My Lords, Trevor Phillips recently wrote in the Times that, in 2000, 175 million people lived outside the country of their birth and that, by 2020, it was 280 million. He likened the Prime Minister’s pledge to “stop the boats” to King Canute ordering back the incoming tide. He argued that we need to bring order to the flow, rather than focusing on the impossible task of locking the doors to keep asylum seekers out. We agree.
We have yawning gaps in our labour markets that refugees could fill. We believe that we should adopt the approach many other countries are adopting, that responsibility should be taken away from the Home Office and given to the Foreign Office or the Department for Business and Trade and that “Migration is no job for a home secretary”. Phillips agrees. We should be harnessing the power of the incoming tide, not refusing to accept that it cannot be stopped.
The Government talk about “pull factors”. We talk about “push” factors: the intolerable conditions in their home countries that compel asylum seekers to find sanctuary elsewhere in the world. Even in detention in the UK, you do not have to worry about where you are going to live, how you are going to survive without
adequate food or water, or whether you are going to be killed or persecuted, or otherwise have your life endangered. Can the Minister say what evidence the Government have that the measures in the Bill will deter small boat crossings?
Talking of so-called “pull factors”, the Government have reduced their spending on measures designed to improve conditions in asylum seekers’ home countries from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income, while at the same time spending millions of pounds from the 0.5%—this so-called “overseas aid”—on housing asylum seekers in the UK. Can the Minister confirm how much less the Government are currently spending on overseas aid since the downgrade to 0.5%, and how much of the 0.5% is being spent on housing asylum seekers in the UK?
In the Times today, the Home Secretary talks about
“the clear desire of the British people to control immigration”.
The Telegraph reported yesterday—under the headline that net migration was set to hit double the pre-Brexit level—that, in the year to December 2022, 1.37 million work, study or other visas were granted by the Government to allow people to stay long term in the United Kingdom. The Home Secretary says that the number seeking asylum crossing the channel in small boats in the same period was 45,000—just over 3% of those who sought to stay in the UK last year, even if every asylum seeker was granted leave to remain. If the Government are, as they appear, subscribing to the populist view that there is “too much” immigration, can the Minister explain why they are attempting to push through legislation that seeks to deter only three in every 100 long-term arrivals, and why, since Brexit, they have increased the number of countries from which people can enter the UK without question and without a visa by 10?
The Government portray asylum seekers as an undesirable drain on society. We disagree. Let me give noble Lords an example. A young man who I know personally, who is now in Norway, had been living in Afghanistan when, at the age of three, he lost his father, killed in the Afghanistan war, and, at the age of five, his mother died of breast cancer. He was sent to his grandmother in Iran, where he worked from the age of six until he was 12. He saved enough money to begin his journey through Europe, finally arriving in Norway the day before his 16th birthday, where he was granted asylum.
He had never been to school before arriving in Norway; now, at the age of 23, he speaks fluent Norwegian and English. He works long hours in the security industry, sending £500 a month to his grandmother and two cousins in Iran. He is also on a three-year course at police college, which will result in him becoming a Norwegian police officer. He has a Norwegian passport and driving licence, he lives alone in private rented accommodation that he pays for himself and he is saving for a deposit to buy his own home, as well as paying Norwegian tax and national insurance.
Under this Bill, if that young man came to the UK in the same way, he would face compulsory X-rays to confirm that he was not an adult. Even though the Home Secretary’s duty to deport him would not apply until he was 18, the Secretary of State would still have the power to deport him while he was a child. He would most likely be detained until he was 18 and then sent
to Rwanda—if anyone ever gets sent to Rwanda, and even if the capacity of Rwanda could cope with the numbers involved.
During that time, the Home Office could prevent that young man being looked after by a local authority, ignoring this country’s international obligations to act in the best interests of the child and the provisions of Part III of the Children Act. Whether the detention of asylum seekers was reasonable or not, including the potentially indefinite detention of children, pregnant women and victims of torture, would no longer be a matter for the courts but for the Home Secretary to decide.
If the European Court of Human Rights blocked that young man’s deportation by means of an interim order, the Home Secretary could ignore the judge’s ruling. UK courts would be prevented from granting an injunction, even if there were grounds for a judicial review. So much for the rule of law.
If that young man could not be sent back to where he came from, because neither Iran nor Afghanistan are listed as “safe countries” and he remained in the United Kingdom, he would never be able to work, never be given leave to remain and never be able to become a British citizen. Neither would his children, were he to have any, nor any of his family members. Estimates are that between 160,000 and 193,000 asylum seekers could be left in limbo in the United Kingdom in the first few years of the Bill’s operation—a permanent drain on the state, a subclass of society, open to labour and sexual exploitation. Can the Minister say when we will receive the Government’s own impact assessment, or will noble Lords have to rely on NGO estimates?
This young man’s story is not exceptional. There are many such examples in the UK that prove that those with the drive and determination to make such long and perilous journeys are just the sort of people who will work hard, contribute positively to society and support their families—the complete opposite to how this Government seek to portray those seeking asylum.
The Bill seeks systematically to deny human rights to a group of people desperately seeking sanctuary. It would breach our international obligations under the UN conventions on refugees, on the rights of the child and on the reduction of statelessness, and the European convention against trafficking. This is the first, but not the only, Bill that explicitly states that it does not have to be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Human Rights Act is being revoked, one law at a time. The Bill would undermine the rule of law, with Ministers able to ignore the rulings of judges. At the same time, we are asking Russia and China to abide by the international rule of law.
I have one final thought. I studied moral philosophy at university. One of the acid tests of whether something was morally right was the question: “What would happen if everyone did the same thing?” Can the Minister say what would happen if every country adopted the approach outlined in the Bill?
This Bill is a low point in the history of this Government and we should not allow it to proceed any further. I beg to move.
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