Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Hamwee

Committee stage
Thursday 26th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I appreciate that this group looks rather indigestible, so let me put it in a different way. I will give the amendment numbers so that they are there in the Official Report and it is understood that they have to be read as packages, each relating to a different clause but on the same point. To Clause 13, as well as Amendment 29, I have Amendments 34, 36 and 37. To Clause 14, I have Amendments 40, 43, 45 and 48, and to Clause 16, I have Amendments 52, 54, 58, and 61.

Chapter 2 of this part of the Bill creates various new offences, and these amendments are addressed to what is an offence and what is a defence, and in brief, who has to prove what. As the clauses are constructed, there is an offence if, to take Clause 13, P supplies a relevant article, and P will have a defence if he/she/they show that they had a reasonable excuse. The explanatory statement puts it more elegantly than I could—I credit the Public Bill Office with this; the drafting defeated me, and it was extremely helpful. That is not saying that I do not take responsibility—of course I do. As the explanatory statement says, the amendment

“makes the lack of a reasonable excuse a component part of the offence of supplying articles for use in immigration crime, thus placing the burden of proof upon the prosecution”,

which, of course, is normally the way we do things in this country. If the supply is without reasonable excuse—the prosecution has to show this—P would not be prosecuted if he has a reasonable excuse. One would not start on that journey.

I am very uneasy that the burden is on P. Innocent till proved guilty should be the position, not the equivalent of guilty until proved innocent. I beg to move.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am very happy to support this string of amendments, which has been introduced very digestibly by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and deals with the reverse burden of proof and reasonable excuse.

Earlier in our proceedings, I referred to the publication of the report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights last Friday. It deals at some length with these issues that the noble Baroness has laid before your Lordships. These amendments seek to strengthen the safeguards in these new offences. Paragraphs 20 and 25 to 28 of our report—to which I particularly draw to the attention of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hanson—deal specifically with defences and the potentially reasonable excuses referred to in this group of amendments.

Clause 16 provides two defences, the first requiring the person to show that the

“action or possession was for the purposes of a journey to be made only by them”.

If it applies simply to the individual—and not, for instance, to couples travelling with children—it would be helpful if the Minister could tell us the estimates, and I accept that they can only be estimates, of how many channel crossings in small boats are made by one person travelling alone, how many by couples and how many by family groups. I understand that we might not be able to have that information in Committee, but if we could have it between now and Report, I would be very grateful.