Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 10th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Your Lordships’ House will have an opportunity to scrutinise this very large and complex Bill and its details, so I will focus on general principles. Perversely, although I think this Bill is politically, constitutionally and morally an imperative, I agree with the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Green of Deddington, because within the wider context it is only because we have a failed and dysfunctional legal migration regime that such a Bill is necessary, notwithstanding the geopolitical refugee crisis affecting the rich world.

The British people did not vote to take back control of our borders in 2016 for any Government to preside over a net migration figure of more than 500,000 each year, for special pleading from big business for more cheap foreign labour, for 5 million people on out of work benefits, for £1.9 billion per week spent on social benefits for working age people, for welfare dependency and the stalling of social mobility and productivity, and for pay and training for UK citizens to be reduced over time.

Actually, I predicted this. As Member of Parliament for Peterborough in 2006, in the wake of the European Union free movement directive, I made it clear that there would be serious ramifications on the delivery of public services. For that I was met by hyperbole and allegations of racism and xenophobia and of being a Little Englander—but even Tony Blair conceded that that piece of legislation was in error.

I would rather not support this Bill, and I agree with other speakers who have said that the British people are decent, fair, compassionate and welcoming. One need only look at the figures that the UNHCR produced that show that we are the second most welcoming country in Europe for refugees. Who does not believe that it takes great courage to cross continents to seek a better life and a better future for one’s family and children? However, it is naive and irresponsible to ignore our obligation to propose solutions based on real-world experience. Responsible government is about difficult choices and competing interests, and that is why the Liberal Democrats’ fatal amendment is both irresponsible and an abdication of our duty to respond to legitimate public concerns about this growing migration crisis.

It is also naive and foolhardy not to recognise that of course people traffickers will abuse and exploit the loopholes around modern slavery. I have to say respectfully to my former colleague, the former Prime Minister Theresa May, that she perhaps should have a word with the Home Secretary who presided over the drafting of the Modern Slavery Bill in 2015, because to ignore the ramifications and that exploitation is wrong. That said, I think that the amendments that she has proposed and that noble Lords have proposed are certainly worth looking at.

It has to be said that this House has no mandate whatever to block or wreck the Bill. It is a manifesto commitment from the 2019 general election. It is popular, has public support and was passed by a significant majority in the other place.

I agree with the right reverend Prelates that we need to legislate with compassion, but those of us who support the Bill are no less caring or empathetic to the real-world horrors of modern slavery and people trafficking. Frankly, I have to say as an Anglican that I find it dispiriting that the leaders of my own church, who were silent over the impact of 20 years of uncontrolled immigration, should seek to mischaracterise those of us who have the courage to support these bold measures as morally deficient. That is not the case.

My penultimate point is this. Much talk has been made of breaking international law. We should not regard supranational legal entities and their obligations as shibboleths and theological tablets never to be questioned. It may be unusual, but our dualist treaty regime in this country preserves the rights and duties of legislators against an overmighty Executive and a potentially politicised judiciary, and this House is part of that durable and well-understood constitutional settlement. After all, our first duty is the safety of our own citizens, of whatever background.

In conclusion, today we have heard much criticism, exaggeration, outrage, some intemperate language and cries of “Shame!”—but very few, if any, real, workable alternatives. It is a perfectly noble viewpoint to believe in open borders, mass migration to a country with the highest population density in Europe, a housing crisis, infrastructure pressures and a debt mountain, but let us be honest about it: what does that policy really mean? The shame would be to do nothing, give sustenance to the evil people traffickers, betray the British people, betray those who came here legally and hope that it will all go away. Well, it will not. I welcome and support the Bill, and I wish Ministers well in its possibly quite difficult journey through this House.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 28th June 2023 Lords Chamber

For all those reasons, I hope that the House will support the amendment.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting my noble friend. The machines to record the votes have basically stopped working. I have spoken to the usual channels, who have agreed that we will defer all Divisions—but not the debates—until Monday.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 37. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, for a very clear exposition.

Broadly speaking, I support the amendment, although I shall not be voting for it for the reasons I will now give. I concur also with the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about Christian and Muslim persecution in Nigeria, which remains a constituent country in Schedule 1.

The amendment is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Notwithstanding my support, I have some significant questions as to whether it should appear in primary rather than secondary legislation, because it is very detailed and because there are other groups that are suffering persecution which could also be included. That does not take away the very real concerns articulated by many noble Lords about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who may face persecution when returned to some of these countries.

I have a very significant issue. I genuinely hope that when those who tabled the amendment respond to the Minister they will disabuse me of any misapprehension about it, particularly with regard to subsection (1)(c). It seems to me that it is constitutionally unprecedented to put in primary legislation an amendment which is largely dependent on the time-limited, opaque legal process of a foreign legal entity—in this case, Section 7 of the Treaty on European Union. We are relying on the procedures of the European Union and how it handles ongoing and potentially continuous infraction procedures under that part of the treaty as a determinant of whether we include it in the Bill. That is completely unprecedented.

I can understand the points that noble Lords have made about Poland and Hungary, but those legal processes have not yet run their course and are still ongoing. That is a matter for the European Union rather than the United Kingdom.

How wide and prescriptive would this amendment be? Would infraction procedures begin against Latvia, Bulgaria, Malta and Romania? This can be incorporated over a period in secondary legislation in a statutory instrument, rather than on the face of the Bill. I say very gently to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, that he was not as clear and emphatic in his explanation and rationale for that part of his amendment as he was in the earlier part, that it is of course axiomatic that a number of people, because of their sexuality or gender preferences, would face persecution.

For that reason, I feel uncomfortable about supporting the amendment and will support the Government if they oppose it. I would be extremely grateful if those who tabled the amendment would address the issues that I have.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, we cannot countenance a situation in which people who sought asylum here because of a well-founded fear of persecution in their country of origin are then removed to a third country where they may face a similar, or even greater, level of risk. For that reason, I join others in supporting Amendment 37.

It was my privilege earlier this year to be invited to attend a reception on the Parliamentary Estate, where I met a group of LGBTQI+ women who had sought and gained asylum in this country. Their stories were harrowing. By contrast, their efforts to rebuild their lives here in Britain were inspirational.

It seems to me beyond any doubt that the threshold of safety must be different and, indeed, higher for people like these women—people who are persecuted on the basis of their sexuality or their gender identity. Putting it bluntly, if His Majesty’s Government’s travel advice to British tourists is that they should not be open about their sexuality when visiting certain countries, two things surely follow. First, those same countries are not places to which we should remove LGBTQI+ people; secondly, the Bill must provide explicit protection to that end. The noble and learned Lord’s amendment achieves that aim, and unless the Minister can offer equally concrete protections, I hope that your Lordships’ House will support it at such time as the voting machines are resurrected from the dead.