Illegal Migration Bill

Stephen Farry Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley]

That is a challenge that I raised in the House myself last year, but I have since had many conversations with the Department and feel reassured that that communication has been far better recently. I feel more confident now that that relationship is better, but it certainly was a challenge at the start, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for having dealt with that.

I will make some progress, because I know you are keen to crack on, Dame Rosie. I want to touch on a couple of the amendments and demonstrate some of the challenges in the system. There are several amendments that would effectively prevent deportation or removal at all costs, blocking the entire premise of our being able to control our borders. In preventing us from controlling our borders or removing people with no right to be here, the amendments would dissolve our national self-determination and national identity and degrade our ability to decide for ourselves, taking away some of the significant powers that we should have and hold in this country. As Ronald Reagan said, if you cannot control your borders, you are not a nation state.

For example, under amendment 138 someone could not be removed unless there was a safe and legal route, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow mentioned. To me, that says that, if there is not a safe and legal route, people have carte blanche to arrive here through whatever means they like. There cannot be a safe and legal route for everybody around the world who could be eligible to come here. There are 100 million displaced people around the world; we have to draw a line somewhere to say what is reasonable for us as a country to be able to resource. Local authorities are tasked with looking after many of the people who come, with limited resources and limited capacity. To be fair both to asylum seekers in genuine need and to UK citizens who rely on public services, we must draw a line. It cannot possibly be right to implement an amendment that would prevent us from removing anyone.

Under amendment 121, a person cannot be removed until we have exhausted a million appeals, through every court in the land, forever and ever. That will actively encourage the kinds of scenes that we have seen in recent years, with late appeals being lodged and people being dragged off flights. We will not be able to enact any of the Bill if hon. Members try to implement such amendments, which defeat its entire object. Perhaps that is what Opposition Members are trying to achieve in tabling them.

We need to stop the exploitation of children, and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) is right to say that age verification is important in that. Important as it is to ensure that we implement a system that is tough on the rules for adults, if we want to implement a system that also has a duty to safeguard children and young people, we must be able effectively to decide who children are and to show that the system is not being exploited in that way.

If, under the Bill, all children have the same rights as British children and will not be removed at 18 years old, we are effectively saying, “You will be able to come and live here as a British citizen with a right to stay for ever.” Inevitably, more and more children will arrive on small boats. We would be actively encouraging people traffickers to exploit more vulnerable, unaccompanied children, put them on boats and push them off into the sea—a horrendous outcome.

My constituents voted by 71%—one of the highest proportions in the country—to leave the EU. They voted for self-determination; they voted to remove the control and overriding decision making of European institutions. Amendments 131 and 132 in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) would ensure that the rules are decided, implemented and applied here in the UK, regardless of the views of those in Strasbourg on removal flights or of provisions in the ECHR that might overreach or be open to exploitation. While we get to a place where we can work out a functioning asylum system, most of my constituents will expect us at the very least to be able to make our own rules and decisions, and determine compliance with those rules, here in the United Kingdom. That played a huge part in people’s choosing to leave the European institutions.

My Mansfield constituents absolutely expect to see a dramatic fall in the number of people crossing the channel illegally, people moved out of hotels and into secure accommodation, and removal flights taking people with no legal right to be in this country somewhere else. I again ask the Minister and the Home Secretary to do everything in their power to ensure that we keep that promise to the British people.

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

In following the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), I want to point out the dangers of framing this as a “them vs. us” competition for scarce resources, and of the notion that there are 100 million people in the world who all wish to come to the UK. Of course, we should invest in resources for everyone across the UK, and have some degree of perspective, because although there may be 100 million refugees or internally displaced people in the world, only a small fraction of them are seeking to come to the UK. Even if we expand the range of safe and legal routes, most of them will want to stay close to their original homes, with the intention of returning there some day.

I will offer support to other Opposition amendments, but in focusing on my amendment 70, I am somewhat self-conscious and humbled, because it is a very specific, niche issue in the overall context of a Bill that lacks compassion and humanity towards people fleeing war and persecution, breaches international law in the refugee convention and the European convention on human rights, and denies the lack of viable safe and legal routes to the UK. It is none the less important that I place these concerns on the record.

Once again, Home Office legislation fails to take into account the realities of the common travel area and particularly movements on the island of Ireland. Although there is an open border with no routine immigration checks, UK immigration law continues to apply, and people who cross into the UK, particularly on the island of Ireland, remain at risk of immigration enforcement and legal jeopardy if they are found to be in breach of any immigration rules. Under clause 2, someone who enters the UK via Northern Ireland risks potential detention, deportation to a third country or their home country, and even a ban on ever returning. I welcome the Home Office’s recent guidance on electronic travel authorisation, in so far as it gives an exemption for third-country nationals living in the Republic of Ireland who do not require a visa to enter the UK, to come to the UK without the need for an ETA. That is sensible and pragmatic, but it does not go far enough. I wish to highlight two categories of people in connection to the Bill, as clause 2 significantly raises the jeopardy for people who are not covered by that exemption.

The first is those residents of Ireland who currently do require a visa to enter the UK, which obviously includes Northern Ireland. The visa itself is not the issue in this particular debate, but the change in their legal jeopardy very much is. Let me give a couple of examples. A woman from Kenya who is living legally in County Donegal crosses the border—a simple bridge across the border—from Lifford to Strabane to do the weekly shopping. Somehow she ends up interacting with the state authorities and therefore comes to the attention of immigration control. She could end up in a situation where she is deported not just back to her home in Ireland but all the way back to Kenya. A Nigerian man is simply travelling between two points in the Republic of Ireland, Clones and Cavan town, on a road that famously crosses the border in Northern Ireland in County Fermanagh about six times. He has no intention of doing any business in the UK but unfortunately has a traffic accident and comes to the attention of the state. Under clause 2 of the Bill, he, too, could be deported not just back to his home in Ireland but all the way back to Nigeria.

Secondly, let us look at the issue in terms of tourism. At present, Northern Ireland is marketed internationally as part of a single entity: the island of Ireland. That is an outworking of the Good Friday agreement. Furthermore, most international visitors to Northern Ireland arrive in the Republic of Ireland through Dublin airport and then travel northwards. It is currently intended that those individuals would require an ETA to access the United Kingdom. I want to have a separate discussion with the Home Office about the impact of that requirement on the tourist sector, but today I want to focus on the immigration aspect.

There are safeguards to ensure that anyone entering the UK via a seaport or airport has the requisite papers, but that will not be the case with what is an open land border in Ireland, so there is the potential for many thousands of tourists to innocently and unwittingly come to Northern Ireland without an electronic travel authorisation and therefore be placed in legal jeopardy, even if they do not have the intention to stay in the UK, because they are simply tourists. Under the Bill, they, too, are at risk of detention, deportation and a ban on ever coming back to the UK. Is that seriously the message we want to send to the rest of the world in terms of UK tourism?

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I agree with the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. The Government should note that this argument finds unanimity across the political parties of Northern Ireland, and that, in itself, should speak volumes to the Government.

[Stephen Farry]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee for that intervention. He is right: we are taking a pragmatic approach to this across the political spectrum in Northern Ireland, because we are very sensitive to the importance of tourism to our economy. There are particular concerns about the need for an ETA in terms of tourist movements, and today we are highlighting the issue of enhanced legal jeopardy for someone who travels without that documentation and the potential risks of that.

I want to briefly make a few other points in relation to the implications for Northern Ireland. The Bill has the potential to run contrary to the requirements of article 2 of the Northern Ireland protocol, now renamed the Windsor framework, alongside the wider issue of its adherence to the European convention on human rights. I am not sure that the Government have done proper due diligence in that regard. This relates to the non-diminution of rights, and of course asylum seekers are as much part of the community in Northern Ireland as anyone else.

Finally, I place on record my concern that the Bill potentially allows the Secretary of State to make modern slavery regulations that apply to the devolved regions and nations, and may encroach upon devolved matters. Those powers will be struck without the consent of the devolved authorities, including in Northern Ireland, where we do not currently have a functioning Executive and Assembly.