Nationality and Borders Bill

I will take your advice on that, Madam Deputy Speaker, although I am little unsure whether we will get answers, because we have not any other time we have been asking for them.

Any disqualification from protection must be reserved for the most serious of offenders—those who pose a serious risk to the public or to national security. A public order disqualification for victims with prior convictions of 12 months or more is too wide, as others have said. There is a real danger that genuine victims who could give vital evidence against slavery networks, and who pose absolutely no risk to the public, will be excluded from that support.

The actual figures for referrals of offenders in immigration detention to the NRM are low, as was said earlier, and the Government have published no data to back up the sensationalist claims made in support of these measures. It is another theme running through every part of this Bill. There is nothing to back up their scaremongering claims. The hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) was also asking for evidence. I very much doubt the Minister is going to give us any, but let us wait and see.

I will move on, finally, to say that I fail to see why all of this is part of an immigration Bill. We are not talking about immigrants; we are talking about victims of criminal offences. In 2016, I sat on the Immigration Bill Committee, and a Government Member, who is not present and whose name I will not reveal, told me, “If people do not want to be trafficked, they should simply say no.” That demonstrated a crass misunderstanding of what trafficking is. These are people who are not trying to migrate to this country; they are simply caught up in exploitation and they end up here.

I will end by saying that I would love to hear what the Minister has to say. I have zero faith that we will hear anything. I have never ever been so ashamed as I am today, because I know that Members will vote for this Bill that will damage, exploit and kill vulnerable people, who they claim to care about. It is absolutely a disgrace.