Lord Katz (Lab)

To be clear, I was not talking about schemes that were set up for specific groups of people in specific situations, such as those from Hong Kong, Ukraine or Afghanistan, which the noble Lord mentioned. Indeed, I am absolutely clear as well that I do not disagree with him or the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, on the principle that we would not want to leave that purely up to the courts rather than having it as part of legislation that has been proposed by Ministers and supported by both Houses of Parliament. I do not disagree with that, but the counter-counterfactual is also the case: if we excluded anyone who passed through any country in which they could reasonably stop, as a safe port of call, then we would not be taking anybody else in outside those established schemes. I do not think that is a reasonable, practical interpretation of the facts on the ground. For that reason, I am afraid that we will not be able to support Amendment 203I from the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth. Before I finish, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, had the courtesy to say that she would not be able to be in her place until the end of this stage of the debate. She took the opportunity when speaking to rail against the increasing authoritarianism and blaming of refugees for all the ills of this country. I urge her, and indeed all noble Lords, if they think this is the case for this Government, to read carefully the words of our Prime Minister in his leader’s speech to the Labour Party conference. He set out a clear case, with humane and progressive reasons, for controlling borders. Indeed, I point to the words of our new Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood. She is very clear that for people from, as she says, an ethnic minority, having a controlled system of borders is a good thing. There is nothing progressive about insecurity, whether insecurity of income, on our streets or on our borders. This Government were elected to tackle all three things, and we are determined to tackle them. Given that, and given the time of night, I will conclude and ask the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Murray, not to press their amendments.