Border Security: Collaboration

Chris Philp Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for the timely sight of her statement, and I thank her for her comments on Syria. We certainly support the efforts of this Government and others around the world to secure a transition to a stable Government in Syria that can ensure the return of peace. We also support the suspension of asylum processing; I am glad that the Government made that decision a few hours after I called for it yesterday.

Does the Home Secretary agree that, given that most if not all the asylum claims are predicated on the threat posed to the individual by former President Assad, now that that threat has gone and the basis for the asylum claims has therefore gone, it would be reasonable to ask Syrians who are claiming or have recently been granted asylum on that basis to return once they are safe? Earlier today, the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister if he would ensure that no former UK residents who are in Syria and who supported the murderous Daesh regime that killed and raped innocent women and children, persecuted minorities and severely persecuted its opponents return to the UK. In government, the Conservatives ensured that those people did not return—the Shamima Begum case was an example—so will the Home Secretary take similarly robust action to ensure that people who supported Daesh do not return to the United Kingdom? I think the House would appreciate such an assurance.

Let me now turn to the question of small boats and border security. The Home Secretary asserted, I must say rather boldly, that her approach was “delivering results” , but I am afraid the facts do not bear that out. Let us have a look at the results that are actually being delivered. In the 150 days since the election, more than 20,000 people dangerously and illegally crossed the English channel, 18% more than did so in the same 150 days in the previous year. I do not call an 18% year-on-year increase “delivering results”; that is a failure. Why are these figures up year on year? The National Crime Agency told us that we needed a deterrent but that law enforcement alone would not be enough, yet the Government cancelled the Rwanda deterrent before it had even started. The first flight was due to take off on 24 July, and they cancelled it before it even took off. Of course we welcome the law enforcement that continues the work done by the last Government, but according to the NCA that alone will not be enough, so we need a deterrent. When will the Home Secretary introduce one?

In the spirit of examining the right hon. Lady’s claim that she is delivering results, let us look at the Government’s record on asylum hotels. In their manifesto, they promised to close down and end the use of asylum hotels. According to figures that we obtained recently, in the three months following the election, far from reducing asylum hotel use they increased it, by 6,066 people. In places such as Peterborough and Altrincham, which are now represented by Labour MPs, asylum hotels were opened up in express contradiction of their own manifesto commitment.

Let me say a word about removals. It is welcome that overall removals have gone up, continuing the trend under the previous Government, although I observe that almost all those removals were to European and North American countries. The Home Secretary did not break out the numbers on small boat returns, and I wonder why that was. I have looked into the figures, and it turns out that in the three months after the election, less than 5% of people crossing by small boat were returned. More than that, the number of people returned, having crossed by small boat, in the three months after the election was, in fact, lower than the number returned in the three months prior to it. So the number of people returned after crossing by small boat has gone down under this Government.

The Home Secretary mentioned criminal gangs, and I am glad that the work started under the last Government, including by my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Cleverly), is being continued. That includes the international co-operation that he pursued both as Foreign Secretary and as Home Secretary. But I ask the Home Secretary this: why, in opposition, did she vote against life sentences for people smugglers?

We heard a bit about the Calais group’s discussion yesterday. Of course, co-operation is important—we, too, co-operated when in government—but I wonder whether the Home Secretary had the chance to ask her French opposite number one or two questions. First, will the French accept returns of people crossing the channel? That would provide a very powerful deterrent. As she will know, the post-EU exit documentation—the political declaration—expressly allows individual member states to engage in bilateral arrangements on borders. Did she raise that with her French counterpart, and what did they say?

Secondly, was the Home Secretary able to ask her French counterpart whether France will intercept small boats close to the French shore, as the Belgians safely do? In Belgium, it has resulted in a 93% reduction in crossings. If the French would do the same and intercept near the shore, it would have a dramatic effect.

The Home Secretary said that she is delivering results, but these are the results: crossings are up by 18%, asylum hotel places are up by 6,066 and small boat returns are down under the new Government. She is delivering results—I am afraid they are worse.

[Yvette Cooper]

I gently point out to the shadow Home Secretary that his party left us with the highest ever level of small boat crossings in the first half of a year—the highest level on record. If we had carried on with small boat crossings at the same level as in the first half of the year, when he was in the Home Office, we would have had to deal with thousands more arrivals over the last few months. When he was the Immigration Minister, small boat crossings increased about tenfold because he let criminal gangs take hold along the channel. They built an entire criminal industry on his watch that he did nothing to stop, which is why we now have to deal with those criminal gangs.

On returns, I gently point out to the shadow Home Secretary that by the time the Conservatives left office, returns were down by more than a quarter compared with under the last Labour Government because of the Conservatives’ continued failure to even get the system working. That is why we have put substantial additional resources into returns and into making sure that the rules are enforced, which they simply have not been for far too long.

On the asylum backlog, perhaps the shadow Home Secretary will take responsibility for the total crashing of the asylum system in the last few months before the general election, when the Conservative party and the Home Office of which he was a part ended up cutting asylum decisions by more than 70% compared with the beginning of the year. That shocking dereliction of duty means that we have had to deal with the increased backlog that his party left behind over the summer, and we are getting it back under control.

There are some important issues on asylum decisions involving Syrians. Let us be clear: many claims for asylum relate to the Assad regime, which is clearly not in place now. It would therefore not be appropriate to grant asylum decisions on those cases in the current circumstances. We need to monitor the evolving situation so that we can get new country guidance in place and take those decisions, but we will do that in a sensible and serious way, which is about getting the asylum and immigration systems back under control. By contrast, the shadow Home Secretary and the Conservative party seem simply to want to go back to the Rwanda scheme. Once again, I point out to them that it cost the taxpayer £700 million and sent just four volunteers to Kigali—the most shocking waste of public money, over two years, on a failing scheme. All they delivered were gimmicks, instead of ever getting a grip, and all the shadow Home Secretary wants to do is turn the clock back to failure again.