(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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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.
The last Government were responsible for an asylum backlog so large that they ended up spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money every day on asylum hotels, including in my constituency. As the Minister said, we are now dealing with that legacy, and I welcome her statement. Does she agree that we will take no lessons from the Conservative party, and that we will continue to make progress towards our manifesto commitment to bring down the backlog and end hotel use?