Edward Leigh
Main Page: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)Department Debates - View all Edward Leigh's debates with the Home Office
(1 month ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Although I am more than happy to have the Minister here for hours and hours, we do have other business to get on with, so I ask Back Benchers to make sure their questions are as short as they can be. I call the Father of the House.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I thank the Minister for confirming that RAF Scampton is not cost-effective. Frankly, he has been a lot more helpful than his predecessor Conservative Ministers, who have now left the Conservative party, so I thank him.
The problem with these sites, as I know from asking hundreds of questions, is that they are unbelievably difficult to transform into asylum centres, so can I ask the Minister: is this really a deterrent? If someone comes from a hellhole of a country, does it matter where they are going to be sent? However, can I be positive and ask a question in this way: is not the best way to solve this problem to process these asylum claimants very quickly, preferably within a month? There will be some who cannot be sent back because their country is not safe, but surely the solution is to create a returns hub in a Council of Europe country—distant, small—so there is no question of their human rights being abused. That is a real deterrent: to treat them quickly and then send them home.
Alex Norris
On processing, it seems to me that the issue is not now initial decision making, but that we have a significant portion of people waiting for their appeal to be heard, and there is not a quick way to do that. As I say, we have talked about appeals reform, and Members may see things from us shortly on that—I hope we will have their support. The right hon. Member will have heard what my right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister has said in favour of returns hubs in the past. Scampton is an important part of Lincoln and Lincolnshire’s economic future, and I look forward to the sale of that site and the positive development of it in short order.