(1 day, 10 hours ago)
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Mr Speaker
Before we come to the statement by the Home Secretary, I should like to say something about the House’s sub judice resolution. The case of Epping Forest district council v. Somani Hotels is still active and before the courts, but because the case concerns wider issues relating to the planning consent required for hotels to house asylum seekers, I have decided to grant a waiver so that Members are free to refer to it in proceedings. However, I remind the House that there are other active criminal prosecutions related to disorder around the Bell hotel and elsewhere, as well as one prosecution of an asylum seeker for alleged sexual offences. Hon. Members may refer to the general issues relating to asylum accommodation, but should avoid discussing any specific criminal cases.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
With permission, I will update the House on the actions we are taking with France to strengthen our border security and the next steps in our reforms to the asylum system.
The House will be aware that when we came into government, we found an asylum and immigration system in chaos: for seven years, small boat gangs had been allowed to embed their criminal trade along the French coast; the asylum backlog was soaring; and illegal working was being ignored. The previous Government had lost control of the system and, as a result, opened many hundreds of asylum hotels across the country, while returns were a third lower than in 2010. Before leaving office, they deliberately cut asylum decision making by 70%, leaving behind a steeply rising backlog. It is little wonder that people across the country lost confidence in the system and demanded to know why they were paying the price of a system that was so out of control.
However, that does not mean that people rejected the long and proud history of Britain doing our bit to help those fleeing persecution or conflict—including, in the past decade, families from Ukraine, Syria and Hong Kong. It is the British way to do our bit alongside other countries to help those who need sanctuary. However, the system has to be controlled and managed, based on fair and properly enforced rules, not chaos and exploitation driven by criminal smuggler gangs. It is exactly because of our important tradition that substantial reforms are needed now.
In our first year in government, we have taken immediate action, laying the foundations for more fundamental reform. We restored asylum decision making and then rapidly increased the rate of decisions. Had we continued with the previous Government’s freeze on asylum decisions, thousands more people would have been in hotels and asylum accommodation by now. Instead, we removed 35,000 people with no right to be here, which included a 28% increase in returns of failed asylum seekers and a 14% increase in removals of foreign criminals. We have increased raids and arrests on illegal working by 50%, and we cut the annual hotel bill by almost a billion pounds in the last financial year. We are rolling out digital ID and biometric kits so that immigration enforcement can check on the spot whether someone has a right to work or a right to be in the UK. On channel crossings and organised immigration crime, we are putting in place new powers, new structures and new international agreements to help to dismantle the criminal industry behind the boats.
I want to update the House on the further steps we are now taking. In August, I signed the new treaty with France allowing us, for the first time, to directly return those who arrive on small boats. The first detentions—of people immediately on arrival in Dover—took place the next day, and we expect the first returns to begin later this month. Applications have been opened for the reciprocal legal route, with the first cases under consideration, subject to strict security checks. We have made it clear that this is a pilot scheme, but the more that we prove the concept at the outset, the better we will be able to develop and grow it.
The principles the treaty embodies are crucial. No one should be making these dangerous or illegal journeys on small boats; if they do, we want to see them swiftly returned. In return, we believe in doing our bit alongside other countries to help those who have fled persecution through managed and controlled legal programmes.
This summer we have taken further action to strengthen enforcement against smuggling gangs. France has reviewed its maritime approach to allow for the interception of taxi boats in French waters, and we will continue to work with France to implement the change as soon as possible. In the past year, the National Crime Agency has led 347 disruptions of immigration crime networks—its highest level on record, and a 40% increase in a year.
Over the summer, we announced a £100 million uplift in funding for border security and up to 300 more personnel in the National Crime Agency focusing on targeting the smuggler gangs. The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will give them stronger powers: counter-terrorism powers against smuggler gangs, powers to seize and download the mobile phones of small boat arrivals, and the power to ban sex offenders from the asylum system altogether. If Opposition parties work with us to speed the passage of the Bill through the other place, instead of opposing it, those powers could be in place within months, making our country safer and more secure.
Let me turn to the major reforms that are needed to fix the broken asylum system that we inherited. Although we have increased decision making and returns, the overall system remains sclerotic, outdated and unfair. As we committed to in the immigration White Paper, we will shortly set out more radical reforms to modernise the asylum system and boost our border security. We will be tackling the pull factors, strengthening enforcement, making sure that people are treated fairly and reforming the way that the European convention on human rights is interpreted here at home. We will be speeding up the system, cutting numbers and ending the use of hotels, and developing controlled and managed routes for genuine refugees.
At the heart of the reforms will be a complete overhaul of the appeals system—the biggest obstacle to reducing the size of the asylum system and ending hotel use. Tens of thousands of people in asylum accommodation are currently waiting for appeals, and under the current system that figure is to grow, with an average wait time already of 54 weeks. We have already funded thousands of additional sitting days this year, and the border security Bill will introduce a statutory timeframe of 24 weeks.
However, we need to go further. We will introduce a new independent body to deal with immigration and asylum appeals. It will be fully independent of Government and staffed by professionally trained adjudicators, with safeguards to ensure high standards. It will be able to surge capacity as needed and to accelerate and prioritise cases, alongside new procedures to tackle repeat applications and unnecessary delays. We are also increasing detention and returns capacity, including a 1,000-bed expansion at Campsfield and Haslar, with the first tranche of additional beds coming online within months to support many thousands more enforced removals each year.
Our reforms will also address the overly complex system for family migration, including changes to the way that article 8 of the ECHR is interpreted. We should be clear that international law is important. It is because other countries know that we abide by international law that we have been able to make new agreements with France, to return people who arrive on small boats, and with Germany, to stop the warehousing of small boats by criminal gangs, and it is why we have been able to explore return hubs partnerships with other European countries. However, we need the interpretation of international law to keep up with the realities and challenges of today’s world.
There is one area where we need to make more immediate changes. The current rules for family reunion for refugees were designed many years ago to help families separated by war, conflict and persecution, but the way they are used has now changed. Even just before the pandemic, refugees who applied to bring family to the UK did so on average more than one or two years after they had been granted protection, which was long enough for them to get jobs, find housing and be able to provide their family with some support. In Denmark and Switzerland, those who are granted humanitarian protection are currently not able to apply to bring family for at least two years after protection has been granted.
However, in the UK those family applications now come in, on average, around a month after protection has been granted, often even before a newly granted refugee has left asylum accommodation. As a consequence, refugee families who arrive are far more likely to seek homelessness assistance. Some councils are finding that more than a quarter of their family homelessness applications are linked to refugee family reunion. That is not sustainable. Currently, there are also no conditions on family reunion for refugee sponsors, unlike those in place if the sponsor is a British citizen or long-term UK resident. That is not fair.
The proportion of migrants who have arrived on small boats and then applied to bring family has also increased sharply in recent years, with signs that smuggler gangs are now able to use the promise of family reunion to promote dangerous journeys to the UK. We continue to believe that families staying together is important, which is why we will seek to prioritise family groups among the applicants to come to Britain under our new deal with France, but reforms are needed. So in our asylum policy statement later this year, we will set out a new system for family migration, including looking at contribution requirements, longer periods before newly granted refugees can apply, and dedicated controlled arrangements for unaccompanied children and those fleeing persecution who have family in the UK.
We aim to have some of those changes in place for the spring, but in the meantime we do need to address the immediate pressures on local authorities and the risks from criminal gangs using family reunion as a pull factor to encourage more people on to dangerous boats. Therefore, this week we are bringing forward new immigration rules to temporarily suspend new applications under the existing dedicated refugee family reunion route. Until the new framework is introduced, refugees will be covered by the same family migration rules and conditions as everyone else.
Let me turn next to the action we are taking to ensure that every asylum hotel will be closed for good under this Government, not just by shifting individuals from hotels to other sites but by driving down the numbers in supported accommodation overall, and not in a chaotic way through piecemeal court judgments, but through a controlled, managed and orderly programme: driving down inflow into the asylum system, clearing the appeals backlog, which is crucial, and continuing to increase returns. Within the asylum estate, we are reconfiguring sites, increasing room sharing, tightening the test for accommodation and working at pace to identify alternative, cheaper and more appropriate accommodation with other Departments and with local authorities. We are increasing standards and security and joint public safety co-operation between the police, accommodation providers and the Home Office to ensure that laws and rules are enforced.
I understand and agree with local councils and communities who want the asylum hotels in their communities closed, because we need to close all asylum hotels—we need to do so for good—but that must be done in a controlled and orderly manner, not through a return to the previous Government’s chaos that led to the opening of hotels in the first place.
Finally, let me update the House on the continued legal and controlled support that we will provide for those facing conflict and persecution. We will continue to do our bit to support Ukraine, extending the Ukraine permission extension scheme by a further 24 months, with further details to be set out in due course. We are also taking immediate action to rescue children who have been seriously injured in the horrendous onslaught on civilians in Gaza so that they can get the health treatment they need. The Foreign Secretary will update the House shortly on the progress to get those children out.
I confirm that the Home Office has put in place systems to issue expedited visas with biometric checks conducted prior to arrival for children and their immediate accompanying family members. We have done the same for all the Chevening scholars and are now in the process of doing so for the next group of students from Gaza who have been awarded fully funded scholarships and places at UK universities so that they can start their studies in autumn this year. Later this year, we will set out plans to establish a permanent framework for refugee students to come and study in the UK so that we can help more talented young people fleeing war and persecution to find a better future, alongside capped and managed ways for refugees to work here in the UK.
The Government are determined to fix every aspect of the broken system we inherited and to restore the confidence of the British people, solving problems, not exploiting them, with a serious and comprehensive plan, not fantasy claims based on sums that do not add up or gimmicks that failed in the past. What we will never do is seek to stir up chaos, division or hate, because that is not who we are as a country, and that is not what Britain stands for.
This is a practical plan to strengthen our border security, to fix the asylum chaos and to rebuild confidence in an asylum and immigration system that serves our national interests, protects our national security and reflects our national values. When we wave the Union flag, when we wave the St George’s flag, when we sing “God Save the King” and when we celebrate everything that is great about Britain and about our country, we do so with pride because of the values that our flags, our King and our country represent: togetherness, fairness and decency, respect for each other and respect for the rule of law. That is what our country stands for. That is the British way to fix the problems we face. I commend this statement to the House.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. The Government have now been in office for well over a year, and I think it is fair to say that not even their kindest friends would say they think it has gone well, but listening to her statement, it sounds like she thinks everything is fine and that if there are any problems, it is somehow somebody else’s fault. Is she living in a parallel universe? After over a year in office, she must now take responsibility for what is happening under this Government.
It was interesting to note that, during her statement, she did not mention her favourite phrase from a year or so ago—namely, that she was going to “smash the gangs.” I wonder why she was so silent on her previously favourite catchphrase. The answer is that it is not going very well. She mentioned National Crime Agency disruptions. Let me gently point out that 84% of those National Crime Agency disruptions that she cited a few minutes ago are classified as not being high impact, and National Crime Agency arrests for organised immigration crime actually went down by 16% in the last financial year. That is hardly smashing the gangs. In fact, the NCA’s arrests for organised immigration crime in that financial year were only 26—a drop in the ocean compared with the tens of thousands crossing the channel.
It was also rather conspicuous that the Home Secretary did not mention even a word about the numbers illegally crossing the English channel. I wonder why that was. I wonder why she forgot to say a single word about that. The reason, I am afraid, is pretty clear. Far from smashing the gangs, so far this year, 29,000—to be precise, 29,003—illegal immigrants have crossed the English channel. That is the worst year in history, and it is up by 38% compared with last year. That is not success; it is failure. Things are not getting any better; they are getting worse. This Government are failing and everyone can see it. That is why there are protests up and down the country, and where those protests are peaceful, I support them. That is why 75% of the public think the Government are handling immigration and asylum badly. That is a shocking figure; let it sink in.
Let me turn to hotels. In the nine months before the last general election, 200 hotels were closed down, including the Bell hotel in Epping, but since the election the numbers in asylum hotels have actually gone up by 8%. Had that previous trend of closures continued, there would be no asylum hotels open at all today. I ask the Home Secretary to confirm that she will not reduce hotel usage simply by shunting asylum seekers from hotels into flats and houses in multiple occupation, which are desperately needed by young people. Will she give the House that categoric assurance?
Last week the Home Secretary’s lawyers said that the rights of illegal immigrants were more important than the rights of local people in places such as Epping. When this was expressly put in those terms to the Education Secretary yesterday on “Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips”, she shamefully agreed. Those statements are a disgrace. Does the Home Secretary realise how angry that makes people feel? It speaks of a Government not on the side of the people in this country. It means the Government appear to care more about the rights of illegal immigrants than our own citizens. Will she apologise for what her lawyers and the Education Secretary said, and will she undertake to ensure that Ministers and their lawyers will never say that again?
The Home Secretary talks about her returns deal with France. It has been reported that the deal will return only about 50 people a week, amounting to 6% of arrivals. Does she accept that allowing 94% of illegal arrivals to stay will act as no deterrent at all? If she does not accept that figure of 50 a week, will she tell the House exactly how many immigrants crossing the channel will in fact be returned under her deal? She may recall that back in July we were told by the Government that the first returns would happen “within weeks”. Will she confirm to the House that the number that has actually been returned so far is precisely zero?
The Home Secretary said to the House a couple of minutes ago that there would be security checks on those people reciprocally taken from France into the UK, but will she confirm that her agreement with France says expressly that the French Government will not provide the UK Government with any information at all—any personal data about those migrants—so if there are criminal convictions or suspicions about extremism or terrorism, the French Government will not provide information to us? If that is true, as her agreement says, how can she possibly conduct security checks?
The Home Secretary talked about tweaks to family visa rules. Let me be clear about the Opposition’s position on this. If someone enters this country illegally, they should not be allowed to bring in any family members. In fact, everybody entering this country illegally should be immediately removed, to their country of origin if possible, and if that is not possible, to a safe third country such as Rwanda—a scheme which she cancelled just days before it was due to start. The public expect that approach—an approach which she cancelled—because the numbers crossing the channel so far this year have been the worst ever; the worst in history.
It is not just that the numbers are high. Hundreds of migrants, having crossed the channel and living in those hotels, have been charged with criminal offences, including sexual assaults on girls as young as eight years old and multiple rapes. This is not just a border security crisis; it is a public safety crisis as well, and people up and down this country are furious. That is why they are protesting, and that is why 75% of the public think this Government are failing on asylum and immigration.
If this Government were serious about fixing this problem, they would know that little tweaks here and there are not enough. Tweaks to article 8 are not going to be enough. Tweaking the family reunion rules is not enough. Returning maybe 50 people a week, if we are lucky, to France is not going to be enough. Intercepting maybe a few boats—worthy though that is—is not going to be enough. The only way these crossings will stop—the only way we are going to get back control of our borders—is if everybody crossing the channel knows that they will be returned. We tabled a Bill in Parliament a few weeks ago to do that. We had a plan to do that: the Rwanda Bill. We need to go further by disapplying to immigration matters the entire Human Rights Act 1998, not just tinkering with article 8. If the Government were serious, that is what they would do.
If the Home Secretary really wants to control our borders, and if she really wants to get down the record numbers that have been crossing on her watch, she would back our plan, disapply the Human Rights Act in its entirety to immigration matters, and ensure that every single person crossing the channel is immediately removed.
Yvette Cooper
I worry about the shadow Home Secretary’s amnesia. In the 14 years that the Conservatives were in government, they never managed to do any of the fantasy things that he claims they did. Let us come back to reality from his fantasy rhetoric.
The shadow Home Secretary talked about the approach that his Government were taking before the election. It is worth reminding the House of what that approach was. Asylum decisions dropped by 70%. The Conservatives effectively had a freeze on taking asylum decisions, and they were returning those asylum seekers nowhere—not to France, not to the safe countries that people had passed through, and not to Rwanda, despite running that scheme for over two years with only four volunteers going at a cost of £700 million. Their approach left us with a soaring backlog. Had we continued with that totally failed approach—not taking asylum decisions, not returning people anywhere—there would have been tens of thousands more people in asylum accommodation and hotels across the country right now. That is the kind of chaos that his policies were heading towards. It is the kind of chaos that he is promising again now.
The House will remember the shadow Home Secretary’s personal record. Small boat arrivals went up tenfold on his watch as immigration Minister. Fewer than 1,000 asylum seekers were in hotels by the time he became immigration Minister, but there were more than 20,000 by the time he left his post. On his new concern for local councils, he was the immigration Minister who wrote to local authorities to tell them that he was stopping the requirement on them to agree to accommodation and that he had
“instead, authorised Providers to identify any suitable properties that they consider appropriate.”
We agree with communities across the country that asylum hotels must all close, and I understand why individual councils want to take action in their areas, but I say to the shadow Home Secretary that a party that wants to be in government should have a proper plan for the whole country, and not just promote a chaotic approach that ends up making things worse in lots of areas. That is the Conservatives’ record. We have asylum hotels in the first place because the Conservatives did no planning and let the Manston chaos get out of control. As immigration Ministers, both the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), and the shadow Home Secretary rushed around the country opening hotels instead of taking a practical, steady approach to get to the heart of the problem, reduce the asylum system, strengthen our border security and tackle and reform the appeals that are causing huge delays.
Let me make a final point. The Government strongly believe that sex offenders should be banned from the asylum system altogether. That is why we have put those details into the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which the shadow Home Secretary’s party has voted against time and again and is still resisting in the House of Lords. If Opposition parties supported and worked with us, that law could be on the statute book and we could have stronger powers against sex offenders, stronger counter-terrorism powers to go after criminal gangs, and stronger powers to tackle the offences being committed in the channel and across the country.
The trouble is that what the Conservatives are doing in opposition is an even worse version of what they did in government: ramping up the rhetoric with policies that would make the chaos worse. This Government will fix the chaos that we inherited and strengthen our border security for the sake of the whole country.
Jodie Gosling (Nuneaton) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for everything that she has revealed today—it will make a difference. As we move from hotels into community distribution, how can we ensure sufficient vetting and transparency in asylum dispersal—especially for groups known to be high risk—in order to safeguard our residents, restore faith among our communities and prevent the threat of disorder such as that seen in Nuneaton this summer?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Anyone who comes to our country needs to abide by our laws. The rules need to be enforced. We also believe that new partnership and stronger measures are needed between policing and immigration enforcement and the Home Office to ensure that there are proper public safety plans for the asylum estate. We are drawing up new arrangements, including not only stronger checks at the border but stronger arrangements in local communities. I recognise the important point that she makes.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
I am grateful to the Home Secretary, as always, for advance sight of her statement.
Anyone with any sense knows that the Conservatives trashed our asylum system and left the backlog spiralling out of control, with applications for asylum routinely taking years to process. Some of the Home Secretary’s remarks are welcome, but I worry that this Government risk repeating some of the same mistakes.
The Liberal Democrats will closely scrutinise the plan that the Home Secretary has talked about today, but given that the Home Office itself says that one of the reasons that those human beings seeking asylum make dangerous small-boat crossings is the lack of safe, alternative family reunion routes, cutting those back further seems counterproductive, especially when more than half of those granted family reunion visas in the year ending June 2025 were children under 18.
It is right that the Government have increased the rate of decisions made—those with no right to be here should be sent back swiftly, and those who have a valid claim should be able to settle, work, integrate and contribute to our communities. The backlog is still too large, however, and initial application decisions still take too long. As the Home Secretary stated, a significant share of the backlog comes from appeals. According to the Government’s own figures, in 2024 almost half of rejected asylum applications were overturned on appeal. For applicants from high-grant countries, that proportion was even higher. I would welcome clarity from the Home Secretary on how long it is currently taking to process the average asylum application, and on what concrete steps are being taken to ensure not only that cases are processed more swiftly, but that decisions are right the first time, so that applicants are not left in limbo, the courts are not overburdened and taxpayers are not footing the bill for avoidable delays.
I welcome the Home Secretary’s encouraging comments about the reciprocal agreement with France. Can she confirm whether the Government plan for that to be scaled up and, if so, when? Given that one of the main drivers of dangerous channel crossings is the absence of safe, legal family reunion routes, does the Home Secretary agree that cutting family reunion rules risks making the small-boat crisis worse, not better?
The Home Secretary rightly also mentioned the impact on local authorities. When individuals leave hotels, many present as homeless, creating an unsustainable burden on councils, including my own. Will the Home Secretary explain how she is working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to support councils and ensure that this crisis is not simply shifted from one overstretched system to another?
In recent weeks, constituents have been in touch with me as they are concerned about the number of flags that have gone up on lampposts around our area. They worry that the flags have been put up by those who seek to divide our community, not bring it together. Patriotism is a good thing. We should be proud of our country. We should be proud that our country welcomed people such as my nan in the 1930s, when she was fleeing the Nazis. We should be proud of our record of doing our bit. We should be proud of the British values I see in action across my community every day.
I am proud of those police officers who kept everyone safe during the protests at two hotels in my constituency over the summer; proud of those teachers and pupils who welcome new classmates when they have been placed in one of the hotels; and really proud of those who volunteer their time to support new arrivals, whether through local churches or other voluntary groups and charities—because that is what patriotism looks like.
Yvette Cooper
I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks and questions. At the heart of the France pilot that we have developed is the principle that those who arrive on dangerous and illegal small boats should be returned, but alongside that we should also have a legal route for those who apply and who go through proper security checks. As part of that, we will seek to prioritise people who have a connection to the UK, such as family groups —people who have family connections to the UK. Families will continue to need to be an underpinning part of the approach. The House will recall that the Ukraine family scheme was an important part of the response to the situation in Ukraine, for which Labour called in opposition.
The family reunion arrangements are being used differently from how they were used five years ago. The number of people applying for family reunion immediately —before they have a job, a house or any way of being able to support their families—is increasing the homelessness pressures on local authorities at a time when we need them not just to do their bit to help to clear hotels, but, crucially, to provide homelessness support in the local community. It is important to ensure that arrangements for the families of refugees do not put additional pressure on the homelessness support system, so we will set out reforms and ensure that, in the interim, refugees are included in the existing arrangements that apply to all sponsors in the UK for family reunion.
We need to speed up appeals. The average appeal time is now 54 weeks, which is far too long. Some appeals go on for way longer, meaning people with repeat appeals are in asylum accommodation for years, preventing the closure of asylum hotels that needs to take place, which is why we need the reforms.
Finally, the hon. Lady raised the issue of flags. I strongly support the flying of flags across the country—we fly the St George’s flag in Pontefract castle each year. As she will know, the Union flag is on the Labour party membership card—[Interruption.] I can show her a copy if she has not seen one. Flags should be an embodiment of bringing our country together—that will be the same in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—and a way to bring our country together through symbolism.
Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
A couple of years ago, I was working in local government in Scotland, trying to deal with the impact of asylum hotels. At that time, the shadow Home Secretary was a Minister in the Home Office, and he opened hotel after hotel, without even telling councils that that was happening, so his amnesia today is staggering. We did not have asylum hotels five years ago, but we have them now because the last Government signed a contract with private providers that has cost billions of pounds, putting pressure on communities, as well as being a procurement scandal. Will the Home Secretary commit to reading the report on this issue that the Home Affairs Committee is about to publish, and to looking as creatively as she can at managing those asylum contracts to get the best deal possible for the taxpayer?
Yvette Cooper
I look forward to reading the Home Affairs Committee’s report and I thank my hon. Friend for his work on the Committee. We have already been working to get better value from the contracts that we inherited, which is one reason that we have saved nearly £1 billion on asylum accommodation costs since the election. He is right to point out that the previous Government completely lost control of the system in 2022. There was a total lack of planning or any grip on the situation, as well as chaos around management that was incredibly costly. The sudden surge of asylum hotels opening all over the country, with poor contracts that provided poor value for money, was bad for the taxpayer and damaging to having an effective system across the country. We cannot go back to that kind of chaos.
Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)
Home Secretary, please: we have a tinder-box situation in Epping. We have the Bell hotel, with alleged sexual and physical assaults, and now twice-weekly major protests, some of which became violent, with injuries to police officers. Appallingly, last week the Government successfully appealed against the injunction on the hotel, prioritising the rights of illegal migrants over the rights and, indeed, safety of the people of Epping. Our community is in distress. The situation is untenable. This week the schools are back. The hotel is in the wrong place, right near a school, and many concerned parents have contacted me. When will the Home Secretary and the Government listen to us, address this issue and do the right and safe thing: close the Bell hotel immediately?
Yvette Cooper
I agree that all asylum hotels need to be closed as swiftly as possible, including the Bell hotel. That needs to be done in an orderly and sustainable manner so that they are closed for good. The hon. Gentleman is not right in the characterisation of the Government’s case, because we are clear that all asylum hotels need to close. We need to ensure that that is done in an ordered way that does not simply make the problem worse in other neighbouring areas or cause the kind of disordered chaos that led to the opening of so many hotels in the first place. We also need to strengthen the security and the co-operation with policing, and we want to strengthen the law on asylum seekers who commit offences and can be banned from the system. That will be part of our Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill as well.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It was Orwell who urged us to be proud of our countries and to call out the nationalists trying to demand that we express our pride or be called traitors accordingly. Let us be proud of this country and the work it has done to support people fleeing persecution; let us be proud of what we have done to help families from Ukraine and Hong Kong. I know the Home Secretary recognises that safe and legal routes for refugee children to be reunited with their parents are something that we should be proud of. In that vein, if there is to be a delay in providing those safe and legal routes, will it apply to all children, including Ukrainian children, or will we recognise that helping children so that they do not face penalties is our best and proudest action?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes important points. The new arrangements that we set out will include both stronger border security and reforms to the asylum system to make it more controlled and managed and to reduce its size, as well as to have the controlled and managed legal routes. That needs to include arrangements for family and dedicated arrangements around unaccompanied children. My hon. Friend is right to raise that as a serious issue. Obviously we have a separate dedicated scheme for Ukraine, and we are continuing with that scheme.
On my hon. Friend’s point about what we should recognise, I think that people across the country continue to support that. Having spoken to Ukrainian mums who described how they fled in the first few weeks of Putin’s invasion, knowing that their home villages had been overrun by Russian troops and not knowing whether other family members were safe or whether they would ever be able to return again, let me say that we should always remember what people can be fleeing from and the importance of countries working together to support them.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Does the Home Secretary believe that the rights of the people coming over the channel in dinghies should take precedence over the rights of local residents in places such as Epping, as her lawyers argued for in court and as the Education Secretary said in an interview at the weekend?
Yvette Cooper
No, that is wrong. That is wrong about the Government’s position. The Government have made it clear that all asylum hotels need to close, and they need to do so in an orderly manner that does not end up increasing the problems in other areas. We need to close the hotels for the whole country, and the judge themself has said that this is not about a hierarchy of rights.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
I am very glad the Home Secretary has acknowledged that, like other countries, we have a duty to safeguard those fleeing persecution and seeking sanctuary in Britain. The reason we had 400 asylum hotels back in 2023, at a cost of £9 million a day, and we now have just over 200 asylum hotels, is that the Conservative party failed to deal with asylum claim applications, which this country and this Government are now doing. If there is any Government who will end the use of hotels for asylum seekers, it is this Labour Government.
Yvette Cooper
I welcome my hon. Friend’s points. We need the consistent, practical plans that will close hotels right across the country, clear the appeals backlog, which would otherwise grow, and prevent the increase in asylum claims in the first place. We also need the restarting of decisions, because had we carried on with the freeze on asylum decisions that the previous Government left us with, there would be tens of thousands more people in hotels across the country right now. That would have been deeply wrong.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
People with a wide range of views about how to tackle immigration spoke to me over the summer, and none of them is happy with how things are. They are furious about how the Conservatives trashed our border security, and they certainly do not want the hare-brained schemes of Reform—they want action that fixes the system fast. After years of failure, will the Home Secretary finally ensure that our immigration system keeps out people who would come here for the wrong reasons, while properly supporting those who need our help?
Yvette Cooper
Yes, we need to strengthen our border security. That is why the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is currently passing through the other place, includes the ability to use counter-terrorism powers against criminal smuggler gangs. Those powers are crucial—we need to strengthen the work of the National Crime Agency in going after those gangs, because they are pursuing a vile trade in human lives.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)
I do not envy the Home Secretary trying to clear up the mess that the last Government left on migration. I doubt, however, that the measures she is currently putting before the House will be as successful as she and I wish them to be. They do not really deal with the fact that many migrants are not coming from war-torn countries; they are coming from France, which is not persecuting them in any recognisable form. The reason is demand pull from this country—migrants believe they will have a better and an easier time, and get through the system more easily, in this country than they would in France or in other European countries. Denmark has been successful in reducing the demand pull. If the Home Secretary’s measures are to be as successful as she wishes them to be, will she look more closely at what Denmark has done to improve the situation?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right to say that obviously, small boats are mainly setting off from France—people have travelled through France. That is exactly why we have negotiated the pilot agreement with France to be able to return people there. It is the first time this has happened; it is something that previous Governments tried and completely failed to do. It is important that we do that and build on it, but we also need to tackle some of those pull factors, particularly illegal working. That is why we have had a 50% increase in illegal work raids and arrests. We also need to recognise that family reunion is being used by some criminal gangs. One thing Denmark has done is increase the time before refugees can apply for family reunion, so that they are more likely to be working and supporting their families and to prevent criminal gangs from being able to use family reunion as a pull factor.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Home Secretary has spoken about tweaks to the rules and regulations, and potentially to interpretation of the law. The problem with that, of course, is that our courts will also interpret the law, and may go against what the Home Secretary wants to do. Will she set out what changes to the law she will introduce to ensure we stop the illegal migrants coming to this country?
Yvette Cooper
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to change the law. First, obviously, we have the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which will bring in a whole series of changes including counter-terrorism powers, banning sex offenders from the asylum system and a new offence of endangerment. We also believe that new legal changes to the asylum system are going to be needed, and we will bring forward further legislation in order to make those changes. Later this year, we will set out detailed reforms —not just on appeals, but more widely around the asylum system—to enable us to tackle some of both the historic chaos and the delays in the system, and to get that system back under control.
Sally Jameson (Doncaster Central) (Lab/Co-op)
As many are aware, a number of well-known delivery companies and other companies are employing asylum seekers with no right to work, which is helping to incentivise the boat crossings and ultimately to undermine our national security. Will the Home Secretary liaise with the Treasury before the Budget to discuss bringing in a windfall tax on some of those delivery companies, so that they can start contributing to the cost of a problem that they are helping to exacerbate?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend raises an important point about the gig economy and the need to ensure that it does not become rife with abuse and misuse when it comes to illegal working. That is why we are bringing in—again, in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which unfortunately the Conservatives and Reform have continued to vote against—requirements for employers in the gig economy to abide by checks on illegal working. We have also recently signed with some of the major delivery companies a new agreement to share information, so that we can target abuse and crime.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
What a country the UK is becoming! Rarely has the national mood been so ugly and intimidating. People are congregating at hotels, screaming at asylum seekers to go home, and those on the right wing are so emboldened that they feel the streets belong to them. Does the Home Secretary not realise that every time she moves on to Reform’s ground, all she is doing is further encouraging and emboldening them? How about trying something different? How about just occasionally saying something positive about immigration? How about not dehumanising asylum seekers, and instead showing them some compassion, decency and humanity?
Yvette Cooper
I just point out to the hon. Member that I have spoken about Ukrainian mums and their experiences fleeing from Putin; the students in Gaza who currently cannot take up their places—we are working on expedited visas for them, so that they can pursue a better future—and the importance of having a proper, legal and controlled route as part of an effective system. That has been part of our history, but we also have to have a system that is properly controlled and managed. We have to have a system that is not open to abuse, misuse and exploitation by criminal gangs. We also need stronger border security, so that it is Government, and not gangs, who choose who comes to our country.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. There is a lot to unpick, and we need more detail on this new appeals system. One of my key concerns when I was in the Home Office many years ago was the poor legal advice that people were getting early on. Lawyers were making them jump through many hopeless hoops to extend their stay unnecessarily. They were putting them in a miserable situation, costing the taxpayer, and creating chaos and duplication in the system. Is the Home Secretary looking at what legal advice people will get at an early stage, so that appeals and processes can be expedited?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is a former Home Office Minister; she has a lot of experience with immigration case issues, and real concerns about the advice people are given and the way that decisions are made. We are strengthening some of the regulation, and improving the way the legal advice system works, in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. I would be happy to talk to my hon. Friend further about this issue.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
The Stanwell hotel in my constituency is being used to house asylum seekers. I wrote to Home Office Ministers on 24 July, again on 25 July, and again on 29 July, and I have had zero responses to any of those letters. Please will the Home Secretary show some respect to my constituents and the people of Spelthorne and reply to their questions and concerns?
Yvette Cooper
I will ensure that the hon. Member gets a written response to his questions, but let me also make it clear that all asylum hotels, including the hotel in his constituency, need to close. They need to do so in an orderly manner, and in a way that does not make the problem worse elsewhere or create more chaos, as we have seen in the past. That is the best way for us to reduce the size of the asylum system, to clear all the backlogs, and to ensure that we have an effective system.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
The European convention on human rights is an important bedrock, protecting not only vulnerable people’s rights here in the UK, but also our strong international relationships, which were crucial to securing the returns deal with France, and co-operation with Germany and other European partners on finally clamping down on the scourge of the people smuggling gangs that we inherited. Leaving the ECHR fully cannot be a solution to our problems, but that does not mean that every aspect of it works in the right way, and it is clear that it stands in the way of our taking some actions that we need to take if we are to deal with this issue seriously. I welcome the Home Secretary’s clarification of how we will take forward interpretation of article 8. May I seek confirmation that we will not shy away from further clarification, like the clarification she gave today, where the ECHR is getting in the way of the action that we know we need to take to provide the border security that our country is crying out for?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right to talk about international law, and the ECHR being part of the reason why we have been able to get international agreements; other countries know that we will abide by international law. That is how we got the French pilot, which the previous Government were repeatedly unable to do. The way in which the ECHR is interpreted is significant and needs to keep up to date. We have a challenge around article 8 and family cases; far too many cases are being treated as exceptions to the rules that Parliament has set. We think the rules need to change for us to address that, and we need to work through changes to how article 8 in particular is interpreted in our immigration and asylum system. We will set out more details on that in our asylum reform package later this year.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
Every time the Home Secretary announces a new policy on illegal migration, illegal migration goes up, so I think a period of silence would be most welcome from her. Does she agree that the only way to stop the pull factor is to detain, deport and never allow illegal migrants to claim asylum in this country?
Yvette Cooper
The pilot scheme we have agreed with France involves, for the first time, our being able to detain people on their arrival in Dover—this has not happened before—and return them to France, where the boats set off from. Previous Governments, including the one that the hon. Gentleman supported and was part of, were unable to agree or achieve that. We have also increased returns of failed asylum seekers by nearly 30% since the election alone, because we believe that the rules need to be enforced, and that returns need to be increased. The problem with his party’s approach is that it sounds a lot like the last Tory Government’s grand promises, which totally failed. His party is just rehashing the same chaotic promises, without ever being able to provide the detail of how it would make any of its policies work. The British way is to roll up our sleeves and do things in a practical way, increase returns, and sort the problems out.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
The Home Secretary said in her statement that she will never “seek to stir up chaos, division or hate”, yet that is what we have seen this summer. The far right are emboldened, because of racism and demonisation in the media and from politicians. Instead of scapegoating refugees and asylum seekers, perhaps the Home Secretary needs to be thinking about more humane policies, including safe routes, employment and the right to remain. Can she explain whether these policies have been, or will be, considered?
Yvette Cooper
The French pilot scheme involves allowing people who apply lawfully and go through proper security checks to come to the UK on a one-for-one basis, as we return those who have arrived on dangerous small boats in the hands of criminal gangs. I also set out in my statement our intention to have a permanent framework under which refugee students can come to the UK, rather than our taking an ad hoc approach, as we currently do to Gaza students. There needs to be a more systematic approach, as well as capped and controlled approaches to other refugee work programmes. That has to come alongside better controls and management of the existing system, which has become chaotic, with long delays and the undermining of our border security by criminal gangs. We have to do these things together, in a way that pulls our country together, rather than seeing division and tension continue.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
Reform announced in the summer that it would house all asylum seekers on former RAF bases. In my constituency, RAF Linton-on-Ouse was ruled out, on the grounds that its location in a small village made that inappropriate. Will the Home Secretary confirm that she has no plans to reverse the decision to rule out such inappropriate RAF bases?
Yvette Cooper
Obviously, we do not want asylum accommodation in inappropriate places. We must reduce the overall size of the asylum system, while ensuring that we can move people, when possible, from hotels to alternative and better sites. Any arrangement that is aimed simply at expanding the asylum system, as happens if there is a freeze on asylum decisions—and some of the policies that Reform is unfortunately pursuing risk increasing the number of people stuck in the asylum system, because Reform has no plans for practical returns—will make the problem worse. We need practical changes to bring the numbers down.
Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)
It has come to my attention that in government, the job of Home Secretary does not always attract the greatest thanks, so I want to thank my right hon. Friend for the response that she and her Department have given to the letter from 100 colleagues about the Gaza students, and for what she said this afternoon about considering a permanent scheme. Will she confirm, however, that the visas, when they are issued, will be the same as any international student visa, in that the scholars will be able to bring their families and dependants with them?
Yvette Cooper
As my hon. Friend will know, many student visas do not allow students to bring dependants to the United Kingdom. There will be exceptional circumstances, such as those involving Gaza, but the overall approach—for example, to student visas relating to masters courses—is not to include dependants. We do, however, want to ensure that the refugee route for students is available, recognising that some people will be able to come and be educated at UK universities to develop their incredible talents, but will want to return to their home countries in future to rebuild them. There may be others who are not able to return, because that is the nature of the crisis we face.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
In her statement, the Home Secretary mentioned that the National Crime Agency had disrupted 347 immigration crime networks. Can she tell us how many gangs were smashed during the same period?
Yvette Cooper
Many of those disruptions are exactly about pursuing gangs, and there are more than 40 high-profile and high-value disruptions that the National Crime Agency itself has said are having a significant impact on degrading, undermining and stopping the criminal gangs. Some of the arrests that have been co-ordinated with France and Germany are also preventing criminal gang activity by, for instance, taking out the leaders of some of those gangs.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
Is it any wonder that an Opposition Member described the shadow Home Secretary’s asylum policy as “silly”, given that it was a Conservative Government who failed to process claims, filled up hotels, left people in limbo and broke the bank in the process, just as they broke the bank when it came to everything that they touched? Opening asylum hotels did not happen on our watch, and we want to shut them. We want to save the public purse significant sums of money, and we want to get the system right. Will the Home Secretary tell the people of Bournemouth East, whom I represent, how she is speeding up the process of closing asylum hotels in Bournemouth and in Britain?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right. We need to end asylum hotels across the board, and that means ensuring that we can clear the appeals backlogs through major appeals reform, because that is currently the main obstacle to the faster closure of hotels. It means preventing people from taking up accommodation in the first place when they are not entitled to it, and it means looking for alternative sites that are more appropriate, which will mean working with other Government Departments. It also means, crucially, recognising that carrying on with the system that we inherited—the frozen system, in which the last Government were not returning people and not making asylum decisions—would have left us with tens of thousands more people in asylum hotels. That is the system that Conservative Members want to go back to, but it would be deeply damaging for my hon. Friend’s constituents, and for the country.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Providing safer routes for refugees is not going to eradicate the entire problem—none of us is saying that it will—but it is surely part of the solution to stopping trafficking across the channel. Is it not just cruel madness to restrict family reunion, which is one of the few safe routes that currently exist, particularly when we know that 93% of the refugee family reunion visas granted this year were for women and children? Will this not increase the number of people putting themselves at the mercy of evil traffickers, and the number of tragedies in the channel?
Yvette Cooper
I know that this is an issue in which the hon. Member has taken a very strong interest over a long period of time. Since he and I first started discussing this issue many years ago, the way in which the family reunion system is used has changed. It has gone from people applying one or two years after they have refugee protection here in the UK to people applying in around a month. That means that the people applying have often not left asylum accommodation or asylum hotels. They do not have housing, jobs or ways to support family members whom they seek to bring to the UK, and we have also seen that criminal gangs are using and exploiting the system. That is why we are temporarily pausing the existing refugee family reunion route, and we will consult on the new arrangements that should be brought in. We will aim to bring in some of those arrangements by this spring.
In the interim, refugees will be covered by exactly the same rules as everyone else, and by the same conditions as everyone else, through the appendix FM process. But there is a concern, because there are no conditions on refugee family reunion at the moment. The way in which it is being used has changed, and there is a responsibility on us to not have huge problems with homelessness assistance for local authorities, and to have a managed system that also supports contributions and does not simply end up being exploited by criminal gangs.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, and I recognise the complexity of the issues that she is facing. I was very struck by Lord Dubs’s description of his personal circumstances on the radio this morning. His father left Prague as soon as the Nazis invaded in 1939. Lord Dubs got Kindertransport—he was one of the last ones out—and his mother followed a few months later. That is not the one or two-year timetable that we have talked about in terms of the parity of the scheme, so perhaps there needs to be an “Alf Dubs test” that would make sure that families facing similar circumstances, where their lives are in jeopardy, would be protected. He also mentioned ensuring that people understand why people flee as refugees. The conflation between economic migrants and refugees is, frankly, very unhelpful.
Yvette Cooper
I recognise the important points that my hon. Friend makes and the work that Lord Dubs has done over many years, particularly in championing unaccompanied child refugees. We have recognised that there will need to be dedicated arrangements that recognise the particular plight of unaccompanied child refugees, but this needs to be done in a properly controlled and managed way, which it has not been for a long time. Under the existing systems that will apply to everyone over the next six months while we bring in the new arrangements, there are always provisions for exceptional circumstances, but we need to prevent the current system from pushing significant homelessness pressure on to local authorities, and from being exploited by criminal gangs.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The only effective measure of the Government’s actions is the number of crossings, isn’t it?
Yvette Cooper
There is a big problem with the small boats, as we have seen the criminal gangs change their tactics, particularly to exploit the French rules meaning that, up until now, France has not been intervening in French waters. Not just that, but people who have come to the UK lawfully, but are coming to the end of their visas, are claiming asylum when nothing has changed in their country. We need to ensure tighter rules about that, as well as action on border security to prevent dangerous boat crossings, which undermine security and put lives at risk.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
My constituency, like Britain as a whole, has long been home to people of all faiths and cultures who came here or whose forebears came here from all around the world. Over the summer, we have seen the growth of ugly rhetoric, including the term “indigenous Britons”, which risks a culture of fear in many of our communities. What are the Government doing to address this insidious trend?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. Ours is a country that has been strengthened through many generations by people coming to our shores from all over the world to work, reunite with family, be part of communities, set up businesses and be part of our public services, particularly our national health service. They have done so for generation after generation. That is an important part of our country and will continue to be so for the future. We have had long debates about how the immigration system of course needs to be controlled and managed, but we also recognise the need for our country to come together. Whatever their history or family history, people must be able to come together and be proud of the country that Great Britain is, not be divided, pursue hatred or pit people against each other.
Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
Our communities are divided, and they are scared. We—all of us—want to be with our families, and communities are at their strongest when family life is protected and supported. If the Secretary of State lifted the ban on asylum seekers working, she would be giving those who subsequently achieve refugee status a stronger footing to support their families and be ready to join our communities, and they would not need to seek the homelessness relief she mentioned. Instead of keeping children and their families apart, why does she not help families to support themselves?
Yvette Cooper
I know that the hon. Member will be as concerned as I am about the lives at risk in small boat crossings, and we have to do everything we can to prevent those dangerous boat crossings, including when families are on them. However, part of what the criminal gangs do—it is part of their sell—is to claim that it will be really easy to work, and that is to work illegally, in the UK. It is part of their pitch, and that is one of the reasons why it is so important to tackle illegal working. That promise of being able to work easily and get income is one of the things the criminal gangs exploit to get a lot of people to part with their money and get involved in the criminal gangs’ vile trade.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
I was struck by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) about the importance of good and appropriate legal advice for people seeking immigration status in the UK. I recall two cases in which constituents have been very badly let down by their solicitors, and I have brought those two cases to the attention of the Home Office. Given that justice is devolved to the Scottish Government, when changes are made to the regulation of this issue will the Home Secretary commit to discussing this with the Scottish Government and, if necessary, the Law Society of Scotland?
Yvette Cooper
I welcome the points my hon. Friend makes about legal advice on migration issues. Immigration is not a devolved issue, and we need to ensure high standards of legal advice right across the country. We obviously have such discussions with all the devolved Administrations, and we will continue to do so as the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill passes through Parliament.
Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)
Will the Home Secretary set out how many migrants will be returned to France over the coming 12 months?
Yvette Cooper
We have set out that this is a pilot, and that we want to build and grow it. There is no cap on the overall numbers to go as part of the pilot, and we need to build it as we go. We have also said that we will not set out the kinds of operational details that criminal gangs will simply use and manipulate, but we will provide updates, as each month goes by, on the progress of the scheme. It is important in two ways: first, it is the basis from which we can then expand to actually be able to return people to France and undermine the model of the criminal gangs; and underpinning this is a fairness principle, which is that if you arrive on a dangerous illegal small boat and pay a criminal gang, you should be returned. But we should do our bit, alongside other countries, to help those who apply through a legal route and go through proper security checks.
Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)
This summer, my community has been deeply divided by misinformation about asylum hotels and local crime rates. This has been exploited by parts of the national media and, frankly, Conservative and Reform politicians and local activist groups seeking simply to stoke fear. Like everyone on the Labour Benches, I stood on a manifesto to end hotel use, so can I thank the Home Secretary for getting on with the job of restoring order to our asylum system to address the chaos left by the previous Government? Can she reassure my constituents that we remain committed to tackling the vile organised crime gangs that drive the boats, to clearing the asylum backlog to give those who are seeking asylum the chance to restore their lives here and give them certainty, and to ending hotel use in communities like mine and across the country?
Yvette Cooper
As my hon. Friend says, we made clear in our manifesto that we will end asylum hotel use. We need to put an end to asylum hotel use right across the country, and to do so in an orderly way. We also need to ensure that the rules are properly enforced and laws are properly respected. We will strengthen the law. That is why, for example, the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill bans sex offenders from the asylum system and strengthens counter-terrorism powers to go after the criminal gangs. It is astonishing, frankly, that the Conservatives and Reform refuse to support it, when we need those laws in place as rapidly as possible. We will do so alongside ensuring that there are proper controlled and managed legal ways to support refugees, as our country has always done, because that is a proud part of our history.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Past waves of refugees who came to this country quite rightly had to identify themselves and come here legally. What percentage, does the Home Secretary think, of people who arrive illegally by small boats do so having torn up their identification documents, and should such people ever be granted asylum?
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. Member will know that there are different identity checks as part of the asylum system. Those are tested through the courts. One of the reasons asylum claims can be turned down is if there is a lack of credibility in the application. That can be a lack of credibility because of concerns about deliberately lost documents, for example, or not having proper identity information. It is important that we do that. It is why we are also increasing the digital ID and biometric checks as part of the ways to prevent illegal working, and linking that back to the biometric asylum system.
Alex Baker (Aldershot) (Lab)
Illegal working not only undermines the integrity of our immigration system, it erodes trust in our communities. In Aldershot, constituents have raised concerns about people continuing to work illegally even after reports have been made to the Home Office. That risks leaving local people feeling that the system is neither fair nor properly enforced. I welcome that Home Office illegal working raids are up 50%, but what action are the Government taking to strengthen enforcement and how is the Home Office ensuring that reports are acted on swiftly, so that trust in our communities can be maintained?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have increased illegal working arrests and raids by 50% and significantly increased the fines for employers engaged in illegal working. Further to that, the organised immigration crime domestic taskforce, which brings together policing here in the UK, is looking at the ways in which organised immigration crime networks are linked to organised crime and the exploitation of illegal workers in the UK, so it is about going after some of those employers operating bogus tactics, alongside the existing raids.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s confirmation in her statement of the expedited visas for students, particularly those from Gaza. I wrote to both the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary this summer to appeal for exactly this move, and I know how welcome it will be to those students.
The Home Secretary talks about a capped work scheme. We talk a lot about the pressure on local authorities and the cost to the taxpayer. Does she not agree that if we gave asylum seekers the right to work, pay national insurance and tax and contribute, they would then be carrying their own burden, and they would no longer be a weight on the taxpayer?
Yvette Cooper
I welcome the campaigning the hon. Lady has done to support students in Gaza, because the situation we are seeing there is horrendous. The Foreign Secretary will shortly make a statement about the truly abominable situation in Gaza, as well as the work we are doing to get out students who have fully funded places in the UK and provide them with support.
On the hon. Lady’s question, I would say that the criminal smuggling gangs use the potential to work in the UK as a pull factor—as part of their advertising—which is a point the French Government have raised many times. The challenge with the scenario she sets out is that it would make it even easier for the criminal gangs to use that factor as part of their advertising to try to persuade people to part with their money and make an incredibly dangerous journey across the channel.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Ind)
The stigmatising and dehumanising of asylum seekers has stirred up race hate in our communities, thankfully by only a small number, and I have been really disturbed to see that racism perpetrated on the streets of York. However, I am even more disturbed to hear that there are planned assaults on asylum hotels across the country, not least in York, where we have children and families staying. What policing operations will be in place to protect those children and families from this hate and ensure their safety over the coming weeks?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right to point out the dangers of divisive, dehumanising language towards other human beings and to point to our shared humanity. We can have disagreements with people; we can have different views about the way in which systems should work and rules should be enforced and we can recognise that there will be people who have to be returned because they have no right to be in the UK. However, we can also avoid the kind of demonising language that ends up escalating tensions or promoting hatred and violence—something that we in this country should never do.
Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
The Home Secretary has today described the people smugglers as criminals and the boat crossings as illegal. Does she therefore agree that the 29,000 individuals who have entered this country illegally from France this year should be classified as lawbreakers who should at least be deported straightaway or be banned from claiming asylum in the future?
Yvette Cooper
The laws on illegal entry go right back to 1972, I think; the issue of illegal entry is long standing. I say to the hon. Gentleman that the policy of the previous Government—his Government—was to claim that everybody was going to be returned to France or sent to Rwanda, but they ran their scheme in Rwanda for two and a half years during which time only four volunteers were sent, so nobody was returned, and they never managed to return anybody to France. We are clear that we believe that people who arrive on dangerous boat crossings or via illegal routes should be returned to France. We have set up the pilot scheme to develop that; we want to build it. It is something the previous Government never managed to do. There is no point in their fantasy claims—we need practical steps, which is what we are doing with France.
Sojan Joseph (Ashford) (Lab)
One of the hotels that houses asylum seekers in Kent is the Holiday Inn in Ashford. The decision to house them there was taken by the Conservatives when they were in power. Many people living there are going through an appeal process, so I welcome the decision to speed up the appeals process. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me and my constituents that this Government will end the use of the Holiday Inn as an asylum hotel as soon as possible?
Yvette Cooper
I assure my hon. Friend that we will end the use of asylum hotels, including the hotel in his constituency. Part of the way we will do that is by clearing the appeals backlog. The reason for setting up the new independent appeals commission is so that it can swiftly surge capacity if there are changes in the number of cases going to appeal. It will be able to respond much more quickly and some of the procedures will be changed so that it can fast-track decision making and returns for those who do not have a right to be in the UK.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
After the horrors of the last century, we pledged to protect people fleeing war and persecution. That included parents and their children. Today the asylum system is in chaos, and this serves no one save those who peddle hatred. Border Force staff represented by the Public and Commercial Services Union have produced a “Safe Routes” report outlining how a Ukrainian-style visa system would prevent deaths in the channel and stop the smuggling gangs overnight. Will the Home Secretary listen to officers on the frontline who are seeking to deliver a practical and humane solution to the present chaos?
Yvette Cooper
The principle behind the France pilot, which we want to build and grow, is that people can apply through a legal process and go through proper security checks but that we will return people who come on these dangerous small boats facilitated by criminal gangs. That principle is really important. We want a system that can better return those who are being exploited by criminal gangs and using illegal entry, and we will do that by undermining their business model. Alongside that, we will do what our country has always done throughout history: provide a legal process—controlled and managed—to support those who have fled persecution and conflict. That is what happened as part of the Ukraine scheme, and it is what we now seek to do as part of a refugee approach to students. We need a proper system across the board that both brings control to a chaotic system and is true to our historic values.
Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, and I commend her for the way she is working with our neighbouring countries to deal with this problem. The approach of the previous Government was basically to stand on the cliffs of Dover shouting abuse across the channel and to tell them that they should keep all refugees and we would take none. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we are going to provide a solution to this problem, it has to come from the sort of co-operation that she has been working on?
Yvette Cooper
I agree with my hon. Friend; we saw what happened under the previous Government and the system we inherited. That Government made grand but empty claims about where people were going to be returned to but had none of the agreements and nothing workable in place to actually do it. Instead, they had people stuck—potentially indefinitely—in the asylum system, which would have meant increasing numbers of asylum hotels. In contrast, we have already achieved a 28% increase in returns of failed asylum seekers and put in place the foundations for building a new approach with France and other European countries. I think that most people recognise the complexity of this issue rather than the fantasy promise approach, which ends up undermining trust.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
Does the Home Secretary accept that some of the UK’s adversaries are seeking to weaponise illegal migration, and does she share my concern about the growing nexus between malign state actors and non-state actors, such as the criminal gangs she has mentioned? If she accepts that that collaboration and malevolent co-operation is going on, does she then agree that it is a national security threat and that even though there will be more counter-terrorism powers under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill for the National Crime Agency, which I welcome, there should also be more collaboration between the Security Service and the National Crime Agency?
Yvette Cooper
I agree with the points made by the right hon. Member. The Prime Minister said last year that border security is a national security issue; he is right about that. He is also right that we see malign forces attempting to exploit and undermine border security, and he is right to talk about the interaction we see sometimes between malign state-backed threats and organised immigration crime. That is why we already have growing co-operation between the intelligence and security agencies and the National Crime Agency, who are looking at some of those smuggler gang threats and routes; they have pursued further issues there. They are also looking at strengthened checks that we may be able to do at our borders. His points strengthen the argument for international co-operation with other law enforcement and intelligence and security agencies.
Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)
In a previous life, I worked on the Turkey-Greece returns deal, which returned refugees who had crossed in small boats from Turkey to the Greek islands in return for properly registered asylum seekers in Turkey. As we all know, that deal drastically reduced the number of small boats that crossed into Turkey. Does the Home Secretary think that the UK’s deal with France, negotiated just last month, is already having a deterrent effect? Might that be connected to our having seen the smallest number of crossings in August since 2019?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right that crossings in August were at their lowest for several years even though there was the same level of crossing days as last summer. He will know that a lot of different factors are involved. We have been seeking with France, through the implementation of its maritime review, to be able to make stronger interventions.
I welcome the point that my hon. Friend made about the Greece-Turkey deal, which did have a significant impact on those crossings. That is why we believe that pursuing this co-operation with France is the right thing to do. I welcome the work that the French Government have done to support the pilot agreement on returns.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
As an Eastbourne boy born and bred, I am a proud Englishman. In Winston Churchill’s St George’s day speech in 1933, he said that his England was one where no one would think of persecuting a man on account of his religion or his race. Does the Home Secretary agree with Winston Churchill that our country and our flag represent unity and tolerance? Does she agree with me that those who attempt to divide our communities in the name of our flag are no patriots of Churchill’s England, no patriots of today’s England and no patriots of our great country?
Yvette Cooper
I agree with the hon. Member about the importance of patriotism that brings our country together. That is what our flags symbolise and what our values as a country symbolise. Obviously, the Union Jack is in itself as a flag the very embodiment of coming together. For those of us who represent English constituencies, we are proud to fly the St George’s flag and proud to stand up for the shared values that he described—there is patriotism around those English values and British values—about coming together, fairness, decency and respect; that is what we do. That is why we all want an ordered system that criminal gangs cannot exploit—we respect the rule of law—but it is also why we should never discuss any of these issues in a way that promotes hate and division. That is not the kind of country we are.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
At the start of the summer, I welcomed the Government’s decisive action in sanctioning Chinese companies involved in manufacturing and supplying boats used by criminal gangs to facilitate dangerous channel crossings. Disrupting those supply chains is a vital part of smashing the gangs. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on what discussions she has had with international counterparts to co-ordinate efforts to target those companies and ensure that the sanctions are enforced globally?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right to welcome the Foreign Secretary’s introduction of sanctions for criminal smuggler gangs, and this is the first time that has been done. We also have extensive co-operation through the National Crime Agency. For example, we have massively strengthened the co-operation with Iraq, because we know that Iraqi Kurdish gangs are operating in northern France. We have recently signed a new agreement with Iraq, as well as with Turkey, Bulgaria, Belgium, France and, crucially, with Germany, which is going to change its law to help us go after the criminal gangs and their supply chains. The work that is being done to disrupt supply chains is having an impact. It is significant, too, that we are seeing not only disruptions and arrests internationally as well as in the UK; we are also seeing fewer boats physically crossing, although the criminal gangs are resorting to overcrowding those boats instead.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)
I note that the Appeal Court judges in last Thursday’s judgment were using article 8 of the European convention on human rights as a reason for the interim injunction on the Bell hotel to be quashed, yet the Home Secretary has argued in her statement today that she wants to alter the interpretation of that same article 8. Would not a much better, quicker and more effective route be the one proposed by the shadow Home Secretary this afternoon—namely, simply to disapply all immigration matters from the European Court of Human Rights?
Yvette Cooper
That is not my understanding of what those on the Opposition Front Bench were arguing for; that was about the Human Rights Act risking there being more issues with the domestic courts being unable to take decisions before things go to the European courts, but I will leave the hon. Gentleman to wrangle with his party about what its position is. We think there needs to be reform of the way article 8 is interpreted. Too many cases around family rules have been treated as exceptions, and that higher level of decision making cannot be exceptional if so many cases are being treated as exceptions. This means that we need to look at the rules themselves, and we also need much greater clarity about the way we believe those rules should be interpreted, and the way family migration should be interpreted in the courts.
Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)
Much has been said about the role of the European convention on human rights, and it appears that the party of Churchill is seeking to abandon his legacy in its lurch towards the right, just as there is a growing consensus among European nations that we need to modernise it for today’s times. Does the Home Secretary agree that Britain should be part of leading that change, rather than leaving and turning us into Belarus or Russia?
Yvette Cooper
We have a strong history of leading on international standards and international legal frameworks. Of course, laws and the ways in which they are interpreted need to move with the times and keep up to date with the new challenges, including in a world of mass communications where we face very different kinds of challenges than we did 20 or 50 years ago. My hon. Friend is right to say that the UK has always played that leading role in defining those standards, and in making sure that other countries abide by international laws. We will lose out and not get the kind of international co-operation that we need if we just rip up that international law and co-operation.
Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)
I am proud that this country helps refugees, and I am intensely proud that I spent years building a charity working with Rwandan refugees from the genocide, but in Horley there have been two serious criminal incidents in the past three months relating to the Four Points hotel. My constituents have legitimate safety concerns, although the police have acted promptly, so what steps is the Home Secretary taking to ensure that the Four Points hotel is closed as an asylum hotel as soon as possible?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member makes an important point. We want all asylum hotels to close, including in his constituency, and we need to do that in a controlled and orderly manner. We also need to strengthen the arrangements, to ensure that the law and the rules are enforced and that public safety considerations are taken seriously as part of the management of the whole asylum and immigration system. That is why we are developing new partnerships between policing, immigration enforcement, the Home Office and asylum accommodation providers. It is immensely important that there is proper shared information and stronger arrangements to ensure that criminality, wherever is found, it is properly and swiftly tackled.
Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)
The shadow Home Secretary, the former Immigration Minister, has some brass neck, do we not think? He opened so many hotels that at one stage I thought he might take over from Lenny Henry in fronting Premier Inn. My constituents are so fed up with this, and I am glad that the Home Secretary is taking it so seriously, getting the numbers down. While we do everything we can to get the numbers down, does she agree that everyone involved in the debate, particularly politicians, should not incite or encourage the sort of aggression and, actually, sheer racism that we have seen over the summer, some of which was directed towards our brave police officers?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right that the previous Government, including the shadow Home Secretary when he was Immigration Minister, were responsible for a huge increase in asylum hotels and presided over a tenfold increase in small boat crossings. The important thing now is to ensure that we can end asylum hotels and bring back control into the system. But as we do so, we should ensure that we do not have divisive or hateful rhetoric, or anything that promotes violence against police officers or within communities, which is always a disgrace.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
The Home Secretary is right to talk about tackling the push and pull factors—something we worked towards tackling when we were in government, despite challenges with bringing forward the use of third countries. That is because we need both a deterrent and a place to send people whose country of origin we either do not know or we do not have a returns agreement with. It is no surprise to me that arrivals have increased since that scheme was scrapped. I understand that a period of reset is happening in Downing Street, so how long before we can expect her to come to the Dispatch Box to introduce a third-country scheme?
Yvette Cooper
This Government have managed to get the agreement with France in place—that pilot agreement that we seek to build. France, obviously, is not the country where most of the people passing through started from, so it is effectively a third-country agreement that we have already put in place and are now working to implement on a pilot basis. We are also working with other European countries to explore returns hubs. But what we do not think is the right thing to do is have an incredibly expensive programme that sent just four volunteers and, during the two years-plus that it was in operation, ended up costing £700 million while 84,000 people arrived in the UK.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)
Peterborough is a proud and generous place and has welcomed many people through its doors over generations. I pay tribute to the churches, mosques and community groups that are welcoming people and looking after them. But people are getting fed up with a system that is broken, and it was broken before my right hon. Friend became Home Secretary. Many of my constituents will welcome the record deportations and the focus on article 8 and making efficiencies in driving forward the system. But to be honest, the biggest issue in my constituency remains the hotel that was opened by Serco with no consultation with the police or the council beforehand. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that she will ensure that there is no single bureaucratic block and no stone left unturned in getting the Dragonfly hotel closed as soon as possible, as part of fixing this rotten, broken system?
Yvette Cooper
We have made it clear that we need to end all asylum hotels, including the hotel in my hon. Friend’s constituency. It is because we believe in the UK’s long history of helping those fleeing persecution and conflict in an ordered way that we also need to get control and fix the chaos that we inherited, including ending asylum hotels, which are undermining confidence in the whole system and were introduced exactly because the previous Government lost control of the system. That is what now needs to be turned around, and those are the foundations we are putting in place.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
The Home Secretary has touched on it a couple of times, but I am yet to hear from her about the scope of the Government’s asylum accommodation programme, which is currently rated “amber”. Despite the fact that 29,003 asylum seekers have arrived by small boat so far this year, the scope of the programme, following its strategic refresh, will mean the creation of only 5,000 bed spaces by the end of 2026, spread across three accommodation pilots. Where will those three pilots be, how many bed spaces will each have, and at what stage is each one?
Yvette Cooper
We are developing alternative approaches to asylum accommodation, including work with local councils that have come forward and with other Departments. We will provide an update as we make progress. Two things need to happen together: the shift to alternative sites must follow value-for-money tests—not having the proper assessments in place was a mistake that often happened in the past, as the Public Accounts Committee identified—and we must reduce the number of people in the asylum accommodation system overall. If we do not reduce the numbers in the system but simply move the problem around from place to place, we will not solve it and get it back under control.
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
Ensuring that we have a humane and functioning asylum and immigration system requires competence, credibility and compassion. I welcome the credible plan that the Government have put in place. Our approach must also be holistic, part of which means tackling the root causes of displacement, conflict and persecution. The Home Secretary has touched on how we are working with other countries, but will she also talk about how she is working across Government to address those drivers of displacement?
Yvette Cooper
I welcome my hon. Friend’s point. She is absolutely right to say that any comprehensive and effective approach—internationally, not just here in the UK—must consider the causes and drivers of mass migration: people fleeing persecution and conflict, and the economic migration issues that have caused significant challenges. The Foreign Secretary and I have set up a joint migration team to work closely on some of those issues, and he has also made issues around migration a key priority for the Foreign Office. This is clearly an important cross-Government issue on which we are working together.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
When Labour was in opposition, it attacked the Conservatives on the small number of asylum seekers who had been removed to Rwanda as part of the Tory deterrent. Now that the Conservatives are in opposition, they are attacking Labour for the small number of asylum seekers who will be removed to France as part of the Labour deterrent. Does the Home Secretary accept that, in order for a deterrent to work, people considering that dangerous crossing need to know that it may be in vain?
Yvette Cooper
We have established the agreement with France as a pilot agreement, and we want to develop and expand it. It allows us to detain people immediately on arrival at Western Jet Foil in Dover in order then to be returned. The first cases have been referred to France, and we expect the first returns to start during the course of this month. As well as the impact of undermining the criminal business model of the gangs—the deterrence that the hon. Gentleman talks about—there is the important principle that people arriving illegally on dangerous boats having paid criminal gangs should be returned, but the UK should do its bit, in a controlled and managed way alongside other countries, for those who apply through legal routes and go through proper security checks.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and strongly welcome the enforcement action taken recently by UK Border Force, Cumbria police and local trading standards to crack down on illegal trading and illegal retail work in my Carlisle constituency. Will she reassure my constituents that there will be no let-up in that enforcement activity, and that the same rigour will be applied to migrant workers employed as delivery riders?
Yvette Cooper
I, too, welcome the law enforcement work in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We have set up a domestic organised immigration crime taskforce to work across different police forces on the networks that are exploiting illegal working, which often have networks into all kinds of other organised crime, undermine communities and town centres, and exploit individuals and border security. We are strengthening that domestic work, which had never before been done, as a result of the report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
On the watch of this Home Secretary, 2025 has been the worst year on record for small boat crossings. The Government claim that they want to end the use of asylum hotels, but the right hon. Lady is not telling us when they will do that. I would like reassurance that we will not see an increase in houses in multiple occupation, local houses or flats being rented for those individuals, or any increase in costs for local councils.
Yvette Cooper
Unfortunately, the Conservative Front Benchers want us to go back to the position that we inherited from the previous Government. Their freeze on asylum decisions would have left us with tens of thousands more people in asylum hotels. We will end asylum hotels over the course of this Parliament, not simply by moving people to different kinds of accommodation—that is an important point—but by reducing the overall size of the asylum system. The previous Government’s policies were doing the opposite and increasing it. If we do not reduce the overall size of the asylum system, we will never solve the problem, or rebuild the confidence of people across the UK.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Ind)
In the east end of London, we have a proud history of welcoming refugees and migrants, many of them fleeing war and persecution, but over recent years and months, the political and media establishment has been complicit in the normalisation of Islamophobia and anti-migrant rhetoric. Over the summer, there have been campaigns to target asylum seekers outside hotels, and people have resorted to violent aggression, including yesterday in my constituency. That is putting all of us at risk. What exactly will the Home Secretary do to ensure that asylum seekers, refugees, migrants and all those who live in my constituency are safe from attempts—including those organised by the far right—to create fear and division in our area?
Yvette Cooper
Everyone has a right to be safe, and to respect. The pursuit of division, hatred and violence is never acceptable, in the immigration and asylum system or more widely across our country. It is hugely important that alongside all the reforms that we introduce—we do need reform to the system—we have clear recognition of our shared humanity and the need to prevent any kind of violence and hatred, or the tensions and problems that my hon. Friend describes.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
With the number of crossings up more than 40% this year alone, at some 30,000, clearly the Government’s policies are acting as a magnet, not a deterrent. When will the Home Secretary realise that the only effective deterrent is to detain and deport everyone who comes here illegally, and that to do that, we must leave the European convention on human rights?
Yvette Cooper
This Government have, since the election, increased the number of returns of those who have no right to be here. There has been a 28% increase in returns of failed asylum seekers. We are strengthening enforcement and bringing in new counter-terrorism powers that allow us to go after the criminal gangs. Incomprehensibly, the hon. Gentleman’s party voted against those counter-terrorism powers. It seems to oppose the action that we need to take to go after the criminal gangs. If he and the Conservatives were to support the new powers, we could bring them in swiftly, in the course of a few months, and give our law enforcement the power to take stronger action against the criminal gangs. I hope that he supports the agreement with France, which provides for the immediate detention of people arriving in the UK, and their return to France. The trouble with his party’s policies is that they sound an awful lot like the previous Conservative Government’s policies, which totally failed. The Conservative Government were chaos; his party seems to be chaos on steroids. His party is not trying to solve the problem. All it is trying to do is exploit it. We need a properly controlled and managed system that goes after the criminal gangs, who should not be able to get away with their vile trade.
Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)
Gloucester has a proud history as a welcoming and diverse city. Just last week, I was pleased to attend the Ukrainian independence day celebrations in my constituency with some of those who have sought refuge in our city. However, many constituents have written to me, particularly those who live next door to the asylum hotel that was opened by the last Conservative Government, with legitimate concerns about the future of that site, and the impact on them of things like protests on their front doorstep. Will the Home Secretary reassure my constituents that the policy that she has announced today will speed up the end of the use of that hotel for asylum seekers? Will she meet me to discuss the impact of such sites on local residents in Gloucester?
Yvette Cooper
I can tell my hon. Friend that we will end the use of asylum hotels. We will close the asylum hotels that the previous Government opened, including in his constituency; it is hugely important that we do. He is right to talk about our long history of people from across the country supporting refugees. They include the more than 100,000 families who came forward to offer homes to Ukrainians at the beginning of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. That spirit and those values are immensely important, but people need to know that the system is being properly controlled and managed, and that misuse is being tackled. That is why it is so important to end the use of asylum hotels.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
It is clear that the Government have lost control. The Government are going against their own election manifesto by taking the issue through the courts. I have asked this question before but not had an answer, so I ask it again: can the Home Secretary give me a date when the hotel in my constituency of Broxbourne will close to illegal asylum seekers?
Yvette Cooper
We have been clear that we will end the use of the asylum hotels that were opened by the previous Government; we will close those asylum hotels. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support our reforms to the appeals system, so that we can speed them through Parliament and clear the backlog. I hope that he supports the increase in decision making that we had to introduce after his party froze decision making, creating a soaring backlog that would have increased the number of people in hotels. I also hope that he will support the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is passing through the other place and will bring in stronger counter-terrorism powers, enabling us to go after the criminal gangs who are organising the small boats; sadly, his party is still opposing the Bill.
Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
We must stop criminal gangs launching illegal crossings from the French coast. Will the Home Secretary update us on her conversations with the French authorities to ensure that their tactics include intervening in shallow waters, so that they stop as many of these boats as possible at source?
Yvette Cooper
The French Government have been undertaking a maritime review, and the Interior Minister has been strongly pursuing the issue to ensure that there can be intervention in French waters. Criminal gangs operate taxi-boat tactics to load people on to the boats in shallow waters, resulting in some of the disgraceful scenes that we have seen, so the maritime review is looking at ways to intervene in shallow waters to prevent the boat crossings in the first place. Alongside that, there is the extension of the Compagnie de Marche and the additional patrols along French beaches that have been agreed, as well as the new judicial prosecution unit in Dunkirk, which is now working closely with the Border Security Command. These are part of the important foundations for strengthening law enforcement.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
Whatever the promised tinkering with article 8, the reality is that this Government, or any Government, will only get a grip on out-of-control illegal immigration by quitting the ECHR. I agree that article 8 is a problem, but the answer is article 58, which allows the Government to serve notice that they are leaving the ECHR. Unless and until they do that, we are not going to solve this problem. How does the Home Secretary hope to sort out this mess while her every action is subject to the foreign stipulations and, ultimately, the foreign Court that is diligently applying the ECHR to which she clings? Does that not mean that we go round endlessly in a circle? Will the appeal panels be subject to judicial review, during which, again, the ECHR can be relied on?
Yvette Cooper
Having international law and abiding by it has helped us to get new agreements to return people who arrive by small boats. It is also helping us to work with other European countries on returns hubs, so that we can increase returns. I think there is a problem with the way that article 8 is being interpreted in the courts; that is why I have been clear that reforms are needed. We will bring those forward in a major package of reforms to the asylum system before the end of this year.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
The Conservatives and Reform appear to be engaged in competitive populism, and one of the consequences of that is opportunism. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is surprising that they pose as the parties who are on the side of local democracy when it comes to asylum hotels? Can she confirm that not only did the current shadow Home Secretary decide in March 2020 to suspend the practice of consulting local authorities before opening asylum hotels in their area, but that the practice remained suspended for the rest of the time that the Conservatives were in government, even after the emergency of the pandemic ended?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right. The shadow Home Secretary not only lifted the responsibility to consult local authorities, but voted against amendments put forward by the Labour Opposition at the time to strengthen the work with local authorities. This Government are strengthening that work with local authorities instead. All the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Justice Secretary seem to do is chase each other’s tails to try to get to the next photo opportunity first, or chase the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage). It is just more chaos from the Opposition parties.
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
It is not populist to want safe and secure communities, but we are going round in circles. The only way we are going to solve this crisis is by withdrawing from outdated refugee conventions, rescinding the insidious ECHR from our laws, and using British military assets to prevent incursion into British waters. Will the Home Secretary commit to doing that today?
Yvette Cooper
I point out to the hon. Member that his party was in power during eight years in which criminal gangs were able to take hold along the borders and undermine our border security. It should be Governments, not gangs, who decide who enters our country. We need the counter-terrorism powers to go after those criminal gangs, and the hon. Gentleman and his party are still voting against them. Shameful!
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
It cannot be denied that we have inherited a very difficult position, and that there has recently been a real increase in the rhetoric on this issue, which is causing serious worry, upset, anger and mistrust in our communities. Many vital measures to tackle this organised crime, such as counter-terror-style powers against gangs, a new offence on endangerment at sea, banning sex offenders from the asylum system and powers to search phones, are stuck in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the Tories and Reform were really serious about these changes, they would stop voting and organising against the Bill, put their constituents and my constituents at the heart of this matter, and let us put the Bill into force?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is exactly right. The Tories and Reform could start working with us tomorrow to speed up the passage of this crucial legislation, which would give our law enforcement counter-terrorism powers to go after smuggler gangs. These new offences would mean that they could download and search the mobile phones of people arriving on small boats and, crucially, ban sex offenders from the asylum system altogether. You would think that the Opposition parties would support that; instead, they have been blocking the Bill. That is shameful.
Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)
Our country should be proud of the fact that in the 1930s we welcomed 10,000 Jewish children from Europe on the Kindertransport. Alas, our predecessors would not countenance bringing across those children’s parents, and we know that the cost of that decision was the massacre of those parents in the Holocaust. There has always been vocal opposition to migration in this country, but I remind the Government that responsibility lies with them. Across our country today, thousands of vulnerable refugees are afraid; they are afraid of the rise in right-wing activity and in right-wing rhetoric—rhetoric that this Government have flirted with. I invite the Government not to follow the Conservative party or Reform UK into the abyss and to treat this issue with the compassion it deserves.
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member refers to the Kindertransport and the important support for children it provided. The UK also took orphaned Jewish children from concentration camps and provided them with a home and a future in the UK. We have a long history of supporting those who have fled persecution and conflict, and that is exactly why it is so important that the system is properly managed and controlled and that we tackle the chaos we have inherited and strengthen our border security, in order to restore confidence in the very system and values that the hon. Member describes. This Government will never pursue the violence-promoting rhetoric that can cause such division. We will always be responsible and serious about the practical steps that need to be taken to deal with the chaos we inherited.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
I warmly welcome the content of the Home Secretary’s statement, particularly the UK-France migrant deal, which provides a safe and legal route for all those families who are genuinely fleeing persecution and who play by the rules and want to enter the country legally. The deal balances that with the need to remove from this country and send back to France those who try to jump the queue in small boats.
The shadow Home Secretary suggested that the potential figure of 50 returns a week under this pilot scheme is not enough. Under the last Government, 128,000 people crossed the channel; can the Home Secretary remind the House how many of those people were returned to France? It was not 50 a week or 100 a week—it was zero a week, every week for six and a half years.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is exactly right. The previous Government made a whole series of grand but empty claims. They returned no one to France who had arrived on a small boat—they had no agreement in place to do so—and they also sent no one to Rwanda, other than four volunteers who were paid to go. Again and again, all the previous Government did was escalate the rhetoric and the chaos, rather than take the practical steps necessary to get the returns we need.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
In her statement, the Home Secretary set out that the Government would establish an independent body to process asylum appeals. That will work only if it is delivered at pace, resourced and well-staffed, so can she set out when that independent body will start recruiting arbitrators and support staff and when it will be operating at full pelt? Will it operate seven days a week? If in a year’s time we come back from next summer’s recess with immigration rates higher than this year’s, will the Home Secretary take personal responsibility for that?
Yvette Cooper
We are seeking accelerated legislation to bring in the new independent appeals commission. The hon. Gentleman will know that once that legislation begins its passage through the House, it will be possible to start implementation and make sure we can invest in getting the trained adjudicators in place. We will provide an update before the end of this year, both on the timetable and on the further details of how that appeals system will work. Obviously, it has to be fully independent of the Home Office and of the Government, but it needs to be able to surge and respond swiftly in order to prevent the growth of huge backlogs. I really hope that the hon. Gentleman and his party will be able to support that legislation, because if they do so, we will be able to move it through much more quickly and implement the new body much more quickly.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I had forgotten how much I enjoyed bobbing.
We all want to be proud of the UK’s asylum system, but because of the mess we inherited from the previous Government, none of us are there right now; that is just a fact. I thank the Home Secretary for the methodical work that she is doing to get a grip of the situation and get the system back on track. It really pains me, though, that some of the people who are behind this mess are now sitting on the Opposition Benches and seeking to weaponise it, rather than apologising to the country. Does the Home Secretary share my hope that extending the Ukrainian visa scheme and the refugee student scheme, bringing Gaza students here and supporting injured Gazan children will provide a chance to show the UK immigration system at its best?
Yvette Cooper
I hope the Conservatives will support Gazan students being able to take up their places and scholarships in the UK, just as I hope they will also support the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which they are still opposing.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
The Government appear to be conflating the terms “illegal immigrant” and “asylum seeker.” The UK has rightly in the past taken in asylum seekers, including Ukrainians fleeing persecution, but they are different from those who are crossing the channel illegally, the vast majority of whom are men aged 20 to 30 who appear to have no children or families crossing with them. I have three questions for the Home Secretary: does she agree with the Prime Minister’s comments that the UK has plenty of housing to accommodate illegal immigrants; will she rule out the use of houses of multiple occupation; and will she rule out the use of social housing for illegal immigrants?
Yvette Cooper
Given what the hon. Member said about crossings, I hope he will support the French pilot agreement, which means we can return to France people who make these dangerous or illegal journeys and in exchange have a legal process for people who apply properly, follow the rules and go through security checks. We have been clear that the way to tackle the chaos in the asylum system is to end asylum hotels, but to do so by reducing the overall number of people in the asylum accommodation system, and that includes sorting out the appeals chaos we inherited from the hon. Member’s party.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
The Home Secretary was right to emphasise that respect for each other and respect for the rule of law are fundamental British values, and they are underpinned by our robust human rights framework, which underscores and protects individual liberties. Winston Churchill knew that, which is why he was such a supporter of the European convention on human rights after world war two. Will the Home Secretary do all she can to protect our human rights framework from those on the Opposition Benches who would tear it up for a cheap headline, by campaigning as hard as she can to make sure that the ECHR is fit for the 21st century, restoring public confidence?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right that we need reforms, but we also need to recognise that international law can help to underpin international co-operation. The criminal gangs operate across borders and exploit the fact that too often Governments and law enforcement agencies do not operate across borders in order to go after them. That is why we need that international co-operation in place, underpinned by a legal framework.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
The national conversation on immigration and asylum is being dominated loudly by colleagues in this place who have a sorry track record of stirring up division and dehumanising people seeking sanctuary from some of the world’s harshest regimes and conflicts. Many of my constituents have raised their fears with me this summer. Given that immigration has soared since we left the European Union, does the Home Secretary agree that the architects of the damaging Brexit campaign are probably the people least likely to have the answer to the small boat crossings, and that we must do all we can to emphasise the benefits and value that migrants bring to the UK, as they have done for centuries?
Yvette Cooper
The Conservative party in government managed to create chaos in the asylum system and let criminal gangs take over along our borders while illegal migration quadrupled in the space of just four years. Immigration has always been an important part of our history, and that is why it needs to be properly controlled and managed in a fair and sensible way, which has not happened too often in the past. It needs to be serious and respectful to other people, to make sure that we as a country come together at the same time as making sure there are proper controls in the system.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Does she accept that the frustration many feel about illegal immigration must never be confused with opinions about those who come and add to our society in the NHS, in agriculture and in many other jobs where we rely on help from foreign nationals? Does the Home Secretary not accept that the route to the UK from the Republic of Ireland through Northern Ireland is feeding that frenzy? Will she finally rightfully close the current loopholes and block the back-door access to the United Kingdom from the Republic of Ireland?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Gentleman is right that people have long supported those coming to work in our NHS through legal routes. Those routes have to be controlled and managed, however, and migration quadrupling under the previous Government was a serious problem. That is why we are bringing legal migration down; that is why we put that in the immigration White Paper. The hon. Gentleman is also right that some of the most serious concerns are about dangerous and illegal boat crossings that are underpinned and facilitated by criminal gangs. He raises a separate issue about Ireland and Northern Ireland, but he will know that the common travel area is a long-standing part of our history and arrangements. We have close security co-operation with the Irish Government and Irish law enforcement for exactly that reason, and it is an important part of the arrangements and the close relationship between our countries.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
That concludes the statement. I thank the Home Secretary and Members for their time. The Home Secretary has been on her feet for around two and a half hours and we have had over 80 Back-Bench contributions. I will now give the House a few moments to settle and for the Front-Bench teams to swap over.