Overseas Territories: Illegal Immigration

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Of course, Haiti is not an overseas territory, but it has a big impact on neighbouring overseas territories, as we have been discussing. We are obviously very concerned. We used our platform in the UN Security Council to support the UN sanctions back in October. We continue to engage in Security Council discussions, including considering Haitian requests for security assistance, and we want stability and security as soon as possible in Haiti. We are supporting it through contributions to the UN and other international agencies that have a strong presence on the ground, including the World Bank, and we are working with the UN office in Haiti and the international community to support a peaceful, democratic and Haitian-led solution for the Haitian people.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister knows that the OTs operate their own visa regime, which is separate from that of the United Kingdom. Given the violence and climate crises in that near neighbourhood, there are no safe and legal routes for seeking asylum. Are the OTs fully covered by the proposals in the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill, which means that they will now have to detain and then remove to Rwanda any of those individuals? What are the mechanisms for providing support for detention facilities within the OTs and supporting the cost of flights to Rwanda that the Government are now going to insist the OTs carry out? What was their response? I assume the Government and FCDO consulted them. What was the response to the consultation?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

Different OTs have different challenges and problems. We began the conversation about TCI, where the migration problem is on a scale that is incomparable. If it was translated into UK conditions, it would be like 4 million or 5 million people crossing the channel every year, and clearly that is a major problem for a small island with a small population. What we are helping to do in TCI is helping the country return those refugees to Haiti where possible. Similarly, we have a problem in Cayman, where large numbers of people are fleeing from Cuba. The answer there is to return people wherever possible to Cuba. The only issue that seems to be of interest to Parliament at the moment relates to the British Indian Ocean Territory, where we have a particular problem with refugees, mostly from Sri Lanka, who are inhabiting an area that is effectively uninhabitable. There we have particular issues and it is in those circumstances where the Rwanda option may be the best one.