Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Angela Eagle and Jeremy Corbyn

Report stage
Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We will come to these debates when we get on to debating the new clauses to which the hon. Gentleman is referring. We have been clear from the Government Benches about the balance between respecting work visas, which people have to apply for if they are coming to work here, and allowing asylum seekers who have not applied for work to come and work at that sort of length. The change that he suggests would risk undermining the system. We have a disagreement about timing. The answer to his question is that at the moment an asylum seeker can work if their case has not been heard after 12 months, if that is through no fault of their own. We are talking about time here, and the balance between not undermining our work visa system and having a pull factor for more people to come across illegally.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I thank the Minister for the remarks she just made. Would she accept that people who make an incredibly dangerous journey and are exploited in doing so are often totally desperate, are victims of human rights abuse and war, and have been through horrendous journeys to get there? One day, they will find somewhere where they will be able to live their lives and make a contribution to our society. As a world, do we not need to look at the plight of refugees as a whole and do much more to try to bring an end to the conditions that force people to seek these desperate journeys in the first place?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I agree that we in this place have to always think about the humanity involved and not try to label everybody who comes into our country when they are claiming asylum as some kind of threat or, even worse, as a terrorist or something, as was done by the hon. Member for Ashfield. We have to treat every case on its merits, and we have to treat every person as an individual human being, but we also have to recognise—the right hon. Member for Islington North needs to recognise this too—that not everybody who comes across on a boat is the kind of person he describes; some are the people running the people-smuggling gangs. A variety of humanity comes across on the boats, just as one can discover a variety of humanity if one comes across a pool of human beings anywhere.

Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings

Debate between Angela Eagle and Jeremy Corbyn

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Like the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale), I have visited Calais on a number of occasions, and I have met people there who are desperate. They are victims of war, human rights abuses, environmental degradation and sheer poverty and desperation. They do not cross the channel without a reason to do it. What conversations is the Minister having with those in European countries, north Africa and the middle east about the root causes of the huge numbers of people globally who are seeking asylum at the present time? Inhumanity and deportation will not work.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I do not apologise for deporting people who have no right to be here or who have been through the system and are discovered neither to be asylum seekers nor to have any right to stay in the country. I accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the desperate situation that people are in. They could claim asylum in the country they are in, and we need to work with our counterparts in the European Union and along all the routes to see what we can do to divert those people who are seeking a better life in our country and see if we can look after them closer to home.

Small Boat Crossings

Debate between Angela Eagle and Jeremy Corbyn

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I agree that the first six months of this year were the worst on record. There were then a quiet three months, and now there has been a huge increase, not least because of benign weather conditions. I do not want to get into monthly figures. We need to bear down on the organised criminality that is perpetrating the trade, to disrupt it and deal with it that way.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Does the Minister recognise the distinct lack of humanity about this urgent question and the discussions surrounding small boats and migration? Does she not recognise that those people who risk all to get into those very dangerous boats and cross the chancel are doing so in an act of desperation? The lack of a safe routes system across Europe has created a market for people traffickers. Instead of the current approach, does she not think it necessary to look seriously at safe routes for asylum seekers, to avoid the tragedy of all these deaths in the channel and, for that matter, in the Mediterranean?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I said earlier that safe routes would not stop all the channel crossings. There is now an industrialised system run by organised immigration criminals. The Vietnamese would never have a safe route into the UK—there is no visa system—yet they now comprise 20% of the people crossing on small boats. With all due respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I do not think that safe routes would solve the problem.