Top lawyers have told MPs that Labour's new Immigration and Asylum Bill fails to tackle the fundamental legal problem enabling small boat migrants to claim asylum in Britain, warning it merely "tinkers with the edges" of the law. Oxford University law professor Richard Ekins KC and Dr Conor Casey of the University of Surrey, both Policy Exchange fellows, told the Immigration and Asylum Bill Committee that the legislation does not address protections under the international Refugee Convention, meaning it is unlikely to deter unlawful Channel crossings.

The Bill, unveiled by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood in June, aims to curb the use of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, restricting the "right to family life" defence to immediate relatives rather than extended family. However, the experts cautioned that similar reforms attempted in 2014 proved far less effective than intended, and warned that vague wording could allow judges to interpret the new standards generously, undermining deportations. They also suggested the changes could trigger a rise in claims brought instead under Article 3 of the ECHR, which protects against ill-treatment.