Lords
Proceedings
9 July 2026
UK Migration
My Lords, I declare an interest in that I am supported by the RAMP organisation. The Minister has rightly put the contribution that migration brings to this country at the forefront. It is in all our interests to make sure that people integrate into our society as rapidly as possible, so can the Min…
Lords
Proceedings
8 July 2026
Safe Refugee Routes for Students
My Lords, I declare an interest that I am supported by RAMP. What advice would the Minister give to Afra Elmahdi, a cancer specialist from war-torn Sudan who has secured a master’s place to do cancer science research at Oxford University? That post, that job, that relationship, has ended. What messa…
Lords
Proceedings
29 June 2026
Immigration and Asylum: Appeals
My Lords, following the last question, I declare my interest: I am supported by the RAMP Project. Can the Minister tell us whether the adjudicators will need to possess specific legal qualifications or accreditation in asylum and human rights law? On the process of getting the adjudicators in place,…
Lords
Proceedings
15 June 2026
Immigration: Eurodac and SIS II
My Lords, I declare an interest in that I am supported by the RAMP organisation. Given the increased significance of Eurodac in the EU’s new migration pact, does the Minister agree that having access to Eurodac would significantly improve the tools in the toolbox to deal with irregular migration? Do…
Lords
Committee Stage
15 June 2026
Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2026
Obviously, this is very straightforward, but the title of the order is perhaps misleading to anybody outside this place who does not realise that it is as straightforward as has been suggested. I can recall being in this very Room when we moved the age down to 10, and the Minister at that time said …
Lords
Proceedings
18 May 2026
King’s Speech
My Lords, I declare my interest as in the register: I am supported by the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project. I wish to talk about the annual event for this Parliament that is an immigration and asylum Bill. Our position on these Benches is clear: we believe that the British people demand …
Lords
Proceedings
14 April 2026
3 contributions
Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules
My Lords, I must declare my interest: I am supported by RAMP. That has always been a mystery to some people. It is the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy, so that Members can understand.
This regret Motion concerns a statement of changes to the Immigration Rules laid before the House on 5 March. …
My Lords, I start by thanking the various organisations that have sent us enormously helpful briefings and, of course, the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which has produced a pretty devastating report on the whole process.
I was very surprised when I learned that there is …
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
25 March 2026
Small Boat Deaths: Cranston Inquiry Report
The noble Lord is right that collaborative action with our neighbours is key to making the sea safer in these circumstances. It is clear to me from the actions taken before the report was published and from what has been going on since that relationships with the French in particular, and the Belgia…
Lords
Oral Questions
19 March 2026
2 contributions
Refugee Movements: Lebanon
My Lords—
I thank the noble Lord. Existing bilateral programming continues to bolster preparedness and national response capacity. This includes a £1 million top-up in January to pre-position emergency supplies via the British Red Cross and the Lebanese Red Cross, as well as smaller reallocations by the UNFPA…
Lords
Committee Stage
16 March 2026
Treaty Scrutiny in Westminster (International Agreements Committee Report)
My Lords, your Lordships’ International Agreements Committee, on which I have the honour to serve, is a relatively newly established committee, with a mandate that in its vagueness perhaps reflects its novelty. It is a good step that we should be debating today the committee’s own report on its earl…
Lords
Oral Questions
16 December 2025
3 contributions
Asylum Accommodation
In begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I draw attention to my interest in that I am supported by the RAMP organisation.
The Government are confident that the level of due diligence carried out on sites has improved since 2024 and that value-for-money assessments now take place at the appropriate stage. I can assure the noble Lord that lessons have been learned from large site acquisitions that occurred under the prev…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Proceedings
25 November 2025
Migration: Settlement Pathway
My Lords, we recognise the issues facing communities and immigrants across the country, and we agree that faith must be restored to the immigration and asylum system, which requires changes to policy. We appreciate the commitment to maintaining the five-year pathway to settlement for partners of Bri…
Lords
Debate
24 November 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this interesting debate. It is important that we understand the wider context of what we are doing here. We are seeking to improve the Bill. It is the role of this House to provide scrutiny and oversight and to improve legislation that may be …
Lords
Proceedings
20 November 2025
Asylum Policy
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests, and I am supported by the RAMP organisation. I am minded to think of the title of that great film, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”; I am afraid that these proposals have all three within them. I will go through some of those.
Starting with the positive, …
Lords
Debate
17 November 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, it has been a long time since the Bill was introduced in the other place and since then much has happened. The Government have brought forward the immigration White Paper detailing changes to the Immigration Rules. They have established a one-in, one-out agreement with France which has so …
Lords
Debate
11 November 2025
2 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I want to draw attention to one factor which has been represented to us here. All the evidence seems to be addressed to the Anglican Church, which of course is the Church of England, and for those of us who belong to a disestablished church in another part of the United Kingdom, these matt…
My Lords, I must start with what may have been a slip of the tongue from the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, when she talked about safeguarding this country’s conditions and living standards. In so doing, she mentioned the established Church. I have to say once more that it is the established Church i…
Lords
Debate
11 November 2025
6 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I will be very brief. First, I apologise on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who is still not well. I know that she would have intended to support this amendment as it is now. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, has presented us with a very neat solution to a problem that the Minister e…
My Lords, noble Lords will know that my name is attached to this amendment, and I feel very strongly that the House should accept it.
I will not spend time talking about the issues that were raised in Committee: that it is a barrier to people becoming British citizenships, it is very costly, and pe…
+4 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
5 November 2025
15 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I will draw us back to the amendments before us. Amendment 35 requires the Secretary of State to collate and publish detailed data on overseas students whose visas are revoked due to criminal offences, and raises several important questions concerning data collection accuracy, resource all…
My Lords, it will come as no surprise that we oppose Amendments 35A and 35B. While we are committed to strengthening border security and tackling criminal exploitation, these amendments attempt to reintroduce the core unworkable architecture of the Illegal Migration Act 2023, thereby undermining the…
+13 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
3 November 2025
5 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, the evidence coming out in our debate today is that there are a lot of examples where people are being wrongly assessed as adults. Last weekend, I met a group of local authority leaders who told me about a situation last November, regarding unaccompanied children who had been kept in hotel…
My Lords, I will make just a brief intervention from us on this matter, which was raised in Committee. I am grateful to the Minister for telling me what reasons he had for not taking out Section 12 of the Illegal Migration Act. It raises some further questions, which I guess the Minister might have …
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Proceedings
30 October 2025
Asylum Seekers: MoD Housing
My Lords, I rise simply to ask the Minister whether contracts will be issued for looking after these two sites, and whether the lessons learned from Napier and Wethersfield will be transferred to the actions that are now taking place in those two sites. It is all very well to simply emergency-open n…
Lords
Debate
28 October 2025
7 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I will first address Amendment 26. In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, I would say that the reason we have this particular amendment before us is because of the harness which was left by the Conservative Government in the arrangements that they made with Europe in the TCA relating to …
I support my noble friend Lady Hamwee and will ask a couple of questions about the “concerned in” area. The Government’s Amendments 4 and 8 further expand the scope of offences in Clauses 13 and 14 by introducing this liability to be “concerned in” the supply or handling of articles. I understand th…
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
27 October 2025
Child Poverty Strategy: Migrant Families
I have one simple answer to the noble Lord: yes. It is vital that all children have the best start in life, and children should not be impacted by the position of their parents. They deserve the opportunity to thrive in life. The child poverty strategy will deal with how we meet those challenges ove…
Lords
Debate
21 October 2025
Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill
My Lords, we on these Benches also approve of the amendment. This is a very narrow Bill, with an even narrower amendment. I do not intend to repeat everything I said about children at Second Reading, but we are absolutely clear that, without a measure of comfort, the Bill will have consequences for …
Lords
Debate
14 October 2025
Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill
My Lords, I declare an interest as the author of a report, required by statute and published almost 10 years ago, on citizenship removal resulting in statelessness. It was a short report, since that power introduced by the Immigration Act 2014, which was always intended to be highly exceptional, had…
Lords
Oral Questions
14 October 2025
Refugee Family Reunion Scheme
The Government uphold the principle of family unity and want to ensure that we maintain that. We have to examine the reason for the significant drive in family reunion applications over the last two to three years. It is a significant increase, and therefore the pause has been applied so that we can…