As the noble and learned Lord will know, the amendment is worded such that it is declaratory and unambiguous. I am glad he has allowed me to make the point that the amendment my noble friend Lady Lawlor and I put down is explicit and unambiguous, so that it cannot be misinterpreted further down the line, outside this Chamber in the judicial setting. That is why it is copper-bottomed. It may not be quite to his liking, but it is there for a reason and the wording serves a specific purpose.
I will continue, as the hour is late. As I have explained, the amendment aims to disapply, for the purposes of this Act, the relevant international arrangements and other laws which prevent the UK controlling its borders, as the people of this country have elected their Government and their Members of Parliament to do. To that end, the laws we pass in this Parliament must be clear and unambiguous. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Reed, the President of the Supreme Court, in dismissing one claim in a judgment on 15 November—that of ASM, an Iraqi—said that a court may not
“disregard an unambiguous expression of Parliament’s intention”.
I agree with what my noble friend Lady Lawlor said about the narrowness of contemporary theory and the universalist view, a logical corollary of which leads to a belief in open borders. It is practically impossible, in the current regime, for us to control our borders while we remain encumbered by international obligations which seek to subvert and undermine the sovereignty of this Parliament.
10.15 pm
I think it is worth making the point again—and it is not an ignoble point to make—that the 1951 convention and the European Convention on Human Rights need to be updated in a geopolitical regime where there are mass movements of people. Even people who would not take the view of supporting this Bill or this Government’s wider policy on immigration understand. I have to say to a former esteemed member of a previous Labour Government that this will be an issue for any future Labour Government. It is very easy in opposition to strike poses, like the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and say “We’ve got to signal what we think and what we do on this really pressing issue”, but we are not here to signal. We are here as legislators to pass legislation and to have oversight and scrutiny, not to virtue-signal to the world and undermine the sovereignty of this Parliament.