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Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Flushed by my success on the previous Bill, I start by saying that many Members will remember the Government’s publicity campaign in which vans went around telling people that, if they were here illegally, they should leave or face penalties or arrest. In fact, on closer examination, it is clear that the warning signs on those vans were of no more value than the sign that someone puts at the end of his garden saying, “Trespassers will be prosecuted.”

There is no criminal law against normal trespass. Likewise, it is not a criminal offence to be in this country having entered without authority or having overstayed once the legal authority to be here has expired. I do not think I am alone in finding it extraordinary that people can be in the United Kingdom without legal authority with impunity. They are not guilty of any offence because there is no offence. We are prosecuting hundreds of thousands of people for watching television illicitly without a television licence, but people who are here having broken our immigration laws are not subject to any criminal sanction.

When I raised the matter with the Immigration Minister, whom I am delighted to see on the Front Bench for this debate, he said, “Wouldn’t it be rather pointless to make it a criminal offence, because you would be prosecuting people and locking them up in prison when what you want is for them to go home?” I have built the Bill around that point. The penalties set out in clause 2 would accommodate his concerns.

Clause 1 states:

“Any person who is present in the United Kingdom after 30 June 2014 without legal authority shall be guilty of an offence…Any person who after 30 June 2014 enters or attempts to enter the United Kingdom without legal authority shall be guilty of an offence.”

We need to make it clear that the Government and our country do not tolerate people who break our immigration laws by coming into this country illicitly or by staying on after they should have left.