Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 10th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the wisdom of my noble friend Lord Balfe.

Defence of the realm is the first duty of government, so this Bill is essential if unpalatable. Without control over our own borders, Parliament, lawmaking and evidence-based policy become side-shows. It is not dehumanising for our Government to strain every sinew to stop the boats; we do not want anyone else dying in a flimsy boat in our waters. This trade is doing untold harm to our country as well as to those putting family fortunes and precious lives into the hands of people smugglers. What is being traded is not simply money for unsafe passage; it is also our physical and social infrastructure.

Many speaking against today’s Bill habitually, and rightly, hold this Government to account for lack of housing and access to essential services—particularly children’s social care but also family doctors, education and everything else our people rely on for quality of life. Can I ask my noble friend the Minister if he can provide any detail as to the current strain on children’s social services? Are there any projections of how this could worsen without action?

One of the first rules of economics is that wants are unlimited but resources to satisfy them are limited. The basic instinct of many here is to scoop up the dispossessed, especially vulnerable children, and give them the benefits of living in Britain. However, whilst we might want to do that, we need to pay attention to the electorate. It is not pandering to ask what people who voted for this Government want Ministers to prioritise; over two-fifths said their second-greatest concern, after the cost of living, is illegal migration routes such as small boats; more than those who said NHS waiting lists.

We are heading in the right direction in an incredibly difficult area of social policy, but we cannot be half-hearted. The small boats’ business model is ruthlessly pursued; therefore, this Bill must not be so watered down that the loopholes are big enough to drive an armada through.

The electorate are not closet little Englanders—and I choose my words carefully. Scotland has taken a disproportionately low number of asylum seekers, while England has stepped up to accept most of those entering through safe and legal global routes, on which we have a proud recent record.

We are certainly not ducking out of the United Nations refugee convention and the UK’s international responsibilities. As we have heard, our country-specific routes have provided refuge for 150,000 people from Hong Kong, 160,000 Ukrainians and 25,000 Afghans forced to flee the Taliban. Another 50,000 people have come to the UK via non-specific country routes, including through the family reunion route for those with a qualifying family member in the UK. Yet, as we have heard, 74% of illegal arrivals are adult males, many of whom came directly from safe countries such as Albania, and all travelled through safe countries such as France where they should have claimed asylum.

Neither are the electorate heartless, but they are concerned about the £6 million daily cost of housing illegal migrants, and other expenses like the manpower needed to deal with them. I am in and out of prisons, and one reason they find it hard to maintain staffing levels is that Border Force absorbs so many of their trained officers.

As mentioned earlier, people are particularly concerned about the already stretched social services backdrop for British children, such as the lack of foster carers and other pressures, which mean that many are placed far from home in residential settings. Those who argue that unaccompanied children should automatically become looked after by local authorities and certainly not be sent back need to be wide-eyed about the knock-on effect this is already having. Children who are sent on ahead to benefit from the British system further strain our social care infrastructure and make it even harder to address current failings.

Commons amendments mean that return happens only if unaccompanied children’s countries of origin are safe, or they are to be reunited with their parents. Putting it bluntly, if parents are not dissuaded from sending their unaccompanied children on these boats, smugglers will likely focus their trade on this new area of weakness. The vast majority of illegal migrants are not pregnant women and children, but that could change if we do anything to provide a magnet to attract them; we cannot tread so timidly as to be ineffectual.

Every day, people on the coast are dealing directly with this growing problem of illegal migrants, who have to be housed and medically treated, sometimes as a result of their perilous journey. I am sure this Bill will attract an abundance of amendments, but these should not be laid cynically to prevent progress on small boats before the next election. We, and the electorate, need action this day.