Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Theresa May and Alison Thewliss

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely support the hon. Lady’s amendment and her work in this area. This Government forget, in their talking about people as though they were an amorphous blob, that we are talking about children, and they have rights under the UNCRC. Scotland has done a lot of work on looked-after children with “the promise” and we should not treat those children any less well than we treat our own.

We would amend the Bill so that clause 23 shall not come into effect without the consent of the Scottish Parliament. Parliamentarians in both Scotland and the UK are human rights guarantors, and an important part of our role is to ensure that legislation is compliant with international human rights obligations. The incompatibility of the Bill with the European convention on human rights, the refugee convention, the convention on action against trafficking, and the convention on the rights of the child means that we as lawmakers are obliged to vote against it. The undermining of rights conveyed upon individuals by those agreements must be resisted by all spheres of government. If they are coming after this group now, it will be another group soon enough.

The Bill will negatively impact those seeking international protection in Scotland, as well as on the powers and duties of the Scottish Government, local authorities, and other public bodies under the devolution settlement. I strongly urge—I expect it, to be honest—the Scottish Parliament to withhold legislative consent for the Bill. I expect the UK Government to override that consent.

The SNP amendments to clause 25 would remove provisions that allow the Secretary of State to make regulations that would alter the operation of the two-year sunset clause in relation to clauses 21 to 24.

Clause 27 amends the Modern Slavery Act 2018 and removes provisions for leave to remain for victims of slavery or human trafficking. As protections will no longer be in place, it will be difficult for third-party agencies to encourage victims of trafficking to come forward, or to work with them should they do so. The Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance in Glasgow has told me that it is increasingly difficult to reassure service users, who are victims of sex trafficking, that they will not be returned or sent to Rwanda for speaking up, and the Bill will mean that TARA cannot reassure them at all.

People who are trafficked were often in very vulnerable situations in their home countries, and those circumstances are exploited by traffickers—that is why they are here. The risk of being returned to those situations means that people will either stay in a dangerous situation or escape and go underground to other dangerous situations. If they are apprehended and returned, the risk of re-trafficking is high if the reasons for their vulnerability are not addressed. Third-party agencies have been clear that the Bill will fetter their ability to reach out to vulnerable groups, to support women, children and victims of torture, trafficking and all kinds of human rights abuses, and that there will be a sharp drop-off in the number of people seeking help, because they will fear doing so.

This Bill will not stop the boats. It will not fix the asylum backlog. It will do nothing other than put lives at risk. It is an anti-refugee Bill. It is a traffickers’ charter. It rips up human rights. Scotland wants no part of it. We want an independent country in which we can stand up for human rights, not diminish them, as this UK Government seek to do.

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

I will focus on an aspect of this Bill that the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) touched on in her references to trafficking and modern slavery, covered in clauses 21 to 28.

The Modern Slavery Act 2018 was world leading. In many ways, it is still world leading. It ensures that people who are in slavery in the UK, be they British citizens or not, are supported when they escape their slavery. Crucially, there is an emphasis on identifying, catching and prosecuting the slave drivers, the traffickers, the perpetrators. My fear with this Illegal Migration Bill is that it will drive a coach and horses through the Modern Slavery Act, denying support to those who have been exploited and enslaved and, in doing so, making it much harder to catch and stop the traffickers and slave drivers.

It has been said several times by Ministers and, indeed, by others in this Chamber that the Modern Slavery Act is being abused, and it has been at least implied that there is a link between the number of people coming on small boats and the Modern Slavery Act. I have not seen evidence to support that claim. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) set out on Second Reading, in 2022 only 6% of people arriving on small boats made a modern slavery claim. I remind everybody that people do not just rock up and claim modern slavery and refer themselves to the national referral mechanism. That has to be done by a first responder, and the majority of first responders are officials employed by the Home Office. From the figures I have seen so far, an attack on the use of the Modern Slavery Act is not justified.

I have not tabled any amendments to this Bill, because I hope it will be possible to work with the Government, so I will set out the problems and suggest some possible solutions. I will not dwell on issues of legality in relation to international law or otherwise, but there is no doubt that serious concerns have been raised, not least in relation to incompatibility.