Nationality and Borders Bill

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds]

The UK has a long-standing reputation as a beacon of human rights, but we in the House must recognise that we have enormous discretion under international law, and indeed under domestic law, regarding how we exercise our responsibilities. Many of the controversies around the Bill are about the operations, rather than the legislation itself. Having sat on the Joint Committee on Human Rights as we took evidence on a number of these issues, it is clear that there are matters of opinion about whether pushbacks, for example, which are freely used by Frontex, the European Union border agency in the Mediterranean, are for or against and within international law.

I share the concerns expressed about the methods currently available to science, and I agree we would not wish to see those used at present. I agree, however, that it should be open to the Home Office, should effective scientific methods be developed, to use such methods for the purposes of age assessments. I welcome the engagement of the Minister, and other Ministers, on those issues.

I will conclude with two points. First, I agree strongly with my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) on the point about needing a new COP26 on the issue of global migration. The world is changing, and the challenges faced by asylum seekers and the numbers on the move mean we must update the way we respond, in partnership with our allies. Finally, I will comment on some of those international obligations, which are often heavily criticised. The UK is rarely referred to the European Court of Human Rights for any breach of our laws, and we are rarely criticised. Indeed, the findings of that Court are not binding on the United Kingdom. As a champion of human rights we should be proud of the UK’s record in that respect, and we should renew our dedication to being a beacon of human rights in the future.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

The asylum system certainly is broken, and this is not the Bill to fix it. On the Afghan resettlement scheme, where is it? How can we trust the Government to deliver any of these programmes, or anything to fix our asylum scheme, if we cannot even come up with that scheme, after many months, and after all of us in the House having received desperate emails from people in Afghanistan who were under threat? I agree with new clause 52, which would waiver visa fees for Commonwealth veterans. We ask them to put their life on the line as members of our country, yet we do not pay their pensions, and we do not allow them and their families visas to say that they are citizens of this country. What more can we ask?

I really want to focus on family reunion. I have stood in the camps of Calais and seen people smugglers wandering around, very maliciously. I have seen the people smugglers about whom so much is made, but it will not be measures in this Bill that sort them out. One missing area is that of family reunion. One of those 27 men, women and children who tragically died in the channel was Harem Pirot. He was fleeing for his life from Iraq, to reach his brother, Anwar, a Sheffield graduate living in Cambridge, who then had to go to Calais to identify his brother’s body. We could cut so many smuggling routes if we were to allow family reunion, yet there is nothing in the Bill about that. Such a measure was promised after the EU Withdrawal Bill, and I talked about it in my maiden speech. It was promised when we discussed the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020, and it was promised in the new plan for immigration that there would be a safe and legal route for refugees, and for people fleeing for their lives to whom we can offer safe harbour. Family reunion needs to be put back into the Bill for it to work in the way it is intended.

[Several hon. Members rose—]