Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-28
Topic: Immigration
John Horam (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, we had a long debate on this subject in Committee, so I shall be brief. We ought to remember throughout what the Bill was originally about. It is fundamentally about stopping, or curbing, the channel migrants. Obviously, we hope to do it in a sensible way. If we could have an agreement with the French, the Belgians or the Dutch to deal with this in a bipartisan way, that would be ideal, but none of us is very optimistic, particularly before a general election in France and so on We need other options: a plan B, or maybe a plan C. I agree that some of them stretch the credibility of what any Government would want to do, because the problem of the cross-channel migrants is indeed very difficult to deal with. You have to deal with them separately because, however sympathetic one may be with people in the hands of traffickers coming across the channel for whatever reason, it is a difficult way to come across. It is unsafe, they are clearly behaving illegally—it is against the law to enter this country in that way—and they are doing so in a very public way. Every night on television, you can see people coming across the channel and on to the beaches in Kent and so forth. They add to the number of people the Government have agreed to accept by proper routes—the Chinese from Hong Kong, the Afghans and, now, Ukrainians. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I hope we will have a generous scheme to allow Ukrainians who wish to come here to do so, just as I hope that Europe will have a generous scheme. I suspect and hope that they will come here only temporarily Coming across the channel is an open-ended and uncontrolled method and, if successful, encourages even more to come. Last year, 29,000 came; the prediction is that 60,000 will come this year. That is more money for the traffickers. The traffickers now make more money out of human beings than they do out of drugs, which will increasingly be the case. If we allow that to carry on uncontrolled, it makes it more difficult for local authorities, which have to deal with these people—housing them, making welfare arrangements, schooling their children and dealing with their families They add to the problems in the most disadvantaged parts of the country. It is not the leafy areas of Hampstead where these people end up; it is in places such as Blackpool, Stoke-on-Trent, Middlesbrough and Doncaster. I was talking to a red wall MP from the north-west. Blackpool has five of the eight poorest wards in the country; it has real problems. There is fury on the streets of Blackpool at the way they are being dumped on with people such as the migrants who come across the channel. They do not understand why they have to receive them The levelling-up agenda, which is central to this Government, is set at nought when that situation is arising in the areas of this country which need to be levelled up. It makes a proper, organised, rational immigration policy more difficult. As my noble friend Lord Hodgson said in a previous debate, informed consent—the consent of the people—is essential for a rational, substantiated and long-term immigration policy. If we do not have a policy that people are comfortable with, in the long run, we will not sustain it.