Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Sorry, I thought the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, gave way to me.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

I am not accustomed to the practices of this place; I am quite happy to see the debate alternate between different sides. I arrived at this debate—I regret that I have not got to the earlier debates on this difficult Bill—intending to listen but not to speak. I was hoping it would help to resolve the dilemma I face, which turns out to be exactly the same dilemma that has just been addressed by my old and noble friend Lord Horam.

I dare to venture that no one sitting in this Chamber has more liberal instincts than me on the subjects of race, xenophobia, multiculturalism and so on. In fact, one of the satisfactions of finding yourself elevated to the peerage is that you can come into this Chamber, where I suspect 99% of Members have perfectly sound liberal instincts. I have seen society in this country change considerably in my lifetime in the post-war world, and I have said publicly more than once that I think the multi-ethnic and multicultural society in which I now live is a much healthier, stronger and more enriched society than the rather narrow and insular all-white society in which I was born and raised.

The 1951 convention was one of the great contributions that British lawyers and politicians made to the post-war world, and it was obviously highly desirable after the horrendous shock of finding that a European country had organised—or tried to organise—the industrial genocide of a whole race. That is the context in which it was drafted. So my instincts are of course, first, that we should comply with the convention and, secondly, that this is a suitable place to accommodate the many people who need refuge. We have done so very successfully as a country. Although race relations are a problem in some places in this country, I think that our society has handled this better than any other European country. We do not really have the serious problems that quite easily break out in other countries.

But the circumstances have changed worryingly and dramatically. As has been pointed out, because of the horrendously dangerous state of the world, about 80 million people are now displaced, are looking for a better life and would take desperate measures to get it. If my noble friend Lord Horam and I were a couple of 18 year-olds living in Nigeria, I suspect that, if we had more than averagely prosperous families, we would hope that they would raise the money for us to take the horrendously difficult journey of leaving Nigeria to make a new and better life for ourselves. We would then hope for a family reunion and that our family could come and join us once we had made our way in Britain.

Among that 80 million—an extraordinary number—the favourite destinations are probably the United States, this country perhaps second and then France and Germany. They will want to go to these countries because, in the modern world of communications, they can see and know perfectly well that they are where the quality of life is likely to be best for them, if they can get there. The tenor of the debates that I have listened to so far is that we should make sure that there are legal and safe ways in which, in one place or another, we can consider all of these applications and make ourselves at least as attractive as any other country, particularly at a time when many other, previously normally ultra-liberal countries are setting up very considerable barriers to going there.

But we have to reflect on the impact that that might have on our society and culture, because things have been deteriorating recently. The growing public reaction to immigration—albeit expressed in perfectly civilised ways by most people at the moment, fortunately—is one of the reasons why our politics is deteriorating so badly. Every democracy in the western world is seeing the rise of right-wing populist nationalism, which I deplore wherever it occurs, including within the Conservative Party. It is rising—that is the reaction—and it is leading to developments of a kind that have gone further in other countries. In France, the position of Marine Le Pen, who now even has a right-wing competitor for the vote, shows what can happen when you get the wrong public reaction.

Among the public, the overwhelming reaction to the publicised symbol of these worries at the moment—the dinghies coming across the channel and being picked up—is that the Government are failing to stop them. The Government do not have the first idea how to do so, and, actually, neither do I. Plainly, you have to rescue these people and bring them here when they are in our territory—and then they are an asylum and refugee problem.