Borders and Asylum

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The Tories and Reform could start working with us tomorrow to speed up the passage of this crucial legislation, which would give our law enforcement counter-terrorism powers to go after smuggler gangs. These new offences would mean that they could download and search the mobile phones of people arriving on small boats and, crucially, ban sex offenders from the asylum system altogether. You would think that the Opposition parties would support that; instead, they have been blocking the Bill. That is shameful.

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

Our country should be proud of the fact that in the 1930s we welcomed 10,000 Jewish children from Europe on the Kindertransport. Alas, our predecessors would not countenance bringing across those children’s parents, and we know that the cost of that decision was the massacre of those parents in the Holocaust. There has always been vocal opposition to migration in this country, but I remind the Government that responsibility lies with them. Across our country today, thousands of vulnerable refugees are afraid; they are afraid of the rise in right-wing activity and in right-wing rhetoric—rhetoric that this Government have flirted with. I invite the Government not to follow the Conservative party or Reform UK into the abyss and to treat this issue with the compassion it deserves.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member refers to the Kindertransport and the important support for children it provided. The UK also took orphaned Jewish children from concentration camps and provided them with a home and a future in the UK. We have a long history of supporting those who have fled persecution and conflict, and that is exactly why it is so important that the system is properly managed and controlled and that we tackle the chaos we have inherited and strengthen our border security, in order to restore confidence in the very system and values that the hon. Member describes. This Government will never pursue the violence-promoting rhetoric that can cause such division. We will always be responsible and serious about the practical steps that need to be taken to deal with the chaos we inherited.