Duncan Baker
Main Page: Duncan Baker (Conservative - North Norfolk)Department Debates - View all Duncan Baker's debates with the Home Office
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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The answer to that is no. Actually, it is a fact that we are developing returns agreements, including with India and Albania, and last week we were in discussions with Pakistan. Those are some of the countries that top the list in terms of failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders. We are removing these people. The five people she refers to were removed because of a statutory instrument that the Opposition clearly did not support, which relates to inadmissibility with the type of claims that come at sea. That has come through diligent work not only with our colleagues in the Home Office, but with our counterparts across EU member states.
The Nationality and Borders Bill contains many similarities to what was used successfully by the Australians in its Operation Sovereign Borders policy in 2013. Can my right hon. Friend dismiss the comments in The Times last week that said:
“Ministers have not given details of how the offshore centres will work. But Britain cannot detain the migrants at the centres…as that would breach international law”?
As a sovereign country in control of our law making, nothing could be further from the truth.
Our Parliament is sovereign, and that is why we will work assiduously to ensure that the Nationality and Borders Bill gets through and gets Royal Assent. Then we can absolutely deliver for the British people.