New Plan for Immigration

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I will not take any lectures from hon. Gentleman about resettlement schemes, when this Government have successfully resettled 25,000 people through that resettlement scheme—[Interruption.] He shakes his head, but it is true. I have made it quite clear that we are in discussion with partner agencies already. That work is under way. He can shake his head and be as dismissive as he chooses to be, but if he bothered to read the new immigration plan, he would see the details of exactly how we will start to introduce new safe and legal routes through legislation.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Yarl’s Wood detention centre in my constituency was set up under a Labour Government in 2001, and is a manifestation of the historical weaknesses of our immigration processes and, in particular, how they have failed women. As my right hon. Friend knows, women asylum seekers are more likely to be individually targeted as victims of gender-based violence, forced marriage—sometimes to very powerful people—or rape as an instrument of war. Will my right hon. Friend please assure me that her reforms will provide a fairer and more effective assessment of such cases?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and this is why we have to fix the system. We are currently not able to safeguard and protect those who absolutely need that help and support. The categories that the plan covers include women—women who have been treated abhorrently, quite frankly, in conflict zones, as well as those who have been trafficked and who have had had the most awful crimes undertaken against them. Some of these women are also used in modern-day slavery; how we protect victims of that is also a feature of the new immigration plan. My hon. Friend is absolutely right and we will definitely be looking at all of that.