Asylum Seekers: Bournemouth West

Conor Burns Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

It is approaching 13 years since I stood in this spot, where Lady Thatcher delivered her maiden speech, to deliver my first speech in the House of Commons. On that occasion, I spoke of something of profound local interest and great national importance: the situation around student visitor visas. I was delighted to have the support of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms), on that occasion, and I am glad to see him in his place again today.

I would like to commit what I am about to say to the memory of a remarkable young man called Tom Roberts, who was brutally slain on the streets of my Bournemouth West constituency by a knife on Saturday 12 March last year. I will have a little more to say about Tom and the circumstances of his death a little later on.

I have been conducting a parliamentary survey in my Bournemouth West constituency in recent months. The strength of feeling of my constituents on the situation regarding those seeking asylum and awaiting a decision on their asylum status is incredibly profound. Often when we talk about asylum in the debates we have, we focus too much on the process and not enough on the principles. We have a proud track record in the United Kingdom of offering genuine refuge to those who are fleeing in fear of their lives, but the reality is, Madam Deputy Speaker, that if you are fleeing in fear of your life from a war zone or a humanitarian disaster, you would claim asylum in the first safe country you reach. You would not pass through multiple safe countries to get to the United Kingdom.

We must absolutely acknowledge that it is not those coming here seeking asylum and looking for a better life who are at fault. These people are being exploited by evil traffickers who are taking their life savings from them in the hope of offering them a better life. The way in which they are being exploited is cruel and vindictive.

The situation in my Bournemouth West constituency and across the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council local authority area is unsustainable. There are currently, as of yesterday, some 666 asylum seekers across the conurbation. Four hotels in my constituency are full, and have been full for quite some time, of those waiting for their decision to be made. The pressure that puts on the local council tax payer and local residents, and on the council to deliver services, is profound.

I want, for a moment, to focus on the number of children who are within that number of 666 people waiting for a determination. As of January this year, the BCP area had 56 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in care, or 10.7% of the total number of children in care—massively higher than both the national and regional averages. We have 16 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children of school age, with eight in local schools and three in schools outside the area. One my real concerns, and I would be grateful if the Minister could address this point, is the decision to send these people to my constituency and our local authority area when the Ofsted inspection of the local authority’s children’s services found that overall the service provided by BCP Council is inadequate. Its judgment states:

“The impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families—inadequate; the experiences and progress of children who need help and protection—inadequate; the experiences and progress of children in care and care leavers—requires improvement; overall effectiveness—inadequate.”

The Ofsted report goes on to state:

“Thresholds for interventions are not applied consistently, and the oversight of managers is too variable in quality. Multiple changes of social workers and managers in some teams also contribute greatly to the lack of focus and urgency for many children. There are still serious and widespread weaknesses in the quality of children's services that leave vulnerable children at risk of harm. Specialist services aside, the core business of reducing the risks to children in need of help and protection is yet to have a consistent and effective impact.”

Point 37 of the report identifies that

“Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have mixed experiences. Mostly, once they are clearly the responsibility of the local authority, they are helped with somewhere to stay, interpreters, tracing their families and legal support. For a small number, a debate about their age and entitlement leads to delay in them securing suitable accommodation and support.”

The experience across the four hotels in my constituency over the past 12 months is that up to 10% of placements, having said that they are adults, present themselves on arrival to staff, state that they are under 18 and therefore claim to be unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. That means that the local authority has a legal duty to place them in care and they cannot remain in the asylum hotels. I submit to the Minister that the financial pressure that that places on BCP Council, and therefore on my constituents, is just not acceptable. To place those individuals in a local authority area in which children’s services are deemed inadequate is, I contend to the House, actually irresponsible.

We need to return to fundamental first principles. If someone has a right to be here, they will be supported and looked after and funds will be allocated.

--- Later in debate ---

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Stuart Anderson.)

[Conor Burns]

If someone does not have the right to be here, they should not be here. That is why I welcome the Prime Minister’s express commitment in his five-point plan to dealing with the situation more generally.

I said that I would return to Tom Roberts and the circumstances around his death. I want to use this opportunity to apologise to the family of Tom Roberts. They, and he, were profoundly let down by multi-agency failures. The man who is now serving a life sentence for the murder of Tom on Old Christchurch Road last year should not have been in the United Kingdom. Subsequent to his stabbing of Tom, it emerged that he had been found guilty of two murders in another country. Norway had denied his claim of asylum.

It subsequently emerged that although the man had told the authorities that he was 14 when he arrived, he was in fact 18. Dental records and reports suggested that he was an adult. He was placed with children at Glenmoor and Winton, a local secondary school in my constituency. His foster carer reported to social services that he was regularly carrying knives and was engaged in street fighting for money. The police were also made aware, yet he was allowed to go on and stab young Tom to death—a man who wanted to give his life in service to this country in our armed forces.

We let Tom down. There was multi-agency failure. I would like the Minister to use this evening’s debate as an opportunity to recommit the Government to making sure that we adequately test people who say they are children, and that we work out whether they are or not before we let them loose on the streets of our country. I hope that the Minister will feel able on the Government’s behalf to join me in saying sorry to Tom’s family for how his young life, with all his future opportunities and everything he could have given our country, was snuffed out in its prime when he was slain.

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case on behalf of his constituents and mine. There are some very real issues here and I am proud to be sitting next to him on these Benches.

[Conor Burns]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. We all come to this House to do right by those in whose name we serve, but I am highlighting tonight how I think we failed. There are very serious lessons to be learned by local authorities, social services, the police, Border Force and so on.

I am incredibly proud of our country’s record of offering hospitality and welcome to those in need. I would not want my remarks tonight to be in any way misinterpreted as meaning that I want us to walk away from that generosity of spirit—that offer of hope and opportunity to those who are genuinely in need. However, we cannot escape the fact that too many people are exploiting that good will to come here as economic migrants.

Our constituents are demanding that the Government take action. Ministers on the Treasury Bench, led by the Prime Minister, have confirmed the Government’s absolute determination to reduce and then eliminate the small boat crossings. Too often, constituents in Bournemouth West look at hotels that have hitherto supported the vibrant tourism economy on which much of our local area across Bournemouth and Poole relies. They see that area filled with people who are without hope, and who, I have to say, are waiting for more than a year for their claims to be processed—and that is before we even acknowledge the additional burdens that this places on my parliamentary team, who receive dozens of requests every day for updates on claimants’ status.

We must not be treated like mugs in this country, and I hope that the Minister will now reiterate the Government’s driving commitment to getting a grip of this situation.