Immigration and Asylum Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Blake Stephenson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Kohler]

I apologise. The right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) said that they realised they could no longer

“rely on sending people back to the place where they first claimed asylum”.

In spite of the Home Secretary’s statements to the contrary in the recent Home Affairs Committee evidence session, the Prime Minister was quoted in The Times as saying

“the small boats crisis has arisen in the last 10 years because we lost that returns agreement”.

There seems to be a belated admission—in No. 10, at least, if not in the Home Office—that Brexit has exacerbated the problem of illegal immigration to this country.

We cannot continue to be on the outside looking in. The security needs of our border demand closer alignment with Europe.

The Home Secretary has signalled her desire to negotiate access to the Eurodac database, and we are asking the Government to go further in working with our European neighbours by joining the migration and asylum pact. Our new clause would mandate negotiations to join the pact, so that we can share the benefits of European collaboration on immigration. Although Border Force has had some success in reducing dangerous crossings, there will always be a market for criminal gangs to exploit unless we join the EU’s comprehensive framework. Does the Minister acknowledge the potential for the migration and asylum pact to deliver more effective border security, or was the Prime Minister wrong to draw attention to the negative impacts of Brexit?

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart.

New clause 6 would require the Government to start negotiations to join the EU pact on migration and asylum within three months. Committee Members should not be surprised to hear that the official Opposition oppose this new clause. The hon. Member for Wimbledon spoke at length about the returns agreement, but it is not simply a returns agreement. At its heart is a so-called solidarity mechanism, under which member states either accept asylum seekers relocated from other states or pay contributions instead. Joining it would mean the United Kingdom accepting people we did not choose, under rules we did not write, ultimately subject to the European Court of Justice. That is the opposite of taking back control.

The Conservative borders plan takes a completely different approach. We would ban asylum claims by people who enter the country illegally and remove them within a week. We would seek returns agreements with countries of origin, backed by visa sanctions on those that refuse to take their nationals back, and we would support our allies in Europe to stop illegal entry with intelligence, policing and maritime resources. That is co-operation, and it does not require us to hand control of our asylum system to Brussels.

The Liberal Democrats have shown clearly during this Committee that they are not capable of being serious about controlling immigration. They will say that the pact will let us return people to the EU, but the price is relocation quotas and EU jurisdiction, and the evidence from the pact so far is that returns between member states remain very limited indeed. I hope the Minister will confirm today that the Government have absolutely no intention of seeking to join the pact or its solidarity mechanism.

[The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Anna Turley)]

It is a pleasure to see you back in the Chair, Mr Stuart. I thank hon. Members for tabling the new clause and for their thoughtful contributions to the debate.

I agree with the hon. Member for Wimbledon that deeper international co-operation is important. That is why the Home Secretary is in regular contact with her counterparts across Europe, including in France, Germany and Belgium, and we are continuing to establish a more comprehensive relationship with Europe as a whole. However, I remind him that irregular migration is not an issue limited to EU nation states. That is why we as a Government are looking even wider and being even more ambitious: not only tackling the issue when it emerges within European territories, but working upstream to prevent the vile trade of organised immigration crime in the first place.

For example, in August 2025 we signed an agreement with Iraq to bolster efforts to deter small boat arrivals. In October 2025, we signed an agreement with Vietnam to crack down on illegal migration and increase returns. In August this year, we signed a migration partnership with Egypt, which will continue to bear down on illegal migration and cut the time needed to return Egyptian nationals with no right to be in the UK by 90%. Those are just some examples of the importance of that broader co-operation and partnership. My hon. Friend the Minister for Migration and Citizenship also attended this year’s Berlin process meeting of Interior Ministers in Montenegro in September. It was a fantastic opportunity to strengthen international police co-operation and develop a joint response to cross-border security challenges not only with our EU counterparts but with representatives from the western Balkans.

I agree that international co-operation is an essential strand of our overarching strategy to tackle illegal migration, and one that I am keen to highlight is bearing fruit. As hon. Members will know—I will say it again, just for the record—small boat arrivals have decreased by more than 40% compared with this point last year. I am not claiming that the job is done—far from it—but we are taking a holistic approach to this issue, of which the Bill is one part. However, the Government will not support the new clause.

I want to pick up on a couple of the points the hon. Member for Wimbledon raised about the impact on returns and about Eurodac. We continue to work with our European partners on the shared challenge, including on returns, but joining the pact would not guarantee increased returns, and our focus is on practical co-operation that delivers real returns outcomes.

Eurodac is a matter for the EU, not a unilateral UK decision. Eurodac is one example of a pact measure where our participation is not legally possible without EU agreement, and the Eurodac legislation makes that clear. Access to asylum data could, of course, help identify individuals who have previously claimed protection in an EU member state before travelling to the UK, but it is for the EU to decide whether it wishes to extend access to third countries. In the meantime, we are strengthening practical co-operation with European partners, including through intelligence sharing and our observer status in the European Migration Network, which delivered on a key PM commitment from the UK-EU summit, and I will come on to say a bit more about the work we are doing on that.

Going back to the new clause, participation is not a straightforward proposition. The pact is not a single agreement that third countries can simply choose to join. It is complex collection of EU legislative measures, many of which are designed specifically for EU member states and Schengen countries. There is no established model for third-country participation, so any form of UK participation would require agreement from the EU and significant EU and operational change before extensive negotiations could commence. The pact is still being implemented across the EU and has been in application only since June this year. Member states are working to implement it, with the EU rightly focused on making it work for its own member states. That is a significant challenge, particularly for frontline countries that are facing the greatest migration pressures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kohler]

I will start with one: since Brexit, the Government have spent more than £1 billion on the agreement with France. We do not yet know the costs of intelligence sharing with Belgium, so I cannot give an answer on that. However, those deals fail to recognise that people who seek asylum are desperate. Sadly, making the French coast a more difficult place from which to embark pushes asylum seekers towards longer, more dangerous routes. Small boat departures from Belgium used to be rare, but that has changed since the start of 2026. There were 32 attempts to launch small boats from Belgium between January and April of this year, of which five were prevented. In comparison, there were just two launch attempts in the whole of 2025. We believe that agreeing a deal with the entire bloc would be more effective in preventing dangerous small boat crossings, by implementing a deterrent that encompasses all of Europe.

I take the Minister’s point, however. We do need some evidence, which is why the Liberal Democrats suggest a cost-benefit analysis. New clause 7 calls on the Home Secretary to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of bilateral arrangements, to compare their costs with the estimated costs of joining the pact. Does the Minister acknowledge the benefits that that information could yield? Hon. Members have shown that they are interested in the answer, so let us give them the answer. I would like to hear what the Minister thinks.

[Blake Stephenson]

I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Wimbledon be so supportive of rejoining the EU—I think we have all learned something this morning. We have also learned that the Liberal Democrats feel that that would be a silver bullet to fix all these issues. Yet still the hon. Member comes forward to ask for a cost-benefit analysis to prove it. His statutory duty to benchmark every bilateral agreement against the EU pact is designed to build a case for joining the pact, not to improve returns, and for that reason, the Conservatives oppose it.

[Anna Turley]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wimbledon for his new clause. I understand the case that he is trying to make. He is trying to build his evidence base to persuade us to join the EU pact, but, despite his earlier efforts, I am afraid we will not support his new clause.

We agree that migration co-operation should deliver clear operational benefits, represent value for money and be subject to appropriate scrutiny. Indeed, that is already the case. Relevant spending and significant proposals are assessed under the established appraisal, assurance and accounting officer requirements. Ministers rightly expect officials to demonstrate that policies are deliverable, affordable and capable of achieving their intended objectives. I remind colleagues that we have already published an impact assessment for the Bill. I appreciate that there are details still to be refined, but colleagues will find in the impact assessment information that I hope will support their understanding of the Bill.

I want to be clear that the value of migration co-operation is complex. Some agreements help to deter irregular migration, and some help to change behaviour and prevent dangerous journeys from happening in the first place. Those benefits can sometimes be difficult to measure directly, but they are no less important when considering the overall value of an agreement. Equally, the Government are not lacking in transparency. We regularly publish information on major migration partnerships—for example, we have published details of UK-France co-operation under the broader framework of the Sandhurst treaty and subsequent agreements, including funding commitments, operational activity and strategic objectives. UK-France co-operation is also subject to regular strategic review by the French Government and the UK Government.

The hon. Gentleman’s new clause goes considerably further, however. It would require the Government to publish an annual assessment comparing our existing bilateral migration agreements against a wholly hypothetical model of UK participation in the EU migration and asylum pact. We do not believe that that is a sensible or proportionate requirement. The pact is an internal EU framework comprising 10 separate legislative measures. The UK is not seeking to participate in it, and there is no established mechanism through which non-EU, non-Schengen countries such as the UK can do so.

That means that there is no settled understanding of what the legal route to participation might be, what obligations it might entail, what operational arrangements would be required, or indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes said, what costs might arise, yet the new clause would require the Government to produce an annual assessment based on assumptions and theories about all those issues, about which we would have no information. Any such exercise would be inherently speculative. It would require officials to assess a theoretical arrangement that does not exist, using assumptions that cannot be verified and for which there is no established evidence base.

The new clause also appears to rest on the assumption that participation in the pact would somehow replace the UK’s existing network of bilateral migration arrangements and partnerships. There is no reason to believe that that would be the case. EU member states, operating within the EU’s common asylum and migration framework, continue to maintain bilateral arrangements with third countries to support returns, migration management and broader co-operation. The need to engage directly with countries of origin and transit does not disappear because a country participates in the EU system.

At the same time, many of our migration partnerships are about far more than asylum processing or returns. They sit within broader bilateral relationships, helping us to tackle migration pressures at source, disrupt organised immigration crime, strengthen returns co-operation and support wider foreign policy objectives. Participation in the pact would not remove the need for many of the agreements that the new clause seeks to assess. In practice, the UK could find itself maintaining a significant proportion of its existing partnerships, while also incurring additional costs associated with participation in the pact itself.

The new clause also takes no account of the cost of pursuing that proposed participation. As I have already highlighted, negotiating any bespoke arrangement with the EU would require significant official resource, extensive discussions with EU institutions and member states, and potentially substantial legislative and operational change. At the same time, the pact is still being implemented across Europe. Its impacts, costs and benefits are still emerging, and it will take time before there is a clear and reliable evidence base from which lessons can be drawn.

Against that backdrop, requiring officials to construct and maintain an annual assessment of theoretical policy that the Government are not pursuing would not represent good value for money. As I said—and I hope the hon. Member for Wimbledon understands my values and intentions here—the Government are committed to deeper co-operation with European partners on tackling illegal migration. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, the Prime Minister has set out that Europe is our neighbour and that stronger co-operation with our European partners is essential to tackling these shared challenges. That is why we will be using our engagement with the EU, including the forthcoming summit on 20 November, to pursue practical co-operation on border security, organised immigration crime and improved information and data-sharing, where that supports our national interest. However, none of that requires participation in the pact. We reject the suggestion that joining the pact is the only route, or the necessary route, to achieving these objectives. Our focus is on practical co-operation that delivers results, not a hypothetical arrangement whose terms, costs and obligations cannot be known. For those reasons—

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Turley]

I disagree with much of what the hon. Gentleman has said today, but he is right on that point. There is opportunity for broader co-operation on many of these fronts, which is why we will continue to explore co-operation. However, signing up to these restrictive pacts would limit that opportunity. I think we have the best of all worlds here: not only can we have direct negotiations with other countries, but we can scale up things such as the one in, one out deal when we think there is potential to do so with other countries. On that note—

[Blake Stephenson]

I caught the Minister just in time. She described the one in, one out scheme as a “pilot”. I do not recall it ever being described as a pilot when it was launched. Can she unpack what the expectations were, what was delivered and why the scheme has been cancelled?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kohler]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause would require the Secretary of State to establish a cross-departmental taskforce whose stated aim is to prevent homelessness among asylum seekers and refugees. The Prime Minister has, to his great and huge credit, made ending homelessness a priority, but why, then, is the Minister pursuing the measures in this Bill that contradict such a noble aim? We have already seen that the refugee tax and core protection introduction risk exacerbating the precarity experienced by refugees with settled status.

In December 2024, the Government doubled the grace period refugees were given to move out of Home Office accommodation to 56 days. They did that, as they stated at the time, to provide refugees with more time to find alternative accommodation, reducing the risk of homelessness and putting pressure on overstretched council housing services. The Home Office has now reduced the grace period to 42 days, which would increase such pressures. The longer move-on period was shown to be effective. According to the Refugee Council, an estimated 1,000 refugee households in England avoided homelessness in 2025 thanks to the increased time they had to begin rebuilding their lives in the UK. I am concerned that a reduction in move-on time would lead to increased refugee homelessness, and I would be interested to hear whether the Minister has seen any data on refugee homelessness levels since that reduction in the grace period.

The issue of a shorter move-on period is compounded by systemic issues identified by the Refugee Council. Those include refugees receiving documentation in stages instead of all at once, delayed access to e-visas, local authority uncertainty on refugee entitlements and challenges of low digital literacy. Those challenges require a tailored approach, which is why our new clause would establish a taskforce to combat refugee homelessness. It would be responsible for co-ordinating the different services, moving people out of asylum support, ensuring that people who are granted refugee status get their essential documents promptly, identifying those at the greatest risk of homelessness and monitoring the impact of changes to the move-on period.

Asylum has become a politically charged issue, but we cannot lose sight of our obligations to those fleeing war and persecution. We must ensure that move-on initiatives deliver. The National Centre for Social Research found that constraints of systemic housing shortages and the concurrent roll-out of e-visas were holding us back. It made recommendations that included restoring the move-on period to 56 days, better data sharing and strengthening the support on offer. It would be within our taskforce’s remit to ensure that those recommendations are properly implemented. Having a body dedicated to protecting homeless asylum seekers is a way to ensure that we uphold our responsibilities and action those recommendations.

[Blake Stephenson]

The hon. Member for Wimbledon has described the real pressures on councils across the country. When people are granted protection and leave asylum accommodation, many present as homeless, and local authorities across the country pick up the cost. However, in our view, a statutory taskforce will not solve that. The root of the pressure is the number of people arriving and the time that they spend in the system. Fewer arrivals and faster outcomes would do far more for councils than any taskforce.

We will not support the new clause, but let me ask the Minister a question, building on the one that the hon. Member for Wimbledon asked. What is the current move-on period after a grant of protection, and what assessment have the Government made of the cost of refugee homelessness to local authorities throughout England?

[Anna Turley]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wimbledon for raising this issue through his new clause, because it is a big priority for this Government, as he alluded to. I want to put it on record that I and the Government support the notion that no one should be sleeping rough. As the Prime Minister has set out, ending homelessness is his No. 1 priority.

As Members will be aware, in the immediacy, the Government have committed £442 million to ensure that everyone who is sleeping rough is off the streets by Christmas. That feeds into the wider £4.4 billion being invested in homelessness and rough sleeping services over the next three years. This combines immediate accommodation support with longer-term settled housing and intensive support for people who have experienced prolonged rough sleeping. The Christmas ambition is the first phase of that wider effort. It is a programme of practical delivery and, as I have laid out, it is not one that depends on establishing a separate statutory taskforce.

Looking beyond the Christmas delivery plan, the Government are already taking a cross-Government approach through the national plan to end homelessness in England and the interministerial group on homelessness and rough sleeping. That group brings together work on housing, health, employment and transitions out of public service with regular monitoring of delivery. A separate taskforce would duplicate existing co-ordination arrangements rather than address the practical barriers that people face.

We recognise that newly granted refugees can face particular challenges. Asylum move-on liaison officers, where present, explain next steps, signpost housing and benefit support, liaise with local services and escalate barriers. They provide practical help with navigating the transition. The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire asked what the move-on period is: it is currently 42 days.

We regularly review the role of the liaison officer model to ensure that it meets the needs of users and to reduce homelessness among newly recognised refugees. This includes exploring earlier, targeted housing advice before an asylum decision, and working with accommodation providers to improve the quality and timeliness of information given to local authorities when asylum support ends.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kohler]

Our proposal to allow refugees to begin working after three months waiting for a decision would generate five times more revenue than the misguided debt levied on asylum seekers by earlier provisions in the Bill. It would have an instantaneous effect and generate a much more positive financial outcome than that immiserating proposal, both for the Home Office budget, which is under strain from the ballooning asylum bill, and for the Treasury’s tax receipts.

In 2022, the Labour party acknowledged that the current 12-month waiting period should be halved, yet the Government refuse to pursue this common-sense policy. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research has modelled the macroeconomic effects of lifting the ban. According to it, allowing those who have been waiting more than six months for a decision to work would save the Government £4.4 billion a year, increase tax revenue by £800 million and add £1 billion to GDP.

Time spent being prevented from working has a scarring effect on refugees’ future likelihood of being in work. These effects are well documented; the longer someone is out of a job, the harder it is for them to get one. A study of Swiss asylum seekers found that, for each year they are prevented from working, their future employment rate falls by 4 to 5 percentage points. Furthermore, preventing refugees from working only drives greater numbers of people towards the black economy. Instead of pursuing policies that improve prospects for asylum seekers, the current path serves only to increase state dependency and enrich criminality. We must remember that if this country works for refugees, refugees will work for this country.

The argument that giving asylum seekers employment rights will encourage further illegal immigration is well worn but ultimately unsubstantiated. Available evidence suggests that employment rights play little to no role in people’s destination of choice, whereas factors such as language and familial relations are far more influential. The Government’s position is disputed by their own Migration Advisory Committee.

Indeed, asylum seekers come here in spite of the fact that our working regulations are a complete outlier in comparison with other states. EU law requires access to work after six months at most, while Canada allows it immediately and the US after six months. Even Denmark, which is always held out as being quite hard-line on immigration issues and undocumented migrants, allows it after six months. A three-month limit would be in line with our allies and may incentivise the Home Office to improve the efficiency of its decision making.

Allowing refugees to work after three months would be worth £437 million per cohort, which is five times the cost that would be recovered with a £10,000 payment scheme. Importantly, the public support this measure. Lift the Ban research found that 71% of the public agreed that people seeking asylum should have the right to work. Ultimately, people who work while they wait for an asylum decision are more ready to support themselves when they get status. This is good for the taxpayer, good for the asylum seeker and good for the country.

[Blake Stephenson]

The Liberal Democrats’ new clause 10 would give asylum seekers the right to work after three months, and the Green party’s new clause 24 would give them an automatic, unrestricted right after six months that lasts through every appeal. We oppose both new clauses.

People who enter the UK illegally should not be able to claim asylum here at all. The new clauses go in the opposite direction. They would make the UK a more attractive destination for people deciding whether to pay a smuggler to cross the channel. Everybody wants to reduce pull factors so that we can reduce dangerous crossings, and I am afraid that the new clauses would introduce additional pull factors.

I will keep my remarks brief and just ask the Minister a question. How many asylum seekers currently have permission to work, and what assessment have the Government made of the effect that earlier work rights would have on the number of claims?

[Siân Berry]

The right to work does not impact only those seeking sanctuary; the impact also falls on their children and on communities. Giving people seeking sanctuary the right to work—or, rather, restoring their agency—is a matter of basic dignity and human rights. People who have fled war or persecution should have the opportunity to rebuild their lives in the UK with dignity and independence. That means that they need a safe place to live, access to support and a genuine right to work, as set out in new clause 24. It is important to stress that this debate is about restoring choice and agency to people seeking sanctuary, not imposing new requirements on those who are not ready or able to work.

As it stands, the law permits a person seeking asylum to request permission to work if they have been waiting more than 12 months for a Home Office decision on their asylum claim through no fault of their own. That may be 12 months after they initially claimed asylum or 12 months after they made further submissions, which are then considered as a fresh claim.

It has been more than two decades since those seeking asylum could apply to work after six months. People repeatedly raise the issue of enforced worklessness while claims are processed. My new clause 24 would simply restore the previous time limit and match the Home Office’s own targets for decision making. The Liberal Democrats’ new clause 10 would grant the right to work at three months, which is also perfectly reasonable. New clause 24 goes into more detail about how the proposal should be implemented. It states that the right should be automatic, without the need for an application, and that there should be no restrictions on the type of employment. It also states when the right should end, if a decision on the application is made one way or the other.

More often than not, vulnerable people are left waiting for months, and often years, for a decision. For that entire period, however qualified and willing they are, they are not permitted to work. That is profoundly felt by people who arrive with real skills, a keen willingness to contribute and a desire to rebuild their lives. Instead, the current rules require them to survive on a small weekly allowance. They are unable to contribute, build a life and often even volunteer in their communities without navigating endless bureaucratic red tape.

The most potent and poisonous rhetoric of the far right plays up the dependence that people are left in; it stokes conflict between people in the asylum system, who are denied the ability to earn, and others in society. Members can hear the voices I am referring to in their heads right now. There is absolutely no need to leave in place the restrictions that fuel that kind of rhetoric and racism, and that badly harm the acceptance and integration of refugees.

Work can bring not only integration and community strength but genuine benefits to people fleeing war, trauma or oppression. That is because people seeking sanctuary in the UK are five to six times more likely than the general population to have mental health needs. A review of the impact of asylum processes on mental health found that policies restricting work contributed to psychological distress and social exclusion. The mental health cost of robbing vulnerable groups of the ability to exercise their agency and provide for themselves and their loved ones is far too high.

Many people seeking asylum in the UK and elsewhere are living with trauma. That contributes to their poor mental health. They might also be recovering from illness or caring for family members. It is important that a humane and just system recognises the structural barriers to finding work that many of these people will face. We must recognise that some people will want to work immediately, while others may need time and support to rebuild their lives. Therefore, my new clause is set out as a right to work. If the Government make any moves in this direction, they must refrain from making it a mandate to work.

Despite the clear and mounting evidence in favour of the right to work, successive UK Governments have closed their minds to the idea and refused to implement it. The usual response, which has already been aired in this debate, is that permitting work sooner risks acting as a pull factor to further migration, but that does not hold water given the evidence. The UK maintains one of the strictest systems in Europe concerning the right to work for people seeking asylum. The international evidence is unequivocal and the difference in waiting times across comparable countries is enlightening.

In 2018, Ireland opted in to the recast EU reception conditions directive and allowed work after nine months. That was subsequently reduced to six months in 2021. Comparable countries in Europe have far more lenient policies on the right to work. In Germany, it is granted after three months, with the only restriction being on self-employment. There is a similar policy after 60 days in Greece. In Italy the period is two months, in Spain it is six months, in Belgium it is four months, and in Denmark it is six months—all with no restrictions. In Sweden someone can apply to work immediately in limited sectors, and in France there are restricted types of work that someone can do after six months. All this is evidence that an alternative can be imagined that is intensely practical, would not have the knock-on effects that other parties have suggested, and can work.

Alongside the moral arguments, there is a strong economic angle to be considered. The Lift the Ban coalition, which has already been quoted in this debate, estimates that lifting the ban could save the Treasury over £280 million per year, and recent research by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research found that lifting the ban after six months could save the Government a total of £4.4 billion per year, increase tax revenue by £880 million and add £1 billion to GDP.

Restricting access to legal work inevitably increases the risk of exploitation. When people are prevented from supporting themselves lawfully, they can be pushed towards unsafe and illegal forms of work. Granting people the right to work therefore extends itself to protecting vulnerable people from further exploitation and abuse, and extends the ability to maintain community cohesion and safety.

In my view, though, the greatest cost of the current policy is the human cost—years of wasted potential, lost independence and lives left on hold while awaiting a decision. The Government should heed the approach taken by much of mainland Europe already and accept these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Gordon]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. New clause 11 would require the Secretary of State to make changes to the immigration rules to make provision for leave to enter or remain in the UK to be granted to the family members of refugees and of people granted humanitarian protection. The family reunion route was paused on 4 September 2025, with a stricter system promised from spring 2026 still not in place, as we discussed earlier in Committee. So I ask the Minister: if the Government announce a new settlement route, will there be a new family reunion route, too? We want to see the details of the resettlement scheme announced with this legislation. Obviously, the purpose of this amendment is to make sure we end up with the tens of thousands of people, predominantly women and children who used to use the family reunion visas, able to access it.

I meet many people in my constituency of Harrogate and Knaresborough, from victims of genocide such as the Yazidi people to people who came through the Afghan route. Quite often the distress and additional trauma that is caused by having been separated from their families compounds the issues that they are already trying to grapple with.

With the new rules set to come in under this Bill, there will be issues around refugees being able to hit the income thresholds so that their family members can come with them. That is the purpose of this new clause and I would welcome any news or updates from the Minister further to the questions already put during the course of this Bill Committee.

[Blake Stephenson]

New clause 11 would require the Government to restore refugee family reunion within six months, but I understand that it also widens definitions to include children up to the age of 25, which was not in the hon. Member’s opening remarks, so I hope I am not mistaken.

We oppose this measure. Family reunion, as proposed in new clause 11, would add a further reward to a successful illegal crossing. Every grant would bring the prospect of encouraging a wider family member, and it would create a well-known incentive for families to send one member ahead, sometimes a child, on the most dangerous journey of all. We all want to stop and limit dangerous journeys. Safe and legal routes should be for people from regions of conflict who we choose to help, as we have done for Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan. There should not be a reward for illegal and very dangerous crossings. We will not support the new clause, but can I ask the Minister to tell us when the Government intend to publish their replacement for the suspended family reunion route, as I think she intimated they would in the previous debate, and whether the intention is for it to be capped?

[Anna Turley]

New clause 11, tabled by the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, seeks to reopen the refugee family reunion route and greatly expand eligibility to wider family members. The Government took the difficult decision to suspend the refugee family reunion route in September 2025. That was done in response to immediate pressures placed on local authorities and public services by the rapid rise in arrivals in recent years.

The family reunion route had grown exponentially, placing significant and unsustainable pressures on local authorities and public services. Grants rose from approximately 5,500 per annum between 2015 and 2022 to more than 20,000 in the year ending September 2025. As the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire said, we cannot have a situation where families are sending men on dangerous journeys, through other safe countries, to reach these shores with the intention to bring their families. We are extremely keen to prevent that. We want to ensure that there is a sustainable route for families that are genuinely fleeing war and persecution to come to this country, and that was not it.

Suspension remains in place while we are developing the wider reforms to the family migration system. I know that colleagues are on tenterhooks, and I wish I could expand on that further, but I can assure them that they do not have very long to wait at all—as I am sure they can see from the increased media frenzy around these issues. I will not pre-empt the Home Secretary’s announcements, but I reassure colleagues that those announcements are well on their way and they do not have long to wait.

The system we want to see will be fair, controlled and sustainable. The Government recognise the importance of family unity and the distress that separation can cause. We also recognise the contribution that families can make to helping refugees integrate. However, we must ensure that our approach takes account of the capacity of communities to support those arriving.

I want to be clear that suspension does not mean that family members have no way of applying to come to the UK. Other family routes remain available where people meet the relevant requirements, with provisions such as fee waivers available, and a consideration of any exceptional circumstances where an individual may not meet the criteria set out in those routes. In addition, applications under the suspended route that were submitted before the suspension came into force continue to be processed.

New clause 11 would go considerably further than simply restoring the previous arrangements. It would require the Government to establish a new and expansive refugee family reunion scheme within six months, and prescribe a significantly wider group of qualifying family members, including parents, siblings, unmarried adult children and siblings up to the age of 25 and other unspecified family members. This is highly likely to lead to considerably more people arriving than ever before, without any necessity for their sponsor to support them.

The new clause would also cut across established routes that already make specific provision for these relationships, including Appendix Child Relative for vulnerable children joining a close relative with protection status, and the Adult Dependant Relative route for adults requiring long-term, personal care. Those routes contain carefully designed eligibility, dependency, care, maintenance and accommodation requirements. The new clause risks creating an overlapping route for the same cohorts without specifying any safeguards that would apply, potentially undermining the workings of our wider family migration system.

The new clause would further enable children to sponsor their parents and siblings, which is something that was not possible under the previous route. We must consider the incentives that such a change would create. If a child reaching the UK alone could subsequently provide a route for other family members to join them, there is a real risk that smuggling gangs could exploit that expectation, leading to more children being sent on dangerous journeys, including on small boats. That would put children at greater risk of abuse and death.

The proposals tabled by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough should also be considered together. Amendment 54 would have provided that requirements being imposed must demonstrate that arriving family members could be suitably supported and accommodated by their sponsor. Together, these proposals, if accepted, would pre-empt the Government’s ongoing work that I have mentioned on our future family migration framework by constraining our ability to consider refugee family reunion alongside the wider reforms that we are making. It would be premature to prescribe the outcome of that work in the Bill. They are also likely to lead to a large increase in arrivals, which would further exacerbate existing pressures on local authorities and public services.

The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough should consider how the consequences of such a surge in arrivals, if these proposals were enacted, would be managed. Where would families live if suitable accommodation had not been secured? Who would meet their immediate needs if their sponsor could not support them? Do we expect already stretched local authorities and public services to support those arrivals? If children are allowed to sponsor, as he proposes, a child cannot be expected to obtain a sufficient income or secure suitable accommodation for an arriving family, so who would meet those needs? What assessment has he made of the additional resources that would be needed, and how does he propose these costs should be met?

Those responsibilities simply cannot be left for local authorities to resolve after families arrive. They have practical consequences for homelessness services, temporary accommodation, children’s services and school places, as well as the local people who rely on those services. For those reasons, I ask the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough to withdraw the new clause.