When the Lib Dem peer Brian Paddick complained on social media last month that the House of Lords was keeping punishing hours, it is fair to say the plight of peers was not greeted with universal sympathy.
Lord Paddick, the Lib Dem spokesman on home affairs in the upper house, had the battle around the Illegal Migration Bill in mind when he complained: ‘Last night I got home from @UKHouseofLords four hours earlier than the night before…10.30 p.m. instead of 2.30 a.m…I’m 65, many colleagues are older. This is unsustainable. So tired.’
Ministers face a perilous summer during which many thousands more Channel-hoppers will arrive
‘Oh, poor lamb,’ was one of the milder responses he received from the taxpaying public, many of whom cited the attendance allowance of more than £300 per day in the Lords.
In the end Paddick was proven correct. It was indeed a remorseless diet of late votes that played a crucial role in persuading peers that they could not sustain their ‘ping pong’ with the Commons over the migrant legislation any longer.
Government business managers had ‘reassured’ their Lordships yesterday that parliamentary staff would be on hand to provide early hours refreshments were they to re-insert wrecking amendments. This was because the legislation would likely be turned around quickly in the elected chamber and sent back to them for yet another round of scrutiny. The result was that rebel peers melted away and ministers got their business through.
The Illegal Migration Bill will now receive royal assent before the end of the month. Therefore it will join the array of laws available to the government with which to deter small boats laden with illegal immigrants from crossing the English Channel. The principle at its core – that people arriving illegally will not be able to claim asylum or stay in the UK but should instead be swiftly removed – has survived intact.
Yet given that there is currently nowhere to deport the great majority of such people to, the victory for now is largely notional. Unless the Supreme Court overturns the Court of Appeal’s judgement by ruling the Rwanda removals agreement as lawful, the central African country will remain off-limits. So, given that the UK has return agreements with very few countries whose citizens come to the UK illegally in big numbers, and most of those places are not deemed safe to send people to anyway, very few of those being escorted into Dover will be leaving anytime soon.
The Supreme Court verdict is not expected until shortly before Christmas – and could easily drag into next year. Even if it goes the government’s way, there are bound to be further appeals to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In theory, Rishi Sunak might be able to get the removals going before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) gets involved again, but few ministers believe he will dare to do so.
One should not dismiss the importance of the controversial Bill becoming law altogether. The government’s position would be far weaker had it been left hanging around in limbo over the summer and Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick deserves credit for the robust – some would say ruthless – way he pushed it through parliament.
With the passage of this Bill, the laws needed to remove potentially thousands of people from the UK without them being able to lodge asylum claims will be ready for the great day when there is a country willing to take them that is deemed acceptable under the European Convention of Human Rights. An important hurdle has been cleared in the government’s mission to break the business model of people traffickers by creating a powerful disincentive against anyone paying them large sums to cross the Channel illegally.
But first ministers must face a perilous summer during which many thousands more Channel-hoppers will arrive. The controversial former military bases in Essex and Lincolnshire and the barge off the Dorset coast will no doubt fill up rapidly. Thousands more young men will be free to roam around communities that wish they weren’t there. The potential for tension and even disorder is obvious.
All these novel and less comfortable facilities for illegal migrants have been located by helpful civil servants in nominally ‘safe’ Tory seats, meaning the political blowback could be very uncomfortable indeed. Sunak and his Home Office ministers can, for now, argue that they have strained their sinews to make sure they are prepared to implement the Rwanda plan with speed and force if and when they get the legal go-ahead.
But the fear must be that, while they keep the UK under the auspices of the ECHR and its supervisory court, that moment will never come. After half a decade of seeing Tory administrations fail to get a grip on the Channel crossings, Conservative-leaning voters are running out of patience very quickly indeed.
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