Nationality and Borders Bill (Third sitting)

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I am sorry. I said that had to be the last question. I have to try and get everybody in and there are a lot of Members. Minister.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

Q Thank you, Sir Roger. I will be quick, so hopefully the hon. Member might get another go.

Your Excellency, looking back in the Australian context, is it reasonable to think, that if you had stood back and done nothing about this challenge the numbers of people crossing or seeking to cross would have increased, and on less seaworthy vessels?

George Brandis: I think that is an absolutely fair inference to draw, because in the years prior to the introduction of the policy, which was in September 2013, the numbers had escalated, so every year there were more than in the previous year. It almost inevitably follows, given that nothing else would have changed, that the number of those vessels that did not make it and the number of passengers who drowned would have escalated, too.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q How fundamental do you think that offshore processing was in acting as an effective deterrent as part of your wider plan to tackle this challenge?

George Brandis: Well, as I have already said in my evidence, there were three legs, or three elements, to this policy and all of them were essential to it. I do not think you can disaggregate one from another.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q I am interested in wider criminality. What impacts did you assess there to be in the line of finance that these crossings were generating for these criminal gangs? What impact did that have on wider criminality? Was it fuelling other types of criminality in Australia?

George Brandis: It is very difficult to answer that question in a general way. The people-smuggling gangs who were the authors and beneficiaries of this activity were located in Indonesia, primarily. That is not to say that they may not have had connections in Australia, but they were primarily groups that operated within Indonesia, and there were many of them. I am not in a position to generalise from that proposition to what extent they had connections in other countries, including Australia.

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Trying to create a swifter, more efficient, more streamlined processing of applications is fundamental to the plan the Government here are seeking to advance. Was that an element of the work you put in place in Australia, and how important do you think it is, both in acting as a deterrent and having a system that is much more humane and treats people fairly?

George Brandis: As is evident from the statistics I quoted before, we accept an unusually large number of humanitarian and refugee immigration applications for a country of our size. We have an ambitious humanitarian and refugee programme, and we seek to process those applications swiftly and efficiently, but we do say, “You’ve got to come in the front door, and not put yourself in the hands of criminals and put yourself and your children at risk of drowning.”

[Tom Pursglove]

Q Finally, looking back at your experience, the establishment of the policy framework and everything that underpinned it more generally, what in your assessment were the key challenges you faced in delivering on this, and what lessons could the British Government learn from that experience in the work we are doing?

George Brandis: There were logistical challenges, particularly the turn-back operations. It was very challenging for the maritime authorities to do that while at the same time ensuring that nobody’s safety was put at risk. That was one dimension to this, but it is a bit of a different problem because, as one of your colleagues pointed out, here these people come by dinghy. Almost all the people who were trying to come to Australia were coming in decrepit old timber fishing boats, which were much more fragile. That was the difference.

I am not here to instruct or encourage your Parliament on the right policy choice; I am merely here to respond to the questions you have asked me about how a particular set of measures worked for Australia. I have already observed that there are differences as well as similarities in the profile of the problems. However, I would say that undoubtedly the key to this is to put the people smugglers out of business. The way to put the people smugglers out of business is to demonstrate to their potential clientele that they are wasting their money. The way we did that in Australia, and it was a robust policy, was to persuade the potential clientele that, if they came in through the front door as genuine refugees, they would be embraced; but, if they put themselves in the hands of people smugglers, there was no way they would ever end up in Australia.

[The Chair]

We have time for one final question from Neil Coyle.