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Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

My Lords, Amendment 166 from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, would not only oblige the Secretary of State to change the rules under Section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 to accommodate her proposed new clause but would extend the type of relatives who could enter. As well as those allowed under Appendix F—dependent children under 18 and partners and civil partners—which was, as noble Lords will know, suspended in September 2024 pending review, it would mean that others would be added to the list of those who could enter and remain in the UK: parents, adoptive parents, unmarried partners and children as old as 25. This is in relation to persons, not the amendments on children. Because the people of this country have no appetite for increasing the scale of immigration but want the numbers cut—and have made this increasingly clear—I support my noble friend Lord Jackson’s amendments to Amendment 166, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I have added my name to Amendments 167 to 171.

I would like to disassociate myself from comments which suggest that the majority of people in this country who want immigration cut and controlled are of some extreme disposition. Time and again I hear references to the “far right” or the “extreme right” or something else. Most of these people are ordinary people who have seen their communities torn apart very often, and they explain it on television perfectly clearly and lucidly. They are not put up to anything. They are worried about their children and what is going on in their local hotels. They are not extreme people. If any of your Lordships had young children going to school near an asylum hotel in which problems arose with people in that hotel, I do not think they would be considered extreme for raising the concern at Questions, as we can. We have a voice, but the people of our country will not have any voice until the next general election. I am sorry for slightly digressing.

I support these amendments not just because Amendment 168 would be a deterrent to foreign criminals coming in nor just because Amendment 171 would ensure that the aim of securing the border is inserted into the Bill, but because they would curb the numbers coming in rather than escalate them. In the year ending this June, 108,138 people claimed asylum. This is an 18% increase on the previous year and a fivefold increase on the numbers since 2022. Of this total, 84,231 were main applicants but 23,907 were dependants—the highest annual number of applications ever recorded, except for one other year.

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What would the numbers be were Amendment 166 to be accepted? For someone who has been granted refugee status—not a child—would their parents, adoptive parents, unmarried partners with no documentation to say that they are their stable spouse, adopted siblings or even other persons potentially be covered under the amendment’s proposed new subsection (5)(e), which my noble friend’s amendment seeks to drop, as well as an equally uncertain number of those who might wish to be considered or answer the description of being necessary to the “physical, emotional or psychological” well-being of the person or to avoiding any risk to such well-being? To that question of how many there would be, the noble Baroness had no answer during our debate on her Private Member’s Bill. We do not know how many people Amendment 166 might open the country to. Under my noble friend Lord Jackson’s amendments, these additional categories, other than the spouse of the person or children under 18 who are dependants—I know that is suspended, as the Government are reviewing it—would not be eligible.

The unsustainable levels of immigration are threatening the stability of the settled political arrangements of this country, and its cultural cohesion, traditions and ordered communities. The worries this prompts and the level of immigration do no service to those unfortunate people whose lives and liberty are threatened, under grave danger in their home country, and who come directly to the UK. Over centuries, they have had a sympathetic hearing in this country, as have others seeking a better life, long before the international conventions of the post-war period—