Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Bambos Charalambous and Aaron Bell

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point.

Less than a week ago, we had hon. Members rightly berating the Minister for Care, screaming blue murder at her failure to produce an impact assessment for the health and social care regulations. Where are those howls today? Not a word. I dare not ask about the legal advice that was sought to formulate this Bill, but if there was an Olympic event for legal gymnastics, it would definitely win a gold medal.

The Bill is riddled with holes. It is fatally flawed and it will not work. It will not work because of the glaring omission of the lack of bilateral agreements with France and other EU countries. Conservative Members can huff and puff all they like, but it should begin to dawn on them that without any such agreements the Bill will not work and it will not stop any channel crossings.

[Aaron Bell]

If France will not take people, does the hon. Gentleman agree with the proposal in the Bill that we find a safe third country that is willing to take them—we may have to pay it—and they can be processed over there? It worked in Australia and it saved thousands of lives.

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Member is running roughshod over international law. I would be interested to see which third countries would be interested in taking people. If there were such third countries, I am sure the Minister would have introduced them today.

Many colleagues have spoken about the broken asylum system, but let us be clear about who broke it. The Government have had 11 years to fix the system but there is nothing in the Bill about how they will fix the current scandalous state of affairs. I know many hon. Members who have constituents who have been waiting for a decision about their asylum status. I have had one case where a constituent from Afghanistan had to wait seven years for his claim to be processed. It took my direct intervention with a Minister for his claim to be determined. It should not take the direct intervention of MPs for the system to snap into action. With fewer claims being made—yesterday the Home Secretary mistakenly said that claims have gone up when in fact they have gone down—it should not be taking longer to process applications. If the asylum system was operating as a business, it would be going bust by now.