Lord Cameron of Lochiel — Hansard

Lords Debate 28 October 2025 2 contributions

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

My Lords, the Minister knows that the new offences in Clauses 13 and 14 are ones that I support, and he will remember my defence of them in Committee. During our Committee proceedings, I raised two important issues relating to what I consider to be gaps in these two new offences. The first was the …

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short group. I have just one observation on the comments from the noble Lord, Lord German, around the phrase “concerned in”, which appears in the amendments. He stated that it appears in counterterrorism law. It also appears fre…

Lords Proceedings 22 October 2025

Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry

My Lords, when updating the other place on the progress of a national inquiry on child grooming gangs on 2 September, the Minister for Safeguarding said: “Most importantly, the chair must have the credibility and experience to command the confidence of victims and survivors, as well as the wider pu…

Lords Committee Stage 17 September 2025

Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025

I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I will try to answer as many of their questions as I can; if I cannot answer any of them, I will be very happy to write, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, suggested. That said, I have an answer to her question—I have been briefed. It is …

Lords Committee Stage 17 September 2025

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 and the Terrorism Act 2000 (Port Examination Codes of Practice) Regulations 2025

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, for the broad support he has given to the instrument. He asked a number of legitimate questions that I will try my best to answer. The guidance that we are issuing and the instrument that amends this guidance is essentially the bible of guid…

Lords Committee Stage 17 September 2025

Data Protection Act 2018 (Qualifying Competent Authorities) Regulations 2025

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, for his broad support for this instrument. As he mentioned, the competent authorities, which we have now specified as qualifying competent authorities, have been selected following consultation with partners operating in the area of…

Lords Oral Questions 9 September 2025

Child Houses for Child Victims of Sexual Abuse

The noble Lord will know that there is a violence against women and girls strategy that is being brought forward, and the prevention of child sexual abuse will be a considerable part of that strategy. The Home Office has accepted all the IICSA recommendations. I responded on a Statement in this Hous…

Lords Debate 8 September 2025 7 contributions

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I too offer best wishes, from these Benches, to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for a speedy recovery. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for tabling these amendments but, like several other speakers before me, it is our party’s position that the legislation already strike…

My Lords, Amendments 138 and 139 are in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower. Together, they go to the heart of what it means to have a fair, firm and trusted asylum and immigration system that both commands the confidence of the British people and respects their good will. We s…

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Lords Proceedings 4 September 2025

Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

My Lords, there is never a more solemn occasion in this Chamber, in my mind, than when we discuss the issue of child grooming gangs. Noble Lords are all aware of the utterly horrendous nature of the abuse that was—and still is—being perpetrated. For that reason, as ever, these Benches are immensely …

Lords Oral Questions 4 September 2025

Refugee Accommodation: Move-on Period

I always find it fascinating that the Opposition continue to raise these questions with the Government, because if I wind the clock back to 2016, there were no hotels in use for asylum accommodation. Asylum claims rose dramatically under the previous Government and only a couple of years ago asylum …

Lords Debate 3 September 2025 6 contributions

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

My Lords, the amendments in this group seek to understand why the Government have decided to remove key parts of the legal architecture that we say provided a robust legal framework for dealing with this issue. Amendment 110 seeks to reintroduce an essential power from the Illegal Migration Act whic…

I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. Of course, the Minister is correct that, with the prior amendment having been withdrawn, then as a matter of technicality these amendments, if pressed, would struggle. However, I feel it is important to reiterate the general point…

+4 more contributions in this session

Lords Debate 3 September 2025 8 contributions

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

My Lords, this has been a very wide-ranging debate that has departed in many ways from the list in the group that we are debating. But it has been a worthwhile and fascinating debate and, as my noble friend Lord Gascoigne said, the context for it has to be what he termed the growing sense of injusti…

I am grateful to the noble Lord. My answer is that it is our business and that we can devise an asylum and immigration system for this country—and that entitles us to make the points that not only my noble friend Lord Murray but the Conservative Party Front Bench have made throughout the Bill: that …

+6 more contributions in this session

Lords Oral Questions 3 September 2025

Nitrous Oxide Misuse: Drivers

The noble Lord is right that drug abuse, and in this case nitrous oxide abuse, is both a public health issue and a criminal justice matter. We have devolution in the United Kingdom, and criminal justice is devolved to Scotland. If I were the Minister in Scotland, I would do something different, but …

Lords Debate 10 July 2025 2 contributions

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I shall begin by speaking to my Amendment 188. I appreciate the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and my noble friend Lord Harper. This amendment inserts a new clause to exclude illegal migrants and foreign criminals from GDPR provisions in relation to personal data proce…

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. At present, we are not minded to support Amendments 97 and 98. I entirely understand the rationale behind them and many noble Lords have spoken powerfully in support of them. The concern we have is simply an operational one, which was …

Lords Debate 8 July 2025

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I am afraid that I will again speak against the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I recognise that both these amendments are probing amendments, but I suggest they are unnecessary. Clause 16 already provides a robust and comprehensive defence of reasonable excuse f…

Lords Debate 8 July 2025 3 contributions

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed. Just, I hope, to bring a little clarity to the latter discussion between my noble friend Lord Harper and the noble Lord, Lord German, as I read it, Clause 13, “Supplying articles for use in immigration crime”, sets out in its first sub…

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their speeches in this group. Again, I listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the rationale behind these amendments. The general thrust of all noble Lords’ amendments, however, is to seek to impose further limits on the exercise of l…

+1 more contribution in this session

Lords Debate 26 June 2025 13 contributions

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

My Lords, in moving Amendment 7 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower, I will speak to the further amendments in this group. The Prime Minister said during his visit to Italy in September 2024: “No more gimmicks. This Government will tackle the smuggling gangs who trade the l…

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and all noble Lords who have contributed on this group. Some of the contributions were outside the subject matter of my amendments but made some very important and significant arguments, especially from noble Lords who were not able to be present at Second Rea…

+11 more contributions in this session

Lords Debate 2 June 2025

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. We commenced at 6.09 pm, and four hours and four minutes later we are coming to a conclusion. I sense, however, that this has been only an hors d’oeuvre for what will come in Committee as we consider this matter further. We have h…

Lords Proceedings 15 May 2025

Immigration System

My Lords, there is now a broad consensus that the Government’s immigration system is broken. Too many people are coming into and staying in the United Kingdom. This is affecting jobs. It is affecting people’s communities. It is a serious problem that requires a serious solution. It is disappointing …

Lords Oral Questions 15 May 2025

Pensioners: Shoplifting

I shall say two things to the noble Lord, and I hope he can support the Government on this. We have put in an extra £1 billion of funding into policing this year, over and above what was in last year. We are funding 3,000 extra neighbourhood police officers this year. The plan is to fund 13,000 neig…

Lords Oral Questions 14 May 2025

Telecommunications Fraud: Reimbursement of Victims

Absolutely; that is an extremely valuable point. Again in the upcoming fraud strategy, we will look at a number of countries from which fraud emanates. We have put just under £1 million into supporting the United Nations conference on this very issue, which will be held next year; the UK is leading …

Lords Proceedings 30 April 2025

Headingley Incident

My Lords, I know I am joined by the whole House when I express my deepest sympathy for the victims injured in this attack. We all hope for their full and quick recovery—indeed, in the last few hours the second victim in the attack has been discharged from hospital. Communities in Headingley and acr…

Lords Proceedings 30 April 2025

Child Rape Gangs

My Lords, the child rape gang scandal has seriously shaken the trust that communities across this country have in the systems that are supposed to protect them. People deserve reassurance as well as clarification, and they need to know that the Government are taking swift and significant action to a…

Lords Oral Questions 30 April 2025

AI: Child Sexual Abuse Material

My Lords, we are already taking steps to deal with this. We are committed to making sure that our laws tackle child sexual abuse materials and keep pace with technological developments. In the Crime and Policing Bill, we have introduced an offence to criminalise AI models that have been optimised to…