Immigration Bill

Mike Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)]

One of the things that concern me is the definition of “seriously prejudicial.” If we look up “prejudice” in the dictionary, we see that it just means something we have decided before, so “seriously prejudicial” could be anything a Home Secretary liked. I am absolutely convinced that the present Home Secretary would never in any way abuse that power, but how do we know what will happen next week, next month, in two years’ time, or in five years’ time? A Home Secretary will be able to use a term that is so vague and has so little meaning that they could strip someone of any citizenship, leaving them stuck in this country with no ability to work, receive benefits or do anything at all, simply because of a definition that is pretty much meaningless.

[Mrs May]

I think that the concept of something that is seriously prejudicial to the interests of Her Britannic Majesty—to the interests of the United Kingdom—will be understood. There will of course be an opportunity for a review of that through a court process—a judicial review—so the definition would be tested. My hon. Friend might not choose to rely on the abilities or understanding of future Home Secretaries, but I hope that he will see that there is a further safeguard.

I wish to reiterate—this is an important point—that that is the position the United Kingdom had prior to 2003, when the law was changed. It is the position that we are required to have under the United Nations convention. All that we are doing is returning our position to the scope of our declaration under that convention. It goes no further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I must confess that the image of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary being a puppet on a string for Nigel Farage is one that is new to most Members of the House, and one that seems rather far from the truth. I wish to speak to two new clauses: new clause 15, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), and which I have signed; and new clause 18.

May I first say how fortunate it is that the Government and the authorities-that-be have ensured that new clause 15 has come up for debate this afternoon? It is crucial that the House of Commons should get to debate that which the House of Commons wishes to debate, and 105 signatures to a new clause is a clear statement of that desire. The business managers therefore deserve to be commended for their wisdom in allowing that to happen, and those in even higher positions of authority—I am thinking of Mr Speaker, in particular—follow in a fine tradition of Speakers who have ensured that the will of the House has been allowed to be expressed and a view come to. That is good fortune for us all.

I must confess that I disagree fundamentally with the case made by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather). It seems to me that part of our system of liberty is the fact that liberty comes with responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is that if a person’s actions are illegal, a punishment will follow, and that punishment is their responsibility and their fault. They cannot get out of it because other people might be indirectly affected by it. That is not what their actions have caused; their actions have caused them to go to prison, for a minimum of a year according to the new clause, and then to be deported because they were foreign criminals and therefore had no automatic right to be here in the first place. That is an important and fair principle.

If the alternative view is taken, which is that there will be knock-on effects on other people and therefore it is unfair and unreasonable to allow a punishment to take place, then no punishment can ever take place and we can have no proper rule of law in this country. Whenever somebody commits a crime and is likely to be sent to prison, they will say that their family cannot cope with that and that it will be unfair, and therefore their sentence must be brought down and they must be free to carry on their life of crime. I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Member for Brent Central and think that the provision in the new clause is both proportionate and sensible.

[Mike Thornton]

I very much appreciate the hon. Gentleman giving way. I believe that he has misheard my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), because I know that he would not deliberately misinterpret her comments. She was by no means saying that someone should not be punished because they have children; she was saying that, when considering them for deportation, we should properly weigh in the balance the genuine difficulties and harm that could be done to children. By no means was she suggesting—I hope that I am right—that we should stop punishment. That was no part of her argument whatsoever.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his helpful clarification. The problem is that deportation is part of the punishment. The logic of the argument of the Member for Brent Central is that if someone’s punishment had an effect on their children that led not to “manifest and overwhelming harm” but to either manifest harm or overwhelming harm, it would be fundamentally and in principle unfair on the children, so that part of the punishment should not be carried out. Surely, however, it might equally be said that someone’s imprisonment would have an effect of manifest but not “manifest and overwhelming” harm on the children. If such an argument was accepted, the whole criminal justice concept of punishing people who have committed offences would become extremely difficult. Deportation is therefore simply a reasonable part of the overall punishment for someone who commits a serious offence.

I listened with great interest to the debate about the status of new clause 15 in European and UK law. A principle that we should always state and restate in this House is that, by its very nature, Parliament cannot pass a law that is illegal. We can pass laws that contravene international obligations or that we may decide our diplomatic relations require us to remove or repeal, but Parliament cannot pass an illegal law.

That point is important to remember, because there is a tyranny of lawyers. They give people advice stating that they think x or y, but until it has been judged by a court, that is no more than advice, which may be right or wrong. If my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been advised by the Home Office lawyer that the new clause does not meet the requirements of the European convention on human rights, that does not question the right of this House to pass it into law: it is our right to do so, and then to consider the judgment that may or may not be made by the European Court of Human Rights. That of course leaves open the question of whether the Home Secretary can sign the declaration that the Bill is compatible with the European convention on human rights. I am delighted that she is returning to her place as I say that.

My right hon. Friend has the right to go to another lawyer. When given legal advice that they do not like, many people see whether they can find one who gives different advice. Amazingly enough, when they pay a better lawyer, they sometimes get better advice. I hope that even in an era of austerity Her Majesty’s Government may seek out some better lawyers who can give improved advice that is more in line with what my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton said.

The question is therefore only one of incompatibility, not of legality. I hope that the Opposition Front Bench team will also think about that. Whether the new clause is accepted and passed into law is not fundamentally a legal decision, because the legal position is as yet unproved—it has not been tested in the courts—so it is a political decision or a political statement about what hon. Members on both sides of the House think is the right way to treat people from foreign countries who have committed serious crimes. I would take the political decision that it is right to expel them from this country, and that it would be wrong to do so only if extraordinary factors meant that they ought to have the right to stay.