"My Lords, as it happens, I was confirming in His Majesty’s Prison Holme House on Monday. One of the people I confirmed was an IPP prisoner. We talked about the desperate impact on family and children of the uncertainty that he has faced. He had been recalled, not for having …..." Lord Bishop of Durham - View Speech
"My Lords, in rising to support Amendments 100 and 101, to which I have added my name, I declare my interests in relation to both the RAMP project and Reset, as set out in the register.
"The problem is that the Minister only said, “unaccompanied children”, and did not refer to children in families. I am sorry, but we do not have the confirmation that this addresses the whole range of scenarios—such as families being split up—which we have raised but have not been answered...." Lord Bishop of Durham - View Speech
"The Minister has made me even more disturbed. She has not said—and neither has anyone in the other place—that families and children will not be offshored...." Lord Bishop of Durham - View Speech
"My Lords, I specifically support Amendment 117, to which I have added my name, but I support all these amendments around family reunion. I declare my interests in the register around RAMP and Reset as before.
"I will try to edit my speech as I go. I support Amendment 118, to which I was pleased to add my name. We all agree that we do not want unsafe journeys, and there is no silver bullet: the situation is complex. If a deterrent was really the answer, …..." Lord Bishop of Durham - View Speech
"At Second Reading, we were encouraged to come forward with proposals for new routes and so on. We have done so. It is not good enough for the Government to say that we need more safe and legal routes, and then knock down every idea that we present and not …..." Lord Bishop of Durham - View Speech
"My Lords, very briefly, my deep concern is that the Government’s proposal virtually rules out us ever being the first safe country in which to arrive, simply because of our geography. That is the fundamental problem I have with the whole proposal, because it feels like we are removing ourselves …..." Lord Bishop of Durham - View Speech
"If I remember rightly, we returned only five last year. It is partly to do with Covid, I fully accept that, but it is also because there simply are not the agreements in place with the countries that we want to return those people to...." Lord Bishop of Durham - View Speech