Nationality and Borders Bill

Viscount Brookeborough Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 10th February 2022 Lords Chamber

In summary, I believe that these measures have not been properly thought through, and I urge the Government to think again and accept these amendments.

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie. I had not necessarily thought about saying anything, but she mentioned me in her speech. First, I declare an interest in that we are involved in tourism at home. Secondly, my brother is chairman of Tourism Ireland, a cross-border body that survives on funds from both the United Kingdom and Ireland to market the island of Ireland. Therefore, this particular regulation would make a complete fool of the whole practical implementation of it.

People ought to understand what the border really is—or, in fact, what it is not. We have come through all the Troubles. Before them, we had a border and we had to have certain papers to cross it. Then we all joined the European Union and that side was taken out of it. But then we had the Troubles so, in effect, the border was reinstated, albeit for a different reason. We do not have those border checks now; there is no border under the Good Friday agreement and everything since, including the protocol. That is the way it should be. Whether the noble Baroness and I are supporters of the protocol is neither here nor there; it is about the practical problems raised by this.

Whether tourists from another country cross the border, and who polices this, is of course an issue. In fact, they will not know whether they are crossing it, so it becomes rather ridiculous—on the whole, they do not have a clue. During the Troubles, there was a time when even our own British people—soldiers and police—did not know whether they were crossing it, so they used to draw yellow lines on it so that they knew when they were. A certain part of the population moved the yellow lines, so they still did not know where they were and then there were diplomatic incidents.

I live in County Fermanagh, which is one-third of the border in Northern Ireland. The border does not just affect it in terms of regulations—people cross it not just from day to day but time and time again in one direction or another to do very simple things. I know that you can use euros here if you are pushed, but every shop and business there uses euros and pounds. Therefore, half the time, no one has a clue whether they are in the north or the south, even when they walk into a shop. All the people working there, and of course the ones who are straightforward British or Irish, are not covered by this.

However, a wealth of people who are not British or Irish live and work within a few miles of the border and they do not think twice about it. If you cannot get a plumber very locally—we might get one from further afield anyway—you just ring up the nearest person. We are five miles from the border and he could well be from either side of it, and he might not be an Irish or British citizen.

I entirely support this amendment. I know that what I have said is not technical and I can only be very grateful to the noble Baroness, as we all can, for going into it in such detail because there is very little for us to say, except for the Government to sort it out.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and spoken to by other noble Lords. I was grateful, too, to have been briefed by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. I did not need to be convinced of the importance of local journeys for work, education, health services, shopping, frontier workers and so on. I was lucky enough to be a member of the EU Select Committee of the House during the transition period, when we heard direct from people living and working in Northern Ireland about the concerns which the amendments in this group address.

I want to speak particularly to Amendment 175ZA. The points raised in it apply more widely than to the Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland border. I certainly do not want to suggest that there is greater concern about criminals in the Republic than at other borders. I am not quite sure why these proposals come to be in the same group but I understand why there is a concern to get through the remaining amendments. The point is relevant to the border and there is a practical problem, as the noble Viscount just said.

My noble friend Lord Paddick is concerned about checks on the criminal record of an individual, now that we are no longer a member of the EU or have access to SIS II or ECRIS. We have to fall back on the Interpol database, which requires specific uploading of information and is not integrated with our police national computer or with member states’ national systems.

The report of the EU Security and Justice sub-committee on post-Brexit arrangements in that area is due to be debated on 25 February. I know that the Minister will deal with the points in the report then. I was going to say that I was sorry to see she does not get that Friday off, but it is never off for a Minister, is it? The points in it are relevant to Northern Ireland.

My noble friend Lord Oates has Amendment 180, which is not in this group, on physical proof of status. This amendment relates to the points that I know he will make and asks the very pertinent question: what happens when the digital system malfunctions? I am normally a glass-half-full person but that is pertinent to everyone, especially at this land border.

I noted, and think it deserves to be mentioned here, that the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House has reported in the following terms:

“The House may question why the detail of the Electronic Travel Authorisation scheme introduced under clause 71 is not set out in the Bill.”


It is because the scheme has not been worked up—at any rate not to completion, as I understand it. The report continues:

“If it is appropriate to make such provision in immigration rules, the House may expect it to be subject to a form of affirmative procedure, at least for the establishment of the scheme.”


The committee is saying much more delicately what I said the other day: we should not be expected to deal with criminal offences, as it was that day, arising from the scheme when we do not know what the scheme is. That also applies here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that intervention. I am going to come on to a number of those points subsequently. In terms of cost, I am told it will be competitive with international norms. I have just referred to the ESTA programme in the States. I looked that up this morning in anticipation of this, and it is currently $14, so it is not overwhelming. In terms of the enforcement, which I think is at the heart of the matter, I will come to that in a second if I may.

There will be no controls whatever on the Northern Ireland land border. Individuals will be able to continue to pass through border control at first point of entry to the common travel area. As is currently the case, individuals arriving in the UK, including those crossing the land border into Northern Ireland, will need to continue to enter in line with the UK’s immigration framework. Obviously, that includes the ETA.

Many noble Lords, including the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, have asked about the impact on tourism. The Government acknowledge that a clear communication strategy is obviously going to be key to tackling any misunderstanding about the requirements to travel to Northern Ireland. We are planning to work across government, utilising internal and external stakeholders and a variety of communication channels to ensure that the ETA requirement is communicated very clearly.

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

Can I just make one point? Northern Ireland is the size of Yorkshire. What the Minister is really stating is that somebody who goes on holiday to Yorkshire must not go to a neighbouring county for any reason without complying with this regulation. I am terribly sorry, but this is complete and utter rubbish. It is nonsensical and it is not going to work. What do people do if they go touring in Yorkshire? They tour outside it. If tourists go to Ireland, why should they not simply tour Ireland? No amount of communication will do—I am very sorry—and there is nobody to police it. What the Government are talking about is simply unworkable and disastrous.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Viscount—sort of. There will be no hard border. As I said, there is not going to be a hard border in Northern Ireland, and within the CTA there is effectively no change.

In answer to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, about enforcement, which was brought up subsequently as well, I have said it three or four times now: there will be no routine border controls on journeys from within the common travel area, which goes some way to answering the Yorkshire example. There will be none at all on the land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Everyone entering the UK, regardless of where they enter from—again, as I have said—is required to meet the UK’s immigration framework. In answer to “What’s the point of having it, then?”, anyone entering the UK without an ETA, or any form of immigration permission where required, will be entering illegally and may be subject to enforcement if encountered during intelligence-led operational activity.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Viscount Brookeborough Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, I will keep my remarks brief as the case for this amendment has been made so very powerfully this evening by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie.

When we debated this amendment in Committee, I raised several areas of concern regarding these proposals for the ETA requirements. In his response, the Minister confirmed that these proposals would not result in any kind of checks on the Irish land border, which is very much to be welcomed. But as the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, said, it remains far from clear how these ETAs will be enforced in practice. In the many thousands of border crossings that take place every day for work, leisure, family or educational purposes, there is currently no expectation or need to carry a passport. Given the very special circumstances of the land border on the island of Ireland, and further to his responses in Committee, I ask the Minister to expand this evening on how this scheme will work in practice.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, I remain concerned about the potential impact of these proposals on the Northern Ireland tourist industry. Does the Minister accept that these proposals may deter international visitors who have flown into the Republic of Ireland from visiting Northern Ireland during their stay because of the additional financial and bureaucratic requirements that they will entail? Have the Government carried out an impact assessment of the effect of these measures on the Northern Ireland tourist industry? I hope the Minister can respond to this this evening, as he did not when I asked the same question in Committee.

Given the special circumstances and potential negative impact of these proposals on Northern Ireland and Ireland, I believe they have not been properly thought through. I therefore urge the Government to think again and accept this amendment.

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. At this late hour I will not go into everything I said in Committee, but I live on the border and see it every day. I deal with and know people who cross the border every day. I know of many people who do not have Irish or British passports. They are not citizens of either country. Many of them are eastern Europeans who have remained and who work on both sides of the border, sometimes at the same time.

We heard about healthcare from the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie. The whole healthcare drive has been an all-Ireland drive to provide services of the best quality in Ireland. Your Lordships will be well aware in GB that, because of the land mass, it is sometimes better to have centres of excellence. There are therefore health staff and, just as in Great Britain, many of them are not British—and we are now trying to inhibit their crossing the border.

Before I go any further and talk about other areas, I must declare my interests in that, first, I am involved in tourism and, secondly, my brother is chairman of the organisation mentioned, Tourism Ireland. Nobody has lobbied me on this at all, not even him. When I rang him about it, he was not quite able to give me the figures I wanted, so this is not an “I’m telling you what I’ve been told” scenario at all.

I want to look at what the Minister said in reply, because we have heard that a lot of it was perhaps slightly muddled. I think it is worse than that. It was contradictory. First, in talking about the costs in tourism the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, ventured to say:

“I looked that up this morning in anticipation of this, and it is currently $14”,


so to him it was “not overwhelming”. People will be well aware that air passenger duty has been a bone of contention in this country and in Ireland, especially because in the Republic it was always lower than in the United Kingdom. I am aware that the Chancellor announced that because of the stress on tourism, he was going to lower it for internal travel throughout the United Kingdom but also, I believe, that it would be devolved to Northern Ireland for international travel.

If the Government attach so much importance to that and consider it significant—I think it was being lowered from something like £10 or £12 to £6 or £7—why did the Minister tell us that this is not significant? Is it or is it not? If it is not, why did they change it? I will tell the House why. In effect, the Government have just resurrected it by doubling it in order to bring this measure in. So, it does matter, which is not what the Minister said.

I then looked at the next paragraph. The Minister said:

“There will be no controls whatever on the Northern Ireland land border. Individuals will be able to continue to pass through border control at first point of entry to the common travel area.”


In many cases, the first point of entry is in the Republic of Ireland, so is the Republic going to administer this visa? I suggest that it will not, so this does not tie up.

Next, the Minister said the following:

“As is currently the case, individuals arriving in the UK, including those crossing the land border into Northern Ireland”.


I hesitate to say this, and correct me if I am wrong, as the Minister may have walked up and down our border many times without my noticing it, but I suggest that he would not have a clue where the border was. That is not me laughing at this. He would not have a clue, as there are no markings on the road. He might stop at a shop on either side, which takes euros or pounds. There is nothing else, but I will give him a lead: the telephone boxes in the Republic are yellow. If you see one of those, you know you have “crossed the border”. However, there is no border, so who are these visas for? It is absolutely clear that there is nobody to inspect them, so what are the Government going to do?

The Minister also said that the Government are going to use

“a variety of communication channels”.—[Official Report, 10/2/22; col. 1935.]

Excuse me, but it is almost laughable to say there would be communication in the Republic of Ireland to tell people that they cannot come north and vice versa if they do not have Irish passports.

I am sorry, but the reason for having legislation is to enforce it. This provision is not unenforceable because people refuse to have it enforced, but because it is totally unenforceable under those circumstances. This amendment is therefore not that logical—I think it is getting them out of a hole, but the Government are not prepared to look at the hole they are in. This may not be the most vital thing in the world, even if it is to us; it is a tiny thing.

The noble Baroness also mentioned the protocol. I am not talking about the protocol, because clearly, the Government have not used it as the excuse for not doing this. This is therefore basically outside the protocol, which has no bearing.

However, on the protocol, we all know, and we agree with them, that the Government put in place an incredibly bad arrangement, depending on which way you look at it. They are trying to alleviate it on the one hand, and they have brought out something to dump on top of it on the other. We have a saying in Lough Erne in Fermanagh: “I didn’t come up Lough Erne in a bubble.” It looks as if the Government did, because it seriously is unworkable.

That is all I am going to say, except perhaps ask the Minister to define the hard border. He says in his script: “There is no hard border; there is no hard border; there will never be a hard border.” What is a hard border? I do not know what the definition is, but it is where documents are checked or people have to stop. He is absolutely right that there is no hard border. Therefore, there is no border to make these checks. I suggest that the Government agree to this amendment.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I appeal to the Minister, especially as I hope he has received some expert advice from his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Caine, who, as a Northern Ireland Minister, is respected on all sides of the House. He knows his stuff, and that is a big plus. The noble Viscount has explained in practical detail why it is essential either to accept this amendment or to withdraw the provision and come back at Third Reading without it. My noble friend Lady Ritchie has underlined that with an eloquent speech, which I really hope the Minister has listened to carefully.

This is not a party issue or an Opposition versus Government issue; this is a Northern Ireland issue. I worry that in the construction of this Bill and this particular provision, Ministers have been thinking about everybody except Northern Ireland. That, I am afraid, is far too often the case. Their whole approach to Brexit has neglected Northern Ireland and deeply offended unionists for reasons I completely understand, including the former Government supporters who kept the Conservatives in power for a couple of years—the DUP. In Whitehall, there seems to be a default position in which Northern Ireland does not register when Bills are framed. I am afraid this is a very good example.

May I underline the points of my noble friend Lady Ritchie and the noble Viscount, made with a great deal of practical advice, about the operation across the border? The border, in everyday life for those who live either side, does not exist. People cross the border all the time and work, receive healthcare, get blood transfusions and receive educational opportunities and provision from either jurisdiction. I could go on, but time is short. It is terribly important to keep momentum going following the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, knowing that is the case. These unhappy residents, who are entitled to all these provisions by their residency rather than their nationality—they may be Polish, Lithuanian or all sorts of nationalities—and who provide essential services to people on both sides of the island of Ireland could be caught by this. This is a practical issue.

As surveys have shown, most Northern Ireland tourists who leave Northern Ireland to go to Europe, America or the rest of the world go via Dublin. Equally, most incoming tourists to Northern Ireland come via Dublin. If, in addition to the other issues involved, they will have to pay a fee—nominal, you may argue, but it is an additional hurdle—to benefit from Northern Ireland’s beauty and opportunities and bring much-needed income to Northern Ireland, especially to businesses suffering from an absence of tourists because of Covid, this is really damaging.

Can I also bring to the Minister’s attention the proposal, with cross-party support, to have Rally Ireland, which crosses the border, in the international FIA calendar for the world rally championships? The proposal put this year did not succeed but it is being strongly and widely backed for next year. This will affect Rally Ireland and the practical implications have not been thought through.

I refer to the detailed 1,000-word letter of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, who is chair of the Lords protocol committee, on which I sit, along with my noble friend Lady Ritchie. I have it in front of me, but I will not read it out this evening because the hour is late. It asks all sorts of questions about the reply from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, to the series of questions that our committee asked. I am afraid that, given her normal standards, it was a very unsatisfactory reply, which reinforces my concern that Northern Ireland has not really been thought of.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Viscount Brookeborough Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Motion T1 in the name of my noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen. As has already been explained, this amendment, in previous guises, was discussed in Committee and on Report. On those occasions, your Lordships’ House considered it a valuable amendment and that the Government, via the Ministers in the Home Office, working with the Northern Ireland Office, should see that this electronic travel authorisation does not take place. I have talked to many people and, as my noble friend has said, the requirement is unworkable and daft. I wish to give practical examples of that. It is also unenforceable. It would violate the very premise of reconciliation and bringing people together on the island of Ireland in terms of the Good Friday agreement. It would jeopardise important parts of strand 2, the north-south requirements. All this, in many ways, is simply a consequence of Brexit.

Our amendment says that those who are legally resident in the Republic of Ireland who have come from EU and other countries in the last year or so should be exempt from requiring an electronic travel authorisation if they wish to travel from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland.

From a practical point of view, I have asked the Minister to consider the geography, because I believe the Home Office has not fully considered that. Let us take the county borders of Donegal and Tyrone, Donegal and Derry, and Donegal and Fermanagh. There is one village that straddles Donegal and Fermanagh, the small village of Pettigo. That border goes straight down the middle of it. One minute you could be in the Republic of Ireland and the next you could be in Northern Ireland. There is the case of Lifford in County Donegal and Strabane. There is a direct, symbiotic relationship between those towns, as they exist cheek by jowl. You can walk over the bridge from one to the other. The symbiotic friend of Belcoo in County Fermanagh is Blacklion in County Cavan. They exist cheek by jowl. In terms of the geography we are talking about, this proposal from the Government is unworkable and unenforceable.

I ask the Minister—and I say this to the Government in the most sincere terms—to please continue direct negotiations on the issue with the Irish Government, who are deeply fearful of the repercussions of this proposal for an electronic travel authorisation. They believe that it is unworkable and that it will impede tourism—an issue I am sure that other noble Lords will deal with. In that respect, the Minister referred to work with Tourism Ireland and Tourism Northern Ireland. I ask the Minister: what discussions took place with those bodies and what were the results of those discussions?

Apart from, I feel, being in breach of strand 2 of the Good Friday Agreement—and in breach of natural common sense—I say that a proposal for an ETA is not only inconvenient but disruptive, unworkable and unenforceable. Can the Minister tell us when the Government envisage introducing the secondary regulations in relation to the charging? I firmly believe that these are not required. I urge the Government to accept our reasonable amendment, which states that if the individual is legally resident in the Republic of Ireland, that should act as a reasonable exemption.

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support Motion T1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. Because this is something which has been brought in, one must look at what the current situation is. The current situation is that it is an open border, and we have heard that there will be no one on it. Even before Brexit, the situation was that we had border officers at the airports and ports because of terrorism, drugs, human trafficking and whatever else. Those people are still there—so, in effect, what is this ETA actually going change? It is not going to put anyone on the border. We have already heard about people working either side of the border.

I declare interests in running a small tourism operation and because my brother is chairman of Tourism Ireland. I have not discussed this matter with him. He is perfectly aware of my feelings on it. However, the Minister rather brushed over consulting Tourism Ireland, Tourism Northern Ireland and the Government of Ireland—as if these discussions were going well. I have not spoken directly to people involved but it is my impression that these discussions are not going well. These two organisations and the Government of Ireland are entirely against this. They are against this in relation to the movement of people day by day doing everyday things. They are also against it from a tourism point of view.

A couple of years ago, the Government accepted that the passenger duty for airline passengers was an inhibiting factor, preventing airlines travelling to Northern Ireland because it was less in Dublin. They obviously accepted that it was an inhibiting factor because they dropped it and made it roughly equal—this was largely for tourists. So what are they proposing now? Putting on more than half of it to any tourist who wants to enter Northern Ireland. I ask the Minister for her honest opinion: if a £13 or £14 passenger duty inhibited people arriving in Northern Ireland, what is half of that—£6.50, plus apparently £10 or £12—going to do? Does she see this as an encouragement, or as something which will inhibit people coming north?

The Minister says that interested parties will be told—which must include travel agents and so on—in order to get people to put in for this. What will happen when somebody decides to come to Ireland as an island, and their travel agent says they will have to fill in an electronic form and pay extra money to go north, even if they want to come for a few hours? This is why I like the first amendment—because it talks about short periods of time. Noble Lords may not necessarily think that Northern Ireland is a holiday destination, but I can assure them that a lot of people do. In particular, the Titanic exhibition was voted the world’s leading tourist attraction a few years ago.

Those who have watched “Game of Thrones”—and I have not—will know that the world was hooked. Warner Brothers has invested millions of pounds in what is going to be an iconic visiting centre for “Game of Thrones” in Northern Ireland, and it is not all that far from the border. But what is going to happen? What does the Minister really think tourists are going to feel when they come to the island of Ireland and find a barrier? Some of us are pretty bad with IT anyway, and it is already difficult enough to do the filling in. Additionally, if this form is as light a touch as the Minister says, what possible checking can there be in it? Anybody can fill it in anyway. It is crazy to think that that will stop anyone.

We were talking just now about crossing the border; I will stop after this. Not only are Belcoo and Blacklion on opposite sides of the bridge, but we have in Fermanagh something that noble Lords probably do not know about: Concession Road, which runs between two Republic towns, Cavan and Clones, into the north and then back into the south. That is fact. If you had been on patrol at night during the Troubles, you would have known all about it. It caused immense problems, because Garda patrols were not allowed up that bit of road; we were allowed up it, but we had to cross a bog to get to it. The police could not get to it, because they did not particularly like bogs; they liked nice carts and whatever.

This is really unbelievable. The duty of government, surely, is to make laws not for filling pages of A4 but for something that can be implemented. Surely, it is a duty of government not to make laws that are entirely unenforceable.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise extremely briefly, my noble friend having done the praising the Government part, to offer Green support to the other, non-government amendments in this group. We have heard very powerful practical examples on Motion T1. On Motion M1, the argument that someone acting in good faith should not face a court case, particularly in a life or death matter, is obvious.

I will focus briefly on Motion B1 on the deprivation of citizenship. Commons amendments have tightened the conditions under which citizenship can be removed without notice and improved the judicial oversight. The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, is seeking to do that further with this. She said she was not against the principle of deprivation orders so I must lay out, very simply and clearly, that the Green Party is totally against the deprivation of the right of citizenship; citizenship should be a right that, once granted, remains. I must declare an interest here, because I am one of over six million people who are potentially affected by this deprivation of the citizenship right because, as anyone who hears me speak will know, I hold another citizenship. Many other people feel like second-class citizens in their own country, because they are; that right can be taken away as it cannot be from other people. All I can do is apologise to all those people that we have failed to get a parliamentary consensus for this and say we are going to keep trying.