UK Asylum and Refugee Policy

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Friday 9th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. I thank the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury for initiating what has been a remarkable and memorable debate. For his information, I tell him that I emailed his speech to my wife, who is currently on a train to Scotland. She has just read it and she thought it was a magnificent speech.

I also congratulate my noble friends Lady Twycross and Lord Sahota. I wrote down that my noble friend Lady Twycross said she had six former bosses in this House. I also note that because of her role in the GLA, where she is really used to being in the eye of the storm, she seems exceptionally well qualified to be a Member of this House. I also wrote down a comment from my noble friend Lord Sahota, who said that he wants the best deal in the market for our fellow human beings. I thought that was the theme for his whole speech, and I welcome him to our House. Of course I also welcome the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, who gave a moving speech about the situation in Leicester and how Leicester has benefited from migrating communities.

It is common to hear, and we have heard it in today’s debate, the proud history of our country in welcoming those in need of safety. We have seen in recent years the generosity of the British people in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

We must always be aware of what we are talking about when we are talking about asylum: we are talking about people fleeing horrors and situations we cannot imagine and making decisions we hope never to have to make for our own families. We in the Opposition need to be careful in our rhetoric and need the Government to be honest and careful in their language too. We must not conflate the economic migration of those travelling without a well-founded fear of persecution with those who are travelling to the UK to flee torture, war and persecution. These people are asking the UK to provide a place of safety. That was the central point of the intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar. We need responsible and consistent policy-making.

The principles of the UNHCR were referred to a number of times in the debate. They are: strengthening and expediting the decision-making process; ensuring that those without well-founded claims are returned to their own countries; stepping up co-operation with European neighbours; and expanding safe, regular pathways for refugees to travel to the UK that offer real alternatives to dangerous and irregular journeys. The most reverend Primate added to this by introducing a form of triaging system to try to expedite that process. Unfortunately, that is not what we have seen from recent Home Secretaries of the party opposite.

I turn briefly to the issues we have seen under this Government. They have spent £140 million on Rwanda. As my noble friend Lord Browne said, this is just a symbolically tough policy; it has been completely ineffective. We have also not seen a commitment from Ministers on who will not be considered for a flight to Rwanda. We have repeatedly asked whether they will commit not to send people from Ukraine to Rwanda. There is no commitment that, for example, girls and women who have fled here from Iran will not be sent to Rwanda either.

We have a backlog. A number of noble Lords referred to the figures; in November 2022, about 150,000 people were still waiting for an initial decision, with nearly 100,000 waiting over six months. The Refugee Council offered a stark comparison to 10 years ago, when only about 13,000 people were waiting. It must be recognised that the backlog has increased more dramatically than the number of claims and, as mentioned by the most reverend Primate, in some cases by 305% over the last five years. These figures are from the Institute for Government. This is an operational failure at the root of many of the problems that the system faces today.

Of those who travelled by small boat in 2021, only 4% of claims had been processed as of November. The Nationality and Borders Act, far from addressing these problems, baked them in with: first, an inadmissibility clause, which added six months’ delay to cases, but did not deliver safe-return agreements with our closest neighbours; secondly, differentiation policies, which will require some asylum seekers to have their claims repeatedly reassessed, even when they been found to have a well-founded reason to seek asylum; and, thirdly, restrictions on access to family reunion routes, which will push more people into taking extremely dangerous journeys to try to reach their loved ones.

We have seen the scale of safeguarding problems in Manston. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and others about children who have gone missing under the care of the Government and of various local authorities. Can the Minister say something about what action is being taken to try to increase safeguarding for children in this extremely difficult situation?

What will actually make a difference? First, we must speed up asylum decisions so that people are not left in limbo, and so we do not have the spiralling costs of hotels and overcrowding in our reception systems. Secondly, there must be safe routes, including access to family reunion. I have been following what the noble Baronesses, Lady Ludford and Lady Hamwee, have done on that matter. Thirdly, international co-operation is the heart of any solution to the problem. Finally, we must tackle criminal gangs, whose members are the ones acting illegally by taking advantage of people in desperate situations and making profits from misery. However, I did not agree with the solution to that problem which my former noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Desai, proposed.

It needs to be said that the Labour Party would set up a new dedicated cell in the National Crime Agency to work cross-border to crack down on the criminal gangs, and would seek new arrangements with France, Belgium and other European countries on returns and family reunion. The Labour Party would also fast-track returns to designated safe countries, such as Albania, as other noble Lords have noted. We believe that safe routes are a genuinely powerful alternative to stop people being pushed into the hands of people smugglers, and we think that the Government should look at that route and open their minds to that possibility of reducing the current state of the crisis.

I acknowledge that this is a complex, emotive and fast-changing issue. The Government need to build on the history of receiving people in very difficult circumstances; we have heard many emotive and powerful examples of that over the years. In conclusion, I say to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury that I live in Wandsworth, in south-west London, where we also welcomed many Huguenots. In fact, the coat of arms of Wandsworth Borough Council features the tears of the Huguenots who came to our borough; they are recognised in many parts of the borough, so that is a source of pride for my part of London.

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[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid not.

This country has shown time and again—from those who arrived on the Kindertransport, which the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, raised, and the Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin, to those fleeing the present dreadful conflict in Ukraine—that when people are suffering and they need sanctuary, we step up. We extend the hand of friendship and provide a welcome born of our natural compassion. As the Government have demonstrated, we are committed to maintaining that long and proud tradition through safe and legal routes, and we will continue to do what is right and help those who are in most need.

As my noble friend Lord Cormack referenced in this debate, I completely agree that refugees enrich both our history and our present. At the same time, the public expect us to control migration, uphold our immigration laws and discourage those who would risk their lives by making unsafe and unnecessary journeys to the UK across the channel. As I hope I have made clear today, the Government approach these responsibilities with the greatest seriousness, and that will continue to be the case.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

Before the Minister sits down, will he undertake to write to the noble Lords who have spoken in this debate in order to answer the questions that he has been unable to answer because of the length of time he had available?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I invite noble Lords to ask Written Questions in relation to those points instead.