My Lords, I am sure the Committee will be pleased to hear that I am not going to engage with all the ways in which I disagree with the perspective of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbots. I will address these amendments specifically.
While I do not necessarily disagree with the intention in Amendment 138 to seek more information, this is entirely in the wrong place and creates confusion. Despite the Long Title of the Bill being about immigration, it is overwhelmingly focused on issues of asylum and refugees. As we have said in other debates, mixing up the right to asylum and the refugee commitments we have made over the course of decades with issues of migration is a real category error. Amendment 138 should not be here.
I particularly want to comment on Amendment 141, which is a call for a report on the operation and effectiveness of the Home Office. In relation to subsection (1) of the proposed new clause, a disturbing perspective is that one of the Home Office’s great problems is that it has two jobs: one is to police and control; it is also supposed to facilitate and assist people coming to the UK when they arrive here. Given its association with the phrase “hostile environment”, it is known for controlling and policing, rather than for facilitating and assisting. Following the Windrush scandal, the Green Party proposed that the Home Office should be split into a ministry of the interior, focused on law and order, and a department focused on providing support and assistance for refugees and migrants. That would make a lot of sense. Subsection (2) of the new clause proposed in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which talks about efficiency including fairness, addresses this to some degree. However, if we are to have any kind of assessment of the Home Office, we cannot look at one side without looking at the other.
Given the hour, I shall stop there.