On 3 November 2026, its last day, the Public Bill Committee on the Immigration and Asylum Bill rejected on division four new clauses tabled by Conservative members. Three of them would have limited the Human Rights Act 1998 in immigration cases. The fourth would have stopped the courts reviewing the Home Secretary’s decisions on protection claims. The committee had already agreed, on 22 October, the bill’s own clause on refugees who are a danger to the country. The bill now goes to report stage in the House of Commons. It is not law.
- New clause 41, “Disapplication of the Human Rights Act 1998 in relation to UK immigration and asylum legislation”, which would also have left it to a minister to decide whether the United Kingdom complies with an interim measure of the European Court of Human Rights: rejected by 11 votes to 3.
- New clause 54, “Finality of decisions”, under which the Home Secretary’s decisions on protection and immigration claims “are final and are not liable to be questioned or set aside in any court or tribunal”: rejected by 10 votes to 3.
- New clause 60, which would have made the statutory code on Article 8, the right to respect for family life, “an exclusive code”, by disapplying the Human Rights Act’s interpretive duty for it and providing that decisions made under it are not unlawful under section 6 of that Act: rejected by 8 votes to 3.
- New clause 61, “Removal of persons within Article 33(2) of the Refugee Convention: disapplication of section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998”: rejected by 8 votes to 3.
Sources: Hansard, Public Bill Committee, fifteenth sitting, 3 November 2026 · sixteenth sitting, 3 November 2026 · Parliament’s record of the bill and its amendments
What new clause 61 would have done
New clause 61 went furthest on the question this site exists to follow. Its text, and the note that explained it:
New clause 61, tabled by Blake Stephenson (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire). “(1) Section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 (acts of public authorities) does not apply to a decision of the Secretary of State to remove from, or require to leave, the United Kingdom a person who is not to be taken to be lawfully staying in the United Kingdom by virtue of section 37A of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (as inserted by this Act). (2) In proceedings relating to such a decision, a court or tribunal may not treat the decision as unlawful by reason of its incompatibility with a Convention right.” The explanatory statement: “This new clause would mean that the Human Rights Act 1998 would not prevent the removal from the United Kingdom, where the Refugee Convention permits their return, of a refugee who is a danger to national security, or who has been convicted of a particularly serious crime and is a danger to the community.”
The section 37A it refers to would be inserted by the bill’s clause 22, which the committee agreed on 22 October. As the committee debated it, clause 22 provides that a refugee who falls within Article 33(2) of the Refugee Convention, as a danger to national security or as a person convicted of a particularly serious crime who is a danger to the community, is “not to be taken to be lawfully staying in the United Kingdom”. Speaking for new clause 61 in the debate on clause 22, Matt Vickers (Conservative, Stockton West) said why his side wanted it:
Matt Vickers, Public Bill Committee, 22 October 2026. “Clause 22 changes how we describe someone’s stay. It does not cancel their leave, make a deportation order or remove the human rights barriers to sending them home. In particular, article 3 of the European convention on human rights can still prevent removal, however grave the danger they pose, so the clause on its own does not give Ministers a clear route to removal. New clause 61 addresses that gap.”
What the minister said
The Minister for Border Security and Asylum, Anna Turley, answered for the government.
Anna Turley, Public Bill Committee, 22 October 2026. “In practical terms, new clause 61 would disapply the Human Rights Act, including articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR, thereby enabling the Secretary of State to remove any person who falls within the ambit of the proposal under clause 22 of this Bill, and prevent a UK court from treating any such removal decision as unlawful. The trouble with new clause 61 is that disapplying the Human Rights Act domestically does not disapply our international obligations, nor does it remove the jurisdiction of the ECHR, address interim measures issued by that court, or remove other relevant international obligations, including under customary international law or the prohibition on refoulement set out by the UN convention against torture.” … “We are rightly obliged not to send them back to face death or torture, but that does not mean that we should give them the package of support and entitlement that other decent law-abiding refugees get.”
That second sentence describes what clause 22 does. Earlier in the same debate the minister said that people who have committed serious crimes but cannot be removed “are already granted shorter, more restricted leave, with conditions attached, and are subject to regular review until they can be removed at the earliest opportunity”, and that clause 22 would allow conditions such as “restricted leave, a constant renewal of their status every six months, not being able to come back if they leave the country, no access to public funds, restrictions on work, being tagged and reporting requirements”.
On 3 November, answering new clauses 41 and 60, she said the clauses “are likely to result in our domestic immigration legislation, and action taken under it, being found to be incompatible with the ECHR”, and: “The UK is committed to complying with international law, including by implementing judgments of the ECHR and complying when it indicates binding interim measures in pending cases.”
What the members who moved them said
Matt Vickers, Public Bill Committee, 3 November 2026. “New clause 41 says that for immigration, asylum and deportation law, the Human Rights Act 1998 would have no effect. Our laws would mean what Parliament wrote. No officer, court or tribunal could act on a Strasbourg interim measure unless a Minister of the Crown decides that the UK should comply.” … “This is not about being against human rights. The Conservatives believe in the rule of law and protecting people from persecution, but the rule of law means laws made by this Parliament, applied as this Parliament intended.”
He reminded the committee that the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 had already left it to a minister to decide whether to comply with an interim measure, and that the government had repealed that Act. The Coalition’s page on the United Kingdom quotes the 2024 Act as it was passed and the repeal.
The law the clauses ran into
The courts have already said what the prohibition means for a refugee the state regards as dangerous. In D8 v Secretary of State for the Home Department, an Iranian national whose refugee status had been revoked on national security grounds, the Court of Appeal allowed the Home Secretary’s appeal on the test for revocation, and recorded that because the Special Immigration Appeals Commission had found a real risk of torture in Iran, “there is now no question of him being returned”. It put the principle in one sentence:
Court of Appeal, D8 v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 33, 22 January 2025, paragraph 26. “Put another way, we do not send people back to be killed or tortured even if they are a danger to the national security of United Kingdom”.
The Supreme Court refused D8 permission to appeal on 5 June 2025. The rule the Court of Appeal applied comes from a case against the United Kingdom. In Chahal v United Kingdom, in 1996, the European Court of Human Rights held that where substantial grounds for a real risk have been shown, “the activities of the individual in question, however undesirable or dangerous, cannot be a material consideration”.
The government’s own policy statement of 17 November 2025, Restoring Order and Control, says the same of Article 3: “Unlike Article 8, Article 3 is an absolute right, which means it cannot be balanced against the public interest.” It also says that “the interpretation of ‘inhuman or degrading treatment’ has been expanded over time”, and it lists among the government’s plans: “Working with partners to reform the application of the ECHR’s prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment.” In the committee the minister pointed to the declaration that the 46 member states of the Council of Europe agreed at Chișinău on 15 May 2026, which, in her account, “recognised that national Governments and courts are usually best placed to assess the facts before them, including the application of article 3 protections”.
The United Nations Committee against Torture said in 2019 that the Human Rights Act “is currently the only mechanism through which the right not to be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment can be directly enforced” in the United Kingdom, and recommended that “any legislative changes do not diminish the State party’s current level of legal protections regarding the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment”.
What is still being investigated, as of 8 November 2026
Whether any of the four clauses will be tabled again at report stage.
The text of the declaration agreed at Chișinău. The Coalition has not yet read it, and it is described here only in the minister’s words.
The bill as amended in committee, Bill 153, and the Home Office’s human rights memoranda of 30 June and 12 October 2026, which the Coalition has not yet read. What the bill would change for protection status and appeals is set out in The UK’s Immigration and Asylum Bill Has Cleared Committee.
Sources: Hansard, Public Bill Committee on the Immigration and Asylum Bill, ninth sitting, 22 October 2026, fifteenth and sixteenth sittings, 3 November 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill, Parliament’s record · D8 v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 33 · Supreme Court, UKSC/2025/0049, permission to appeal refused 5 June 2025 · Chahal v United Kingdom, no. 22414/93, 15 November 1996, paragraph 80 · Home Office, Restoring Order and Control, 17 November 2025 · Committee against Torture, CAT/C/GBR/CO/6, paragraphs 10 and 11 · the Coalition’s page on the United Kingdom.