Immigration
Debate between Oliver Ryan and Caroline Nokes(4 days, 22 hours ago)
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Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Ind)
The Opposition motion, which I will not be supporting, uses the word “regret” an awful lot, but it omits any regret on their part for their complete failure to properly secure our borders during 14 years in government. The Conservatives ran an experiment in this country, and they will never be forgiven for it—especially for facing both ways on the immigration question for such a long time.
In 2010, the Tories pledged to get immigration down to the tens of thousands, and over the next five years they failed. In 2015, the Tories said they would get net migration down to the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands, and they failed. In 2017, they said they would get migration to the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands, and they failed. In 2019, they said the “numbers will come down”—at that point, they had panicked slightly about the whole affair.
At the time the Tories were leaving office, net migration was nearly 1 million. Time after time, over 14 years, they told the British people they would tackle net migration and bring the numbers down, but they did not—and now, after 10 months, they have the bottle to stand in front of this Government and ask, “Why are the numbers not down yet?”. We are taking action to bring the numbers closer to the approximately 200,000 that they were when Labour left office in 2010. There is this rhetoric that immigration has been an issue for 30 or 40 years, but the numbers have been sky high over the past 10—since Brexit, really. And the Tories wonder why people think they are irrelevant.
There is mention in the motion of a cap, but—as always with this Opposition—there is a history lesson here. I am old enough to remember 2013 to 2015, and the cap that was announced by the coalition Government. [Hon. Members: “Surely not!”] I was a very junior councillor. A cap was mentioned by the coalition then—a complete chocolate fireguard. They got the headlines when they announced it, but it failed to do the job, so they ditched it. In the end, it was not worth the press release it was written on. It was game playing of the highest order.
We are seeing the same thing again now; history is repeating itself. In the past four years, net migration quadrupled and our asylum system was completely destroyed. The processing of asylum claims took so long and numbers increased by so much that the previous Government were spending £9 million a day on hotel stays across more than 400 hotels. Hotel stays for my constituents are a treat, and not something to be doled out to people coming off boats in the channel—but unfortunately that is what the Conservatives did for the best part of five years. My constituents do not begrudge genuine asylum seekers, but that system was broken and they have told me that that is just not on.
Boats over the channel were basically invented by the previous Government. Indeed, 13,500 people crossed the channel in small boats in the shadow Home Secretary’s last five months as Minister for Immigration, and 260 boats crossed in his last two. The same number of boats have crossed the channel in the last six months of this Government. I would say that that is progress.
If a person is here in this country illegally—and illegal is illegal—they will be removed. That is not in contention; I do not see how it can be. In contrast to those years of open borders, this Government have secured agreements with France, Germany, Italy, Iraq and more. The arrangements with France and Germany in particular are game-changing, and I want to see French boats in the water stopping those asylum seekers in the months to come. I will finish there, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I am very short on time, but thank you very much for calling me to speak.
Road Maintenance
Debate between Oliver Ryan and Caroline Nokes(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Ind)
As many Members of this House will recognise, road maintenance is something that deeply resonates with all our constituents; it is a basic need. People across my constituency leave their homes every day in cars that they pay tax on, to drive on roads whose upkeep they pay tax for but that are just not up to standard. In Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield, we have had 14 years of underfunding and a Tory county council that my residents tell me could not care less about roads in our area because it is not an area that typically votes for them. This is just not good enough.
When I was out and about on the doorsteps during the election, this issue came up over and over again. Potholes and crumbling roads became totemic; they became a metaphor for crumbling council services. Cash for our area was stripped back year after year, not just for roads but for development and growth, while the council announced game show-style cheques and told us we were being levelled up. It felt like a PR exercise, and it was a PR exercise. From Burnley to Padiham and down the streets of Brierfield, the people I represent shared their frustration with me, and I share that frustration too.
For too long, our local roads have been left to deteriorate while the previous Government failed to take action. It was a failure not just of investment, but of attention—attention to the everyday concerns of people simply trying to get to work, to take their kids to school or to visit loved ones. When roads crumble, it is not just a nuisance; it becomes a safety hazard. It damages vehicles and it erodes public confidence in the Government to do the bare minimum. Constituents ask me how something so basic, so essential to daily life, can be left to crumble in this way. As the Secretary of State said, we cannot claim to be serious about economic growth and opportunities if we cannot even assure people that they will not have to drive on surfaces that are similar to the dirt roads of the Aussie outback.
But I stand here today encouraged because I am proud to support a Government that are now doing things differently, making meaningful and measurable investment, getting things done and delivering. The Minister has made a clear commitment to reversing the decline in local road conditions and we are about to see the results, with £1.6 billion for roads this year, which is enough to fill 21 million potholes. Lancashire is receiving a total funding package of £46.825 million for the 2025-26 financial year. That is a 40% uplift on what was allocated in the previous financial year, and it takes the full road repair fund to £65 million. This investment is not just a number on a spreadsheet, although they are certainly welcome; it is real, meaningful progress. It sends a message that we are prioritising roads so that many of our constituents can use them every day.
This is a historic funding package for our roads, but I am disappointed that Tory-run Lancashire county council has seen fit to resurface only three roads in the whole of Burnley and Padiham this year, as declared so far: Queen Victoria Road, Brunshaw Avenue and Bank Parade. That is all very welcome, but for the amount of money we are putting in, we need to see more. The resurfacing of roads in Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield is about more than asphalt. It is about improving road safety, reducing vehicle repair costs and boosting accessibility for everyone. It is about making our towns easier, safer and more pleasant to live and move around in.
While we are making progress, it would be remiss of me, as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, not to mention the Committee’s recent report: “Condition and maintenance of Local Roads in England”. We in the Committee found that the Department for Transport’s data in this area was not sufficient, and that accountability in road maintenance was still far too fragmented. We cannot afford to play pass the parcel between local and national authorities when our roads are falling apart beneath our feet. The Committee said that the DFT should take greater ownership by improving data collection, by clearly defining responsibilities and by ensuring that local councils have the resources and the oversight to deliver quality, timely maintenance and move away from short-term fixes to longer financial planning of our roads. A long time ago I was an executive member for finance at a metropolitan borough authority. Too often, over the years I was in that role, we were picking the bones of our reserves and capital plans to find one-off pots and short fixes to fund that year’s road programme. That cannot be reasonable in 21st-century Britain.
I am quite pleased, therefore, to see the Prime Minister’s recent announcement that councils will have to publish data on how many road repairs they have completed and the money that they have been granted. I remain optimistic for our roads and council services because, despite global economic uncertainty and the tightening of public finances across many countries, this Government have made a conscious decision to invest in services that matter, to increase day-to-day spending for my council across the term of the Parliament and to get more done for my residents.
In Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield, we are beginning to see the results of the decisions made around the Budget. Cash—real cash—is going into our roads. The deal is this: you pay your tax, and you get decent services. But for many hard working people, that just has not been the case. The basics were cut while we had to be grateful for the crumbs of levelling up. We were left with an empty tank and a busted engine, but given a new radio to improve the experience. We were on the road to nowhere. That is not the end of my car-related language. While I welcome this money—new money—I will continue to work closely with Lancashire county council and the Department for Transport to make sure that this wheelie good funding for my area does not stall, and is not parked for a later date, and that we get into gear, buckle in, hit the gas and deliver on this at speed. Madam Deputy Speaker, I think I have driven the point home.