Immigration

Debate between Andrew Murrison and Angela Eagle

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

No. As this Government have made clear consistently, this is just the start. We need to go further, and we will.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

On the topic of going further, will the Minister give way?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

No.

There are two main factors that make today’s challenges different from the past. The first is technology. The physical distances between nations and continents may not have changed, but the near universality of smartphones and internet access has made the world feel a lot smaller. The gangs can organise journeys more quickly and easily than ever before. For the people they prey on, the promise of a different future is right there on the screen of a mobile device.

The second factor is the emergence of a ruthless criminal industry worth billions of pounds, stretching across borders and continents. On illegal migration and border security, we are acting to get a grip on issues that have gone unchecked for far too long. For years, the ringleaders and facilitators of this trade have been able to evade justice by ensuring that they are not present when money changes hands or the boats set off. To shift the dial, we need action to be taken earlier and faster. We need a response that fits the scale and urgency of the threat, and to mount such a response we need to legislate.

Having intensified activity across policy, operational and international arenas since the general election, we have moved to strengthen the law by bringing forward the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. The House is well acquainted with the Bill, but its core aims and measures bear repeating. The Bill puts an end to the failed gimmicks of the past. It furnishes law enforcement with counter-terrorism-style tactics to strike against smuggling gangs earlier and faster—long before they get within striking distance of our shores. The National Crime Agency and its associates who help us with this work asked us to change the law to provide them with those tactics.

The Bill introduces new powers to seize electronic devices, and new offences covering the sale and handling of small boat parts for use in illegal activities. It upgrades serious crime prevention orders to target individuals involved in organised immigration crime. It creates a new offence of endangering life at sea to act as a deterrent against small boat overcrowding. It also sends an unambiguous message that we are ready to take action against those who are complicit in fatalities in the channel. [Interruption.] I talk about fatalities in the channel; Opposition Members laugh and joke among themselves.

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[Dame Angela Eagle]

I agree. Of course, the Conservative party also oppose all of the Bill, despite—[Interruption.] Well, Conservative Members say it is not true, but they voted against it. I do not know why the Opposition should have voted against a Bill that provides more powers to deal with organised immigration crime internationally.

[Dr Murrison]

I am, as always, listening carefully to what the Minister has to say. Has she been listening to the National Crime Agency? It has said clearly that although many of the things she has outlined are important, her list is nevertheless missing one thing: deterrence. Will she explain where deterrence features in her measures?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The National Crime Agency has not said that about the Bill. In fact, if the right hon. Gentleman had listened to the evidence sessions at the beginning of our consideration of the Bill, he would have heard good evidence from the NCA supporting the parts of the Bill that provide counter-terrorism and prevention powers, and being enthusiastic about the increased opportunities that the Bill will give for successful enforcement.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Andrew Murrison and Angela Eagle

Report stage
Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his creativity in asking that question when I am talking about this particular Government new clause. I think we had a debate in Committee on the amendment in the name of the Father of the House, and I certainly intend to come on to it later in our proceedings—hopefully, when he is here.

As part of our efforts to halve violence against women and girls, it is important that the small number of asylum seekers and refugees who have been convicted of particularly serious crimes do not benefit from protection status. Not only have they failed to respect the laws of the UK by committing sexual crimes, but they have undermined public confidence in the system. New clause 8 changes the law to deny refugee status to those convicted of the abhorrent crimes listed in schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003, treating them with the seriousness they deserve and supporting our wider mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Minister is being very generous in giving way. The trouble is that, when the judiciary get hold of this and there is an appeal, they very often cite exceptional circumstances, which are cited in the original legislation but have been interpreted over the years in a very liberal way—so much so as to be almost meaningless. Will the Minister define more clearly what exceptional circumstances are, so that there can be no doubt in the minds of lawyers about who might be eligible for appeal against decisions made by the Home Office, and who is not?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Certainly we will come into the detail of how this works once it is on the statute book, in the guidance that is issued, but I am making it very clear to the House tonight that the Government wish those few people—the very small number of asylum seekers and refugees who have been convicted of serious sexual offences such that they have been put on the sex offenders register—to be denied refugee status. We will also deny refugee status where we are able to show that an individual has been convicted in a foreign court for a crime that would have fallen under schedule 3 to the 2003 Act if they had been convicted in the UK. Those convicted and made subject to the notification requirements have committed the most serious of sexual offences, which should be included in the definition of a particularly serious crime.

Small Boat Crossings

Debate between Andrew Murrison and Angela Eagle

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We are ensuring that the enforcement part of the Home Office that deals with returns is given the resources it needs to do that job, but to make it even more successful, we have to engage with those countries to which we wish to return people so that we can have papers issued. Again, the significant shift in international co-operation is what will deliver that.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

If Rwanda was a gimmick, why are Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania looking at similar schemes? Given the number of crossings and deaths in the channel, would it not, with hindsight, have been wise at least to have allowed the Rwanda scheme a trial run?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Those countries are not considering a Rwanda scheme; they are all saying that they will stay within the confines of international law. The Rwanda scheme definitely tore up international law, and it was planned to spend nearly £10 billion up until 2027 on trying to remove 250 people a week from this country, and to spend nearly £3 billion on extra detention camps for them in this country. I do not think that represents British values or good value for money.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Murrison and Angela Eagle

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

9. What recent steps Veterans UK has taken to support veterans and their families.

[The Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

I look forward to the outcome of the review of welfare services, which was cited earlier. In the meantime, the Ministry of Defence is investing more than £40 million in digitising old paper-based practices, improving processes and creating a single entry point for pensions and compensation by the end of 2024. We have successfully launched a new digital claims service for compensation and pension schemes, making it easier for our people to process their claims. Over time, this will make a very big difference.

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman is correct that the final report will be delivered within, I hope, a few weeks. He will have to await the Government’s response, of course, but it ties in with some of the findings of the all-party parliamentary group on veterans, which we discussed earlier. I am concerned about any reports that the service is not as good as it ought to be. I will take that review and the APPG’s findings extremely seriously, but I am bound to cite the fact that there were 122 complaints versus 1,715 thank you letters, which I find persuasive in forming a conclusion that the people working for Veterans UK are working hard and doing their very best in quite difficult circumstances in the interests of people who serve or have served our country.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

It is great to see you back in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.

My constituents have had similar problems trying to engage with the quinquennial review of the armed forces compensation scheme. They find it slow to make decisions, difficult to engage with and not user-friendly. When the Minister publishes the review’s findings, I hope he will come back to the House to explain how he will make the system much easier for veterans to engage with, as my constituents have told me it is very difficult indeed.

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Lady is right to raise this. As I said earlier, I cannot overstate how important it is that we are increasingly digitising the service. When people go to Norcross and see the mountains of paperwork that Veterans UK is having to cope with, they begin to understand how vital it is that we properly digitise the service and bring it into the 21st century, which is our intention.

The hon. Lady might like to know, because it is a barometer or litmus test of how the service is doing, that the proportion of armed forces compensation scheme cases going to tribunal has been falling since 2014-15, which balances some of the remarks we have heard about Veterans UK not being up to scratch. We need to review it, which is what we are doing, but I am convinced that the service will be better than it is at the moment, if that is of any reassurance.

Health and Social Care Levy

Debate between Andrew Murrison and Angela Eagle

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I look forward to seeing the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) in the Division Lobby tonight. What we witnessed yesterday was a Budget in all but name. It was a Budget sprung on this House with minimal warning and leaked to friendly newspapers over the weekend, but with scant detail being made available to Members of this House in a statement full of the deliberate obfuscations that have come to define this most slippery and unreliable of Prime Ministers. And today the Government are attempting to bounce it through the House before their own Back Benchers rise up in revolt. Some things are abundantly clear, despite the Government’s attempted sleight of hand. This announcement cynically breaks a guarantee personally signed by the Prime Minister at the last election that he would not put national insurance contributions up. That was one of two solemn manifesto pledges that he tore up yesterday, which makes me ask why anyone should believe what any future Tory election pledge says, ever again.

While proclaiming that they are the party of low taxation, the Conservatives have ushered in the largest tax rise in generations and now preside over a country with the largest percentage tax take in peacetime, but it is not a fair tax system. It continues the shift in tax liabilities away from those who make their income from owning assets to those who work. It exacerbates the three-body problem with self-employment, encouraging evasion, and it leaves wealth largely unscathed. It will exacerbate the unfairness and inequality that scar our society and that have been highlighted by the covid pandemic’s unequal effect on the poor and vulnerable. This tax hike has been presented by the Government as an historic move to fix the social care system, but in reality it is nothing of the sort.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

If the hon. Lady is so against this increase in national insurance contributions, why did she vote for one in 2003? Can she say what happened to NHS productivity as a result in the decade that succeeded it? I can, and it wasn’t pretty.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We had the Wanless report, rising real wages and a buoyant economy, and we did a lot of work with civil society and communities before we introduced the rise. We did not just pull it out of a hat like a rabbit. It led to a 6% increase per year in funding for the NHS, not the 3.5% that this measure will lead to.