Today, Friday 21 April, the government has tabled a number of
amendments to the Illegal Migration Bill to strengthen it
further, ahead of it returning to Parliament next week – helping
to deliver our priority of stopping the boats.
The amendments tabled this week will help to speed up the removal
of people with no right to be here and enhance safeguards for
unaccompanied children who cross the Channel in small boats.
Amendments also include a commitment to consult local authorities
within three months of the bill becoming law to understand their
capacity to support people coming to the UK through safe and
legal routes, and to publish a report on existing, and any
proposed additional safe and legal routes, within six months of
the bill becoming law.
Together these will provide greater clarity and ensure progress
on delivering our plans for safe and legal routes with an annual
cap, agreed by Parliament, to ensure we are properly supporting
people to rebuild their lives in the way communities would
expect.
The UK will continue to play a world-leading role in protecting
those in need who come to the country illegally. However, to
tackle the abuse of the system which detracts from our ability to
help those in need, further amendments are being made to ensure
the UK can better protect its borders.
To speed up removals, amendments will make clear that the UK’s
domestic courts cannot apply any interim measure to stop someone
being removed if they bring forward a legal challenge, aside from
in the narrow route available under the bill where they are at
risk of serious and irreversible harm.
Instead, challenges would be heard remotely after the person
concerned had been removed. This will ensure that someone would
only be able to apply for a domestic injunction to prevent their
removal if they were to face “serious and irreversible harm” in
the country they were due to be removed to.
Amendments will also make clear that ministers may exercise
discretion in relation to interim measures issued by the European
Court of Human Rights, and set certain principles under which
they would make a decision whether to comply or not. Alongside
the amendment, the government is having constructive discussions
regarding reform to the Rule 39 process in Strasbourg, to support
greater timeliness, accountability and representation in such
cases.
Further amendments include:
- giving immigration officers new powers to search for and
seize electronic devices like mobile phones from people who come
to the UK illegally – to help them assess whether someone has the
right to be in the UK
- increasing protections around the safeguarding risk caused by
adults pretending to be children, by bringing in new regulations
that will see age-disputed people treated as an adult if they
refuse to undergo a scientific age assessment.
Home Secretary said:
The British public are rightly fed up with people coming to the
UK through dangerous small boat crossings, and myself and the
Prime Minister are absolutely committed to stopping the boats
once and for all.
The changes I am announcing today will help secure our borders
and make it easier for us to remove people by preventing them
from making last minute, bogus claims, while ensuring we
strengthen our safe and legal routes.
My focus remains on ensuring this landmark piece of legislation
does what it is intended to do, and we now must work to pass it
through Parliament as soon as possible so we can stop the boats.
Immigration Minister said:
It is not fair that people can pay criminal gangs thousands of
pounds and pass through multiple safe countries to come to the UK
illegally.
The only way to break the business model of the evil people
smugglers and secure our borders is to make sure that if people
come to the UK illegally, they won’t be able to stay.
These amendments will make it easier to swiftly remove
individuals who come here illegally from safe countries, whilst
re-affirming our commitment to help those directly from regions
of conflict and instability.
These new powers are part of further amendments tabled by the
government today to strengthen the landmark Illegal Migration
Bill, which will see people who come to the UK illegally in scope
for detention and swift removal.
The amendments relating to safe and legal routes were laid by
, and measures to prevent UK courts from
interfering to stop a removal were laid by MP – the government will
support these measures when the bill goes back to the House of
Commons for report stage next week. The remaining measures have
been tabled by the government.
The amendments will be published later today on the Parliamentary
website: Illegal
Migration Bill publications - Parliamentary Bills - UK
Parliament
