My Lords, as always, it is a great pleasure to be part of a debate in your Lordships’ House, which, no matter which side one stands on the issue, marks the breadth of the expertise and opinion in this Chamber. I respect that expertise as well as the strength of feeling on the Bill from all sides. That strength of feeling exists because this House reflects the public debate taking place outside of Parliament. I will speak in support of the progress of the Bill, not because I take some pleasure
in ever-more stringent asylum policy, but—and perhaps to answer the noble Lord, Lord Purvis—because I want to secure safe and legal routes based on humanitarian need; that provides a moral imperative for the Bill to succeed and to be improved.
Public policy must always rely on a contract with, and consent from, the British people; without that consent, the Government are powerless. The Government should be able to articulate the values of this country in welcoming humanitarian refugees in a constant, evolving policy based on humanitarian need. At the moment, this country’s asylum policy is in a state of stasis, or, at best, a reactive state; it is a reactive policy that requires a public response before the Government will act. A totemic tragedy, namely the shock when the body of two year-old Alan Kurdi washed up, galvanised the Government to institute a resettlement policy of 20,000 Syrians. Likewise, the Ukrainian and Hong Kong resettlement schemes, of which we are all proud, have both been implemented fully because of public consent and reaction. Meanwhile, the Afghan scheme for resettlement, which seemed so important to everyone in August 2021, seems to have stalled quite dramatically in its initial aims.
This start/stop policy of bespoke schemes does not represent the values or implementation of a truly humanitarian policy blind to race or geopolitics. Why do we think that our policy has fallen into this stop/start approach to asylum, and away from universal legal routes? The first reason is the failure of our asylum bureaucracy and the lack of resource to process claims. The Prime Minister is prioritising that process with extra staff and support, and that is to be welcomed. Backlogs not only create needless anxiety for those seeking asylum but destroy public confidence in the system.
That public confidence is, I am afraid, why this legislation is required. From 300 asylum seekers arriving in small boats in 2018, we have now reached 45,000. The toxin of this seeming lack of control and unfairness then denigrates all asylum seekers across the world. For those of us who want to ensure safe legal routes based on humanitarian need, it is very difficult to find the public consent necessary to permeate public policy beyond the bespoke schemes I have already discussed. Before 2018, there was an opening after the success of the Syrian resettlement scheme for wider schemes in conjunction with the UNHCR, but that discussion and debate has been paralysed by illegal crossings pushed by the malevolent people traffickers.
I accept that the Government must make every effort to stop the boats if we are to see an expansion of the legal routes on a humanitarian basis, which the vast majority of us in your Lordships’ House want to see. If we do not use all legislative tools at our disposal and rebuild public confidence, I do not believe that any Government, Conservative or Labour, or even a Labour/Lib Dem amalgam, will be able to fully implement a humanitarian legal route process with public consent. I hope my noble friend the Minister will be able to put further flesh on the bones of this legal route process to maximise support in this House.
As well as the survey of accommodation of local authorities to identify their cap, I ask that the Government give further commitments to work with the UNHCR,
and that that work forms part of the regular statement that the Home Secretary lays before Parliament. I want a commitment to be given, as we progress the Bill, that routes will be identified to offer asylum to humanitarian asylum seekers, wherever they come from in the world. Transparency in a new process will provide the sunshine and hygiene required to build public confidence and rebuild pride in our humanitarian policy in this country. That is not to say that in the future there will not need to be bespoke policies responding to crises across the world, but they cannot be the basis for our asylum policy.
There are always going to be vulnerable people who will not have the media focus required to launch a bespoke scheme in this country. There must be a credible answer to the question Tim Loughton MP asked the Home Secretary at the Home Affairs Select Committee on routes for those outwith—to use a good Scottish word—the bespoke schemes. The Government will have to provide further assurance to get more support in your Lordships’ House. This Bill is sadly necessary if we are to help the most vulnerable across the world. I will not be able to support the fatal amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, later. Were it to be successful, I fear that the very people who need us to act for them would see safe and legal routes at the scale required becoming an ever more distant prospect.
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