Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-08
Topic: Immigration
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the Government’s position in justifying this and other measures in the Bill rests on the UK’s so-called excellent track record on refugees, and the Minister has repeatedly pointed to the UK’s track record on resettlement schemes. The UNHCR thinks differently: "Resettlement programmes, while welcome, are, by themselves, an inadequate means for fairly distributing global responsibilities towards refugees and sharing the burden currently shouldered by major host countries." It goes on to give the facts about the numbers who are making their own way from areas where people are being persecuted. It concludes: "For all of these reasons, the Bill undermines, rather than promotes, the Government’s stated goal of improving the United Kingdom’s ‘ability to provide protection to those who would be at risk of persecution on return to their country of nationality.’" As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has just said, one of the reasons for offshoring is to temporarily house asylum seekers while their claims are being considered. Would the Minister like to comment on an article in the Times on Saturday that claimed that Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, "wants to … reject Channel migrants’ claims for asylum within a fortnight of them reaching Britain" The story claims that "government lawyers raised concerns over the plans" but the Secretary of State "believes a fortnight is a ‘reasonable’ window for immigration officials" to make such a decision. According to the article, a Home Office spokesperson told the newspaper: "We do not comment on leaks", so I ask the Minister a different question. Does she believe that two weeks is a reasonable timeframe to consider asylum seekers’ claims? If so, there would not appear to be any need for offshoring The Bill goes from bad to worse. As Amnesty and Migrant Voice put it, "the prevailing attitude emanating from the Home Office … appears determined by any means and at almost any cost to seek nothing more than avoiding its responsibilities while demanding other countries should take theirs. This is a hopeless prescription from which no good can possibly come" The Home Office is seeking the power not only to remove an asylum seeker to any country while it considers their claim, but to do so and then tell that country, "If you think they are a refugee, you take them. It’s not our problem any more". I do not know how the Government think they can persuade another country to take the UK’s unwanted asylum seekers on either a temporary or a permanent basis. According to Amnesty and Migrant Voice, offshoring by Australia effectively excluded legal, judicial, medical, humanitarian and media scrutiny; has cost a fortune—over £500 million a year, according to the British Red Cross—and, contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Horam, seems to have seen or heard, has failed to stop those seeking asylum, including those arriving in Australia by boat. I understand that academic evidence on the whole offshoring scheme was given by a university in Australia to the Public Bill Committee in the other place that appears to contradict the evidence that the Australian High Commission gave to the same Committee, so there is clearly a serious difference of opinion as to whether the scheme is successful. Apparently, the independent academic assessment of the scheme thinks it is a failure. The UNHCR says: "As UNHCR has seen in several contexts, offshoring of asylum processing often results in the forced transfer of refugees to other countries with inadequate State asylum systems, treatment standards and resources", which amendments in this group seek to address "It can lead to situations in which asylum seekers are indefinitely held in isolated places where they are ‘out of sight and out of mind’, exposing them to serious harm … UNHCR has voiced its profound concerns about such practices, which have ‘caused extensive, unavoidable suffering for far too long’, left people ‘languishing in unacceptable circumstances’ and denied ‘common decency.’" I am hoping that this apparently unworkable and morally repugnant provision is yet another paper tiger, designed to appeal to the Daily Mail in deterring genuine asylum seekers, but that it is no more than propaganda. Clause 28 and Schedule 3 should not be part of the Bill. All the other amendments in this group are well- meaning, but they are window dressing.