Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Mike Tapp and Will Forster

Committee stage
Thursday 13th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Forster]

I would really like to hear the Minister confirm that the Government are going to work with international partners to encourage a co-ordinated programme on safe and legal routes. One option, I would hope, is to agree to the new clause, but if the Government will not agree with this version, will they agree to consult on how to introduce safe and legal routes with partners? I am trying to be as moderate and practical as possible. A lot of requests from MPs do not require immediate action, but they do require the Government to consult. Is that something that the Minister would consider?

[Mike Tapp]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East for making a compelling argument around the balance between our decency and humanity and not creating a pull factor that will cause more risk. I draw the Committee’s attention to our work as a Government with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which has resettled individuals from Ethiopia, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Combined with the other resettlement routes that we have in place, such as family reunion, the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, and the Hong Kong and Ukraine schemes, we have resettled over half a million individuals since 2015—I do not know the exact stats. There are ways to come here safely for people who need it.

When it comes to illegal migration, it is important that we take out the smuggling gangs. The Bill will help us do that with disruptive measures so we can get there first. This counter-terror approach is the right way.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Mike Tapp and Will Forster

Committee stage
Thursday 13th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Forster]

The hon. Member for Stockton West highlighted that the scheme proposed by the new clause is not dissimilar to ones that the previous Government introduced for Ukrainians and people from Afghanistan, which I found an interesting comparison. If it is appropriate for some specific countries, why would it not be appropriate to have such a scheme on the legal shelf in case we were to need it, especially as the world is more dangerous than ever before?

[Mike Tapp]

To go back to what the Minister said, does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the UNHCR schemes do precisely that?

[Mr Forster]

I acknowledge that those schemes try to do that, but I do not think they are working—the exhibit for that is the number of small boats that we see and the number of people fleeing conflict. Those rules do not meet the framework that is currently required in the UK and in the world, hence this new clause. I am mindful of time, so I will be brief: I hope that hon. Members will support this new clause, which would be a good legal tool for attacking the gangs and protecting vulnerable people as they flee their homes in conflict.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Mike Tapp and Will Forster

Committee stage
Thursday 27th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

Q I want to broaden this out. Enver highlighted the Refugee Council’s view on the Bill being too narrow. What is the view of the Scottish Refugee Council and the British Red Cross on that? What do you think of safe, legal routes?

Mubeen Bhutta: I did not quite catch the first bit of your question, but I think you are asking about safe and legal routes. I endorse some of the comments that my colleague Enver has already made. We welcome the Bill. We welcome the intention of the Bill around reducing the loss of life in the channel, but that is only half of the story.

It is really important that we look at the reasons why people are putting their lives in the hands of people smugglers in the first place. It is often because there is no other choice—there is no route that they can take. We would like to see more safe and legal routes, whether that is new routes, such as enabling people to apply for a humanitarian visa in the country that they are in to come directly to the UK and then be able to claim asylum, or expanding existing routes such as family reunion, so that there is more eligibility for people to use those routes.

It is really important to look at both sides of the coin. In a way, you could consider this Bill to be looking at the supply of this sort of activity, but it does not do anything about the demand. People will still need to make those journeys if no other routes are available.

Daniel O’Malley: For us, this is another migration Bill on top of many migration Bills. The system that people seeking asylum currently face is convoluted and arbitrary, and it is founded on hostility. As Mubeen rightly said, it is about the enforcement and stopping people crossing, rather than creating a more efficient asylum system. For us at the Scottish Refugee Council, that is what we are concerned about in the Bill. You talked about the Bill being quite narrow, but there are aspects of it that are far too broad and that can be applied in too broad a manner.

For the Scottish Refugee Council, the asylum aspects of the Bill do not address an updating of the asylum system. There are points on integration that should be considered as well. Nothing in the Bill talks about the integration of people seeking asylum while they are in the system. We commend the Government for speeding up the clearing of the backlog, which is great, but work needs to be done to help people who are in the system to integrate into the country. About 75% of people in the system will typically be granted refugee status, so work needs to be done to help them to integrate into communities, rather than having them in asylum accommodation or hostile environments.

The Government are rightly looking at asylum accommodation and the Home Affairs Committee is also doing an inquiry into it, so we know the work is being done. We would have liked to see the Bill contain a point about integration. The work in Scotland on this is the “New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy”, with an approach to integration from day one of arrival. We would like to see that extended to the UK level as well, mirroring what has also been done in Wales.

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

Q We have met previously, Mr Solomon, and I want to declare that I have worked for the National Crime Agency in the past and in a counter-terror role. I understand the points you made on enforcement, but what are your views on the fact that the Bill also includes strong disruptive measures, which is of course pre-enforcement, such as search and seizure?

Enver Solomon: I think those measures are legitimate. As I said, it is important to take steps to disrupt the activity of gangs that are causing huge harms to the lives of individual men, women and children, who are often extremely vulnerable. Attempts such as the powers you referred to are important and have a role to play—I am not disputing that. What I am saying is that they need to be used proportionately and to be clearly targeted at the individuals behind the criminal gangs and the trade of the criminal gangs.

Our concern is that, by broadening criminal powers in the Bill and specifically by introducing new offences, individuals will be caught up in that process. People who are coming across in very flimsy and dangerous vessels will end up being criminalised through no fault of their own. We are also concerned that using further laws—as has been seen across a whole range of different areas of public policy—is a blunt instrument to try to change the behaviour of people.

People will not stop getting into flimsy dinghies and coming across the channel or the Mediterranean because of new offences that they might face. They will probably know very little about the nature of those offences. They will know very little about the new rules that mean, if you get refugee protection, you will no longer be able to go on and gain British citizenship. We know that from our experience: they will know nothing about that, so it will not change behaviour or provide the deterrence that I think it is hoped it will provide.

That is why you need to use these powers in a very targeted, proportionate way that deals with the prosecution of the criminal behaviour but does not result in, in effect, punching down on those vulnerable people who are getting into the boats because they want to seek safety. It will not change their behaviour. That is our experience from having worked with refugees and people seeking asylum over many decades.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Mike Tapp and Will Forster

Committee stage
Thursday 27th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

Q I want to look at clauses 13 to 17 and what the Crown Prosecution Service thinks of them, so this question is more directed at you, Sarah. Considering their application both inside and outside the UK, what do you think the chances of successful prosecution are? How likely do you think the CPS is to take this up? We heard earlier today that some are concerned about how wide the powers in clauses 13 to 16 could be. We were told this morning that, if I was in Calais and someone asked me, “What’s the weather like today?”, technically I would have committed a crime under these clauses. What is your view of that?

Sarah Dineley: I will deal with the second point first, as it is probably the easiest and it flows into the first. In relation to clauses 13 to 16, with any new legislation, the Crown Prosecution Service always publishes guidance on how it is to be interpreted. Certainly, the example that you gave about asking what the weather is like in Dover when you are stood in Calais would not fall within the guidance as meeting the evidential test. Of course, it is not just about an evidential test being met, but a public interest test as well. Our guidance always deals with that specific question of whether it is in the public interest, so that prosecutors can do that balancing exercise and ask, “Are there factors that weigh in favour of prosecution? Are there factors that tend away from prosecution?” They want to come to a decision that is compliant with our code for Crown prosecutors, so it is a mixture of guidance and application of the code that hopefully gets us to the right conclusion.

Going back to your first point, I mentioned that we have mutual legal assistance and that we can issue what are called international letters of request. They require the recipient country to execute the action, or to provide the information that we have asked for. One of the problems is that there has to be something called dual criminality—there has to be the equivalent offence in the country that we are making the request to, and there are some gaps across Europe in establishing dual criminality for all the immigration offences that we currently have on our books. However, we are confident that there are reciprocal laws in the major OIC countries in Europe to allow us to make those requests for information under mutual legal assistance. We are aided by the network of prosecutors based abroad, which I mentioned. We also have Eurojust and the joint investigation teams run out of Eurojust. We are well versed in working internationally and with the measures that we can deploy to make sure that we build a strong evidential case.

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

Q I should declare that I have worked for the National Crime Agency in a counter-terror role.

We have talked a lot about the upstream side, which publicly people are well aware of. Is there a significant domestic angle here? Are we confident that we have a sound intelligence picture—as much as we can? Are there crossovers with other crime? Does the Bill help us to disrupt and arrest people in this country?

Rob Jones: I will come back on that first. There is a footprint in the UK for organised immigration crime. The footprint for the small boats crossings has typically been driven by Belgium, Germany, Turkey and further afield, with Iraqi Kurdish and Afghan groups. As more and more people have successfully exploited that route, however, they put down ties, they get involved in criminality and they know it has worked for them, so that drives the problem. There are organised crime groups in the UK that we are targeting. Some of our most significant cases to date have involved a footprint in the UK.

When we look at those groups and what it took to bring them to justice, we have either had to extradite them to another country following a judicial investigation, or we have done very complex covert investigations for many months. This helps with that issue, because when we have got good evidence from covert tactics—this was my earlier point—we are able to go earlier with it. The majority of the criminality that drives the small boats element, however, is based overseas. We have a good intelligence picture through OIC, which has improved dramatically since 2015 when we started targeting this, when the crisis first started.

Jim Pearce: I have a follow-on from policing. I probably have two points to make. First, tomorrow you will start hearing national media on interventions across the country, which are termed Operation or Op Mille—police interventions to do with cannabis farms. A lot of the intelligence linked to that particular operation involves workers who have been brought in illegally from abroad, and all those disruptions will be from across the whole country. That might just bring this to life.

The second point I want to make is on legislation changes, which you just asked about. The two changes—well, there are more than two, but the ones I particularly want to focus on—relate to serious crime prevention orders and the ability of law enforcement, which is the police, the NCA and of course the CPS, to apply for interim orders, especially those on acquittal. Serious crime prevention orders are probably a tool that is underused at the moment. We are keen to push into that space moving forward.

Sarah Dineley: To put that into context, at the moment there are effectively two types of serious crime prevention order: one is imposed on conviction, and between 2011 and 2022, we had 1,057; the other is what we call the stand-alone serious crime prevention orders. Those are made before any charges are brought and they are heard in the High Court. To date, there have only been two applications, one of which was successful. The introduction of this new serious crime prevention order does fill a massive gap in that restrictive order.

Rob Jones: I agree with that, and I welcome those measures. There is a similar regime for sexual offences, which allows control measures for people who are suspected of offences. That has been very successful. We welcome that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Tapp]

Q Since you started in your role, 19,000 people have been deported, which I believe is a 24% increase on the same period last year. How have you managed to achieve that in such a short time? Combined with the Bill, do you think that that will start acting as a deterrent?

Dame Angela Eagle: One of the important things for the integrity of any asylum system is that if people fail it, there are consequences that are different from those if they do not. It is the hard and nastier end of any asylum system: if you have no right to be here, we will want you to leave—voluntarily, if at all possible. Sometimes we will even facilitate that, but we will return you by force if we have to. The 19,000 returns that we have achieved since 4 July are an indication that we want to ensure that enforcement of the rules is being put into effect more than it was. There had been very big falls in returns, and very big falls in enforcement, and we want to put that right.

[Mr Forster]

Q We have heard a lot of mixed comments in the evidence sessions today, but quite a few witnesses have highlighted that the Bill only tackles half the story of border security, asylum and immigration. It tackles the supply side, not the demand. Based on today, will you consider some potential amendments, or another potential strategy, to attach to the Bill to tackle the whole picture that, as we heard today, people as a country want us to tackle?

Dame Angela Eagle: Clearly, it is important that we try to deal with the development of organised immigration crime on our borders. Colleagues will have heard the comments from the NCA and the National Police Chiefs’ Council about how important it is to assert the rule of law in such areas. It is very important. That is the main aim of the Bill.

If the hon. Gentleman is talking about safe routes, we heard some evidence today about safe routes. I am personally sceptical that those would stop people wanting to come across in boats. If one takes the example of our Afghan scheme—a safe route for particular people from Afghanistan who have been put in danger by supporting UK forces—that is a legal route that is safe. At the same time, last year the largest nationality represented among small boat arrivals was Afghans.

We have people arriving on small boats who come from countries where we have visa regimes, so I am not convinced that we could provide enough places on safe routes to prevent people smugglers benefiting from that kind of demand. That is my opinion from having looked at what goes on and I accept the hon. Gentleman might have a different one.

Seema Malhotra: If I may add to that, we also heard in the evidence about the scale of the challenge that we face and how small boat crossings are a relatively new phenomenon, in that we had around 300 in 2018, but the number is now 36,000. In a very targeted way, this Bill is looking at what more tools we can bring in along with the Border Security Command to tackle the criminal gangs that are literally making millions—if not more—out of people who are very vulnerable.

The fact that there were more deaths in the channel in 2024 than in previous years shows that the situation is becoming even more dangerous, so we absolutely have to do everything we can to disrupt those criminal gangs. Therefore, I want to focus on that for this Bill, because we cannot do everything in one piece of legislation.

It is important, however, to correct, from my understanding, a bit of evidence that was given earlier by Tony Smith that the UK resettlement scheme was closed—it is actually still open. We have had over 3,000 refugees resettled via that scheme since its launch four years ago. The number of refugees arriving on that depends on a range of factors, and that includes recommendations from the UNHCR as well as how many offers of accommodation we have from local authorities; that is an ongoing system. This is legislation around tackling the small boats and the criminal gangs that are enabling that as a new trade.