Illegal Migration Debate

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Department: Home Office

Illegal Migration

Jo Gideon Excerpts
Tuesday 24th October 2023

(1 year ago)

Commons Chamber
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Robert Jenrick Portrait Robert Jenrick
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We are always looking for further locations, but we do not currently have any agreement with ports in Teesside.

Jo Gideon Portrait Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
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I thank my right hon. Friend for the work he has done to bring down the number of boat crossings and to speed up people being sent back. I also thank him personally for coming to Stoke-on-Trent to see the challenges we have. My hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) mentioned the hotel that is the gateway to our city and symbolic of what we aspire to: levelling up. I am grateful that it is to be one of the 50.

Robert Jenrick Portrait Robert Jenrick
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I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s kind words and for the leadership she has shown in arguing on behalf of her constituents for that migrant hotel to close. Her argument was grounded in levelling up, to which she is very committed. I know from working with Stoke-on-Trent City Council on many different things in the recent past how important that gateway to the city is, and how much investment has been secured to improve it, so that leisure and business travellers arrive in that great city and see it at its best. Closing that hotel will, I hope, play a small part in turning that tide.