Viscount Goschen (Con)

My Lords, my Amendment 11 in this group is an amendment to my noble friend’s Amendment 10. Before I get into the detail of it, I must support what my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said in the previous group. They put their finger on one of the key issues: namely, that the Secretary of State cannot step back and abrogate her responsibility to set strategic priorities. Surely the Secretary of State is ultimately responsible for setting the strategic priorities. It would be better for the Bill to say that the Secretary of State will publish the strategic priorities for the organisation, having been advised by the border commander and having consulted the commander and other relevant agencies. It seems quite a circular argument for the border commander to be invited to come up with their own strategic priorities and then set out how they intend to address them—there is an element of marking your own homework here. We will listen carefully to what the Minister has to say to the point about the strategic priorities coming from the border commander rather than from the Secretary of State. It may well be something we wish to return to. The origins of Amendment 11 lie in an exchange I had with the Minister at Second Reading, to which he followed up with a letter. The question I had asked him was this: what is the Government’s understanding of the specific factors that drive desperate people to take their lives and those of their families into their own hands and undertake a sea crossing with, potentially, the peril of death or serious injury? Why would they come from at least one other safe country—generally France—or a series of safe countries they might have passed through? Why would they risk everything, including their lives and those of their families, to come specifically to the UK? What is it about the regulatory, commercial or cultural situation in the UK that causes people to come here? The Minister was kind enough to provide me with a substantial letter, which I hope he will not mind me paraphrasing by saying that his answer was, “We don’t really know”. It was more complicated than that but that was the thrust of it. I think we should know and should be honest about the factors, whether they are to do with the support provided, the level of control we intend to exert over people who come here irregularly or illegally, or the organised crime gangs—all factors the Minister touched on—or whether it is also to do with the chances of deportation. I wonder whether the Minister can assist the Committee by telling us the average rate of deportation of people who have come here through illegal or irregular means or who have crossed the channel in small boats? I believe there is another factor as well, which is the opportunity for irregular migrants to take on paid work, whatever the regulations say. I am sure the Minister is very well aware, for example, of the coverage on the front pages of national newspapers yesterday about people coming from government-funded hotels where they have been housed and undertaking work for some big companies—as a contractor, I suspect. We have to grapple with those factors and be honest about them. We need to tackle the demand side as well as the supply side. I appreciate that this Bill is very much about addressing the supply side, and quite rightly so, but it is incredibly important that we look at the specific demand factors that are driving people to risk their lives to come to the UK in preference to other European countries.