Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)

Sarah Bool Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 6th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

The amendments from both sides wreck this clause, which is really important for prosecuting those people who put people’s lives in danger.

[Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. If, as I imagine, the wording of clause 18 will not be changed further, I just wanted to draw attention to the concerns that we will be criminalising those making the crossings and not those who organise the passage. I point to written evidence from the Law Society, which raised particular concerns that are important to consider:

“The Law Society is concerned that parents or guardians could be prosecuted for taking their children on these journeys. The human rights assessment produced by the Government for this Bill states that parents who bring their children on these types of journeys will be excluded from prosecution under this offence in almost all circumstances, but the phrasing”—

this is the most important point—

“does not rule out prosecution in all circumstances. There is a concern that this could result in families being split up.”

The Law Society asks that the Government should either

“clarify if this provision is intended to apply to asylum seekers in some circumstances, or amend it to ensure it does not in practice.”

I ask the Minister to address that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman is spot on. The job of those organisations is to be concerned for the welfare and conditions of people who come to our shores, and to ensure that they are supported on their journey through the asylum process. The organisations have identified that the Bill does little to target the gangs that the hon. Gentleman is referring to; in fact, they do little at all. They are all about ordinary asylum seekers. The new criminalisation clauses that we have debated over the past couple of days are all exclusively devoted to the activity of asylum seekers coming here, and none more so than this clause.

I hope that, as the Bill proceeds through its remaining stages—particularly when it goes through the other place, although that greatly concerns me for a number of reasons—we will be able to improve it, and get to a place where it reflects what the Minister said in her fine contribution.

[Sarah Bool]

I did not hear from the Minister a response on the Law Society’s concern about parents and guardians being criminalised, and I wonder whether I could hear some thoughts on that.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

In general, it is not expected that parents will be criminalised, but there is not a total ban on that. It will depend on what has happened and what the circumstances were. That will be looked at on a case-by-case basis. It is difficult to be more explicit about that, given that the nature of the offence represents a stricter law that is meant to deter people from making small boat crossings. It is a signal to smugglers and passengers that fatalities and injuries at sea are taken extremely seriously, so there may well be consequences for particular unacceptable behaviour of the sort that I have talked about. I would not want there to be an absolute exclusion, but I would not expect a large cohort of people to fall within the purview of the new offences.