Asylum Policy

Lord German Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, the Home Secretary’s Statement to the other place announced a number of reforms which are very welcome. When the Government bring forward strong measures, we will support them. The Home Secretary should be praised for accepting a simple truth—that Britain’s asylum system is far more generous than that of many other European countries.

It is a truth that, unfortunately, many Labour Back-Benchers cannot seem to grasp. The true test to these reforms will be whether the Government can face down opposition from within their own ranks and implement them.

There is another welcome truth that the Home Secretary has implicitly accepted: up to now, the Government’s measures to tackle illegal migration have failed. The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which we have spent many hours debating in this House, is woefully inadequate to deal with the issue. It is a shame that it took the Government so long to realise this, but we are where we are. We will have to have another immigration and asylum Bill next year because the Government were too slow to reach the logical conclusion that their plans are not working. These new announcements are at least a tacit acceptance that that Bill did not go anywhere near far enough to seriously tackle small boat crossings.

There are a number of proposals here that are very similar to amendments I tabled during the Report stage of the border security Bill—amendments that the Government completely opposed. It is heartening to see that they have finally come round, but it might have been easier for all of us if they had compromised earlier.

For example, the Government opposed my amendment to create third-country removal centres. The Minister criticised it for wanting to rehash the Rwanda policy, but that is a complete falsehood. The Rwanda policy would have sent illegal migrants to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed. The amendments I brought to the border security Bill would automatically reject that asylum claim brought by an illegal migrant and then return them to either their home country or a safe third country. Their claims would not be processed in Rwanda because they would never be allowed to make a claim in the first place.

That amendment was about having safe third countries where we can send failed asylum seekers and illegal migrants who cannot be returned to their home country. Now, in their policy statement, the Government say:

“We will continue to explore the use of ‘return hubs’ which are safe third countries that failed asylum seekers can be sent to instead of their country of origin. Negotiations with a number of countries are ongoing”.


This is precisely what we were pushing the Government to do, and I am pleased that they have announced that they will look to send failed asylum seekers to safe third countries, but this all could have been much easier if they had come to this conclusion earlier.

The Government have also announced changes to the appeals procedure. The Statement says that the Home Office will

“create a new appeals body, staffed by professional independent adjudicators”.

However, it does not mention whether this appeals body will run alongside the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) or replace it. Could the Minister please clarify this?

Would the Government run this new body alongside the judicial appeals tribunals? If so, how would they decide whose appeal is heard before which body? Or are they proposing to abolish the immigration and asylum tribunal and replace it with the Home Office review body? If so, then that was exactly what I proposed by way of Amendments 46 and 47 to the border security Bill. On Report on 5 November, 128 Labour peers voted against that. If they have changed their mind on this, it is very embarrassing to say the least; it is disappointing for them to vote against that proposal and then come up with something very similar.

The Home Secretary has claimed that she is following the lead set by Denmark, but this is only a partial truth, because Denmark requires asylum seekers to prove full-time employment for several years before they qualify for permanent residence.

The Government’s plans extend the waiting time to get indefinite leave to remain to 10 years once a person’s refugee status has been granted and if they entered legally. This would be 20 years for those who entered illegally, but this does not impose any conditions. Theoretically, a person could enter illegally, languish on benefits for 20 years and then be granted the right to indefinite leave to remain. While I am pleased to see asylum status become temporary, and for anyone whose home country becomes safe to be returned there, it is absolutely wrong that a person could enter illegally and still be allowed to remain, especially given the Government’s opening of new safe and legal routes. If we are to have legal routes for refugees, we absolutely cannot reward those who enter illegally. That would make even more of a mockery of the whole system. Why would a person bother to apply for the legal route if they know that they can board a boat and be allowed to stay here? The Government need to follow this plan to its logical conclusion and ban asylum, human rights and protection claims from any illegal migrant.

Finally, the plan to reform Article 8 is all well and good, but the Government have to know that this will not be enough. While we have the Human Rights Act in force and are party to the ECHR, we will face the same barriers to removals that we do currently. Reforming the interpretation will simply allow crafty human rights lawyers to find innovative new ways to circumvent it. Only a wholesale repeal of the Human Rights Act and withdrawal from the ECHR can finally remove the legal barriers to deportation.

The Government have started moving in the right direction. As my right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition said, we will support the Government in making these changes. But I fear that they will not be enough and that the Government will end up coming back to us next year with further changes. If they simply accepted that now, and went even further with these changes, it would save us all a lot of time down the line.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests, and I am supported by the RAMP organisation. I am minded to think of the title of that great film, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”; I am afraid that these proposals have all three within them. I will go through some of those.

Starting with the positive, we support the Government’s intent to bring order in the asylum system, and we welcome the announcement of new, capped, safe and legal routes for refugees. These pathways, with security checks and controls, are the correct way to fulfil the UK’s responsibility to those in need. Confirmation that the Government will not leave the European Convention on Human Rights is welcome, as is the recognition that early legal advice should be a core part of the appeal system.

Moving on to the bad, or impractical, the argument that asylum seekers should contribute is undermined when they are denied the means to earn their way. Denmark allows asylum seekers to work after six months. Why are the Government persisting in stopping asylum seekers from working when there is no evidence that this is a pull factor? We question the assumption of the UK as a magnet, given that we receive far fewer asylum seekers per capita than our European neighbours. Home Office analysis itself found that asylum seekers have little to no understanding of welfare policies before arrival. Shared language, diaspora communities and perhaps even colonial connections are the primary drivers for asylum seekers taking irregular routes to the UK. Can the UK Government provide evidence, rather than simple assertion, on this matter?

Revoking the duty to support risks creating more destitution and pushing more asylum seekers towards illegal working and exploitation. What assessment has been made of this risk? What action are the Government taking to avoid passing the financial strain onto already struggling local authorities? The use of immoderate language is also unhelpful and risks stoking division. Why do the Government feel the need to create a whole new asylum appeals structure? Why not simply expand the existing system?

The most severe criticisms target the core protection model and its administrative fallout. Core protection requires a status review every 30 months and delays permanent settlement for 20 years, which in our view is unnecessary and cruel. This prolonged state of instability will inhibit successful integration by making it difficult for refugees to secure tenancies, employment or higher education. The Home Office is currently struggling with a backlog, yet this policy would impose what has been called bureaucratic madness, requiring a huge increase in capacity to review the status of an estimated 1.45 million people by the end of 2035, potentially costing £872 million. Do the Government accept these figures or have they alternative ones to offer?

Scrapping the refugee family reunion route pushes children and spouses into the hands of smugglers, directly contradicting the goal of safe migration. Has this risk been assessed? How will the long-term separation from family impact refugees’ ability to contribute and reduce their reliance on state support? Will the Government be detaining and deporting children who were once accepted as refugees but will subsequently not be when their home country is deemed safe?

Given that Denmark’s temporary protection scheme clearly failed to result in returns for Syrians, how do the Government justify the massive cost and profound uncertainty imposed by the UK version? What is the timescale for these changes? When will they be implemented and what method will be used to implement them?

Finally, do the Government agree with the report in the i newspaper that deportations will be retrospective? It says:

“It means that, if a refugee has not already been granted indefinite right to remain before the Home Secretary’s new legislation comes into force, they will be deported if their home country is subsequently deemed safe by the Government”.


I look forward to the Government’s response to these questions.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, and I will try to answer his questions first of all. I am grateful for the welcome he gave to some of the Government’s proposals. I remind him that the reason we are undertaking these reforms is that we have inherited a very broken system: a system that has been in operation for 14 years, where the number of asylum claims has risen, where the backlog has grown and where the deportations have not existed where they are rightfully proposed to exist. We have a duty, on behalf of the British people, to take some difficult decisions to sort this out.

The noble Lord mentioned that the border security Bill, which has completed its passage bar one Commons amendment, has not been effective. Let me remind him that we have introduced a border security commander, who has negotiated deals with France, negotiated deals with Iraq, negotiated deals with the Germans and has been put on a legal footing by this Bill. We have put extra measures in place to support penalties for people smugglers, which will now, once Royal Assent is achieved, allow us to take some further deterrent actions against people smugglers to end that vile trade. We have put in place mechanisms to stop the manufacture and use of boats, to seize engines and to do other things which will take effect once Royal Assent is agreed. I do not, therefore, accept his contention first and foremost that the border security Bill, about which we have had many hours of discussion, is pointless.

I have to say to him, however, that the Government have to keep these issues under review because it is self-evidently a broken system, which is why we put in place additional people to speed up the backlog. The measures before the House today, outlined in the Statement, will be brought forward in legislation, subject to consultation. We will also look at a range of other measures we need to take to fix the system we have inherited from the noble Lord and his political party. He may not like that—I do not want to politicise that: I want his support for this—but we have had to take those steps because of where we are, and I think that is reasonable.

The support he has given for some of those steps is particularly good. He mentioned, for example, the tightened criteria. I think it is fair and proper that, if a country is deemed safe after two and a half years, the individual concerned is encouraged and supported to return to that country; or, as is in this proposal, they can apply for a different route through work or study to get permanent residence downstream. If the country is safe, however, it is perfectly reasonable to look at how we can remove that individual.

The proposals include tackling increased enforcement on illegal working. I think it is perfectly reasonable to put some pressure and heat into the system to tackle people who are being employed illegally, to look at increasing the right-to-work checks, to provide digital ID requirements—which I suspect he will oppose—to ensure there are mandatory right-to-work checks and collaboration to verify companies. I think that is reasonable. I think it is reasonable to look at return hubs: not Rwanda, not £700 million being wasted, not two people being removed voluntarily, but discussing proper return hubs for people who do not have safe countries but where their asylum claims have failed. It is perfectly reasonable to remove people whose asylum claims have failed because their asylum claims have failed. That is perfectly reasonable to do.

It is perfectly reasonable to do what we are doing in this proposal to speed up assessments and appeals. He asked about the First-tier Tribunal. We are going to put extra hours into the tribunal and we are going to ensure that we look at improving the legal system to get appeals dealt with and tribunals dealt with much more quickly. It is reasonable—and this is, again, where we will have a bit of blue and red water between us—to be committed to the European Convention on Human Rights, to be committed to legislation to uphold human rights, but actually to say that we want to look at how we can tweak that to make sure that it acts in the interest of our country, at the same time as being part of our international obligations, which is where we are. He wants to leave those conventions. I do not, and the Government do not, but we need to make sure we make them work in a better way to deal with this issue. I think it is reasonable for us to do all those things and I hope for and look forward to his support on them.

I welcome the welcome from the noble Lord, Lord German. It has been overlooked in this, but there are safe and legal routes that we want to develop, as we have done, for example, in our bespoke schemes for Ukraine and for Syria. There are bespoke routes that we can develop. There are safe and legal routes that we can look at. In this Statement, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has said that we wish to look at doing that. We are committed to human rights, but we are committed to looking at these particular issues. We will encourage people to look at the work route, if necessary, for safe and legal routes, and we will ensure that a range of other issues are examined.

The noble Lord takes issue with the core protection measures that we have before us in this proposal. I think, again, that it is reasonable, given where we are, to look at how we can ensure that those people are assessed very quickly, within two and a half years, or 30 months. If the country is safe to return to, they can return. If not, let us get that asylum claim approved, or let us get that asylum claim rejected and the individual then returned. I think that is a reasonable proposal. It is reasonable that we look at family reunion, and the noble Lord asked about child deportations. I do not want to see child deportations, but what I want to see is, if people have failed their asylum claim or if they are a foreign national offender—of which we have many languishing in UK jails at the moment—we must find mechanisms to return those individuals fairly and properly to their communities if they are safe, or, if not, to look at the issue that we have talked about here of an alternative holding establishment. All of this will be consulted on.

The noble Lord asked about when and how this will be brought in. There will be legislation brought before both Houses of Parliament, at a point to be determined, and the consultation will take place. However, I ask all those noble Lords who may criticise the proposals: are they happy with the status quo? Do they think the status quo is a good place to be? I think nobody in this Chamber will say that the status quo is a good place to be. Therefore, my objective with the Home Secretary and the Home Office is to look at ways in which we can maintain our international obligations, welcome genuine refugees and asylum seekers, but also speed up a broken system to make sure it works effectively.