Louie French
Main Page: Louie French (Conservative - Old Bexley and Sidcup)Department Debates - View all Louie French's debates with the Home Office
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Dame Angela Eagle
The National Crime Agency has not said that about the Bill. In fact, if the right hon. Gentleman had listened to the evidence sessions at the beginning of our consideration of the Bill, he would have heard good evidence from the NCA supporting the parts of the Bill that provide counter-terrorism and prevention powers, and being enthusiastic about the increased opportunities that the Bill will give for successful enforcement.
Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
On that point, will the Minister give way?
Dame Angela Eagle
No.
Turning to legal migration, through the plans in our immigration White Paper, we will deliver a system that supports our efforts to reduce net migration and backs British talent. As the Home Secretary set out in the House last week, our approach is founded on five core principles: first, that net migration must come down; secondly, that the migration system should be linked to skills and training domestically, so that no industry or sector can rely solely on overseas recruitment—a major failure of the last Government’s 14 years in office; thirdly, that the system must be fair and effective, with clearer rules in areas such as respect for family life and stronger safeguards against perverse outcomes that undermine public confidence; fourthly, that this country’s laws must be respected and enforced, from cracking down on illegal working to deporting foreign criminals; and fifthly, that the system must support integration and community cohesion.
This is not a task that can be completed overnight. Clearing up the Opposition’s legacy will not be easy because of the chaos that we inherited from the Conservative party. We saw record net migration, record small boat arrivals and record numbers of asylum hotels, criminal smugglers left to run amok for years, and public confidence shaken by past failures, expensive gimmicks and broken promises. It has been left to this Government to clear up the mess and turn the page on the chaos and failures of the past. That work has begun.
Dr Pinkerton
No, thank you. The hon. Gentleman’s party had nine years; I have less than nine minutes.
Meanwhile, the legal migration rules became so convoluted that even seasoned immigration lawyers needed to phone a friend. Skilled workers were welcomed one week and penalised the next. International students were encouraged to come and then punished for having families. The only thing consistent in Conservative policy was chaos.
All that was wrapped in a layer of chest-beating, slogan-touting nationalism. “Take back control,” they cried, as if chanting it loudly enough might somehow make it true. Yet control is not about standing on the shoreline like King Canute, barking orders at the tide. It is about building a system that actually works—one that treats people with dignity, balances compassion with pragmatism and delivers results instead of rhetoric. Instead, what did we get? An asylum system on its knees, trafficking gangs operating with near total impunity and, most tragically, lives lost in the channel. Just this Monday, 62 people were rescued after a small boat sank in the early hours. One person died; others were injured. That, of course, is not an anomaly. According to the BBC, over 12,500 have crossed the channel in small boats this year, and it is only May.
The Labour response so far has, I would argue, been muted ambition, vague promises and nervous tiptoeing around the institutional wreckage, as if managerial competence alone might magic away a decade of Conservative failures. The Liberal Democrats are clear that these crossings must stop, but unlike the Conservatives we do not confuse cruelty with competence.
Mr Brash
Again, after 14 years, the Conservatives turn up demanding to know why nobody has done anything about the issue in 10 months. Frankly, it is hypocrisy of the highest level.
I turn to the comments made about the Conservatives’ much-touted Rwanda scheme and illegal migration. Time and again we hear the same tired lines—“It was just about to work”, “If only we’d had a little longer, it would have solved all the problems of the small boats.” Well, they had the time. They chose to call the early general election; they could have waited. If they had truly believed in the scheme—this totemic flagship of theirs—they would have backed themselves, but they did not, because they knew it was a busted flush. They knew it was going to fail, and they rushed to the country before that failure could be fully exposed.
How did we get to this point in the small boats crisis, which is central to a lot of what we are talking about? There were no small boat arrivals recorded before 2018. Why? It was because at that time the UK had a returns agreement with the EU—anyone making that dangerous crossing could be returned—but the Conservative Brexit deal did not have a returns agreement in it. The same Brexit deal championed by Reform is the reason for the numbers we are seeing. The hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who is not in his place, championed that deal and now uses the numbers it caused as a weaponised political choice.
Mr Brash
The reality is that before 2018 we had that agreement. We have had it before. This Prime Minister has shown time and again his ability to negotiate on the world stage, and I have total confidence that he will do that.
Indeed, the only surrender that has taken place this week is the hon. Member for Clacton surrendering to his sun lounger. As a direct result of the failure of the Conservative party to get a returns agreement in its Brexit deal, we have seen the numbers explode. However, progress is being made. The asylum backlog is now down 32% from its record high under the last Government. In Hartlepool—a town unfairly targeted with disproportionate dispersal accommodation—we now have a freeze on any new asylum accommodation and a clear target set to reduce numbers. But let us be clear: the numbers are still too high. That is why the passage of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill is absolutely essential. It gives us the ability to use counter-terrorism powers to pursue and dismantle the criminal gangs that facilitate those crossings—powers that the Opposition parties voted against.
We have to go further. We must tighten the use of article 8 of the European convention on human rights to ensure that it cannot be misused, so that it is this House, not the courts, that decides who stays and who is deported. I place on the record that any foreign criminal in this country should be deported. We must strike agreements with international partners, so that those people coming on boats can be swiftly returned, because that is the true deterrent. That will be achieved not with Tory gimmicks or by Reform slogans, but with detailed policy, focused diplomacy and the hard graft that this Labour Government have already begun.
It is about time that Conservative Members stopped playing politics with this issue. That is what the people of Hartlepool expect and it is what the Government must do. As long as I am in this place, I will hold them to account to do that.