Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am particularly interested in the student visa amendments, which are both very helpful. There is now an informal assumption that there is a problem with some overseas students playing the system and potentially using their student visas as a mechanism for seeking asylum. The noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, presented a balanced and sensitive case so that all of us can understand, first, the importance of overseas students to the UK and, secondly, the legitimate use of asylum seeking if circumstances change, while at the same time understanding that there is potential abuse of the system. The problem is that while there is a focus on, for example, small boats, maybe a focus on universities does not feel quite as newsworthy and headlines will not be generated, or it seems somehow more legitimate if they have come to do even a media studies course—they cannot be criminals. None the less, there is a problem if the system is abused.

There are two additional points that have not been referred to. I fear that UK universities themselves have mis-sold universities to overseas students, treating university courses as cash cows. One of my first more militant acts at university, many decades ago, was a week-long sit-in to defend overseas students from increased fees, and I have always thought that it was an important part of our education system to defend them. However, universities simply sell inappropriate courses for money to students who often cannot to speak adequate English for a degree. That is not to criticise them; I am criticising the university managements who sell their courses in that way. That kind of cynicism is likely to rub off on students, who will not necessarily come here and think, “I must take seriously my duties and responsibilities to higher education and the pursuit of knowledge”, because the universities have, in an entirely instrumental, business-like fashion, sold them a course that is maybe not very good and not taken any notice of their facility for education. Why would you not become cynical in those circumstances?

Finally, I hope that the Government will take the opportunity provided by both these amendments to think about universities and overseas students, because this is very much in the news in the context of Sheffield Hallam University. We now know that Sheffield Hallam’s management betrayed one of its own academics and compromised academic freedom to guarantee a continued flow of Chinese overseas students, stopping that academic’s research because the Chinese state found it inconvenient. It is not in any of our interests to allow universities to become politicised instruments of overseas students, be it the state, using them in a particular way, or those who recommend that, if you study in the UK on one of these courses, you will easily get asylum. I know that this happens. It is a form of people trafficking that is just not hitting the headlines, but I can assure you, it is happening. I therefore support both amendments and I was very pleased to see them.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, as the House knows, I have sat in a lot of these debates and never stood up to speak, but I feel compelled to speak today. I declare my interest as having been chancellor of two universities, York St John University and the University of Cumbria, for well over 12 years. We had a lot of overseas students. I am not persuaded by what I am hearing today. It is very easy to cast aspersions when you are not within the university itself. Most of our universities do a fantastic job in registering people who really want to study here. Both York St John and Cumbria had training centres in China, so the students had a good command of English before they got here. All the students in those years actually went back, unless they remained to do some research, which was also allowed. Please let us not have these generalised statements about universities all being the same.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I want to clarify, in case there was any confusion, that I have worked with and have great admiration for many Chinese students in this country. My contribution was not an attempt, in any way, at smearing them. That is not to say that there is not an abuse of the system in some instances. I was querying whether we should be attentive to that, because the students are betrayed when they are not given proper education in this country and are used in a particular way for political ends. That does not mean, at all, that all Chinese students are doing that.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My experience is quite different. I have been a chancellor of two universities that have actually recruited students from all over the world—for education, not for any other purpose. They were also wonderful universities for students within our own country. Before the founding of the University of Cumbria, students used to leave Carlisle to go to different universities in our country and they never went back. The creation of the University of Cumbria benefited local businesses —we have talked about manufacturing in places such as Barrow—so it has been wonderful seeing our own local students rising up to the possibility of being very good engineers, manufacturers, nurses and doctors, or being trained in other ways. I stood at the podium giving out degrees to students from all over the place. At York St John, there were always four ceremonies, each with about 400 students at a time. That is what I know from what I experienced—it is therefore possible for me to say that.

I must declare a second interest: I came here on a student visa in 1974, which was renewed every 12 months until I was ordained in 1979. Later, when I became Bishop of Stepney, I was given indefinite leave to remain but I never applied for naturalisation in this country, which was a possibility, until 2001. I was a faithful student who came here on a student visa. It is no good anybody telling me that if some Ugandans come here—let us say there are four of them—and involved themselves in criminal acts, we can then use those four as a test case to say that people from that country should not get visas. From all that I know, most of the students from Uganda went back—my circumstances were part of something different. Please can we not express guilt by association, where we say, for example, that if some people from Nigeria do something, all of them must be the same, so we must always gather the figures and numbers?

This has always been a free country for me, and it has helped quite a lot of people who have been in great difficulty. I came here because of Amin’s trouble; I had to give up my law job. My staying here has to do with me continuing to study and then being invited to become a chaplain of a prison in Richmond, which I did for four years. Indefinite leave was quite a different thing. I always resisted naturalisation to become a British citizen; at the time I thought that I was natural and that there was no need to be naturalised. Still, occasionally, whenever I hold my British passport, I say, “To get this, I had to be naturalised”. That term is pretty offensive, because there is nothing unnatural about me that needed to be naturalised.

My dear friends, yes, there is now concern about people, who either are on student visas or came here on asylum, having committed offences, but these amendments make it seem that Britain’s history has nothing to teach us. For that reason, should the amendments be voted on, I will move in the direction of the Not-Content Lobby.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I will draw us back to the amendments before us. Amendment 35 requires the Secretary of State to collate and publish detailed data on overseas students whose visas are revoked due to criminal offences, and raises several important questions concerning data collection accuracy, resource allocation and the practical application of policy. The intent of the amendment is clear: to provide essential data to evaluate risks and ensure individuals who commit crimes are removed.

I almost have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, for not getting answers to the questions he has asked time and again. What remains is that we have to look at the necessity of the subjects of those questions and their implementation. If the object of the amendment is to provide the data necessary to design efficient public policy, the first question must address the existing statutory landscape. The answers that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, got suggest that the Home Office did not collect the data relating specifically to student visas and criminality. What specific, new infrastructure or operational commitment would be necessary to collate this information reliably, particularly as the Minister implied that the Home Office already publishes a

“vast amount of data on immigration”—[Official Report, 26/6/25; col. 440.]

in regular publications that cover these themes?

Secondly, the amendment would require the publishing of figures on visa revocation, detention and deportation following a criminal offence. Given that 14,000 people who originally entered on a student visa claimed asylum in the latest year reported, and considering that subsequent detention or deportation is often tied to the outcome of complex asylum or human rights claims rather than solely the original criminal conviction or visa revocation, how will the published data accurately distinguish between detention related directly to government removal actions versus detention protracted by pending asylum appeals or other legal challenges? The Immigration Rules already provide for the cancellation of entry clearance and permission to enter or stay when conditions are breached. Would a statutory duty to publish retrospective data fully address the underlying problem, or would resources be better focused on the proactive enforcement and timely application of the existing Immigration Rules?

Thirdly, the amendment mandates that the published data

“must be broken down by nationality”.

That is intended to highlight countries associated with a high risk of abuse of the visa system, allowing the Home Office and universities to take risk into account when making decisions. What specific safeguards will be put in place to ensure that the publication of criminality data, broken down by nationality, does not lead to profiling or unfair discriminatory practices against students from those nations who are law-abiding citizens, especially given the clear parliamentary intention to use the data to identify countries of particular risk?

Amendment 35C, which is yet to be introduced by the Conservative Front Bench, proposes that the Secretary of State must declare an asylum or human rights claim inadmissible if the claimant entered on a student visa, applied for asylum more than two days later and there is “no evidence” of materially changed political circumstances endangering their life or liberty. This measure is flawed both practically and legally, and we must oppose it for three key reasons.

The proposed new clause establishes a near-automatic system of inadmissibility for a specific cohort of asylum seekers. The approach is inherently problematic because it fails to process cases based on individual merits and lived experiences. There is no substantive consideration of the asylum or human rights claim. Even if the primary motivation for the amendment is to counter visa abuse, refusing a person’s asylum claim without consideration of the merits and/or risks, placing the UK in breach of its obligations under the refugee convention, specifically the prohibition on refoulement, is a matter of serious concern.

The amendment conflates asylum and human rights claims. Many human rights claims are founded not on a country’s general safety but on an individual’s personal connection to the UK, such as family ties. Automatically barring these claims simply because a person arrived on a student visa is an anomalous and unjustifiable imposition of a blanket ban.

The proposed new clause explicitly states that the inadmissible declaration is not a refusal of the claim and, as such, no right of appeal arises. Furthermore, it declares that the decision is

“final and not liable to be questioned or set aside in any court”.

Such provisions, which seek to exclude judicial review—we are going to have plenty of those today—of immigration decisions and to remove the right to appeal are repeatedly condemned as unconstitutional and contrary to the ECHR, which is of course part of our domestic law.

The intention behind the amendment may be to clamp down on those abusing the student visa route, especially concerning the 14,000 who claimed asylum after entering on a student visa in the last reported year. However, this absolute inadmissibility straitjacket would be functionally unworkable, echoing the failures of previous legislation. This amendment is ineffective, inhumane and legally unsound.

Amendment 71 seeks to fundamentally alter the established visa penalty mechanisms contained within the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. The stated intent of the amendment is clear: to force the Government to impose visa penalties immediately if a country fails to co-operate on removals or the verification of identity of its nationals. While we share the desire to see prompt and effective removal of those who have no right to be here, the amendment risks undermining that very objective by destroying the necessary operational discretion essential for effective diplomacy and returns policy. The mandatory penalty system removes the ability to use engagement, diplomacy and other means to successfully unblock co-operation with other countries. We simply cannot tie the hands of a Secretary of State with a rigid system that risks damaging international relations without guaranteeing an increase in removals.