Immigration and Asylum Bill (First sitting)

Paul Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Joe Robertson]

Q Does the Bill address the gaps you have just identified?

Dr Prescott: It does not really. There are some bits of the Bill that are quite welcome, such as requiring firms to outline the steps they need to take to reduce modern slavery in their supply chains. That is helpful to an extent, but it does not really address the issue of the lack of dedicated first responders in organisations, for example, and it does not deal with fixing the identification problem within the system that we were quite concerned about. I do not think it is quite there yet.

Eleanor Lyons: I do not think the Bill addresses the fundamental issues, because I do not think you need legislation for that. There is a challenge at the moment with the process, because we do not have that training consistently across first responder organisations. I do not think we have the substantial evidence we need to underpin a lot of the changes that the Bill is proposing. It undercuts a lot of work that has been done over the years to recognise that victims of all crime groups and of exploitation take a long time to feel comfortable speaking, and they may be scared to come forward. We are creating exceptional rules for victims of modern slavery that I think are fundamentally unfair.

I would say that the issue with tackling modern slavery in this country is that we do not have dedicated funding for police teams any more, and we have a modern slavery strategy that is over 10 years out of date. If we really want to tackle the issue, we need to look at those big picture things. The Bill is making it harder for victims to come forward, and it does not address the problem of the perpetrators of the crime. Actually, a lot of those things were introduced under previous bits of legislation, and there is already a struggle to enact them at the moment.

[Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)]

Q Good morning, everyone. I have a direct question for Vicky, following on from the previous question. In your submission, you welcomed the Government’s objective of creating a fairer and more efficient asylum system, but you raised concerns about several specific provisions in the Bill. Can you explain to us which aspects of the Bill present the greatest risk to refugee protection?

Vicky Tennant: Thank you very much, and thanks for referring to the observations we shared with the Home Secretary a few weeks ago. What we essentially said is that we are very supportive of the overall objective to improve the asylum system by making it fairer, more efficient and more sustainable, and we think there are elements of the Bill that move in that direction. The spirit of our observations was very much along the lines of highlighting where we felt it could be strengthened to better achieve those objectives.

Of course, as the UN refugee agency we are very focused on what the Bill means for protections and solutions for asylum seekers and refugees. We also very much recognise the importance of public confidence in a well-functioning system—and that means not just a fair and efficient process for refugees, but the ability to return people who are found not to be in need of international protection. It means safe, regular routes for people, so that they are not forced into these dangerous journeys that we are all so conscious of. It is also about facilitating co-operation with international partners to address the challenges. We are very much coming from the perspective of recognising the challenges, and we want to work with the Government to address those. We have approached our engagement with the Bill very much with that in mind.

The observations speak to a number of areas, three of which I would highlight in particular. First, there are the very extensive provisions that deal with the appeals system and the establishment of the new appeals body. From our perspective that is not, in itself, inherently problematic, but what is essential that the body will only be able to achieve the objectives of helping contribute to that fairer and more sustainable asylum system if it has the relevant expertise firmly embedded in both the profile of the adjudicators and the role that legal expertise will play in the adjudication process.

It is clearly important that the body both is, and is seen to be, independent of the initial decision-making process, and is transparent in terms of being open to public scrutiny, including on the quality of the adjudication process. Then there are the procedural safeguards, such as access to legal advice and support, and the possibility for those with protection claims to have an oral hearing. Those are all key safeguards, and they are really essential. What you want is accurate, high-quality decisions so that appellants are not then in a position of lodging more appeals to the first-tier tribunal. We are very happy, by the way, that the possibility of further recourse to the first-tier tribunal is there, but we do not want to see it overused either; we want to see high-quality decisions at the appeal stage and, even better, at the first instance stage. That whole area of appeals is one where we feel that more information and more elements could be provided to facilitate the consideration of the Bill.

The second area—I am going to mention three—is the provision that would allow recovery of the asylum support provided to asylum seekers while their claims are looked into. First, I would highlight that asylum seekers do not have the right to work, so in many cases they are forced to rely on that support. Secondly, they have no control over the length of the process, so they have no control over how long it will take to get a decision. A high proportion of asylum seekers are subsequently recognised as refugees, and essentially saddling them with the prospect of an obligation to repay what could be a really very large sum of money is not going to help to facilitate the integration process at the moment when they should be getting back on their feet. That is not in the interests of refugees, and it is also not in the interests of communities. We also believe that there is an issue of compatibility with the refugee convention. It is quite a technical issue, and we have set it out in detail in the observations. I can say more about that if you would like, but that is an area where we would urge another look.

The third area is in relation to article 8 of the European convention on human rights. In the observations, we have not gone into detail on all the aspects of the changes to article 8—the interpretation of article 8 that is embedded in the Bill. We would just highlight how it could potentially impact refugee family reunion. We should bear in mind that, because of their displacement, refugees have often been separated from families in very chaotic and difficult circumstances. One element of the Bill speaks to the presumption that one would normally have expected cohabitation with the family member being sponsored, but that is difficult in the refugee context—it is a difficult threshold to make. Particularly in view of the suspension of refugee family reunion—that bespoke route—we feel that that could have quite a harmful impact.

Those are the three areas. Clearly, the legislation is only one part of the overall answer, so it also has to be looked at in the context of the wider policy reforms that are being pursued. As UNHCR, we have been very pleased with the level of engagement we have had with the Home Office as these reforms are seen through.

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

Q I have some further questions to Vicky. In your observations, you do say that efficiency should not be pursued at the expense of “procedural fairness” but also of

“access to protection and successful integration.”

You also warn that the Bill could

“undermine conditions that support successful integration for those ultimately recognised as refugees.”

Could you outline how you think the Bill, in practice, will harm integration?

Vicky Tennant: I would say the key area is the recovery of asylum support. We understand that what is envisaged is potentially up to £10,000 per person to be recovered. Imagine that a refugee has gone through a long and difficult set of experiences before arrival in the UK, and has then gone through the uncertainty of the asylum process, potentially for an extended period of time, where they are unable to work or to start the process of getting back on their feet. Then, just as they are getting into employment and starting to rebuild their lives, the prospect of having to repay a potentially large sum of money could impede that. That was the main element that we felt was relevant to integration.

The article 8 point and the ability to reunite with family members is also relevant. Many times when talking to asylum seekers and refugees, I have seen the anguish, the disruption and the sense of something that is unfinished. Being reunited with family and able to restart family life is an element that is fairly fundamental to integration, from the perspective of not only the refugee, but the UK public and communities. We think that giving refugees the possibility to start afresh and moving them as quickly as possible into the integration journey is important, and we know that that is also one of the Government’s stated objectives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Gordon]

Q Has the NCA ever received any evidence or intelligence? Has information been gathered from these gangs about their seeking to exploit the Government’s having previously changed the system and removed those overseas routes?

Helen Rance: I am sorry, but I just do not have that sort of information. You can rephrase the question again, but I am not clear that that is a matter for the NCA.

[Mr Foster]

Q I will be brief. We have discussed the gangs a lot and the NCA is obviously investigating. Is the NCA investigating a lot of the criminal activity around the gangs and immigration in the United Kingdom itself—not just gangs over in Europe and elsewhere? Also, are there indications that funding for that activity has come through cryptocurrency?

Helen Rance: Yes, we would investigate the gangs facilitating illegal immigration within the United Kingdom as well as those outside. Cryptocurrency is one of many methods of funding, which is why we are doing a specific amount of work on the criminal finances used. I am not going to comment specifically on how much is cryptocurrency, but there are many methods, of which cryptocurrency is one.

[Mr Foster]

Q Could the Bill do more to legislate around cryptocurrency or should that be dealt with elsewhere?

Helen Rance: I think that should be dealt with elsewhere.

[Siân Berry]

Q To clarify, you say that the criminal investigation of the gangs is not in scope of the Bill. You have been asked to come today to testify about the potential of the Bill to reduce demand, so I think it is completely legitimate for us to ask you about your agency’s analysis of the roots of that demand. The question of the lack of safe routes to claim asylum is very pertinent; I would expect you to have a view on that, at least when it comes to the timeline of what you have noticed in response to previous Government changes.

Helen Rance: That is not something that I was specifically anticipating answering questions about on this specific Bill around modern slavery and human trafficking.

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

Paul Foster Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 15th September 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Anna Turley]

Q I was asking for your view on potential metrics we could use in future, after the Bill has been implemented, to measure whether it has successfully achieved its aims.

Alp Mehmet: I suppose the principal metric will be the extent to which it has sped up how long it actually takes to deal with someone who arrives, claims asylum, goes through the system and then has a decision made. It will also be the extent to which, having made that decision, appropriate action can then be taken—that is, the person is either removed or permitted to stay.

It is going to take a couple of years, which is another problem I find with the Bill. Here we are again, proposing fresh measures, and however welcome or not they are, the fact is that it will be three years down the road before we know what their impact is. I do not think that matches the urgency the problem requires. If it does indeed discourage people from coming and from making repeat appeals, one after the other, I think that is a metric that can also be used to determine whether or not what was intended is being achieved, but it is going to be at least a couple of years, if not longer, before we know.

[Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)]

Q Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. A question to both of you: given that you have mentioned the urgency of addressing the challenge the country faces, and remembering the strict international legal frameworks that constrain some of the legislation we can enter into, which single policy would you like to see in the Bill that is not there now, but that you would think would have the biggest impact on reducing illegal migration? I know it is a difficult question, it is the golden question, but I would be interested to know from two experts, given the urgency and the legal frameworks we are working within, what you think would have the biggest impact on preventing the illegal migration we are being challenged with.

Dr Sumption: If your goal is to reduce unauthorised arrivals, I think most of the measures for which there is evidence that they are effective do not actually require legislation. There is evidence from other countries that physical enforcement—measures like intercepting boats, where it can be done safely—can have a large impact. There is also evidence that a lower grant rate, which the UK already has, will have an impact in reducing the number of people who apply, and that returns agreements—a much larger version of the one in, one out deal with France, for example—would have an impact. Those things are difficult for their own reasons, but none of them would require legislation.

Alp Mehmet: Needless to say, I agree with all that. I start by saying that I believe that the biggest flaw in the Bill is the further opening up of the border, effectively, with the safe and legal routes, which will allow approved organisations, institutions and employers to act as sponsors. That, if it actually works, may attract some of those who would otherwise have crossed in boats or got into the backs of lorries or crossed by other means, but I do not think it will do that. I suspect that if the number of boats coming across slows down, it will not be because of the Bill; none the less, it might have the effect of making fewer people attempt the crossing. You could argue that in itself is a success because it means that fewer people are putting their lives at risk. Nevertheless, opening up in the way that is being proposed, so that universities, employers, non-governmental organisations, and communities can act as sponsors, potentially gives an opportunity to some 120 million people around the world.

Some figures I saw from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees suggested that at the end of 2025 something like 118 million people were displaced globally. Potentially, any one of them can take advantage of this new route the Bill opens up—in effect, anyone who has a friend who can persuade an employer to take them on. Employers go out looking for these people, or universities; presumably somebody will pay for those who are going to be studying there.

My fear is that this will put the Boriswave in the shade. The numbers the measure attracts may become a serious problem, in the same way that those who arrived over the preceding five years became a problem. It is probably too late to do anything about that, but I have a feeling that, three years down the road, we will be talking about legislation to end that process. That is unfortunate, to say the least.

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Q My question is for you, Alp, picking up on some of the earlier commentary. You made reference to Australia, Denmark, the USA and Greece, which have reduced numbers applying for asylum through measures that bear no resemblance to the Bill. What should we put in the Bill to replicate the success of those countries?

Alp Mehmet: We could start by declaring our intention to come out of the ECHR. Human rights can be dealt with perfectly well by a country like ours without our having to be signed up to the ECHR. We could also pull out of the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings. We should announce that the Human Rights Act 1998 will be repealed. All of that would allow us to deal with the sort of people who are, understandably, looking for a better life. I have no problem with that, but are we really saying that anyone and everyone of 118 million will be able to come here?

This may sound relatively minor, but the other thing I would do is put the onus on arrivals—we used to call them passengers in the old days. We should put the onus on the migrants arriving to satisfy the immigration official dealing with them of their bona fides. That is what used to happen. Our courts have pushed us in the opposite direction: we now have to disprove. If we do not have any evidence to back that up, we are effectively saying, “Okay, we can’t prove it otherwise. We don’t know who you are. You haven’t got a passport, but we’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt, because the Home Office can’t provide the evidence to do otherwise.” That is absurd. It is also dangerous.

Those are the things that I would include in the Bill. Perhaps you would expect me to say a lot of that. Look at what the Americans have done. Whatever anyone feels about some politicians in the United States, they have nevertheless been successful in closing the southern border to illegal immigration. We should put in place effective measures to stop those coming across the channel not just in boats, but in other ways. If the French were sensible and serious enough to stop the whole thing, they should volunteer to take the migrants who make their way to us from there, as should the EU. That is not going to happen anytime soon, I suspect. All in all, I am a little disheartened by the Bill, the measures in it and what is likely to happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joe Robertson]

Q I will address my question to Professor Singer. We heard in previous evidence about some of the novel or unusual drafting and wording in the Bill. For example clause 19(4) says:

“No weight should be given to a private or family life”,

rather than that those issues should be “disregarded”, which I think is the normal phrase you would find in law, rather than “no weight”—it is hard to understand what “no weight” means. Also, the ouster provision in clause 1(8) seeking to try to oust the jurisdiction of the court in certain circumstances is drafted in a very loose way, when we know from case law that courts want very specific ousters if they are going to accept them. Does that not run the risk that this entire Bill is actually going to increase litigation just so that the courts can try to define and understand what some of this novel and peculiar wording actually means?

Professor Singer: I have to say that I have questions about the drafting of the Bill in its entirety. I do not think that the Committee can appropriately scrutinise the Bill, because there is a significant lack of detail in so many of the provisions, in addition to very odd drafting. With due respect, a lot of it is back-of-the-envelope-type stuff, which has clearly been rushed through the legislative drafting process.

For example, in the previous panel, I heard the Committee questioning the clause on the introduction of a core protection status. The clause does not actually set out the eligibility or content, in terms of what a core protection status is; it gives the Secretary of State significant powers to make regulations in respect of what eligibility for a protection status would be and what the content of that status would be.

Similarly, in the provision on asylum support, we do not have any details about the actual operation or functioning of that system. The provision gives the Secretary of State power to make regulations in respect of this scheme. In relation to the Independent Immigration Appeals Authority, we do not have the rules of procedure to scrutinise, to be able to ascertain whether there will be due process, which will be appropriately followed, and fairness.

I agree with you that there are strange inconsistencies in the drafting, but, additionally, I think the whole content of the Bill is quite lacking in many respects.

[Mr Foster]

Q You have both been heavily and quite vocally critical of the Home Office—more than any of the other witnesses today. One issue we have is that there is a lot of political pressure, and the country is not happy with the current system and with what is happening, particularly with legal migration—some would say that the lawyers are perhaps partly responsible for that, but that is a separate debate. You have also acknowledged that there is a huge backlog in the appeals process and that, a lot of the time, that is the Home Office’s fault. The Government are trying to propose an alternative process for that, which you are also criticising. We cannot continue with the status quo, so what would you both advise doing to speed up the process for both the United Kingdom Government and the individuals seeking asylum?

Professor Singer: There are a lot of much more financially effective ways to address the backlog. As was already intimated, a lot of the current tribunal backlog is caused by the fact that initial decision making was paused for a significant amount of time when the Rwanda scheme was being pursued. Once that was opened, there was a huge investment in making a large number of initial decisions on a very quick basis. That was roundly criticised on a number of counts as leading to speed over quality. A number of very poor-quality decisions then went through to the appeal system, leading to the backlog at the initial tribunal system.

That can be addressed by not having inconsistencies in the rate of initial decision making in the first place; improving the quality of initial decision making within the Home Office, hopefully leading to fewer appeals; making sure that there is legal aid provision for those who are entitled to it, so that they are not wasting time in the tribunal system; and ensuring that the Home Office uses its review mechanism appropriately. I am sure my colleague can speak to this at much more length than I can, but at the moment initial rejection decisions tend to include a large number of copy-and-paste grounds for refusal. When it gets to tribunal, the decision maker has to go through every single one of those grounds, which is incredibly lengthy. If a Home Office official reviewed that in advance and conceded the grounds that were not arguable, it would speed up the decision-making process within the tribunal system.

As I have already intimated, if there really is concern that there are not enough sitting judges in the first-tier tribunal, there is provision to expand the eligibility criteria within the initial system. Surely that would be a much more effective and speedy way to address the backlog than creating a whole new body and system, with its own mechanisms and staffing requirements. Although the stated intention of creating this new body is to address the asylum backlog, in reality, as we can see from the terms of the Bill, the true intention is to give the Home Secretary much more control over the operation of the tribunal system than she currently has.

Jacqui McKenzie: I will just add, in defence of lawyers, that we see stories every now and again of a dodgy practitioner here and there, but the vast majority of lawyers are helping. I have a small team of immigration and asylum lawyers. We do about 20 appeals a year, and 18 or 19 are won in the tribunal. None of them should have been anywhere near the tribunal. We work to a very high standard of putting in the evidence—the subjective evidence, the objective evidence, expert evidence, all that sort of thing. We do not take cases where we do not think there is a case. We are not bucking the system in any way. It is so frustrating to see those cases get refused by the Home Office, when they ought not to be. There is then the period of scrutiny called the review, and they get rejected there again. Then people spend another year or two in the asylum system before their appeals are ultimately allowed.

Lawyers are actually helping. They are trying to work with the Home Office. There is the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, which works with the Home Office. There are Windrush groups that work with the Home Office. I have been part of it. I worked with former Home Secretaries Sajid Javid and Priti Patel on trying to get things right. It is wrong to blame lawyers. We are doing our job, a job we train for many years to do, and we are trying to help the system. But it is a fact that poor decision making and structural problems around legal aid, which mean that we do not have enough practitioners, or enough high-quality practitioners, are causing a backlog.

[Mr Foster]

Q Can I just be clear: I did not say that I blame lawyers. I said there is a view in the country at times, as you are explaining.

Jacqui McKenzie: I understood—I was just defending lawyers.

[Mr Foster]

Q Would you both concede, though, that there is an issue, because the claims are not being dealt with quickly enough and there are a number of appeals, and that it is only right and proper that the Government try to do something about it, and so they have introduced the Bill?

Jacqui McKenzie: I do not know that the Bill does that. That is the point I am making. I think Professor Singer is making the same point, and others are also making it: the networks, the immigration organisations and associations, a lot of academics, immigration judges and a lot of people up and down the country in organisations representing children and representing refugees. There is no end of evidence of people saying it is not going to achieve that.

I accept that there is an issue: even if the Home Office was to get every application right—and that will never be possible, because nobody gets everything right—there are still large numbers of people in a system that is not designed well. It needs to be better designed. The Home Office probably needs more resources. When I sat on the Windrush lessons learned review independent advisory group, one thing that came out—you are hearing evidence from Daniel Hobbs later—was that the Home Office is a large organisation that is very unwieldy. It deals with the nice things, such as granting visas and so on, but also with law and order and so forth. Maybe it needs breaking up. Maybe it needs more resources.

Overall, my view, and you may not agree with me, is that the UK gets very few people coming here, and certainly very few people coming in small boats. It gets very few people coming as asylum seekers. One of the witnesses earlier talked about 118 million people being displaced, but we have the data—I do not need to keep repeating it, but we see that very poor countries have the burden of asylum seekers and refugees. There are 1 million Rohingyas in Bangladesh and 2 million Venezuelans in Colombia. A small Caribbean island next door to an island where my parents were from, which has a population of just over 1 million, has 200,000 refugees in it. We really do not get that many people coming here, either through legal routes or in small boats. Because those numbers are static—in fact, they are declining—we need to resource the Home Office properly with more skilled or highly skilled people. I am not having a go at the people who are there, but something is very wrong there. That is what is causing the major problems that we see at the higher levels, such as the appellate courts.

Professor Singer: Even aside from questions surrounding the number of arrivals that we have, setting up an entirely new body would be a huge waste of public resources. The Home Office’s own impact assessment for the Bill states:

“The set up of the IIAA will require the recruitment and/or redeployment of an executive board, adjudicators, and supporting staff. This represents a significant operational undertaking and is expected to incur substantial recruitment and onboarding costs.”

It then states that the recruitment will be

“challenging and may not be achievable, increasing the likelihood of operational pressure and higher than expected costs.”

There is the additional factor of transitioning the first-tier tribunal judges over to the new board and/or the financial costs of the obligations that are owed to judges if they are retired. It is a huge waste of public resources to set up an entirely new board. Those resources would be much better spent on properly staffing and resourcing the Home Office and the first-tier tribunal system that we currently have. There is a lot that can be done within the structure of the existing system to make it better. That would be a much more effective use of public funds.

[Siân Berry]

Q Jacqueline, you mentioned the poor quality of decision making. The evidence from the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association offers multiple casework examples, and offers more such examples to the Committee if we wish to get them—and I think we should. Obviously, as an MP, I see many such decisions in person. What more can be done to improve that decision making? I know that the National Audit Office has looked at it. One thing I have noticed in my constituency is that some migrant groups have tried to get migrants themselves, successful asylum seekers, to give evidence on the process, but they are scared to do that, because they worry about their next visa decision. Is there more than we can do to bring people in to improving the process and the accessibility of it? As I understand it, the first decision is usually when people are without lawyer representation, so that is where these kinds of issues can arise. Can you say more about that? Sorry, that is a very long question.

Jacqui McKenzie: That first instance that you are talking about is asylum claims, where people go in themselves, claim asylum and they have a screening interview and a longer, more elaborate and substantive interview and then lawyers tend to get involved in putting together all the evidence that is available to support the claim— [Interruption.] Sorry—there is an awful fly. It has kind of made me lose my thoughts. The other day I was here it was a mouse; now it is a fly. What is going on in this building?

The issue is about training. Very rudimentary errors that you see—the wrong country, the wrong gender and the wrong names of people—are partly to do with what Professor Singer picked up on: very often, it is a cut-and-paste approach. I almost know the decisions off by heart, because you see the same paragraphs. When you have been doing it for as long as I have, you know what you are going to get.

I am not casting any aspersions on people who are probably working very hard in their jobs, probably not for the best of pay, but I suppose there are some perks—it is a career and there is a pension at the end of it and all that sort of thing. It is difficult. I understand that they have targets; somebody in the criminal casework department told me they even had a star sheet on the wall, and each time they got someone deported, they got a little star. I do not know what sort of place that is, but I think it needs more people—it needs expansion—and better training. I do not think the numbers of people who are coming through the system are going to increase exponentially—in fact, we are seeing a decrease.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Goldsborough]

Q Do you not believe that any clarity needs to be introduced in article 8? We have seen a number of cases where it should not have been applied, but because Parliament has not set out with clarity a legal structure to the judiciary, there can be some perambulation or wandering on what the interpretation should be. Is it not in the interest of such cases as those you highlighted, which you took forward and which needed to be covered by article 8, that the article has the full confidence of the public because they know it is being used for the right reasons?

Jacqui McKenzie: The Bill does not do that, though. If that is what you want to see happen, the Bill will not do that. Instead, we have this popular culture, mainly perpetuated through the media, around article 8. Every now and again, you get a story about somebody and their cat, or somebody who did not like chicken nuggets in Albania. First, those are very minor cases, and secondly, they are never the whole story. That is usually just one feature of a number of grounds on which someone has been granted leave to remain under article 8, but that is the one that the journalist sat in the back of the court decides to write about. Because that is happening, the public have a concept of article 8, but they do not understand it. It is our job, and the job of parliamentarians, to try to educate them.

Professor Singer: We already have quite a detailed domestic legislative framework around article 8, introduced in the Immigration Act 2014. That is very detailed and sets out in statute the different factors the courts should take into account. This Bill adds further complexity to that, and in many senses is more restrictive on interpretation. It does not add any clarity, as such. As I mentioned, according to the Home Office’s impact assessment, the impacts are expected to be minimal.

[Mr Foster]

Q On that point, this morning, the Committee heard evidence from a KC, whose name I cannot recall, who said that the Strasbourg court has indicated that it thinks that the UK is not applying article 8 correctly, and is applying it too liberally—that was not his language; that is just the language I am using. He said Strasbourg thinks that the UK courts have gone too far with their application of article 8. You can see how confusing the issue is. Do you agree that there is great confusion around the application of article 8, and recognise that Strasbourg has indicated that the UK courts might not be doing so correctly?

Jacqui McKenzie: I have not heard the Strasbourg courts say that; I have no idea why they would be saying that.

Professor Singer: I have not heard that either.

[Mr Foster]

It was mentioned in the Committee’s evidence session this morning.

Professor Singer: You can look at the most recent decisions from the Court of Appeal; for example, the decision on IA and others v. Secretary of State for the Home Department a few months ago was a very restrictive interpretation of article 8 being applied to deny those appellants the right to family life. I do not see the courts taking a particularly liberal approach to article 8. As I mentioned, we already have a domestic framework in place.

[Mr Foster]

Q I am just asking for your view on some of the evidence the Committee heard this morning. This is not Paul Foster’s view; it is the view of our witnesses.

Professor Singer: I have not come across that myself.

Jacqui McKenzie: I do not think that is right.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Q You have focused a great deal on Home Office decision making as the primary reason why the process takes a long time and there are a number of appeals, but is the reality not that appeal is the default? Virtually all refusals are appealed; it is nothing to do with the decision making, and as long as that is going to be the case, we have to find a way to speed up the system.

Jacqui McKenzie: What I am referring to are those decisions that are badly made that end up in the appellant system. Those are the ones that I see and that go on, after two or three years, to be allowed, and the person gets to remain in the UK.

Those are not the initiatives where people coming from particular countries have been granted asylum, and there has been a whole discussion on whether that is due process or not. Generally speaking, of the appeals that we see in my practice—my practice is limited; I am not sitting here trying to extrapolate across the jurisdiction—the vast majority, if not nearly all of them, could have had a different decision in the first instance, and did not need to go into the system. Of course, if people’s lives are dependent on them fleeing persecution or maintaining their family ties in the UK and they get a negative decision, they are going to appeal. That is just the way things are.

Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings

Paul Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I certainly agree with the hon. Lady that the shadow Home Secretary sounds like a broken record; we are well used to him running that argument in this place. I also agree that the key to dealing with hotels is to get the system back up and running from the chaos that it was in. I can tell the hon. Lady that asylum processing at first decision has ramped up considerably and we are getting through the backlog we inherited, but there is also a huge backlog by definition in the appeals system, partly caused by the legacy appeal—the dash to end the legacy system ahead of the fantasy Rwanda scheme beginning—which has led to a big backlog in appeals. We are looking to see what we can do about that, because it is important that we get a fast and fair system from end to end, and that includes appeals.

[Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)]

Because the previous Government lost complete control of our borders, the Leyland hotel in my constituency of South Ribble was closed down three years ago—yes, three years ago—and used for asylum seekers. There is a chronic undersupply of hotels in South Ribble, Chorley, Preston and central Lancashire. Can Ministers provide any indication at all of when the hotel will cease to be used as an asylum hotel? I am asked that question every single week.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I want to get out of hotels as quickly as is feasible. I will not name particular dates, because that is a pointless thing to do. We have to get through the appeals system and the first asylum processing system so that we can move people through the system much more quickly. We also need to continue our work on ramping up returns, which have seen a huge increase—the highest figures for the last five years—and we intend to continue with that process.

Knife Crime: Children and Young People

Paul Foster Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) for bringing this important debate to the House. This is a national emergency and a huge threat to our society and our young people. I wish to associate myself with many of the things he said, and I totally agree that we have to stop this. I am not interested in who said what and when politically; I am interested in all of us working together to resolve this issue. We have to deal with it.

I will give a voice to victims and families, because it is important that we remember that behind every stabbing there is a victim, and behind every victim there is a family. I wish to mention two in particular. My constituent Beverley Davies has been to see me a few times. Beverley’s son was stabbed over 120 times on Parbold Hill in Lancashire a few years ago. Alex was his name, and he was 18. The individual who murdered him was also 18. They met online on a platform that was used to lure Alex to his death. Beverley feels wholly let down by the justice system and the support and communications that she has received since this appalling event. The justice system around the country is piecemeal. It must be improved for our victims and families.

Child A survived the Southport attack—she was stabbed over 30 times. She and her family live in my constituency. I will not give her name or that of her parents, but I asked them if they wished to have their voices heard today in the Chamber. I commend them, because they asked me to read out the following statement.

“We welcome tougher laws around the purchase of knives and the wider work to reduce knife crime. We are extremely focused from our direct experience on male youth violence against women and girls but also recognise that knife crime crosses many other areas of our society and tackling this is complex. To reduce knife crime, and other acts of violence perpetrated by young men and boys against women and girls, we must look at the motivations, the narratives and the environments they are immersed in. For us, this is the hard work; the work that requires sustained commitment.”

That commitment must come from us. The statement goes on:

“The work to reduce knife crime must begin before young people go out to obtain a knife. It is sensible to make it harder to purchase knives and to tighten the law on carrying knives. These are tangible solutions that provide quick reassurance and ‘results.’ But, if a young person is looking for a knife, then we are too late, and they are already on a path to causing harm.

We must support parents, caregivers and schools better, not only in how they identify and support young people who may be at risk to themselves or others—we can all agree that these pathways need overhauls, and the Southport inquiry will serve this purpose—but, before that, working with all children, establishing the fundamentals of healthy relationships, friendships, and girls and boys being equal.

Our young people must be exposed to counter-messaging from what they may be consuming online, or at home. The work required is vast and complex but the long-term reduction in knife crime will only be seen if we go back to the start and raise our children better.

In the context of violence towards women and girls, current topics are important. Netflix’s show ‘Adolescence’ has opened a conversation about our children’s exposure to harmful messaging and themes about women and girls. We are grateful for the coverage happening this week, which is further highlighting the terrifying impact of Andrew Tate and others on vulnerable young boys.”

I commend that child’s parents for having the courage to write that. They are clearly concerned that this will happen again. I urge all hon. Members of the House to please work together for the victims and the families. Let us please deal with this once and for all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Foster Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her new position. It is a great job, and I look forward to giving evidence to her as she did to me—we will see what price I have to pay as the roles are reversed. She asks an important point about modern slavery numbers. We are recruiting additional members of staff, and I will happily provide her with more information about that crucial policy area.

[Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)]

T10. Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 imposes unnecessary obligations on the police, and requires them to redact personal data for information transferred to the Crown Prosecution Service. Those obligations delay and obstruct the swift progress of the criminal justice system. The Police Federation of England and Wales has proposed a new clause that, if introduced, would facilitate the free flow of personal data between the police and the CPS. Will Ministers urgently look at reforming that unnecessary red tape to allow more police time on the streets in my constituency of South Ribble?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

That is an important point, and we are actively exploring all ways that we can improve guidance around redaction, streamline current processes, make better use of technology, and ultimately reduce unnecessary burdens on the police and prosecutors, so that they can get on with their primary task of keeping the public safe and putting away criminals.