Nick Timothy
Main Page: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)Department Debates - View all Nick Timothy's debates with the Home Office
(1 day, 16 hours ago)
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Alex Norris
The hon. Lady mentions an important proposal, and it is a reasonable thing to mention. We are talking about capacity in the system, and one way to resolve that, of course, would be to let significant numbers through the system without processing their claims in the normal way. I cannot support that. As she has heard me say on a number of occasions, the root of this is not just the strong day-to-day administrative running of the system; the reality is that we have managed to really improve the performance of it and reduce costs. But that alone will not stop what is happening, due to the significant pull factor to this country. I believe that doing as she suggests would merely turbocharge that, which I cannot support.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
The Minister has given us the usual Government lines on returns under this Government, when the majority of them are obviously voluntary returns. When it comes to enforced returns, the numbers are lower than in nine of the 14 years of Conservative Government, and 15% lower than the Tory average.
I want to raise the case of Hadush Kebatu. The Home Secretary said that she had “pulled every lever” to deport him, but when it emerged that he was paid £500 after threatening to disrupt his departure, we were told that was actually an operational decision. Can the Minister confirm that Kebatu withdrew his asylum claim and forfeited appeal rights, and admit that we will not be able to deport foreign criminals in sufficient numbers unless we cut off the endless routes for human rights claims and legal appeals?
Alex Norris
I can say to the hon. Gentleman that returns are up by more than 10% under this Government. I think the British public care about that. I make no apology for doing that in the quickest, cheapest and most expeditious way, which is what we pursue in many cases.
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about Hadush Kebatu, a convicted sex offender who had no place on our streets and no place in our country; it is right that he has been removed. He was forcibly deported and a team of five escorts accompanied him on that flight. We turned down an application regarding the facilitated return scheme—which, under successive Governments, has offered grants of up to £1,500—but, given the very real threats to disrupt the flight, an operational decision was taken to provide a £500 payment. That was taken because the alternative would have been slower and more expensive for the taxpayer, and it would have included detention, a new flight and, no doubt, subsequent legal claims. That decision was not taken at the ministerial level, but I am not going to second-guess what is a difficult operational environment.