Migration and Economic Development Partnership

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend puts it very well, and from our discussions I know how energetically he is advocating on behalf of his local community as they bear some of the burden of this national challenge. It is a fallacy—one that those on the Opposition Benches seem to indulge time and again—that everyone on these boats is coming for humanitarian purposes and fleeing some form of persecution. The reality is that a large proportion of them are coming for economic reasons. Many of them have chosen deliberately to leave a safe country such as France and to pay people-smuggling gangs large amounts of money in pursuit of a life in the United Kingdom—not as a refugee, not for humanitarian reasons. That poses public safety issues. The protection of our borders is about national security. That is why it is imperative and essential that we fix the problem and stop the boats.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

We have learned a few things today: first, that the Home Secretary respects the courts, for which we should be grateful; secondly, that after 13 years the Government have a rigged system; and thirdly, that we are going to continue to pour taxpayers’ money into her failed system. In August, her Bill will stop asylum decisions and mean that people in detention will not be moved on further. Given the number of people we already have in hotels, how many more detention centres and hotels is she going to need, and at what cost?

[Suella Braverman]

What we know is that 45,000 people arrived here illegally last year and it is costing the taxpayer £6 million per day in hotel accommodation, totalling £3 billion per year to service our asylum system. That is an unacceptable situation. We are proposing a plan through our Illegal Migration Bill that says that, if someone arrives here illegally, they will be detained and thereafter swiftly removed. That, in combination with our world-leading partnership with Rwanda, will inject the deterrence necessary to stop the boats.