Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tony Vaughan]

We did have a returns agreement with Europe before we withdrew from the European Union—the Dublin regulation. It was this Government that negotiated a new agreement with France in the UK-France deal. That deal, which is compliant with all the international obligations we have, is the potential way forward to solving the problem.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Does the hon. and learned Member accept that under the Dublin regulation the United Kingdom was a net recipient of refugees?

[Tony Vaughan]

The reality is that, if we do not have a mechanism in place—and it was essentially jettisoned by the Conservative party—there is no way of creating either a deterrent or a way of working with our colleagues in Europe to address these problems upstream. If we took the position of the Conservative party, which is to withdraw from the European convention and other international instruments, who would work with us upstream? France would not have signed that UK-France deal—signed in the summer by the Prime Minister—if we had been outside of the European convention on human rights. It is Brexit 2.0 from the Opposition. The Government are offering serious alternatives that simply are not being offered by anyone else.

What would mass detention actually achieve? The answer is nothing at all. It would not make it easier to carry out removals, because detention is already used for people who are ready for removal. Somebody with an outstanding asylum claim or who has no travel documents cannot be removed anyway. Would mass detentions stop people from coming? That is highly doubtful.

It is easy to underestimate how incredibly desperate many of the people who are arriving on small boats are. We assume that deterrents will defeat desperation, but both the Rwanda gimmick and other populist plans assume too much about the psychology of the people making these dangerous journeys. Mass detention is easy to say, but it is just another gimmick—inhumane, extortionate and, I am afraid, completely pointless.

During my recent visit to Napier barracks, I met an Iranian teacher who said simply, “I just want to live safely.” I believe that we can show the compassion to give him that chance, while keeping order and control in our asylum system. The Government’s current path of clearing the backlog, cutting hotel use, and increasing removals where claims have been refused deserves our full support. Most people simply want a fair, competent asylum system that commands both our conscience and our confidence.

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[Richard Foord]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for talking about Europe, because our European neighbours are contending with exactly the same problems as us in this respect. The longer asylum seekers are drawn to the UK, the longer they are drawn into the European Union, so it is in our common interest to address this issue. I will talk a bit more about the EU and its member states later in my speech.

Pundits are blurring the two issues, and while people say that immigration is wrecking the economy, the truth is quite the reverse. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, higher legal net migration is expected to raise our total GDP by around 1.5% by 2028-29, while GDP per capita is likely to be raised by 0.8%.

Migrants arriving with visas tend to arrive in their prime working years, paying more in taxes than they take out in services. According to the Migration Advisory Committee, in 2022-23, the average skilled migrant made a net contribution of around £16,300 to the UK public finances in their first year in the UK. Legal migration is a cornerstone of our economy, and because of our ageing population, it will continue to be so for years to come.

I will now address migration through irregular routes, which is the focus of this debate, and in particular the use of immigration hotels. In May 2025, the Government noted that they would spend £2.2 billion this financial year on migrant hotels. That is an eye-watering sum, but it is part of the £1.28 trillion—or more than £1,200 billion—that the Government spend each year, so we are talking about less than 0.2% of public spending. None the less, £2.2 billion is an enormous sum of money.

The UK counts these domestic refugee costs as official development assistance, and the House of Commons Library reported that in 2024, one fifth of all foreign aid was spent domestically on hotels. That makes me really angry. I am angrier, perhaps, than any of the petitioners on this point, because when we spend that money here in the UK, we do not use it to its full effect or achieve its full purchasing power.

Let us think about what official development assistance has achieved for us in recent years. Between 2013 and 2019, the UK committed £400 million to the eradication of polio and helped to vaccinate millions of children, leading to Africa being declared polio-free in 2020. These sorts of things are partly benevolent, but they are also in Britain’s interests. During the 2014 to 2016 Ebola outbreak, the UK provided £427 million in aid to Sierra Leone to address it. Had it arrived on these shores, we would certainly have had to spend so much more on addressing this absolutely appalling disease.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that it is Liberal Democrat policy that asylum costs should not come out of the foreign aid budget?

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[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I welcome this debate. My constituents are angry about the increasing number of people crossing the channel in small boats, being rescued by the Royal Navy and brought to Britain, and then being housed in hotels at taxpayers’ expense. Before the election, Labour Members repeated the mantra that they would “smash the gangs” to solve the problem. They presented it as though there was some mysterious solution to cracking down on people smugglers that simply was not being pursued by the previous Government. But in the year since their election, the problem has been getting worse, not better. The number of people crossing the channel is up by 50% on last year. The failure to control our borders makes our country look impotent.

[Chris Murray]

The Home Affairs Committee heard evidence last week from the new Border Security Commander, Martin Hewitt, who told us that he was working to bring together different parts of Government to focus on cross-border activity as a kind of organised crime similar to terrorism. When I pushed him specifically on whether that was new or whether it had been happening under the previous Government, he was very clear that it was a new way of doing things. Does the hon. Gentleman know more than the Border Security Commander about this?

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I hope the Government’s policy is successful. It is just that in the 12 months since they took office, the problem has got worse by 50%. I will explain why. The large numbers of young men we see crossing the channel in small boats are not refugees; they are economic migrants. They have travelled through several safe countries before reaching Calais. The reason that people are prepared to pay to cross the channel in a small boat is that they know that having reached Britain, there is virtually no prospect of their ever being deported. This Government are guilty of self-harm in closing the Rwanda scheme before it started. Had the scheme been allowed to operate and large numbers of those crossing the channel been deported to Rwanda, the economic model of the people smugglers would have been broken. Instead, Labour lets them stay indefinitely.

Labour is increasing the use of hotels in town centres. In June 2024, 29,585 people were in hotels; now, the figure is 32,059. The numbers are going in the wrong direction and we cannot allow that to continue. We should close the asylum hotels and deport illegal migrants.

[Tony Vaughan]

Does the hon. Member accept that under the Conservative Government asylum applications were essentially paused, which had a huge knock-on effect on accommodation costs and the number of people who had to be accommodated, and that that caused the crisis that we are in?

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Of course; that is part of creating a deterrent in which we say to those crossing the channel, “If you enter the country illegally, you will not be entitled to claim asylum and you will be transferred to a third country.” Interestingly, the European Union is now exploring that, and the facilities in Rwanda are currently being used by the United States, so other countries understand the need for a deterrent.

If we want to reduce the number of refugees in hotels and temporary accommodation, we need to change the way we deal with refugees. In my view, Parliament should decide how many refugees Britain accepts each year, exactly as we did with the Syria scheme. We should then provide a safe and legal route for those refugees, who should be taken exclusively from UN refugee camps. At present, we have the morally repugnant situation that millions of people are sitting in refugee camps around the world with no prospect of being rehomed, while those who jump the queue and pay money to get into a small boat are given licence to live in Britain forever. Does the Minister think that is moral? That creates a perverse incentive, which puts lives at risk, funds organised crime and stops us controlling who we let into our country. The Government must reintroduce the deterrent of deporting illegal migrants if they are ever to solve the small boats problem.

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[The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Alex Norris)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir John. I assure hon. Members that I will leave more than just a moment of the time remaining.

I want to start by thanking my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for introducing the debate. I have said this before, but it bears repeating: it is a very difficult job to present a petition in these debates as a member of the Petitions Committee. The Committee member is asked to speak for, in this case, hundreds of thousands of people, some of whose sentiments they share, but not all. Those people all have their different views and different takes, and the Committee member has to bring those voices into the room, although it is a speech in their own name, and to reflect the views of their constituents and their personal experience too. My hon. and learned Friend did an excellent job.

We were all struck—not least because they were mirrored in so many contributions—by the points of my hon. and learned Friend about our nation’s proud history of providing shelter, with his particularly poignant reference to 1914 and his community. The issue is of great interest to the people of Folkestone and Hythe. I, too, thought of our history in this space. I have seen, as all hon. Members have and as a number of them referenced, the British public’s breathtaking capacity for humanity and compassion for those who need it.

My hon. and learned Friend talked, of course, of 1914. We could echo that down the decades, but I think of recent years, too, and the Afghan and Syrian resettlement schemes, Homes for Ukraine and the support for the British national overseas visa. The British people have stepped up for people in need. That is the country that I know and love.

We know that there is anger, however, because people see too often that those who do not have the same degree of need are testing the system because they think it is in their interests to do so, or that there are those seeking to game the system. There is no doubt that that is pulling at public trust. All of us, whatever our political persuasion, see and feel that on the doorsteps and in our mailbags. It serves nobody to say that we do not or to suggest there is not something that the Government of the day need to address.

This is a challenge of public confidence in our asylum system, but that has been turbocharged in recent years by the disreputable act of stopping processing. That created a huge backlog, which means that hotels, which were never part of this nation’s approach to asylum, are now a significant part of it. We must name that as the original sin, but we know what people are saying now: they want order, fairness and humanity in the system. That has been lost in recent years, which is why we see the degree of anger in these petitions, in our mailbags and beyond.

I am going to address the petitioners first, and then cover the important contributions made by hon. Members. On petition 705383 and the suggestion that support for asylum seekers should be stopped, the reality is that doing so overnight would mean that, in many cases—I dare say the vast majority—those people, including children and vulnerable people, would end up living on the street.

That is not the right way to exit hotel accommodation. A better approach is to continue to speed up the processing of asylum claims, so that those who are genuine refugees can be accepted and those who are not can have their claims rejected before being removed. Either way, we will reduce the amount of money being spent on asylum support. I am proud that, under this Government, we are already spending £1 billion less, including £500 million less on hotels. However, I know that the British public want us to go further so that the money can be invested in the British people’s priorities, and rightly so.

That is why we are working so hard to turn around the backlog of tens of thousands, which we inherited, by reforming each stage of the asylum system. We have doubled decision making, as we committed to at the election, and the backlog is already down by some 18%. We are reforming the appeal system entirely. Provisions in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will introduce a statutory timeframe for supported accommodation cases, halving the disposal time for such appeals and enabling swifter movement out of hotel accommodation. And for those who have no right to be here, there will be swifter departure from the UK.

We have a statutory obligation to continue to support those whose claims are being considered, in order to prevent destitution. We have tightened the terms and introduced tougher sanctions for those who refuse suitable accommodation without a valid reason. However, we have legal and, I would argue, moral imperatives not to create mass destitution simply by turfing them out with no support.

As a number of colleagues have said today, although it has been lost in our public discourse, it is important to recognise that the individuals we are discussing today do not have access to our welfare system. A frequent refrain from people who engage with me on this issue is that one of their frustrations is that people come here to use our welfare system, but that is not what is happening. We are meeting our obligations to prevent destitution, but that is it.

E-petition 718406 relates directly to hotels. It says explicitly that the Labour party made a commitment at the last election to close those hotels, and it says we ought to do so now that we are in power. We will make good on that pledge, as we said in our manifesto before the election that we would close the hotels during this Parliament. We are committed to that, and that is what we are doing. We will go at the fastest pace we can, which is why we are looking at options with local partners—a number of colleagues have raised that issue, and I will cover it in a little while.

We are also looking at a range of sites, including military sites. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe talked about the work at Napier barracks. When such work is done thoughtfully, in a planned manner with the community and with civil society, it can be a really good model, and we are looking very closely at that work. We are also looking at disused industrial sites.

By processing claims, we are allowing those fleeing persecution to move out of support and rebuild their lives. For those individuals with no right to remain in the UK, we are taking the actions that are needed. We have removed from the UK more than 35,000 people who have no right to be here, which includes a 28% increase in the return of failed asylum seekers.

We are also working upstream—this was a matter of interest to colleagues—to disrupt the criminal gangs that profit from this misery and the dangerous small boat crossings, which are a significant factor behind the trends we have seen. Significantly, we are doing that by boosting funding for the National Crime Agency, so that there is more capacity, and through our innovative international agreements, such as the one with France, to return those with no right to be here.

I now turn to some of the contributions, starting with those from Conservative colleagues. I would argue that it is no coincidence that no Conservative Member of the previous Parliament contributed to today’s debate. I promise that I am the last person to police colleagues’ diaries, as there is nothing worse than saying, “Well, there’s five of ours and eight of yours, so what does that mean?” However, that is a really important point. It was interesting to hear what the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), the Opposition spokesperson, said. As yet, there has been no acceptance or willingness to put a name on why we are in this situation. Instead, there is this rather heroic hope that the British people will believe that, in 14 months, the Conservatives have learned the lessons and now know how to fix a crisis that they created over 14 years. I gently say that that is a heroic expectation.

With characteristic charm, the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) talked about the important impact of the hotel in his community. I cannot give him a date for its closure, but what I can say is that we will not have that hotel open a day longer than is needed. We have made a commitment to an ordered exit from asylum hotels. He talked about challenges in getting information from the Department. I am a new Minister, but I will always endeavour to do my utmost to get him the information he needs. It is the same for all colleagues, because we have an important role.

Multiple times a week, people, including those in positions of responsibility—less often Members of Parliament, but certainly people in local government—feed on those rumours: “I’ve seen this online. What does this mean?”. They create a buzz and a bubble of activity around rumours with no foundation. It is better, and in our interests, for colleagues to have the best information possible so that we can be the leaders we need to be. I know that colleagues would want to do it in that way.

The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) asked about the progress on taking on organised crime. I am pleased to tell him that we have made 350 disruptions of people-smuggling operations, which is a 40% increase on last year. We are serious about going after them, and we will leave no stone unturned in doing so.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

If the hon. Gentleman has been so successful, why is the number of boat crossings up 50% on this time last year? And why are there 3,000 more people in asylum hotels than before he came to office?

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that these journeys take a very long time, so those are lagging indicators. He also knows that the number of people in hotels currently sits at 32,000, compared with 56,000 in September ’23. The journey is in the right direction. Of course, there are bobbles along the way, but we will deliver on the commitment that we have made.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Yes, the number was 56,000 in 2023, but the previous Government brought it down to 29,500 in June 2024. The reduction that the hon. Gentleman mentions was all under the previous Conservative Government. The number has gone up by 3,000 since he took office.

[Alex Norris]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s heroism in asking for regards and laurels for housing merely 30,000 people in hotels as opposed to 56,000, but I do not think that will wash. The reality is that we will be the ones who end hotel use.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned deterrence. Conservative colleagues cannot really believe that a scheme that sent four volunteers for £700 million formed a meaningful deterrent. We want to have a deterrent, and returns agreements are good deterrents, which is why we innovated one with France. Indeed, the shadow Home Secretary was very keen on them, but was unable to deliver. We delivered it. That is exactly why we proceeded in that way.

The hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) talked about how hotels and the housing waiting lists are dreadful. He talked about how dreadful homelessness is and the pressure on public services. He is going to be very angry when he meets the people who did that. The sad thing is that they are on his Front Bench, not ours. He talked about a future Tory Government, which will remain a long way off until the Conservatives come properly to terms with their legacy in this area and across public services, the economy and beyond.

The hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) talked about how fed up her constituents are. That is a point of agreement with me, but perhaps the end of such agreement. Many people who signed this petition, who may have voted Reform in the previous county council elections or who are thinking about voting Reform in a general election, will be watching this debate. I say to them that I believe her contribution is exactly why they cannot and should not vote for Reform. She said that she agreed with the petitioners. She said that no money should be spent on this cohort of people, and within the next sentence she spent tens of billions of pounds on her solution to the problem. Those are not serious answers.

Similarly, the hon. Lady said that the past offered no solutions. Within 10 minutes, the former leader, and now deputy leader, of her party, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), who is not in his place, contradicted that by asking why we could not just go back to how things were 20 years ago. The reality is that Reform will argue each end of any argument if it thinks that doing so will receive political support. The last thing Reform wants is for the Government of the day to solve this problem. I am afraid that we will disappoint Reform on that, because we are very much going to do so.

The right to work was a major feature of the debate. A number of colleagues talked about that, including my hon. Friends the Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) and for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), and the hon. Members for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan), for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer), for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) and for Woking (Mr Forster)—I would be a good train announcer, and I suspect it would be quite a journey. I appreciate why there is a degree of enthusiasm for the right to work. As a member of the Labour party, I believe that work gives people dignity and purpose, and it should always make people better off. It is certainly better than being on welfare or, as in this case, in asylum accommodation.

The reality is that this country is already attractive. People take the breathtaking risk, which should never happen, of entering the channel in a precarious small boat because this is an attractive country. The right to work would create greater attraction and greater reason to take that risk, and I cannot support that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is right. There has been an increase in shoplifting in recent years, at the same time as neighbourhood policing numbers have fallen. As a result of the neighbourhood policing guarantee, there will be 110 additional neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs in Devon and Cornwall police over the next 12 months. That is important, but we are also strengthening their powers to tackle shoplifting.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Will the Home Secretary acknowledge the role that special constables play in neighbourhood policing, and does she agree that granting special constables the right to unpaid time from their employment to perform their duties would assist in their recruitment?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member makes a really important point about the role of specials. We want them to be able to play a much stronger role, not just in neighbourhood policing but across the board. People who take time out to be part of police forces can bring all kinds of additional skills. We are working on what more can be done to support specials and their recruitment, which has plummeted in recent years. It is important that that trend is turned around.

Child Rape Gangs

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning boys and giving me the opportunity to say the following. I made a promise to one of the Oldham victims when I met her that I would always say that grooming gangs could happen to boys and girls, because it was her son who had lost his life, so I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to do that. There will be a delay in the preparation and rolling out of mandatory reporting exactly because we must make sure the guidance and the regulation that sits behind it and the training that will have to be put in place are right. We need that not so much for social workers and others who already have that sort of training, but there will also be sports coaches and volunteers, because huge numbers of institutions work with children, and getting this right is more important than rushing ahead with it.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

My constituents are horrified by the Government’s failure to order a national inquiry into the child rape gang scandal. Does the Minister share the concerns raised by Sir Trevor Phillips that the decisions made by the Government appear to be obviously political and designed to avoid offending Muslim voters of Pakistani origin?

[Jess Phillips]

I do not agree with that. Politically, the easiest thing for me to have done in this situation would have been to capitulate, but I do not think it is the right thing to do. I genuinely believe that from my years of work and speaking to the victims and working in Telford with those victims about what changed afterwards. I would not do it—I would not stand here if I did not believe it. And as for the idea that I am trying to protect something of myself, this process has, I have to say, not been protecting of me and, frankly, that is an absolutely disgraceful thing to say.

International Women�s Day

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Many women in my constituency are doing incredible things, and I am pleased to speak in this debate on International Women�s Day. Judith Ballard, Moira Allen, Molly and Rachel Fitton, and Joy Russell are all leading members of the Save Pawlett Hams action group, who successfully convinced EDF that it should not destroy a beloved local area of natural beauty with an unwanted salt marsh. Rose Stacey is a successful local business owner, who I nominated for an MP HERoes award for her work in our community and the local people she employs.

Niki Miles visited me in Parliament to raise awareness about the dangers of gambling addiction, in memory of her brother Del. Amy Branson, along with her husband Ben, has campaigned on the injustice of sentencing guidelines, in memory of their daughter Bethany who was killed by a drunk driver in 2022. Emma-Elizabeth Murphy is a special constable who brought my attention to the fact that specials cannot request unpaid time off work like magistrates or councillors. She inspired me to table an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill, and Labour Members can show their support by co-signing new clause 30.

I particularly want to pay tribute to the Nelson Trust Somerset women�s centre, based in Bridgwater. Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the Nelson Trust provides one-stop shop support to more than 5,000 women annually, from its network of women�s centres across the south-west and Wales. The centres are safe women-only spaces, provided for women who are experiencing multiple unmet needs, such as homelessness, addiction, mental ill health, domestic and sexual abuse, and familial separation. Having seen the huge difference that the centre makes to some of the most vulnerable women in my constituency, I pay tribute to Gemma Berry and Lorna Griffiths for their incredible work, and for their service not only to women but to our whole community.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

We are working with the Department for Transport. We need to keep communities safe, ensure that proper safety standards are met and tackle antisocial behaviour. I have also seen the work of Staffordshire police, who are using drones to follow riders of dangerous off-road bikes and take action.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Does the Home Secretary agree that it would be easier for the police to tackle antisocial behaviour if they had more support for special constables? The number of special constables has fallen in recent years, particularly since the pandemic. Will she agree to consider amending the Employment Rights Act 1996 to bring special constables within section 50?

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree that special constables can play an important role. Their numbers have dropped by around two thirds over the past 14 years. I think that is damaging, and we want to increase their numbers. We are working with police forces on how best to achieve that so that they can play their part, both on the streets in neighbourhood teams and in supporting other specialist aspects of the police’s work.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Ashley Fox Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Many people in my constituency are angry and frustrated at Britain’s approach to illegal migration. They see hundreds of people every week getting into small boats to cross the channel. Those people pay for a place in a small boat because they know that once they set foot on British soil, there is almost no prospect of their being deported. That is morally wrong. It brings the whole immigration system into disrepute.

Earlier in the debate, the Home Secretary was invited to say how many of those she has deported in the past seven months had arrived in a small boat, and there was no answer. I suspect the reason is that the answer is zero, but no doubt the Minister can provide an answer when she responds.

It is self-evident that most of the migrants standing on beaches in France are not refugees; they are economic migrants. They have not only reached a safe country, but have had to travel through a succession of safe countries to arrive at that beach in France. The National Crime Agency has made it clear that to stop the boats, we need an effective removals and deterrence strategy. The Bill does not deliver that. In fact, it does the opposite: it removes the key deterrents that we had put in place.

The last Government were correct in passing the Illegal Migration Act, which would have stopped those who enter the UK illegally from claiming asylum or being eligible for British citizenship. Twenty days after the election, Labour put it on hold, and it is now repealing those provisions through the Bill. It is a privilege to live in this country and to apply for British citizenship. The Government are removing the barriers to accessing that privilege and are therefore inviting thousands more people to join the queue. That is why the asylum backlog has grown under this Government. That is why the number of people in asylum hotels has risen by 6,000 since the election. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Cleverly) stated, this is a seriously under-powered Bill. It actually does very little, and it reveals the Home Secretary’s policy of “smash the gangs” to be just a slogan.

Former chief immigration officer Kevin Saunders said,

“You need a big deterrent to stop the migrants. Forget about the gangs—if you stop the migrants wanting to come to the UK, the gangs won’t exist.”

Unfortunately, the Bill provides no deterrent. In fact, it removes the deterrents that were working. It has no vision for controlling illegal or legal immigration, no plan to protect our borders and no strategy to ensure that those who break the law by coming here illegally are removed quickly and effectively. The Home Secretary claimed this evening that the Government are repealing our legislation because it did not work. Did it not work when we struck landmark deals like the one with Albania, which drastically reduced the number of Albanian migrants arriving via small boats? By making it clear that they would repeal the Rwanda scheme before it started working without coming up with any alternative deterrent, the message that the Labour party has been sending to would-be illegal migrants is, “Come and have a go”. Is it any wonder that illegal crossings are up 30% since the election?

The Government are not in control of the borders, so we Conservative Members will reject the Bill. Our reasoned amendment will give Members a chance to say that we want strong action on illegal immigration.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the conflicting and competing interests in the Metropolitan police. We have committed to putting police back on the beat through the neighbourhood policing guarantee. A neighbourhood policing team will be in every area. It will be out policing, with intelligence-led, visible patrols, and will ensure officers are protected from being deployed elsewhere. That is part of the guarantee.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

13. What progress her Department has made on closing asylum hotels.

[The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Dame Angela Eagle)]

The Government are committed to reducing hotel use through reform of the asylum system, including through streamlining asylum processing and establishing the Border Security Command to tackle people smuggling gangs at source. Since the general election, there has been a net increase of six hotels in use, but nine are scheduled for closure by the end of March.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

The Government’s new policy of smashing the gangs has enabled them to close seven asylum hotels, but unfortunately they have had to open another 14. Will the Minister tell us when the number of asylum seekers in hotel accommodation will be lower than when she took office?

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matt Vickers]

I could not agree more. There is huge anxiety among businesses about challenges and pressures—whether the national insurance contribution increases on employers or the huge change to small business rate relief affecting small businesses in leisure, hospitality and retail, slashing it from 75% to 40%. These are challenging times, including for very small family businesses, and also, as my hon. Friend points out, for the voluntary sector and many organisations that prop up our communities and play a central role. By perfecting this Bill, we can relieve those anxieties and allow those organisations to follow on with confidence and comply with the measures in the Bill.

I would appreciate some reassurance from the Minister about how he expects to use the powers to change daily penalties. I hope he will demonstrate that the ethos of the Bill is collaboration between the state and private organisations, not the establishment of an increasingly costly financial penalisation system. We believe that would help to settle any underlying anxieties and allow both the Government and venues to focus on working together to ensure that the roll-out of this Bill is the very best it can be.

Amendments 25 and 26 stop the Secretary of State changing qualifying tier amounts by regulation. They are simply designed to provide future certainty to organisations as they work to become compliant with the Bill. They would remove the power of the Secretary of State to lower the threshold for the standard duty premises and enhanced duty premises from 200 and 799 individuals respectively. The current qualification levels have been determined after consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny. These are significant policy choices and I believe the Government have reached this position after listening to that feedback. As I have set out today, the industry and venues are actively supportive of the Bill and actively want to play their part in improving venue security. We worry about the uncertainty caused by the potential of the Secretary of State to change the thresholds for the standard and enhanced duty premises in future. How is that power compatible with allowing the industry to plan long term, in the knowledge that the qualifying criteria for each tier will not change?

We want to ensure that venues have the confidence to commit the required resources to adopting the provisions of the Bill, knowing that the rules will not change suddenly. Impact assessments have shown the challenges that face different types of venues. Smaller venues and lower capacity premises such as places of worship, village halls and community centres showed particular concern about the impact on fellow smaller businesses and their ability to meet the revised requirements within the small resources available to them.

About four in 10—or 39%—of respondents from premises with a capacity of 100 to 299 agreed that those responsible for premises within the standard tier should have a legal obligation to be prepared for a terrorist attack. Nearly half—46%—disagreed and said that only larger premises should have a legal obligation. About half—51%—reported that revised requirements would be difficult to take forward. Six in 10, or 58%, were at least somewhat concerned that the cost of meeting the standard tier requirements would affect their organisation’s financial ability to continue operating. Among those from places of worship or village halls, only around three in 10 agreed that those responsible for premises within the standard tier should have a legal obligation to be prepared for a terrorist attack.

More than 54% of those from village halls and community centres, which typically have a smaller capacity than premises across other sectors—72% had a capacity of 100 to 299—disagreed and said only larger premises should have a legal obligation. Over half of those from places of worship and village halls felt the revised requirement would be difficult to take forward, mainly due to the perceived burden in time and effort. I therefore ask the Minister in what circumstances he would envisage needing to lower the floor for either standard or enhanced duty premises and what consultation would take place before the Government did so.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that proportionality is particularly important? While clearly venues like the Manchester Arena should have a properly worked out plan, it is inappropriate for village halls and church halls to worry about the cost and bureaucracy involved. Can we have the lightest possible touch for those small community venues?

[Matt Vickers]

That is right. The community organisations that are affected, whether parish halls, village halls, churches, or small businesses such as the local pub, are invaluable to, and sit at the heart of, our communities, and it is essential that we protect them. There is a balance between what everyone who supports the Bill wants from these protections, be they on the Opposition or Government Benches, namely to prevent the most horrific atrocities, and ensuring that those businesses and community organisations can continue to exist.

--- Later in debate ---

Let us consider just a few of the smaller venues in my North Cornwall constituency such as the St Kew Inn, St Petroc’s church, Haywood cider farm, the Bosvena Events Arts Theatre in Bodmin and the Old Inn—there are countless others—which host ticketed events. Some are likely to fall close to the 200 threshold, and others may even fall close to the upper 800 threshold and be considered enhanced duty premises, yet many of the smaller venues are run by volunteers or communities with little or no formal training in event management or public protection procedures. The new clause would address that issue directly by ensuring that all venue staff and volunteers, whether they work in a pub, a church hall or a farm shop, would be equipped with the right training to prepare them to keep the public safe.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

On that point, does the hon. Member not think that those volunteers in church halls and other small venues would be put off by the thought of having to go through a training course, implementing a training plan and all the other aspects of new clause 2? While those may be worthy objectives for larger venues, does he really think them desirable for small venues? Does he not perceive the risk that they may put off volunteers who would otherwise freely give of their time?

[Ben Maguire]

I spoke to many venues across my constituency this weekend, and actually they were more put off by the ambiguity of the Bill and the lack of specifics that they will be required to undertake. New clause 2 would give them that clarity and ensure that they knew exactly what was required of them under the Bill.

Respect Orders and Antisocial Behaviour

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I hear very clearly that those bikes, along with off-road motorbikes, are a problem up and down the country, and we are looking at that. What we can announce today is that we will be getting rid of the requirement for a warning, but we are certainly considering what else we need to do to ensure that the problem is dealt with properly by the police.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s commitment to tackling antisocial behaviour. There is a particular problem in Fore Street, in my constituency, where those who abuse drugs and alcohol gather and make a nuisance of themselves. Will she please consider adding Bridgwater to her list of possible candidates for the pilot scheme?

Small Boat Crossings

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

That is certainly the balance that this Government are aiming to achieve.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

The Minister has said that her policy to smash the criminal gangs will reduce the number of migrants crossing the channel. Can she give the House her estimation of when that policy will start to work?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I said in an earlier answer that there are no magic wands in this area. Tough operational processing and international co-operation will begin to bear down on this, and work by the National Crime Agency and by prosecutorial authorities, often cross-border in different jurisdictions. The fact that we have made such a good start with international co-operation and the significant shift in attention here will bear down on this, but I will not stand at this Dispatch Box and pretend that there is an easy timeframe or answer for when that will have the effect that we all want it to have. We will bear down on it and we will make progress.