Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Diana Johnson and Stephen Kinnock

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I am not sure I follow the logic of it. He said that there was a deterrent effect, but it has not started yet, which suggests to me that there has not been a deterrent effect. If we look at the numbers, channel crossings continue to skyrocket, so I think what matters to this House is results and outcomes. As things stand, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Rwanda scheme has acted as a deterrent.

This bigger backlog Bill is rotten to its very core, because it prevents the Home Secretary from considering those who arrive here on small boats as asylum seekers, and instead obliges her to detain and remove them. However, there is nowhere to detain them, and there is nowhere to remove them to either. We already have 50,000 asylum seekers in around 400 hotels, costing the taxpayer an eye-watering £6 million every single day, and on average, each asylum seeker is waiting a staggering 450 days for a decision. The backlog now stands at 166,000, more than eight times larger than when Labour left office in 2010, when it stood at just under 19,000. Incidentally, I am still waiting for the Prime Minister and the Minister for Immigration to apologise to the House and correct the record on that point.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentioned detention, and a number of amendments have been tabled today on that topic. I listened carefully to what the Minister said about detaining unaccompanied children, but I also wanted to ask my hon. Friend for his views on detaining children, families with children and pregnant women. This House has made very clear in the past its view about safeguards being required for the detention of the vulnerable groups I have just described. Does he think that we now need to think again about the detention of pregnant women and families with children?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. She is absolutely right to highlight this issue, and she has tabled a compelling amendment to deal with it. Members on both sides of the House fought very hard for these legal limits, as she rightly pointed out, and when we are talking about the detention of pregnant women, removing those limits and paving the way for vulnerable individuals to be detained individually is morally wrong, wrong-headed and deeply counterproductive. I have not heard any argument from Ministers to justify it.

New figures reveal that this bigger backlog Bill could end up putting an extra 50,000 people into permanent taxpayer-funded accommodation this year, with hotel costs rising to more than £13 million a day, which is more than £4 billion a year during a cost of living crisis. That is because, according to the Government’s own forecasts, 53,000 who cross on small boats will be classed as inadmissible, without any prospect of being removed. What is particularly astonishing is that the Government made this same mistake last year by including similar inadmissibility provisions in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. The result is a cost of £400 million to the taxpayer in just six months, with only 21 people returned to their country of origin.

Points of Order

Debate between Diana Johnson and Stephen Kinnock

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Home Secretary was due to meet the Home Affairs Committee this morning—we arranged this in April—for an evidence session on, among other things, the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, problems at the Passport Office, small boat crossings in the channel and the Government’s Rwanda policy, and the lack of progress in prosecuting and convicting those who commit rape and other sexual violence against women and girls. Shortly before 5 pm yesterday, the Home Secretary wrote to me to say that she was withdrawing from the evidence session. That is tantamount to providing no notice at all, and it deprives the Committee of the chance to scrutinise the conduct of her Department before the summer recess. We have requested her presence next Wednesday, but as yet have received no response.

The Home Secretary told us that she could not come because of changes in her ministerial team and other “wider unprecedented changes” that had occurred since she had agreed to give evidence. I think that that is a very weak excuse to avoid scrutiny of the Home Office at this time. It was only ever the Home Secretary and the permanent secretary who were to appear before the Committee. In fact, the Home Secretary issued a statement last week in which she said that she had not resigned because the role of Home Secretary demanded that the holder of the office should be

“focused on the business of government and our national security.”

What steps can a Committee of this House take, Madam Deputy Speaker, when a Minister refuses to be scrutinised, and demonstrates such discourtesy to this House?

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Further to that excellent point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will, I am sure, agree that Select Committees play a crucial role in this place in holding the Government to account, and our ability to do so depends on those Committees. We are seeing chaos in the Passport Office, a broken asylum system and an unworkable Rwanda plan. Crime is up, prosecutions are down, and confidence in the police at a record low. Can you please advise us, Madam Deputy Speaker, on what can be done to ensure that the Home Secretary does indeed attend the Select Committee next Wednesday?