Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th July 2025 Lords Chamber

It could also cover lots of people who produce information or research for a purpose that is not to try to assist with people getting to the UK. These amendments seek to shift the emphasis of the clauses to those who profit financially from an immigration crime, and we consider that these clarifying amendments will bring the Bill, therefore, closer to the Government’s stated aim of targeting smuggling networks.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to several of these amendments, tabled by my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton, who regrets he is unable to be here today and has asked me to speak to the amendments on his behalf. I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord German, just said in relation to the earlier amendment. I am also grateful to the Law Society of Scotland for some of the briefing it has provided, although I should emphasise that the amendment is not confined to Scotland: it is, of course, a UK-wide amendment.

I will take the argument in summary. Speaking to an earlier amendment a few minutes ago, my noble friend said:

“The gangs are the target, not the refugees”.


The point, particularly of Amendment 50 is, in fact, to give effect to saying the gangs are the target and not the refugees. Amendment 50 seeks to make the legislation consistent with the spirit of the refugee convention, ensuring that vulnerable people are not debarred from refugee protection on the basis of criminal acts they have committed in order to claim asylum in the UK.

Clearly, none of us accepts that traffickers have any legitimate basis at all—they are vile people. But some of the people who cross the channel as a result of their efforts—I hope we can stop these traffickers—are, in fact, refugees. If their only offence is to cross the channel by boat, we are making the vulnerable the victims, and that seems not a sensible thing to do. Elsewhere in the Bill, the Government’s approach is to concede the point, and I do not see why it should not apply in this section. If we do not amend the Bill, we will create a Kafkaesque situation in which we would remove protections on the basis of steps taken by refugees in order to seek these protections in the first place. That seems a fairly clear point, and I would have thought the Government would be willing to tidy up the Bill to achieve this particular end.

I will make it clear that the refugee convention has a provision in it about particularly serious crimes, but it is designed to exclude individuals whose record of criminality rendered forfeit their claim to asylum. But that should never apply to those asylum seekers who are forced because there are no safe and legal routes to enter the country by these other means, which we have labelled in previous legislation as illegal.

If we had safe and legal routes—and I do not want to get into a Second Reading debate on this—the whole system would work in a much better way. Furthermore, Amendment 56 is a limited and, I hope, constructive amendment that seeks to remove an inconsistency within Clause 16. This clause creates a defence of collecting information for use in immigration crime, but subsection (6) has a defence for anyone who does it for the purpose of a journey made only by them. The point of Amendment 56 is that if people are traveling in a family group, they will also be able to have that defence. This is a very simple point indeed, and it goes fully in the spirit of what the Minister said earlier. I repeat: gangs are the target, not the refugees.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, we have Amendments 51 and 51B in this group. Amendment 51 would add mobile phones and chargers to the list of relevant articles. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, is just leaving; he may be coming back. There are innocent examples of the use of mobile phones in the JCHR’s report. Mobile phones are very common, and we are looking for proportionality in all this. Some years ago, I quite often heard opponents of asylum seekers and refugees, who were outraged, say, “They even have mobile phones”, as if that was some sort of great luxury and that having them meant they would be perfectly capable of getting, possibly not first-class seats, but certainly seats on a plane, because they were clearly very civilised, well-equipped and moneyed. I have not actually heard that for some time. Mobile phones are not a luxury these days; they enable asylum seekers to keep in touch with their family. I think that is hugely important, not for any sinister reason but because they are a lifeline for mental health, quite apart from more practical examples.

Amendment 51B speaks to the regulations which I mentioned in the last group. The Secretary of State can, by regulations, alter the list of relevant articles, and my amendment would provide for consultation with organisations that aim, without charge, to assist asylum seekers. I think that that point was made by one of those organisations in its briefings to noble Lords. After all, if there is to be a change, it is perfectly reasonable and proper that the people who know what happens on the ground—I am not suggesting that the Government do not—and who have that particular take on it should be consulted.

I have signed Amendment 56, to which the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has spoken. People travel in groups—not everybody, but some people—and it seems natural, to me anyway, that a husband would perhaps carry documents for his wife and children, or a mother would carry documents for her children. I think that it would be right to make that change.