Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 28th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I think the argument for Amendment 5 was won in Committee and need not be rehearsed at great length now. In my view there is no doubt that if we pass the Bill, what will follow will be a series of breaches of conventions, in particular the 1951 refugee convention. That is not just my view. It is also UNHCR’s view, formally and on the record.

When this point was put to him on our first day in Committee, the Minister said that UNHCR

“is not charged with the interpretation of the refugee convention”.—[Official Report, 24/5/23; col. 968.]

That is not true. Article 35 and the preamble to the refugee convention give UNHCR the task of supervising its implementation. We are required as convention contracted parties to submit our legislation to UNHCR. It has commented on this legislation and believes it would lead to breaches of the convention. That is why you can sum up the argument in three words: pacta sunt servanda. If we purport to believe in the rules-based international system, we cannot pass the Bill in this form. We must support Amendment 5. If the Government believe what they say, they can support Amendment 5 too.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, we were given an admirable example by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, in her brevity at the beginning. I have to apologise to the House that, because I am looking after a sick wife, I will not be here as late as I would like to be. But this is a fundamental amendment in the Bill, and to violate international law is to invalidate national law. We should all bear that in mind. We often talk of China and the violation of the agreement that we made when Hong Kong was handed over. How can we continue to do that with sincerity and determination if we pass laws in this place that violate international law?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, we have heard several times in the course of debates on the Bill that this is the will of the British people. I can assure the noble Lord sitting opposite that, if he steps outside the right-wing media, he will see that it is not. They have already been quite shocked by the egregious and often law-breaking behaviour of this Government, so now the only decent thing this Government can do is accept Amendment 5 and say that they will not break more laws. This is a reasonable request from, apparently, the whole House. I urge the Government to accept this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, as well as moving Amendment 12 in relation to modern slavery, I will speak to my other amendments relating to Clauses 4 and 21. I am most grateful to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for their support.

I am not going to repeat the extensive arguments from two long debates that we had in Committee, save to say that modern slavery is a brutal crime that involves sophisticated criminal networks buying and selling people for profit. Victims of this appalling crime may be forced to enter the UK illegally, having been coerced, deceived, forced against their will, their identity and decision-making powers stripped away. The problem with this Bill, if it is left unamended, is that it will completely undermine the Modern Slavery Act and see victims punished for crimes committed by their perpetrators, deported or held in detention centres, exacerbating pre-existing trauma.

The noble Lord, Lord Clarke, is no longer in his place, but I listened with great interest to his contribution, and I would say to him, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, that the deterrent effect that this Bill is meant to have is completely unproven. I certainly do not think that the answer is to break international treaties, nor do I think the answer is to undermine so drastically the Modern Slavery Act. Nor does it seem to me sensible to preside over the current chaos of the asylum system. I agree with the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy and Lady Altmann, that in the end there is no substitute for international collaboration and agreement, there is no substitute for effective measures to tackle people smugglers instead of their victims and there is no substitute for proper investment in a fast and efficient system for processing asylum claims.

Under the provisions in the Bill, where a protection claim or a human rights claim falls within Clause 4(5), it will be declared as inadmissible by the Secretary of State and will not be considered in the UK. Clause 21 extends the provision to individuals even where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the individual is a victim of trafficking and removes the modern slavery provisions providing such victims with protection. So the Bill will do nothing to break the cycle of exploitation or help people break free of modern slavery.

In Committee, one of the Minister’s responses was to claim that the modern slavery national referral mechanism process

“affords opportunities for those who enter the UK unlawfully to frustrate their removal”.—[Official Report, 5/6/23; col. 1199.]

Where is the evidence? We know that, under NRM referrals last year, 90% of the competent authorities’ decisions were positive decisions—in other words that there were reasonable grounds that someone was a victim of trafficking and modern slavery—and 91% of conclusive grounds decisions were similarly positive. As my noble friend Lord Coaker said in Committee, the

“first responders are verified by the Home Office, and Home Office officials then make a reasonable grounds decision or not. A conclusive grounds decision is then made or not. It is Home Office officials who decide”.—[Official Report, 12/6/23; col. 1674.]

Is the Minister essentially saying that he is disowning his own system over which he as a Minister and his colleagues preside?

We have not discussed the impact assessment as yet, and perhaps it is not really worth discussing, but on page 2 it says starkly that a non-monetised benefit of the Bill will be

“reduced pressure on Modern Slavery National Referral Mechanism processes”.

Indeed, and that pressure is reduced even more by just getting rid of the Modern Slavery Act entirely. I will quote, as I did yesterday, what Theresa May said, in the Second Reading debate in the Commons on this Bill:

“The Home Office knows that the Bill means that genuine victims of modern slavery will be denied support.”—[Official Report, Commons, 13/3/23; col. 593.]


My amendments first seek to remove from Clause 4 the inclusion of a claim to be a victim of slavery or a victim of human trafficking from provision under which the Secretary of State must declare the claim inadmissible. My amendments to Clause 21, which are consequential, seek to restore current protections of victims of trafficking and modern slavery.

Like many noble Lords, I was very proud and very supportive of the Government when the Modern Slavery Act was taken through Parliament. This Bill undermines that Act completely. The Minister has not come up with one substantive piece of evidence to suggest that there is a fault in the actual system contained in that legislation. Unamended, this Bill is a completely untried and untested proposal, but it will undoubtedly strengthen the hands of the trafficking networks. Traffickers know; they keep people under control with threats that they will not receive help if they reach out to the authorities. We really must remove this provision. I beg to move.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, my name is on this amendment and the others that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, has tabled. He, like the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has given us an admirable example of brevity, and I do not think one needs to repeat what was said in Committee.

As somebody who wrote a biography of William Wilberforce, my parliamentary hero, in 1983 to mark the 150th anniversary of his death and the abolition of slavery, I was particularly proud when it was a Conservative Home Secretary who took through the other place the Modern Slavery Act. I was very glad indeed to be able to give that support. It was in the very best cross-party spirit of your Lordships’ House, and we all of us are genuinely proud—I particularly that it was a Conservative achievement but with support from friends and colleagues in all parts. This Bill before us is going to undermine an international achievement of far-reaching importance. To quote another famous Conservative, this is something up with which we should not put.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I have also put my name to most of these amendments. I agree with every word that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has said, and I do not propose to say anything more about them, this being Report. I just want to make two extra points.

As noble Lords know, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and I got back from Warsaw today. I was chairing 14 countries discussing how Ukraine could be helped against exploitation and modern slavery. I had to deal with questions from so many other countries among the 14 as to what on earth the United Kingdom was doing in the Illegal Migration Bill. To my shame—and I admit that I was ashamed of what is happening— I could not for one moment support the Bill to those MPs from other countries; because this was a parliamentary meeting, everyone was an MP. It was really very distressing for me to stand up unable to support my own country.

The other point is that not only will victims not leave traffickers—the traffickers will say, with perfect truth, “Either you stay with us or you go to Rwanda. Which is worse? We suggest you stay with us”—but it will have a marked effect on prosecutions. There are already far too few prosecutions, and I think the impact on prosecutions of perpetrators and the extent to which modern slavery will increase over the years as a result of this Bill will be enormous.