Illegal Migration Bill

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The British public know that border security is national security, and that illegal migration makes us all less safe. They know that the financial and social costs of uncontrolled and illegal migration are unsustainable. They know that if our borders are to mean anything, we must control who comes into this country and the terms on which they remain here. That is why stopping the boats is my top priority, it is why the Prime Minister made stopping the boats one of his five promises to the British people, and it is why, according to the opinion polls, the British people back the Government’s Bill: they back it by more than two to one.

This does not mean that, as some assert, the British people are xenophobic. Since 2015, the British people have provided refuge for nearly half a million people through global, safe and legal routes. The British people are fair, compassionate and generous. Millions of legal migrants, including my parents, have experienced this warmth at first hand. But the British people are also realistic. They know that our capacity to help people is not unlimited.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Does the Home Secretary think that the British public want to see children and pregnant women detained in immigration detention centres? I do not believe for a minute that they do, but that is what is in the Bill.

[Suella Braverman]

This is what the British people want to see: they want to stop people dying in the channel. That is what this is about. It is naive to suggest that it is lawful and appropriate to make this journey. People are dying, and we need to stop it. Since 2018, some 85,000 people have illegally entered the United Kingdom in small boats, 45,000 of them last year alone. They have overwhelmed our asylum system. Local authorities simply do not have the housing or the public service capacity to support everyone.

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[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

This dehumanising Bill will not stop boats, but it is no exaggeration to say that it will destroy our asylum system, it does rip up international law, it leaves modern slavery legislation in tatters and it tramples all over human rights. But the implications of this Bill for people—for the human beings caught up in it—are the most important consideration. The reality is that every man, woman, pregnant woman and child, no matter their individual circumstances and history, is to be treated in the same brutal way. Whether to a young man who fled the Taliban because of his sexuality, a woman tortured and raped because she converted to Christianity, or a child trafficked here by a gang for exploitation, this Bill says, “We don’t care. They applied for the wrong visa or they arrived here by the wrong route.” That is all that counts under this Bill, not the horrors that these people have had to endure. It is as though to this Government these are not human beings; all they are is a political problem.

How this Bill treats these people is nothing short of sickening. The provisions on detention, if anyone bothered to read them, are outrageous. Protections for vulnerable people, pregnant women and children are tossed aside. Judicial oversight of liberty is made almost worthless. The Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), talked about habeas corpus, but that is a prehistoric relic and we should not be left to rely on it to secure somebody’s freedom. The Home Secretary basically helps herself here to a power to detain whoever she wants, for as long as she wants. It is, to put it mildly, extreme stuff.

The permanent inadmissibility rules are as stupid as they are heartless, leaving genuine refugees—the Afghan, the Christian convert—either waiting to be removed to Rwanda for years on end or in permanent limbo. Bizarrely, and I do not think this penny has dropped for Conservative Members at all, it actually makes it harder to remove people who do not qualify for asylum, because if we do not consider their asylum application, we cannot remove them to their home country. That is explicit in the Bill, so this is making it harder to remove people who have no genuine claim for asylum.

Trafficking victims are also disgracefully abandoned in this Bill. For the overwhelming majority, there will be no recovery period. There will no leave to remain. They are being forced straight back into the arms of their people traffickers. The treatment of children in this Bill is equally shocking, with more detention; more unsafe accommodation, from where they can be exploited; less child protection; their being kicked out of this country at 18; and no prospect ever of citizenship.

So this is an utterly disgraceful Bill that needs to be kicked out today, Frankly, the timetabling of the Bill is also a complete disgrace, as is the lack of an impact assessment. It is pathetic that Parliament is allowing itself to be treated in this manner.

Illegal Migration Bill

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Do we support international human rights protections or do we not? Are we steadfast in our adherence to the European convention on human rights, the refugee convention and other international treaties we have signed up to, or are we not? To me, it is extraordinary that those simple questions are even apparently subject to debate, but those simple questions are precisely what this appalling Bill is asking of us, including in the clauses we are debating today.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been clear that the Bill breaches the refugee convention. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights has written to us all today to warn it is:

“essential that Members of Parliament…prevent legislation that is incompatible with the UK’s international obligations being passed”.

Our view is that, because the Bill rides roughshod over international human rights law, it should be scrapped entirely. Short of that, the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and colleagues try to restore at least some level of respect for international law.

This is not only an abstract issue of international law. This is about the Afghan lieutenant we read about in The Independent on Sunday yesterday, who flew 30 combat missions against the Taliban and was praised by his coalition supervisor as being a “patriot to his nation”. Now he is in a hotel and threatened with removal to Rwanda. It is about LGBT people fleeing outrageous criminal laws in Uganda, whose Parliament last week voted for further draconian legislation, imposing endless imprisonment and even death sentences on LGBT people, as well as on those who do not report them to the police or even rent a room to them. This is all about trafficking victims, victims of torture and many more vulnerable people. The question is: are we committed to meeting our international obligations to those people? For me and my SNP colleagues, the answer must clearly be yes, but the Bill says no.

We therefore absolutely oppose clause 49 and the Government’s attempt to undermine the role of the Court of Human Rights. Clause 49 empowers the Home Secretary to ignore, and even to compel our courts to ignore, interim measures from the Court. It is said to be a placeholder clause, but here we are debating it with only a select bunch of Conservative Back Benchers apparently any the wiser as to what the Government’s intentions are with respect to it. The clause, as drafted, is totally unacceptable, but so, too, is the way the Government are treating Parliament. As the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights states in his letter to us:

“interim measures issued by the European Court of Human Rights, and their binding nature, are integral to ensuring that member states fully and effectively fulfil their human rights obligations”.

We therefore believe the clause should be taken out, or that either our amendment 119 or amendment 122, tabled by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), should be supported to ensure that power is used consistently with the convention. The Prime Minister should stop dancing to the tune of the anti-ECHR minority. He should have the guts to put international human rights before internal party management.

I turn next to safe legal routes, which many amendments and new clauses understandably address. The lack of them and, in the case of the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme, their poor and slow implementation, is clearly a contributor to irregular arrivals. Expanding them would help to tackle that issue, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) eloquently set out. Clause 51, as it stands, is completely inadequate. It provides for a limit not to be exceeded, rather than providing a target to aim for, and it allows the Home Secretary, instead of Parliament, to set the definition of “safe legal route”. Our amendment 179 and related amendments replace the cap with a target, and a longer-term target too, and seek to improve Parliament’s role in setting that goal and holding the Home Secretary to account for her efforts to meet it. We support other new clauses and amendments that seek to achieve similar aims. We support the various new clauses that highlight particular safe legal routes, such as the humanitarian travel permit, safe passage visa schemes, refugee family reunion and Dublin-style safe legal routes for children in the EU. The key point is, as has been said, that these routes should be a priority and an urgent part of the overall response, not an afterthought to be looked at a little way down the line.

On the remaining clauses relating to legal proceedings, frankly, most of the provisions in the Bill essentially dehumanise people who seek protection here, so that no matter what horrors they have endured, their individual circumstances are to be ignored and their ability to access rights and protections set out in international treaties is to be decimated. Instead, they are to be detained, locked up and either removed or left in permanent limbo. The clauses on legal proceedings buttress that regime by seeking to snuff out the ability of anyone to get to a courtroom to challenge what is going on before their removal takes place.

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[Joanna Cherry]

The Minister has taken a careful note.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I notice the Minister is listening very carefully indeed.

Why is there a “compelling evidence” requirement? More importantly, is that not totally inconsistent with the test of real risk? That is the point of amendment 83. The danger is that even a probability of “serious and irreversible harm” will not be enough because of the type of evidence that can realistically be provided in the ludicrously tight timescale provided for.

On timeframes, we have various amendments to challenge the time periods that have been formally set out by the Government. The notion that eight days is enough time for an application is for the birds, as we know from the chaotic processes used during previous attempts to remove people to Rwanda, when many who were served notice barely understood what was happening. Language barriers, difficulties in access to solicitors and legal aid, the requirements of prescribed forms and demands for compelling evidence in the application mean that eight days will never happen. Those processes give rise to the risk that even those who could in theory make a challenge will miss out unjustly.

On that very important point, can the Minister provide clarity on how he will ensure that legal advice is accessible and, importantly, what his Government’s position is on the availability of legal aid? Those are hugely important issues that are not really touched on in the Bill.

Given the ludicrously restricted timeframes, the restrictions on “out of time” claims in clause 44 are frightening. Our amendments from amendment 101 onward seek to challenge that. This time “compelling evidence” of a “compelling reason” for missing the eight-day deadline is required. What on earth does that mean? Is an inability to understand the notice, language difficulties or the impossibility of finding a solicitor sufficient? More fundamentally, are the Government saying it is okay to remove someone who is certainly going to face “serious and irreversible harm” just because they were a few hours late with the paperwork and did not have a decent excuse for that? It makes absolutely no sense.

The seven-day timeframe for appeals to be lodged in clause 47 is equally absurd for all those reasons. Again, how will access to legal advice and legal aid be ensured? Who did the Government consult when putting together that challenging timeframe? Why have the Government chosen to bypass the first-tier tribunal? Why are the Government suggesting using first-tier employment law judges to assess difficult issues of removal and serious harm?

Some will have an even more difficult route to challenge a refusal if the Home Secretary decides that a claim is “clearly unfounded”. The clauses do not seem to make any sense. If, as seems to be the case, to make a valid application someone needs to provide compelling evidence of harm, it is difficult to see how any valid application containing such compelling evidence can be deemed clearly unfounded. Going beyond that, the grounds for appeal to the upper-tier tribunal are, again, objectionably difficult. Just to get permission to appeal, compelling evidence of serious or irreversible harm is required, assessed on the papers with no further right of appeal. Our amendments to clause 43 seek to rectify that.

We object to the Bill instructing the tribunal how to do its work, in particular how to make assessments of fact. Judges—not the Secretary of State—should determine what new matters can be considered, and what evidence and facts are relevant to their decisions. Our amendments to clauses 46 and 47 and various other clauses seek to protect the independence of the tribunal. We object strongly to the ouster clause in clause 48, in particular the restrictions on the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court of Session.

Amendments 100 and 108 seek to challenge restrictions on onward rights of appeal. These are serious and significant issues of profound importance. Removing the oversight of the courts is unacceptable and unconstitutional. We had a well-developed and functioning system of appeals and judicial oversight. The Government should stop dismantling it. Instead, the Bill will leave most people seeking to assert their rights able to do so only after they have been removed. The notion that such challenges can be successfully undertaken from thousands of miles away is absurd.

The fundamental question is, what happens if someone is successful in making a suspensive case? All that clause 45 states is that they cannot be removed; it does not allow them access to the asylum process or any other assessment of their case. They, like tens of thousands of others who cannot be removed simply because there is nowhere to remove them to, will be left in limbo—a limbo that is disastrous for the taxpayer but life-destroying for the individuals involved. A desperate outcome from a desperate Bill.

Finally, although we support almost all the other amendments and new clauses tabled by Opposition Members, we have concerns about new clauses 23 and 25. New clause 23 would require the Secretary of State to use her broad discretion to put in place a fast-track asylum procedure for so-called “low grant-rate countries”. It contains an amazingly wide definition of a low grant-rate country, which would include nationalities where 49% of applicants had successfully sought asylum.

New clause 25 has aspects that are fine, but crucial to what it tries to do are co-operation agreements for the removal of people who have had claims declared inadmissible. However, there is no definition of “inadmissible” separate from the definition in clauses 2 and 4. That goes to the heart of all of the problems with the Bill. We will continue to listen carefully to what is said about those new clauses, but we are concerned that they need further work.

In short, we oppose every aspect of the Bill. We object to the outrageous timeframe for its consideration and to the lack of impact assessment before we debate it. Our amendments try to mitigate some of its worst aspects but, ultimately, it remains an unlawful Bill completely and utterly beyond repair.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

I rise to speak to amendment 132, which appears in my name. Together with amendments 131, 133 and 134, it has been drawn up with the express purpose of ensuring that our legislation does what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has rightly said should be our priority: stopping small boats and the evil trade that sustains them.

We are fortunate to live in one of the greatest countries on earth. Unless we believe in a literally unlimited right of immigration, in any sane legal order, we in the United Kingdom must have the ability to effectively control our borders. It is only by having such control that we can maintain democratic consent for both legal migration and our system for allowing asylum to those in need, as we have done rightly and generously for those fleeing the repression of the Chinese state in Hong Kong, the bestiality of the Taliban in Afghanistan or the cruelty of Putin’s war in Ukraine. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration said from the Dispatch Box, almost half a million humanitarian visas have been granted by this country since 2015, of which 50,000 came from existing global safe and legal routes.

At the moment, we do not exercise the control to which I alluded a moment ago. Contrary to what Opposition Members may pretend, no amount of operation with the French or investment in our infrastructure at the border—welcome though those things are—can deter people attempting the crossing in the tens of thousands each year.

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[Robert Jenrick]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady.

I do not want to detain the Committee for too long, so let me turn to the key points that have been raised tonight. First, with respect to the powerful speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and others relating to the important question of injunctive relief, rule 39, and how we as a sovereign Parliament handle ourselves and ensure that we secure our borders, I thank my right hon. and hon. Friends for their contributions and I recognise the positive intention of the amendments they have tabled. I am keen to give them an undertaking that I will engage with them and other colleagues who are interested in these points ahead of Report.

We are united in our determination that the Bill will be robust, that it will be able to survive the kind of egregious and vexatious legal challenges we have seen in the past, and that it will enable us to do the job and remove illegal immigrants to safe third countries such as Rwanda. I would add that the Bill has been carefully drafted in collaboration with some of the finest legal minds, and we do believe that it enables us to do the job while complying with our international law obligations. However, we are going to engage closely with colleagues and ensure that the final Bill meets the requirements of all those on our side of the Chamber.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

rose—

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What of the Labour party, led by the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer)? He campaigned to close removal centres. He wants to scrap our Rwanda partnership. He is the human rights lawyer who sided with foreign national offenders over the law-abiding British public. He is the prosecutor who votes against tougher sentences for the people-smuggling gangs. It is clear for all to see that the British public cannot rely on the Labour party to stop the boats. It does not have a plan, because it does not think there is a problem. Labour Members are too naive to understand what this country is up against and what is at stake, and they are too weak to take the tough but necessary measures to deter the crossings and fix our broken asylum system. That is why we brought forward the Bill. That is the determination and commitment of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I. We will stop the boats. This Bill begins that.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Thank you for allowing me to speak again, Mr Evans.

What we have had today is an absolute disgrace of a debate. The timetabling of this really important Bill has been absolutely shocking. Whatever side of the debate we are on, we must understand that it is of incredible constitutional significance. There are questions here about whether we are breaking some absolutely fundamental treaty obligations, yet we have been treated to nothing more than a few slogans and not a single effort to address any of the amendments we tabled in good faith. Those amendments were not just tabled off my own bat, but in consultation with the Law Society, the Law Society of Scotland, Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association—lots of respected organisations that deserve to have their voice heard here and deserve to be treated with respect by this Government. The whole process has been an absolute embarrassment to Parliament. Where is the impact assessment we should have had before the Bill? That is just as disgraceful as the lack of respect for the amendments tabled today.

What we have had today is not a serious debate. We have had slogans and dog-whistle rhetoric. We have a Government who have shown that they are all slogans and absolutely no respect for Parliament.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am anticipating four Divisions and I will try to assist the House as to when they are likely to happen. First, we go to Sir William Cash.

Illegal Migration Bill

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Beth Winter]

Thank you, Chair. I appreciate your intervention.

In conclusion, there is an alternative, as is evident from the number of extremely progressive and positive amendments. We must clear the backlog, expand safe routes, and the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), in co-operation with Care4Calais and the Public and Commercial Services Union on safe routes, was excellent. We must be welcoming vulnerable people to what I would describe as a nation of sanctuary.

I will finish by reflecting on the words of the First Minister of Wales. A week or two ago he spoke about,

“the basic belief that, in our brief lives, we owe a duty of care…to our family and friends, but also to strangers”.

He said that that simple belief lies at the heart of

“our ambition to be a nation of sanctuary. To provide a warm welcome to families forced out of their homes…all of those who seek sanctuary from wherever, and however, they may come”

to our shores. Care, compassion, respect, dignity, humanity, inclusivity and kindness—those are the values that I hold dear, and those are the values and principles that we should seek to uphold. This Bill does not do that at all. We must reject it.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter). I share her concerns about the Bill, and indeed about the process that we have undergone in scrutinising it.

I want to make three short points. The first and most important one is to try to encourage a little more interest in clauses 30 to 36 that relate to citizenship. They were touched on by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee and the former Attorney General, but they are incredibly important and quite alarming. It might seem slightly odd for an SNP MP to be rushing to rescue the concept of British citizenship, but citizenship is vital. It is a source of stability and other rights. Deprivation of citizenship, or blocking people from citizenship, as in the Bill, is something that should be looked at closely and seriously.

Clause 30 is entitled

“Persons prevented from obtaining British citizenship etc”

and it sets all the alarm bells ringing. Subsection (4) states:

“A person (“P”) falls within this subsection if P was born in the United Kingdom on or after 7 March 2023, and either of P’s parents has ever (whether before or after P’s birth) met the four conditions in section 2.”

That unbelievably broad clause means that children, and indeed some adults, will face being blocked from accessing the right to British citizenship not because of their own actions, but because of the actions of their parents, potentially even decades ago. To me that is ludicrous overreach, even if someone is in the space of accepting the Government’s premise of deterrence. In many cases, it could be children born here. One parent could become a British citizen and still that child, born in Britain, could be deprived of their own British citizenship. Or that child could be born here and spend the first 10 years of their life here, and be deprived of their British citizenship just because of the actions of one of their parents, potentially many years previously. It could be a child brought here at a young age and whose entire life has been built here. Surely, even to the Bill’s most ardent supporters, depriving kids of British citizenship because of what one of their parents did is a step too far? That is absolutely wild, but that is precisely what clauses 30 to 36 do and that should be looked at again.

The second point I want to make is on the detention clauses. Like many Members have said today, fewer safeguards and protections with more detentions is another tragic and backward step. Other colleagues have set out most of the key concerns. I just want to repeat the point made on Second Reading and by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) today: any idea that the right of habeas corpus, or a petition to the nobile officium in Scotland, makes all of this fine is absolutely preposterous. These are much more limited procedures for challenging detention, confined to questions of authority to detain rather than errors in decision making. They are also infinitely less accessible and speedy compared with a bail application to the tribunal, especially for vulnerable people. This set of clauses is designed to stop people who should be freed from detention being able to secure their release from detention, and nothing else.

My third and final point relates to clause 4 and the permanent state of inadmissibility of claims. This is the problem at the heart of the Bill. It is a permanent ban on making certain claims, which our amendment 294 seeks to address. Permanent inadmissibility means that, over time, thousands of refugees and others who qualify for protection will be left in limbo, because the Government will not have the capacity to remove them all to Rwanda, but also, because of the Bill, quite simply will not be allowed to process and recognise their claims here. Refugees will end up spending year after year after year in hotels or in dismal former military barracks without any hope of being able to move on.

The penny that does not seem to have dropped right across the Committee is that it also means that many who are not refugees will also be left in limbo in the United Kingdom. Again, the Government will not have the capacity to remove them all to Rwanda and, because of this very Bill, the Government will not be able to remove them to their home countries. If you do not process their asylum claims, you cannot—with a few exceptions—remove the person to their home country. That is recognised in clause 5. So thousands of people will also be left in limbo forever. In fact, the Bill almost creates a perverse incentive. If you are an overstayer—one hon. Member spoke about overstayers—probably your best bet is to make an asylum claim and then be left in that permanent state of limbo. It is an absolutely mad Bill. It does not make any sense at all. That, I suspect, is why we have not seen the impact assessment—it will reveal most of that.

The Bill will not solve any backlog. The backlog is going to balloon. More people will be jammed into hotels and military barracks, not fewer. The backlog will essentially just be given a different name: inadmissibility. That is what the Bill achieves and nothing more. A different backlog and incredible cruelty—that is what the Bill is all about and that is all it is ever going to achieve if it is passed.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Sir Roger. I seek your guidance. The Bill is reaching the closing minutes of Committee stage. Last Thursday, in Business questions, the Leader of the House said in answer to my question as to the whereabouts of the Government’s impact assessment of the Bill:

“I have spoken to the Home Office about the impact assessment; it is quite right that we publish it before Committee stage.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2023; Vol. 730, c. 451.]

As the right hon. Lady has previously asserted her strong support for Parliament to have impact assessments in order for colleagues on all sides to scrutinise any Government properly, and I know her to be a woman of her word, I am baffled. I am sure it could not possibly be that the Government have found the impact to be the £3 billion cost to the taxpayer that the Refugee Council found. Sir Roger, could you tell me of any mechanism I can employ, even now, in these closing minutes, to enable, encourage or merely exhort the Minister to publish the Government’s impact assessments?

Illegal Migration Bill

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be pleased to meet my hon. Friend, as I have in the past. She knows that I have met local authority leaders in Kent on a number of occasions. I want to do everything I can to support them. Historically, they have borne a high burden as a result of their location adjacent to the points of entry, and that has placed some public services in Kent under a great deal of pressure. In the past 12 months, we have created the national scheme to ensure that unaccompanied children are moved across the country and that all local authorities play an equitable part in supporting them. We have also provided substantial financial incentives to local authorities to help them play their fair part.

I appreciate that nothing is ever as simple as that. Developing further capacity with local authority children’s homes or foster carers takes time, but I hope that the measures we have put in place will make a noticeable difference. Prior to the recent seasonal increase in individuals crossing the channel, we had successfully managed to clear all the UASC—unaccompanied asylum-seeking children—hotels that the Home Office had utilised, and I hope we can keep reliance upon them to an absolute minimum this summer and autumn.

In the case of unaccompanied children, the change I have just described will apply where an unaccompanied child is detained for the purpose of removal, and it aligns with the eight-day period for making a suspensive claim. That approach will ensure that we can continue to detain a person whom we suspect to be an adult, but who claims to be a child, pending the outcome of an age assessment.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

It is important for the Chamber to note that this is not really a concession; it is not even a time limit on the detention of children. It is the ability to apply for bail, as I understand it, after eight days. The person has to be aware of their rights and have access to the ability to challenge detention. It also applies only to a small cohort of children; the vast majority of children detained under the Bill will not have access to this process at all.

[Robert Jenrick]

Respectfully, the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood what we are proposing. If a child who is a genuine child and not subject to age assessment arrives unaccompanied in the United Kingdom, they will be swiftly processed. They will then be sent out into the local authority care system as quickly as possible, until they turn 18. We will seek to remove unaccompanied children in two circumstances, as I set out when we last debated this in the House. The first is where we, the Home Office, manage to reunite them with parents in other countries, as we do in a small number of cases today. The second is where we, the Home Office, manage to return them to their home country, which is a safe country, and in most cases into the care of social services immediately upon arrival. Again, that happens already in a small number of cases. There is no intention to change present practice. We are taking the power to detain, if required, a young person in that situation for up to eight days, housed in age-appropriate accommodation to enable us to make that removal effective.

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[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend is right. We take age assessment extremely seriously. As he knows, there are some young adults and individuals who abuse the system. Indeed, some are not so young—as I understand it, the oldest individual we have encountered who posed as a child was subsequently found to be 41 years of age. That is wrong as a matter of principle, and it is also a serious safeguarding risk to genuine children and all the caring people who are involved in supporting them, whether they be foster carers, teachers or members of the general public. We therefore have to take the issue seriously. That is why the Bill retains the power to detain an individual who is subject to age assessment for up to 28 days. During that period, the Home Office or local authorities would conduct age assessment. Today, that is done through the Merton system, which is proving to take longer than we would like, but which we want to be conducted within 28 days.

We are now taking advantage of the powers taken through the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 to begin to roll out scientific forms of age assessment. That will happen over the course of this year. Initially, it will happen concurrently with the Merton assessment. We want to ensure that that system is demonstrated to be robust and as swift as possible. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will unite in common agreement that it is important that we weed out cases of abuse, because they pose such a risk. I am afraid that we have seen some very tragic instances such as the murder that occurred in Bournemouth at the behest of somebody who had posed as a child. The state has to do everything in its power to prevent that from happening again.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

If I may make some more progress, I will happily come to the hon. Gentleman later. I want to conclude the point that I was making to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) on the detention periods and standard of accommodation, because that is important. I assure her, and indeed my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has also taken an interest in the issue, that we will seek to detain unaccompanied children for the shortest possible period. Where there is no dispute that someone is under 18, they will be transferred to the local authority accommodation estate as quickly as possible. Where there is doubt about whether a person is indeed under 18 as they claim to be, they will be treated as a child while an age assessment is undertaken. Such a person will be detained in age-appropriate accommodation, as the law already provides. That is set out in the Detention Centre Rules 2001 made under section 153 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Rule 11 provides that:

“Detained persons aged under 18 and families will be provided with accommodation suitable to their needs.”

If no such accommodation is available, they will not be detained and instead will be transferred to a local authority as soon as possible. I hope that provides my right hon. Friend with the assurance she seeks.

Illegal Migration Bill

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Consideration of Lords message
Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful for those points. Social workers will clearly be at the heart of all this work, as they are today. Every setting in which young people are housed by the Home Office, whether it be an unaccompanied asylum-seeking children hotel, which we mentioned earlier, or another facility, has a strong contingent of qualified social workers who support those young people. I am certain that social workers will be at the heart of developing the policy and then, in time, operationalising it.

Their lordships have attempted but failed to smooth the rough edges of their wrecking amendments on legal proceedings, but we need be in no doubt that they are still wrecking amendments. They would tie every removal up in knots and never-ending legal proceedings. It is still the case that Lords amendment 1B would incorporate the various conventions listed in the amendment into our domestic law. An amendment shoehorned into the Bill is not the right place to make such a significant constitutional change. It is therefore right that we continue to reject it.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not, because I need to close my remarks; this is a short debate.

Lords amendment 9B continues to undermine a core component of the Bill: that asylum and relevant human rights claims are declared inadmissible. The Lords amendment would simply encourage illegal migrants to game the system and drag things out for as long as possible, in the hope that they would become eligible for asylum here.

Lords amendment 23B brings us back to the issue of the removal of LGBT people to certain countries. The Government are a strong defender of LGBT rights across the globe. There is no question of sending a national of one of the countries listed in the amendment back to their home country if they fear persecution based on their sexuality. The Bill is equally clear that if an LGBT person were to be issued with a removal notice to a country where they fear persecution on such grounds, or indeed on any other grounds, they could make a serious harm suspensive claim and they would not be removed—

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

We should oppose all nine Government motions, which is precisely what my SNP colleagues and I will do this evening. Let me say again that this Bill is so appalling that the House of Lords should stop it in its tracks. However, Baroness Jones was the one speaker who had the guts to say:

“we should be stubborn about not allowing the Bill to go through.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 July 2023; Vol. 831, c. 1814.]

As I asked last week, if the Lords will not consider halting this Bill, which Bill will it be? This Bill is about locking up kids, forcing trafficking victims back to their exploiters, mass detention, closure of the UK asylum system and the trashing of international laws. If the Lords will not use their powers to block this Bill—a Bill that also runs totally contrary to what was in the 2019 Conservative manifesto—what is the point of their powers, and what is the point of the House of Lords? Let us hope that we can salvage something from these final proceedings.

On Lords amendment 1B, if the Bill is consistent with our international obligations, the Government cannot have any objections to the amendment. On the other hand, if, as the Government have at other times argued, it wrecks the Bill to have to be read consistently with international law, then the problem is with the Bill, not the amendment. That is a good reason in itself for the whole Bill to be stopped in its tracks. The revisions to the amendment mean that arguments about allegedly incorporating international laws have been addressed, despite the completely unsubstantiated assertion from the Minister. We have heard lots of strong words about protecting a dualist system of law, but given that the Government could not even make the normal human rights compatibility statement, we need strong action to protect fundamental human rights and the rule of law.

The grouped amendments 7B and 90D are also important in upholding the rule of law. They preserve judicial oversight, so that illegal decisions by the Government can be properly challenged before they are implemented. It really is as simple and fundamental as that. The Government keep talking about loopholes, but access to courts, the rule of law and fundamental rights are not loopholes; they are fundamental principles that we should be upholding.

Lords amendment 9B is another crucial amendment. It now includes safeguards to assuage the usual Government concerns about gaming the system, but retains the vital protection that if a person cannot be removed to Rwanda even after six months, they will then have their case assessed here. It simply preserves the status quo and is an essential protection. It remains an appalling prospect that people who are refugees will be left in limbo forever by the Government; never allowed to have their claim heard here and never able to contribute, even if removal is a near impossible prospect.

Indeed, it is also ludicrous that there will be people with totally unfounded claims for asylum who will get to remain here in limbo, often at considerable taxpayer expense, because of the Bill. The Bill stops unfounded claims being dealt with, just as it stops well-founded claims being dealt with. The end result is that thousands of people will need to be detained and accommodated in perpetuity. Many more will disappear underground, as they will have no reason to stay in touch with the Home Office. It is the end of the UK’s contribution to the refugee convention. Again, if the Government are not willing to move on that, their lordships should hold up the whole Bill.

On mass and limitless detention of children in inappropriate accommodation, of course we continue to support all efforts to curtail the horrendous new powers and to limit the extraordinary harm that we know—and the Home Office knows—detention causes to them. We therefore support Lords amendments 36C, 36D and 33B. As I said last week, the Government’s amendments in lieu really represent a pathetic non-concession. A theoretical right for some kids detained for removal to seek bail after eight days is just not remotely acceptable. At the very least, we need short, hard and fast limits, and those limits should be automatic and not dependent on a child being able to navigate the bail system and accessing the legal support that would be required to do that. And the time limits should apply to all kids, whether accompanied or not, and regardless of which particular powers they were detained under. The Government make claims about creating incentives to play by the rules, but, as with most of their claims, they offer absolutely no evidence. There is no suggestion, for example, that the introduction of strict time limits by David Cameron’s Government had the impact suggested here. It is just another myth.

As Members on both sides have said, the Bill is a serious threat to victims of modern slavery and trafficking, and yet again it totally ignores devolved powers on this subject. Those being exploited are the ones who will suffer, not the traffickers, whose power over their victims will only be enhanced by the withdrawal of any route to safety for those they are exploiting. We therefore support Lords amendment 56B and anything that will undo some of the damage that the Bill will do to modern slavery and trafficking provisions. Without 56B, the damage the Bill will do to slavery and trafficking laws across the UK is yet again sufficient to justify holding up the whole Bill.

On Lords amendment 23B and protections for LGBT people, we fully support everything Lord Etherton said in support of his amendments. Put the fact that these countries are not safe for LGBT people on the face of the schedule. Anything that builds on the flimsy and almost certainly unworkable system of “suspensive claims” should be welcomed. LGBT people should not have to go through that process in the first place. If the Government are committed to safe legal routes, they should have no problem with Lords amendment 102B. On the archbishop’s amendments 107B and 107C, a 10-year strategy is utterly sensible—indeed, it is essential. Long-term thinking is as necessary for issues surrounding forced migration as other pivotal challenges such as climate change.

Ultimately, the amendments can only add a little polish to an odious Bill that is utterly beyond redemption. It should be stopped in its tracks entirely and any parties that still send people to the relic of a second Chamber should be using their influence to see that that happens. Otherwise, this is all just for a show and very vulnerable people will suffer as a result.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Edmund Burke said that what matters

“is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.”

In considering the Government’s response to the Lords amendments, it is important to re-emphasise that the Bill is about fairness; about affirming the integrity of our nation by defending our borders from those who seek to arrive here illegally. We must have the power to remove those entrants from our country. To do so is just and fair. It is what the British people expect, what they voted for in 2019, and what they chose in the Brexit referendum.

Considering the arguments made in the other place, I was struck by the absence of a credible alternative to the Government’s proposal; there seems little sense there of the need to control our borders, stop the boats, save lives, and to make our immigration system fairer, more reasonable and more just. Sadly, much of the debate on the amendments in the other place has been characterised by a combination of denial and detachment from the popular will—denial about the urgency of the problem, and detachment from the sentiments expressed by my constituents and the constituents of other Members on both sides of this Chamber. Those arriving in small boats must be detained securely and removed swiftly, and it must be a straightforward process, for only through that process will we deter more people from arriving.

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[Robert Jenrick]

With the leave of the House, let me say a few words to close this short debate.

As I said at the outset, when we met and voted 18 times last week, we supported the Bill time and again. In each of those 18 votes, we in this democratically elected Chamber voted to stop the boats, secure our borders and enable this important Bill to move forward. Now is the time for the other place, which is, at its heart, as a number of colleagues have said—

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not—we have heard from the hon. Gentleman a number of times.

The other place is ultimately a revising Chamber, and it is now time for it to support the Bill. Today’s debate has, like some of the others, been short on new arguments and completely short of any credible alternative. I go back to the arguments made in the other place by many distinguished Members of that House and former Members of this House, most notably the noble Lord Clarke, who said clearly that he was not able, having listened to the debate for hour after hour, to discern a single credible alternative to the Government’s plan. It is incumbent on those who want to vote against the Bill to bring forward alternatives, but we have not heard a single one.

I used to say that Labour Members do not have a plan to stop the boats, but that is not true. They do have a plan, but it is one that is so dangerously naive that it is a recipe for even more crossings and even greater misery. They would create a massive pull factor by giving economic migrants crossing the channel from a safe place such as France the ability to work sooner. They would attempt to grant their way out of the problem and sacrifice the remaining integrity of the system. They would create bespoke country-specific routes for every instance of instability in the world, which would impose more and more pressures on local communities.

Is it not the most telling fact in this debate that today, in the shadow Immigration Minister’s own town of Aberavon, there is not a single asylum seeker? If Members want more asylum seekers, they should have the honesty to have them in their own constituency. From the letters I receive from Labour MPs, I assume that they would house asylum seekers even more expensively than we do today, with no regard to the taxpayer. I am not clear how they would remove illegal migrants when their own leader, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), campaigned to close an immigration removal centre, tens of Labour MPs have opposed the reopening of two other centres, and the Labour party’s own membership recently voted to abolish them altogether.

The fact is that as its Members vote against the Bill today, Labour’s message to the law-abiding people of this country—from Stoke to Blackpool to Peterborough—when it comes to illegal migration is quite simply “Put up with it.” Its message to the British families who have to wait longer for social housing or GP appointments is “Tough luck”, and its message to the hard-working taxpayer faced with the ever-rising costs of the system is “Cough up.” It is only the Conservative party that can see the fundamental injustice of illegal migration—that it ultimately affects the poorest people in society the most—and has the determination to fix it. That is why the Bill is so important, and it is why the Lords now need to back it.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 1B, 7B and 90D.