The Lord Bishop of London

My Lords, I resist Amendment 79D. This amendment and Amendment 79E in the next group are both motivated by reports that asylum seekers are choosing to convert to Christianity upon arrival in the UK in order to support their claim for asylum on the grounds of religious persecution. Amendment 79E is of deep concern. I will address this in the next group. Regarding Amendment 79D, I have no objection in principle to this data being collected, apart from the fact that both it and Amendment 79E are motivated by a desire to make an issue of something that is not an issue. This is not the first time that this House has examined the question of faith-based asylum claims. Under the previous Government, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford gave evidence on this very topic to the Home Affairs Select Committee in the other place, as noble Lords have heard. Noble Lords will recall that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield referenced the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford’s contributions in a recent supplementary question when addressing claims of the use of Anglican churches as “a conveyor belt for an industry of asylum baptism”.—[Official Report, 13/10/25; col. 4.] Noble Lords will be aware that not only did the Committee find no evidence of any abuse of the asylum system through forced conversions but there was no subsequent publication, report or summary regarding this claim. From our previous discussions with the Home Office on this issue, we do not believe that the data spoken of in Amendment 79D can easily be extracted. It seems to me that there are many more problems to be solved in our asylum system before addressing this data point.