Marco Longhi
Main Page: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)Department Debates - View all Marco Longhi's debates with the Home Office
(2 years ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I do not believe that the Rwanda policy is immoral. I do not think that there is anything ethical about allowing individuals to cross the channel illegally, risking their lives and those of their children. We want to create a system that is suffused with deterrents so that people do not make the crossing in the first place and so that if they want to claim asylum, they do so in the first safe country that they enter. France, of course, is a perfect choice.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
When our own citizens, never mind visitors, come to this country, they dutifully form a queue and present their passport at border control. Does the Minister agree that it makes a complete and utter mockery of our border control systems when people arrive illegally, thereby committing a crime, and are then put up in hotels across the country, where they are fed and watered and do not have to pay energy bills? My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) spoke about cases going on for 400 days; I know of others that have gone on for years and years. When will we implement the Rwanda plan? When will we push back? When will we return people to France directly? Deterrence will be the main thing that stops them crossing in the first place.
Robert Jenrick
I totally agree. Deterrence must be the test to which we hold all aspects of our immigration policy. We will implement the Rwanda plan as soon as it has passed through the courts, and I think it will make a significant impact on deterring people from making this dangerous crossing.