Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-02
Topic: Immigration
Philippa Stroud (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Kirkhope due to Covid, I will be moving Amendment 35 in his name It is disappointing that the concerns expressed by many noble Lords in Committee have gone unheeded and the practical questions that were posed are yet to be answered. My noble friend Lord Kirkhope is a former immigration Minister, who speaks with authority on this matter. Many years ago, after carefully examining this policy of offshoring, he rejected the proposal to offshore asylum seekers on the basis that it was impractical and ineffective. The reasons that he did so still apply today There is still too much that we do not know about this policy, even at this late stage. How would the powers given be used by the Government? Whose legal system would be used to assess asylum seekers that we have offshored—Britain’s or the third country’s? Once assessed, would these asylum seekers be returned to the UK? How would the Government exercise their safeguarding responsibility for families thousands of miles out of UK jurisdiction? How much would each case cost? The numbers from Australia suggest up to £2 million per year just to keep one person who is in need out of this country All this fails to fit in with our legal and international obligations, let alone our constitutional principles. Today, we see this clearly, more clearly even than when we were discussing it last time, through the events in Ukraine. This tragic and unnecessary unfolding humanitarian crisis will certainly play out through the European continent. Many refugees fleeing Ukraine may well attempt to come to the UK. Last Saturday evening, the Prime Minister clearly stated that we would welcome refugees from Ukraine here. By Sunday, that commitment had become that we would support refugees in neighbouring countries to Ukraine. Today, we can see that the approach has moved again and that the Government are committed to expanding their family visa scheme and introducing a new community sponsorship scheme for Ukrainians, both of which are significant and welcome steps. However, are we still saying that every other Ukrainian refugee who reaches these shores would fall into tier-2 status, have no recourse to public funds and be subject to potential offshoring? How would this work practically? How are we going to apply an operation that would be, at the best of times, excruciatingly complex to execute on a potentially huge scale? Of course, there is the irony of people seeking safety only to find themselves in a position of renewed vulnerability, potentially held indefinitely in detention abroad. Instead of designing a structure that draws a proper distinction between economic and humanitarian motivations for migrants trying to reach our shores, it seems that the Government are muddying the water and resorting to this extraordinary measure of offshoring As we have learned more about the realities of life in the Australian processing centres, many noble Lords have become increasingly concerned by the reports of what children have been forced to endure. The Nauru files—a cache of more than 2,000 leaked incident reports from the detention centre on Nauru—highlight hundreds of reports of neglect, violence and abuse against children in the detention centre, often by guards. I cannot fathom a situation where the UK would tolerate the mistreatment of children, but in the absence of explicit protections and the rule of our own legal system, we have to assume that any scenario is possible In conclusion, this proposal is deeply concerning and unworkable on numerous levels. The powers it would grant our Government are on the one hand ill-defined and on the other far-reaching. They are potentially hugely expensive and yet ineffective, exposing vulnerable people to further trauma rather than offering protection As great as these concerns are, I have one further concern: what does this policy make us? This is our moment as an independent nation that can demonstrate western liberal values at a moment when they are under attack—values of democracy, rule of law and freedom of speech, yes, but also the value and dignity of every human being. We all believe in taking back control, but if there is one lesson to learn from Australia’s experience, it is this: any country that chooses to outsource its constitutional responsibilities compromises its control. I beg to move.