Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Diana Johnson and Paul Bristow

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson]

What I want, and what the Home Affairs Committee has been very clear about, is an efficient, speedy asylum claim process that is fair but timely. Germany, for example, has far more asylum claimants than we have and manages to process its claims within seven months. Many of the people who claim asylum in this country are waiting for years. That is why we have got ourselves into the problem that we are trying to address through the Bill.

[Paul Bristow]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I will, but I am conscious of time.

[Paul Bristow]

I wonder whether the right hon. Lady can explain how doing nothing about thousands of undocumented people landing on our shores week in, week out will help speed up the Home Office system.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I say to the hon. Member with the greatest respect that he might want to look at the Home Affairs Committee report on small boats, published last summer, in which we made a number of key recommendations for how the Government could start to address the small boat problem, one of which was, as I started off by saying, addressing the backlog. We know that people can come to this country, disappear and feel that their claims will not be heard for years. That is not in anyone’s interest. If he takes the time to read the report, he might get some idea of the recommendations that we have put forward cross-party, including a pilot to allow processing in France, to stop people making that perilous journey across the channel.

I turn to the Lords amendments. First, I want to deal with the removal of retrospective application under Lord Carlile’s amendment. I am really glad to see that the Government have agreed to remove the retrospective element of the Bill, with Royal Assent as the start date, which means that there will not be an immediate backlog of people waiting to be deported. However, this could provide a false sense of security about the Bill’s implications.

It seems to me that when the Bill becomes an Act, a new backlog will be quickly growing, with thousands of people detained if we see the same numbers coming across in small boats that we have seen in the last few weeks and months, and we have no third country to send them to. With the Court of Appeal judgment now being appealed in the Supreme Court, we do not know whether the Rwanda plan will be lawful. So far this year, over 12,500 people have made that dangerous channel crossing to the UK. There may well be hundreds more arriving each month once the Bill is enacted, and I am concerned about what happens to them.