Nationality and Borders Bill

Richard Holden Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

It is great to see you in your new place today, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I am not against immigration at all. In fact, I have signed the forms for many friends who have decided to make the UK their permanent home after entering it legally and working here for many years. People who want to come to the UK and work legally can do so under the Bill, and I think that that is exactly the position that my constituents want to see. They want to see those people entering the UK legally, along with others who, in desperate straits, are fleeing persecution from abroad. Britain has welcomed such people for centuries.

The UK Government has proudly welcomed many tens of thousands of people—25,000 under the resettlement scheme—who were fleeing persecution: not those who were able to travel halfway across the world, not those who were prepared to pay illegal traffickers, but people in genuine need, coming from refugee camps that were at the heart of the worst action in recent wars. My constituents are proud to have taken those people in. Several asylum seeker families have settled in my constituency recently, and I look forward to their playing a real part in our local community, as others have done before them. However, my constituents are fed up—

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Will he also reflect on the fact that 25,000 is more than any other European country has taken in? We should be very proud of what we are doing, and should reinforce the legal routes into this country.

[Mr Holden]

I could not agree more. What I keep noticing today is that Opposition Members seem to be pushing the illegal routes more than the legal routes. We have legal routes into this country, and people can take them. I cannot understand why anyone who actually had the interests of people fleeing persecution at heart would promote people travelling in the backs of lorries or fleeing in boats across the channel, sometimes across the Mediterranean sea to get to France or Italy, and then having to travel all the way here. It is deeply irresponsible of Opposition Members to constantly try to promote these routes and to paint Conservative Members as though they are not trying to act in the best interests of those across the world who are facing incredibly difficult circumstances.

Although my constituents are happy to welcome economic migrants who come through the legal channels and want to play their part in our country, especially those who want to settle and permanently make the UK their home, they are fed up of seeing illegal migrants from across the world taking whatever opportunity they can. They are particularly fed up of seeing people being used and abused by illegal gangs, and being forced into this country. That is what really grinds their gears, and I cannot understand why Opposition Members cannot understand my constituents.

My constituency voted Labour ever since its creation. This was an issue that came up time after time on the doorstep, not only at the last general election but at the previous election. The Labour party has totally lost touch with the reality of the communities it has traditionally represented.

[Angela Crawley]

The hon. Member makes a number of points that suggest the view of his constituents is the view of all constituents, and it is simply not the case. In Glasgow, on Kenmure Street, we saw people protect individuals from being deported by the Home Office, and in many instances the message has been loud and clear that we welcome refugees in Glasgow. The message the hon. Member sends is not only toxic; it is not representative of all constituents across the UK.

[Mr Holden]

My constituents are very happy to welcome genuine refugees to the UK. We are taking them now, unlike many constituencies in Scotland where they are not taking asylum seekers, as was pointed out by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp). It is quite astonishing really.

My constituents are very happy to take genuine refugees, but they do not want to see an open-door policy, where anybody can just come into the UK and we cannot remove them if they have come here illegally, overstayed their visa or committed a criminal act while they are here, when they should be deported.

If Opposition Members are really interested in ensuring better and safer legal routes for migration, I cannot understand why they are not arguing for that. Why are they not arguing for safer routes? Why are they instead arguing that we should just allow the boats to continue? It seems crazy to me. Totally mad.

As I was saying, people are fed up of seeing people coming to the UK and being used and abused by illegal gangs. They are fed up of seeing them come here illegally. They are also fed up of seeing some lawyers—some lawyers—milking the system. I remember Opposition Members, when I was a special adviser in the Ministry of Defence, defending Phil Shiner, who was saying that British soldiers out in Iraq were doing all the wrong sorts of things. Spurious allegations were sprayed across honourable members of our armed forces. Today we are seeing exactly the same sorts of lawyers doing exactly the same sorts of things to our immigration and asylum system.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Holden]

No, I am not giving way to the hon. and learned Lady. I have already given way twice.

Far too often we see made-up claims. And then, time after time, they come back with different claims put in different ways. “I was this age at that time, and now I’m a different age. I was claiming under those conditions, and now I’m claiming under these conditions.” It is absolutely mad.

I can understand why Opposition Members, who supported people like Phil Shiner in the past, are now defending exactly the same system today. It is absolutely crazy, and it was at the time. I am glad the Government have moved on from those systems under Phil Shiner and we are going to tackle some of the same issues today.

There are three key elements that are particularly great to see the Government tackling. One is boat interceptions. It is interesting to see that we are learning from international examples. We are learning from the Australian system, where they have had terrible issues over the years with people coming. They do not have people arriving by boat in Australia any more, because they have dealt with the system.

We are also looking at the offshore processing of claims, and it is similar to the Australian system. They do not have the same problems that we do today. They do not see people dying in their channel any more—the channel between Australia and Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

Opposition Members seem to think that this is a price worth paying. I do not think it is. The Government, more than any other Government in Europe, are doing the right thing in supporting legal routes from refugee camps. That is exactly what we need to see here.

Let me turn to immigration offences and enforcement. People are also fed up of seeing those who have come to the UK and been deported coming back again, and it is right that we are enhancing the sentences for such people—not only when they are initially deported, but if they come back again, when the sentences need to be tougher still. How can Opposition Members not support those sensible provisions on illegal migrants who have been deported? Surely constituents, whether they are in Consett or in Glasgow, support those sensible measures. They want a sensible immigration system whereby people come to the UK based not on their ability to get here, but on their need. That is what Conservative Members put forward every time—the need of the people in the refugee camps, not the need of the young men who can just make their way here.

The Bill, in the broader sense, also tackles modern slavery. That is a great step in the right direction on what is a real issue in parts of the country. I remember speaking to some long-standing police officers in my constituency who had dealt historically with cases of trafficked women and the horror that they went through. Often, those people disappeared into the system after being smuggled here illegally, so the Bill is taking a sensible step.

We are including a sensible framework to determine the age of people coming over to this country. We cannot have a system whereby someone can destroy the documentation that proves their age but is then able to claim to be whatever age they wish.

We are also including a good-faith provision. People should act in good faith with the Government when they are determining an application. How can the Opposition oppose good faith? It seems like a really sensible thing to me.

I am delighted to support the Bill on Second Reading. It will deliver exactly what my constituents want—a fair, balanced immigration system.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Richard Burgon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kenny MacAskill]

I fully agree, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for his eloquent contribution.

Opposing the Bill is about seeking to protect values, as has been mentioned, as well as opposing actions that, in terms of where people are to be placed and how they are to be treated, I believe are fundamentally wrong. On each of them, I believe that there are clear failures. Foreign venues seem to be mentioned and trumpeted. What we have seen in Australia with the use of Nauru was frankly shameful. Indeed, Australia appears to be backtracking from that because of the failures that have occurred there.

There seems to be little planning and few suggestions. I have recently asked parliamentary questions about what jurisdiction would apply and who would be in charge. We do not know. We are just told to believe that the 1951 convention will be adhered to and all will be well. In Scotland, we would say that all will be hunky-dory. No, it will not. What the Government are seeking to do is to move people to a place away from visibility, where they will be treated appallingly. It has been dreadful in Australia, and it would be shameful if this country were to replicate it.

[Mr Holden]

I do not think that is what the UK Government are proposing at all. The hon. Gentleman opposes offshore detention centres. The Opposition often oppose onshore detention centres. Where does he think that people who have no proven status, some of whom need to be deported, should be kept?

[Kenny MacAskill]

If people have to be detained we have measures for detaining them, but in the main we do not have to detain people. I will again digress, with a story not from my period as Justice Secretary, but from when I was a defence agent. I once represented a young woman who had been detained as an asylum seeker. The crime was working in a restaurant in Orkney. She was detained in Her Majesty’s Prison Aberdeen. There was no Chinese translator. It was an overwhelmingly male prison. She was frightened witless. Those of us who know Orkney will know that someone cannot get off the island without boarding either a ferry or a plane. There was no way for her to escape, and to lock her up when she was no danger was frankly shameful. That was more than 25 years ago and things, sadly, are much worse now.

I always remember an old friend of mine, who was a prison governor and indeed a penologist, saying that if we want to look at who the most vulnerable and weakest members of a society are, we have only to look at who is in prison. In America, it is the black population. In Britain, it is the ethnic minorities. In Australia, it is the aborigines. In Scotland, it is the poor. Equally, we can take the corollary to that in this case, and ask who is coming and from what lands.