Lord German (LD)

My Lords, I will draw us back to the amendments before us. Amendment 35 requires the Secretary of State to collate and publish detailed data on overseas students whose visas are revoked due to criminal offences, and raises several important questions concerning data collection accuracy, resource allocation and the practical application of policy. The intent of the amendment is clear: to provide essential data to evaluate risks and ensure individuals who commit crimes are removed. I almost have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, for not getting answers to the questions he has asked time and again. What remains is that we have to look at the necessity of the subjects of those questions and their implementation. If the object of the amendment is to provide the data necessary to design efficient public policy, the first question must address the existing statutory landscape. The answers that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, got suggest that the Home Office did not collect the data relating specifically to student visas and criminality. What specific, new infrastructure or operational commitment would be necessary to collate this information reliably, particularly as the Minister implied that the Home Office already publishes a “vast amount of data on immigration”—[Official Report, 26/6/25; col. 440.] in regular publications that cover these themes? Secondly, the amendment would require the publishing of figures on visa revocation, detention and deportation following a criminal offence. Given that 14,000 people who originally entered on a student visa claimed asylum in the latest year reported, and considering that subsequent detention or deportation is often tied to the outcome of complex asylum or human rights claims rather than solely the original criminal conviction or visa revocation, how will the published data accurately distinguish between detention related directly to government removal actions versus detention protracted by pending asylum appeals or other legal challenges? The Immigration Rules already provide for the cancellation of entry clearance and permission to enter or stay when conditions are breached. Would a statutory duty to publish retrospective data fully address the underlying problem, or would resources be better focused on the proactive enforcement and timely application of the existing Immigration Rules? Thirdly, the amendment mandates that the published data “must be broken down by nationality”. That is intended to highlight countries associated with a high risk of abuse of the visa system, allowing the Home Office and universities to take risk into account when making decisions. What specific safeguards will be put in place to ensure that the publication of criminality data, broken down by nationality, does not lead to profiling or unfair discriminatory practices against students from those nations who are law-abiding citizens, especially given the clear parliamentary intention to use the data to identify countries of particular risk? Amendment 35C, which is yet to be introduced by the Conservative Front Bench, proposes that the Secretary of State must declare an asylum or human rights claim inadmissible if the claimant entered on a student visa, applied for asylum more than two days later and there is “no evidence” of materially changed political circumstances endangering their life or liberty. This measure is flawed both practically and legally, and we must oppose it for three key reasons. The proposed new clause establishes a near-automatic system of inadmissibility for a specific cohort of asylum seekers. The approach is inherently problematic because it fails to process cases based on individual merits and lived experiences. There is no substantive consideration of the asylum or human rights claim. Even if the primary motivation for the amendment is to counter visa abuse, refusing a person’s asylum claim without consideration of the merits and/or risks, placing the UK in breach of its obligations under the refugee convention, specifically the prohibition on refoulement, is a matter of serious concern. The amendment conflates asylum and human rights claims. Many human rights claims are founded not on a country’s general safety but on an individual’s personal connection to the UK, such as family ties. Automatically barring these claims simply because a person arrived on a student visa is an anomalous and unjustifiable imposition of a blanket ban. The proposed new clause explicitly states that the inadmissible declaration is not a refusal of the claim and, as such, no right of appeal arises. Furthermore, it declares that the decision is “final and not liable to be questioned or set aside in any court”. Such provisions, which seek to exclude judicial review—we are going to have plenty of those today—of immigration decisions and to remove the right to appeal are repeatedly condemned as unconstitutional and contrary to the ECHR, which is of course part of our domestic law. The intention behind the amendment may be to clamp down on those abusing the student visa route, especially concerning the 14,000 who claimed asylum after entering on a student visa in the last reported year. However, this absolute inadmissibility straitjacket would be functionally unworkable, echoing the failures of previous legislation. This amendment is ineffective, inhumane and legally unsound. Amendment 71 seeks to fundamentally alter the established visa penalty mechanisms contained within the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. The stated intent of the amendment is clear: to force the Government to impose visa penalties immediately if a country fails to co-operate on removals or the verification of identity of its nationals. While we share the desire to see prompt and effective removal of those who have no right to be here, the amendment risks undermining that very objective by destroying the necessary operational discretion essential for effective diplomacy and returns policy. The mandatory penalty system removes the ability to use engagement, diplomacy and other means to successfully unblock co-operation with other countries. We simply cannot tie the hands of a Secretary of State with a rigid system that risks damaging international relations without guaranteeing an increase in removals.