Angela Eagle MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. It will be the first occasion of many, I am sure. I hope you enjoy chairing Bill Committees as much as I enjoyed doing so in the previous Parliament. Clause 5 places a duty on partner authorities to co-operate with the commander in the carrying out of their functions. The commander is tasked with maximising the effectiveness of our collective response to border security threats. That requires a whole-of-Government response, which will be enabled by this clause. It is recognised that partner authorities have wide-ranging functions that extend well beyond tackling border security threats. The duty set out in the clause extends only so far as it is appropriate and compatible with partner authorities’ other functions. That ensures that partner authorities across the system work in lockstep to enhance border security while continuing to enable the vital work undertaken by partners in other contexts, beyond border security matters. Question put and agreed to. Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 6 The Board Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The provisions in clause 16 create an additional tool to act earlier to disrupt criminal gangs smuggling people into the UK. The new offence targets specified preparatory activities associated with people smuggling. These activities relate to the collection, recording and possession, viewing or accessing of information that is likely to be useful to a person organising or preparing for a journey of more than one person into the UK, where their entry or arrival constitutes an offence under section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971. These specified activities must also be conducted in circumstances giving rise to reasonable suspicion that the information being collected, recorded, possessed, viewed or accessed will be used in organising or preparing for such a journey. This clause is levelled strongly against people-smuggling gangs and their associates. It includes a defence for someone of undertaking these specified activities for their own journey only. Also included as a defence is a non-exhaustive list of reasonable excuses, where one express excuse is conducting these activities to carry out or to prepare to carry out the rescue of a person from danger or serious harm. The maximum sentence for this offence is five years’ imprisonment.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for her observations. In practice, the clause allows for prosecution where an offence was committed overseas. It may well rely on evidence sharing from an international partner. She is right to talk about the network of CPS prosecutors across other jurisdictions. In the time that I have been in the Home Office, we have been strengthening those ties and growing them further. We have done a lot of work via arrangements such as the agreement we came to with the Italians; the German agreement; the work we have done with the Calais group; the information we are sharing in and around the Balkan countries about the routes that go through those countries; the work that the Home Secretary and the Border Security Commander have done in not only Italy, but Iraq, the Kurdish region and Tunisia and some of the other countries that tend to be countries of transit. We are focusing more and more on how we can co-operate operationally. Some of that work involves cross-country and cross-jurisdiction work to hit particular organised immigration crime across the piece on a set day. There have been some very good examples of cross-jurisdictional days of action. The muscles in this area are strengthening and being worked more. This clause is an added power that will make it easier for us to continue that work.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Eugenics was discredited because of the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, was it not? David Coleman: It got a terribly bad name for that reason—exactly so. That is why, over the last century, opinion has moved against using that word and using those notions. But I respectfully point out that it has nothing to do with asylum seeking.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  But it is a eugenics organisation? David Coleman: No, it is not. It is devoted to genetics research and has conferences every year on genetics research. It promotes research into that and has a small grant fund that people can apply for. It is a very pukka organisation. If you have any doubts about it, I suggest that you look at its publications and its website. You will find something by me on that that is only slightly connected to genetics: “New Light on Old Britons”—it is about palaeontology and human evolution. That is one of the things that the organisation was interested in. You are quite right that it started off as the Eugenics Society, and before that it was the Eugenics Education Society. That was in the days when progressives of every kind clustered around to support eugenic ideas because they were thought to be improving and beneficial to society. Society has changed its mind—

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Do you believe in universal human rights—that all human beings are equal and deserving of universal human rights? David Coleman: I suppose, as a rather bad Christian, I am bound to believe that, but the problem with human rights definitions is that they tend to be infinitely extendible. All kinds of entitlements that started off being universally accepted by almost everyone of good will tend to get expanded beyond reason.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Professor Bell, do you think that in a democracy it ought to be the elected Members and the Government who decide who can come to our country, rather than criminals and people smugglers? Professor Brian Bell: Yes.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Therefore, do you share my view that, when we see the establishment along our borders of serious organised immigration criminals who are profiting greatly from their illicit activities and putting people’s lives at risk, we should try to do all we can to put a stop to it? Professor Brian Bell: Absolutely, but that is sort of true of all crimes: if someone is committing a crime, you want to stop them doing it. I think the difficulty is in the question: if you stop one criminal doing it, what happens? Is there a substitution effect where you just get the next organised crime organisation taking action? The risk is that you may well succeed, but the overall macro effect of that may be not as positive as you might hope.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Of course, asylum claims are up because they were not being processed, but now they are. That is dealing with the backlog that was caused by the problems with the Illegal Migration Act. David Coleman: I do not know how important the Illegal Migration Act was in increasing the number of the backlog, to be perfectly honest. In the past, it has been the same height without the Illegal Migration Act. About 15 or 20 years ago, it was also 90,000 per year, and that was way before any of the past legislation was enacted.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q You mentioned that trying to deal with the problems of illegal or irregular immigration can mean being, in some ways, “nasty to the smugglers”, which the Bill is, but also nasty to asylum seekers. Do you want to talk about what you mean by that? David Coleman: I mean making the prospect of life in the country of intended asylum less attractive than otherwise might be the case. That is what the Rwanda policy was. I suppose I was speaking slightly tongue in cheek in calling it “nasty”, but it certainly is not the same thing as being welcoming, is it? The idea of the Rwanda Bill was to secure the safety from persecution and risk of death for asylum seekers, which is the aim of asylum, without admitting them to Britain and all the benefits of being in a rich country.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q But the reality was that tens of thousands of people had arrived and could not be processed, because of the Illegal Migration Act and its flaws. They were just living in hotels forever, as they were not able to be processed and not able to be sent anywhere else. How is that a solution to the issues that we are trying to deal with? David Coleman: I am not here to defend the Rwanda policy, although I think that, in principle, it had some merit. That is a problem that would arise whether there was a Rwanda policy or an Illegal Migration Act or not, because of the sheer pressure of asylum seeking from all corners of the world. That has been the case in the past for a long time and will continue to be the case. We now have asylum claims up to 99,000 in the last year, so it is not just to do with the Illegal Migration Act; it is a worldwide process.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Is it desirable to use counter-terrorism-style powers to disrupt so that we can prevent some of these crossings from happening rather than waiting until after people have died in the channel and then trying to pick up the pieces? Professor Brian Bell: Completely.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q We are taking evidence to see whether people think these things will be effective. I am not asking you to produce a crystal ball and tell us in advance, but I am trying to get a handle on whether you think this is an effort worth making. It seems to me that you are saying that it is. Professor Brian Bell: It is an effort worth making, but I would caution that in other areas of police and crime activity, the impact of being tougher with sanctions and new offences does not necessarily lead to very substantial changes in crime rates. The overall crime rate in the UK is almost certainly driven more by incentives and economic outcomes in the long run than it is by particular offences and statutes that are passed.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q But of course that is not a reason for not doing it, is it? Professor Brian Bell: Absolutely not.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  You still have not told us what indigenous means, but thank you very much.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Professor Coleman, are you a member of the Galton Institute? David Coleman: Yes and no. The Galton Institute does not exist any more; it has changed its name to the Adelphi Genetics Forum.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Starting with Rob Jones, what do the witnesses think the Bill does for them operationally? Rob Jones: It gives us the opportunity to make the most of the intelligence dividend that we have invested in tackling the threat. We have a good understanding of the people behind small boats crossings in particular, the supply of materials, the facilitation from near-Europe and further afield, but we want momentum and greater agility so that when we are aware that a crossing is being prepared—when materials are moving—we can act pre-emptively and proactively. As I said earlier, we do not want to be investigating after thousands of people have arrived, and trying to put together very complex investigations that may involve months of covert surveillance and eavesdropping—a whole range of covert tactics—to get us over the line for a charging decision for a section 25 offence. The new offences give us the opportunity to act when we see that jigsaw puzzle coming together, to go to the CPS when we reach a tipping point and to go earlier than we can now. That means that we can pull more people through that system, deliver justice more quickly and be more disruptive in tackling the threat. That is a big step forward. That is lacking in the current toolbox to operationalise the intelligence we have. Sarah Dineley: The endangerment offence potentially fills a gap between the current section 24 and 25 provisions. Each boat has a pilot—someone steering it across the channel—who, by the very nature and condition of those boats, the overcrowding, the lack of lifesaving equipment, and so on, puts everyone in that boat in danger of losing their life. We welcome that clause and will draft guidance on how it can be interpreted in terms of practical application. Jim Pearce: Police officers mainly deal with the inland clandestine events as opposed to the small boats. From my point of view, it would be, correctly, common practice to use schedule 2(17) of the Immigration Act 1971 to detain migrants and then pass them into the immigration system. On searches after that, yes, there are powers in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 after that provision under section 32, but that is mainly to safeguard; it is not to seize evidence. On Rob’s point about early intervention and intelligence gathering, the only way you gather intelligence is through what people tell you and what electronic devices give up. The Bill gives police officers the ability to gather intelligence through defined and clear powers in legislation, so that they are not misusing a PACE power, an operational procedure or anything else. That would be the biggest change for policing.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q We often hear that organised immigration crime is very lucrative, well established and transnational, and that there is therefore no point in doing a lot about it. What is your answer to that? Rob Jones: You could say that about all serious organised crime. Where do you go from there? I do not agree with that view. It is definitely transnational and complicated, but it is a relatively new serious organised crime threat, and it is not too late to stop it. In 2018, there were a few hundred people coming on small boats. There were 36,000 last year. We need to unravel the conditions that have allowed that to happen, and this legislation will help with that. I do not take the view that you cannot stop it. There will always be people attempting organised immigration crime, but this element of it—small boats—is relatively new. There are very specific things that organised crime groups involved in it need to do. They need access to very specific materials—otherwise they cannot move the numbers that they attempt to move—and they need to be able to operate using materials that are lawfully obtained, albeit for criminal purposes. This attacks that business model because we can pursue the dual-use materials with more vigour and have more impact. It is challenging, and it is a different challenge from drugs and other threats, but it is there to be dealt with. It is a very public manifestation of the OIC threat that has always been there. This part of it relies on a very specific business model that we can attack. Sarah Dineley: The follow-on point from that, and one that you raised, is that people are making a lot of money out of this, so the illicit finance piece is really important. These new clauses actually give us more on which to hang illicit finance investigations. There is a lot of work going on in the illicit finance sphere; in particular, and most recent, the illicit finance taskforce between the UK and Italy, was set up specifically to look at the profits being made by the people who are preying on other people’s misery. Jim Pearce: It has been said already but I want to reinforce the point about organised crime gangs being involved in polycriminality. Organised immigration crime is one part, but so are modern slavery, serious acquisitive crime and drug running. That is felt in local communities across the whole country. In my own force area of Devon and Cornwall, you would think that modern slavery and organised immigration crime do not exist, but we have a number of investigations and intelligence leads being developed; they are being looked at by both our regional crime units and members of Rob’s team. This exists everywhere across the country. As I say, if you are prepared to effectively smuggle people into the country, or at least to facilitate that, you are prepared to get involved in very serious things indeed.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Could you therefore comment on whether the new powers in the Bill will have an effect on our ability as a society with law and order to crack down on some of that abuse? Professor Brian Bell: It is likely to have some positive effect. In some sense, it cannot have a negative effect, so it must have some positive effect. The difficulty is that, as almost everyone would accept, it is impossible to judge ex ante what the size of that effect will be, but that sort of tells you that you should try it and see how it works.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Migration Watch’s website says that you are worried about population projections and a “significant fall in the percentage of the indigenous (white British) population.” Can you explain what your worry is, and could you define “indigenous white population”? Alp Mehmet: First, I am a first-generation migrant. I came here as an eight-year-old. I have been here since the mid-’50s. The immigrant ethnic minority element of the population in those days was something like 4%. In the 1951 census, it was 3.9%, and it is now 25%. That has substantially happened over the last 30 years. What worries me, if that is the right word, is the fact that people are being added to the population, and migration is the only driver of population increase at the moment. I know you have David Coleman coming up next. He will tell you a great deal more about the likely evolution of the population’s demographic mix. That is my concern. Having arrived here as a migrant, and accepted and joined this country and made it my own, I see it now changing very rapidly into something that the majority of people in this country do not want to happen.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q There are those—I would like the other witnesses to comment if they wish—who say that the only way of getting any coherence back into our system is to leave the European convention on human rights and disaggregate ourselves from all the human rights legislation. Do you think that that is an appropriate way forward? Enver Solomon : I will let my colleagues come in. Daniel O’Malley: In relation to the European convention on human rights, frankly, coming out will not help anyone—it will not make the system any more efficient. For example, when it comes to the human trafficking provisions in the Illegal Migration Act, we want to see more of those repealed because they undermine human trafficking protections in Scotland. The broader repeal that has happened of the Illegal Migration Act and the statutory instrument laid down to alter that Act has aided, for example, the guardianship programme in Scotland, which gives a guardian to unaccompanied minors in Scotland and was put on to a statutory footing in Scotland under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015. It helps that programme because asylum claims were previously just not being made under the IMA, so that programme had thousands more people in it. The programme was operating, but it was getting overloaded with more and more people. The wider point is that there are protections that we are signed up to—for example, the UN convention for refugees. Continuing with those is absolutely right; the repeal of them will not make the system any more efficient and it will not be a deterrent to anyone.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q You said something really interesting in your first comment: that you felt some of the people arriving on small boats are doing so because we are out of the Dublin system—in other words, because of Brexit. Were you surprised, perhaps, that in the withdrawal agreement there was no provision to try to opt into Dublin III and a half or whatever it might have been called? Dr Peter Walsh: I was not surprised, because I think that was consistent with the attitude at the time on the part of the Government. I did note that they did decide not to pursue a similar kind of agreement, which hampered them in a certain sense because there was no longer a mechanism to return asylum seekers arriving by small boat to the EU. It is true that in the last five years or so that we were a part of Dublin, we were actually a net receiver of asylum seekers under the system: we received more than we sent out. That is for various reasons, including administrative ones. But yes, it was striking that a similar kind of agreement or remaining a part of the Dublin system was not pursued because that appeared to hamper the Government in that aim—namely, to remove people arriving without authorisation to the EU.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Zoe, what is your view on the idea that has gained traction in certain areas of this debate—that the Human Rights Act and the ECHR are effectively preventing us from having a reasonable system, and that the only way to have an asylum system that works is to pull out of those international agreements? Zoe Bantleman: As the witnesses in the previous session have already said, those are not the only international legal agreements by which we are bound. The UK has voluntarily agreed to be bound by a great many international legal agreements, including in relation to the rights of children, the convention on action against trafficking and the conventions on the rights of stateless persons. There are a whole host in addition to the refugee convention and the European convention on human rights. One of the hallmarks of the new Government has been this new-found commitment towards our international legal obligations, and also restoring the UK’s position as a leader in the international rules-based order, which all three of the previous Acts—the Safety of Rwanda Act, the Illegal Migration Act and the Nationality and Borders Act before it—eroded. I think it is fundamental to retain our commitment towards our international legal obligations. But there was also a case in the High Court in Belfast, brought by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in relation to the Illegal Migration Act, that found that it was not only the convention on human rights that was breached by the Illegal Migration Act, but also the Windsor framework itself. At a time when His Majesty’s Government are trying to reset the relationship with Europe, it seems a very strange thing to do—to try to back out of our human rights obligations. Again, the Good Friday agreement and the trade and co-operation agreement with the European Union are both based on our compliance with the European convention on human rights.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Mubeen, do you have a comment? Mubeen Bhutta: I do not have anything more to add to the important points that Daniel made.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I will try to speak louder so that everybody can hear. I must say, I am having trouble hearing some things because of the acoustics in this room, and it is quite full. Perhaps if our witnesses could speak a bit louder as well, that might help everybody. Enver, thank you for your evidence. You welcomed the repeal of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 and the majority of the Illegal Migration Act, which this Bill accomplishes. Could you talk about your experience of trying to live with those Acts on the statute book? Some argue that those bits of legislation were the only deterrent that we could have had. Can I have your thoughts on whether they worked? Enver Solomon: Absolutely. In short, they were a disaster. They were a disaster in terms of the lived experience of people who had come from places such as Sudan; we know about the civil war there. They created huge uncertainty and anxiety. Through our work, we saw a rise in levels of great mental distress, and even in suicide ideation, as a consequence of those pieces of legislation, which led to what we described as a system meltdown. That was a fundamental meltdown that resulted in the system pretty much coming to a standstill. The system slowed down, with productivity in asylum decision making at its lowest level since the height of the covid pandemic. It is absolutely right that steps were taken to address that and to ensure that the asylum system is functioning effectively. The asylum system has to deliver integrity. It has to ensure that the public have trust in a system that functions. It functions by ensuring that decisions are fair—the great British value of fair play—by ensuring that decisions are taken in a timely fashion and by ensuring that taxpayers’ money is well spent. That means you do not have billions being wasted every year on housing people in hotels that become flashpoints for community tensions. The system also works effectively when it ensures that people are supported to integrate and to go on and contribute to communities across the country in the way that generations of refugees have done. Critically, you must also ensure that if people are not granted protection, there are appropriate pathways to support them to return to the countries they have come from.