Illegal Migration Bill

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I rise to support this policy because I believe it is fair, sensible and in keeping with the UK remaining a compassionate country. An asylum system should not be based on people’s ability to make the journey to a foreign country—that is what is not fair.

Those who oppose this policy say that people would not need to make the journey if there were more safe and legal routes. Let us follow through that line of thought and say we set up application centres in France. Although the journey would be less strenuous, a grandmother in a wheelchair or a double amputee would still be less able than a fit adult to make the journey, so it would remain unfair. So let us say we set up application centres in a more accessible country such as Turkey. What would happen next?

Even if there is disagreement on the exact figure, no one can deny that many millions of people around the world would be eligible for asylum in the UK. If tens of thousands of people are willing to make such a long and arduous journey to the UK to seek asylum, it is obvious to me that many, many more would make an easier journey to somewhere like Turkey. I cannot imagine the number being less than double, and there is no reason to think it would not be even higher. For anyone who understands British public opinion, it would be completely untenable to continue with that position. We would then need to introduce a cap, and then what? Of course, we would have to turn some people away. A humane policy would prioritise granting the elderly, the disabled and ill people asylum, which would leave fit, younger people as the ones we turned away. There is no reason why they would not make the crossing by boat in any case and we would be right back where we started.

That is why more safe and legal routes will not solve this problem—because at the heart of the issue is the fact that many more people could legitimately claim asylum than the British public would or should reasonably take in. If someone’s test of an asylum policy’s humaneness is whether a particular deserving individual—we have heard many such examples this evening—can obtain asylum, no policy will ever pass it, because unless we agree to take in everyone, there will always be people who would like and deserve to come here who will not be able to do so.

What the British public expect is that we take our fair share. Even if someone personally wants the UK to take many more refugees than we do, we have to remember that we are talking about taxpayers’ money. Compassion paid for by someone else is compassion that must be offered carefully, because if we do not do that, we find that we grow the resentment and hostility that we seek to avoid in the first place. The British people are fair and compassionate, and they ask me and they ask each other, “If people are coming from France and they are young men, are they really the people we have in mind when we want to say that we give a safe haven to the most vulnerable? Does a preference to come to an English-speaking country give someone a right to be here?” Those are fair questions and if we do not answer them, someone else will.

That might seem harsh, but I am a Conservative because I believe we should act with our heads as well as our hearts, and that we should care less about how something looks on social media and in the Chamber, and more about what it actually does. There is no problem-free panacea to this issue; it is about doing what helps best overall, which is why I am supportive of this policy and I am confident that the British public will be too.