Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Tenth sitting)

Sarah Bool Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 13th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I want to put on record again the importance of the rule of law. This new clause would essentially allow someone rights when they have entered the country illegally. The rule of law and compliance with the law are fundamental within our system, so I cannot accept the premise that acting illegally should be waived or permitted. We are a country of fairness and there has to be fairness and equality under the law. This provision flies in the face of that. If we make an exception here, no matter how desperate the situation, we set a dangerous precedent.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West said, it is a privilege to have British citizenship, and so many people abide by the law. The system proposed by the new clause for those trying to enter the country via illegal routes fundamentally undermines that. We have to be incredibly careful in how we proceed with these things; if something is illegal, the clue is really in the name.

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

I am happy to support the new clause tabled by my friend the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire. I will also speak to new clause 13, which does essentially the same thing. This issue is about fairness and reasonableness. Ensuring that effectively no refugee or asylum seeker can get citizenship is not reasonable. Refugees will forever become second-class citizens if we allow that to go ahead. I am concerned that that would deepen divisions within society by disenfranchising our newest constituents and residents. The refugees I have spoken to in my constituency of Woking are so proud when they get citizenship, and it encourages integration. Banning them from citizenship, which is what current guidance amounts to, is wrong. I am happy to support both new clauses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Bool]

I have a few points about some of the legal issues around what it would mean if we allowed asylum seekers to work at this point. The Opposition already have concerns about the Employment Rights Bill and the day-one rights that will be accrued, so I wonder in this context how this would actually work. On another level, I wonder about how we would deal with tax that they pay and their national insurance numbers before they have had their asylum claims examined.

I see that subsection (2)(a) of the new clause talks about asylum seekers being able to take up a post that is included in the appendix immigration salary list. I wondered whether the hon. Member for Woking had more detail about what that means or entails—forgive me, I am not an expert in that area. I also note that they cannot do any self-employed work or set up a business. Although I can see the principle of what hon. Members were trying to achieve with the new clause, in reality I am not sure that, given how it is drafted, it would get them anywhere near that. I have quite a few concerns about it.

[Pete Wishart]

I wholeheartedly back the hon. Member for Woking’s new clause; I thought about tabling it myself, but he beat me to it. It is sensible and should be supported by the Committee—mainly because it is an utter waste that people with huge skills are languishing in hotels doing practically nothing all day. We host a number of asylum seekers and refugees in hotels in Perth, and I go and visit them. Can I just say to the hon. Member for Weald of Kent that Scotland more than has its share of the general number of asylum seekers across the United Kingdom? I do not know where she has got her figure from.