Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Mike Tapp Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Katie Lam]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question—yes, I think it is fundamentally important that decisions about who can be and remain in our country are made by people who are accountable to the public.

[Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Katie Lam]

I will make a little progress.

The concept of universal rights is clearly a good one. It is one of the great gifts to humanity of the Judeo-Christian tradition to recognise that every human life has inherent worth, and every human being should be treated with the dignity that that inherent worth confers. But any set of rules that people might write over time can be distorted or abused, or exploited to take advantage of our society, our kindness and the British impulse and instinct towards trust, tolerance and generosity. Our rules and laws on human rights, and the organisations to which we belong that were created in the name of human rights, should be subject to scrutiny and debate no less than any other rules and laws. Lord Jonathan Sumption, the former Supreme Court judge, said that the United Kingdom’s adherence to the European convention on human rights

“raises a major constitutional issue which ought to concern people all across the political spectrum.”

It is right for us to interrogate our rules. Indeed, that is arguably our main job and the fundamental reason we have been sent here by our constituents. None of our laws should be above repeal, replacement or disapplication, and that must include the Human Rights Act. We are among the luckiest people in the world in that we live in a democracy, and one that I believe has the world’s greatest people as its voters. When the British people see repeated activity that contravenes our national common sense, politicians in Westminster must acknowledge that and do something about it.

If the Government do not wish to disapply the Human Rights Act and interim measures of the European Court of Human Rights in matters of asylum and immigration in order to control the border and put a stop to the perverse cases and decisions we are seeing relentlessly arise in the courts, what is their solution? How will they restore common sense, fairness and the primacy of public safety to the security of the border?

--- Later in debate ---

Finally, I turn to new clause 40, which is the numerical visa cap. As I have mentioned to the Committee before, every election-winning manifesto since 1974 has promised to reduce immigration. Time and again, Governments of both parties have failed to deliver on that promise. Perhaps even more scandalously, those same Governments have often attempted to shift the blame for that failure, refusing to take responsibility for overseeing an immigration system that does not align with the expressed wishes of the British people.

[Mike Tapp]

Given that the hon. Lady worked previously in a special adviser role and is lecturing us about caps, how were her Government successful with the caps that they set?

[Katie Lam]

I think and hope that it has been clear from everything I have said that I make no defence of the previous Government’s activity. It is incredibly important that Conservative Members are able—as is our duty and our responsibility to the public—to talk about the many things that went wrong and, I hope, to help this Government to avoid making the same mistakes.

[Mike Tapp]

I appreciate the collegiate working environment that we are now in. In which case, will the hon. Lady expand on the caps set by the previous Government and the results that came after?

[Katie Lam]

As I have set out already, there was never what we are talking about here, which is a formal cap set by Parliament in legislation. However, a number of aims and promises were given to the electorate over the years, and those promises were not kept.

Selective, limited and tailored to our needs—that is the immigration system that the British public have voted for time and again. If we are serious about delivering it, we must take steps to ensure that future Governments do not renege on their promises as previous Governments have. But this is not just about delivering the immigration system that the British people have voted for repeatedly; fundamentally, it is about public trust and accountability.

Put simply, a hard numerical cap on the number of visas issued each year would force Government and Parliament to have accountability for their immigration decisions. If we believe that the overall level of immigration is too high, we should set the cap accordingly, to ensure that technical mistakes do not produce the kind of migration wave that we have seen over the past few years. If we believe that the overall level of immigration is too low, we should be willing to say that publicly, to explain our reasons and to defend our record. Either way, we must be transparent. That will not rebuild public trust in our political system overnight, but it will represent a significant step in the right direction.