MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

Debate between Alan Gemmell and Anna Turley

Wednesday 14th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Anna Turley]

I will make a bit of progress, if I may.

The British people will not tolerate illegal migrants placing pressure on our public services, while efforts to remove them are frustrated. There is no quick fix, but the task of ending the chaos and, crucially, of restoring fairness falls to this Government, and we embrace it. It is only a Labour Government who will fix the broken system, restore control at our borders and bring back fairness to our public services. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) is chuntering from the Opposition Benches, but I am coming to the exact subject of our progress so far, which I hope she will see contrasts nicely with what happened in the previous 14 years.

[Alan Gemmell (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I thank the Opposition spokesperson for this debate today, but can I also say how grateful I am that the Minister for Border Security and Asylum, my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) is in her place? More than 20 years ago, she and I worked in the Home Office, where we inherited another Tory mess on asylum. With a great Home Secretary and a brilliant team, we reduced the backlog, made appeals much more difficult and made the country a much safer place. Will she bring some of her experience from 20 years ago to this job, after the mess the Tories left have us?

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate my hon. Friend drawing attention to that. It was a privilege—in, I think, 2003—to work for the now Lord David Blunkett to close the Sangatte refugee centre, put juxtaposed controls on French shores and end the situation of people coming through as clandestines in the back of lorries with the Bill that we took through at that time as civil servants. It was a privilege to play that role. Here we are, yet again, fixing the legacy of the previous Government.

As I said, the British people will not tolerate illegal migrants placing pressure on our public services while efforts to remove them are frustrated. It is only the Labour Government who will fix the broken system, restore control and bring back fairness, but we will do so without performative cruelty, without the deliberate fomenting of grievance and without destroying our international reputation. Thanks to the action the Labour Government are taking, the picture today is improving, with crossings down, removals up and the system now finally on a more stable footing.

Over the last two years, this Government have acted to restore fairness and control to our asylum system, first by taking the fight to the criminal gangs and bearing down on illegal crossings. One of the first steps the then Home Secretary took following the general election was to establish Border Security Command. The command has had a significant impact, especially in its efforts, alongside a strengthened National Crime Agency, to ramp up law enforcement action on organised immigration crime.