Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 28th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out “designate a civil servant as the” and insert “appoint a”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would remove the requirement for the Border Security Commander to be a civil servant.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to open our first few hours of debate on Report. Noble Lords who have taken an interest in the Bill throughout our deliberations so far may recognise Amendments 1 and 2. At both Second Reading and in Committee, I said that this new commander was little more than a gimmick. I had hoped that, come Report, I would have heard more persuasive reasons to change my opinion of the Government’s policy. Unfortunately, I have not.

Since we finished Committee on the Bill, 589 people have entered the United Kingdom illegally via small boats. Since the start of this year, 36,954 migrants have crossed the channel. It does not take a genius to figure out that this Government’s policies are not working. The Government entered office with a promise to “smash the gangs”, end the use of hotel accommodation and prevent illegal crossings. They have done none of those things. In fact, the problems have exacerbated.

My Amendments 1 and 2 seek to make minor changes to the method of appointment of the commander. In my opinion, this is an important and strategic role. I will not pretend they are seismic alterations that will shift the dial demonstrably. They are, nevertheless, intended to make an important point that I genuinely hope the Government will take on board.

The point is that the whole of Chapter 1 of the Bill is essentially pointless. The commander is already in post and the Bill provides no substantive new powers. In Committee, when asked by my noble friend Lord Goschen what the commander will be able to do under the provisions of the Bill provisions that his office cannot do already, the Minister said:

“The clauses in Chapter 1—for example, ‘Duty to prepare annual reports’, ‘Duties of cooperation etc’ and ‘The Board’ overseeing all that—underpinned by statutory function give this House the confidence that there is a legislative background to those requirements”.—[Official Report, 26/6/25; col. 395.]


So it appears the Government believe that designating a civil servant as a commander and granting them the ability to prepare a report and to chair a board meeting every now and then is the solution to all our border security woes.

Noble Lords will be aware of the report into the operation of the Civil Service within the Home Office. How can we have faith that another civil servant in post as the commander would make any difference? Amendments 1 and 2 are intended to press the point that the commander, if their appointment is ever to be anything more than pure performance politics, needs to be more than simply a civil servant. It is wise, is it not, to have a guarantee in the Bill that the commander will be a senior law enforcement or military officer, so as to ensure the requisite competence, leadership and experience is brought to the role.

I have one question for the Minister. Earlier this year, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration investigated the Home Office’s operation to deter and detect clandestine entrance to the UK. The first recommendation of the independent inspector was to:

“Designate a Home Office-wide ‘owner’ for clandestine entry”.


In the Government’s response, the Home Office agreed with that recommendation and said that the

“Border Security Command … will ultimately provide the structure to support this role”.

However, it said that it will not implement that recommendation until October 2026. We have a Border Security Commander who the Government tell us is critical to co-ordinating our response to threats to border security, and yet they are not willing to make him responsible for tackling all methods of clandestine entry until next year. Why is this?

Does this not demonstrate the issue with this Government’s approach to the problem? Every can must be kicked down a very long and winding road. Why not designate the commander as the Home Office-wide “owner” for clandestine entry now? Why wait until next year? It is unfortunate, and we on these Benches will be pushing the Government to go much further over the course of Report. The British public want this border crisis solved, and they are watching. I beg to move.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Davies in his amendments. They seem to me to be eminently sensible. I wholly concur with him, as do most people increasingly in the country, that there is no sense of urgency, no sense of grip and a total lack of confidence when it comes to the Government’s handling of the immigration crisis.

The appointment of a Border Security Commander, and limiting that appointment to a civil servant, is a mistake, particularly when we look at other civil servants. When I was a Minister, I had excellent civil servants, and I have nothing to say against them. The great majority of them do an extremely good job. But when we have Joanna Rowland, the Home Office’s director-general for customer services, in charge of accommodating asylum seekers, standing down because of the failure of that, why should we have faith that someone just selected from the Civil Service should be appropriate to fulfil this role?

We are missing a huge mistake in this whole immigration debate. There is a huge backlog in the processing of asylum cases. Why have the Government not come forward with an idea of having an equivalent to Nightingale hospitals, which is what we had during the Covid pandemic, to process this? In my opinion, there is a whole raft of professionals in this country who are retired far too early. We in this House are the last vestiges of people who never retire, but there are an awful lot of people in this House who have retired, or been forced to retire, from their professions—be they judges, solicitors, army officers from the military or magistrates—who would willingly serve, if encouraged to do so, on a series of tribunals up and down the country, so as to better process the backlog in immigration cases.

If you look at the appointment of this incredibly important role, the Border Security Commander is in charge of liaising with Border Force, the National Crime Agency, the Immigration Service and Immigration Enforcement, and the goal is to deliver a safe and effective border. That has not happened to date. I just do not understand the rationale behind why this legislation is limiting the appointment of such a person, with the very narrow criteria that it has, to a civil servant. There must be plenty of other people out there who would be qualified to do this job who are not necessarily from the Civil Service.

I urge the Government to underline the sense of crisis there is in this country. It is benefiting parties and groups in this country that we would rather it did not, because there is a feeling up and down the country that the Government simply have not got control of our borders. There are those who may argue that the appointment of this individual is totemic, that they do not have sufficient power and that the powers will not kick in until later. Those are other arguments. My argument is that, if we have a national crisis which is set to get only worse, we should look at the whole cadre of recently retired professionals who would step up to serve, right across the board, in dealing with the backlog and this immigration crisis. We should look at the best candidates available to fulfil this particular job and not limit it to somebody from the Civil Service.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

By his own admission, the noble Lord did not attend Committee. It is the pity that he did not, because he could have raised some of these questions then. If he chooses to raise them now, on Report, I will give him the same answer. The Border Security Commander is working closely with the security services, and they have authorisation directly from the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary. Quite evidently, when they—or in this case he—are drawing up a plan to examine what needs to be done to solve the common issue of reducing small boat crossings, bringing criminals to justice and helping to speed up the asylum removals that the noble Lord, Lord Swire, referred to, then they are going to discuss and work with the security services. I am straying into a Committee-type session, which the noble Lord did not attend. I would rather stick to Report, which the noble Lord has attended. I think I have answered the questions that he has put before the House.

Turning to Amendment 26, if we return to the position we were in in 2016—which the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and noble Lord, Lord German, would have wished we maintained—we would still be a member of Europol. On a personal note, when I was a Member of the House of Commons, in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 I argued that we retain the capability of Europol and CIS as part of the EU-UK withdrawal agreement. That did not happen. But it is important that we ensure, post-Brexit agreement, that we have as close co-operation as possible with Europol on information gathering and criminal justice delivery capabilities—which the noble Lord and the noble Baroness mentioned. That is important. As we said in Committee, we have a strong existing relationship with Europol. We have around 20 permanent members of staff who work at the multi-agency liaison bureau at the agency’s headquarters in The Hague. The noble Lord asked whether we should have some Europol people here. We currently do not. That is a matter for discussion. Where we are now may be a matter for regret. I voted to remain, but we are where we are. Europol remains an independent organisation. It is accountable to the members of the European Union, and it produces its report to the European Union.

I say to the noble Baroness, and to the noble Lord who supports her, that the proposed new clause in her amendment would require reporting on all aspects of our co-operation with Europol. Ministers, including me, will regularly update Parliament on international law enforcement co-operation, including with Europol. We publish annual minutes of UK-EU specialised committees that monitor and review our trade agreements, including with Europol.

I am mindful that Europol is not a UK body. It answers to the European Commission and its member states, so bilateral co-operation may sometimes be something that we cannot publicly report on. It is not for us to report on some of the issues with Europol, because that is what Europol does. As the noble Baroness mentioned, once upon a time, in days gone by, we did have a British senior official leading Europol. That has changed; we are in a different world now. I assure her that the focus remains on disrupting organised crime, protecting vulnerable people, securing our borders and working in co-operation with Europol to achieve those objectives. To go back to the role of the Border Security Commander, one of his key roles is to oil the machinery of that operation, and work with colleagues who are directly operationally responsible, to make sure that we engender co-operation at a European level.

I therefore respectfully say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that Amendments 1 and 2 are not necessary, and I ask him not to press them. Amendment 26, from the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, is asking for things that we do not need to do, because we in this House are, in a sense, accountable for that relationship. I cannot report on all matters, but I get the spirit of what she is trying to say. On behalf of the UK Government, I want to have the closest co-operation possible with Europol and the European agencies, because we have a joint interest in tackling the criminal gangs and stopping individuals being exploited in those crossings.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a short but useful debate. I thank all those who have participated.

I will say a few words on Amendment 26, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. In addition to the noble Baroness’s comments, I would say that we should be co-ordinating with our European allies on tackling the border crisis in any case. We need to stem the flow of illegal migration through Europe and across the channel, and to disrupt the criminal gangs that operate the smuggling network. However, we should be careful not to see this as some form of silver bullet. The problem cannot be solved simply by striking agreements with other European countries. We know the limited impact that the Government’s so-called “one in, one out” deal has had.

There is so much more that the Government could and should be doing to tackle the fully blown crisis at our border. They need to eliminate the pull factors and implement an effective deterrent. We had hoped the Government would take a long, hard look at their current policy, implement a serious and credible deterrent to prevent people crossing the channel in small boats, and present us with a commander with authority, rather than a commander with nothing to command. Evidently, that is not the case. We will watch very carefully and scrutinise the role of the commander. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the Minister for tabling these amendments. I say at the outset that I am content with the government amendments in this group, but perhaps a little less so with the noble Baroness’s.

Amendments 7 and 12 would create gaps in the new offences that would be susceptible to abuse. Those who enter the United Kingdom without valid leave to enter are committing an offence. Those who handle articles which are to be used to facilitate a person’s unlawful entry, contrary to Section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971, will be committing an offence. That is right, but the exception created by Amendment 7 would mean that a person entering the country illegally could not themselves be found criminally liable for the handling of such articles. If that person intends to use that article themselves to enter illegally, I cannot possibly see why they should be excluded from the commission of the new offence in Clause 14.

Amendment 12 raises a question about the “reasonable excuse” defence under Clause 16 and whether it would extend to those carrying out legitimate legal services. I am sure that the Government have no intention of criminalising legitimate legal activity but, at the same time, we know all too well that there is an army of lawyers working for so-called human rights charities and non-governmental organisations who indeed seek to use ever more ingenious legal methods to circumvent legitimate deportations and removals.

Amendments 10 and 11 concern the offences relating to prohibited items in accommodation or transport facilities. Government Amendment 10 proposes to exempt items

“designed for use for the purposes of personal cleanliness or personal hygiene”

from the relevant offences, and Amendment 11 sensibly limits that exemption so that dangerous articles, such as blades, glass or aerosols, are not inadvertently permitted.

These amendments appear to be a reasonable and pragmatic attempt to ensure that the legislation does not extend beyond its intended purpose. We do not want to see a situation in which a detainee or asylum seeker could be criminalised for possessing a bar of soap or toothpaste, and the carve-outs in Amendment 11 should ensure that safety is not compromised.

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[Lord German (LD)]

I shall add one more difficult question to the lump sum of woes that the Minister has just received, and that is in respect of the most used platform in this area, which is Telegram. Telegram is a company based in the British Virgin Islands, but the people behind it are a moveable feast and very secretive. As the Minister will know, of course, formerly VK sprang out of Russian influence, but Telegram is the biggest alt messaging platform in the world and the one that is more frequently used by people in the world in the area that these clauses are meant to deal with.

Having spent the best part of two years in developing the Online Safety Bill, we know that the question is how you make sure you get at a body such as the people who own Telegram, who will obviously be among the most important people in respect of these new clauses. It is not that it is not worth trying, but I query how easy it is going to be and whether there is—I do not expect a detailed answer because otherwise that will be giving away the processes—a way in which this particular platform would be caught by this and would be able to be tracked down and held to account.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have tabled a raft of amendments criminalising the online advertisement of unlawful immigration services. We know that this is a major source of business for the trafficking gangs and, as such, if the advertising methods can be targeted and disrupted then this should go some way to removing a key part of the business model.

The Government’s impact assessment on this new policy acknowledges that

“it is expected that there will be a small number of arrests under this offence, as the majority of activity is assessed to take place overseas”

The key to the success here will, therefore, lie in enforcement and international compliance, so what steps have the Government taken to push other countries to take action and remove online posts and sites that publish this sort of material? How are they supporting the National Crime Agency to go further with its investigations and campaigns? I look forward to what the Minister has to say on that.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I hope that I can try to reflect on the serious questions posed about the implications of the legislation proposed before the House today on Report. I will try to answer as best I can, but I hope that the broad thrust of what we are trying to achieve, which is to make life harder for criminals to use social media to recruit migrants to cross the channel on dangerous journeys, is accepted by the House as a whole.

The noble Lord, Lord Harper, mentioned a number of points that we would like to reflect on before giving him a definitive answer. He supports the broad purpose of the legislation, but I will make sure that we write to him to cover some of those points.

The noble Viscount and the noble Lord, Lord Harper, raised legitimate issues—supported by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, from the Front Bench—about the difference that the offence will make, its impact and how we deal with people to ensure that it is put in place overseas. The noble Viscount said that if it helps one person, it would be a good thing to do. That remains true. We hope it will disrupt significantly more than that. We have not put a figure on that, but the principle is that it is an additional tool for police and enforcement agencies to take criminal action where other areas are potentially not currently open.

The enforcement of that means that, for countries with which we have extradition agreements, if we identify someone and they are arrested, they can be brought back to the UK for justice. Alternatively, an individual who is resident in the UK could be arrested once our intelligence services and others—including the National Crime Agency—track them down. Alternately, they could be individuals of a foreign nationality who are behind some of these websites or social media channels and visit the UK, and who might accordingly find themselves arrested in the UK for those crimes. So we have a range of extra tools.

With due respect to the noble Viscount, I cannot quantify that in a way that says we will reduce it by 10% or arrest 50 people on the back of that. What we can do is to put another tool in place to help disrupt those criminals. This goes to the point that the noble Lord Davies of Gower mentioned. The Home Office is working closely with the National Crime Agency and other law enforcement partners to ensure that they focus their funding on some of the new tools that they need to use in order to help crack down on this type of crime.

I know from talking to the National Crime Agency—without putting in the public domain confidences that would help criminals—that it is looking at how we can support more officers while also using smarter intelligence gathering and utilising different skills in officers to focus on this emerging market for immigration and migration crimes. All those things are important.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made a number of points about Amendment 14. I draw her attention to the opening line of the proposed new clause in that amendment:

“Application of section (Online advertising of unlawful immigration services) to internet service providers”.


The key point I want to put to the noble Baroness is about “unlawful immigration services”. She asked whether people would be hit by this proposed new clause in the event of them writing about their experiences. No, they would not, because they are not advertising unlawful immigration services. The purpose of this provision is to focus specifically on the criminals who are organising immigration crime. It will not be used in isolation; it will be part of the measures both inside and outside of the Bill, and we are looking to criminalise the critical component of the people-smuggling gangs’ business model.

The noble Baroness also pointed to a number of parts in the legislation. She asked whether Section 2 automatic, intermediate or transient and whether Section 14(3) is automatic, immediate or temporary? I can say to her only that I have described the policy objective that we have set, and the wording we have is the wording that the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel has brought forward to help us achieve that policy objective.

I will reflect on what she said—if there are areas of interest, I will write to her—but I hope that she can look at the bigger picture, which is that is not about criminalising people who do not deserve to be criminalised. It is about criminalising people who are using social media platforms, such as Google, Facebook, Twitter or X—whatever you want to call it these days—to promote their business and to encourage people to undertake illegal crossings. I go back to the initial point in my opening speech: 80% of individuals debriefed by us who have crossed said that their initial contact was via social media. That is the key point that Clause 14 intends to grasp, so I commend it, as well as Clause 13, to the House.

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Moved by

[Lord Davies of Gower]

22: Clause 18, page 11, leave out lines 24 to 26 and insert—
“(c) the vessel in which the person travelled could not reasonably have been thought to be safe for the purposes of reaching the United Kingdom.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would apply the new offence of endangering another during a sea crossing to the UK to any individual who tries to enter the UK illegally and makes their journey in an unseaworthy vessel, removing the requirement for the individual to have done an act to cause or create a risk of death or serious injury.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, this is a short and simple group with one simple amendment, so I will speak briefly. I moved this amendment in Committee to highlight that, as drafted, I suspect that the offence might not be utilised as much as it could be. This amendment is intended to apply the new offence of endangering another to any individual who makes a sea crossing with the intent of gaining unlawful entry in an unseaworthy vessel. This would remove the requirement for an individual to have done a particular act to create risk of death or serious injury.

The principle here is that if a person has crossed the channel in a small boat or dinghy then they have, by definition, created a risk of death or injury. No small boat packed with a large number of people can be considered safe to cross the busiest shipping lane in the world. By being in that boat, you are endangering the lives of all others in that boat. The Minister said in Committee that the reality is that none of the vessels can reasonably be considered safe, which means that the amendment would capture all those making a journey. I agree with the Minister that these journeys cannot be considered safe. Surely if this clause is to have any meaning at all, it must be expounded to capture those who are making these journeys unsafe. This amendment seeks to make that completely clear and, as such, ensure that the offence in Clause 18 can be applied to those it is intended to target. I beg to move.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment would significantly alter Clause 18 and capture all people in these boats. Every one of them would come under the power of this clause. It treats the vulnerable asylum seekers as criminals and is inconsistent with targeting specific criminal behaviour.

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For the reasons I have given—that illegal entry is already covered and that, through this power, we want to address the specific dangerous acts that I have described —the Government cannot accept this amendment. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw it.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s comments. This is about preventing fatalities at sea and, as I said in my opening remarks, no boat packed with a large number of people can be considered safe to cross the busiest shipping lane in the world. However, I hear what the Minister says, so for now I will withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 22 withdrawn.

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[Lord German (LD)]

Just before the noble Lord speaks to Amendment 62, I want to say that these Benches support the Minister.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 62 was also tabled in Committee. Its intent is to disapply data protection laws and regulations for a data subject who has entered the UK illegally or who is a foreign national offender.

The purpose here is, in essence, the same as in Clauses 27 to 31: it is intended to reduce the barriers to data sharing between the relevant law enforcement and immigration services. We feel that data protection legislation should not stand in the way of our ability to protect our borders; it should act as a block on action, not as a shield behind which those who have committed immigration offences can hide. In the same manner as human rights legislation, data protection legislation is not meant to be used to protect those who have broken the law, who have entered illegally or who are trying to prevent their lawful deportation. I will not be pressing this amendment to a Division, obviously, but I hope the Minister has listened to what I have to say.

I understand the purpose of the government amendments in this group, which are removing provisions that are now redundant due to the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. As such, I take no issue with them.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I was glad to hear the Minister use the phrases “vulnerable group” and “blanket fashion”. I think I have quoted him more or less correctly. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, seeks to alter the Data Protection Act by creating the possibility of the Secretary of State making an immigration exception decision. The noble Lord would take out of the list of circumstances to which the Act requires the Secretary of State to have regard all the rights and freedoms of the data subject, including the subject’s convention rights, and the UK’s obligations under the refugee and trafficking conventions. We are not on the same page.