Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation

Debate between Angela Eagle and Jim Dickson

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We certainly are having to get the system back up and running from a virtual standing start, as the hon. Gentleman rightly points out. That means that we have been able, as I said, to go up from processing only 1,000 asylum claims a month to nearly 10,000 a month. Those who have gone through the whole system and have received a grant, for example, need then to exit our asylum accommodation. That allows us to backfill and, in the end, to exit hotels. However, that is not an instant solution; the system has ground to a halt and we must redeploy resource to get it up and running again.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

It is worth remembering that when this Government came into office, we were in the middle of the worst year ever for small boat crossings —the number of crossings was 6% higher than in 2022, the previous record year. That, I am afraid, was the legacy of chaos and failure that the Conservative party left behind. There is still a long way to go in tackling the crossings, but does the Minister welcome the fact that, so far, total arrivals this year are 20% down on 2022?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I welcome any progress, but I also recognise the seasonality of arrivals. Unlike the last Government, I am not here to tell the House that there are any quick or easy solutions to this difficult problem. We are getting the system up and running, we have created the border security command to start disrupting and degrading the gangs that are smuggling people across the channel, and we will assert the right of the rule of law to exist, and get our asylum system working, so that we can stop those dangerous crossings.

However, I cannot stand here and say that a magic wand that can easily be waved. It will take hard cross-jurisdictional and cross-country work, and that is what the border security commander has been appointed to do. That is what the extra £150 million of resource given to that job is there to do. That is what our operational and National Crime Agency people are there to do and are doing.