Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Dubs

Committee stage
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the Lib Dem amendments but I want to speak in particular to Amendment 177. I thank the noble Lord for giving way.

The proposition here is a very simple one. It is that asylum-seeking children should be enabled to join refugee family members who are in the UK. This amendment is very straightforward and I am grateful to the many NGOs which helped me draft it. I am also very grateful to the other signatories—the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—for their support. I am influenced by the speech that the Prime Minister made at the Labour Party conference. I do not want to bring too much in the way of party politics into this debate, because I am seeking to get support from all parties, but he made a speech in which he talked about asylum seekers, refugees, human rights, and so on, which I think was very important.

I believe that the proposition in this amendment is a fair one. It will have some effect in reducing the number of people seeking to come over in boats and, above all, it will influence public opinion. I am aware that public opinion is in a volatile state at the moment, but I believe that if the point is put to the British people that what we are seeking to do is to enable children to join their family members in this country, most people in this country would say, “Yes, that is a reasonable and fair proposition”, even if they are hostile to some other aspects of present policy on asylum seekers and refugees. I think public opinion would come on board, but there is a history to this.

At the time we were leaving the EU, I tabled an amendment saying that we should achieve something very similar to what is in this amendment. It was an amendment that was accepted by this House. It was accepted by the Government and was part of the 2017 Act. It was then taken out in the 2019 Act, for reasons which were never made clear to me. Although I had meetings with Government Ministers about it, it was never clear to me why they had gone back on it, beyond the fact that they said, “It will be all right. There’ll be other ways for child refugees to join their families”, but of course there were not and there are not.

There is a positive history to this, because of the way it went through: it passed the Commons, so the Conservatives supported it. The Lib Dems supported it and many Cross-Benchers and Bishops supported it—and, of course, the Labour Party supported it. Are all these groups going to say no to this similar amendment? Are they going to say, “We have changed our minds”? Now, I know that the Lib Dems will not; I am not sure about my friends on the Labour Benches. We will have to see what happens. I look to my noble friend the Minister to see what he is going to do. I have had a discussion with him about this and will have another in the next little while.

The proposition is so simple. I do not believe that even the extreme right of British politics could criticise the concept put forward in this amendment. It seems to me that we have public opinion on our side; we ought to have all parties of this House, and the Commons, on our side, and it ought to become the law of the land. Goodness me, it would be a sign that we have not turned our backs entirely on the basic principles that have underpinned our attitude to human rights, refugees, and so on. It would be quite a bold step but a fairly easy one, in one way.

Of course, family ties are one of the key reasons why children make the dangerous journey. Again, I am not saying that it would stop all the boats—we would have to have a wide range of measures to stop the boats—but it would certainly help and be a generous move by us to show that we can accept people who are so vulnerable.

On the figures, although there is some difference of opinion between the Government—the Home Office—and me and some NGOs, such as the Refugee Council and Safe Passage, in fact the number of children who would be affected by this is very small. The principle is important, and I am not playing a numbers game, saying, “It’s okay because it’s small. It wouldn’t be okay if it was more”. There is an important principle here, but in practice it would affect fewer than 2,000 visas in the first year, I think, and possibly 200 to 300 in the second year. I repeat: the principle is important. It would show that as a country we have not turned our back on the rights of at least some asylum seekers, and we have not turned our back on some elements of the Geneva conventions and some of the human rights measures we have supported.

Unless something dramatic happens, I plan to bring this amendment back on Report. I think the Minister knows that that is my intention. It seems that the Government have three options. They can accept the amendment, which is of course what I would ideally like to see happen—they may want to tinker with the wording, as Governments like to do; they may wish to modify it, but they would have to be careful because modification can either be a way of improving something or it can be a negative; or they may reject it.

We will have to see what happens on Report, but I am conscious that, if the Government decide to oppose this, it will be embarrassing for them to oppose a policy that the same party accepted in the Commons not that long ago. It would be embarrassing for the Government not to do it, but it would be a sensible gesture anyway, because it would show that we do not have to be victims of the sort of publicity that the extreme right in British politics is putting forward, and that we have the strength to stick by our principles. At least there would be one group of people—namely, very vulnerable children—helped by this measure.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

It is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I was delighted to add my name to Amendment 177. I have very little to add to his introduction of the amendment, but it is important that the Minister makes it clear to the Committee what the present position on refugee family reunion is. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, we saw the announcement on 1 September that the refugee family reunion process had been paused temporarily. As I understand it, applications submitted before 1 September are being handled—perhaps the Minister will confirm that—but no more applications are being looked at until a review has taken place.

On 1 September the Home Secretary was very clear that this was a temporary pause, but on 2 October, No. 10 announced:

“In her forthcoming asylum policy reform, the Home Secretary will introduce a fundamental change to the rights provided to those granted asylum in the UK, looking to end automatic family reunion rights”.


That seems to indicate not a temporary pause but something a bit permanent and, to my mind, on the face of it, shocking.

I do not know exactly what is meant by “automatic” in the No. 10 statement, but I guess, charitably, one could assume it simply means “free”—that one should no longer have the right to apply to bring in the lost child without an application fee, attaching a cheque for jolly nearly £2,000 under present rules. For RFR cases there is no cost attached: there is no health surcharge or application fee. You could construe—this is the good interpretation—that the “automatic” in the No. 10 statement actually meant “free”. But people are going to have to pay to bring in the lost child, which is the opposite of what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has so eloquently argued for.

I do not want to say that I hope that is the explanation and the correct interpretation. But the alternative seems to me to be worse: that we are going to end people’s ability to bring in the lost child. What kind of country do we think we are? That is what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is saying in his amendment. The lost relative who turns up in the transit camp in Libya or Turkey is not entitled to come to this country, and the bona fide refugee here—the member of the family who got here, whose case for asylum was established and who was granted protection status—is not allowed to bring in the child, wife or cousin who got lost on route. That is a shocking idea. Surely that cannot be what the No. 10 announcement on 2 October meant. I strongly support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I would be with him in saying that, if it is not accepted now, it should be debated on Report.

But I do not know on what playing field this match is taking place. What happened on 2 October? All these amendments were drafted before the summer: before the Home Secretary paused the policy at the beginning of September and No. 10 apparently killed the policy—or at least announced its massive modification, depending on what “automatic” means—on 2 October. We need to know before Report what the present position and policy are. I of course support Amendments 165, 166 and 178.

I might surprise the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, by saying that I think Amendment 168 is a rather good idea. I expect that the Minister will say that it is not necessary because thorough and satisfactory checks are carried out in any case. But, if I am wrong about that, I would be happy to support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson.

However, before we go much further in Committee, we need to hear from the Minister what the real situation as of today is. Have the Government decided to abolish the RFR route?

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Dubs

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 14th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 48, which has cross-party support in this House and the House of Commons, is concerned with the rights of child refugees in Europe. We are all aware that the refugee crisis is one of the biggest challenges facing us, both in Europe and the whole world. We have a responsibility, along with other countries, to meet that challenge.

We have all been shocked by the filming and newsreels of the fires in the Moria camp. I visited the Moria camp about a year and a half ago; I was shocked then at the overcrowding and the appalling conditions in which people were living, or existing, particularly the children. I visited the Calais area, which had equally appalling conditions. I believe that children in Moria, Calais and in other camps are not safe. It is no good saying that these children are safe in Europe. They are not safe in Europe, and we have a responsibility to help.

Even before the Moria fire, the Greek Government had for months been asking other countries to help them and take a fair responsibility for unaccompanied children. Some countries stepped forward: Germany, Portugal, France, Luxembourg, Finland and even non-EU Switzerland said they would take children but, as far as I am aware, the United Kingdom did nothing.

Since the tragedy in Moria, a number of countries have taken emergency action to help the children specifically impacted by the fire. The Greek Government moved some of them off Moria on to the mainland, but they are still in difficult circumstances. As I understand it, we are talking about 407 unaccompanied children. Ten countries have stepped forward: Germany, France, Finland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Croatia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium and Switzerland have all said they will take some of the unaccompanied children from the camps, but still the United Kingdom has not responded.

In the grand scheme of things, the United Kingdom receives far fewer asylum claims by adults and children than many other EU countries. This is not a matter of competition or using statistics, but Germany, France, Greece and Spain have each taken more than the UK. In relation to their population size, Sweden and Belgium are also doing better than we are. The idea that we are doing our share frankly does not pass the test of the numbers that I have quoted.

I believe that there are three legal routes to safety for child refugees. The first is the vulnerable person resettlement scheme. That is of course a step away from the scope of the Bill, but it is mainly for refugees from Bekaa, Jordan and Lebanon. It is a worthwhile scheme and I applaud the Government on it, but it would be useful to know from the Minister what the Government’s intentions are after 2020, as they have said that it has been agreed until only 2020. Of course it is illogical that a child in a camp in, say, Jordan, should be able to reach the UK in contrast to a child from Greece or the Calais area who apparently is not welcome here. That is why the amendment is so important in providing a safe and legal route.

There are two specific legal routes from Europe. There is Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 for children in Europe who do not have relatives here, which was capped by the Government at 480. I have argued with the Minister on a number of occasions; the Government say that there are not enough local authorities to take more children in foster homes but, frankly, I am aware of quite a large number of local authorities that are willing to take children who do not have family here and to provide foster places, and indeed I think a louder call for local authorities to respond would produce even more places than the 1,600 or so with safe passage that the NGO working on this has been able to cover.

Then there is the Dublin agreement—Dublin III, as we call it—an EU treaty under which children in an EU country can apply to join relatives in another EU country. This is probably the key point in the Bill because it is about family reunion, which is surely a fundamental right. Children should be able to join relatives in this country where those relatives have accommodation for them. This is something that we have debated before; indeed, we even passed an amendment to the 2017 Bill to include Dublin III—that is, that the UK Government in negotiating with the EU should make sure that the provisions of the Dublin treaty regarding family reunion would continue even after we left the EU. That was voted by this House into the 2017-19 Bill and was eventually accepted by the House of Commons. It was then removed from the statute book by the 2019 Act.

I had meetings with Ministers and argued with them. I even had a meeting with the then Immigration Minister, now the Northern Ireland Secretary, who asked at one point in a discussion that we had, “Do you not trust me?” Of course I trusted him—well, things have changed since then, but that is in a different context. We were given assurances that the Government would protect the rights of Dublin III children, but when the Government eventually published their response it fell very short far short of the protection necessary. We took legal advice that said the response was a much weaker one than the one under the Dublin treaty. I am disappointed that we are at the point where we do not know what is going to happen in future.

I understand that, for reasons that are not clear to me, Brussels says that in negotiation with the UK it has no mandate from the 27 countries to negotiate on the Dublin III treaty and that that will have to be done on a bilateral basis—that is, in 27 separate negotiations. That is of course a recipe for a long drawn-out process. I do not know why that is the case because even our Government would be keen for there to be one separate negotiation, although, as I said earlier, I would like it to be on something more substantive than the Government’s proposals that were put forward recently.

If we have to leave the EU without a deal—I am bound to say that that looks increasingly likely—or with a very limited deal, where does that leave the Dublin III children? The amendment that we originally passed in 2017, which the Government said they would accept the spirit of while deleting it in the 2019 Act, was of course based on the premise that we would find some good basis for negotiating our continued relationship with the EU. That seems less likely now than ever, which is why Amendment 48 is surely the best way forward and is so important.

Let me restate: I believe that the UK, along with other European countries, share responsibility for refugees. It should be a wide international responsibility. However, I have never said we should take all the children; I have said only that we should take our share. If this issue is explained to the people of this country—it has already been explained, but we will go on explaining it—we will find that most people in Britain, though not all, are sympathetic to the idea that we should take child refugees. This is something I believe commands public support. Those of us who have been campaigning for child refugees have always said, as I have certainly said, that it is public support that we need—community groups, faith groups, or whatever group in the public.

We know that providing safe routes is the best way of defeating vicious people traffickers. That is why the two legal paths to safety, plus the scheme from the region, are the right way forward. This amendment will consolidate that and give children in Europe safety in this country. We are a humanitarian country. We can demonstrate this best by accepting this amendment.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

After the masterly explanation from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, there is little to add. However, I want to have a go. I said at the start of this Committee that I should declare an interest: I am a trustee of the Refugee Council.

First, I make a general point about the hysteria about invasions across the channel. There have been 4,000 people who came this year—why? It is not, pace the Prime Minister, because they are stupid. It is because there is no open legal operational alternative for them. This means that we are effectively accomplices of the criminals who stuff them into dangerous dinghies and lethal lorries. It is not the fault of the French, pace the Daily Express; there is no legal or moral obligation on the French to say to people who would like to seek asylum in the United Kingdom that they must instead seek asylum in France. Let us keep it all in perspective; the French and the Germans received more than three times as many applications for asylum last year as we did. The Greeks received twice as many. Let us try to take out of the debate some of the emotion and hysteria that Mr Farage is so keen to stoke up.

I have three points on unaccompanied children. First, it is a shame that despite all the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, we have still not cracked the problem. The overwhelming number of these cases are about family reunion. The humanitarian case for family reunion is overwhelming. The evidence I see at the Refugee Council suggests that British public opinion thinks so too. British public opinion would like us to crack this problem. The British people are not inhumane.

Secondly, the problem is about to get worse. Dublin III will not apply after 1 January and, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was saying, it is clear that the Frost-Barnier negotiation will not produce the replacements for Dublin that our Government were required by this House to seek. Section 37 of the withdrawal Act abolished that requirement to seek it. Their own proposal was inadequate as a way of matching what the House of Lords had asked for before our request was knocked out of the Act. It was more about a requirement on the 27 to accept failed asylum seekers on return than about making it possible for families to be reunited in this country. As I understand it, that proposal is dead.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Dubs

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I am not sure that I have every figure at my fingertips, but let me do my best. Section 67 of the 2016 Act covered children being able to come to Britain without having family here. The Government capped the total at 480. I understand that we are quite well short of that, even today. The Government said the number of 480 was limited by the ability of local authorities to find foster families. That is not the case with children joining their relatives here, where clearly local authorities do not have to find foster places. I think, to date, several hundred children—the Minister may correct the figure—have come under the family reunion provisions in the Dublin treaty. We might be talking about 800. Without having the exact figures, we are probably talking about 1,000 or 1,000-plus in the Greek islands and in northern France. In the context of the international situation, that is very few.

The Minister said that we have taken a certain percentage of the EU total. Yes, we have, but probably only in relation to the size of our country. I do not dispute the figure from the Minister. However, refugees in a wider sense are going to be the most challenging issue to the whole world, and certainly to Europe and ourselves, over many years. But what we are talking about here is a very small number of children, who will be positively affected by this measure. That is why I am pretty keen on it. We had a small demo in Parliament Square yesterday, with a lot of people supporting it. We have had more than 200,000 signatures on a petition supporting the provision. I believe that we are essentially on the side of public opinion. I believe that we are essentially on the side of humanity. I beg to move.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I supported the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in Committee and I support him now. I need to declare an interest as a trustee of the Refugee Council. I also need to declare total bafflement; I have absolutely no idea why Clause 37 is in this Bill. I do not understand what the Government are planning to do. I took part in Committee and, after speaking on this, I listened to the Minister at Second Reading and am still none the wiser as to why it is here.

What is on the statute book now in the 2018 Act is a commitment that the Government will seek to negotiate a reciprocal arrangement for these poor children. This clause repeals that requirement and replaces it with a commitment, in almost exactly the same terms, to make a statement to Parliament, which is not a very strong commitment. Why do the Government want to repeal the 2018 Act in this respect? We have heard three possible explanations: first, that it is unnecessary to keep this on the statute book because the Government intend to negotiate on this matter, and the Minister told us that a letter had been written; secondly, that it was always inappropriate to the 2018 Act; thirdly, that it is important not to tie the Government’s hands.

I do not find the first explanation very easy to understand. If the Government are seeking to negotiate and have written a letter designed to open negotiations on this matter, why should they want to repeal the commitment to negotiate? It does not make any obvious sense. On the second argument, regarding inappropriate positioning in the 2018 Act, they say it is much better to put it in the new immigration Bill. But there is no new immigration Bill as yet, and these negotiations are about to start. Also, the Government are not removing from the statute book any reference to this issue; they are replacing it with the language we see in Clause 37. If the 2018 provision was inappropriately placed, the 2020 provision that the Government seek is inappropriately placed. I do not understand that one.

Moreover, it is not a matter appropriate to an immigration Act, because what we have in the 2018 Act and in this Bill is a reciprocal requirement. The idea is that the Government would negotiate to ensure that the 27 would be willing to take poor children in this country who are in this plight and enable them to join their family elsewhere in the 27. The provision for the emigration of small children would be highly inappropriate to an immigration Act or immigration regulations. I believe it follows that the argument about it being inappropriately placed falls.

The third argument is still more difficult and slightly awkward. I am sorry not to see him in his place, but at Second Reading the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, said:

“It is vital that the Government are not legally constrained in those discussions.”—[Official Report, 13/1/20; col. 554.]


The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said that the Government do not wish to see their hands tied. However, nothing in the 2018 Act would tie their hands; they must seek to negotiate. We are not saying that they cannot conclude a deal unless they have successfully negotiated. For myself, I do not think it likely that the negotiation on this point would fail, but we are not saying that if it did, everything would be off. We are simply saying that the Government should have a go. I do not see how that would tie anyone’s hands.