Orgreave Inquiry

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. To put things in context, the Home Secretary and I have met a range of key stakeholders already to hear their respective views on the scope and nature of the Orgreave inquiry and what it should seek to achieve. There has already been a consultation with the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, the National Union of Mineworkers, South Yorkshire police, the Mayor of South Yorkshire and many Members of this House who have an interest in this issue, including my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), as Orgreave lies in her constituency.

We have also met other interested parties in the field of law. One of them whom I met personally was Michael Mansfield KC. He was the lawyer who represented a number of those who were charged at Orgreave. We have also met academics, because we know that there is value in looking at what academics can show us about what works with inquiries. We have therefore already engaged in a lot of consultation. There is further ongoing consultation on the terms of reference, and that is the responsibility of the chair. I expect that all the parties we have met will be engaged again.

There is active work being done on the Hillsborough law at the moment. I cannot give a timeline today, but I know that it will be brought to the House shortly.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to be in the Chamber today to hear that we are finally getting the inquiry that has long been campaigned for by the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, the NUM and many in my community and across South Yorkshire. They are simply asking for the truth. The shadow Minister has just said that the inquiry should not be politicised, but does the Minister agree that Orgreave is political? It is one of the most political things that has ever happened to South Yorkshire, and it is incredibly important that the inquiry is put on a statutory footing so that it can compel people to give evidence and get to the truth of something that many in our communities still bear the scars of.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend speaks with great knowledge about how Orgreave has affected her community so many years on. She makes the important point that there is a political context to this inquiry. Those of us who were around then know that it was a very political time, with the miners’ strike and all that. It is absolutely right that we have this opportunity to look across the piece at what happened at Orgreave. As my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) said, there was perhaps the involvement of other politicians, so it is important that we recognise the political context. That is why, again, it is so important that the inquiry will be put on a statutory footing, to allow documents to be demanded and witnesses to be compelled to give evidence.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

My constituency has a proud and long history of supporting those fleeing persecution. It was home to the Ockenden Venture, a trailblazing charity founded in the 1950s to help resettle refugees from post-war Europe, Vietnam and beyond. Humfrey Malins, the former Conservative MP for Woking even set up a national immigration service. That legacy reminds us of the best of British values. It is important, especially today, that we reflect on that and on what makes Britain great. However, this Bill falls far short of those values—it is not very great at all. I sat on the Public Bill Committee, where I tabled 15 amendments. Although I support the parts of the Bill that seek to tackle the cruel trade of people smuggling, I am deeply concerned that once again this Government are prioritising punitive-sounding headlines over practical solutions.

The Bill completely fails to lift the ban on asylum seekers working while they await a decision. That is why I support new clause 21. People spend years in limbo waiting for their application to be processed, with no right to contribute, no right to earn and no hope of building their lives. We heard in Committee that, as a result of the Conservative Government’s mishandling of the situation, 19 people have waited 10 years or more for their claim to be settled. They are capable adults who should have been contributing to the economy. Letting people work is the right thing to do. That is why Australia lets people work straightaway, why Canada allows refugees to apply for a work permit while their applications are being processed, and why the United States allows people seeking asylum to work after six months. Human beings are amazing creatures, capable of so much. It is waste for people essentially to be kept away from society. We want to support them; that is what new clause 21 would do, by giving people the right to work after three months. I urge colleagues to support it.

I will briefly address safe and legal routes. Ukraine has shown us that providing safe and legal routes takes away the people smuggling and illegal immigration. That is why I support Liberal Democrat new clauses 22 and 36, and SNP new clause 3. Those vital measures would tackle the root causes of dangerous crossings, and I hope that Members will support them.

Critically, we talked in Committee about Interpol. We are turning our backs; we are not asking Europe to help us with this problem—the Government refuse to do so. Instead of isolating ourselves, we should be leading the efforts to tackle people-smuggling gangs. We cannot solve the global crisis without resolving those main issues, but we can do better. Britain has a proud history, and this Bill should be a lot better.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests about the help that I receive from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project. I am also the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on migration. I welcome the Government’s action in the Bill to repeal parts of the previous Government’s repeated gimmicks and nonsense legislation in the last Parliament. I will speak to new clauses 1, 2 and 37, all of which I have sponsored.

New clause 1 was tabled by my right hon. Friend—apologies, I should have said my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome); she is not right honourable, but she should be. The new clause would require the Home Office to publish quarterly statistics and information on deaths in the asylum system and small boat channel crossings. Under the last Government, a horrifying number of refugees and people seeking asylum died trying to cross the channel and in Home Office accommodation. In 2024, that number reached a record high. Despite daily and weekly reports on the number of people stopped or deported, we still do not have regular, clear and transparent reporting on those who have lost their lives in the system. That is incredibly important, not just morally but in order to address the evidence gap, so that we get policy right.

New clause 2 would require reports on the right to work. I heard what the Minister said about this being a discussion about time, but mental health and working rights are not separate issues. The majority of asylum seekers in the UK are unable to work and use their skills to support themselves and their families or even to save enough to rent a home. Instead, they are trapped, isolated, inactive and dependent on state support. There are countless compelling reasons why asylum seekers should be allowed to work like the rest of the population. Given the huge amount of support that idea has from the public and businesses, we should at least have the opportunity to scrutinise why the ban remains and the impact that it is having. If we want integration, why not let people work in their communities and build English language skills?

Finally, new clause 37, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), seeks to ensure that children born in the UK who have grown up here and know no other home are not priced out of citizenship simply because of their parents’ immigration status at the time of their birth. Such young people are part of our communities, schools and the fabric of our future. They should not be denied their rights or go on to face barriers in education, housing, healthcare and across society. They are not “strangers”; they are our friends and neighbours.

Some have stoked racist divisions against migrants—a drum that the far right have continually banged since—and the whole House must oppose that rhetoric. Amid rising anti-refugee sentiment, including last year’s shocking riots, it could not be more urgent or valuable to enable people to feel secure and contribute to their communities. I am aghast at some of the amendments tabled by Opposition parties, particularly new clause 41. I wonder how many ruined lives those Members will consider too many. It is shameful to see the victimisation of people who have come here to find safety.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Sarah Pochin to make her maiden speech.

Immigration System

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The care provider in the hon. Member’s constituency will be able to extend the care visas and will also be able to recruit displaced care workers, of whom there were 39,000 when the proper new checks and standards were introduced. He will also be able to recruit from the local community, with a proper fair pay agreement in place. We must have a strategy that values social care and deals with some of the historical causes of recruitment, rather than the social care visa leading to recruitment from abroad at a scale that led to significant exploitation.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that far from being strangers, migrants are our neighbours, friends and family and an integral part of our community, and that moves to cast them as strangers are divisive and hostile and risk legitimising the same far-right violence that we saw in last year’s summer riots? Have we learnt nothing?

[Yvette Cooper]

As I said in my statement, people have come here from abroad through many generations, contributing to our economy, being part of our community and making our country what it is. That is who we are as a country because of that history, and it will continue to be important to our future. We want people to be able to integrate and share with neighbours, and that is why some of the provisions to ensure that we support integration and the use of the English language are also important.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Olivia Blake Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)]

I draw the attention of the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests on the help I receive from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project and as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on migration.

After the mountain of Acts passed by the last Government, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief that today we are debating an immigration Bill that, on its first page, states that it complies with the convention rights. That is a nice change, and one that was much needed.

The Bill builds on some of the vital reforms to our asylum system that our Government have already made. It removes so much of the draconian legislation introduced by the previous Government that stripped those fleeing war, persecution and human rights abuses of their right to seek safety in this country. Repealing the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 and a significant amount of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 is a step in the right direction, but beyond a functional asylum system is one that is fair and welcoming. With that in mind, there are a few areas of the Bill in which I feel opportunities have been missed, and I hope those can be addressed as it moves to Committee.

I am concerned that the Bill does not repeal section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act, which makes any asylum or human rights claim by a national of a safe state inadmissible. Blanket bans on asylum claims from entire countries are fundamentally flawed, and with Rwanda we have seen the dangers of legislating that a country is safe when in reality it may not be so for everyone. Although I know that section 59 has not been enacted, it will set a dangerous precedent if it remains on the statute books.

For example, Georgia, one of the countries that the previous Government added to the safe states list, is becoming an increasingly hostile and dangerous place for LGBTQI+ people. While I have had assurances that the section 59 powers have not been commenced—and I know the Minister shares my concerns about the situation in Georgia—they will be left on the statute book. The Bill provides a golden opportunity to repeal them altogether. If they are not going to be used, what is the use of having them? I ask the Minister to consider that in Committee.

A fair system would also mean people seeking asylum being able to access the UK safely. The four Ps approach to tackling organised criminal gangs, as outlined in the Bill’s explanatory notes—to prevent, pursue, protect and prepare—are all important parts of disrupting the business model of criminal gangs, but I fear that we have lost sight of who needs protecting. No one wants to see more deaths in the channel, but prosecuting people smugglers needs to go hand in hand with other measures to prevent channel crossings. The Bill could provide a vital opportunity to set out clear plans for reviewing and expanding safe and legal routes to the UK.

I hope that those important points can be addressed as the Bill progresses. If not, I hope that we can have a good, grown-up conversation about safe and legal routes, which was absolutely missing from the last Parliament.

Assisted Dying

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I think it is right that Parliament looks at this issue early in the next Parliament—whether to leave things as they are or make changes. There is clearly public pressure for us to do so.

I was not able to get to the deaths of either of my parents —they both died in hospital before I was able to get there. But I was very involved at the time of my mother-in-law’s death just over two years ago. I was privileged to help my wife, her two brothers and my three children look after her in her final weeks. My biggest observation from the privilege of looking after her in her dying days was that the pain relief was much too slow to get hold of. I spent many Saturday mornings driving around North Yorkshire to GP surgeries to ask for her morphine prescription to be increased. That is simply not good enough in this country today. The thing about pain relief is that you have to get ahead of the curve; it is no good delivering it after the pain has built up. We urgently need to look at that.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

On the point about access to morphine, for some people it is simply not an option, as they have allergies to opiates. While uncommon, they do exist for many patients going through end-of-life care. Does the hon. Member share my concerns about that and think that it should be included in the debate?

[Andrew Selous]

I was not aware of that issue and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for putting it on the record.

A constituent wrote to me on Saturday about her sister, who she described as “begging” to put herself out of her misery before she died. Her death led to the nephew of my constituent taking his own life because he was so shocked by the death of his mother. None of us would want something like that to happen.

I have to say that I was deeply shocked by the remarks of the journalist Matthew Parris, who said in an article recently that he welcomes this being the thin end of the wedge, that he makes no apology for treating human beings as “units”, and that we should be making the cold calculus of inputs and outputs. I am appalled by that. I hope that every Member here is appalled by that type of discussion about our frail and elderly fellow citizens, who have a right to dignity and care until the very end of their lives. I will certainly fight back against that idea, and I want to call out what he said today in this debate.

I also think we need to look at the quality of life for people in their final days. I was sat next to one of my constituents this morning, who talked about how bored his 92-year-old father is in his dying days. That is an issue for us as well. Life should be full of stimulation. Life should provide things for people to live for, and we need to make sure that our elderly and those towards the end of their life are not bored and not lacking in stimulation such that they think they have nothing to live for.

I welcome the fact that Parliament will look at this issue. We have the commitment from the Prime Minister and from the Leader of the Opposition. There is definitely work to do on pain relief, which is not where it should be, but I want to end with a quote from Cicely Saunders, who founded the hospice movement:

“You matter because you are you, and you matter to the end of your life. We will do all we can not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

With great respect, that is complete nonsense. The Government published an antisocial behaviour action plan just last year. From April of this year, in just a couple of months’ time, every single police area in England and Wales will have funding—£66 million in total—to run hotspot patrols in areas where there is antisocial behaviour or serious violence problems. We have 10 force areas running pilots for immediate justice, where people committing ASB have to do immediate reparations, and we banned nitrous oxide on 8 November last year. So an action plan is being implemented, and every single police force is having money to run hotspot patrols to combat ASB.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to help ensure the safety and wellbeing of asylum seekers in asylum accommodation. [R]

[The Minister for Legal Migration and the Border (Tom Pursglove)]

We continue to provide safe, habitable and fit-for-purpose accommodation for asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute. The Home Office has established procedures to hold contracted accommodation providers responsible for the provision of the safety, security and wellbeing of asylum seekers. In addition, asylum seekers have access to a 24/7 helpline to raise concerns and make formal complaints.

[Olivia Blake]

Recent tragic events demonstrate that even those who are at risk of suicide are ignored after repeatedly raising concerns about their mental health in asylum accommodation. Why have Ministers changed the allocation of asylum accommodation policy to make it harder for people to prove that they are at risk of harm at a particular site? Will they learn the lessons from December’s tragic incident?

[Tom Pursglove]

I do not accept the depiction that the hon. Lady paints of the situation. We of course make appropriate case-by-case decisions about accommodation arrangements for individuals, reflecting the needs they have and with proper referrals made, as one would rightly expect, to any other agencies that may be required to ensure somebody’s health or wellbeing, and that any safeguarding issues are properly addressed. Migrant Help support is of course available for people to access 24/7 and raise any issues.

Hate Crime Against the LGBT+ Community

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for securing this important debate and for the words he put so well.

In just over a month, on 20 November, we will mark Transgender Day of Remembrance. It is a moment for communities around the world to honour the memory of transgender people whose lives have been lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. In 2021, that was 375 people. We are facing a crisis. As we have heard today, LGBTQ+ hate crime is rising at a terrifying rate. The figures are startling, but what is worse is that they do not even represent the full picture. In the Government’s national LGBT survey, more than 91% of respondents said that the most serious incidents they had experienced in the preceding 12 months had not been reported. Those incidents included sexual assault and physical violence. That evidence is supported by Galop, which has said so much in the last year. It has seen a 65% increase in LGBT victims coming forward for its support.

As mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, we have slipped down the charts in terms of being LGBTQ+ friendly, and that should shame us all. Instead of taking steps to address the crisis, reduce hate and ensure that those who experience it can access all the support they need, our politics is focused on fuelling it:

“Transgender issues have been heavily discussed by politicians, the media and on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in these offences”.

Those are not my words, but the words of the Home Office. Filling the public domain with toxic language that dehumanises LGBTQ people has real, life-threatening consequences, and it is telling that those in this place who often spread hate are not here to listen to those consequences. When the Prime Minister suggests to his Conservative conference that transgender identities are not valid, his words do not go into a void: they have repercussions.

What must we do? We must get the hate crime action plan back and ensure that we bring in a total ban on conversion therapy. It is incredibly important that this issue is taken as seriously as it can be. We should stamp out hate as much as we can.

Migration and Economic Development Partnership

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point and I refer him to the dissenting judgment of the Lord Chief Justice. It is quite a long judgment, but if he has the time he should read paragraph 498 particularly, which sets out similar points to his. The Lord Chief Justice finds that there are strong grounds to disagree with the other judges and that there is no real risk of people who are being relocated to Rwanda being treated in an unsafe or unlawful way. I take a lot of confidence from his dissenting judgment.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I receive support on these issues from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project. I am also co-chair of the all-party group on migration. Would the Secretary of State be willing to sit down with me and some Afghan refugees who arrived on small boats and explain what she meant in her statement by “phoney humanitarianism”, which, I hope Members agree, is a deeply offensive phrase?

[Suella Braverman]

I have met refugees and I have met people who have fled persecution and sought humanitarian protection. I am very proud of what this country has offered and the tradition of the British people to extend the hand of friendship and compassion to those in need. We have 500,000 people coming to our shores, fleeing persecution for humanitarian purposes. What I object to is people fleeing a safe country such as France, paying evil people-smuggling gangs, risking their lives and the lives of others in the pursuit of an illegal trade. That is what we are trying to stop and I wish the hon. Lady would get behind it.

Asylum-seeking Children: Hotel Accommodation

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) for securing this important debate. Before I begin, I point Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and the support that I receive from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project for my work on these issues. I also co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on migration.

It is an absolute scandal that 440 asylum-seeking children have gone missing from Home Office hotels and that, according to the Home Office, there are still 186 who have not been found. But that is only half the question. Are the children who have been found safe, and what is happening about the remaining 186? It is alarming that the Government seem interested in the horrific crime of people trafficking only when it can be used as an opening to restrict the rights of people claiming asylum in this country. When we deal with missing children who are in real danger of ending up in the hands of traffickers, it seems that the Home Office is not concerned enough to act swiftly and thoroughly. Will the Minister update us on what steps he is taking to ensure that children in Home Office care are given the care and support they need and that they are safe? What actions have been taken to find the lost children?

Some organisations I have spoken to have raised concerns about whether the missing persons protocol has been properly followed. That is an important point. When a child first goes missing, those crucial early hours and days can help in finding them quickly and preventing further harm. Will the Minister give clear assurances that the protocol has been followed for every missing child? Will he also say whether there are instances in which the full guidance was not completely followed? If so, why that was the case? Can he give any new update on the number of children who have gone missing since the start of this year? If we do not understand how it is possible for that to happen in the first place, we cannot prevent it from happening again. Therefore, will the Minister commit to publishing a report on the circumstances around the disappearances, including lessons learned and immediate steps to prevent a repeat?

The policy of accommodating children in hotels was supposed to be temporary, but as is so often the case with the Government, a crisis has turned into business as usual. To my knowledge, since 2021, 4,500 unaccompanied children, some aged as young as 10, have been placed in hotels. Will the Minister make available as soon as possible the latest figures on how many unaccompanied children are currently housed in Home Office hotels? According to the Refugee Council, those hotels essentially operate outside the child protection system and that is a fundamental point in this debate. Local authorities are often not involved in looking after those children’s welfare or their best interests. They are not classed as looked-after children, but children are children both morally and under the law. The matter needs to be thoroughly looked at because it is clear under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 that the Home Secretary is obliged

“to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are in the United Kingdom”.

Children in Home Office hotels must be treated like all resident UK children in the statutory children’s protection framework. Does the Minister seriously believe that accommodating children in hotels is compatible with that obligation?

The Children’s Commissioner has been mentioned. The Home Secretary was given a hard deadline of 17 April to provide a response to the Children’s Commissioner about her concerns around the appropriateness of care and I am surprised that that has not been provided. That is highly unusual. Will the Minister clarify whether that is due to the Home Office’s failure to systematically record the data that has been requested, or whether it simply constitutes a refusal to provide the information?

Two years after the Home Office began using hotels, there is still no strategy for moving children into suitable accommodation. It is business as usual and that is unacceptable. Will the Minister provide an update on the plans to develop a strategy to move the children out of hotels and into the care of social services through the national transfer scheme? Will he outline the steps taken to support local authorities with procuring additional placements for children? I have spoken in this place before about the current extreme costs of placements for local authorities, where £15,000 is not enough and will not cover months or weeks of many of the placements that local authorities are trying to procure from the private sector. More needs to be done in that space.

A recent report in the UK on the implementation of the UN convention on the rights of the child found a serious regression in the rights and protections of refugee children in the UK. That is shocking and forms part of a worrying trend that the Government are providing substandard care and potentially dangerous accommodation to refugees, whether that be through overcrowded hotel rooms, disused army barracks in which diseases spread or now a new masterplan for barges that essentially detain people offshore. The cruelty in that is evident, especially when we are considering children.

Others have touched on how the Illegal Migration Bill will affect children and significantly undermine the Children Act. When will the Government finally produce their impact assessment of the Bill and why, after all the failings the Government have presided over in this space, does the Home Office intend to legislate for new powers to house asylum-seeking children outside the provisions of the Children Act? Will the Minister look again at the individual approach to safeguarding that is necessary for each child? Will he recognise that children can, and do, often have other vulnerabilities such as disability? What actions are being taken to ensure that those are being taken into account?

We all have a responsibility to keep children safe. We know from safeguarding failures that have been reported both historically and more recently that safeguarding must be everyone’s top priority. The Government cannot pass the buck on this; they must intervene to keep children safe and to ensure that these children are found and then made safe.

Illegal Migration Bill

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris]

I spent considerable time in the last debate addressing the European convention on human rights, and the House will be relieved to hear that I am not going to do the same thing again today, but I will just say one thing. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) is correct to say that we have no say on who sits in the European Court of Human Rights, but no MP has any say on who sits in the Supreme Court in this country either, and the reason that nobody can give me an example of the European Court interfering with a material change to our domestic immigration laws is because there isn’t one.

I want to congratulate the Government on reaching an agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on new clause 8, which I think gives the Bill moral clarity. The aim of this Bill is to extinguish a route, not a right. The Bill says that if someone enters the United Kingdom by small boat or any other illegal route, they cannot claim asylum now or ever, but we are maintaining compliance with our legal obligations under the refugee convention only when we can say in parallel that there are safe and legal routes that they could and should have taken as an alternative. It is already clear that this was envisaged by the Bill because it is dealt with in the provisions in clause 53 in the context of annual quotas agreed in conjunction with local authorities. It is plain that this is the direction that not only the United Kingdom but all our European neighbours are moving in, faced with the mass migration flows of the modern day that simply could not have been envisaged when the refugee convention was drafted.

I also want to talk about new clauses 22, 19 and 23 to 25. My first observation is how closely they resemble laws that were tried but ultimately failed under the last Labour Government. That is not me scoring a political point; this is difficult stuff. A lot of this is in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 but it never really worked, and here is why I say that this is important today. I want to talk about identification documents, mobile phones and age verification, all of which I have experience of in immigration tribunals. All these things boil down to one critical principle: that he who asserts must prove.

I refer the House to the evidence of Dan O’Mahoney, the clandestine channel threat commander, to the Home Affairs Committee in September 2020. Asked about the number of small boat arrivals who have identification documents, he said:

“I can’t give you an exact figure, but I can tell you that it is almost none—very, very close to none. Generally speaking, encouraged by the facilitators, they will get rid of any sort of documentation …phones, SIM cards, anything…before they are intercepted by Border Force… They literally arrive in the clothes that they are wearing.”

I invite the House to contrast that with Operation Pitting. Every single person who left Kabul in haste in the summer of 2021 arrived in the United Kingdom with an identification document.

The lack of identification documents is a major problem, because it means the Home Office is entirely reliant on language tests and interviews to ascertain background facts. The best it can do is guess whether a claimant is genuine, which leads to a lot of economic migrants being given asylum when they probably would not have proved their case if they had documents. That has contributed to a huge degree of abuse in the system.

The same principle applies to mobile phones. In an era of mass technology, in which smartphones are as commonplace in sub-Saharan Africa as they are in London and in which 5 billion people use social media, it must be right that a negative assumption is reached about any individual who does not provide access to their phone as a way of establishing their identity.

I repeatedly dealt with age verification at the tribunal, the appeal tribunal and the High Court. It is not good enough to rely purely on a Merton-compliant test. Until very recently, we had no scientific method by which to establish a person’s age. Of course small children do not go through age verification, but the vast majority of children who arrive claim to be around the age of 17. We now have the technology to allow age verification, so it cannot be left as a matter of discretion or as an option for the applicant. If they say they are under 18, they must be obliged, as these new clauses require, to undergo proper age verification.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

Before I begin, I direct the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which outlines the support I received from the RAMP project.

I support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) and for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). These amendments attempt to mitigate the damage the Bill will do to some of the most vulnerable people, by requiring reports on how it will affect the pregnant, victims of modern slavery and the health and human rights of refugees.

New clauses 2 and 3 would safeguard pregnant women and girls from removal. I have spoken to people working on the frontline in detention centres who feel deeply uncomfortable and ill-equipped to deal with pregnant women in such settings, so these amendments are vital. In fact, every woman who arrives in a detention centre is given a pregnancy test because staff recognise that where they work is not appropriate for pregnant women.

New clause 4 would support young people under the age of 18 in their interaction with the asylum system. This stands in stark contrast to the Government’s obsession with trying to discredit and dehumanise children, either by proposing bogus scientific assessments to determine their age—I say that as a biomedical scientist—or by bizarrely claiming that granting safety to children is some sort of pull factor. Lobotomies were once widespread across the globe too, but that does not mean they were scientifically valid, accurate or moral. Just because someone else is doing it does not mean we have to do it here, especially when the evidence for the accuracy of these tests is so poor.

It is a damning indictment of this Bill that my hon. and right hon. Friends have needed to table this extensive list of new clauses. The protections they are attempting to introduce are outstripped only by the litany of rights that this Government are attempting to remove from some of the world’s most vulnerable people.

The Government’s contemptible proposals have been tabled for entirely cynical reasons. We all want to stop the boats. But when the Government say, “Stop the boats”, it is not because they want to end the crisis in the channel, because they want to have safe borders where people do not die on them or because they want to end the suffering of people who are trying to come here to claim asylum. It is not even because they want to end the horror of people drowning as they attempt to reach refuge in the UK. It is because they are intent on vilifying people who have survived some of the most harrowing and worst things human beings can go through. I know that because I have spoken to many, many refugees and asylum seekers who have come here on boats. The Government are taking this approach because on these big issues they have no answers, so they are resorting to scapegoats.

It is clear that that has been an agenda long before this Bill was presented and that the Government are being pushed around by a very small and extreme group within the Conservative party, as we see when we look at Government new clause 22. It shamefully bars UK courts from interim measures to stop someone from being deported if they bring a legal challenge. The Government claim that they are considering fairness and the rule of law, and that that is a key British principle and value, but this measure sheds that. The Government are only too keen to undermine these principles if it helps them in the scapegoating of the most vulnerable. They want to bypass the European Court of Human Rights and harm Britain’s standing in the world, eroding the foundations of the international refugee systems and the refugee convention, all to appease their Back Benchers and throw red meat to a small portion of their base.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Does she agree that part of this dog-whistle politics is about what the Conservative party deputy chairman said, which is that the next election is going to be fought on woke, culture and trans issues. Of course, stigmatising refugees is part of that.

[Olivia Blake]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is worth reflecting on the fact that in this week alone the horrifying news about Sudan has reached us and we have seen the horrific circumstances being faced by not only British and dual nationals, but everyone there. While Britain is working hard to evacuate our citizens, we are not talking about safe routes for Sudanese refugees or a homes for Sudan scheme, and there are no dedicated resettlement routes and no numbers confirmed in respect of what countries the UNHCR should be prioritising in trying to help with what the Minister was outlining earlier. Even with Government new clause 8, the best this Bill could offer is a commitment to a report on safe routes, but with no actual, tangible commitments to open new ones. What are people fleeing war and persecution in Sudan, or anywhere else, supposed to do with that? By the time anything comes from this report, it will be too late for them, they will be on their way.

The amendments I cited earlier have been tabled because no serious attempt has been made in this Bill to ensure that vulnerable people are protected. That has been outlined well in the discussion we have had on modern slavery, so I will not add to that. The purpose of the Bill is the complete opposite of providing safe and legal routes for people to claim asylum. At their core, these proposals are not about helping anyone or making anyone safer, and they are not about making our borders safer; they are simply about attacking the rights of refugees, for the sake of electoral expedience and managing unruly Government Back Benchers. At the centre of this is a paradox: how can someone claim asylum if they are not on UK soil and they have to be on UK soil to claim asylum? How can they take a safe and legal route if there is no safe and legal route that works for them or is available to them? How can they claim safety in the first country they get to if that country persecutes them because they are LGBT, or they have a disability or religion—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. I am afraid that the hon. Lady is out of time. I call Sir William Cash.