Borders and Asylum

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to say that obviously, small boats are mainly setting off from France—people have travelled through France. That is exactly why we have negotiated the pilot agreement with France to be able to return people there. It is the first time this has happened; it is something that previous Governments tried and completely failed to do. It is important that we do that and build on it, but we also need to tackle some of those pull factors, particularly illegal working. That is why we have had a 50% increase in illegal work raids and arrests. We also need to recognise that family reunion is being used by some criminal gangs. One thing Denmark has done is increase the time before refugees can apply for family reunion, so that they are more likely to be working and supporting their families and to prevent criminal gangs from being able to use family reunion as a pull factor.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

The Home Secretary has spoken about tweaks to the rules and regulations, and potentially to interpretation of the law. The problem with that, of course, is that our courts will also interpret the law, and may go against what the Home Secretary wants to do. Will she set out what changes to the law she will introduce to ensure we stop the illegal migrants coming to this country?

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to change the law. First, obviously, we have the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which will bring in a whole series of changes including counter-terrorism powers, banning sex offenders from the asylum system and a new offence of endangerment. We also believe that new legal changes to the asylum system are going to be needed, and we will bring forward further legislation in order to make those changes. Later this year, we will set out detailed reforms —not just on appeals, but more widely around the asylum system—to enable us to tackle some of both the historic chaos and the delays in the system, and to get that system back under control.