Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord German Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[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?

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I will continue to go through the list. Let us begin with Albania. The amendment proposes to strike from the list of safe countries a NATO member and a nation with which the United Kingdom has a formal bilateral returns agreement, signed in 2022, that has been a cornerstone of our efforts to tackle illegal migration and organised criminality. It allows for the swift return of Albanians who have no right to remain in the UK and ensures that genuine protection claims are still assessed on a case-by-case basis. According to Home Office statistics, a massive proportion of Albanian asylum claims by adult males are refused. Why? It is because Albania is, by any objective measure, a safe and functioning democracy, so much so that the Prime Minister visited Albania in May to hold talks about returning failed asylum seekers.

Georgia is a member of the Council of Europe, has EU candidate status, and co-operates with a range of international human rights mechanisms—

[Lord German (LD)]

Georgia has been suspended for reasons we just talked about to do with the way it treats people.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I still suggest that it co-operates with a range of human rights mechanisms.

India is the world’s largest democracy, a Commonwealth partner and a strategic ally of the United Kingdom. It has robust constitutional protections for minorities, an independent judiciary and regular multi-party elections.

To suggest that those countries are unsafe as a matter of UK immigration law risks not only diplomatic tensions but is also factually unsound. Are there challenges in all societies? Yes, of course—that point was made forcefully by the noble Lord, Lord Empey. However, that is not the test, because the test under Section 80AA is whether “in general” the country poses a serious risk, so the statutory test is a general one. When the Secretary of State asks herself the question, she has to generalise. A lot of noble Lords have made points about the need to take into account specific individual assessments, but the question that she has to ask herself is a general one: does that country in general pose a serious risk of persecution to its nationals, and would removal to those countries contravene our human rights obligations? I would suggest quite firmly that the test is not remotely met in the cases of Albania, Georgia or India.

Genuine refugees deserve our protection, and they must come first. We do a disservice to them if we open the gates to unfounded claims from nationals of safe democratic states. That is why we cannot support the amendment.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Let me reassure the noble Lord that this is not personal. I would welcome any suggestions from across the Committee. If we reject the amendment in due course, as he is right to suspect we will, it will not be because it comes from him; if anyone else had moved it, it would still be rejected. The noble Lord knows better than anybody the challenges of the roles that we have in the Home Office. I am grateful for his suggestions and we are trying to examine them.

The key point—maybe this will give the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, a chance to think again as well—is that the merits of the claim could attract an appeal right, removing the possibility provided under the current system for certifying the claim as clearly unfounded. We would end up with even more litigation, which may help lawyers but would not help the resolution of the challenge at home. Without the specific further provisions in the legislation, our decision would need to explain why we considered that this measure applied in an individual’s particular circumstances, addressing anything they raised alleging that their life and liberty were threatened in what we consider to be a safe third country. It is nothing personal to the noble Lord, but we cannot accept the amendment.

Amendment 203E, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, had support from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lord Cashman. It seeks to provide a definition of “exceptional circumstances” for the working of our inadmissibility provisions. It also seeks to remove Albania, Georgia and India from the list of generally safe countries to which inadmissibility provisions may apply in the future.

I have explained how exceptional circumstances bear on the inadmissibility process. Section 80A already sets out examples of what constitutes exceptional circumstances, which relate to states derogating from obligations under the ECHR and actions taken by EU institutions. These examples are not exhaustive, and there may be case-by-case instances where exceptional circumstances are identified and where that inadmissibility should not be applied. At present, the question of whether a person’s evidence or other relevant matters constitute exceptional circumstances is determined according to case law. The amendment would replace this established approach.

[Lord German (LD)]

I thank the Minister for taking the intervention. He has referred to derogation from the ECHR. I wonder what consideration the Government are now giving to Georgia, which is in clear breach of the ECHR and has taken itself out of the Council of Europe, because it knows it has to do so. This is clearly a country that has derogated. Is that something that the Government are looking at? We can do it by regulation, as we are going to talk about, but since this is the only power that the Government are holding on to, this is a country that needs to be looked at very seriously indeed.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

To add to that, that is a country in which our Foreign Secretary has sanctioned a number of individual Ministers. Is there any correlation between what the Foreign Office does and what the Home Office considers?

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[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I echo the remarks that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made about the blame game and the importance of us all working with the Government to do what we can to try to tackle the fundamental issues that are influencing the nature of this huge crisis. As I have said before—I repeat the figure now—117 million people are displaced in the world today. That is not the fault of the previous Government or this Government, but it is the reality. People will keep on coming, including from places such as Sudan, which was mentioned in the previous group of amendments.

I attended the All-Party Group on Sudan’s meeting at lunchtime today. The situation in Darfur is absolutely horrific. It is a place I have visited in the past. Two million people were displaced from Darfur, and 200,000 to 300,000 people have died there. If any of us were in Darfur, we too would try to leave, and we too would probably make dangerous journeys. Most people who leave Darfur travel through Chad. They try to get to Libya and to the Mediterranean. Most never even succeed in making that journey—they die on that part of the journey. If they get into the Mediterranean, they probably reach the seabed. If they make it to the continent, some of them finally get to the English Channel. We talk about this as our crisis, but it is their crisis as much as it is ours.

If we do not tackle the fundamental reasons why people are being displaced—for instance, the nature of the current, almost untalked-about war in Sudan that has led to this massive surge in the number of people leaving that part of the world, as is reflected in the figures that the Government publish about the people who are in these boats, coming from places such as Sudan—and if we do not tackle the root causes, this will keep coming round again and again, whoever the Government of the day may be. That is why I agreed with what was said in the previous group of amendments, and I reiterate the importance of finding international solutions.

The 1951 convention on refugees was right in its time—it needed to be drafted in the way it was drafted at the time—but we still need that convention. Yes, it probably needs to be reappraised. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has been thinking about this too, as well as looking at Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which the Minister and others have referred to. These things can be examined, as the Minister has said again and again today, but they can also be reformed. Indeed, nine countries, including Denmark, wrote an email to the European court and the Council of Europe—

[Lord German (LD)]

They did not send it to the right people.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Well, they sent an email. The noble Lord, Lord German, is right to point out, from a sedentary position, that it was perhaps not done through the most courteous of routes. However, the point is that those nine countries—Poland was another—are not illiberal countries and they are not led by people who have a hatred of European institutions. They were arguing that the time has come for international action to be taken by countries, collectively, to re-examine the things that we are signed up to, to see whether they are fit for the present time.

I want to say one other thing to those who have tabled these amendments. We have heard a lot about the Rwanda Act and the Illegal Migration Act. At the heart of that was the suggestion that that would be a deterrent and a safe place to which we would send people. Recently, I have been looking again at Rwanda to see what the situation there is at the moment. In its human rights assessment of Rwanda just a few weeks ago, the US Department of State said that Rwanda is raising

“arbitrary or unlawful killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; arbitrary arrest or detention; transnational repression against individuals in another country; serious abuses in a conflict; unlawful recruitment or use of children in armed conflict by government-supported armed groups; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including threats of violence against journalists, unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, and censorship; trafficking in persons, including forced labor; and significant presence of any of the worst forms of child labor”.

I am talking about Rwanda, and that is the US Department of State’s finding within the last few weeks. Recently, Human Rights Watch made a submission to the universal periodic review and reported on the use of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees from 2019 to 2024. I might add that the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ report on transnational repression—which is with the Minister at the present time, and I look forward to his response to that—identified Rwanda as one of the countries responsible for transnational repression. I point the Minister to those details.

Last but not least, we cannot forget about the involvement of Rwanda in atrocity crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with M23 raging on across eastern DRC. Earlier this year, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on International Law, Justice and Accountability that I chaired published a report on CRSV in the DRC and the abuses perpetrated by that group.

Let us be careful what we wish for. Let us understand the nature of those countries that we are going to send people to and that we say are safe places where people will be able to have good, prosperous and decent lives. Let us be realistic and honest about the nature of these things. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, reminded us that we will get to Amendment 110 from the Official Opposition, which is about lists and, indeed, we can then talk more about the countries that are on that list. Rwanda is on that list that the Official Opposition are pointing us towards.

I just want Members of the House to do what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said: we should stop blaming one another and trying to score political points and realise that this issue is now being exploited by people who have no great love of democracy and the rule of law and are taking people on to the streets and capitalising on this crisis. If we do not find solutions to this, I fear for the stability of our communities and the dangers to law and order and to the very vulnerable people whom I think all of us in this House are trying to protect.