Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Lord Deben

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps it is possible to bring both sides together on this issue. I have a long history of being attacked for my views on this. I was the Member for Lewisham West when we brought in the east African Asians, and I remember the appalling attacks that one had for supporting Ted Heath and the Conservative Government at the time. I want to underline the long history of Conservatives being supportive of proper attitudes towards human rights and asylum. But it does not help us in this discussion if we miss out two different things.

The first is that we need to support international agreements, because this is not going to get any easier. I will not bore the Committee on the question of climate change, but if anybody thinks we have real problems of immigration now, the kind of weather changes we are going to have will mean that there will be a lot more people moving not for economic reasons but because they can no longer live where they are born. We have to realise how serious the issue of immigration right across the board is going to be. One has to take this very seriously, but that means we should be very careful about protecting the rights of asylum seekers. We did not just do this because of the Holocaust, although that was the proximate pressure. There are people who are treated in a way that makes life in their countries absolutely impossible, and they cannot leave by some accepted rule or open system. They have to hide and escape, and we need to take them very seriously.

The other thing we have to remember is that there is widespread concern about the number of immigrants who have come into this country and who are likely to do so. This Committee must not ignore that fact. But if we are to accept both those things, we have to be very careful that the legislation we pass is truly consonant with the international agreements we have. We also have to be extremely careful that we do not say, every time there is an amendment, that somehow there is something unsuitable behind it.

These amendments are technical. I do not agree with them all, but the Committee has to accept that they are important. To dismiss them as if they were merely the product of people who always oppose any kind of restraint on immigration seems unfair and unworthy. I also happen to think that many of us opposed the Rwanda proposal because it was a load of old rubbish—because it was not going to work. That is why we opposed it, not because we did not understand the importance of the issue but because it was not the right answer. Frankly, to suggest that because we did not agree with the Rwanda concept we are somehow wet on this subject seems untrue and very unfair.

We in this House are surely in the business of discussing these matters in detail and carefully. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Alton, have rightly brought to our notice some important issues that we have to get right. They may not be the right amendments, but we have to discuss them without automatically believing what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who has a long history of defending those who are not otherwise defended, has brought to our notice. I am pleased that we have been discussing it. I think we will find that he withdraws or does not move the amendments and thinks again about which ones he wishes to press.

I hope we will treat this with the seriousness it deserves, which means, first, recognising the national concern about numbers and, secondly, trying to make a proper distinction that protects people who flee from terrible regimes. I would like everybody in this Committee to think once again how blessed we are that we are not in that position. If we are blessed in that way, we should think carefully about those who are not.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, every time I speak after the noble Lord, Lord Deben, I feel as though I have taken on the headmaster. Having been admonished, I tread carefully. I have wanted to comment on this group of amendments from the beginning. The fact that the debate has become quite fractious and animated in some ways indicates what my original concerns are and why I wanted to ask the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, in particular, to clarify something.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Lord Deben

Committee stage
Monday 2nd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

It is good to get a laugh before you start. I genuinely worry about the overreach summed up in this particular group that, for example, requires football clubs to operate

“in a way that will achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050”,

or

“materially reduce their negative impact on the natural world and all species that inhabit it”.

That is just from Amendment 15.

We already know the potentially costly and devastating impacts such green policies can have for organisations and individuals, let alone the barriers on development and growth that they can pose. Imposing such regulatory requirements on football clubs seems ill-advised and could be financially draining. I appreciate that, as we may have heard from the response to my initial remark, the noble Lords, Lord Bassam of Brighton and Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and many others, will not agree with me politically, but my main reason for speaking is that this group exemplifies what happens once the Government open the floodgates to political interference in football by adding, for example, equality, diversity and inclusion as a mandatory part of what the regulator must inspect in football. If EDI is in the Bill, others will argue “Why not ESG or net zero?” and mission creep will start in a dangerous way. Such politicised interventions threaten to make the game of football secondary to political priorities and jeopardise clubs’ autonomy.

We have already heard from a number of contributors about a kind of league table of worthy green clubs. Do not get me wrong: if football owners, or chairs, or the fans decide they want that to be the priority, that is up to them. But it should be nowhere near the role of a regulator to decide. We have already heard about the case of green multimillionaire Dale Vince, who is the major shareholder and chair of Forest Green Rovers; we have heard him lauded. Certainly, Forest Green Rovers are the world’s first all-vegan football team; they are also the world’s first carbon-neutral football club; but I note that, at the end of the 2023-24 season, they were relegated back into non-league football, coming 24th out of 24. It is not a scientific correlation, I am just noting it.

Also, does having green credentials benefit fans, who we keep being told this Bill is designed for? Note the controversy over Forest Green Rovers’ home strip. The traditional black and white stripes were swapped for a lime green shirt and black shorts, in line with sponsorship from an eco-friendly, EV-supporting, green YouTube channel, despite what the fans wanted. So the Green Army was not necessarily kept happy by the green politics of the chair of the club. I simply raise this because, if a club wants to go green and fans want their club to be more environmentally friendly, that is fine. But the regulator should have absolutely zilch to say on it and certainly no power to impose it.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I had no intention of speaking in this debate until I heard that last speech. I will, first of all, remind the Committee of my interest, because the company which I chair helps quite a number of people in football to meet the sustainability needs that we have.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Deben (Con)]

There is no scientific society of any major country that does not say that climate change is the biggest material threat to mankind. All of them say and support the view that by 2050, we need to get to net zero if we are to have any possibility of keeping within a 1.5 degree increase in temperature compared with pre-industrial periods. All of them say that, if we do not do that, the effects upon people will be enormously damaging. You only have to look at what has happened with just a 1 degree increase: the recent floods in Spain, for example, the wildfires and the rest. What my noble friend says is not true and it is very dangerous, because that kind of attitude is what allows people to get off the hook.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I do not want to get into a fight among Tories, but I want to clarify my position. I disagree with both noble Lords, in some ways. My point is that I want football clubs to focus on football and not to have rows like this. This is precisely the thing I am objecting to: the introduction of at least in some ways contentious political or scientific matters. I simply say that this should not have anything to do with the regulation of football. That is all, and that is the reason I oppose it—not because I am taking a particular view on climate change or net zero.