Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The time is up.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right. I shall sit down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I, too, have visited Calais and I totally agree that no one would live there if they had a choice. Those people are clearly desperate, and one can perhaps understand why they are taking desperate routes. I am also speaking before the noble Lord, Lord Harper, so I cannot tell him what a wonderful speech he has just made, but I am sure it will be excellent.

I listened to the two opening speeches with something close to despair, because I get the sense that the Labour Government want to do something right, but I think they have missed opportunities here. Of course, the Opposition had 14 years to put this right and what we actually saw was 14 years of draconian rules and legislation that focused public attention on stopping the boats but at the same time allowed a huge abuse of the system with billionaires in private jets siphoning off taxpayers’ money during austerity and the Covid crisis. We had 14 years of a hostile environment and 14 years of draconian rules, and what did we actually get out of it? Rwanda was the most ridiculous threat, and I am delighted that that has now gone.

Certainly, in those 14 years, the criminal gangs got richer and the people who were letting out their hotels to refugees also got richer, but, of course, the number of people arriving by small boats has kept on climbing. Under contracts signed by the previous Conservative Government, Clearsprings, Mears and Serco made a combined profit of £385 million since 2019. That has grown, because the Government deliberately allowed a backlog in asylum claims as part of their failed policy of deterrence. The “Bibby Stockholm” refugee barge was yet another failed deterrent, with the taxpayer picking up the bill for things such as the high-cost docking fees at Portland Port.

The last Government tried deterrents. They did not work and led to much higher bills for taxpayers but not to any real advantage. Refugees do not want to live on ships or in hotels. They want to become citizens and build new lives for themselves as previous waves of immigrants did. Whether descended from the Huguenots, German Jews, Ugandan Asians or other families that have fled persecution and war to make a good life here for hundreds of years, the vast majority want to contribute to society. They are grateful to be taken in and allowed to live without danger.

Most of today’s refugees want to earn a living and not rely on handouts, but our Government will not let them. Most want to contribute and benefit our economy, but our Government make them a problem instead of part of the solution. The problem is not the refugees; it is the Government’s failed attempts to deter them, which have not worked but have made things much worse and created bigger problems. I know that Labour wants to sort out the huge delays in processing asylum claims and to cut down on the use of hotels, but they are keeping most of the draconian rules that were passed by the previous, clueless Government.

Why are this Labour Government retaining provisions of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 that when in opposition they condemned as immoral and destructive of human rights commitments? They even voted alongside the Greens and the Lib Dems to defeat the previous Government 19 times on those draconian rules that they regarded as unacceptable. Why have His Majesty’s Government failed to make any provision for safe routes to this country for people seeking asylum—including people with close family and other connections here? The Government expect us to pass a law that says, “If you arrive here via a small boat, or in the back of a lorry, you’re not regarded as a person of good character and are therefore ineligible to settle”. However, because no additional safe routes are set up, the only way that you can be a person of good character, according to Labour, is not to arrive here at all. These are not the actions of a Government who treat vulnerable people with fairness and decency, and, quite honestly, they are not a Government who deserve to be in power.