74-page Bill introduced to the House of Commons and given its First Reading today
The Government has today published its Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.
Image credit: Wikipedia You can access Parliamentary information about the Bill here. The direct link to the 74-page Bill is here. The Home Secretary's written statement summarising the Bill is below. The 58-page explanatory notes for the Bill are here.
The Bill was introduced to the House of Commons and given its First Reading today in a formal process without any debate. The Bill's Second Reading stage is on 10 February 2025, when MPs will be given their first opportunity to debate the main principles of the Bill.
The Home Office said in a press release that the landmark legislation introduces counter terror-style powers to "identify, disrupt and smash people smuggling gangs", including stronger powers to seize and search mobile phones, plus new offences against gangs conspiring to plan crossings, selling or handling small boat parts for use in the Channel, and supplying forged ID documents.
Measures introduced by the Bill include:
• Border Security Commander: The Bill establishes the role of the Border Security Commander, a civil servant designated by the Secretary of State to oversee border security functions.
• Offences Related to Immigration Crime: The Bill introduces offences for supplying, handling, and collecting information or articles used in immigration crime, with penalties of up to 14 years in prison.
• Endangering Lives During Sea Crossings: The Bill criminalises actions that endanger lives during sea crossings to the UK, with specific penalties for such offences.
• Search Powers for Electronic Devices: Authorised officers are granted powers to search, seize, and retain electronic devices suspected to contain information related to immigration crime.
• Information Sharing Provisions: The Bill includes provisions for sharing customs information, trailer registration data, and other relevant information among various authorities.
• Repeal of Previous Legislation: The Bill repeals the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 and certain provisions of the Illegal Migration Act 2023.
• Regulation of Immigration Advisers: Amendments are made to the regulation of immigration advisers and service providers to ensure better oversight and accountability.
• Detention and Deportation: The Bill expands detention powers, including allowing detention while the Secretary of State is merely considering whether to make a deportation order.
• Prevention of Serious Crime: New offences and serious crime prevention orders are introduced to address the possession and use of articles in serious crime, with provisions for electronic monitoring and interim orders.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "Over the last six years, criminal smuggling gangs have been allowed to take hold all along our borders, making millions out of small boat crossings. This Bill will equip our law enforcement agencies with the powers they need to stop these vile criminals, disrupting their supply chains and bringing more of those who profit from human misery to justice. These new counter terror-style powers, including making it easier to seize mobile phones at the border, along with statutory powers for our new Border Security Command to focus activity across law enforcement agencies and border force will turbocharge efforts to smash the gangs."
According to The Times, the legislation retains several highly controversial provisions from the Illegal Migration Act introduced by the Conservative government in 2023. These include prohibiting irregular migrants from accessing protections under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and granting powers to detain child migrants for up to 28 days.
Lou Calvey, Director of Asylum Matters, expressed concern at the Bill, accusing the Prime Minister of copying failed policies in a bid to court popularity with a vocal anti-migrant minority. Asylum Matters called it an 'anti-refugee bill'.
Calvey commented: "This bill was a chance to make the change that's desperately needed in our asylum system: to tackle the backlog; to let people work while they await their asylum decision; to save lives by creating safe ways to seek asylum. Instead, the Government has ignored evidence and experts to create a bill that repeats the same mistakes that have been costing lives and causing immense suffering for years. Each new, harsher approach to militarising our borders, from Stop The Boats to Smash The Gangs, has done nothing but drive up deaths in the channel, leading to a record-breaking number of preventable fatalities. We fear these measures will only cost more lives."
The Refugee Council welcomed the Government's commitment to restoring order to the asylum system, highlighting positive steps such as resuming asylum application processing, scrapping the Rwanda plan and repealing much of the Conservative's legislation.
The Refugee Council added, however, that it was very concerned by the new offences introduced by the Bill that could result in many refugees being prosecuted.
Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, stated: "Criminalising men, women and children who have fled conflicts in countries such as Sudan does not disrupt the smuggling gangs’ business model. When a refugee is clambering into a boat with an armed criminal threatening them, they are not thinking about UK laws but are simply trying to stay alive. The most effective way to break the smuggling gangs’ grip is to stop refugees from getting into the boats in the first place, which means giving them a legal way to apply for asylum in the UK without crossing the Channel."
While Asylum Aid welcomed aspects of Bill, including reforms aimed at reducing the asylum backlog, the charity said it was deeply concerned that the Bill continues to portray vulnerable asylum seekers as criminals for crossing the Channel without prior authorisation. Asylum Aid urged the Government to move away from punitive measures and the toxic political narrative of recent years, advocating instead for a humane system with legal routes to protection, support for survivors, and policies addressing the root causes of forced displacement.
Garden Court's Colin Yeo said on Freemovement that the Bill will have limited real world impact and it won't work to stop or even reduce small boat crossings. Yeo added that upon reading the Bill, he was relieved to see the Government "isn't doing anything terrible".
In a written statement to Parliament, the Home Secretary provided the following overview of the Bill:
Yvette Cooper
The Secretary of State for the Home Department
Statement
The Government has today introduced the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill in the House of Commons.
Border security is fundamental to both national and economic security. Threats to the UK from serious and organised crime, including organised immigration crime, from terrorism and hostile state actors, are rapidly evolving. The first duty of government is to protect its citizens – not only to keep up with but stay ahead of these threats. This requires a whole of state and legislative response.
The international and cross-border nature of these threats and challenges means that border security is an essential part of keeping our country safe. This is why strengthening our border security is one of the foundations of the Government's Plan for Change.
Small boat crossings put these threats and challenges into sharp relief – they undermine our border security and put lives at risk. Organised by criminal smuggler and trafficking gangs, they are extremely dangerous with 78 reported deaths at sea last year, with people crowded into flimsy dinghies. Over the last six years, criminal gangs have been allowed to build a network of illegal and dangerous smuggling operations, taking hold along our border and across the continent involving illegal supply chains, logistics, false advertising and illicit finance, underpinned by serious violence and exploitation.
The establishment of the Border Security Command in July 2024 spearheads the significant shift in strategy that this government is taking, adopting a transformative approach to deliver stronger border security through strong leadership, effective partnerships and a long-term vision. Its initial focus is on dismantling smuggling networks, but its broader aims are to enable smarter, faster and more effective interventions across the entire system to strengthen the UK border.
Introduced today, the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill delivers on the Manifesto commitment to provide law enforcement with the powers they need to protect the integrity of the UK border, including earlier intervention to detect, prevent and prosecute people smugglers, thereby disrupting their ability to carry out small boat crossings.
The measures, which have the strong support of law enforcement agencies like the National Crime Agency, Immigration Enforcement and police, include:
Placing the Border Security Command on a statutory footing
The Bill places the Border Security Command onto a statutory footing so that the Commander has the authority to be an effective system leader, cohering and driving cross-government systems to improve the collective response to cross border threats. This will give the Commander the power they need to drive changes across different agencies and Departments, and to be able to work internationally as we draw up new agreements with neighbouring, transit and upstream countries to tackle organised immigration crime and to cooperate on strengthening border security.
New and enhanced powers to strengthen border security, including new powers and offences
The Bill sets out new, transformative measures to provide law enforcement agencies with stronger powers to pursue, disrupt and deter organised immigration crime, including:
- Creating new offences for supplying, offering to supply or handling items suspected of being for use in immigration crime, for example the buying, selling and transporting of small boat parts, as well as for the possession and supply of articles for use in serious crime.
- Creating a new preparatory acts offence for collecting information to be used by organised immigration criminals to prepare for boat crossings. This includes arranging departure points, dates and times, with clear links back to the gangs facilitating the dangerous crossings.
- Creating new powers to enable the search for and the seizure of electronic devices to identify links with organised immigration crime. This will enable the review of any information relevant to facilitation offences and to gather intelligence linked to smuggler and trafficking gangs.
The Bill makes it an offence to endanger another life at sea, to act as a deterrent to boat overcrowding and reduce further tragic loss of life among those making the perilous Channel crossings. Those involved in physical aggression, intimidation or coercive behaviour, including preventing offers of rescue while at sea, will face prosecution. This stricter law sends a clear message that we are ready to take action against all those who are complicit in fatalities in the Channel.
The Bill introduces new interim Serious Crime Prevention Orders to place severe curbs and restrictions on people involved in activities relating to organised immigration crime, before they are arrested – ensuring that court delays do not mean a gap in our agencies taking action. Alongside this, two new criminal offences have been introduced which criminalise the making, adapting, importing, suppling, offering to supply and possession of a specified list of articles for use in serious crime.
The Bill also amends the counter-terrorism port powers to allow the police to take DNA samples and fingerprints at a port in Scotland, strengthening border security by bringing Scotland into alignment with the position across the rest of the UK.
Expanded data-sharing capabilities to assist in the development of the intelligence picture of organised immigration crime
The Bill strengthens information sharing which will allow law enforcement to access Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency data on UK registered trailers in real time, enhancing the detection of illegal entrants via lorry both in the UK and upstream.
A new, simplified and clearer provision for HMRC to share certain entire datasets it holds for custom functions with the Home Office and other government departments will be introduced, subject to data protection legislation. This will enable the identification of suspicious patterns, activity, or intelligence that would not be apparent if each dataset was considered in isolation.
Measures to support and strengthen the asylum and immigration system
Amongst other measures to support and strengthen the asylum and immigration system, the Bill repeals the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, delivering on the manifesto commitment to end the Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda which cost the taxpayer £700m and sent 4 volunteers to Rwanda. The Government will be withdrawing separately from the UK-Rwanda Treaty that underpinned that Partnership.
The Bill also removes from the statute unworkable and counterproductive provisions from the Illegal Migration Act which allowed people to enter the asylum system but prevented asylum decision making, increased the backlog and put impossible pressure on asylum accommodation, driving up hotel use and costs. Many of those provisions were never enacted exactly because they were not workable.
Other measures in the Bill which seek to support the asylum and immigration system include introducing greater flexibility when taking biometric information, extending the trained cohort of those who can do so and creating a new power to take biometrics from foreign nationals outside of a visa process. The Bill also supports the disruption of professional enablers of abuse by amending governance structures to ensure the Immigration Services Commissioner can be an effective and more flexible regulator of immigration advice. Amendments to detention powers and creating the retrospective legal basis for fees to be collected in relation to the recognition of qualifications obtained overseas also work towards bolstering the immigration system.
Next steps
The Government is determined to strengthen UK border security and to tackle Organised Immigration Crime. For too long the individuals behind this nefarious trade have been allowed to go unchecked. This legislation gives our law enforcement stronger tools than ever before to dismantle the gangs and provides the structure within which the full weight of the border security system can be brought to bear. These powers, alongside our work to ramp up returns, deportations, illegal working visits and action with the international community, transform the response to these threats and enable the step change needed.