Lords inflict what is thought to be a record 20 total defeats on a bill
In the third and final day of voting during the Illegal Migration Bill's report stage in the House of Lords yesterday, the Government lost a further five votes. The Lords previously inflicted eleven defeats on the Bill on Monday and four defeats last Wednesday.
Image credit: UK GovernmentAccording to Sky News, the total of 20 government defeats is thought to be a record high for a bill in the House of Lords.
University College London's Constitution Unit summarises the amendments that were voted through yesterday as follows:
- To reinstate the right of appeal against age assessments in respect of putative children whom there is a duty to remove under the Act.
- To allow appeals for age of assessment to grant relief in cases where the previous decision was wrong or misinformed on a matter of fact, not just of law.
- To add a new clause requiring the Secretary of State to make regulations specifying additional safe and legal routes within two months of the required report on existing and proposed safe and legal routes.
- To add a new clause to give the National Crime Agency a legal responsibility for tackling organised crime across the Channel and to maintain a specific unit for this purpose.
- To add a new clause requiring the Secretary of State to have a ten-year strategy for collaborating internationally to tackle refugee crises affecting migration by irregular routes and human trafficking.
Amendments to reinstate the right of appeal against age assessments were moved by the Lord Bishop of Durham.
The Bishop explained: "The Bill significantly restricts any legal avenues for challenging an incorrect age determination. The appeal mechanisms instituted by the Nationality and Borders Act, though they have not yet been implemented, will now be disapplied. Following government amendments at this late stage, judicial review will also be limited to such a narrow scope as to make it impossible for a potential child to challenge the assessment of their age based on evidential fact.
"All the while, if the Home Office were to inaccurately assess a child to be an adult, the implications would be disastrous and irreversible. A child would face entering an adult system alone, where they would be detained with adults before potentially being removed to a third country with no safeguards in place, perhaps without ever encountering a child protection officer. This is simply absurd, but to remove all legal safeguards and weaken a putative child's access to justice, when the implications are so grave, is as horrifying as it is immoral. We must not forget that the Home Office does indeed get age assessments wrong. Based on the Home Office's own data, we can see that last year nearly two-thirds of all age dispute cases were found to be children."
Speaking for the Government, Lord Murray of Blidworth told the House of Lords: "Assessing age is inherently difficult, but it is crucial that we disincentivise adults from knowingly misrepresenting themselves as children. Our published data shows that, between 2016 and March 2023, there were 8,611 asylum cases in which an age assessment was required and subsequently resolved. Of those cases, nearly half— 47%, or 4,088 individuals—were found to be adults."
An amendment to the Bill requiring the Government to make regulations specifying additional safe and legal routes was voted through by the Lords by 232 votes to 169.
Moving the amendment, Baroness Stroud told the Lords: "[T]he moral credibility of the entire Bill depends on the creation of more safe and legal routes. The basis on which we are disestablishing illegal and unsafe routes is that we are creating legal and safe routes. The lack of a substantial commitment in primary legislation to this end is a serious omission which this amendment gives us an opportunity to address."
Supporting the amendment, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard said: "It is hypocrisy to pretend that the aim of the Bill is to stop the small boats. The most obvious way of stopping the small boats is to open new, regular routes. If we can do it for immigrants, by sifting their applications remotely, why can we not do it for asylum seekers? To refuse to do it for those fleeing for their lives—to refuse them even the possibility of applying for sanctuary here—seems a bit immoral, a bit illegal under international law, a bit hypocritical and entirely ineffectual, because it will keep the small boat men in business."
The Illegal Migration will have its third reading in the House of Lords on Monday of next week before returning to the House of Commons.