Immigration

Imran Ahmad Khan Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Imran Ahmad Khan (Wakefield) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure, Sir David, to serve under your chairmanship for the first time.

It is difficult to believe that almost a year ago, the Conservative party was elected by the British people with a mighty majority and a clear mandate to deliver on our promises: to get Brexit done; to provide world-class public services while exercising sound fiscal management; and, crucially, to reform our immigration policy to emulate the system that is successfully employed by Australia.

Sadly, over the summer months hundreds of illegal immigrants have crossed the English channel from France to our shores. This year, a record 7,200 migrants have reached UK shores in small boats, compared with around 1,850 last year. In September alone, 1,954 made it across the English channel. I read in the newspapers only two days ago that a French navy warship escorted a boat full of migrants across the channel.

Those who land on British soil, as well as those who labour in the grey economy, are sent to hotels and other accommodation across the country, such as the Cedar Court Hotel and the Hotel St Pierre in Wakefield. Such luxury establishments are being used, at great expense, to house those who are awaiting their asylum determination. However, I take heart from the fact that the Home Secretary has taken a strong line against illegal crossings to the UK. Firmer action in our territorial waters, through our work with the French border forces and through our legal system, will be critical to achieving that objective.

The Labour party chooses to attack the Home Secretary for her laudable decision to stand steadfast against illegal immigration. However, rewarding those who illegally cross with automatic residency is false compassion. It undermines our national security and not only encourages others to follow suit, but supports the beastly trade in humans, which is certainly something we should never encourage. I do not wish for the drawbridge to be raised and for the United Kingdom to be isolated from the rest of the world, but I feel it is nigh time for economic migration to be disaggregated from the claims of those who seek genuine asylum. The two have become dangerously conflated in the public consciousness.

Diversity and tolerance of one another, regardless of creed or colour, is one of our characteristic principles. My ancestors are testament to that principle. My late father, who was born in the North-West Frontier of British India, in what is now Pakistan, travelled to the United Kingdom to study at University College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He served his entire life, until his dying day, as a consultant dermatologist, serving and tending to the people of Wakefield, who I am proud to represent. My family have suffered terrible persecution, with many being killed and tortured in Muslim-majority countries, because they are from a peace-loving community that is repugnant to the peddlers of hate and extremism—Ahmadis. Many of them have sought refuge and forged purposeful lives in our country. That is something we should be proud of.

The Conservatives want to ensure that our immigration system is remade to attract the brightest and best to enter the United Kingdom legally to live and work, regardless of their country of origin. It is our moral duty to ensure that the United Kingdom prevents people from illegally entering our country and taking advantage of us and our people. If we do not, the state of our community relations will only go one way—a deep and painful downward trajectory. For all these reasons, we must tackle the menace of illegal immigration with zero tolerance for illegal claims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Stephens]

The UK Government have a responsibility to provide safe legal routes for people claiming asylum. I will come to that later in my contribution.

What is the legal position for people seeking asylum in the UK after arriving from France? Those arriving in the UK and making a claim for asylum are subject to international refugee law, and their rights are not affected by the mode of arrival or means of entry. The UK is a signatory to the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees and the 1967 protocol.

How does the legal system intervene to help people who are being removed? I was staggered to hear that the legal profession in the UK has been overrun by these Trotskyite and Marxist lawyers who are stopping people being deported. What absolute, utter nonsense. That is certainly not the case. I will explain, for those watching this debate, how the legal system actually stops people being removed, because the claim that the legal system sometimes unfairly prevents people from being removed is nonsense and misrepresents how our asylum and human rights law functions and its purpose

There are established processes for the removal of people in certain circumstances where their asylum claim has been fully heard by the UK or should be held elsewhere. I have no problem with that. I have seen individuals come to my office who have had to be deported because of the way in which they went through the system. Some of that included criminal activity. I have no problem with that at all. However, removals are stopped for a wide range of reasons, such as on health grounds, concerns about trafficking, or appeals relating to protecting the rights of individuals. Where those removals are halted, it is because the Home Office and the Home Secretary are not adhering to the law.

Removals cannot be prevented by lawyers themselves. We have heard in this debate that it is the lawyers who are stopping deportations. That is nonsense. The legal assistance is provided to ensure that the law is upheld and, if necessary, a court of law determines whether a removal is stopped. Such processes have to be undertaken quickly, as applicants will not usually be given much notice of removal proceedings. That is a fact, as my constituency casework shows, given that Glasgow is the only place in Scotland that takes on asylum seekers.

[Imran Ahmad Khan]

The hon. Gentleman says that Glasgow takes on asylum seekers. He will be fully aware that, a few years ago, one of my co-religionists was murdered in his shop by somebody of Pakistani origin simply for being an Ahmadi Muslim who wished his Christian neighbours a happy Easter. As somebody who is particularly familiar with the issue of asylum, I also know of abuses of the system and of people who genuinely do need safe avenues for asylum. I can tell the hon. Gentleman categorically that people can apply for asylum in this country through legal mechanisms. Since the 1980s, the Ahmadi community has banned and refused people the right of entering this or any other country through illegal means. That is why we have no—

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order. If that was an intervention, I must say to the hon. Member that it was quite a long intervention and it did not seem to have a question to it, so could he come to his point, please?

[Imran Ahmad Khan]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that evidence shows that people abuse the asylum system? Do we not want those who come here to live and work among us and to become part of the fabric—the silver and golden threads—of the national tapestry to obey the rules? That is one of the characteristics of our country, and if we allow those who are coming in to break the rules from the get-go, are they going to fit?

[Chris Stephens]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his second speech. I must say to him—I will be quick, for time purposes—that there is a great Ahmadi community in Glasgow, of which we are very proud. All I can say to him, based on my experience of dealing with asylum claims, is that asylum claim abuses are few and far between compared with those seeking genuine asylum.

Touching on the hon. Gentleman’s point, I would want asylum seekers to be given, after a certain point, the right to work so that they are embedded in the community. That must be looked at. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) has a private Member’s Bill on that matter, and there must be serious discussion about allowing asylum seekers the right to work.

I am proud to have an office manager who is a refugee, who had family members murdered by Saddam Hussein’s regime. When she came to this country, her father was working. Far from the rhetoric that we heard about the Labour party being left wing, it was the Labour party that took my office manager’s father’s national insurance from him. The then Labour Government changed the law to stop asylum seekers having the right to work. I hope the hon. Member for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan) will seriously consider that in his Bill and consider that asylum seekers, after a certain period, should have the right to work so that they can make the contribution that he wants them to make.

As a party, we believe that the Home Office’s response to the recent channel crossings displays a complete disregard for human suffering that is both shocking and shameful. Responding to the crossings in a dystopian, quasi-militaristic way, with surveillance technology, appointing a clandestine channel threat commander and positing the idea of bringing in the Royal Navy—later condemned by the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organisation for Migration—only reinforces the headlines that liken that failure of leadership to an invasion.

Contrary to the Department’s remarks, the reality is far from being the crisis the newspapers suggest it is. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ representative in the UK said recently:

“The UK is far from the epicentre of the real challenge.”

Asylum claims in the UK—as I have said, and I will say it again—have fallen in 2020, as confirmed by Abi Tierney, the director general of UK Visas and Immigration, to the Select Committee on Home Affairs in September.

The response to the petition describes channel crossings as “unacceptable behaviour”. The Department seems unable to understand—or perhaps fails to mention—that it has already closed and is closing more safe legal routes for refugees to reach the United Kingdom. That is leaving extremely vulnerable individuals who are often fleeing unimaginable conditions, as the hon. Member for Strangford rightly pointed out, with little choice but to place their fate in the hands of criminal gangs. Furthermore, a report last year by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, of which the Home Secretary was a member at the time, said:

“In the absence of robust and accessible legal routes for seeking asylum in the UK, those with a claim are left with little choice but to make dangerous journeys by land and sea.”