Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)]

I want to speak in

support of new clause 37, which stands in my name, but I will begin by addressing the political theatre that often surrounds immigration. Politicians constantly speak about immigration, spinning fear and suspicion, and then conveniently report back that immigration is a top concern for voters, when it is not. Recent polls show clearly that immigration does not feature in the top concerns among those who were considering voting Labour but did not. Instead, people are talking about tangible issues, such as the winter fuel allowance, the rising cost of living and the desperate need to fund our public services. Rather than dealing with those issues, we choose to stoke division with sentiments about “strangers”.

I want to be crystal clear: immigration is not the crisis. What we are facing is the crisis in how we treat people, value rights and understand our responsibilities to one another. The focus seems always to be on small boat crossings, but irregular migration—people arriving by boats—accounts for just a fraction of the nearly 1 million people who came to this country last year. I do not call then “illegal migrants” as that term is morally degrading and asylum seekers have the right under international law to seek refuge. If we want to resolve these issues, we need to start with safe and legal routes.

Regular migration has soared since 2021, under the Tories and post Brexit, because the Government’s own policies created this situation. The points-based immigration system was always designed to encourage people to come here—and they have. So the issue is not migration itself, but the exploitative business model behind it. Policies around immigration are never about fairness but always seem to come back to profit. That same logic—profits over people—governs our asylum system. The companies contracted to run immigration detention—household names such as Serco, Mitie and Mears—are all profiteering and make millions off the backs of vulnerable people. We have seen reports of detainees being abused and being kept in unsanitary conditions, yet those companies continue to get millions of pounds in contracts.

Speaking of protection, let me turn to children, specifically children born here in the UK or who have lived here since they were young, who have called no other place home, yet are still denied British citizenship. I have tabled new clause 37 to address that. These children are not migrants, but they are treated like second-class citizens, often not knowing they are not officially citizens until they apply to university or for a job. Does that sound familiar? They suddenly find themselves locked out of everything through no fault of their own. It is a quiet scandal, just like the Windrush scandal—they have lived here their whole lives, only to be told that they have no right to be here.

We promised “Never again” and said that we would learn lessons, but in 2025 we are charging British-born children £1,214 to register as citizens, when we know the administrative cost is only £372. We are charging those children for something that is their right. Up to 215,000 children are legally entitled to citizenship but they are undocumented because of the exploitative fee. The fee waiver is not working, so we are calling for fairness. At the very least, if a child is entitled to citizenship, they should be able to claim it without being priced out. No child should be punished for where their parents were born or how much money they have.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

I rise to speak to the new clauses and amendments in my name.

I was going to congratulate the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) on her maiden speech, but she seems to have joined her colleagues in the bar. I was going to tell her that she had achieved something quite notable: she has been able to force this Government to bring forward this immigration White Paper, as both the main parties try to outdo and triangulate the hon. Members from Reform, who are no longer in their places. May I just say to hon. Members on the Conservative and Labour Benches that they are more or less wasting my time: why would voters go for one of the diet versions when they could have the full-fat version in the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)?

I have spoken at every stage of this Bill, including four interminable weeks and countless hours on the Public Bill Committee—[Interruption.] I wish I could say otherwise. Of course, for the Minister it was a positive experience, but for me it was nothing other than thoroughly frustrating, depressing and dispiriting. I have been appalled at the emerging casual and callous way that the most wretched people in the world are now portrayed and demonised, and I fear what this House now has in store for them. I despair at the lack of empathy and humanity that has been shown to some of the most desperate people in the world. I abhor the perception that essential human rights are considered a hinderance, to be dispensed with in the pursuit of even more cruelty and disregard. I think the House forgets that these are real people fleeing conflict, oppression and unimaginable horror.

I rise to speak in support of my new clause 3, on safe routes, because I believe that is the only way we should deal with those people. What we have done just now is create a monopoly and exclusive rights for the gangs that operate the Channel crossings. There is no other way for asylum seekers to assert their asylum rights. When they have the opportunity to assert those rights, most of them have them granted, which makes a nonsense of the fact that asylum seekers are being termed “illegal immigrants.” Instead of smashing the gangs, the Government are actually giving them new opportunities and making their business model even more lucrative.

I pay tribute to all the agencies and support organisations that helped me with these amendments and the amendments I tabled in Committee. Those groups are now in some sort of legal jeopardy because of some of the clauses in the Bill. Their opportunities to support the most desperate people in the world through advocacy and looking after their rights are now at risk because of some of the measures in the Bill. We are heading towards a particularly dark place in some of the considerations on these issues.

I am impressed by some of the Labour speakers when they talk about immigration and say that we have to be very careful how we handle this debate as we go forward, but I am really feart just now. I listened to what the Prime Minister said this morning and was horrified by some of the language he conjured up, which we thought we had lost decades ago. This is the type of territory that we venture into with very great sensitively, and I am afraid that the Prime Minister lost that this afternoon. I hope that we have the opportunity to press these new clauses and amendments, secure the safe routes and ensure that we do everything we can for asylum seekers.

[Jo White]

Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker.

“People started dying. People were screaming. It is very painful when someone is dying inside the water. The way they die—they cannot breathe...it is very difficult. I never thought I would experience such a thing… It is a harrowing experience I do not want to remember. I was holding on to what remained of the boat and people were screaming. It is something I will not forget.”

This is the witness testimony of Mohammed Omar when he spoke at the Cranston inquiry, which is investigating the UK’s worst small boat disaster. On 27 November 2021, it is believed that 31 people lost their lives. Mohammed said that he was told that 33 people would be aboard the dinghy, but more were added, including children.

Those gang members whose sole focus is on the billions of pounds that their horrific trade generates, who overload boats that are not fit to go into the ocean, who treat human life as having no value, willing to put lives at risk for huge profits must experience the full force of the law. This Bill gives Border Command the powers to pursue, arrest and prosecute those people. Breaking and destroying the gangs is critical to bringing an end to the small boat crossings. Mohammed’s witness evidence underlines how important it is to achieve that.

The Bill not only gives the power and authority to work with our international partners to track down and break up the gangs, with the powers to seize and interrogate mobile phones and laptops to collect data and evidence, but the new amendment will introduce enhanced illegal working checks, putting a stop to those delivery drivers bringing meals or parcels to our doorsteps who cannot speak a word of English, potentially using IDs that have been borrowed or purchased from legitimate employees.

I welcome the raids on the businesses, such as the nail bars, barbers and restaurants employing illegal workers, potentially in slave labour conditions. In January there were 131 raids in my area of the midlands, with 106 arrests. The amendment will mean that those arrested will now face fines of up to £60,000 per worker and prison sentences of up to five years. The French have said that people want to come to the UK because it is all too easy to be swept into the black economy and work illegally. The heavy disincentives of fines and prison sentences have the power to put a brake on the demand for the illegal trafficking of people.

I welcome this Bill. As I said in February,

“crack on with the job, give us a running commentary of every success, publicise the return flights and the jailing of criminals, clear up the Conservatives’ mess, secure our borders, close down the use of hotels and stop the small boats.”—[Official Report, 10 February 2025; Vol. 762, c. 124.]

Today is the next step forward.