Scheduled Mass Deportation: Jamaica

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

Do we have the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf? If not, I call the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey of Didcot.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister could confirm a number of things regarding this case: first, that these deportations are taking place under legislation passed by the last Labour Government; secondly, that the deportation of foreign criminals to Jamaica makes up a very small percentage of the deportations undertaken every year; and, thirdly, that it is wholly wrong to conflate the scandal of Windrush with this case. The Government are dealing with the fallout from the Windrush scandal but this case has nothing to do with it.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Perhaps I can turn to my noble friend’s last question first, because he is absolutely right; my noble friend Lord Lancaster also alluded to this point. To conflate this flight, which contains some pretty serious criminals, with the people of the Windrush generation who came to this country to rebuild it after the war is an absolute insult to the Windrush generation, so I absolutely agree with my noble friend.

On the second point about the percentage of deportations, he is absolutely right. It is tiny: in terms of deportations to Jamaica, it is some 1%. Thirdly, he is absolutely right about the legislation: the UK Borders Act was passed in 2007 under a Labour Government.