Lord Davies of Gower (Con)

My Lords, I rise to oppose the question that Clause 37 stand part of the Bill. The Government’s proposal to repeal the safety of Rwanda Act goes to the heart of our differences in this debate. The previous Government introduced a substantive deterrent: people whom the United Kingdom had identified as illegal immigrants or asylum seekers would have to be relocated to Rwanda for processing, asylum and resettlement. Those who were successful in claiming asylum would have remained in Rwanda, and they would not have been permitted to return to the United Kingdom. In this clause, the Government are tearing up that plan. They are instead proposing to introduce a new border commander with no actual command and no required relevant experience, and they are proposing a handful of laws that seek to criminalise supply chains, which are almost entirely located abroad. We have sought to be helpful to the Government with many of our amendments, but this is a matter on which, unfortunately, we just disagree. We on this side recognise some fundamental truths which the Government seem intent on ignoring. The first is that supply in this matter is driven by demand. The second is that supply will always try to meet demand, even under absolute prohibition. I referred at Second Reading to the 18th Amendment in the United States, which, as I am sure noble Lords will agree, was quite a bit stronger than anything the Government are proposing in the Bill, yet still failed. The third and final truth is that, if you want to stop supply, you need to stop demand. The Government’s approach is obsessed with supply—the supply of boats and ID documents—but there is almost nothing here to affect demand. The simple fact of the matter is that, while there are thousands of people willing to pay massive sums of money to come to the UK illegally, there will be criminal gangs ready to take the money and get them here. The same can be said for pretty much every other criminal enterprise. The fact that these things are illegal, by definition, does not matter to the criminals who sustain them. The previous Government recognised this fact and decided to go after the demand, by ensuring that those who sought to come to the UK illegally would spend as little time here as possible. This worked: illegal migrants considering making the channel crossing last year were quoted many times as saying that they were waiting for the Rwanda scheme to be abolished. Migrants in Calais told journalists that they were waiting for Labour to get into government before coming to the UK, because they knew that the party would scrap the Rwanda policy. I put it strongly to your Lordships that this is clear evidence that the Rwanda plan was acting as a deterrent.