Labour threaten to derail immigration crackdown plans

Government plans to crack down on illegal immigration are on a knife edge.

Labour are threatening to down the Immigration Bill when it faces a key test in the House of Lords tomorrow night. They are opposed to a measure that would strip would-be terrorists of their rights and may make it easier to keep criminals out of the country.

However Labour claim they are not out to wreck the legislation but to improve it and have accused the Government of “disgraceful” and “embarrassing” attempts to force it through.

Former New Labour minister, Angela Smith, is now her party’s lead on Home Affairs in the Lords.

Baroness Smith said: “We want to embarrass the Government over this shoddy piece of legislation they brought forward. Everyone wants to tackle illegal immigration, there’s no doubt about that.

“Different parties might think the other is soft and not doing enough but everyone wants to deal with it.

“What you’ve got in this Bill is a series of proposals which don’t really match up with what the Government was briefing the Bill was going to do. It’s a confusing mess of a Bill.”

The proposed legislation would do away with many layers of the appeals process that allow immigrants to stay on in the UK for years.

It will force people coming here on visas to pay a fee up front to cover the cost of any NHS medical treatment.

And it would require landlords to check that tenants have a right to be in the UK, a measure that troubles Baroness Smith who fears that it will have a disproportionate impact on small-time landlords such as those who have bought flats for their children at university or who have inherited a property.

She said: “I called it outsourcing of immigration controls. Lots of landlords will worry about making a mistake.”

She points to the example of Immigration Minister Mark Harper who sent vans emblazed with the slogan ‘Go Home’ around the country only to have to resign earlier this year when it emerged his cleaner was in the UK illegally.

She added: “Mark Harper made a genuine mistake, we all believe him. How many landlords are going to worry that if they make a genuine mistake they won’t be believed?”

The lightning rod for disquiet over the Immigration Bill has been a clause allowing Government to strip people of their British citizenship if they are believed to pose a threat to the nation. The new rules would give the Home Secretary the power to leave people stateless.

Said Baroness Smith: “How do you monitor people if you take away their citizenship? If they are genuine baddies you want to know where they are and what they’re doing.”

Labour, together with some crossbench Lords who boast years of legal experience, have tabled an amendment that would force the Government to set up an inquiry into how the measure would work.

If the Government doesn’t give in they will vote down the Bill and send it back to the Commons.

The Coalition is desperate to avoid that since the legislation only cleared the Commons amid chaotic scenes as the Government attempted to appease backbenchers who wanted to impose new and possibly illegal measures to stop Bulgarians and Romanians coming to the UK.

Baroness Smith said: “It’s disgraceful the way it went through the Commons.”

The citizenship stripping clause was only added at the last minute and when the Government Minister in the Lords, Lord Taylor, was quizzed about it he was reduced to pleading: “I’m doing my best”.

Added Baroness Smith: “I’d rather have an answer. It would be more use to us than embarrassing the Minister.”

Labour claim the Conservatives only introduced the Immigration Bill in order to woo Ukip voters who routinely claim it’s their priority when deciding who to back.

However the Opposition will be open to accusations of being soft if they water down the Bill. It’s a charge that’s dogged Labour since the arrival of millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe when the EU expanded to take in countries such as Poland on their watch.

Baroness Smith admits New Labour got it wrong: “The evidence base was clearly flawed on the number of Poles that would come to the country.

“But the allegation that we had open borders and no immigration controls, as the Tories try to pretend, is nonsense.”