Theresa May slams Illegal Migration Bill for allowing ‘more slave drivers to make money out of human misery’
Theresa May has attacked the government’s Illegal Migration Bill, saying it would “enable more slave drivers to… make money out of human misery” and “consign more people to slavery”.
The former prime minister, who has long campaigned on tackling modern slavery in the UK, said ministers wanted to use the new legislation to “stop the boats” crossing the English Channel.
But in a passionate speech in the Commons, she warned the bill needed to change or would lead to victims getting no support – and perpetrators getting away with their crimes.
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MPs have been debating – and are now voting on – proposed amendments to the Illegal Migration Bill made by peers after 20 defeats were inflicted on the legislation in the House of Lords.
The bill itself aims for the “swift detention and removal” of people arriving in the UK illegally, sending them back to their country of origin or a third country – like Rwanda.
But peers had a number of issues with the legislation – especially around the treatment of women, children, people from the LGBT+ community, and victims of modern slavery – and sent back a number of changes for the Commons to look at.
The government announced its own fresh amendments on Monday in an attempt to stop MPs supporting the Lords, including a promise that new rules on removing people would not be applied retrospectively – only after the bill becomes law.
They also reduced the time children could be detained for – eight days instead of the proposed 28 – and pledged to keep the current rule on detaining pregnant women for a maximum of 72 hours.
But the concessions have not gone far enough for some senior backbenchers, and have led to terse exchanges in the Commons from the government’s own benches.
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What is new small boats bill?
Mrs May welcomed some of the changes brought forward by the Home Office, “whatever the motivation”, but added: “I want support to continue for the victims of modern slavery in the UK after commencement of the bill.”
She pointed to amendment 56 from the Lords, which seeks to ensure victims will not be detained and removed from the UK if they have been modern slaves, and urged the government to support it.
“This bill has been marketed as a ‘stop the boats’ bill,” she said. “We all want to stop the boats, nobody wants to see people risking their lives in small boats across the Channel.
“But this bill is not just written to stop the boats. It covers all illegal migration. And its unwritten subtext is the ‘stop certain victims’ claims of modern slavery’ bill, not stop false claims of modern slavery, but stop all claims full stop, and that is where I depart from the government.”
The former PM gave the hypothetical situation of a woman “persuaded” by a man to come to the country “for a great job and wonderful life together”, ending up trafficked into prostitution and not even knowing the papers he used to get her in were illegal.
“Under this bill, she would get no support,” said Mrs May. “The government’s response would be, ‘we don’t care that you’ve been in slavery in the UK, we don’t care that you have been in a living hell, we don’t care that you have been the victim of crime.
“‘We do care that you came here illegally, even though you probably didn’t know it, so we are going to detain you and send you home, even if it is into the arms of the very people who trafficked you here in the first place, or we want to send you to Rwanda’.”
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Boat crossings ‘at odds with British values’
Mrs May also warned the bill “ties the hands of the police and it undoes the good work of the Modern Slavery Act”, as it would stop victims providing evidence to catch the perpetrators.
“It will enable more slave drivers to operate and make money out of human misery,” said the influential MP. “It will consign more people to slavery. No doubt about it, I think if [the Lord’s amendment] is overthrown, that will be the impact.”
MPs have begun voting on the amendments from both peers and the government and will continue throughout the evening, before the bill heads back to the Lords for another round of scrutiny.
And Mrs May made clear where she stood.
“The government wants to deny certain victims of modern slavery support. It will deeply damage the operation of the Modern Slavery Act,” she added.
“The alternative is to let [the Lord’s amendment] stand. If the government persists in disagreeing… then I will have to persist in disagreeing with the government.”
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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