Illegal Immigration

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak)]

Before I start, I know that the whole House will want to join me in expressing our sympathies to the families of those who lost their children in Solihull.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on illegal migration. I hope that the whole House will agree that there is a complex moral dimension to illegal migration. The balancing of our duty to support people in dire need with the responsibility to have genuine control over our borders understandably provokes strong feelings. So it is my view that the basis for any solution should be not just what works but what is right.

The simplest moral framing for this issue, and one that I believe Members on both sides of the House believe in, is fairness. It is unfair that people come here illegally. It is unfair on those with a genuine case for asylum when our capacity to help is taken up by people coming through—and from—countries that are perfectly safe. It is unfair on those who migrate here legally when others come here by cheating the system. Above all, it is unfair on the British people who play by the rules when others come here illegally and benefit from breaking those rules. So people are right to be angry, because they see what I see, which is that this simply is not fair.

It is not cruel or unkind to want to break the stranglehold of criminal gangs who trade in human misery and who exploit our system and laws. Enough is enough. As currently constructed, the global asylum framework has become obsolete. Today, there are 100 million people displaced globally. Hostile states are using migration as a weapon on the very borders of Europe. As the world becomes more unstable, and the effects of climate change make more places uninhabitable, the numbers displaced will only grow.

We have a proud history of providing sanctuary to those most in need. Britain helped craft the 1951 refugee convention to protect those fleeing persecution. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) passed the world’s first Modern Slavery Act in 2015. In the last year, we have opened our hearts and our homes to people from Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Ukraine. Thousands of families will be setting extra places around the Christmas table this year. No one—no one—can doubt our generosity of spirit.

But today, far too many of the beneficiaries of that generosity are not those directly fleeing war zones or at risk of persecution, but people crossing the channel in small boats. Many originate from fundamentally safe countries. All travel through safe countries. Their journeys are not ad hoc, but co-ordinated by ruthless, organised criminals. And every single journey risks the lives of women, children and—we should be honest—mostly men at sea.

This is not what previous generations intended when they drafted our humanitarian laws, nor is it the purpose of the numerous international treaties to which the UK is a signatory. Unless we act now and decisively, this will only get worse. Already in just seven weeks since I became Prime Minister, we have delivered the largest ever small boats deal with France, with significantly more boots on the ground patrolling their beaches. For the first time, UK and French officers are embedded in respective operations in Dover and northern France. We have re-established the Calais group of northern European nations to disrupt traffickers all along the migration route. Last week, the group set a long-term ambition for a UK-EU-wide agreement on migration. Of course, that is not a panacea and we need to go much further. Over the last month, the Home Secretary and I have studied every aspect of this issue in detail, and we can now set out five new steps today.

First, our policing of the channel has been too fragmented, with different people doing different things being pulled in different directions. So we will establish a new, permanent, unified small boats operational command. This will bring together our military, our civilian capabilities and the National Crime Agency. It will co-ordinate our intelligence, interception, processing and enforcement, and use all available technology, including drones for reconnaissance and surveillance, to pick people up and identify and then prosecute more gang-led boat pilots. We are adding more than 700 new staff and also doubling the funding given to the NCA for tackling organised immigration crime in Europe.

Secondly, those extra resources will free up immigration officers to go back to enforcement, which will, in turn, allow us to increase raids on illegal working by 50%. And it is frankly absurd that today illegal migrants can get bank accounts which help them live and work here. So we will re-start data sharing to stop that.

Thirdly, it is unfair and appalling that we are spending £5.5 million every day on using hotels to house asylum seekers. We must end this. We will shortly bring forward a range of alternative sites, such as disused holiday parks, former student halls and surplus military sites. We have already identified locations that could accommodate 10,000 people, and are in active discussions to secure these and more. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Someone has flashed a camera. It is quite serious to take photographs in the Chamber. If the Member knew they had taken a photograph, I would expect them to leave the Chamber. It is totally unacceptable to disrupt the Prime Minister when he is speaking.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It was an accident.

[Mr Speaker]

I hope the photograph is deleted. Go out and have a chat with the Serjeant at Arms, because it did not look that way to me.

[The Prime Minister]

These sites will accommodate 10,000 people, and we are in active discussions to secure them and many more. Our aim is to add thousands of places through this type of accommodation in the coming months, at half the cost of hotels. At the same time, as we consulted on over the summer, the cheapest and fairest way to solve this problem is for all local authorities to take their fair share of asylum seekers in the private rental sector, and we will work to achieve this as quickly as possible.

Fourthly, we need to process claims in days or weeks, not months or years, so we will double the number of asylum caseworkers. We are radically re-engineering the end-to-end process, with shorter guidance, fewer interviews and less paperwork, and we are introducing specialist caseworkers by nationality. We will also remove the gold-plating in our modern slavery system, including by reducing the cooling-off period from 45 days to 30 days, the legal minimum set out in the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings. As a result of all these changes, we will triple the productivity of our caseworkers and we expect to abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions by the end of next year.

Fifthly, and most significantly, a third of all those arriving in small boats this year, almost 13,000 people, are Albanian, yet Albania is a safe, prosperous European country. It is deemed safe for returns by Germany, France, Italy and Sweden. It is an EU accession country, a NATO ally and a member of the same convention against trafficking as the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister of Albania has himself said there is no reason why we cannot return Albanian asylum seekers immediately. Last year, Germany, France, Belgium and Sweden all rejected almost 100% of Albanian asylum claims, yet our rejection rate is just 45%. That must not continue, so today I can announce a new agreement with Albania and a new approach.

First, we will embed Border Force officers in Tirana airport for the first time ever, helping to disrupt organised crime and stop people coming here illegally. Secondly, we will issue new guidance for our caseworkers to make it crystal clear that Albania is a safe country. Thirdly, one of the reasons why we struggle to remove people is that they unfairly exploit our modern slavery system, so we will significantly raise the threshold someone must meet to be considered a modern slave. For the first time, we will require a caseworker to have objective evidence of modern slavery, rather than just a suspicion. Fourthly, we have sought and received formal assurances from Albania confirming that it will protect genuine victims and people at risk of re-trafficking, allowing us to detain and return people to Albania with confidence and in line with ECAT. As a result of these changes, the vast majority of claims from Albania can simply be declared clearly unfounded, and those individuals can be swiftly returned. Lastly, we will change how we process Albanian illegal migrants with a new dedicated unit, staffed by 400 new specialists, expediting cases within weeks. Over the coming months, thousands of Albanians will be returned home, and we will keep going with weekly flights until all the Albanians in our backlog have been removed.



In addition to all these new steps, let the House be in no doubt that, when legal proceedings conclude on our migration and economic development partnership, we will restart the first flights to Rwanda, so that those who are here illegally and cannot be returned to their home country can build a new life there.

However, even with the huge progress that we will make with the changes I have announced today, there remains a fundamental question: how do we solve this problem once and for all? It is not just our asylum system that needs fundamental reform; our laws need reform too. We must be able to control our borders to ensure that the only people who come here come through safe and legal routes. However well intended, our legal frameworks are being manipulated by people who exploit our courts to frustrate their removal for months or years on end.

I said, “Enough is enough”, and I meant it. That means that I am prepared to do what must be done, so early next year we will introduce new legislation to make it unambiguously clear that, if you enter the UK illegally, you should not be able to remain here. Instead, you will be detained and swiftly returned either to your home country or to a safe country where your asylum claim will be considered. You will no longer be able to frustrate removal attempts with late or spurious claims or appeals, and once removed, you should have no right to re-entry, settlement or citizenship.

Furthermore, if our reforms on Albania are challenged in the courts, we will also put them on a statutory footing to ensure that the UK’s treatment of Albanian arrivals is no different from that of Germany or France. The only way to come to the UK for asylum will be through safe and legal routes and, as we get a grip on illegal migration, we will create more of those routes. We will work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to identify those who are most in need so that the UK remains a safe haven for the most vulnerable. We will also introduce an annual quota on numbers, set by Parliament in consultation with local authorities to determine our capacity, and amendable in the face of humanitarian emergencies.

That is the fair way to address this global challenge. Tackling this problem will not be quick; it will not be easy; but it is the right thing to do. We cannot persist with a system that was designed for a different era. We have to stop the boats, and this Government will do what must be done. We will be tough but fair, and where we lead, others will follow. I commend this statement to the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I know the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to my right hon. Friend for her global leadership on that issue. She is absolutely right that it is incumbent on us to ensure our processing is swift and effective. I know she will want to join me in ensuring that our world-leading modern slavery regime actually helps the people who are most in need and most vulnerable. They are the people who need our support and that is what our reforms today will deliver.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the SNP.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

I wish to begin by passing on my thoughts and those of my colleagues to the families and friends of those impacted by the terrible tragedy in Solihull.

I am going to start by saying something that I think many on the Benches behind the Prime Minister wish they could say. Nobody is illegal. Indeed, there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker. But what we all agree on is that the UK’s system is broken and we cannot escape from the fact of who has broken it. To address some of the problems that are faced, I welcome some of what the Prime Minister said. I have personally visited hotel accommodation and seen the damaging impact that those long stays have had on people within it, so I hope we can all agree on the positive words about speeding up the process.

However, I have grave concerns about the proposed legislation, about the proposals on accommodation and about the one-size-fits-all approach to asylum seekers emanating from Albania. In that regard, I ask the Prime Minister a simple question: has he consulted with the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees in respect of these proposals? If not, why not?

Ultimately, the solutions lie not in any of the above proposals but in ensuring that safe and legal routes exist. The Prime Minister made extensive reference to safe and legal routes, so let him rise to his feet and outline one single safe and legal route—perhaps for a family member of an asylum seeker in Afghanistan. The Home Secretary of course could not do so last week.

It would be remiss of all of us in the Chamber not to reflect on the independent Migration Advisory Committee’s report from this morning, which detailed how important migration is to our public sector, our private sector and indeed our economy. How on earth does the Government’s hostile approach to migration assist with that proposal?

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman that the Development Secretary met the UN High Commissioner for Refugees last weekend. A point of difference between us and the Opposition parties is that we believe that we should not need the permission of someone outside to control our own borders.



The hon. Gentleman also asked about Albania and our approach. I gently point out to him that what we are doing is in line with what almost every other European country already does with regard to Albanian migrants.

Lastly, the hon. Gentleman made the frankly absurd claim that we do not have safe and legal routes into the UK. In the last few years, we have made offers of over 450,000 places to welcome people from Afghanistan, Syria, Hong Kong and, most recently, Ukraine. That is because this is a compassionate, tolerant country, and it always will be.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

The parliamentary leader of the SNP, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), can put down a debate on legal migration for next week; the subject today is illegal immigration.

The questions in front of the House and the country are: how can people be safe, how can their status be determined, will the action work, is it necessary, and is it right? I think most people listening, whether they normally support the SNP, Labour or the Conservatives, will say, “Yes, it is necessary, it will work, and it should go ahead.”

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support. As he knows, this problem is complicated—it is not easy, and it will not be solved overnight—but I believe the plan that we have outlined today represents the most serious step forward in getting a grip of it. The task for us now is to deliver on it. With his support and everyone else’s, I am confident that we can.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

In our report on small boat crossings published in July, the Home Affairs Committee made it clear that the No. 1 priority for Government should be to clear the asylum backlog, so we are pleased that that is now starting to be addressed. However, the backlog of 150,000 has been building since 2013, so the more recent small boat crossings have not broken the asylum system.

We noted how important it was to have sufficiently well trained, motivated and supported decision makers to make good-quality first decisions, but despite promises to increase decision-making numbers, targets have been missed, and the staff attrition rate in 2021 was a staggering 46%. In addition, the technology that staff use is creakingly antiquated and was reported by the chief inspector of borders and immigration as hampering productivity.

Will the Prime Minister ensure that he has sufficient staff to carry out what he is seeking to do? With productivity currently at 1.3 decisions per decision maker per week, with a Home Office pilot to increase that figure to 2.7, can he explain exactly how he is going to triple productivity?