UK-France Migration: Co-operation

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises a number of key points. As a Government, we are committed to our international obligations. The noble Lord mentioned the 1951 convention. As he knows, a letter has been circulated by some European Union member states calling for that to be examined. We want to maintain our international obligations, and it is important that we do so. In doing that, we still have to undertake the actions mentioned—I am thankful for the noble Lord’s support on those today—as well as other actions.

The noble Lord mentioned the EU’s interests. On 30 March and 1 April this year, we had a border security summit on organised crime that brought together 50 countries that are impacted by this, including key members of the European Union such as Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, and other countries such as Turkey, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Albania, Nigeria and Pakistan. It is very important that those longer-term issues are addressed.

The people who arrive in northern France have usually entered the European Union via southern Italy or Greece, and sometimes via the borders of Poland and eastern Europe. It is in the EU’s interests to examine the French-British scheme and to ensure, if there are positive lessons to be learned, that it is expanded. It is in nobody’s interest to have criminal gangs operating throughout the EU and in the United Kingdom and the channel. As well as the challenges of that movement, the profits those criminal gangs make are going into drugs, guns and other activity that fuels further crime. I hope that the noble Lord’s fears will not be realised and that we can take action.

The noble Lord said that a large number of people are arriving here. I point him to the figure of 10,191 asylum-related returns that took place last year because of the speeding-up of the asylum-claim process. We are speeding up the asylum-claim process and weeding out those people who have paid for a small boat trip and arrived in the UK but have no legitimate asylum claim whatever, having arrived as economic migrants who did not go through a legal route. Those people are being removed.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the Minister very gently that his Government have a duty and responsibility to the tax-paying, law-abiding citizens of this country, not just to supranational legal entities such as the European Court of Human Rights.

On the specific issues, other jurisdictions consider this to be close to a crisis and have actively considered the derogation of Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This Government are not even looking at that. Why is this the case? If Spain, Italy, Germany and other countries can do it, why is it impossible for the UK to at least review the situation? The noble Lord, Lord Empey, is quite right that the 1951 convention is out of date, and it is apposite and totally proper for the Government to review it and how it works for Britain.

The other issue is asylum accommodation. Six months ago, when I raised the issue of the Dragonfly Hotel in Peterborough, which has 146 male asylum seekers, the Minister reassured me that his department would improve its communication with local authorities and other key agencies where new asylum facilities and hotels were being opened. Is that the case? Has there been a demonstrable improvement?

My final question comes in the wake of the rather humiliating rebuff that the Prime Minister received in Albania in May. The House will know that the Government are not in principle against a third-country processing facility. What progress has the Government made to date in identifying an alternative to the Rwanda scheme to facilitate the processing of asylum seeker applications?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful, as ever, to the noble Lord for his questions. I reassure him that the taxpayer is at the forefront of this Government’s thinking about the costs of this illegal migration and the criminal gangs that drive it. It is for those very reasons that we are taking action, not just to secure our borders but also to secure taxpayers’ resource. That is why, this time last year when we inherited the positions we proudly hold now, we were paying roughly £8 million a day in hotel fees: because the then Government were not processing asylum seekers and were not taking the actions we have taken in the last year to have a deterrent effect, in our view, against the criminal gangs. We have managed to reduce those hotel costs to around £6 million a day, saving the taxpayer £2 million a day so far, and we intend to drive it down further.

So I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that border control, dealing with asylum and dealing with the impact of people being returned have a cost to the taxpayer. That is why, as I said—without repeating the figures—we are upping returns, upping processing and making sure that we are taking foreign national prisoners out. We are doing that to reduce the illegal pressure on the United Kingdom’s borders.

The noble Lord asked a very fair question about consultation with local authorities. It is the Government’s intent that we consult with local authorities and, if possible, with elected representatives outside those local authorities—Members of Parliament and others—to ensure that they have an understanding of where that dispersal accommodation goes. If he wants to supply any examples of where that is not working, I will certainly look at them with my ministerial colleagues. It is important that we get that right so that there is consent.

On the international agreements the noble Lord mentioned, as I said, it is the Government’s intention to support our international agreements. Any change from that will be done on an international co-operation basis. We keep everything under review. As the noble Lord knows, in the immigration White Paper we have said we want to redefine Article 8 and how that is interpreted by the judges. We will keep things under review, but this Government will not move from our international obligations. Also, it is not a foreign court; it was established with UK support after the Second World War.