I wish that I could say that it is a pleasure to speak in this debate, as I normally do, but I am actually incredibly sad about having to do so. The Bill is one of the most repugnant pieces of legislation that this Government have tried to pass through the House. First, this Government and the Home Secretary know that they are breaching human rights laws, and also that this legislation will not work. They want to go ahead with the Bill because they want to throw red meat to some of their voter base. They want to appeal to some of the hard right-wing voters in our country—the people who will be voting for the Conservative party when they see this legislation go through.
I do not make those allegations lightly. I have been here since the beginning of this debate and heard the justifications that Conservative Members have given, with “lefty lawyers” somehow being used as a term of abuse. I am a barrister—I spent many years studying to be one—and I find this Bill repugnant, so hon. Members might want to call me a lefty lawyer, but I spent 14 years doing nothing else but prosecuting. I worked for the Crown Prosecution Service prosecuting criminals, rapists, murderers, drug dealers and all sorts of really obnoxious people. Now I and people like me, if we are not supporting this Bill, are to be called “lefty liberals” or “lefty lawyers” or “woke” as a form of insult. Those who have to resort to that type of terminology are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. They have no argument left—if they had any proper argument, they would be making it.
We have heard much discussion of the European convention on human rights. It is surprising to hear everybody say, “Oh, the European Court did this to us.” Hang on, wake up—we actually signed up to the convention on human rights. We signed up to the refugee convention. We are a signatory to the NATO treaty. When states are signatories to those conventions, they are supposed to abide by them and, within the European convention on human rights, the European Court of Human Rights is part of the process. For the Government to think they can pick and choose what they do not like from it is outrageous.
The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) denigrated the European Court of Human Rights earlier. I asked him directly about the fact that in the 1970s a Conservative Government had legislation requiring virginity tests for young women applying to come into this country, and it was the European Court of Human Rights that declared it to be unlawful. When I asked whether he disagreed with the European Court of Human Rights, he side-stepped it and said he could not defend the Heath Government—but that was not my question. My question was fairly and squarely about whether he disagreed with that particular decision of the European Court of Human Rights, and the reason he avoided it was that he knows that decision by the Court was absolutely correct.
The European convention on human rights, as we know, was incorporated into the British Human Rights Act 1998. Section 19 of that Act says that every piece of legislation that comes before our Parliament must have a declaration on it to say it is compatible with human rights law. The Home Secretary knows full well that this legislation is not going to be. That is why, on the face of the Bill, she states that the Government are not sure whether it is compatible with human rights law—but when she goes on the television, she says, “Oh yes, it is
compatible with human rights.” I would like her to tell us which one she thinks it is, because I can tell her that it is incompatible with any human rights convention and with our own Human Rights Act, passed by this Parliament.
I really think that Conservative Members should use a better argument. But what argument do they use? I have found it sickening, not just on this Bill, but in the whole debate on immigration and asylum for the last number of years, to hear politicians such as the Home Secretary saying that we are being swamped and invaded, and other hon. Members saying that we have 100 million people coming. Sometimes they say 1 billion people. Come off it! Everybody knows there are not 1 billion people trying to come into this country, nor 100 million refugees, because 84% of refugees normally go to the country nearest to them.
Moreover, of the people who have been coming on the boats recently, more than 75% were successful in their asylum claims. This narrative that Government and the media, the Daily Mail, the Express and The Sun, are running, that somehow they are all bogus asylum seekers, is a load of rubbish as well. I expected the media to talk rubbish—I expected them to lie—but it really pains me when elected Members of Parliament use that kind of divisive language.
It is because of that sort of divisive, disgusting language that we have had incidents of assault on people living in asylum hostels and incidents of others attacking them, swearing at them or protesting against them. That is because of the language that is used in this country in the discourse on immigration. I have to say to every hon. Member here, especially on the Government Benches, and the media, if they are listening, “Please, for God’s sake, just temper your language and do not peddle untruths.” That is what they are—untruths. A lot of those people are coming on boats because there is no alternative.
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The shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), mentioned five constructive proposals to deal with the boat crisis, but guess what: this Government are not doing that. Every single Conservative Prime Minister and Home Secretary since 2010 has said, “We’re going to control migration; we’re going to reduce asylum seeking; we’re going to do this and that,” but guess what: we are 13 years down the road since the Conservatives took charge, and they have done zilch—nothing. On the people whom they have been able to return, the numbers are abysmal. When Labour left office, 18,000 people were awaiting asylum decisions; the number now stands at 160,000. In the 13 years that your Government have been in control, what have you done? Nothing. It is all rhetoric; it is all talk.