The Green MP for Brighton Pavilion and a Green peer from Brighton spoke out in separate debates yesterday (Monday 17 July) as Parliament finally agreed the government’s Illegal Migration Bill.
Caroline Lucas intervened in a House of Commons debate before making a speech criticising the bill – or draft law – as MPs rejected a series of amendments proposed by the House of Lords.
And Jenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, spoke in favour of a Lords proposal – “amendment 18” – to try to ensure that the bill was consistent with Britain’s international legal obligations.
But, in line with convention, the Lords finally gave way late last night and the bill was agreed by both Houses of Parliament so that it can receive the royal assent and become law.
The bill is intended to make it easier for the government to remove people arriving in small boats across the Channel and send them to a “third country” such as Rwanda.
The government has been criticised for putting up some of those who arrive in this way in hotels in places like Hove at a cost of about £6 million a day.
Ministers believe that the bill – drafted in response to a legal defeat for the government in the Supreme Court – will help to deter illegal immigration.
Caroline Lucas told the Conservative Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick: “Let me take the right honourable gentleman back to the criticism he was making of the other place (the House of Lords) because if the elected House is about to break international law, it is entirely fitting that the other place should try to prevent that from happening.
“The minister has stood at the dispatch box telling us that this bill is about deterrence whereas the Home Office’s own impact assessment has said: ‘The bill is a novel and untested scheme and it is therefore uncertain what level of deterrence impact it will have.’
“As a raft of children’s charities have pointed out, once routine child detention was ended in 2011 there was no proportional increase in children claiming asylum.
“So will he come clean and accept that this bill absolutely will have the effect, even if it does not have the intention, of meaning that people trying to escape persecution will not be able to come here because there are not sufficient safe and legal routes?
Mr Jenrick replied: “I am not sure exactly what the honourable lady’s question was. If it was about access to safe and legal routes, let me be clear, as I have in numerous debates on this topic, that since 2015 the UK has welcomed more than 500,000 individuals here – it is nearer to 550,000 now – for humanitarian purposes. That is a very large number.
“The last statistics I saw showed that we were behind only the United States, Canada and Sweden on our global United Nations-managed safe and legal routes and we were one of the world’s biggest countries for resettlement schemes. That is a very proud record.
“The greatest inhibitor today to the UK doing more on safe and legal routes is the number of people coming across the Channel illegally on small boats, taking up capacity in our asylum and immigration system.
“She knows that only too well because we have discussed on a number of occasions one of the most concerning symptoms of this issue, which is unaccompanied children who are having to stay in a Home Office-procured hotel near to her constituency because local authorities do not have capacity to flow those individuals into safe and loving foster care as quickly as we would wish.
“That issue is exactly emblematic of the problem that we are trying to fix. If we can stop the small boats, we can do more, as a country, and be an even greater force for good in the world.”
Later, Caroline Lucas said: “Talking about leaving or having derogations from human rights law is exactly what is wrong with the government’s approach to this issue and what is wrong with this vile bill.
“With overwhelming support from across the political spectrum, and backed by Conservative peers and by religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the other place is absolutely right to have inflicted a string of defeats on this vile, illegal bill.
“Lords amendment 1B, in the name of Baroness Chakrabarti (Shami Chakrabarti), should be easy for any decent government to accept because it simply asks for compliance with the rule of law which is the bedrock of our democracy.
“But the government are attacking that foundation, forced to admit on the face of this immoral bill that they are unable to say it is compatible with the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.
“The government are seeking to deny UK judges the right to interpret this law and to check it against compliance with the UK’s obligations under no fewer than five international conventions that we should be defending, not undermining.
“The minister in the other place tried to argue that a previous version of this amendment was trying to incorporate international law into domestic law and that, in doing so, it was an unacceptable change to our legal framework.
“I do not think that that is what the previous version did, but, for the avoidance of doubt, in this version Lords amendment 1B is explicit in calling for the interpretation of international law to ensure compliance with our international obligations.
“Indeed, ministers will be aware of the contribution from Lord Hope (David Hope), who served as deputy president of the Supreme Court and last week said that this amendment is a ‘pure interpretation provision … entirely consistent with the way the courts approach these various conventions … it is entirely orthodox and consistent with principle’.
“Adhering to the refugee convention, the European Convention on Human Rights and other international laws we have signed up to should be non-negotiable.
“What a terrible state of affairs it is that the government want to vote down an amendment seeking compliance with the rule of law.
“The government’s argument is that stripping vulnerable people of asylum and other human rights will stop other vulnerable people falling into the hands of the people traffickers.
“That is both morally bankrupt and utterly bogus … Vulnerable people, including children, are being punished because of presumed future actions of adults.
“Furthermore, by disagreeing with Lords amendment 1B, ministers face the charge of hypocrisy as they disrespect international law and undermine migrants’ rights at a time of unprecedented international turmoil.
“Just last week, the Prime Minister was at a NATO summit absolutely saying that we need to uphold international law against the grotesque breaches by Putin in Ukraine. Yes, we do need to do that, but let us have a little moral consistency.
“As well as being immoral, the government’s argument about a deterrent effect is bogus and unevidenced.
“The Home Office’s own impact assessment, published just last month, is peppered with caveats about how undeliverable this policy is. It includes an admission that: ‘The delivery plan is still being developed.’
“The lack of evidence on deterrence in that document is glaring. It says that the bill is ‘novel and untested’ – so we do not know what impact it will have on deterrence.
“As I said earlier, a raft of children’s charities have pointed out that once routine child detention was ended in 2011, there was no proportional increase in children claiming asylum.
“Beyond that, there is strong evidence to show that it is the precisely the hostility towards refuges exemplified by this bill and the government’s rejection of Lords amendments to it that fuels the grim and terrible trade in small boats that they claim they are against.
“So any member who votes to block the Lords amendments should admit that in doing so, they degrade the rule of law, dehumanise vulnerable refugees, attack our modern slavery laws, put LGBT refugees at grave risk – and that their approach will lead to the unconscionable mass detention and treatment of children, with no stated time limit to that detention.
“It is sickening. I will be voting to uphold the Lords amendments because this bill shames and degrades our country, our democracy and this house.”
In the House of Lords, Baroness Jones said: “I am surprised that the government do not like this amendment.
“Quite honestly, it strengthens the bill when it comes to legal procedure and they would have fewer legal challenges to all their cases if it goes through.
“They should welcome it, particularly if there is no conflict with international law, as the minister told us earlier, in order to restore certainty. The government should support this amendment.”
Simon Murray, Lord Murray of Blidworth, a junior minister at the Home Office, said: “A court always has regard, if possible, to the international treaties binding the United Kingdom, as was made clear by Lord Dyson (John Dyson) in the Supreme Court in the (Julian) Assange case.
“The noble baroness’s amendment is simply unnecessary and, in addition, it would have the effect of changing the constitutional relationship of our law and international law.”
Have you also seen the name of the prison barge? Stockholm…I am not the only one who sees this right?
What does Caroline Lucas suggest as an alternative? Allow anybody and everybody to remain here at huge expense, while the population is already growing rapidly? All very well for her to criticise, but she is probably not on a year’s waiting list for NHS treatment, and is certainly not homeless. And why do these people who oppose the Bill keep referring to them as refugees? Many of the them are not, but just illegal migrants taking advantage of our hospitality.