Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, we listened to the right reverend Prelate talking about coming to this country, as indeed did the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu. Just think for a moment: the right reverend Prelate and her parents arrived in this country as refugees from a place they could not go back to, and where, I seem to remember, the right reverend Prelate’s brother had been murdered. If they had come to this country illegally, would we really have sent them back, as being of bad character? If one thinks about it, it is quite extraordinary.

As Members of this House will know, like the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, I was a judge. I spent a lot of my time hearing evidence, often from people of bad character. Bad character is, of course, a wide definition. Technically, I suppose, you are of bad character if you speed: to that I admit—on more than one occasion. Are you of bad character if you are fleeing a place you had to leave because you might otherwise be dead, and are coming to this country by the only means you could? Let us bear in mind that the places people can go to in order to come legally to this country are almost non-existent. Consequently, nearly every refugee to this country comes illegally. Are we to say that doctors, lawyers, nurses, accountants, all people fleeing for good reason, are to be treated as being of bad character? I say to all Members of this House: we really need to reflect every now and again on what comes before this place and what we ought to do.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry that I am not able to support the right reverend Prelate on the first occasion she has tabled an amendment, and hope that I will be able to do so on future occasions. I will make a few points to balance the argument.

The right reverend Prelate and one or two noble Lords who spoke in favour of the amendment put the case on behalf of the individual seeking citizenship. The amendment refers to citizenship, not to sending people back—that is important to bear in mind. The amendment is also about the decision the Home Secretary and her officials have to make in protecting the rest of the country. They have to make a judgment on whether someone should be granted citizenship. The right reverend Prelate referred to the way in which decisions are made regarding children and the assurance the Minister gave before. Given that over 256,000 people have been granted citizenship this year, it seems that the department is not being overly harsh in its decision-making when it grants citizenship on that scale.

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[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this group speaks to an incredibly important issue in the current asylum system. As it stands, there is no standardised method for verifying the age or identity of those who enter the country illegally. These amendments seek to correct that and give the relevant authorities the power to mandate an age test where they consider it necessary. It cannot be right that a person is automatically assumed to be a child if their age is doubted or they lack documentary evidence. We currently exist within a system that grants people claiming asylum innumerable privileges once their applications are processed. People are given a roof over their head, food, electronic devices and many other amenities. Social activities are often offered. Those who need it have access to healthcare. Children are put into schools. Surely the least we should aim for is ensuring that these privileges are not overprescribed to people who should not qualify for them.

The current process does not, unfortunately, provide for this. If the authorities doubt whether someone is of the age they claim to be, there is no lawful way demonstrably to prove the truth. They must give the benefit of the doubt to the age-disputed person, while the same person can avoid taking a definitive scientific age assessment by denying consent. What is worse, incentives exist for people to lie and game the system. It is well documented that asylum NGOs advise that applying as a child offers a better chance of being accepted. A GB News investigation demonstrated a spike in asylum applications, across all nationalities, of people claiming to be 16 or 17. This is what happens when we offer asylum to children and do not include the necessary safeguards.

The result of this system is that many adults are incentivised to masquerade as children, giving themselves a higher chance of being accepted. The state, in contrast, has no way to challenge these people. The prerequisite of consent essentially gives the age-disputed person control over whether they are found to be lying. The consequences have been dire. Take Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, a proclaimed 14-year-old Afghan who, unbeknown to the state, had shot and killed two men in Serbia on his way to claim asylum in Britain. He was placed in a secondary school and was moved to another school after being found with a knife, there injuring a pupil. Then, two years after arriving in the country, he fatally murdered aspiring marine Tom Roberts in a knife attack. Abdulrahimzai was actually 19 when he entered the country. I understand that this is an extreme case, but it highlights the importance we must give to verifying the identity of those who illegally enter the country. If someone is willing to lie at the very first hurdle, who is to say we can trust them in society afterwards?

Verifying the person’s age is the first step to solving this. It prevents adults being placed in schools among children and highlights potentially illegitimate claims from those attempting to game our generosity. Amendments 63 and 64 achieve this balance. Those claiming asylum would still be given the opportunity to state their age and would not automatically be required to take an age assessment. However, the discretion would ultimately lie with the relevant authorities. If the age of a person is doubted, powers would exist to scientifically test their age without being obstructed by consent claims. This is the bare minimum we should expect from a system that is being perpetually defrauded. Removing the requirement for consent takes the process out of the hands of the asylum seeker, encourages honesty and trust, and disincentivises fraud. That is what an asylum system should aim for.

I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister has to say about this. In the meantime, I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to support my noble friend Lord Davies. I will also acquaint your Lordships with the information the Government set out in July when the Minister for Border Security and Asylum said what the Government were doing on some of the technology. We discussed in a previous group the potential for artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology to make a big change in this area, and I argued that we should leave open that opportunity. The Minister in a Statement earlier this year confirmed that testing was under way, and said that,

“subject to the results of further testing and assurance … Facial Age Estimation could be fully integrated into the current age assessment system over the course of 2026”.

I do not think the Government’s current position on setting out regulations is that far away from my noble friend’s.

There is a potentially big advantage of this technology, in that previously available scientific tests were not particularly accurate and were medical or invasive in nature, involving MRI scans or X-rays, for example. There are some legitimate reasons why you would not want somebody to be forced to undergo that sort of procedure, and their refusal to undertake such might not be held to be unreasonable. With artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology, there seems to be a very weak case, if any, for refusing to undergo such a test. Subject to the testing being in order, I hope that, if the Government bring it in, they will not give people the opportunity to refuse to undergo it; I see no legitimate case for that. If testing gives Ministers accurate information about somebody’s age, I hope that they will make it mandatory and that if someone refuses to take the test, the presumption of their being a child can be overturned and they will suffer a consequence for not using that technology. So I hope the Minister can update us on how that testing is going and on whether the timeframe the Borders Minister set out earlier this year, hoping that this technology could be rolled out next year, is still on track.

I very strongly support my noble friend’s two amendments.

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I feel as if we have been around this one a fair number of times. I am very much looking forward to the Minister saying what he can about AI facial recognition technology, but I want to remind everybody that the Home Office’s own Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee has made it very clear that no method, biological or social worker-led, can determine age with precision. We really need to be very clear about that. Biological evidence can test only whether a claimed age is possible; it cannot set a hard line under or over 18. It is important that we recognise that. AI technology may be able to bring us something, and I know the Minister has said that he is going to tell us more about it. Meanwhile, I think we should resist these amendments very hard.

The reason for that is that the sort of scientific methods, such as X-ray and MRI, that were proposed before—and were on some occasions in use—are unethical. Doctors, nurses and all health professionals will say that using X-ray, in particular, or any kind of radiation for a purpose that is not for the benefit of the individual concerned is unethical. I think many noble Lords know that I have spent much of my working life in and around health services, so I have met a lot of doctors in my time. I have not yet met a single doctor who believes that using either radiation, as X-rays, or MRI for the purpose of age determination is an ethical thing to do.

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[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendments in this group and will briefly speak to mine, which would strengthen the amendments laid by my noble friends on the Front Bench. They have the objective of restoring public confidence in our asylum system. Amendment 65A would ensure that no modern slavery claim could be made by those who arrive under the conditions set out in Amendment 65 and that we eliminate loopholes where we know or suspect that a strong risk exists of bogus asylum claims. Amendment 77A would make it clear that the proposed third-country removal centre would also process any modern slavery claims for those who could not be returned to their home country, for whatever reason.

As a package, in addition to my amendments that I discussed earlier in these debates—I will not repeat myself—this would ensure that the public have confidence that we are supporting genuine victims of modern slavery, not those who seek to use our generous provisions to prey on vulnerable people or those who, for their own evil reasons, decide to exploit our asylum laws to get a fast track into the country under the guise of being modern slaves and then go on to lodge bogus asylum claims. The public are rapidly losing trust in the state to protect our borders and we need to take determined, radical action. I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendments put down by my noble friend Lord Davies. I will focus in particular on proposed new subsection (2)(b) in his Amendment 65, which would make it clear that, if someone does not come directly to the UK from a country in which they were threatened, they are not covered by the refugee convention. I strongly support that and we have debated it earlier on this Bill.

It may or may not surprise your Lordships to know that it is also the view of the Government. In a letter that the noble Lord, Lord Katz, sent to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, following our debate in Committee on Monday 13 October, in response to suggestions she made in her amendments, he said that the refugee convention

“is quite clear about the need for migrants to ‘come directly’ to benefit from the protections it affords them. In reality, not a single small boat that has reached the UK has set out from a dangerous country where migrants could not be reasonably expected to claim asylum. France, Belgium and the Netherlands are all signatory to the Convention and are entirely safe countries with functioning asylum systems of which migrants are able to avail themselves”.

I could not agree more with the Minister in that interpretation of the refugee convention, which is effectively what my noble friend has set out in his amendment. Given that the Government’s view is that Article 31 of the refugee convention should be interpreted narrowly in that sense, I hope the Minister will support my noble friend’s amendments and, even if he feels that something in their drafting is not absolutely spot on, he will none the less come forward at Third Reading with an amendment that would correct the drafting and put into statute the sentiments set out in that letter, with which I entirely agree.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, it is all very well saying that people who have come from a safe third country are not entitled to asylum here. That is the law; there is no doubt about that. The difficulty is in removing such people. These amendments provide no assistance in relation to that. People who have come here from France and Belgium, which are of course safe countries, cannot be removed to those countries—those countries will not have them back, other than under the scheme that the Government have agreed with France. So they cannot be removed there.

They are also not to be given asylum under these amendments, so are they to be removed to their own country? Are we really going to remove people who have arrived here unlawfully to countries where they face persecution? That seems intolerable to me. The problem is not saying that these people are not entitled to asylum; the problem is removing them from this country and these amendments make no contribution to that.