Eleanor Laing
Main Page: Eleanor Laing (Conservative - Epping Forest)Department Debates - View all Eleanor Laing's debates with the Home Office
(6 months, 1 week ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on illegal migration.
The Government have made it our top priority to stop the boats, because these crossings are not only illegal, dangerous and unnecessary, but deeply unfair. They are unfair on those who are genuinely in need of resettlement, as our finite capacity is taken up by people—overwhelmingly young men—coming to the UK directly from a place of safety in France, but most of all they are unfair on the law-abiding British public who face the real-world consequences of illegal migration through housing waiting lists, strained public services and, at times, serious community cohesion challenges, and it is the interests of the British public that we have a duty to advance.
We have developed what is among the most comprehensive and robust plans to tackle illegal migration in Europe, and over the last year the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I have focused on delivering it. The plan starts with taking the fight to the people-smuggling gangs upstream, long before they are even in striking distance of the United Kingdom. We have already doubled the funds for the organised immigration crime work of the National Crime Agency, and at a meeting of the European Political Community earlier this month the Prime Minister announced new, tailored initiatives with Belgium, Bulgaria and Serbia, which come in addition to the enhanced strategic partnerships that we have already agreed this year with Italy and Turkey. Our two agreements with the French Government have elevated our co-operation to unprecedented levels. This is degrading the organised immigration crime groups, and in the last few weeks new physical barriers have been installed to make it considerably harder for the flimsy dinghies to be launched.
As we are increasing disruption abroad, so we are restoring deterrence at home. We are breaking the link between arriving here illegally and a life in the UK. The number of removals of those with no right to be in the UK has increased by more than 75% in comparison with last year’s figure. Since we struck our enhanced returns agreement with Albania in December, we have returned more than 4,100 Albanian immigration offenders, and, as I saw for myself in Tirana last month, some of those individuals are being returned home in as little as 48 hours.
In August we announced the biggest shake-up in a decade of the penalties imposed on rogue employers and landlords who encourage illegal migration by hiring or renting to illegal migrants, and as we proceed with that, more unscrupulous businesses are getting the knock on the door. We have increased the number of enforcement raids by more than two thirds since this point last year. The surge has led to a doubling in the number of fines imposed on employers, and has tripled the number issued to landlords. However, for those who are complicit in the business model of the people smugglers, severe financial penalties are not enough, which is why we have dramatically increased the number of company directors who have been disqualified for allowing illegal working.
Our concerted efforts at home and abroad are making progress. For the first time since the phenomenon of small boat arrivals began four years ago, they are down by more than a fifth in comparison with those in the equivalent period in 2022, and in recent months we have seen still further falls—and let me dispel the myth peddled by some of our increasingly desperate opponents that that is because of the weather. The weather conditions this year were more favourable to small boat crossings than those in 2022, but we have still seen a marked decrease. By contrast, in the year to June 2023 detections of irregular border crossings at the external borders of Europe increased by a third, and irregular arrivals in Italy from across the Mediterranean have almost doubled. However, we must and will go further to stop the boats altogether. We remain confident of the legality of our Rwanda partnership and its ability to break the business model of the people smuggling gangs once and for all, and we look forward to the judgment of the Supreme Court. As the success of our Albania returns agreement has shown, with swift removals driving a 90% reduction in the number of illegal migrants seeking to enter the UK, deterrence works.
The real-world impacts of illegal migration on our communities have been raised many times in the Chamber. One of the most damaging manifestations of this problem has been the use of hotels to meet our statutory obligation to house those who arrive illegally and would otherwise be destitute. Ever since the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I assumed office a year ago, we have made it clear that that is completely unacceptable and must end as soon as practicable. Those hotels should be assets for their local communities, serving businesses and tourists and hosting the life events that we treasure, such as weddings and birthdays, rather than housing illegal migrants at an unsustainable cost to the taxpayer.
We therefore took immediate action a year ago to reduce our reliance on hotels. We significantly increased the amount of dispersed accommodation, and we have increased funding for local councils. We reformed the management of the existing estate: by optimising double rooms and increasing the number of people sharing rooms we have created thousands of additional beds, and in doing so have avoided the need for a further 72 hotels. We have mobilised the large disused military sites that are more appropriate, and have worked closely with local authorities to ensure that they have less impact on communities. We are in the process of a re-embarkation on the barge in Portland, and, as of 23 October, occupancy had reached approximately 50 individuals. That will continue as planned, in a phased manner, in the days and weeks ahead.
Nearly a year on, as a result of the progress we have made to stop the boats, I can inform the House that today the Home Office wrote to local authorities and Members of Parliament to inform them that we will now be exiting the first asylum hotels—hotels in all four nations of the United Kingdom. The first 50 exits will begin in the coming days and will be complete by the end of January, with more tranches to follow shortly. But we will not stop there: we will continue to deliver on our strategy to stop the boats, and we will be able to exit more hotels. As we exit those hotels, we are putting in place dedicated resources to facilitate the orderly and effective management of the process and limit the impact on local communities.
We made a clear commitment to the British public to stop the boats, not because it would be easy but because it was, and remains, the right thing to do. We are making solid progress, and our commitment to this task is as strong as ever. We will continue to act in the interests of the law-abiding majority, who expect and deserve secure borders, and I commend this statement to the House.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his good advice and wise counsel. He had to clear up the mess left by the last Labour Government, so he knows how challenging these situations can be. We have put in place more resource. We met our target of 2,500 additional caseworkers to manage the asylum system. When I stood at this Dispatch Box in my first week in this role, the Home Office was making around 400 decisions a week. We are now making 4,500 a week, and I commend the civil servants at the Home Office who have driven that extraordinary improvement in management, grip and productivity. But we on this side of the House do not believe that we can grant our way out of this challenge; we have to stop the boats in the first place. That is why true deterrence is so critical, and it is why our Rwanda partnership, which Labour has tried to frustrate at every opportunity, is so important to securing our borders.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The Minister will know that Mears has recently signed a contract with a hotel in Glasgow South West, so perhaps he can update us on the status of that contract. He has mentioned the backlog. Not everyone in a hotel in asylum accommodation is illegal; some will be successful in being granted refugee status. Can he tell us what discussions he is having with local authorities—I am thinking of Glasgow City Council in particular—on supporting and providing financial support for those successful refugees who will have to leave their hotel or asylum accommodation following a decision? Will he meet me and my Glasgow colleagues to discuss this issue?
Can the Minister tell us the estimated total operational and associated costs of this new system that he is creating, including barges, military sites, detention facilities and removal centres, alongside the proposed Rwanda deportations? Finally, an investigation by “The News Agents” has found that people traffickers say they are having an easier time sending small boats across the channel because of Brexit, which removed biometric system sharing and pan-European co-operation. What steps is he taking to create a returns agreement with the European Union, binding closer alignment with the EU and system sharing?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Enough. We have had that question, and we are now moving on to the next one.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
My constituents have welcomed Ukrainians into their homes and Hong Kong Chinese into their communities, and our excellent domestic abuse services mean that we often give women from all over the country a fresh place to restart their life. However, that means that there is huge pressure on local schools and housing, and the more than 400 asylum seekers who have arrived in Chelmsford since early summer risk bringing those services to breaking point. Although I welcome today’s announcements, I am concerned that Chelmsford is not on the list. Will the Minister, who is doing an excellent job, work closely with those in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to look at housing for those who are granted asylum, so that the need is shared fairly across the country and does not just create extra pressure on areas that are already hotspots?