Nationality and Borders Bill — New Clause — Compliance with the Refugee Convention — 22 Mar 2022 at 16:18

The majority of MPs voted not to explicitly require that no refugees will be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom as a result of the operation of new asylum laws. The majority of MPs also voted not to require co-operation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in connection with new asylum laws.

MPs were considering the Nationality and Borders Bill.[1][2][3]

The motion supported by the majority of MPs in this vote was:

That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 5.

Lords amendment 5[4][5] stated:

In relation to the 1951 convention: "The core principle is non-refoulement, which asserts that a refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom."[6]

The 1967 protocol provides for co-operation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.[7]

Had the proposed new Clause not been rejected it would have been inserted before Clause 11 and therefore applied to Part 2 of the Bill which related to Asylum and included provisions which:[2][3][4][5]

  • * to permit asylum seekers with applications pending being removed to other safe countries, or being required to go to such countries.
  • * to permit treating refugees who have not "come to the United Kingdom directly from a country or territory where their life or freedom was threatened" and "presented themselves without delay to the authorities" differently from other refugees.
  • * to empower ministers to require asylum seekers to stay in accommodation centres for longer.
  • * to set out classes of designated places where asylum claims must be made.
  • * to deem asylum claims from EU nationals, or those with a connection to a third safe state, inadmissible, other than in exceptional circumstances
  • * to introduce a deadline for provision of evidence in support of protection or human rights claim, and to generally give little weight to evidence produced late.
  • * to introduce priority removal notices, and expedited processes, for certain applicants for asylum.
  • * to cap legal aid for those subject to priority removal notices at seven hours of aid.
  • * to "stipulate that a person will not be deemed to have come directly if they have stopped in another country between leaving the country where they faced persecution and arriving in the UK" with exceptions, and to provide that those who did not come directly may face penalties "on grounds of their illegal presence or illegal entry into the UK".
  • * to reduce "the threshold at which a refugee is considered to have committed a particularly serious crime, and so is potentially subject to removal on the grounds they constitute a danger.
  • * to create a new criminal offence of arriving in the UK without a valid entry clearance (updating a previous offence of "knowingly entering the UK without leave").
  • * to raise the maximum penalty for "assisting unlawful immigration or asylum seekers" from 14 years’ to life imprisonment
  • * to create a new civil penalty that may be issued on persons responsible for goods vehicles that have not been adequately secured, whether or not there is someone hiding in their vehicle.
  • * "to provide a statutory minimum period to enable individuals to access justice prior to removal and makes provisions for removing individuals, following a failed departure, without the need for a further notice period."
  • * to enable consideration of if an individual has failed to cooperate with processes when deciding if to release them on immigration bail.

--

Debate in Parliament |

Public Whip is run as a free not-for-profit service. If you'd like to support us, please consider switching your (UK) electricity and/or gas to Octopus Energy or tip us via Ko-Fi.

Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (Aye)Minority (No)BothTurnout
Alba0 1050.0%
Alliance0 10100.0%
Con309 (+2 tell) 0085.9%
DUP0 80100.0%
Green0 10100.0%
Independent1 3080.0%
Lab0 162 (+2 tell)082.0%
LDem0 130100.0%
PC0 2066.7%
SDLP0 20100.0%
SNP0 37082.2%
Total:310 230084.7%

Rebel Voters - sorted by constituency

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

About the Project

The Public Whip is a not-for-profit, open source website created in 2003 by Francis Irving and Julian Todd and now run by Bairwell Ltd.

The Whip on the Web

Help keep PublicWhip alive