Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare the support I receive from RAMP and start by warmly welcoming the repeal of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act and partial repeal of the Illegal Migration Act.

However, I share the disappointment expressed by many organisations—I am grateful for their briefings—that the Bill does not go further in repealing the whole of the latter and parts of the Nationality and Borders Act. The Law Society, for instance, describes the latter as

“a detrimental piece of legislation”

that will become

“the default directive in many places”.

Could my noble friend the Minister explain why the Bill leaves in place a number of provisions in both those Acts that we roundly condemned at the time?

In particular, why are we retaining Section 12 of the IMA? To quote the UN High Commissioner for Refugees it

“leaves in place a risk of arbitrary detention of asylum-seekers, refugees and stateless persons”.

Why are we retaining Section 59 which, in denying claims from countries deemed safe, ignores—again to quote the UNHCR—

“the requirement for an individualised assessment of an asylum claim”

thereby giving

“rise to a risk of refoulement”?

The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium warns that

“children and young people are particularly at risk”

because Section 59 denies them

“proper consideration of their vulnerabilities”.

The RMCC, with support from the British Association of Social Workers, is also critical of the retention of the age assessment provisions of the NBA and calls for their repeal. The RMCC points out that neither the National Age Assessment Board nor the development of so-called scientific age assessment methods—which, as already noted, have been widely criticised—has tackled the key problem of children being wrongly treated as adults on arrival.

I was therefore alarmed to read in the parallel immigration White Paper of plans to explore

“scientific and technological methods to ensure adults are not wrongly identified as children”.

It is worthy of Alice in “Through the Looking-Glass”. I am nevertheless grateful to my noble friend for the constructive meeting we had with members of the RMCC recently to discuss age assessment. He will not be surprised to hear that I plan to table amendments on this issue.

Some of those children wrongly identified as adults could be prosecuted under the new criminal offences contained in the Bill and end up spending months in adult prisons. Concerns have been raised more widely by a number of organisations, including the Law Society and the UNHCR, about these provisions, which in their breadth and vagueness, risk criminalising both vulnerable adults and children who are risking their lives in search of safety. This exposes the gaping hole in the Bill which, as already noted, is the absence of any provision to expand safe routes. The safe routes coalition, while recognising the need to tackle the exploitation of unsafe routes by smuggling gangs, which is the Bill’s main focus, argues that it is missing a golden opportunity to address why people are taking these dangerous journeys.

I cannot understand why the Government appear to be so deaf to the widespread calls to improve safe routes for children and others, including from the APPG for refugees, of which I am a member. Instead, the immigration White Paper includes plans that will weaken the family reunion route. The White Paper also includes proposals to double the length of time most people will need to wait before they can apply for settlement. This is not the place to argue against this damaging proposal, but it would be remiss of me not to mention it, given the large number of emails I am receiving from those already on the five-year route to remain.

In the absence of any clarification about whether the new rule will apply to those already here, the emails express acute distress, a sense of betrayal and a loss of trust in the UK’s integrity and consistency. As already asked for, can my noble friend at the very least clarify whether those people will indeed now have to work here for 10 years before being able to apply for settlement, having come here in good faith on the assumption of five years?

The welcome repeal in the Bill of Sections 31 to 35 of the IMA, which rendered refugees who enter the country by irregular means ineligible for British citizenship, has now been undermined by the administrative sleight of hand that achieves the same outcome through changes to the Nationality: Good Character Requirement guidance. Having welcomed the repeal as

“a positive step that recognises the importance of naturalisation, both for the individuals concerned and for social cohesion”,

the UNHCR expresses concern that the new guidance

“may result in breaches of Article 31 of the 1951 Refugee Convention”,

which, it argues, is central to the convention’s “object and purpose”. It recommends that the guidance be revisited

“to ensure that it is applied in a manner consistent with the UK’s international obligations”.

The Law Society echoed the Article 31 point and noted that

“this is a significant change in policy which has been made with no consultation and therefore no scrutiny”.

In conclusion, although I repeat my welcome for the repeal of many of the damaging provisions made by the previous Government, I wish I could welcome this Bill unequivocally. As the daughter of a refugee immigrant, I welcome the fact that I live on an island not of strangers but of diverse groups who have enriched our lives. We have a responsibility to them, and to those who seek to come to our country in future, to ensure that we build a fair and inclusive immigration and asylum/refugee system.