Rwanda Plan Cost and Asylum System
Debate between James Daly and Justin Madders
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The unworkability and cost of the Rwanda scheme are representative of this Government’s dysfunctional approach to asylum applications as a whole. Faced with an election this year, and having failed to stop the boats—indeed, the failure was such that 2023 had the second-highest number of boat crossings ever—the grand plan is now to embark on a £400 million gamble on the promise to stop the boats. That is £400 million of taxpayers’ money being effectively lumped on one number at the roulette table with nothing other than blind faith being relied upon that the scheme will deal with the problem. What started as distraction tactics as part of Operation Save Big Dog has become central Government policy as part of Operation Save Ourselves.
I am probably overstating it by saying that blind faith is being shown in the plan. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the previous Home Secretary and the previous Immigration Minister all seem to have privately had doubts about it in office, and nothing I have heard from those on the Government Benches has persuaded me that this is being driven by anything other than desperation. Indeed, the Prime Minister was challenged on “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg” about his time as Chancellor, when he supposedly examined the scheme. In effect, he said of the deterrent effect that it would supposedly have, “We have not tried this before, so we might as well give it a go.” His precise words were:
“This hasn’t been tried before in our country. It’s fair to say it is novel. I’ve been very clear that this is a novel scheme.”
I am all for innovation, but £400 million being spent on something on the basis we have not tried it before ought to be ringing alarm bells, particularly when nothing else that this Government have tried has stopped the boats either. It seems that the Government’s approach now is, in effect, third time lucky.
Justin Madders
No, I have not got time, sorry.
It is £400 million at least, and there may be other costs that we do not know about, and that is why our motion is so important. I thought that taking back control meant an end to handing over millions of pounds to foreign powers without anything coming back in return. The Government’s impact assessment for the Bill states that it is
“uncertain what level of deterrence impact it will have”,
and given that deterrence is its whole point, there could not be a clearer case of the headline-first approach that this Government take on so many things, which is why, from housing to health to education to the economy, we are in such a mess.
In the most optimistic scenario, about 1% of those who cross the channel can expect to be sent to Rwanda—that is if all the numerous hurdles that we have talked about are overcome. Will anyone say, “I won’t take a chance on that 1% risk”? Of course not; it is just a giant smokescreen to cover up the Government’s many failings.
Those who work day to day in housing asylum seekers do not appear to have much confidence in the likelihood of there being any deterrent effect, either. We can go online and see that Serco, which is responsible for housing asylum seekers in private housing, is still advertising to landlords that it can guarantee rents for up to five years for doing so. It would hardly be doing that if it thought the Rwanda scheme would be a success or any other Government policies in the area were likely to have any effect.
I see nothing in the Rwanda agreement that will deliver on the claims being made about it. Never before has so much been given by so many for so little in return. When we have record taxation levels, public services on their knees and record Government debt, it is right that we challenge and question whether all that expenditure does what it says on the tin. It seems that the Prime Minister agrees with Labour’s approach. I will end with some words from his appearance on “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg”. When asked about the examination of the scheme, he said:
“You should always ask probing questions. You should always approach things from a position of scepticism to ensure that you get value for money for taxpayers.”
That is exactly what Labour’s motion seeks. The fact that the Government are set to oppose it says everything we need to know about why there is so little confidence that the scheme will deliver.
Putting Rwanda rhetoric ahead of reality is a really poor way to run the country. With that approach, it is no wonder that the Government are running scared of the people’s verdict.
Football Governance
Debate between James Daly and Justin Madders(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Fovargue. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) for bringing this debate. As he said, football is our national game. We invented the modern sport of football, and it is popular around the globe with millions of people watching.
Despite covid-19, the Premier League remains in a strong position. Those running the Premier League have managed to generate previously unthinkable levels of income through commercial deals. Yet much of that money leaks out of the game, to agents or, more pertinently for this debate, to owners. Much of the money washing through the game does not get reinvested in it. Although we have had some £600 million invested in grassroots football over the past couple of decades, thanks to the Football Association and the Premier League, that is less than premier league clubs spend in one transfer window. While my constituency has benefited, with great new facilities at Neston High School and the Vauxhall Sports Club, which, for the record, I occasionally play on when circumstances allow, there is still a long way to go. Beyond that investment, we have too many second-rate pitches, which are rendered unusable by a day or two of heavy rain. Our grassroots facilities still compare unfavourably with those in top footballing nations. Only one in three of our grass pitches are of adequate quality. We only have half the number of 3G pitches that Germany has.
We know the pressures local authorities are under to balance the books. There is little left for discretionary spending on improving sporting facilities, which means that pitches are often left with poor drainage, resulting in some areas of the pitch having more mud than grass, and little or nothing in the way of changing facilities. In many ways, the pitches of today are worse than the ones I played on as a child. More of the money in the game needs to reach the grassroots level.
The money does not reach the fans either. It does not manifest in cheaper entrance tickets or support for other clubs. One only needs to look at my team, Manchester United, to see where a lot of the money goes. Since they took over in 2005, using money to buy the club that they subsequently attached to it as a debt, the Glazers have taken over £1 billion out of that club in dividend interest and finance costs. If ownership models are to be reformed, I would like to see that model of ownership banished for ever. That £1 billion did not have to leave the game. Perhaps some of the struggling clubs we have discussed would have survived if the money had been more equitably distributed.
We need to think about the wider health of the game. A few clubs at the top are getting richer and richer, or, as in the case of my club, the owners are getting richer and richer, but at the other end we hear of clubs that are struggling just to survive day to day.
James Daly
Does the hon. Gentleman think there is a strong case for financially powerful and sustainable clubs, such as Manchester United, taking a charitable view with neighbouring clubs that are struggling financially and need direct help? Bury is approximately half an hour from Old Trafford. Does he think we should put in place mechanisms for premier league clubs to help clubs in financial difficulties lower down the pyramid, especially if they are geographically close and have other links?
Justin Madders
There is nothing to prevent that from happening now. Manchester United’s reserve games used to be played at Gigg Lane, providing a financial benefit for the club. I have been persuaded that we need to formalise this help, because I am concerned about some of the strings attached to the recent discussions on support for league clubs. I think the inequality of distribution of money has highlighted clearly why the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee said earlier this year that the current business model for football is unsustainable.
As the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) highlighted, the governance of football in this country is unlike any other. The financial muscle of the Premier League, which has an income 12 times that of the FA, distorts everything else. The financial power it has must be used more widely for the greater good. Recent developments suggest that the Premier League understands that and recognises it has a financial responsibility to the rest of the game. However, I hope I will be forgiven for being a little cynical about Project Big Picture and what it really meant.
The extra cash for Project Big Picture would have been welcome in the short to medium term, but the strings attached to it and the further concentration of power that were part of the deal could only, I think, come with a huge health warning. What was being proposed would have baked in an uneven playing field, because the price of that extra cash was preferential votes for longer serving clubs, thereby ensuring that the interests of football as a whole would forever be dictated to by the biggest clubs. The proposals would have meant a reduction in the size of the Premier League, and so naturally less opportunity for promotion to it. The league cup and community shield would also have been cancelled. Premier League clubs would have been playing fewer games overall—except that they probably would not have been.
The reduction in the number of fixtures might have been designed not to ensure that elite athletes in the Premier League got extra rest between games, but to pave the way for a European super-league that, in the long run, would hoover up all the power, all the attention and all the money. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham said that it would not be easy to establish such a super-league, but in the last 25 years we have seen enough in football to know that, in the end, money talks. The Premier League clubs would have got their way.
I fear that the proposed change in voting rights would ultimately have meant that the domestic game would have become subservient to the interests of the 20 or so clubs that would have been part of the European super-league. Entry to that super-league would, of course, be by invitation only. The massive financial imbalance that already ensures that the biggest clubs tend to participate in the champions league each year would also have had an additional lock on it to make sure that the biggest clubs could never fall out of it. I could, of course, be wrong about that. The Premier League could offer the support without any strings attached. Discussions are ongoing so let us see what happens.
There is no doubt that a new strategic review is under way, and that may result in some of the benefits without some of the downsides. The concern highlighted in the debate demonstrates the reason we need an independent body to regulate football and ensure that all decisions made are in the interests of the game as a whole. We have all expressed that concern. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) said, every team is a big part of the community. The owners are transient, but fans and supporters are there through thick and thin, in good times and bad, whoever is the owner. Football clubs need to be treated much more as a community asset and less as a business as they have been for far too long.
My final point, Ms Fovargue, relates to agency reform and control. A study of agency fees paid by Premier League clubs between October 2015 and January 2016 revealed that £46.5 million was paid to agency intermediaries. That is money that is leaving the game altogether. Frankly, I would like to outlaw agency fees altogether, but I am sure that will not happen. Those figures demonstrate there are huge sums in the game that do not benefit even the highly paid players; the money certainly does not benefit the clubs or the wider community. Let us do something about that as well when we reform football governance, which I hope we are going to do.