Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 10th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, my Amendment 99 is not directly related to the previous amendments other than by the connection of biometric data. My question is about which database the biometric data is being checked against. The question comes from the briefing that was helpfully provided by the Minister and his advisers prior to the Bill being laid. At that briefing, I asked whether the databases were being checked for particular purposes, and the advice we received was that they could not be used by the police. I found that confusing when I re-read the Bill and saw that there is a law enforcement clause. The questions today are about whether the databases are being checked for these particular reasons.

If the people you are checking are entering for the first time, they should never have their data in these databases because they have never been to the UK. But, of course, many of the people who arrive, sometimes illegally, have been here before, have left and now are returning—so it is important to establish their identity first, obviously.

The databases that I am interested in are, first, the unsolved crime scene database. Crimes happen every day, samples are taken—DNA, fingerprints and sometimes photographs now—and, of course, not all crimes are solved. A database is kept of those crimes that are not solved, so is the biometric data of the people who are entering being checked against that?

The second group I am interested in is people who are wanted. They might be wanted in this country or in other countries. It may be that we choose not to let the third country know that this person has arrived, but at least we should know whether we are at risk of importing someone who is wanted somewhere else. This is probably quite important, given the group of countries that many of the people who are coming to our country are linked to. When many of our soldiers in Afghanistan were murdered and badly maimed by IEDs, we collected an awful lot of forensic material, which is now stored in this country in case we ever discover the people who carried out those crimes. It would certainly be ironic if somebody claimed to want to come to this country legally and had previously killed or maimed one of our soldiers—we should at least be aware of that. Are we checking this against that database?

This is quite a specific set of questions, but it relies on the data being checked. The advice we received at the briefing was that it was not. The purpose of this amendment is to get on record exactly what it is being checked against.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, which have been so ably supported across the Committee—pretty much every voice so far has been in support of them. They are a very useful humanitarian mirror to arguments that have been made on the previous group about the importance of data sharing for law enforcement purposes.

Amendments 97 and 98, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, very much endorse the views of the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Alton, on the need for even more breadth and possibly a government amendment. These amendments are very sympathetic to the Government’s stated policy of smashing the gangs et cetera. It is a perverse outcome to hear that people who were trying to satisfy the Government’s legal and practical requirements for family reunion are having to resort to people smugglers. So, with respect, I hope that the Minister will see that this is a no brainer in terms of the practical facilitation of government policy.

Finally, I talked about these amendments being very much the humanitarian mirror of the need sometimes to share data—in this case, biometric information—for the purpose of giving effect to lawful family reunion. Please do not shoot the messenger, but I want to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Harper, that the Data Protection Act and the UK GDPR contain very broad law enforcement exemptions, but broad is not blanket. I hope I can say to Conservative noble Lords that it is one thing to have a broad law enforcement exemption, but another to have blanket immunity from data protection. I am sure that noble Lords opposite would not want, for example, data controllers to be negligent or not to maintain a secure system so that sensitive information, even about potential criminals, was dumped on the internet, easily hacked or simply negligently maintained. Data controllers, particularly public authority data controllers, and especially of sensitive information, should at least have to maintain a proper, secure system. Yes, data should be shared for law enforcement purposes where that is necessary and proportionate, but they should not be totally negligent with this information.

I hope that provides some reassurance on that issue. In any event, if it does not, the Minister has already said that he can write.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken. The amendments in my noble friend’s name, which I have signed, are, I think, well received across the Committee as a whole. On top of that, I must repeat the welcome for Clauses 34 and 35, which seek to increase flexibility when taking biometric information. I do not want to repeat the cases that have been talked about during this debate but shall simply speak about the practicalities of how this change might take place.

I have had experience of bringing people here for a short time and requiring their biometric information, which was sent from one country to another. Very helpfully, British Foreign Office officials in one country put the machine in the boot of their car and drove it to the other country—I am not going to give the details because otherwise they might get into trouble. Regularly, they have taken the biometric information of people who have visited the noble Lord’s part of Wales, among others; that that might give him a clue. I read today in the newspapers that the Government are to provide Home Office officials with portable biometric equipment. In my day, these things were small enough to go in the boot, but they are obviously going to be even smaller. So, in practical terms, taking biometric information is no longer a matter of using a large machine. Similarly, when you go to hospital for a scan, it is no longer done by big machines. This machinery is getting smaller, and we are now talking about portable methods. Clearly, that can be done, and it makes it more straightforward to take the machinery closer to people who are fulfilling the legal route that the Government have set in front of them. Of course, we should remember that, in 2024, 10,000 of those who came on family reunion were children.

The second thing is whether the Government are interested in using other bodies to take the biometric information. I do not know what the Government have already done on this matter—I saw the Minister checking his phone—but, clearly, if we are to have family reunion, and if President Macron has decided that biometrics can be taken in France, at least that might give some of the information we will need to know anyway about these matters.

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[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I agree with the general thrust of the argument the noble Lord, Lord Harper, is putting to the Committee. He talked about getting the balance right, and that is really what I was arguing. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that these are children or young people, and we owe them a duty of care. We should get the balance right and not categorise them all as potential criminals or as having been involved in acts of terror or criminality. However, I recognise that there is that potential, and therefore, as he says, we have to get the balance right. We do not want a general disapplication of protections. We want to know that they are going to be used in a measured and sane way.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

As a supplement to that, I add that the balance is already there in the international standards, in things such as making sure there is an appropriate adult present. That does not harm any of the ambitions of the noble Lord. It is just what we would normally expect for minors.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am grateful for both of those interventions. In the clause as set out there are provisions to make sure there is an appropriate person who is not a representative of the government present. All I was saying is that it is important we do not lose sight of the purpose of this exercise, which is to enable people to come to Britain, where they are legally qualified to do so and do not present a risk to us. That is an important balance to strike.

I strongly support the thrust of the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, about the use to which this information should be put. In the modern world, with the way we can process data, my experience of how we use it is that it is done in a proportionate way. Checking information against databases protects people. Our security agencies are not interested in, and do not have the resources to spend their time worrying about, people who do not present a threat to the country. The big challenge is dealing with those who do. The noble Lord set out some very important questions, which I hope the Minister can deal with when he closes. I wanted to put that in context, so that the Minister covers it when he responds.

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[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am sorry to come in on the coat-tails of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, again. My noble friend the Minister discussed the need for flexibility. Surely the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, would extend governmental flexibility to facilitate biometrics being taken in more places for family reunion cases. The noble Lord opposite was concerned that this would put an onerous obligation on the Secretary of State. However, the Secretary of State is the person who will authorise people, and he will not make these authorisations if he thinks they are impracticable or overly burdensome. Can my noble friend the Minister reflect on that in future and see this as providing additional flexibility and not an additional burden?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

In response to both the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, I will repeat what I said in my preamble today: the Home Office is continuing to assess whether broader policy changes are needed to balance that humanitarian concern. The noble Lord made a very strong point about a child aged two and the length of time for a reunion—that will fall within our assessment of the broader humanitarian concern. We need to balance that with security requirements; however, in the case he put to us, a two-year old child would self-evidently not pose that type of threat.

This is important. I say to the noble Lords who tabled the amendments that the purpose of the clause is to provide the assurances that we have. I accept that noble Lords are testing that; however, while we will examine the points that have been made, I believe that there are alternative ways to achieve that objective. Therefore, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, not to press her amendments. I also hope that I have satisfied the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th July 2025 Lords Chamber

I am afraid that I cannot support most of the noble Lord’s amendments, but the point that he makes about protecting those who are being trafficked is worthy of further consideration at later stages.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being here for the first day in Committee. I was with colleagues as part of the UK delegation to the Council of Europe. Of course, I spoke at Second Reading.

Sadly, after the debate on the previous group, it seems that I have to declare an interest as the former director of Liberty. It is not something that I do very often but, given some of the disparaging remarks about my former employer, I thought I had better declare that as some kind of interest. Apparently, to have worked for a cross-party or non-party human rights NGO is now an issue. I should add that in my many years working at the National Council for Civil Liberties, I worked across this House and the other place, including with some very senior Conservatives, who believed very much in fundamental rights and freedoms. I guess that was then and this, unfortunately, is now.

As a preliminary point, on the previous group I was slightly flummoxed by contributions from across the Committee on the Clause 13 offence and defences. Forgive me, I have been a lawyer for only 30 years, but it is easier to prove that I was reckless in my behaviour than to prove that I had actual knowledge or suspicion. If I am right about that, I am flummoxed by every contribution from around the Committee on whether it should be knowledge and suspicion or intention and recklessness—but that was the previous group.

In relation to this group, I have to commend the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and his committee and, indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for amendments that square very well with—I will not call it a platitude—the caveat that the noble Lord, Lord Harper, gave to his other comments: that he does care about genuine refugees. If I am to take that as a real commitment to genuine refugees who are not abusing or playing any system but are in peril in their home country and fleeing persecution, if that is the commitment—I know it is the commitment from my noble friend the Minister—then I suggest that none of the amendments in this group contradicts the intention that we are going for the smugglers, going for the traffickers, going for the people who are making money out of people’s desperation, but not going for innocents.

Of course, the nature of protecting genuine refugees is that you do not know who will turn out to be a convention refugee until you process them. That means that we have to be a little bit careful about how we go after the people who are coming before we have actually considered their case. To go back to various comments that have been made about the historic origins of the refugee convention, I just remind the Committee that this was the world’s apology for the Holocaust, and that people who fled the Nazis in the 1930s often had to do so by irregular and clandestine means. For those who need a reminder, I recommend “Julia”, the 1977 Fred Zinnemann film starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave. It would not be a bad thing for every participant in this Committee to revisit that Oscar-winning film, perhaps over the recess, before coming back for many more hours of deliberation on this Bill.

The reason that these amendments are good ones that do not undermine the intention of the Bill but actually speak, to some extent, to the slightly confusing debate on the previous group is, first, that they make it clear that we are going after the people who are monetising this desperation, perpetrating the evil trade and putting people’s lives at risk in the English Channel. The amendments put that squarely into the Bill. Secondly, they refer to the refugee convention, which I know will raise some hackles on the Benches opposite. I believe it is the Government’s intention to comply with the refugee convention as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Convention on Human Rights has to be dealt with on the front cover of the Bill, as per the Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Act will also be the interpretive method for looking at the Bill, but there is not anything like that for the refugee convention. What there is instead is a tradition that was begun by a previous Conservative Government in the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993. Check the date: it was a Conservative Government, if I have my history right, who introduced the principle, initially into the Immigration Rules, that the refugee convention has primacy in the context of treating refugees, because the intention of that Government, and previous Conservative Governments, was to comply not just with the European Convention on Human Rights but with the refugee convention as well.

Because we have moved towards criminalisation—not just considering claims, appeals and removals—it becomes important that the refugee convention provides a defence for various immigration offences that are subsequently created. That is why the Joint Committee on Human Rights—a wonderful institution of this Parliament—has stepped in to make sure that no prosecution or conviction under any of these offences will offend the refugee convention. I can put it no better than the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who said that we do not want to use these offences. It cannot be the Government’s intention that these offences and prosecutions are for the victims rather than the smugglers. That is the best comment I can make in support of this group.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, a long-term advocate of the most vulnerable and refugees in particular, has an obvious point about feminine hygiene products. It would be strangely gendered for the Government not to consider adding that to food, et cetera, when we are talking about human dignity. I commend all these amendments to the Committee.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I was not intending to speak, because my noble friend Lord Harper made an excellent contribution, but I cannot let the peroration of the noble Baroness go without some response. Her arguments would carry somewhat more weight had she not resisted every attempt at a pragmatic, practical approach to the protection of our borders and the safety and security of our country—the first duty of a Government—through many pieces of legislation, not least the Rwanda Act, which many of us were involved in over the past couple of years. She and other noble Lords like her have never conceded that this is an issue. They want to go forward with this canard that the Conservative Party has in government and in opposition swung to the right—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. First, I pointed out the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993, which is Conservative legislation. I could have gone on. I know that the noble Lord thinks my peroration has been too long already, but we can compare the minutes afterwards in Hansard of how long people are banging on. I was trying to point to a long and noble tradition in his party of caring about the refugee convention and trying to do what the noble Lord, Lord Harper, suggested we must do: differentiate the genuine refugees, who need to get here and be processed and considered before you can separate the wheat from the chaff.

Secondly, the noble Lord should not let the fact that the messenger is unattractive to him be to the disadvantage of the amendments—try to ignore me and just consider the amendments in detail. I suggest that they do not offend his ambition of controlling borders or the ambition of the noble Lord, Lord Harper, of differentiating between perpetrators and gamers of the system and people who may well turn out to be genuine refugees. The noble Lord, Lord Harper, has made points about the public on many occasions and their warmth towards desperate Ukrainians, Hong Kongers and so on. Those people were rightly given safe and legal routes to the United Kingdom, in a way that Afghans, Sudanese people and others in equally dire straits were not. The drafters of the refugee convention always understood that that might happen and that some desperate people might have to flee by irregular routes. You do not know who is a refugee and who is not until you have considered their claim.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I do not deprecate the remarks of the noble Baroness. I find her always passionate and compelling, and she added greatly to the strength, colour and nuance of the debates we had over the last two years on the Rwanda Bill and other legislation, so I am not shooting the messenger.

The noble Baroness pre-empts my comments. I was going to say that my party has had an outward-looking, internationalist, liberal approach to bringing into this country the brightest and the best. Going way back, from the Ugandan refugees who were expelled by Idi Amin, and the Asian folk from India and the Indian subcontinent, to, as the noble Baroness says, Syrians, Ukrainians and Hong Kongers, we have a very proud record of welcoming people from different cultures. However, it is important to make the point that it is not strange that nine countries in the European Union are demanding that the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights are revisited because they are simply not working and are not equal to the geopolitical challenges alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, around the mass movement of people.

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[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again. I want to move away from me and go back to the amendment. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, that the amendments make that distinction, because the refugee convention will be of no avail as a defence to anyone who does not turn out to be a refugee. The convention’s principles are non-penalisation, non-discrimination and non-refoulement. Whatever the other defects, the Committee ought to be able to unite around those principles.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Before I look at the specific critique of the amendments put forward, I take the comments by the noble Baroness on face value. However, I know that, when my party were in government, those on the other side, the Liberal Democrats and many Cross-Benchers took issue with age-verification tests and other attempts by the state to determine the bona fides of people with respect to their age and background, and whether they were truly subject to oppression, mistreatment, or the misuse of the criminal system in their countries. At every step, those were opposed. It has proven difficult for us to focus on those who are genuinely in need of our support, as my noble friend Lord Harper said.

By the way, I support the very sensible amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about dignity products. Any sensible, sentient, caring, compassionate person would do so.

I end my slightly odd preface to these comments by saying that we have a responsibility. We are not elected, but we should nevertheless reflect the very serious and significant concern among the public about these issues. Many people would be horrified by this otherworldly obsession with the minutiae of amendments when we have a national crisis affecting our borders and the safety and security of our country. We have a responsibility to address that.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am sorry, but this is Committee, where we look at the minutiae of amendments. I plead with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, to look at the amendments in this group and at my suggestion that they do not offend his ambition to control the borders and to differentiate between those gaming the system or monetising an evil trade and those victims of trafficking and potentially genuine refugees. It is not about what I have said in the past, who I am or the NGOs that the noble Lord does not like; it is about the specific amendments, because this is Committee in the House of Lords.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I am aware of that. I am merely drawing to your Lordships’ attention the fact that there will be real-world consequences from the interpretation of the legislation when it finally gets Royal Assent and becomes an Act.

As has been said by my noble friend Lord Harper, there are other individual groups who have a vested interest—perhaps for the right reasons—to not consider the security and safety of our border. They are perfectly entitled to believe in there being no borders and in a very loose and liberal interpretation of immigration policy. However, we must be careful when we legislate that we do not allow those people—who are massively out of step with the views of most of the public—to put in the Bill, through advocacy, something that will not be in the long-term best interest.

I cannot add anything more to the excellent points on Amendment 33 made by my noble friend. I oppose Amendments 35 and 44. Although it looks on the face of it beguilingly attractive that we should not be in breach of international treaty obligations which we have signed, my concern is that this is a moveable feast. To put in the Bill quite a prescriptive, tight and draconian interpretation of an international regime which may well change over the next few years is not appropriate. I have no doubt that the 1951 refugee convention will evolve—for the better, I hope—and that certainly the ECHR will be reviewed, as it is not only people in the UK who are concerned about it. The amendments are well meant and make a strong argument, but they would tie the hands of our own judiciary and Ministers.

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I will give way to my noble friend and then to the proposer of the amendment.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Given that my noble friend knows what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, means, and given that he has parliamentary counsel at his disposal, might he consider a government amendment that adds “female sanitary hygiene products” to a list that currently includes food, drink or medical products?

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I understand the point that the Minister is making. The JCHR report actually used the term “hygiene kits”, and I did not understand what those might be. They sound a little bit like the complimentary items you might get in plastic wrapping that you cannot undo in in a hotel. Would the Minister agree that we might have a discussion about this? It would require regulations to change the list of articles in Clause 15. It would be far better if we could talk about this as a sensible, non-political point and get it into the Bill.

Police: Facial Recognition Technology

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to introduce legislation to regulate the procurement and use of facial recognition technology by the police.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

My Lords, facial recognition is a valuable tool that helps the police identify offenders and protect the public. While its use is governed by existing laws, the Government are considering whether further legal clarity is needed in order to maintain public trust and confidence.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful, as always, to my noble friend. Since the groundbreaking Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, in which noble Lords opposite may take some pride, it has been decided that in this country police power is principally a matter for Parliament and statute, not for incremental development by the courts and common law. Can it therefore be right that successive Governments have allowed the procurement of this most intrusive technology from any company or Government in the world, and its deployment to be a matter of discretion for the 43 police forces in England and Wales?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

There is a range of legislation that provides protections for the public at large, including data protection legislation and equality and human rights law, along with the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice, the College of Policing’s Authorised Professional Practice Live Facial Recognition, the Information Commissioner, the Equality and Human Rights Commissioner, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, and the Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner. If that is not enough for my noble friend, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary recently said that she wants to see a clear legal framework in place for facial recognition. We aim to set out plans very shortly, but it is an important tool and it does help identify perpetrators of crime.

Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that we are all incredibly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, for this work, as in her previous independent inquiries on behalf of Governments of all stripes. There is, no doubt, a problem when walking on eggshells prevents the investigation and prosecution of particular criminals because of fears of racism. That is clear from this report, but does my noble friend the Minister agree that we have seen these group scandals in relation to child abuse in the Catholic Church and the Church of England—if the right reverend Prelate will forgive me, patriarchal communities where vulnerable people are not believed? With that in mind, and also referring to the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, is the age of criminal responsibility, at just 10 years old in England and Wales, too young when children and girls who are exploited in this way, drugged and put into prostitution, are then treated as criminals and not as victims?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for echoing the praise and support for the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, and the work she has done. She has set down a further set of developments that we can look at and action to help reduce victims and reduce this level of crime. My noble friend tempts me into addressing the age of criminal responsibility. What I will say is that that issue is one that we will reflect on in government. I cannot give her chapter and verse on that today, but what I can say—I said it a moment ago in relation to recommendation 3, which is on reviewing convictions of victims—is that we will legislate in the Crime and Policing Bill to introduce a disregard scheme for the convictions of individuals who were found guilty of prostitution offences as children. The criminal law has rightly evolved to make it clear that children cannot be prostitutes, and it is long overdue that individuals convicted of child prostitution offences have their convictions disregarded and their criminal records expunged. We will do that in the Crime and Policing Bill, and I look forward to His Majesty’s Official Opposition supporting us on that Bill, not voting against it as they just have done in the House of Commons.

Public Order Act 1986: Section 5

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister, as always, for putting equal treatment at the heart of human rights. However, regardless of individual cases that we get hot under the collar about—we pick and choose which ones to get upset about—is it not time to have another look at not just the operation of Section 5 of the 1986 Act but its framing? I suggest that most noble Lords would agree that threatening and harassing conduct should be criminal, but broader, lower-level conduct “likely” to cause “alarm or distress”? Some people are a little bit too easily alarmed and distressed. It is not about just religious freedom; it is about freedom of expression as well.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. The Government keep all legislation under review at all times. The very fact that this discussion is taking place on this question means that we have looked at the legislation today and looked at the applicability of certain matters. There is a balance to be made. Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 has stood the test of 39 years to date, through a range of protests, a range of measures and a range of Governments. It has stood the test of time.

We keep it under review, but the important principle behind it is that Section 5 of the Public Order Act gives a clear definition of harassment and intimidation. Protest crosses the criminal threshold where it goes into harassment and intimidation. That is why the prosecution was taken in the case to which I believe the noble Baroness referred, and why, in other cases, prosecutions have not been taken.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, from this side, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Harper. Whether or not he always agrees with the indefatigable noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, I hope that he will find this House capable of always disagreeing well.

It is not so much a declaration of interest as a description of context to say that I am the daughter of late and lawful 1950s Commonwealth migrants to this country and a human rights lawyer of just over 30 years. For the avoidance of doubt, and at possible risk of confounding some potential expectations, I accept this Bill’s underlying premises of both border security and immigration control.

A democratic political community is of course defined by its borders as well as its values and laws. It has a prerogative to assess and balance its social, economic and cultural needs, including some desire for reciprocal international work, study, trade and tourism on the part of its own citizens. As a matter of logic and international law, it retains considerable discretion on the question of how many and what kind of visas to grant to non-nationals seeking to enter its territory for various purposes. This should be exercised, I would suggest, with considerable care, given the often competing interests of different economic actors in particular. Some employers, and—dare I say it—government departments, may have a strong instinct towards importing large amounts of skilled, and even unskilled, workers. This may be laudable, and at times vital to fuel innovation or fill gaps in services or the labour market, but less so if it is designed to suppress wages below what is fair or even sustainable for living.

Since World War II, however, there has been—rightly, in my view—far less discretion about how to treat a much smaller number of people for whom travel comes not from preference, but persecution. Let us please always remember that we have a refugee convention, a European convention and so on, as a direct result of some of the worst atrocities of the past century and the plight of those who were denied safe passage to, and asylum in, countries such as our own at that time.

The 1951 refugee convention in particular enshrines the principles of non-refoulement, sending people back or onwards to their peril; non-penalisation, not punishing them for the desperate and even clandestine means of their escape; and non-discrimination against them. All three of these principles were violated by the legislation of recent years, in particular the Nationality and Borders Act, the Illegal Migration Act and the legislative lie that is the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act. The Government are to be commended for seeking to repeal so much of that toxic legacy. However, I am sure that we will explore in Committee how that repeal does not go far enough, in a number of respects, to achieve either the legality or simplicity that I hope most of us want to see.

Before even the legislation came the politics for which our leaders are just as responsible. In my opinion, a grand political swindle was perpetrated upon the British electorate in recent years. Notwithstanding Brexit slogans about controlling borders, large numbers of international workers were consciously invited into the UK, while a fraction of those numbers of asylum seekers, mostly genuine refugees and often from sites of Britain’s previous overseas military adventures, were demonised beyond recognition. That is dishonest, dangerous and, frankly, immoral.

As we examine both the broad brushstrokes and detailed drafting of the Bill, I hope we can work with care and precision to distinguish between immigration control and refugee protection. I accept that the latter is a responsibility we share with other rule-of-law-loving territories, which, as my noble friend Lord Dubs has said, must be discharged in greater collaboration, including to avoid wherever possible desperate people taking perilous journeys. But it is one thing to criminalise traffickers and smugglers and another to dehumanise, deprive, detain and deport their desperate human cargo, who are not and have never been illegal, let alone criminal.

In life and in politics, just as much as legislation, words matter. They have consequences beyond the next headline. I was born just over a year after Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech. A few months later, my then young parents were violently attacked by violent thugs trying to take their baby from her pram in a London park. That may be too long ago for the bright young things who draft political speeches to remember, but surely not for your Lordships’ House.

Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an extremely valid point. I know he has a long-standing interest in safeguarding and that he has raised previously with me and others the children who went missing under the previous regime. We intend to ensure that we put in place proper safeguarding measures with the local county council, and that we now assess those children on arrival to make sure that they are safeguarded properly.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the tone with which he always discusses these very thorny questions in your Lordships’ House. Does he agree that a convention refugee, once designated as such by the authorities, was never illegal, and that we should not be demonising these most desperate people, who were not deterred by the Rwanda scheme because of the appalling treatment that they faced back home?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. We intend to uphold and keep to our international obligations.

Southport Attack

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe; he brings immeasurable expertise in his contribution to this debate. I will say two things in response. First, the Prevent programme still has to focus primarily on people who are being radicalised through a range of means and pose threats on both Islamist and extreme right-wing fronts—that is the main focus. But, secondly, this case shows that there are potential areas where we need to look at other issues, including misogyny, concerns around violence and its worship generally, and people just wishing to inflict hate on society for a range of reasons that are not politically or culturally motivated. I take what the noble Lord said, as there may be lessons that we could learn from it. I would be very grateful to discuss—with both the Metropolitan Police and the noble Lord, if he wishes—how we can widen the debate on looking at potential areas. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, will look at how we can draw a wider circumference around the support mechanisms to help with cases that fall outside the broad areas of Prevent but which still lead to the types of actions that Prevent is designed to prevent.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister and others for understanding that not everything can be squeezed into the rubric of “terrorism”, with its ideological motive and so on. I will make a small point on a previous point my noble friend made in reference to the sentence of 52 years. It is quite important to remember, and for the public to understand, that this was, rightly, a life sentence with a minimum of 52 years before any consideration of release; one would not always get that information from reading the newspapers. I hope that my noble friend will forgive me for making that clear.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The 52 years is a minimum; it is a life sentence. Indeed, in his sentencing remarks, Justice Goose indicated that he felt that it was highly unlikely that the individual convicted would be released. That is a matter for well downstream. The concerns that we have around Prevent are things that we can resolve to stop that type of activity taking place in the future. As my noble friend knows, the reason a whole-life tariff was not imposed was because of the age of the perpetrator at the time of the event. I suspect that, if he had been older, a whole-life tariff may well have been given by the judge. My noble friend was right to add further definition to my comment, which was not meant to undermine in any way the sentence given.

UK/US Free Trade Agreement

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. We have taken back control. We work with the US, the EU and every other country. We are an open trading economy, and that benefits both our businesses and consumers.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, even though the United States is a great constitutional democracy, could my noble friend the Minister reflect on the previous Question about ISDS arrangements and make sure that any trade deal between our two great democracies does not privilege international corporations over citizens or workers, and respects both democracy and the rule of law?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. No two trade agreements are the same, and ISDS is only one chapter in any trade negotiation. We have to negotiate for what is best for our country and for business.

Immigration: Human Rights

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to give greater priority to those with well-founded human rights claims in the immigration system.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

Any foreign national in the United Kingdom can make an asylum or human rights claim should they be unable to return to their country of origin. The UK has a proud history of protecting vulnerable people. All claims are decided on individual merits. Protection status is granted to those in need.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for that clear Answer. Does he further agree with me that rather than demonising refugees while simultaneously increasing economic migration, including to very low-skilled employment, as the last Government did, His Majesty’s Government should prioritise those in genuine need of humanitarian protection or family reunification, including via safe legal routes to the UK?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. The UK has a proud history of providing protection to those who need it, in accordance with our international obligations under the refugee convention and the European Convention on Human Rights. She will know that we are proposing an immigration White Paper shortly, which will look at some of the issues she has mentioned. She will also know that the Government are extremely keen to ensure that we crack down on illegal migration and on those individuals who are brought to this country to undercut the working conditions, pay and other benefits of individuals who are here with asylum and refugee status, and who are approved and working, and also the population of the United Kingdom as a whole. She makes a very important point.