Lord Davies of Gower (Con)

I thank all the noble Lords who have taken part in this very interesting debate. It has been a microcosm of the numerous debates in your Lordships’ House over the last few years. I was momentarily flattered by being afforded the word “gallant” by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, but I realised quite quickly that it was insincere. It will not be surprising to noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches and the Government Benches that I disagree with more or less everything that they have said in this debate. In relation to the deterrent, the Government have not created a credible alternative to the Rwanda scheme. They have not grasped the necessity of stopping demand by deterring illegal migrants from making the journey in the first place. I simply cannot understand how they believe that they can stop the boats without a deterrent. The Minister implies that the Bill is a deterrent. The Government claim that simply instituting a Border Security Commander with nothing to command and creating three new offences will deter illegal migrants. This is clearly not the case. Picking up on a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, I remind the Government of what David Coleman, the Emeritus Professor of Demography at the University of Oxford, told the Public Bill Committee in the other place. He said: “It is, I think, very much second best to the idea of trying to deter migration for asylum claiming in the first place. That, of course, was dismissed by the present Government as being unfeasible, unworkable and unkind, so the Rwanda scheme was scrapped… it seems to me that the only obvious way of deterring movement to Britain is by making the movement to Britain unattractive”.—[Official Report, Commons, Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill Committee, 27/2/25; col. 50.] Regardless of what the Minister or the Liberal Democrats want to claim, offshoring to a safe third country has worked. As has already been mentioned, particularly by my noble friends, Australia is the only country that has been successful in stopping small boats—by establishing offshore detention facilities in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. This reduced arrivals to virtually zero. It has worked so far for the Government to claim that Rwanda would never have worked. This is manifestly false. I hope that the Government come to realise what a mistake they have made by not instituting a deterrent. However, for now, I will withdraw my opposition to the clause standing part of the Bill.