Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation
Debate between Chris Philp and Angela Eagle(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) on securing this urgent question. He is right to raise this issue. As he said, Labour promised in its manifesto to end the use of hotels, yet the Minister has just admitted at the Dispatch Box that, far from ending the use of hotels, the Government are in fact opening up even more. She has just admitted to 14. Perhaps it should come as no surprise now that, once again, Labour is doing the precise opposite to what it promised in its manifesto.
When the Conservatives were in government, they were in fact closing down hotels. Luckily, I have the figures in front of me. Between September last year and 30 June this year, the number of people in contingency accommodation, which is Home Office speak for hotels, went down by 47%—it went down—yet under this new Government it is going up. The Minister has told us how many hotels have opened up, will she tell us how many extra people are now in contingency accommodation, compared with 4 July? Will she also commit to always notifying Members of Parliament in advance—at least two weeks in advance—that a hotel will be opening in their constituency?
We all know the cause of this problem. It is the illegal and dangerous channel crossings. I am afraid the position has got even worse since the figures my right hon. Friend quoted were drawn up. Since the election, 19,988 people have crossed the channel. That is a 23% increase on the same period last year, and it is a 66% increase on the same period immediately before the election. Why have these numbers of people illegally crossing the channel gone up? The National Crime Agency has told us that we need a deterrent—that we cannot police our way out of this. Even Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, has said that European member states should look at offshore processing. We saw a deterrent system work in Australia, yet Labour scrapped the Rwanda deterrent before it had even started. The first flight had not taken off and that is why the deterrent effect had not commenced. Will the Minister follow Ursula von der Leyen’s advice? Will she emulate the Australians and reinstate the scheme?
Dame Angela Eagle
That was quite a rant. It made certain assumptions that are completely untrue, including that the Rwanda scheme would have worked. We already know that it cost £700 million to send four volunteers to Rwanda. The Conservative party was planning to spend £175,000 per person sent to Rwanda, and it had not managed to send anyone to Rwanda. Had the Conservatives put aside the money, going into billions of pounds, to pay this £175,000 per person sent to Rwanda? No, they had not. No money was set aside. What we inherited was a system where no processing was going on—well, fewer than 1,000 asylum cases a month were being processed. We are now processing up to 10,000 asylum cases a month.
The right hon. Gentleman knows, because he was a Home Office Minister, that there are backlogs and lags between the first decision in processing and all the potential appeals. We cannot exit people from the asylum estate until they have a final decision. We inherited backlogs of more than two years in the tribunal system because the Conservatives did not fund it properly. In the last period, we have returned nearly 10,000 people, which is nearly a 20% increase on the numbers returned last year. We are working on making the asylum system fit for purpose. We inherited an unholy mess from the Conservatives.
Small Boat Crossings
Debate between Chris Philp and Angela Eagle(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
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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
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on the recent increase in dangerous, illegal and unnecessary channel crossings by small boat?
The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Dame Angela Eagle)
For too long, smuggling gangs have been undermining our border security and putting lives at risk, which is why the new Government have made it a top priority to address the crisis we inherited. Let us be clear about what that crisis entailed: small boat crossings in the first half of the year at their highest point on record, and over 100,000 arrivals in the five years prior; over 200,000 cases stuck in the asylum system, costing the taxpayer billions in support; and £700 million spent on a gimmick that sent just four volunteers to Rwanda.
When we entered government, we said it was time for grip, not gimmicks, and that is exactly what we are delivering. Since July, we have established the border security command, headed by experienced police chief Martin Hewitt. In the King’s Speech, we set out our intention to bring forward legislation to give the border security system stronger powers to investigate and prosecute organised immigration crime. We are recruiting 100 new specialist agency and investigation officers at the National Crime Agency to target and dismantle the criminal networks behind this phenomenon. We have also announced an extra £75 million to bolster border security, bringing our investment in the border security command over the next two years to £150 million. This Government’s border security funding boost will go towards a range of enforcement and intelligence activities and capabilities including covert technology as well as hundreds of staff and specialist investigators as we crank up the pressure on the smuggling gangs.
This is an international problem requiring international solutions. Since the general election we have intensified co-operation with partners overseas. We recently struck a new anti-smuggling action plan with G7 partners and the Prime Minister and Home Secretary both attended the Interpol general assembly in Glasgow on Monday to press the case for a much stronger and more integrated global response to organised immigration crime.
As well as tackling the issue upstream, we have taken action to speed up decision making and stepped up returns of those with no right to be in this country. The result of all this action is 9,400 returns since this Government took office including a 19% increase in enforced returns and a 14% increase in returns of foreign national offenders.
Sticking plasters and gimmicks have failed. The smugglers and traffickers have been getting away with it for far too long. It is time to show them we are serious, not with words, but with action. The security of Britain’s borders is paramount and under this Government it always will be.
Chris Philp
Shadow Home Secretary; thank you, Mr Speaker.
I am afraid the Government’s actions belie the reality. Since they came to office, 17,520 people have crossed the English channel, more than twice the number they have removed. That is one and a half times the number in the previous four months and 15% more than the same period last year. In October alone, last month, 5,417 people crossed, three times higher than in last October. Tragically, since this Government came to office 50 people have lost their lives or gone missing—more than in the previous 18 months put together—and, tragically, that includes 16 women and children.
This Government decided—they chose—to cancel the Rwanda scheme before it had even started. The first flight was due to take off, from memory, on 24 July but they cancelled it. Had they allowed that to go ahead and the scheme to continue, the deterrent effect would by now have started. We know it works, because it worked in Australia under its Operation Sovereign Borders about 10 years ago. We know the deterrent effect of returns works: it worked with Albania where we secured a 93% reduction in arrivals. Do not just take my word for it: the National Crime Agency said that law enforcement alone is not enough and we need an effective removal scheme to deter crossings. The Government’s announcements in Glasgow on Monday are simply not enough, and they repeat work that is under way already. The NCA and I are not the only ones saying that we need a returns deterrent. Just a few weeks ago, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen encouraged member states to develop their own returns hubs outside the European Union. Will the Minister follow Ursula von der Leyen’s advice and urgently implement offshore processing?
May I also draw attention to the success that Belgium has had in stopping boats by the shore? Will the Minister ask France to do the same? Finally, because of their failings Labour are breaking their manifesto pledge to end hotel use, so will she pledge not to open any more hotels?
Dame Angela Eagle
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman —the shadow Home Secretary—to his new Front-Bench position. What a pleasure it is to be opposite him; I am going to look forward to jousting with him over the years.
On the Rwanda scheme, during the period from when it began to when we scrapped it, 83,500 people crossed in small boats. If that is a deterrent, the right hon. Gentleman has a peculiar view of the meaning of “deterrence” in the English language.
When I realised that we were doing this urgent question, I took the opportunity to look at the right hon. Gentleman’s record as a Home Office Minister. During his first stint at the Home Office—from September 2019 to 2021—23,849 people crossed the channel on small boats. During his second ministerial sojourn at the Home Office, 50,637 people crossed the channel in small boats, so his overall total is 74,486. In September 2020, the shadow Home Secretary answered an urgent question. He said that the last Government would
“not rest until we have taken the necessary steps to completely end these crossings.”—[Official Report, 2 September 2020; Vol. 679, c. 168.]
How did that go?
Hillsborough Families Report: National Police Response
Debate between Chris Philp and Angela Eagle(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Chris Philp
A duty of co-operation on police in relation to inquiries was set out in the professional standards for policing in 2020. We will respond to the wider duty of candour, to which point of learning 14 in the bishop’s report referred, along with everything else, shortly.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The Minister speaks from the Dispatch Box for not only his Department, but the entire Government. I would have expected him to know what the approach of the Ministry of Justice to the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend and sister the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) on Friday would be before he came here. Will he at least say from the Dispatch Box that when he leaves the Chamber, he will go to the Ministry of Justice and get permission from them to ensure that on Friday, my hon. Friend and sister’s Bill, which provides for an independent public advocate, will be let into Committee and not be blocked, so that the clauses that the Ministry of Justice is currently drafting can be incorporated into the Bill in Committee? We have a legislative vehicle, we could do it now, and he could enhance his reputation. We have a legislative vehicle, we could do it now, and he could enhance his reputation.
Chris Philp
I would be very happy to convey the hon. Lady’s request to my Ministry of Justice colleagues.
Economic Situation
Debate between Chris Philp and Angela Eagle(2 years, 1 month ago)
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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
Chris Philp
What the statement will set out in the round is how we will get debt as a proportion of GDP falling in the medium term. That is the critical metric, and that is what the medium-term fiscal plan will deliver.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Can I just offer the Chief Secretary to the Treasury some gentle advice? If he refuses to accept that the fiscal event on 23 September has had any effect on what has happened in the markets since, that will not be reassuring for the markets. He needs to stop being in denial and admit that serious mistakes were made.
The Prime Minister said at Prime Minister’s questions that there would be no public spending cuts, yet we know that, as a result of the fiscal event and the unfunded tax cuts, there is a £60 billion gap between expenditure and the money coming in. If there are no public spending cuts, that leaves only the reversal of the tax cuts to balance the books, does it not?
Chris Philp
I have explained in response to an earlier question that spending restraint is not the same as real-terms cuts. We do not plan real-terms cuts, but we do plan iron discipline when it comes to spending restraint. The answers to the hon. Lady’s questions will be set out in full at the fiscal statement, which will be accompanied by a full Office for Budget Responsibility scoring and a set of OBR forecasts. That is when all those questions will be answered very clearly.
Trade Union Bill
Debate between Chris Philp and Angela Eagle(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Ms Eagle
More than that, I think the slightly shifty looks on the faces of many Government Members demonstrate that they know they have been found out. They have been rumbled.
It is abundantly clear that, whatever protestations we may have to the contrary, Vince Cable’s analysis explains what is really going on with this disgraceful piece of proposed legislation. Perhaps that is why so few people will defend it. Even Government Ministers will not defend it in public, as this tweet from “Murnaghan” revealed on Sunday:
“We asked the Government and the @Conservatives for an interview with any Minister/MP to defend the Trade Union Bill. No one was available.”
They do not want to be questioned about it. Like all authoritarians, they just want do it as quickly as possible and brook no dissent.
The right to be part of a trade union to campaign for protection at work is a fundamental socioeconomic right. It is enshrined in the UN’s universal declaration of human rights and the international covenant on civil and political rights.
Ms Eagle
No. I have given way a lot of times and I am in the middle of the peroration.
Before I was so rudely interrupted, I was just about to say that the Bill rides roughshod over that right. It threatens the basic options that those at work have to safeguard their pay and conditions by standing together to win improvements. Liberty, Amnesty and the British Institute of Human Rights have all said that the Bill’s purpose is to
“undermine the rights of all working people”
and amounts to a
“major attack on civil liberties in the UK.”
That warning should not be dismissed lightly by the Conservative party. Workers’ rights to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of association are all undermined by the Bill. For example, the requirement forcing workers to disclose media comments to the authorities a week in advance or face a fine and the requirement under clause 9 for picket supervisors to register with the police and wear identifying badges are a dangerous attack on basic liberties that would not be tolerated by the Conservative party if they were imposed on any other section of society.
Remember that it is now known that thousands of people in the building trade have had their livelihoods taken away and their lives ruined by illegal employer blacklisting, a scandal that this Government have failed either to pursue or remedy. The Bill has been criticised for being OTT, with parts of it resembling the dictatorship of General Franco. Those are not my words, either, but the words of that noted Marxist agitator, the Conservative right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis).
That sinister intent needs to be added to other attempts by the Government to curb dissent in our country today. They have restricted access to justice by imposing fees to access the courts, which are causing the innocent to plead guilty. They want to scrap the Human Rights Act, which safeguards our basic freedoms. Their commitment to transparency in Government is in tatters with their plans to limit freedom of information powers. They have slashed legal aid and introduced employment tribunal fees, which deny women the chance to sue for equal pay or defend themselves against sexual harassment. They have limited the scope for judicial review and used their gagging law to bully charities into silence at the election, and now they are trying to silence the trade union voice through a tax on the existence of political funds, which finance general non-party political campaigning as well as the Labour party.
This is another gagging Bill, and those of us who care for the health of our democracy and civil society are united in opposing it. Clauses 2 and 3 are deliberately designed to undermine the bargaining power of trade unions by requiring minimum turnouts, thresholds and support before a strike ballot is valid. The new proposals demand a mandate for unions that breaks the democratic conventions of our society by counting votes not cast as essentially no votes.
More than half of the Cabinet would not have met that arbitrary threshold had it applied to their election to this House in May. Why do the Government have different standards for democracy and trade unions than anywhere else in our society? Clause 3 ensures that the 40% level of support restriction will apply to a much bigger list of sectors than the internationally recognised definition of “essential services” and, ominously, allows sectors to be added by secondary legislation that is as yet unpublished. From listening to the Secretary of State, it appears that the Government do not intend to publish it until the Bill is in the Lords.
If the Government are so worried about participation in ballots, why do they not allow e-balloting and secure workplace balloting, which are used routinely by many organisations? Clauses 4 to 6 might more usefully be described as the clauses that smother unions in “blue tape” and the hypocrisy of the Business Secretary in this respect is staggering. In July, he launched his drive to cut red tape, yet when it comes to unions he is increasing the powers of the certification officer and deliberately placing additional information and reporting burdens on unions. Not content with doing that, the Government, through clauses 12 and 13, are reducing the ability of trade union officials to do their jobs with the introduction of new powers to restrict facility time.
It is not hard to come to the conclusion that these proposals have been written to be as unworkable and difficult to comply with as possible. They also create many more opportunities for ballots to be challenged by employers for minor technical reasons. Again, it is clear that the increased risk of employer challenge is an integral part of the Government’s intentions.
Ms Eagle
We will have to have a chat about whether the Labour party should organise in Northern Ireland. It is a long-standing issue within our party. I would be more than happy to talk to the hon. Lady about that, but I suspect Madam Deputy Speaker would stop me from doing so over the Dispatch Box.
We all know that this Government—barely with a majority—increasingly behave in a grossly partisan way, whether it is through individual electoral registration designed to disfranchise voters, by introducing English votes for English laws, or now by making changes to party funding to try to hobble the main Opposition.
Chris Philp
That is something I thought I would be unable to do; I am grateful that my persistence has paid off. The motivation behind this Bill has nothing to do with the things that the hon. Lady has just mentioned; it is to do with protecting and helping ordinary hard-working people to go about their day-to-day lives and their work unimpeded by strike action, which sometimes has turnouts as low as 16%. It is reasonable to protect them, and I ask the hon. Lady to support that
Ms Eagle
Disillusion has set in very quickly, I am afraid, with the hon. Gentleman. All I can say is that I am a long-standing member of a trade union, so I know many trade unionists, and I know that very few of them would contemplate being silly enough to have industrial action with very low turnouts and very little support, because that simply does not work.
The Prime Minister used to say he wanted to reform party funding and would limit donations from all sources. Now, however, instead of addressing the big money in politics—and the big issues that are causing disillusionment from politics generally—with millionaire hedge-fund donors being treated to lunches and dinners with the Cabinet, this Government are, outrageously, focusing on curbing only trade union donations. There is an important issue about big money in politics, but it needs to be dealt with on a cross-party basis.