Lord German (LD)

My Lords, I will be very brief. First, I apologise on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who is still not well. I know that she would have intended to support this amendment as it is now. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, has presented us with a very neat solution to a problem that the Minister espoused in Committee. He has also sought—and I think this is the whole purpose of the amendment—to make sure that previously unworkable and satisfactory legislation is converted into something that has a sense of purpose and direction, and which is understandable and has clarity and definition within it. In reply to my question in Committee as to why the Government are retaining Section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act, the Minister said that it would be right “to retain the flexibility to expand the use of inadmissibility in the event that we see asylum claims from individuals from countries that we would generally consider safe”.—[Official Report, 3/9/25; col. 825.] That was the reason given for retaining that particular section. I think the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, has just expressed the issue with the words “generally safe”. There are many countries that may be safe for some people but not for all people. The one that currently sticks out an absolute mile is Georgia. If someone has any political thought that has nothing to do with Georgian Dream, they will be imprisoned. I have lost count of the number of politicians who I—and, I know, other noble Lords in this House—have met, who said that the day after we met them they would be going back to go to prison because they were going to be arrested, simply because they were politicians who were elected by the people but who did not speak on behalf of the Government, and who were speaking out against the Government. While “generally considered safe” means that it is generally safe to send people to Georgia, we would be absolutely wrong to send somebody who had a political opinion, because we know the disgraceful ways in which politicians have been treated in that country. In conclusion, this amendment is a worthy solution to a problem that has been identified. In the context of the Government wanting to retain Section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act, they have before them a workable solution to make sense of it and convert it from an unworkable, unsatisfactory position into something that is exactly the opposite. We on these Benches commend it.