Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Committee stage
Thursday 26th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to this group of amendments and, with the exception of the amendments in the name of my noble friends on the Front Bench, to oppose them. It is always a pleasure, of course, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, who brings great expertise to our proceedings.

I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for whom I have great respect, but I have to say that I slightly disagree with him. I have read the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and I feel that the committee’s report in respect of precursor offences is less than compelling, if I am quite honest. I know that the Government will be, to a certain extent, circumscribed because they are not required to respond to the report until August; I am sure we would have benefited in this debate had we had the Government’s response. Nevertheless, the Government have made their position clear—and I support them in this respect—that Clauses 13 to 16 will strengthen the ability of law enforcement agencies to tackle the supply chains for the people-smuggling networks, which I think is what we are all interested in doing.

Although the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, come from the right place and are well-meaning, the real-world impact of them is that they weaken the ability of the Government and the appropriate authorities to tackle people smuggling, because they significantly change the burden of proof in respect of evidence for criminal liability and culpability. That de facto reversal of proof is not in the public interest. So in some respects the result of these amendments being agreed would be pernicious and not in the public interest, and would militate against the strategic priorities of the Government that we support: smashing the gangs and reducing illegal migration.

I do not want to detain the House at this hour with a long discussion on what mens rea means, but it does mean “guilty mind”. There are different aspects—

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

We will come to those arguments on mens rea. They are in later amendments. Perhaps the noble Lord would not want to jump ahead, because the groups of amendments dealing with that come in the next day in Committee on this Bill.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

The noble Lord admonishes me for perhaps jumping slightly ahead, so I will revert to Clause 13 and put a question to the Minister. The honourable Member for the Weald of Kent in the other place, when considering the Bill in Committee, mentioned a potential loophole arising from the draft wording in Clause 13. I accept that, in terms of reasonable excuse, the Bill is caveated in that it is not a definitive position that you have no excuse whatever. It is right that, when you are dealing with individuals, even when they are involved in something as appalling as people trafficking and illegal migration, there should always be some discretion for the criminal justice system to exercise in adjudicating on their alleged offences.

However, there is a question to be asked about Clause 13(3) and the “reasonable excuse” caveat in terms of a loophole. Do the Government see that as problematic in terms of future litigation? I would not use the term “two-tier justice”, but certainly there is an element that speaks to the fact that, if you do not charge for services and you are seeking to rescue a person, that absolves you of criminal responsibility. There is an argument that that sends out a message.

My problem with this group of amendments is that they reduce the push factor and increase the pull factor. Those will be the real-world consequences of making it easier for people to argue that they have a reasonable excuse and did not possess an intent to commit these new offences. So, on this occasion, I will probably agree with the Minister that the House should resist the amendments.

I also pray in aid the example that the Immigration Minister, Angela Eagle, used in the other place. She prayed in aid the case in November 2024 of Amanj Hasan Zada, who organised cross-channel boat crossings from his home in Lancashire. He was jailed for 17 years after being found guilty on people-smuggling charges. It was very much the view of the National Crime Agency and others that, had the proposals contained in the Bill been in place, he would have been brought to justice much earlier, and that it was only because the authorities, particularly the NCA, did not have the ability to use the full force of law in respect of the legislation obtaining at the time that he was not stopped from his abhorrent activities at an earlier juncture.

I finish by saying that we all wish to see fair play and due process. We all want a legal system that does not discriminate on the basis of race, background, ethnicity, religion, and so on, but, equally, we have to be realistic, practical and pragmatic. In the real world, we need to reduce the pull factor and increase the push factor. I think these amendments would do exactly the opposite and, for those reasons, I hope the Committee is not minded to support them.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Report stage
Wednesday 6th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

However much the noble Baroness heckles from a sedentary position, I will not sit down and I will finish my speech. Rule 39 interim measures, as we learned in Committee, were not in any meaningful sense court rulings per se and, more specifically, great British statesmen and jurists such as David Maxwell Fyfe, who has been quoted, and Winston Churchill never signed up to the court taking powers upon itself to make binding injunctions. This is at the very heart of these amendments. Indeed, it was debated and specifically rejected in terms. It is only since 2005, when activist judges were acting in the case of Mamatkulov and Askarov v Turkey, that the court has given itself a power ultra vires to the original convention—an important point enunciated previously by, among others, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and my noble friend Lord Sandhurst.

The clause that amendments today seek to strike down, eviscerate and render otiose is not an example of arbitrary power but a specific power for this Bill and a set of unprecedented geopolitical and economic circumstances: mass migration. It is not a blanket disregard but a specific power. In summary, Rule 39 rules were never part of the European convention or constitution and there is no evidence, other than the hyperbole in this Chamber, that the UK not being bound by these interim measures undermines our overall compliance with international law and our international obligations, responsibilities or undertakings. The irony of these amendments is that they lock in the UK to adherence to a regime that even the court itself accepts is suboptimal and needs urgent reform. These amendments offer a carte blanche to a broken system.

The court itself does not work in its efficacy and the power to produce a desired result, with 48% of leading judgments being unaltered and not acted upon in the past 10 years across all 46 members of the convention. We have a failing, politicised, secret and unreformed court that some noble Lords wish to legislate to usurp the sovereignty of our Parliament. For these and other reasons, I ask your Lordships to resist these amendments because they are not only consequential but dangerous.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I follow my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, in supporting these amendments. I simply say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, that yesterday was the 78th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s famous speech in Missouri; it was entitled Sinews of Peace and it dealt with issues such as the Iron Curtain coming down across the Europe, and why Winston Churchill believed we needed a convention on human rights and supported the creation of the Council of Europe as the best buttress—alliances based on the rule of law—to preserve the peace of Europe and the world.

In the troubled times in which we live—the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, referred to the debate on these things in your Lordships’ House yesterday—the upholding of the rule of law, especially in the face of all that Putin’s Russia is doing in Ukraine, is paramount—

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

The noble Lord has a proud and long-standing record of defending human and civil rights, which we all support and congratulate him on. However, does he not agree that a system in which you have an unnamed foreign judge in an international court imposing a late-night judgment, and which allows the UK no opportunity to give its own evidence or respond, or understand the evidence against it, is surely not an example of due process or, more importantly, the rule of law?

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I disagree with the noble Lord; the amendments are about interim measures. The Joint Select Committee on Human Rights, on which I serve, took evidence on this issue and I want to refer to that for a moment. Having heard the evidence, these were the conclusions of a committee of the sovereign British Parliament. In paragraph 105, we said:

“We recognise that there are differences of opinion over whether or not interim measures ought to be binding on the United Kingdom. However, as a matter of international law, they are binding. Failing to comply with interim measures directed at the UK would amount to a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights”.


On Clause 5, we said that the Bill

“contemplates a Minister choosing not to comply with an interim measure and thus violating the UK’s international human rights obligations. It also prevents the domestic courts taking into account what may be a relevant factor for any decision whether or not an individual should be removed to Rwanda. This is not consistent with a commitment to complying with the UK’s obligations under the ECHR”.

That was the committee’s considered, majority view; it is not a view that has been responded to by the Government. Here I ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, or the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, when they come to reply, to go back to the Committee stage of this Bill, where they gave an assurance that, before we went any further, Parliament would be told the response to the findings of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. As recently as Monday, I was told when I intervened on this point that there would be a response for today; I would like to know when it is going to be forthcoming.

It brings our Parliament into disrepute when we set up Joint Committees and say we will consider issues of this kind in great detail, and when reports have been made available to the Government, but no response has been forthcoming before detailed consideration of that legislation. Here we are, at the Report stage of a Bill that has gone all the way through the House of Commons, has almost completed its passage in your Lordships’ House, and we still have no proper response. When the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, defended, as he did earlier, the integrity and the nature of our Select Committee, I was with him, and not just because, like him, I have particular admiration for the chairs of Select Committees. The honourable Joanna Cherry is no exception in this respect. She is an admirable chair of that committee; she is not a partisan—ask members of the Scottish National Party and they will tell you that she is a very independent-minded lady who has considerable experience as a KC in the law, so chairs are not to be dismissed. These committees of your Lordships’ House should be taken far more seriously. Not to do so is a discourtesy to Parliament and to the kind of arguments that my noble and learned friend has put forward, and it is why, even if these amendments are not voted on today, the principles that underline them should be supported.