Immigration and Asylum Bill

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

We must reduce immigration to this country and get a grip of our asylum system. Unlike the MPs behind her, I do think the Home Secretary is starting to move in the right direction. But, as she will know, small boat crossings are on the rise since Labour came to power, with an average of 105 illegal migrants crossing the channel every single day for the last two years. Almost 100,000 people are being housed in asylum accommodation, with the numbers in houses in multiple occupation up 11% under this Labour Government.

The case for urgent action is now overwhelming, but the measures in the Bill before us fail to meet the gravity of the situation. I will therefore be supporting the reasoned amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. Just look at the tinkering to the application of article 8 of the European convention on human rights. We all know that the protection to family life has been abused and twisted far from its original purpose. The public rightly expect foreign nationals who have broken our laws to be deported. The rights of the British people should always outweigh the interests of foreign criminals—no ifs, no buts.

In 2023, a Nigerian man used article 8 to stay in this country despite a two-year prison sentence, but the tribunal ruled that deportation would breach his article 8 rights. Horrifically, he then went on to violently rape a teenage girl—whose rights were being protected then? Will these sorts of cases be a thing of the past as a result of the modest changes within this Bill? I am not convinced. The Government are allowing vague and ambiguous exceptional circumstances to be used by criminals to avoid deportation. The phrasing in the Bill leaves far too much room for legal argument, appeals and delays. No ifs, no buts—every illegal immigrant should be deported.

By making changes to article 8, the Government have conceded that membership of the European convention on human rights places significant limits on the UK’s ability to maintain and control our borders. There is only one logical conclusion: the only way that we will truly end illegal immigration into the United Kingdom, deport all foreign criminals, and create a system that is genuinely fair and robust, is to leave the European convention on human rights in its entirety, and repeal the Human Rights Act.