Oral Answers to Questions

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

What plans her Department has to reform the UK’s asylum system.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

What plans her Department has to reform the UK’s asylum system.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

What plans her Department has to reform the UK’s asylum system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

The large numbers being accommodated are to some degree a consequence of covid because, as my right hon. Friend will know, we have been running significantly lower levels of move-ons for people whose asylum claims have been decided. For example, no negative cessations are happening at all at the moment, and that has led to a significant increase in the number of people being accommodated. As we move out of coronavirus next year, we hope to get those numbers rapidly back down again.

In relation to my right hon. Friend’s question about the immigration rules, they are laying the foundations for our post-transition period system. As she knows, we are currently in the Dublin system, which provides for people who have claimed asylum elsewhere to be returned to those countries, including France, Germany and Spain. It is our intention to open discussions with those countries as soon as we are able to do so, in order to bring into force similar measures after the transition period ends.

[Aaron Bell]

My hon. Friend will be aware that approximately 60,000 people are currently stuck in our asylum system. Does he agree with me and my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme that we must get this reform through, not only to treat those people fairly but to treat the taxpayer fairly? We should not be picking up the tab for a bloated and broken system.

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend puts it perfectly. It is unfair on the taxpayer to have people whose claims have been rejected still subsisting in accommodation, and it is unfair on people with meritorious claims, whose claims take longer to hear because the system is not operating in the way it should. We certainly will be reforming it to address the issues he is rightly raising, and he can look forward to supporting legislation in this House in the first half of next year to do exactly that.