Bills of major constitutional significance are usually treated on the Floor of the House in a Committee of the Whole House. The Government refused to send the Elections Bill and the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill to Committee of the whole House and sent them upstairs to Public Bill Committees, yet they find time for this Bill, which stretches any claim to reflect what was in the Tory manifesto, to have its Committee stage here in the Chamber. I wonder why that is. One effect, of course, is that there is no opportunity to hear from stakeholders by taking evidence on the Bill. Perhaps that is not a surprise because there does not seem to have been a single briefing or intervention from anyone with any interest or experience in the field of immigration, asylum policy or law that is actually in support of what the Government are proposing.
The only people cheering on the Bill are the populist hard-right elements on the Conservative Back Benches—and, I suppose, the Cabinet—and their friends in equally right-wing media outlets. Even then, it seems that this is a Bill that pleases no one. The range of amendments tabled from the Back Benches, on both sides of the Committee, shows the risk the Government are taking and the damage they are doing by pursuing wedge-issue and dog-whistle politics. The Brexiteers, seemingly with the tacit support of the Home Secretary, are seeking to use their amendments to expunge any last vestige of what they see as European influence in the United Kingdom by taking us out of the ECHR.
Meanwhile, on the Opposition Benches, many of us, including my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), are proposing
a wide range of amendments that seek to reduce or negate some of the worst aspects of the Bill. Amendment 76, for example, on which I hope we will be able to test the will of the Committee, would make it much clearer that the need for protection, the experience of human rights abuses, or being a victim of slavery or human trafficking would be grounds for a claim to suspend a deportation process. Amendment 77 puts much stronger restrictions on the definitions of a third country to which asylum seekers could be deported. Many other SNP amendments have similar effects. They aim to introduce some element of fairness and respect for human rights, whether on the time available for appeals and considerations, or the grounds on which such claims can be made.
The key issue in this evening’s grouping is that, if the Government really want to stop people arriving here on small boats, they have to provide safe and legal alternatives. The reality is that at the moment for the majority of people who currently arrive here and successfully claim asylum, such routes do not exist. What are the safe and legal routes for someone from Eritrea or Iran? That question has been asked multiple times and has not been properly answered. If there were safe and legal routes available, people would not be coming. Incidentally, the Bill is supposed to have a deterrent effect and is backdated to 7 March, so I wonder how many people have been deterred already. Have landings on the south coast of England suddenly evaporated? I suspect not and that perhaps shows that the Bill is not going to have the effect the Government want it to have.
Even where schemes for safe and legal routes exist, such as for Afghanistan, like the proposals in the Bill, they go nowhere near far enough. My amendments, including amendments 177 and 179, make the point that it is far better to think in terms of targets than caps for safe and legal entrants. This country is crying out for people to come here and help make our health service, social care system, hospitality industries and agricultural sector work more effectively and efficiently, but too many people who could be—and want to be —productive are left sitting in hotels at the taxpayer’s expense, when they could be earning a wage that pays for their accommodation and contributes back into the tax system.
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Amendment 173 states that the Secretary of State needs to consult Scotland’s Government about any target that is set for safe and legal arrivals. There is clearly cross-party consensus on that. Many constituents in Glasgow North support new clause 10 tabled by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), as I do, which would establish safe passage schemes. The Government need to pay attention to that and to other amendments that have been tabled, not least those of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton).
The Committee would be within its rights to push every single clause of the Bill to a vote over the next two days. If the Tories really want the Bill to become law, they should be made to work for it. Staying up late in this place to walk through the Lobbies is barely a minor inconvenience compared with the hardship and horror that most people seeking asylum in the UK have faced and continue to face before and after they reach these shores.
People who come here seeking asylum are fleeing wars in which this country has supplied, manufactured or sold the weapons; natural disasters when this Government refuse to take climate change seriously; and hunger and disease when this Government are slashing the aid budget that could fight those challenges. If the Bill is not amended beyond recognition, it will undermine any claims by this Government to uphold the global treaties and conventions that have maintained stability and respected human rights around the world since the second world war. The vast majority of people on these islands—certainly the residents of Glasgow North—want to live in an inclusive, diverse and welcoming society. If this Government undermine that, they will build that society themselves in an independent Scotland.