Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Mark Jenkinson Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I am very pleased to repeat for the record that since 6 September, under my watch, over 30 new hotels have been agreed. They will provide over 4,500 additional bed spaces to be brought into use.

[Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)]

The Prime Minister is six days into his summer pledge to fix this crisis within 100 days, so I hope—and my constituents in Workington hope—that the Home Secretary is getting the support she needs around the Cabinet table. Among those held, what is her assessment of the scale of abuse of our modern slavery laws?

[Suella Braverman]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the point. Let me say two things. First, the Prime Minister is absolutely committed to fixing this problem. I have no doubt whatever about his determination to fix it once and for all. I have huge confidence in him and am grateful for his support operationally on this.

With modern slavery laws, it is not just about people coming here on the boats and claiming modern slavery, which effectively buys them a year because it takes 400 days on average for a modern slavery claim to be processed, so they know that they will be accommodated in the UK free of charge. It is even worse than that: there are serious foreign national offenders in this country who have served sentences of several years for sex offences, drug offences or other serious offences. When they finish their sentence and the UK authorities want to deport them, what do they do? They claim to be a victim of modern slavery.