My Lords, I am not going to give most of the speech that I had prepared for today’s debate, because if I did I would
sound as though I live on a different planet. Listening to many noble Lords today, I have on occasion wondered whether I do.
I want to make a few points. The first is obvious but none the less important for being so: illegal immigration is a problem that matters to people in this country and they expect us to find the right ways to deal with it. I am not a human rights lawyer or any other kind of lawyer. I have never been Home Secretary or indeed a Home Office Minister. I do listen to and take seriously those who are duly qualified to comment on the details of the Bill, but if we are going to be here until midnight debating this legislation in the weeks ahead, as some noble Lords have promised—I might even say almost threatened—we owe it to the public we exist to serve to take their views seriously in our debates. The impression from some noble Lords that “There’s nothing we can do, so we’re going to block what the Government propose” is dangerous.
Along with my noble friends Lord Hodgson, Lord Horam and Lord Moylan, and, I think, one or two others who have spoken, I believe that our first priority as UK parliamentarians is meeting the expectations of all the law-abiding people who live here and play their part in our collective success as a nation: to make sure that we have in place the right legal frameworks so that citizens and communities can thrive, especially in a world that never stops changing.
I support the Bill. My noble friend the Minister has set out a strong case for it and reminded us, powerfully, of all that the Government are doing to support innocent people fleeing cruelty around the world. He also made clear the importance of our support for people who are fleeing persecution continuing, and why that places an even greater responsibility on us to deal with illegal immigrants.
Some measures in this legislation are contentious and will need to be scrutinised and debated, but we parliamentarians love to add complexity to the process of scrutiny, often in the name of safeguards and protections, which can make it even harder for those on the ground charged with implementing legislation to achieve results that meet people’s expectations.
But British citizens and anyone else living here legally deserve to know that our authorities can remove people who have no right to be here. The biggest problem with our current system is that illegal immigrants know that once they have made it to the UK, they are unlikely ever to be deported. That cannot be right. I know there is an argument, as my noble friends Lord Balfe and Lord Lilley have raised today, that the answer to this lies only with renegotiating the Geneva convention, which was created for a different age, not today’s era of mass migration. I do not, by the way, think that we should dismiss this. Those for whom such an idea amounts to heresy should understand that the case for this will only grow if we cannot deal better with unlawful immigration cases in a timely fashion with the laws that exist or that we need to implement.
I know that noble Lords approach their responsibilities seriously. We all seek to improve legislation, believing that we do so for the right reasons. The same is true for this Bill, as evidenced by some very powerful contributions today. The Bill covers difficult matters that affect
human beings, so of course we have and will continue to receive representations from various bodies and individuals who are against the Bill or are concerned about some of its measures. I know that noble Lords will ensure that those views are reflected when we debate the Bill in detail, and rightly so. But, at the same time, we must not lose sight of the millions of people, whether they were born in the UK or are themselves immigrants who have chosen to live here, who do not write to us but who support the three principal objectives of this Bill. It is in part what they have voted for. If we lose sight of this, we risk damaging yet further their confidence in our system of democracy. I look forward to supporting this Bill as it progresses through your Lordships’ House.
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