Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Robert Jenrick

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Let me make a small amount of progress and then I will give way to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams).

I turn to the first issue of substance, which is Lords amendment 2. That would provide that the duty to make arrangements for removal applied to persons who entered illegally from the date of commencement of clause 2, rather than on or after 7 March 2023, as originally provided for in the Bill.

We acknowledge the position advanced by some in the other place and in this House about the retrospective effect of the Bill, but these Lords amendments go too far in resetting the clock. The closer we get to commencement of the Bill, the greater the risk that organised criminals and people smugglers will seek to exploit that, and we will see an increase in crossings as the deadline looms, which would only put more people at risk.

To guard against that, we have brought forward amendments in lieu to move the application of the duty from 7 March to the date of Royal Assent. The date of 7 March, however, would continue to apply for the purpose of the Secretary of State’s power to provide accommodation for unaccompanied children and for the purposes of the bans on re-entry, settlement and citizenship. That Government amendment in lieu has a particular advantage with respect to the concerns about modern slavery expressed by my right hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), but I will come to that in a moment.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Can the Minister tell me how many Afghan women have been able to avail themselves of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme phase 3 programme? That is the Government’s position on a safe and legal route. As we have understood from various Westminster Hall debates, we are looking at a handful in phase 3. Everything else refers to what has happened in 2021. I also draw his attention to the recent horrific drownings off Greece. This included a number of Afghan nationals and people from Pakistan-administered Kashmir. What really is the point of these ineffective, supposed safe routes?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady and I share the same objective: to ensure that the schemes that the Government have established are operationalised as quickly as possible, so that people who are eligible—perhaps including the women she is in contact with—can come to the United Kingdom, settle here and find sanctuary. It is incredibly important that the UK is a beacon in the world for resettlement schemes. We have already supported more than 20,000 people under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and the ACRS to come to the United Kingdom. I appreciate her point that the numbers in recent months have been lower than she or we would like. One reason is that there is so little capacity in the UK today to properly house individuals, and one explanation for that is that the sheer number of individuals entering the country illegally on small boats has placed an intolerable pressure on our social housing and the contingency accommodation that we have available. If we are to bring further individuals to the UK—as we want to do and are continuing to do—they risk being housed in hotels, which is an unacceptable way to house vulnerable people and, in particular, families.

[Debbie Abrahams]

The Minister is being generous with his time. We in the all-party parliamentary group on Afghan women and girls have hundreds of civilians who would like a “homes for Afghans” scheme. These people are waiting and have already volunteered. This scheme is ready and it is equivalent to the Homes for Ukraine scheme, so I urge the Government to take us up on it and make sure that the supposed safe routes are actual safe routes.

[Robert Jenrick]

I strongly endorse the hon. Lady’s comments. The Homes for Ukraine scheme has been superb and we should all be proud of it—I took part in it at one point. If it is possible to create a comparable scheme for Afghans, we should consider that. I know that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, who has responsibility for that issue, is considering it.

On the broader point about resettlement, the UK has a strong record in this regard. Of course, we would all like to go further, but since 2015 we have welcomed 550,000 people to this country on humanitarian grounds, mostly on resettlement schemes. We are one of the world’s leading countries for such schemes.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Robert Jenrick

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that comment. As an important aside that relates to other issues he has raised, nothing in the Bill disapplies the Children Act, which will continue to apply in all respects with regard to the children we deal with in this situation. In answer to his particular point, we are taking this power so that in the very small number of judicious cases in which we set out to remove a child, we can take them from the care of the local authority into the responsibility of the Home Office for the short period before they are removed from the country. I have given two examples of situations in which we would use that power, and I will happily give them again. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is concerned about this point.

The first situation is where we are seeking to return a young person to their relatives in another country. I think it is incredibly important that we keep the ability to do so, because that does happen occasionally. It is obviously the right thing to do to return somebody to their mother, their father, their uncle or the support network that they have in another country.

The other situation is where we are removing somebody who has arrived as an unaccompanied minor to another safe country, where we are confident that they will be met on arrival by social services and provided with all the support that one would expect. That happens all the time here with unaccompanied minors; I think the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned, drawing on his experience as a local Member of Parliament around Heathrow, that it happens regularly. It is important that we continue to have that option, because we should not be bringing people into local authority care for long periods in the UK when we can safely return them home, either to their relatives or to their home country, where they can be safeguarded appropriately.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Will the Minister respond to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire)? Where is the impact assessment for the Bill?

[Robert Jenrick]

The impact assessment will be published in due course.

Let me continue with the points I was making. I return to a question that has been raised on several occasions about our policy on the detention of minors. Let me say, speaking as a parent, that of course we take this incredibly seriously. We do not want to detain children. We have to apply the highest moral standards when we take this decision.

The circumstance in which we would use that power is where there is an age assessment dispute about an unaccompanied minor. It is easy to dismiss that, but it happens all the time. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) was correct to raise his experience as a local authority leader. There are a very large number of such disputes: between 2016 and December of last year, there were 7,900 asylum cases in which age was disputed and subsequently resolved. In almost half of those cases —49%—the people in question were found to be adults.

Where there is a live age assessment dispute, it would be wrong for the Government to place those people in the same accommodation as minors who are clearly children, creating safeguarding risks for them. I am not willing to do that. I want to ensure that those children are properly protected. When I visited our facilities at Western Jet Foil recently, I asked a member of staff who was the oldest person they had encountered who had posed as a minor. They said that that person was 41 years of age! Does anyone in this House seriously want to see a 41-year-old man placed with their children? I do not want to see it, and that is the circumstance in which we are going to take and use these very judicious powers.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) raised a number of important points in respect of his amendment on mandatory scientific age assessments. I can say to him that not only are those valid points, but the Government are considering carefully how we should proceed in this regard. The UK is one of the very few European countries that do not currently employ scientific methods of age assessment. In January, the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee published a report on the issue. The Home Secretary and I are giving careful consideration to its recommendations, and I hope to be in a position to say more on Report.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Robert Jenrick

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend has cut to the nub of the question. We cannot build ourselves out of this issue by creating more hotels or large sites. The only sustainable answer is to break the people smugglers’ model, and that is what the Illegal Migration Bill sets out to do. We on this side of the House are on the side of the British people, while those who vote against the Bill are on the side of the people smugglers. It is only by stopping people crossing the channel, by creating a genuine deterrent—for instance, sending people to a safe third country such as Rwanda—that we will achieve that.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

3. What steps her Department is taking to improve charge rates for perpetrators of violence against women and girls.

Knowsley Incident

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Robert Jenrick

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I hope that when the history books are written about this Government, people will point to some of the fantastic schemes that we have created and that have commanded such broad support, including Homes for Ukraine and the Syria and Afghan schemes, all of which collectively have brought hundreds of thousands of people to our shores, where they have been welcomed into the homes of British citizens. But it is right that we make the distinction between those people—many of whom we have geographical, moral and historical obligations to—and the young men in safe countries such as France soliciting human traffickers to ferry them across the channel and to exploit our laws. This is an important distinction that we can see and that I think the British public more broadly can see, and the British public want us to address it.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary was warned by Government lawyers last November that inflammatory immigration rhetoric risked inspiring far-right terror attacks. What discussions has the Home Secretary had with her Ministers about what is appropriate language?

[Robert Jenrick]

The Home Secretary was very clear that the violence we saw in Knowsley on 10 February was completely unacceptable, and she stands squarely with the brave officers from Merseyside police who responded to that incident. I pay tribute to them again today and to all those who work in our asylum system more broadly who do such a good job, often in very difficult circumstances.

Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I respect the hon. Lady’s long experience in local government. I appreciate the challenges faced by local councils, which is why we brought forward this enhanced financial package. We will learn from whether it is having the desired effect, and I am very happy to speak to her about the experience in her constituency.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

The Minister did not answer the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) or the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), so does he accept that the Home Office has the key responsibility around safeguarding, and that legally enforceable duties come with that responsibility?

[Robert Jenrick]

The settled position is for a young person to move into local authority care, and for that local authority to accept responsibility for them in the usual way. While a young person is in a bridging hotel, the legal position is that the local authority has responsibility, but we appreciate that a great burden is being placed on a small number of local authorities. For that reason, the Home Office steps up and provides all the support required in and around the hotels.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I will happily write to my hon. Friend with the full details with respect to Blaby District Council. Across the country, we have announced today that we will be doing a further year of the new homes bonus, backed by over £600 million of Government money, but we will also be consulting on the future of the new homes bonus. The new homes bonus is an important part of the finances of many local councils, but it is widely perceived to be a poor incentive for councils to get on and build homes, so the consultation will ask how we can develop a new incentive that supports those councils that need to build homes and those that have high ambitions to get on and build. Fortunately for my hon. Friend, his council and those that surround it in Leicestershire are among the most ambitious councils in the country when it comes to house building.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]]

Like others, I am very concerned that the increase in local authority budgets is largely predicated on an assumption of a rise in council tax and the social care precept. This tax is highly inappropriate in the current circumstances and fails to recognise the different needs of local economies such as mine in Oldham and Saddleworth. To be frank, it is just not good enough for the Secretary of State to say that it is up to local authorities what they do. When is he going to reimburse Oldham Council for its covid-associated deficit, forecast at more than £10 million in 2021-22? What will he do to fulfil the Conservative manifesto pledge to level up regarding council funding, given the disproportionate cuts that northern local authorities have faced over the last 10 years?

[Robert Jenrick]

As I said in answer to the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin), it would not be right for me to say publicly how much a local council has self-reported as having spent on covid-19 expenditure, but across the whole country, we have more than compensated local councils for the costs they have incurred. We have provided Oldham with £33.5 million so far. In addition, it will be making use of the sales, fees and charges scheme, which provides 75p in the pound, and the council tax and business rates scheme that we have announced today, which does the same thing, so I rather suspect that Oldham will receive as much money as it requires over the course of the year. The hon. Lady did not welcome the fact that Oldham is part of the towns fund—I look forward to seeing the proposals that it brings forward—or that we provided £1 million to Oldham earlier in the year, so that it can get on and take forward some of those exciting ideas as soon as possible.

Local Government Finance (England)

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Robert Jenrick

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Let me make some progress.

Taken together, these measures mean that the Government are making almost £6 billion available next year across adult and children’s social care. I appreciate that this is only the start. Fixing social care is one of the defining issues of our generation, which is why this Government will be commencing cross-party talks on social care very soon to get this right once and for all. We welcome hon. Members from all parts of this House to participate in those talks and to do so in a spirit of finding a consensus and of moving forward as a country.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I cannot help but feel concerned that, in spite of what the Secretary of State is saying, the reality around both planned cuts and cuts that will result from the so-called fair funding review will actually make my local authority more than £8 million worse off, when it has already had £200 million cut since 2010. What will that mean to the people—both adults and children—who rely on social care?

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not doubt the hon. Lady’s sincerity in raising the question, but I do warn against unnecessary scaremongering. The reports that we saw in the press on the fair funding review were put out by the Labour party’s local government press office. They were not based on any actual numbers created by my Department. We have not even published the consultation yet, and so I would disregard them. In fact, the Local Government Association itself later went on to say that these figures are not reliable and are not something on which local councils should make spending decisions. We will proceed with the fair funding review, and I will come on to speak more about that in a moment. We think that it is right that we update what is undoubtedly an antiquated formula and that we base the funding of local public services more closely on the needs of local communities.

Homelessness

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Robert Jenrick

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

We are keen for more parts of the country to benefit from the initiative.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way; he has been very generous. I have had constituents living in tents, cars—one even in a cave. All those cases—I have many more, and I am not just talking about street homelessness—were related to problems with social security. Two thirds of local authorities predict that the roll-out of universal credit will increase homelessness. What are the assessments of both the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince)?

[Robert Jenrick]

I think I have answered that question. We do not recognise some of the figures that we have heard. In fact, the evidence that I have seen has suggested that rent arrears have fallen over time, in the case of those individuals who have moved on to universal credit.

To support the rough sleeping initiative programmes such as those that I have visited in recent months, I allocated this week up to £112 million to fund the programme for a third year. That represents a 30% increase in funding for this already proven successful programme. Councils, charities and organisations throughout the country will be able to use that money to fund up to 6,000 new bed spaces and 2,500 rough sleeping support staff.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Robert Jenrick)]

In the spring statement, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor launched a review of our infrastructure financing, which includes that question on whether the UK would benefit from institutional arrangements. We have also made significant funds available to ensure that there is no shortfall for businesses that rely on the EIB.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

T4.   Last month’s Office for National Statistics figures show that life expectancy for the poorest has fallen whereas for the rich, it has increased. Analysis into the key drivers of that, including Public Health England’s investigations, shows that it is the result of cumulative tax and social security changes. I therefore ask the Chancellor, once again, what will he do about that, and particularly, will he stop immediately the benefit freeze that has such a devastating effect on people’s lives?

Palestine and Israel

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Robert Jenrick

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I take the powerful point that my hon. Friend has made.

The question before the House tonight is not whether we wish to see a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution or whether we wish to consider ourselves, or be perceived by others beyond the House, as strong supporters of a Palestinian state. It is whether in passing this motion today we would increase the prospect of a lasting settlement, reduce the obstacles to it and increase this country’s ability—modest as it may be—to influence that process positively, not diminish it.

I have listened to the debate this evening and the debate that has surrounded it, but I have not heard the case put convincingly. Only a handful of Members have answered the question directly, notably the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). Other Members have spoken of a gesture, a symbol or a small nudge. I do not question the intentions of the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), but I fear that he is deceiving himself if he truly believes that passing the motion will breathe new life into the peace process.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman says that he is looking for evidence that recognising Palestine as a state in its own right will make a difference. The UK Anglican and Catholic Churches believe that. Furthermore, a former British consul-general to Jerusalem has said that we need to support moderate Israelis and Palestinians, and that recognising Palestine is the nudge that will help in that direction.

[Robert Jenrick]

I hear the hon. Lady’s comments and hope that she is correct. We, of course, will be only the 130-somethingth country to have signed up to recognition and none of the previous nations has achieved a change.

Passing the motion will certainly antagonise and weaken to some extent our relationship with Israel and Israelis—a relationship that, for all Israel’s manifest faults and frailties, I value and the House should value in a dangerous world. In a peace process, we do not show solidarity to one by antagonising and alienating the other, diminishing our relatively limited influence on events.

I do not say that the case has been convincingly disproved either. In the short term, passing the motion will not make peaceful settlement more likely; it may not have any impact at all. The long-term consequences of our recognising Palestine at this time are unclear and anyone’s guess, even given the knowledgeable and informed comments that we have heard this evening. Unintended consequences abound in this region.