Lord Sentamu (CB)

My Lords, I am also tempted to speak to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, but I will restrict myself to that from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, which seeks to include a reference to Section 59 in the clause. Most of the asylum seekers who want to end up in Britain come from countries which we may at first see as safe countries but which soon go into chaos, confusion and great difficulty. So, to define a “safe country” in the rather difficult world that we happen to inhabit at the moment is precarious, because we will never know how safe it is. For a country that we thought was safe, we may suddenly discover that there has been a coup, or that people want a different Government, or that there is a lot of organised theft—and that is not simply a question of corruption, because, for me, the concept of corruption, at the heart of it, is a bit illusory. Because of the vicissitudes that exist for the majority of the people who come to this country illegally, let us not assure ourselves that the countries that we think are safe now will be safe in the next two months. Things change pretty quickly. If we are to repeal parts of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in Clause 38 of this Bill, it is best to include the repeal of Section 59 and not stop at Section 58, because of the difficulty we find in defining what we thought was a safe country. To put it in legislation would be a very unwise decision. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, has been wise to invite us to go up to Section 59 and not to stop at Section 58, because we would cover this uncertainty that still exists. I am also attracted to this idea because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has supported Amendment 104 —and with good reason. I do not want to repeat the arguments that were carefully crafted by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, but simply to say that, because I come from Uganda, I know that while we may think that the country is stable today, it may easily find itself in great difficulty tomorrow. As legislators, let us not assume that the countries where we want to send these people are safe, because we do not know how quickly that temperature may change, and we may find that we have legislated for something that we really should not have done. Let us not be prophets; let us be legislators.