Contribution
My Lords, I really support the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who very articulately and with legal adeptness explained some of my reservations. I will raise just a few other points.
I am particularly opposed to Amendment 184, because it would further institutionalise—this is even its title—the primacy of the refugee convention. I think that emphasising that primacy undermines democracy.
I listened carefully to the expansive debate on refugee family reunion in the first group. One of the most insightful comments came in the very moving contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, about her family’s experience of refugees fleeing Nazi antisemitism. It was a reminder of that historic period, but also of the importance of historic specificity. This matters today—which is such a joyous day, by the way, with the return home of the hostages; I spent most of the morning crying, but with joy in this instance. Jew hatred is alive today—it is still happening—but it is not the Nazis or the Second World War. This is a completely different version; something else is happening.
That issue of history is one of the reasons why I wanted to speak on this group. I have long argued that the refugee convention is long past its historic sell-by date and that it is time for us to consider leaving it or maybe amending it in some way, as has been discussed. So I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has given us a chance to consider the issue.
Of course, when the refugee convention was established in 1951, it had noble aims. It was designed for a world coming to terms with the aftermath of a world war and mass displacement. But if you think about the way that the term “refugee” is used today, you will find that it has become so expansive and flexible that it has been used recently to describe a trans-identifying burglar from Algeria and a Zimbabwean paedophile, both of whom say that they are entitled to the same protection as women and children fleeing a war zone.
Earlier today the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said that language and words matter, and I agree. In this instance, “refugee” has become completely corrupted and confused. So we urgently need to review terms such as “refugee”, as interpreted by today’s reading of the refugee convention, because these stoke resentment among the public and actually harm the interests of those who might legitimately be refugees in need of protection. It bundles up a whole lot of things.
The history of the convention means that it is not the rule of law—an act of God that cannot be challenged at any time—because it has an interesting history. Established in 1951, as I say, it was a practical solution to the existence of hundreds of thousands of people in Europe who had still not been resettled after the Second World War. It is interesting that, when it was introduced, the convention applied only to refugees in Europe, and only in respect of those who had acquired that status due to the events that happened before 1951. The convention has therefore changed because it did not assist with refugees who fled Hungary in 1956. That did not mean that people were not humane in 1956; the convention was not something that could be used—as is regularly done—just to say, “Where’s your humanity? Don’t you care about refugees?” It was very specific.
It was only in 1967 that the regional and temporal limits of the refugee convention were lifted to give rights to refugees around the world. That was motivated, as many historians have noted, by the Cold War. It was used to say that all refugees are welcome in the West and to show the superiority of democracy over communism. Actually, rather a small number of refugees came on that basis.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the refugee convention seemed to lose its raison d’être. It is interesting that, in 2004, Tony Blair, no less, noted how the convention,
“first introduced in 1951, at a time when the cold war and lack of cheap air travel made long-range migration far more difficult than it has become today, has started to show its age”.
Following Blair’s lead, in the 2005 general election the Conservative Party had a manifesto commitment to withdraw from the convention. There have been discussions about whether it is showing its age. I would say that the refugee convention is not just showing its age but has outlived its usefulness and shackles democracy.
My concern about this amendment is that it tries to do something that is already a problem. We spend all our time in this Chamber scrutinising pieces of law. If we are then told, “No, you can’t do that because of the refugee convention”—or if we pass laws and they are usurped by the refugee convention through the courts—what is the point of democracy and the decision-making here if they are so undermined by international treaties? The refugee convention therefore betrays democracy and the public.
If we in this place get frustrated that laws are made and conventions are then used to undermine those laws, can noble Lords imagine what it is like to be a voter? I know it has been a while for a lot of us, but it is worth remembering that voters’ frustration is even more palpable. This does not help refugees; it is a way of bypassing democratic accountability and is a hindrance, rather than a help, to refugees and the British public.