Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Jerome Mayhew and Christian Wakeford

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christian Wakeford]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We are seeing a party that wants to fight the deportation of foreign criminals but whose Members then insult their opponents and hide away by turning off their screens.

Let me return to my speech. Britain truly does have a proud history of providing a safe haven for those fleeing persecution and oppression. I know that because my own family have been part of it. During the second world war, my grandfather came home from university one day and saw his entire family, other than his twin brother, get shot. They fled during the war and ended up, of all places, in Tamworth, followed by Pendle and finally Keighley, before my grandfather passed on. People who have come here have been part of recent wars and recent refugee camps. They sought refuge in our country. We are a proud nation, a helpful nation and a compassionate nation. We will do what we can. That is especially the case in my constituency of Bury South, where, if people need help, we respond.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

We have heard from the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) that there are between 25 million and 30 million asylum seekers worldwide, so demand clearly outstrips any possible form of supply. We should be having a debate about the number of legal asylum seekers within the process. Should it be 10,000, 20,000 or 40,000? There has to be some limit. If the focus of the argument were that, would it not be more sensible to shut down obviously illegal and obviously dangerous routes of alternative entry?

[Christian Wakeford]

My hon. Friend gets very much to the crux of the problem. I am not going to talk about what threshold is right or wrong, but I am going to talk about the fact that we are trying to achieve a fair system that helps those who are most in need. That is what we truly need to understand. Our communities are rich in their diversity because of immigration and because of the people we have been helping. I think again of the Syrian resettlement scheme, which we are proud of. In Lancashire we have taken thousands, and I am proud of us helping those most in need, but for far too long the system has been exploited by people smugglers, criminal gangs and asylum shoppers, who cheat that system. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, people are paying extra either to break into a lorry or to get into a boat to be shipped across. That is not the right way to try to seek asylum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Wakeford]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those meaningful comments. I was not going to touch on that matter, but it is an important part of the debate that again takes us to the crux of why we are trying to—[Interruption.] I get the feeling that another intervention is on the way.

[Jerome Mayhew]

May I elaborate on that point? As a former member of the Bar, I struggle to criticise members of the legal profession who use legitimate means to extend the stay of their clients, but that is surely an argument—a very strong argument—for exactly the terms of the Bill. It is not an abuse of the system to exploit it, so we cannot complain about that, but we need to remove those loopholes so that our legal teams properly represent their clients but it does not slow the system down.

[Christian Wakeford]

I thank my hon. and, perhaps, learned Friend for his further comments. As I said earlier, this goes to the heart of what the Bill is actually about. Some Opposition Members, in particular, may disagree with particular points. I say to them, “Back the Bill on Second Reading, and try to make the changes that you want to see in Committee.” They acknowledge that there is clearly a problem, but they do not want to do anything to fix it. It is almost as if they want to see us fail and want to see Britain fail, and that is absolutely wrong.

The way in which things currently operate is not fair to the most vulnerable people who are in genuine need of asylum, or to the British public, who unfortunately have to pay for it. We must help to ensure that refugees claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. The current trend means that we see refugees reaching a safe country such as France, Greece or Italy—indeed, countries in most of southern Europe—and then pressing on with their journey, paying people smugglers to help them into the UK illegally or falling victim to criminal gangs who exploit them. There was a reference earlier to the Jungle camp. We need only see what goes on there to realise that many of these journeys are life-threatening for many people, so we need to do what we can to prevent them.

In October 2020, a Kurdish-Iranian family tragically died when their overcrowded boat sank off the coast of France. Both parents drowned, along with their nine-year-old, their six-year-old and their 15-month-old baby. Every journey across the channel is life-threatening, so we absolutely need to take this seriously and do everything we can to try to prevent anyone from making that journey when it is not necessary.

Last month was the worst ever recorded for illegal crossings, more than 2,100 people having arrived, and I fear that that figure may be surpassed this month. Many of the people risking their lives to cross the channel are young men who are economic migrants and are denied legitimate asylum seeker status.

As Conservatives, we will protect those most in need and put the rights of those who respect the rules above those of the asylum shoppers who take our country for a ride. We need an asylum system that is fair to everyone—a system that prioritises women and children escaping wartorn countries and those fleeing unwarranted persecution, not a system that is openly gamed by economic migrants or exploited by people smugglers.