Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Deben

Committee stage
Monday 8th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the Committee does not need me to repeat what has been said about Clause 43 by the noble Lords, Lord Anderson and Lord Kirkhope. I agree more than I can say with what they have said. Tagging, curfew, and requiring someone to be or prohibiting someone from being in a particular place at particular times, et cetera—the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has explained what “et cetera” could mean in this situation—are all huge interferences with life in practical, emotional and psychological terms. It basically means that you cannot live a normal life. For instance, how would an international student pursue a course with these restrictions?

As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, mentioned, the Constitution Committee made a recommendation regarding this clause in its report on the Bill. We have had a response today from the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, saying that the person affected can make representations to the Home Office and apply for a judicial review, which the Home Office says in its letter would “provide appropriate scrutiny”. That may be the topic for a whole other, long debate. Noble Lords will understand that I do not feel—I say this personally, because the committee has not had an opportunity to discuss this yet—that that is an appropriate or particularly helpful response.

The comments—the assurances, perhaps I should call them—made by the then Minister for Border Security and Asylum have been referred to. I would be surprised if this detail had yet been discussed within the Home Office, but one never knows, so perhaps it would not be out of place to ask the Minister whether the change of various Ministers within the department means that these assurances remain in place. Is this still what the Government think? Would they be able to give some sort of undertaking to this effect? However, I do not think that would completely answer our objections to Clause 43.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, in an earlier debate on the Bill, my noble friend Lord Cameron of Lochiel reminded me that it is the purpose of the Opposition to oppose. That is why I find it impossible to understand why the Opposition are not opposing this clause. I thought that Conservatives were wholly against Governments being given powers without very clear parliamentary restrictions.

I understand the argument that, if people are allowed into this country with conditions and they break them, all kinds of things, perfectly rightly, can be carried out; I am not disagreeing with that. But I would have thought that it would not take much, looking around the world at the moment, to see how dangerous it is to have a law which can be used by Governments of any kind to do almost anything that they want to. We can look at the United States and see a President who appears to be trying to do things which the law does not allow him to do. Think what would happen if the law did allow him to make the kinds of decisions this clause suggests. I also say to my noble friends that, if this clause applied without any restrictions to citizens of this country, the very first people to object to that would be the Opposition.

Therefore, I hope that the Minister will be serious in accepting that the argument is not about immigration; it is about what powers the Government should be given, unfettered by parliamentary decision-making and the courts. It seems to me that the powers given to Governments under this clause are unacceptable. I am sure that they would not be misused by the Minister or any of his colleagues, but that is not to say that we do not have in this country politicians whom I would not trust with these powers—some of them, indeed, have been in power, and I would not have trusted them with these powers.

Having been a Minister for some 16 years, I always found it valuable that my decision-making should be kept within particular parameters laid down by Parliament. One was constantly being asked by civil servants and people outside to do this, that or the other, and one was able to say, “That is not within my power”. I do not think this is a suitable clause for a British Parliament to pass. We should rely on the law we have already or, if there is any gap in it, reduce that gap in a clause which is very specifically restricted so that we do not tempt any future politicians to behave improperly.