Illegal Immigration

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I am not able to give certainty on timelines—I wish that I was—but my hon. Friend will know that I have a constituency interest in getting this right, as RAF Wethersfield in my constituency is being used as an asylum centre. In my conversations with the Minister for Immigration, in a constituency capacity, we discussed the need to drive down the demand for accommodation, be it at Scampton, Wethersfield or anywhere else. The best way of closing down Wethersfield and not needing Scampton is to stop the boats—[Interruption.] We are relentlessly focused on doing so, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) understands, for all the reasons that I have set out.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I welcome the Home Secretary to his position, and I welcome the court judgment this morning. I noticed in the Home Secretary’s statement a complete lack of empathy as to why people seek asylum in the first place—why people risk all, risk their lives, risk everything, to try to cross a dangerous channel to get to what they hope will be a place of safety. He is right to confirm that there is a massive global rise in the number of refugees. Should all Governments not work together to address the causes of that—poverty, wars, human rights abuses and all of those issues? Will he confirm that this country will not walk away from the important—although not perfect—advances made over the past decades by the European Court of Human Rights in improving human rights across Europe, including in this country?

[James Cleverly]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me to refer back to my previous role as Foreign Secretary. I can assure him and the House that a huge part of the work that is done by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is on exactly those issues: addressing climate change so that rural farmers in the developing world have crops that they can grow, sell and eat, and reducing the risk of conflict and persecution. We are addressing those drivers, but I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that the idea that we can somehow uninvent illegal migration is naive beyond belief. We also have to address the fact that people are abused by criminals: they are used as a product to smuggle, and we have to break the business model of the people smugglers, as well as address the issues that drive people away from the countries from which they originate.