My Lords, the Board of Deputies of British Jews quoted from the Torah in its briefing. I am afraid it is not at the front of my mind, but it is the same thought. There have been so many powerful and informed speeches that I decided at about 5.30 pm that I must stop adding namechecks to my notes.
I have often heard from the Dispatch Box the term “professional curiosity”—an encouragement to probe, analyse and avoid the unthoughtful and the knee-jerk. It seems to me that professional curiosity has been lacking both from the underlying policy and this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, mentioned virtue signalling. There certainly seems to have been no attempt to understand the push factors.
I should apply that to myself. How is it that a Bill against which I would readily have voted today has any appeal? Is it that people have had bad encounters with refugees? I think that is unlikely. The reaction of most people who have talked to individuals is often admiring. Is it fear of the other? We are a mongrel nation, as noble Lords have said; I certainly am. Is it an underlying insecurity about housing, the health service, jobs, the cost of living and the economy? Likely, I suspect, and so we should address those.
How is it that the Government’s priority is not to take a leadership role in integration, rather than creating tiers, different levels of protection—“differentials”, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, put it—and the deserving and undeserving? Instead, they make the environment aggressively hostile.
Among the many emails we have received opposing the Bill, I had one from a lady who wrote:
“Although I do not believe that the current Front Bench is racist,”—
I should say that I have just had another email which takes a contrary view, but I am not making that accusation myself—
“it would be naive to imagine that it will always be ‘in the public interest’ for me and my parents to continue enjoying the ‘privilege’ of our British citizenship.”
Let me say that we believe that the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, is in the public interest.
How many British citizens suddenly feel insecure? Another email I had said:
“Clause 9 does not make me feel safer.”
I am sure the writer would be happy for the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, to quote that on a future occasion. It seems we are to assume the worst of asylum seekers, victims of modern slavery and those
who missed out on claiming citizenship—those who, in its words, are not the “cash cows” the Home Office expects.
My noble friends Lord Paddick and Lord Oates referred to comparative numbers of applications and refugees accepted in other countries, as did the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Dubs. The starkest are the numbers being hosted by bordering states and by developing and middle-income countries. Our responsibility is no less because of our geographical position. We should be fair in the international context. Clearly, we cannot take everyone, but we fall well short of our fair share. I do not think that is the same as not controlling borders, and it is not Marxist in any sense. I am reminded that another word that is almost compulsory in this House is “proportionate”. One could apply that here too.
The tone as well as the detail of the Bill are of denial of our role as part of the international community, engaged in a co-operative effort to address a shared issue. As for offshoring, I hope we will not see that, for the sake of individuals and of the host—if that is the right word—country with fewer resources than we have. It feels more like offloading.
It is almost the least of it but requiring visa penalties for unco-operative countries baffles me; it is not my approach to co-operation or partnership. In fact, I have trouble with a lot of the logic. The great majority of family reunion applications, as we have heard, are for women and children to join a family member here. How does that square with government policy to protect women and girls? If a refugee cannot sponsor an application, does this not incentivise dangerous journeys, particularly by women and girls? That is the Australian experience. Smugglers understand the process; that is part of their power. Asylum seekers are unlikely to do so; it is not part of their thinking.
Politicians who admire successful business people should understand that, faced with an obstacle, they find ways around it; they are not deterred. By the way, life sentences, an option under the Modern Slavery Act, have apparently not been used. The Bill, perversely, plays into the smugglers’ business model. It is predicated, as many noble Lords have said, on a substantial increase of safe and legal routes. Apart from it being the right thing to do to increase them, their creation would reduce the market for dangerous crossings. As has been observed, the Home Office impact assessment points to the inherent risks of dangerous crossings. What the Bill is not based on is a trauma-informed approach. That is the clear view of the professionals who have written and spoken about age assessment, which they and we see as a matter of safeguarding. They are very clear that this is not cut and dried scientifically. Personally, I am not surprised that young people who have gone through what they have been through act older than their age.
Concern is expressed about the impact of much of the Bill on children. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham was the first to mention that issue. Even the clauses righting historical omissions regarding citizenship are overshadowed, and Clause 10 is plain unjust. Citizenship is hugely important; it is about belonging. It is well known that victims of slavery and trafficking, as well as those fleeing persecution, oppression
and tyranny, cannot immediately tell the whole or even much of their story. “Late” is a misnomer. The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner makes very balanced and powerful comments—to use a neutral term—including on the danger of viewing victims through an immigration lens and ignoring their trauma and exploitation. I cannot, unlike others here, see the Bill as other than a retrograde step back from our world-leading legislation of 2015. What the Minister said about ILR was on the basis of assisting prosecutions. That is important, but it is a complex issue, and it is not the only one, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl, always makes clear.
I can give only a modified welcome to the additional qualification for legal aid, given the shortage of provision in practice—the funding structures and rates, and the refusal of the Legal Aid Agency, as I understand it, to fund expert reports at the application as distinct from the appeal stage. This is part of a wider issue, but it bites here.
There are big legal issues raised by the Bill. Others have touched on compliance with international law and the law of the sea, and I am sure that we will spend time on this in Committee. I find it perverse to use domestic legislation to impose the interpretation of international conventions, although I have to say that it is of a piece with the Government’s announcement of legislation to correct the courts’ judgments in human rights cases. Language can be misleading; an expedited or accelerated process sounds attractive, but so did “detained fast track”, as a term, which the Court of Appeal, rightly, brought to an end.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, I am concerned about the criminalisation that may spill over to individuals and organisations that seek to support asylum seekers. Judging from the support that we have seen for the RNLI, that view is widely shared.
I hope that the Minister will be able to detail what routes there are by which an asylum seeker can come direct from countries from which so many flee—Iran, Iraq, Eritrea, Yemen, Sudan, Vietnam and so on. The Government may tell us about schemes for Afghanis and Syrians, but we know that we would like them to be far more extensive, and we are concerned about the lack of what is happening at the moment. What is being done to create safe and legal routes, and why is there no provision for humanitarian visas? Perhaps we can also hear why the Government, who have relied on the UNHCR to identify those whom they have resettled in the UK, refuse to take on board its analysis. The UNHCR’s critique of the Bill is devastating.
I have had much more time than most speakers, but none of us has had anywhere near enough to make all the points that are to be made on this Bill, which clearly fills so many of us with gloom and anxiety, nor enough time to thank all those who have briefed us and who work on the front line—and, certainly, nowhere near enough to cover what will so affect people’s lives.
9.35 pm