The Report Stage of the Nationality and Borders Bill in the House of Commons will take place on 7 and 8 December 2021. Below you will find a number of ILPA briefings which have been shared with various MPs across the House ahead of this stage. We have engaged with other organisations across the sector to coordinate work and strategy on the Bill, including through the Asylum Reform Initiative. ILPA has sought to brief on parts of the Bill in such a way as to complement the work of others. Together With Refugees, a coalition of organisations of which ILPA is part, has prepared a joint briefing for Report Stage.
The Bill is wide-ranging in scope with significant consequences, including for the UK asylum system. It includes substantive parts on nationality, asylum, immigration offences and enforcement, age assessments, and modern slavery. In spite of this, the Government’s approach to introducing the Bill and the New Plan for Immigration upon which it is based has been characterised by a lack of meaningful consultation. ILPA’s concerns regarding the New Plan for Immigration consultation, which included the inadequate length and timing of the consultation and the unsuitability of the format of the consultation process for engagement with people within the asylum system, are detailed in our response here. The Government’s response to the consultation was published on 22 July 2021, after the Bill had had its Second Reading in the House of Commons, and acknowledged that ‘the responses sent into the Government consultation also show that around three quarters of those who responded said they opposed many of the policies set out in the New Plan for Immigration’. The Equality Impact Assessment for the Nationality and Borders Bill was not published until 16 September 2021.
The Bill as introduced on 6 July 2021 was incomplete, containing multiple placeholder clauses. The Government introduced new clauses and amendments during Committee Stage, including the substantive clauses which now make up Part 4 of the Bill as amended in the Public Bill Committee on Age Assessments. The Government has since continued to seek to make changes to the Bill, with the Secretary of State for the Home Department tabling 80 amendments ahead of Report Stage. ILPA has grave concerns that vital stages of Parliamentary scrutiny are lost when substantive changes are introduced at such a late stage.
Please note that the clause numbers below refer to the Bill as amended in the Public Bill Committee. Further ILPA briefings from Committee Stage can be found here. We are pleased that amendments proposed by ILPA have been tabled at the Committee and Report Stages in the House of Commons.
- Document Date
- Monday December 6, 2021