Illegal Migration Bill

Jack Brereton Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

For my constituents, the Bill is long awaited. They want us to crack down on the horrific people smugglers, stop small boat crossings, remove those who have no right to be here and deny asylum to those who illegally cross our borders from safe countries.

People voted in overwhelming numbers in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire to take back control of our borders, and they expect this Government to deliver. Stoke-on-Trent has done more than most to welcome those in the greatest need—more than 1,000 refugees and asylum seekers have now been accommodated, not to mention the Ukrainians and others who have been taken in by local families having arrived as a result of Putin’s barbaric war. But we can only take so much. There is certainly no room for chancers from safe countries who are paying big money to shameless smugglers to play the system.

Small boat smuggling is unfair, immoral and unsustainable. The pressure on local health services, schools, social services and the third sector has been significant. I welcome the new Home Office hub in Stoke-on-Trent, which will help to clear the backlog of cases. For too long, all the accommodation pressures have rested on a small number of authorities—including Stoke-on-Trent—defined as resettlement areas, in a “Hotel California” scheme that is supposedly voluntary but with no ability to leave. We were forced to accept totally unsustainable numbers, often in totally inappropriate locations.

I am pleased that the Government have listened and taken action to ensure a more equitable distribution across the country but, ultimately, action is needed to reduce the overall number entering the UK illegally in the first place. I welcome the Bill and the measures announced by the Prime Minister both in December and last week. Unprecedented pressures necessitate unprecedented actions. The actions in the Bill will break the people smugglers’ model. I hope that they will be properly resourced and implemented.

The Home Office must restore our confidence in its ability to deliver, particularly on detention and removal. There is an abundance of determination on that on the Front Bench, which I hope is shared across Government. It is vital that we ensure that the measures are legally watertight and do not face ongoing challenges by Labour-backed lawyers, as we have seen with Rwanda. Everything possible must be done to ensure that the Bill is incontrovertible. We will not enjoy the support of the general public unless we tackle these issues.

The Bill is about fairness and ensuring that illegal migrants cannot jump the queue. It is about ensuring that we never again allow the generosity and compassion of the British people to be abused by unscrupulous people smugglers and bogus claimants.