Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate today, over the course of this evening. The Bill’s focus, as the Minister stated at the outset, is illegal or irregular migration. I am grateful to him for laying out the rationale and context for the Bill, though I depart from him on much of the substance.

I particularly commend the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Harper. Given his long and distinguished career in the other place, as well as his time in government—as an Immigration Minister at one point—it is perhaps unsurprising that his excellent speech today was both illuminating and incisive. I for one look forward to many more contributions from him in the years ahead.

This debate has made for a stimulating and wide-ranging discussion on one of the most important areas of responsibility for any Government: the control of our borders. That phrase is an interesting one, because it was only at the weekend that we heard a member of the Government admitting that the UK has lost control of our borders. This was a startling admission from the Secretary of State for Defence, no less, on a weekend that saw the highest daily total of arrivals this year—1,195 people on 19 boats—and the fourth highest figure ever recorded.

However, I admire this frankness—we need to be frank. We need unflinching candour, as my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough put it so elegantly. Controlling our borders is fundamental to our national security and to our integrity as a sovereign nation. Despite the decades of peace and globalisation we have all experienced over the last 80 years, it remains the first and foremost duty of any Government. We also need to recognise that controlling our borders is a way in which we define, sustain and protect our national identity, not just our national security.

I mentioned the events of the last weekend, because the situation we are seeing now is dire. Small boat crossings are up 30% on last year, and since this Government were elected last July, the numbers have increased. Almost 37,000 people crossed the channel in small boats in 2024. Of those who arrived that year, more than 23,000 did so after the election.

For all the condemnation we have heard tonight of the Rwanda Act, let us not pretend that the last year under the current Government has been anything other than a resounding failure in terms of illegal crossings. The gangs, self-evidently, have not been smashed.

This situation is untenable, but it is also, tragically, costing lives. The UN estimates that at least 78 migrants died in 2024, making it the deadliest year on record. It says that at least 225 migrants have lost their lives when attempting to cross since 2018. This is an unlawful route of entry into the UK, overseen by gangsters, that is, tragically, taking its toll of human life. That is why, among many other matters, we have to deter people from making this journey. None of this should be controversial.

I am sure that I am joined by noble Lords from across the House when I say that it is incumbent on the Government as a matter of supreme urgency to introduce measures which are courageous, bold and definitive enough to stop this level of illegal migration from happening. With regret, I do not believe the legislative proposals we have before us will achieve this.

Given the scale of the problems we face, I hope the Government will seriously consider the many concerns that have been raised today by those who have called for more stringent measures. My noble friend Lord Davies of Gower outlined many of these issues in his opening speech.

In a moment, I will concentrate on some specific points where we believe there are significant problems with the Bill, but before I do so, I would like to address its context; namely, the provisions which are designed largely to undo the work of the last Government in terms of the Illegal Migration and safety of Rwanda Acts.

It is unsurprising that a new Administration will seek to undo some of the policies of their predecessor of a different political hue—that is democratic politics, after all. But let us be clear about the reality of what this will actually mean. It will mean that the Home Secretary is no longer duty-bound to make arrangements to remove illegal migrants to their home country or a safe country; it will mean that some illegal migrants are allowed to obtain British citizenship; and it will mean that asylum seekers will no longer be treated as over 18 if they refuse to take a scientific age assessment.

Those are just a few of the reasons why we believe the Bill will not succeed. If you were contemplating an illegal crossing into the UK, would a degree of protection from removal, British citizenship, and a bypass of age checks make you more or less likely to attempt the trip as an illegal migrant? More likely, of course.

As my noble friend Lord Goschen said, it is important to ask why people try to come to the UK illegally. The answer to that lies in part in the provisions of the Bill, I contend. In removing these key provisions, the Government propose to replace them with new offences, which are one example, we say, of where technical measures simply will not work in practice. The Bill creates a new offence of selling and handling small boat parts for use in channel crossings. The Bill will also make it illegal to supply life jackets suspected of being for use by people-smuggling gangs and to supply forged ID documents. These are very specific, technical points.

However, simply as a matter of logic, criminalising such activity makes little sense. These supply chains are based in Europe. The boats are coming from France to the UK. The point at which the lifejackets, boats and any forged documents get to the UK is when they appear on the beaches where illegal migrants are landed—at which point, I am afraid, it is far too late. It may be that there is provision in the Bill for such offences to occur outside the UK, but the reality is that, by the time perpetrators are prosecuted, the boats will have arrived. In essence, the Government are proposing to tear up laws that created a direct disincentive to make the journey in the first place and replace them with a list of new offences, which in practice will operate only once migrants are already here.

Other problems with this Bill include the proposal for a new Border Security Commander. Despite the title, if we dig a little below the surface, as my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower said, we find that what the Government are actually proposing is a civil servant acquiring a redesignated role and, if I may add, a somewhat vague remit—and that is before we get to the potential for duplicating the work of the Small Boats Operational Command. This proposal does not appear to add value at present.

The Explanatory Notes for the Bill set out that the Border Security Commander will be responsible for setting the Government’s strategic priorities for border security. Surely that strategic priority is simple and can be stated in one sentence: stopping illegal migration and protecting our borders. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary do not need a new agency or office to tell them this.

Does the Minister believe that, in addressing this issue, we need to take tougher steps to crack down on organised crime in this area? Would he support amendments that might be tabled in Committee to strengthen the powers of the Border Security Commander so that, when the Bill leaves this place, it proposes a cogent and effective office, able to tackle head on the crisis that we are discussing?

I turn to the importance of a deterrent and its absence from the Bill—a point that many noble Lords have made. We need to prioritise stopping people making the journey in the first place. As my noble friend Lord Lilley said—far more eloquently than I can—the only way we can address this problem is by creating a substantial and meaningful deterrent. If we want illegal migrants to stop coming, we must give them no reason whatever to want to come to the UK; otherwise, they will go to any lengths to circumvent even the strongest legal prohibitions.

The numbers I cited earlier show that people-smuggling gangs are circumventing the law as it stands already—and that is before the Government repeal large swathes of the last Government’s immigration legislation. Surely the Minister cannot be confident that this Bill contains a serious, coherent deterrent to people who are weighing up the decision to cross the channel. The changes proposed to citizenship and staying in the UK simply will not deter people who want to come here illegally. As my noble friend Lord Harper said, the Bill might lead to the removal of the Rwanda Act from the statute book but it contains no deterrent itself. This point was also made by my noble friends Lord Swire, Lord McInnes and Lord Horam, and others.

We have some suggestions for the Minister, which I hope he will consider seriously as we progress to Committee. I have suggested some of these policies already in the Chamber. The first is that we automatically deport anyone who arrives into our country via an illegal, unlawful route. We are a caring and considerate nation. People across this country have opened their homes and their family lives to refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan. There are other successful resettlement schemes. We have safe and legal routes for people to seek asylum in our country, so we should not tolerate people skipping the queue by trying to enter illegally. The British people possess a profound compassion, but they also have a deep sense of fair play. When that kindness and fairness are exploited, we should not tolerate it—especially as it comes at the expense of people who do use legal, recognised routes to seek asylum.

Secondly, we propose that the Human Rights Act be disapplied from all immigration matters. This would prevent foreign nationals from exploiting our courts with tenuous human rights arguments designed to avoid deportation or exploit the asylum system. The Human Rights Act is of course designed to protect and uphold fundamental rights, but this is demonstrably not how it is used in matters of immigration. I speak as someone who, in a past life as a lawyer, has acted for asylum seekers. The Human Rights Act has been used to prevent the deportation of convicted foreign criminals. It is tying the hands of government and preventing the deportation of those who cause harm in our communities.

I note with interest what the current Government have said about the interpretation of Article 8 in immigration cases. There is an acceptance by the Home Secretary herself that the application of Article 8 of the convention raises significant concerns. Those who have little respect for fundamental rights should not be able to hide behind such rights when their actions catch up with them. This is a sensible proposal that will ensure that foreign criminals are no longer able to impose themselves on the communities they harm.

Finally, we on these Benches encourage the Government to adopt a legally binding annual cap on migration, voted on by Parliament. A measure that limits levels of migration requires political courage, as the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, stated. This would ensure that migration levels are determined by the British people through their elected representatives. For decades, the British people have demanded, and politicians have promised, dramatically lower immigration. For decades, successive Governments—and, of course, I freely accept that that includes the previous one—have not delivered. It is now time to deliver what the public want. We propose that the Government should be legally tied to a cap—a promise in law to control immigration in line with what communities up and down the country are telling us is their limit. I anticipate that the Minister will welcome a proposal of a cap. If he and the Government are confident that the measures in the Bill will reduce the numbers of people coming here illegally, making themselves accountable to the British people is surely something they will support.

To conclude, the debate has raised many interesting points. I am sure that we all agree that this is a profoundly serious issue and one that is of fundamental importance to people across the United Kingdom. The simple fact is that we need to stop people coming here illegally, and I do not believe, with respect to the Minister, that the proposals in the Bill will do that. We need a system closed to criminals and which is intolerant of those trying to exploit its structures and free to take the necessary steps to protect our borders and communities. More than anything, we need a forceful, effective deterrent to stop people coming here illegally in the first place.

We intend to push our proposals in Committee to make this a Bill that does deter illegal migrants. I look forward to working with noble Lords across the House as we progress to the first day in Committee. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this important debate.