Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

We have the National Security Act 2023 and a range of tools at our disposal. Defence against state threats is one of the Department’s priorities, and my right hon. Friend the Security Minister leads on its practical implementation. I can reassure the shadow Home Secretary and the House that we constantly review the range of options at our disposal and deploy those that are most appropriate. Protecting the UK and the people living and working here against state threats will always be a priority of this Government.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

T4. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire support the excellent initiative of a number of Conservative police and crime commissioners to include filling in potholes as part of the community payback initiative for convicted offenders? Will he apply pressure on the Ministry of Justice to get this up and running as soon as possible?

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

My hon. Friend raises an excellent idea that has my enthusiastic support. I will do exactly as he asks straightaway.

Illegal Migration

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am pleased that some of the hotels in my hon. Friend’s constituency will now be closed. He has seen just how challenging illegal migration can be, not least in the protests in his town and the strain that it has put on community cohesion. That is why we must stop the boats and reduce the number of people coming over in that manner. We will work with hoteliers as far as we can to help them to reopen their hotels successfully. The hotels are on different notice periods and that is one reason the announcement that we are making today is staggered. The majority are on three-month notice periods, which gives those hoteliers and their communities the time to prepare, take bookings, hire staff and come back to life.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for the real progress that has been made in cutting the small boat crossings, and also, last month, for closing the Royal Hotel Kettering as an asylum hotel. When does the Minister expect to close the Rothwell House Hotel in Rothwell as an asylum accommodation centre?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am pleased that we were able to close the first hotel in my hon. Friend’s constituency the other day. I know that it was one he felt very strongly about indeed. As we make further progress with stopping the boats, we will be able to close more hotels, and he has made a strong case for the second one in his constituency.

Illegal Migration Update

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I hope that I have given my hon. Friend some reassurance that we are now at a point where we can move forward with exiting hotels—we will come back to the House in due course to set out those arrangements—but he is right that this is a fundamental question of fairness. It is not appropriate for people who have broken our laws and come into our country illegally to be accessing luxurious accommodation that is way beyond the means of millions of our fellow citizens.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The Royal Hotel in Kettering and the Rothwell House Hotel in Rothwell are unsuitable as asylum hotel locations, not least because of their heart-of-town-centre sites. The Minister already knows the strength of local feeling about those two hotels. Local people want them back as normal hotels. I believe they are on 12-month contracts. Will he ensure that those contracts are not renewed when they come to an end?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend has made very strong representations on behalf of his community, and he and I met earlier in the year to discuss that further. When we are in a position to close hotels, it will be ones like his—small hotels in market towns that take away very important community assets—that will be top of the list.

Rape and Sexual Violence: Criminal Justice Response

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

In the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the Government introduced pre-recorded cross-examination to allow victims to pre-record their evidence and spare them the trauma of attending court in person. What progress has been made across the court system with those new procedures? Also, can the Minister reassure me and my constituents that, when sentenced, rapists are now serving longer in prison than they were before?

[Miss Dines]

Giving confidence to anybody who appears in court is important, particularly with this sort of heinous crime. As I mentioned earlier, we have completed a national roll-out of that pre-recorded evidence, which spares the victims of those ordeals and really makes a massive difference. It is one of the things that is brought up time and again when I speak to victims: they want to give their evidence in a fair way and not to feel that they are on trial. That is exactly why the Government are rolling out pre-recorded evidence. The victims code will go even further in allowing and in fact mandating prosecutors to meet people who are about to give evidence and who have been the victim of an alleged rape. It is a really good step forward and I commend the victims code to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

As I have made clear, we take our international obligations very seriously, and we are satisfied that the Bill complies with the refugee convention. With respect to the hon. Lady, I will not take lectures from the SNP on this matter. SNP Members are, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) said, the phoney humanitarians in this debate. They are happy to support asylum seekers as long as they are nowhere near Scotland. When they stop opposing the vessel in Leith, which will house more asylum seekers, then we can have a serious conversation.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The UN Refugee Agency has its own asylum seeker relocation programme: it flies asylum seekers from Libya to Rwanda in a scheme part-funded by the European Union. How on earth can Rwanda be deemed not to be a safe country if the UN Refugee Agency itself is using it as a safe haven?

[Suella Braverman]

As always, my hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I could not agree with him more. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees runs an extensive scheme in Rwanda, and supports the resettlement of many thousands of migrants. I met some of them in my recent visit to Rwanda. They are happy and grateful for the generosity and welcome that Rwanda has offered them, which has allowed them to restart their lives. I am frankly very disappointed by the constant smears and assumptions, which are based on outdated and ignorant views, denigrating our allies in Rwanda. I am nothing but grateful to our partners in Rwanda for the continued co-operation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to look into the case for the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The number of foreign national offenders eligible for deportation has now reached a record almost 12,000. Almost 4,000 of those left prison more than five years ago and even those volunteering for deportation are still here. Will the Minister get a grip on the deportation department within the Home Office and make sure those people are chucked out of our country?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We want those individuals to leave the country as swiftly as possible. The published figures show that FNO returns increased following the pandemic—by 14% in the latest 12-month period ending December 2022 compared with the previous 12-month period—but, quite clearly, there is more work to be done.

Migration and Economic Development Partnership

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

This is not about playing games; it is about saving lives. Diminishing it in that way does not do justice to the complexity and the enormity of the challenge that we are all facing. We are making progress. As the Prime Minister set out a few weeks ago, we are making progress on the legacy backlog of the initial decisions, which have fallen by 17,000. That is thanks to measures and interventions that we have introduced, including streamlining the process, increasing the number of caseworkers and making decisions in a swifter fashion. Step by step, we will bear down on the backlog, as we have promised to do so.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My constituents in Kettering are completely fed up with Labour’s opposition and delay to the Illegal Migration Bill, and with the courts frustrating the Rwanda plan. Will the Home Secretary answer this question for my constituents: how on earth can Rwanda be deemed not to be a safe country, when the UN Refugee Agency itself has its own asylum scheme, part funded by the European Union, to send asylum seekers to Rwanda?

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point and I refer him to the dissenting judgment of the Lord Chief Justice. It is quite a long judgment, but if he has the time he should read paragraph 498 particularly, which sets out similar points to his. The Lord Chief Justice finds that there are strong grounds to disagree with the other judges and that there is no real risk of people who are being relocated to Rwanda being treated in an unsafe or unlawful way. I take a lot of confidence from his dissenting judgment.

Illegal Migration Bill: Economic Impact Assessment

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The best thing that the hon. Member could do is support the Bill when it returns from the House of Lords to enable us to get the flights off to Rwanda so that we imbue the system with the deterrence that it requires. The impact assessment that we laid yesterday makes it clear that if we do nothing, the costs to the system will spiral by £11 billion a year. She, like other Labour Members of Parliament, writes to me day in, day out complaining that the way in which we accommodate asylum seekers is too rudimentary. They say it is not specialist enough, that we should be spending more money on asylum support, not less, and that a hotel is not good enough and needs to be more luxurious. We have the Labour leader of Westminster City Council saying that individuals being housed in a hotel in Pimlico were being poorly looked after and that they should have their own single ensuite bedrooms. How out of touch with the British public can they get?

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Local residents in the Kettering constituency are appalled that two local hotels—the Rothwell House Hotel in Rothwell and the Royal Hotel in Kettering—are being used as asylum seeker accommodation. I am convinced that the answer is to get the Illegal Migration Bill through and to stop people crossing the channel in small boats. Is it not the case that we are spending £3.6 billion a year and that that will rise to £11 billion in just three years? Is it not the case that doing nothing is simply not an option?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He and his constituents see every day the harm that doing nothing could cause, with the loss of more than one valued hotel in his constituency. We want to stop this once and for all, and the dividing line is between those who want to deal with the symptoms of the problem by tweaking the system and managing failure and those of us who want to transform the system, stop the boats, secure our borders and ensure that we have a sustainable system for an age of mass migration.

Asylum-seeking Children: Hotel Accommodation

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. The debate can last until 5.57 pm. I am obliged to begin calling the Front Benchers no later than 5.34 pm, so the four Members standing have just about half an hour between them. The guideline limits for the Front Benchers are five minutes for the SNP spokesman, five minutes for the Opposition spokesman and 10 minutes for the Minister, and then, hopefully, Deidre Brock will have three minutes at the end in which to sum up the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not give way. What I saw when I visited the hotel was security guards, social workers, and team leaders who previously worked for the police and the military all doing a superbly good job. [Interruption.]

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister heard the debate in its entirety with courtesy. I want the Minister to be heard with courtesy in his response. Mr Grady, you have been very well behaved throughout the whole debate. Let’s not spoil it now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I will give way briefly to the hon. Gentleman, but I must wrap up soon, because we have only a few minutes left.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, I should say that the Minister has two minutes left.

[Patrick Grady]

The Minister says he met staff and officials. Did he meet any of the children? Did he look any of them in the eye and tell them that they should not be here and were not welcome?

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

As I said earlier, in the summer I was speeding. I regret that I was speeding. I accepted the points and I paid the fine. At no point did I seek to avoid the sanction. What I find regrettable, however, is the SNP’s wholesale failure to deliver for asylum seekers, to deliver for justice and to deliver for vulnerable people. Its Members are opposing our Bill to stop the boats, they are opposing support to break the people smuggling gangs and they are opposing a pragmatic approach.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

T5. Will the Home Office ensure that the contracts for the use as asylum hotels of the Rothwell House Hotel and the Royal Hotel Kettering are terminated as soon as possible?

[Robert Jenrick]

I know how strongly my hon. Friend feels about this issue. I will of course look into those contracts, but the enduring solution to this issue is to stop the boats in the first place. That is why we brought forward the Illegal Migration Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to look into the matter for the right hon. Lady. I would say, however, that the visa service is now working within its service standards in all respects.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

How many Albanians last year claimed to be modern-day slaves, and what are we doing to encourage the processing of their claims back in their country of origin?