Illegal Migration
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on illegal migration.
The Government have made it our top priority to stop the boats, because these crossings are not only illegal, dangerous and unnecessary, but deeply unfair. They are unfair on those who are genuinely in need of resettlement, as our finite capacity is taken up by people—overwhelmingly young men—coming to the UK directly from a place of safety in France, but most of all they are unfair on the law-abiding British public who face the real-world consequences of illegal migration through housing waiting lists, strained public services and, at times, serious community cohesion challenges, and it is the interests of the British public that we have a duty to advance.
We have developed what is among the most comprehensive and robust plans to tackle illegal migration in Europe, and over the last year the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I have focused on delivering it. The plan starts with taking the fight to the people-smuggling gangs upstream, long before they are even in striking distance of the United Kingdom. We have already doubled the funds for the organised immigration crime work of the National Crime Agency, and at a meeting of the European Political Community earlier this month the Prime Minister announced new, tailored initiatives with Belgium, Bulgaria and Serbia, which come in addition to the enhanced strategic partnerships that we have already agreed this year with Italy and Turkey. Our two agreements with the French Government have elevated our co-operation to unprecedented levels. This is degrading the organised immigration crime groups, and in the last few weeks new physical barriers have been installed to make it considerably harder for the flimsy dinghies to be launched.
As we are increasing disruption abroad, so we are restoring deterrence at home. We are breaking the link between arriving here illegally and a life in the UK. The number of removals of those with no right to be in the UK has increased by more than 75% in comparison with last year’s figure. Since we struck our enhanced returns agreement with Albania in December, we have returned more than 4,100 Albanian immigration offenders, and, as I saw for myself in Tirana last month, some of those individuals are being returned home in as little as 48 hours.
In August we announced the biggest shake-up in a decade of the penalties imposed on rogue employers and landlords who encourage illegal migration by hiring or renting to illegal migrants, and as we proceed with that, more unscrupulous businesses are getting the knock on the door. We have increased the number of enforcement raids by more than two thirds since this point last year. The surge has led to a doubling in the number of fines imposed on employers, and has tripled the number issued to landlords. However, for those who are complicit in the business model of the people smugglers, severe financial penalties are not enough, which is why we have dramatically increased the number of company directors who have been disqualified for allowing illegal working.
Our concerted efforts at home and abroad are making progress. For the first time since the phenomenon of small boat arrivals began four years ago, they are down by more than a fifth in comparison with those in the equivalent period in 2022, and in recent months we have seen still further falls—and let me dispel the myth peddled by some of our increasingly desperate opponents that that is because of the weather. The weather conditions this year were more favourable to small boat crossings than those in 2022, but we have still seen a marked decrease. By contrast, in the year to June 2023 detections of irregular border crossings at the external borders of Europe increased by a third, and irregular arrivals in Italy from across the Mediterranean have almost doubled. However, we must and will go further to stop the boats altogether. We remain confident of the legality of our Rwanda partnership and its ability to break the business model of the people smuggling gangs once and for all, and we look forward to the judgment of the Supreme Court. As the success of our Albania returns agreement has shown, with swift removals driving a 90% reduction in the number of illegal migrants seeking to enter the UK, deterrence works.
The real-world impacts of illegal migration on our communities have been raised many times in the Chamber. One of the most damaging manifestations of this problem has been the use of hotels to meet our statutory obligation to house those who arrive illegally and would otherwise be destitute. Ever since the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I assumed office a year ago, we have made it clear that that is completely unacceptable and must end as soon as practicable. Those hotels should be assets for their local communities, serving businesses and tourists and hosting the life events that we treasure, such as weddings and birthdays, rather than housing illegal migrants at an unsustainable cost to the taxpayer.
We therefore took immediate action a year ago to reduce our reliance on hotels. We significantly increased the amount of dispersed accommodation, and we have increased funding for local councils. We reformed the management of the existing estate: by optimising double rooms and increasing the number of people sharing rooms we have created thousands of additional beds, and in doing so have avoided the need for a further 72 hotels. We have mobilised the large disused military sites that are more appropriate, and have worked closely with local authorities to ensure that they have less impact on communities. We are in the process of a re-embarkation on the barge in Portland, and, as of 23 October, occupancy had reached approximately 50 individuals. That will continue as planned, in a phased manner, in the days and weeks ahead.
Nearly a year on, as a result of the progress we have made to stop the boats, I can inform the House that today the Home Office wrote to local authorities and Members of Parliament to inform them that we will now be exiting the first asylum hotels—hotels in all four nations of the United Kingdom. The first 50 exits will begin in the coming days and will be complete by the end of January, with more tranches to follow shortly. But we will not stop there: we will continue to deliver on our strategy to stop the boats, and we will be able to exit more hotels. As we exit those hotels, we are putting in place dedicated resources to facilitate the orderly and effective management of the process and limit the impact on local communities.
We made a clear commitment to the British public to stop the boats, not because it would be easy but because it was, and remains, the right thing to do. We are making solid progress, and our commitment to this task is as strong as ever. We will continue to act in the interests of the law-abiding majority, who expect and deserve secure borders, and I commend this statement to the House.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement.
At the time of the last election, the asylum backlog had already spiralled under Conservative mismanagement, but the number of small boats crossing the channel was close to zero, as was the number of emergency hotels being used. If we fast-forward four years, we see before us a picture of Tory boats chaos. For the third year running, more than 25,000 people have crossed the channel in small boats, while the number of hotels being used is about 400, at an eye-watering cost to the taxpayer of £8 million a day—higher than the cost last year. And what is the Government’s response? A Rwanda plan, but they have sent more Home Secretaries than asylum seekers to Rwanda; an Illegal Migration Act that is counterproductive and has not even been brought into full force yet; and a new barge that was meant to bring down hotel costs, but has only added to them. Also, the military bases promised by the Prime Minister last December are still not ready. All of this has left the Prime Minister with an asylum strategy this summer that was less akin to the Australian asylum model that he is so desperate to replicate and more in tune with the Australian cricket team during this summer’s Ashes: cross your fingers and pray for rain. Surely the Prime Minister knows that this was the wettest summer since 1912, and surely he recognises the impact that this had on small boat crossings.
The Government also like to claim to be bringing the backlog down, but it stands at 176,000. They like to talk about a legacy backlog, but this is just nonsense. It is a figment of the Prime Minister’s imagination. He is taking last year’s workload but ignoring this year’s workload. The backlog is the backlog is the backlog. You can slice the cake however you want and spin it however you want, but the cake is still the same size: 176,000 in the last quarterly figures—up, not down. As for those who are being processed and rejected—slowly, it must be said, at half the productivity of seven years ago—are they actually being returned? Removals are down 70% since Labour left office, with a 40,000 removals backlog.
On the issue of hotel use, today’s announcement illustrates better than any other the utter lack of ambition the Prime Minister has for our country. It beggars belief that the Minister has the brass neck to come here today to announce not that the Government have cut the number of hotels being used but that they simply plan to do so, and by a paltry 12%. Is that really it? Is it really their ambition that there will still be 350 asylum hotels in use at the end of the winter, despite promises last year that they would end hotel use this year?
Further questions for the Minister. Is it really true that the hotels he is considering closing will be in marginal constituencies? Does he really think that the public might not see through that ruse? Will he publish a list of the hotels he plans to close over the next six months? And why does the Minister not come back to update this Chamber when he has actually achieved something—not when he plans to achieve something or done a small part of what has been promised, but when the Prime Minister has actually achieved what he said he was going to achieve? At the moment, he sounds like an arsonist who has burned our house down and is expecting us to thank him for throwing a bucket of water on it.
Better still, why will this Government not get out of the way so that we on these Benches can show the leadership shown by our leader and our shadow Home Secretary on their trip to Europol recently, where they set out Labour’s plans to stop the Tory boats chaos by smashing the gangs, clearing the asylum backlog by surging the number of caseworkers, ending hotel use and fixing the asylum system, which successive Conservative Prime Ministers have utterly broken after 13 years of neglect and incompetence?
Robert Jenrick
So it is all down to the weather again. Every time I come to this Chamber, it is about the weather. The hon. Gentleman is becoming the Michael Fish of British politics: he always gets the forecasts wrong. The truth is that he cannot bear to admit that our plan is actually starting to work. Returns are up, raids are up, productivity is up 10 times and, above all, small boat arrivals are down. We are closing hotels; he wants to open our borders. The Government will never elevate the interests of illegal migrants over those of the hard-working taxpayers of this country. That is what we hold in our minds every day in this job, and that is the difference between the Labour party and this Government.
We used to think that the Labour party had no plan, but now we know that it does not even want to stop the boats. In the summer, the Leader of the Opposition said that, even if the Rwanda plan was working, he would still scrap it. How telling was that? Even if we were securing our borders, he would scrap it and wave people into our country. He also said on his fabled trip to Europe that he would strike a new deal with the EU, which would bring thousands of people into the country. The new towns that he announced at the Labour party conference would be filled with illegal migrants. We will never do that. The Labour party’s strategy is to force the British public to grudgingly accept mass migration. We disagree. We believe that the British public believe in secure borders and that they want a robust and fair immigration and asylum system. Our plan is working. Don’t let Labour ruin it.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
Any day when an Immigration Minister can come to this House and give us good news is a day for celebration. My right hon. Friend and his team are to be commended for the hard work that has gone into the successes he has outlined today, and I hope that Ashford will benefit from one of the forthcoming tranches of hotels being closed. Can he also say whether the extra resources that have clearly gone into clearing the long-term backlog are still available, so that we will be able to cope with the constant flow that one gets of asylum seekers and not see any future backlogs building up?
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his good advice and wise counsel. He had to clear up the mess left by the last Labour Government, so he knows how challenging these situations can be. We have put in place more resource. We met our target of 2,500 additional caseworkers to manage the asylum system. When I stood at this Dispatch Box in my first week in this role, the Home Office was making around 400 decisions a week. We are now making 4,500 a week, and I commend the civil servants at the Home Office who have driven that extraordinary improvement in management, grip and productivity. But we on this side of the House do not believe that we can grant our way out of this challenge; we have to stop the boats in the first place. That is why true deterrence is so critical, and it is why our Rwanda partnership, which Labour has tried to frustrate at every opportunity, is so important to securing our borders.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The Minister will know that Mears has recently signed a contract with a hotel in Glasgow South West, so perhaps he can update us on the status of that contract. He has mentioned the backlog. Not everyone in a hotel in asylum accommodation is illegal; some will be successful in being granted refugee status. Can he tell us what discussions he is having with local authorities—I am thinking of Glasgow City Council in particular—on supporting and providing financial support for those successful refugees who will have to leave their hotel or asylum accommodation following a decision? Will he meet me and my Glasgow colleagues to discuss this issue?
Can the Minister tell us the estimated total operational and associated costs of this new system that he is creating, including barges, military sites, detention facilities and removal centres, alongside the proposed Rwanda deportations? Finally, an investigation by “The News Agents” has found that people traffickers say they are having an easier time sending small boats across the channel because of Brexit, which removed biometric system sharing and pan-European co-operation. What steps is he taking to create a returns agreement with the European Union, binding closer alignment with the EU and system sharing?
Robert Jenrick
Far be it from me to cast doubt on the journalism of “The News Agents”, but I disagree with the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s question. In this role, I have come to the view that leaving the European Union was more important than ever because the migration crisis being faced by Europe today, which is likely to grow every year in the years and decades to come, will be very significant and challenging. The ability to control our own borders and make our own decisions is critical for the future of this country.
With respect to the situation in Glasgow, I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman there. Glasgow has had a high preponderance of asylum seekers, as he will know, but that was the choice of the Scottish Government. To my eyes, they did not want to house asylum seekers in other parts of Scotland. That is now changing, but it does mean that there will be a particular challenge in his community and I would be happy to meet him to discuss that.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend and the Home Secretary for the real progress that is now evident. It may not be sufficient for many at the moment, but the real issue is, as I believe the French are now beginning to understand—I would like confirmation on that, if it is true—that the Human Rights Act, in our case, and the European convention on human rights and the refugee convention are not only a European problem but a global problem. Does my right hon. Friend believe that the French are going to make real changes on this? Is he in discussions with them? As I have said for many years now, unless we sort this out, the tangible benefits will not be as evident as they could be.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support over the last year, in particular with our landmark Illegal Migration Act 2023. He is right to say—this is a point I made in a speech at Policy Exchange earlier this year and the Home Secretary made in a speech in Washington more recently—that the international framework, whether it be the European convention on human rights or the refugee convention, although undoubtedly well intentioned at the time, is now in need of serious reform. Today we find ourselves in a world in which hundreds of millions of people are on the move and eligible for refugee status. The situation is incomparable to the one we experienced in the immediate aftermath of the second world war.
The signatories and authors of those documents would be appalled to see some of the abuses we see in our present system, which frustrates our ability to support those who are truly in need and fleeing war and persecution. Across Government, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I are raising this with all our partners and allies at every opportunity.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
At the Public Accounts Committee in July, Home Office officials told me that the Government were paying for 5,000 empty hotel beds as a buffer in case of an upsurge in people travelling across the channel. Could the Minister update the House on how many empty hotel beds the Government are currently paying for?
Robert Jenrick
I would hope the right hon. Lady welcomes today’s news that, as a result of the good progress we have made on reducing small boat crossings, we are now in a position to begin closing those hotels. It is true that the Home Office kept a proportion of hotels precisely to ensure that we did not find ourselves in the position we saw last autumn, when I took on this position and we had problems at the Manston facility in Kent. As a result of the significantly fewer numbers crossing the channel this year, those beds have not been necessary, which is one of the many contributory factors behind our ability to start closing the hotels.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
The Minister and the Home Secretary are to be commended for their crusade against devilish people smugglers, dodgy lawyers and deluded interest groups, but will he acknowledge that the bar needs to be raised for asylum applications? Far more applicants are granted asylum in this country than the European average. The standard of proof needs to be improved.
Does the Minister also accept that, while these improved numbers are to be welcomed, the asylum system needs fundamental change so that it is only for people in genuine fear of persecution, and so that economic migrants who just want a better life cannot come here using asylum as justification?
Robert Jenrick
I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend. The Home Secretary and I are driven by two ambitions that must come together. One is efficiency in the system, and the other is rigour and integrity. We have to ensure that, as we process claims faster than ever before, we are rigorous in interrogating the evidence and weeding out those individuals who have absolutely no right to be here in the United Kingdom. We want to ensure that the UK is a place of refuge for those in genuine peril, but not a home for economic migrants. It has to be said that a very large proportion of the people coming to the UK are, in one form or another, economic migrants. At the very least they are asylum shoppers, because almost all of them come from a place of evident safety in France.
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
The Minister has heard me say before that the use of hotels serves nobody. It does not serve the taxpayer, it does not serve local communities and it certainly does not serve those people seeking refuge in this country, so the fact the hotels are to be stopped is good news. Can he give me some indication of where the hotel in Knowsley fits into his timetable? Does he agree that people need to tone down their rhetoric and stop peddling false narratives about what is going on with refugees? Frankly, all that does is worsen community relations.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful for the work that the right hon. Gentleman and I have done on this issue, particularly on the very serious events that took place at the hotel he mentions. I contacted his office earlier today to notify him that the hotel will be included in the first tranche of hotel closures. The incident he experienced highlights why this is not an appropriate form of accommodation, as it took from his community a very valued asset that people used for weddings, birthdays and special life events. It was also a source of serious community tension, which is why we now have to exit the hotels as swiftly as we can. It is also a lesson to us that we have to be very alive to the challenges both of high levels of illegal migration and of high levels of legal migration that make it difficult for us to successfully integrate people into our communities.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his robust and confident statement, and for the significant progress he has been able to report to the House today. Can he also confirm that the hotel on the A12 near Langham in my Harwich and North Essex constituency is one of those that will no longer be used for asylum seekers?
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Home Office has a long-standing policy of not naming the hotels wherever possible, but I can say that a hotel in his constituency is part of the first tranche of closures. If he has not already been notified, he should be notified by the Home Office very soon.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats submitted a freedom of information request to the Home Office to ask about the cost of the Bibby Stockholm. We asked about the cost to taxpayers of buying the barge, as well as the estimated cost of running it over the next 12 months. The cost is estimated at £20 million a year, which is well over £300,000 a week. Why has the Home Office refused to put this information in the public domain? And why has it declared that to do so would not be in the public interest?
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Gentleman is essentially a humanitarian nimby. He comes to the House to say that we should be a welcoming nation and invite more people here, but he does not want to face up to the consequences of where those people should be housed. Behind his question is a view that I think is quite offensive to the British public, which is that it is okay to house British oil and gas workers on this barge, but not illegal migrants. I very much doubt his constituents would agree with him.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
I assure Members that the sun often shines on our blessed corner of Kent. Indeed, we have had a heatwave on one or two occasions this year, so let us not have any more of this weather nonsense.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his update. We need to put on record the immense effort that he and everyone on the Government side have made to secure this 20% reduction. It is the first sustained reduction in small boat crossings, and that is welcome. It shows that it can be done, and that this Conservative Government are doing what they said they would do. Will he join me in thanking those in my constituency who work at Border Force and the small boats command centre and are working hard to secure our border and keep us safe, as well as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and coastguard, who do a very difficult job, day in, day out? I thank them for all their work.
Robert Jenrick
I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to all those who work at our facilities in Dover and on the south coast. This is very challenging and difficult work. At times, they have had to cope with immensely difficult experiences, and they have saved hundreds, indeed thousands, of lives in the process.
The point that should be reinforced to my hon. Friend’s constituents is that, although today marks significant progress—certainly very significant progress compared with what we see in other European countries—it is clearly not enough. Her constituents want us to stop the boats entirely, which is what we are setting out to do. Today is not a day for triumphalism. It is a milestone, and tomorrow we get back to work and get back to stopping the boats.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
It is important, as we develop policy, to try to identify issues that might come up further down the line. As the Minister knows, in my constituency, large numbers of asylum seekers are being processed—I congratulate him on that. Most are gaining status—understandably, because most of them have come from war zones—and they will be seeking employment. On identifying possible issues down the line, has the Minister seen the report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in The Independent, which is based on the Home Office’s findings on the treatment of migrant workers? It identified wage theft, forced unpaid overtime, racist abuse, illegal charging of fees for jobs, and insanitary living and working conditions. Will he review the mechanisms for the monitoring of and enforcement against abuse of migrant workers?
Robert Jenrick
That is of concern to me and the Home Secretary. We are aware of abuse in some of our communities, and we work closely with immigration enforcement and other agencies to try to bear down on it, because it is not right for individuals to be exploited in the way that the right hon. Gentleman describes. Also, there is a strong correlation between unscrupulous employers who act in that way and other serious failings, such as not paying tax, poor health and safety standards and poor product standards. That is why we need to weed out such behaviour.
Sir Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
My right hon. Friend knows from the Adjournment debate we had and our correspondence over the summer the extent to which illegal migration is an issue in my constituency. Some colleagues talk about “a” migrant hotel, but we have multiple such hotels. I welcome the Minister’s announcement today that one of those hotels will be taken back. Sir Humphrey used to say that
“Gratitude is merely a lively expectation of favours to come.”
In that spirit, may I ask my right hon. Friend when we can have the rest of our hotels back?
Robert Jenrick
As we make more progress on stopping the boats, so we will make more progress on closing the hotels. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his work. His constituents have experienced the reality of illegal migration, not just in hotels that should be used for tourist purposes being taken away from them, but through a serious murder in the community, which should give us all pause for thought and urge us to redouble our efforts to stop people coming to the UK in that manner.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Unlike many Conservative Members, I am glad that the United Kingdom remains a signatory to the European convention on human rights. That means that refugees and asylum seekers who come to the UK have exactly the same rights as each of us in this House. That includes the right not to be subject to inhumane or degrading treatment. Many of my constituents are concerned about the conditions in which refugees and asylum seekers have been kept in the past. They were worried about the Legionella on the barge, and they saw the conditions in Manston and Napier—the overcrowding, and the worst spread of diphtheria in decades. What can the Minister do to reassure my constituents that the human rights of refugees and asylum seekers will be respected while they are in his Government’s care?
Robert Jenrick
We take seriously our obligations to treat anyone in our care with dignity and compassion, and when we or our providers fall below that standard, it is right that we take action against those involved. The situation is challenging to manage; the hon. and learned Lady knows that from her city of Edinburgh, which houses comparatively few asylum seekers and has no migrant hotels, and whose council explicitly turned down the opportunity to house asylum seekers on the very vessel that it used for Ukrainian refugees. If she wants to support further asylum seekers coming to her community, she has to find accommodation for them.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
My constituents have welcomed Ukrainians into their homes and Hong Kong Chinese into their communities, and our excellent domestic abuse services mean that we often give women from all over the country a fresh place to restart their life. However, that means that there is huge pressure on local schools and housing, and the more than 400 asylum seekers who have arrived in Chelmsford since early summer risk bringing those services to breaking point. Although I welcome today’s announcements, I am concerned that Chelmsford is not on the list. Will the Minister, who is doing an excellent job, work closely with those in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to look at housing for those who are granted asylum, so that the need is shared fairly across the country and does not just create extra pressure on areas that are already hotspots?
Robert Jenrick
My right hon. Friend has been assiduous in raising concerns about the particular hotel in her constituency—
Robert Jenrick
The two hotels; my right hon. Friend corrects me. I would obviously like them to be closed at the earliest opportunity, but today we are setting out the beginning of a phased closure, with the first 50 hotels being notified. I hope that more will follow in the weeks and months ahead. I am fully aware of the situation in Chelmsford that she described, and I would like it to be resolved.
I take my right hon. Friend’s broader point about the importance of the Home Office working closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend for Kensington (Felicity Buchan), is sitting beside me. She and I and the Secretary of State are working closely together to ensure that local authorities can plan for any new individuals who might live in their area.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to that response, the Minister talks about the planning between the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Home Office, but I wonder what experience he has of the London private rental market. In my constituency, refugees who have been granted asylum are being kicked out of their hotels by the Home Office contractor within a week.
Stella Creasy
The Minister shakes his head, but I am happy to share with him the letter that shows that. No assistance has been provided for those people. They are being told to go back to the council, but the council does not have time to follow up with them, so they end up at our local homeless night shelter, which will ultimately cost us all more than an orderly system. The Minister is shaking his head, but what does his data show about the number of refugees granted asylum while staying in migrant hotels who have been rehoused? Will he look at a more orderly system, and work with those of us on the ground to ensure that today’s announcement will not just be a way of passing on the cost to another Department?
Robert Jenrick
First the hon. Lady wanted us to clear the backlog; now she does not want us to do that because of the consequences of clearing it. Perhaps it would be better if she just supported us in trying to stop illegal migrants coming to the country in the first place. On her specific points, it is not correct that the Home Office gives seven days’ notice; it gives 28. [Interruption.] I am happy to look at what she is waving in my face, but I assure her that the policy is 28 days’ notice. The key point is that everybody who is granted asylum has access to the benefits system and can get a job. Given that the overwhelming majority are young men, that is exactly what they should do now: get on and contribute to British society, and integrate into our country.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
I am pleased that the Minister has kept to his commitment that the North Stafford Hotel in Stoke-on-Trent will be one of the first to close. That is happening only because of the Government’s work to tackle illegal migration and stop the boats. Does my right hon. Friend agree that areas such as Stoke-on-Trent, which have done more than their fair share of contributing, should not continue to see more asylum seekers, and have more refugees settled? We need to ensure that there is a fair share across the country.
Robert Jenrick
I am delighted that the hotel to which my hon. Friend refers is in the first tranche. He and I visited it with his colleagues from Stoke, and it was clearly a classic case of why we should not use such hotels. It was a highly valued and prominent business and community hotel—a landmark in Stoke-on-Trent that is familiar to anyone who passes through the station. I am pleased to announce that it will return to its proper use very soon.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I think that the Minister recognises the acute pressures that local authorities could face when asylum seekers who are rapidly granted status move out of hotels, then risk becoming homeless. He said that he will meet my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) to discuss the situation in Glasgow. Will he extend that invitation to the leader of the city council and other stakeholders, to ensure that Glasgow and other local authorities are properly supported and so can continue to extend a welcome to refugees?
Robert Jenrick
It will be an interesting conversation with the leader of Glasgow City Council, because as I recall the council does not want to take any more of our refugees. It put out a statement saying it would not use a barge, even though Glasgow had itself used a barge for Ukrainian refugees. I do not know why a Ukrainian is different from an Afghan or a Syrian; perhaps the hon. Gentleman should explain those double standards.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
Having stood at that Dispatch Box myself discussing this sort of subject, I imagine my right hon. Friend is much happier to come to the House with today’s statement than with some of the things we sometimes end up having to discuss. I must have missed all those Opposition demands to remove more people and take a tougher stance.
I welcome the message regarding the Esplanade in Paignton and my right hon. Friend’s confirmation this morning. It is appreciated. Can he assure me that we will pursue measures such as Greek-style accommodation centres and ensure an adequate supply of dispersed accommodation, fairly distributed across the United Kingdom—including the 31 of 32 areas of Scotland that used to refuse it—so that we do not have to resort to hotels again in the future?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need a fair and equitable system. That is why he contributed to the creation of the national dispersal model, which we continue to pursue. We have now created the first large sites: we have stood up our site at Wethersfield in Essex and we are proceeding to stand up the site in Lincolnshire, as well as the barge in Portland. Why are we doing that? It is because we do not want the UK to be considered a soft touch. It is not right that someone who might have been sleeping in a camp in France comes across in a small boat and finds himself in a Holiday Inn in Oxford. That makes the UK a laughing stock. We had to change that, which is why we have put in place those larger sites. They are more appropriate, they save the taxpayer money, and they send a signal about the strength of the UK’s resolve to tackling this issue.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Minister is very selective with his dodgy statistics, but what I would like to know is whether he is still planning to site an accommodation barge on Teesside.
Robert Jenrick
We are always looking for further locations, but we do not currently have any agreement with ports in Teesside.
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for the work he has done to bring down the number of boat crossings and to speed up people being sent back. I also thank him personally for coming to Stoke-on-Trent to see the challenges we have. My hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) mentioned the hotel that is the gateway to our city and symbolic of what we aspire to: levelling up. I am grateful that it is to be one of the 50.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s kind words and for the leadership she has shown in arguing on behalf of her constituents for that migrant hotel to close. Her argument was grounded in levelling up, to which she is very committed. I know from working with Stoke-on-Trent City Council on many different things in the recent past how important that gateway to the city is, and how much investment has been secured to improve it, so that leisure and business travellers arrive in that great city and see it at its best. Closing that hotel will, I hope, play a small part in turning that tide.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
I want to push back against this dangerous “community cohesion” narrative that has been used by the Minister and others today and previously. The UK has taken fewer asylum seekers per head than most other European countries. Indeed, the UK has been shaped and reshaped by successive waves of immigration over the centuries. I speak as one who has two hotels in my constituency, so I am not a nimby on this. Most of the asylum seekers I have spoken to want to contribute to society, they want to work and they want to integrate. Does the Minister recognise the dangerous, slippery-slope implications of some of the rhetoric he is using?
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Gentleman is not correct in his presentation that the UK is less generous than other European countries. Statistics are hard to compare, because we are a destination country. Many of those who come here and claim asylum stay here, while in countries elsewhere in Europe people claim in multiple locations while they are transiting through them. The most important statistic is that since 2015, the UK has issued 530,000 humanitarian visas—more than at any time in our modern history. That is a very large number of people to absorb into our communities, to support properly and to integrate, and it is one of the reasons why local authorities are under great pressure at the moment. We have to be realistic about that. It is why we have said we will put a cap on safe and legal routes, and why soon we will consult local authorities, including the hon. Gentleman’s, to determine the true capacity, so that the statements we make in this House match the reality on the ground.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
The strain on public services caused by illegal migration is often felt the most by smaller towns, so may I ask my right hon. Friend to make such areas the focus of his efforts to close migrant hotels in the future?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is undoubtedly true that communities with fewer hotels have fewer public services. It is harder for people to get around because public transport is weaker. It is therefore more impactful when the Home Office takes hotels in such places, and we should consider that as we proceed to exit hotels.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I welcome the Minister’s statement and his determination to deliver solutions. It is clear from what he says that solutions are coming. I welcome the news this morning of the intention to cut the costly hotel bills, but will the Minister clarify whether that is because we are sending unsuccessful applicants somewhere else, and if so, where they are going? It cannot be a case of cutting hotel bills while increasing council costs by the same amount. Will the Minister also confirm that local women and children will be prioritised in housing over any young, healthy, single illegal migrant male?
Robert Jenrick
I share my hon. Friend’s sentiment and conviction. Of course we should be a decent, generous and compassionate country to those coming here from places of peril, but we also have to prioritise the interests of British taxpayers. We should not be elevating the interests of illegal migrants over those of the communities we are sent here to serve. Those who are granted asylum have access to the benefits system and they can work. We should all encourage them to do so and to integrate into British society.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend and the Prime Minister for listening to my Stroud constituents’ concerns about illegal migration and speeding up processing, and for taking seriously my calls to close a migrant hotel in my patch. I caution Labour Front Benchers against playing political games over which hotels are closing, because not only do they have no plan themselves, but they do not know what many of our constituents have been through, because Members of Parliament, local police and local residents have worked hard to keep incidents out of the newspapers, so that they do not escalate. Will my right hon. Friend please clarify when we will receive more information about the closures, and confirm that, in the event of a closure in my patch, there will be close working with Gloucestershire County Council, which has been very solid on this?
Robert Jenrick
I thank my hon. Friend for her good work representing her constituents on this issue in her characteristically sensible and calm manner. I am pleased that we have come to a good outcome in her case. The Home Office will write today or in the coming days to all the local authorities and MPs with hotels in the first 50. In the weeks ahead, we will consider further tranches as we make further progress on stopping the boats. We will put in place the processes and personnel required to support local authorities as we decant individuals from those locations.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
Skegness is a tourist economy, and hoteliers have told me that the use of hotels in Skegness for illegal migrants has led to bookings being cancelled; it has been associated with serious crime. We have also seen marches hijacked by the far right, even though they know that that is not representative of local people’s legitimate fears. I therefore hugely welcome today’s announcement that two hotels in Skegness will no longer be required for Government use. That is immense progress, but does my right hon. Friend the Minister agree with me that the local council and Government as a whole should work as quickly as possible to get those hotels returned to their proper use, rather than left to rot by unscrupulous owners?
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.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the progress that he is making. I am not sure what consideration he has given to this, but he has cited agreements on returns to a number of countries and also agreements with France. He may have been aware that France is announcing proposals to cancel visas, remove the right of leave to remain and force people to leave France. That potentially runs the risk of many more people choosing to take the dangerous route across the channel and come to our country. Will he take action to make sure that anyone who is in that position from France is immediately removed from this country?
Robert Jenrick
The comments that my hon. Friend has seen reported with respect to France are indicative of the much stronger postures being adopted by most European countries on this issue. In fact, Labour is now at odds with the common view of most of Europe today. Most European countries sense the extreme importance of this situation and are taking more robust action. That is generally to the benefit of the UK, as we are a destination country after people have passed through many others. We want to continue to work productively with France. In recent months, we have seen good work by the French, particularly the Gendarmerie and the préfet in northern France, who have been extremely helpful to us, by for example, as I said in my opening remarks, putting up barriers on canals and estuaries, which has made it more difficult for small boats to leave. We want to keep that good work going.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
In welcoming today’s statement, I also ask my right hon. Friend to deliver on the commitment that he made to me at the Dispatch Box on 5 September and confirm that the two hotels on Bostock’s Lane in Sandiacre are at the top of his priority list for closure. If he cannot give me that good news, why not?
Robert Jenrick
I did make a promise a year ago when I took on this role that we would close hotels, and I am pleased to be able to deliver on that today. We will be writing today or tomorrow to all those MPs and councils that are part of the first tranche. I am happy to stay in touch with my hon. Friend if she is not part of that tranche and to say to her that we will do everything we can to make sure that her hotels are exited very soon.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s statement today and the robust action that the Government are taking. Will he put on record that this country is still open to legal migration routes and that it is just the illegal migration routes that we are tackling? On the issue of the whole of Government approach, we are, of course, tackling the pull factors, but the push factors out of places such as north Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, which he recently visited, include climate change, conflict, famine and poor governance. What more can we do across Government to stop those push factors?
Robert Jenrick
We want the UK to be a strategic partner of choice for all countries—whether in Europe or further upstream, such as in north Africa—that share our determination to tackle this issue. That is why I have travelled to a number of those countries, including Turkey, Tunisia and Algeria, to build relationships with them so that we can partner on organised immigration, crime and border security. I also work closely with the Foreign Secretary and the Development Minister to ensure that a large proportion of our foreign aid budget goes to refugee-producing countries. It is much better that the UK uses its resources upstream to support vulnerable people than always reaching to migration as the first response.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for the engagement and time he has given to discuss the hotels in my constituency. Can he confirm that the Holiday Inn in Garforth and the Mercure Hotel in Wetherby, which are currently empty, will not be used for asylum seekers down the line? May I also take this opportunity to ask on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) that the military base at Linton-on-Ouse, which was deemed to be thoroughly inappropriate at the time it was put forward, will not come forward in any future plans as we reduce the need for accommodation?
Robert Jenrick
We do not have a plan to make use of the site at Linton-on-Ouse that was previously considered. With respect to my right hon. Friend’s constituency, we will be writing to Members of Parliament and councils today, and if he is not fortunate enough to be in that first tranche, I assure him that there will be further tranches to come. We want to exit the hotels in their entirety; that does require us to keep making good progress with stopping the boats.
Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)
I, too, welcome everything that I have heard my right hon. Friend say today. On Saturday, we witnessed the most appalling scenes of lawbreaking on the streets of our capital. Can the Minister reassure me that anyone found to have broken our laws and incited racial hatred and violence in this country who is here as an asylum seeker, or on a visa, including students, will have that status revoked and be removed?
Robert Jenrick
I have been very clear that people who spread hate and division in our country have no right to be here. Having a visa is a privilege, not an entitlement, and any foreign national who conducts themselves in that manner falls below the standards that we expect in our country, and will find that their visa is revoked and that they are expelled. We have already begun that process in a small number of cases, and I have written to all chief constables across England and Wales, inviting them to bring to our attention at the Home Office any examples that we should consider.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
I was in northern France last week and saw very large numbers of people, visible in public spaces, waiting to put their lives at risk to make the journey across the channel to the UK. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the work being done with the French authorities has been a very important part of reducing the numbers crossing the channel? Will he commit to doing further work to develop what is happening, particularly in the area around Dunkirk, to prevent people moving away from the beaches, seeking to evade detection by the authorities in the channel, and using the network of canals to put asylum seekers in small boats across the channel?
Robert Jenrick
I wish to put on record the Government’s thanks to the French authorities for the work they have done over the course of this year. Of course, there is more to be done. We are always encouraging our French friends to go further, but they have put in place a number of significant steps, including the infrastructure that my hon. Friend describes, which is making it hard for so-called taxi boats to go through the canals and estuaries and out into the English channel. We are also working with Belgium, which is another important partner through which a number of migrants, engines and boats pass. The Prime Minister announced recently in Granada a new partnership with the Government of Belgium to deepen our ties in that regard.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, particularly the news that, although there is a long way to go to completely stop the boats, there has been a significant reduction. Likewise, I welcome the news on the first 50 hotels and was grateful to receive confirmation from his officials this morning that the Best Western in Buckingham would close on 23 November. However, given that I had previously been told that it would close on 9 September, may I ask him to confirm that these new dates are final and cannot be delayed, postponed or changed, and that the hotel will absolutely close on 23 November?
Robert Jenrick
Absolutely. I hope the letter he has received is written in blood. That hotel will close on the date in the letter.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the work he has done on this issue. I have seen at first hand how hard he has worked over the last 12 months to make sure we make progress. On the upstream work, one thing we need to get a grip of is the industry of producing the crafts that are carrying these people across the channel. What work is he doing with our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to try to smash that industry, which is clearly an important part of the broader picture of stopping the boats once and for all?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend, who was a superb Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Home Office until recently, knows that we have worked very hard on smashing the people-smuggling gangs not just on the goal line of the beaches of northern France but further up the pitch in places such as Turkey and north Africa. That involves a lot of work by the National Crime Agency, Border Force and the security services in partnership with allies in those areas. We have signed important agreements on that over the summer, including with Turkey.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The Minister deserves great credit for all the work he has done on this issue. I am really pleased that the Novotel in Ipswich will be put back to its proper use. At the heart of this issue is fairness, and when some of my constituents who are struggling to pay their energy bills and put food on the table see men—and they are all men—living in a four-star hotel, going to the buffet every day and not paying a penny, it strikes at the heart of that fairness. Does the Minister agree that those constituents who used to work in the hotel and were pressured to resign should be offered their jobs back, ideally on better terms than before? That is also connected to the fairness point.
Robert Jenrick
I feel very strongly that we are sent to this place to represent the interests of our constituents, and we should not elevate the interests of illegal migrants over those of the communities we are elected to serve. That is the approach that my hon. Friend has taken in fighting tenaciously to get that hotel closed to asylum seekers and returned to the community uses that his constituents value. We want to see more such hotels closed across the country.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for announcing that 50 hotels will close. Will he consider putting a list in the Library so that we are able to see the names—I have hotels bordering my constituency but not actually in it—and will he do that for further tranches too? The Government propose putting caps on the number of illegal migrants we are willing to take. When will that be brought forward for a vote, and when will the consultation finish, so that we can manage the demand?
Robert Jenrick
We will not publish the list under long-standing Home Office practice, as we are advised by the police that it is preferable not to name the hotels because we have seen protests and community tensions in the recent past.
We legislated for the cap in the Illegal Migration Act 2023, and we will shortly publish the consultation, which will ask every local authority how much capacity it has to house individuals who come to the UK through safe and legal routes. We will move away from an era in which we in Westminster posture and virtue signal while our local communities and councils have to pick up the bill. As a result of that consultation, we will bring forward our proposal to Parliament and have a vote on it, if colleagues so wish.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his announcements and the progress in this area. We urgently need to move people out of hotels and to instead provide stable, cost-effective accommodation that meets the needs of asylum seekers and the communities we serve. We all need to do our bit. We have received proposals from Home Office officials for asylum accommodation locally that would not work. The officials have been very helpful, but will the Minister agree to meet me and Runnymede Borough Council leader Tom Gracey to discuss alternative proposals to do our bit?
Robert Jenrick
I would be pleased to do so. One innovation that we have started this week is to write to all local authorities with an open offer: if they can bring forward better proposals for asylum accommodation than the Home Office’s providers, we would be happy to work directly with them. If my hon. Friend’s local council has ideas that would be more suitable, better value for money and more in line with the wishes of the local community, we will take them very seriously.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and thank him for hearing the many thousands of voices across Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke who signed my petition to end Serco’s abuse of Stoke-on-Trent and get one of the two hotels closed. That is in stark contrast to Stoke-on-Trent Labour, which allowed us to become a dumping ground after it signed up to the asylum voluntary dispersal scheme. Labour is now led by a Leader of the Opposition who wants us to surrender our borders to Brussels and move them to the Mediterranean—[Interruption.] The shadow Immigration Minister also let the mask slip at Labour party conference by basically claiming that anyone who wants to control our borders is xenophobic. I note the moan from that Dispatch Box at the news that Stoke-on-Trent will have one of its hotels shut. Can the Minister tell me when the other hotel in Stoke-on-Trent will face closure? I hope it is as soon as possible, because Stoke-on-Trent has done its fair share already.
Robert Jenrick
No one in this place has fought harder to end the use of asylum hotels than my hon. Friend and his colleagues in Stoke-on-Trent. That is why it is so important that we have delivered on our promise to do so. We are stopping the boats and making progress, but there is still a long way to go. We want to stop the boats in their entirety, and as we do so more hotels in his constituency and elsewhere will close. The public can see what is happening: we are closing hotels, but the Opposition want to open our borders.
Safe Asylum Routes: Afghan Refugees
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) on securing the debate. I am grateful for his contribution, and I suspect that there will be some interventions from other interested right hon. and hon. Members. Clearly, 30 minutes is not long enough to do justice to a topic as complex and important as this, but I hope that I can provide some reassurance in my remarks and when answering interventions.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. As chair of the British Council all-party parliamentary group, I put on the record our thanks to the Prime Minister for his direct intervention in changing the guidance to allow contractors who are hiding from the Taliban in Afghanistan to continue their applications in the safety of a third country, typically Pakistan. I put it to the Minister that there is now a logjam not only because there is a shortage of houses in the UK to which to send people from Pakistan, but because the ACRS pathway 3 scheme has a quota of 1,500, which we are nearing. Can the Minister provide an assurance or update as to what the Government will do, from a housing point of view, to get those contractors to the UK as soon as possible? Can the Minister also undertake to lift the cap to allow those eligible under ACRS to come to the UK?
Robert Jenrick
In a moment, I will come to the specific question around the numbers and how they relate to both British Council workers and GardaWorld employees. If time allows, I will come on to my hon. Friend’s question about the limiting factor of accommodation as well. Clearly, it is a significant challenge for us. The primary responsibility rests with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Ministry of Defence. The Ministry of Defence in particular is responsible for bringing forward service family accommodation and ensuring that it is available and of a suitable quality, so that once families have been granted their visas, they can come to the UK safe in the knowledge that they will have somewhere to stay, rather than being housed in a hotel, which I think we all agree is an unsatisfactory way for anyone to live for a prolonged period and which we have consciously moved away from. My hon. Friend will have seen the effort to which the Government went in the first half of this year to close the hotels that were housing 8,000 Afghans who had arrived around the time of Operation Pitting.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister will be aware of the case, which I brought to his and the Secretary of State’s attention, of the gentleman who worked in the British Army alongside one of my constituents. He had to leave Afghanistan and live under threat in Pakistan with his wife and four children. We are keen to get him back to Northern Ireland—to Newtownards, to be specific. There is a job and house waiting for him; all we have to do is get him there, because he served our country. I gently remind the Minister that we still await a successful outcome for that gentleman.
Robert Jenrick
Let me make some progress, if I may, and I will return to those colleagues who wish to intervene. To address the hon. Member’s point, we sympathise deeply with the situation that many Afghans find themselves in, including those who are suffering because of their work in standing up for human rights and the rule of law, as well as those, such as women and girls and members of minority groups, who are facing wider persecution at the hands of the Taliban. Those are the reasons why we as a country have made the commitments that we have, and it is critical that we continue to deliver on those. The Government remain absolutely committed to the people of Afghanistan and the schemes that we established in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Kabul.
Since June 2021, around 24,600 people affected by events in Afghanistan have been brought to safety in the UK. They include British nationals and their families, Afghans who loyally served the UK and others identified as particularly at risk, such as campaigners for women’s rights, human rights defenders, journalists, judges and members of the LGBT+ community. The number includes 7,000 individuals brought to safety after Operation Pitting. Because of the various ways in which cohorts are defined, detailed international comparisons have to be made with some caution, but on most measures the figure is significantly more than the numbers brought to safety by many of our European neighbours. I stress that this is not just about the number of Afghans who have arrived in the UK, but about the manner in which we support those people in order to integrate them into the United Kingdom and ensure that they can begin to establish themselves here and lead fulfilling lives.
Robert Jenrick
I will finish this point and then I will give way, to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) first. All Afghans relocated to the UK through ACRS and the ARAP programme are immediately granted indefinite leave to remain, including the immediate right to work, alongside access to the benefits system, healthcare, education and employment support. I will give way to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, because she contacted my office before the debate.
Caroline Lucas
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. As he knows, I have a constituent who was instructed by the Government to make the dangerous journey, with his young family, to Pakistan for final checks, as he is eligible under ACRS pathway 3. They have been in Pakistan in one room—all of them in just one room—since May. Their documents are expiring. Pakistan has ordered Afghan asylum seekers out of the country by November, and this family are petrified that they will be sent back to Afghanistan in 13 days’ time. I am desperately raising this case. The Minister will know that I have used all kinds of ways to try to reach him to ask, please, whether something be done this week to ensure that this family are not sent back to real danger in Afghanistan in less than 13 days’ time.
Robert Jenrick
The case that the hon. Lady raised was brought to my attention today, but I will certainly ensure that my officials look into it and revert to her with a full and proper answer. We are aware of the recent statements by the Government of Pakistan, which suggest their willingness to return some of those staying in Pakistan to Afghanistan. That is obviously a deeply concerning development and something that plays into all of our thoughts on how this scheme should operate in the days and weeks ahead.
Robert Jenrick
I will in a moment. If I may, I will just finish this point. The Home Office is granting or rather is deciding visa cases every week, and those individuals will then have the ability to come to the UK, but clearly and understandably people want to come to the UK in the knowledge that accommodation is waiting for them and that they will be fully supported with the integration package. They are able, if they have had the decision made, to come to the UK, but what we need to do is to work with the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and local authorities to bring forward as much accommodation as possible, so that those individuals can make the journey to the UK knowing that the full package is available to them from the moment that they arrive. As I said in answer to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), none of us wants to see large numbers of individuals coming to the UK to languish in hotels for prolonged periods. I give way to the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell).
Rachael Maskell
I am incredibly grateful. I have in my constituency two children who came here under the UNHCR scheme. Both families went to Pakistan and were waiting to come here under the ACRS. One family has already returned to Afghanistan; and clearly, the other family is in danger of doing so. These are Hazara families at extreme risk, so what can the Minister say to give these families some comfort that they will be reunited with their children here in the UK?
Robert Jenrick
We do have a family reunion policy. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Brent North feels that it is insufficient, but it has enabled more than 40,000 people to come to the UK to reunite with other refugees. I would be very happy to look into the specific case that the hon. Member for York Central raises. I know that she raises it in a sincere way on behalf of her constituents and she is clearly very concerned.
As time is short, let me answer more specifically some of the other questions that were raised by speaking to the pathways that underlie the scheme. On pathway 1 specifically, we recognise the challenges of the evacuation, which caused families to be split, and are working to establish a route to address this. Once in operation, this will allow eligible individuals to refer one spouse or partner and dependent child for resettlement. We are working to get the route operational as quickly as possible, and I can say that we expect to receive referrals in the first half of 2024 if not sooner.
Robert Jenrick
I will answer, if I may, my hon. Friend’s first question. On pathway 3, I am pleased to share that we will now consider for resettlement all eligible, at-risk British Council and GardaWorld contractors and Chevening alumni who expressed interest during the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s window of opportunity. This means that the Government will exceed the original allocation of 1,500 places for the first stage of ACRS pathway 3. These are individuals who directly supported the efforts of the UK and the international community in Afghanistan. It is important to ensure that all those who are eligible, at risk, and remain in Afghanistan and the region, are able to reach safety in the UK. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will shortly contact all remaining individuals assessed as “eligible in principle” under the first stage of ACRS pathway 3 with advice on their next steps. We remain committed to honouring our commitments under these schemes, including, where capacity allows, working with international partners and non-governmental organisations to welcome wider groups under the second stage of pathway 3. I hope that answers my hon. Friend’s question.
Mr Baron
I thank the Minister for that. It is excellent news that the quota system has now been pushed to one side for those individuals that he specified. I suggest to him, however, that there is still a sense of urgency. If people are stuck in Pakistan and cannot get over to the UK, with Pakistan suggesting that it is going to repatriate back to Afghanistan, there may still be a big problem. Will the Minister confirm that he will look at this as a matter of urgency? We need to cut through the red tape and help these people who helped this country.
Robert Jenrick
I can assure my hon. Friend, and indeed all right hon. and hon. Members here, that we are considering that with great urgency. Those who are in Pakistan are supported by the British Government, or by partner organisations such as the International Organisation for Migration, which will provide them with accommodation, food and support. I appreciate, however, that those conditions are not desirable, and the recent statements by the Pakistan Government are concerning. That is why we are looking again at what more we might be able to do. I will give way one more time.
Barry Gardiner
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. On pathway 1, regarding those who had been separated during Operation Pitting, he said that a spouse and a dependent child would be able to come to the UK. Where there is a non-dependent child, or more than one—I think he said one—dependent child, is the Minister really now saying that those smaller families in Afghanistan who had been called under Operation Pitting, that perhaps because of the explosion were not able to get to the UK in safety, are now going to be divided yet further and separated yet further? Surely, that cannot be what he meant.
Robert Jenrick
No, I think the hon. Gentleman misheard me. I am happy to restate for the record that, once in operation, this will allow eligible individuals to refer one spouse or partner, and dependent children, for resettlement. There is no suggestion of splitting up children from their parents.
Robert Jenrick
On the question of non-dependent children, that is not in our proposal, but I am happy to revert to the hon. Gentleman with more detail on that.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
Colleagues have covered many of the points I was going to make, but I want to ask a question just specifically on that point. My office has received many stories similar to those of hon. Members here about people in horrendous situations. Particularly on ACRS pathway 1, it would be very helpful if the Minister were able to publish some more guidance that offices can use. My understanding was that, under ACRS pathway 1, people cannot access the refugee family reunion procedure, so there is then a danger that if they apply, the application will be rejected as invalid. We do not want to advise them to do that then be deemed invalid, when actually we know from what the Minister has said today that there should be a pathway for family members to come to the UK safely. Some guidance on this from the Minister would be so helpful for all of our offices, if that is possible.
Robert Jenrick
I will be very happy to do that. I appreciate that all those represented here today, and in fact most Members of this House, are working with constituents in this situation. I will instruct my officials to review the information that we have available and send it to the hon. Gentleman and other interested Members. If he feels it is insufficient, then he should please give us guidance.
One of the questions at the heart of this debate is our ability to house people satisfactorily here in the UK. With the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, we worked intensively over the first half of this year to ensure that almost all individuals in the Afghan bridging hotels were moved on into settled accommodation. The remaining individuals are in pre-matched situations where they are awaiting their property becoming available, so will swiftly move out of that accommodation. That is a success, but we need to ensure that we do not find ourselves in that situation again. It is for that reason that we have exercised a degree of caution in bringing individuals to the UK without accommodation available.
We want to work with as many local authorities as possible to find further homes that we can then match with families in Pakistan awaiting entry to the United Kingdom. We all appreciate the pressures on local authorities: their own housing lists for the domestic population; handling Homes for Ukraine, the Syrian scheme and the Hong Kong scheme; and the consequences of illegal migration. Together, those factors make it an extremely challenging period for them. Since 2015, we have welcomed 530,000 people into our country on humanitarian grounds—more than at any time in our modern history—and much of that pressure lies with local authorities. That does not mean we should prevent individuals from coming to the United Kingdom. We need to work intensively with local authorities to bring forward more properties swiftly.
A further avenue is to ensure that service family accommodation units are brought up to scratch, made available and matched with individuals and their families in Pakistan, or indeed in Afghanistan. Understandably, the Ministry of Defence is leading that work, and we are doing everything we can to encourage them to bring forward their hundreds of properties very swiftly.
Robert Jenrick
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, as I know he is very keen, and this was his debate. Then I must wrap up.
Barry Gardiner
Will the Minister address the mismatch in staffing resource? It seems disproportionate that there were 540 staff working on the Ukraine scheme and there are 36 on the Afghan scheme. I do not want in any way to downplay the Ukraine scheme—it has been a great success. However, we need to see similar priority given to the Afghans.
Robert Jenrick
I would be happy to take away the hon. Gentleman’s comment and consider it. In my experience, the challenges he has described in this debate are not primarily related to the number of caseworkers dealing with individual cases. The biggest challenge facing the UK on this issue is the availability of accommodation. The more homes we are able to bring forward—whether that be by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities procuring homes under the schemes they have available, the Ministry of Defence bringing forward service family accommodation, or each of our own local authorities bringing forward accommodation—the more families we will be able to bring into the UK with ease. The alternatives are for individuals to wait in Pakistan, to come to the United Kingdom of their own volition, having had their case decided by the Home Office, which is happening at significant pace, or to come and spend time in contingency accommodation. Our recent experience with that was not positive and I would be loth to return to it, although we do not rule it out.
I will bring my remarks to a close by thanking the hon. Member for Brent North for securing the debate, and all those who have contributed. I appreciate that 30 minutes is too short to address all the questions hon. Members have on this issue. The Government believe that the UK has a generous offer to those affected by events in Afghanistan, and we are delivering on that offer. That is most clearly demonstrated by the fact that 24,600 people are now beginning their new lives here, and that more will follow. We remain committed to our Afghan schemes, but we need to deliver those commitments in an orderly manner. That is the duty of a Government, and it is also what the public expects. We can only welcome, support and accommodate individuals arriving under our safe and legal routes as part of a sustainable and well-managed immigration scheme in partnership with others, in particular the local authorities who have to support those individuals and their families.
Finally, I call on all Members to support our Afghan schemes, work with their local councils, and support the work we are doing under the Illegal Migration Act 2023 to consult with local authorities on their capacity to take further individuals. That consultation will be published soon.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
I have no idea what the hon. Lady is referring to, but I would be very happy to look into that individual case.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
Immigration Rules: Statement of Changes
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is today laying before the House a Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules.
EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) and EUSS family permits
We are making certain changes to the EUSS, which enables EU, other European Economic Area (EEA) and Swiss citizens living in the UK by the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020, and their family members, to obtain immigration status.
The effect of the changes is the removal of the right of administrative review for EUSS eligibility refusals and relevant cancellation decisions made on or after 5 October 2023. In line with the Citizens’ Rights Agreements, a right of redress will continue to be provided through a right of appeal. The changes create streamlined arrangements for challenging a decision and align with the approach taken in the rest of the immigration system (where no dual right of redress exists).
The same changes apply to the S2 Healthcare Visitor route, which provides a route of entry to the UK for people who, before the end of the transition period, had requested authorisation from their EEA home state or Switzerland to receive a course of planned healthcare treatment provided by the NHS under the “S2 arrangement”.
We are also making some minor, technical amendments to Appendix EU for clarification purposes.
Immigration Rules for Pre-1997 Gurkhas, Hong Kong Military Unit Veterans and Family Members
We are bringing the pre-1997 Gurkha settlement concession into the Immigration Rules and at the same time extending the policy to cover pre-1997 members of Hong Kong military units as announced in March 2023.
The policy recognises Hong Kong veterans have similar circumstances to Gurkhas, stationed in Hong Kong prior to handover to China, although never based in the UK. It will enable those eligible who were discharged before 1 July 1997 to settle in the UK. This will be done by extending the provisions of the settlement concession that already exists for former Gurkhas and their families to Hong Kong military unit veterans and their families. Bringing both cohorts under the rules provides greater transparency for these routes and fairness of treatment.
Changes to Appendix Electronic Travel Authorisation
We have made changes to clarify that the ETA exemption for applicants lawfully resident in Ireland who are travelling within the Common Travel Area will require a person aged 16 or above to demonstrate residency in Ireland, if required by a UK official, in order to benefit from this exemption.
The changes to the Immigration Rules are being laid on 7 September 2023.
All changes in the Statement of Changes will come into effect on various dates from 28 September 2023.
[HCWS1009]
Illegal Migration Update
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement about illegal migration.
Tackling illegal migration is one of the Government’s central priorities because it is the British public’s priority. People can see that illegal migration is one of the great injustices of our time. It harms communities in the UK, it denies the most vulnerable refugees a chance of resettlement, and it leaves behind a trail of human misery. Indeed, the perilous nature of the small boat crossings was underscored once again last month when six fatalities occurred in a tragic incident off the French coast. My thoughts are with all those affected, and I pay tribute to the first responders in both the UK and France who worked in difficult circumstances to save as many lives as possible.
That reminds us all why we need to do whatever it takes to stop the boats, which is exactly what the Government have been doing throughout the summer. We started by redoubling our efforts to smash the criminal gangs upstream, well before those gangs are in striking distance of the United Kingdom. We have agreed a new partnership with Turkey to target the supply chain of small boats, which establishes the UK as Turkey’s partner of choice in tackling the shared challenge of illegal migration. Two weeks ago I visited my counterparts in Egypt, as the Security Minister visited Iraq, to deepen our law enforcement co-operation with two more strategically important countries in that regard.
In the UK, we have been ratcheting up our activity to break the business model of the gangs. Unscrupulous employers and landlords who offer illegal migrants the ability to live and work in the UK are an integral part of the business model of the evil people-smuggling gangs. We are clamping down on them; we announced over the summer the biggest overhaul of our civil penalty regime in a decade, trebling illegal working fines and initiating a tenfold increase in right to rent fines for repeat offenders.
As we do so, more rogue employers and landlords are getting knocks on the door. Illegal working visits in the first half of this year increased by more than 50% compared with the same period last year. So far in 2023 we have more than trebled the number of right to rent civil penalties issued compared with last year, resulting in a sixfold increase in the number of penalties levied. Following the resumption of the immigration banking measures in April, banks and building societies are now closing the accounts of more than 6,000 illegal migrants.
As we surge our enforcement activity, we are driving up the returns of those with no right to remain in the United Kingdom. Last month we announced the professional enablers taskforce, which will increase enforcement action against lawyers and legal representatives who help migrants to abuse the immigration system. Lawyers found to be coaching migrants on how to remain in the country by fraudulent means will face a sentence of up to life imprisonment.
Since our deal with Albania in December last year, we have returned more than 3,500 immigration offenders, on weekly flights. As we have done so, we have seen a more than 90% reduction in the number of Albanians arriving illegally. So far there have been more than 12,600 returns this year, with returns in the first half of this year 75% higher than in the same period last year. Of course, those changes follow the landmark Illegal Migration Act 2023, which, coupled with our partnership with Rwanda, will deliver the truly decisive changes necessary to take away all the incentives for people to make illegal crossings from the safety of France.
As we adopt a zero-tolerance approach to illegal migration, the Government have extended a generous offer to those most in need of settlement. The latest statistics published over the summer show that, between 2015 and June 2023, 533,000 people were offered a safe and legal route into the United Kingdom. Last month the Home Office resettled the thousandth refugee through the community sponsorship scheme.
While this Government’s focus is on tackling the source of the problem, we have none the less worked to manage the symptoms of illegal migration as best as is practicable. We have made significant improvements at Manston since last year, and it continues to operate as an effective site for security, health and initial asylum checks, despite the pressure of the summer months.
We have worked to ensure that when migrants depart Manston they are now heading to cheaper and more appropriate accommodation, by rolling out room sharing and delivering our large accommodation sites. Those sites are undoubtedly in the national interest, but the Government continue to listen to the concerns of local communities and Members of this House, and throughout the summer further engagement has taken place to ensure that those sites are delivered in the most orderly way possible. We have successfully ended the use of Afghan bridging hotels, with Afghan families now able to move on with the next stage of their lives in settled accommodation, and the hotels are now returning to use by the public.
Reducing the backlog in asylum cases and establishing a more efficient and robust decision-making system is not in and of itself a strategy to stop illegal migration, but it is important for taxpayer value and we have prioritised it. We have transformed the productivity of asylum decision making by streamlining processes, creating focused interviews and instilling true accountability for performance. As of 1 September, we have met our commitment to have 2,500 decision makers, an increase of 174% from the same point last year. As a result, I am pleased to report to the House that we are on track to clear the legacy backlog by the end of the year, and that recently published provisional figures for July show that the overall backlog fell.
Tackling illegal migration is not easy; more people are on the move, and more are mobile, than ever before. Countries around the world are struggling to control it. But our 10-point plan is one of the most comprehensive strategies to tackle this problem in Europe, and that is showing. As of today, arrivals are down by 20% compared with last year, and for the month of August the reduction was more than a third. That is against the reasonable worst-case scenario of 85,000 arrivals that we were presented with when taking office last year.
In contrast, irregular migration into the EU has significantly increased, with Italy alone seeing a doubling in small boat arrivals. In Italy, a 100% increase; in the UK, a 20% decrease. Our plan is working. There is of course much more to do, but it is clear that we are making progress. I commend this statement to the House.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, thin though it is, and I echo his sentiments in sending condolences to the families of those six people who died tragically in the accident in the channel earlier this summer. We simply must stop these dangerous crossings.
I am absolutely bewildered that, after the summer we have had, yesterday the Prime Minister claimed victory in his broken pledge to stop the boats. This Saturday we saw the year’s record number of channel crossings, with more than 870 people making that dangerous journey in a single day, and the total number has now soared to a whopping 21,000 for the year. The only reason the number is not breaking last year’s record is the poor weather in July and August—and a strategy that depends on the weather is probably not a very sustainable strategy at all.
What has that left us with? A Government flailing around, chasing headlines with gimmicks and stunts rather than doing the hard graft of actually stopping the boats, clearing the backlog and getting people out of the hotels. Take their much celebrated small boats week last month, which turned out to be an absolute omnishambles, with taxpayers paying the price. No wonder the Home Secretary did not want to do a single interview, and no wonder she is not in the Chamber today.
Do not take my word for it: that well-known pro-Labour publication the Daily Mail did a day-by-day review. On the Monday, just 39 migrants were brought into the 500-capacity Bibby Stockholm barge. On the Tuesday, the Conservative deputy chairman admitted that his party has “failed” on immigration. On the Wednesday, the Immigration Minister sparked fresh Tory infighting over whether Britain should leave the European convention on human rights. On the Thursday, channel crossings hit their highest daily number for the year. Then, to cap it all, on the Friday, all the asylum seekers were removed from the Bibby Stockholm because of the presence of legionella in the water supply. You could not make it up.
The Bibby Stockholm was supposed to be a symbol of the Conservatives’ cutting asylum costs, but the Minister has not even mentioned those costs today. Instead, it stands alongside the boats and the hotels as a floating symbol of Conservative failure and incompetence that is costing the taxpayer half a million pounds a month. On top of that, new Home Office data in August showed us that the asylum seeker backlog has grown ninefold to an enormous 175,000 under the Conservatives at a cost of £4 billion a year to the taxpayer—incredibly, eight times higher than it was when Labour left office in 2010. That waste is the cost of 13 years of Conservative neglect.
Today, we debate the cost of the spiralling asylum backlog, driven by cutting the costs of asylum decision making in 2013. Yesterday, the Chancellor was promising to spend “whatever it takes” to fix crumbling classrooms caused by the Prime Minister’s cuts to the schools budget as Chancellor. Tomorrow, we will no doubt be back to the economy and the financial costs of low growth and spiralling mortgages. Everywhere we look, we see the costs of Conservative incompetence.
The Minister speaks now of this new deal with Turkey. Well, I am glad that the Government have started to listen to Labour—we have been calling for tough action to disrupt the gangs upstream for well over a year—but this looks pitifully weak. This announcement comes with no new funding or staff, meaning that officers could be taken off existing functions. That stands in contrast to Labour’s fully funded plan to hire hundreds of specialists specifically to work on that challenge. Meanwhile, Turkish nationals have become one of the largest groups crossing the channel this year.
The Minister boasts about returns of failed asylum seekers going up, but they are actually down 70% compared with when Labour left office in 2010. Forty thousand are awaiting removal, and, at the current rate, it will take the Government more than 10 years to achieve their target. Two thousand fewer foreign national offenders are being removed per year compared with when Labour left office in 2010.
The Minister brags about the legacy backlog—a figment of the Prime Minister’s imagination—going down, but he knows full well that the only backlog that matters is that of the 175,000 people, and that number is still going up. We know that the Government are cooking the books in that regard, marking large numbers of asylum seekers as “withdrawn” because they have missed a single appointment or failed to fill in a form correctly. A Conservative Back-Bench MP described that as an amnesty in all but name.
The Minister has decided to make illegal working even more illegal. The problem is that there has been a lack of Government enforcement. Employers who are exploiting and illegally employing migrant workers should face the full force of the law, but in reality, the number of penalties issued to firms has fallen by two thirds since 2016.
There are so many questions that it is difficult to know where to start, but let us start with these: when did the Minister know about legionella on Bibby Stockholm? How much is the barge currently costing? How many people are currently in hotels? Does he actually intend to implement the much-vaunted Illegal Migration Act 2023? The Prime Minister keeps declaring victory, but the reality is that nothing is working and everything the Government do just makes everything worse, so when will they get out of the way so that we on the Labour Benches can take over, implement our plan and retake control of our broken asylum system?
Robert Jenrick
That was a desperately thin response. We can deduce from it that the Labour party has absolutely no plan to tackle this issue. Of course the hon. Gentleman has had a quieter summer than me, but that is because the Labour party is completely uninterested in tackling illegal migration.
The hon. Gentleman talks about small boats week. Well, let us see how it went for the Labour party. On Monday, the Government announced the biggest increase in fines for illegal working and renting for a decade, while Labour MPs called for illegal migrants to have the right to work immediately, which would act as a massive magnet for even more crossings. On Tuesday, we announced our professional enablers taskforce to clamp down on lawyers who abuse the system, while Labour MPs were awfully quiet, weren’t they? They did nothing to distance themselves from the litany of councillors and advisers exposed as being implicated in efforts to stop the removal of criminals and failed asylum seekers. On Wednesday, we announced a partnership with Turkey to smash the gangs, while the shadow Home Secretary claimed that morning that what we really needed was a return to the Dublin convention—something that even the EU described as “prehistoric”.
The truth is that the Labour party has no plan to tackle this issue, and does not even want to tackle it. We on the Conservative Benches are getting on with the job, and we are making progress: while the rest of Europe sees significant increases in migrants, we are seeing significant falls. Our plan is the most comprehensive of any country in Europe and it is starting to work.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his statement. Of course, he is more than aware of the various reports over the summer regarding the Wethersfield site in Braintree district in my area. Could he explain how long the Government will be using that site? Is the five-year period that has been publicly reported correct? What planning processes will be used beyond the 12 months permitted under the class Q regulations? Are the Government considering increasing the £3,500 per bed space given to councils if the site remains open for more than a year?
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the co-operation that we have had in respect of that site. I know that she supports the use of large sites, such as disused military bases, for that purpose—it was her policy when she was Home Secretary. We want to use that site for the shortest possible period. We have not put an end date on our use. We have taken advantage of the emergency planning powers that are available in these circumstances; she knows that that has a limited timeframe, after which further action needs to be taken. It is important that we provide the local community with the resources necessary to manage such sites appropriately. That is why we have provided the £3,500 payment. If the site is used for a sustained period, it is correct that we should look again at that and see whether a further payment is appropriate. We have also provided funding for Essex police and for her local NHS services so that the pressure on her constituents, and those of her neighbouring MPs, is as minimal as possible while we deliver this service in their area.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Minister comes here again with another statement, but the problem is not the boats; it is the backlogs. He comes here fiddling figures with legacy backlogs, but the flow backlog of people coming into the country continues to increase, and the hidden backlog—those granted asylum by the courts but left waiting for his party to complete the paperwork—grows and grows. In reality, we have a backlog of 175,000 people waiting for a decision from his Department—the highest number since records began— and we local MPs get only boilerplate replies that give no reassurance to our constituents left in limbo by his incompetent Department.
We all want to see an end to the small boats and to people risking and losing their lives in the channel, but that requires safe and legal routes, which do not exist. They certainly do not exist for Iraqis, Iranians, Eritreans or Sudanese people. For Afghans, the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, which they should be able to access, are not fit for purpose, either. Fewer than 50 people have been settled through pathway 3 this year, but just shy of 2,000 have come on small boats in the past two quarters because the system is broken and the Government are not interested in fixing it.
Has the Minister met the Fire Brigades Union regarding his expensive plague ship moored off Dorset? Has he given any thought to how his Illegal Migration Act will actually work? Many in the sector do not understand and have not had any guidance from the Minister on what will happen to the people left in immigration limbo by his Department.
Finally, Scotland has sought an alternative to this broken system, and in the summer we launched our “Citizenship in an independent Scotland” paper. The Government are more interested in pulling up the drawbridge and courting the Daily Mail, so will the Minister devolve immigration to Scotland and let us get on with the job of being a welcoming country and playing a role in the world?
Robert Jenrick
When I last called out the hon. Lady’s humanitarian nimbyism, the statistics were stark—in fact, they have continued to be so. The SNP Government still accommodate only 4.5% of the total asylum population in the UK, while Scotland makes up 8.1% of the overall UK population. In Scottish local authorities where the SNP are the largest party, including in Clackmannanshire, Dundee, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, Midlothian, North Ayrshire and Falkirk—I could go on—no asylum seekers are being accommodated. In fact, there were only 59 more asylum seekers in SNP-controlled councils in the two months that have passed since we last debated this issue.
The reason I say that is that I do not believe that Members should come to this place and write cheques for which other people have to pay. The costs of SNP Members’ fake humanitarianism are borne by everyone but themselves. If they do not want illegal migrants in their own constituencies, then they should support our effort to stop the boats.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
When the Prime Minister announced that he was imperilling £300 million- worth of levelling-up investment on RAF Scampton, he said he was going to lead by example by accepting migrants into Catterick camp in his constituency. Home Office officials have now informed us that that is not happening, so where is the leadership in that?
It gets worse. I was informed by West Lindsey District Council that, despite being told that the scheme was value for money and will have to be available for three years not two, the value for money is infinitesimal compared with hotels—it will not even save money for a few days on hotels. Will the Minister now drop this ridiculous scheme, which is derisory and will do nothing for deterrence, and sit down with me and West Lindsey District Council to work out a discreet location for illegal migrants in West Lindsey?
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question and our continued co-operation. We believe that this policy is in the national interest. It is right that those coming to this country are accommodated in decent but never luxurious accommodation, so that we do not create a pull factor to the UK. It is through delivering sites such as Scampton—which I appreciate have a serious impact on his constituents—that later this year I hope we will begin to close hotels in earnest and return those facilities to the general public for tourism, business and leisure, which I know is supported by Members across the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
On behalf of the Home Affairs Committee, may I send our thoughts and prayers to all those affected by the loss of life in the channel last month?
The Home Affairs Committee has long urged the Government to clear the asylum backlog, and I am pleased that the legacy backlog is starting to shrink. However, there are important questions about the quality and quantity of decisions. On quality, it was reported in The Sunday Times last week that interviews have been slashed from seven hours to 45 minutes. Could the Minister explain how the Home Office is evaluating and guaranteeing the quality of those decisions?
On quantity, the Home Office has reportedly doubled the rate of decision making on the legacy backlog since the end of June. What resources and support will be offered to local authorities when they start having to deal with the dramatic increase in the number of positive asylum claim decisions?
Robert Jenrick
On the first of those two important questions, the right hon. Lady is right to say that the work we have done to transform the decision-making process is bearing fruit. There will be an increase in the number of decisions—a very sharp one—in the weeks ahead. That will mean some more people being granted but also some more people being refused who then need to be removed swiftly from the country. In respect of those people being granted, I am working with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to provide the support and guidance to local authorities that they will need. However, those people who have been granted—particularly young adult males—need to get on with their lives, get a job and contribute to British society, which is what I think they want to do.
We have achieved this transformation through better management, performance targets, working overtime and having shorter, more focused interviews. I do not believe that we need to have a seven-hour interview to identify the salient points and decide a case, and that has been borne out by the good work we have done in recent months. I think Members will see, as data is published in the weeks and months ahead, an absolute transformation in the service.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Minister is absolutely right to be doing everything to tackle the small boats issue and illegal migration. Over the summer months, nearly 500 asylum seekers have arrived in destinations in Chelmsford, and I am grateful for the time he has spent speaking to me about it. Local people are really worried about extra pressure on local health services, local housing lists and other local services. Will he work with me to ensure that areas that take larger numbers of asylum seekers get financial support, so that this cost is shared fairly across the whole country?
Robert Jenrick
Yes, I would be happy to continue to work with my right hon. Friend, as we have done in recent months. We have provided £3,500 per bed space to local authorities that house dispersal accommodation, which goes to meet the costs to them of looking after these individuals, but she is right to say that the wider costs of housing asylum seekers are very high—there is no escaping that. That is one of the reasons we need to reduce the number of people coming into the country in the first place.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Over the past few years, the Government have allowed the backlog of asylum claims to rise and rise to over 170,000. For all the Minister’s warm words, progress in tackling it has been disgracefully slow. What additional measures will the Minister now implement to get that backlog down and reduce the need for his Department to scrabble around for additional accommodation, which often proves to be unsuitable and impractical, such as the Stradey Park Hotel in my constituency?
Robert Jenrick
I hope I have already described in previous answers the work that we have done. I can assure the hon. Lady that it is bearing fruit and that the backlog of legacy decisions will be cleared by the end of the year, and we will swiftly move thereafter to other decisions. Order and efficiency have been restored to the asylum decision-making process, but just waving more people in and processing their claims faster is not a strategy to stop the boats in and of itself. That is why we need the full deterrent and the comprehensive plan that we have.
One of the issues that is putting pressure on asylum accommodation is the very poor performance in Labour-run Wales, which has taken only 2.9% of the total asylum population, yet Wales accounts for 5.2% of the UK’s population. In some areas of Wales—such as the constituency of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock)—there are no asylum seekers whatsoever. I would strongly encourage the hon. Lady to speak with the Welsh Government and get them to step up and help us provide more accommodation.
Sir Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)
I very much agree with what my right hon. Friend said about the importance of effective processing, but he is right about the underlying importance of having a clear plan to deter people from coming to this country illegally, which leads us to Rwanda and the upcoming Supreme Court judgment anticipated later this year. Does he recognise the very strong sentiment among many of us in the House—and, indeed, among many of my constituents—that if the Supreme Court rules against the Government’s policy on this vital question, we should withdraw from the European convention on human rights?
Robert Jenrick
Parliament’s support for our Rwanda plan was made clear with the passage of the Illegal Migration Act 2023. That is a statutory scheme to underpin the Rwanda partnership, so the will of Parliament to get on and deliver the policy is clear for all to see. I am confident that we will secure the result that we seek in the Supreme Court when it hears the case in October, and that is the Government’s focus right now, but like my right hon. Friend I do not think we should take anything off the table. If we are truly committed to stopping the boats, we will have to consider all options, including with regard to the European convention on human rights.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
If the Government’s attention is so strongly focused on crossings in the channel, can the Minister explain to me why one of the four Border Force cutters spent so much time this summer tied up at a pier in Orkney? We have a history of people coming in small boats to Orkney, but the Vikings have been quiet for quite a while now. Is that not a curious use of that scarce resource?
Robert Jenrick
I am happy to look into that issue, and I am delighted to see the right hon. Gentleman’s Damascene conversion to stopping the boats. I can assure him that the UK has a very robust and efficient operation in the channel. We have been commended by international organisations—including when I spoke to the director general of the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees—for the work that we do to save lives at sea in the channel. I commend the Border Force officers who are part of that. At the end of the day, though, we have to put in place a deterrent if we want to stop people crossing the channel, and that is why we need policies such as Rwanda, which the right hon. Gentleman and his party have vigorously opposed.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I echo the comments of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), about the tragedies in the channel. It is a miracle that more lives have not been lost.
The Minister has committed to subsidising the French police force to the tune of £480 million, and yet, as at the end of August, the number of successful interceptions on French beaches was 45.2%, which was down from 45.8% in the previous corresponding period. Over the same time, the Belgians have managed to increase the number of successful interceptions by 90%. Will the Minister have a word with his French counterparts to suggest that they have a word with their Belgian counterparts, to see what they are doing differently? Are we paying the wrong country?
Robert Jenrick
First, I would say that the number of small boat arrivals coming to the UK has fallen by 20%. That is a very significant achievement, bearing in mind the context of a 100% increase in Italy and corresponding amounts in other border states of the European Union.
However, my hon. Friend is right to say that, despite elevating relations with France to their highest level for many years and doing a great deal of work, there is clearly more that we need the French to do for us. He is particularly right to focus on Belgium: I visited there recently and met with the Belgian Interior Minister, and the approach that that country has taken has been extremely helpful. It has worked very closely with the National Crime Agency, Border Force and policing in the UK, and has been willing to intercept in the water small boats leaving its shores. That has proven decisive: small boats from Belgian waters are now extremely rare, so that is an approach that we encourage the French to follow.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware that the cases in my constituency are being processed. From what I have seen, the vast majority are being given leave to remain. The Minister advised me that those people would then be given 28 days’ notice to leave the hotel but, last week, I sent him examples of cases where they have been given five, seven or nine days’ notice. That is creating a homelessness problem in my constituency, because the time is not available to set up the arrangements to house them. The local Christian centre workers have been housing them in their own homes as well, which is wonderful, but we cannot go on like this. I was to meet the Minister next week, but that meeting has been postponed. I would be very happy to meet with his officials, Hillingdon Council and the local Christian centre to talk through how we can resolve this problem, but it is a matter of urgency.
Robert Jenrick
I was not aware that our meeting had been postponed—I will look into that immediately after the statement. In one sense, the issue that the right hon. Gentleman has brought to the House is a sign of progress: it means that the work we have done to clear the backlog and create an efficient service is now bearing fruit, and more decisions are being granted. In fact, in the last week in August, over 2,000 decisions were granted in a single week, which is the highest for several years. That will mean that there will be increased pressure on some local authorities, such as the right hon. Gentleman’s, which houses a very large number of asylum seekers. Particularly with respect to families, local authorities will have duties and responsibilities that will be challenging for them. I am very keen to work with him and other Members across the House who are affected by that.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I greatly commend the Minister for the progress he has made with respect to procedure and to the disreputable lawyers who have been exploiting the system, and for the procedures that he has announced today, but could I say something on the question of the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court is going to make a judgment. Could it possibly be encouraged to go more quickly? It really is important: the perception in the country is that nothing is being done, which is not true. The Government have behaved extremely well in relation to the Act of Parliament that has just been passed.
On the question of the ECHR, it is not necessary to abolish the entire convention in these circumstances regarding the issue of illegal immigration. If the Supreme Court case were to go the wrong way, we can tailor legislation: we can use the “notwithstanding” formula and tailor it to the specific requirements that are needed, which would be limited but extremely effective. Will the Minister please bear that in mind?
Robert Jenrick
I have always taken and valued the advice of my hon. Friend in this regard. We will, of course, consider what action we need to take if there is a negative judgment from the Supreme Court, but that is not our expectation: we are going to vigorously contest that case and expect a positive outcome. The Supreme Court is going to hear the case in the middle of October and I hope that those justices will come forward with their decision expeditiously because—as my hon. Friend has rightly said—the country is waiting for action and the good work we have done thus far is not enough. We have to go further and, at the end of the day, that will only happen by putting a decisive intervention such as the Rwanda policy in place.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
All this just confirms that the hostile environment is still alive and well. The Minister talks about reducing the backlog; how are cases within that backlog being prioritised? I have a constituent who was caught up in the tragedy at the Park Inn hotel in Glasgow in 2020—a city, incidentally, that takes more of its share of asylum seekers than any other local authority area in the country. He was the roommate of one of the attackers. He was told that he would have a decision by 25 October 2022, so nearly a year later, what is his place in the backlog queue?
Robert Jenrick
I am happy to look into the case that the hon. Gentleman raises but, as I have said in answer to numerous questions, we are now making very strong progress with the backlog. We are making decisions at a rate that has not been seen for several years and that is escalating rapidly, but the fundamental difference of opinion between him and his party and ourselves is that we do not see clearing the backlog as a strategy for stopping the boats. It is an important thing that we need to do as a country, in order to operate an efficient system in the interests of British taxpayers, but it is not enough. We have to put in place a deterrent that fundamentally breaks the business model of the people smugglers so that people will not want to come here in the first place.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement regarding the Professional Enablers Taskforce, and encourage him to make sure that that taskforce looks at the entirety of lawyers’ interventions in the immigration system. I for one am sick and tired of having people come to my surgeries who have spent years in the immigration system, with application after application that have no chance of ever succeeding, but are making lots of money for the solicitors advising them.
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend is absolutely right—I speak as a former solicitor, so I mean no harm to the profession, but the abuse that I have seen in my role over the past nine months is truly shocking and has to end. I am pleased that the Solicitors Regulation Authority has taken swift action against the lawyers and legal representatives who were identified by the Daily Mail over the summer, but that is the tip of the iceberg. There is much more work to be done by the profession and I hope this taskforce will root out that abuse as quickly as possible.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I envy the Minister’s apparently limitless capacity for self-congratulation, but it does not bear much relationship to what people are experiencing on the ground. I went to visit migrants in a hotel in Chesterfield; there were 81 people there, not a single one of whom had had their case heard. The Minister is apparently congratulating himself on the most basic improvements that any competent Home Office should have been making over the past 18 months. How does he explain the fact that, under this Government, more migrants are arriving, yet 70% fewer are being returned than in 2010?
Robert Jenrick
I can tell the House what would happen if the Labour party was in charge of returns. [Interruption.] No, this is an important point to make. The right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), during his campaign to be leader of the Labour party, campaigned to close detention centres. Dozens of Labour MPs have campaigned against immigration removal centres, and numerous Labour MPs have sided with dangerous foreign criminals versus the British public, opposing their removal from this country. The Labour party, including the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), opposed our reforms to modern slavery legislation—reforms that were essential in order to remove people from this country expeditiously. While we are getting returns up—as I said in my statement, they have already risen substantially—I worry what would happen under the Labour party, because it has absolutely no strategy to tackle that issue.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I re-emphasise the importance of answering on responsibilities that the Minister has.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for the very helpful telephone calls I have had during the summer concerning the Bibby Stockholm barge, which is in Portland port in my constituency—something that the majority of us oppose, as he knows. We do not have any migrants on board due to the legionella problem, and I understand that the Government are facing various legal actions, not least from the Fire Brigades Union. Could he kindly update me and my constituents on the situation concerning that barge, and when and if the migrants will return?
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the co-operation that we have had over the summer. I appreciate his position with respect to the barge, although we believe it is important that we move away from expensive hotels to more rudimentary forms of accommodation such as barges. It was very unfortunate that migrants had to be moved off the barge over the summer. We deeply regret that. We did take a very precautionary approach. Tests have subsequently been carried out and the definitive answers to those tests will be received very shortly. Assuming that they show no signs of legionella, or indeed any other bacteria or cause of concern, we will move people back on to the boat as soon as possible and I think we can expect that within weeks.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), the European convention on human rights was negotiated some 70 years ago, long before international criminal gangs engaged in trafficking people across Europe and, indeed, more widely. Does not my right hon. Friend agree that now is the time for the Government to make an approach to the Council of Europe with a view to renegotiating the terms of the European convention, because clearly it is not protecting our borders or those of many other countries across Europe?
Robert Jenrick
My right hon. Friend is correct to say that the framework of international treaties, many of which were forged in the years after the second world war, now appear out of date given the challenges that we face today, and that is a sentiment shared by other European countries we have been working closely with. We have sought to put illegal migration and reform of the international framework on the table for all of the international fora that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary or I are represented at, and we will seek to make the UK a leading force in reform on that issue. Other countries are looking intently at the work we are doing, particularly the Rwanda partnership and, once we are able to establish it, I think it is very likely that other countries will follow suit.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
It is nearly a year now since the Home Office first requisitioned two hotels on Bostock Lane in my constituency and, despite numerous commitments from the Dispatch Box, hundreds of migrants are still housed at that location. I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s good intentions and the hard work he has put in, but my constituents really want to know when the sites will be closed and when the hotels will be returned to their originally intended purpose.
Robert Jenrick
Three things have changed decisively over the summer. First, it is increasingly clear that the numbers coming over are lower than last year as a result of the plan that the Government have put in place, particularly the deal we struck with Albania that has been so successful. Secondly, the backlog clearance work that we have done is bearing fruit, as we have already heard today. Thirdly, we have doubled the number of asylum seekers living in each room, whether that be in hotels or in dispersal accommodation, saving the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds. Those three things lead to the ability to exit hotels in the near future and we are working very closely on plans to do so. I know how strongly my hon. Friend feels, so when we are able to do so, her hotels should rightly, because of some of the issues that have been experienced by her community, be top of the list.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Just a quick reminder that we must have succinct questions because we have a lot to get through later.
Robert Jenrick
I would be very happy to take a look at that, and I completely understand and appreciate the unique pressures that Kent faces.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
In my last communication with Doncaster Council, there were 6,710 people on the housing waiting list and we have hotels that are full, too. So will my right hon. Friend continue his great work, and make sure that we stop these illegal boats and reduce immigration to a sizeable level?
Robert Jenrick
I strongly support the view of my hon. Friend. He is right to say that illegal migration places immense pressures on public services, housing supply and community cohesion. That is what we on this side of the House understand and that is why we are taking the action that we are to stop the boats.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
When will the Old Palace Lodge in Dunstable be available for the people of Dunstable again, given its particular role in providing a social community for marking life events for the whole town?
Robert Jenrick
I have had numerous conversations with my hon. Friend about that hotel. I hope that we will be in a position to exit hotels shortly, as a result of the work we have done to restore order to the asylum decision-making system and the reduced numbers of illegal migrants crossing the channel.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
I was pleased to see the reduction by 20% in the year to date and, of course, the work that has been happening with Albania, but residents in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke are concerned about the increased numbers coming from Turkey and India. What assurances from the Prime Minister has my right hon. Friend and the Home Secretary had about a returns agreement being included in any free trade deal that we sign with India?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend is right to point out that there have been significant numbers of illegal migrants from both those countries. I visited Turkey earlier in the summer, and one of my objectives is to create an enhanced arrangement for returns with Turkey, with which we are working very closely in that regard. For India, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I have been meeting Indian counterparts regularly to increase the return of illegal migrants there. That is absolutely essential, because the number is very substantial.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
I very much agree with the Minister that we must increase deterrence if we are to reduce the numbers of people coming here illegally. A key part of that is increased deportation, so what is the Minister doing to ensure that we increase the number of deportation facilities and increase the speed of those deportations?
Robert Jenrick
We have one of the largest detained estates of any major European country, and we are increasing it. We are investing in two new ones that will come on line next year, and we are looking for further opportunities as well. That is quite right, because under the Illegal Migration Act individuals who come to this country illegally will be detained and then swiftly removed.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
I welcome the progress in processing applications. Will my right hon. Friend commit that the extra resources will be maintained and the focus on productivity improved to deal with the legacy events and then other cases, while doing the important work of stopping the flow?
Robert Jenrick
Yes, I was very pleased that we met our pledge to increase the number of decision makers to 2,500 from 1 September. That is coupled with management changes so that there are financial incentives and proper accountability for the civil servants involved. We are seeing now the fruits of that labour, with a much more productive service than we have seen for many years.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The one-year anniversary of the Novotel in Ipswich being taken over by the Home Office is about to be met. My right hon. Friend knows how strongly I feel about this. Anger in Ipswich has not abated. Looking at that hotel—a blaze of light—and knowing that those people, who broke our immigration rules, are getting three meals a day during a cost of living squeeze has caused immense anger. Will my right hon. Friend outline a timescale to get the Novotel back to its proper use, which would be good for the economy. It would also be good for fairness, and a sense of fairness is vitally important.
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.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Ind)
Reducing the asylum backlog is important, but we absolutely must not fall into the trap of having a de facto amnesty to try to achieve that. In the past year we approved the claims of 73% of applicants, including many from undisputed safe countries, while France approved just 25%. Why are we approving nearly three times the proportion of claims approved by France, given that this is clearly one of the pull factors that draws people across the channel?
Robert Jenrick
That is a very important question. We have not done an amnesty—that is what the last Labour Government did when they had a backlog of asylum decisions. We have chosen to do good, old-fashioned management reforms to make this service more productive and deliver for the taxpayer. We have also taken on this issue in respect both of countries with high grant rates, such as Afghanistan, and of those with low grant rates, such as Albania, and we have rapidly got through those cases. There are a number of nationalities—Egypt, Turkey, India—where grant rates should be very low indeed because there are very few circumstances in which somebody should be successfully claiming asylum in this country. We want to ensure that our asylum grant rates are no higher than those of comparable European countries.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I welcome the near end to illegal Albanian immigration, the crackdown on immigration lawyer abuses, and UK Visas and Immigration caseworkers helping MPs. However, as more asylum seekers become refugees, has my right hon. Friend considered creating a homes for refugees programme, building on the successful Homes for Ukraine scheme?
Robert Jenrick
It is worth remembering that those individuals granted asylum are predominantly young men of working age, and I would hope that they will integrate into society, get a job and start contributing to the UK—that is certainly our intention. I do understand that there will be some pressures on local authorities, and we are working through those with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. That Department is considering the possibility of a homes for Afghans scheme, but that is in respect of the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, which cover a different cohort of individuals where that kind of intervention is more appropriate.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
Although I am pleased to see the 20% fall in channel arrivals this year, I do not believe we will see a more meaningful fall until we get the Illegal Migration Act 2023 operational. I know that we are waiting for the Supreme Court and I urge it to hurry up, but given that the Government lost only on a very narrow point that was specific to Rwanda, can my right hon. Friend reassure the House that, should they lose in the Supreme Court, the Government have alternatives planned so we can get removals going as soon as possible?
Robert Jenrick
Of course, we consider all eventualities, but my hon. Friend is right to make the point that we won in the High Court and the Court of Appeal on the fundamental question: can a country such as ours enter into a partnership with another whereby asylum claims are heard there? Despite the many individuals who offered contrary opinions, that was deemed to be legal and in compliance with our obligations under the refugee convention. That was a huge step forward. There is a narrow point to resolve and we hope we will be successful in that regard in the Supreme Court in October, but my hon. Friend knows of our determination to tackle this issue one way or another.
Electronic Travel Authorisation: Northern Ireland
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) on securing the debate, and I thank his colleagues from Northern Ireland—the hon. Members for Belfast South (Claire Hanna), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson)—for attending. I thank him for the opportunity to further discuss what is, as he said, an important issue for Northern Ireland.
I intend to cover as many of the specific points that have been made as possible, although the purpose of the debate is not to relitigate the UK Government’s decision to introduce an electronic travel authorisation, or ETA, scheme. It is worth explaining that decision. The ETA scheme will enhance the Government’s ability to screen visitors and prevent the travel of those who pose a risk to the UK.
The introduction of an ETA scheme is in line with the approach that many of our international partners already take to border security. The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have similar schemes, and the European Union is preparing to introduce the comparable European travel information authorisation scheme, or ETIAS. That scheme is due to be implemented later this year, although we hear from the Commission that it may be somewhat delayed. In that sense, the UK is not an outlier; it is moving in lockstep with international partners. However, I appreciate that the Republic of Ireland has not chosen thus far to create its own scheme, and there may be reasons why it is particularly difficult for it to do so.
Overall, we believe that the UK will be a safer place as a result of the ETA scheme, but that is not to deny the fact that the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland pose a series of challenges, which is the purpose of this debate. The Government have tried to take a pragmatic approach, which is seen most vividly in the exemption for non-visa national residents of Ireland. In response to concerns raised by Members of this House and the Government of the Republic of Ireland, as well as other stakeholders, about the possible impact of ETAs on residents of Ireland who frequently cross the Northern Ireland-Ireland border, the Government have agreed to exempt non-visa nationals who are legally resident in Ireland from the requirement to obtain an ETA when travelling to the UK on a journey within the common travel area. In order to benefit from that exemption if required by a UK immigration official, those who are legally resident in Ireland may instead present physical evidence to demonstrate that they are legally resident in Ireland. That seems to be a satisfactory solution to most parties involved.
The next issue is whether the Government could agree some form of exemption for tourists. As the hon. Member for North Down said, I am grateful for opportunities to engage with him and others, including some of the tourism organisations who are in the Public Gallery. My officials have also done extensive engagement work behind the scenes.
We have carefully considered the request to exempt those tourists visiting Northern Ireland from Ireland from the ETA requirement due to concerns that the requirement to obtain an ETA will be considered a bureaucratic barrier for international visitors visiting Northern Ireland from Ireland. We appreciate that the Northern Irish economy depends to an extent on those visitors and that a number of businesses and sectors benefit significantly from tourists who primarily come to, or at least fly into, the Republic, but want to take advantage of the many great attributes of Northern Ireland, whether that is golfing or visiting the coastline or historic cities and towns. We appreciate the concern that those people may view this modest barrier as sufficient to deter them from making day trips to or overnight stays in Northern Ireland.
In the Government’s view, ETAs will for the first time allow us to have a comprehensive understanding of those seeking to come to the UK via the common travel area and to refuse them permission in the very judicious circumstances where that would be appropriate. Exempting tourists visiting Northern Ireland from Ireland from the requirement to obtain an ETA would, to our mind, result in an unacceptable gap in UK border security, which would allow persons of interest or risk who would be refused an ETA to enter the UK legally, undermining the very purpose of the ETA scheme, which is to prevent those who pose a risk to the UK from entering it.
Stephen Farry
Will the Minister respond directly to the point that the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and I made? While the Government’s justification for the ETA is to collect that data and have an understanding of who is coming in, the Government do not have the means to collect that data from people crossing the land border, because there is no routine immigration control on the border. As such, those tourists entering Northern Ireland will not be in the system, but none the less they still carry the legal jeopardy of having that legal requirement. That is the nub of the issue: they do not go through immigration control, but they still bear all the risks associated with it. That is the essence of the plea for pragmatism.
Robert Jenrick
I understand the point the hon. Gentleman makes. This is not a perfect solution. A perfect solution is unavailable as long as we want to respect the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland and the common travel area, but we consider that it would be even more complex, or suboptimal, to have a situation where Northern Ireland was hived off from the scheme altogether. That would be a greater loophole in the ETA scheme and one that, having given this considerable thought, we are not willing to countenance.
Robert Jenrick
I will come back to the hon. Lady in a few moments time. I would like to answer the questions posed by the hon. Member for North Down around non-compliance and the legal jeopardy of individuals, because those are important points. As now, the UK will not operate routine immigration controls on journeys from within the common travel area, with no immigration controls whatsoever on the Ireland-Northern Ireland land border. However, as is currently the case, individuals arriving in the EU, including those crossing the land border will need to continue to enter in line with the UK’s immigration framework, including the requirement now to obtain an ETA. For example, visa nationals are required to obtain a visa for the UK when travelling via Ireland to lawfully enter the United Kingdom. That is a well-established requirement, and we are simply extending the same principle to individuals requiring an ETA.
The Government will launch a clear communications strategy to tackle any misunderstandings about the requirement on travel to Northern Ireland. That is something we are preparing, and we will work extensively with Northern Irish, Irish and island of Ireland tourism organisations to ensure that we get this right. For individuals who accidentally travel to Northern Ireland without an ETA under the illegal entry offence, we want to take a sensible and pragmatic approach. We have made it clear that prosecutions under illegal entry will focus on the most egregious cases and not on accidental errors.
We will take a very careful approach when examining the individual circumstances of each case before deciding whether or not it should be pursued for prosecution, and the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales and the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland will ultimately determine whether a prosecution is proportionate and in the public interest. We hope and expect that they will take that responsibility very seriously, so those individuals who are simply going about their daily lives or who are tourists who inadvertently forget to obtain an ETA will not be put in an unnecessarily difficult situation.
Claire Hanna
As the Minister can see from the debate, this is an issue that has a very broad consensus—he will know that that is no mean feat—due to the very serious impact on tourism businesses. He will be aware of that impact and the fact that many decisions to come north are ad hoc ones to visit, for example, the Ulster Museum, the Lyric Theatre or the Let’s Go Hydro water park, or for destination shopping on the Lisburn Road. Has his Department conducted any economic analysis of the loss to Northern Irish businesses of those ad hoc decisions to come north for just one day in a trip to the island?
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to note all of the many reasons why it is great to visit Northern Ireland; I have visited Northern Ireland myself on several occasions and always enjoyed it. The Department has conducted an impact analysis, which shows that there is an impact on tourism in Northern Ireland. However, we still consider that the overall value to the security of the United Kingdom outweighs concerns about that impact.
That does not mean that we do not take mitigating steps, one of which is to work with the Northern Irish tourism bodies on communications. I have mentioned that and my officials met representatives from the Northern Ireland Tourism Alliance, Tourism Ireland and Tourism Northern Ireland last month to begin discussions about how we can collectively work together on communications, both within the UK and abroad. Clearly, there is more work to be done in that regard with travel agents and some of the ancillary services to which the hon. Member for North Down referred, such as insurance companies and car rental companies, to ensure that this message is properly communicated to all involved.
We have deliberately chosen to keep the cost of the ETA as low as possible. We have now announced that it will have a maximum fee of £10, which compares favourably with the fees for the versions of the ETA in the EU and the United States, so we do not think that that level of fee is likely to deter visitors, particularly some of the higher-income and higher-spend tourists whom Members present are particularly concerned about.
We have also said that we will work very closely to keep this matter under review and of course we want to ensure that we learn from the initial experience once the system is created. If there are things that we need to do to change the system over time, we will do so. We want to work pragmatically with Northern Ireland and its MPs, because we care about the success of the Northern Irish economy.
In closing, I thank the hon. Member for North Down for securing this debate and for raising this issue today. I commit that we will continue to discuss this issue and will continue to work well with the organisations that I know he is in contact with, and we will try to find sensible, pragmatic solutions to make this system as successful as possible, while understanding that this is not the solution that he wanted. Nevertheless, we all share a common desire both to protect security for the people of Northern Ireland and of the wider United Kingdom and, of course, to ensure growth and prosperity in the years ahead, particularly for the critical sector of tourism.
Question put and agreed to.
Biometric Registration Non-compliance: Code of Practice
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
In 2018 the Home Office began issuing eVisas, which are an electronic record of immigration status and can be accessed via gov.uk. They were initially issued to individuals granted status under the EU settlement scheme and have since been extended to other schemes such as the Hong Kong (British National Overseas) route to citizenship. By the end of 2024, we will have completed the transition from physical biometric immigration documents (BIDs) in the form of the biometric residence permits, to digitised BIDs, known as eVisas. From this point the vast majority of individuals will receive digital status.
Holders of eVisas are able to evidence their status by creating a share-code which they can share with a third-party checkers, such as employers. We also enable system-to-system checks to directly confirm immigration status, for example the Department for Health and Social Care being able to check a person’s immigration status when accessing NHS treatment.
There will be times where key information shown on a customer’s record may change and they need to update their details (for example when they get married and change their name). Ensuring that this information is kept up to date is a requirement which is set out in the Immigration (Biometric Registration) Regulations 2008. Failure to comply with one of the requirements in the regulations may result in the Secretary of State imposing one or more sanctions on the individual. These are outlined in the “Code of Practice about the sanctions for non-compliance with the biometric registration regulations”, which was last updated in 2015.
However, since the introduction of biometric immigration documents in the form of eVisas, the code of practice needs to be updated to fully reflect the specific elements and approach to eVisas. This includes updating the requirements and sanctions associated with holders of these accounts.
To ensure they are effective and proportionate, I am launching a consultation on these changes. The consultation will explore how these sanctions would potentially be understood and effect individuals, including those who are vulnerable. It would also explore how the sanctions may impact groups linked to the holders of eVisas (employers, landlords and financial institutions).
The consultation will be available on gov.uk.
[HCWS955]
Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is today laying before the House a statement of changes in Immigration Rules.
Changes to the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) and EUSS Family Permit
We are making certain changes to the EUSS, which enables EU, other European economic area (EEA) and Swiss citizens living in the UK by the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020, and their family members, to obtain immigration status. In particular, meeting the deadline for the application (or, in line with the citizens’ rights agreements, having reasonable grounds for the delay in making an application) will become a requirement for making a valid application. Consistent with the agreements, this will enable us to consider whether there are reasonable grounds for a late application as a preliminary issue, before going on to consider whether a valid application meets the relevant eligibility and suitability requirements. We will also prevent a valid application as a joining family member being made by an illegal entrant to the UK, thereby reinforcing our approach to tackling illegal migration.
We are closing the EUSS on 8 August 2023 to new applications under two routes not covered by the agreements: family member of a qualifying British citizen (on their return to the UK having exercised free movement rights in the EEA or Switzerland, known as “Surinder Singh” cases) and primary carer of a British citizen (known as “Zambrano” cases). The UK made generous transitional provisions enabling such persons to access the EUSS for more than four years. It is now appropriate, as a matter of fairness to other British citizens wishing to sponsor foreign national family members to settle in the UK, that any new applications should have to meet the family immigration rules applicable to others. The routes will remain open to those who are already on them (or with a pending application, administrative review or appeal) or who have pending access to them via a relevant EUSS family permit.
The EUSS family permit will also close on 8 August 2023 to new applications by a family member of a qualifying British citizen. Those granted an EUSS family permit as such a family member via an application made by this date will still be able to come to the UK and apply to the EUSS.
Extension of the Ukraine Extension Scheme
We are extending the application deadline for the Ukraine extension scheme for a further six months to 16 May 2024.
This change extends the scheme to allow Ukrainian nationals and their family members who obtain permission to enter or stay in the UK for any period between 18 March 2022 and 16 November 2023 to apply to the Ukraine extension scheme and obtain 36 months’ permission to stay in the UK. All applications must now to be made by 16 May 2024.
The extension to the application deadline is intended to encourage people to apply for leave under the Ukraine extension scheme to ensure they maintain a lawful immigration status. This will provide greater certainty and clarity for the individual, the Home Office and other Government Departments and organisations which require evidence of immigration status to confirm entitlement to services.
Student Route (dependants and switching)
As announced by the Home Secretary on the 23 May 2023, and following the Government commitment to reduce net migration, we are removing the right for international students to bring dependants unless they are on postgraduate courses currently designated as research programmes. We are also removing the ability for international students to switch out of the student route into work routes before their studies have been completed.
These changes preserve the ability for dependants already in the UK to extend their stay, and for international students on taught postgraduate courses beginning before 1 January 2024 to bring dependants. They also preserve existing exemptions for dependants of Government-sponsored students and for dependent children who are born in the UK.
The switching restrictions will ensure that students are generally not switching in-country to another route until they have completed their course. Students on courses at degree level or above will be able to apply before course completion to switch to sponsored work routes, as long as their employment start date is not before course completion. Those studying towards PhDs will be able to switch after 24 months’ study.
Asylum—pausing the differentiation policy
Provisions within the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (NABA), which came into force on 28 June 2022, set out the framework to differentiate between two groups of refugees who ultimately remain in the UK: “group 1” and “group 2".
The primary way in which the groups are differentiated is the grant of permission to stay: group 1 refugees are normally granted refugee permission to stay for five years, after which they can apply for settlement, whereas group 2 refugees are normally granted temporary refugee permission to stay for 30 months on a 10-year route to settlement.
The differentiation policy was intended to disincentivise migrants from using criminal smugglers to facilitate illegal journeys to the UK. This was the right approach. Since then, the scale of the challenge facing the UK, like other countries, has grown—and that is why the Government introduced the Illegal Migration Bill. The Bill goes further than ever before in seeking to deter illegal entry to the UK, so that the only humanitarian route into the UK is a safe and legal one. The Bill will radically overhaul how we deal with people who arrive in the UK illegally via safe countries, rendering their asylum and human rights claims (in respect of their home country) inadmissible and imposing a duty on the Home Secretary to remove them. This approach represents a considerably stronger means of tackling the same issue that the differentiation policy sought to address, people making dangerous and unnecessary journeys through safe countries to claim asylum in the UK.
We will therefore pause the differentiation policy in the next package of immigration rules changes in July 2023. This means we will stop taking grouping decisions under the differentiated asylum system after these rules changes and those individuals who are successful in their asylum application, including those who are granted humanitarian protection, will receive the same conditions. Our ability to remove failed asylum applicant remains unchanged.
Individuals who have already received a group 2 or humanitarian protection decision under post-28 June 2022 policies will be contacted and will have their conditions aligned to those afforded to group 1 refugees. This includes length of permission to stay, route to settlement, and eligibility for family reunion.
On 23 February 2023 the Home Office announced the streamlined asylum processing model for a small number of cases of nationalities with high asylum grant rates: Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Because this model focuses on manifestly well-founded cases, positive decisions can be taken without the need for an additional interview. No one will have their asylum application refused without the opportunity of an additional interview.
Those claims made between 28 June 2022 and the date of introduction of the Illegal Migration Bill (7 March 2023) will be processed according to this model. This, will also include claimants from Sudan. Sudanese legacy claimants are already being processed in line with established policies and processes and will be decided in line with the Prime Minister’s commitment to clear the backlog of legacy asylum claims by the end of 2023.
Improving Clarity Regarding Withdrawing Asylum Claims
The updated paragraph 333C provides clarity on the circumstances in which an asylum application will be withdrawn, whilst strengthening our ability to promptly withdraw asylum applications from individuals who do not comply with established processes.
It clarifies that there will be no substantive consideration of asylum claims that have been withdrawn and provides greater flexibility to accept explicit withdrawals where a claimant requests to withdraw their claim in writing but fails to do so on a specified form, in doing so preventing duplicative correspondence with the claimant.
In addition, the updates will support the efficient progression of applications by helping to prevent absconder scenarios by making it clear that the burden is on the claimant to keep the Home Office up to date with their contact details, and that failure to do so may result in a withdrawal of their asylum claim.
Furthermore, it is now made clear that failure to attend a reporting event may result in an asylum application being treated as implicitly withdrawn, ensuring efficiency with application progression through preventing potential absconder scenarios.
These changes will enable decision-making resources to be concentrated on those who genuinely wish to continue with their asylum claims in the United Kingdom.
The changes to the Immigration Rules are being laid on 17 July 2023.
The changes relating to asylum, pausing the differentiation policy and the changes relating to students will come into force at 3 pm today.
The changes relating to the EUSS will come into effect on 9 August 2023.
All other changes will come into effect on 7 August 2023.
[HCWS954]
Illegal Migration Bill
Robert Jenrick ExcerptsMonday 17th July 2023
(1 year, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Illegal Migration Act 2023 View all Illegal Migration Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Message as at 17 July 2023 - (17 Jul 2023)
The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 1B, 7B and 90D.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss:
Lords amendment 9B, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 23B, and Government motion to disagree.
Amendments 36A and 36B, and Government motions to insist, and Lords amendments 36C and 36D, and Government motions to disagree.
Lords amendment 33B, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 56B, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 102B, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 103B, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendments 107B and 107C, and Government motions to disagree.
Robert Jenrick
Last Tuesday, this House voted 18 times —more times than on any other day on any other piece of legislation—and 18 times it voted to support this Bill.
Robert Jenrick
I will first make a few opening remarks.
This House sent back to the House of Lords its 20 amendments to the Bill, many of which simply drove a coach and horses through the fabric of the legislation. We brought forward reasonable amendments where it was sensible to do so and it is disappointing, to say the least, the some of those have been rejected. I welcome the fact that the 20 issues that we debated last week have now been whittled down to nine, but the issue now before us is whether the clearly expressed views of this House, the elected Chamber—not just in the votes last week, but throughout the earlier passage of the Bill—should prevail.
We believe that inaction is not an option, that we must stop the boats and that the Bill is a key part of our plan to do just that. The message and the means must be absolutely clear and unambiguous: if people come to the UK illegally, they will not be able to stay here. Instead, they will be detained and returned to their home country or removed to a safe third country. There is simply no point in passing legislation that does not deliver a credible deterrent or provide the means to back it up with effective and swift enforcement powers.
We cannot accept amendments that provide for exceptions, qualifications and loopholes that would simply perpetuate the current cycle of delays and endless late and repeated legal challenges to removal. I listened carefully to the debate in the other place, but no new arguments were forthcoming and certainly no credible alternatives were provided.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I thoroughly endorse what my right hon. Friend says. This is a matter of extreme national interest, as is reflected in the votes of constituents throughout the country. They feel very strongly about these matters. Does he not agree that it is time for their lordships to take note of the fact that the British people want this legislation to go through? They want progress, given the extreme difficulties this is presenting to the British people.
Robert Jenrick
I strongly endorse my hon. Friend’s comments. This is an issue of the highest importance to the people we serve in this place. Of course there is a legitimate role for the other place in scrutinising legislation, but now is the time to move forward and pass this law to enable us to stop the boats.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I wonder whether my right hon. Friend has noted the remarks of Lord Clarke, who is not a particularly vicious right-wing creature. He said this Bill is entirely necessary and that we have to get on with it.
I also wonder whether my right hon. Friend has looked at today’s remarks by Lord Heseltine.
Lord Clarke and Lord Heseltine seem to have come up with a sensible option. We should go ahead with this Bill. We have to have much better European co-operation and, really, we have to build a wall around Europe. [Interruption.] And we have to do much more—this is what the Opposition might like—in terms of a Marshall plan to try to remove the conditions of sheer misery that cause people to want to leave these countries in the first place.
Robert Jenrick
I read the remarks of the noble Lord Clarke, and I entirely agree with his point, which is that, having listened to the totality of the debate in the House of Lords, he had not heard a single credible alternative to the Government’s plan. For that reason alone, it is important to support the Government.
I also agree with Lord Clarke’s broader point that this policy should not be the totality of our response to this challenge. Deterrence is an essential part of the plan, but we also need to work closely with our partners in Europe and further upstream. One initiative that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I have sought to pursue in recent months is to ensure that the United Kingdom is a strategic partner to each and every country that shares our determination to tackle this issue, from Turkey and Tunisia to France and Belgium.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. I believe that the Bill should go through, as we have to do something about the deaths in the channel, which is an important moral purpose.
I bring my right hon. Friend back to Lord Randall’s amendment on modern slavery. We agree quite a lot on this issue, and the Government have said that they will do stuff in guidance, so Lord Randall has taken the words spoken by my right hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box and put them on the face of the Bill—this amendment does exactly what my right hon. Friend promised the Government would do in guidance. The Government have not issued the guidance in detail, which is why the amendment was made. Why would we vote against the amendment today when my right hon. Friend’s words and prescriptions are now on the face of the Bill?
Robert Jenrick
First, the Lords amendment on modern slavery goes further by making the scheme, as we see it, much more difficult to establish. There are a number of reasons but, in particular, we think the complexity of the issue requires it to be provided for in statutory guidance rather than on the face of the Bill, in line with my assurances made on the Floor of the House. One of those assurances is particularly challenging to put in statutory guidance—where an incident has taken place in the United Kingdom, rather than an individual being trafficked here—and that is the point Lord Randall helpfully tried to bring forward.
We are clear that the process I have set out should be set out in statutory guidance, because the wording of the amendment is open to abuse by those looking to exploit loopholes. Those arriving in small boats would seek to argue that they have been trafficked into the UK and that the 30-day grace period should apply to them, on the basis that they qualify as soon as they reach UK territorial waters. The proposed provision is, for that reason, operationally impossible and serves only to create another loophole that would render the swift removal we seek impossible or impractical. The statutory guidance can better describe and qualify this commitment, by making it clear that the exploitation must have occurred once the person had spent a period of time within the UK and not immediately they get off the small boat in Kent. For that reason, we consider it better to place this on a statutory footing as guidance rather than putting it in the Bill.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Democratic Unionist party is concerned about the trafficking of children and young people. My question is a simple one. We see economic migrants who are fit and healthy but none the less make that journey, and we see those who have had to leave their country because they have been persecuted, discriminated against or been subjected to brutal violence, or because their family members have been murdered. My party and I want to be assured that those who flee persecution have protection within this law, because we do not see that they do.
Robert Jenrick
We believe that they do, because at the heart of this scheme is the principle that if an individual comes to the UK illegally on a small boat, they will be removed back home if it is safe to do that—if they are going to a safe home country such as Albania. In determining that the country is safe, for example, as in the case of Albania, we would have sought specific assurances from it, if required. Alternatively, they will be removed to a safe third country, such as Rwanda, where, again we would have sought sufficient assurances that an individual would be well-treated there. As the hon. Gentleman can see in the courts at the moment, those assurances will be tested. So it is not the intention of the UK Government to expose any genuine victim of persecution to difficulties by removing them either back home and, in the process, enabling their refoulement, or to a country in which they would be unsafe. We want to establish a significant deterrent to stop people coming here in the first place, bearing in mind that the overwhelming majority of the individuals we are talking about who would be caught by the Bill were already in a place of safety. They were in France, which is clearly a safe country that has a fully functioning asylum system.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Let me take the right hon. Gentleman back to the criticism he was making of the other place, because if the elected House is about to break international law, it is entirely fitting that the other place should try to prevent that from happening. The Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box telling us that this Bill is about deterrence, whereas the Home Office’s own impact assessment has said:
“The Bill is a novel and untested scheme, and it is therefore uncertain what level of deterrence impact it will have.”
As a raft of children’s charities have pointed out, once routine child detention was ended in 2011 there was no proportional increase in children claiming asylum. So will he come clean and accept that this Bill absolutely will have the effect, even if it does not have the intention, of meaning that people trying to escape persecution will not be able to come here, because there are not sufficient safe and legal routes?
Robert Jenrick
I am not sure exactly what the hon. Lady’s question was. If it was about access to safe and legal routes, let me be clear, as I have in numerous debates on this topic, that since 2015 the UK has welcomed more than 500,000 individuals here—it is nearer to 550,000 now—for humanitarian purposes. That is a very large number. The last statistics I saw showed that we were behind only the United States, Canada and Sweden on our global United Nations-managed safe and legal routes, and we were one of the world’s biggest countries for resettlement schemes. That is a very proud record. The greatest inhibitor today to the UK doing more on safe and legal routes is the number of people coming across the channel illegally on small boats, taking up capacity in our asylum and immigration system. She knows that only too well, because we have discussed on a number of occasions one of the most concerning symptoms of this issue, which is unaccompanied children who are having to stay in a Home Office-procured hotel near to her constituency because local authorities do not have capacity to flow those individuals into safe and loving foster care as quickly as we would wish. That issue is exactly emblematic of the problem that we are trying to fix. If we can stop the small boats, we can do more, as a country, and be an even greater force for good in the world.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister set out how my constituent will be protected? He is Albanian and has been subjected to modern slavery by gangs from Albania. He has three bullet holes in his body and, if he returns, perhaps those gangs will give him more. How will he be protected?
Robert Jenrick
The existing arrangement that we have secured with Albania—incidentally, Albania is a signatory to the European convention against trafficking— enables us to safely return somebody home to Albania, with specific assurances to prevent them being retrafficked to the United Kingdom and to enable them to be supported appropriately upon arrival.
On the broader issue of modern slavery, the Bill makes a number of important protections when we establish the scheme. If they are party to a law enforcement investigation, their removal from the country will be stayed. We have said that we will bring forward statutory guidance, giving them a 30-day period, allied to the period set out in ECAT, to come forward and work with law enforcement, which is extendable if that enforcement activity goes on for some time. We would then only remove that person either back home to a safe country, such as Albania, or to a country, such as Rwanda, where we have put in place appropriate procedures to ensure that that Government, in turn, looks after them.
I point the hon. Lady to the judgment in the Court of Appeal that made some criticisms of the Government’s approach, but did not say that the arrangements in Rwanda with respect to modern slaves were inappropriate; it supported the Government in that regard. We will clearly put in place appropriate procedures to ensure that victims, such as the one she refers to, are properly supported.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Many opponents of the Bill seem to support uncapped safe and legal routes. The reality of that would be that potentially over 1 million people could get the ability to come here. Does the Minister agree that those proposing that should be open and honest about it, and explain what the dramatic consequences would be for public services and community cohesion in this country?
Robert Jenrick
I completely agree. Anyone who feels that this country has sufficient resource to welcome significant further numbers of individuals at the present time, should look at the inbox of the Minister for Immigration. It is full of emails and letters from members of the public, local authorities and Members of Parliament, on both sides of the House, complaining that they do not want to see further dispersal accommodation and worrying about GP surgery appointments, pressure on local public services and further hotels. I understand all those concerns, which is why we need an honest debate about the issue.
That is why, at the heart of the Bill, there is not only a tough deterrent position for new illegal entrants, but a consultation on safe and legal routes, where we specifically ask local authorities, “What is your true capacity?” If we bring forward further safe and legal routes, they will be rooted in capacity in local authorities, so that those individuals are not destined to be in hotels for months or years, but go straight to housing and support in local authorities. That must be the right way for us to live up to our international obligations, rather than the present situation that, all too often, is performative here, and then there are major problems down the road.
Let me reply to issues other than modern slavery in the amendments before us. On the issue of detention, we believe that a necessary part of the scheme, provided for in the Bill, is that there are strong powers. Where those subject to removal are not detained, the prospects of being able to effect removal are significantly reduced, given the likelihood of a person absconding, especially towards the end of the process.
We have made changes to the provision for pregnant women, which I am pleased have been accepted by the Lords, and unaccompanied children, but it is necessary for the powers to cover family groups, as to do otherwise would introduce a gaping hole in the scheme, as adult migrants and the most disgusting people smugglers would seek to profit from migrants and look to co-opt unaccompanied children to bogus family groups to avoid detention. That not only prevents the removal of the adults, but presents a very real safeguarding risk to children.
On unaccompanied children, we stand by the amendments agreed by the House last week. They provided a clear differentiation between the arrangements for the detention of adults and those for the detention of unaccompanied children. The amendments agreed by this House provide for judicial oversight after eight days’ detention where that detention is for the purpose of removal.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for making it clear that, if there is any doubt about the age of an unaccompanied child, they will be treated as a child. I also thank him for saying that, if a child is detained, it will be in an age-appropriate centre. However, on the issue of what is age-appropriate, I will just say that I have looked at the operating standards to which he referred. It is an 82-page document. It has no mention of unaccompanied children. It talks about who looks after the locks and hinges and where the tools and the ladders are to be stored, but there is nothing about how we keep these children happy, healthy and safe from harm. I point him instead to the guidance for children’s care homes and ask him gently if we could update the rules on detention centres to make sure that they look more like the rules we have for safeguarding children in care homes.
Robert Jenrick
My right hon. Friend makes a number of important points. The guidance is very detailed, but I am sure that it would benefit from updating. Therefore, the points that she has made and that other right hon. and hon. Members have made in the past will be noted by Home Office officials. As we operationalise this policy, we will be careful to take those into consideration. We are all united in our belief that those young people who are in our care need to be treated appropriately.
Let me turn now to the Lords amendment on modern slavery—I hope that I have answered the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). This seeks to enshrine in the Bill some of the assurances that I provided in my remarks last week in respect of people who are exploited in the UK. However, for the reason that I have just described, we think that that is better done through statutory guidance. In fact, it would be impractical, if not impossible, to do it through the Bill.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
The point that my right hon. Friend made earlier is that, somehow, those people will be able to get into the UK and make a false claim. However, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 already provides for that, so anyone found to have made a false claim will be disqualified, and disqualified quite quickly. The critical thing is to prosecute the traffickers. That way, we can stop them trafficking more people on the boats. My worry is that this provision will put off many people from giving evidence and co-operating with the police for fear that they may still be overridden and sent abroad while they are doing it and then be picked up by the traffickers. Does he give any credence to the fear that this may end up reducing the number of prosecutions of traffickers as a result?
Robert Jenrick
I understand my right hon. Friend’s position, and it is right that he is vocalising it, but we do not believe that what he says is likely. The provision that we have made in the statutory guidance that I have announced will give an individual 30 days from the positive reasonable grounds decision to confirm that they will co-operate with an investigation in relation to their exploitation. That should give them a period of time to recover, to come forward and to work with law-enforcement. That is a period of time aligned with the provisions of ECAT, so we rely on the decision of the drafters of ECAT to choose 30 days rather than another, potentially longer, period. That is an extendable period, so where a person continues to co-operate with such an investigation, they will continue to be entitled to the support and the protections of the national referral mechanism for a longer period.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I just want to make it clear that under the new regulations, the Secretary of State can still feasibly decide that, even if someone is co-operating, they do not need to remain in the UK for that. That is the critical bit: they live under the fear that they can be moved somewhere else to give that evidence. Does the Minister not agree that that will put a lot of people off giving evidence?
Robert Jenrick
I hope that that is not borne out. It is worth remembering that we will not remove anyone to a country in which they would be endangered. We would be removing that person either back to their home country, if we consider it safe to do so, usually because the country is an ECAT signatory and has provisions in place, or to a safe third country such as Rwanda, where once again we will have put in place significant provisions to support the individual. I hope that that provides those individuals with the confidence to come forward and work with law enforcement to bring the traffickers to book.
Vicky Ford
I am particularly interested in the arrival of unaccompanied children in this country, because obviously the Minister has tightened up the eight-day period for them on exit. I believe that he just agreed with me that the standards for age-appropriate accommodation in detention centres need to be updated to look more like those for children’s homes. Is he prepared to concede that no unaccompanied child should be put in such a detention centre until that update of the rules has been undertaken?
Robert Jenrick
I understand the point that my right hon. Friend makes, but I am not sure that that is necessary, because the Detention Centre Rules 2001 are very explicit in the high standards expected. They set the overall standard, and underlying them will no doubt be further guidance and support for individuals who are working within the system. If there is work to be done on the latter point, we should do that and take account of her views and those of others who are expert in this field, but the Detention Centre Rules are very explicit in setting high overarching standards for this form of accommodation. That is exactly what we would seek to live up to; in fact, it would be unlawful if the Government did not.
Vicky Ford
In a children’s home, we would expect there to be the right to access a social worker and advocacy, and for the child to have the care that they particularly need. We would expect Ofsted to oversee that, not prison inspectors.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful for those points. Social workers will clearly be at the heart of all this work, as they are today. Every setting in which young people are housed by the Home Office, whether it be an unaccompanied asylum-seeking children hotel, which we mentioned earlier, or another facility, has a strong contingent of qualified social workers who support those young people. I am certain that social workers will be at the heart of developing the policy and then, in time, operationalising it.
Their lordships have attempted but failed to smooth the rough edges of their wrecking amendments on legal proceedings, but we need be in no doubt that they are still wrecking amendments. They would tie every removal up in knots and never-ending legal proceedings. It is still the case that Lords amendment 1B would incorporate the various conventions listed in the amendment into our domestic law. An amendment shoehorned into the Bill is not the right place to make such a significant constitutional change. It is therefore right that we continue to reject it.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
Will the Minister give way?
Robert Jenrick
I will not, because I need to close my remarks; this is a short debate.
Lords amendment 9B continues to undermine a core component of the Bill: that asylum and relevant human rights claims are declared inadmissible. The Lords amendment would simply encourage illegal migrants to game the system and drag things out for as long as possible, in the hope that they would become eligible for asylum here.
Lords amendment 23B brings us back to the issue of the removal of LGBT people to certain countries. The Government are a strong defender of LGBT rights across the globe. There is no question of sending a national of one of the countries listed in the amendment back to their home country if they fear persecution based on their sexuality. The Bill is equally clear that if an LGBT person were to be issued with a removal notice to a country where they fear persecution on such grounds, or indeed on any other grounds, they could make a serious harm suspensive claim and they would not be removed—
Robert Jenrick
I will not, because I need to bring my remarks to a close now. They would not be removed until that claim and any appeal had been determined. As I said previously, the concerns underpinning the amendments are misplaced and the protections needed are already in the Bill.
On safe and legal routes, Lords amendment 102B brings us to the question of when new such routes come into operation. The amendment again seeks to enshrine a date in the Bill itself. I have now said at the Dispatch Box on two occasions that we aim to implement any proposed new routes as soon as is practical, and in any event by the end of 2024. I have made that commitment on behalf of the Government and, that being the case, there is simply no need for the amendment. We should not delay the enactment of this Bill over such a non-issue.
Lords amendment 103B, tabled by the Opposition, relates to the National Crime Agency. Again, it is a non-issue and the amendment is either performative or born out of ignorance and a lack of grasp of the detail. The NCA’s functions already cover tackling organised immigration crime, and men and women in that service work day in, day out to do just that. There is no need to change the statute underlying the organisation.
Finally, we have Lords amendment 107B, which was put forward by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This country’s proud record of providing a safe haven for more than half a million people since 2015 is the greatest evidence that we need that the UK is already taking a leading international role in tackling the refugee crisis. This Government are working tirelessly with international and domestic partners to tackle human trafficking, and continue to support overseas programmes. We will work with international partners and bring forward proposals for additional safe and legal routes where necessary.
However well-intentioned, this amendment remains unnecessary. As I said to his grace the Archbishop, if the Church wishes to play a further role in resettlement, it could join our community sponsorship scheme—an ongoing and global safe and legal route that, as far as I am aware, the Church of England is not currently engaged with.
This elected House voted to give the Bill a Second and Third Reading. Last Tuesday, it voted no fewer than 17 times in succession to reject the Lords amendments and an 18th time to endorse the Government’s amendments in lieu relating to the detention of unaccompanied children. It is time for the clear view of the elected House to prevail. I invite all right hon. and hon. Members to stand with the Government in upholding the will of the democratically elected Commons, to support the Government motions and to get on with securing our borders and stopping the boats.
Stephen Kinnock
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the only people who benefit from the small boat crossings are the people smugglers and human traffickers—that has to be brought to an end. Where we fundamentally disagree is about the means. Labour believes that the deterrence of the Rwanda scheme simply will not work, for the reasons I have already set out, and that the solution lies far more in pragmatism and quiet diplomacy, working with international partners to get the returns deal that I talked about, than in all the performative cruelty that is at the heart of this Bill.
Likewise, the Government should show some humility and support Lords amendment 33B, which states that accompanied children should be liable for detention only for up to 96 hours. This is a fair and reasonable compromise, given that Lords amendment 33 initially set the limit at 72 hours.
While we are on the subject of children, how utterly astonishing and deeply depressing it was to hear the Minister standing at the Dispatch Box last week and justifying the erasure of Disney cartoons on the basis of their not being age-appropriate. Quite apart from the fact that his nasty, bullying, performative cruelty will have absolutely no effect whatsoever in stopping the boats, it has since emerged that more than 9,000 of the children who passed through that building in the year to March 2023 were under the age of 14. Given that a significant proportion of those 9,000 would have been younger still, I just wonder whether the Minister would like to take this opportunity to withdraw his comments about the age-appropriateness of those cartoons.
Stephen Kinnock
No. Well, there we have it. This whole sorry episode really was a new low for this Minister and for the shameful, callous Government he represents.
We also support Lords amendment 23B, a compromise in lieu of Lords amendment 23, which seeks to protect LGBT asylum seekers from being removed to a country that persecutes them for their sexuality or gender. The Minister last week claimed that that was unnecessary because there is an appeals process, but why on earth would he put asylum seekers and the British taxpayer through an expensive and time-consuming appeals process when he could just rule out this scenario from the outset?
Nothing illustrates more clearly the indifference of this Government towards the most vulnerable people in society than their treatment of women being trafficked into our country for prostitution. I have already described this Bill as a traffickers charter—a gift to the slave drivers and the pimps—because it makes it harder for victims to come forward and therefore more difficult for the police to prosecute criminals. The Immigration Minister last week repeated the false claim that the UK Statistics Authority recently rebuked him for. It was his second rebuke this year by our national statistics watchdog for inaccurate claims made to this House. Thankfully, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who is not in her place today, called him out on it. She correctly pointed out that the proportion of small boats migrants claiming to be victims of modern slavery stands at just 7%. This was a profoundly embarrassing moment for the Minister, but I do hope he will now swallow his pride, listen to the wise counsel he is receiving from those on the Benches behind him and accept Lords amendment 56B in the name of Lord Randall.
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Member is right that I misspoke when citing those statistics on an earlier occasion, but in fact the statistics were worse than I said to the House. What I said was that, of foreign national offenders who are in the detained estate on the eve of their departure, over 70% made use of modern slavery legislation to put in a last-minute claim and delay their removal. However, it was not just FNOs; it was also small boat arrivals. So the point I was making was even more pertinent, and it is one that he should try to answer. What would he do to stop 70% of people in the detained estate, who we are trying to get out of the country, putting in a frivolous claim at the last minute?
Stephen Kinnock
Sir Robert Chote of the UK Statistics Authority said clearly that the figure is only 20%, not 70%. I do not know whether we want to invite Sir Robert to clarify those points himself, but the rebuke the Minister received from the UK Statistics Authority was pretty clear.
It is vitally important that the Minister’s position on this is not used as the basis for a policy that could cause profound harm to vulnerable women while feeding criminality in the United Kingdom. I therefore urge him to reflect on what he is trying to achieve, the proportionality of his actions and the unintended consequences he may be facilitating. Lords amendment 56B states that victims of trafficking who have been unlawfully exploited in the UK should be protected from the automatic duty to remove and should continue to be able to access the support currently available to them, but only for the duration of the statutory recovery period, which was set by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 at 30 days.
On Second Reading, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead argued that the Bill as drafted would
“drive a coach and horses through the Modern Slavery Act, denying support to those who have been exploited and enslaved and, in doing so, making it much harder to catch and stop the traffickers and slave drivers.”—[Official Report, 28 March 2023; Vol. 730, c. 886.]
We strongly agree with her concerns and wholeheartedly support Lords amendment 56B, which I remind the Minister goes no further than to maintain the status quo of the basic protections and support currently available to all victims of trafficking and exportation.
I will now turn to the amendments that are underpinned by Labour’s five-point plan: end the dangerous small-boat crossings, defeat the criminal gangs, clear the backlog, end extortionate hotel use, and fix the asylum system that the Conservatives have spent 13 years destroying.
Stephen Kinnock
I suppose the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck, and the Rwanda plan is so clearly and utterly misconceived, misconstrued and counter-productive. Labour Members like to vote for things that are actually going to work, which is why we simply cannot support that hare-brained scheme.
With the Minister last week reiterating a deadline of December 2024—18 months from now—to lay out what safe and legal routes might look like, and by stating that those routes will not deal with the challenges facing Europe directly, he appears to be reducing the chances of getting the returns deal with the EU that we so urgently need. Let us not forget that this Government sent Britain tumbling out of the Dublin regulations during their botched Brexit negotiations, and it is no surprise that small boat crossings have skyrocketed since then. This Government must prioritise getting that returns deal. We therefore support Lords amendment 102B, which demands that the Government get on with setting out what these safe and legal routes might look like, not only to provide controlled and capped pathways to sanctuary for genuine refugees, but to break that deadlock in the negotiations with the EU over returns.
I note that the Minister loves to trot out his lines about the Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghan resettlement schemes, but he neglects to mention that there are now thousands of homeless Ukrainian families, and we have the travesty of thousands of loyal-to-Britain Afghans who are set to be thrown on the streets at the end of August. More than 2,000 Afghans are stuck in Pakistan with the right to come here, but they are not being allowed to do so. He simply must fix those resettlement schemes.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because this is an important point that all Members of the House should appreciate. The No. 1 reason why we are struggling to bring to the UK those people in Pakistan—we would like to bring them here, because we have a moral and historical obligation to them—is that illegal immigrants on small boats have taken all the capacity of local authorities to house them. If the hon. Gentleman truly wanted to support those people, he would back this Bill, he would stop the boats, and then he would help us to bring those much-needed people into the United Kingdom.
Stephen Kinnock
It beggars belief that the Immigration Minister says that, when he speaks for a party that has allowed our backlog to get to 180,000, costing £7 million a day in hotels. He should just get the processing system sorted out. The Conservatives downgraded the seniority of caseworkers and decision makers in 2013 and 2014. Surprise, surprise, productivity fell off a cliff, as did the quality of decisions. That is the fundamental problem, but we have to recognise that these Afghans have stood shoulder to shoulder with our defence, diplomacy and development effort in Afghanistan, and we owe them a debt of honour and gratitude.
Robert Jenrick
Does the hon. Gentleman know how many asylum seekers are housed in his constituency, or would he like me to tell him? It is none. There are no asylum seekers accommodated in Aberavon. If he would like us to bring in more people, whether on safe and legal routes, or on schemes such as the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, he should get on the phone to his local council and the Welsh Government this afternoon.
Stephen Kinnock
The Minister is talking absolute nonsense. I am proud of the fact we have many Syrians in our constituency. We have Ukrainians in our welcome centre. Discussions are ongoing between the Home Office and the Welsh Government. The incompetence of his Government means that they are not managing to house them. Wales is ready to have that dialogue with the Home Office.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I want to apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I do not think I indicated clearly enough that I wanted to speak. Thank you for your generous dexterity in finding time for me.
I want to say one simple thing about the assurances given so far on the detention of children: they are not sufficient. There are large numbers of children who will be detained. The definition of age-appropriate and child-appropriate accommodation is not clear enough.
I remind the House of my experience with Harmondsworth detention centre in my constituency before 2014, when we legislated to prevent children being detained in detention centres. That detention centre was also meant to be age and child-appropriate, but what happened? It simply had a wing with a school and so on, and children were locked up in there for months on end. We saw the reports of individual civil society organisations that assessed the mental health implications of the detention of children at that stage.
So far, the Minister has told me that there is no Government intention to detain children in detention centres again, but, as I said to him before, intention is not good enough. We need legislation to prevent that from happening again. My fear is that, under pressure, Government Ministers will decide that there will be some appropriate decoration of some sections of Harmondsworth and it will be opened up for children again.
I was a house father at a children’s home in Hillingdon. It was one of the traditional children’s homes, run effectively as a family unit. I pursued my own career, and my wife was the house mother in charge and I was the house father. It was like a large fostering unit, basically, and we took in children who had been detained in Harmondsworth. Even before it was of the prison style that it is now, those children were, I believe, scarred for life. I did not think that we would ever return to locking children up in that way. The children we looked after often came to us after they had been lost within the system while their cases were being processed over a long time. They were often separated from their families, who came through other routes. I think the damage was a scandal of this country’s treatment of human beings.
That was why, from 2010 until 2012, we ran a campaign—across all religious groups, and with civil society organisations such as the Children’s Society—and published report after report. David Cameron came forward heroically and said, “We will never detain children again,” and we legislated for that in 2014. We are now going back to detaining children almost indefinitely for some categories. We have not got the assurances that we need about where they will be detained or about the care, comfort and succour that they will have to support them. As a result, if we allow this legislation to go through, it will be a stain upon this House and upon society overall for a long time to come.
I ask Members to think again. We now go back into ping-pong with the other House, which is calling simply for a realistic time limit on the detention of children so that they are not damaged beyond repair in the way they were 10 years ago. I do not think that a simple amendment to set a time limit on children suffering in detention when they arrive in this country is an awful lot to ask of the Government. They often come from countries where they have suffered enough; we should not impose even more suffering on them.
Robert Jenrick
With the leave of the House, let me say a few words to close this short debate.
As I said at the outset, when we met and voted 18 times last week, we supported the Bill time and again. In each of those 18 votes, we in this democratically elected Chamber voted to stop the boats, secure our borders and enable this important Bill to move forward. Now is the time for the other place, which is, at its heart, as a number of colleagues have said—
Robert Jenrick
I will not—we have heard from the hon. Gentleman a number of times.
The other place is ultimately a revising Chamber, and it is now time for it to support the Bill. Today’s debate has, like some of the others, been short on new arguments and completely short of any credible alternative. I go back to the arguments made in the other place by many distinguished Members of that House and former Members of this House, most notably the noble Lord Clarke, who said clearly that he was not able, having listened to the debate for hour after hour, to discern a single credible alternative to the Government’s plan. It is incumbent on those who want to vote against the Bill to bring forward alternatives, but we have not heard a single one.
I used to say that Labour Members do not have a plan to stop the boats, but that is not true. They do have a plan, but it is one that is so dangerously naive that it is a recipe for even more crossings and even greater misery. They would create a massive pull factor by giving economic migrants crossing the channel from a safe place such as France the ability to work sooner. They would attempt to grant their way out of the problem and sacrifice the remaining integrity of the system. They would create bespoke country-specific routes for every instance of instability in the world, which would impose more and more pressures on local communities.
Is it not the most telling fact in this debate that today, in the shadow Immigration Minister’s own town of Aberavon, there is not a single asylum seeker? If Members want more asylum seekers, they should have the honesty to have them in their own constituency. From the letters I receive from Labour MPs, I assume that they would house asylum seekers even more expensively than we do today, with no regard to the taxpayer. I am not clear how they would remove illegal migrants when their own leader, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), campaigned to close an immigration removal centre, tens of Labour MPs have opposed the reopening of two other centres, and the Labour party’s own membership recently voted to abolish them altogether.
The fact is that as its Members vote against the Bill today, Labour’s message to the law-abiding people of this country—from Stoke to Blackpool to Peterborough—when it comes to illegal migration is quite simply “Put up with it.” Its message to the British families who have to wait longer for social housing or GP appointments is “Tough luck”, and its message to the hard-working taxpayer faced with the ever-rising costs of the system is “Cough up.” It is only the Conservative party that can see the fundamental injustice of illegal migration—that it ultimately affects the poorest people in society the most—and has the determination to fix it. That is why the Bill is so important, and it is why the Lords now need to back it.
Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 1B, 7B and 90D.
Draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2023
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2023.
It feels like only yesterday that we were talking about immigration. This draft fees order sets out the immigration and nationality functions for which a fee is to be charged, and the maximum amount that can be charged for each such function. Within the order, we propose a number of changes that will facilitate major Government policy, play an important part in the simplification of our fees structure and allow the Home Office to make vital decisions to ensure that the migration and borders system functions properly and is adequately funded.
I will go into more detail on each of the changes that we propose. To summarise, however, the draft order will: set a power to charge a fee for an electronic travel authorisation, or ETA, and set the maximum fee that can be charged for an application; increase the maximum fee that can be set for visa visits, certain applications for entry clearance and leave-to-remain visas, certain nationality products and services, and priority services; introduce a power to charge a fee for a contact-point meeting with endorsing bodies on the innovator founder route, and set the maximum fee that can be charged; introduce a power to charge a fee for the new “sponsor a worker” function; and remove certain fees relating to biometric enrolment, transfer of conditions, and the replacement and amendment of biometric documents in certain circumstances.
At the outset, it is important to be clear that the fees charged by the Home Office for immigration and nationality applications are an essential part of the Home Office’s funding settlement. Our aim is to reduce the burden of operating the system on the taxpayer and the draft order plays a key role in that, by providing flexibility to adjust fee levels across all immigration and nationality routes through separate legislation. Without that flexibility, it is not possible for the Home Office to take a balanced approach to setting fees. It is therefore vital that the maximum amounts set out in the fees order allow appropriate choices to be made on individual routes to support a balanced approach overall, avoiding the potential for increases to fall disproportionately on routes where there is flexibility to adjust fee levels.
Turning to the changes we propose to the fee maxima, the figures set in the draft order act as a ceiling beneath which the Home Office is able to make changes to fee levels, by separate legislation and seeking agreement across Government. In the majority of cases, we have not made changes to fee maxima since this order was last laid in 2016. I am sure Members will agree that it is prudent to keep those maxima under review to ensure that the order continues to support our fees and funding objectives. The changes we propose, which are accompanied by an economic impact assessment, will provide the necessary flexibility to make changes to fee levels where they are required to ensure the sustainability of our migration and borders system.
The actual fee levels charged to those seeking to enter or remain in the United Kingdom are not changing under the draft order; any changes to the fee levels will be made through separate legislation and will again be accompanied by a full economic impact assessment.
Members will be aware that the UK is launching an ETA scheme that will strengthen the security of our border and support our wider ambition to digitise the UK border. Such a scheme will be a familiar concept for the majority of international travellers and is in line with the approach taken by many of our international partners, such as the EU and the United States.
In the written ministerial statement I made on 6 June, I outlined our intention to set a fee of £10 for each application on initial roll-out of the scheme. The draft order plays a key role in that process by providing a power to charge a fee for the scheme and setting the maximum fee that can be set by the Home Office for each application. To be clear, although we have announced our intended fee level of £10, the fee cannot be set through this order. We will set the fee formally in regulations that will be subject to approval by Parliament later this year.
We are continuing with the simplification of our fee structure, which includes those fees that have become increasingly redundant as part of the wider transition to digital evidence of immigration status or are no longer required to support wider policy objectives. As such, we will remove the chargeable function for biometric enrolment for all remaining instances of the £19.20 fee in the fees regulations, reducing the number of fees that customers are required to pay in relation to an application.
With all new customers applying in-country now issued with a biometric residence permit or a digital status, the £161 fee charged in-country for a transfer of conditions for those with limited leave to remain is largely obsolete. The removal of this fee reflects that this application is made by those seeking to upgrade legacy documents to a biometric residence permit.
We are removing the fee to amend details on physical documents such as name, sex marker, nationality and photograph, and for those with limited leave to remain. That will bring these customers in line with those who are issued digital status and those with indefinite leave to remain, who are not charged a fee to make this sort of amendment.
We will no longer charge a fee for a like-for-like replacement of a biometric residence permit where the document has expired. That will primarily benefit those with indefinite leave to remain, whose cards have a maximum 10-year validity, with most due to expire in 2024.
The final changes we propose in this order will ensure that the subsequent fees regulations are aligned with wider policy changes being made within the migration and borders landscape. Under new arrangements being rolled out as part of broader reform to the innovator route, checkpoint meetings will be required between an endorsing body and the individual applicant to assess progress against their business plan. The maximum fee for these meetings is being set at £500. The fee for each assessment will be £500 and will be set in regulations in the next year, ahead of these meetings being chargeable in April 2024.
The current sponsorship scheme is being reformed, with the existing system of certificates of sponsorship being phased out and replaced with the “sponsor a worker” scheme. That will happen in stages, with a limited test in 2024, during which both the certificates of sponsorship and “sponsor a worker” scheme will operate side by side. The amendment we are making in this order will facilitate that change, providing a maximum fee to be set at the same level as the certificate of sponsorship, which is £300.
The changes we propose through this order are vital to provide enough flexibility to amend fee levels with the approval of Parliament, to ensure that the system is sustainable. I am grateful for Members’ support. The changes we are making will ensure the sustainability of our immigration and border system, while setting appropriate levels of fees for those entering or choosing to remain in the United Kingdom.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his support for many of the measures in this package—in particular, the ETA, which is an important long-term project for the United Kingdom that will go a significant way to improving our border security and bring us in line with many other developed countries. I said in my opening remarks that all of us who travel to the United States, for example, will have long been familiar with its equivalent. It is right that the UK now produces its own version. We are not alone in this. The European Union is in the process of developing its version of the ETA, which was due to be rolled out this year. It is likely to be delayed, but we await news from the European Commission. All of us are united in our shared view that it is right that sovereign countries—such as the United Kingdom—should know as much as possible about individuals prior to their arrival on the soil of those countries, and the ETA is the key way in which we do that.
We have chosen to begin later this year with Qatar, which is a small but important partner of the United Kingdom and will enable us to pilot the scheme. After that, a small group of other countries will be included before a wider roll-out next year. As the shadow Minister may be aware, we have chosen to adopt a modest delay to the broader roll-out to ensure that the technology is right, because it is important to the United Kingdom, reputationally and economically, that we get this right and that there are not issues with technology when it is launched.
With regard to the maximum fee of £10, we have considered it very carefully. We want to ensure that that fee meets the true cost of the scheme, which is significant because of the new technology that we are standing up, but also that we are competitive and that we do not put people off, whether they be well-paid business travellers, students or those coming on visit visas or school trips to the United Kingdom, whose income and pockets may not be so deep. We think that £10 is an appropriate level that compares favourably with other countries around the world.
The hon. Gentleman asked an important question about the interface between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in that regard. That is one of the complexities of launching the ETA, because, as he suggests, it does interface with the common travel area. We have had extensive conversations with the Republic of Ireland and with stakeholders in Northern Ireland. I myself have met with the tourist board to discuss its concerns.
As the hon. Gentleman suggests, those concerns are that international visitors coming in on international flights to the Republic, but looking to do short trips to Northern Ireland—either a day trip or a couple of nights for sightseeing, for golf holidays, or for the various other sources of income from tourism in Northern Ireland—might be deterred as a result of the ETA fee. We conclude that the deterrence is limited, bearing in mind the £10 fee and the simple process. In most cases, it can be done by the individual themselves on a smartphone, or with the help of their travel agent or tour-booking company.
However, we do take those concerns seriously and have worked to try to alleviate them. We will be working on the roll-out to ensure that there is a smooth communication plan with all international tour operators that bring travellers to the island of Ireland. We are also working with some of the other important stakeholders, such as insurance companies, so that they understand the scheme and so that someone who unwittingly crosses the border in a car hired in the Republic does not find themselves in a difficult position should they get into an accident in Northern Ireland without having completed the ETA. I can therefore provide the hon. Gentleman with some assurances that we have given the matter a great deal of thought.
Stephen Kinnock
I thank the Minister, and I am reassured to hear that a great deal of thought has been given. I have also met with members of the Northern Ireland tourist board, and they have expressed extreme concern about this issue. They feel that their marketing strategy is very much based on an all-of-Ireland approach, and the communication of that to potential customers is, they feel, significantly undermined just by this additional measure. It is almost the symbolic nature of it that impacts on their overall marketing strategy. I want to underline that point and urge the Minister to continue that dialogue with the key stakeholders.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for meeting with stakeholders. I do not want to represent their views, because they remain deeply concerned about this.
However, my point was that we have gone to a lot of trouble both to engage with them and to seek mitigations. The alternatives are not ones that we would consider palatable: not continuing with the roll-out of the ETA; rolling out the ETA only for Great Britain and not for Northern Ireland, which would create a significant security loophole in the ETA and undermine the Union; or, linked to that, imposing some checks at the border between GB and Northern Ireland, and asking individuals who choose to cross from NI to GB to have an ETA and to be willing to show it at that point—again, that is not something that the Government are willing to consider. I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman, perhaps with a full explanation of our work with the Republic and stakeholders in this regard.
Lastly, the hon. Gentleman asked about student visa fees. The first point to make is that the fees charged with respect to all these visa and immigration matters are not linked directly to the individual cost of the visas, but to the sustainability of the wider system. We seek to raise sufficient funds that general taxpayers do not fund, or fund to a lesser extent than they would otherwise, our visa and immigration system. There is not a direct link between the cost of any one visa and the fee charged for those reasons.
Furthermore, the policy has been agreed across Government. We worked with the Department for Education, and it supports our proposals. The international education strategy to which the hon. Gentleman referred has been a huge success. It set out a 10-year plan to attract 600,000 students to the United Kingdom, and we met that many years early. Demand for student visas is high, and from the operating data that I have seen—as yet unpublished—it continues to be high. It is not unreasonable to ask international students to pay a higher fee in support the general funding of our immigration and visa system and reduce the cost to the taxpayer of managing the system more generally.
Stephen Kinnock
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted that the actual cost to the Home Office of processing the visas is less than half of what applicants have to pay. So that we can have some transparency on how the increased costs were calculated, does the Minister agree with that analysis
Robert Jenrick
I do not have those exact costs to hand, but my point is that it is not right for the taxpayers of this country—with taxes at their current level—to pay yet more to fund our immigration and borders system. It is right that we recover as much of that cost as possible from visitors to the United Kingdom. Of course that is a careful balance, because we want to support the UK being an open country that attracts businesses, tourists and indeed students, but wherever possible, and where it is reasonable, we should try to get that money from international visitors to the UK, rather than leaning yet more on domestic taxpayers.
With that, I thank the members of the Committee for their support this morning. I commend the draft order to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.