Foreign National Offender Removal Flights

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

Well, rather like for me, some of the dither and delay we saw in getting on and passing that legislation has not escaped my hon. Friend’s attention. I do not think there is any time to waste in getting on and delivering those reforms. The British people have spoken consistently about the need for action. We have a plan. It is the only credible plan that will fundamentally improve matters and that is why we are getting on and operationalising it.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

Me and my constituents in Burnley and Padiham are sick and tired of the Labour party approach to this issue—to stand on the side of murderers, paedophiles and rapists. My constituents want to see more deportations of these foreign criminals and more flights, so I urge the Minister to lay on more flights and publicise them, so that people know that we are on the side of the law-abiding majority and the victims of these awful crimes.

[Tom Pursglove]

It is absolutely right and proper that the British Government live up to their legal obligations around the deportation of foreign national offenders from our country who have committed serious acts of crime that have blighted our communities and that blight communities such as my hon. Friend’s in Burnley. He is right to raise this issue, and he has done so a number of times with me during our conversations over recent months. He is impatient, as I am, for the reform to come to fruition. We will continue to drive this agenda forward because it is the right thing to do to keep people in our communities safe from the harms that these sorts of individuals perpetrate.