Lindsay Hoyle
Main Page: Lindsay Hoyle (Speaker - Chorley)Department Debates - View all Lindsay Hoyle's debates with the Home Office
(11 months, 1 week ago)
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James Cleverly
The improved processes and the increased number of Home Office officials working on this issue mean that not only the legacy cases but the current ones will be dealt with more quickly, which will reduce the need for asylum accommodation of all types. I cannot comment on individual cases because the circumstances are different in each one, but the hon. Lady should rest assured that the lessons we have learned about the increased speed of processing will benefit those who are already in the system. Of course, we are also determined to drive down the number of people who come here in the first place, reducing the pressure on our asylum processing system in doing so.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
The shambolic incompetence of this Government across every aspect of its disgraceful mismanagement of our country’s asylum system knows no bounds, but today I will highlight a particularly egregious example. We already knew that the number of removals of asylum seekers whose claims had been rejected had collapsed by 50% since Labour left office in 2010, but over the weekend it emerged that the Home Office had lost contact with an astonishing 85% of the 5,000 people who have been identified for removal to Rwanda. Where on earth are those 4,250 asylum seekers who have gone missing?
Will the Home Secretary drop all the smoke and mirrors and acknowledge that the Rwanda plan is just an extortionately expensive and unworkable distraction? When will he adopt Labour’s plan to recruit 1,000 additional immigration enforcement officers to a new returns unit, so that we can have a system that is based on common sense—
Mr Speaker
No, it is not “thank you”. I have to get a lot of people in and this is totally unfair. The question was very, very long, and I was coughing to get the hon. Gentleman to stop, not to continue. That is the signal we need to understand. If the hon. Gentleman does not want a particular Back Bencher to get in, I ask him please to point them out, because this is giving me that problem.
James Cleverly
The mask has slipped. The Labour party has said that even if the Rwanda scheme were to be successful, it would not keep it. That shows what Labour Members really think about this. They have no plan, they have no commitment, and they have even said that if something was working they would scrap it. [Interruption.]
Tom Pursglove
The Government’s position is clear: the changes that we are introducing are the right thing. The numbers of dependents we are seeing coming is disproportionate. There will be an opportunity, through the review of the composition of the immigration salary list in the second phase, and through the call for evidence, for exactly those debates to be had and for those views to be made known.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Home Office’s knee-jerk policy to raise the threshold and its sudden partial reverse ferret to bring it slightly back down again caused a huge amount of distress to people up and down these islands who now do not know what the future holds for them and their families. What equality impact assessment has been carried out on the policy which, as well as affecting Scotland, will disproportionately affect women?
Tom Pursglove
As I have said, the key principle behind the Bill is to help us to bring to an end the egregious crossings of the channel organised by evil criminal gangs. It will help us to ensure that there is greater control of our borders and that there are not these in-flows into the system, which have undoubtedly had the consequence of our needing to respond to that challenge through the opening of hotels. That is precisely what we are trying to put a stop to.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Last week, The Times reported that there are 10,000 hotel beds going unused, at a cost of £1.5 million a day—that is in addition to the 3,500 buffer of empty beds held as a contingency in case of Manston being overwhelmed. Are those figures actually correct?
James Cleverly
As I said, decisions on how a police force balances its important back-office roles and frontline policing roles are rightly decisions for the chief constable. We have given additional resource, and we have delivered on our commitment to have more police officers. Of course we are looking at police funding formulas to ensure that they remain well resourced, but there are more than 20,000—in fact, 20,947—additional police officers in England and Wales. That will ensure that there are more police on the frontline.
Chris Philp
I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss these issues. As I say, Bedfordshire Police will receive an extra £10.2 million next year—an increase of about 6.5%—which I am sure will be welcome up and down the county, but I am of course happy to meet my hon. Friend whenever he would like.
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)
Police forces are not being listened to when they raise serious concerns about the funding formula and how it limits their ability to tackle town centre crime. The British Retail Consortium reports that more than 850 acts of violence or abuse against shop workers happen every single day. Everyone has a right to feel safe at work, so when will the Home Secretary accept that retail crime is out of control and accept Labour’s plan to introduce a new law to protect retail workers from violence and actually stand up for shop workers?
Chris Philp
Theft offences are down by 47% since 2010, of course—those are the crime survey figures—but we have recently launched a retail crime action plan, where police are committing to prioritising attendance at incidents of retail crime and always following reasonable lines of inquiry in relation to shoplifting, assaults against shop workers and other forms of offending. In addition, we legislated in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022—
James Cleverly
I am very pleased that my hon. Friend’s local community is feeling the positive impact of the decisions we have made. Since coming into Government, we have seen serious violence reduced by 26%, and neighbourhood crime down by 27% since the start of this Parliament. We have seen a 36% reduction in domestic burglary, an 18% reduction in vehicle-related theft and a 61% decrease in robbery. We have reduced homicide by 15%, have taken action on drugs and are committed to—
Mr Speaker
Order. Secretary of State—I said the same to the Minister—please, you were very slow at the beginning; you will not be slow at the end, I am sure.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
On Friday I visited five Co-op stores and every one of them had daily experience of theft, with one losing £35,000-worth of goods over six months and staff experiencing assaults. In light of Labour’s pledge to introduce 13,000 more community police and a law on retail crime, what is the Secretary of State really doing? Clearly his plan is not working.
Laura Farris
What I can tell the hon. Lady is that under the safer streets fund, £3.9 million has been allocated to Merseyside, including for a project in St Helens town centre. Let me remind her very gently of what that is funding. It has gone towards lighting, signage and improvement to taxi ranks, and one of the most radical measures of all is that it provides women with a free taxi service home, where the safer streets fund will reimburse the taxi driver the money they would otherwise have received, so that a woman does not have to find herself standing at a windy bus stop or walking home.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
We welcome the safer streets fund, which will go some way to supporting the night-time economy that has been badly hit over 14 years. The Government’s efforts to tackle spiking have been completely undermined by the Home Secretary. Spiking is a serious and devastating offence. Why did the Home Secretary think it was appropriate to joke about spiking his own wife, and can he confirm exactly how many drops of Rohypnol he considers to be illegal?
The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat)
My hon. Friend will have seen recently a pretty extraordinary report on allegations about extremism and the failure to train properly, and what is going on in universities around the United Kingdom. In one recent problematic case, it was said that it is very hard to define what a terrorist is. We know what a terrorist is, the law knows what a terrorist is and this Government know what a terrorist is, and that is exactly why we have just proscribed Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
We welcome the proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Five more lives were tragically lost in the channel this weekend. As criminal gangs profit from those dangerous boat crossings, it shows how vital it is to stop them, but we need the Home Office to have a grip. The Home Secretary gave no answer earlier on the 4,000 people he has lost from the Rwanda list. Can he tell us if he has also lost the 35,000 people he has removed from the asylum backlog? How many of them are still in the country?
Several hon. Members rose—
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
Last week, the Home Secretary produced a report on safe and legal routes to comply with section 61 of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the amendment I tabled last year. It is very long and generous on the existing legal routes, but can he tell me how my 16-year-old orphan from an east African country with links to the UK, who is a genuine asylum seeker, will be helped to come legally and safely to the UK by what the Government have published so far?