Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

The Government have today introduced the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill in the House of Commons.

Border security is fundamental to both national and economic security. Threats to the UK from serious and organised crime, including organised immigration crime, and from terrorism and hostile state actors are rapidly evolving. The first duty of a Government is to protect their citizens, and to not only keep up with but stay ahead of these threats. This requires a whole of state and legislative response.

The international and cross-border nature of these threats and challenges means that border security is an essential part of keeping our country safe. This is why strengthening our border security is one of the foundations of the Government plan for change.

Small boat crossings put these threats and challenges into sharp relief, they undermine our border security and put lives at risk. Organised by criminal smuggler and trafficking gangs, they are extremely dangerous with 78 reported deaths at sea last year, with people crowded into flimsy dinghies. Over the last six years, criminal gangs have been allowed to build a network of illegal and dangerous smuggling operations, taking hold along our border and across the continent, involving illegal supply chains, logistics, false advertising and illicit finance, underpinned by serious violence and exploitation.

The establishment of the Border Security Command in July 2024 spearheads the significant shift in strategy that this Government are taking, adopting a transformative approach to deliver stronger border security through strong leadership, effective partnerships and a long-term vision. Its initial focus is on dismantling smuggling networks, but its broader aims are to enable smarter, faster and more effective interventions across the entire system to strengthen the UK border.

Introduced today, the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill delivers on the manifesto commitment to provide law enforcement with the powers it needs to protect the integrity of the UK border, including earlier intervention to detect, prevent and prosecute people smugglers, thereby disrupting their ability to carry out small boat crossings.

The measures, which have the strong support of law enforcement agencies like the National Crime Agency, Immigration Enforcement and police, include:

Placing the Border Security Command on a statutory footing

The Bill places the Border Security Command on to a statutory footing so that the commander has the authority to be an effective system leader, cohering and driving cross-Government systems to improve the collective response to cross border threats. This will give the commander the power they need to drive changes across different agencies and departments, and to be able to work internationally as we draw up new agreements with neighbouring, transit and upstream countries to tackle organised immigration crime and to co-operate on strengthening border security.

New and enhanced powers to strengthen border security, including new powers and offences

The Bill sets out new, transformative measures to provide law enforcement agencies with stronger powers to pursue, disrupt and deter organised immigration crime, including:

Creating new offences for supplying, offering to supply or handling items suspected of being for use in immigration crime, for example the buying, selling and transporting of small boat parts, as well as for the possession and supply of articles for use in serious crime.

Creating a new preparatory acts offence for collecting information to be used by organised immigration criminals to prepare for boat crossings. This includes arranging departure points, dates and times, with clear links back to the gangs facilitating the dangerous crossings.

Creating new powers to enable the search for and the seizure of electronic devices to identify links with organised immigration crime. This will enable the review of any information relevant to facilitation offences and to gather intelligence linked to smuggler and trafficking gangs.

The Bill makes it an offence to endanger another life at sea, to act as a deterrent to boat overcrowding and reduce further tragic loss of life among those making the perilous channel crossings. Those involved in physical aggression, intimidation or coercive behaviour, including preventing offers of rescue while at sea, will face prosecution. This stricter law sends a clear message that we are ready to take action against all those who are complicit in fatalities in the channel.

The Bill introduces new interim serious crime prevention orders to place severe curbs and restrictions on people involved in activities related to organised immigration crime, before they are arrested, ensuring that court delays do not mean a gap in our agencies taking action. Alongside this, two new criminal offences have been introduced which criminalise the making, adapting, importing, suppling, offering to supply and possession of a specified list of articles for use in serious crime.

The Bill also amends the counter-terrorism port powers to allow the police to take DNA samples and fingerprints at a port in Scotland, strengthening border security by bringing Scotland into alignment with the position across the rest of the UK.

Expanded data-sharing capabilities to assist in the development of the intelligence picture of organised immigration crime

The Bill strengthens information sharing which will allow law enforcement to access Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency data on UK registered trailers in real time, enhancing the detection of illegal entrants via lorry both in the UK and upstream.

A new, simplified and clearer provision for HMRC to share certain entire datasets it holds for custom functions with the Home Office and other Government Departments will be introduced, subject to data protection legislation. This will enable the identification of suspicious patterns, activity, or intelligence that would not be apparent if each dataset was considered in isolation.

Measures to support and strengthen the asylum and immigration system

Among other measures to support and strengthen the asylum and immigration system, the Bill repeals the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, delivering on the manifesto commitment to end the migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda which cost the taxpayer £700 million and sent four volunteers to Rwanda. The Government will be withdrawing separately from the UK-Rwanda treaty that underpinned that partnership.

The Bill also removes from the statute unworkable and counterproductive provisions from the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which allowed people to enter the asylum system but prevented asylum decision making, increased the backlog and put impossible pressure on asylum accommodation, driving up hotel use and costs. Many of those provisions were never enacted exactly because they were not workable.

Other measures in the Bill which seek to support the asylum and immigration system include introducing greater flexibility when taking biometric information, extending the trained cohort of those who can do so and creating a new power to take biometrics from foreign nationals outside of a visa process. The Bill also supports the disruption of professional enablers of abuse by amending governance structures to ensure the Immigration Services Commissioner can be an effective and more flexible regulator of immigration advice. Amendments to detention powers and creating the retrospective legal basis for fees to be collected in relation to the recognition of qualifications obtained overseas also work towards bolstering the immigration system.

Next steps

The Government are determined to strengthen UK border security and to tackle organised immigration crime. For too long the individuals behind this nefarious trade have been allowed to go unchecked. This legislation gives our law enforcement stronger tools than ever before to dismantle the gangs and provides the structure within which the full weight of the border security system can be brought to bear. These powers, alongside our work to ramp up returns, deportations, illegal working visits and action with the international community, transform the response to these threats and enable the step change needed.

[HCWS406]