We understand that the House of Commons will be debating the House of Lords amendments on 26 and 27 April. There is still a chance that some of the Government inhumane proposals can be defeated as the recent significant setback to the Government in the House of Lords gives us another opportunity to press our MPs to represent their constituents and vote for the priority amendments.
Please write to your MP today.
You can use the template letter drafted by Together with Refugees
or you can use the template letter below:
House of Commons
SW1A 0AA
Dear (
Re: Lords’ amendments to the Nationality & Borders Bill
I understand that MPs will be voting on the Lords’ Amendments to the Nationality & Borders Bill at the end of April (probably 26 and 27 April). On 4 April, the House of Lords insisted that key reforms that were previously rejected by MPs were looked at again.
Frustration with the government’s approach on the bill was summed up by the Conservative peer, Lord Cormack, who criticised the way in which the House of Commons had “dismissed amendments that had been carefully argued and, in many cases, passed by large majorities”. The apparent unwillingness of Ministers to engage properly with the objectives behind key issues also saw an unusually high number of amendments (12) voted back to the Commons.
I am writing to ask you to vote against the Government (or abstain) and to speak out strongly to support three vital changes to the Bill:
You can find out more about the rationale and objectives behind these two amendments here in the briefing produced by Together with Refugees.
Peers are asking the Commons to look again closely at what is being proposed because the Bill as currently drafted is not workable and needs changing to ensure a compassionate, effective and fair system. That is as more important as ever. Measures to support Ukrainians are welcome but there are still many other people for instance from Syria and Afghanistan fleeing persecution and in need of protection.
Underpinning the decisions of the House of Lords is a fear that the Bill will erode refugee rights to protection that are enshrined in the UN Refugee Convention on the one hand whilst not providing urgently needed new, safe routes for refugees to get into the UK on the other.
I am asking you as my representative to consider:
Many thanks for your time in considering my concerns
I look forward to hearing from you
Yours sincerely