Katie Lam
MP for Weald of Kent · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I spent a day last week with the palliative care team at William Harvey hospital in Ashford, which serves a large chunk of my constituency, and I was amazed by how much time they spent gathering and sharing information.”
“Tomorrow, the Conservatives were going to ask for Parliament to sit for one more working day, so that the new Prime Minister could come here and set out his agenda for the country, which we could then scrutinise on behalf of all the people we represent.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to echo your tribute to a predecessor of mine, Ann Widdecombe. She was an exceptionally effective Member of Parliament, has been a really tough act to follow, and is very fondly remembered in the Weald.”
“Shabir Ahmed has committed some of the most despicable crimes imaginable. As the ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang, he was responsible for grooming, trafficking and raping children as young as 12 years old. He was jailed in 2012 for 30 counts of child rape.”
“How can he possibly be allowed to walk the streets again? When the law produces an outcome that is clearly so wrong, the law must be changed. The Government must now change this law to make sure that we can remove Ahmed.”
“Twiggy Roberts, who is a veteran himself and runs HX Motors in my constituency, training other veterans to maintain and customise Land Rovers, says that he hears a lot from veterans of his generation about their frustrations as they try to gain access to the mental health services that they need and deserve, especially when dealing with p…”
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“The interpretation that Strasbourg has given has, in the view of the Father of the House—at least, he would like us to debate this—weakened the legitimacy of the international humanitarian protection system. The new clause, tabled by the Father of the House, seeks to find a solution to the problem—one that he says will restore common sense. The first step of the new clause would put a duty on the Secretary of State through careful litigation before our courts to identify cases of individuals who could be deported under the refugee convention and torture convention but would be blocked under the ECHR. He sees cases such as KM, which I discussed, as exemplars of that. The new clause would disapply the duty on the Secretary of State to comply with the Human Rights Act in such cases.”
“Italy, two Strasbourg judges wrote that they would not be surprised if some citizens of Europe “find it difficult to understand that the Court by emphasising the absolute nature of Article 3 seems to afford more protection to the non-national applicant who has been found guilty of terrorist-related crimes than to the protection of the community as a whole from terrorist violence.” Indeed, the Father of the House, were he here, would say that he suspects that the vast majority of Britons and Europeans would be baffled by that conclusion. That is also precisely the reason why the drafters of the refugee convention saw fit to include exceptions for criminals and terrorists: they knew that with rights come responsibilities, and that those who act in this way completely violate the social contract and cannot properly claim its protection.”
“However, because of article 3 of the ECHR, as interpreted by the Strasbourg court, he could not be removed. There are many more cases of serious criminals and terrorists—people who are a threat to those who live in the UK—who could be deported under article 33(2) of the refugee convention but cannot due to article 3 of the ECHR. In Saadi v.”
“That interpretation by the Strasbourg court completely negated the careful balance struck by the international community with the refugee convention and torture convention. The new clause posits that that interpretation threatens the legitimacy of international human rights law and that the conclusion by Strasbourg is the means by which that happens. The KM case provides a good illustration. KM was a police officer in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He entered the UK illegally in 2012 and applied for asylum. His application was refused by the Home Secretary on the grounds that he had been involved in torture. The upper tribunal upheld that finding and held that he should be excluded from protection under article 1F of the refugee convention.”
“That is not surprising, as the ECHR was drafted at the same time as the refugee convention, and arguably it was felt that those issues were best addressed by the refugee convention. None the less, in the late 1980s, the Strasbourg court interpreted article 3 as prohibiting refoulement. It did so not just for torture, but for all forms of treatment contrary to article 3, and it held that the rule was absolute. As the court put it: “The conduct of the person concerned, however undesirable or dangerous, cannot be taken into account.” The consequence is that the protection afforded by article 3 is broader than that provided for in articles 32 and 33 of the 1951 United Nations convention relating to the status of refugees.”
“Although the convention also dealt with cruel, inhumane and degrading treatments, states were careful to limit the absolute non-refoulement rule to torture. The result is that even if an individual falls in the scope of article 1F or article 33(2) of the refugee convention but would face a real danger of torture, they cannot be removed. It was felt by states that torture was such an absolute evil that the credibility of the international protection system would be undermined by preventing the removal of such individuals if they faced torture. While the refugee convention and the torture convention both explicitly addressed non-refoulement, the ECHR did not. It prohibits states from engaging in torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, but it says nothing about refoulement.”
“The Court of Justice of the European Union has said that its purpose is to maintain the credibility of the protection system, and as Professors Hathaway and Foster have noted, the realpolitik reason was that the drafters of the refugee convention were persuaded that if states parties were expected to admit serious criminals as refugees, they would simply not be willing to be bound by the convention. The same is presumably true of the article 33(2) exceptions. It would be surprising if states would have been willing to sign up to a duty not to refoul if there were not that exception for those who were a threat to their countries. In 1987, the UN convention against torture came into force. It now has 173 states parties. Article 3 of the torture convention provided for an absolute non-refoulement rule in cases of torture.”
“That exclusion applies to those who have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, serious non-political crimes abroad and acts contrary to the purposes of the United Nations. The second exception is provided for in article 33(2), which concerns those who pose serious risk to the security of the host country and those who have been convicted of particularly serious crimes, and therefore pose a danger to the community of the host country. As the UNHCR said in respect of article 1F exclusions, the rationale is that certain acts are so grave as to render their perpetrators undeserving of international protection as refugees.”
“However, not all non-refoulement obligations are the same, and there are important differences. The new clause seeks to tease out the differences between the ECHR on the one hand, and the refugee convention and torture convention on the other. One key difference is whether there are any exceptions to the principle of non-refoulement, which is to say: are there any circumstances in which someone can be sent back to a country where they would face a real risk of relevant harm? Under the refugee convention, the obligation not to refoul is not absolute; it is subject broadly to two exceptions. The first of those is the article 1F exclusion from protection of the refugee convention.”
“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. This is a probing amendment tabled by the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), to tease out what he feels are important issues to discuss in the context of the Bill. I would like to make it very clear that the Opposition are neither supporting nor opposing this new clause. Ideally, my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire would have spoken to this new clause, but she has Parliament-related business elsewhere today, so I am standing in. The background to the new clause is that various international treaties impose, or have been interpreted as imposing, an obligation on states not to send people back to a country where they would face harm. This is known as non-refoulement.”
“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.”
“As I read it, in Scotland, there are 1,421 asylum seekers in hotels, compared with 36,658 in the rest of the country, and 4,262 asylum seekers in dispersed accommodation, compared with 61,445 across the rest of Britain. I appreciate that that is challenging mental maths, so I will tell hon. Members that that means that Scotland houses only 5% of the asylum seekers currently accommodated by the state in this country. Scotland is underweight relative to population and dramatically underweight relative to size. Given everything that the hon. Gentleman has said that he and his party stand for, would we not expect the opposite to be true—that Scotland would be pulling its weight more, rather than less?”
“Immigration, as we are all well aware, was at well over 1 million people a year in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and net migration was at, or is expected to be, at least 850,000 people for each of those years. If we accept that the immigration policy of the past few years was a mistake, we should make every effort to reverse the long-term consequences. That is why the Conservative party is advocating that the qualifying period for ILR should be extended to 10 years, rather than the five years in the new clause. Finally, I return to my earlier point about Scotland, the Scottish National party and the proof of its compassion as compared with its words. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire shook his head when I was speaking about the number of asylum seekers and where they are located. The latest data released on that is for December 2024.”
“The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National party are proposing that we ignore that fact. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Northampton- shire just said, how can we possibly say that lawbreaking should not be considered when assessing whether someone is of good character? It seems to me outrageous, unfair and completely against what we understand to be the wishes of the public to turn a blind eye to the fact that someone has broken the law when it comes to determining their character and thus whether they should become a fellow citizen of this great country. Separately, the Conservatives feel that the timeframe the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire suggests in new clause 5 is far too short. In line with our party’s wider policy, we feel that five years is not enough time to qualify a person for indefinite leave to remain.”
“To quote my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), British citizenship is—or at least should be— “a privilege to be earned not an automatic right.” Citizenship should be available only to those who have made both a commitment and a contribution to the United Kingdom. For example, it should be a fundamental principle of our system that people who come to this country do not cost the public purse more than they contribute to it. It should also be a fundamental principle of our system that those who seek to harm this country, to break its laws and to undermine what we hold to be fair and right should never be able to become British citizens. To state something so obvious that it sounds almost silly, those who have come to this country illegally have broken the law.”
“In the light of the comments that Government Members have made on other provisions in the Bill, these new clauses seem to us completely unnecessary. Exactly as my hon. Friend just said, they do not seem to us appropriate for primary legislation and seem more likely to constrain rather than empower the Home Secretary and Ministers in their difficult job of securing the border.”
“Allowing asylum seekers to work before their claims are approved would make it easier for people to come here illegally and make money, and so it would increase the economic incentive for people to come, which we have heard is a pull—perhaps the primary pull—for people making those life-threatening journeys across the channel in the hands of organised criminal gangs. We consider it to be deeply wrong and counter to the aim of everything we are trying to achieve in securing the border against illegal migration. It is unfair and immoral.”
“If you have a buoyant economy relative to your neighbour, at least in the labour market, that is an incentive.” –– [ Official Report, Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 27 February 2025; c. 58, Q89.] He went on to say that there are some things that we could do that might help, such as better enforcement of our labour laws, making it more difficult for people to work illegally. What the hon. Member for Woking and the Liberal Democrat party are proposing is exactly the opposite of what Professor Bell was saying that we should do.”
“In evidence for the Bill, Professor Brian Bell, who chairs the Migration Advisory Committee, spoke about what he sees as the incentives for people to come over here from France, which is of course a safe country. He spoke of the strong economic incentives to come to the UK and the challenge that poses for any Government because it would not necessarily benefit us to remove those incentives. He said: “the unemployment rate is 7.8% in France and 4.4% in the UK. The gap is slightly larger for young people than for the population as a whole. I am sure the Government would not want to change that incentive, although the French probably would.”
“My figures are from the Government release of the data for December 2024. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has those figures or can break them down, but they state very clearly: 1,421 asylum seekers in hotels in Scotland; 4,262 asylum seekers in dispersed accommodation in Scotland; and then 36,658 and 61,445 in the rest of the country.”
“The next, related issue with the visa is the degree to which it is abused. The MAC describes its misuse as “a significant problem and greater than in other immigration routes”. That raises massive concerns about the safety of the patients and vulnerable people whom the system is charged with caring for. The rules around the health and care visa need to be further tightened, not loosened through an exemption from the immigration skills charge, and they need to be enforced. That is for the good of healthcare workers and, as should be the Committee’s primary concern, for the good of their patients and the country. Exempting NHS workers from the immigration skills charge, or indeed doing anything that makes it relatively cheaper still to hire migrant workers, will make the fundamental problem in the health sector’s labour market even worse.”
“As we have discussed this afternoon, and as the Minister has heard me say in several different settings, after five years a person who has come to this country on a health and social care visa can apply for indefinite leave to remain. If they get it, and 95% of ILR applicants are successful, they will qualify for welfare, social housing, surcharge-free NHS care—everything. That must all be paid for, and the cost is far greater than those on such salaries will ever pay in tax and far more than they save the state with their artificially low wages. Those individual workers are also at risk of exploitation as a result of the poor pay and conditions that have been allowed to endure across the sector because we have brought in workers from abroad who are willing to accept them as the price of coming to Britain.”
“Since 2021, more people have come to this country under the health and social care route than live in the city of Manchester—well over half a million, of whom many are dependents. Yes, that is because these jobs are tough, but it is fundamentally because they are underpaid. To quote the independent Migration Advisory Committee, “the underlying cause of these workforce difficulties is due to the underfunding of the social care sector.” Immigration alone cannot solve these workforce issues. Underpaying health and social care professionals is financially self-defeating, because the money the Government save in the short term is dwarfed in the medium and long term by the costs to the state.”
“The hon. Member for Woking has tabled the new clause with a view to the role that migrant health and care workers play in UK health services. We are all deeply grateful to our doctors, nurses and care workers. They do rewarding jobs, but their roles can be difficult and gruelling, too. It is true that many people in the workforce are not British but have come to this country to do that work. We must thank them for helping to keep us and our families healthy and cared for, but it is our role in Westminster to look at the whole picture and be informed but not led by individual cases. When we look at that picture, we see that the volumes for the health and social care visa are eye watering.”
“I do not disagree with the hon. Member at all about the problems in the sector. My point was that the fundamental reason for those problems is that the roles are underpaid.”
“I do not think I missed it in the Minister’s speech, although I apologise if I did. Can she advise on how many people have applied for and been granted settled status under the EU settlement scheme?”
“Just to follow up on the numbers and check that I have understood this correctly, the Minister said that 5.7 million people have a grant of status, of whom 4.1 million people have settled status; presumably the remainder have pre-settled status. Are those numbers entirely the true cohort? Are the numbers of people that we are talking about today extra to that?”
“I thank the Minister; that is very helpful. As I understand it, settled status under the EU settlement scheme entitles individuals to welfare payments, social housing, surcharge-free NHS care and more. Of those people who have been granted settled status, is the Minister or anyone in the Home Office—or indeed anyone anywhere in Government—making an assessment of how many of those individuals are net contributors to the public purse, and how many are a net cost to Britain’s taxpayers?”
“Member for Dover and Deal is right to highlight the work this country does with the UN to identify those in the world in the greatest need of our help and where that help, in the form of resettlement, would be most appropriate. It seems to me that it would be impossible to publish in advance a strategy for something that is mostly centred around emergencies that cannot be foreseen.”
“Some of those people—many of them, perhaps—are living lives that might seem to us in the UK unspeakably and unthinkably hard and sad. It is also true, though, that there is a limit to what this country is able to do to help through migration. The answer to global suffering cannot be that all those people come here. New clause 1 calls for a strategy on safe and managed routes, but that does not reflect the challenge of these routes and the way that they are created. By their very nature, specific asylum routes are often opened up in response to specific circumstances: usually, emergencies that could not be foreseen and anticipated in a neat strategy. The hon.”
“The fundamental question of safe and legal routes seems to be that of how many people the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire thinks Britain might need to let in to achieve the aims he sets out. There are over 120 million people in the world who have been displaced from their homes, of whom nearly 50 million are refugees. That is nearly three quarters of the population of this country. On top of that, the 1951 refugee convention now confers the notional right to move to another country upon at least 780 million people, for—as well as internationally displaced refugees and modern slaves—there are all those who could potentially face a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or membership of a particular social group or political opinion, who may flee their home country.”
“Why would this be a specialist visa programme? If our friends north of the English-Scottish border are especially keen to attract people of working age, be they migrants or not, why would this be the right solution? What steps are already being taken to attract such people, or to make it easier for them to move to or work in Scotland? Finally, I am interested in the view of the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire on why Scotland currently has within its borders so few asylum seekers within the system. Given what he has previously said, it would be interesting to understand why he thinks that the number of asylum seekers—either in hotels or in dispersed accommodation in Scotland—is less than half of what it should be, proportionate to population of the rest of the United Kingdom.”
“We can pass from one area to another without being stopped or questioned, without having to evidence who we are, where we are from and going, and if and when we might return. A specifically Scottish visa programme would presumably only work if none of those things were the case. Whatever the details, it would surely involve people coming to Britain but promising only to live and/or work in Scotland, over and above the situations where such things are already implied by the specific conditions of their visa—like the university at which they are studying or the company employing them, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh already laid out. How would this be evidenced, tracked or enforced? Would individuals moving from a few metres into Scotland to a few metres into England be deported?”
“I am a little surprised to see the suggestion from the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire because my sense, from the rest of what he said in the debates we have had over preceding sessions, is that he would like to see less of a distinction between British people and those who come to this country as migrants. Indeed, his new clause 5, which we will debate after this, will explicitly set this out, particularly on the question of British citizenship. A scheme like the one he proposes in new clauses 3 and 4 would have the opposite effect, since any citizen of the United Kingdom can freely move between England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, living and working wherever they choose, and can change the location of their home or employment without permission or notice from any authority.”
“I sent a survey about how the Government have treated business to every registered company in the Weald of Kent, and they are terrified. Some 80% of them—four in five—are less likely to hire following soaring taxes and the truly dire Employment Rights Bill. The Regulatory Policy Committee found the Government’s own impact assessment for the Bill not fit for purpose. Will the Minister conduct a proper assessment of the damage the Bill will do, or should I send him mine?”
“That is not fair, and it is not what the public want. Finally, they could go somewhere else—a safe third country. Such an agreement was very difficult to broker; indeed, until the Rwandans agreed, many considered it to be impossible. Clearly, the Government have little time for the Rwanda scheme and destroying it was one of the first things they did in office, but the basic logic problem remains. The last Conservative Government did not get everything right—that is for sure—but the Rwanda scheme was a genuine attempt to solve this truly hard problem, and it remains the only solution that we can see.”
“These are difficult problems and challenging questions. Practically every country in the western world is struggling with this and, with the notable exception of Australia, effectively none has solved it. The basic logic of the situation is that, if someone comes here illegally from a place to which it would be dangerous to return them, there are only four options. First, they could be sent back to the country they came from. That is not legal in our current framework—even before getting to the morality of doing such a thing. Secondly, they could be put in immigration detention indefinitely. That is also not legal; a person can be held in immigration detention only if there is a realistic prospect of removal, which there would not be in this case. Thirdly, they could stay here indefinitely.”
“As we have heard, people who have come here illegally are not voluntarily leaving the country. Most of the voluntary returns are overstayers or people who have not come here on small boats.”
“But they do not. There will always be people who come to this country illegally from dangerous places. They are human beings responding to obvious incentives. Could the Minister please tell us which of the four options she thinks is the right one? Is it sending someone back to a dangerous country, which will entail a change in the law and probably leaving the European convention on human rights? Is it holding someone in immigration detention indefinitely, which has the same conditions? Is it allowing people to stay here, or is it sending them to a third country?”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair this afternoon, Dame Siobhain, as it was yesterday afternoon. It is good to see you two days in a row. The clause, as the Minister said, makes consequential amendments necessary as a result of the two clauses that we discussed this morning: clause 37, which repeals the Safety of Rwanda Act 2024, and clause 38, which repeals provisions of the Illegal Migration Act 2023. As we do not support either of those repeals, we do not support these revisions or agree that the clause should stand part of the Bill.”
“As the Minister has outlined, clause 40 inserts schedule 1 into the Bill. That provides that the Immigration Services Commissioner is not to hold office for a term exceeding five years. The current regime is based on there being a commissioner and deputy, so schedule 1 sets out that the commissioner may appoint a deputy. There is also a provision to enable a member of the commissioner’s staff to act in the commissioner’s place in certain circumstances, such as the roles of commissioner and deputy both being vacant. That effectively allows for the appointment of an interim commissioner. As was said in evidence to the Committee, these amendments do not seem to us to have operational consequence. We will not oppose them. Question put and agreed to. Clause 40 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Schedule 1 agreed to.”
“Clause 41 confirms that the Home Office may detain someone subject to deportation from the point at which the Home Office serves the notification that deportation is being considered, when that deportation is conducive to the public good. We support this provision to allow for detention before a deportation order is signed, but that only applies if the Secretary of State has notified the person in writing. Can I seek reassurance from the Minister that the requirement for a written notice will not build any delay into the process? We also support the provision in clause 42 to allow the Home Office to capture biometrics at the new, earlier point of detention.”
“We are essentially supportive of clause 42, which among other things allows a person employed by a contractor in a short-term holding facility to be an authorised person to take fingerprints. The clause also includes a regulation-making power to allow other types of people to be authorised for this purpose. May I ask the Minister how the regulation-making power is intended to be used? Are there currently other categories of people whom the Secretary of State or others in the Department would like to authorise to take fingerprints, or is this essentially a future-proofing measure, as the Minister mentioned?”
“Could the Minister please explain why the decision has been taken to do that? The maximum penalty for the offences created under the clause is imprisonment for five years, a fine or both. Could the Minister please explain how and why those penalties were decided on? Clause 44 defines “relevant article” for the purposes of the offences created in clause 43. Could the Minister please explain whether clauses 43 and 44 provide any operational benefit in terms of tackling smugglers operating abroad, and if so, how?”
“The clauses seem broadly reasonable, but we have a few questions on which I would appreciate some clarification from the Minister. Clause 43 creates two new offences: the possession of articles for use in serious immigration crime, and the importation, manufacture, and supply or offer to supply of articles for use in serious immigration crime. Could the Minister explain whether she feels that UK Border Force currently has the right capabilities to identify and intercept the harmful materials captured by the clause? Clause 43 reverses the evidential burden of proof, in that a person charged with offences under it can successfully prove their defence if they provide enough evidence in court to raise a question about the issue, and the prosecution cannot prove the opposite beyond reasonable doubt.”
“Clause 45 allows the relevant articles listed under clause 44 to be confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act. We support this measure. Question put and agreed to. Clause 45 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 46 Electronic monitoring requirements Question proposed , That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“Clause 46 allows the courts to impose an electronic monitoring requirement as part of a serious crime prevention order. The clause is helpful for investigating suspects who are already in the UK, and we broadly support it. Will the Minister confirm that the requirement for electronic monitoring will apply to those who are on immigration bail? What value does the Minister feel serious crime prevention orders might have as a deterrent for those operating abroad? Clause 46 specifies that there will be a code of practice to outline the expectations, safeguards and broad responsibilities for the data gathered, retention and sharing of information on these orders. When will that code of practice be issued, and can the Minister please outline what the Government expect to be included?”
“Subsection (2) of proposed new section 5F makes provision for the Court to allow the relevant person to make representations about the order as soon as is reasonably practicable. Can the Minister explain whether that will always happen after the order is granted?”
“Clause 47 introduces a new provision for interim serious crime prevention orders. These allow the High Court to impose immediate restrictions, pending the determination of a full serious crime prevention order application. The Court can do that if it considers that it is just to do so. Can the Minister explain a little more by what process the Court will decide whether it is just? Is the criterion that it is necessary for public protection? Proposed new section 5F of the Serious Crime Act makes provision for without notice applications. That is where the application for an interim serious crime prevention order, or the variation of an interim serious crime prevention order, is made without notice being given to the person against whom the order is made, in circumstances where notice of that application is likely to prejudice the outcome.”
“Clause 48 details who can apply to make orders and interim orders, and it replaces and extends the previous list in section 8 of the Serious Crime Act 2007. Can the Minister please explain how long an application for an interim serious crime prevention order might take when made to either the High Court or the Crown court?”