Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, first, I apologise for not having been able to participate in the Second Reading of the Bill. I support Amendment 4 very strongly because I believe it goes to the heart of the problems presented by the Bill.

The list of the international conventions which we should not infringe is pretty long and very important. I will start with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is perhaps sometimes a little overlooked in debates. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, spent some very valuable time explaining why the Bill will contravene some of our obligations there. I had the honour of sitting beside the late Baroness Thatcher on the day she signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child— 28 September 1990. I can remember that as it is my birthday. I do not think she would have been terribly happy with legislation that cut across an international convention she had signed. I would like to hear from the Minister when he winds up how he answers the criticisms made by UNICEF, which is the body set up by all of us to adjudicate whether or not countries are living up to their obligations under the convention. I would like him to answer the question of the areas of the Bill which appear to be in contravention.

Then there is the refugee convention, which has been referred to on several occasions. The Minister has tried on previous occasions to say that there is nothing in the refugee convention being countered by the Bill, but I am afraid that, like many other statements he has made on the matter, it is a bit like the Red Queen in Alice. He is saying, “It is so because I say it is so”; that is not usually a convincing argument. I would like to hear from him which explicit provision of the convention allows us to extinguish the right of someone on our soil to claim asylum.

Of course, we have the right to reject that claim; if we do so, and if they cannot be sent back to their country of origin due to a risk of torture and death, we have to find an alternative place to send that person. I would like to hear what explicit provision in the refugee convention permits us to extinguish the right to claim asylum—not to have it, but to claim it.

A lot has been said about the European Convention on Human Rights. I will not weary the Committee with much more, except to say that the route down which the Government will go seems clear. They might say that they do not intend to get into a position of confrontation with the European court and so on, but they are either bluffing—and bluffing does not usually work terribly well—or they are setting off down a slippery slope, which will lead us into direct confrontation with the European Convention on Human Rights and with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

If we do that, we put at risk a substantial and extremely important chunk of the trade and co-operation agreement with the European Union. For that to fall away would be to have jumped out of the Northern Ireland protocol pan into the fire of losing a large chunk of justice and home affairs legislation, on which we worked together with the European Union.

Why do all these international complications matter? I would suggest that they matter a great deal because our Ministers—I applaud them for it—are standing at the Dispatch Box and going to international meetings, and they are saying that Britain stands for the rules-based international order. We are spending a lot of money and providing a lot of weapons—quite rightly so—to Ukraine to uphold the rules-based international order; but the list of obligations in Amendment 4 is a substantial part of the rules-based international order. If we contradict those obligations, what credibility will we have when we go around the world trying to uphold that rule? Not much, I would think. I would not fancy going to the countries of the global South and saying, “You really must take a stronger line on Ukraine”, to be told, “You say you are supporting the rules-based international order; well, here is a list of areas where you are breaking it”.

This is a serious matter that goes way beyond the responsibilities of the Home Office itself. Like others who have spoken in this debate, I do not wish for one minute to suggest that unlimited immigration is a good thing—that we do not want to stop the boats and so on. That is, frankly, not serious; it is just debating. I hope that, when the Minister replies to this debate, he will take on some of these international points and answer them in detail, with precision, and in a way that can convince us. Until that point in time, I remain a strong supporter of Amendment 4 and hope that it will stand in the Bill.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I apologise that I did not get to speak at Second Reading. I misread the Order Paper and thought that the day started with Questions. However, I listened to all the speeches and I certainly got a sense of the mood of the House; I note that, perhaps, that mood is at odds with the mood beyond the House. A previous point was made about unanimity; well, unanimity can be a cause for celebration but it can also be an echo chamber.

However, there are specific problems in the Bill that undoubtedly need to be tackled during scrutiny in the House of Lords. They need to be tackled if the Government are to fulfil their promise to the electorate to get to grips with controlling the borders of our country—controls that people feel are being flouted by an inability to stop the small boats. If this House can ensure that the Bill works, all to the good.

One aspect of that is that we are going to need some clarity about what and who will be affected by the Bill, and why. In that context, I am sympathetic to Amendment 1 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, because it is a valiant attempt to provide a definition of illegal and unlawful migration and it could be helpful in improving the public debate on the issue, which often gets in a muddle. So often when the issue of channel crossings arises and people say that they are illegal crossings, they are scolded and told that they are not illegal and that they ought to know the law better. If there is a way of clarifying what the law is, all to the better, because that can be frustrating. Many people feel they are being gaslit on the question of the law. Amendment 1 may give us some clarity, but achieving such clarity probably cannot be done just via definitions.

There is certainly an impression outside this House— I am sure that people will put me right—that whole swathes of lawyers, along with NGOs and their legal advisers, provide those in the boats with legal get-out clauses and exemptions such that, frankly, it looks like an organised system to game the system, and that is coming not from the people in the boats but from the legal minds that are sympathetic to their cause.

I can completely understand why anyone from many of the countries that they are travelling from would want to live in the UK and to improve their circumstances, but by any reasonable definition, many or at least some of the people in the boats are not refugees in need of asylum, even if they are desperate to improve their standard of living to get away from countries that they do not want to live in. I understand that they can be encouraged to follow a script to find a way to stay in this country—we can empathise with the desire to do that—but we can also note that, frankly, that tests the bounds of legality, and in the process there is a serious danger of discrediting, for example, what we mean by modern slavery, which I think is being exploited, and what we mean by legitimate asylum status.

I wonder what the noble Lord, Lord Best, would make of the legal rows that happen within the legal and judicial community about definitions—what words mean. It is not as though if you put it down it is always clear. We keep hearing about eminent lawyers, fine minds and so on. Believe it or not, among those fine minds, there are eminent lawyers who disagree with each other. I listened to a lively row between two fine, eminent legal minds about the legal interpretation of Article 31 of the refugee convention. One read it to say that refugees must come directly from a place of danger —that is, not France—present themselves immediately, show good cause for their illegal entry and so on. Then the other person explained that coming directly, among some judges, would mean having come through other countries. Anyway, the row went on and I am not saying I understood it all, but it is not as though, every time, great legal minds give a sense of legal certainty. All this legal confusion can and does lead to cynicism that people are illegally breaching border controls, and that illegality is not being tackled. There is a danger that this can discredit the rule of law itself. I certainly agree with the shadow Immigration Minister, Stephen Kinnock, who has talked about the whole process being slowed down and clogged up by legal challenges and the problems that that causes.

In a way, my question to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope is: even if we establish a clear legal definition, how do we tackle the various loopholes and spurious claims that can create incentives for illegality which we cannot deny happen? Adults claiming that they are children when they are adults in order to stay, destroying papers proving country of origin and so on—are we just to say that that never happens?

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[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

Is the noble Baroness really suggesting that this country should depart from treaty obligations without much of a qualm?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Having no qualms is something that I would never do, but I am also suggesting that having qualms, or using those qualms, to undermine what the British public would like to do is something that other people should have qualms about. I think that people are tearing their hair out outside of here being told, “You cannot do that; you may have voted for that, but that cannot happen”. When international treaties are used in that instrumental way—which is the way I think they are being used—that is difficult.

May I ask noble Lords to put aside the specifics of this Bill just for one moment? I know that people are very emotional about this Bill, but what if, on another topic, the UK Government—perhaps another Government, not this one, whom more people in this House might be sympathetic to—brought in a different Bill? Just imagine if such a worthy Government, with a popular mandate, tried to bring in a radical, novel, innovative law; for example, enhancing workers’ rights or improving women’s reproductive rights—things that I would support. Just imagine if that Government tried to bring that Bill in and it got to the Lords, where they were told, “You cannot do that because there are all sorts of international treaty clauses that prohibit you doing it”. Imagine your frustration: would you break your promise to the electorate in that instance? I just want us to acknowledge that asking the Government to break a promise on the small boats—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Would the noble Baroness like to remind the Committee which limb of the constitution takes responsibility for negotiating and revising treaties on the world stage? Is it the judiciary? Are they the wicked people who run off, committing us to all these international obligations? Is it parliamentarians who go and negotiate these instruments that she is finding instrumental, or is it the Government who negotiate, renegotiate and, in some cases, even walk out of international obligations?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I do not think there are evil people involved in this and I have not gone down the moral/immoral route. I am concerned, genuinely, with ensuring that the electorate and citizens of this country do not feel that parliamentary discussion uses international treaties as an excuse to not do what they anticipate that Parliament was asked to do. For example, this could be about the abolition of the Vagrancy Act. Let us be honest; a lot of promises have been broken recently. I have heard excuses made for why we have not yet abolished that Act. I have heard excuses for why we can no longer get rid of tuition fees, and for why leasehold will not be abolished—

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

The noble Baroness will recall that we had a referendum to leave the European Union. Many of us opposed that, but it was the clear will of the democracy of this country that we left. Surely, on these international obligations that we are saying we are bound by, if the demos—the people of Britain—feel that they wish not to be bound by them, that is perfectly legitimate. We have to find a way to carry the wishes of the people into legislation and not use international agreements to say that the wishes of the people must be ignored.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I am coming to an end. I understand the noble Lord’s point and I am endeavouring to explain that I think those international agreements are being used in a particular political way on this issue. I have suggested that breaching promises to the British electorate—I was trying to give some examples across party lines, so that nobody would think I was having a go at any one party—is leading to cynicism and bitterness in the electorate. The low turnout at the local elections was an indication of the fact that many people feel politically homeless.

I do not necessarily support the Bill. I want it to be scrutinised by this House, but I felt that the amendments I was referring to were almost avoiding scrutiny by simply ring-fencing the whole nature of the Bill and saying, “You can’t do that because of international treaties”. That would seem to render us even trying to scrutinise the Bill a waste of time and it will lead to even more cynicism about the lack of democracy. That is my point and it has nothing, as it happens, to do with Brexit or the EU. Although the desire to control one’s borders and one’s laws was undoubtedly part of that, I was not making that point in this instance.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords—

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I had not planned to speak in this debate, but I feel I must rise to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker.

The Prime Minister repeatedly talks about “stopping the boats” as one of his top five priorities—you often get the feeling that it is in fact his top priority. If this Government really wanted to tackle the villains, the traffickers and the modern slave owners and, along with the French Government, round them up and put them where they need to be, they would have done it. Instead of doing that, however, the Government think, “No, we will leave those guys alone; we will focus on removing the rights of the victims, the trafficked people, the modern slaves, the unaccompanied children, the people escaping persecution and appalling treatment”.

This amendment is unusual. In all the debates we have had, the focus has been on the victims and on removing the safeguards for the victims. This amendment is appealing to the Government to give a duty to the NCA to round up the traffickers, the modern slave owners, and so on. It seems to me that the Government cannot say, “Oh, sorry, we cannot do that, it is too difficult; we just have to make life hell for the victims—that way we will deter them from coming”. I really hope that everybody in this Chamber will support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, as being the single attempt—throughout all these debates—to have the Government focus their efforts where those efforts should be focused.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise in support of Amendment 168AZA. The noble Lord, Lord Swire, has explained why it is a very modest but important part of this discussion.

One reason why I think there is substantial public support for the Bill, at least in terms of the headlines and broad brush strokes, if not the detail—we have heard from the wide range of amendments the potential problems when looking at the detail of the Bill—is that people feel as though things are out of control. That is viscerally expressed by people seeing the boats arriving. The difficulty is that, in a discussion—even in this Chamber, but certainly beyond this Chamber—about what is really going on, many people feel as though they are confronting smoke and mirrors. They do not know who is here and under what status they are here.

I said at Second Reading—or at some stage, anyway—that many people feel as though they are being gaslit. When they raise concerns, they are told—as we have just heard a bit of—that these are trafficked people and victims. One reason why I support the amendment introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, a moment ago is that I feel that the terms “asylum seeker” and “refugee status” are being sullied by being used in a way that is unhelpfully broad and vague, often quite promiscuously and illegitimately, in order to say to the British public, “What are you worried about?” The problem is that the generosity of spirit around refugees is being tested, to say the least.

Therefore, we need to have a sense of proportion and to know what is going on. It is quite straightforward: we do not, which means that people bandy around emotive headlines and accusations against the British public—often unfairly—as though they are all xenophobic, they do not care, and so on. Also, quite grand statements are made. I think people want to know very clearly who is here illegally and in what category they are here.

I commend the noble Lord, Lord Swire, for making the point that it is the obligation of this Government—or a Labour Government or any Government—to know who lives within our borders. If you do not know, then you do not have national sovereignty. You cannot run a country in which you say, “Oh, sorry, it is too difficult to know”. Anyone who says, “Find out for yourself” has not tried. We have all tried and we want to know that the people who run this society do know and therefore have a handle on it.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, before I speak in support of my noble friend’s Amendment 168AZA, which I supported also in Committee, I want to make two very quick points about Amendment 168 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. I entirely sympathise with the sentiments expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, but it strikes me that there is already a responsibility on the National Crime Agency to tackle organised crime of all types, not just immigration crime. I think we go a step too far if we legislate the internal administration of a police authority. There can be a debate and a disagreement about whether that is right; and perhaps the supporters of Amendment 168 are making a rhetorical point, and I can accept that; but I just caution against passing legislation that imposes a duty on the National Crime Agency that already exists.

Turning to Amendment 168AZA, I complained in Committee that, absent this information, we had government by guesswork, and government by guesswork is not a very attractive way of running anything, let alone an immigration system. For some of the reasons advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, a moment ago, ignorance creates suspicion, and suspicion leads to poor community relations and general dissatisfaction in the way in which the governed look at the governors. So I urge my noble friend on the Front Bench to provide us with a convincing response, which I have not yet heard; nor have I been given any information by any Minister since we last debated this in Committee. It cannot be suggested that the Government do not like annual reports. One has only to look at Clause 60(1):

“The Secretary of State must, before the end of the relevant period … prepare and publish a report on safe and legal routes by which persons may enter the United Kingdom”.


The detail of what that report is supposed to contain each year is set out in Clause 60(2), and it has to appear within six months of the Act being passed.

The information that we think should be made public and brought together in a single annual report is set out in proposed new subsections (a) to (e) of our amendment. Proposed new subsections (b), (c), (d) and (e) cover information that is available somewhere in the government system: some clever person can press a button and the numbers will come spewing out—easy. I accept that counting the number of illegal immigrants in the United Kingdom presents one or two more problems, because not every illegal immigrant is going to present himself at a counting centre; however, they can make an intelligent estimate.

I ask the Government to condescend to move a little bit towards us and provide the public with the information they feel they need to see and which the Government must know in order to run a sensible, humane and legitimate immigration system. That is all this is about, so let us get on with it.

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[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, first, I address the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Swire. He wondered why the amendment had not captured the imagination of the House. Speaking for those of us on these Benches, the Bill is entirely focused on refugees and asylum seekers, who form a very small proportion—a tiny fraction—of the 1.3 million people given leave to remain in the country last year. So while I agree in principle with what the noble Lord says—that we should have a much firmer grip on the number of illegal immigrants in this country—his amendment is not germane to the Bill.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am very sorry, but on Report noble Lords are allowed to speak only once.

As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, the Bill is focused entirely on criminalising the victims of people smugglers and not on the people smugglers themselves. We intend to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker: if his amendment is carried, at least there will be one line, or a few lines, in the Bill that will focus on the real problem, which is the criminal people smugglers and those who are carrying out modern slavery and trafficking, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said, in effect, that this amendment was not necessary because under Section 1(4) of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, one reason for the National Crime Agency to exist is:

“The NCA is to have the function … of securing that efficient and effective activities to combat organised crime and serious crime are carried out”.


People smuggling, people trafficking and so forth are clearly organised and serious crime, but that then leads to the question raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about priorities for the National Crime Agency. The strategic priorities for the National Crime Agency are set out in Section 3 of the 2013 Act, which says:

“The Secretary of the State must determine strategic priorities for the NCA”.


I have looked at the current strategic priorities for the National Crime Agency, as set by the Home Secretary, and people smuggling, trafficking and people facilitating the sorts of things that the Bill is supposed to combat are nowhere to be seen; there is nothing in the strategic priorities about it. How can the Government say that it is a priority of the Prime Minister to tackle small boats coming across the channel when it is not a strategic priority set by the Home Secretary for the National Crime Agency? The only way we can get the National Crime Agency to focus on people smugglers is to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, which is what we on these Benches will do.