Illegal Migration

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The Home Secretary comes here with selective statistics that she has put together to suit the press release that she wants to put out, but the reality is that the total asylum backlog has increased by more than 40,000 people since this time last year. There are fewer decision makers in the Home Office now than there were in January. It is all distraction and sleight of hand. There is no evidence that the plans so far have had any impact or that the heavy-handed deterrence, which is based, as her own officials say, on demented assumptions, works. Policies such as the hostile environment, which were started by Labour, have been turbocharged by successive Tory Home Secretaries. The Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the Rwanda plan, deals with Albania and the Illegal Migration Bill are not working because the central fact remains that people are coming here in small boats because they are desperate and they have no other choice.

The latest Office for National Statistics figures for May show that just 54 Afghans were resettled under pathway 1 of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme since August 2021. There have been 40 under pathway 2 and only 14 under pathway 3. At the same time, 8,429 Afghans arrived in the UK on small boats. They are coming because they cannot get here to safety any other way.

I do agree slightly with what the Home Secretary said in her statement about the accommodation system being unsustainable and unfair. It is also absolutely brutal for asylum seekers, such as those in my constituency, who are being left to wait indefinitely. Yet the Home Secretary proposes to throw yet more money, reportedly £6 billion, at private providers and prison ships instead of tackling the real problem: the outstanding backlog she has created. She gives no thought to the trauma and stress that has caused incidents such as that at the Park Inn in my constituency and led to reported suicides of those stuck waiting under her incompetence.

At Napier Barracks, sharing spaces caused the spread of infectious disease and had a significant impact on mental health, so what safeguarding consultation has the Home Secretary done on the proposal to make total strangers share hotel rooms? How will she ensure that people from rival factions do not get put in a room together, which could be incredibly dangerous? Will she fast-track Afghans, Syrians, Eritreans, Sudanese and Iranians, who have a very high grant rate, and let them work and contribute, as they dearly want to do? Finally, will she accept that all she has done so far is make life significantly worse for some of the most vulnerable and brutalised people in the world?

[Suella Braverman]

I refute the characterisation the hon. Lady puts forward. I am proud of this Government’s track record of welcoming hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people from across the globe over several years, through schemes that have offered them sanctuary. It is a track record of which we can be incredibly proud. The SNP’s criticism is frankly astonishing, talking piously about wanting to provide more sanctuary despite doing virtually nothing to help. As we have said before, there are almost as many contingency hotels in Kensington as there are in the whole of Scotland. The truth is that the SNP is all talk and no action; until it gets real, I really must question its seriousness on this subject.