Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

My Lords, in dealing with this Motion we will also deal with Motion A1.

Motion A1 (as an amendment to Motion A)

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough]

Moved by

Leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendment 37”.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I really do not envy the Minister in this situation. Obviously, we have debated this issue on a number of occasions; it was debated in the other place last Wednesday.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since the Second Reading of this Bill in the other place and in this House—even more so, it is fair to say, since the Home Secretary unveiled her new policies on the asylum system and immigration policy, which, in many respects, supersede this Bill as it currently stands. I mention this because it is my firm view that, had this amendment been debated several months ago, with this Home Secretary, it would undoubtedly have been accepted; indeed, the Government may also have been minded to put down a similar amendment to my own.

We can potentially be cynical about the new policies that have been developed by the Home Secretary. Some may say that they are performative smoke and mirrors—that, in the absence of a policy to leave, or at least to derogate from the ECHR, they will rely on discretionary powers; that there will be little deterrent effect; and that far too many loopholes were still in place, even with the new policy—or we can believe that it is a genuine and workable programme to tackle uncontrolled immigration. We shall see, but let us take the Home Secretary at her word.

One of the key aspects of the Home Secretary’s new policy is a new work and study visa route. On Report, the noble Lord, Lord German, asked this: if we cannot collect data on student visas and criminality, how can we properly assess the risk of abuse of the visa system when the Home Office and universities are obliged to take such factors into account in their decision-making? Also, if we do not collect all the relevant data, particularly with respect to students, we cannot—this was articulated by the Home Secretary—pursue a policy of visa bans for countries that fail to co-operate with returns policies.

These are issues of openness and transparency. The Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Lemos—failed to reassure us on Report. He actually supported the thrust of our argument when he stated:

“I entirely accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, that without proper information on this and a number of other matters, it is very difficult to have an informed public debate”;


as I said earlier, the Government could have moved their own amendment, but they have chosen not to do so. The Minister also said:

“The Home Office does propose to publish more detailed statistical reporting on foreign national offenders subject to deportation and those returned to countries outside the UK”.—[Official Report, 5/11/25; col. 1944.]


More to the point, the Minister was unable to address the substantive point made by my noble friend Lord Harper about information collected on the propensity of different nationalities to commit crime. I understand that he has received a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Lemos. We look forward to a clearer answer on that particular question; perhaps my noble friend will reference it should he choose to speak in this debate.

Your Lordships’ House will be aware that many other jurisdictions routinely collect, collate and publish this type of data. Examples include Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; the Department of Home Affairs in Australia; and the United States’s SEVIS, or student and exchange visitor information system. All of them publish this data as a matter of routine. The question is: if we already have this data, why not publish it to enable proper, informed debate and fact-based policy-making? Ministers have failed—both here and, last Wednesday, in the other place—to articulate a coherent rationale for resisting this sensible, practical and helpful amendment to the Bill. With all due respect, their arguments were threadbare, to say the least.

Surely the acid test are the answers to two questions. First, will this amendment damage or impede the central premise of this Bill? Secondly, will the amendment help His Majesty’s Government develop public policy, which is of significant public concern, based on real-time, robust empirical data? For the benefit of the Minister, the answers are no and yes. Even now, the Minister can accept this amendment and break free of what I described earlier as a significant culture of secrecy and obfuscation in respect of this data. If Ministers want to be taken seriously and to restore trust in their proposals and policies, they can make a good start in good faith by conceding what would be, in the great scheme of things, a minor amendment. On that basis, I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Jackson’s Motion for several reasons. The first is that he set out a compelling case for why this data should be both collected, if it is not collected, and published so that we have a much clearer idea about the nature of student visas. I did not hear any compelling reason, in our debate on Report, why that should not be the case.

In the House of Commons, when they debated this matter last week, the Minister went out of his way to say that

“the Home Office already publishes data on a vast amount of migration statistics, including information on visas, returns and detention”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/11/25; col. 790.]

He said that it is all “kept under review” and so on, but he did not actually give us a reason around this particular set of data. First, he did not tell us whether it is collected. He also did not tell us whether it was going to be published; actually, he did not come up with any reasons as to why my noble friend’s amendment could not be accepted. I certainly do not think that, either on Report here or in the House of Commons, Ministers set out any concerns about the drafting of my noble friend’s amendment—so it cannot just be that it is okay except that it is terribly badly drafted, in which case, of course, Ministers could have taken it away and used the skills of the Government’s parliamentary draftsmen to have it improved. That is the first thing; I cannot see any reason why we should not accept it.

If the Minister were to suggest that he would be happy to publish it, I cannot see why we should not just put the amendment in place. This Minister is a very fine Minister—we like him very much, and he is very robust—but, sadly, he may not be the Minister for ever.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord German. I cannot guarantee that I will be here for ever—nor would I wish to be. I have done 13 years at various Dispatch Boxes over the last 27 years, and the 14 years I did not do were not my fault. I hope to continue.

I am giving a commitment on behalf of the United Kingdom Government which will hold for the term of this Parliament. I cannot commit future Governments to issues but, again, that is what parliamentary democracy is about—holding Government Ministers to account. Who knows who the next Government will be or what they will look like, but I am giving a commitment on behalf of the UK Government for those statistics over this period of time. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, will accept it.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this interesting debate. It is important that we understand the wider context of what we are doing here. We are seeking to improve the Bill. It is the role of this House to provide scrutiny and oversight and to improve legislation that may be defective or could be improved.

As I said in opening, this amendment would improve the Bill. We all know about judicial activism, the threat of judicial review and, not least, the opposition of the Minister’s Back-Benchers in the other place. The Home Secretary’s new proposals may very well fall foul of judicial review, so anything in primary legislation that protects the Government and enables them to carry out their stated policies is probably a good thing.

I am somewhat discombobulated by the transformation of the Minister from bruiser to pussycat today. He will concede that he has not always been like that. The context of this is that I asked six parliamentary Questions between March and June this year and got the same vacuous answers from the department—including that it will “always undertake a thorough, comprehensive review of statistics”. He will forgive me if I am slightly less willing to take this on board. I make the distinction between the Minister, who is a man of honour and integrity, and the department in which he is a Minister, which does not always put some issues at the top of its priorities. I will leave it at that.

To respond quickly to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I reassure her that there was no inference that all foreign students are criminals and are therefore likely to be deported. That is why I specifically said on Report:

“I want to make it clear that the vast majority of those individuals come, study hard and contribute to our society and economy, but there is a minority who abuse that privilege—and it is a privilege. We have some of the world’s top universities in our country, and it is not an automatic right to be here”.—[Official Report, 5/11/25; col. 1932.]


I stand by those words.

I am concerned about the lack of focus on this issue. I was confused by the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, to my noble friend Lord Harper. It did not seem to have a focus on risk assessment and was not clear about what data would be collected. The Government seem particularly ill prepared, as my noble friend alluded to, for the visa ban policy on Angola and other countries if they do not collect and publish basic data.

Finally, we seem to have no idea of a timescale. We have constantly been promised that a protocol is in place for the collection and publication of data, but it is always mañana —it is always tomorrow.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Just so the noble Lord has absolutely no excuse not to support what I have said, a broad time period will be reported on, subject to the data being available. We will commence work immediately, with a view to publication by the end of the financial year, which is April. That is the timescale, if the noble Lord wishes to accept this. If he does not, he can have his Division if he wishes, but that is the offer I am making to him today.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I take that offer in good faith, but it will be 14 months since I first asked a similar question about the figures. The Government have had endless opportunities—before they launched this new policy, and before the Prime Minister’s speech on immigration earlier in autumn—to bring forward their own amendment on this issue.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

So the noble Lord would rather have a Division than accept the publication of what he wants by April. I just want to be clear on what he is saying today. So that the House is clear on what he is saying, the noble Lord would rather try to win a vote in order to cause more difficulties and discussion, even though I am offering to give him by April next year the thing he is requesting.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I take on board what the Minister is saying. However, I reiterate the point that it is intellectually incoherent to think it is good policy to say in Hansard and in letters to my noble friends that you have always believed something, but not to will the means by putting it in primary legislation. On that basis, I intend to test the opinion of the House.