Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 10th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am minded to vote in favour of the amendment and to oppose Second Reading of this disgraceful Bill. Other speakers have explained and will explain that the Bill is immoral and will cause much unnecessary pain and suffering, and it is far from obvious that it will achieve its stated objectives; but I am going to speak directly to the amendment and suggest reasons why it is right and necessary for this House to refuse to consider the Bill further.

No one doubts that the House of Commons has a democratic mandate and is entitled to pass whatever legislation it wishes. The issue here is the role of the second Chamber when presented with legislation that is so egregiously bad as this Bill.

The political reality is that there is no way that this Bill will or could be revised to make it better. It is intrinsically bad and, having read the debates that took place in the Commons, it is quite clear that the Government are opposed to any meaningful amendment.

Various threats have been made as to the consequences for this House if it refuses to pass this Bill, although today’s article in the Times is more measured, but we need to recognise the role in our constitution of the Parliament Acts. Any Government with a majority in the Commons can overrule this House, and if they think it is right to do so, they should do so. That does not require us to accept their proposals.

Earlier speakers have tried to suggest that for this House to refuse to consider a Bill is “unconstitutional”. Clearly that is nonsense; we have the constitutional right to refuse a Bill. I quite understand that noble Lords may not be greatly interested in my views on the matter. However, they may be swayed by the words of Sir Winston Churchill. I refer noble Lords to his speech in the Commons on 11 November 1947, when he was leader of His Majesty’s Opposition, speaking in the debate on the Second Reading of the Parliament Bill, which can be found in Hansard vol. 444, beginning at col. 203.

Sir Winston’s position on this matter is interesting, as in 1911 he was, in his own words, a “radical” and an active proponent of the legislation that limited the power of this House by restricting it to a two-year delay. Then, in 1947, he opposed Labour’s proposal to reduce the period of delay to one year. Much of his speech was devoted to setting out why two years was right and one year was too short, which, while interesting, need not concern us. There was also much political knockabout, although his comment that

“No Government has ever combined so passionate a lust for power with such incurable impotence in its exercise”


has contemporary relevance.

The burden of his speech, and what is relevant to us here today, is his forceful argument as to why and when, in accordance with our constitution, this House was entitled, even under an obligation, to refuse to consider a Bill, even when it had been passed by the Commons. The crucial point is that, as a great democrat, he argued the case for this House taking such action on the grounds of democracy. He said, in terms:

“The spirit of the Parliament Act, and the purpose of that Act, were to secure the intimate, effective and continuous influence of the will of the people upon the conduct and progress of their affairs”.


In other words, he argued that our power to delay should, when this House thought fit, be used in the interests of democracy. He asked:

“Is the party opposite really to be entitled to pass laws affecting the whole character of the country in the closing years of this Parliament without any appeal to the people who have the vote and who placed them where they are?”


In other words, our role is to make the Commons think again and, towards the end of a Parliament, make the Government seek a new mandate. His conclusion was:

“The object of the Parliament Act, and the spirit of that Act, were to give effect, not to spasmodic emotions of the electorate, but to the settled … will of the people”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/11/1947; cols. 205, 204,214, 206.]


This Bill is clearly based on “spasmodic emotions” and we should, on the grounds set out in the amendment, use our constitutional powers to decline to give it a Second Reading.