Global Migration Challenge

Janet Daby Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I come back to two points about the issue of criminal gangs and people smuggling. This is not a new phenomenon; it is well established. We have to work not only with our international partners to break the model and have the right level of prosecutions domestically, but with our counterparts on intelligence, intelligence sharing and prosecutions outside the United Kingdom. Much of that is in the new plan for immigration and the Nationality and Borders Bill, which Members on the Government side of the House support but Opposition Members do not. My hon. Friend is also absolutely right to say that it is unfair that a handful of local authorities across the United Kingdom—in England and Wales—have stood up to provide housing accommodation and meet the needs of asylum seekers. That is a shameful reflection on many other local authorities, but that will now be remedied through the dispersal policy.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I cannot accept that the Secretary of State believes that this policy is about protecting people, when we all know that it is utterly harmful. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York were right to speak out against the Government’s unworkable plan to send asylum seekers and refugees to Rwanda. The Government’s language criminalises vulnerable and traumatised people. The Archbishop of York was right to say that

“there is, in law, no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker. It is the people who exploit them that we need to crack down on”.

This policy will also cost the UK taxpayer billions of pounds, as has happened in Australia—is that not correct?

[Priti Patel]

I hear the hon. Lady’s case, but doing nothing is not an option when people are dying in the channel.