Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I suggest that careless driving is not a trivial offence. When I was Immigration Minister, I dealt with a father who had lost his child because of someone’s poor driving. We were struggling to remove that person from the country for a similar reason to that which the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, set out: they were an EU national, and there was a stricter test about whether you could remove them. I have to say that that father who had lost his child thought that that driving offence was really serious, so I would not trivialise it at all.

The second test is that, if we cannot deport someone to the country from which they came, we should look at whether there is an opportunity, as we set out in our Rwanda policies, to deport them to another safe country. It is very clear that the British people do not want serious criminals who have come to this country staying here. We can have a debate about the detail of this, but the principle is very clear. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will address the principle of whether he thinks that people in the circumstances set out by my two noble friends should be able to stay here.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I want to follow the argument that the noble and learned Baroness tried to raise. Looking at the wording, I am afraid that the process would still be very long. The proposed new clause in Amendment 34 states:

“Where a person to whom this subsection applies is convicted of an offence, the court must sentence the person to deportation from the United Kingdom”.


Let us say that this person has committed grievous bodily harm and has been tried, and the jury say that he is guilty and so he is found guilty of the crime that is committed. The noble Lord is saying that, immediately, that same court must sentence this person to deportation. But the person who has been convicted in this country has a right of appeal. They may challenge the way the jury was selected, the way everything happened and the sentence itself, saying that being sent back to the very dangerous place that they left is condemning them to death. Should the process of appeal still happen, what the noble Lord is saying would not happen immediately.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

That was quite a lengthy intervention, with a number of points. The case raised by the noble and right reverend Lord about a country that we would normally deem not safe is a perfectly reasonable one. But, as I said, my challenge back is this. Is there any offence that people who come from certain countries to which we would not normally return them can commit that is of a level of seriousness that we think should make them immune to being sent back to that country? I believe that there are certain offences that people commit for which it is reasonable that they forfeit the right to stay in the United Kingdom. That is a perfectly reasonable case.

It may be that the wording in these amendments is not entirely perfect, but the argument that we are having is whether, if you come to this country and you commit a serious sexual offence, for example—as in my noble friend’s example—or you murder or rape somebody, you should be able to stay here for ever because the country from which you came is not ideal and we would not normally send you back to it. That is a debate worth having. I think the general public would take a much more robust position in those cases than many Members of your Lordships’ House would feel comfortable with.

Finally, I challenge the Minister, as my noble friend Lord Jackson did, having got in before me, to respond to the points in the debate we had earlier about what the Government will do to bring forward amendments or changes to how they interpret human rights legislation to give them a better chance—I am assuming the Government will not accept these amendments—of removing people who we know the Government would like to get rid of. In the case that my noble friend Lord Jackson set out, it sounded to me as though Ministers were very frustrated—as frustrated as he is. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.