Having studied and listened to the entire debate today has only strengthened my resolve that we must oppose this rotten Bill in its entirety. It is inhumane. It is immoral, and it demonises and scapegoats the most vulnerable, desperate people who are fleeing violence, terror and poverty. We should be welcoming them with open arms.
As others have said, I have to express my concern at some of the inflammatory and inaccurate comments by some Conservative Members this afternoon. I also want to reiterate the concerns expressed about the lack of scrutiny: 10 or 12 hours to be considering in excess of 130 amendments is totally unacceptable. Notwithstanding my belief that the Bill should be thrown out in its entirety, I want to set out my concerns about some of the clauses and to speak in support of a number of amendments before the Committee.
6.45 pm
The clauses before us create a duty to remove, and powers to make asylum claims inadmissible, to ban appeals by those being held and to make detention the norm. As others have said, the Bill does breach international law, including the refugee convention. I am particularly concerned about the Government’s willingness to conflict with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The UNHCR’s commentary on the Bill says:
“The legislation, if passed, would amount to an asylum ban—extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom for those who arrive irregularly, no matter how genuine and compelling their claim may be, and with no consideration of their individual circumstances.”
In detail on the clauses under the duty to make arrangements for removal, clause 2 aims to place a blanket duty, with limited exceptions, on the Home Secretary to remove people who have entered or arrived in the UK illegally. The Refugee Council has highlighted that
“half of the people who crossed the channel last year came from just five countries with high asylum grant rates.”
The UNHCR has said:
“The Bill creates real and foreseeable risks of direct and indirect”
persecution of people subject to the removal duty. It says:
“Nothing in the Bill makes removal dependent on the receiving country having an effective asylum procedure, or agreeing to admit a person to it.”
That is why I support the spirit of amendment 17 to clause 6, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), which would add an explicit requirement for the Secretary of State to have regard to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. That is something I would recommend the Home Secretary to do on all aspects of the Bill.
Under the theme of inadmissibility of claims and the duty to remove, I completely oppose the clause 4 requirement to treat protection claims from persons subject to the asylum ban as inadmissible with no right to appeal. That must be opposed, and I therefore support amendment 121, tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry).
On detention and bail, clauses 11 to 14, and unaccompanied children, clauses 15 to 20, Detention Action has argued that the Bill dramatically increases the number of people in detention and the length of time they would be detained, and that the Home Secretary is likely to hold people in detention for extremely long periods, far beyond the minimum 28 days that the Bill makes mandatory. I am concerned at the introduction of wide new powers for detaining persons, and the recent discussions about placing asylum seekers in camps on former military sites, presumably to better facilitate their removal. As others have said, the accounts of conditions at Manston in Kent last autumn and also at Penally in my country of Wales stay with me. The overcrowding, lack of facilities and the spread of disease are absolutely appalling. Detention camps are not the solution and are not the approach that we would expect of a civilised country.
I am also concerned that the proposals in this Bill will have severe consequences for the welfare of extremely vulnerable children. Others on the Opposition Benches have eloquently and movingly relayed individual stories of children who have experienced absolutely horrific circumstances. As others have said, and as the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium said, many have gone missing—hundreds have gone missing.
There are many amendments on detention and child asylum seekers that I wish to express my support for, including those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon, the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), as well as the new clauses in the names of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). Between them, these would result in an improvement in access to immigration bail, restore limits on detention timeframes and increase the role for external scrutiny on the rights and wellbeing of children.
However, although I will support a number of amendments tonight, for me and many other Members, the Bill in its entirety is unsupportable. The Government are facing a growing backlash to their low-pay and poverty agenda, and the Bill is a tool to try to distract, demonise and divide people, and it seeks to isolate a group of vulnerable people on whom to divert that anger. We will not allow that to happen.