Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Robert Jenrick

Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

21. What recent progress her Department has made on reducing the backlog of asylum applications.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

We are making good progress, and the latest Home Office statistics show that asylum decisions are up, with a 35% increase since last year in the number made. Productivity has increased, and we are on track to have 2,500 decision makers by September, which represents a quadrupling of the number of case workers.

[Chi Onwurah]

Like many Members from all parties, I am constantly contacted by refugees who are desperate to know what is happening to their asylum claim after years of waiting, so I asked the Home Office how many refugees in Newcastle had been waiting for one, two, three, four and five years. The answer came back that the Home Office does not know—it does not even record the data. Instead of indulging in unworkable, unethical, illegal and unaffordable flights of Rwandan fantasy, why does the Home Secretary not focus on her day job and fix the asylum backlog?

[Robert Jenrick]

As I just said, we are making good progress on reducing the asylum backlog. Important though the reducing the backlog is, however, it cannot be the totality of a plan. This is the point that the Labour party does not seem to understand: we have to stop the boats coming in the first place. That is the only sustainable way to tackle the issue. Even if we grant our way out of this problem, as the shadow Home Secretary seems to propose, the pressures on the state still remain; they are simply transferred to local authorities and the benefits system, and the British taxpayer continues to pick up the bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. We are disappointed by the judgment of the Court of Appeal, but we are determined to follow through. He is right to say that we have to add deterrence to the system, as it is only by breaking the business model of the people smugglers that we will stop the boats.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

T7. My constituents want community policing. Kim McGuinness, the police and crime commissioner for Northumbria, has put in place a redeployment programme to get an extra 134 officers into neighbourhoods, but that will not make up for the 1,100 officers and the £148 million that we have lost due to budget cuts. And before the Minister mentions “plans”, that will still leave us 400 officers short. Why have the Tories failed so badly to get police officers on to the beat?

Cross-Channel Migrants: Manston Facility

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that and I will be speaking to her friend and neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale). I know that the Home Secretary is meeting him later today to speak to him as well. I completely understand my hon. Friend’s concern and that of Members of Parliament throughout Kent; this intolerable situation is placing great strain on members of the public and on the emergency services and local authorities within the area. I know that only too well from my previous experience as Local Government Secretary. The Department is determined to support those local authorities as best as we can. Yesterday, I met the leadership of Border Force to discuss the resources we have in the area and I will be visiting Dover next week.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Between 2015 and 2020, the proportion of asylum seekers whose applications were decided by the Home Office within the six-month target plummeted from 80% to 17%, and the consequence is misery and mental health issues for asylum seekers, and pressure on local accommodation and local communities. All I can say to them is, “The Home Office is broken”. When will it work?

[Robert Jenrick]

There is a range of reasons why the processing of asylum claims is taking longer than we would like, but it is a priority of mine, as the new Minister in the Department. I have already met the relevant officials, and we will be looking at ways in which we can improve their productivity as swiftly as possible. As I said in response to an earlier question, we do now have the right number of staff processing the claims. A thousand people are working on this. That is a good number of individuals tackling the issue so I hope that we can make swift progress.

Rough Sleeping

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Yes, I can. It was very important to us that those sleeping rough were not left out of the vaccination programme, by oversight or omission, so we launched the Protect Plus programme to provide extra support to local councils so that they can work with the NHS, weave those individuals into the local vaccination programmes or get them GP registered, which is a good in itself. That will ensure that when their time comes, they are vaccinated so that even if they return to the streets, which of course we hope they do not, they do so protected by the vaccination.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab) [V]]

During the recent cold spell, it was heartbreaking to see rough sleepers in the heart of Newcastle in the snow. Newcastle City Council has a bed for every rough sleeper, but hostel accommodation is not suitable for everyone. Does the Secretary of State agree that annual short-term programmes, however successful, will not end rough sleeping, and will he provide the long-term funding needed to support real change at a local level, as well as greater access to social housing?

[Robert Jenrick]

I pay tribute to Newcastle City Council, which has made great progress over the course of the year. Its snapshot shows that the numbers have almost halved compared with the prior year. The hon. Lady is right that we need a long-term strategy. That is why we have the rough sleeping initiative, which is now in its third year, and we are really starting to see the fruits of that work. I want to see that continue for many years. That is also why we have created the multi-year Move On accommodation programme, backed by £400 million, and of course I hope that there is a multi-year settlement across Government later this year and that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will be able to continue that level of investment well into the future.

Towns Fund

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Robert Jenrick

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend makes a strong case for Burnley. As I say, we will bring forward that competitive phase early next year, and before the end of this year, I hope to be announcing the successful bidders for the future high streets fund, where we will be ensuring that up to £25 million of investment flows to dozens of communities across the country. It is another fund designed before covid, but it will be ever more important as we see the pressures wreaked on our high streets by the pandemic.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It was really distressing to see such critical funding for our regions mired in political favouritism. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that the shared prosperity fund does not suffer the same fate? Will he confirm that the north-east will receive from the shared prosperity fund at least the £1 billion that it would have got from the European structural funds?

[Robert Jenrick]

As I have already said, a fair and robust procedure was used to determine the places, and many places adjacent to the hon. Lady’s constituency have benefited. I think of Blyth, for example—a community that needed investment. It saw very little of it under the last Labour Government and will now, I hope, be benefiting. She represents a great city. That was not the primary focus of the towns fund, as the name rather suggests.

With the UK shared prosperity fund, we will be ensuring that each of the nations of the United Kingdom receives the same funding as they did under the EU structural funds. We fundamentally believe that we can design better, more outcomes-focused funding streams than the European Union was ever able to do during our long years of membership. We will bring forward more details on that very soon.