In moving the amendment in my name, I should say that I have also put my name to the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to exclude Clause 15 from the Bill—but I will wait to hear him and support him when he proceeds with that.
I will make a relatively short point in relation to Amendment 68. The provision relates to Clause 14 and the section of the Bill that deals with inadmissibility. Clause 14 is concerned with amending the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and the exclusion in that Act, by way of amendment, of asylum claims by EU nationals. I am not certain why they have been selected for exclusion, but I assume it is because EU member states are bound by the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, the provisions of which, for the most part, mirror the European Convention on Human Rights and, in some respects, go beyond it. In Article 1A(2) of the refugee convention, persecution is obviously tied to the question of human rights.
The point I wish to make is simply that, under the new clause proposed by Clause 14—headed “Asylum claims by EU nationals”—to amend the 2002 Act, the Secretary of State
“must declare an asylum claim made by a person who is a national of a member State inadmissible.”
Proposed new Clause 80A(4) states:
“Subsection (1) does not apply if there are exceptional circumstances as a result of which the Secretary of State considers that the claim ought to be considered.”
Proposed new subsection (5) states:
“For the purposes of subsection (4) exceptional circumstances include”—
and then it lists a series of matters under proposed new paragraphs (a) and (b), with three proposed sub-paragraphs under (b).
Basically, short the point is that there can be persecution for the purposes of entitlement to refugee status under the convention even where the state itself is not the protagonist of the persecutory conduct but allows citizens, residents or others present within its territory to persecute particular groups or persons who otherwise fulfil the requirements of the convention’s definition
of “refugee”. My amendment proposes adding to the exceptional circumstances in proposed new Clause 80A(5) the circumstance when the EU member state
“fails to protect its nationals, including in particular those who have a protected characteristic within the … Equality Act 2010 which is innate or immutable, from persecution by third parties who are not agents of the member State.”
This is not a fanciful matter. If we take the case of Hungary, which has been moving more and more to the right in political terms, we see a campaign that is based on undisguised anti-Semitism against George Soros’s support for universities there, and a constant encouragement by the Government there of homophobia and attacks on LGBTQI+ people. So it is not a fanciful point, and I suggest that it should plainly be added as one of the exceptional circumstances. That is the point. On that basis, I beg to move.