Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Coaker Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I start on a sombre note and join other noble Lords and the Minister in paying tribute to Lord Brown, who will be sorely missed by us all. He spent many an hour in the tearoom and elsewhere trying to explain various legal niceties to me in a very calm and dignified way, always treating me with a respect and courtesy I am not sure I deserved. He was a truly remarkable man and a pleasant individual. He will be missed by us all, and it is very sad that he has left us.

I will start with some usual courtesies before I make a couple of comments. I thank the Minister for the briefings he gave us. We have fundamentally disagreed on certain things. We were not pleased about the lateness of the impact assessments, as my noble friend Lady Lister made clear. To be fair to the Minister, even when we have fundamentally disagreed, he has always tried to brief me with respect to the Bill, and I am grateful for that. I thank his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for being similarly available whenever needed with respect to the Bill. Again, we disagreed on various things, but I appreciated his courtesy and help. I would be grateful if he could pass on my thanks to the noble and learned Lords, Lord Bellamy and Lord Stewart, who at different times contributed to the Bill. I have to mention the Government Whip, who sat there all the way through with his normal face, which was always interested and agreeable. It was a pleasure to talk to him, if no one else at times. I also thank the Minister’s officials, who have been really helpful.

My noble friend Lord Ponsonby is always a welcome contrast to my calm and unexcitable demeanour. He generates the rhetoric, drive and passion that I sometimes lack, and I am grateful for him encouraging me to have a bit more zeal at times—but seriously, it is good to have him alongside me. I am grateful to the officials in our office, Dan Stevens and Clare Scally, who have been very helpful, and my Back-Bench colleagues—I am always a bit nervous about this; it is like being at a wedding when you forget the aunt at the back—particularly my noble friends Lady Chakrabarti, Lord Dubs, Lady Lister, Lord Bach, Lord Cashman and Lord Hunt, and many others, for their support and help as the Bill has gone through. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and his team for their co-operation, and Peers from across the House, some from unexpected quarters, who rang me to ask about different things. It has been a pleasure to work with them.

I want to start with some related points, including the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. Having said what I said about the Minister, a couple of the things he said at the beginning were disappointing. There may have been times when some have thought it the right thing to do but, generally speaking, this House has not sought to block the Bill. It has recognised that the Commons has a right to pass its legislation. However, many in this House feel that the payback for that—for want of a better way of putting it—is that the other place has to respect that this place has a constitutional role to play as well. We will not be intimidated or made to back off from passing amendments that we think are important, or from saying where we think the Government have got it wrong.

I have been in government; it is hugely irritating to a Government to have this happen, but it sometimes works, in that better legislation is passed. If two and two does not make four, there is a problem. On a Bill as controversial and difficult as this, it is only right that large numbers of amendments be passed. It is only right to ask the other place—as a number of Peers have done—to give due consideration, in proper time, to the amendments we have passed and to adapt and make changes.

To be frank, it is difficult to know exactly what we should think about what will happen tomorrow, given that the only briefing we have had has gone to the newspapers and the media, telling us what to expect in the amendments to be published tomorrow or later today. Some may be things that we could agree to. Many in this place, including me, and a number of Members in the other place, will say that it cannot be right that journalists are ringing to ask your opinion, when you have no idea about it. They ask why you cannot comment and you have to say, “Well, I don’t know what the Government are suggesting”. That cannot be right, and it needs to be looked at.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, made a passionate point. Sometimes, if a Government get something wrong, as they have with the murals at the detention centre, the right thing to do is to stand up and say that it should not have happened and they will make sure it does not happen again.

As part of our co-operation and work together, the Minister organised a trip to Dover and to Western Jet Foil for my noble friend Lord Ponsonby and myself. My noble friend and I went to the facility with the mural, where Mickey Mouse was painted on the wall. There was nothing offensive about it—nothing at all that anybody could take offence at. All it did was provide comfort and a sense of belonging to children in a desperate situation, which, presumably, is why somebody painted it. They did not paint it out of badness, or to make a political point or embarrass the Government. This was simply a human being, no doubt as an act of kindness, painting something on the wall to comfort children in a desperate situation.

In addition to the Minister’s response being wrong and disappointing, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made the point he made—he will correct me if I am wrong—in order to show that that attitude cannot prevail when considering the other amendments we have sent to another place, where they are generally dismissed out of hand. The Government may have given way on four, five or six—we do not know—but the 20 or so amendments sent there deserve proper consideration. If the Government object to them, they will need to give a proper explanation. Underlying what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, that is what we are asking for.

This place deserves its proper position within the functioning of the constitution of this country. If it does not have that, the consequence will be poorer legislation. In respect of an Illegal Migration Bill that is so controversial, the impact will be on innocent people, including children, who do not deserve it.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I will not address all the speeches, but I can certainly say that I agree with parts of almost all of them. Of course, noble Lords are entirely right that I and the department should think deeply about the amendments proposed, and we will. It is clear that there will be some changes, and I hope to work with noble Lords on that in due course.

Without Lord Brown, this House is very much a lesser place, and I am glad that we had an opportunity to reflect on that today.