Priti Patel's Borders Bill criticised by Lords during second reading

Richard Rosser, Labour’s shadow spokesperson on home affairs, was speaking as the Lords held the second reading of Priti Patel’s Nationality and Borders Bill.

“One of this Government’s favourite slogans has just been repeated, that our asylum system is broken, followed by a claim that a Johnson Government will fix it,” said Rosser.

“Two years ago, the Home Secretary said that her then plan would halve the number of boats crossing the channel in three months and make them infrequent in six months.

“Needless to say, since then they have increased tenfold.”

Rosser said the new bill contained no new and safe legal routes for refugees and asylum seekers, and did nothing to target criminal gangs and smugglers.

“If we want to know why the asylum system is broken, we need look no further than this Government and the Home Office,” he said.

“The number of initial asylum decisions being made by the Home Office each year has dropped by more than 40% over the last five years. That is why the backlog has increased.

“Some 67,000 — some say it is even more — are still waiting for an initial decision on their asylum claim.”

Lord David Wolfson, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, opened the debate with what he called a “basic reality”.

He said: “The current system is not working. It is not working for those people who genuinely need protection and refuge. Those in genuine need and in places of conflict should be our priority, not those who are already in safe countries such as France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

“Nor is the current system working for the people of this country—so the status quo is not a viable option.”

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Lord Brian Paddick said it was reassuring to hear that “the Bill really is as appalling as it looks”.

He said it was understandable that the subject of immigration was a cause for concern for many, particularly with the “misleading information published by the Government and echoed by the media”.

Paddick said the UK was home to around 68 million people and net immigration was about 300,000 a year – 0.4% of the existing population. Asylum claims in 2019 were 36,000 – one application for every 2000 people in the UK.

He said that among the common misconceptions was the perceived danger of immigrants taking British people’s jobs, but pointed out that the most common reason for people coming to the UK was to study, not work.

“In fact, currently there is a shortage of workers, not a shortage of jobs,” said Paddick.

“Another misconception is that there are record numbers of migrants crossing the channel. No, there are record numbers of migrants crossing the channel in small boats, because the UK has been effective in stopping channel crossings by most other means – for example, stowing away in lorries or on trains.

READ MORE: English Channel crossings: 10 key statistics from the small boats crisis in 2021

"Also, no safe and legal routes for asylum seekers to get to the UK are currently in operation, and you can only claim asylum on UK soil, so what are they supposed to do?”

Former Labour home secretary, Lord David Blunkett, said anyone who believed the new bill would be successful “is delusional”.

He said: “When it fails, the Government will presumably blame somebody else rather than themselves. A two-tier asylum system will fail. Withdrawal of citizenship without notification or explanation will be immoral.

“As has already been described, breach of international conventions, including Article 31 [on the status of refugees], is totally unacceptable for a democratic nation.

“Promising resettlement programmes that have actually been curtailed is also a delusion which will come home to bite. If you promise that there will be other resettlement routes – other than for Hong Kong and those who are eventually resettled from Afghanistan – when, as has already been said, you have withdrawn the routes in respect of family reunion and not put alternatives in place, you will end up with what happened last year, with not a single person resettled from Yemen as their country of origin and only one from Iran.”

Another former Labour home secretary, Lord John Reid, said he had never known any other subject upon which there was an “absolute concord” of views.

And he hit out at plans for offshore processing centres: “The UNHCR disagrees with the Home Secretary’s (above) statement that it complies with our obligations under the 1951 Act.

“It would allow the Government to create offshore camps. It will not work. It has not worked anywhere.

“Every time I see one of these headlines coming out of the Home Office, I wonder how extraordinary the next one will be.”

The next stage will be a line-by-line examination of the bill on January 27.

Gary Christie, from the Scottish Refugee Council told The National he was pleased so many peers said the Bill was cruel, unworkable and in breach of the UK’s international responsibilities.

He said: "This view is shared right across the country by those of us who work with people seeking safety here and many more who care about upholding human rights and dignity.

“The UN’s refugee agency has also raised serious concerns about the bill’s potential to increase the suffering of people seeking refugee protection, along with concerns about the UK’s divergence from the internationally upheld Refugee Convention.

“It was deeply disappointing to see the bill pass in the House of Commons in December, but it’s important to note that this bill is not yet law. There is still a real opportunity for UK legislators to do the right thing and reject the harshest measures of this bill.”