Illegal Migration Bill

Vicky Ford Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

We are very lucky to live in a country people want to escape to, not a country people want to escape from, and we should all be mindful of the words we use. I support the Bill’s Second Reading, but I want to make a few points.

Four hundred years ago, John Donne wrote:

“No man is an island, entire of itself”.

In today’s interconnected world, no country, even if it is an island, can be entire of itself. The war in Ukraine has reminded us that when there is instability or insecurity in another part of the world, it can result in instability and insecurity here in the UK. It is very important that the UK can use its official development assistance funding to help poorer countries to build their stability, but we are having to divert billions of pounds of our ODA funding to care for the tens of thousands of people who have come to the UK by small boats. That is money that could instead have helped tens of millions of people to tackle the causes of instability in their own country.

John Donne also said that

“any man’s death diminishes me”.

The UK has a long history of giving asylum to those who have suffered war or persecution. We should continue to offer asylum, but the small boats route has resulted in many lives lost, not just on the channel but on the way to the channel. Action needs to be taken to close that extremely dangerous route.

We also need to recognise that no country’s capacity to offer asylum is unlimited. We must focus our support and prioritise helping the most vulnerable. The vast majority who arrive by small boats are men under the age of 40, not the disabled or the frail. By giving priority to those who arrive by illegal routes, we reduce the amount of support that we can give to safe and legal routes and we divert resources away from the vulnerable. That is not fair and it is not compassionate.

I am pleased that the Government have announced that they will introduce more safe and legal routes, but they need to go hand in hand with other measures, not come as an afterthought. Furthermore, it should not be left to local authorities alone to decide how many people our country can support. I recall that when I was children’s Minister there was a time when all Scottish local authorities bar one refused to take any unaccompanied asylum-seeking children at all. I am concerned that if local authorities are left to their own decision making, many will say that they have no capacity to support asylum seekers.

Finally, as a former children’s Minister, I note the comments that the Children’s Commissioner made today. I hope that these important points can be addressed as the Bill moves through its stages in this House. I hope that the Government will be able to find a way to ensure a fair, balanced and compassionate approach to migration, and that this will be the one that prevails.

Illegal Migration Bill

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

No, the Minister did not do that. What he has done is push this on to those at the UNHCR, who say that it is not their job. They have also said that the tiny minority, the 1%, who manage to gain access to its relocation scheme are not suitable, in that there is not enough in that very small scheme to replace a functional asylum system.

My constituent Ilios is a British citizen whose wife and son are trapped in Sudan and are unable to obtain their documents because the British Embassy staff are out of the country, although they now have the right to travel. Will they be able to come to the UK safely through some other mechanism? Will it be possible for people who happen to be in Sudan with refugee travel documents, perhaps with family members visiting there, to be evacuated by the UK forces? The position remains unclear.

Subsection (d) refers to

“ a person…where there is a real risk of persecution or serious harm on grounds of sexual orientation if”

that person

“were to be removed in accordance with this section”.

I recently had a call with LGBT rights activists in Uganda, which is introducing brutal laws to persecute LGBT people, up to the point of the death penalty. People are terrified over there. They are talking about mob justice, and of families being at risk as a result of even knowing that their loved ones are LGBT. If they were able to escape Uganda and come here, there would be no means under the Bill to prevent the Government from sending them back rather than protecting them, so we seek to put that protection into the Bill.

Subsection (e) covers

“a person who, there are reasonable grounds to suspect, is a victim of torture”.

In Committee I mentioned Kolbassia, who founded Survivors Speak OUT. I talk to people in my constituency surgeries who have been victims of torture. They deserve protection; they do not deserve this Bill.

Subsection (f) refers to “a Ukraine citizen”. There is no Ivan or Oksara who needs to come here in a boat, because there is a safe and legal route: they can come here perfectly legally, without having to resort to that. We should be making that route available to more people.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I am listening closely to what the hon. Lady is saying. When I was the Children’s Minister, every single local authority in Scotland bar one was refusing to take any unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Why?

[Alison Thewliss]

The right hon. Lady may not be as well-informed as she hopes she is. Every single local authority in Scotland took people under the Syria scheme and they were proud to do so. We took a greater proportion than the rest of the UK. We would be willing to take more people if the Home Office would only honour its side of the bargain. The Minister is looking at me askance, but the Home Office is choosing where people go. The Home Office is booking hotels. The Home Office is not working with local government in Scotland to do this properly, and I can tell him that it is not working properly with local elected Members. I am aware of plans to put an asylum hotel in my constituency—[Interruption.] The Minister asks me if I am opposing it. I would not know, because he has not given me the details of it. I have known about it since January, but he has not even bothered to get in touch with me as the local elected Member to discuss it. It is absolutely ridiculous.

Subsection (g) of amendment 47 relates to

“a person who, there are reasonable grounds to suspect, is a victim of trafficking or modern slavery”.

I mentioned at a previous stage of the Bill that this could be Eva’s amendment. She is a survivor who was helped and supported by the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance —TARA—in my constituency. She came here and ended up being trapped in sex work. Those people deserve particular help and support, but it will be denied to them under this Bill. Services such as TARA will find it difficult to operate once the Bill passes.

Subsection (h) refers to exempting

“a person who has family members in the United Kingdom”.

We could call this Ibrahim’s amendment. He is a constituent of mine who had family stuck in Iran. He has found it very difficult to get them here. People should not have to wait in situations of danger for the Home Office eventually to get round to processing their applications, because for many it is a situation of life and death. They cannot wait for the Iranian authorities or the Taliban to come and find them. They cannot wait to be persecuted or tortured or killed. People are fleeing for their lives and the Home Office’s very slow decision making puts people at risk.

Subsection (i) refers to a

“person who meets the definition of an ‘adult at risk’ in paragraph 7 of the Home Office guidance on adults at risk in immigration detention (2016), including in particular people suffering from a condition, or who have experienced a traumatic event (such as trafficking, torture or sexual violence), that would be likely to render them particularly vulnerable to harm.”

I have talked previously about Priya, a trafficking survivor who was detained in Yarl’s Wood when she was pregnant and unable to access the services that would have kept her safe. There are many people like that, and under this legislation we will see more women, including pregnant women, being locked up in immigration detention.

Government amendment 95 states that

“it is not necessary for the person to be present in the United Kingdom”

to give evidence regarding trafficking. Professor Dame Sara Thornton, the former Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, gave evidence on this to the Home Affairs Committee last week. She said that asking people to give evidence after they had been removed from the UK would be “astonishingly difficult operationally”, “complex and complicated” and “very challenging indeed”. I would question the very efficacy of this process, because there is no recognition of the difficulties that it would cause. Co-operation with people once they have moved away will be practically very difficult, as will dealing with police forces in other parts of the world. It is unclear what level of co-operation will be required to get some kind of exemption to this requirement to give evidence after removal. What will those “compelling circumstances” be? There is also no recognition of the trauma that this will cause to people.

Dr Katarina Schwartz of the Rights Lab presented evidence to the Home Affairs Committee this morning on the impact that this proposal could have on prosecutions. She said that

“if a survivor is heavily traumatised and being questioned by the police, they will not be able to give good testimony”.

She also said that

“the impact of decreasing support for survivors on both their own experiences of recovery and integration and on their inability to testify is enormous”.

She spoke about the benefits to the person, to the prosecutions and economically to the UK of doing it right and of having people come through a process and do well from it.

This is a dangerous, atrocious Bill. It rips up rights, it undermines our international obligations and it rides roughshod over devolution. It puts children at risk and it places those who have been trafficked more firmly than ever back into the hands of the exploiters, who will more easily avoid prosecution due to the measures in this tawdry Bill. It will not work. We will amend it, but we know that amendments are not enough to fix this unfixable Bill. We know in Scotland that better things are possible, and we wholeheartedly reject this Bill. We are appalled at its imposition against the will of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. We on the SNP Benches say it loud and clear: refugees are welcome here. We reject this fascist, dystopian assault on human rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

That is absolutely right. It is notable that three former Children’s Ministers are behind the measures we are trying to push today. It is essential that any child in this country, whether a refugee here temporarily or someone here for the long term, is covered by the welfare considerations of the Children Act. I am grateful that the Minister referred to the Children Act. As it stands, despite the measures that mean there will be a differentiation between children and adult detention—we do not know what yet—under the Bill a 12-year-old child claiming asylum could still be in a Home Office detention centre facility for 27 days. That is not a good look, and it must not happen.

[Vicky Ford]

I add my voice to the chorus of former Children’s Ministers on this issue. Does my hon. Friend agree that the period for which a child could be detained when they first arrive to find them suitable accommodation needs to be a matter of days, not weeks, and that that needs to be in the Bill?

[Tim Loughton]

That is what we put in the Immigration Act 2014 with the then Immigration Minister, now the Transport Secretary. What has changed between 2014 and 2023 that means apparently we have to detain children indefinitely? We need timescales in the Bill, as we had in 2014. I appreciate there are practical problems about age verification for those who are challenged. We may have to have a two-tier system, but certainly those children who are recognised generally as children should not be locked up in detention centres and Home Office facilities, and that has to be made absolutely clear when this Bill goes to the Lords.

We also need to know how and where the Government plan to accommodate those children once identified. The accommodation does not exist at the moment, and the Government have only a few months to magic it up if we want to get this legislation through in a matter of months. I share the Children’s Commissioner’s concerns. She said:

“The Bill is unclear on what the state of the accommodation will be for children while awaiting transfer to local authority care or removal from the country…What regulations will be in place for Home Office provided accommodation? If the accommodation is regulated which body will inspect them?”

There are a lot of questions to be asked. We are taking the assurances from the Minister on trust. We will not continue with a lack of detail when the Bill gets to the Lords, but for the moment we will not force it, because I trust the Minister to do the right thing before the Bill goes through its final stages.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kim Leadbeater]

I agree wholeheartedly. I sometimes worry, on many levels, about the language used in this place and its impact on the outside world. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) has made that point very well. We all need to think about the language we use, the words we say and the impact that they can have on people outside this House.

What we need is a thorough, workable and deliverable plan. That is what the Opposition have put forward, as the shadow Immigration Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), has articulated brilliantly this afternoon. What distinguishes Labour’s plan is not only that it is practical and tough on the real criminals, but that it is rooted in justice and fairness.

I note that the Minister has described the Bill as

“the morally just thing to do”.

I beg to differ. There is absolutely nothing fair or just about detaining children, and nor will the Bill do anything to deter the criminal gangs. Equally, as we have heard, imprisoning pregnant women and those with dependent children undermines the moral basis of the policy without achieving any benefit. That would be true whether or not the Government had a good record of protecting vulnerable people, either in detention or in Home Office accommodation, which clearly they do not.

Justice and fairness cannot be cast aside lightly. They are at the heart of what makes us all proud to be British. They underpin our values. They should be the guiding principles behind everything we do in this House. Unless the system is both just and fair, it will fail, like every other so-called crackdown that has done nothing to stop the boats. Not only will it fail to work, but it will fail to convince the public that the Government are serious about stemming the flow of illegal immigration. I therefore urge the House to support our amendments.

[Vicky Ford]

As I said on Second Reading, I support the premise of the Bill. Too many people’s lives are put at risk on small boats, and it is important to break the model of the people traffickers. We are also spending millions of pounds—indeed, billions—of our aid money on hotels for tens of thousands of people in the UK. That money should be spent on helping millions of people elsewhere in countries such as Sudan. I have just met representatives of Save the Children from South Sudan, who told me of their expectations that children who need help will be coming across the border. Without help, such countries will become even more unstable. More people will be forced to flee their homes, so more people will try to get on the small boats.

The small boats route is also extremely unfair. No country has an unlimited capacity to support asylum seekers. Those who arrive by illegal routes reduce and limit our capacity to provide the safe and legal routes that will help the most vulnerable. As I said on Second Reading, the introduction of new safe and legal routes needs to go hand in hand with closing down illegal routes. I am extremely grateful to the Government for listening to that point, and I have co-signed new clause 8.

On the issue of how children should be treated, I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration for meeting me and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and listening to our concerns. I know that the Minister takes the welfare and safeguarding of children very seriously. I understand that we must be careful not to create perverse incentives for people traffickers that force them to target even more children and send them on small boat crossings, but depriving a child of their liberty is a very serious issue.

We have very strict rules in this country regarding the protection of children. I am very proud of those rules, many of which were introduced by this Conservative-led Government. Depriving a child of their liberty can have a serious and long-lasting effect on their mental health, so there need to be very strict rules. That is why I am a signatory to amendment 183, which makes it clear that a child’s liberty can be restricted only for a very limited period.

I am grateful to the Minister for listening to my concerns on the subject and to those of other former children’s Ministers. I listened closely to what he said at the Dispatch Box. I thank him for his assurance that he will work with my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham to set out a new timescale on the deprivation of liberty issue. That timescale needs to be clear, and it needs to be set out in the Bill. It should be a handful of days, not a number of weeks. That is necessary to make sure that children are prioritised, because children are often those who are most at risk.

I agree that we need to be wary of the risk of creating an increased incentive for more adults to claim to be children. I recognise that some of those who claim to be claiming asylum are actually adults. However, roughly 50% of those whose ages are in dispute are children, and many of them will be very vulnerable. We need to ensure that there are short timescales for genuine, known children, but also that there is proper safeguarding for those whose age is disputed.

Another point of concern that has been put to me is that children who know they could be removed when they turn 18 may be at increased risk as they near their 18th birthday. They may be tempted to abscond from care, and may then fall into the hands of deeply worrying people and become subject to the modern-day slavery about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) speaks so eloquently. Members need to consider these risks, and to ensure that the Bill and the way in which it is implemented will not make vulnerable children even more vulnerable.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

New clause 1, which stands in my name, would give those detained under measures in the Bill the right to work in the UK after six months. I am pleased that it has received cross-party support and the backing of the Welsh Refugee Council. Words matter, and I hope to be as balanced as possible in my language, although there is much in this Bill that I find utterly abhorrent.

Those seeking asylum in the UK are currently effectively banned from working while awaiting a decision on their asylum claims. Permission to work is granted only in respect of jobs on the shortage occupation list, and then only after an asylum seeker has waited longer than 12 months for a decision, provided that the delay was not the fault of the asylum seeker. Once someone has been granted refugee status, that person has permission to work in the UK in any profession and at any skill level.

The Bill does not treat detainees as asylum seekers, and states that their asylum claims cannot be considered under the immigration rules. The spirit of new clause 1 is to do away with that false categorisation, and to recognise that these so-called detainees are asylum seekers. In doing so, it effectively removes the work restrictions that they would face if they were indeed classified as asylum seekers under the Bill. This builds on previous attempts to introduce a right to work after six months for asylum seekers, through proposed amendments in the other place to the Immigration Act 2016 and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.

The present ban means that the majority of people seeking asylum in the UK end up living on £5.66 a day to cover almost all their needs, as they are excluded from mainstream benefits. That places them more than 70% below the poverty line. It cannot be right that asylum seekers are frozen in destitution while waiting for months, if not years, for a decision. Of the cases in the asylum backlog in December 2022, two thirds—nearly 110,000 people—had been waiting for more than six months, up from 44% of cases in December 2017, and that number will only grow as the Bill effectively freezes the asylum processing system altogether. If any Members present take issue with giving asylum seekers the right to work after six months of languishing in unsuitable accommodation and in poverty—that low, low-paid poverty—I say this to them: reject the Bill, and focus on rebuilding the asylum processing system so that people do not have to wait more than six months to receive an asylum decision.

We know that the majority of people who cross the channel will succeed in their claims to be refugees, and will eventually be able to work unrestricted once they have obtained their refugee status, provided that their asylum claims have been processed quickly and humanely. Asylum seekers have told me how the ban is affecting them. Seeye from Cardiff, for example, says:

“I am losing hope. All I want is a bright future. I am young, I can work. I am ready to start tomorrow and fund myself.”

Doesn’t he sound like a young Tory?

Overturning the ban has widespread public support, with a 2020 petition to the Home Office reaching 180,000 signatories and a 2022 poll showing that 81% of the public support people seeking asylum in the UK having the right to work.

Illegal Migration Bill

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

rose—

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

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

If I may, I will give way in the first instance to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford.

[Vicky Ford]

I am listening closely to what my right hon. Friend is saying, and I am thinking in particular about arrivals as well as leavers. Can he confirm that children who are clearly children will be placed in child-appropriate accommodation? Will all those who may or may not be children have appropriate safeguarding? If that is the case, when will we see that in writing?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s interest in the Bill. She and I come at this with exactly the same concern: to protect unaccompanied children. Any genuine child who comes into the United Kingdom will be swiftly taken into the local authority care system, which she is familiar with thanks to her former work as children’s Minister. To the extent that that child is in the detained estate, they will be housed only in age-appropriate accommodation.

[Vicky Ford]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

I will set out in a moment how that age-appropriate accommodation is determined in law today. I give way to my right hon. Friend one more time.

[Vicky Ford]

To dig deeper into that, the Minister has suggested that a child may be detained on arrival, which is not currently the case, but that if that happened, that would be in child-appropriate accommodation.

[Robert Jenrick]

That is correct. The law today is that a child can be detained for eight days for the purpose of examination—that is not routinely done by the Home Office. Today, a child is detained for 24 hours or less and, whether for 24 hours or, if the Home Office chose to make use of the power, for eight days, they are detained only in age-appropriate accommodation. It would be unlawful to house an under-18 in accommodation that did not meet the standard set out in law. I will come on in a moment to describe that standard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

The right hon. Gentleman is particularly knowledgeable on this issue, because he represents immigration removal centres. It is not the Government’s intention that families or minors will be housed in those settings. Minors and families will be housed in age-appropriate accommodation, which is entirely separate and different in nature from the immigration removal centres that he represents. There are facilities such as those today, though not a large number of them. As part of the operationalisation of the Bill, we will need to invest in further facilities and ensure that they meet the standards set out in the detention rules as I have just described. I hope that gives him some reassurance.

[Vicky Ford]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

I will give way, but then I really must make progress, or else other Members will not have an opportunity to speak.

[Vicky Ford]

I thank my right hon. Friend. There is a huge amount of concern about how the Bill will be implemented. We thought that hotels would be only temporary, yet they seem to have carried on. The Minister has said that when a child comes in, they will be moved into local authority care as soon as possible. Under the Bill, what is the maximum amount of time that a child could wait before they are in that local authority care?

[Robert Jenrick]

The position today is that a child arrives in the United Kingdom and is immediately processed in an age-appropriate setting. We then seek to place them with local authorities. Only if local authority care is not immediately available do we deploy the Home Office UASC hotels. There have been incidences, such as last year, when young people were waiting in those hotels for a period of days. That is not our intention. The only limiting factor is the availability of local authority care to support them. If more local authorities were able to come forward—as I said, that is not simple because they have their own capacity constraints—we would not use those hotels at all. It is not our intention to detain minors for a long period for examination. We want them to flow straight out into local authority care, as is the right thing to do.

Illegal Migration Bill

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

Last week, some Members asked whether unaccompanied children would also receive age-appropriate care while in detention. The answer to that is an emphatic yes. The operating standards for immigration removal centres contain provisions around the treatment of children, including requirements on the education and play facilities that must be provided for children.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making it clear that, if there is any doubt about the age of an unaccompanied child, they will be treated as a child. I also thank him for saying that, if a child is detained, it will be in an age-appropriate centre. However, on the issue of what is age-appropriate, I will just say that I have looked at the operating standards to which he referred. It is an 82-page document. It has no mention of unaccompanied children. It talks about who looks after the locks and hinges and where the tools and the ladders are to be stored, but there is nothing about how we keep these children happy, healthy and safe from harm. I point him instead to the guidance for children’s care homes and ask him gently if we could update the rules on detention centres to make sure that they look more like the rules we have for safeguarding children in care homes.

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend makes a number of important points. The guidance is very detailed, but I am sure that it would benefit from updating. Therefore, the points that she has made and that other right hon. and hon. Members have made in the past will be noted by Home Office officials. As we operationalise this policy, we will be careful to take those into consideration. We are all united in our belief that those young people who are in our care need to be treated appropriately.

Let me turn now to the Lords amendment on modern slavery—I hope that I have answered the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). This seeks to enshrine in the Bill some of the assurances that I provided in my remarks last week in respect of people who are exploited in the UK. However, for the reason that I have just described, we think that that is better done through statutory guidance. In fact, it would be impractical, if not impossible, to do it through the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I hope that that is not borne out. It is worth remembering that we will not remove anyone to a country in which they would be endangered. We would be removing that person either back to their home country, if we consider it safe to do so, usually because the country is an ECAT signatory and has provisions in place, or to a safe third country such as Rwanda, where once again we will have put in place significant provisions to support the individual. I hope that that provides those individuals with the confidence to come forward and work with law enforcement to bring the traffickers to book.

[Vicky Ford]

I am particularly interested in the arrival of unaccompanied children in this country, because obviously the Minister has tightened up the eight-day period for them on exit. I believe that he just agreed with me that the standards for age-appropriate accommodation in detention centres need to be updated to look more like those for children’s homes. Is he prepared to concede that no unaccompanied child should be put in such a detention centre until that update of the rules has been undertaken?

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand the point that my right hon. Friend makes, but I am not sure that that is necessary, because the Detention Centre Rules 2001 are very explicit in the high standards expected. They set the overall standard, and underlying them will no doubt be further guidance and support for individuals who are working within the system. If there is work to be done on the latter point, we should do that and take account of her views and those of others who are expert in this field, but the Detention Centre Rules are very explicit in setting high overarching standards for this form of accommodation. That is exactly what we would seek to live up to; in fact, it would be unlawful if the Government did not.

[Vicky Ford]

In a children’s home, we would expect there to be the right to access a social worker and advocacy, and for the child to have the care that they particularly need. We would expect Ofsted to oversee that, not prison inspectors.

[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.