Illegal Migration Bill: Economic Impact Assessment Debate
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Marie Rimmer
Main Page: Marie Rimmer (Labour - St Helens South and Whiston)Department Debates - View all Marie Rimmer's debates with the Home Office
Illegal Migration Bill: Economic Impact Assessment
Marie Rimmer Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Not only is maintaining a system without taking robust further steps like the Rwanda policy likely to be extremely expensive—that is detailed in the impact assessment—but there are non-monetised costs as well, which are hard to calculate with certainty, such as the impact on scant social housing and housing more broadly, the cost to public services and the fact that many of these individuals come to the UK speaking poor English. Many require great support by the British state to help them to integrate and build successful lives in this country. That is a very challenging situation. We have to be honest with ourselves about that. We need to take action to stop the boats, so we can ensure that the finite resources we have as a country are not directed at young men who are in a place of safety such as France, but can go to the people who really need it most in and around conflict zones: families and those people we would want to resettle in the United Kingdom.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
The Prime Minister claims he is ready to take tough financial decisions, such as not giving our NHS heroes a pay rise, leaving them struggling to pay ever-increasing mortgages and the cost of living caused by those on the Government Benches voting measures through and crashing our economy just a few months ago. The Rwanda scheme is set to cost even more billions than the already crashed asylum system, delivered by those on the Government Benches over there. So how can the Minister truly sit there and justify spending £169,000 to send one single asylum seeker to Rwanda? I accept that the Government are working with local authorities on housing in the private sector—deregulated housing in the private sector that cannot be given to any of our people. That is what he is doing. You cannot justify what is going on here. You’ve crashed it and you go on to—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Lady is experienced enough to know that she does not address the Minister directly like that, but through the Chair.