Brexit: Refugee Protection and Asylum Policy (EUC Report)

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]]

It is hardly satisfactory to be debating an EU Committee report nearly 12 months after it was published. While I am more than aware that there have been major difficulties this year, equally, I can recall that there were times this summer when this House did not have a full day’s business. Nevertheless, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, and the former Home Affairs Sub-Committee on their measured and informative report, which seeks to bring both calmness of thought and the facts to bear on an issue that is all too often the subject of exaggeration and excessive emotion.

In the light of the Government revoking the Dublin III regulation at the end of the transition period and not keeping it as retained EU law, the committee considered what the impact would be of the UK ceasing to participate in the Dublin system after Brexit. It concluded that it

“would result in the loss of a safe, legal route for the reunification of separated refugee families in Europe. Vulnerable unaccompanied children would find their family reunion rights curtailed, as Dublin offers them the chance to be reunited with a broader range of family members than under current UK Immigration Rules.”

The report also stated:

“After Brexit, the UK is also likely to find it more difficult to enforce the principle that people in need of protection should claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach. Without access to the Eurodac database, it is unclear how the UK would be able to identify asylum applicants who have already been registered in another European country. And a new returns agreement (or agreements) would be needed for the UK to be able to send asylum seekers back to their first point of entry to the EU.”


A further issue raised by the committee was the potential impact of Brexit on our bilateral relationships with EU member states and, in particular, on the arrangements with France and Belgium, which allow us to check passengers and freight en route to the UK before they begin their journey, and on the co-operation between UK, French and Belgian border agencies to address the issue of migrants attempting to cross the channel in small boats. The committee recommended:

“Future UK-EU asylum cooperation should take the Dublin System as its starting point and would ideally be based on continued UK access to the Eurodac database … All routes to family reunion available under the Dublin System should be maintained”.


In their response to the committee in March this year, the Government said that

“the UK does not intend to replicate the Dublin Regulation”

although they were seeking, as has been said, a close partnership with the EU on asylum and illegal immigration, as well as a new agreement with the EU for the family reunion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the EU with family members in the UK. However, the Government’s European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 removed the previous legal obligation to seek to negotiate such an agreement.

The EU Committee has since raised further questions in a letter last May arising from the Government’s response to its report in March of this year. A feature of that letter was the number of occasions in which it was stated that, despite waiting five months for the Government’s response to the report we are now debating, a number of recommendations or specific points had not been addressed. Can the Government explain in their reply to this debate why that happened and whether the Home Office response to a report is seen and cleared by Ministers before it is sent?

Can the Government also say why the response to the further letter from the EU Committee was apparently received only some months later, earlier this afternoon? I have not seen it but, subject to what the Government may say in response, the last-minute reply just before this debate tends to sum up their negative attitude to the role of Parliament. I noted with interest the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, on Ministers’ non-attendance at committees.

It would be helpful if the Government in their reply to this debate could give their responses to the questions raised in the follow-up letter of May this year, some of which I want to repeat so that the answers are on the record in Hansard. The committee wanted to know whether the Government would seek to negotiate an interim agreement to support refugee family reunion, as urged in its report, in the event of no deal on asylum and immigration matters being reached by the end of the transition period. Are the Government seeking to maintain all routes to family reunion currently available under the Dublin system as part of the

“ambitious new partnership on asylum and immigration”

they were seeking?

In its report, the committee concluded that a future agreement with the EU on asylum and immigration should uphold a range of minimum standards for refugee protection. Are the Government committed to including such minimum standards in a future agreement? If so, what minimum standards are the Government seeking? How would the parties’ adherence to these minimum standards be supervised? How and by whom would they be enforced?

The EU committee report referred to the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and said that the UK had been the largest recipient of funding, having been allocated—I seem to remember—€370 million to spend on national priorities, such as improving Home Offices processes and the returns programme, and in support of refugee resettlement programmes and integration measures. Can the Government in their reply to this debate today say whether they plan to replace the support provided by the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund? Can the Government, either today or subsequently, say how much funding the UK has received from the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund over the past 10 years, with a breakdown of how, and on what, it has been spent?

The EU committee supported the Government’s intention to establish a single global refugee resettlement programme this year by consolidating existing schemes. My noble friend Lord Dubs and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, both referred to this. Can the Government indicate, if they have not already done this, when they will be providing a detailed summary to local authorities of how the new global resettlement scheme will operate and what that information will include? Can the Government also say in their response what they think were the factors that led many local authorities not to participate in the previous resettlement schemes and how they intend to encourage more authorities to participate in the global resettlement scheme?

The report we are considering urged the Government to offer the same package of financial and other integration support to all recognised refugees in the UK, irrespective of whether they arrived through a resettlement programme or as an asylum seeker. Can the Government say whether they will ensure that all recognised refugees in the UK receive equality of support, no matter how they arrive in this country?

On agreements with third countries, on readmission or co-operation to address the causes of migration, the committee recommended that all such agreements should be subject to formal human rights assessments. Can the Government say whether they will be doing this and, if so, which human rights standards will be applied? Will the Government’s assessment be subject to independent verification and, if so, by which body?

A number of issues and points have been raised by noble Lords on refugee protection and asylum policy over the past two hours or so. I hope government answers will now be forthcoming because we are approaching the deadline day for determining our future immigration policy, including on this issue, with some rapidity and even more uncertainty. It looks as though the role of Parliament in influencing and determining that policy will be as minimal as the Government can make it because future policy depends on the outcome of negotiations with the EU, negotiations that will be concluded, at best, very late in the day, and over which Parliament has little or no meaningful say or influence, with the essential specifics of our future immigration policy, including refugee protection and asylum policy, being laid down in secondary legislation, which cannot be amended, rather than in primary legislation. Quite sweeping powers are being grabbed by the Government, which they can then exercise with little meaningful challenge or direct accountability. Specific answers from the Government to the many questions and points raised in this debate today would therefore be both welcome and much needed. I hope I am wrong in suspecting that those answers will also prove elusive.