Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests, and I am supported by the RAMP organisation. I am minded to think of the title of that great film, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”; I am afraid that these proposals have all three within them. I will go through some of those.
Starting with the positive, we support the Government’s intent to bring order in the asylum system, and we welcome the announcement of new, capped, safe and legal routes for refugees. These pathways, with security checks and controls, are the correct way to fulfil the UK’s responsibility to those in need. Confirmation that the Government will not leave the European Convention on Human Rights is welcome, as is the recognition that early legal advice should be a core part of the appeal system.
Moving on to the bad, or impractical, the argument that asylum seekers should contribute is undermined when they are denied the means to earn their way. Denmark allows asylum seekers to work after six months. Why are the Government persisting in stopping asylum seekers from working when there is no evidence that this is a pull factor? We question the assumption of the UK as a magnet, given that we receive far fewer asylum seekers per capita than our European neighbours. Home Office analysis itself found that asylum seekers have little to no understanding of welfare policies before arrival. Shared language, diaspora communities and perhaps even colonial connections are the primary drivers for asylum seekers taking irregular routes to the UK. Can the UK Government provide evidence, rather than simple assertion, on this matter?
Revoking the duty to support risks creating more destitution and pushing more asylum seekers towards illegal working and exploitation. What assessment has been made of this risk? What action are the Government taking to avoid passing the financial strain onto already struggling local authorities? The use of immoderate language is also unhelpful and risks stoking division. Why do the Government feel the need to create a whole new asylum appeals structure? Why not simply expand the existing system?
The most severe criticisms target the core protection model and its administrative fallout. Core protection requires a status review every 30 months and delays permanent settlement for 20 years, which in our view is unnecessary and cruel. This prolonged state of instability will inhibit successful integration by making it difficult for refugees to secure tenancies, employment or higher education. The Home Office is currently struggling with a backlog, yet this policy would impose what has been called bureaucratic madness, requiring a huge increase in capacity to review the status of an estimated 1.45 million people by the end of 2035, potentially costing £872 million. Do the Government accept these figures or have they alternative ones to offer?
Scrapping the refugee family reunion route pushes children and spouses into the hands of smugglers, directly contradicting the goal of safe migration. Has this risk been assessed? How will the long-term separation from family impact refugees’ ability to contribute and reduce their reliance on state support? Will the Government be detaining and deporting children who were once accepted as refugees but will subsequently not be when their home country is deemed safe?
Given that Denmark’s temporary protection scheme clearly failed to result in returns for Syrians, how do the Government justify the massive cost and profound uncertainty imposed by the UK version? What is the timescale for these changes? When will they be implemented and what method will be used to implement them?
Finally, do the Government agree with the report in the i newspaper that deportations will be retrospective? It says:
“It means that, if a refugee has not already been granted indefinite right to remain before the Home Secretary’s new legislation comes into force, they will be deported if their home country is subsequently deemed safe by the Government”.
I look forward to the Government’s response to these questions.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, and I will try to answer his questions first of all. I am grateful for the welcome he gave to some of the Government’s proposals. I remind him that the reason we are undertaking these reforms is that we have inherited a very broken system: a system that has been in operation for 14 years, where the number of asylum claims has risen, where the backlog has grown and where the deportations have not existed where they are rightfully proposed to exist. We have a duty, on behalf of the British people, to take some difficult decisions to sort this out.
The noble Lord mentioned that the border security Bill, which has completed its passage bar one Commons amendment, has not been effective. Let me remind him that we have introduced a border security commander, who has negotiated deals with France, negotiated deals with Iraq, negotiated deals with the Germans and has been put on a legal footing by this Bill. We have put extra measures in place to support penalties for people smugglers, which will now, once Royal Assent is achieved, allow us to take some further deterrent actions against people smugglers to end that vile trade. We have put in place mechanisms to stop the manufacture and use of boats, to seize engines and to do other things which will take effect once Royal Assent is agreed. I do not, therefore, accept his contention first and foremost that the border security Bill, about which we have had many hours of discussion, is pointless.
I have to say to him, however, that the Government have to keep these issues under review because it is self-evidently a broken system, which is why we put in place additional people to speed up the backlog. The measures before the House today, outlined in the Statement, will be brought forward in legislation, subject to consultation. We will also look at a range of other measures we need to take to fix the system we have inherited from the noble Lord and his political party. He may not like that—I do not want to politicise that: I want his support for this—but we have had to take those steps because of where we are, and I think that is reasonable.
The support he has given for some of those steps is particularly good. He mentioned, for example, the tightened criteria. I think it is fair and proper that, if a country is deemed safe after two and a half years, the individual concerned is encouraged and supported to return to that country; or, as is in this proposal, they can apply for a different route through work or study to get permanent residence downstream. If the country is safe, however, it is perfectly reasonable to look at how we can remove that individual.
The proposals include tackling increased enforcement on illegal working. I think it is perfectly reasonable to put some pressure and heat into the system to tackle people who are being employed illegally, to look at increasing the right-to-work checks, to provide digital ID requirements—which I suspect he will oppose—to ensure there are mandatory right-to-work checks and collaboration to verify companies. I think that is reasonable. I think it is reasonable to look at return hubs: not Rwanda, not £700 million being wasted, not two people being removed voluntarily, but discussing proper return hubs for people who do not have safe countries but where their asylum claims have failed. It is perfectly reasonable to remove people whose asylum claims have failed because their asylum claims have failed. That is perfectly reasonable to do.
It is perfectly reasonable to do what we are doing in this proposal to speed up assessments and appeals. He asked about the First-tier Tribunal. We are going to put extra hours into the tribunal and we are going to ensure that we look at improving the legal system to get appeals dealt with and tribunals dealt with much more quickly. It is reasonable—and this is, again, where we will have a bit of blue and red water between us—to be committed to the European Convention on Human Rights, to be committed to legislation to uphold human rights, but actually to say that we want to look at how we can tweak that to make sure that it acts in the interest of our country, at the same time as being part of our international obligations, which is where we are. He wants to leave those conventions. I do not, and the Government do not, but we need to make sure we make them work in a better way to deal with this issue. I think it is reasonable for us to do all those things and I hope for and look forward to his support on them.
I welcome the welcome from the noble Lord, Lord German. It has been overlooked in this, but there are safe and legal routes that we want to develop, as we have done, for example, in our bespoke schemes for Ukraine and for Syria. There are bespoke routes that we can develop. There are safe and legal routes that we can look at. In this Statement, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has said that we wish to look at doing that. We are committed to human rights, but we are committed to looking at these particular issues. We will encourage people to look at the work route, if necessary, for safe and legal routes, and we will ensure that a range of other issues are examined.
The noble Lord takes issue with the core protection measures that we have before us in this proposal. I think, again, that it is reasonable, given where we are, to look at how we can ensure that those people are assessed very quickly, within two and a half years, or 30 months. If the country is safe to return to, they can return. If not, let us get that asylum claim approved, or let us get that asylum claim rejected and the individual then returned. I think that is a reasonable proposal. It is reasonable that we look at family reunion, and the noble Lord asked about child deportations. I do not want to see child deportations, but what I want to see is, if people have failed their asylum claim or if they are a foreign national offender—of which we have many languishing in UK jails at the moment—we must find mechanisms to return those individuals fairly and properly to their communities if they are safe, or, if not, to look at the issue that we have talked about here of an alternative holding establishment. All of this will be consulted on.
The noble Lord asked about when and how this will be brought in. There will be legislation brought before both Houses of Parliament, at a point to be determined, and the consultation will take place. However, I ask all those noble Lords who may criticise the proposals: are they happy with the status quo? Do they think the status quo is a good place to be? I think nobody in this Chamber will say that the status quo is a good place to be. Therefore, my objective with the Home Secretary and the Home Office is to look at ways in which we can maintain our international obligations, welcome genuine refugees and asylum seekers, but also speed up a broken system to make sure it works effectively.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
My Lords, who will decide whether a country is safe? The previous Government decided that Rwanda was safe, but the Supreme Court, following a decision of the European Court of Human Rights, said that it was the body with the responsibility for deciding whether a country was safe. So my question to the Minister is: who, under the Government’s proposals, is to decide whether a country is safe—the Government or the Supreme Court?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful for the noble Lord’s question. I take the view that the Government will determine ultimately which are safe countries. The Government will make that judgment. We are open to challenge and discussion, but the Government will have to make a determination on that. In doing so, we will look at a range of factors. What does the United Nations think? What do the other agencies think? In the end, however, the Government ultimately will have to determine. Again, let me just say that it may not even be a blanket “safe” for a particular country. It may be safe, for example, now, for individuals post an Assad regime to return to Syria, but it may equally not be safe for some individuals to do that. There is a case-by-case basis for the individual, but, ultimately, we have to make that call.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s commitment to human rights, and I know it is a sincere one, but the Statement itself appears to express some irritation with both Article 8, respect for private and family life, and even Article 3, the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment and torture. In the light of our own justice and prison system being found in breach of Article 3 in the High Court just two days ago, can the Minister say a little more—give us a little more specificity—about the detail of the proposed renegotiation of Article 3 that the Statement refers to?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend. We are seeking international reform of the application of Article 3. We will work with partners to reform the application of the ECHR’s prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment. That means we have to discuss it with our partners and get joint agreement, but it is an objective to which the Government are committed. It is one that will be tested. It will be in our consultation in due course. We will bring forward primary legislation with a definition of family life for the purposes of Article 8. That will be subject to scrutiny, but it will be within the spirit of maintaining our commitment to the European Court of Human Rights application. Those are fair and legitimate objectives, and I hope that my noble friend will support them in due course.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
My Lords, the Home Secretary ended her Statement by saying that her reforms
“are designed to bring unity where others seek to divide”.
My greatest worry about them is that making refugee status only temporary, and subject to review every 30 months and deportation, will have the opposite effect. It will not bring unity, it will not encourage community or integration, and it is not very British. The Attlee Government did not try to deport the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in 1945. The attempt to send trucks round south London to generate a hostile environment and tell people to go home was called off very quickly because of the public revulsion. I remember being very warmed to see crowds in Glasgow blocking the streets to prevent the deportation of their neighbours.
I have two questions for the Minister. First, he did not answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord German, about retrospection. Can he assure us that the change from five years to 10 years or 20 years will not be applied retrospectively to those people who are here, have been allowed to stay here and came when the rule was that they could obtain citizenship after five years? It will not apply to them, I trust.
Secondly, the Statement says that
“as order and control are restored, we will open new, capped, safe and legal routes into this country”.
Does “as order and control are restored” imply a sequence: that we need first to see order and control restored, then we will open safe and legal routes? If it does, is that not wholly illogical? The best way of putting the traffickers out of business and ensuring that there are no deaths in the channel is to open safe and legal routes. Will the Minister also tell us how a system of capping safe and legal routes will work? How will the caps be set and how will they be made compatible with our obligations under the refugee convention?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I will try to answer the three broad issues within that. The first is the reduction in time from five years to 30 months. It is not, “At the end of 30 months you are deported”; at the end of 30 months, an assessment will be made about whether the country the person has come from is safe, to go back to the point from the noble Lord, Lord Howard. I hope that we will not have long backlogs on asylum claims in the first place. That is why other measures are being sped up. Part of the problem, and the reason why people are waiting for five years and beyond, is that asylum claims are not met. From our perspective, if an asylum claim can be met and sped up then a decision can be taken to grant asylum, in which case the individual has asylum—admittedly with a longer period for final settlement—or they are removed from the country under a deportation route. The purpose is to try to put some energy into the system to get that sped up very quickly.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, asked about safe and legal routes, and the annual cap. The Home Secretary will examine and consult on this as part of the proposals, but it is perfectly reasonable to try to set an annual cap, in discussion with our refugee convention and other obligations, to see what the country can bear in terms of housing support and everything else so that annual cap is based on community capacity. We can then look at safe and legal routes that help support individuals to come here so they do not use the illegal routes that are universally condemned across the House. We will maintain the flexibility that we have for things such as the Ukraine scheme and the Gaza scheme. If I had been putting this before the House six years ago, we would not have been talking about a Ukraine scheme. Who knows what will happen next? We retain our international obligations to do that.
The noble Lord asked about retrospection. That will be part of the discussion and consultation. Legislation will be brought forward to address what will happen, and that will be subject to tests by both Houses of Parliament.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, I declare an interest as a participant in the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Three and a half years on, we have a delightful Ukrainian family still living in our house. In the section of the report on safe and legal routes, the options in the policy document include a route to safety for students and skilled workers. Such schemes may be a useful adjunct to sufficient open safe and legal routes, but does the Minister share my concern that, in a world where safe and legal routes are limited, we may send a message that young, healthy, skilled people are more deserving of sanctuary than others?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
No. We need to look at individuals’ asylum claims based on their merit. An individual who is not of working age or is not going to be involved in education or study can have an asylum claim. The key point in the safe and legal routes aspect is that we need to look at what that is and design a scheme. We will consult on that. The work and student visa route will be one that individuals can apply for during the course of their asylum claim. If their asylum claim is granted, that gives another route into longer-term settlement, which would be valuable if the individual wishes to do that. I retain an openness to examine individuals’ claims and positions on the basis of their individual status.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I welcome the Home Secretary’s Statement and the acceptance that the current system is unsustainable. It is interesting that perhaps a year or two ago, people proposing some of these measures would have been accused of being racist, so I welcome the Statement. The Government will have to get support from other political parties to get these measures through. Does the Minister accept that he will have to work with Reform UK, whose leader, whatever noble Lords may think about him, was one of the first people to raise the issue of the difficulties and the possibilities of migrants coming in on small boats?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I will welcome support for the Government’s proposals wherever they come from, but if the noble Baroness thinks that I have anything in common with the honourable Member for Clacton and his crew, she is sadly mistaken. I come from a position of trying to ensure that we build a coterminous, cohesive society that is open and tolerant but manages its borders effectively. I do not seek to cause division, which I think the honourable Member for Clacton seeks to do. He wants us not to solve this problem; he wants it to continue. He wants the small boat routes to continue so that he can spread division. That is not on this Government’s agenda. We are here to fix this problem, not to exploit it.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I urge the Minister to think again about the sequence of events regarding safe and legal routes. Many of us believe that introducing safe and legal routes would take away the business of the traffickers. Therefore, leaving it until the end of the line seems to allow the traffickers to go on doing their business. Could we speed that up, please? Secondly, on the 20-year period when people may or may not feel secure in this country—the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has already referred to this—is the problem not that if people feel insecure in this country then local communities will feel less likely to support them, and integration will suffer? Is there something the Government can do to make people feel more secure, because 20 years is a long time when families are here and children have been born here? It is not a humane way to proceed.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I know my noble friend takes a great interest in this, and I am very happy to discuss safe and legal routes with him and my colleagues in the Home Office, because I know that he is committed to this issue and we must ensure that we explore it extremely safely. I want to see community cohesion, and longer-term integration is an issue the Government have set their stall on. That is subject to consultation. Again, I want to work with my noble friend to ensure that we deal with this in a proper and effective way. The door is open to him at any time.
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)
My Lords, during the passage of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, the Minister made it quite clear that the Government would not in any way amend the Human Rights Act 1998 and that they were very concerned about the independence of the judiciary. Yet the Statement refers to potentially changing the approach to Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Section 2 of the Human Rights Act requires the judiciary to take jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights into account; this has been followed and built upon by judges in this country. How will the Government alter the approach to Articles 3 and 8 without amending the Human Rights Act and without impeding the independence of the judiciary?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
On the question of Article 8 claims, Article 8 is a qualified right, which means that interferences with it can be justified where it is proportionate to the public interest. We will bring forward primary legislation with a definition of family life for the purposes of Article 8. On Article 3, we will work with partners to reform the application of the ECHR’s prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment. Both of those are potential tweaks, which will be subject to legislation and consultation, but which we believe can be done within our international obligations. We are not the Official Opposition who wish to withdraw from those international obligations; we wish to maintain them. But I think it is fair, open and proper that we can examine legislation to tweak them.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, there is not a word of the Prime Minister’s foreword to this Statement that was not true on the day that he became Prime Minister. It is welcome that the Government have got to where they have. The Minister referred to our record; my recollection is that, every time we proposed tough things, they were opposed by the party opposite. I do not remember us ever being challenged because we were not being tough enough.
My question is this: having read through the Statement and the policy document carefully, there are a number of measures that require changes to the Immigration Rules, which is obviously secondary legislation, but there are also a number, as has just been referred to, that require amendment to primary legislation. Certainly, my sense of the Home Secretary’s demeanour is that she feels that this is a very urgent matter to deal with. Has the legislation been drafted and is it ready? When is it going to be introduced? Will it be introduced in this Session to carry over or will it have to wait until the next Session of Parliament? If the latter, it does not strike me that the Government are treating it very urgently.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I remember serving as the noble Lord’s shadow about 10 or 11 years ago, when he was the Immigration Minister and we were both Members of Parliament. I supported a number of the measures that he brought forward then, which were very difficult. We, too, will take some very difficult decisions, and I hope to take Members of both the Government’s party and opposition parties with us.
On the question of legislation, he will expect me to say this, but I am going to say it anyway: legislation will be introduced in due course. I cannot comment on legislation in the second Session yet, but legislation will be introduced in due course.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
I declare an interest, having been engaged with these matters for rather more than 20 years as the co-founder of Migration Watch, together with Professor David Coleman of Oxford University. I have read the Government’s Statement with great care. It covers a huge amount of ground, as previous questions have indicated, but it is clearly a serious attempt to deal with a matter that is a real and growing public concern. Further measures will certainly be needed, but this is at least a useful start.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful for the noble Lord’s support. A number of Members of the House have asked why the Government did not do this a few months ago and what the Government will do next. Life is not static. There are competing challenges at all times. We are trying to bring forward the immigration Bill and bring forward proposals here. My right honourable friend will soon be making a Statement on other aspects in the House of Commons, which I suspect I will have to repeat early next week, and there is an immigration White Paper proposal as well.
This is a journey to try to ensure that we bring order to a system that is currently failing while maintaining our international obligations, being fair to people who are escaping war, poverty and terror, and at the same time making sure that we support United Kingdom citizens in finding integration and welcome where that is required. That is an ongoing process, and I would welcome the noble Lord’s support for any measures that we bring forward.
Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the status quo might not be where we want, but where the Government are moving to causes me some deep concern, not least about integration and the dehumanisation of migrants and people seeking sanctuary. I want to bring to the Minister’s attention some interesting polling by HOPE not hate, which reveals that most people are not anti-migrant; they are angry that they do not have access to public services, a GP, hospitals and housing for themselves and their children. They are worried about the future and they need good schools. Does he not realise that, until we deal with these issues, people will always look for somebody else to blame, particularly the stranger in our midst?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
My noble friend makes a strong case for what I believe is the Labour Government’s intention, which is to rebuild public services and public trust in government. If he looks across the board at employment measures in the Employment Rights Bill, at housing measures in our housing proposals and at public transport measures with my noble friend here, he will see that we are trying to rebuild public services that have been hollowed out and to raise aspirations for an equal, prosperous society where everybody can contribute and reach their full potential. That is what the Government are trying to do. I take his point that people will always try to find scapegoats on issues where they feel uncomfortable that they are not having a fair crack of the whip. We need to encourage that integration and look at the social issues that my noble friend mentioned.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
My Lords, I say to the Minister and the Home Secretary that this set of measures is to be welcomed, but I am afraid that it does not quite go far enough. I have one specific question for the Minister on the Statement. The Home Secretary said this in the other place:
“We will never return anyone to be tortured in their home country, but the definition of ‘degrading treatment’”,
in Article 3 of the ECHR,
“has expanded into the realm of the ridiculous. Today we have criminals who we seek to deport, but we discover we cannot because the prisons in their home country have cells that are deemed too small, or even mental health provision that is not as good as our own”.
She is absolutely right to say that. She goes on to say that, in order to address this problem,
“we are seeking reform at the Council of Europe, and we do so alongside international partners who have raised similar concerns”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/11/25; col. 512.]
I am afraid the reality is that that sort of international method to seek amendment to the European convention will take years and years.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
It is an objective that we have set, one that we are trying to achieve and one that the activities of the last few weeks have shown the Home Secretary to be very focused on delivering. We want to make sure that we can effect those changes. There is an appetite in certain parts of Europe to begin that dialogue and process. Perhaps I should say in conclusion that it is only a shame that the noble Lord did not do any of these things when he had the chance.