Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Gascoigne Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

We are very rarely on exactly the same side as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti— I will certainly accept her correction. I think the noble Lord, Lord Empey, described the overall situation brilliantly—we cannot just do nothing or scratch around at the edges, which is an awful lot of what this particular Bill is about. We need to look at different situations and different solutions, and that is why I very much look forward to the Minister’s response to my noble friend’s Amendment 203J.

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, I am conscious that this has been a long group already, and I know that the Government Whips will be staring at me with glaring eyes. I did not intend to speak in this debate; this is my first raising of my head into the fray of the Bill. I was listening to what my noble friend and others have said. As some will recall, I was answering from the Dispatch Box on behalf of the Home Office at the tail end of the last Government, and I confess to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, that, I am sorry to say, I was involved in the drafting of the then Rwanda deal in No. 10 when one of the previous Prime Ministers was there. It was good then; it is good now.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord says that it was good. There was a provision in the Rwanda Bill which said that, notwithstanding deeming that Rwanda was safe, it might not be safe for the individual, so the Bill would not even have worked.

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

I suppose that was a slight defect of the Bill, but that ship has sailed. The crucial point, which I will come back to—and I respect the noble Lord enormously—is that the Rwanda deal had a deterrent, and that is what we are lacking. It may have been only for small numbers, not anywhere near the numbers we wanted, but it was a deterrent. It was one part of a series of steps that we should have taken, but, as I say, that ship has sailed.

I am backing the amendments from my noble friend Lord Murray and my noble friends on my Front Bench, certainly not because I have been asked or told to, and, as my noble friend Lord Jackson said, this is not about pulling out of the ECHR or the refugee convention, nor—as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, was saying—about saying that we do not want to accept any refugees, but because it is about tackling illegal migration and the crossings we have had.

We have seen one so-called spectre raise its head today in the form of the elected President of the United States. There is another spectre on the horizon that we have not yet heard about, but I am sure we will at some stage: Reform UK and Farage. It is certainly not a view that I share, nor is it that of Reform voters. I am not saying that the Ministers do not know this, but I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said: outside this hallowed hall there is a genuine, deep, growing sense of unease, anger and frustration, which is building. I know that it is not unique to this Government, as it has been growing for some time, but it has grown exponentially of late because of this sense of injustice and lack of control.

As I think the Government have said—which the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, alluded to—crucially, we need a deterrent to tackle the crossings. We have to grip this; we have to tackle the numbers and, as I think my noble friend Lord Goschen was saying, we have to tackle the pull factor. There is no deterrent in the Bill as it currently stands. That is why I wholeheartedly support my noble friend, and the two amendments from my Front Bench.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, in sporting words, this has been a game of two halves. One half has very much struck at what I would call Second Reading speeches and issues, and the other has been very specifically about the structure and place of safety issues in the Bill. I will deal first with the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee, supported by my noble friend Lady Brinton, on Section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act.

My first question to the Government is why they are retaining this section of the Illegal Migration Act, which I understand has not been enacted. I understand that their rationale is what we call “operational benefit”. That could mean having some petrol in the car or some policy vehicle that you want to move forward. An explanation of what that operational benefit is would be helpful, because the retention of this section effectively removes the Secretary of State’s discretion in declaring asylum and human rights claims from these countries and renders them all inadmissible.

We have been talking about what is “generally safe”, and so on. I recall the 2023 regulations, on which I spoke about the inclusion of Georgia, Albania and India. I made the point that countries can be safe for most people, but not all. The context is that, as the UNHCR says, we have to note that, while a safe destination may be procedural, it does not negate the need for individual assessment, particularly in avoiding the risk of refoulement, significantly, which we have talked about here over the years.

It is down to the Government to tell us why they want to retain this section. We talked about the threshold for admissibility being negligible. As I understand it, there is only a limited judicial review route with no right of appeal, so if somebody wishes to try to appeal, it is a very thin route, and judicial review is not a simple process—it requires considerable assistance.

My colleagues have raised major concerns, particularly about Georgia. Colleagues in this Chamber will know that we have spoken to the leaders of political parties. One of those I spoke to went back the next day and was immediately imprisoned. Just think about this policy of treating Georgia as safe. By the way, Georgia is in the Government’s list but not in the Conservatives’ list, which we will discuss later—even they agree that Georgia is not safe. Let us imagine that we were commanded by the Lord Speaker to attend here at a certain time and sign a particular support motion for the Government, not as a recommendation but as an imprisonable offence. That is happening. Political freedoms, which we all think are essential, are being denigrated in Georgia at the moment.

We have heard about how changes in countries can happen frequently and rapidly. We just cannot afford to say, “This place is safe”, and then a few years later change our mind after many people have suffered because of its actions. I repeat the report from the United Nations high commissioner: we have to make an individual assessment and make sure that we are obviating the risk of refoulement.

I will simply say two things about the second half. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, was absolutely right that, if you are a member of a convention and want to change it in a big way, we know from the way that conventions are placed that there is room for movement, adjustment and interpretation. I would maintain that the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Murray, is a severe method. Under it, the only people who could be admitted to this country, for example, would be people who took a flight directly from Sudan to London Heathrow. There are no flights—and I know that there are noble Lords here who know that. Our experience is that it is right for conventions to be examined all the time, and to try to make them move on.

I noted many mistakes. People frequently interpret the ECHR as being a body of Europe. It is actually a body of the Council of Europe. Could the Minister address this? I spoke to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, who is responsible for the Committee of Ministers, including those from this country, and he said that discussion on the ECHR is already under way among the countries in the Council of Europe. I must say to those who say we should leave the ECHR that we would be leaving the Council of Europe as well. We as a country have signed up to 151 conventions on freedoms that we all take for granted. We have to be clear about this and take the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Empey. I do not know how far it has progressed, but it has certainly started and is under way, and I know that that discussion will progress.

I do not think that any other noble Lords in the Chamber are members of the IAC of this Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, asked about the Hillmore agreement, where the decision was taken not to have the scrutiny under the CRaG arrangement. It is the IAC of your Lordships’ House that does it on behalf of Parliament, by the way—not just the House of Lords but also the House of Commons. We discussed this matter yesterday because obviously, it is clearly important. The noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, is sitting right next to the noble Lord, and she will tell him that there was an exchange of letters between the Government and the committee. We have agreement from the Secretary of State for Home Affairs that there will be an evidence session, and they will provide exact details of the agreement. The committee will then report to Parliament, and there can be a debate in this House about that matter. In some senses, it is a bit of an advantage to have a treaty that is in action in this case, so we will be able to report on what is happening rather than what is proposed to happen. It may be second best, but it certainly was possible for it to happen.

So, in conclusion, I return to my first question: why do the Government want to retain this section of the Illegal Migration Act? If they do, what is the operational benefit?