My Lords, as has been said, Clause 11 is about differential treatment of recognised refugees. There is the distinction that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, referred to between refugees and immigration generally. We believe that Clause 11 contravenes the 1951 refugee convention: it sets a dangerous precedent by creating a two-tier system—group 1 refugees and group 2 refugees—and, frankly, it is also inhumane.
Under the Bill, the Home Secretary will be given sweeping powers to decide asylum cases based on how someone arrives in this country and their mode of transport, not on the strength of their claim, contrary to the 1951 refugee convention, of which Britain was a founding member. The different ways those two groups could be treated is not limited in any way by the Bill, although Clause 11 provides examples: those who travel via a third country, who do not have documents or who did not claim asylum immediately will routinely be designated as group 2 refugees.
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The clause goes on to set out how the length of limited leave, access to indefinite leave, family reunion—that is, whether family members, mainly women and children, are entitled to join them—and access to public funds are likely to become areas for discrimination against group 2 refugees. A state of complete uncertainty over their future will be deliberately created for these group 2 refugees.
The refugee convention, which was enshrined in UK law in 1954, I think, contains a single unitary definition of a refugee. It defines a refugee solely according to their need for international protection because of feared persecution on the grounds of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Anyone who meets that definition and is not excluded is a refugee and entitled to the protection of the refugee convention.
The Commons Committee considering the Bill heard in evidence from the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to the UK that Clause 11 and the Bill were inconsistent with the UN convention and international law. Commenting on the Bill, the UNHCR also said:
“Requiring refugees to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach would undermine the global, humanitarian, and cooperative principles on which the refugee system is founded.”
This is a matter not just of law but of fairness and humanity. Most refugees—I say again that we are talking about refugees—have absolutely no choice about how they travel. Is it really the Government’s intention and desire to penalise refugees who might, as a matter of urgency, have had to find an irregular route out of Afghanistan, for example, or, perhaps more relevantly at this precise moment, Ukraine? Of the first 5,000 people who came in 2020 by boat, well over 90% were deemed by the Home Office to be eligible to apply for asylum. They were genuine asylum seekers, but they will become illegal if the Bill is enacted. Clause 11 envisages group 2 status for them, and will stigmatise them as unworthy and unwelcome, maintain them in a precarious status for years, deny them access to public funds unless they are destitute, and restrict their access to family reunion. I say again: we are talking about recognised refugees. Yet the Home Office identifies secure immigration status as a key outcome indicator for stability, which is
“necessary for sustainable engagement with employment or education and other services.”
Clause 11 is at least in part about saving the standing of a Home Secretary and Government who previously promised their supporters that they would stop people crossing the channel irregularly only to see the numbers subsequently increase. As a result, Clause 11 is largely silent on addressing the continuing and apparently expanding horrendous activities of the people smugglers, and instead concentrates on hitting the victims, nearly all of whom are recognised as genuine asylum seekers.
We now have a clause and a Bill under which individuals who have been recognised as refugees will be given inferior treatment based on the way they came to the UK. That is contrary to the UK’s obligations under the refugee convention, and inconsistent with the right to a private and family life and the prohibition against discrimination under the ECHR. Clause 11, with its two-tier system, should be removed from the Bill.