Asylum Seeker Hotel Accommodation: Reopening
Bradley Thomas Excerpts(5 days, 7 hours ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin) on securing this important debate. As a Conservative, I firmly believe that people who enter our country illegally have no right to stay here. We need to have strong borders, we need an effective deterrent to stop people making what is often a perilous journey, and the Government must take all possible steps to drive down numbers of illegal crossings.
I am not going to repeat all the numbers that have been cited, because I think people, in this House or in the country at large, are aware of the scale of the issue. We have seen numbers go up as a direct result of the Government’s decision to scrap the Rwanda deterrent and repeal the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which prevented those who came to the UK from claiming asylum. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor that more than 60% of them are granted asylum and leave to remain. That increase in the numbers means that Labour has increased the number of hotels open since the election—I think the number cited was 14.
Communities across the country, including mine in Bromsgrove, have a legitimate fear that hotels are going to emerge in their area, where people have not previously seen the benefits of such accommodation being used to house illegal migrants pending the processing of their applications. The reopening of such hotels is a political choice by the Government—they chose to do that; they did not have to. They could have chosen to use alternative accommodation sites, including military barracks or the Bibby Stockholm barge. They also chose to repeal tough legislation to protect our borders.
Bromsgrove has hosted asylum hotels in the recent past. Fortunately, it does not at the moment, but there have been three instances in recent years.
Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)
Constituents in South East Cornwall have expressed concern about the use of a hotel in the Fowey valley. Does the hon. Member agree that it is essential for asylum seekers to be housed appropriately where facilities are available and where infrastructure exists to avoid undue strain on local communities?
Bradley Thomas
I agree with the hon. Lady’s point about the appropriateness of the location. We all recognise that hotels are often based in rural areas or in an economy without any relevant services nearby, which is wholly inappropriate.
To return to the broader question of the Government’s approach to dealing with illegal migration, I am grateful that, in Bromsgrove, every one of the unsuitable sites that was previously used is no longer in use. There is a more fundamental point, however, about fairness to the UK taxpayer.
Successive Governments have tended to view people as an economic unit, but they cherry-pick the category of person they define either as a net economic contributor or as a draw on the economy. Students, for instance, go through university and accrue student debt, which is a debt to society that will be repaid after graduation when they are net economic contributors. When illegal migrants arrive in the UK, however, a financial accrual starts ticking that includes everything to do with the cost to the state of processing applications, the cost of hotel accommodation and the cost to the UK taxpayer of giving them an allowance to spend while they are out and about in the communities where they are residing.
On the point about fairness, that does not feel equitable to many of my constituents and, I am sure, many constituents across the country. It strikes me as perverse that students accrue debt while they are at university and, when they become economic contributors, that is drawn down through the PAYE—pay-as-you-earn—system from their earnings, yet we allow a seemingly bottomless pit of funds to accrue as a debt to be absorbed by the UK taxpayer. Why do the Government not explore a scheme whereby, if asylum seekers are deemed to be genuinely in fear and are allowed to integrate and remain in the UK, they repay their debt when they become economic contributors and are active in the workplace? It could be a tiered, sliding scale that recognises the cost that the UK taxpayer is expected to shoulder for people fleeing from a state of alleged persecution.
We must significantly redress the balance in favour of the UK taxpayer. I speak to numerous constituents who are concerned about the extent of the debt that the state is accruing. We have heard about increasing dependency on welfare, and countries across the west already face a demographic time bomb and a demographic twilight as populations age and burdens on the state grow. We in the west do not have enough of a pipeline of economic talent coming in at the bottom end, so we already face what we could call a time bomb of indigenous welfare dependency, exacerbated by the additional costs of processing illegal migrants on ludicrous timescales that the general public laugh at. Frankly, they feel short-changed by the efforts of—I will be quite honest—successive Governments, who have failed to get a grip on the situation.
In short, we desperately need to redress the balance. We cannot be in denial about the extent of the cost to the British state. Any migrant who comes to the UK and is able and willing to make an economic contribution will almost certainly always be welcome—we have dozens of potential growth industries that our economy desperately needs to support—but this is about getting the balance right. If the Government choose to view people as economic units, the interests of the UK taxpayer must be first and foremost. We cannot view UK taxpayers as just being there to shoulder a bill and disregard their concerns for their communities, while the Government at the same time choose to consider asylum seekers for more than just their economic value.
United Front Work Department
Bradley Thomas Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Dan Jarvis
The hon. Member makes an important point. I can assure him that we are working collaboratively across Government, not only with colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade but with those in the Cabinet Office. He has mentioned cyber, which we take incredibly seriously. I was recently at the National Cyber Security Centre, which is doing extraordinary work with partners across Government. We are co-operating closely with other Government Departments, including the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, on looking at what more we can do to combat that threat.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Can the Minister assure the House that Chinese investments in the UK are properly scrutinised, particularly those that may be used to acquire leverage over UK policy?