Asylum Applicants: Mental Health and Wellbeing

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dame Maria Miller (in the Chair)]

I will call Gareth Bacon to move the motion and then I will call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for a 30-minute debate.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered asylum applications and asylum seekers’ mental health and wellbeing.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. I did not want to bring forward this debate. Indeed, I did everything I could to avoid tabling it, and I would like to explain why. At the outset, I would like to talk about the challenging immigration situation faced by this country. Britain is one of the most tolerant and welcoming communities in the world. A recent King’s College study found, among other things, that only 5% of the population would not want immigrants as neighbours. Similarly, it was reported that, by last year, 75% of ethnic minority people living in Britain either felt very strongly or strongly British. Those are very positive statistics.

But we must also recognise the need to strike a balance between welcoming people and having reasonable immigration policies. Uncontrolled immigration and unchecked illegal immigration can have very serious consequences. That is why I believe the Home Secretary is right to be working to stop people putting their lives at risk by crossing the English channel in small boats to come to this country illegally. We must ensure that those coming to this country seeking asylum do so through legal routes.

It is right that we respond appropriately to the plight of asylum seekers escaping violent, authoritarian and dictatorial regimes that systematically persecute and even execute their own people. It is our duty to take in genuine asylum seekers, just as it is our duty to remove economic migrants who have entered our country illegally. It is our duty to process asylum claims quickly and efficiently for the good of all concerned.

It cannot be denied that pressures in our asylum system have dramatically increased in recent years, to unprecedented levels. Indeed, the number of people waiting for longer than six months for an initial decision went up from around 18,000 in 2019 to 60,000 in the space of two years leading up to 2021. That is a serious matter that requires our urgent attention. In saying that, I make no criticism of Ministers, who I sincerely believe are battling to fix the system. I am afraid that in some instances, the lack of application and apparent disinterest on the part of some officials, exacerbated by the high-handed arrogance and disdain of some individuals who work closely with Ministers, have had terrible consequences on the lives of real people, in particular their mental health and wellbeing.

That brings me to a case I want to draw attention to, which caused me to table this debate. The case relates to an asylum claimant who until recently resided in my constituency of Orpington. In recent weeks, he has been moved to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), who has given me full permission to continue processing this case. I will refer to this man as Mr A. He is a 31-year-old Syrian refugee who arrived in the UK on 3 November 2020. He initially claimed asylum on 7 April 2021, but by March 2022 had not received any updates at all on the progress of his application. At that point, charitable Orpington constituents started to contact me to raise Mr A’s case.

I will quote from a letter I received from a neighbour of Mr A, who has been attempting to assist him. I received this letter in January this year, after I met Mr A and my constituent at my advice surgery. I believe it summarises Mr A’s situation very clearly:

“Mr A is an asylum seeker from Syria. He arrived in the United Kingdom on 3rd November 2020 on a Chilean passport as his Grandmother was from Chile. He has never visited Chile and has no relatives living in that country. Chile has mutual diplomatic relations with Syria and if he were sent to Chile they would return him to Syria.

Mr A was detained in Syria for 5 years for protesting against the government. Whilst in detention he was beaten, tortured and shot with lead pellets, the photos of which I gave to you. He still has over 150 pellets in his body.

Mr A escaped from prison after his father borrowed money and bribed one of the guards and is therefore classed as an escaped prisoner in Syria and his life would be in danger if he were to return to that country. The debt still is outstanding and also added to Mr A’s worries as he is unable to work and doesn’t know when he is going to be able to start repaying this debt.

Mr A is married and has three stepchildren. His ultimate goal is to be granted asylum in this country and bring his family here for a safe and better life. He wants to be able to work and settle in this country which he has called home for over two years.

Mr A had his final interview with the Home Office on 26th October 2021 and should have been informed of the decision shortly thereafter. It is now January 2023 and he is still awaiting a decision. This has affected Mr A’s mental health and in August 2022 he climbed 50 feet up Tower Bridge and threatened to kill himself as he was so psychologically tired.

When I met Mr A about a year ago he had no support and was really lonely and struggling to get help from anyone. I took it upon myself to arrange deliveries from the food bank, contact the mosque for support and arrange English lessons for him, his spoken English now is much improved and he is able to communicate in a basic way.

Mr A’s life whilst in Great Britain has been one of loneliness, fear of deportation and worry for his family which I find heart-breaking. I feel that we as a country have really let Mr A down and it needs to be resolved with a final positive decision of asylum as soon as possible.”

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate on a hugely important issue. Obviously, there are tens of thousands of Mr As in all sorts of temporary accommodation, and they are sometimes demonised for being in hotels. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is not their choice to be there, that we need to establish whether people are asylum seekers or not, that we can do that only if we process cases quickly, and that the best way to ensure that people do not get into this awful situation and that their mental health is protected is to process them swiftly and fairly?

[Gareth Bacon]

I do agree with the hon. Gentleman, and the point of my bringing this case to the House is to highlight the fact that Home Office officials simply are not approaching the issue with anything like sufficient urgency to sort it out. I reiterate the point I made earlier: I make no criticism of Ministers in this regard, because I do not doubt for one second that every Home Office Minister is straining every sinew to make this a reality. My criticism, such as it is, is aimed squarely at the officials, who do not seem to see these people as people; they see them as problems they will get to when they have time.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward an issue that is important to him, and congratulate him on being so assiduous. Does he not agree that our obligations—and, I believe, our moral duty—must mean that, as well as feeding and sheltering asylum seekers, we ensure they are supported to survive in this land, which is foreign to them, and are given help to assimilate, rather than being left voiceless and frightened in a hotel room with their children, wondering for weeks what is going to happen next?

[Gareth Bacon]

I have a lot of sympathy with that point. It is critical that we process asylum claims much more quickly because while those claims are in abeyance, the asylum seekers are living in stasis. It might be that people who come to claim asylum are not asylum seekers, but economic migrants. That does not make them bad people, but it does mean that they are illegal immigrants, and they should be returned. What should not happen, as in the case of my constituent, is that they live in a state of limbo for years. That should not be acceptable in any way, shape or form.

I became aware of Mr A’s case on 14 March 2022, when a constituent made contact to request that I engage with the Home Office. Back then, my constituent had already noted Mr A’s deteriorating mental health. However, despite my office’s regular efforts to obtain updates, it was not until August 2022—five months later—that the Home Office responded, and only to say that Mr A would have to wait a further six months for an update.

I am sure the House can imagine the effect that that message had on Mr A. Indeed, only a few days after receiving that news, he climbed up Tower Bridge with the intention of attempting to kill himself. Fortunately, he was talked down. He was taken to hospital and later returned to the accommodation with which he had been provided in Biggin Hill. Given the elevated risk of harm displayed by Mr A, my office contacted the Home Office to alert it, in the hope that a sense of urgency would be felt by those in charge of processing the case. However, several more months went by without a resolution of any kind.

In January, therefore, I met with Mr A and another of my constituents, who had been helping him. During our meeting, Mr A presented me with evidence for his asylum claim. That included X-ray images of his body. Disturbingly, the images showed a large amount of metal shrapnel lodged in his torso and limbs as a result of being shot at by the Syrian regime. The evidence also included photographs of him after he had been beaten with an iron bar. Faced with this disturbing evidence and having no success at all in persuading Home Office officials to progress Mr A’s case, my office informed officials that if no progress had been made in two weeks—that is, by 3 February—I would seek a meeting with the Home Secretary to personally brief her on the situation, place the entire file in her hands and ask her to intervene. I hoped that that might lift the all-pervading sense of disinterest and inertia.

No such luck: on 31 January, I received an email from Home Office officials that gave no additional information and no indication as to when a decision would be made, and that claimed to have sent a response to Mr A on 16 January. Neither Mr A nor my other constituent who attended the meeting with me on 20 January—four days after the Home Office letter was allegedly sent—had mentioned that letter. On 1 February, my office called the Home Office hotline to request a copy of it. The response we received was that the Home Office was unable to locate the letter, and the officials stated that it had not been uploaded to the system. When they asked my staff member if he would like to request that they find the letter and send it to him, and he said he would indeed like them to do that, he was told that that would be treated as a new query and it would be sent to my office within 20 working days. You could not make this stuff up.

Later that day, I informed my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey), who is a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Office, of my intention to seek a meeting with the Home Secretary. He chased my request diligently, and three weeks later, on the morning of 22 February, he informed me that he had made progress on securing the meeting and asked me for Mr A’s date of birth and case reference number, which I passed to him a short while later. At 6 pm, he informed me that he had secured a meeting with the Home Secretary in her office in the House, scheduled for 6.45 pm that evening.

When I turned up for the meeting, I was brusquely turned away by a Home Office special adviser called Jake Ryan, who refused to allow me in. When my hon. Friend told him that that was unacceptable, the special adviser swore in his face. The high-handed arrogance of this unelected political appointee was staggering. I gather that my hon. Friend escalated the situation to higher authorities because at last there was movement on Mr A’s case. When I finally attended a meeting with the Home Secretary on 1 March, she informed me that officials had determined Mr A’s case. He would be granted 30 months to remain in the country and his application for asylum was refused on account of him being a Chilean national. The House will recall that I had been informed that, while Mr A had a Chilean grandmother, he is not a Chilean national, has no living Chilean relatives and, indeed, has never visited Chile.

Giving Mr A limited leave to remain means that he cannot regularise his life here or bring his family. Furthermore, giving him limited leave to remain, after which he will presumably be returned to Syria or sent to Chile, which apparently has a returns arrangement with Syria, is terrible news for Mr A because it significantly increases the likelihood of him being returned to a country where there is a direct threat to his life. The fact that the special adviser refused to allow me to see the Home Secretary on 1 March is extraordinarily frustrating, because had he not done so, I would have been able to alert her to those facts and it is possible that a different outcome to Mr A’s case would have been achieved.

In the meeting on 1 March, I asked the Home Secretary for the case to be looked at again by officials, and she assured me that it would be. Two weeks later, on 15 March, I received formal notification from the Home Office of the decision it had taken. The relevant sections of the letter read:

“On 3rd November 2020, Mr A submitted a claim for asylum; I apologise for the delay in progressing this case and any distress this may have caused.”

For the avoidance of doubt, that letter was written in March 2023. The delay referred to amounted to two years and four months. The letter continued:

“Mr A had a series of significant safeguarding issues (suicide attempts); We take the mental health and wellbeing of asylum seekers very seriously. We discussed Mr A’s case with officials and there were a number of delays due to the sensitivities and complexities of the case.”

The claim that Home Office officials take these issues seriously is one that I treat with a great deal of scepticism, certainly in the context of this particular case. Again, for the avoidance of doubt, it was the disinterest and protracted institutional inertia of Home Office officials that caused the safeguarding issues that they referred to.

The letter then stated:

“Mr A’s application was fully considered and the asylum and Humanitarian Protection aspect of the claim has been refused as Mr A does not have any individual protection needs in Chile.

However, we will be granting Mr A a period of leave of 30 months on the basis of his private life as, given his vulnerabilities, there would be insurmountable obstacles to him establishing himself in Chile.”

So on the one hand the Home Office accepts that Mr A would be unable to establish himself in Chile, but on the other it is refusing him asylum here, thereby condemning him to suffer another two and a half years of the purgatory.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the enormous amount of hard work and dedication that he has put in for what is now my constituent; it is absolutely right that he continues to deal with this case.

I am deeply concerned about the information that my hon. Friend has set out to the House. We have an excellent Minister here; I hope that she is listening carefully to what he is informing the House about, that she will go back to the Department later today, and that firm and immediate action will be taken on this matter for my constituent.

[Gareth Bacon]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

For Mr A, two and a half more years of loneliness, worry and fears for his family, as well as fear of deportation back to a country where his life is under threat, has inevitably had further detrimental impacts on his mental health. On 13 April this year, I received a further email from the constituent who attended the advice surgery with Mr A in January. She wrote:

“All of the above matters are causing Mr A great frustration and his mental health has seriously deteriorated. We have an appointment with the mental health team at the hospital in May but I personally am extremely concerned that he may harm himself if these matters are not resolved soon. Anything that you can do would be greatly appreciated. I personally cannot understand why our immigration system seems to be so complicated.”

Since I met the Home Secretary on 1 March, my office has been chasing Home Office officials, and my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West has been asking for updates on my behalf, but absolutely nothing has been forthcoming. We seem to be back in the cycle of disinterest and total inertia. In the meantime, Mr A continues to spiral downwards.

Dame Maria, I realise that I have talked at length about a single case, but that is precisely to highlight the wider implications of the approach of officials to processing asylum applications—an approach that is simply not delivering acceptable outcomes. The consequence is deeply damaging to people such as Mr A. I realise that Ministers cannot fix the system overnight, and I have absolutely no doubt that they are straining every sinew to improve the situation. However, they can make a significant difference in cases such as this. Small steps can lead to long strides.

I know my hon. Friend the Minister to be a woman of high integrity and compassion, so I thank her for listening to me and call on her to do the right thing in cases such as this one. Please take them back to the Home Office and fix them.

Illegal Migration Bill

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

I will support the Bill this evening. The whole point of the Bill—its overriding objective—is to decisively break the current model of the criminal smuggling gangs. In short, it seeks to remove any incentive to pay thousands of pounds to criminal gangs and to attempt to cross the English channel by boat to gain illegal entry to our country.

To put the debate into context, since 2015 we have given safe harbour to just under half a million displaced and vulnerable people from Syria, Afghanistan, Hong Kong and, of course, Ukraine. By contrast, most of the 85,000 who have entered the UK illegally since 2018 have come from safe countries, and almost all have travelled through safe countries. Of all those illegal entrants, the majority are adult males, not vulnerable families. There is no war in Albania, for example, but a quarter of recent illegal immigrants to the UK originate from there.

What has Labour’s answer been? Well, no one seems to know. At last week’s Prime Minister’s questions, all the Leader of the Opposition could do was criticise the Government’s proposals without saying anything about what his party would do differently. The shadow Home Secretary put in a similar performance the previous day, when she said that we need “slogans and not solutions” but offered nothing but empty slogans.

After three years without a policy position, Labour has hurriedly cobbled together five bullet points, none of which is original and all of which have no detail to them. Setting out aims with no measures to achieve them is not a plan; it is empty rhetoric. The Labour party has no plan to tackle illegal immigration, and, more to the point, it shows no sign of wanting one.

The Government have said that our approach is two-pronged: first, to stop the small boats, which the Bill is designed to achieve, and secondly, to expand safe and legal routes, as has been done in the case of Syria, Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Ukraine, alongside an annual cap set by Parliament. I would like to hear more about that from the Government, because I believe it is important that such proposals be brought forward quickly as the Bill proceeds through Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) has been vocal about the idea of creating an offshore asylum visa processing system, which I think could be helpful.

The Bill cannot be the end of the story in dealing with illegal immigration, but it is a solid foundation. At a stroke, it could destroy the business model of the criminal gangs and remove the incentive for people to risk their lives on hazardous channel crossings. The principle of the Bill is therefore clearly right, and I will be supporting it this evening.

Illegal Migration Bill

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Member’s so-called absurd claim is actually backed up by the United Nations. More importantly, it is frankly naive to suggest that everybody coming here on a boat is a genuine asylum seeker fleeing for humanitarian reasons. The reality is that many of these people are economic migrants who are abusing our asylum system, and that is what this Bill aims to stop.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said that we need solutions, not slogans, so could my right hon. and learned Friend please tell me of a single proposal the right hon. Lady has made that is anything more than an empty slogan? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree with me that Labour Members do not have a plan, and they do not really want one either because they simply do not take this issue seriously?

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Leader of the Opposition made a grand show of his five great missions to fix the country. Tellingly, he omitted stopping the boats. Either he does not care about illegal migration, or he does not know what to do about it.

Public Order Bill

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Fundamentally, police and key partners should view the impacts of disruption cumulatively. The clock should not be reset every day and in each location; they need to look at the tactics in the round.

We need the police to act proactively, decidedly and diligently, so there are various factors that they need to include in their assessment of serious disruption. They need to consider the overall length and the time and impact on communities. They need to look at the disruption to a general area. They need to look at the police resources that have been drained by the action. They need to look holistically and actively at how they take action.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given the strict limitation of police resources, the police should perhaps deploy those resources on dealing with the guerrilla tactics that are putting the people of London at risk of harm and less time policing pronouns on Twitter?

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend raises an issue that is close to my heart, which is that we need our police officers—our brave men and women, the majority of whom are heroes, frankly, in this nation’s law enforcement and security—to be focusing on our priorities and the priorities of the law-abiding majority. Common sense policing means focusing on targeting and fighting the bad guys, fighting the criminals and stopping crime, not policing pronouns and not pandering to politically correct campaigns.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

There are two points that I would like to make to the hon. Gentleman, who is absolutely correct. First, the introduction of safety and security declarations, to which the Government are committed, will help with that, by tracking fast parcels that come into our country, often containing goods and materials such as firearms. Secondly—and it is a point of assurance—there is a force-by-force review of firearms licensing taking place right now.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

T6. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Mayor of London’s recent attempt to blame the heatwave and the school holidays for six murders in four days was as pathetic as his record of trying to help the police fight crime in the capital?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Miss Sarah Dines)]

As of June 2022, the latest data for hospital admissions for under-25s for assault with a sharp object—our primary metric for measuring serious violence—was down 17% in London compared to June 2021. This financial year, we have provided £12 million of funding to the London violence reduction unit, which brings together key partners to tackle violence, and £8 million in Grip funding for the Metropolitan police service’s response to violence.

Metropolitan Police Service

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

Obviously the decision on the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is for the Home Secretary, who will advise Her Majesty on making the appointment in consultation with the Mayor of London. Just on two of the hon. Gentleman’s substantive points, first, I fought hard for resources for the Metropolitan police when I was deputy mayor for policing. In fact, we managed to maintain police officer numbers, such that it is starting from a very high base with the uplift, meaning that the Met now has the highest number of officers it has ever had in its history. That is not true of all forces across the country, because of decisions made by the police and crime commissioners. If he looks back at the record, he will see that I was successful in winning resources.

As for the Daniel Morgan investigation, if the hon. Gentleman looks at the papers he will find that it was a letter from me to the then Home Secretary that stimulated the meeting that resulted in the inquiry.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

This week, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan made a statement about the malaise that the Metropolitan police finds itself in. He blamed a number of people. He blamed the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the outgoing Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Dame Cressida Dick. The one person who was entirely absolved from blame was the person who has been the police and crime commissioner for London for the past six years, and that person is Sadiq Khan.

What is the point of Sadiq Khan, given that he is so utterly unable to influence affairs, and so utterly unresponsible for anything that has happened? Is it not now time to remove responsibility for the Metropolitan police from the Mayor of London’s orbit and return it fully to the Home Office?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend and I were London Assembly Members together, although he continued under the Labour Mayor and I never had that sad experience. He is right that a peculiarity of the Mayor’s term has been the seeming willingness to step away from the issues assailing the capital, rather than step into them. When we were elected to City Hall, we faced a similar spate of knife crime and teenage killings, and we stepped into that without reservation—some would say at enormous political risk. I hope that the current Mayor will take the political risk required to step in and sort out this issue for my hon. Friend’s constituents and those of many other hon. Members. As I said, following the work required to get the Met into shape over the next few months and years, we will have to consider what we should do further about the structure.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. If I may, I would like to pay tribute to both her police force and the police and crime commissioner, Andrew Snowden. I was in Lancaster recently, about a month ago. I would be delighted to visit again, I really would. I want to emphasise the power of business improvement districts in dealing with issues such as antisocial behaviour, giving businesses the confidence they need and ensuring they have police support so they can carry on investing in their businesses and creating jobs locally.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

T2. At the beginning of questions today, my right hon. Friend pointed out that as of last week over 70,000 visas had been issued to Ukrainians. Does she agree that, along with our £450 million package of military aid for Ukraine, the unprecedented package of sanctions against Russia, and world-leading aid provision, that demonstrates our unwavering commitment to the Ukrainian people in their hour of need?

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I entirely understand the concern of the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, the House about the situation in Afghanistan, but the reality is as it is on the ground. We wish it were otherwise, but it is not, so we are working apace—but carefully—to ensure that when the scheme is launched it works well for the people who are eligible for it and works well over the years in which it will operate. There is, I am afraid, no quick answer to this; we must act carefully, and we must reflect the reality on the ground in Afghanistan.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

A few moments ago the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), quoted the number of people who had crossed the channel in small boats, and used that number to attack my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the best way to deal with people crossing to these shores illegally is to support the Nationality and Borders Bill, and will she join me in condemning the Opposition parties who vote against every single measure?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

My hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely right. It is particularly staggering that in Committee the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), condemned the record of the previous Labour Government, who used to argue that people should not be making crossings of this sort, and that they should claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach. That is exactly what should happen.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

This Bill, of course, reflects a manifesto commitment from the Conservative party at the last election—a manifesto that delivered an overwhelming majority for the Conservative party and a mandate to do precisely what we are doing today.

Since last spring, a great many of my constituents have been alarmed by a still ever-increasing number of migrants making the dangerous channel crossing. They are troubled by the risk to life, the reprehensible actions of illegal gangs exploiting vulnerable people and the challenges of protecting our own borders. This Bill meets all three key concerns of my Orpington constituents for reasons that I will set out, so I will be strongly supporting it this evening. Before I begin, however, I would like to pay tribute to Border Force personnel for all the work they do to save lives and keep our country safe—thank you to them.

This Bill is necessary because conflict and instability have displaced hundreds, if not thousands—or, indeed, millions—of people over the past few decades. In 2015 alone, more than 1 million migrants crossed into Europe. Over the last three years channel crossings have increased: 1,900 made this journey in 2019; that quadrupled in 2020 to over 8,400; and in the last six months alone, it has reached almost 6,000.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The House of Commons Library briefing on this issue indicates that, at the beginning of the century, the number of asylum claims was about 84,000 a year, which went down to 36,000 in 2019, the last year before the pandemic. Is not this narrative of a deluge of asylum seekers somewhat overstated by the Government?

[Gareth Bacon]

I do not believe so, and I do not recall using the word “deluge”. It is undeniably a problem, and it is one of the largest things to feature in my inbox on a daily basis.

This has been exacerbated by criminal gangs that are making an immoral profit from human smuggling and trafficking. Critically, migrants are crossing through safe European countries and refusing to claim asylum there. In ever growing numbers, migrants are being drawn to this country, and the situation is becoming unsustainable. The UK is one of the world’s most generous countries for refugee resettlement, and that is right.

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend is making a wonderful speech. He has made two points that I have sat up at. The first was that it was a manifesto commitment to get this piece of legislation delivered. The second was that his inbox is full every single day with queries relating to the Bill. Is it not the case, therefore, that the British public overwhelmingly want to see this issue dealt with? It dominates the news every single day. That is why the Home Secretary is bringing this piece of legislation to get it dealt with once and for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Bacon]

I agree with my hon. Friend entirely. Having listened to the debate on the monitor in my office, I have to say that the tone and content of some of the speeches from the Opposition underline and reinforce why they are the Opposition and not the Government.

Analysis has shown that many migrants might actually be economic migrants and not genuine refugees. Without this Bill, our asylum system is in danger of being continually abused, so we must take steps, as my hon. Friend has just said, to protect our own borders. Part 2 of the Bill, which deals with asylum, is understandably vast, so I will focus on some specific points arising from it. It is remarkable that all claims made by asylum seekers are processed in a homogeneous way and that there is absolutely no distinction between those who have entered the UK legally or irregularly. Some 62% of applicants in the 12 months ending September 2019 entered irregularly.

It is surely common sense that those who have respected our laws and entered our country via legal routes should be on a different footing from those who have sought more clandestine access. Clause 10 will change things by allowing for such differentiation to occur while making the distinction that all genuine refugees will continue to be afforded the same protections under international law. This will in turn help to deter people from making dangerous crossings. Clause 26 will make possible removals to a safe third country while an asylum claim is being heard, further deterring activities that put lives at risk and, in several tragic cases, claim them.

Clause 41 in part 3 is a key part of the Bill, because it gives more powers to Border Force to meet the specific circumstances faced. The problem, as I have said, is severe. Not only are criminal gangs responsible for facilitating these crossings, but they show no signs of stopping and are growing ever more expansionist, using larger vessels and carrying more people.

Migrants crossing in small boats have thus far been intercepted and brought back to the UK to have their asylum claims processed. At present, enforcement powers do not extend to ships in foreign or international waters, and clause 41 would change that by giving Border Force the ability to require migrant vessels to leave UK waters and deter them from our shores. The clause also provides for controlling the vessel and returning it to a safe country—most likely in these instances where it originated from, so the northern beaches of France or Belgium, or any other country accepting disembarkation.

Those who oppose the Bill have claimed that by legislating in this way, the UK would somehow be acting in breach of the 1951 UN refugee convention. That is false. It is fully compatible with all international obligations and conventions. The 1951 convention allows for different classifications where a refugee may not have come directly from a country of persecution. In this instance, if migrants have already transited through a safe European country where they could have claimed asylum, their return is not inconsistent with the convention. Who here in this House would consider France, Belgium, Germany or Italy not to be safe countries? If someone had been in a country where they have seen the worst atrocities possible, they would be lucky to settle there.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has made a very important point about travelling through safe countries, but does he not agree that these asylum seekers are not just travelling through one safe country? They are very often travelling through many safe countries. Essentially they have a shopping trolley as to what they want in this economic migration, so the best way to deal with this is to do so up front and have a meaningful policy, which is what the Bill is here for.

[Gareth Bacon]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. It is a fact that people will travel, often by land, through several safe countries to get to the border of northern continental Europe, thereby to embark for Dover or other parts of southern England.

The simple truth of the matter is that between 2016 and 2019, the UK settled more refugees from outside Europe than any other EU member state. Similarly, safe and legal routes for those needing protection or to reunite with their families still exist. More than 5,400 family reunion visas were issued to partners and children, and more than 29,000 family reunion visas have been issued in the past five years. There have been claims that the Bill reduces support for victims of human trafficking, which would be shocking if it were true, but part 4 of the Bill actually strengthens protections for victims of human trafficking and will be supported by a package of non-legislative measures as part of the new plan for immigration to provide enhanced support for victims.

The public, including my Orpington constituents, want strong but fair border controls. The Bill is about creating a fairer asylum system, both for those who need aid and for the British public. It does just that, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and her Ministers on introducing it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

What plans her Department has to reform the UK’s asylum system.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

What plans her Department has to reform the UK’s asylum system.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

As the Home Secretary has already announced, we will embark next year on one of the biggest ever reforms of our asylum system. The system is in need of fundamental reform in which the principles will be firmness and fairness—fair in that we will rapidly grant claims that are meritorious, but firm in the sense that, where claims do not have merit, we will rapidly refuse them and ensure that people cannot have endlessly repeated bites of the cherry, which sadly is the case at the moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend puts it perfectly. It is unfair on the taxpayer to have people whose claims have been rejected still subsisting in accommodation, and it is unfair on people with meritorious claims, whose claims take longer to hear because the system is not operating in the way it should. We certainly will be reforming it to address the issues he is rightly raising, and he can look forward to supporting legislation in this House in the first half of next year to do exactly that.

[Gareth Bacon]

The law on asylum is dated and complex. Loopholes have been exploited for many years and, as my hon. Friend has stated on many occasions, tougher legislation is required. Will he advise the House as to when that legislation will be presented?

[Chris Philp]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. As I said, we will be introducing legislation in the first half of next year. It will aim to be fair to people with meritorious claims, to make sure that their claims are decided quickly and they are properly looked after. For people who have no valid claim or who seek to bring repeated, vexatious claims, often at the last minute, in order to frustrate removal, we will be shutting down those avenues, which are being abused. This is to make sure the system works fairly for those who need protection, but prevents abuse.