I am sorry to disappoint noble Lords, but I am the lead signatory on the Clause 11 stand part proposal. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has kindly allowed me to speak last from this side.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—the UN Refugee Agency—leads international action to protect people forced to flee because of conflict and persecution. As many noble Lords have said, a 1951 convention and a 1957 protocol together make the refugee convention, which sets out the UK’s and other signatories’ international obligations.
The UNHCR’s considered view—as well as that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, from what I understand—is that the Bill is fundamentally at odds with the Government’s commitment to uphold the United Kingdom’s obligations under the refugee convention. Clause 11 is at the heart of this considered view.
The Government seem to misunderstand the purpose of international conventions, such as the refugee convention. They have recently adopted the phrase “different countries will interpret the convention differently”. Is not the whole purpose of an international convention and its protocols for there to be a shared understanding of what an international convention means, to ensure that each signatory interprets the convention in the same way and acts accordingly? I think that was the view expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton. I will address his concerns about protected characteristics in a future group.
More honestly, some Conservatives—and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, who has apparently given up—have called the refugee convention outdated. They say that we should renegotiate or withdraw from it. That is not the Government’s position. They say that they can treat asylum seekers differently, depending on their circumstances, and that this is in compliance with the refugee convention.
Much has been said—and we have had many briefings on this clause—but I will restrict my comments to the primary concerns of the custodian of the refugee convention, the UNHCR. It says that the “first safe country” principle does not exist in international law,
is unworkable and would undermine global co-operation. This is obviously the case. With most refugees—at least before the fall of Afghanistan—making their own way to safety from the African continent, only Turkey and those countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea would be legally able to take refugees, if that were the case. The UNHCR says that already three-quarters of refugees are hosted in countries neighbouring their own. Some 85% are hosted in developing and middle-income countries. As other noble Lords have said, almost all the countries through which refugees pass on their way to the UK already have more refugees and asylum-seeking applicants than the UK does.
This is a global crisis, requiring a global response in which every country plays its part and where every country, including the UK, takes its fair share of genuine asylum seekers. A disproportionate burden should not be placed on border countries; nor should it be that the further north and west you go, the fewer asylum seekers you have to take.
The UNHCR says that the claims of refugees seeking safety in the UK need to be considered solely on the basis of whether the circumstances from which they have fled justify their refugee status. If a refugee is entitled to the rights given to him or her by the refugee convention, all those rights should be exercisable in any convention country, including the UK. This clause would deny recognised refugees the rights guaranteed to them under the refugee convention and international law. That is why it should not stand part of the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Horam, described me as an economist. I think my tutor at Oxford, Dieter Helm, would disagree with that. In a previous group, I purposely said that I studied economics at university, but I still have no clue about it. The noble Lord talked about illegal immigrants. Other noble Lords tried to correct him. Genuine refugees are not illegal immigrants.
The noble Lord, Lord Horam, and other noble Lords talked about public opinion. That is all very well, provided that opinion is informed. Some 94% of immigrants to the United Kingdom are not refugees. If the British public understood that this Bill is only talking about 6% of the people who come to this country, I think they would have a very different view of it.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, said that the public were concerned about people coming across the channel in dinghies. What the public do not understand is that we do not have record numbers crossing the channel in order to claim asylum by clandestine means. So many are now coming across the channel in dinghies because we have been so good at stopping them getting on the Eurostar and entering lorries and because of security around the ports. It is just that the problem has become a lot more visible than it ever was before. It is not out of control compared with the past.