Lord Lemos (Lab)

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 a moral and national imperative that we tackle this issue. Under these regulations, this Government have already sanctioned 25 individuals and entities at the heart of the people-smuggling networks driving irregular migration to the UK. The Government have acted to address the concerns of the British people to protect migrants from the dangers of organised crime and smash the gangs. I shall now try to respond to some of the specific answers asked by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, asked me how convinced we are that this measure will have a meaningful impact. As I said, this is the first regime of its kind in the world. To some extent, it is a model that we hope others will follow, but, of course, we do not know how effective it will be. We do not believe and are not suggesting that this is a silver bullet or a fix-it for the whole problem of human trafficking and irregular migration, but we are suggesting that it is part of the toolbox that we can use—and which we have already used, by sanctioning 25 people the day after the legislation was introduced. The noble Lord asked about the impact that we expect this regime to have on preventing irregular migration and people smuggling. As I said, this is the first dedicated regime of its kind in the world, so we are breaking new ground by creating the ability to impose sanctions in this way. As I set out, we hope to be able to disrupt the activity of the criminal gangs and deter others from seeking to be involved in this evil trade. As noble Lords would expect, we will monitor the effect of our sanctions wherever possible, seeking to build on successes and learn from where they have been less effective. As I said, we do not assume that they will entirely fix the problem on their own. We will also seek to use sanctions in conjunction with other measures to tackle irregular migration; we will work with international partners to do so. I stress the point about working with international partners. As I said, it is a key part of our objective that we lead the world, but we hope that others will follow. We will monitor the impact of the designation wherever possible, learning lessons from other sanction regimes. All noble Lords, I think, asked why the Government think that this measure will be effective, given that many of the people who might be sanctioned will not be in the UK. That is, obviously, a concern. We believe that the measures we are proposing to use to target those involved should be taken in the round. They will encompass the travel ban, the asset freeze and the director disqualification. As well as the direct consequences of the sanctions on the designated person—such as preventing them travelling to the UK and, crucially, interacting with the UK’s economy—the designation also de-anonymises the individual; as I said, the names of all of the people who are sanctioned are published. Although we do not speculate on future designations, once the designation is made, it is public. Designation can both cause disruption to people smugglers’ operations and have a deterrent effect in terms of the willingness of others to work with them.