Nationality and Borders Bill (Eighth sitting)

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 21st October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Blomfield]

Many of us could tell similar stories of hopes dashed by the mismatch, reflected in some of the Government’s language around this legislation, between their ambition and the reality as it affects people’s lives. We see safe and legal routes in name only, with the Government talking the talk but failing to walk the walk. On its own objectives, the clause will fail. It is a flawed policy. The Minister looks critical of what I say. I would love him to intervene on me to set out the programme of safe and legal routes that will be unfolded, because they are the principle that underpin the strategy in clause 10. Without that, clause 10 cannot stand part of the Bill.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I doubt that what I am about to say on clause 10 will shock Members. It is a fantastic element of the legislation because it will act as a deterrent to one of the many pull factors that the United Kingdom has and why so many people are prepared to make the dangerous journey through mainland Europe—that is not war torn, as some would like to have it seen as—to try to make it here to our United Kingdom.

The hon. Member for Sheffield Central talked about the hostile environment, but I remind him that in May 2007 it was the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), the then immigration Minister in a Labour Government, who referred to a hostile environment in his announcement of a consultation document. He said:

“We are trying to create a much more hostile environment in this country if you are here illegally.”

When that comment is added to the remarks of Baroness Scotland—cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South—that people should claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in, it does not take much to understand the demise of the Labour party in red wall seats such as Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. People in my constituency want to see tougher immigration control, and 73% voted for Brexit because they wanted us to take back control of our borders. Clause 10 is one method by which we will take back control, because it will say clearly to people that if they make an illegal entry to this country it will count against them. If people take a safe and legal route, the country will open its arms to them and bring them over here, as we have done for people from Syria and Afghanistan.

[Anne McLaughlin]

The hon. Member keeps talking about people coming here illegally to apply for refugee status. Of the 5,000 people who came last year by boat, 98% were deemed by the Home Office to be eligible to apply for asylum. They were “genuine asylum seekers”, to use his words and they were not here illegally. They will only become illegal if the Bill is enacted.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. What I heard is that 5,000 people made illegal entry into this country, putting money into the hands of people smugglers, which ultimately funds wider criminality here and in mainland Europe. That is obviously negative, because it means that more people will be trapped in misery. Even Opposition parties accept that the system is currently broken and we need to fix it, but they seem to want to make sure that we have even more people come here—I heard the comparison to other European countries—rather than what people voted for this Government to do, which is to deter people from making those journeys so that they use safe and legal routes.

[Neil Coyle]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not listening when my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central outlined that the explanatory notes explain that the Bill will mean that some people are more likely to be forced to use criminal gangs. I am sure that he would not support that.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I disagree. The clause will not force people to use criminal gangs. It is one strand of a wider idea of deterring people from using dangerous routes, including pushbacks, offshoring and a second status for those who enter the country illegally. All those factors brought together, as part of a wider policy, will act as a deterrent, as we heard from His Excellency the High Commissioner for Australia. This clause is one of those deterrents and will form part of a wider package, which has my full support.

I applaud the Minister for this fantastic piece of work. We will always accept people in this country who take safe, legal routes. We will do our utmost to make sure that those people who are most in need are protected. This country has a fantastic history of looking after such people. Stoke-on-Trent is the fifth highest contributor to the asylum dispersal scheme—a Conservative-run authority with three Conservative Members of Parliament. We are proud of our city’s history, but at the same time we also acknowledge that illegal crossings of the Channel are putting people’s lives in danger unnecessarily and causing huge strain on our systems. Such crossings also enable and make profits for the disgusting criminal gangs. The only way to stop that is to stop people wanting to take those journeys. The clause is one part of a wider strategy to ensure that that happens.

[Anne McLaughlin]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way, at least. He seems so determined to stop illegal crossings—not illegal people, illegal crossings—and I agree that no one wants people to take dangerous journeys. What are his thoughts and ideas on how we can expand and develop the safe and legal routes, on which the Bill is apparently based, as an alternative? If we have those routes, people will not have to take dangerous journeys.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The hon. Lady has just promoted me to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office or the Home Office. I would be delighted if the Minister were looking for someone to join him in the Department, but I am sure my Whip would have something to say about that. It is a complicated situation. In Afghanistan, for example, we had a brief window for a safe and legal route to bring people out via the airport. Obviously, we cannot go into Afghanistan tomorrow; we would have to negotiate such an exit route with an Administration that I believe would be hostile to that—I do not believe they have good intentions—so we need to look to neighbouring countries such as Pakistan to see whether we can develop safe and legal entry routes in those other countries. I have full faith that the Government will come about that, but first we need the Bill in place to empower the Government to go forward and create those routes.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think it would be more helpful and more humane to have the safe and legal routes before we enact the Bill so that we do not have a gap for however long it takes when people who desperately need our help cannot get it? That could be months or years—it has taken a long time with Afghanistan, which is apparently a priority. Would it not be better to have the routes first before the Government do whatever they want with the Bill?

[Jonathan Gullis]

The problem is that we are not the only country looking for safe and legal routes from places such as Afghanistan. The world is struggling to come to a solution, and it is a world solution that we need to agree. I hope we will use our position as leader of the G7 for that going forward. However, there are a lot of refugees in mainland European countries such as Greece, Italy and France, which are perfectly safe and nice countries in which to start a new life, and people should absolutely claim asylum in them rather than making the journey to Calais, where they put funds into the hands of criminal gangs to fund criminality and come over here illegally. Remember that 70% are men aged between 18 and 35, which means that women and children—the most vulnerable groups—are being left behind in those countries.

Ultimately, it is more important that we ensure that they are protected and that we get to them, as we did in Afghanistan, rather than the illegal economic migrants who are crossing the Channel to enter the country illegally and putting a huge strain on our local authorities. That is why the clause saying, “If you come to this country illegally, that will count against you in your application” is a fantastic idea. Again, that is one strand of a wider strategy to help combat the shocking scenes we see in those Channel crossings, which are angering the people I represent in Stoke-on-Trent—and, to be quite frank, the nation.

The Bill is therefore long overdue. The Opposition accept that the asylum system is broken. Given that, I do not understand why what we are trying to do is not the right solution. The only thing I hear from the Opposition is, “We should have more people coming over here,” but that would create more pull factors to encourage people to make that dangerous journey.

[Mr Goodwill]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be good to follow the model of the Syrian resettlement programme, brought in by David Cameron, in respect of Afghanistan? Indeed, countries such as Canada are considering many more than us, and, because their system is not clogged up with people arriving illegally, they can have much wider scope for the legal settlement schemes.

[Jonathan Gullis]

My right hon. Friend makes a really good point. I go back to His Excellency the High Commissioner for Australia, who made it clear that Australia would not have been able to take the amount of Syrian refugees it did with public support had it not had control of its borders—and, because it did have that control, public support and empathy was massively increased when it came to helping people in desperate situations. Those people deserve to have some of the biggest and best countries around the world holding them dear and giving them a new life in safety and security.

The public are angry because they see an asylum system that is not working. They want to see control of the borders; then, when we have people from Syria and Afghanistan coming over, there would be much more public empathy.

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Gentleman talked about the broken asylum system, but we actually have more people working in it and processing fewer cases. May Bulman, the journalist from The Independent, wrote an article recently in which she identified 399 people who have been waiting 10 years for their asylum claim to be processed. How can it be that the system employs more people but is processing fewer claims? How can it be allowed that people are waiting 10 years for their claims to be processed? That is the broken system. If it were a business, it would be bankrupt.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The issue is that we inherited a ruinous backlog from the Labour Government, and we have gone through a multitude of challenges recently—covid, for example, which brought the very challenging situation of working from home. I understand—I am a constituency MP like everyone else. We all do our bit and write to the Home Office. We get frustrated by the time that certain cases can take to process, but ultimately, we are trying to fix the system. That is one strand, and there are other parts of the Bill that we will examine, such as offshoring, which I support. There are other methods to help to deal with the backlog and speed up the processing of asylum claims.

I am more than happy to welcome genuine asylum seekers; what I am unhappy about is the illegal economic migrants continually crossing our channel, coming to our shores and costing millions of pounds to the British taxpayer, and the lawyers obsessed with taking money out of the British purse to stop people being deported. Let us not forget, there are convicted criminals dragged off the plane at the last minute, leaving the UK taxpayer to pick up the tab. They are criminals who should not be here and rightly should be deported. Sadly, I see too many Labour Members celebrating those lawyers’ work to prevent those people from being deported from our country. It is a very sad state of affairs to see those letters written to the Home Secretary. I hope clause 10 will stay as is and will be a part of a wider strategy to deter.

[Tom Pursglove]

First, I will deal with the two amendments that we have debated. Amendment 87 seeks to make implementation of the differentiated asylum system contingent on issuing a report on its impact on local authorities and devolved Administrations. The report must also be passed by both Houses. Clearly, immigration is a reserved matter, so it is for Westminster to set policy in that regard. Local authorities and devolved Administrations have not only taken part in the public consultation, where they have shared substantive views, but have been included in targeted, ongoing engagement with the Home Office to discuss issues and implementation. I am afraid I do not see what further value such a report could offer, other than to delay the implementation of this important policy.

Amendment 161 seeks to ensure that nothing in the Bill or this particular section authorises any treatment or action that is inconsistent with the UK’s obligations under the refugee convention. This amendment is unnecessary because we are already under an obligation to meet our international obligations and, as I have continually set out, intend to do so in the Bill. Furthermore, section 2 of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 prevents us, in implementing this policy, from doing anything in the immigration rules that is contrary to the refugee convention. If we were to include such a provision in the Bill, the effect may be to suggest that in any other legislation where it is not included, the intention is not to comply with such obligations. I am certain hon. Members will agree that is neither desirable nor intended.