On 5th June 2023, the House of Lords debated amendments to the Illegal Migration Bill on the second day of the committee stage. The Bishop of Durham spoke in support of amendments to the bill tabled by Baroness Hamwee, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and Lord Alton of Liverpool that would ensure that, when removing migrants to “safe” countries, the country in question meets high definitions of safety:
The Lord Bishop of Durham: I apologise that I was unable to be present on day one of Committee and I arrived today rather later than I had planned, so was unable to speak earlier. However, I am grateful to my noble friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry for so doing.
In regard to this group, it is particularly Amendments 52A onwards for which I should like to express my support, although I fully support all that has been said around the individual countries and the issue around LGBTQ+ rights. However, there is real concern around naming a part of a country or territory as safe when much of the country might not be. So I fully support Amendment 52A on that basis.
In addition, I support Amendments 52E, 52F and 53, which are not just thinking about the situation in current countries but are looking to the future and how decisions are made in the longer term. It will be vital that we take seriously examining the situations in specific countries as and when they arise. We recognise that countries change and might become safe when they are currently unsafe. Equally, countries that are currently deemed safe may become unsafe. We need this kind of provision and I suggest that on Report we come back with a combination that pulls together all the safeties from those amendments.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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