Migration bill gives government 'sanction to breach international law'

A government amendment to the Illegal Migration Bill appears to give the government ‘legislative sanction’ to breach international law obligations, a former attorney general has said – as the controversial legislation completed its final stages in the Commons yesterday.

Clause 26 of the controversial bill gives a minister of the crown a discretion to suspend the duty to remove a person where an interim measure of the European Court of Human Rights has been indicated.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick told the Commons yesterday that the government expects that the minister will carefully consider the UK’s international obligations when deciding whether to disapply the duty.

However, Conservative MP and former attorney general Sir Geoffrey Cox suggested the Commons was being asked ‘to give legislative sanction to at least the possibility that a minister of the crown will deliberately disobey this country’s international law obligations’.

He added: ‘A minister always has the ability to ignore an indication under rule 39, because there is no obligation under the convention for the government to heed one – it is an indication. Why, then, does it need legislation if what is not in fact being asked is that this house should approve, quite consciously and deliberately, a deliberate breach of our obligations under the convention? That is the truth. The minister could ignore an indication and it would be a matter between states, but the provision invites this house to give legislative authority to the minister who does that, if she chooses to ignore it.’

Jenrick replied that the clause does not mandate a minister to ignore rule 39 indications. ‘It says clearly, to ensure that there is no doubt whatsoever, that the minister has the discretion to do so. It gives a non-exhaustive list of reasons that they should consider, and in doing so they would clearly, as I have said on a number of occasions, take their treaty obligations very seriously.’

Former prime minister Theresa May described government amendment 95 as a ‘slap in the face for those of us who actually care about victims of modern slavery and human trafficking’.

May said: ‘Government amendment 95, by making it an assumption that victims do not need to be present in the UK to assist an investigation, makes it much harder to investigate and prosecute the traffickers and slave drivers.’

The bill passed its third reading in the Commons and will now head to the Lords.

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