Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill Report Stage: New Clause 18

Parliament voted on 12 May 2025 on New Clause 18, a proposed amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill at Report Stage. Report Stage is the phase where MPs debate and vote on specific changes to a bill after it has been examined in committee. The amendment was defeated by 315 votes to 94. Every Labour and Labour and Co-operative MP who voted opposed the clause, while the Conservative benches provided the bulk of support for it, joined by Reform UK members and two Democratic Unionist Party MPs.

New Clause 18 sought to modify the government's approach to border and immigration policy in a direction broadly sympathetic to asylum seeker rights and humanitarian immigration principles. Its defeat means the government's preferred version of the bill remains intact on this point, without the additional protections or procedural requirements the clause would have introduced. The practical effect is that those affected by the bill's immigration and asylum provisions will be subject to the government's original framework rather than the amended one the clause proposed.

The vote produced an unusual parliamentary alignment. Conservative MPs voted almost unanimously in favour of the clause, joined by all eight Reform UK members present and both DUP representatives who voted, forming an Aye coalition of 94. Against them, Labour, Labour and Co-operative, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Green, and most Independent MPs all voted No, giving the government a comfortable margin of victory. This cross-bench dynamic, with Conservatives and Reform UK on the same side of a vote, reflects the broader political competition on immigration between right-of-centre parties, even as their motivations for supporting the clause may have differed. The bill passed its Third Reading on the same day by 316 to 95, signalling that despite multiple amendment attempts at Report Stage, the government retained a firm working majority throughout.