Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-08
Topic: Immigration
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it is late but this is an incredibly important clause and set of amendments, so we need to spend some time discussing them—the same goes for some of the amendments that are still to come. We strongly oppose the clause and support the amendments and all the noble Lords who have spoken so far The clause criminalises people for seeking asylum. It will impact on modern slavery victims. It is unenforceable—indeed, the Government’s defence in the Commons was that it would not be used a lot. It criminalises people who have a right to protection for pursuing the only option available to them. As noble Lords have pointed out, the JCHR concluded that the effect of the clause is to criminalise the act of seeking asylum in the UK. Indeed, the Select Committee on the Constitution, another important body of this House, says: "Compliance with the United Kingdom’s international obligations is a constitutional issue. We endorse the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ recommendations" on this clause. These are serious points being made by bodies of this House, made up of Lords from across the House who are questioning the Government’s compliance with the constitution with respect to the JCHR’s findings that Clause 39 as it stands criminalises people seeking asylum. I cannot believe that that is what the Government intend. As my noble friend Lady Lister asked, are they saying, "We’re right and everyone else is wrong"? Are they saying that the JCHR, the Select Committee on the Constitution and all noble Lords who have tabled amendments are wrong and that this does not criminalise people seeking asylum? If that is the case, we as a House need to hear the Government’s justification so that we can compare their arguments with those being put forward by these various bodies and noble Lords The Minister may not have this information, but it would be interesting to know what percentage of people granted asylum in the UK in the past five years would have been criminalised under this provision so that we can understand the difference it would have made. I appreciate that the Minister may not have those figures available but it would be useful for the House to understand what the impact of this change to the law would have been in the past so that we can make some judgment about how it may go in future. Criminalising a person who is trafficked to our shores will not break the business model of traffickers; it will tighten the control that traffickers have on their victims. We heard in earlier debates that the Government have lowered the threshold for what is deemed a "particularly serious" offence in order to allow the protections of the convention to be disapplied to a refugee, as we see in Clause 37. How does that interact with Clause 39? Will the effect be that arriving in the UK to seek asylum, despite having a totally valid claim, is a serious enough offence to be sent back again? I do not know The Government have failed to answer the question that has been asked again and again: how does an asylum seeker arrive in the UK? If the Government’s presumption is that you have to stop in the first country where you can get protection, how on earth do you get here? As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, says, presumably the only way is to fly, but under this offence it may well be that you will be criminalised even if you fly into this country with a visa. So how does anyone claim asylum? I am going to ask this again: how on earth do you claim asylum if you have to stop in the first safe country where you can get protection? How does anyone then get here? Because we are an island, you cannot get here by land without passing through a safe country unless you fly—and Clause 39 will apparently criminalise even those who fly. So how does an asylum seeker arrive here?