Peers inflicts a further nine defeats on Government as Bill returns to second House
With ping pong underway, the Illegal Migration Bill went back to the House of Lords yesterday after the House of Commons on Tuesday rejected the Lords initial amendments of the Bill.
Image credit: UK GovernmentThe Lords yesterday showed it will continue to ask the Commons to 'think again' over the Bill, as peers inflicted nine defeats on the Government and voted in favour of further amendments.
Notably, the Lords again voted in favour of Baroness Chakrabarti's amendment requiring the Bill to be interpreted consistently with the UK's obligations under relevant international human rights treaties.
Baroness Chakrabarti told the Lords: "If the Government take their international obligations so seriously, why should they be afraid to ensure that those charged with operating this proposed legislation, which clearly impacts on the rights of vulnerable people, understand that Ministers intend not to violate these rights?"
She continued: "The Government's real objection … is that no one, especially His Majesty's judges, should be able to second-guess Home Office decisions. That is simply contrary to the rule of law on which any civilised society, let alone a great democracy, must be built. None the less, in the spirit of respectful dialogue, we have listened, compromised and amended our new Clause 1, softening its requirement to require having regard to the various conventions when interpreting the Bill. There is no way that that can now be regarded as incorporation rather than interpretation."
While the Government had this week made concessions on the detention of unaccompanied children, the House of Lords found them insufficient and voted for two further safeguards.
As the Lord Bishop of Manchester noted, a number of peers made reference to recent news of the immigration minister ordering murals to be painted over at a reception centre for child asylum seekers in Dover.
The Bishop commented: "Just last week, in the now notorious Mickey Mouse fiasco to which other noble Lords have already referred—let us see how many times it comes up tonight—we have seen the well-being of children sacrificed in the pursuit of the wish to appear intentionally unwelcoming to children, who will be way beyond frightened and scared."
Peers voted in favour of the Bishop's amendment on the detention of accompanied children. The Bishop said of his amendment: "It proposes a 24-hour extension to the current statutory 72-hour time limit for detention of children with families. Hence, the detention of these children would not be indefinite but be for no more than 96 hours or, if a Minister personally approved it, for no more than seven days. This seems a fair and reasonable change and I urge the Government to seriously reflect on it. I really cannot see that it is morally justified not to have equal provisions for children with families and those who are alone; one child is not different from another."
Baroness Mobarik's motion on unaccompanied children passed by 220 votes to 141. She explained how the Government's concessions failed to offer sufficient safeguards: "But, having carefully read the Government's Amendments 36A and 36B in lieu, I think it is clear that the Bill would contain no absolute time limit or safeguards on the powers to detain unaccompanied children. Permitting a tribunal to grant bail to only some detained unaccompanied children, after eight days, is not the same as an actual time limit on detentions for all unaccompanied children. They would still be a great many unaccompanied children who could be detained without any time limit and to whom the First-tier Tribunal could not grant bail for 28 days. Therefore, I would like to provide the other place with an opportunity to reconsider this matter."
The House of Lords also voted for Lord German's amendment on inadmissibility.
Moving the motion, Lord German said: "My Motion F1 would mean that if an individual has been made inadmissible under this legislation and has not been removed to a safe country after six months, their claim will be processed within the UK system… Without this amendment, the Home Secretary is setting herself up for an extremely challenging time. There will be no way of resolving the foreseeable challenge of not having anywhere to remove people who arrive in the United Kingdom on irregular routes."
In addition, peers voted in favour of:
- The Archbishop of Canterbury's motion requiring the Government to produce a 10-year strategy on refugees and human trafficking.
- Lord Etherton's motion introducing restrictions on removal destinations for LGBT people.
- Lord Randall's motion providing additional protections for those trafficked to UK.
- Lord Coaker's motion to combat organised crime relating to the illegal entry of people into the UK across the English Channel.
- Baroness Stroud's motion requiring the Government to produce regulations specifying additional safe and legal routes within 3 months.
The Bill will now return to the House of Commons on Monday, 17 July.