Legal Migration

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments about these reforms, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Immigration Minister, who has been working on this for longer than the three weeks that I have been in this role. My hon. Friend is right to say that we want to bring people here in good faith and that we expect them to act in good faith. If they apply via a certain visa route, we expect them to abide by the conditionality of that visa route. If they contribute, play by the rules and do the right thing, they will always be welcome, but we take a dim view of those people who seek to abuse our hospitality.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Immigration figures have trebled since the 2019 general election, and it is worth reminding ourselves that, back then, the Conservatives told us that they were going to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands. The scale of the failure is enormous, as underlined by the Office for National Statistics, which says that 90,000 asylum seekers have been waiting over a year for their asylum cases to be dealt with, so more than 15% of it is due to the sheer incompetence of the Secretary of State’s Department. What is he going to do about that? I did not hear any reference to it in his statement.