My Lords, I support Amendments 4 and 84; I also have a great deal of sympathy for Amendment 148. I declare an interest as vice-chair of the independent Commission on the Integration of Refugees. I have been listening with great interest to the expert points raised by particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, but also other noble Lords.
I am sure noble Lords will be aware that Clause 1, as it stands, is a narrative introduction that sets the scope and intent of the Bill as a whole. Crucially, it defines the purpose of the Bill as
“to prevent and deter unlawful migration, and in particular migration by unsafe and illegal routes”.
I am sure we can all sympathise with the desire to make the migration system thoroughly orderly and predictable in nature, but I question whether this is plausible and whether what it entails is indeed desirable, particularly if it cannot guarantee compatibility with those international treaties, as we have heard. The sort of circumstances of catastrophe and persecution that drive refugees do not tend to allow for orderly or safe departures. I know this from my own personal experience but also from having spoken to many asylum seekers and refugees over the years.
The Government deserve credit for the design and delivery of the Homes for Ukraine scheme. My diocese has been delighted to welcome more than 50 Ukrainian guests into our scheme and to hear many incredible stories of welcome and community building. However, we should not forget the huge amount of effort and time that went into getting that scheme off the ground. It was not swift, and to be delivered at all it required an enormous redistribution of Civil Service and local authority capacity, to say nothing of the vast civil society contribution that needed to be harnessed. It is an incredibly labour-intensive model in its administration, neither sufficiently swift nor flexible to account for sudden or immediate crises, of which we are bound to see many more.
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Refugees fleeing crisis, persecution and conflict do not have the time for the UK to develop a bespoke model—assuming that such a model would ever exist. The great majority of those in need who seek to come to the UK do not have a safe or regular route available to them. I deliberately say “regular” rather than “legal” because I want to underline what we have already heard said very clearly: according to the refugee convention, there is no such thing as an illegal route. This is a really important point that needs to be underlined and repeated. Anyone arriving at a country by any means has the
right to claim asylum. This point has been well made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope. The shorthand of “safe and legal”, which has become all too common, is misleading and leads to scaremongering. We should be much more careful about our use of language.
The Government’s answer seems to be that every refugee must stop in the first safe country. This sounds very easy in principle and is what the majority of the world’s refugees do, but safety is a relative concept. For example, for Christian converts in Iran facing terrible persecution, who have no safe or regular routes to this country, which neighbouring state would noble Lords recommend as a safe and secure place in which to rebuild their lives with the freedom to practise their religion, as is their human right?
Proximity is no guarantor of true safety. In the UK, there are many Iranian Christians who have settled and rebuilt their lives. There is an established community, and many have friends or family members here who can help and support them. In my work with the Commission on the Integration of Refugees, I have heard repeatedly of the importance of family, friendship, community and historical ties, and of activities and structures to help refugees integrate better. This is what safety means to people who have lost all those things in their home countries. They are not “asylum shopping”, to use the offensive and disparaging term used by the Immigration Minister. Rather, they are choosing to come as directly as they can to the place where they feel they will be safest.
This is why Amendments 4 and 84 are so important. They look to establish a guarantee to abide by the international treaties to which we as a nation have already committed, as we heard said so articulately by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. These treaties exist not to frustrate orderly migration policies but to establish a baseline of protection and commitment that is shared across nations. They are designed for individuals for whom the normal, orderly means of migration are not possible but who urgently require humanitarian assistance. They create proper structure for people to depart and to claim status in a place where they will be safe.
These amendments are a commitment to the vulnerable and a commitment on the part of states to be held accountable for their actions towards the vulnerable. If the Government cannot commit to that accountability, I cannot accept that the stated purpose of Clause 1 is either appropriate or desirable.