Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)]

I simply wish to make one request and propose one amendment to the Bill. I have listened to the whole debate. There are more asylum seekers in hotels in my constituency than in any other constituency in the country. I have two detention centres, one of which was the last to imprison children, so I understand. I tour the hotels, and every time there is a debate like this in this place and it is reported outside, I worry because it creates insecurity, worry and fear among the asylum seekers in my constituency.

To answer a point made earlier, most of the asylum seekers in hotels at the moment did come in the boats, but they came in the boats because there is no other route. It is as simple as that. I chair the Public and Commercial Services Union parliamentary group, and the PCS and the frontline Border Force staff it represents say that the way to stop the boats is to introduce a safe-passage visa system, accessible through our European centres or online. That would undercut the criminal gangs’ money earning potential.

When I meet asylum seekers and listen to their individual stories of the suffering both in their home country and during their passage here, I rarely come away without tears in my eyes. It is also rare that I do not come away impressed by the scale of their talent, and by just how much they can contribute to our economy and our society. I want the message to go out that I welcome asylum seekers—it is as simple as that.

There has been a failure to address the age assessment of individual applicants. The previous Government introduced the national age assessment board, which uses supposedly scientific measures to assess an applicant’s age. As Members involved in that debate will know, experts both in this place and elsewhere—Lord Winston has been mentioned—have contested the idea that it is a scientific approach and said it is inaccurate. It has been proven to be a failure, and where it has been used in other countries, it has never been solely relied upon. What has been successful is a comprehensive evidence-taking process, through a social work-type assessment of individuals.

Since the new system was introduced, as the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) mentioned, there have been 1,300 incorrect assessments. What does that mean? I will give one example. Under the new law, 450 people have been convicted of arriving on the boats. Of those 450 convictions, 14 people who were imprisoned were later determined to be children. If a child is incorrectly assessed, they are classified as an adult and are put into an adult institution, and some of those classified as adults have therefore been imprisoned alongside adult offenders. That is not fulfilling our duty to safeguard children, is it?

That is why this system needs to be changed. We need to reinvest the £1.7 million that has been wasted on these “scientific” assessments and go back to the social assessments made by professional social work experts. At least we will then be able to live up to the expectation of safeguarding young people.