UK Borders Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, as this debate gives us a chance to focus a little attention on an important issue. The definition of a foreign criminal in Clause 31 of the Bill means that automatic deportation will apply to foreign nationals who have been sentenced to imprisonment for either a period of 12 months or more or any length of time for an offence listed on the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Specification of Particularly Serious Crimes) Order 2004. Amendment No. 52 would alter the first of those conditions, allowing for the automatic deportation of those sentenced to two years or more in prison—which the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, described as a rather moderate attempt to amend our policy intent. Although I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for providing this opportunity to debate what the threshold for automatic deportation should be, I profoundly disagree with him. To look at this issue we need to begin by considering what we are trying to achieve and then consider how the criteria we have chosen are designed to meet these aims. The Government’s objectives in the automatic deportation provisions are primarily twofold: to protect the United Kingdom public from harm from foreign criminals and to send out a message that foreign criminals who abuse the United Kingdom’s hospitality are simply not welcome here. I accept that this is a delicate matter and that the Government have a broader responsibility underpinning these aims. We must ensure that the effect of the legislation is proportionate and that the application of the measures will be just. We must find a balance. The first step towards finding that balance is to accept that being deported has a substantial impact on a person’s life, and it would be wrong to apply the automatic deportation provisions to every foreign national convicted of a criminal offence. Such an approach would go far beyond protecting the British public from harm and would be disproportionate and unfair. However the argument for proportionality is not an argument for leniency; the provisions must still achieve their objectives. It was on this basis that the Government developed the policy. We set out to identify what we meant by serious criminality. We began with the first condition: that a person who has been imprisoned for 12 months should face deportation. The 12-month threshold was selected because, as I am sure that noble Lords will agree, the courts do not hand out 12-month sentences unless an offence is serious. It is also the threshold of criminality that the Border and Immigration Agency currently applies when determining whether to deport a foreign national. This first condition goes a long way towards achieving each of the Government’s aims. However, in setting this threshold, we recognised that it would not work in isolation. The serious nature of certain crimes means that if a person has been imprisoned for them, regardless of the length of his sentence, the perpetrator’s presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good. It was on this basis that the second condition was included in the provisions. It ensures that serious criminal behaviour does not slip through the net. The list of crimes on the order made under Section 72 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which will be revised ahead of commencement, contains offences of a violent, sexual, terrorist, acquisitive or drug-related nature, along with other miscellaneous but no less serious offences. Together, I believe that the two conditions meet their objectives. First, they will help to protect the British public from foreign criminals who have been convicted of serious offences; and secondly they send out the message that serious criminality will not be tolerated in the UK. I also believe that the provisions—