Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness May of Maidenhead (Con)]

My Lords, as I rise, I draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that I both set up and chair the Global Commission on Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking. I wish to move Amendment 47 standing in my name, and in my remarks I would also like to address Amendment 49.

As I have been listening to the debate that has taken place so far, I have to say that I think there is absolute agreement across the Committee that we want to smash the gangs and deal with the criminals who are making money out of other people’s hopes and misery. The Minister has made that very clear, and others speaking from across the Committee have supported that intention.

I also noted the remarks that were made by the noble Lord, Lord German, in moving Amendment 46, in relation to the issue of modern slavery. It is on that issue that I have specifically put down Amendment 47. My concern is that in the attempt to smash the gangs, the Government may inadvertently catch up within the requirements of this Bill those who are acting not in order to make money or simply for themselves but because they have been forced to do so by their traffickers or slave drivers. They are acting under the duress of modern slavery. That is why Amendment 47 would add to Clause 14(4) proposed new paragraph (c) so that one of the reasonable excuses that somebody has for an offence under this clause is that they were acting under the duress of slavery.

If I may just say so to your Lordships, it is very easy in today’s world to think that when we are dealing with aspects of border security and immigration crime, we are thinking only about small boats. That is where the focus is, and there are some elements of this Bill that are specifically related to people coming across the water from France, Belgium or Holland. But, in fact, immigration crime can be committed in a number of different ways. People can be brought across the border in a number of different ways. It may very well be that somebody who is being brought under duress of slavery, who is being trafficked into sexual exploitation, for example, may in effect be committing an immigration crime. I believe that they should have the ability to use the fact that it was under duress of slavery as a reasonable excuse for a defence.

The Minister may say to me that Sections 24 and 25 of the Immigration Act 1971 talk about somebody knowingly having a document or whatever that they know is in breach of immigration law, and I would be interested if he used that as his defence for not specifying—no, the Minister is shaking his head. If we are all agreed that people who have been enslaved should not be caught up by this Bill and be charged with these offences, then I urge the Minister to accept that that needs to be specified on the face of the Bill. He has just, in response to the noble Lord, Lord German, indicated, more or less, that he does not intend to cover those people who are under duress of slavery. I say that it would be far preferable if we made that absolutely clear on the face of this Bill.

Amendment 49 is of a slightly different order because it refers to the holding of items that have been picked up as a result of action under Clause 14. It is just to make sure that where a relevant article is held by the authorities, they ensure that they maintain it and protect it, so that if the individual from whom it has been taken wishes to use that relevant article as part of their case to the national referral mechanism to be considered to be subject to modern slavery, that item is protected.

It is of course normal practice—as I discussed the other day with my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower, who has a police background—that police keep evidence and should protect that evidence, but I think we should be absolutely clear that such articles should be capable of being protected, and should be protected, by the authorities, so that the person who may be under duress of slavery can, if necessary, rely on that item in the case that they provide to the national referral mechanism. This is about the protection of those who are being enslaved. Fifty million people around the world are in slavery of various forms. We want to ensure that we do not aid those who wish to bring people across this border into slavery. I urge the Government to specify the under duress of slavery issue on the face of this Bill. I beg to move the amendment.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to these two amendments, and I declare that I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery and vice-chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation. I agree with every word that the noble Baroness, Lady May, said. We need to remember that in these two amendments we are talking about not people traffickers but human traffickers, those who are bringing people from other countries to this country to be enslaved. As the noble Baroness said, many millions of people across the world—men, women and children, including babies—are in that very sad situation.

The idea of this amendment is to recognise that the Modern Slavery Act 2015, brought into Parliament by the noble Baroness, Lady May, does not specifically deal with this. It provides a partial defence under Section 45 for those who are genuine victims of modern slavery, but that does not deal with Clause 14 of the Bill.

Whatever the Minister may have thought, I would ask him to rethink whether in this modern time, when that relatively small number of people coming through either on boats or in lorries or in any other way who are pushed into this country by those who are exploiting them, it is not crucial that it is clear to anyone dealing with them that, if there is a possibility that the person may have been exploited or is coming into this country to be exploited, then the articles that they have need to be looked at in a completely different way. Indeed, under Amendment 49, the articles need specifically to be retained as potentially of value for the first part of the national referral mechanism when the person is going through that rather prolonged process. I strongly support the two amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady May.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I too am a signatory to Amendment 49. It is a great pleasure to support both amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady May. In parenthesis, I should say that, in 2015, along with my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss, it was a great pleasure to support what was then ground-breaking legislation. It was a classic, textbook example of how to make good law: first, we had robust pre-legislative scrutiny; the noble Baroness, in her role as the Home Secretary of the day, along with Dame Karen Bradley, was magnificent in steering the legislation through; and we had bicameral agreement across both Houses, with amendments being made and accepted as the Bill went through both Houses.

I might add that the Joint Committee on Human Rights is currently conducting a new inquiry—the Minister will be pleased to hear—into supply chain transparency and modern-day slavery, and the noble Baroness, Lady May, has been extraordinarily generous with her time and in making a wonderful written submission to the committee. I know that this will be taken into account when we come to write our report and its recommendations; 2015 is a decade ago and, as the noble Baroness has recognised, issues like Section 54 need to be looked at again. The way we use the Proceeds of Crime Act needs to be looked at in relation to modern-day slavery and human trafficking. It is another living document, something that, from time to time, we have to go back to. I believe that the whole House would want to pay tribute to the noble Baroness for the commitment that she has given to people who are victims of modern-day slavery.

I referred to Dame Karen Bradley. For some time, I was a trustee of the Arise Foundation charity; I see that my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe, who was also a trustee of Arise, is here. We became intimately involved in some of the personal cases that were raised by victims of modern slavery. With the noble Lord, Lord German, at an event that he kindly hosted a couple of weeks ago for Kalayaan—another wonderful charity that works with victims of modern slavery—we heard some heart-rending cases of people who had been trafficked but who had come through the national referral mechanism. It would be helpful for later stages of the Bill if the Minister were able to give us some updated information about the numbers of people who are in the national referral mechanism at present, and the average time that people spend in the NRM. At the event in the Attlee Room, hosted by the noble Lord, Lord German, we heard, for instance, from one woman who had been four years in the national referral mechanism.

There is always work to be done, but the noble Baroness’s amendments, especially Amendment 49, are incredibly important. People who go into the NRM have to prove their justification and right to be able to stay in the United Kingdom. If they do not have access to the evidence—if it has been taken away —then it will be impossible for them to prove their case; it will undermine the victim seeking determination by the NRM.

At pages 21 and 22 of the Joint Committee on Human Rights report, which I referred to at some length earlier today, the committee warns of the danger of breaching the European Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, and points to our obligations to victims of modern slavery and human trafficking. We should never forget that victims of modern slavery and human trafficking did not come here willingly and were not migrants; they are victims of a heinous crime. The noble Baroness is right to remind us of the distinctions that we should make.

On 16 April, the Minister replied to my Written Question HL6468, asking for the Government’s response to the manifesto entitled Putting Victims First: Renewing the UK Commitment to Victims of Trafficking and Modern Slavery, which was published in July last year by a coalition of modern slavery organisations. In his helpful Answer, the Minister said:

“The Government continues to engage with the coalition … keeping all aspects of asylum and immigration systems under regular review including in relation to trafficking and modern slavery”.


I would be grateful if the Minister could say whether they have discussed with the coalition the protection of belongings of people likely to have been trafficked and, if so, what response they received. If not, I hope that they will do so between now and Report. I hope that the Government, and the Minister, will accept the excellent amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady May.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, for tabling these amendments and instigating this discussion. I am grateful for the efforts that she took as Home Secretary, all those years ago, to establish the first Modern Slavery Act, following the very good process that the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, mentioned. As I recall, having been the shadow at the time, that process had Frank Field, among others, chairing cross-party pre-legislative scrutiny efforts, which led to the legislation—the Act whose implementation my right honourable friend the current Home Secretary and I, as Members of Parliament, shadowed at the time.

It is one thing to pass an Act—we have all done that many times in this House and other Houses—but it is quite another to retain what I sense is a lifelong interest and passion for the issue. I say to the noble Baroness, 10 years on, that it is a tribute to her commitment at the time that she continues to do that. I also pay tribute to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, in his absence, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton. All four have now formed a sort of coalition—I think we will call them the quartet after the earlier intervention by colleagues—that is taking a real interest in the development of this issue. I was pleased to address, on behalf of the Government, a reception in the House of Lords a couple of weeks ago at which the noble Baroness, Lady May, appeared virtually to look at the next stages of tackling this issue.

Having said all that, I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness that the amendments she has tabled today are covered by existing legislation. I am willing to be tested on that, but I hope I can give her that reassurance. She raised these issues at Second Reading and I hoped I had given her such reassurances then.

Amendment 47 seeks to provide a reasonable excuse for articles for use in immigration crime for those who are acting under duress of slavery, a point made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu. I put it to the noble Baroness and the other noble Lords that the protections she is seeking are covered by Section 45 of the very Modern Slavery Act 2015 that was legislated for at that time. Going back to the point mentioned by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, Section 45 provides a statutory defence against prosecution where an individual was compelled to commit an offence as a result of their exploitation. That is very clear in the Modern Slavery Act, which—this is my view and that of my legal advisers in the Home Office, and I hope it has been echoed again today—can be interpreted to mean that, in the event of trafficking from modern slavery, all of the provisions of the Bill can be dealt with by that statutory defence. We can debate that, but I hope it will eventually satisfy the noble Baroness’s noble intention in bringing forward the amendment today.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

The trouble with the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is that it is 10 years old, and some of it is not as well regarded as it might be. I recently attended an interesting discussion with the Minister in the other place, Jess Phillips, about updating the Modern Slavery Act so that people recognise that it is actually effective.

The Minister will know that the Government are putting into the Crime and Policing Bill a child exploitation clause. Technically, that is covered in the Modern Slavery Act, but they are putting that provision in there because the Act is not being properly regarded. This issue is something else that is not being properly regarded. Although technically it is in Section 45, to which I referred earlier, I am sure the Minister knows that Section 45 is not used in the courts as often as it ought to be, and that is a very practical reason for putting it into the Bill. If the Minister’s Government are prepared to put child exploitation into the Crime and Policing Bill, why can they not put another similar matter into this one?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble and learned Baroness makes an important point. I know that she, along with the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and my noble friend Lady O’Grady, met Jess Phillips last week. I hoped to join that meeting but parliamentary demands meant that I had to answer on an issue in this House, which meant I could not attend. I know that the committee of this House that produced the modern slavery report has raised a number of suggestions for updating and improving the Modern Slavery Act. My honourable friend Jess Phillips, who has direct responsibility for this issue in her position in the House of Commons as a Minister in the Home Office, is examining all the issues that were brought forward and wishes to make some improvements. The points in the Crime and Policing Bill, which will come before this House at some point, extend aspects of the modern slavery legislation regarding child exploitation.

Again, I give the noble and learned Baroness the reassurance that the assessment of our legal teams, and my assessment with Jess, as the Minister, and with other Ministers dealing with the Bill from all aspects of Parliament, concludes that the protections sought are covered by Section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. We can test that and we can reflect on it outside the Chamber, and the noble and learned Baroness and others can put points to us in response to what I have said, but that is the judgment that we have made.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. My answer is that it is our business and that we can devise an asylum and immigration system for this country—and that entitles us to make the points that not only my noble friend Lord Murray but the Conservative Party Front Bench have made throughout the Bill: that this is about achieving a system that deters illegal migration and yet allows those who are in real need to use safe and legal routes to come to the UK.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Taking the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Murray, I entirely understand the situation of somebody who has come over illegally and has no good reason to stay here, but, if that person comes from an unsafe country, where would you send him or her?

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for making that point. I think my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth’s argument is that genuine asylum seekers have to claim asylum when they reach a safe country. The amendment is aimed at stopping travelling through multiple safe countries and then attempting to cross the channel to claim asylum.

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[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I wonder if I could put to the noble Lord the question that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, put, which he did not answer in the previous debate? The amendment would impose a requirement to deport, but to where? Where are they to go?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I find it rather odd to read these two amendments. I am not party political. I sat through a large amount of legislation by the last Government: the Nationality and Borders Act, the Illegal Migration Act and the Rwanda Act. There was a great deal of legislation but there were remarkably few people actually deported. There appeared to be, within the last year of the last Government, even fewer people being deported. There seemed to be—if I might put it like this—almost a degree of lethargy. So listening to the way in which the noble Lord has put forward these two amendments makes me feel, to some extent, astonished. What they are asking of this Government, as far as I can see, is what in legislation they achieved but in deportation they did not achieve. They are expecting this Government to do what the last Government did not do. Sitting as I do on the sidelines, listening to what parliamentarians say and to what the Opposition say to the Government, I find it difficult to see why the Government should have to respond to this. It really seems quite extraordinary.

Following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has just said, in subsection (3) of the proposed new clause to be inserted by Amendment 109, there are four ways in which somebody could be returned. One is to

“a country of which P is a national”.

I understand—and they understand, and have said so quite properly—that they would not send the person back to a genuinely unsafe country. So an Afghan would not go back to Afghanistan, I assume, and probably a Syrian might not, even now, go back to Syria. That is where we start.

Then we have

“a country or territory in which P has obtained a passport or other document”.

Is that country automatically going to receive this particular person?

Number three, at paragraph (c), is

“a country or territory in which P embarked for the United Kingdom”.

Again, is that country—mainly France, or Belgium or Holland, I would expect, which are the nearest countries—going to be expected to take back every person who comes over? At the moment, the Government are negotiating a pilot scheme for a few to be taken back. I would have thought that the French would simply say certainly not.

The fourth one is

“a country or territory to which there is reason to believe P will be admitted”.

That is a sensible proposal, but where is that country? At the moment, from what we have heard, there are not likely to be many countries which would want to take the majority of people who have come to this country illegally. As I said earlier, I find these two amendments astonishing.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who eloquently set out some of the history of the most recent slew of immigration Acts.

I have a slightly more practical question for both the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and the Minister, which relates to the various lists of safe countries. The Opposition will discuss their Amendment 120 later. In Amendment 109, proposed new subsection (5) states:

“P may be removed to a country or territory … only if it is listed in”


their proposed new schedule. That schedule is in Amendment 120, where, for many of the countries listed, it states “in respect of men”—in other words, men will be regarded as safe to go back to that country. However, many of those countries already have severe discrimination against LGBT people, including men. In some countries, it is punishable by death and, in others, by imprisonment—but, much more importantly, society feels at liberty to attack and kill gay men. I ask both the Minister and the Opposition spokesperson: what happens to an individual in that position, where the country is regarded to be safe in general but for one group of people it is clearly not?

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak very briefly, before the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, because I am unhappy about these amendments. I was very relieved when the Government put forward a situation that would not support them.

I was invited by the charity Safe Passage to attend a drop-in session at its drop-in house in London, where I met two young men. Safe Passage was absolutely satisfied that both of them were 16. They were Afghans; one had a beard, and the other had a moustache. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, seems to me to be unsafe, because what we are looking at is Europeans. Europeans do not normally get beards and moustaches under the age of 18, but those who come as refugees and asylum seekers come from all over the world, where they grow up and mature much more quickly.

I was extremely relieved to see the approach of this Government and very disturbed to see these amendments, which I hope will not succeed.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Before the noble and learned Baroness sits down, if I may, for the avoidance of doubt, I was not arguing that it would be merely a subjective assessment or value judgment of appearance: it would be complementary to a robust scientific method, which would be tested both in this House and by other scientists in the course of the work. It would not just be a border officer saying, “You look like a 21 year-old”. The amendments make reference to scientific assessment, which would be an important complementary safeguard that might address the particular concerns of the noble and learned Baroness.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I am very interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, says, because he did talk about common sense and looking at a person. That is what encouraged me to speak. When I met those two young men, I absolutely took the view that they were over 18, but I was disabused, not only by their age, which was identified, but by the fact that I had been thinking in European terms. That is the danger of what is being said by the Opposition.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I had better rise at this stage to introduce my Amendment 203H. As with my last amendment, the mysteries of grouping have left me slightly confused, because this amendment does not actually relate to the Illegal Migration Act. This is an amendment which I offer to the Home Office as a sensible amendment that will save public money. It will be a sensible and useful use of time, and I implore the Minister, who I know to be a sensible and reasonable person, to look at this carefully.

Amendment 203H refers to the National Age Assessment Board, which was set up under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, before I was in this House—I know there are some noble Lords here who remember the debates about that particular Bill. The Bill presently before the Committee does not repeal any provisions in the Nationality and Borders Act. The National Age Assessment Board was set up by the 2022 Act to bring into the Home Office the system whereby those who claimed to be minors would be assessed. Prior to these provisions coming into force, that was done by local authorities. What had routinely been the case was that a person who purported to be younger than 18 and who wished to challenge a decision would then seek a judicial review of the assessment made by the local authority. There is a whole run of cases in which the courts considered what the test should be, on judicial review, of a social worker’s evaluation of the person’s age. Across the country, different local authorities had different approaches.

In a case called A v Croydon, the Supreme Court, led by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, determined that age assessments would not be made on the usual basis of a judicial review. As noble Lords will be well aware—and I am sorry that I am teaching grandmothers to suck eggs, but in case there is anyone watching who does not know this—a decision on judicial review is not normally taken by means of a court looking at the decision afresh, considering the evidence and taking a decision for itself; instead, what the court does is to look at the decision to see whether it is lawful and not unreasonable in the public law sense, which is classically defined as being so unreasonable that no decision-maker could have reached that decision —the “Oh gosh” test, as it has been described previously.

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[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Does the noble Baroness have any figures for the number of young people whose ages are in dispute, because I suspect that there are not that many? We may be worrying about a relatively small number of people compared with the huge number who are seeking asylum.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful to the noble and learned Baroness and say again to the Minister, who will probably curse me for it, that there is no data and we need that data to understand the size of the problem. It must be not just pure data about age. It must also be about the response when children or young people are placed in the wrong one, and what support they need. I will leave it there.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I signed Amendment 166, though there are several amendments here that I could have supported because I feel that they are common sense.

How can this Government be so heartless as to not accept that families have to be together? Surely that is basic humanity. Why are this Government so happy to shed so many voters simply by hanging on to the right-wing nonsense that says asylum seekers are to blame for all the problems that we face in Britain—the shortage of housing, the damage to the NHS and the lack of jobs? This is not the fault of asylum seekers; this is the fault of the previous Government’s policy of austerity that has so damaged our processes here. The right wing gets this opportunity to pass the blame on to other people. Will this Government please get a backbone and stand up for the rights of people?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, is saying about immigration. It is in the press every day and it is a serious issue that the public care about. However, he spoke a great deal about adults and, on this, we are particularly talking about children.

I hugely admire the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for the valiant work he has done over so many years. I support family reunion, and I particularly support his amendment. Some years ago, with the help of the NGO Safe Passage, Fiona Mactaggart, then an MP, and I went to Calais and met children. We did not meet any grown-ups who were trying to get to this country; we met entirely children. I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, that it was not 17 year-olds we were talking to; they were 10, 11 and 12 year-olds who were anxious to join their families in this country.

Until Brexit, this country—under Dublin III, I think it was—allowed children to join their parents. To the credit of the then Conservative Government, that was going to be continued. It was then stopped. It seems to me that, with one voice, this Government are talking in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill about the best interests of children and saying that the welfare of children is paramount. Does that stop at this border? Does it mean that if a child comes from Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan or Afghanistan—countries where the greatest conflicts are at the moment—that child does not merit their best interests being considered? I absolutely do not believe that that is the view of this Government. Whatever may be said about this Government, in the past they have shown a huge degree of compassion in all sorts of situations. Although I may not agree with much that the Government say, I have admired the party over many years for its approach. For this Government to say that they will no longer allow foreign children to come to this country to join their parents would, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, be shocking—I use his word.

It would probably be wise to support the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, rather than go too far in saying how many relatives could come and join children who are already here. I worry about children put into care in this country if they do not have their families—of course I do; but I worry a great deal more about children living under the trees in a cold Calais winter, wanting to join their families here. That is the group we should worry about. That is the group that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is primarily talking about.

I find it incredible that this Government will not recognise that some children whose families are already here cannot come and join them, as successive Governments have allowed for so many years. I find it truly sad, if that is what the Minister is going to say.

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for trying to get in before sponsors of amendments. I apologise to the Committee that my other public commitments have not allowed me to participate in this Bill to date.

I could not let this opportunity pass to pay tribute to my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who has been a tireless campaigner on the issue of family reunification and who, together with my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, has authored a number of Private Members’ Bills with content similar to that in Amendment 165, which I support. In my opinion, this amendment that has been revised, refined and honed to perfection as a result of the extensive previous debates in this House.

I wish to make only two points. First, if there are issues with excessive immigration, asylum seekers are only a very small proportion of that problem. Secondly, the so-called push factors prompting people to seek asylum are far greater than any hypothetical pull factor—something that the Minister may say. I agree with the noble and learned Baroness in her comments about a lack of evidence to support this suggestion of pull factors.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, makes general comments about small boat crossings and foreign criminals trying to illegally enter the country. Amendment 165 is not about undocumented migrants; it is about children who have already been given refugee status, who should be allowed to be reunited with their family members. Perhaps in the absence of documentation, something the noble Lord mentions, family links could be established by DNA test, if necessary.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has comprehensively and convincingly made the arguments in favour of this amendment, which I wholeheartedly support.

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[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My noble friend is making a very compelling case. Does she agree with me, in response to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that the context, to be fair, is that the last Government took an outward-looking, internationalist approach and their safe routes to citizenship for Syrians, Ukrainians and Hong Kong citizens were widely supported across the world? She was careful to praise the existing Government, who have been in power for 16 months, rather than the strong, positive record of the previous Conservative Government.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I did refer to the Conservatives as having carried on the very good practice.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

I thank my noble friend and the noble and learned Baroness for their interventions. What I was saying is that the country has always been sympathetic and fair and accommodated people fleeing here when their lives or liberties have been in danger. However, mass global movement now poses a threat to stability in western democracies, not just Britain’s but that of other western European countries, particularly Italy, Germany and France—the founder countries of the European Union. If we are to continue to give a sympathetic hearing to those who have a real claim, we must avoid extending the potential numbers so that in addition to children under 18 and a spouse, a whole extended family plus anyone judged to matter to the person’s psychological or other well-being can come in.

We do not have a right to defy the clear wishes of the people of this country, who pay the bills for housing and for the Home Office, asylum and Border Force officials. My noble friend has referred to some of these costs, but the policing, the courts—which are clogged—the appeals system, the housing and subsistence of large family groups all cost money. Many individuals or families, when they leave Home Office accommodation, must be supported from the benefit system.

In the first quarter of 2025, more than 4,000 refugee households in England were recorded as homeless, meaning that either a single person or a family unit had applied for support after leaving Home Office accommodation—figures similar to the previous quarter. With the sort of expanding family as proposed in Amendment 166, what would the housing, accommodation and benefit bill then be?

I conclude by proposing that, even if the Government are tempted by Amendment 166 in the name of the noble Baroness, my noble friend’s Amendments 167 to 171 should be accepted in order that the Government can help bring the numbers down and stop them escalating.