Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Suffering from the conditions that she describes is enormously disruptive to life and enormously distressing. These matters are devolved not only to the different parts of the United Kingdom, but to local clinical commissioning groups, which take the decisions about how to operate policies in their local communities. Where Members have situations in their constituencies which they think are not right, they need to take those up with local clinical commissioning groups and try to get a change of practice in those communities.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My constituents in Kettering are outraged that an illegal immigrant from Sudan who broke into this country by walking through the channel tunnel has this week been awarded asylum and allowed to stay here. This sends an appalling signal to the staff at Eurotunnel and our hard-working border staff both in this country and in France. What is the point of intercepting these people if they are going to be given permission to stay? Also, it sends a green light to illegal immigrants from across the world that they might as well give it a go because if they make it here, they will get asylum. May we have an urgent statement from the Home Office on this matter?

[Chris Grayling]

I understand the concerns that my hon. Friend expresses. We have Home Office questions on Monday. Of course, we are subject to international rules on asylum claims and the best way of addressing the pressures is to continue the work we are doing to make sure that the border controls in Calais are secure. We are grateful to the French Government for the way they work collaboratively with us on this. The protective measures at Calais are much stronger than they were a few months ago, but it is a constant battle for our border forces.