Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their comments on this group. With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, we unfortunately cannot support her amendment. This past year has seen the largest number of boat crossings since records began. We believe that the current Government are buckling under the numbers. It is a situation that calls for measures that disincentivise those considering making the dangerous crossing across the channel. It is not an answer to strengthen the incentives to come here and then wonder why there is more inflow and more of a public backlash—that would be the outcome of Amendment 37. If we were to increase the periods of financial and accommodation eligibility, we would give migrants a significantly greater reason to come here, and the taxpayer would be burdened with an even greater bill. In fact, we know from reports last week that the asylum seeker deported from France under the Government’s “one in, one out” policy returned because he could not get housing in France. The only group of people that the amendment would benefit would be people smugglers, who make a living by trafficking humans and breaking our laws. Instead, we should take the opposite approach. If we want to stop the tragic deaths in the channel and ease public sentiment towards the asylum system, we should disincentivise those illegally arriving here. We understand and acknowledge the sentiment behind Amendment 73, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord German, on Nightingale processing units, but at present cannot support that either.