My Lords, I bring noble Lords’ attention to Lords Amendment 5, on compliance of Part 2 of the Bill with the refugee convention. The other place disagrees with this amendment for its Reason 5A. The Government have made it explicitly clear that everything we do is compliant with our obligations under international law, including our obligations under the refugee convention. Consequently, we do not think it is necessary to set that out in the Bill. I therefore respectfully ask noble Lords not to insist on the amendment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has proposed a new amendment which seeks to do much the same as the previous amendment: to clarify that the provisions in Part 2 are compliant with our obligations under the refugee convention and international law. For the reasons I have given, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Amendment 6 would remove from the Bill the substantive clause relating to differentiation. The other place has disagreed with this for its Reason 6A. The differentiation of those classed as refugees is a fundamental part of the Bill, and as such the Government cannot accept the amendment agreed by your Lordships’ House. It is right that we take all steps to discourage people from risking their lives at sea, and this clause and the criteria it sets do just that. I respectfully ask noble Lords not to insist on the amendment.
For the same reason, we cannot accept the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, which seeks to remove the list of ways in which group 2 refugees may be differentiated from group 1 refugees, under the presumption that this approach will not uphold our international obligations. The Government have been extremely clear on this point throughout the passage of the Bill. I repeat that all the provisions in the Bill are in compliance with all our international legal obligations, including those under the 1951 refugee convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. With this in mind, I ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.
Lords Amendment 7 would change our approach to allowing people who are claiming asylum to work by reducing the period in which claimants may not work from 12 months to six months. It would also remove the condition restricting jobs for those who are allowed to work to those on the shortage occupation list. We think that this would allow people to bypass the proper process of applying for visas and paying relevant fees to work in the UK. It could also encourage channel crossings. We recognise the importance of ensuring that claims are settled as quickly as possible, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Stroud for
the conversations that we have had. We want to see claims settled within six months so that people can get on with rebuilding their lives, and that includes working. However, the Government cannot accept this amendment, which the other place disagrees with for its Reason 7A. As such, I ask that it not be insisted on.
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As I have said, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Stroud for the discussions that we have had on this topic; she has now tabled an amendment on it. When debating the policy, much has been made of the fact that recent polls suggest that more than 80% of people support a right to work for asylum seekers. I counter that by saying that the poll was framed in such a way as to get this sort of response; I suspect the result would have been rather different had people been asked whether they thought that small-boat migrants ought to be able to work after six months. This takes the issue completely out of context and ignores the bigger picture.
Polling has also suggested that 73% of people think that illegal channel crossings are a “serious” issue; 50% think that the UK does not have a responsibility to protect people who have travelled from safe countries such as France; 65% think that Britain should refuse to accept asylum applications from people who have entered the UK illegally and could reasonably have claimed asylum in another safe country; and 55% think that our current approach to small boats is “too soft”.
From this, I conclude that this Government have a clear mandate to both protect the integrity of our economic migration schemes and ensure that there is no incentive for people to make secondary movements across the channel. Academic evidence, from which I have previously quoted at length, suggests that many engage in secondary movements primarily for economic reasons. We must instead ensure that our asylum seeker right to work policy supports our objectives elsewhere in the immigration system, and we must ensure that it does not offer people the opportunity to undercut our position on economic migration by simply lodging an asylum claim—that is why our policy is designed as it is. A more relaxed asylum seeker right to work policy would create a back door into our labour market. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that we simply cannot encourage that.
I turn now to the reporting requirement in my noble friend’s amendment, which says that a review must be completed within four years of implementation —but no sooner than three years—to consider whether the amendment has encouraged people to claim asylum in the UK. This would be inappropriate simply because it could tie the hands of a future Government. Not only that, but there is already plenty of publicly available evidence—academic and otherwise—to suggest that secondary movements from safe country to safe country are economic. Indeed, a draft document shared with us by Fedasil, the Belgian asylum service, intended to handle frequently asked questions from transit migrants in Belgium, features as its number one question:
“Is it easier to find a job in the UK?”
This illustrates the primary economic motives of migrants moving from one safe European country to another. It is firmly supported in academic studies by, among others,
Brekke and Aarset, Brekke and Brochmann, Takle and Seeberg, and Hagen-Zanker and Mallett. Accordingly, I do not think it necessary to repeat this work, all the while leaving our economic migration schemes compromised and making the UK even more attractive for those wishing to make unmeritorious asylum claims. It is also unclear to me how we would go about disaggregating the impacts of this policy from other pull factors and deterrents in a satisfactory manner, given that the evidence I have already cited is still not accepted in some quarters as enough to support the Government’s current policy position.
I will touch briefly on the requirement in my noble friend’s amendment that the repeal of the Immigration Rules governing the proposed policy change should be done via the affirmative procedure. That would be highly irregular. Not only would the amendment set out in primary legislation what the policy should look like and make repeal conditional on a report—meaning that further scrutiny was surely unnecessary—but the Immigration Rules are subject to their own parliamentary procedure, as set out in Section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971. Parliamentarians may of course pray against any changes to the rules within a 40-day period.
On Motion F, on inadmissibility and returns agreements, Amendment 8 would require one or more returns agreements to be in place with a safe third country before the inadmissibility provisions in Clause 15 could be brought into force. The other place has disagreed to this amendment for its Reason 8A. Inadmissibility provisions are already in operation under the Immigration Rules, and that will continue until the Bill’s provisions are commenced. These provisions do not require agreements to be in place and allow for case-by-case removals, and such removals are no less appropriate or safe for being arranged in that way. In our view, it is simply wrong to tie the commencement of Clause 15 to the conclusion of international agreements with other countries or states. I therefore ask that the House does not insist on this amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has tabled a further amendment, which is identical to that agreed on Report in the Lords but for a sunset clause that would cease its effect after five years. That slight variation does little to address the issue that we have with this amendment, and which we have been very clear about throughout the passage of the Bill. I repeat: it is right to allow for removals to be sought on a case-by-case basis where appropriate, and where the consent of the relevant country is obtained to make that removal. As I have made clear, this approach has formed part of our inadmissibility process since the changes to our Immigration Rules in December 2020, and until the Bill provisions come into force we will continue to rely on those rules. I therefore ask that this Motion not be moved.
On Motion G, Amendment 9 would remove provisions that support our future objective of enabling asylum processing overseas. Overseas asylum processing is one part of a system-wide reform designed to break the business model of people smugglers and disincentivise unwanted behaviours. We will do this by making it possible to remove someone without going through a certification process, provided that the place to which they
are being removed meets specified safety requirements. By working to establish overseas asylum processing, we are sending a clear message to those risking their lives and funding criminal gangs both here in the UK and abroad, or else otherwise abusing the asylum system, that such behaviour is not worth it.
We must make it easier to ensure that such people are simply not allowed to remain in the UK. Access to protection in the UK should be based on need, focusing primarily on people in regions of conflict, not on those brought to our shores by the actions of criminal enterprise. So I ask noble Lords not to insist on this amendment, nor on the consequential Amendments 52 and 53, to which the other place disagrees for its Reasons 52A and 53A.
I note that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham has tabled Amendments 53B to 53D, which aim to limit our ability to remove someone with a pending asylum claim overseas for their claim to be processed unless both Houses have agreed to a state being prescribed by order as safe. The amendments would also prevent the laying of an order before Parliament until we had laid before both Houses a proposal setting out our estimated costs for any arrangement made with a third state.
I remind noble Lords that these measures are in fact not new and alone they do not enable overseas asylum processing. For nearly 20 years it has been possible under UK law to remove individuals from the UK while their asylum claim is pending, if a certificate is issued under Schedule 3 to the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004. That Act already contains an affirmative procedure for adding countries to the list of safe countries. This aspect of the amendment is therefore, with respect, unnecessary. That is because the measure in the Bill simply amends the existing legal framework to make it easier to remove individuals without going through that certification process, provided that the country they are being removed to meets the safety criteria that we have set out in the Bill. The principal consideration prior to removal will be the individual’s safety.
I know that the costs of overseas asylum processing have been the source of some speculation in the House. That is clearly a matter for the negotiating table and I will not prejudice those discussions by providing an estimation at this time, but I will update the House in the usual way if and when a deal is struck. I therefore ask the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham not to move his Motion.
On Motion H, dealing with family reunion, the other place disagrees with Amendment 10, which would expand family reunion rights for asylum seekers and create a more generous approach on family reunion to those who are already in Europe. We do not think this would be fair. We have been very generous in our provision of family reunion rights, granting over 40,000 family reunion visas since 2015. The Government’s family reunion policy allows a spouse or partner, and children under 18, of those granted protection in the UK to join them here if they formed part of the family unit before the sponsor fled their country.
There are separate provisions in the Immigration Rules to allow extended family to sponsor children to come here where there are serious and compelling circumstances.
There is also discretion to grant leave outside of the Immigration Rules, which caters for extended family members in exceptional circumstances, including young adult sons or daughters who are dependent on family here and living in dangerous situations. This is a single global approach to family reunion that does not encourage what are often dangerous journeys into Europe. I also note that the other place disagrees with the amendment for its Reason 10A, as it would alter financial arrangements made in that House.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has tabled an amendment in lieu relating to Amendment 10. He has also written to me. I owe him a response, and I apologise for the fact that he does not yet have it. I assure him that it is coming; in fact, I signed it off this afternoon. We think that his amendment was to broadly cover the same ground as the amendment already rejected by the other place but with an intention to remove references to adults who might want to come to the UK to claim asylum where they have family links, focusing instead on unaccompanied minors. Children, including unaccompanied children, can already apply under existing immigration routes relating to family reunion from any part of the world.
However, the drafting of the proposed new clause remains very broad. There are also risks with having such a clause on the statute book, given that proposed new subsection (1) could be interpreted as a broad duty requiring us to provide a route for all persons of all ages to be able to claim asylum in the UK. We cannot encourage dangerous journeys to Europe to benefit from such a provision; nor can we support such unclear legislation. We therefore cannot accept the proposed new clause.
On Motion J, regarding the target number, in Amendment 11 we are asked to consider the proposition that we set a resettlement target of at least 10,000 refugees per year. The Government’s policy on resettlement is that schemes operate outside of the Immigration Rules and on a discretionary basis. We have resettled over 27,000 people in this way since 2015. We do not think that setting targets is appropriate. On that basis, the other place has disagreed with this amendment for its Reason 11A, and I ask that this House does not insist on it.
Similarly, we cannot accept the further amendment proposed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, which asks us to set an undetermined figure for the resettlement of refugees in the UK each year. This would essentially allow the Government to set any figure they want, which I am not sure would take us any further forward. I also emphasise that we are completely committed—as we need to be—to having the appropriate infrastructure in place to manage the inflow of resettled persons. I respectfully ask the right reverend Prelate not to move his Motion.
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Moving on to Motion K on genocide, and Lords Amendment 12 relating to specific provisions in the asylum system for victims of genocide, I put on the record my thanks to noble Lords for debating with compassion an issue that unfortunately still haunts the world today. The UK stands with all victims of genocide.
The Government use their voice in the world to ensure that human rights are stringently maintained. But, to echo the Minister for Justice and Tackling Illegal Migration’s words on this topic in the other place, it is not practical for us to be bound to consider asylum claims in British missions from the very large number of individuals overseas who might like to come here. Once processed, this would add an extra burden to UK-based caseworkers, who would also have to assess whether the individual then met set criteria. This is not practical and would alter the financial arrangements made in the other place, which has disagreed with this amendment for Reason 12A.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, has proposed another amendment on genocide, which would publish—with reference to the UK’s asylum and immigration systems—a report on the Government’s approach to the treatment of victims of genocide and a comprehensive policy on the Government’s response to the duties contained in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It will of course be for the other place to determine whether this amendment engages its financial privilege but, either way, the Government cannot accept the further amendment.
As noble Lords will know, the UK has a very proud history of providing protection to those who need it. Protection is normally granted where a claimant has a well-founded fear of persecution under the refugee convention or where their circumstances engage our obligations under Article 3 of the ECHR. Although we do not specifically reference the genocide convention as part of our asylum consideration, if an individual were to be at risk as a result of genocide, they would likely qualify for protection as a result of either the refugee convention or the ECHR. Each claimant is an individual with unique circumstances, and this requires individual consideration. I do not think that it is necessary for the Government to publish reports to demonstrate our compliance with international obligations —we comply, and we will continue to comply. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to move his Motion.
Motion C1 (as an amendment to Motion C)