Global Migration Challenge

David Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

First of all, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong. As for the costs of removing individuals, for the record, it is worth reflecting upon the number of Opposition Members who frequently write to me to stop the removal of individuals with no legal basis to be in the country when we are chartering planes to remove failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders. Those costs are marginal compared with the long-term cost of housing people with no legal basis to be in this country and the wider cost to society, through our public services, healthcare, and housing and wider accommodation.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

May I commend my right hon. Friend on the proposals she has announced today, which offer the real prospect of breaking the business model of the people smugglers? Is it not the case that if anyone should be coming in for criticism, whether from this side of the Thames or the other, it should be those who are plying that disgusting trade and not those who are seeking to disrupt it?

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and this should be a moment of reflection for all colleagues, when it comes to those who thwart the removal of those with no legal basis to be in the country, on the cost to the public purse and hard-pressed British taxpayers of not removing those individuals from the country in the first place.