Speeches by Lam.

“Thinking about the permit system overall, it might make sense to go from there to fines. You were saying that part of making the permit system work is the fines system. What I hear about a lot is the cost of compliance. Let’s say that a condition of your permit is that you have to have manual traffic management, and th…”

“I am a little confused by some of the contributions from Labour Members. They seem to be advocating for the commander to be a civil servant, and that is fine, but that is not actually what we are discussing. The question here is whether there could be any benefit in having some flexibility for the Home Secretary to do …”

“Clause 17 sets out that the offences of supplying articles for use in immigration crime, handling articles for use in immigration crime and collecting information for use in immigration—so the clauses that we have just discussed—apply to things done both inside and outside the United Kingdom, regardless of the national…”

“Clause 16, as the Minister has just set out, creates a new offence of collecting information for use in immigration crime. A person commits such an offence if a person: “collects or makes a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person organising or preparing for a relevant journey or part of such a j…”

“Presumably, though, it seems reasonable to think that there could be a third category, which is people who charge fees that are not exorbitant.”

“Weald of Kent.”

“As hon. Members will have read, clause 13 creates a new offence of “Supplying articles for use in immigration crime”. The offence has two limbs. First, that the person supplies or offers to supply those articles to another person, and secondly that, when they do so, they know or suspect that the item will be used in co…”

“The new clause clearly does not do that. The two points that the Minister just mentioned are part of a broader sentence that states that the Border Security Commander “must have regard to the objectives” in subsection (1). The new clause does not state that the Border Security Commander should do those things themselve…”

“The Minister perhaps slightly mischaracterises new clause 21. It states that the Border Security Commander should “have regard to”, not manage, the wider aims of the Home Office in securing the border. Why would the Minister not want the Border Security Commander to have regard to that?”

“Presumably, it would always remain an objective to bring an end to illegal migration, as far as is practical?”

“Nothing whatever. There are lots of parts of the Home Office where the principle is accepted, that sometimes, particularly for difficult things and things that the Department has struggled to achieve, independence can be valuable. It sounds like the Minister is saying that she does not feel that that is the case. We mu…”

“I thank the Minister for that response, which is reassuring, but it does not quite address the concern. These issues are very difficult, and I presume the Minister accepts that it is possible that it might be better, either in due course or in relatively short order, for the commander to be operationally independent. I…”

“We on the Opposition Benches struggle to understand why the law must set out that the Border Security Commander must be a civil servant. The Minister said that amendment 10 implies the commander should not be a civil servant, but all it seeks to do is remove the requirement that they should be. If the Home Secretary an…”

“Q So make it harder to work illegally or outside the rules? Professor Brian Bell: Yes.”

“Q We have heard today about clauses 13(3) and 14(4) exempting NGOs from criminal charges for helping asylum seekers to cross the channel. What do you think of those? Karl Williams: If we are talking about what deterrence we might need or what pull factors there are, having charities that in some circumstances are facil…”

“Q Perhaps on a related note, you have talked about incentives and mentioned a couple of reasons why people do not come over from France. What is your sense of why people do? Can those incentives be disrupted? Professor Brian Bell: You would not want to disrupt some of the incentives. For example, the unemployment rate …”

“The Campaign for Better Transport and the CPRE published a report in 2020 about transport deserts. It did not cover the south-east of England, but the concept is instantly recognisable in my patch of Kent’s countryside. If our experience is anything like that of others, the challenge compounds in rural areas where tran…”

“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. I thank the Minister for their remarks on a topic about which there should be little disagreement. We must give the police the power to access the information that they need to safeguard the vulnerable. There is no reason why non-territorial and specialist p…”

“I am trying to bring together various points on socially necessary services, demand and devolution. What do you make of the idea of a Government guarantee of minimum service levels in buses across England? I think that would address some of the reliability issues you raised. In the rural part of Kent I represent, lots …”

“Some students in rural areas—some of the previous panellists touched on this—face long bus commutes to access education. I have some secondary school students who take an hour to get to their school, particularly in the morning when there is traffic, as you just mentioned. What effects does that have?”