguishes between those who need protection and those seeking to work here, who can apply for a work visa under the Immigration Rules. Asylum seekers do not need to make perilous journeys to seek employment in the United Kingdom. There are various safe and legal routes for those seeking to work in the UK under the points-based system. Amendment 133 would fundamentally undermine our immigration framework. Instead of people applying to work in the UK through the proper channels, this amendment would simply encourage them to come to the UK illegally or overstay on a visitor’s or student visa, and then claim asylum in the knowledge that they would be able to work after three months.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly, but I hope strongly, to support Amendment 139FB tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. This amendment is incredibly simple and yet, it seems, immensely powerful. It gives the National Crime Agency a legal responsibility to tackle organised immigration crime across the channel and to maintain the specific unit to undertake work related to that responsibility.

It is surely extraordinary that the Home Secretary has produced a Bill of 67 clauses devoted entirely, as I understand it, to an attack on the victims of persecution, modern slavery and trafficking and incorporating every conceivable manoeuvre to prevent those victims achieving asylum in the UK. I think I am right in saying—and I know the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that not one of the 67 clauses sets out a plan to prosecute the criminals who demand large sums from vulnerable individuals to bring them to the UK in small boats across the channel at great risk to their lives—we know many of them die.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is doing the country a great favour, in my view, in offering, in Amendment 139FB, a way in which the Prime Minister could actually fulfil what he claims to be one of his top policy priorities—to stop the boats. I presume the Government will give tremendously strong support to this amendment, but whether they do or not, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is to be applauded for his amendment.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for any confusion. Normally, the Labour Front-Bencher would be the last speaker but, when they have amendments to speak to, it is only right that we respond to what they have said.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, we believe that the Government are wrongly focused on prosecuting the victims of people traffickers rather than the people traffickers themselves. Amendment 136 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and Amendment 139FB in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, seek to refocus the Government on the real criminals in all this—the people traffickers.

Amendment 139E seems to make complete sense. I slightly disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, saying that the Government have the statistics that Amendment 139E wants them to produce. I am not sure that they do have those numbers. For example, the Government increased the number of countries whose citizens can use e-passport gates at airports, so in addition to EU and EEA citizens, citizens of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the USA can use e-passport gates. Once those people have passed through the e-passport gates, the Government have no idea where they have gone in the UK or whether they have left after the six months they are allowed under visa-free entry. There is no way to track where the people have gone, what they are doing or whether they are illegally employed. So I am not sure that the Government have those statistics. I absolutely agree that the Government—all of us—are entitled to know who those people are and how many are here.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Just to show how it can be done: may I just say that the noble Lord might have a point?

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

High praise indeed from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker.

We also support Amendment 139F and Amendment 137, to which my noble friend Lady Ludford has just spoken comprehensively—so I do not need to.

Public Order Act 1986 (Serious Disruption to the Life of the Community) Regulations 2023

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Tuesday 13th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, with little exception, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has said. I start by having considerable sympathy with the motives that have caused the Government to come forward with this statutory instrument. However, for the reasons that were advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I feel that the process is very defective. However, again, for constitutional reasons, which I shall mention very briefly, I cannot support the fatal amendment.

That, in summary, is my position; if I may, I shall elaborate a little further. So far as the motives of the Government that lie behind the statutory instrument are concerned, I share very many of these views, as indeed does the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. In a free society, individuals have a right to demonstrate. However, their fellow citizens have a right to go about their daily business without unreasonable obstruction. I fear that, increasingly, we are seeing on the part of demonstrators a disregard for the obligations they have to their fellow citizens.

So I can well understand the motives that activate the Government in bringing forward the changes in the statutory instrument. However, for the reasons advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I have very real reservations about the process that is being adopted. The process and its defects were identified by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral. He is entirely right, and his report is extremely direct on the subject. The statutory instrument is in fact designed to reverse the defeat in this House earlier this year.

If that is a desirable thing to do, it should be done by primary legislation. That is the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. Amendments made to a Bill by this House on Report can always be considered further in the House of Commons and, where appropriate, they can be the subject of ping-pong; that is the proper way forward.

A statutory instrument is an unamendable legislative device and, in my view, one that should not be used to make significant changes to the law, in particular to the criminal law. So one needs to go to the purpose of this statutory instrument. The Home Secretary set it out in yesterday’s debate in the House of Commons. At column 55, she set out the four purposes of the instrument, and said later, of the police, that

“we are trying to clarify the thresholds and boundaries of where the legal limit lies, so that they can take more robust action and respond more effectively”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/6/23; col. 74.]

Now, that raises at least two pertinent questions. Either this statutory instrument, in effect, does no more than tidy up existing legislation and ensure that existing case law applies equally across the statutory waterfront, or it is intended to make significant changes to existing law. In the first case, it must be doubtful whether the statutory instrument is required; in the second case, if, as I suspect, the statutory instrument does make substantial changes to existing law, it should be done by primary legislation—and that is what this House intended to do in January.

So, finally, we get back to process, which is fundamental to tonight’s debate. I share all the reservations expressed in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. They constitute good reasons why the procedure adopted by the Government is flawed. I would like to think that if the amendment is passed—and in all probability, I will vote for it—the Government will withdraw the statutory instrument and resort to primary legislation.

I am afraid that I cannot support the fatal amendment moved by the noble Baroness. Here, I find myself in agreement with the views expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Reid and Lord Rooker. The House of Commons passed this statutory instrument last night by a very substantial majority. The fatal amendment has a much more dramatic consequence than those occasions when the House amends a Government Bill. In such cases, the Bill can be further considered by the Commons. However, if this House carries the fatal amendment, the statutory instrument is killed. That goes beyond that which an unelected House should in general do.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

The noble Viscount seems to be saying that the difference here is that if this House votes down a measure in primary legislation, it goes back to the Commons to be reconsidered. That is not what happened in this case: the amendment was introduced in the House of Lords, not the other place, we voted it down and it disappeared. It did not go back to the other House. Exactly the same thing will happen tonight if noble Lords vote for the fatal amendment.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I entirely understand this point, but we need to draw a distinction between amendments that this House makes in Committee and on Report, when it is possible for the House of Commons to consider again and come back to this House, and—

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

Will the noble Viscount give way?

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

May I just finish this point?

In this particular case, if we pass a fatal amendment, as advocated by the noble Baroness, we will be killing a statutory instrument which was supported by the House of Commons last night. I am very unwilling to support that proposition as a precedent, and I agree with the views expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Reid.

I say this as one who was in the House of Commons for 30 years. I am under no illusion as to the nature of the House of Commons. My father used to speak and write about the “elective dictatorship”. He was entirely right, but at the end of the day we have to decide where authority lies, and however imperfect its authority may be down the road, it does have the authority of an election, and we do not have that. I give way to the noble Lord if he wishes to intervene further.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am very grateful, but the noble Viscount makes another error in his assertions. This was not an amendment to the Bill introduced by the Opposition in this House. It was a Government amendment introduced in this House, which was defeated by this House, which means that the amendment could not then be considered by the House of Commons. Therefore, there is no practical difference between the voting down of that Government amendment, killing it completely, and voting for a fatal amendment to the statutory instrument, which would kill it completely.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

The noble Lord is cavilling at this point. We are, in a sense, talking about principle. Where does authority, in the end, lie? It lies down there because they are elected. It does not lie here because we are not elected. It is for that reason that I shall vote for the amendment moved by the noble Lord, and I do not feel able—although I agree with a great deal that the noble Baroness said—to vote for the fatal amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches associate ourselves with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, on the tragic events in Nottingham.

Like the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Lisvane, I will not say much about the substance of the SI. If the Home Office had realised that the Public Order Act 1986 needed to be amended before the Bill had left the other place, we would not be here now.

I want to talk about the constitutional issue, described by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, of a Government changing primary legislation by means of secondary legislation within months of this House having voted against that primary legislation. As we have heard, this is unprecedented, or, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, put it, a constitutional outrage.

On Monday, this House will have the Second Reading of the British Nationality (Regularisation of Past Practice) Bill. This primary legislation retrospectively changes primary legislation by means of a two-clause fast-tracked piece of primary legislation. Not only is this the proper way of amending primary legislation but it shows that it can be done quickly and easily. There is no need for the will of this House, expressed through a recent Division, to be overruled by means of secondary legislation when a single-clause fast-tracked Bill could have done the same job without creating an unconstitutional precedent.

Noble Lords opposite may say that it is no big deal, but the Prime Minister said that his Administration would have

“integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level”.

I will return to the issue of integrity in a moment, but failing to amend the 1986 Act in the other place clearly shows a lack of professionalism, and failing to correct the mistake by means of primary legislation shows a clear lack of accountability because, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, scrutiny of secondary legislation is cursory.

On integrity and the Boris Johnson resignation honours row, Michael Gove, a senior Government Minister, said yesterday on the BBC Radio 4 “Today” programme:

“The appropriate procedure was followed”.


He went on to describe it as

“a process we are all familiar with as part of the constitution … it is appropriate to look at all these processes. They all have their own coherence in accordance with past practice and due process … All Governments work according to precedent … those are protocols that govern this particular procedure, and I think Governments overall have been criticised sometimes for departing from due process. I think it was appropriate and right that the Prime Minister and the Government followed due process in this way … I know it’s old fashioned to want to use precedent and independent institutions to establish how all these sorts of things should be decided, but then precedent and independent institutions are, I think, the two of the constitutional bulwarks that are important”.

This House is an independent institution, and this SI breaks long-established precedent. In answer to a question about changing precedent in connection with resignation honours, Michael Gove said:

“The inference of the question is that we should alter precedent, and that we should in some way say to independent institutions that they should operate in a different way from which they have been constituted. I think what we have here are the existing constitutional machinery working as it was designed to do”.


So there we have it: a Conservative Government who believe that independent institutions should not operate differently from how they have been constituted, and that precedent should not be altered apart from when it suits them. That is the very definition of a lack of integrity.

This House voted against the provisions in this statutory instrument by a majority in a Division on primary legislation in February this year. There is no precedent to overturn a decision of this House on primary legislation by means of secondary legislation. I am reminded of the words of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, addressing the amendment to deny the Illegal Migration Bill a Second Reading, which he considered unconstitutional. He said:

“I do not think that any Member of this House who respects its values and its role could possibly go through the Lobbies and vote for that amendment”.—[Official Report, 10/5/23; col. 1801.]


I adapt his words and apply them to this situation: I do not think that any Member of this House who respects its values and its role could possibly go through the Lobbies and vote to allow this statutory instrument to pass.

Noble Lords on the Labour Benches will be complicit in undermining the status of this House if they do not vote for the fatal amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said that the Official Opposition will respect convention and not vote for the fatal amendment. Why, when the Government have not respected convention? I say to the noble Lords, Lord Reid and Lord Rooker: of course it is right that the other place should have the final say, but if we vote down this statutory instrument, the other place can introduce a one-clause Bill to achieve exactly what this statutory instrument is trying to achieve in a non-constitutional way.

If, as appears ever more likely with each passing day, there is a change of Government at the next general election, noble Lords on the Conservative Benches will have created a precedent that they are likely to regret for many years to come, when the incoming Government use this precedent to undermine the will of this House in future. We will vote for the fatal amendment.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to what has been a fascinating and powerful debate. Before I start my response, I join the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in his remarks about the situation in Nottingham. As he did, I thank the emergency services and express my sympathies to the victims and their families.

I am obviously going to refute the allegation that this is in some way unconstitutional, or indeed an outrage. I have already set out why the Government have brought forward the measures, and the fact that it is indeed proper. The sequencing of debates and votes during the passage of the Public Order Act 2023 meant that the House of Commons was unable to consider the measures. Now that the elected House has approved the measures, we must respect its will and do the same—a point that has been made powerfully by a number of noble Lords.

The delegated powers being used existed prior to the introduction of the Public Order Act 2023. The powers were available for the Government to use during the passage of the Act—these are comments I made in my opening speech. Those powers were scrutinised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which recommended that a definition of

“serious disruption to the life of the community”

be included in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, coupled with a power to amend the definition by affirmative procedure regulations. This recommendation was accepted and implemented in full.

It is entirely right that the Executive use powers conferred by both Houses of Parliament to allow the elected Chamber to consider the proposed change in law. The other place has now had that opportunity to consider these measures and has approved them, following debate on the Floor of the House. So this is not defying the will of Parliament, as some have suggested, or committing a constitutional outrage. As the noble Lords, Lord Reid and Lord Rooker, pointed out, we are actually respecting it. This cannot be sent back, so to not do this now would be to enshrine a lack of clarity and consistency in protest law, as my noble friend Lady Stowell noted. That will affect the police, the public and of course protesters themselves. Any delay in this fast-moving situation risks, as I pointed out in my opening remarks, continuing to encourage the public to take matters into their own hands—a point that was very well articulated by my noble friend Lord Jackson.

To the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, who knows I respect her greatly, I say that this is enabling the police to do their job with more clarity—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, made with considerable force.

My noble friend Lord Hunt asked some very sensible and searching questions about the Explanatory Memorandum, which I would like to address. To the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, I say that the Government published the Explanatory Memorandum and have updated it. The primary focus of an Explanatory Memorandum is to provide clarity on the content of a statutory instrument’s provisions. Additionally, the vote excluding the similar measure from the Public Order Act was only held earlier in the year. All the information on the vote is readily available in Hansard.

That said, we recognise the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s criticism and the importance of transparency in Explanatory Memoranda. So I can confirm, as has been noted, that the updated memorandum has been published. It was not published before the debate in the House of Commons, but the changes to the Explanatory Memorandum are relatively minor; they do not add new information. They reference the votes and clarify the extent of targeted engagement, and are in direct response to concerns raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. The Home Secretary set this out clearly in yesterday’s debate in the other place.

On the consultation, another subject that has been raised, I again have to refer back to my opening remarks. This statutory instrument does not create new powers. The Government have always been clear that the delegated powers were needed to be able to quickly respond to evolving protest tactics. As they do not grant new powers to the police but clarify the extent of existing powers, it was deemed disproportionate to carry out a full public consultation. Targeted involvement with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the Metropolitan Police Service and other police forces was the appropriate approach. All have welcomed clarity in the law, and the Metropolitan Police Service specifically welcomed clarity as to how the police should consider serious disruption in relation to imposing conditions.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, suggested that new powers were being created and referenced the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police. As I have mentioned, and I have to stress again, these measures do not create new powers but clarify existing ones. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, the force most affected by protest in England and Wales, has asked for further clarity in the law. I think it is very evident from the events we are seeing at the moment how significant and necessary that clarity is.

I do not think there is much point in me saying very much else in answer to the questions. I think I have addressed the majority of the issues that I did not address in my opening remarks. As I said earlier, I am grateful for the constructive and helpful questions. I will take some of these reflections back to the department and to my noble friend the Leader of the House, who is not here at the moment. These regulations are designed to ensure public order legislation is clear, consistent and current. They will also support the police in striking the correct balance between the rights of protesters and the public. I commend them to the House.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 95EA in the name of my noble friend Lady Ludford. The amendment seeks to ensure that all UK obligations under EU law are considered when persons are considered for ineligibility in terms of the rights to entry or citizenship.

As my noble friend said, the consideration of rights under the ECHR raises a number of concerns, such as in relation to Articles 2, 3 and 8. This includes, for example, the right to family reunion, the right for individual circumstances to be considered, and even the rights of safety and not to be tortured. The need to consider the best interests of children is a priority under the ECHR as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Indeed, the Government have acknowledged that children affected by the Bill will rarely qualify for citizenship, so it is difficult to see how provisions in the Bill are in the best interests of children, as required by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The right to citizenship is the means by which an individual is able to construct a life, settle, earn a living and feel at home in their circumstances. However, individuals fulfilling Clause 2 conditions will be denied those things. They will most likely be kept in a form of limbo, waiting to be moved elsewhere. Ineligibility for citizenship is particularly important for children, who, in effect, will be denied a future by this Bill through no fault of their own.

The Bill does not comply with many of the UK’s international obligations and penalises the most vulnerable and threatened people. The safeguards of ministerial discretion to protect people from breaches of international law are inadequate, as the report of the JCHR makes clear in its recommendations. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to those recommendations.

We have heard from noble Lords some of the punitive measures in the Bill, so how could any of us support what the Government propose in terms of treatment of children? How can it be right to punish children for the activities of their parents? That is unjust and insupportable. To flout international law is deplorable, as it condemns many who have already suffered to more injustice. The Joint Committee has exposed the inadequacy of the Bill, and I hope that the Minister will consider its recommendations.

As others have said, the systematic wrecking of long-supported safeguards for the protection of refugees and asylum seekers is totally unacceptable. The potential for the contravention of international obligations has been clearly established by the JCHR, and is the basis for Amendment 98EA and many other amendments in this part of the Bill, which deserve our support. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Ludford has fully explained our reasons why Clauses 29 to 36 should not stand part of the Bill. The lifelong prohibition on status is disproportionate; extending the prohibition to children, who may not have had any choice in their irregular arrival in the UK, is both unfair and unlawful.

As my noble friends Lady Ludford and Lady Janke have said, these provisions will produce a permanent underclass who are unable to work and reliant on the state. We believe that these provisions are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Children Act 1989.

We also support the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and my noble friend Lady Brinton, on the narrow issues affecting citizenship by registration and British national overseas citizens, particularly the children of those settling here from Hong Kong and their inability to acquire travel documents.

We believe that Clauses 29 to 36 should not stand part of the Bill, and we also support my noble friend Lady Ludford’s Amendment 98EA, to ensure that the Home Secretary has to comply with all international agreements and not just the European Convention on Human Rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of both my noble and learned friends, who sit to my right in the Chamber. I am particularly grateful, as I think the whole Committee is, to my noble and learned friend Lord Etherton for the very clear exposition he gave of the law and of the consequences of these provisions which change the law.

I will put my very short analysis of this into “faults” and “conclusions”. Clause 38 is word soup, full of tautology and contradictions—the sort of thing that makes fortunes for lawyers if they can get in front of judges, like my noble and learned friends in the very senior courts, and make esoteric arguments based on an analysis of the text. The word soup is most certainly not a consommé clarified by the use of egg whites, so that you can see through it to the bottom of the bowl. It is more like a sort of mad minestrone, into which the draftsman has thrown every word vegetable that he or she could find.

Let us look at Clause 38(3), where the “serious harm condition” is in inverted commas. I was taught at school never to use inverted commas, if you could avoid it, because they show a weakness in your argument, unless it is a quotation that someone said. It says:

“The ‘serious harm condition’ is that P would, before the end of the relevant period, face a real, imminent and foreseeable risk”.


Supposing we missed out the words “real, imminent and”, what difference would it make if it simply read,

“before the end of the relevant period, face a … foreseeable risk of serious and irreversible harm”?

If one missed out the words “and irreversible”, would it mean less if it read:

“The ‘serious harm condition’ is that P would, before the end of the relevant period, face a … foreseeable risk of serious … harm if removed from the United Kingdom”?


What are they trying to gain by the word soup—the possibility of making bizarre submissions in front of the senior courts in which my noble and learned friends sat?

After those comments, if you were asked, “What does all this mean?” by a lay man who might be up at 10.10 pm looking at parliamentary TV or parliamentlive.tv and fascinated by every word in this debate, you would say to him, “Just go and have a look at Clause 38(5)(c)”, which refers to

“where the standard of healthcare available to P in the relevant country or territory is lower than is available to P in the United Kingdom”.

They—or at least those who were well informed enough to be sitting up at 10.10 pm, watching parliamentary TV—would immediately say, “This is deliberate discrimination against gay men”. What else is this for?

We should be ashamed of ourselves if, at least when it comes to Report, we allow this kind of provision to remain in the Bill and do not help my noble and learned friends to pass their amendments. But I hope that we do not have to reach that stage, because this word soup should seem as ridiculous to our noble friends the Ministers as it does to some of us.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting, if not bewildering, debate—at least to us non-lawyers. My lay interpretation of the provisions we debated in this group is that they highlight the danger of asylum seekers being removed to countries where they could come to harm by making the level of proof required to suspend removal so high, and by making the evidence required to prevent their removal so compelling—within impossibly short timescales—as to make the likelihood of a successful claim diminishingly small. If it turns out that it is not diminishingly small enough, the provisions allow the Secretary of State to redefine what “serious and irreversible harm” means to make sure that the tap is turned off almost completely.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, questioned whether such an approach is compatible with existing law. It is quite clear what the Government are trying to do here: make it impossible for anyone to resist removal from this country under the provisions of the Bill. That is why we do not believe that Clauses 37 to 42 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, this was an interesting debate. I thought I was with lawyers, but then, listening to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, I realised that I was also struggling to be a chef.

The serious point was well summed up by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and it was interesting—it answers the point of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, about people who may be watching parliamentary TV, and certainly members of the public who read our deliberations. The legal dissection of the clause done by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Etherton and Lord Hope, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and others is of immense benefit. But the real point for members of the public reading our proceedings will be what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said: there can be no other interpretation of how these clauses are laid out and, essentially, the Government are trying to make it as hard as possible for an individual to stop their removal from the country when they are subject to the provisions in Clause 2. There can be no other interpretation—this is designed to make it almost impossible. The key question for the Minister is: why is that wrong? Why is it not the case that the Government are seeking to make it as difficult as possible for people to leave?

--- Later in debate ---

All in all, there are issues of serious concern about appeals, the appointment of judges and lack of higher judicial scrutiny on all these matters where, again, the Government seem to be revolutionary in their approach, to no obvious good effect. These clauses are no worthy part of the Bill.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Ludford has clearly explained why Clauses 43 to 51 should not stand part of the Bill. The Government just seem to dismiss all the safeguards around access to justice and making sure that the court process has integrity, to speed up any sort of appeal process against decisions under this Bill, to the extent that they are destroying the whole principle of justice. That is why we do not believe these clauses should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, for explaining this really quite complex area. The only thing I was going to ask the Minister was whether he could explain the timeframes within which the appeal must be lodged: seven days for the Upper Tribunal and then 23 days for a further appeal to the Court of Appeal or the Court of Session. Are those timeframes standard in these types of cases? How have they arrived at them?

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, expressed the case very fully and I thought the way the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, summarised it was a fair comment about the accessibility of these processes to people taking part in them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

In which case, I will give one final statement before I finish. On this we all agree—the answer to this issue, I suggest, lies ultimately in Reykjavik. The answer lies in the engagement between this Government and other Governments with the Strasbourg court to improve the jurisprudence, to set the jurisdiction on a proper footing and to improve the procedures. In that way, for those of us—and I include myself—who want this country to remain part of the convention and play a part in its jurisprudence, that is surely the way forward.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

If I understand the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, correctly, he is saying that the solution is not Clause 53 but to engage with the court to ensure that proper processes are followed when it comes to Rule 39 rulings.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My point is that I am supporting Clause 53. It is not inconsistent to say that we will have Clause 53 and will engage with the court.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

What I am hearing from the noble Lords opposite is that if the Government ignored Rule 39 it would not be a breach of international law. But the Government accept that Rule 39 is binding on them; otherwise, there would be flights to Rwanda, surely.

The other thing to say about the two clauses is the stunning silence about Clause 52—absolutely no comment at all. For the noble Lords opposite to say this is not about the rule of law when they have said nothing at all to defend Clause 52 is quite extraordinary.

I think enough has been said—and there has been a very interesting sideshow for 20 or 25 minutes from the noble Lords opposite—but it takes us no further forward as far as the arguments here are concerned. Even if one was to accept the arguments of Policy Exchange, there has been no argument about the fact that Clause 52 is contrary to the rule of law, and that is why we believe that neither Clause 52 nor Clause 53 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I think everybody is really waiting to hear what the Minister has to say about this. It has been a fascinating debate and, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, it appears that Government, whatever the rights and wrongs, accept Rule 39—the Minister made that very clear in what he read out—and yet we have had the silence about Clause 52. I do not think I can add anything of substance to the debate at this stage and I look forward to what the Minister has to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Of course we consider the advice provided by the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee and the Home Office’s chief scientific adviser, and we will continue to do so. It is because we are in the process of awaiting such advice that the age assessment process is not fully operational. That demonstrates that we take and appreciate the advice that we are given.

As to the information questions, I will look at the statistics that the noble Baroness raises. I do not recognise them immediately, which is not to say that they are not properly reflective. There are a lot of statistics published on the Home Office website, so I appreciate that there may be some conclusions to draw. I will certainly look at that.

Government Amendment 123C is a clarificatory amendment that simply ensures that Clause 55 applies to any decisions following the regulations made under Clause 56, which automatically assumes someone to be an adult as a result of their refusal to consent to a scientific age assessment. It includes a decision as to whether an individual has reasonable grounds to refuse consent to a scientific age assessment.

We cannot escape the fact that almost half of asylum seekers claiming to be children were found to be adults. Those seeking to game the system in this way create clear safeguarding risks to genuine children and delay their removal. Clauses 55 and 56 are a necessary part of the framework of the Bill to ensure that we can swiftly remove those subject to the duty in Clause 2. I therefore invite the right reverend Prelate to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

The Minister did not allow me to intervene earlier, so will he allow me to intervene now? In what world can he say that a child freely consents to a scientific assessment on the basis that, if that child does not consent, they will be treated as an adult and removed from the United Kingdom?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

We have already canvassed these topics, but there are many ways for a decision-maker to take a refusal to consent into account. It need not be an automatic presumption that somebody is of age; it can be treated in a variety of potential ways, which will be described in the regulations. They will be subject to debate at that time. I am afraid that that is the answer to the noble Lord’s question.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 86 and 90. No one wants to see abuse of modern slavery legislation or false claims from those arriving on small boats, but I regret that in the Bill currently, all protection for genuine victims of modern slavery has been removed. These amendments are focused just on those who have been unlawfully exploited here in the UK; they do not allow people arriving to claim it. Any abuse of the national referral mechanism should be addressed but, as we have heard, no data currently exists on this, so I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could share any information on the scale of this issue. These amendments provide the additional protection for victims of modern slavery that the Immigration Minister is looking at, and I hope my noble friend will carefully consider them.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, not one speaker has supported the Government’s position on these clauses. The only person who is going to speak in favour of the Government is the Minister. Surely the Government must realise what the Committee’s view is of these provisions.

In the debate on the Nationality and Borders Bill, we discussed the importance of a period of recovery and reflection for victims of modern slavery. For example, those traumatised often do not have a clear recollection of what has happened to them until after they recover. They cannot co-operate with the police until they have had a period of recovery; it is counterproductive to remove that provision.

In the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed on a previous group, we heard a clinical dismantling of the government case that the protections afforded by the Modern Slavery Act are being abused. It does not stand up to scrutiny. In previous groups, we also discussed how unlikely it was that victims would support a prosecution if they were removed from the UK. As the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, said, what will the impact of these measures be on tackling modern slavery?

We all want to see the prosecution of criminals involved in the exploitation of vulnerable people, whether they are children or vulnerable people trafficked into this country, but what assessment have the Government made of the impact on the likelihood of such prosecutions? How can all victims of modern slavery who arrive in the UK through what the Bill calls irregular routes be considered a threat to public order? We know how children can be groomed and coerced into committing offences—as so many children with British citizenship have been in connection with county lines drug dealing, for example—yet the Government want to disqualify from protection non-British children who could be in a similar position.

As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said, Clauses 21 to 28 remove all protections from victims of modern slavery who arrive irregularly, making it more difficult to prosecute the criminals exploiting vulnerable migrants, including children. If the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, with all of his experience as a former Director of Public Prosecutions, is telling us that this will have a devastating impact on the police’s ability to tackle these issues, the Government should surely be paying attention. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, outlining the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, talked about witnesses of modern slavery not feeling safe in giving evidence against offenders.

The other important question raised by these amendments is when a new Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner will be appointed. Will it be at the same time as the Government respond to the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ report on the Bill? They say that will be in August, when the danger of the Bill being criticised by such an independent commissioner will have gone.

What assessment has been made of how safe the countries in Schedule 1 are for victims of modern slavery? As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham said, there is a bigger problem with modern slavery in Rwanda than in this country, yet this Government are proposing to send victims of modern slavery to that country.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee drew attention to the excellent report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, published on the weekend. It entirely supports the position taken by these Benches in opposing all clauses in the Bill, including those in this group. Clauses 21, 25, 26 and 28 undermine the Modern Slavery Act without justification and should not stand part of the Bill for the reasons powerfully explained by noble Lords on all sides of this Committee, including in the very powerful contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Randall of Uxbridge and Lord Cormack. I pay tribute to the long and continued dedication of the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, in this area.

The amendments in this group, while commendable, would not remove the dangers to the victims of modern slavery proposed by this Bill. That is why these clauses should not stand part.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid I do not accept that, because of the advances in technology that I have already described. That is the position in respect of Amendment 89.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

Does the Minister not understand that for a victim of crime who is in effect persecuted by the Government by being sent to another country, that is going to have an impact on their likelihood of co-operating with the Government in order to prosecute traffickers?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

One would hope that a victim of trafficking would want to facilitate the prosecution of their traffickers. It is clear, for the reasons I have already set out, that we cannot afford to create any loopholes or exclusions from the scheme.

Amendment 92 seeks to limit the countries to which a person can be safely removed. There is no one international standard to assess a country’s ability to provide support for victims, so we should not be tied to removing potential victims of modern slavery only to signatory countries of the ECHR or ECAT. In addition, this amendment would have the perverse effect of preventing the return of potential victims to their home country where it was safe to do so; I am sure the noble Lord would not want such a block to apply. As I have indicated, our partnership with Rwanda has in place provisions for supporting survivor recovery needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, Clause 54 provides that, under the Bill, recipients of removal notices will have access to certain civil legal services. As your Lordships have rightly pointed out, this would bring them within the scope of legal aid and allow access to legal services in relation to removal notices without the application of the merits criteria and within the timeframe of the Bill.

Despite my respect for the expertise and knowledge of the noble Lords who have brought forward these amendments, I cannot support them. I am concerned that, in extending further the provision of legal aid available under the Bill or the duties under it, Amendments 92A and 120—and Amendment 120A, in its own way—would add more cost and compliance burdens to a system that has already become far less overarching than was envisaged when it was set up.

In my view, legal aid needs to be looked at in its entire context. As matters stand, legal aid is not given in many sorts of cases. Schedule 2 to the Access to Justice Act 1999 excluded categories that had hitherto been included. The LASPO Act 2012 went far further, in that there was a significant removal of cases; indeed, all cases other than those mentioned in its Schedule 1 were removed. This means that cases historically funded by legal aid in this country have been removed.

This affects many people who have lived and worked here—and, indeed, those who have fought wars for this country. Their cases are no longer eligible for consideration for legal aid, which might strike them as unfair and disproportionate. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, that the system must be seen to be proportionate and fair as well as efficient. However, many cases where a UK citizen may have a just claim or wishes to defend a right are now excluded. For example, in cases of medical negligence, claims are no longer permitted other than those relating to a child who suffers a severe brain injury during pregnancy, childbirth or shortly afterwards.

Legal aid has historically played an important part in poor persons—I am using the words used until 1950—being able to pursue their legal rights without being charged fees, albeit with charges and restrictions made from time to time until 1949, when the system as we know it today began. That change extended eligibility to people of small or modest means, with free aid up to a limit and a merits test for civil cases. As we have heard and as we know, that system has all but disappeared. Means testing is more severe. Some categories have been removed while others have been added. The upshot is that access to legal aid has been reduced significantly. I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said about how the system has changed dramatically.

Clause 54 will add another category to the overstretched system. There are reasons for that but, for the reasons I have given, I am not in favour of extending this beyond what is proposed in the Bill.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Ludford said, proper scrutiny of the Bill rests with this House, as the Commons was not given sufficient time to scrutinise it, so that is what we are determined to do.

Bearing in mind the draconian measures in the Bill, proper legal aid must be provided, including for those referred to the national referral mechanism, particularly in light of the changes introduced by the Nationality and Borders Act that adjusted the reasonable grounds threshold and the standard of proof required—and not just to those served with a removal notice. We also support Amendment 120A to ensure that legal aid is provided, rather than just allowed.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, it seems an extraordinary argument to say that, because British people are denied justice and cannot access legal aid, people seeking asylum should also be deprived of justice. Surely, the answer is to provide justice to everyone who needs it.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, this group of amendments looks at legal aid in the context of the Bill. Prior to a removal notice, the Bill does not provide legal aid to a person in detention in England and Wales. There is no provision for a person awaiting a decision on removal in Northern Ireland and Scotland, so I wonder whether the Minister can say something about the position in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

The Bill provides an extremely short timeframe of eight days for an individual to seek legal advice and representation and provide sufficient instructions for a representative to lodge a suspensive claim with compelling evidence against removal to a third country. The non-government amendments in this group would expand legal aid provisions to persons potentially facing removal. The government figures suggest that around half of asylum seekers already do not have access to legal aid advice, with advice being much harder to obtain outside of London. My noble friend Lord Bach amplified that point very powerfully, when he gave the figure of the gap of 25,000 between the numbers of asylum applicants and legal aid provisions in 2022, showing that about 50% of asylum applicants have no legal advice.

My noble friend also gave a powerful exposition on the background of legal aid following the cuts we saw with the LASPO Act. The noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, also acknowledged those cuts, which have been extended from when the LASPO Act originally came into force. As my noble friend Lord Bach summed up very effectively, the overwhelming danger of Clause 54 is that it becomes a sham and a fig-leaf; the rights may be there on paper, but they will never be provided in practice. The amendments in this group are seeking to ameliorate that fear.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, also summed up this group of amendments very effectively, when she talked about the importance of legal aid for making fair decisions. I agree with her that this will reduce appeals, will let applicants properly understand the process of what is happening to them, and, perhaps above all, will uphold the UK’s reputation as a country which is ruled by law, as people need to understand the laws being applied to them.

This has been a relatively short group, but it goes to the heart of the Bill, because it concerns what is available in practice to people coming over and applying for asylum. They need to understand the situation they are in and that they will be treated fairly. Reflecting on my own time sitting in courts, I say that people may not like the decisions being made, but it is a much better position when they understand them. It will resonate beyond the courtroom itself, if people understanding the decisions being made about them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said when he introduced this group of amendments, it is quite extraordinary to deny assistance and support to the victims of modern slavery, as provided by Section 50(1)(a) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham said, it is cruel to do this.

Modern slavery is a devolved matter in relation to the support provided to victims, yet the Bill appears to undermine devolution in overruling the provision of support provided in Northern Ireland and Scotland. It was very interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, quite rightly highlighting the issues facing Northern Ireland, with its border with the European Union and the common travel area. It was even more interesting to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, about how this Bill potentially conflicts with EU directives that Northern Ireland is still subject to. It will be very interesting to hear the Minister’s answers on the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, in particular.

In asking the Minister to justify these provisions, both in terms of denying support and in terms of devolution, I am very struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, said about the impact that meeting victims of modern slavery had on them. I wonder whether the Minister, who I think previously suggested that he had not met a victim of modern slavery, or anybody involved in the drafting of these provisions, has met a victim of modern slavery—bearing in mind the impact it has had on the noble Baroness and the noble Lord.

As my noble friend Lady Hamwee has said, we do not believe that Clauses 22, 23, 24 and 27 should stand part of this Bill.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this group of amendments relates to the provision of support to potential victims of modern slavery. We have, of course, recently had an extensive debate about the application of the public order disqualification to those who meet the conditions in Clause 2 of the Bill. I will not go over the same ground again, save to say that it is a necessary consequence of the provisions in Clause 4 that the duty on the Home Secretary to make arrangements for removal of persons who meet Clause 2 conditions should apply regardless of whether the person claims to be a victim of modern slavery.

It follows that, for the provisions of this Bill to work as intended, individuals who arrive illegally in the UK and receive a positive reasonable grounds decision must be disqualified from the protections of the national referral mechanism. Clause 22 gives effect to this principle for England and Wales by disapplying the duties on the Secretary of State, under Section 50A of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, to provide necessary assistance and support to potential victims during the recovery period. Clauses 23 and 24 have the same effect in relation to corresponding legislation in Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively. Clause 27 then makes the necessary consequential changes to the relevant legislation that applies in each part of the United Kingdom.

If an individual arrives in the UK illegally and a first responder suspects that they may be a victim of modern slavery, they will still refer that individual into the NRM and that person will receive a reasonable grounds decision. That process will not change under the Bill. However, as I set out before in relation to Clause 21, Article 13 of ECAT envisages that the obligation on signatory states to provide assistance and support to potential victims may be withheld on grounds of public order. This is precisely what Clauses 22 to 24 give effect to as a result of the public order threat arising from the current scale of illegal entry into the United Kingdom by people undertaking dangerous and unnecessary channel crossings in small boats. That means that they will not benefit from the protections otherwise afforded to potential victims of modern slavery, subject to the exception set out in Clause 21, which we have debated at some length.

It is right that the Government take meaningful steps to ensure that these illegal and dangerous channel crossings are stopped and that any incentives to enter the UK by such means are closed off. That is what these clauses seek to do. Clauses 22 to 24 operate subject to the same exception as Clause 21 in relation to those potential victims who are co-operating with a public authority in connection with an investigation or criminal proceedings in relation to their alleged exploitation, and it is necessary for them to remain in the UK to provide such co-operation.

The effect of Amendments 93, 94, 95 and 96 is no different in practice from proposition by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to strike out these clauses as a whole. The amendments effectively gut Clauses 22 to 24, such that the existing requirements relating to the provision of support would continue to apply. It will therefore come as no surprise to noble Lords that I cannot commend these amendments to the Committee.

In response to the devolution points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Weir and Lord Morrow, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bryan, I remind the Committee that immigration and nationality are reserved matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and therefore matters for the UK Government. It is also our view that the modern slavery clauses also deal specifically with the reserved matter of immigration, and they are for a reserved purpose. As for the Bill as a whole, they would not therefore engage the legislative consent process.

I assure the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham that anyone who has arrived illegally in the UK on or after 7 March and before commencement would in this period receive support as now.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an absolute privilege to follow such a distinguished former Permanent Secretary to the Foreign department. To return to my noble friend’s amendment, it may seem a little counterintuitive or surprising for me to welcome a probing amendment about removal and about a duty to negotiate removal agreements, but I do. The reason is that there is actually a greater and stronger link between the principles that we have been discussing and the practice that my noble friend is considering here, because in this neck of the woods, in particular, the two go together.

I say, with respect to the Committee, that it would have been wise for the Government to have thought about a duty to negotiate removal agreements before they proposed to legislate for a duty to remove. The sin is to have duties to remove with nowhere to remove people to, and duties to detain with no ability to remove, because that leads to indefinite detention.

There were all the arguments that we had on the last illegal Bill, and the arguments that we will have again about whether refugees and asylum seekers should be allowed to work after a period of time. People argued about pull factors, and some of us said that there were push factors, not pull factors. But if people’s claims were being considered quickly, including of those who did not qualify for asylum—who were genuinely illegal migrants and never qualified for asylum—some of us would have no problem with the principle or practice of having a short period of arrest and detention for the purposes of facilitating a lawful removal.

My noble friend Lord Coaker has really hit the nail on the head. What is the practice here? If there is no practical agreement to remove people to whichever country they are from, and people are in practice irremovable, that is where the cruelty comes in. That is a cruelty towards people who are detained for lengthy periods, quite possibly at great public expense, in inappropriate accommodation; this could include accompanied or unaccompanied children not being housed or detained appropriately, not being educated, and so on. That is the sin—the terrible maladministration and lack of good practice, which is then translated into this culture war via more draconian legislation for a general election that will no doubt be sloganed, “Stop the boats”. We do not stop the boats, but we do not welcome the vulnerable people either, so we perpetrate this great swindle on the British people. We toxify a debate that needs to be handled much more temperately, and we do not achieve anything very much at all.

The final link between principle and practice in this area is that, in this amendment, we are talking about a duty on the Secretary of State to negotiate these practical removal agreements for those people who do not meet the tests and do not qualify in the end as refugees. In this probing amendment we are talking about that duty and asking whether it does not need to be a duty because the Secretary of State genuinely wants to negotiate. To go back to what the noble Lord, Lord Patten, said before the break, whether that is the case or not, who will negotiate with us? We have heard some flummery from the Benches opposite about how international law is not real law—“We have a dualist system and let me not give you a law lecture, but it’s not real law, it’s only international law”. If our word is not our bond, who will negotiate with us?

There is currently a contradiction at the heart of government between those who want to be leaders on the world stage, with all the challenges that have to be met internationally at the moment, and those who want a culture war. My understanding is that the Prime Minister is now saying not only that we are going to be part of the Council of Europe and honour our international commitments but that we are going to be the architects of new ones. London is apparently going to be at the heart of regulating artificial intelligence—this is where it is all going to happen. But why should anyone allow us that moral leadership on the world stage, if we will not honour international law?

I look forward to the answers to my noble friend’s questions about the moment when principle really does need to meet practice.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps the Minister can help us here. Is not it the case that, without removal agreements, the Bill is likely to make the current situation worse in terms of costs to the Exchequer? As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has said, if people are not able to work, and they are not allowed the right to remain but cannot be removed, they will have to be looked after by the state. The difficulty that the Minister has is that, without an impact assessment, there are all sorts of organisations that are filling that vacuum. The vacuum was filled at the weekend—and the estimated additional costs of this Bill were £3 billion to £6 billion in additional accommodation needed to detain those people who could not be removed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid that I have nothing to add other than that it will be published in due course.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am sure that the Minister did not mean to ignore the questions that I put to him. Perhaps he has not had the chance to read today’s Times. Can he write to me on the veracity of the reports in today’s Times and, while doing so, respond to the article in the Telegraph saying that the Home Office has failed to identify sufficient detention spaces as required by the Treasury?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

As the noble Lord well knows, it is not government policy to comment on leaks. That is a fairly long-standing convention. I do not propose to do so now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, having listened to the debate, I have three questions for the Minister.

First, if I understand the Government’s position correctly, the use of punitive measures against unaccompanied children in this Bill is for a deterrent effect. That is what the Minister said at Second Reading, and it has been a consistent line. For the Government to come to that view, they must have information about the numbers of unaccompanied children that the Bill will affect—otherwise it would have been impossible for them to have determined that this policy will be a deterrent. What is the Home Office’s core estimate of how many unaccompanied children it will require facilities for under this Bill? I know that the Minister has that information in his pack. He must tell the Committee what it is.

My second question is on the Government’s assertion that this measure complies with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Government say that they will act in the interests of the child. At the moment, the UN checklist is the mechanism used to determine the best interests of the child. Will the Minister commit to the Committee that the UN checklist for the determination of the best interests of the child will be used under the terms of this Bill? If the Government’s plan is for it not to be used, like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others I fear that they will not be acting in the interest of the child according to the UN convention. This is particularly relevant given that the policy shift is moving away from determining what will be the safety of a child and towards what is considered to be a safe country. That is a very radical change. For example, there are a number of countries on the Government’s safe list that they are today advising against all travel to. Therefore, a British official, or any British charity, may seek to accompany an unaccompanied child back to a country that is considered to be safe while the Foreign Office advises against all travel to that area. How can that be consistent? Last year, I visited the Rwanda reception centre in Kigali. There were no children’s facilities. Can the Minister confirm that there are now?

My third question is this. The Government’s fact sheet on children states that:

“For any unaccompanied child who is removed when under 18, we will ensure that adequate reception arrangements are in place where the child is to be removed to”.


That is not true. What in this Bill provides for the assurance and the duty that there will be reception arrangements in place for any unaccompanied child? There is no mention of that in the Bill. The fact sheet cannot be correct if the Bill does not state that this will be the case. If the Minister can tell me where in the Bill there is a duty to ensure that there are reception facilities and reception arrangements in place for a child to be removed to, I would be very grateful.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville added her name to Amendments 14 and 22 but is having to deal with matters in Grand Committee this afternoon, and means no disrespect to this Committee. My noble friend Lord German comprehensively set out the problems with this clause and why it should not stand part of the Bill. Having said that, we also support all the amendments in this group.

On 8 May 1995, Nelson Mandela said:

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children”.


If the Government are serious about implementing the provisions of this Bill in relation to children, what would Mandela have said about our society’s soul? An infant, or even a child yet to be born, brought into the UK by a parent and by what the Home Office calls an irregular route, or an unaccompanied child not thinking of all the consequences—because children, some as young as 10 years-old, do not think about all the consequences of their actions—will never be able to acquire the right to remain in this country and will never be able to work. They will potentially be detained until they are 18 years-old and then deported. Many of them will have had no say in determining the circumstances that they find themselves in or will not have thought about the consequences of their actions. How can the proposals in the Bill be the actions of a society that describes itself as civilised?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Hamwee, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lord Dubs. They go to the heart of what many of us are concerned about: what this says about our country and our conformity to various conventions and international treaties that we have signed up to and agreed to be part of. I want to reiterate the importance of that. I will not go on at great length about it because I have spoken at this Dispatch Box, and will again, about there being a huge issue around compatibility with various conventions in this aspect—children—and with some of the workability and practicality of what the Government are setting out to do.

I join the noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Scriven, in particular, in saying that it is quite extraordinary to read in the Explanatory Memorandum that the department’s view is that the Bill should have a deterrent effect, which can result in fewer unaccompanied children arriving in the UK by dangerous and unlawful means. Nobody wants anybody to come by dangerous means to a particular country, in this case ours, but it is just an assertion. It is the departmental view. No evidence, as the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Purvis, mentioned, is provided. Of course—without going back to the debate that we had—we have no impact assessment to make any judgments about any of that. I ask the Minister to clarify what that sentence means, what the evidence is for that, and how the Government have come to this view that the Bill should have a deterrent effect. It does all read, to a certain extent, as though the Government are justifying these actions by using unaccompanied children as a deterrent, which I think cannot be the Government’s intention. But that is certainly how it reads, and I think the Minister should put on the record that that is not the case, even though that is certainly what some of the refugee children’s charities have said.

I will ask the Minister a couple of specific questions. How old are the unaccompanied children we are talking about here? I think it was my noble friend Lady Lister who mentioned a child of eight. Some 5,200 unaccompanied children arrived last year. What has happened to them? What is the age range of those children? I think that knowing what has happened in the past would help us make some judgments and assessments about the future.

As my noble friend Lord Touhig mentioned, I think it is appropriate for us to ask what progress the Government have made in finding the 200 children who have been lost to the system. As I have said before, the Home Office is not a corporate parent. My own view is that if it was, it would be prosecuted for losing children. If a human parent lost children, we would be incandescent about it. But the Government have lost 200, and in their equality impact assessment, they warn that they are worried and concerned about children absconding from their care.

Will the Minister take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs? Supposing an unaccompanied child is 12, are the Government expecting them to be deported when they are 18, or is there an age limit for that? Have they got to be under 16? It is Committee, so these are the sorts of detailed questions we ask, because otherwise we will not understand how the Government are arriving at their policies. The Government say that if they do not have a right to be here, they will be deported when they reach their 18th birthday. When does that start from? That is why I am asking about age—you can be here for seven years, go to school, and at 18 you will be deported. That was the point the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was making; those are the practicalities of it. Does the Minister expect that if a child aged 17 was in that situation they would wait until they were 18 for the Government to come and find them and deport them? These are detailed questions, which, although we are in the main Chamber, are the point of Committee, to try to understand the practicalities and workability of the situation.

The Government made the amendment to say that there will be exceptions; there will be no requirement on the Secretary of State to deport or to remove—which is the Government’s preferred term—unaccompanied children, but there will be exceptional circumstances, which will be made by regulation. The Government said this would be for reasons of family reunion, and also if a safe country was identified. It would be helpful if the Minister said a little bit more about how that all works in practice, how that information would be found out, and what other circumstances there are, because those are just two examples. They are not the only exceptions; the Government say there are those two, but there may be other exceptional circumstances. What other exceptional circumstances does the Minister think that would mean?

Can the Minister clarify for us the Government’s policy with respect to the use of force with unaccompanied children and how they will be, if you like, kept in care and looked after? What are the Government’s provisions with respect to that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I think, to some extent, that that is the point of the amendment. I am scared of dentists, so I have no desire to rush into a debate about dentistry, but I was waiting because at least from the Conservative Benches we heard a speech. I was counting how many. Every one had voted for this Bill, but it is amazing how many are coy when it comes to defending what is going to be the reality: that if a young woman is trafficked from a war zone, is raped on the way and arrives in the UK having been lied to, the response is no longer what had been the case; namely, that a first responder in assessing her needs would refer her to protection—the British way. Now, the first responder will say, “You have no rights under modern slavery or trafficking legislation in the UK at all. Not only that but you will be detained and you will be deported”. So, please, can we have some defence of this from the Conservative Benches? If they are not going to defend it, please do not vote for it. Only vote for something that you are willing to defend. It might just be that if the whole purpose of the Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Horam, said, is deterrence, why stop here? If it is going to be deterrence for an emergency, why stop at this measure? If the Government act in an emergency on a situation of great importance and it is to deter, should it not be on the basis of evidence?

We heard earlier from the Minister saying that one person’s evidence is another person’s assertion. He did not say exactly that; I am putting words into his mouth so that I can disagree with them, but he basically said, “Well, it’s our view that this is the case”.

It was in 2019 that the Government promoted with fanfare a £10 million policy centre. The government press release said:

“Efforts to uncover the true scale of modern slavery, expose more trafficking networks and better inform our action to stamp out these crimes have been boosted today following the government’s investment of £10 million to create a cutting-edge Policy and Evidence Centre for Modern Slavery and Human Rights”.


That was universally welcomed. The Government said that our response to this crisis would be evidence-led and that we would then act on it. There was universal support for that.

That centre—the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre—which is still receiving Home Office funds in 2023-24 to do this job and inform the Government, says of the Bill:

“Thousands of potential victims of modern slavery may be denied protections by the modern slavery provisions in the Bill. This will include people for whom their entry to the UK is an integral element of the criminal offence of trafficking committed against them”.


It goes on to say:

“The need for these provisions is predicated on the UK Government’s assumption that people are ‘abusing’ the modern slavery system, and that the system is an incentive for illegal migration to the UK. The available evidence questions both of these assumptions”.


Finally, it says:

“The modern slavery measures in the Bill are incompatible with the UK’s obligations”.


I would rather drive a coach and horses through proposals from the Government that are not based on evidence and put in their place evidence-based policies that are likely to work. I declare an interest: I have supported schemes in the Horn of Africa through to the Gulf which are trying to support victims of human trafficking and forced labour.

The Bill will not only not work; it will undermine our reputation around the world. That is shameful. It is not only shameful for our global reputation—I hope we can rebuild that—but it is even more shameful for that young woman who was lied to, trafficked to the UK and would now effectively be a double victim.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we support all the amendments in this group. As many noble Lords have said, victims of slavery or human trafficking should not be further victimised by the provisions of the Bill. As many briefings with which noble Lords have been provided—for which I personally am very grateful—have pointed out, these provisions play into the hands of traffickers and perpetrators of modern slavery. Victims will face the dilemma of further exploitation or deportation, and the criminals will use the provisions in the Bill to enforce their hold on their victims, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said. Speaking as a former police officer, I say that it is difficult enough to get victims to give evidence in court, let alone victims of modern slavery or trafficking who have been deported to another country.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, said, referrals to the national referral mechanism are made by officials, making abuse of the system unlikely. That is reinforced by the fact that a very high proportion of the claims are actually supported.

For the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, gave, we agree with the conclusions of the Constitution Committee that the cumulative impact of the ouster and partial ouster provisions in the Bill give rise to very considerable and, I argue, dangerous constitutional implications. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, has said, this could have potentially fatal consequences for individuals.

The effects on physical and mental health of the Home Office’s policies of placing people in limbo are well documented. We support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, to limit the damage by placing a six-month limit on refusal to consider a protection claim or human rights claim. In doing so, we agree very strongly with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. For the reasons my noble friend Lord German has explained, we believe that this clause should also not be part of the Bill.

So far as emergencies are concerned, is it not the case that the only emergency is the huge backlog of undecided asylum claims—and that it is an emergency which is entirely the responsibility of the Home Office?

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, I apologise for not being able to speak previously on the Bill, but I support Amendment 23 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, who has added his name to this little band, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to them. I have been holding back in the hope that he would land, but his aircraft has been delayed.