Immigration and Asylum Bill

Judith Cummins Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Relevant Documents: Oral evidence taken before the Justice Committee on 7 July, on Immigration and Asylum Appeals, HC 522; Oral evidence taken before the Home Affairs Committee on 16 December 2025, on Asylum and Returns policy, Session 2024-26, HC 1579]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

The reasoned amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition has been selected.

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[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that these agreements have come about through partnership working with our European partners, and that this has been a central part of the negotiations? There is a unity of purpose among other European countries that want to tighten their borders and prevent people abusing the system.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I am sure the Home Secretary has seen the number of people in the Chamber, and will be bringing her remarks to a conclusion shortly.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

With the exception of the Front Benchers, we will be starting with an immediate seven-minute time limit. I call the shadow Home Secretary.

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[Chris Philp]

I need to finish.

While I agree with the diagnoses that the Home Secretary eloquently set out in her speech, the measures that she proposes simply will not work. I know that because I have tried to introduce such measures in the past, including by amending section 63, and the courts do not let them stand. Until we come out of the ECHR and the ECAT treaty, stop illegal immigrants claiming asylum and end judicial review of most immigration cases, we will not get control of our borders and the public will continue to lose trust in mainstream politics. That is why I moved the Opposition’s reasoned amendment.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

There is now a seven-minute time limit.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Ind)]

I listened with great care to the Home Secretary’s speech, and one of the things she said—she said it more than once, in different phraseology—was that her legislation is designed to remove the burden of asylum seekers from the shoulders of British people. I live in a part of the world that has as many asylum seekers and immigrants as anywhere else. Over the centuries, we have had Irish immigrants, Jewish immigrants, Caribbean immigrants, south Asian immigrants, Turkish immigrants and African immigrants. None of them was a burden on anyone’s shoulders, and my constituents will be dismayed to hear her talk in those terms.

The Home Office website tells us that there have been well over 150 pieces of primary legislation or policy changes on immigration since 1988. I have been in the House for some of them, and each one was accompanied by the same grand assertions that the Home Secretary has made this afternoon: that they would bring fairness to our immigration system and fairness to our asylum system. They did not. They simply took away rights and treated people badly. One example of a piece of legislation that was introduced in precisely the same terms in which she is introducing this Bill is the Immigration Act 2014, which was created in the name of the hostile environment. Again, the House was told that it would bring fairness. Instead, it led directly to the Windrush scandal. People who had been invited here, with cross-party support, to help rebuild Britain after world war two were treated in the most shameful way. People who had given their lives to the UK were deported. People born here were deported. Families were split up. People lost their jobs. Others were denied re-entry to the country after holidays or travelling to family events, including funerals.

That scandal is not over, and it is not something that we can move on from. Very many victims of that legislation are still facing severe delays, wrongful rejections and low payouts. Maybe the Minister should talk to some of the people waiting for their compensation, because there is a view that Ministers or officials are trying to wait out the victims. It is as if they are hoping that, year by year, there will be less victims to give compensation to.

The legislation before us is being sold and explained in exactly the same way that nearly 40 years of immigration legislation has been sold to this House. I would argue that that legislation has failed to do what Ministers said it would do; in fact, it has made people’s lives harsher and more difficult. I would argue that if the Bar Council or any amount of legal bodies are saying to the Secretary of State that this legislation is unfair and unduly cruel, and will not achieve the result that it is meant to achieve, she needs to look again. This very negative and hostile rhetoric and language about asylum seekers and immigrants is not what one would want to hear in this House.

My parents were immigrants, and many of my relatives were asylum seekers. We need to be talking about the contribution that immigrants and asylum seekers have made to this country, not talking about them as if they are some kind of burden. Even at this late stage, maybe the Home Secretary will reconsider the legislation that she is bringing forward.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I am imposing an immediate three-minute time limit.