Borders and Asylum

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary, as always, for advance sight of her statement.

Anyone with any sense knows that the Conservatives trashed our asylum system and left the backlog spiralling out of control, with applications for asylum routinely taking years to process. Some of the Home Secretary’s remarks are welcome, but I worry that this Government risk repeating some of the same mistakes.

The Liberal Democrats will closely scrutinise the plan that the Home Secretary has talked about today, but given that the Home Office itself says that one of the reasons that those human beings seeking asylum make dangerous small-boat crossings is the lack of safe, alternative family reunion routes, cutting those back further seems counterproductive, especially when more than half of those granted family reunion visas in the year ending June 2025 were children under 18.

It is right that the Government have increased the rate of decisions made—those with no right to be here should be sent back swiftly, and those who have a valid claim should be able to settle, work, integrate and contribute to our communities. The backlog is still too large, however, and initial application decisions still take too long. As the Home Secretary stated, a significant share of the backlog comes from appeals. According to the Government’s own figures, in 2024 almost half of rejected asylum applications were overturned on appeal. For applicants from high-grant countries, that proportion was even higher. I would welcome clarity from the Home Secretary on how long it is currently taking to process the average asylum application, and on what concrete steps are being taken to ensure not only that cases are processed more swiftly, but that decisions are right the first time, so that applicants are not left in limbo, the courts are not overburdened and taxpayers are not footing the bill for avoidable delays.

I welcome the Home Secretary’s encouraging comments about the reciprocal agreement with France. Can she confirm whether the Government plan for that to be scaled up and, if so, when? Given that one of the main drivers of dangerous channel crossings is the absence of safe, legal family reunion routes, does the Home Secretary agree that cutting family reunion rules risks making the small-boat crisis worse, not better?

The Home Secretary rightly also mentioned the impact on local authorities. When individuals leave hotels, many present as homeless, creating an unsustainable burden on councils, including my own. Will the Home Secretary explain how she is working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to support councils and ensure that this crisis is not simply shifted from one overstretched system to another?

In recent weeks, constituents have been in touch with me as they are concerned about the number of flags that have gone up on lampposts around our area. They worry that the flags have been put up by those who seek to divide our community, not bring it together. Patriotism is a good thing. We should be proud of our country. We should be proud that our country welcomed people such as my nan in the 1930s, when she was fleeing the Nazis. We should be proud of our record of doing our bit. We should be proud of the British values I see in action across my community every day.

I am proud of those police officers who kept everyone safe during the protests at two hotels in my constituency over the summer; proud of those teachers and pupils who welcome new classmates when they have been placed in one of the hotels; and really proud of those who volunteer their time to support new arrivals, whether through local churches or other voluntary groups and charities—because that is what patriotism looks like.

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks and questions. At the heart of the France pilot that we have developed is the principle that those who arrive on dangerous and illegal small boats should be returned, but alongside that we should also have a legal route for those who apply and who go through proper security checks. As part of that, we will seek to prioritise people who have a connection to the UK, such as family groups —people who have family connections to the UK. Families will continue to need to be an underpinning part of the approach. The House will recall that the Ukraine family scheme was an important part of the response to the situation in Ukraine, for which Labour called in opposition.

The family reunion arrangements are being used differently from how they were used five years ago. The number of people applying for family reunion immediately —before they have a job, a house or any way of being able to support their families—is increasing the homelessness pressures on local authorities at a time when we need them not just to do their bit to help to clear hotels, but, crucially, to provide homelessness support in the local community. It is important to ensure that arrangements for the families of refugees do not put additional pressure on the homelessness support system, so we will set out reforms and ensure that, in the interim, refugees are included in the existing arrangements that apply to all sponsors in the UK for family reunion.

We need to speed up appeals. The average appeal time is now 54 weeks, which is far too long. Some appeals go on for way longer, meaning people with repeat appeals are in asylum accommodation for years, preventing the closure of asylum hotels that needs to take place, which is why we need the reforms.

Finally, the hon. Lady raised the issue of flags. I strongly support the flying of flags across the country—we fly the St George’s flag in Pontefract castle each year. As she will know, the Union flag is on the Labour party membership card—[Interruption.] I can show her a copy if she has not seen one. Flags should be an embodiment of bringing our country together—that will be the same in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—and a way to bring our country together through symbolism.