Member

In his opening remarks, the noble Lord warned the Committee that in the enthusiasm to smash the gangs and control our borders, we must not—I am paraphrasing —emasculate our laws, such as the refugee convention of 1951. I have a different concern. I want to know whether it is possible to square this circle, because I am concerned that international agreements such as the refugee convention, which I consider to be outdated, are often used to emasculate our domestic laws and, even more appropriately in this discussion, any Government of any party’s ability to make new laws. There is a difficulty here. The refugee convention emerged in a very different period. In all the debates on any aspect of immigration or asylum that I have taken part in since I have been in this House—and as we have heard in the contributions today—I am not convinced that we would all agree on what refugee even means and what the legalistic definition is. There is complete confusion in broader society at the moment about who exactly is in the small boats.