Illegal Migration Bill

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend puts it very well. Labour’s policy on this issue is indeed open borders. A former Labour Home Secretary did grant an amnesty to asylum seekers. It is about ensuring that illegal migration continues through the back door. That is not what the British people voted for; that is not what this Parliament will vote for.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It will not have escaped the Home Secretary’s notice that despite what I have no doubt have been the best efforts of her Government Whips, they have not found a single Member of Parliament from a Scottish constituency to have a single good word to say about the Bill. The fact is that Scotland’s MPs, Scotland’s Government, Scotland’s local authorities and Scotland’s people speak as one in saying that our biggest complaint about the UK asylum system is that her Government will not allow us to welcome as many refugees and asylum seekers as we want to. May I make a suggestion to the Home Secretary? Will she agree, even on a temporary pilot basis, to allow the Scottish Government to take control of our asylum system? We will see whether the best way to deal with asylum seekers is to treat them like human beings or to treat them in the way she wants to treat them.

[Suella Braverman]

All the Scottish National party can point to is a track record of failure when it comes to discharging its humanitarian duties to asylum seekers. It totally failed to support Ukrainians and had to hand over responsibility to the UK Government. It totally failed to take its fair share of refugees in comparison to other parts of the UK. It is failure, failure, failure from the SNP.