Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Swire Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I add to the welcome to my noble friend Lord Harper. It is good to see him here bolstering our side of the House, although I hope his plea for preferential treatment for former Chief Whips is ignored in the way that it should be. But it is very good to see him here.

The Bill we are debating this evening could not have come on a more embarrassing day for the Government, with 1,194 illegal immigrants having come over in 18 dinghies on Saturday alone—the fifth-largest number in a single day, totalling 38,053 since the election. Britain has lost control of its borders: those are not my words, but the words of the Secretary of State for Defence. If it is true that Britain has lost control of its borders, the exam question is, does this Bill give us control back over our borders or does it in some way fall short?

We have discussed various matters, and we will have plenty of time in Committee to flesh those out, not least the role of the border security commander. Many of us have not been impressed by the work over the years of either the UK Border Agency or Border Force, and it has always been my view that there is a huge cadre of people in this country whose employment we terminate far too soon. I am talking about senior military figures, senior civil servants, Foreign Office people and so forth. We let them go at a point when they have many years of useful life left in them. I would have thought that we should look very carefully at making part of their retirement a secondment to boost this part of government. They would bring expertise, greatly improving the processing of applications and so forth, which we all want to see. I hope the Government will give that some consideration.

As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, who spoke before me, said, this all depends on co-operation. Can the Minister update us on our current relations with the French? Of course, we are an island; we are dependent on the French. We have given them some £476 million in a three-year deal, and seeing their behaviour over the past few days, I wonder whether we are getting any value for money from that. What discussions can we have with the French? How can we further incentivise them? Of course, if you are in France, inevitably, you do not necessarily want to retain people—you want to see them go—but why are we giving the French money if they are simply not fulfilling their part of the deal? What discussions about this legislation has the Minister had with the Irish Government in Dublin, given that another way people can come into this country is through Northern Ireland?

There has been a lot of discussion about Rwanda, and we can argue about that until the cows come home. It was oven-ready, and I understand why those who did not want to proceed with it did not, but what has it been replaced by? On his recent visit to Albania, the Prime Minister met with a rebuff. So what other countries are we now talking to? I hear that the Balkans are under increasing Russian influence. We are told that the SIS has advised the Government against the Balkans, which are a tinderbox at the moment. Who else are we negotiating with? What is the expectation that we will get a deal? What is the timeline? Crucially, what is the fallback if we do not get a deal with any third country?

This Bill deals with the future, but very little is going to happen immediately and, crucially, it ignores the population of this country. I have always said that you cannot have a grown-up conversation about how many people you want to live in this country and how many people you want to come to this country unless you know how many people are living in this country. We do not, and this Bill does nothing to address that. It talks about guaranteeing the security of our borders, but it says nothing about guaranteeing the security of the country within its borders. Can the Government guarantee that those who have come here over the years illegally wish the country well and do not present a credible threat at times?

That brings me to my conclusion and an issue which I shall be raising in Committee. It follows on from what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said about the introduction of biometric ID cards. This moves towards that. The Minister is falling into the trap, because he is going to raise again the fact that I was in a Government who passed the Identity Documents Act 2010 to get rid of them. I went to the Library to check how I voted. I was a Northern Ireland Minister of State at the time, and I was rather hoping I would not be here, but of course, the Minister will appreciate the principle of ministerial collective responsibility. Equally, I think one is allowed to change one’s mind over 15 years.

There has been a huge change in circumstance. There has been a huge change in the accretion—if that is the right word—of our identity; we all cede it the whole time to the NHS, to credit card companies and so forth. It is staring us in the face. If we had a good biometric ID system here, we could work out who is in this country first and foremost before we then decide how many more people we want to come, and that is something I believe we should debate better.

This is a contentious subject, but by doing nothing or not enough about it we are playing into the hands of parties such as Reform. The Government are understandably nervous about the inroads that Reform is making in northern seats in particular. I say gently to everybody in this House that the less we do about this, the more it plays to Reform. I still believe there is a gap between what people expect from the Government on immigration and what politicians are delivering. The wider that gap—the more it is allowed to exist—the more it will play to those on the extremes, which I believe we all wish to avoid.