My Lords, it has been a long day and I will not detain the House for too long before the winding-up speeches. However, opportunities to whole- heartedly support the Government on their legislation arise perhaps less often than I would ideally wish and, when I do so, the Government have developed a distressing habit of filleting or spiking the legislation afterwards. However, I am very confident that that will not happen on this occasion, so I want to take this opportunity to speak strongly in support of the Bill.
The basic principle that we must not forget is that a democratic nation state such as ours has, and should have, the right to control its borders and determine who gets to live here and on what terms. Until quite recently that would have been an uncontroversial statement—and, in my experience, it still is the further one gets from London SW1. Still, in recent years this country lost that right as regards EU citizens, and the general principle has been subject to sustained attack from those who perhaps do not always see the point of international borders at all. The result of all this has been the difficulty that the Government face in enforcing their immigration laws and, in recent years, very high and unsustainable levels of legal migration.
As my noble friend Lord Moylan pointed out, the basic principle of the right to control borders is of course shaped by the many commitments that we have taken on, such as our membership of the ECHR, the refugee convention and much else, including our own sua sponte commitments on modern slavery.
However, all those commitments must and indeed can be implemented only in a way that is in accordance with practical reality.
Governments do not have the luxury of being content with just words; they must deal in reality, not concepts. One obvious reality is that tens or perhaps hundreds of millions of people could establish an asylum claim if they could get to this country, and many want to. So, if we acquiesce in illegal arrivals, the numbers will continue to grow. If we open new legal routes, they will quickly be overwhelmed and we will be back to the illegal ones. It is simply not possible to make what has amounted to an open, unlimited offer to anyone who can get here.
That is why the Bill is necessary and why, if it becomes law, no one who arrives in this country illegally, with some reasonable but limited exceptions, will be allowed to stay here. Contrary to what some noble Lords have said tonight, that specific principle is strongly supported in this country. Indeed, YouGov polling from March shows that it is supported by an absolute majority of public opinion.
We are told by some who we have heard today that to enshrine these principles in a Bill is in some way—these words have been used during the day—shameful, inhuman, immoral or even evil. I disagree with that and actually rather resent it. It is with the greatest trepidation that I debate morality with the high prelates of the Church, but I cannot agree that we are not living up to our moral responsibility if some of us, in this fallen world, come to different judgments about the implications of the words of Jesus in Matthew, chapter 25.
We are told by others on the Benches opposite that, because everyone who gets to these shores has a potentially huge contribution to make to this country, it is immoral and self-defeating to turn them away. Of course I agree that every person who comes here has the same potential as every other human being. I do not think any of us believes that asylum seekers are bad people; they are people doing the best for themselves and their families. But everyone who gets here imposes a burden as well as making a contribution, and it is true to say that some communities have integrated into British society and life better than others. It is the job of the Government and of the British people to decide where the line should be drawn, and the Bill draws one element of it. There is nothing immoral in that; if you think there is, you must think it is immoral for British Governments to pay proper attention to the views of their own citizens.
We have also heard that the right way forward is to renegotiate the international framework covering refugees. That is certainly desirable, but anyone who thinks it could be done in the short term—or perhaps at all, on terms that we would wish to see—is kidding themselves, I am afraid. The same is true of those who think that spending vast sums on development or on mitigating so-called climate migration is going to do anything to deal with the real problem we face now.
All the arguments against the Bill are, I am sure, based on deep reflection and conviction but, in the end, I cannot think that they deal with the real-world problem. The real-world choice that faces this Government is simple. It is to choose to put in place an organised
set of provisions for a limited number of genuine refugees, in numbers that this country can cope with, and make clear that others will not be able to stay; or to live with the current and worsening situation of an open-ended but de facto constrained arrangement for refugee arrivals, constrained not by any rational arrangements or judgments but by the readiness of those poor trafficked people to travel, to pay and deal with criminals, and to bear terrible risks.
There will certainly be important technical improvements that we can make to the Bill, and this House should certainly give it proper scrutiny, but none of that removes the real need for the fundamental principles behind it. I urge the Government not to be deterred by the arguments they have heard today but to push on with the Bill, and strain all the sinews of the state to deliver on it when it becomes law.
9.23 pm