The Second Reading of the Government’s Immigration and Asylum Bill went to the House of Commons yesterday. As Amnesty International point out, this is the fifth government immigration bill introduced to Parliament over the last five sessions, and like its predecessors, this bill is designed to support a wider strategy of deterrence.

However, they argue, “the accumulation of legislative power in pursuit of that strategy has not brought more control. Rather, it has brought more human suffering, more waste of public money, more administrative dysfunction, and less international cooperation on meeting the needs and rights of refugees. In this chaos, smugglers continue to thrive, people seeking safety are compelled to attempt more dangerous journeys, and public confidence has been lost. Persisting with this same strategy will perpetuate or worsen its many harmful consequences.”

One major concern is the Bill’s proposal to replace the independent judicial body that decides on asylum appeals with a less professional, less expert, partly lay body. According to the Work Rights Centre, the creation of this new ‘Independent Immigration Appeals Authority’ “raises serious concerns over the independence of this appeals body, the quality of decision-making and, on a broader level, this government’s willingness to dilute justice in the name of efficiency.”

The Government also plans to downgrade the protection of the right to private and family life in UK law (Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights). It will do this by interfering with how appeals can be decided, forcing adjudicators to give pre-eminent weight to immigration control rather than human rights.  

Furthermore, the Bill will place a disproportionate financial burdens on refugees: The Government proposes that individuals granted protection should make financial payments to the Home Office, up to £10,000. Moreover, the Bill appears to roll back modern slavery protections, making it more likely that victims will be disbelieved or denied protection  .

“The only certainty is that this Bill will produce significant litigation in the courts because of the real risk that these proposals breach human rights,” says the Public Law Project. The Bill, it says, “will make the UK’s immigration system even more complex and unwieldy. The House of Lords’ Justice and Home Affairs Committee recently commented that the ‘farrago of immigration rules and legislation…[is] anathema to good governance” and causes “delay, additional cost, poor decision-making, and miscarriages of justice.’ This Bill is another step on that regrettable path.”

The Bill has the support of Labour leader-in waiting Andy Burnham, presumably in the fundamentally mistaken belief that the best way to see off the electoral threat of Reform UK is to cave in to their false arguments about immigration. Some L:abour MPs, however, took a different view with fourteen rebels opposing the Bill yesterday.

Speaking in the Commons debate, Hackney MP Diane Abbott, who is still denied the Labour whip, said: “The Home Office website tells us that there have been well over 150 pieces of primary legislation or policy changes on immigration since 1988… Each one was accompanied by the same grand assertions that the Home Secretary has made this afternoon: that they would bring fairness to our immigration system and fairness to our asylum system. They did not. They simply took away rights and treated people badly.”

She went on: “The legislation before us is being sold and explained in exactly the same way that nearly 40 years of immigration legislation has been sold to this House… I would argue that if the Bar Council or any amount of legal bodies are saying to the Secretary of State that this legislation is unfair and unduly cruel, and will not achieve the result that it is meant to achieve, she needs to look again.”

Nottingham MP Nadia Whittome agreed, saying: “There is little evidence that the Bill will do what it claims and fix the most serious issues in our asylum system. In fact, experts say that it will divert focus and resources to a system that is unfair, unsafe and unworkable…

“I will focus on the independent immigration appeals authority. The Government say that to tackle the backlog they will replace the tribunal system, which is made up of judges, with a new system of adjudicators, who are not legally qualified but who are given power and responsibility to make what are, in many cases, life and death decisions. The Government claim that they will be independent, but they are appointed by the chief executive, who is appointed by the Secretary of State. That undermines the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers, which are key cornerstones of our democracy. The Law Society says that it risks ‘more wrong decisions, more court challenges, higher costs and longer uncertainty.’

“Poor Home Office decision making drives the appeals backlog. In the last financial year, 39% of appeals were granted, and more than 10,000 were withdrawn because the Home Office abandoned its initial decision. Rather than building new expensive bodies, the Government should invest in the existing system and get asylum decisions right the first time.

“The Government could have brought forward a Bill containing evidence-based policies that would fix our broken asylum system—for example, a not-for-profit asylum accommodation system to improve living conditions and integration, genuinely safe routes that are not severely restricted and heavily capped, and fast tracking of obviously well-founded asylum cases such as those from war zones. Instead, I am ashamed to say that the Bill is a betrayal of our party’s values, and I cannot support it.”

Folkestone MP Tony Vaughan agreed that “a lay adjudicator system will not work. Last week the Justice Committee heard evidence that Denmark tried to bring in lay adjudicators about 15 years ago, but, as non-lawyers, they struggled to apply the law to the facts… Australia tried the same system some years ago, but it too was got rid of because it increased the backlog.”

Clapham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy addressed the Bill’s punitive financial provisions: “Forcing asylum seekers to pay £10,000 for their own shelter is purely punitive and ignores the legal right to asylum. Denying the right to work and rent, and then demanding repayment, is designed to punish, not uphold human rights.”

She added: “Finally, this Government have yet again missed the chance to fix child citizenship fees. It costs £1,214 for a child who was born here, and who has lived here their whole life, to register as a citizen in the country that they call home—a fee that the Court of Appeal found unlawful. Between 85,000 and 215,000 such children remain undocumented because their families cannot pay. These children are not migrants, and they are not asking for anything that is not already theirs.”

Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP said: “I am appalled at the way in which trafficking has been included in this Bill, but also at the narrative that has been developed by those on the Labour Front Bench. Qualifying for asylum as someone who has been trafficked is not a soft touch… The debate does not seem to relate to the reality of trafficking. We are introducing a time limit, and are saying no to people who did not claim that they were trafficked at the first instance, or within a limited period of time. The people we are dealing with are traumatised.”

The fourteen Labour MPs who voted against the Second Reading of the Bill were Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Cat Eccles, Imran Hussain, Ian Lavery, Brian Leishman, Clive Lewis, Rebecca Long Bailey, Rachael Maskell, Andy McDonald, John McDonnell, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Nadia Whittome.

The Bill passed by 264 votes to 90, indicating a considerable number of no-votes for various reasons.

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