Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Baroness Hamwee

Committee stage
Thursday 26th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I apologise that I was unable to attend Second Reading. I have put my name to a number of later amendments, but I wanted to say how much I support the spirit of this group. On the issue of boat crossings, there is a feeling in relation to smashing the gangs that there is a huge amount of smoke and mirrors and not enough transparency and understanding. I fear that there is a climate of public distrust in which politicians are just not believed.

These amendments would therefore be really helpful to the Government, because they give assurances that this will be fully accounted for and not just a slogan, as has been indicated. The area around these crossings is a territory for rumour and potential misinformation. All sorts of figures are bandied around and people, because they no longer believe in the official figures, are open to all sorts of untrue figures. These amendments would help pin down exactly what this Bill will have achieved, which is very important.

There was an interesting incident recently where journalists—Patrick Christys and a team from GB News—helped to smash the gangs themselves. They did this by going on Instagram and pretending to be trying to get a crossing; they organised one and had WhatsApp communications, voice messages and so on, partly as a sting operation to show how easy it is to infiltrate the gangs and get this information. They passed on the information to the appropriate authorities. They have chased it up, and nothing has happened. Even though they had the names and phone numbers—because they were WhatsApp messages—of two gang leaders, nothing has happened to those people. Those journalists understandably used this to say, “For all the rhetoric about the gangs and this new piece of legislation saying that it will smash them, will it really?”

The first two amendments in this group will tell the public what they want to know about this Bill—how many gang leaders have been arrested and what exactly has happened. I urge the Government to look at these amendments favourably, as helpful to their cause and to the general atmosphere, so that we do not have public cynicism about political rhetoric without action.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am intrigued by Amendment 20 requiring a statement of

“the number of … gangs that have ceased to operate as a result of enforcement action”.

As I understand it, that is very difficult to know. The characteristic of these gangs is that individual smugglers group and regroup. You have smaller fish who may be better known than the bigger ones. Obviously, the objective that is the subject of this amendment is exactly the right one, but I do not know that there could be any useful or meaningful reporting in quite the way that the amendment suggests. I am sorry not to be supporting it.

On Amendment 21, I note how important it is to have good data, whether or not the six headings here are precisely what the commander should be producing. The more general point—I will go on repeating it—is that the responsibility lies with the Secretary of State, not the commander. It is important to have full and accessible data much more frequently, and more up to date, than in an annual report published some time after the financial year to which the information relates.

I agree with the noble Lord to the extent that this is about accountability, but I do not agree—as he will have gathered rather tediously from me, and I am sorry about that—that the accountability is that of the director. It is that of the Secretary of State.