Borders Bill suffers multiple defeats in House of Lords

The government’s Nationality and Borders Bill has suffered multiple defeats in the House of Lords for the second time, with controversial proposals to tighten immigration rules contested.

The Nationality and Borders Bill would allow the UK authorities to strip someone of their British citizenship without warning.

Peers supported proposals to ensure that the bill complied with the 1951 Refugee Convention and challenged the government’s plan to redefine refugees into two classes based on how they arrived in the UK. The house also voted to require formal returns agreements with third states to ensure safe returns and to allow unaccompanied child asylum seekers in Europe to join a family member legally in the UK.

In another government defeat, peers backed by 163 votes to 138 to remove a broad provision making it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK without permission, limiting it to only those who breach a deportation order.

The Conservatives’ Lord Cormack said the bill was ‘largely unnecessary … narrow, mean minded and at times approaches the vindictive’ and is ‘in danger of breaching international law but also international humanity’.

The bill will now go back to the House of Commons, which backs the government. Until the two Houses can agree on the final wording of the bill, it cannot pass into law.