Illegal Migration Update

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on illegal migration.

Three months ago, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out a comprehensive plan to tackle illegal migration. We said we would act, and we have. We have increased immigration enforcement visits to their highest levels in recent years: since December, more than 3,500 enforcement visits have been carried out and more than 4,000 people with no right to be here have been removed. Anglo-French co-operation is now closer than ever before and will be deepened because of the deal struck by the Prime Minister earlier this month. We have expanded our partnership with Rwanda to include the relocation of all those who pass through safe countries to make illegal and dangerous journeys to the United Kingdom. Our modern slavery reforms, introduced in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 to prevent those who seek to abuse our generosity from doing so, are bearing fruit. We are tackling the backlog in our asylum system by cutting unnecessary paperwork and simplifying country guidance. As a result, productivity has increased and we are on track to process the backlog of initial asylum decisions by the end of this year.

We must ensure that our laws enable us to deal with the global migration crisis, which is why we have brought forward the Illegal Migration Bill. The Bill goes further than any previous immigration legislation to fix the problem of small boats, while remaining within the boundaries of our treaty obligations. Of course, as we reform the asylum system, we will continue to honour our country-specific and global safe and legal commitments.

But we cannot and will not stop here, because illegal migration continues to impact the British public in their day-to-day lives. The sheer number of small boat arrivals has overwhelmed our asylum system and forced the Government to place asylum seekers in hotels. These hotels take valuable assets away from communities and place pressures on local public services. Seaside towns have lost tourist trade, weddings have been cancelled and local councils have had their resources diverted to manage them. The hard-working British taxpayer has been left to foot the eye-watering £2.3 billion a year bill. We must not elevate the wellbeing of illegal migrants above that of the British people; it is in their interests that we are sent here.

The enduring solution to stop the boats is to take the actions outlined in our Bill, but in the meantime it is right that we act to correct the injustice of the current situation. I have heard time and again of councils up and down the country struggling to accommodate arrivals. This is no easy task; the Government recognise that placing asylum seekers into local areas comes at a cost, and so central Government will provide further financial support. Today, we are announcing a new funding package, which includes generous additional per-bed payments and continuation of the funding for every new dispersal bed available. We will also pilot an additional incentive payment where properties are made available faster.

However, faced with the scale of the challenge, we must fundamentally alter our posture towards those who enter our country illegally. This Government remain committed to meeting our legal obligations to those who would otherwise be destitute, but we are not prepared to go further. Accommodation for migrants should meet their essential living needs and nothing more, because we cannot risk becoming a magnet for the millions of people who are displaced and seeking better economic prospects. Many of our European partners are struggling with the same issue: Belgium, Ireland, Germany and France are having to take similar steps, and the UK must adapt to this changing context.

I have said before that we have to suffuse our entire system with deterrence, and this must include how we house illegal migrants. So today the Government are announcing the first tranche of sites we will set up to provide basic accommodation at scale. The Government will use military sites being disposed of in Essex and Lincolnshire and a separate site in East Sussex. These will be scaled up over the coming months and will collectively provide accommodation to several thousand asylum seekers through repurposed barrack blocks and portakabins. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is showing leadership on this issue by bringing forward proposals to provide accommodation at the Catterick garrison barracks in his constituency. We also continue to explore the possibility of accommodating migrants in vessels, as they are in Scotland and in the Netherlands.

I want to be clear: these sites on their own will not end the use of hotels overnight. But alongside local dispersal and other forms of accommodation, which we will bring forward in due course, they will relieve pressure on our communities, and manage asylum seekers in a more appropriate and cost-effective way. Of course, we recognise the concerns of local residents and we are acutely aware of the need to minimise the impact of these sites on communities. Basic healthcare will be available, around-the-clock security will be provided on site and our providers will work closely with local police and other partners. Funding will be provided to local authorities in which these sites are located.

These sites are undoubtedly in the national interest. We have to deliver them if we are to stop the use of hotels. We have to deliver them to save the British public from spending eye-watering amounts on accommodating illegal migrants. And we have to deliver them to prevent a pull factor for economic migrants on the continent from taking hold. Inaction is not an option. The British people rightly want us to tackle illegal migration. As I have set out today, we are doing exactly that and I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Today’s statement is an admission of failure—perhaps that is why the Home Secretary has asked the Immigration Minister to make it instead. Four years ago, the Cabinet said that they would halve channel crossings; they have gone up twentyfold since then. A year ago, they said they would end hotel use; they have opened more than ever. They keep making new announcements, but it just keeps getting worse. People want to see strong border security, and properly managed asylum and refugee systems, so that the UK does its bit to help those fleeing persecution and conflict, alongside other countries, but we have got neither of those at the moment.

There is no point in the Government blaming everyone else, because they are in charge. The asylum system is broken because they broke it; they have let criminal gangs rip along the channel; people smuggler convictions have halved in the past four years, even though more boats and more gangs have been crossing—and yet Tory MPs yesterday voted against Labour’s plan for cross-border police units to go after the gangs; and they have let asylum decision making collapse—we have had a big increase in staff, but 40% fewer cases being decided. So they have failed to take basic decisions and they are still not doing Labour’s plan to fast-track last year’s arrivals from Albania and other safe countries.

As for today’s announcements, we need to end costly and inappropriate hotel use, but these plans do not do that. The Minister has had to admit that, contrary to all the briefing in the papers this morning, they will not end hotel use—instead, these sites are additional. Ministers should have been finding cheaper sites and properly managing costs years ago.

Today’s damning report from the Government’s own independent watchdog, which strangely the Minister did not mention today, says that there has been no cost control; that the Home Office contracts are highly inefficient; that there is no cross-Government transparency and oversight; and that officials did not have financial information on the contracts they were signing and did not compare costs. Most ludicrously of all, it says that

“different parts of the Home Office operating different schemes…at times, found themselves competing for the same hotel contracts, driving prices up.”

This is totally chaotic.

Basically, the Government have written a whole load of cheques in a panic. If they had put that money into clearing the backlog instead, we would not be in this mess now. They should have been working with councils to do that, but they did not. Yesterday, Tory MPs again voted against Labour’s plans for a legal requirement for councils to be consulted. Instead, the Minister has Conservative councils, backed by Conservative MPs, taking action against him. So can he confirm that the Foreign Secretary is backing legal action against the Home Secretary? Frankly, that is a first, even for this chaotic Government.

The Bill makes things worse. There are no returns agreements with France or Europe. The Prime Minister has just said that the Home Secretary was wrong: the Rwanda flights will not start this summer. The Government have nowhere to send people to and, instead of speeding up asylum decisions, they are just going to cancel them, which means more people in asylum accommodation and hotels and more flimflam headlines that just do not stack up. Today, it was barges and it turns out that there are not any. Desperate to distract everyone from the damage that they might want to do to the Dambusters heritage, they instead start talking about ferries and barges. Three years ago, they said the same thing. Last summer, the Prime Minister said that it would be cruise liners. The Home Office civil servant said that ferries would end up costing more than the hotels on which they are already spending so much money. So, instead, the Immigration Minister has been sent around the country with a copy of “Waterways Weekly”, trying to find barges, and he still has not found any.

Can the Minister tell us: are these sites going to be additional and not instead of hotel use? Will he still be using more hotels, or fewer for asylum seekers in six months’ time? On the 45,000 boat arrivals last year, can he confirm that more than 90% of decisions have not been taken because the backlog is still the Government’s failure?

Will the Minister apologise for the Government’s failure on cost control? They failed to support Labour’s plan to go after the gangs, to get a new agreement with France and to fast-track decisions and returns. They are flailing around in a panic, chasing headlines—barges, oil rigs, Rwanda flights, even wave machines—instead of doing the hard graft. They have lost control of our border security, lost control of the asylum system, lost control of their budget and lost control of themselves. Will he answer my questions and will he get a grip?

[Robert Jenrick]

Is it not abundantly clear that Labour does not have the faintest clue how to tackle this issue? It has absolutely no plan. What we have laid out today is three months of intense work, which is seeing the backlog coming down; productivity rising; more sustainable forms of accommodation; a harder approach to make it difficult to live and work in the UK illegally; illegal working raids and visits rising by 50%; and greater control over the channel—all improvements as a result of the 10-point plan that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary set out.

The right hon. Lady looks back to a mythical time when Labour was last in office— when the Home Office, according to their own Home Secretary, was deemed to be not fit for purpose. Labour calls for more safe and legal routes, even though we are second only to Sweden in Europe for resettlement schemes. It calls for more money for law enforcement, even though we have doubled the funding of the National Crime Agency, and our people are out there upstream tackling organised immigration criminals every day of the week.

Is it not extraordinary that the Home Secretary—[Interruption]—the shadow Home Secretary cannot bring herself to condemn those illegal immigrants who are breaking into our country in flagrant breach of our laws? That is weak. The truth is that the Labour party is too weak to take the kind of tough decisions that we are taking today. In its weakness, it would make the United Kingdom a magnet: there would be open doors, an open cheque book and open season for abuse. The British public know that the Conservative party understands their legitimate concerns. We do not sneer at people for wanting basic border controls. We are taking the tough decisions. We will stop the boats. We will secure the borders.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Although the Minister did not mention RAF Scampton by name, we assume that that is the base in Lincolnshire to which he is referring. I can inform him that the moment that this is confirmed, the local authority of West Lindsey will issue an immediate judicial review and injunction against this thoroughly bad decision, which is based not on good governance, but on the politics of trying to do something. How can he guarantee that we will not lose £300 million-worth of regeneration, already agreed and signed, between West Lindsey and Scampton Holdings? How will he preserve the listed buildings and the heritage centre? How will he preserve the heritage of the Dambusters and of the Red Arrows? How can he guarantee that there is no contamination from the fuel bay of the Red Arrows? How will he protect the safety of 1,000 people living right next door to 1,500 migrants and a primary school? He cannot guarantee anything. Will he work with West Lindsey and Lincolnshire now to try to find an alternative site? We are prepared to do it, but we do not want to lose £300 million of regeneration. Lincolnshire will fight and Lincolnshire will be proved right.

[Robert Jenrick]

I can only pay tribute to my right hon. Friend—my friend and constituency neighbour. He is representing his constituents forcefully, in the way that he has always done in this place, and he is absolutely right to do so. I can say to him that, while this policy is, without question, in the national interest, we understand the impact and concern that there will be within local communities. All parts of Government want to work closely with him and his local authorities to mitigate the issues that will arise as a result of this site. There will be a significant package of support for his constituents. There will be specific protections for the unique heritage on the site. We do not intend to make any use of the historic buildings. In our temporary use of the site, we intend to ensure that those heritage assets are enhanced and preserved. We see this as a short-term arrangement. We would like to enter into an agreement, as he knows, with West Lindsey District Council, so that it can take possession of the site at a later date, and its regeneration plans, which are extremely important for Lincolnshire and the east midlands more generally, can be realised in due course.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Well, Britain has historical form on the use of internment camps and it is despicable that this Government are intent on bringing them back in 2023. The Minister’s pathetic attempt to draw comparisons with the use of cruise ships to accommodate Ukrainians is as offensive as it is misleading. In fact, yesterday, the Ukrainian Speaker, Ruslan Stefanchuk, thanked Scotland for saving the lives of his fellow citizens.

Scotland is standing down that emergency humanitarian response. Glasgow has closed it and Edinburgh has an end date in sight. Furthermore, the Scottish Government provided wraparound support for those cruise ships, with local government, NHS, schools and community integration. The Minister’s plan is a prison ship designed as a deterrent.

Alex Wickham from Bloomberg reports that the Home Office rejected a similar plan last year as it would be even more expensive than the eye-wateringly expensive hotels plan, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds per hour. What has changed since that advice last year?

Private providers are making a fortune out of this. The Minister is now spending, scandalously, one third of the UK’s international aid budget on domestic asylum costs, so what impact has this raid on crucial aid had on the push factors bringing people to these shores? When this idea was previously proposed last year, Ministers were advised that security would be a nightmare, the project would be expensive and it would amount to arbitrary detention—a breach of the UN refugee convention. What has changed since that advice was given last year? Does he understand that housing unaccompanied minors or traumatised people who have fled a warzone in military-style accommodation, considered unfit for the Ministry of Defence, would be gravely inappropriate, and will he give assurances that such individuals would be exempt from such measures?

The real problem is the backlog—we all know that—and the Home Office’s inability to tackle it. The Minister knows that I have constituents waiting six months, 10 months, 14 months, 18 months, 20 months and more for a decision from the Home Office. When will he stop wasting money on headlines and instead tackle the real crisis and fix the backlog?

[Robert Jenrick]

On the hon. Lady’s question regarding the use of overseas development aid to pay for the accommodation of asylum seekers here in the UK, we entirely agree. It is a gross waste of taxpayers’ money and we want to see that money being put to better usage. That is exactly why we need to stop the boats—so that the finite resources of the United Kingdom can be applied to resettlement schemes where we bring people from places of grave danger such as conflict zones directly; or we use our resources to support people in some of the most hard-pressed places in the world. That is obviously the best and most moral way forward, rather than having open borders for predominantly young men who are in a place of safety in France.

As I said in my statement, we do see merits in using vessels. They have been used successfully in Scotland. It is surprising that the SNP seeks to denigrate one of its own policies, since it does not have very many successful policies—and particularly when it comes to ferries, let us be honest, the SNP is on shaky ground.

With respect to families, we do not intend to put minors or families on these sites, but they are the right way forward for single adult males. We are making significant progress on the backlog—[Interruption.] We are, actually; we know the hon. Lady does not like to deal in facts, but I can give her our internal figures, unpublished as yet, which show that over 11,000 cases in the backlog have been processed in the last three months as a result of the new processes we have put in place.

The broader point with SNP Members, as we all know, is that they have become humanitarian nimbys. The hon. Lady takes a kind of St Augustine approach: “Lord, let us welcome refugees, but not in our constituencies.” She would have more credibility if she stood up and welcomed refugees and matched her fine words with good deeds.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

You’re blasphemous, you are.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

If I may respectfully make a few points to my right hon. Friend the Minister, we need to tackle this entire debate and discussion with a degree of maturity, because it is a difficult and sensitive subject. The points I would like to make refer to previous policy, the new plan for immigration and Greek-style reception centres. Had we had those in place, as I think he would recognise, we would not be in this situation.

I am an Essex MP and the other MP for the Braintree district. Wethersfield is not in my constituency—in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary—but it is no different in rurality and village size from a former site, Linton-on-Ouse, which is not in Essex and which was cancelled by the current Government. Why is it deemed appropriate for asylum seeker accommodation for single men to be placed in a rural village in Essex, where there is no infrastructure and no amenities, when it was not appropriate for somewhere like Linton-on-Ouse?

[Robert Jenrick]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, who began this good work with her new plan for immigration—an incredibly important step forward. Among other points, it recognised that it is critical that, when individuals cross the channel illegally, they are moved either to detained accommodation, which we want to bring forward as a result of our Illegal Migration Bill, or, in the absence of that, to specific sites where they can be housed appropriately, where their cases can be processed swiftly and where they have minimal impact on the broader society.

I know my right hon. Friend pursued a very similar prospect in north Yorkshire, and she will have sympathy with the work we have done in recent months to take forward these proposals. We do not have a current plan to proceed with the Linton-on-Ouse proposition, but the sites I have announced today are just the first set that we would like to take forward, because we want to remove people from hotels as quickly as possible and move to this more rudimentary form of accommodation, which will reduce pull factors to the UK and defend the interests of the taxpayer.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I think the House should be more generous to the Minister and acknowledge the true genius of this announcement. Only this Home Office team could think that the answer to the problem of growing numbers of people in small boats was to bring them all together and put them into one big boat. Armando Iannucci himself could not improve on that. But if the Minister is confident in his projections about what is going to happen to the backlog of asylum applications, why is the extra capacity going to be necessary?

[Robert Jenrick]

To answer the second point first, we want to see anyone crossing the channel moved into this rudimentary accommodation immediately. That is why it is critical that we build national capacity so that we can clear the hotels, consign that policy to the history books and put people into larger sites. That is why we need them. I have affection for the right hon. Gentleman, but he is being naive in this regard. I speak every day, as does the Home Secretary, to our northern European counterparts in Ireland, Belgium, Denmark and France, all of whom are pursuing options such as this, because there is a European migration crisis. We have to ensure that the UK is not a magnet for individuals who are either economic migrants or essentially asylum shoppers. I will not allow the UK to be a soft touch.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

The Government’s determination to accelerate the processing of claims is to be welcomed. My right hon. Friend would agree that it is unacceptable, wrong and immoral that people have their lives put on hold, unable to make a new future for themselves or to be returned to their countries of origin. We have a number of hotels in my Bournemouth West constituency full of such people, who are constantly in touch with my hard-working casework team and want their cases resolved. So too do those involved in the hospitality and leisure sector in Bournemouth, on which our economy depends, and local residents who want to see those hotels brought back into the purpose of serving that thriving sector. Can he assure me that the proposals he is announcing will bring into sight the day when those hotels will be returned to that purpose?

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend raises exactly the concerns that have motivated us to bring forward these proposals. We want to make sure that the interest of his constituency and his constituents are put above those of illegal immigrants coming into our country. This is the necessary first step to build national capacity in these new forms of accommodation, so that we can begin to close the hotels and move forwards.

[Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the discussions he held recently with the leader and chief executive of Knowsley Council and me to discuss the problem we have with a hotel in my constituency. He is aware that, in my view, the use of hotels is not fair on the taxpayer or on local communities, nor is it suitable for the refugees themselves. Will he, though, give me some indication of what criteria will be used to determine which hotels close and in what sequence?

[Robert Jenrick]

The conversations I had with the right hon. Gentleman and his local authority leaders informed the decisions we have taken, because it was clear from his constituency that that hotel was inflaming community tensions, that many people thought it was wrong that illegal migrants were being housed in a much-regarded facility, a hotel used for weddings and social events, and that we need to bring that to a close. When we have the capacity to begin closing hotels at pace, we will look at that through a number of lenses. Obviously we will close the most egregious cases first, where the cost to local communities is highest, as well as those in locations that were clearly unsuitable to begin with, such as seaside towns and so on, and those where the contracts are coming to an end and we would not want to renew them for value for money purposes.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Land-based reception camps in the right place have to be the solution. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if we look at what has happened in hotel so far with illegal migrants, we have had issues with local residents, disappearing children, sexual assaults and so on, and that putting these people on boats or barges, where the problem will be exacerbated tenfold, is totally and utterly out of the question?

[Robert Jenrick]

There are no easy answers; these are among the most difficult decisions in government. Placing asylum seekers on well-run large sites and providing specific facilities, with minimal impact on local communities, is the right approach. Taking hotels on a relatively ad hoc fashion, in town centres and on high streets, is not the right way forward. In respect of vessels such as barges or ferries, I do see merit in that approach, which has been pursued in Scotland and, in particular, in the Netherlands, which is using them effectively. That approach provides good value for money and decent accommodation.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Big Help Out app encourages people to volunteer for a good cause over the coronation weekend, and a number of opportunities listed on it are with organisations that help refugees and asylum seekers, including the British Red Cross. Does the Minister agree that it is appropriate that people spend the coronation weekend supporting the people who he says have broken into this country?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman and I may disagree on the fundamental point here, but I believe in borders, in national security and in national sovereignty, and those people who choose to enter our country in flagrant abuse of our laws, and who, in many cases, throw their documents into the channel, are breaking the law, and it is right that we take action against them and, where possible, remove them from our country.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

May I welcome you back to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker? It has been a while.

Does the Minister agree that while the Government accelerate assessment, enforcement and removal, it is quite right that we look at suitable and sustainable accommodation for illegal immigrants? Does he also agree, then, that if armed forces bases are suitable for our brave, they are certainly suitable for illegal immigrants?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is right to say that there is a peculiarity in that those on the left of politics seem to be happy to house our brave armed forces personnel on those sites but not to see illegal immigrants temporarily housed there while we process their claims. Of course, we will always be motivated by decency and legality. Those sites will be well run and appropriate, but we must not allow a further pull factor to the UK to emerge.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman told the House a little earlier that the three sites, which we presume are RAF Scampton, RAF Wethersfield and a site in East Sussex—perhaps he would care to name it—will

“provide accommodation for several thousand asylum seekers”.

Can he tell the House how many thousands, and in doing so, can he remind us of the total number of people who are being placed in hotels currently?

[Robert Jenrick]

The number of individuals who will be housed on the sites will step up. Obviously, we want to ensure that the sites are well managed, so initially there will be smaller numbers, but within a very short time, there will be several thousand on those sites.

[Hilary Benn]

How many?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am not going to give those details to the right hon. Gentleman now, because it is right that we engage with the local authorities and that they be the first to know the full details of our plans, but there will be a very significant addition to our capacity. The point he is making is that, in addition to that, there is a very large number of people currently accommodated in hotels, but this is the first step—the first step on the road to clearing those hotels and moving forward.

I would just make one further point: it is abundantly clear to me, having spent four months in this role now, that there is no way in which I or the British Government can build our way out of this issue. There are tens of thousands of people entering our country in an irregular manner every year. Of course, we have to get our own processes and management processes in place, but we have to stop people coming here in the first place. That is why we are bringing forward the Bill.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

I welcome today’s update and commend my right hon. Friend the Minister for his efforts in getting us to this stage. Further to the repeated assurances that I have received from him and the Prime Minister, will the Minister now commit to publishing a clear timetable—in weeks, not months—for the closure of the two migrant hotels that are within touching distance of each other in Erewash, and will he guarantee that that will be the end of their use for such purposes?

[Robert Jenrick]

I know that my hon. Friend has been tenacious in campaigning on behalf of her constituents, who, as I said more broadly in my statement, are extremely concerned about the impact that those hotels are having and about a loss of amenity, including business, tourism and social events. It is for that reason that we are taking this difficult but correct decision to produce these sites, and I hope that we will start to see the use of hotels come to close in the months ahead. I would be delighted to work with her as we do that.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

The British taxpayer is shelling out more than £6 million a day to house migrants, but asylum decisions have collapsed by 40% since 2015. That is what is to blame for the chaos with hotels. Furthermore, a damning watchdog report found that the Home Office did not have the financial information even to test whether those contracts were value for money, and did not even follow the correct procedure as was laid out. After 13 years, is there anything that this Government can manage to do properly?

[Robert Jenrick]

We all know what state the last Labour Government left the Home Office in. We have only to refer, as I did the other day, to the report of John Vine—the inspector at the time—which painted a picture of complete chaos and dysfunction at the Home Office when the Labour party was last in power.

It is important that we get the backlog down. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can see from what I have said that I have put in place a robust plan and that we have a high degree of confidence that we will succeed in getting the backlog down over the course of this year. But the real issue is the number of people crossing the channel; the people smugglers, the human traffickers. Clearing the backlog and processing people’s claims even faster will not stop the boats—that is a fantasy. Stopping the boats requires tougher measures than that, such as those set out in the Illegal Migration Bill.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Are there any circumstances in which my right hon. Friend would envisage children being placed in any of the sites that he has announced? To ensure that they can be moved as swiftly as possible into local authority care, may I encourage him to use the welcome additional funding that has been announced for local councils to cope with accommodation, so that they have an incentive to ensure that accommodation is available to children as a priority?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is not my intention to house minors on those sites. It is right that we ensure that minors and families are properly supported. Those sites will be used for single adult males, and will act as a serious deterrent to those people coming to this country.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

These proposals are highly reminiscent of the internment camps for refugees in the BBC series “Years and Years”, which was on during lockdown. In case you did not see it, Madam Deputy Speaker, it was really about the decline of modern Britain and ended with the election of a fascist populist Prime Minister.

Ukrainian refugees in Scotland have been temporarily accommodated in high-quality former ferry accommodation at Leith docks, which are adjacent to my constituency. I have visited that temporary accommodation and suggest that if the Minister were to visit, he would see that it is extremely different from the industrial barges that he is proposing. Does he appreciate that if the UK Government dump refugees from other countries into the sort of poor-quality accommodation that he is describing, the United Kingdom may face a claim of racial discrimination under article 14 of the European convention on human rights?

[Robert Jenrick]

I refer the hon. and learned Lady to the comments that I made earlier. We know that the Scottish Government used ferries. I pass no criticism of the Scottish Government for their choice in doing so; it appears to have worked relatively successfully in the circumstances, so I think it is an option worthy of consideration. Of course, we intend to meet our domestic and international law obligations, and any accommodation that we bring forward will be decent and legal.

[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Conservative-led Dover District Council has been working hard to provide affordable and other housing for local people. Likewise, Kent County Council has been working hard to provide local services. But that excellent work is put under immense pressure by having to deal with the sheer number and volume of migrants in Kent. This has been supported by the Labour party, which does not want to stop the small boats and cares more about channel migrants than it does the residents of Dover and Deal, and Kent as a whole. Despite the pressures on services and schools, we are being asked to do more and take more, and today’s announcement will not ease those pressures on Kent. Will my right hon. Friend meet me and Kent colleagues to see what more can be done to ease the immense pressures faced in Kent, particularly in Dover and Deal?

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be pleased to meet my hon. Friend and her colleagues. Again, I am acutely aware of the pressures that face Kent and the local authorities there. This policy will not only reduce the dependence on hotels but ensure that significantly increased funding is made available to local authorities such as my hon. Friend’s to alleviate some of the burdens they face.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

The Minister knows that while asylum seekers are living in often very difficult conditions in the hotels, a large proportion of taxpayers’ funding is not even going to the hotels or the food providers but is haemorrhaging out into the pockets of a network of often dodgy contractors and subcontractors. What is he doing to address this mismanagement of Government funds?

[Robert Jenrick]

I now meet very regularly with exactly those firms, our Home Office providers. The hon. Lady can be assured—in fact, I think I have said this to her privately—that I have been very clear with those companies that they have a job to do and we need them to find suitable accommodation, but the accommodation must be of good quality, must meet our contractual terms, and there must be value for money. They have been left in absolutely no doubt about my views and if the hon. Lady or any other Member of this House has concerns or criticisms, they should bring them to me and I will ensure that they are heard.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

It is nice to see you back in your place, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his hard work—he has shown me the strength of the work he has been doing over the months he has been in his role to try to tackle the problem—and I very much encourage his determination to stop the boats. I am pleased to see more enforcement work and the funding that is coming forward for local authorities. That funding is key for any local authorities that deal with asylum seekers. I wish to make a plea about the dispersal accommodation element: when the Home Office makes decisions about where to put such accommodation, if agencies agree that a place is inappropriate, the Home Office should really take note of that information and look for alternative sites.

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend has been vociferous in raising legitimate concerns about one particular location in her constituency. She is right to say that there should be appropriate engagement between the local authority and the Home Office before any decisions are made, and that the police and other stakeholders should be informed. Where there are serious concerns, of course we should not proceed with those properties.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister was right when he said that we need to stop people coming here by boat. Last night, Labour voted for the establishment of a cross-border police unit in the National Crime Agency to target the criminal gangs smuggling people across the channel. That measure would make a huge difference, in the short term and the long term, to the protection of our borders and to the welfare of migrants, so why on earth did the Government’s MPs vote against it?

[Robert Jenrick]

Because we have already done it.

[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, whom I know to be a compassionate, fair-minded Minister. He is having to take extremely difficult decisions in balancing help for people who are the most vulnerable and the interests of the people who elect us to represent them in this place—UK taxpayers. Does he agree that the failure of Opposition parties to recognise that during such a migration crisis there has to be a sensible limit on numbers, and their refusal to admit that resources are limited and UK taxpayers’ money is limited, make them unfit for office?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend raises an important—indeed, fundamental—point: of course we want the United Kingdom to be a generous and compassionate country that is renowned around the world for how we treat those seeking sanctuary, but we also have to appreciate the finite resources we have and deploy them in the most effective manner. I feel profoundly that we are sent here not to grandstand or virtue signal but to put the wellbeing and interests of our own constituents first.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Minister has made vague statements about all asylum seekers being moved out of hotels, but he does not have a plan for how to do it, does he? [Interruption.] Well, let us see it. As the Minister for Security announced yesterday, the only fall-back is to pass responsibility back to local authorities. Did the Minister see the Local Government Association’s response to that plan yesterday? It said that most councils have no social housing to offer, and in most areas the local housing allowance is not sufficient to pay for the cost of accommodation. What does the Minister expect local authorities to do when thousands of asylum seekers are simply passed back to them from the hotels they are currently in?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman always campaigns against the building of new homes. That might have been the easiest way to fix the housing crisis. We are going to work carefully and productively with local authorities to address this issue. That has always been my approach: when I was Local Government Secretary I engaged constantly—religiously—with local authority leaders, and we continue to do so. We are going to provide significantly enhanced resources to local authorities so that we better meet the true cost of handling this difficult challenge.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Clearly, basic and cheap accommodation for those who have illegally entered our country is far better than four-star hotels at the heart of communities. The Minister will know how strongly I feel about the use of the Novotel in Ipswich, which the vast majority of my constituents are against. It is interesting that the Labour party has said today that it opposes the use of hotel accommodation, because only recently a protest in favour of the use of that hotel was attended by the Labour parliamentary candidate and half the local Labour party. Can the Minister give some timescales with regard to when we can move those who are currently in hotels into more appropriate accommodation? The sooner we get them out of the Novotel, the better, and the more support the Minister will get from my constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I share my hon. Friend’s desire to close that hotel as soon as possible; I know how hard he has been representing his constituents in that regard. Today is the critical first step. Once we have the sites up and running, a combination of new arrivals and those currently in hotels will be moved on to those sites, and the backlog clearance will of course free up places in hotels and enable us to close them, but the fundamental point is that the only sustainable answer is to stop the boats coming in the first place.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

What assessment has the Department made of the increased risk of self-harm, and indeed suicide, among vulnerable asylum seekers placed in precisely the type of institutional accommodation for which the Minister is advocating today? Has the policy been subject to a risk assessment—perhaps even one that MPs are allowed to see?

[Robert Jenrick]

We of course take the wellbeing of the illegal immigrants—the residents of these new sites—seriously. I think they will be better cared for in this bespoke accommodation than in an ad hoc network of hotels that have been taken in emergency circumstances. The new sites will be run by well-trained individuals and have their own healthcare facilities, and we will be able to have Home Office personnel on site to process their claims swiftly so that they can either be granted asylum, remain in the UK and begin to pay taxes and make a contribution to our country, or be removed.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for his update and his hard work in this policy area. Will he reassure the House that the treatment of women, children and families throughout this whole process will be compassionate, and that this Conservative Government are committed to supporting and bolstering safe and legal routes to help vulnerable people fleeing persecution and seeking sanctuary?

[Robert Jenrick]

First, my hon. Friend has my total assurance that although this policy is tough, it will also be decent and legal. The work I did in the autumn in making reforms to the Manston site in Kent is evidence of the way in which I will approach this work. On my hon. Friend’s second point, this Government absolutely believe in the UK’s being a world leader for resettlement schemes and safe and legal routes. We are already: 500,000 people have come to our country for humanitarian purposes since 2015. That is something we should be proud of and it is something that a Conservative Government will continue.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The Minister referenced and misquoted St Augustine of Hippo earlier. He was from north Africa, and the Minister would have put him in a camp as a consequence.

The Minister talked in his statement about fundamentally altering our posture. I wonder if he might consider altering his posture to that of someone who is good at his job. We have asylum seekers in hotels and hostels who do not want to be in those hotels and hostels. Why? It is because of the colossal backlog for which this Government are responsible. Rather than wasting money on this gimmick today—one that many of the Minister’s Back Benchers clearly disagree with, for a variety of reasons—why does he not invest in making sure that appeals are heard quickly and hearings are done quickly, so that people can either be given the right to remain or be removed, as his Government are failing to do? Does he agree that there is one thing worse than his and his Government’s incompetence on this issue, and that is blaming the consequences of that incompetence on the most vulnerable people in the world?

[Robert Jenrick]

I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Gentleman. Fault here lies with the people smugglers and the human traffickers. We should never blame ourselves in this country for the actions of organised immigration criminals—that is completely wrong. We are taking robust action to stop the boats and arrest the trade that is bringing tens of thousands of people illegally into our country and putting people’s lives on the line every day. The hon. Gentleman does not want that—of course he does not. That is why he should support our Bill and help us to stop the boats.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

As the Minister knows, Stoke-on-Trent has contributed significantly to accommodating both asylum seekers and refugees. Today’s announcements of additional funding for local areas will be very welcome to help cope with some of those pressures, but my constituents want to know whether the Minister will be prioritising emptying those hotels in Stoke-on-Trent.

[Robert Jenrick]

I acknowledge that Stoke-on-Trent has stepped up and provided a significant amount of accommodation, which is creating challenges for the city. It has been a pleasure to work with my hon. Friend and the excellent leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council. We want to ensure that hotels that are the most egregious cases are closed first—I think in particular of the North Stafford Hotel in the centre of Stoke. That is exactly the sort of important business asset that I would like to see closed swiftly.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

In the past few weeks, asylum seekers have been placed in hotels in my constituency that the Home Office has then deemed unfit for occupation, and those asylum seekers have been dispersed to undisclosed locations at no notice. Children have been taken out of school in the middle of exams, and I am told that last night asylum seekers were dumped outside a hotel in Shepherd’s Bush and told to share rooms and beds with complete strangers. Is it the Government’s policy to punish and humiliate asylum seekers in these ways as a means of discouraging further migrants, even though on past experience the majority are likely to be granted status in the UK?

[Robert Jenrick]

We will always treat people with decency and compassion, but it is correct that we have to address the very significant pull factor to the United Kingdom. This approach is being followed by most of our north European neighbours, such as the Belgians, the Dutch, the Danes, the French and the Irish, because the pressures are so great. The hon. Gentleman does not want to stop the boats; he does not back our Bill, or indeed any prior measures. We want to do so, and we will take the steps that are necessary.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

I take this opportunity to thank my right hon. Friend for all his work in this area. I think most of us recognise that this is a multifaceted problem and that there is no silver bullet solution. Does today’s announcement mean that there will not be further requests by contractors to find hotel accommodation or similar? I am aware of challenging conversations in my own constituency at this time. Also, where we are looking to empty hotels, we have a community that is very willing to welcome people into their homes, so might we look towards a scheme where there is additional ministerial resource, as we did when welcoming Ukrainian refugees—I am not being disrespectful of my right hon. Friend’s experience in this matter—so that we can bridge that gap with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities? We have a housing crisis of our own; we have thousands of our own population unable to secure accommodation, but we are keen to work to find a solution. Might there be an opportunity to bridge the housing and the immigration situations?

[Robert Jenrick]

The Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities are trying to work as closely as possible. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) is working closely with us on the operation of schemes such as Homes for Ukraine, the Ukraine family scheme, the Afghan schemes, Syria and so on—that is very important. We also have officials who are working jointly between the two Departments, so I hope my hon. Friend will see that all of Government are working closely together to address this complex, multifaceted challenge.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Minister has told us that newly arrived migrants are going to be taken to this new form of accommodation, so they will be competing for places with the people he wants to move out of hotels. It seems to me that he is planning for the failure of his attempts to stop the boats through the Illegal Immigration Bill, because he is increasing capacity with the spaces that he is planning. Can he tell us how many more people he is planning to accommodate, in addition to those who are already accommodated by the Home Office?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am confused by the hon. Gentleman’s question, because he does not support the Bill in the first place. However, it is our intention once we have secured the passage of our Bill through Parliament—its Committee stage over the past two days showed the strength of support for the Bill on the Government side of the House, although there was not quite the same reaction on the Opposition Benches—to bring forward the Rwanda proposal. Once that is operationalised, people will be detained, their cases will be heard in a limited fashion, and then they will be removed from the country swiftly. In the meantime, we need some capacity, and that is going to be provided by these new large sites.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is one of the abler Ministers in the Home Office, so it makes sense for him to give this statement this afternoon. Is he, though, as concerned as I am about a Gerald Ratner approach to the Government’s immigration policy, whereby they simply spend their time highlighting the problems rather than some of the work they are undertaking? Is he aware that the primary concern of most people is to ensure that the backlog of asylum applications is dealt with, and more importantly that decisions are made, as they were in 2015? Could I also caution him that even worse than a Gerald Ratner approach to Government policy on this issue is a “something must be seen to be done” policy, which might bring forward this Rosie and Jim idea of barges all over the place?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend raises an important point that the public do not want to see performative or declaratory policies in this space: they want to see us acting, taking difficult decisions, and that is what is within this statement. He is correct to say that this requires an approach across many different avenues. Again, he can see that from the fact that we are rapidly reducing the backlog; that we have increased immigration enforcement visits by 50%; that we have established the small boats operational command in the channel and are recruiting hundreds of officers to staff it; and that we have signed deals with France and Albania. This shows the Government acting on every approach. My hon. Friend can be in no doubt that we will solve this problem, and if we fail, it will not be for want of trying.

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

The Minister talked about only meeting the basic needs of the residents. However, mental health is a basic need to many people, and I do not see how isolation is going to help in that regard.

Following on from that, I invite the Minister to join me in condemning the racist protesters who are appearing outside hotels, including one in my own constituency. In particular, I invite him to directly challenge the tropes that are being used: that asylum seekers are sexual predators. The same tactic has been used down through the centuries to attack marginalised people.

[Robert Jenrick]

I have been very clear that those far-right and other elements who are inciting violence and intimidation outside hotels or other forms of accommodation are wrong. I have directed the Home Office to work closely with the police through the National Police Coordination Centre and other parts of Government, including the security services, to track that pernicious activity and support local councils and police forces in taking robust action wherever possible. If the hon. Gentleman has particular cases that he wants to bring to my attention, I would be pleased to look into them.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

Could I just probe my right hon. Friend with regard to his proposals for housing migrants on barges and ferries? Specifically, could he advise on whether he expects those vessels to have access to the quay or to be moored offshore? If they are to have access to the quay, which I would expect, what conversations has he had with port operators about the operational challenges to their business from hosting what is essentially a residential community long-term?

[Robert Jenrick]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I am not going to comment on press speculation. Obviously, I will make further statements should we proceed with any significant developments in this regard. I have pointed to examples in Scotland and in the Netherlands where the use of vessels has been successful. As my hon. Friend knows, we do not currently have the powers to detain individuals for prolonged periods of time, so any form of accommodation would be non-detained.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

In response to an earlier question, the Minister talked about people “breaking into our country”. The Home Secretary has talked about an “invasion”. Those words, like this statement, are designed for the headlines, but can I ask him genuinely whether he recognises that using that kind of language to describe people, many of whom are seeking refuge from countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Syria, is inflammatory, divisive and adds to the sort of tensions that other Members have talked about? Will he reflect on his use of language and agree that the priority is to tackle the people smugglers, not to criminalise and demonise their victims?

[Robert Jenrick]

I believe that all of us have a responsibility to choose our words with care, and to accept the occasions where we choose the wrong language. This is an area of public policy where it would be better to de-escalate the current language and tensions. I do not think it is wrong to describe individuals as illegal immigrants or to say that individuals are breaking into our country, because we have borders and they have to be enforced. If the hon. Gentleman or I crossed a national border into another country, we would expect to be met by law enforcement and a robust response.

[Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend’s work on this matter, as well as to that of the Home Secretary and the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). Their diligence and co-operation with me has been welcome over the past 12 months. Last summer, I successfully managed to stop the introduction of a hotel in a wholly unsuitable place in my constituency, although unfortunately it fell on me to prove to the Home Office that it was wholly unsuitable. The threat remains, not only of additional hotels, but of companies such as Serco hoovering up family homes while we have a housing waiting list in my constituency. Can my right hon. Friend set out for me what today’s announcement means for that threat and when we can safely say that that threat has been removed?

[Robert Jenrick]

First, I thank my hon. Friend for his generous words about me and my colleagues at the Home Office. He is right to say that the sheer number of people crossing the channel illegally, coupled with the generosity of our country in recent years in welcoming 500,000 people on humanitarian grounds and the high levels of legal migration we have, is posing a serious challenge to communities and councils with respect to housing and social housing. We are working through those challenges with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and one additional element we are introducing today is a substantially enhanced package for local authorities so that they have more funding to pay for the kinds of accommodation they will need and any displacement activity that might occur.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

Rather than treat those seeking sanctuary on these shores as criminals and wasting vast sums of money to build internment camps to house them, would it not be more sensible simply to issue them with temporary work permits, so that they can contribute to the community, earn their own money to cover their own housing costs and pay tax into the Exchequer, rather than being a drain upon it?

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand and acknowledge that that is a legitimate point of view. It is not one I agree with, because I believe that we have to suffuse our approach with deterrence, and if we allow a further pull factor to the United Kingdom in the form of enabling people to work soon after their arrival, I suspect we will just find even more people coming to this country.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

First, I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for his engagement, which has been robust between us at times. He will understand that in Stoke-on-Trent we have around 1,300 asylum seekers and illegal economic migrants, of whom 31% are in hotels. Residents and constituents are outraged to see the city used and abused in this way. He wholly and accurately reflects the situation with the North Stafford Hotel, which is right by a levelling-up project and a £40 million transforming cities fund project. It is right opposite our railway station, which is a gateway to 6 million visitors a year. It is wholly unacceptable. Can my right hon. Friend the Minister reconfirm what he said in answer to my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton)—that Stoke-on-Trent will be one of the priority areas that will see young single men moved out of hotels and into the new accommodation he has outlined today?

[Robert Jenrick]

As my hon. Friend knows, I love the Potteries and will always want to further the best interests of Stoke-on-Trent and its wider region. The hotel by the station is a particularly egregious one in my opinion, because it is holding back regeneration in that part of the city. I would like to see it closed at the earliest opportunity. The other point I make on Stoke-on-Trent is that it has stepped up and taken a large number of individuals through dispersal accommodation, which I hope other local authorities will do with the added support we are providing today.

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yesterday, Labour offered a reasonable amendment to the Illegal Migration Bill that would have forced the Home Office to consult with councils over asylum hotels. That would have been welcome in my constituency where, despite the Minister’s announcement, he is planning to force a third hotel on my community. Wakefield Council has already had £300 million cut from its budget. It has done its best to provide support, but it lacks the community capacity and the funding to do more. Why did the Government run scared last night and vote down our amendment to give local councils a say?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman should go back to his constituents and explain why, in his short tenure in this House, he has already started voting against exactly the kinds of measures that would stop the boats. I rather suspect that he is not on the same side as his constituents on this issue.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I can understand the Minister’s trepidation coming to the Dispatch Box for today’s statement, having had to make similar statements myself over the years, but he is outlining the right approach today. We can see comparisons, particularly on continental Europe and particularly in Greece, where large-scale accommodation centres have been used as part of a transformation of the asylum system, providing humane and decent accommodation while assisting the process of making decisions. To deal with some of the issues that we have had thrown at us, first, I assume that he will view this accommodation as part of national infrastructure and therefore take it through that planning process. Secondly, I assume that this is all, as he has touched on already, non-detained accommodation. Finally, what sort of timeline is he looking at to get some of these centres up and running, because people will only see this approach making a difference when they see hotels closing down in their local area?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend and predecessor knows how difficult these decisions can be. Like him, I did not come into politics to deal with clandestine entry or organised immigration crime, but I did come into politics to provide security and stability to the public and to put the interests of my constituents above those of anyone else. That is why we are taking these decisions in the national interest. We will ensure that these sites are non-detained and legally compliant. They will be provided at pace. We will make use of the planning powers that the Government have at our disposal. I am confident that we will be able to get individuals on these sites in the coming weeks.

[Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

Thirteen years of Tory mismanagement, an asylum system in crisis, backlogs out of control, and claims not being decided for years on end—this statement does nothing but scaremongering and headline-grabbing just before the local elections. A Member of the Minister’s own party has summarised this statement correctly as

“the politics of trying to do something.”

Does he agree that this statement, which is no more than headline-grabbing scaremongering, does very little to target human traffickers and the illegal gangs, but makes illegal traffickers the heroes, while making victims the real targets?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is a darn sight better than the politics of doing nothing, which is what the Opposition are proposing. We are taking action to tackle the people smugglers and the human traffickers. I do not doubt the motivations of the hon. Gentleman, but every day in this job I see these people and the work they do. They are some of the most evil and pernicious people in society, and we have to match them. We cannot behave in a way that is weak and naïve; we have to respond with tough policies. That is what we are doing here. We will not allow the UK to be a soft touch. By ensuring that we now have this new form of accommodation, not only will we clear the hotels, but we will also ensure that there is not a pull factor to the UK.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement this afternoon, and I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) for her excellent work as Home Secretary previously. Could my right hon. Friend comment in more detail on the similar approach being taken to asylum accommodation by Belgium, Ireland, France and Germany, and it would seem by the Scottish Government as well?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is true, as I have said on a number of occasions, that our northern European neighbours are looking to take similar robust approaches. Ireland is considering bailing individuals to no fixed abode with vouchers to pay for their immediate needs, as I understand it. Belgium has seen tented communities arise and is using hostels akin to homeless shelters. The Danes have said, I think publicly, that the Rwanda policy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) is an interesting and valuable one at which they are looking with interest. So we are not alone and we are not unique. We are working together because there is a European migration crisis, and we have to take serious and robust decisions and make difficult choices, or I am afraid the UK will be very exposed.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. He knows that there is a difference between economic migrants who are abusing the system if they are fit and independent—their circumstances will dictate the final report—and, alongside them, asylum seekers, many fleeing religious persecution, who, whether they be women, children or families, need help urgently. Will the Minister make it abundantly clear that those who come here illegally due to extenuating circumstances will have scope for compassion in their treatment?

[Robert Jenrick]

We want to ensure that human dignity is at the heart of the system we are creating, which is why the UK has a fantastic record in recent years for resettlement schemes of the kind I know the hon. Gentleman is a champion of, such as the schemes for those from Ukraine, Hong Kong, Syria and Afghanistan. By bringing an end to illegal migration across the channel or reducing it as far as one can, we can deploy our finite resources as a country to help those people who need it most—those people who are in conflict zones, the victims of religious persecution whom he cares passionately about—rather than those people, predominantly young men, who are fit, able and in a safe place such as France.

[Mr Betts]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Illegal Migration Bill

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Lady—I am a member of that all-party parliamentary group—is absolutely correct to make that point. We have a responsibility here, but the way in which the Bill is drafted takes no account of people’s health circumstances. It could put people at severe risk if they are sent back or denied treatment.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

indicated dissent.

[Alison Thewliss]

The Minister shakes his head, but the Home Office has form in denying people who receive medication to manage their condition the treatment they are entitled to in detention, which is where it wishes to place people. The National AIDS Trust highlighted for me a case of a person detained at Harmondsworth immigration removal centre who was denied access to the care that would meet clinical guidelines. He could not get his medication and then it was not given at the appropriate times—with food, as prescribed—because the staff had no experience of that and were not able to support him adequately. If the Government are going to deny people entry and detain them, what is the guidance? What guarantees can the Minister give that those with HIV/AIDS will be able to access the treatment that is keeping them alive?

Amendment 194 exempts people who have family members in the United Kingdom. There are many cases I could attribute to this amendment, but I will call it Ibrahim’s amendment. He is here in the UK, but his wife, son and daughter are in Iran. They have been patiently waiting for over six months for a family reunion visa to be processed. In the meantime, his family are in danger. His daughter was followed home from school and raped by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. This is why people do not wait in-country for the Government to process their visas. They do not wait because they are at risk of persecution, rape, danger and torture. That is why people flee. People come here to join family because they are in danger. They are not prepared to wait for safe and legal routes, because in many cases they do not exist. Family reunion, in many cases that I see, is just too slow and not available to everybody who needs it.

Amendment 195 exempts people for whom there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they are victims of trafficking or slavery. I will call this Eva’s amendment. Eva is a 28-year-old woman from south-eastern Europe who was referred to the TARA—Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance—service in Glasgow by Police Scotland over the 2016 festive period. Through a relationship she believed was real, she ended up being assaulted, drugged, trapped in sex work and trafficked. She was later placed on a lorry and moved for three days. Eventually, she came to be in Scotland, where she was kept in a flat, isolated from the other women who were also being held. She was raped multiple times by men every day. She was able to escape and find her way to the police. Under the Bill, she would now get no support. Her trafficker will now threaten her: if she goes to the authorities, they will send her to Rwanda. They will keep her under control with the measures the Government are bringing forward in the Bill. In addition, she will not get the expert support that TARA provides in Glasgow. She will be at risk of re-trafficking and further exploitation. This is the reality of the Bill for Eva and many like her: a trafficker’s charter.

Amendment 196 exempts people who meet the definition of an “adult at risk” in paragraph 7 of the 2016 Home Office guidance on adults at risk in immigration detention, including in particular people suffering from a condition or who have experienced a traumatic event, such as trafficking, torture or sexual violence, that would be likely to render them particularly vulnerable to harm. Let us call this Mohammed’s amendment, after the experience of young people described by Freedom from Torture in its report “Fleeing A Burning House”, which I commend to all Members on the Conservative Benches. Mohammed arrived in the UK via Libya. The report states:

“In Libya, the treatment is so cruel. We have quite a few young people who were really traumatised...Smugglers were basically killing people on the journeys...I think that one of the most traumatic experiences is being raped or seeing the brutality of people.”

The UK Government in this Bill are seeking not to assess the trauma that people arrive with, but to remove them without asking any questions. Putting people into immigration detention re-traumatises people. I visited Napier barracks. There is no privacy and no dignity. Diseases such as covid and scabies run rife. This model dehumanises. I have heard some people say that if it was good enough for troops it is good enough for refugees, but the reality is that these facilities have been abandoned by the Ministry of Defence for good reason: they were inadequate. For many fleeing trauma, it is that militaristic experience they are running from. It is entirely inappropriate for vulnerable people. We know from the Brook House inquiry that the Home Office has a sketchy history of supporting those who meet the definition of adults at risk. It should be reducing immigration detention, not expanding it.

Our list of exemptions is not exhaustive. We accept Labour’s amendment 2, which mentions gender. It is not possible to detail every single possible category of person who should be exempt from the duty to remove, because every person who comes has their own story and their own circumstances. A Bill that treats all of them as a problem to be removed is not fit for purpose. The duty to remove is far too broad and currently has only minimal narrow exemptions. By including people such as victims of trafficking in the duty to remove, the Home Secretary is creating circumstances where traffickers have even more power over the people they are trafficking.

Amendment 197 removes the backdated element of the legislation. Many people who had already started their journeys will not have been aware of the legislation when they began. The legislation will impact people who have already accessed support arrangements here in the UK and who are, to all intents and purposes, in the asylum system. They could not have known the detail of the Bill, which had not been published when they made their journey, and it is particularly egregious that they should be punished for that.

Clause 3, on unaccompanied children regulations, gives power to the Home Secretary to remove unaccompanied children. There is no duty to do so, but it remains at her discretion. On Second Reading, the Home Secretary said that the duty to remove will not apply to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and that “only in limited circumstances” would the power to remove unaccompanied children be used, such as for family reunion. However, there is no detail in the Bill itself of when such a power would be used. Given all I know about the Home Office, I certainly would not trust them as far as I could throw them.

The Children’s Commissioner for England team told me that they recently met a boy who believes that his family were killed in Iran. He was brought to the UK by people smugglers. They stated:

“He had no idea which country he was coming to and no choice in the matter. The Bill sets out that children like this boy who arrive in this country irregularly, whether alone or with their families, will essentially be denied the right to claim asylum in the UK. These are children who are fleeing persecution and then further exploited and abused by people smugglers. Any child arriving in the UK after these experiences must first and foremost be viewed as vulnerable, and in need of love and care. Many of these children will have been trafficked here against their will and must not be held accountable for the crimes of their adult exploiters.”

Clause 4 makes applications under clause 2 inadmissible, so the UK Government will not consider the application at all, no matter how strong an application may be. Separated children will also have any claims deemed inadmissible.

Clause 5 details the Home Secretary’s duty to remove people, which we would amend by including safeguarding clauses so that people cannot be removed to dangerous countries. Research for the Refugee Council has shown that around half the people who made the journey last year came from just five countries with high asylum grant rates. Those people cannot be sent back home. It is not possible to send an Afghan back to Afghanistan or a Syrian back to Syria—they are not included on the safe countries list.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Carmichael]

And the evidence. The lack of evidence and impact assessments runs like a silver thread through the Bill. Have the impact assessments been done? Will they ever be done? If they have been done, will they be published? The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) made much of that in his speech, and he was absolutely right to do so. I was tempted to intervene on him to say, “Hold on a second here, man. You shouldn’t be going so fast; you should allow the Minister to get to his feet and tell us the position.” But the Minister did not do so then, and I suspect that he will not do so now, either. There have been times when I have seen Ministers on the Treasury Bench look more uncomfortable than the Minister for Immigration did when listening to the speeches of his right hon. Friends, but I am struggling to think of when that might have been.

The points that I will focus on relate to the question of detention and, in particular, the detention of children. The detention of children is something that I thought we had seen the back of. Although that initiative was driven by my former colleague, Sarah Teather, when she was the Minister with responsibility for young people, I again pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, who did so much to support it in the Home Office. It was an absolute stain on our country that we kept children locked up in immigration removal centres such as Dungavel in Scotland.

I remember visiting Dungavel—it must have been in 2007 or 2008. I also remember, I have to say, successive Home Office and Immigration Ministers in the then Labour Government standing up at the Dispatch Box and saying that I was a bleeding-heart liberal, and that this was just something that we had to live with and nothing could be done. Of course, as we know, there were things that could be done, and they ultimately were done—we did them five years later.

I think it tells us quite a lot about the journey that the Conservative party has been on since those years in 2011 and 2012 that the Government feel it necessary to reintroduce detention for children. We have had 10 years without it now, and what have the bad consequences of that been? I do not see any. Nobody is saying that it has caused a massive increase or spike in any particular problems, but now, for the sake of sheer political positioning, we are going to return to a situation in which children will be placed behind razor wire in places such as Dungavel.

[Robert Jenrick]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Carmichael]

The Minister is sitting there shaking his head. If he wants to intervene and tell me I am wrong about this, I am more than happy to take his intervention.

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to do so, or to answer more fully later when I make my remarks. It is undoubtedly true that we face a serious situation today where the number of unaccompanied minors coming into the country over the channel has increased fourfold since 2019. That places a great strain on our system, and we need ways to ensure that where those people are age-assessed and may ultimately be decided not to be minors, they are held in appropriate detained accommodation. That is one of the issues we are seeking to tackle with this part of the Bill.

[Mr Carmichael]

I hope that the Minister gets a hold of Hansard tomorrow, reads what he has just said and, as my mother used to say to me, takes a long, hard look at himself, because the idea that that is a justification for locking up children is absolutely disgraceful. For him to try to draw and to invent a causal link where none exists is a consistent line of the way this Government act. It is the same way that they tried to draw a causal link between the Modern Slavery Act and those coming in small boats—it just does not exist.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

When the Immigration Minister was dismissing concerns about locking children up, suggesting that they probably were not children because of concerns about age verification, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael)—I am sorry that he is no longer in his place—used a gentle phrase that his mother might say: “Have a long look in the mirror.” Well, I suggest that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North gives his head a wobble for what he has just said about children who have gone missing; 16 and 17-year-olds are children—[Interruption.] He is chuntering from a sedentary position. If those children turn up, I hope to goodness that they all turn up safe and well, because if they do not, what the hon. Member has just said will come back to haunt him—[Interruption.] He can keep shouting all he likes, but the vast majority of the British public are horrified by the idea that 200-plus children have gone missing from hotels that the Home Office was supposed to be overseeing.

There is due to be a public inquiry into the Manston centre. The Government have accepted that because of possible article 3 breaches—basically, concerns about how we were treating pregnant women and young children going into Manston—but that investigation has not yet happened and cannot yet inform this legislation. Clause 11 extends detention for families and pregnant women, and clause 14 removes the duty to consult the independent family returns panel about the treatment of children. Children are under the age of 18; we accept that in law.

We have provisions in law—on, for example, the use of bed and breakfasts—that have not been mirrored to date in our treatment of children who have come in through this system. I can hear why in the callous disregard of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, but I go back to this simple principle: whatever we think of the parents of these children, we should not be punishing children by agreeing in law that they have second-class citizenship. That is what this legislation will do to refugee children.

[Robert Jenrick]

indicated dissent.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)]

The shadow Leader of the House has been in the House long enough to know that it is the responsibility of the Government, not the Chair, to publish or not publish Government papers. However, she asked me a question and has placed her point on the record. I am about to call the Minister of State to reply, and he has heard what the hon. Lady has said.

[Robert Jenrick]

It has been a wide-ranging and interesting debate. I am grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. I will not detain the Committee by dwelling on the Government amendments as they are all, essentially, technical in nature. I will instead set out to respond to as many of the amendments and new clauses that have been debated as possible. I take issue with those who said that the Government provided insufficient time to debate. I note that both today and yesterday, the debates have concluded almost an hour before the allocated time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I wonder if my right hon. Friend would clarify one point. He just said that the Government will act to deal with all people who have come here illegally. That is not what the Bill does. It has caveats—it deals only with those who have come here illegally through a third safe country. Could he just clarify that?

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend is correct that the Bill does not seek to change the arrangements for those who come here directly and claim asylum from a place of danger. That is an important point and a principle of our long-standing asylum obligations. Let us be honest: the reason we are here today is because of those who pass through safe countries such as France. Last year, 45,000 people crossed the channel in small boats from a place of safety with a fully functioning asylum system. This scheme applies to those individuals, with certain carefully thought through mechanisms to protect those who would be placed in serious or irreversible harm should they be taken to a safe third country. It is essential that we pass this scheme as it is, rather than as the leaky sieve that the hon. Member for Glasgow Central wishes so that she can undermine the intent of this policy.

[Alison Thewliss]

The Minister says that people should come here directly. Will he tell me how many direct flights there are to Heathrow from Yemen, Afghanistan or Syria?

[Robert Jenrick]

People do come here directly from places of danger. The hon. Lady is incorrect. We have long-standing arrangements for those people who transit through other countries to come here, so her point is wrong.

The wider issue, which she and I have debated on many occasions, is that we have heard continuously from her and her SNP colleagues a kind of humanitarian nimbyism. They come to this Chamber to say how concerned they are for those in danger around the world, yet they take disproportionately fewer of those very people into their care in Scotland.

Let me turn to the serious questions that have been raised about children. We approach these issues with the seriousness that they deserve and from the point of view that the UK should be caring and compassionate to any minor who steps foot on these shores. These are not easy choices, but the challenge we face today is that large numbers of minors are coming to the United Kingdom at the behest of human traffickers or people smugglers, and we have to deter that. We must break the cycle of that business model.

Since 2019, the number of unaccompanied minors coming to the UK has quadrupled, meaning that thousands of unaccompanied minors have been placed in grave danger in dinghies and then brought to the UK, in some cases to enter the black economy and in others for even more pernicious reasons. I have met those children. I have seen them at Western Jet Foil, and I can tell the House that there is no dignity in that situation. As a parent, seeing children in dinghies risking their lives is one of the most appalling things one could see. I want to stop that. The measures we are bringing forward today intend to stop that.

We are going to do this in the most sensitive manner we can, and the powers that we are bringing forward under the Bill do just that. The duty to make arrangements for removal does not apply to unaccompanied children until they become adults. There is a power, not a duty, to remove unaccompanied children. As a matter of policy, the power to remove will be exercised only in very limited circumstances, such as for the purposes of family reunion, or if they are nationals of a safe country identified in clause 50 and can be safely returned to their home country. It is important to stress at this point that that power is already in law and is used on occasion when an unaccompanied child arrives and we are able to establish arrangements for their safe return. The Illegal Migration Bill simply expands the number of countries deemed safe for that removal.

[Stella Creasy]

The Government have accepted that they will be subject to an article 3 investigation to see whether there have been breaches of the Human Rights Act at Manston—basically the treatment of people in inhumane and degrading ways. The Government are resisting that being an independent inquiry. Why not wait until that inquiry happens? Why not learn the lessons of how they got into the mess at Manston before moving forward with this legislation, so that we do not risk again seeing pregnant women and unaccompanied children in the dinghies and in the devastation that the Minister just set out? Why press ahead without learning the lessons of his previous failures?

[Robert Jenrick]

Nobody could dispute the seriousness with which I took the situation at Manston in the autumn, or dispute that the situation we are in today is incomparably different. Manston is a well-run facility, led by a superb former Army officer, Major General Capps, and we are ensuring that the site is both decent and legal. Responsibility for the failures at Manston in the autumn of last year does not rest with the Government. It does not rest with the people who work at Manston. It rests with the people smugglers and the human traffickers. It was a direct result of tens of thousands of people coming into our country illegally in a short period of time.

I can tell the hon. Lady that the same thing will happen again if we do not break the cycle and stop the boats. More people will come later this year. She knows that the numbers are estimated to rise this year unless we take robust action. That is what this Bill sets out to achieve. If we take this action, fewer people will put themselves in danger and fewer children will be in this situation. That is what I want to see, and I think that is what the British public want to see as well.

[Edward Timpson]

On unaccompanied children, may I ask the Minister to address the point I raised about the power in clause 16 for the Secretary of State to remove a child from local authority care, when the Secretary of State does not have powers under the Children Act and the responsibilities that follow? Will he set out the reasons behind that—if not in full now, certainly before Report?

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that comment. As an important aside that relates to other issues he has raised, nothing in the Bill disapplies the Children Act, which will continue to apply in all respects with regard to the children we deal with in this situation. In answer to his particular point, we are taking this power so that in the very small number of judicious cases in which we set out to remove a child, we can take them from the care of the local authority into the responsibility of the Home Office for the short period before they are removed from the country. I have given two examples of situations in which we would use that power, and I will happily give them again. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is concerned about this point.

The first situation is where we are seeking to return a young person to their relatives in another country. I think it is incredibly important that we keep the ability to do so, because that does happen occasionally. It is obviously the right thing to do to return somebody to their mother, their father, their uncle or the support network that they have in another country.

The other situation is where we are removing somebody who has arrived as an unaccompanied minor to another safe country, where we are confident that they will be met on arrival by social services and provided with all the support that one would expect. That happens all the time here with unaccompanied minors; I think the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned, drawing on his experience as a local Member of Parliament around Heathrow, that it happens regularly. It is important that we continue to have that option, because we should not be bringing people into local authority care for long periods in the UK when we can safely return them home, either to their relatives or to their home country, where they can be safeguarded appropriately.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Will the Minister respond to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire)? Where is the impact assessment for the Bill?

[Robert Jenrick]

The impact assessment will be published in due course.

Let me continue with the points I was making. I return to a question that has been raised on several occasions about our policy on the detention of minors. Let me say, speaking as a parent, that of course we take this incredibly seriously. We do not want to detain children. We have to apply the highest moral standards when we take this decision.

The circumstance in which we would use that power is where there is an age assessment dispute about an unaccompanied minor. It is easy to dismiss that, but it happens all the time. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) was correct to raise his experience as a local authority leader. There are a very large number of such disputes: between 2016 and December of last year, there were 7,900 asylum cases in which age was disputed and subsequently resolved. In almost half of those cases —49%—the people in question were found to be adults.

Where there is a live age assessment dispute, it would be wrong for the Government to place those people in the same accommodation as minors who are clearly children, creating safeguarding risks for them. I am not willing to do that. I want to ensure that those children are properly protected. When I visited our facilities at Western Jet Foil recently, I asked a member of staff who was the oldest person they had encountered who had posed as a minor. They said that that person was 41 years of age! Does anyone in this House seriously want to see a 41-year-old man placed with their children? I do not want to see it, and that is the circumstance in which we are going to take and use these very judicious powers.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) raised a number of important points in respect of his amendment on mandatory scientific age assessments. I can say to him that not only are those valid points, but the Government are considering carefully how we should proceed in this regard. The UK is one of the very few European countries that do not currently employ scientific methods of age assessment. In January, the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee published a report on the issue. The Home Secretary and I are giving careful consideration to its recommendations, and I hope to be in a position to say more on Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will give way one last time, but I want to bring my remarks to a close as soon as possible.

[Alison Thewliss]

I have constituents who have been waiting for 20 months in a hotel for the Home Office to conduct a substantive interview. Others have been waiting for 16 months, 18 months, two years or 40 months. If the Home Office processed those people, they would have no need to be in hotels.

[Robert Jenrick]

We are doing that. That is the plan that the Prime Minister set out in December, on which we are already making good progress.

Let me say two further things to the hon. Lady. First, the only way to reduce the number of people in the system is to stop the boats. No system, even the most efficient system in the world, could cope with 45,000 people breaking into our country against our laws and then seeking asylum. Secondly, the hon. Lady knows that the way to get people out of hotels is for all parts of the United Kingdom to step up and provide the accommodation that is required, but she and her SNP colleagues consistently decline to do that.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) made a thoughtful and important point in his amendment 283, relating to the citizenship provisions in the Bill. I note his concerns, and we will reflect on them and come back to him. I look forward to engaging with him, but let me make this point. There is a route towards entering the United Kingdom, even for someone who, at some earlier stage, had entered illegally and been caught by the provisions of the Bill. We specifically included that to ensure that we continue to meet our international law obligations.

My right hon. and learned Friend was right to say that there is a different route and standard with respect to achieving citizenship. The reason that we did that was our belief that British citizenship is a special privilege which is not something that should be given lightly, but that if someone breaks into our country and breaches our laws, there should be a higher standard to be applied before that person gains citizenship of our country.

[Joanna Cherry]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

I am not going to give way again. [Interruption.] I am not going to give way to the hon. and learned Lady. Let me turn to—[Interruption.] Let me turn—

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. Twenty-seven Members have taken part in the debate this afternoon, and there are rather more Members present who are speaking but who did not take part in the debate. The 27 who were here, taking part in the debate, have a right to hear what the Minister has to say, and it would be good if they could do it without interruption. That means without interruption from either side of the House.

[Robert Jenrick]

Thank you, Sir Roger. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) does not like the Bill. She is going to vote against the Bill and she does not want to stop the boats. She has tabled a whole raft of amendments with her colleagues, and we all know what the purpose of those amendments really is.

[Joanna Cherry]

On a point of order, Sir Roger. Is it in order for the Minister to so misrepresent my position? I tabled my amendments as the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, not on behalf of the Scottish National party, and the point I wish to make is that he has not answered a single point raised by anyone who spoke from the Opposition Benches. It is a farce—a farce!

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. That is an observation, not a point of order. The hon. and learned Lady is fully aware that Members are responsible for their own remarks on the record. They have to take responsibility for that.

[Robert Jenrick]

Sir Roger, it is an observation but it is also incorrect, because I have already spoken about the many questions around children that have been raised.

Before I wind up my remarks, I want to address the issues regarding modern slavery that have been raised by my right hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). All of us in Government look forward to engaging with them and learning from their unrivalled expertise and experience in this field as we ensure that the Bill meets the standards that we want it to meet. A number of hon. and right hon. Members said there was no evidential basis for taking action with regard to modern slavery. I do not think that that is fair. Let me just raise a few points of clarification. When the Modern Slavery Act was passed in 2015, the impact assessment envisaged 3,500 referrals a year, but last year there were 17,000 referrals. The most referred nationality in 2022 was citizens of Albania, a safe and developed European country, a NATO ally and, above all, a signatory to the European convention against trafficking.

[Jess Phillips]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am not going to give way on this occasion.

In 2021, 73% of people who arrived on small boats and were detained for removal put forward a modern slavery claim.

[Mrs May]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be pleased to give way to my right hon. Friend.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way and for repeating the figures that have been set out previously. The fact that the number of referrals to the national referral mechanism has increased does not mean that there is abuse of the system. It means, actually, that we may just be recognising more people who are in slavery in our country. That 73% was 294 people, and of those who have had their cases looked at by the NRM, nearly 90% are found to be correct cases of slavery.

[Robert Jenrick]

With great respect to my right hon. Friend, I do not think it is correct to denigrate the concern that 73% of those people who arrived on small boats and were detained for removal put forward a modern slavery claim. I think that figure suggests that, were we to implement the scheme in the Bill—and it is absolutely essential that we do—a very large number would claim modern slavery. That would make it almost impossible for us to proceed with the scheme. The evidence, I am afraid—

[Jess Phillips]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am not going to give way. I am going to bring my remarks to a close, because I think I have spoken long enough.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

But I will give way to my right hon. Friend.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Can I gently suggest to my right hon. Friend that the whole purpose of raising this issue was not to bandy the figures? There is a real disregard for some of the real figures here. He is quite right to say that the Government are concerned that there will be an exponential rise, as an alternative to coming across illegally. We should bear in mind that these people are trafficked; that is the key difference. All we are asking the Government to do is to look carefully at this and not take the power until they can see and show the evidence. After all, we have yet to see the impact of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. All I am asking of him, gently, is please just to accept that the Government will think about that before the Bill comes back on Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

As I have previously said to my right hon. Friend, I look forward to listening and engaging with him and like-minded colleagues. However, we come to this issue with a serious concern that there is mounting evidence of abuse of the system, and we want to ensure that the scheme we bring forward works and does the job.

[Jess Phillips]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not give way, because I am about to bring my remarks to a close.

[Jess Phillips]

He’s scared of me!

[Robert Jenrick]

I will happily give way, then. I am certainly not scared of the hon. Lady.

[Jess Phillips]

The Immigration Minister says there is mounting evidence. Which agency does it come from? Is it Border Force? Is it the National Crime Agency? Is it local authorities? Which of the agencies that make modern slavery referrals is responsible for the most fraudulent referrals? Is it one that the Home Office manages, or is it somebody else?

[Robert Jenrick]

I gave way to the hon. Lady against my better judgment, and what she says is not the point. The point is that three quarters of people on the verge of being removed from this country claim modern slavery. I am afraid that is wrong, and we need to bring it to a close.

With that, I fear I have run out of time. I look forward to engaging with colleagues, particularly those I have referenced this evening. I encourage colleagues on both sides of the House to continue supporting this incredibly important piece of legislation.

[Alison Thewliss]

If you will allow, Sir Roger, I understand that Members can speak twice in Committee of the whole House.

What we have heard from the Minister is utterly disgraceful. He has not presented any evidence to back up his claims or to back up this legislation. We have no evidence. There is no evidence. He has not presented any evidence. He has not presented even so much as an impact assessment of this legislation, yet he and his Conservative colleagues are about to vote against all our worthy amendments without a shred of evidence to support them. [Interruption.] He did not give the evidence. With the greatest of respect to the Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) asked for evidence and he was unable, or unwilling, to present that evidence to the Committee. Which is it—unable or unwilling?

The Committee will vote to demonise, to stigmatise and to remove victims of modern slavery and trafficking from this country, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Roger Gale)]

Does the Minister wish to respond?

[Robert Jenrick]

indicated dissent.

[The Second Deputy Chairman]

Does the hon. Lady wish to press the amendment to a Division?

Illegal Migration Bill

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

That is one of the many myths that the Conservatives peddle—my right hon. Friend is absolutely right—and those myths need to be debunked. It is absolutely clear that the small boat crossings have to be stopped, but the key point is that the Bill will not achieve that objective. Our new clause 25 would actually put some flesh on the bones of something that might work, rather than chasing headlines and doing government by gimmick.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

The hon. Gentleman must give up on his ridiculous argument that this Government have not taken safe and legal routes seriously. As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) said, almost half a million humanitarian visas have been issued since 2015. In Europe, we are second only to Sweden for resettlement; in the world, we are fourth only to Canada, the United States and another for UNHCR-sponsored humanitarian schemes. Some 45,000 people have come across on family reunion visas. We need no lectures on playing our part as a generous and compassionate country.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Of course, the Ukraine scheme, the British national overseas scheme and the Afghan scheme—when it used to work—are very welcome; there is no debate about that. But I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman keeps making that point. That is not the point of this debate; the point of this debate is how to address the challenge that we currently face. As hon. Members have pointed out, many people are fleeing war and persecution in the world, and this Government have utterly failed to offer them safe and legal routes. As a result, they come by unauthorised routes—that is a simple fact of life. The other point, of course, is that the Government have allowed the backlog to get completely out of control. The idea that they are making life better and easier for people fleeing war and persecution is for the birds.

I also want to mention areas in which Members on both sides of the House are broadly in agreement, not least because the list is quite short. The Opposition support the principle of Parliament’s having a say each year on the quota or cap for safe and legal routes, as envisaged by clause 51. Every country has a responsibility to do its bit, alongside other countries, to help those fleeing persecution and conflict. However, we also believe that the Government’s policy on safe routes cannot begin and end with caps alone.

The Bill presents us with a rare opportunity to have a serious debate about how best to live up to our international commitments to offer protection to those most in need, especially those fleeing persecution and war. The fact that so many detailed, well thought through proposals have been put forward by hon. Members in amendments and new clauses speaks to the depth of cross-party support for making safe routes work and providing genuine alternatives to dangerous crossings.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

I agree. Some of us are still dealing with people from Afghanistan—people who put their lives on the line to help British forces but have not been able to come here. They listen to the Minister talk about the idea that somehow we have taken 25,000 people under the schemes. We have not—their families are still stuck. If the Minister wants the casework, I have raised on the record before the case of a family who were split up on the way to the Baron hotel.

[Robert Jenrick]

rose—

[Stella Creasy]

If the Minister will take the casework, I will take the intervention. That family need to be here.

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady cannot trade in anecdote rather than facts. The facts of the matter are that the scheme has taken 25,000 individuals since just before the fall of Kabul. Those are the facts. As I always say to the hon. Lady, I am very happy to look into individual cases. But in this Chamber, we should deal in facts—not fiction.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister knows that that is not how the scheme has worked; he knows that only 22 people have been resettled. He already has in his inbox the case I mentioned—it is long overdue his attention. Every single day, I think about that family. They were told that they should go to the Baron hotel. They could not get there because there was an explosion. They are now separated—the family are in hiding and the father is here, desperate and out of his mind about what to do. He was promised a safe and legal route by this Government, but of that promise there came no reality.

That is why I cannot support this Bill in its current form. First and foremost, it does nothing to the smugglers themselves. We all agree that the smugglers are the people we want to stop. Why is there not a single measure in the Bill that directly affects them? The idea that we can cut off their market does not recognise that we have seen these kinds of measures before. All that happens is the prices go up. People disappear; modern slavery increases.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

I look forward to having a debate with the right hon. Gentleman tomorrow about my amendment 293, which would remove the word “Illegal” from the title of the Bill. It is not illegal to seek asylum. What he is talking about is not what the Bill will do. I have tried to urge him before not to process people’s claims in the Chamber; this is about the evidence of what we see.

I have multiple anecdotes about people who have been failed by our asylum system, the processing and the promises they were given of a safe and legal route. That is why this evening I wish to speak to the amendments about safe and legal routes. If the Government think this legislation is about illegal migration, by default there must be a legal process—so those safe and legal routes deserve much more scrutiny and attention. The Government have failed to provide a children’s rights assessment and equality impact assessment. It is so worrying that they are asking us to trust them when they cannot set out how they think people who are entitled to seek asylum because they are fleeing persecution should do so.

When I look at this Bill, I see that it needs a drastic overhaul even to meet its own ambitions or the pledges in article 31 of the refugee convention that somebody destroying their documents should not be penalised by the suggestion that their claim must be malicious. We should look at the actual evidence as to why smugglers encourage them to do that. The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings suggests that somehow the Bill will do what the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 failed to do and what this Government’s policies keep failing to do. Let us learn from Einstein—that most famous refugee, who this country turned away. He said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

My new clause 17 is a probing one, on that basis. If the Government talk about safe and legal routes, we should know what those are intended to do. It simply says that the Government should set out what a safe and legal route is and which countries are therefore unsafe and require a legal route. After all, the Bill sets out countries considered to be safe. Ergo, all the countries not listed must be unsafe. The Government should tell us in Parliament how people should be able to access those routes and therefore not make dangerous journeys.

I also support new clause 13, tabled by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), and the proposals put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) in new clause 10. We would all agree that all these new clauses need further work, but they all get towards a simple principle: to ask what is the role of a safe and legal route in this legislation. If the Bill is about illegal migration, what is the point of safe and legal routes? My amendment 138, which will be debated tomorrow, is about how that might then play a role in asylum processing itself.

There is a simple message in all this work. I agree with the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash); that might surprise people, and I am sorry he is not in the Chamber to hear it. He said that the processing and assessing of claims matters. Absolutely, and that is why the failures we have seen for a number of years have not been to do with the refugees themselves but to do with the politicians and their failure to get to grips with this. That is why it matters that the Government are not using the correct figures from the statistics authority. They are not showing us the true scale of the problem, which legislation has consistently failed to deal with. That is why we need to do something different, such as clarifying what a safe and legal route is and how it fits into the refugee convention and our processing. In a war, there are not simple processes of admin and bureaucracy that we can push people towards, so it matters all the more that we respect and recognise that in how we treat people who still think that life is better than death and who still choose to run.

I say to some Conservative Members that one of the top countries from which the people in the boats come is Iran. I have sat in this Chamber and heard people call out the Iranian Government and speak of their concern about the persecution of people in Iran. Not half an hour later, those people talk about how awful anybody in the boats is, although Iranians are the third most common country represented in them. There is no safe route from Iran.

[Robert Jenrick]

There is.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister says there is. I am in touch with people right now, brave defenders of democracy, who have no route out and are at risk.

[Robert Jenrick]

rose—

[Stella Creasy]

I happily give way. Tell me where I can put them.

[Robert Jenrick]

Since 2015, the UK has taken more than 6,000 Iranians directly for asylum purposes. What the hon. Lady says is simply not true.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister needs to be clear about how those people have been identified. There are people tonight in Tehran at direct risk of harm and needing our help. The challenge with this legislation is that it refuses to set out a safe and legal route, saying that it will be done in secondary guidance. None of us can therefore be confident enough to say to those people, “Hold up—wait for the queue and the bureaucracy. There is somewhere for you to go. Don’t worry, because help is coming.”

The Government must connect with international organisations and uphold the international rule of law. The honest truth is that the only way the world will be able to stand up to dictators and persecutors and against war is by collaborating. We have seen that in such a powerful way in Ukraine, yet we do not seem to be capable of learning the lessons by setting out schemes and being able to say to people, “Actually, there is a way forward, and we will all share the burden of standing up for these values.” That is what a sensible asylum policy would do, because it would be effective. We would cut off the boats at source by having proper, safe and legal routes for people so that they would not need to get on a boat to claim in the first place. Irregular routes are inevitable because of why people are running in the first place.

I also want to speak briefly to amendments 131 and 132—I pay testament to the Member who spoke to me previously about them—which are about our role in the European Court of Human Rights. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) is not here, because I was hoping he might want a chance to clarify his earlier remark, in which he genuinely tried to suggest that Winston Churchill opposed us being part of the European Court of Human Rights. As somebody who served on the Council of Europe and repeatedly saw pictures of Winston Churchill—

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Let me turn now to the cap on the numbers. Members on the Conservative Benches have been quite excitable about the idea of a cap, but there is no capped number in the Bill. It is for the Secretary of State to decide on that at some other point. The Secretary of State could set that cap at zero if she so wished.

[Robert Jenrick]

It is for Parliament.

[Alison Thewliss]

As the Minister well knows, it is to be set in regulations, which this Parliament cannot amend, so it is not for Parliament but for the Secretary of State. He knows how statutory instruments work in this place, as do we, and he knows that this is not something that this House can amend. He is being a bit economical with the truth if he is suggesting that the House can amend it; it cannot. He knows that.

What we are looking to do in amendment 179 and in the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) is to expand the list of those who should be consulted on this and to set a target, not a cap. It is not enough to set a cap. I ask Members to imagine that they are the 101st person with a cap set at 100. It could separate a family, separate siblings or separate a husband and wife who do not meet the threshold; they could just fall on the wrong side of the cap threshold. The Government need to do a whole lot more to make sure that we are actively doing our bit in the world, and setting a cap is nowhere near doing our bit in the world.

I do not wish to detain the House for much longer, because I will be speaking again tomorrow, but I wish to mention the issue around documents. It has been raised by several Members, including the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), who is no longer in his place. When Afghanistan fell, I was contacted by constituents who were terrified for their family members still in the country. Some 80 families in my constituency had relatives in Afghanistan, but I am aware of only two of them who were able to be reunited with their families. Clearly, the Government did not do enough. These are people who have family in this country, who could be safe and who could be out of Afghanistan, and they are not.

People in Afghanistan had documents. If the Taliban had found those documents on them, they would have seen that they had worked for British forces and that would have been a death sentence, so people in Afghanistan burned those documents. That is why people turn up here with no documents—those documents would have been their death sentence had they been found in their possession. Members on the Conservative Benches who seem to think that not having documents is some kind of admission of guilt fail to understand the very real pressures that asylum seekers face when they make these dangerous journeys, and when they try to seek sanctuary here to regain the relationships with the people whom they know. They will run and run and keep running until they find safety. That is the reality, and that is what the Bill denies people.

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I think about those 27 people who tragically died crossing the channel in November 2021, as well as those who have lost their lives crossing the Mediterranean seeking refuge. Their deaths could have been avoided if safe passage and a humanitarian corridor had been in place. We have the opportunity this evening to do that—to introduce an amendment that provides safe passage for our fellow human beings and to reject the potentially fatal elements of this Bill.

[Robert Jenrick]

This has been an excellent debate covering the provisions of the Bill relating to legal proceedings, the cap on the number of refugees to be admitted through new safe and legal routes, and safe countries of origin.

Let me deal briefly with the substantive Government amendments in this group. First, new clause 11 enables the Senior President of Tribunals to request first-tier tribunal judges, including employment tribunal judges, to sit as judges of the upper tribunal. This amendment extends existing deployment powers, which are an important tool for the judiciary to manage the fluctuations in demand in our courts and make best use of their time.

We have also brought forward new clause 12, which enables appeals under the Bill to be heard by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission rather than the upper tribunal in appropriate cases. That is necessary to safeguard the sensitive material that would cause harm to the public or individuals if it were revealed in open court. The test for certifying suspensive claims will require that the Home Secretary certify that the decision being taken relies partly or wholly on information that in her opinion should not be made public. I hope that those Government amendments will receive the support of the Committee of the whole House.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the Minister very much for giving way. He will recall that, at the beginning of the debate, I raised a point of order about the fact that he, on 19 December, said that when Labour left office in 2010, the asylum “backlog…was 450,000”—his words. I have received a letter from the UK Statistics Authority completely debunking that claim. It says that in fact the backlog was 19,000, and the backlog now is 166,000. As he is at the Dispatch Box, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for him to apologise to the House and to correct the record, as per his duties under the ministerial code.

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for looking out for me. It is understandable that there would be confusion on this point because, as I think the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), said on Second Reading, the situation that we inherited in 2010 was a complete shambles. Indeed, a former Labour Home Secretary described the Department as “not fit for purpose”. What we were referring to was John Vine, who was the chief inspector of borders and immigration. He conducted a report into the shambolic handling of immigration by the last Labour Government, and he said:

“In 2007, the UK Border Agency created the”—

euphemistically titled—

“Case Resolution Directorate…to conclude approximately 400,000-450,000 unresolved legacy records.”

He said:

“Such was the inefficiency of this operation that at one point over 150 boxes of post, including correspondence from applicants, MPs and their legal representatives, lay unopened in a room in Liverpool.”

That room, I am told, was colloquially known as the “room of doom”. Well, we are fixing the system, and I am pleased to say—

[Stephen Kinnock]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

No, I am not going to give way again. The hon. Member has had his moment. I am pleased to say that, as a result of the work that the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and I have already done, the legacy backlog is falling rapidly, and we intend to meet our commitment to clear it over the course of the year.

[Alison Thewliss]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady.

I do not want to detain the Committee for too long, so let me turn to the key points that have been raised tonight. First, with respect to the powerful speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and others relating to the important question of injunctive relief, rule 39, and how we as a sovereign Parliament handle ourselves and ensure that we secure our borders, I thank my right hon. and hon. Friends for their contributions and I recognise the positive intention of the amendments they have tabled. I am keen to give them an undertaking that I will engage with them and other colleagues who are interested in these points ahead of Report.

We are united in our determination that the Bill will be robust, that it will be able to survive the kind of egregious and vexatious legal challenges we have seen in the past, and that it will enable us to do the job and remove illegal immigrants to safe third countries such as Rwanda. I would add that the Bill has been carefully drafted in collaboration with some of the finest legal minds, and we do believe that it enables us to do the job while complying with our international law obligations. However, we are going to engage closely with colleagues and ensure that the final Bill meets the requirements of all those on our side of the Chamber.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

rose—

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[Robert Jenrick]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Let me speak briefly about the point raised by a number of colleagues about rule 39 and the events of last summer. The Government share the frustration, certainly of Conservative Members, about what happened with the Rwanda flight in June. A case was conducted late at night at the last minute, with no chance for us to make our case or appeal its decision. That was deeply flawed. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) was right when she said, in a thoughtful contribution, that that raises concerning issues. I think it raises issues of natural justice that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General and others in Government are taking up with the European Court of Human Rights. We want to find a more satisfactory way for the Court to behave in such circumstances in future.

Let me turn briefly to the swathe of amendments tabled by the Scottish National party. At this rate, there will be more SNP amendments to the Bill than there are refugees whom they accommodate in Scotland. Instead of pruning the already excessive forest of legal challenges that we find, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) proposes a Kafkaesque array of new ones. She wants to turn the robust scheme in the Bill into a sieve, and we cannot allow that to happen. The mandate of the British public is clear: they want us to stop the boats. That is what the Bill does, and that is what we intend to achieve.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for his contribution. We have listened carefully to his arguments. As the Prime Minister said, it is precisely because we want to help genuine refugees that we need to take full control of our borders. Safe and legal routes, such as those we have brought forward in recent years, which have enabled almost half a million people to come to our country for humanitarian purposes since 2015, are exactly how we will achieve that. I commit to engage with my hon. Friend and other colleagues ahead of Report on setting up safe and legal routes, if necessary by bringing forward further amendments to ensure that there are new routes in addition to the existing schemes, and accelerating the point at which they become operational, with our intention being to open them next year. I also confirm that we will accelerate the process of launching the local authority consultation on safe and legal routes at the same time as the commencement of the Bill. I hope that satisfies my hon. Friend.

As a former Secretary of State for local government, one provision in the Bill—it was mentioned by a number of colleagues on the Conservative Benches but curiously not by those on the Opposition Benches—is extremely important to me. Government Members will not make promises in this place at the expense of local authorities and our constituents. For the first time, not only will we bring forward more safe and legal routes, but we will first consult with local communities and local authorities, so that those routes are not virtue signalling, but are wedded to the genuine capacity and ability of our communities to house people, to find GP surgery appointments and school places, and to bring those individuals into the country while ensuring that community tensions are not raised unnecessarily. That is a critical distinction.

[Stephen Kinnock]

rose—

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[Robert Jenrick]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] Well, I will give way, because at one point in his remarks he said that he was for the cap, and then he said he was against it. Perhaps he can explain.

[Stephen Kinnock]

The right hon. Gentleman is making good points about local authority consultation. Will he therefore support new clause 27 tomorrow, which would make it a legal requirement for the Home Office to consult local authorities before deciding on hotels?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman should read the Bill. We have been debating it for the past five and a half hours, but he does not seem to have read it. The Bill says, for the very first time, that before we create a safe and legal route we will consult with local authorities. We should all see that as a good step forward. The public are sick of hotels being filled with illegal immigrants and they do not want the wellbeing of illegal immigrants put above that of the British public. That is a crucial change we are making.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

The Prime Minister made a commitment on 13 December to clear the legacy backlog of asylum applications over the course of this year. I am pleased to report that we are on track to deliver that. We have already doubled the number of caseworkers, and we are on course to double the number again. We are streamlining processes to reduce unnecessary paperwork while maintaining robust standards. The productivity of caseworkers has more than doubled since the start of the year.

[Hannah Bardell]

My constituents Mr and Mrs Leeson have UK residency but are American citizens. They live in my Livingston constituency and are highly skilled, but they have had huge issues with getting their niece Karissa, who they have guardianship over, a visa to come to Scotland. A US court has ruled that they are her guardians, but they are being told that they will have to wait six months for an administrative review. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the case? My constituent and her niece are currently stuck in the US, and the family are being separated.

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to look into the case that the hon. Lady raises. With respect to visas, I would just say that the UK visa service is now meeting or exceeding every one of its service standards, so the Government are providing a good service generally, but I would be happy to look into that case.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The Minister says that the Government are providing a good service, but that is not my experience, either of asylum cases or across the piece. There are so many cases of work visas, visitor visas and so on being delayed for longer than I have seen in the 18 years I have served as an MP, which have included serving in the Minister’s role. When will he get a grip? It is all very well saying that he is dealing with asylum, but it is like whack-a-mole: he puts effort into one area, and another area goes badly wrong. When is he going to get a grip?

[Robert Jenrick]

I prefer to trade in facts, and the fact is that in every single one of the visa categories the UK visa service is at or exceeding the service standard. It is true that we moved a number of people away from work and visit visa duties to ensure that we met the demands of the Homes for Ukraine scheme last year, but those people are now back on the job and the service is performing well. If the hon. Lady wants to give specific examples, I shall be happy to look into them.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

The backlog of asylum seekers is increasing the need for accommodation. We have just heard outrage expressed by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). Can my right hon. Friend update the House on the progress that the Scottish Government are making on housing numbers of asylum seekers similar to the numbers housed in the rest of the United Kingdom?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is right to suggest that the outrage of the Scottish National party is entirely confected. There are almost no individuals in initial and contingency accommodation in Scotland; in fact, there are fewer hotels in Scotland than there are in Kensington. However, it is not just members of the SNP who should hang their heads in shame, but Labour in Wales, because in the whole of Wales there are only three hotels. There are more hotels in Earl’s Court than there are in Labour Wales.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend knows, the sudden influx over, say, a bank holiday weekend of thousands of migrants who have crossed the channel in small boats causes substantial infrastructure problems in Kent. If we are to stop this dangerous trafficking of people across the channel, we must not only crack down on the gangs but demonstrate that it is a futile practice which will not lead to a shortcut into the asylum system in the UK.

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend has cut to the nub of the question. We cannot build ourselves out of this issue by creating more hotels or large sites. The only sustainable answer is to break the people smugglers’ model, and that is what the Illegal Migration Bill sets out to do. We on this side of the House are on the side of the British people, while those who vote against the Bill are on the side of the people smugglers. It is only by stopping people crossing the channel, by creating a genuine deterrent—for instance, sending people to a safe third country such as Rwanda—that we will achieve that.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

3. What steps her Department is taking to improve charge rates for perpetrators of violence against women and girls.

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[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

8. What recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Illegal Migration Bill on levels of (a) modern slavery and (b) sex trafficking.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

Let me be clear: the UK Government are committed to tackling the heinous crime of modern slavery and to supporting victims. We continue to invest in the police to support them to improve the support they offer victims, and to drive up prosecutions. A total of £16.5 million has been provided by the Home Office since 2016, including £1.4 million last year for the modern slavery and organised crime unit.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

First, my thoughts and prayers are with my constituents the Gentle family, who lost their son Gordon during the Iraq war. We should remember all those military families who lost loved ones during that conflict.

Is the Salvation Army correct when it points out that detaining trafficking victims as they arrive and then removing them will simply deliver vulnerable people back into the hands of the criminal gangs that exploited them in the first place, and that that does nothing to break the cycle of exploitation but only further fuels the profits of these criminal gangs?

[Robert Jenrick]

No, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. The Illegal Migration Bill makes it clear that we want to break the cycle of the human traffickers. We will do that by carefully considering cases and returning those people who can be returned to their home country, where it is safe to do so. In cases such as Albania, we have worked closely with the Government to put in place the procedures necessary to ensure that those people are carefully looked after and not at risk of re-trafficking. If that is not the case, they will be taken to a safe third country such as Rwanda where, once again, their needs will be looked after.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Just to correct the Minister, it was not the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) who made that criticism, but the Salvation Army, which the Home Office employs as its main contractor on trafficking.

I asked the Prime Minister this, and I got no answer, so I am trying again. When I worked on a Home Office contract, I met many women and children who had been brought here illegally to be repeatedly raped as sex slaves. The Prime Minister tweeted that such victims would be denied access to support from our modern slavery system—a tweet that will be an absolute delight to traffickers. How will we help to prevent a woman who is brought here illegally from being repeatedly raped if she is denied access to our modern slavery system?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady and I agree that we want to do everything we can to support the victims of human trafficking, but we disagree on how we do that. She is content for people to be brought across the channel in small boats at the behest of human traffickers. We want to break that cycle once and for all, and we believe that that is the fair and the moral thing to do. Today, a majority of the cases being considered for modern slavery are people who are coming into the country—for example, on small boats. We are seeing flagrant abuse, which is making it impossible for us to deal appropriately with the genuine victims, to the point that 71% of foreign national offenders in the detained estate, whom we are trying to remove from the country, are claiming to be modern slaves. That is wrong, and we are going to stop it.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

9. Whether she has had recent discussions with the Scottish Government on the operation of the Dungavel House immigration removal centre.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

There is regular contact between Dungavel House immigration removal centre and relevant local stakeholders, as necessary, on issues relating to the day-to-day running of the centre. Although immigration is not a devolved matter, we will keep the Scottish Government informed should there be any significant changes.

[Neale Hanvey]

I share my constituents’ shock at the distasteful photoshoot of the Home Secretary outside the transportation camp in Rwanda. Will she set out the following in regards to Dungavel? How will this whole process work? How many refugees at Dungavel House are earmarked for transportation to Rwanda? How many are children or pregnant women? If the Home Secretary cannot give us those numbers now, I am happy to receive a letter later.

[Robert Jenrick]

Well, I share the disappointment at those who peddle misinformation of any kind. However, with respect to Dungavel House, it is an immigration removal centre and it is used routinely to detain, prior to removal, foreign national offenders and those who have entered our country illegally and whom we are seeking to remove. The hon. Gentleman and I may disagree on this issue. We on the Government side of the House want to remove foreign national offenders. We do not want them to remain in the UK. We also do not want to close detention centres. The right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) campaigned to be Leader of the Opposition on a pledge to close detention centres, but we want to get dangerous offenders such as murderers and rapists out of this country.

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[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

T2. As a host to Ukrainian refugees, I have been able to witness at first hand the difficulty and hardship when someone is separated from their family. My constituent Hazel Randall hosts a 24-year-old, Katya, who wanted to help her family reunite briefly in the UK, but they were faced with a £100 per person visa fee and a 200-mile round trip to the application centre to be able to travel to the UK. Will my right hon. Friend consider temporarily waiving tourist visa fees for Ukrainians wanting to visit their families?

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

Last week marked the first anniversary of the launch of the Homes for Ukraine scheme, which my hon. Friend took part in, and it is a powerful rejoinder to anyone who says that the UK is anything other than generous and compassionate to those in need. I have listened to his remarks, and I have had a conversation with His Excellency the Ukrainian ambassador in that regard. We have taken an important step in the past month by reopening our visa centre at our embassy in Kyiv, so that Ukrainian nationals can begin those processes in their home territory, rather than having to leave and go to Warsaw.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)]

T3.   Reports in today’s edition of The Times about the extreme activities of those promoted by the Islamic Centre of England, a UK-registered charity funded by the Iranian authorities and under the direction of the UK representative of the Iranian supreme leader, are just the latest evidence of the threat that Iran poses in the UK. The Security Minister has already told the House about the very real threat that Iran has made to UK-based individuals, including the Jewish community. Does the Minister agree that it is finally the time to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps?

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[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

T4. The Refugee Council estimates that if 65,000 people crossed the channel this year, it would cost £219 million to detain them for 28 days, or £1.4 billion to detain them for six months. Are figures such as those the reason for the Home Secretary’s refusing to share the economic impact assessment of the Illegal Migration Bill with the House?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful case for deterrence, which is exactly what the Illegal Migration Bill does. It will deter people from crossing the channel and break the model of the people smugglers.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T7. Tomorrow is the 80th anniversary of the formation of the Dambusters 617 squadron at RAF Scampton. Will the Home Secretary have a conversation with her Minister for Immigration about the meeting I had this morning with him, West Lindsey District Council and Scampton Holdings, in which the Minister was told in terms that if the Home Secretary goes ahead with her plan for 1,500 migrants to be placed there, it will scupper the long-term retention of the runway and the £300 million-worth of investment by Scampton Holdings?

[Robert Jenrick]

I had a helpful and constructive meeting with my right hon. Friend and his constituents. No decision has been made with respect to RAF Scampton, and we will consider all of the things that were said in that meeting extremely carefully as we come to a final decision.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Neale Hanvey—not here.

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[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

In my constituency, I have employers who are struggling to recruit staff living next door to asylum seekers who are not allowed to work. Last week’s Budget talked about boosting employment. Does the Home Secretary agree that lifting the ban on work for asylum seekers would help to boost employment?

[Robert Jenrick]

We do not agree with that: we do not want to see any further pull factors to the UK. We want to see deterrence suffused throughout our approach, and one element of that is ensuring that those who come illegally are detained and then removed from the country.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I was encouraged by the answers that my right hon. Friend the Security Minister gave earlier in relation to Iran, and the evidence put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), as well as the report in The Times this morning that has been referred to. Does the Security Minister therefore agree that that reflects a deliberate attempt by the Iranian regime to use whatever foothold available in our national life to spread conspiracy theories, extremism and radicalisation?

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[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Today I heard harrowing testimonies from the Turkish community in Coventry North West who have lost family members in the tragic earthquake. They would like to be reunited with the family members they have left, hopefully via a family visa scheme, so what steps is the Home Office taking to provide support to those affected by the earthquake in Turkey and Syria?

[Robert Jenrick]

Our sympathies go to all those affected by the tragic events in Turkey. The UK Government are doing a number of things, including sending specialists to help with those who have been trapped in the wreckage. We have a range of visa options, including family reunion and visit visas, so that those people who have strong family ties to the United Kingdom can come here.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Last week, I raised with the Foreign Secretary that, for the past 15 months, I have been trying to bring to safety five British children in hiding in Kabul after their British father was blown up by the Taliban. They are too young to travel alone, but the Home Office will not grant their Afghan mother a visa, unless she passes an English test. However, she is not allowed to access education in Afghanistan. The Foreign Office tells me it is a Home Office issue. The Home Office is not responding to my correspondence, so will the Minister grant me a meeting to discuss this case?

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to look into the case. I would just say that over 25,000 individuals have been brought safely to the United Kingdom since Operation Pitting and that is something we should all be proud of.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Children are regularly detained in police cells for long periods and for too long without an appropriate adult being present, despite that being both a requirement and an essential safeguard for children. Will the Minister confirm today that, when police powers and procedures data is published later this year, it will include the number of minutes taken for an appropriate adult to arrive and the duration of time present—and if not this year, when?

Illegal Migration Bill

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. Those are damning words that we have heard from the Board of Deputies and many other organisations on the impact this legislation will have.

At the heart of the Bill, there is a con. The Prime Minister has pledged that anyone who arrives in the UK without the right papers will be detained and swiftly removed, “no ifs, no buts”. But where to? Not to France, because the Prime Minister failed to get a returns agreement, and he has failed with other countries as well. The Bill makes it harder to get returns agreements, because it undermines compliance with the international laws and standards that those other countries are committed to upholding—standards that we used to be committed to upholding.

People will not be removed to Rwanda either; the Home Secretary has admitted already that that scheme is failing. The taxpayer has already written a £140 million cheque. The Home Office says it is unenforceable, with a high risk of fraud and no evidence of a deterrent effect. The Israel-Rwanda deal increased trafficking, rather than reducing it. At most, the Rwandan authorities say that they may take a couple of hundred people, but 45,000 people arrived last year.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

indicated dissent.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Immigration Minister shakes his head, but he said in a statement in December in this House that the initial promise was to receive 200 people and the further preparations had not been made.

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[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

The words of the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) must have some meaning for him. They do not for anybody else in this debate, because they do not make any sense or bring any delivery for the people we represent.

This country is based on the rule of law. We are in the UN Security Council. We wrote the European convention on human rights. We were the main principals behind the Geneva convention. We penned the war crimes legislation that is now in existence. People here are being accused of being lefty lawyers for doing the right thing and standing up for people and for our rights which are enshrined in law. We have always worked to the letter of the law, and so we should.

The Home Secretary takes no advice from the Bar Council and no advice from the Law Society, which both say that the Bill will create contradictions and will have problems in the courts, just like those the Government have already had. The Government do not want to do anything about that, and that is a problem. There are no safe routes for anybody to come through. Afghanistan has been closed. Hong Kong has been closed.

[Robert Jenrick]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Mahmood]

The Minister shakes his head. If he tried getting out of Afghanistan, he would see what the issues are.

Women who have been trafficked will have no support under the Bill. Young children in jeopardy will have no support under the Bill. The Bill is against the people, and against the human rights and civil liberties of people. The Labour party does not say there is an open and a free door. That is what the Tories say about the Labour party. The Labour party is here to look at open and positive immigration. That is what we want to do.

The Home Secretary said that she cannot be xenophobic or racist just because of her colour and origins. I say to her, being of the same colour and origin, that that is exactly what her politics are about—dividing our society and our community based on that. That is what she continues to do. The best thing that she can do is to look at what is right for the people, rather than making political decisions that she thinks will win her the next election. That is not the case. The people of the United Kingdom are not so naive as to allow this huge nonsense of xenophobia and racism from her party. She needs the knock of humanity to move forward with these issues.

We are all here representing all of our constituents—the Home Secretary does not understand that. For her sake and for the sake of all the people who come here, I hope that we are responsible for human beings and show humanity moving forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

This has been a passionate debate characterised by many excellent speeches, and I commend among others on my side my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) for a series of outstanding speeches. I commend none more than my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall), who said that his constituent had told him:

“I implore you to vote to stop this vile trade…and you and your fellow MPs can make it happen.”

He spoke for the country.

As my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have made clear, we must stop the boats and secure our borders. Our approach is guided by that most British of values: fairness. The present situation is anything but fair. Ours is a generous and compassionate country and we will continue to offer sanctuary and refuge to those fleeing persecution, conflict and tyranny, but we will not accept mass illegal migration to our shores, orchestrated by people smugglers. It is for that reason that we are introducing this Bill today, to address this challenge once and for all.

Let me start by addressing some of the important points that were raised, first by those hon. and right hon. Members who have argued for the exclusion of children and families from the scheme or the detention powers. This is a difficult and sensitive topic, but let me be clear: we cannot allow women and children to be used as pawns in the people smugglers’ despicable trade. I have seen for myself the depravity of the people-smuggling gangs. There is no low to which they would not stoop. They have no regard for human life. If we were inadvertently to create an incentive to split up families and to encourage adults to make false claims, there is no doubt in my mind that the people-smuggling gangs would do it. That is why we will handle this issue with the sensitivity it deserves, but we will also ensure that we break the evil people smugglers’ model.

My right hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) both spoke powerfully about the modern slavery frameworks they forged and the need to protect genuine victims. We agree. The Government are committed to tackling the heinous crime of modern slavery and to supporting victims, and it is for that reason that we want to prevent abuse. Just 6% of detentions ending in 2019 involved a modern slavery referral, rising to 53% in 2020 and 73% in 2021. We have to defend the modern slavery architecture by reforming it and ensuring that it is not open to abuse.

The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Home Secretary, spoke eloquently, but she could not bring herself to say that those crossing the channel in small boats are illegal or that it is wrong to break into our country.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

No, I will not.

Nor could the shadow Home Secretary explain what these migrants, the overwhelming majority of whom are young men, fleeing through Greece, through Italy, through Germany, through Belgium, through the Netherlands and, indeed, through France are actually fleeing. She lamented the absence of a European replacement for the Dublin agreement, but she failed to mention that just 1% of the UK’s transfer requests were granted in 2020 and that, year after year, we took back more people than we transferred. She did not provide one credible proposal to stop the boats, which should come as no surprise because, when Labour announced its five missions, stopping the boats did not even feature. Labour has literally nothing to say.

The right hon. Lady was sensible enough not to say it, but her Back Benchers betrayed the real views of the Labour party. They queued up, one after another, to dismiss the perfectly reasonable concerns of the British public as “racist” and “fascist.”

And from the SNP we heard what can only be described as performative compassion. In her 25 minutes, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) did not mention the fact that Scotland accounts for 8% of the UK’s population but hosts only 1% of all migrants in initial and contingency accommodation. In fact, there are more migrants housed in contingency accommodation in Kensington than there are in the entirety of Scotland. The SNP’s message is clear: “Refugees welcome, but not in SNP Scotland.”

Let me be clear that this country will always provide support to those in need, and nothing in this Bill will ever change that. As we have seen with the 500,000 people who entered this country in recent years on humanitarian visas—more than at any time in our modern history—this country believes in dealing with migrants with dignity, but it also believes that there is no dignity in the dinghies. There is no humanity in the people smugglers, and we have to break their business model. That is why we brought forward this Bill.

There is a simple choice before us. Is it for the British Government or for the people-smuggling gangs to decide who enters this country? On this side of the House, we believe that, without border controls, national security is ultimately compromised, that the fabric of communities begins to fray and that public services come under intolerable pressure. Although we should always be generous to those in need, we believe there are limits to the support we can provide. It is Members on this side of the House who are on the right side of the moral debate. It is clear that, for that reason, we will stop the boats, we will secure our borders and I commend this Bill to the House.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Written Statements

[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.

The Government’s No. 1 priority is keeping the UK safe. In order to further strengthen our border security the Government are launching an electronic travel authorisation (ETA) scheme.

The ETA scheme will be implemented in a phased manner, on a nationality basis, over the next two years. Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will be the first countries to benefit from the ETA scheme. The Home Office will provide further details about which country will be next to benefit from the ETA scheme in due course.

These rules explain how the UK's forthcoming ETA scheme will be administered. The rules set out: who is required to apply for and obtain an ETA prior to travelling to the United Kingdom; the form or manner in which an application for an ETA may be made, granted or refused and specifies the conditions which must be met before an application for an ETA may be granted. The rules also stipulate how long an ETA will be valid for, the conditions under which it may be varied or cancelled and any exceptions to the requirement to obtain one.

We are also implementing changes for Innovators which have previously been announced in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s document “UK Innovation Strategy: leading the future by creating it”, published on 22 July 2021. The innovator founder route removes the £50,000 minimum funds requirement currently applied to those coming to the UK to establish an innovative business in order to make more flexible provision for those with a genuine proposal for an innovative business and sufficient funds to deliver it. The changes relax existing restrictions on innovators engaging in employment outside the running of their business, provided such secondary employment is in a skilled role, i.e., at least skilled to RQF Level 3.

The changes close the existing start-up route to new initial applications except where they are supported by endorsements issued before 13 April 2023. With the removal of the £50,000 minimum funds requirement for innovator founders, it is no longer necessary to retain a separate route for start-up entrepreneurs that do not have access to this level of funds. This means that applicants who would not meet the existing £50,000 requirement will be able to obtain permission for three years from the outset, rather than the one year granted to start-up route applicants under existing arrangements.

The salary requirements for skilled work immigration routes have been updated in line with the latest annual survey of hours and earnings (ASHE) data. To prevent exploitation of migrants, a minimum salary is set, based on the 25th percentile of average earnings for each job role, as per the most recent ASHE data. The skilled worker route base line minimum salary has also been increased.

Finally, more routes have been simplified in line with the recommendations of the Law Commission report “Simplifying the Immigration Rules”, to which the Government responded on 25 March 2020.

The changes to the Immigration Rules are being laid on 9 March 2023. The changes relating to the ETA and updates to employment requirements in work routes will come into effect on 12 April 2023. The new innovator founder route will come into effect on 13 April 2023.

[HCWS622]

Draft Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Procedure) (Amendment) Rules 2023

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 General Committees

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Procedure) (Amendment) Rules 2023.

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. The instrument was laid before Parliament on 2 February. It deals with two important issues. First, I will touch on the deprivation provisions. Maintaining our national security and keeping the public safe are of paramount importance to the Government, and that is why deprivation of citizenship when it is conducive to the public good is deployed for those who pose a threat to the UK or whose conduct involves very high harm.

The power to deprive an individual of their British citizenship has existed in law for over a century, since the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914; it is currently found in section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981. When passing deprivation measures in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the House agreed that in cases when the Secretary of State intends to make a deprivation order without prior notification, on the grounds that it is conducive to the public good, an application must be made to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, which will consider the Secretary of State’s reasons not to give notice.

To implement that process, we first made amendments to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997 in November last year. Those amendments gave the Lord Chancellor the power to amend procedure rules in relation to those applications. Using that power, we now intend to make the necessary amendments to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Procedure) Rules 2003. That will set clear guidelines for the Secretary of State and the Special Immigration Appeals Commission when dealing with applications under the new process.

The instrument will specify the information that must be included in applications and make provision for the Secretary of State to vary or withdraw an application. It also confirms that

“the Secretary of State is the only party to proceedings”,

and makes provision for the Secretary of State to appeal a determination of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. The instrument also sets out that the Special Immigration Appeals Commission must give a determination within 14 days of receiving the application or its variation. That reflects the fact that the Secretary of State might have to act very swiftly in the interests of national security.

The instrument is the final stage in implementing the safeguards relating to section 10 of the Nationality and Borders Act, which the House agreed to during the passage of the Act.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

The Minister has given an excellent explanation of the safeguards in the process, which will be enhanced by the instrument. Does he recall some of the scaremongering during the Nationality and Borders Act debates about how there would somehow be no oversight of how the deprivation provisions would be used? Actually, this is about dealing with some of the worst threats to our national security—who may literally be in war zones, where it is impossible to serve a notice on them.

[Robert Jenrick]

I certainly do. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who was my predecessor and played a critical role in the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act. He is right to say that the suggestions made during the passage of that Act were spurious and wrong and also that the power will be used in the most judicious way to tackle some of the gravest threats to our national security. Examples might include an individual who our security services have reliable evidence is a secret agent acting against the interests of the United Kingdom, whose passport and citizenship we would want to remove, but who—for obvious reasons—we might struggle to locate. Therefore, we would have to use this special procedure to remove their citizenship at short notice.

As I hope I have made clear in my opening remarks, my hon. Friend is also right to say that the special procedure comes with a very clear safeguard: before the Secretary of State issues any of these notices, it will go before a specialist tribunal judge, who will make a statement on the case saying it is clearly correct and valid.

I turn to credibility statements, the second element covered by the statutory instrument. Sections 19 and 22 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 create additional behaviours that should result in an asylum or human rights claimant’s credibility being damaged. That includes a requirement for decision makers to consider the late provision of evidence without good reason in response to an evidence notice or a priority removal notice as behaviour that should be damaging to a claimant’s credibility.

As part of the suite of measures being introduced to encourage the timely provision of evidence in support of asylum and human rights claims, sections 19 and 22 of the Nationality and Borders Act establish a new requirement in the procedure rules of both the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and the Immigration and Asylum Chamber. When judges dispose of asylum and human rights decisions, and when credibility issues arise, they must include in their decisions a statement of how they have taken into account all the potential credibility-damaging behaviours.

The changes to the procedure rules of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission effectively secure what judges are already required to do according to current case law. However, this instrument and the creation of new procedure rules will make it abundantly clear what judges are required to do, and that will ensure that there is clear and efficient decision making in these important matters. I commend the draft rules to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

Happy St David’s Day to you, Sir Robert, and the other Members present.

I will answer some of the questions that hon. Members asked. I am grateful to the Opposition for their support for these important measures. The Government view British citizenship as a privilege that, in the most extreme circumstances, can be revoked where individuals have chosen to take a course of action that poses a grave threat to national security. The hon. Member for Aberavon can be assured that the Home Secretary—and, I suspect, her successors—will take that duty extremely seriously and apply it only in cases that command broad support. It is right that there is appropriate judicial oversight, and that is the purpose of this statutory instrument.

As the hon. Gentleman says, this measure will ensure that a highly experienced judge will hear the case prior to any steps being taken by the Home Secretary; that judge will decide whether it is obviously flawed, to prevent any cases that do not meet the evidential bar from proceeding. It is right that that should happen, because this is a very significant step.

We do not believe that further steps are required before we can move forward and begin the implementation and operationalisation of the process. The first applications will flow in time; I do not have a particular date because that is not the nature of this case load. If he looks back on recent years, the hon. Gentleman will see that the numbers are highly sporadic. They depend on events in international affairs. Particular conflicts have sparked more proposals to the Home Secretary, and there have been periods when there have been fewer applications.

Home Secretaries very rarely bring such matters forward themselves. Most cases come to the Home Secretary from the security services, which have specific intelligence about individuals and ask the Home Secretary to consider it and act as swiftly as possible. This Home Secretary, like others, will of course consider it in due course.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Is the Minister confident that there are sufficient safeguards to ensure that the security services have the right person?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am confident. It is the duty of the Home Secretary of the day to read the evidence that is presented to him or her by the security services, consider it carefully, ask appropriate questions, probe that work, and then make a decision. The purpose of this instrument is to provide a further check to that important decision. It ensures that an experienced judge hears the evidence, either in public or in private. That is ultimately a decision for the judge, depending on the evidence presented. It may be a mixture of the two, given that some evidence clearly cannot be heard in open court. It will ultimately be for the Home Secretary to decide to proceed.

[Valerie Vaz]

Obviously, there is a turnaround time of 14 days. Is the Minister confident that there are sufficient judges? Are more going to be appointed?

[Robert Jenrick]

I have not heard any suggestion that there are insufficient judges. This type of case would be heard by the most experienced judges in SIAC, as the right hon. Lady would expect, given that these are some of the most complex cases that will ever come before them.

[Kevin Foster]

The Minister will obviously be aware that these decisions are taken on the basis of extensive files and evidence. On disapplying the notice requirement, for example, there is still a full appeals process so that if someone feels that the decision is incorrect, they can appeal it. To be clear, there are plenty of opportunities for oversight and ensuring that the decisions are proportionate and fair. As the Minister rightly said, this is done only in the most serious cases.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

That is absolutely right. Individuals who are subject to one of these orders will be able to appeal. We may well not have been able to serve on that individual, so a degree of flexibility will be applied. If the individual were to attempt to return to the United Kingdom at a later stage, we would offer them an opportunity to appeal at that point, when their whereabouts become known to us—even if that is some time after the order has been made.

On the other questions that the right hon. Member for Walsall South asked, legal aid is available for individuals in this position. There is not a suggestion that those subject to one of these orders will be without legal representation. Clearly, the nature of these cases means that in most instances they will be out of country and unable to make direct representations; otherwise, we would not be serving a notice in this manner. As I said, when they resurface and make their whereabouts known, there will be further opportunities for them to make an appeal if they wish to do so.

I hope that I have answered the majority of Committee members’ questions. I commend the instrument to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Knowsley Incident

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab) (Urgent Question)]

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the wider implications of the violent incident in Knowsley on Friday 10 February 2023.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

The incident at the asylum accommodation centre in Knowsley on 10 February was totally unacceptable. As the Home Secretary and I have repeatedly made clear, there is never any excuse for violence. A substantial police response was deployed to the incident, and I offer my thanks to the officers involved on the night and subsequently for their service. A number of arrests were made, and the police investigation is ongoing. The Home Office remains in close contact with Merseyside police.

The Home Office takes its responsibilities to those in temporary asylum accommodation and to local communities extremely seriously. Alongside the police and Home Office accommodation providers, we are closely monitoring the situation around the country and the activities of relevant groups. Security at our accommodation sites has been enhanced and is kept under constant review.

We will always defend the right to peaceful protest and freedom of speech, but we will not tolerate violence, intimidation or attacks on the police. The police have a range of powers to deal with unlawful behaviour, and anyone taking part in criminal activity can and should expect the full force of the law. I have met senior Home Office officials and the police to discuss the lessons to be learned from this and other incidents and to ensure that appropriate steps are being taken.

The unprecedented number of illegal, unnecessary and dangerous small boat crossings has pushed our asylum system to breaking point. We share the frustrations of the British public about the abuse of our generosity by human traffickers and illegal migrants, who are leaving the evidently safe France and entering our country in flagrant breach of our laws. Just as everyone has the duty to obey the law, they have the right to expect that the law, including our immigration laws, will be enforced.

The enduring solution is to break the business model of the evil people smugglers and to stop the boats. The system we will build is one where if someone comes here illegally via a safe country, they will not have a route to life in the UK, and we will bring forward legislation to that effect in due course. That does not mean we are abandoning our country’s instinct and history of generosity and compassion. We will continue to assist those in genuine need of our protection. To do that, we must address illegal migration, and that is what this Government’s reforms will do.

[Sir George Howarth]

May I begin by thanking the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for contacting me following the appalling incident that occurred on 10 February at a demonstration outside a hotel in Knowsley? A further smaller scale demonstration took place on Friday evening. The scenes that unfolded were truly shocking, with three people, one of whom was a police officer, receiving minor injuries and a police vehicle being vandalised and set on fire. I should point out that the demonstration was attended by a substantial number of residents, many of whom conducted themselves peacefully and lawfully. Unfortunately, some did not, as the number of arrests regrettably illustrates. This is not, however, typical of the people of Knowsley or Kirkby, who are not bigoted, racist or unwelcoming.

I do have concerns, as the Minister is aware, about the involvement of far-right groups from outside of Knowsley, such as Patriotic Alternative, Yorkshire Rose and Britain First, in promoting that event and seeking to stir up racial hatred in our community and others.

Before concluding I would like to put some questions to the Minister. First, does he share my concern about the involvement of those far-right groups in such incidents, and will he consider proscribing them? Secondly, will the Minster undertake an urgent review of the use of hotels to house refugees and report back to the House? Thirdly, as part of such a review, will the Minister look at alternatives to hotels, taking into account the housing needs of local residents, and work with local councils to arrive at more suitable options? Will the Minister agree to meet me and officials from Knowsley to discuss what can be done to address the local situation?

Fourthly, can the Minister at some point make a further statement to the House about how the Government propose to fix the asylum system? Finally, does the Minister agree with me that in these circumstances, some social media sites are used as platforms for poison and misinformation? Will he urge the companies that own them to ensure that the platforms are used more responsibly?

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the experienced and measured manner in which he has led his community in recent days. I associate myself with his remarks regarding the people of Knowsley.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that a number of groups have been involved in the protest in his constituency, as well as those elsewhere in the country, and that the behaviour of those groups is at times disgraceful and vile, and should be stamped out. We have been monitoring those groups closely, and I have asked my officials at the Home Office and police colleagues, including the National Police Co-ordination Centre, to continue doing so and to step up that activity. If we need to take further action against those groups, we will. We will be monitoring them very closely, including the social media content that they and their supporters are perpetuating.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the social media companies and their involvement in such activities. There have been some vile posts in recent days, including some about Members of this House, for no good reason. Again, we are monitoring that social media content; we raise it with the police and they raise it with social media companies through the appropriate channels.

With regard to accommodation more broadly, none of us wants to see hotels being used in this manner on an ongoing basis. They are an emergency, temporary solution to a serious national emergency. The number of individuals crossing the channel illegally in recent years has been on such a scale that the Home Office had to resort to options that are clearly undesirable.

The Prime Minister set out at the end of last year our intention to end the use of hotels as swiftly as possible. Better forms of accommodation will include dispersal accommodation, where we work closely and constructively with local authorities—including that of the right hon. Member for Knowsley—to find suitable properties, consult the local community and then house asylum seekers for as long as is necessary. That plan is now moving forward, and we have reached regional agreements with local authorities. It is for the Home Office and those local authorities to ensure that it is implemented as swiftly as possible.

More broadly, as I said in my opening remarks, hotels are a symptom of the problem. The cause is the number of people crossing the channel. That will be resolved only by breaking the business model of the people smugglers and deterring those people from crossing the channel. It is for that reason that we will bring forward further legislation very soon.

[Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

The Minister, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister are all doing everything they can to stop this sort of incident from happening elsewhere. It must not happen in places such as Herefordshire. Can the Minister explain why the permanent secretary is still in post, and why no small boats Bill has appeared before the House?

[Robert Jenrick]

On the legislation that I have mentioned, the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and I are working closely as we finalise those plans. It is absolutely right that we take time to ensure that this legislation is as effective as possible. As my hon. Friend knows, this is one of the most litigious areas of public life. It is an area where, I am afraid, human rights lawyers abuse and exploit our laws at times, and where the courts have taken an expansive approach in the past. That is why we must get this right, but we will be bringing forward that legislation very soon.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The scenes outside the Suites Hotel in Knowsley 10 days ago—violence, intimidation and a police van smashed up and set on fire—were appalling and shameful, and all of us should support Merseyside police in its response to keep people safe. It comes just a few months after the appalling terrorist attack at Dover, when someone who had been engaging with far-right and extremist groups online attempted to use a petrol bomb on a centre. In the last year, the number of so-called migrant hunts organised by far-right groups has doubled, and there has been an increase in far-right groups organising protests and intimidation and attempting to increase and inflame community tensions.

All of us have a responsibility to take this issue seriously, and there is an important debate about asylum accommodation and asylum policy. We have disagreements, and we have criticised the Home Office for the collapse in decision making on asylum, which has led to an increase in delays and in the backlog. People should not be spending a long time in hotels—they should not be put in hotels in the first place—and we should be targeting the criminal gangs, seeking new agreements with France to prevent dangerous boat crossings, and ensuring that the UK does its bit to help those who have fled persecution. We can have that debate, but we all—Government and Opposition—have a responsibility to do so calmly, with common sense, and in a way that does not inflame tensions or divide communities. The Minister will regret the fact that some of the Home Secretary’s language has appeared on some of the placards. On all sides, we need to have a calm debate.

Let me ask the Minister some specific questions. What is being done to co-ordinate the monitoring of far-right activity around asylum accommodation? What is being done about the hateful extremism that has grown and that can radicalise people into violence? The former commissioner for countering extremism has said that the Government have actually reversed some of their action on this. Will he now revisit the downgrading of the response to far-right extremism as part of the Prevent strategy? Serious concerns have been raised about the links between some far-right extremist groups and people who have been exploiting these issues, as well as some links between them and National Action, which has been proscribed because it was so serious.

Does the Minister agree that, nationally, the responsibility is on all of us to be calm and to promote community cohesion and a sensible response to all the challenges we face, rather than divide and inflame tensions that the police and local communities then have to deal with?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her closing remarks. It is absolutely incumbent on all of us to treat this in a respectful and serious manner, and ensure that we do nothing to inflame tensions within our communities. I hope she will appreciate that that is the way in which I have always conducted myself in this role.

The Home Secretary has condemned unequivocally the violence we saw in Knowsley, and that is absolutely right, because there is never any excuse for violence, intimidation or attacks on the police. That does not mean that we should not seek to understand the level of public frustration that lies behind wider concerns about our asylum and immigration system. To understand is not to condone, and there are those who treat those frustrations as a phenomenon to be managed, rather than as a warning to be heeded. We in Government take the approach that this is a serious concern for the British public, and that is why we need to take all appropriate steps to stop the illegal channel crossings as quickly as possible.

On the right hon. Lady’s specific questions, we are co-ordinating with police colleagues to ensure that all police forces have the correct and up-to-date advice on how they can support asylum accommodation and manage protests should they happen in the future. The National Police Co-ordination Centre is assisting us in monitoring the activities of relevant groups, including on social media, and we will take such steps as are required if there is content that constitutes a criminal offence. We have also worked with our asylum accommodation providers to ensure that they put in place enhanced security where appropriate, and have the best possible advice from the police as to how they can protect the people working in the hotels and other centres, and, of course, the residents.

With respect to the right hon. Lady’s question about the review of Prevent conducted by William Shawcross, the findings of that report were not that there were no far-right activities in this country, but that we must follow the facts and take a balanced view as to where to deploy our resources. That is exactly what we will do: we will tackle Islamist extremism with all the robustness it deserves, but we will also address far-right activity, including by the groups concerned in this protest.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his engagement with me on issues connected with far-right politics. Given his response to my representations, I can tell the House that his concern about these matters is genuine.

Will my right hon. Friend deconstruct the point he is making about the fact that we must tackle the organised criminal activity that sits behind all this, as that should redouble the effort to tackle detention in hotels? I have been advised by police representatives that some slave masters are targeting some of these hotels, where they try to entice young men to work on their various businesses. The suggestion that arriving here from a safe country is made illegal would drive people who arrive by small boats back into the hands of the slave masters because there would simply be no incentive for them to give themselves up to the authorities. What representations has my right hon. Friend had on those matters? Does the situation not underline the fact that we need to get the hotels emptied and the Home Office working properly?

[Robert Jenrick]

I agree that we need to ensure that the operational side of the Home Office performs, but there is no easy way to build our way out of this problem; we have to stop people crossing the channel illegally in the first place, because the numbers crossing the channel today are of an order that will always place our asylum and immigration system under enormous strain.

We are working very closely with the police and the National Crime Agency to bear down on organised immigration crime. We have doubled the budget of the NCA in that regard, and are working with it across Europe and beyond to tackle the gangs upstream in every respect. Here in the UK, we are increasing the number of immigration enforcement visits, including raids on illegal employers, by 50%. That activity started at the beginning of the year.

I do not agree with my hon. Friend’s premise that if we pursue a policy like Rwanda, we will see people escaping into the broader community, although I understand where she is coming from. In fact, almost 99% of people crossing the channel in small boats are apprehended by British law enforcement authorities—mostly when we save them at sea and bring them to Western Jet Foil and Manston—so we do meet people who arrive on our shores. The key thing is to stop them arriving in the first place.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is clear that putting people in hotels in this large-scale way has allowed right-wing extremist groups to target groups of vulnerable people. It is Home Office policy, therefore, that is putting people at risk—not just vulnerable asylum seekers, but our police, who have to protect everybody in such situations. Does the Minister agree that a lot more needs to be done with social media companies? He said that there is some kind of monitoring and conversations with the police regarding social media companies, but what meetings has he had directly with social media companies? It is very clear that these right-wing extremist groups are organising on social media platforms. I saw some of it myself—was offered it by an algorithm—at the weekend; I do not want to see that kind of hatred on any social media site.

Will any asylum seekers who have been badly impacted by the attack on the hotel, or who still feel at risk, have the option to be moved somewhere else where they feel safer, and will they get additional support if that is required? Will the Minister tell me what additional security measures have been put in place at all sites where asylum seekers are being held in such accommodation, and does he agree with the statement from Merseyside police that,

“Social media speculation, misinformation and rumour can actually damage the outcome of investigations and cause unnecessary fear and consequent behaviour”?

[Robert Jenrick]

We are working closely with the social media companies, and in fact are stepping up that activity. We supported a recent proposal to amend the Online Safety Bill by putting extra duties on the social media companies in respect of tackling organised immigration crime and abuse of this kind. We monitor social media content closely and the police will raise that with the social media companies through the appropriate channels.

I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s accusation that the Home Office has stoked far right activities is both wrong and deeply offensive; the issue here is the number of people crossing the channel illegally.

[Alison Thewliss]

No, it is the backlog.

[Robert Jenrick]

It is not the backlog; that is a fantasy. The way to tackle this issue is not by making the UK a more attractive destination, but by tackling the illegal gangs and changing the incentives. We will only do that through having the most robust approach to illegal migration, including by ensuring those who come here in this manner are removed to a safe third country.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

Like me, the Minister, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister believe that hotels are the wrong place to put people seeking asylum, but on Saturday in Skegness another protest is planned against the use of these hotels and, while there are legitimate concerns, I hope the Minister will agree that the shameless use of people’s concerns by far-right groups is to be deplored and stands in the way of our having a sensible conversation that will in the long term allow us to move beyond the use of these hotels. Will he join me in appealing to the people of Skegness to focus, rightly, on those issues but not to join hands with far-right groups?

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I know my hon. Friend’s constituents are frustrated by the use of hotels in Skegness—as are we in Government—and want to see action to tackle the small boats issue. They want to see our laws enforced and those coming here illegally apprehended and removed to other safe countries, but I know also that they will not want to join with more pernicious elements such as far-right groups and to stoke disorder or community tensions in his town. I applaud him for the work he is doing with his community; he held an important public meeting recently to listen to community concerns and raise them with me and the Home Secretary as we formulate policy.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Minister knows that there is a backlog and that hotels are having to be used because of it. He might not want to admit it from the Dispatch Box, but that is the reality.

My constituency is about 10 minutes away from where this incident in Merseyside happened and the Minister mentioned the asylum accommodation providers; may I urge him to work closely with them to ensure that wherever they are placing asylum seekers, they are working closely with the communities, the local authorities and the police there now, and they are ensuring that the accommodation that people are being placed in is able to handle and support them?

[Robert Jenrick]

The backlog is a contributing factor; it was a contributing factor when we came to power in 2010 and found a backlog of 500,000 cases, three times more than the level today. Simply processing those claims faster and making claiming asylum swifter and easier will not solve the problem, however; the problem will be solved by preventing people from reaching our shores in the first place.

On the situation in Merseyside, we are working closely with Merseyside police; we are in regular contact with them and with local authorities. We hold multi-agency meetings, which include the police, prior to standing up any new forms of accommodation so that these issues can be discussed. Where protests are planned, and we have extensive intelligence about that, we work closely with police forces so that they can make sensible preparations to keep the local community safe.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I join my right hon. Friend in condemning the use of violence and in thanking the police for their response, and I categorically agree with him that we must stop the people smugglers, stop the small boats and end illegal immigration into our country. I hear him on the need for further legislation down the line, but in the meantime can he assure me that every single one of the huge suites of powers that this Parliament granted to the Home Office in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 is being used to solve the problem quicker?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We passed that Act, which was opposed by the Labour party, and we are implementing every measure in it as swiftly as possible. Many of those measures are already making a difference, as seen in the number of arrests now being made of those people with their hand on the tiller of small boats when apprehended by Border Force and our partners in the English channel. That is important, but we will follow that up in due course with further, even more robust legislation, which I am sure my hon. Friend will support and hope the Labour party will too.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

What specific liaison occurred between the Home Office and Knowsley Council prior to the block booking of the hotel for the accommodation of asylum seekers? Did the Minister’s Department anticipate problems such as the ones that occurred? What steps will he take to prevent a recurrence of such problems at other similar sites?

[Robert Jenrick]

Shortly after taking up this role, I changed the Home Office’s engagement procedures to ensure that when accommodation is stood up, unless it is a grave emergency or we are ordered to stand it up by a court, we will provide at least 24 hours’ notice to a local authority, and that there will be extensive consultation with such a local authority. I am pleased to say that today that level of consultation happens around three to four weeks in advance of standing up a site. There are usually multi-agency meetings prior to doing so and opportunities for Members of Parliament to meet either me or senior officials, but of course if any right hon. or hon. Member feels we are falling short of those standards, I encourage them to bring that to my attention.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I absolutely support my right hon. Friend the Minister and Members throughout the House in calling out and condemning the violence that took place and any far-right activists and groups operating in that area. They have no place in our society, as far as I am concerned.

But I am also clear that I totally agree with the Minister that we have to stop the small boats and stop the illegal immigration coming to our country. On 7 November last year, the Minister said to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) that he accepted that the significant number of people taken into our local area is disproportionate. On 13 December last year, the Prime Minister made the point that the use of hotel had to end soon. It is 20 February 2023 and the hotels of Stoke-on-Trent have yet to be emptied. When will this happen? Will the Minister commit to Stoke-on-Trent being the first place in the country to have its hotels emptied?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend has been an assiduous champion of his community and he wants his hotels back and to be put to good use, for the benefit of the local economy, for tourists and for visitors to Stoke-on-Trent. We agree, which is why we have set out our plans, including mandatory dispersal, working with local authorities throughout the country in a constructive and productive manner to find suitable accommodation that is not hotels. That is why we are also exploring a small number of larger sites that will provide decent but not luxurious accommodation at good value for money for the taxpayer. I reiterate that this challenge will be resolved only by reducing the flow of individuals coming across unnecessarily on those dangerous boats. Without that happening, we will be living with issues such as hotels for some time. That is why we are going to bring forward further legislation.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The Minister told us a few minutes ago that part of the problem here is human rights lawyers who abuse and exploit our laws. That is obviously very serious, Mr Speaker. Any lawyer doing that needs to be stopped, so could the Minister tell the House how many solicitors, advocates and barristers have been reported by the Home Office in the last 12 months to the regulatory authorities?

[Robert Jenrick]

We are monitoring the activities, as it so happens, of a small number of legal practitioners, but it is not appropriate for me to discuss that here. The wider point I was making stands, which is that the British public are looking on askance at the fact that individuals, mostly young males, are setting off from a demonstrably safe country, France, and soliciting human traffickers to ferry them across the channel, and they are invariably throwing their documents into the sea, so that they can exploit our human rights laws. That needs to change. The British public are angry and frustrated at that situation. We understand that and that is why we are taking action.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

The best solution to an end to the use of hotels and to protect our communities is to stop the boats, stamp out the human exploiters and people smugglers, and increase deportations. What steps are the Government taking to increase and speed up deportations, and to get the Rwanda scheme going? May I make a suggestion to the Minister? Doncaster Sheffield airport recently closed down. Will he consider using it to fly out illegal immigrants and deport them quickly?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is absolutely right that, as a deterrent, we increase the number of illegal migrants removed from this country, so that it is clear that anyone who comes here in breach of our laws in this manner will not get to stay in the UK. We have taken a number of steps recently. One has been our communiqué with Albania, a safe European country from which it should be extremely unusual for anyone to come here and successfully gain asylum. That communiqué is now in force, with updated country guidance, and individuals are now being removed from the United Kingdom on weekly flights to Albania. We are working very well with the Albanian Government. That is one example of how we can tackle this issue.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Just months apart, our country has seen two attacks on innocent people from right-wing extremists. First, a terrorist firebombed an immigration processing centre, and now we have seen an angry right-wing mob attack police outside a hotel housing asylum seekers. We are seeing more and more vile incidents that are fuelled by a far-right ideology. Does the Minister agree that it was a mistake for William Shawcross to say Prevent places too much emphasis on far-right extremism?

[Robert Jenrick]

No, I do not. William Shawcross conducted a very rigorous review over a long period of time which looked at the facts, and the facts are that there is extremism and violence in this country from both the far right and the far left, or Islamist extremists. We need to take action against both, but we need to apportion our resources in a manner that is proportionate to the challenge. That is the point that William Shawcross was making. I fully support what he suggested. The Home Secretary, in her statement to the House, made clear that we will be implementing that as soon as possible.

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)]

Liverpool has a very proud history of chasing fascists off our streets or locking them into left luggage cupboards at Lime Street station. Does the Minister agree that the so-called independent review of Prevent failed to recognise the threat levels of far-right groups? What action is being taken to prevent serious incidents, such as that which took place in Knowsley?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is disappointing that the hon. Lady attempts to draw conclusions from these events with respect to Prevent. The Government have been very clear: extremism of any kind, whether from the far right or from Islamist extremism, is unacceptable and we will bear down on it with the full force of the law. With respect to the groups that were involved in Knowsley, as I said in answer to previous questions, we are monitoring them closely and we will take action, with the police, wherever we need to do so.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Earlier, the Minister mentioned the importance of observing the law. The European convention on human rights is, of course, still part of our domestic legal system, and human rights are not a dirty word; they are, in fact, universal.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I chair, is currently conducting an inquiry into the human rights of asylum seekers. We have heard evidence that a number of rights under the convention are engaged: the right to life, the right to be free from inhuman and degrading treatment, the right to liberty and security, the right to dignity and respect for private and family life, and the right to be free from discrimination in the enjoyment of convention rights. Can the Minister tell me what steps the Home Secretary is taking to ensure that the human rights of asylum seekers are respected in the United Kingdom?

[Robert Jenrick]

We take our responsibilities to those in our care extremely seriously. While there will of course be occasions when we fall below the standards that we would expect, and we should learn from and correct those errors as quickly as possible, in general we care for asylum seekers well in this country, and we should be proud of that.

I have had the opportunity in this role to visit a range of facilities—difficult places such as Western Jet Foil, where we meet those people whom we have saved at sea; Manston, where we house them while we conduct security and health checks; and the child hotels where we house unaccompanied minors while we find local authority care for them. In general, the standards of these places are high, and the staff who are working in them are doing a good job on behalf of all of us, but if there are ways in which we can improve those services and ensure that we continue to meet our legal obligations, we can and should do so.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman will be well aware that there are people going around claiming to be journalists who are actually stirring up hatred and fear of asylum seekers. I watched one of their reports recently. It was directed at a building in my constituency which, it turns out, is not being used and will not be used to house asylum seekers. That broadcast was designed to create fear, and for the life of me I do not understand why it is still available on YouTube.

Let me ask the Minister this question. Does he think it is better for the Government, or the police or the Home Office, to ask the social media companies to take such videos down, or does he think—given that there is a law against inciting racial hatred in the Public Order Act 1986—that the prosecuting authorities should look at the videos and decide whether the threshold for prosecution has been met?

[Robert Jenrick]

I think the right hon. Gentleman has answered his own question, in that some of this content is vile and quite probably criminal, and in those instances the police should take action using the laws that are available to them. When we at the Home Office find such content we raise it with the police, and the police then raise it with the social media companies; but if the police feel that it meets the threshold for prosecution, they can and should be prosecuting.

The right hon. Gentleman is also right in saying that there are a small number of cases of so-called citizen journalists visiting hotels. Of course we all respect the right to protest and the right to free speech, but these individuals need to be careful to ensure that their actions do not stir up community tensions or spread disinformation, as is often the case.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

Like many others, I am heartbroken following the incidents in Knowsley. I stand in this Chamber as a proud product of immigration: my ancestors fled the great hunger in Ireland, as did those of so many of my fellow Scousers, which is why these events have caused such shock in Liverpool.

This is a wake-up call for those of us who want a society in which all are welcome. The words and the tone of hon. Members in this place and the media matter hugely, so will the Government commit themselves to ensuring that there is an end to the hateful rhetoric that demonises and dehumanises people? Will they put resources into communities to foster hope and understanding, and, crucially, will they provide resources for safe, welcoming and suitable community-based accommodation for all people seeking asylum?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am proud that the United Kingdom is one of the most generous and welcoming countries in the world. Since 2015, 440,000 people have come to our country on humanitarian grounds, and last year more humanitarian visas were issued than at any time since the end of the second world war. That is exactly the right approach, and we see it with great schemes such as Homes for Ukraine and the schemes applying to Afghanistan and Syria. It is true that the British public can see the difference between that and those people who are coming here illegally, abusing our generosity and our laws, and it is for that reason that we must take action to ensure that the illegal channel crossings end as swiftly as possible.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Government’s politicised language on asylum seekers inevitably stokes division between communities and people in hostels, but Wales has shown that things can be different. Last year, the national youth organisation, Urdd, provided welcome centres with dedicated support services for refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine, and everybody benefited. Does the Minister agree that when the history books are written about his Government’s sorry record on asylum, it will be recorded that people in Wales strove to act with humanity and for community harmony?

[Robert Jenrick]

I hope that when the history books are written about this Government, people will point to some of the fantastic schemes that we have created and that have commanded such broad support, including Homes for Ukraine and the Syria and Afghan schemes, all of which collectively have brought hundreds of thousands of people to our shores, where they have been welcomed into the homes of British citizens. But it is right that we make the distinction between those people—many of whom we have geographical, moral and historical obligations to—and the young men in safe countries such as France soliciting human traffickers to ferry them across the channel and to exploit our laws. This is an important distinction that we can see and that I think the British public more broadly can see, and the British public want us to address it.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary was warned by Government lawyers last November that inflammatory immigration rhetoric risked inspiring far-right terror attacks. What discussions has the Home Secretary had with her Ministers about what is appropriate language?

[Robert Jenrick]

The Home Secretary was very clear that the violence we saw in Knowsley on 10 February was completely unacceptable, and she stands squarely with the brave officers from Merseyside police who responded to that incident. I pay tribute to them again today and to all those who work in our asylum system more broadly who do such a good job, often in very difficult circumstances.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

Earlier, the Minister mentioned that there was a level of frustration and concern among the British public. The people who are fleeing such horrors and trying to seek asylum are frustrated by the fact that they have been living in hotels, in some cases for coming up to two years. They are concerned about the backlog in Home Office applications, and they are concerned and frustrated when they are contacting MPs across the House to try to get their cases resolved. Does the Minister understand that accommodating people in hotels will not work? Can he guarantee that there will be a safety review assessment before people are put into those hotels, to protect them and the staff in the hotels?

[Robert Jenrick]

We have safeguarding procedures in place to support people going into the hotels and the staff who work in them. The hon. Lady’s broader point was about the backlog. As I said earlier, the backlog was three times higher when we came to power in 2010, but that does not mean that we should not take action to get it down and return to a position where we are processing claims in a sensible and swift manner. I have put in place, with the Home Secretary, new measures, and we are in the process of recruiting a significant number of further decision makers. We are already seeing significant progress in bringing down the legacy backlog, and the hon. Lady will start to see that flowing through in the numbers that are publicly reported and in the cases that come to her surgery. I am confident that we will meet our objective of eliminating the legacy backlog of initial decisions over the course of this year.

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

The vast majority of those who turned out on the night of 10 February were not hardened veterans of the organised far right; they were ordinary people whose frustrations had been fostered by this Government’s decade-long neglect of their communities and whose fear had been stoked into hatred by the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that we hear all too often on the Government side of the House. Does the Minister accept that stranding refugees in hotels in left-behind communities such as Knowsley risks leaving these vulnerable people divorced from vital community support networks and means that they become a target for hatred? Will he explain what steps the Home Office is taking to find community-based alternatives to the use of hotels as contingency accommodation?

[Robert Jenrick]

As I have said, we are pursuing a strategy of replacing hotels with dispersal accommodation, which is agreed constructively between the Home Office, providers and local authorities and provides better value for taxpayers’ money. That is the way to avoid this situation, other than addressing the root cause by preventing people from coming across the channel in the first place.

I encourage the hon. Gentleman to support our further steps over the coming months to bear down on individuals crossing the channel and to create a system whereby people who come here illegally will not find a route to remain in the UK, because that is the enduring solution to this problem.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The truth is that this is not the first time we have seen violence and intimidation directed towards refugees in these hotels. Indeed, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) outlined his fear of a further protest coming this weekend.

Hope not Hate has documented hundreds of incidents involving Patriotic Alternative, Britain First and so-called migrant hunters. The Minister says the Home Office reports to the police incidents that it feels may breach the Public Order Act 1986, perhaps in the same way it is monitoring these lawyers, yet nothing is happening. He says these groups are being monitored closely. For the avoidance of doubt, will he set out the threshold for prosecution? This will keep happening until we are clear that free speech does not involve 50% of participants in the conversation being in fear of their life. This is harassment and terrorism on our doorstep, and it needs to be dealt with properly. What on earth is he doing to prosecute these people?

[Robert Jenrick]

I have spoken on a number of occasions in recent days to Home Office officials, the national police co-ordination centre and operational policing colleagues. They are monitoring this activity very closely, and they are keeping a close eye on these groups. Where they believe content requires further action, they will take it, but it is for the police to take that action rather than the Home Office.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

The anti-Muslim group Britain First has activists in my constituency. The group is known to have carried out more than 80 visits to asylum accommodation sites and to have distributed leaflets containing Islamophobic narratives in those areas. The language of Britain First is only a few steps of escalation from the anti-migrant sentiments expressed by the Home Secretary when she claimed there was an “invasion” by migrants on the south coast. Does the Minister regret the Home Secretary’s use of such inflammatory language, which feeds into and enables far-right groups? Will he explain what proactive work the Home Office is leading to get a grip on far-right extremism?

[Robert Jenrick]

I usually have great respect for the hon. Lady, but it is wrong to equate the actions of far-right groups with the comments of the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary has condemned the violence we saw in Knowsley, and she is working with the police to ensure it is properly investigated and that the police have the resources and the support they need for that investigation. We will bear down on far-right extremism, just as we care about Islamist extremism. There is no place in this country for any form of extremism, and we will ensure the police have the resources they need.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

When the Government use language closely associated with the far right, it only provides encouragement. We know these far-right groups are trying to stoke local problems around the hotels in which asylum seekers are being housed. Has the incident in Knowsley inspired the Government to review how they assess the safety of these locations and the powers that the police and those investigating online activity need to deter the people who are trying to exploit this situation?

[Robert Jenrick]

We have reviewed the security at these hotels and other asylum accommodation centres. The national police co-ordination centre will be issuing updated guidance to our providers and local partners on how they should ensure correct levels of security at each site. Security is based on risk, so procedures will vary depending on intelligence. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we take this issue very seriously.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

The disorder at Rotherham and Knowsley was instigated by fascist goons such as Patriotic Alternative, and the Home Secretary must take a share of the blame for using rhetoric that helped to create the environment that normalised these racist thugs. The Erskine Bridge hotel in my constituency is planned to be the largest of these hotels in the UK, and we have seen this group incite and inflame local sensitivities for its own racist and divisive ends. I have made urgent suggestions to the Home Office to address legitimate concerns. Will the Minister chase a response, so that we can drive the far right out of Erskine?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am aware of the site in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and the protests around it. I spoke to officials earlier today regarding it and they gave me an update. I would be happy to connect him with those officials so that he can raise his concerns and they can support him in any way.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister speaks as though all of the issues were someone else’s problem. He has acknowledged some changes he is bringing into the asylum system. I am one of the top six customers of the Home Office for my constituents and it is the worst it has been in 18 years, but in truth what we are seeing here is the chickens coming home to roost in the impact on communities, the appalling situation that many asylum seekers are living in and the danger around these sites. When we will see a real change, a step change, as a result of the changes he is introducing? I cannot see it happening any time soon.

[Robert Jenrick]

The Prime Minister set out a plan at the end of last year and I am working every day to implement it. We are already seeing significant progress on the asylum backlog, with cases falling significantly with every passing week, and we are recruiting more decision makers into the Home Office to do this. We are working intensively with local authorities to find better and greater value for money accommodation through the national dispersal scheme, rather than hotels. If the hon. Lady, as a valued Member of this House, has suggestions as to ways in which we can improve the quality of service, I would be happy to meet her to discuss them.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

The Minister must be well aware that what happened in Knowsley is not an isolated incident; the far right is attacking hotels in other places and attacking asylum seekers regularly. We have a system that spends a great deal of public money to keep desperate people in absolute poverty and degradation in these terrible hotels—their use obviously needs to end. Will he say a word of humanity about the fear that many of these people must be facing? They are refugees from wars, famine and human rights abuses who are looking for a place of safety in this world. They are human beings just like the rest of us. Surely they deserve to be able to exercise their legal rights to seek asylum and not be constantly accused of being illegal when this is a legal right.

[Robert Jenrick]

It is, just as a matter of fact, a criminal offence to cross the channel in a small boat, so those who enter the UK in that manner are in breach of our laws. The broader point that the right hon. Gentleman makes is, of course, absolutely right: irrespective of that, those people who come here should be treated compassionately and we should abide by our broader legal obligations. The hotels and accommodation we provide are of a good quality. They will vary and if there are poor instances, I will take action against the providers. However, generally speaking, they are of a good quality and they are significantly better than what we find in comparable European countries. Many of the people who arrive on our shores in small boats have spent a sustained period in camps such as those in Calais; the way in which we treat people in this country is far superior.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Two weeks ago, at departmental questions, I requested a meeting with a Minister about the continued use of hotels in my constituency and the broader Liverpool city region. In the meantime, a group called the Patriotic Alternative has started distributing leaflets in one part of my constituency. Again, I request that meeting.

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman, and I apologise if there has been any delay. He raises a broader point of concern to us, which is the leafleting by far-right groups of the communities surrounding hotels. There have been examples of leaflets with faces of Members of Parliament and local councillors on them. Whenever I have seen those, I have raised them with local police and the Home Office’s dedicated counter-terrorism support. That kind of intimidatory leaflet is completely unacceptable on the streets of our country.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I do not doubt the Minister’s sincerity when he rightly condemns right-wing extremism—indeed, all extremism—but it is now three years since the former commissioner for counter-extremism warned that the Government’s counter-extremism strategy was out of date because it did not have key measures to tackle online radicalisation. When can we expect to see those measures before the House?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will take the hon. Gentleman’s question away and ask the Security Minister to write to him with a fuller reply. I have always taken extremism seriously. For example, I worked with Sara Khan in her work on tackling the victims of extremism. Extremism, whether from the far right or Islamism, is pernicious and needs to be tackled. We will do everything we can to address it.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

The Minister will be aware that there are asylum seekers who have complex physical and mental health needs, and placing them in hotels can exacerbate those needs. Can he assure us that he will speak to the refugee charities, particularly the Scottish Refugee Council and the Refugee Council, about both the far-right activity and their concerns about placing asylum seekers in hotel accommodation?

[Robert Jenrick]

The Home Office works very closely with non-governmental organisations, including the Refugee Council, and takes their views into consideration. I have been clear that no one in Government wants to see the hotel accommodation continue for one day more than is absolutely necessary. There are only two ways in which we will resolve this: first, and most importantly, by stopping the boats coming in the first place; and secondly, for as long as we have illegal migration, by working with local authorities, such as those in Scotland, to find better dispersal accommodation. If the hon. Gentleman can support us in that effort with respect to the Scottish Government and local authorities, I would be grateful.

Asylum Seekers: Bournemouth West

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) for securing the debate and for speaking so powerfully on behalf of his constituents. First and foremost, I want to pay tribute to Thomas Roberts, a young man with a bright future ahead of him whose life was cut short, and to extend my sympathies and those of the Government to his family and friends for their profound loss. This was an horrific crime which has robbed a young man of his future and caused intolerable suffering to his loved ones.

In any such case, justice must be delivered and the perpetrator punished. I welcome the life sentence that has been handed down by the Crown court, and I can assure my right hon. Friend that Mr Abdulrahimzai will be considered for deportation so that removal coincides with the end of his custodial sentence. As my right hon. Friend said, that individual abused the generosity of our country, and exploited our asylum and immigration system with terrible consequences. However, when a crime as abhorrent as this occurs, we must also confront the difficult questions posed by the case and ensure that our systems and processes are as effective and robust as they can be. That is what my right hon. Friend and his constituents would expect and what the broader British public would expect, and I can also assure my right hon. Friend, and indeed all Members, that the Government recognise the need for this case to be comprehensively examined. I have already asked the Home Office to conduct an investigation of the circumstances surrounding it.

While I completely understand the desire for immediate answers, I hope that my right hon. Friend will understand if I refrain from going too far into the detail while that investigation is ongoing, but I can provide some immediate reflections on the circumstances surrounding the case. All asylum claimants should be subject to robust mandatory security checks against their claimed identity, including criminality checks on UK databases. This happens when we intercept individuals such as those who arrive on small boats at Western Jet Foil in Kent and are subject to checks at the Manston centre. However, we need to strengthen ties with international partners to make vital intelligence- sharing more seamless, for instance through the sharing of criminal conviction data. Individuals attempting to cheat our immigration system using multiple names—or aliases—and ages must face decisive action. It is unacceptable that we place foster carers, schools and others who support individuals in intolerable and dangerous positions because we do not have access to sufficient data.

Another issue on which we should reflect, which my right hon. Friend rightly raised, is the need for robust age assessment measures. The age of a person arriving in the UK is normally established from the documents with which they have travelled, but that has proved challenging because so many arrivals who claim to be children do not have any definitive documentary evidence to support their age claims. Under the current process, when an individual claims to be a child without documentary evidence, and when there is reason to doubt their claimed age, immigration officers are required to make an initial age assessment to determine whether the individual should be treated as a child or an adult. If doubt remains about whether the claimant is an adult or a child, they are referred to a local authority, such as that of my right hon. Friend, for further consideration of their age and treated as a child for immigration purposes until that further assessment has been completed. Clearly this case illustrates why we need a more consistent and robust approach.

Given the difficult task of accurately assessing someone’s age and the serious risks when we fail to do so, the Home Secretary and I are considering introducing scientific age assessment methods at the earliest opportunity. This is being done in fellow western democracies such as Norway, Denmark and Sweden. It is essential to widen the evidence available to decision makers and improve the accuracy of their decisions. It will also act as a deterrent to those who flagrantly abuse the system and put others at risk by posing as children. The report from the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee was published by the Home Office on 10 January, and we will now consider the recommendations. We will bring forward proposals at the earliest opportunity.

Turning to the wider issue of hotel accommodation in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, we currently accommodate around 650 supported asylum seekers in Bournemouth, mostly in temporary hotel accommodation. There are 10 supported asylum seekers in longer-term dispersal accommodation, and there are no bridging hotels currently housing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Let me perfectly clear that I share my right hon. Friend’s deep frustration, and I acknowledge the impact that this is having on his local community and on the business community in his constituency. It is a vibrant and beautiful tourist destination that wants to make use of its hotels for better purposes.

By national standards, those numbers are low. There are more than 150 local authorities that support larger populations of dispersed asylum seekers and 50 local authorities with larger overall total supported asylum seekers. Taking account of the overall population in Bournemouth, supported asylum seekers account for 0.16% of the local population. There are more than 110 local authorities that have a higher concentration of supported asylum seekers. This is not to diminish the burdens; it is merely to contextualise them and to show the scale of the challenge that now confronts us, to which we as a Government must find answers.

We need to ensure that there is proper engagement with the local community when we stand up this new accommodation, and I have made that point on numerous occasions. We must ensure that the Home Office now implements better procedures to let local authorities, and indeed Members of Parliament, know in good time that we intend to take up this form of accommodation. My officials are now running regular engagement sessions with local authorities to try to improve this process. We take steps to try to minimise the impact of any hotels on the local community. Our service providers have a model to ensure that many on-site facilities and amenities, such as recreation, food and laundry, are provided and that specialist support and security guards are provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

None the less, it is absolutely right that my right hon. Friend has raised this on behalf of his constituents. I hope he has seen, in the statement that the Prime Minister set out in December and in subsequent ones that the Home Secretary and I have made, that we are absolutely clear that the mission of this Government in this respect is to end the use of these hotels and to return them to local communities and businesses for their rightful purpose. They are not right for local communities. They are expensive and a waste of money for the taxpayer.

We have committed to clear the backlog of legacy outstanding initial decisions in the asylum system by the end of 2023. To this end, we are doubling the number of asylum caseworkers this year and streamlining and modernising the end-to-end decision-making process. This should ensure that claims can be dealt with quickly, whether because the individual has a high chance of being granted asylum or because they have a very low chance of it, including those from safe countries such as Albania who can be removed forthwith. We will reduce the number of asylum seekers in contingency accommodation as a result. I am pleased to say that that work is not only under way but is already bearing fruit. The legacy backlog is falling as a result of the work now undertaken.

We are also trying to increase the supply of dispersal accommodation, which is a cheaper, less visible and more appropriate way to house these individuals, by working with local authorities across the country to ensure a fair and equitable spread. We are also looking at a small number of larger accommodation sites, the purpose of which will be to ensure that there is decent, but never luxurious, and good value-for-money accommodation, of the kind the public would expect. I hope we will be able to set out more on that in due course.

In the long term, as my right hon. Friend rightly said, the enduring solution to this problem is not procuring more hotels or more sites such as dispersal accommodation but stopping the illegal small boat crossings. It is for that reason that the Prime Minister has made this one of the five priorities by which he wishes this Government to be judged, and it is why the Home Secretary and I are firmly focused on implementing the reforms needed to grip this problem once and for all.

In the coming weeks, we will bring forward new legislation to restore deterrence and to stop the small boats crossing the channel, which I know will have the support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West. It will be based on the simple principle that people who come here illegally should have no right to remain here, and that we will fulfil our historic duty as a country to support those genuinely fleeing persecution and human rights abuses around the world, not by enabling people to abuse our system and jump the queue but by working with those in greatest need to pursue targeted resettlement schemes of the kind we have recently done so well as a country with respect to Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria and Hong Kong.

We have presented a comprehensive plan for tackling illegal migration and stopping the boats, with deterrence suffused throughout our approach. A critical element of that is the Rwanda plan, which my right hon. Friend has always supported and which we hope to implement at the earliest opportunity. Putting that plan into action is a first-order priority for this Government.

I finish by repeating my thanks to my right hon. Friend for securing this debate. He is right to raise these issues, and I hope I have given some reassurance about how seriously the Government take them. On the case he highlighted, of a life tragically cut short, my thoughts are with the victim’s loved ones. Protecting the public is the Home Office’s No. 1 priority, and this Government will do all we can to deliver it.

We are, as my right hon. Friend said, a big-hearted country that seeks to protect genuine asylum seekers and offer them a new life in this country, but we will clamp down with the full force of the law on those who choose to abuse our generosity. We will build a new asylum and immigration system that secures our borders and delivers our obligations in a way that the British public would expect.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

7. What progress she has made in ending the use of hotels as contingency asylum accommodation.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

Our first duty is to break the business model of the people-smuggling gangs, stop the boats and reduce the number of those coming to this country illegally. Alongside that, we are working to ensure that decent but not luxurious accommodation is available while asylum claims are being processed. We are working with local councils and providers to develop regional dispersal plans and are pursuing a range of options to increase supply.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am very pleased to hear what the Minister says. When the dreadful invasion of Ukraine took place, many people welcomed with open arms refugees from Ukraine. Does he agree that it is still not safe for many of them to go home? Many have outstayed their time with their host, so can we have a coherent plan going forward to ensure that refugees from Ukraine are decently protected and housed?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman is right to celebrate the good work that we have done in this country to support people who came here from Ukraine. That has been the largest humanitarian visa effort in this country’s history. I have benefited from that personally, having had a family stay with me, as I know many Members across the House have. Over 500 individuals continue to come to the UK every week under the Ukrainian visa schemes, but he is right to say that the challenge now is as much about ensuring re-matches are available for people who, for whatever reason, are coming to the end of their stay with their original families. We are working very closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ensure that those changes are as seamless as possible so that nobody ends up homeless.

[Greg Smith]

The Best Western hotel in the town of Buckingham was originally acquired by Clearsprings on a six-month lease, which in theory runs out in March. The loss of the hotel as a valuable local business is noticeable in the town, as is the diversion of precious primary care resources, with an on-site clinic required at least once a week on top of the usual services of the Swan Practice. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the use of the Best Western in Buckingham will end soon, so that Buckingham businesses can get back to normal and health resources are freed up?

[Robert Jenrick]

The Home Secretary and I are as frustrated as my hon. Friend that too many people are staying in hotels, costing too much money to the taxpayers of this country. We want to ensure that hotels such as the one in his constituency are exited as swiftly as possible. That is why we are pursuing a full dispersal model with local authorities and considering a range of other options, including larger sites. The enduring solution to this problem is to break the business model of the people smugglers and to stop the boats. It is for that reason that the Home Secretary and I will shortly bring forward further legislation, which I hope will command support across the House.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Do the Government have any plans to make use of the former Atkinson Court care home in east Leeds as part of their dispersal policy?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am not aware of that site, but I am very happy to look into it and revert to the right hon. Gentleman. The mandatory dispersal model we are pursuing is one of agreement with local authorities, where every local authority works with the Home Office and our providers to agree a number of bed spaces in their local area and then to choose appropriate ones that meet the needs of the local community. I am happy to revert to the right hon. Gentleman on that.

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given the severity of the risks, it would not be appropriate to house asylum seekers in a Pontins holiday camp in my constituency? Will he take the opportunity to confirm at the Dispatch Box the reports at the end of last week that the site will not be used?

[Robert Jenrick]

The Home Office is reviewing a range of options and having exploratory conversations with a number of local authorities. If the local authority, Sefton Council, does not wish to proceed On the Pontins site in my hon. Friend’s constituency then the site will not proceed, because it is the freeholder of that site. He should really speak to Sefton Council to get that assurance, but the task for all of us is to stop the boats, or else we will continue to have troubles like this in the years ahead, with thousands of individuals crossing the channel illegally and placing unbearable strain on our asylum accommodation.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Home Office accommodation provider Mears has made significant profits providing substandard facilities for asylum seekers. Community InfoSource in Glasgow has found that Mears’ practices are retraumatising and causing unnecessary stress and suffering. Mears is now back to using hotels such as the Muthu in Erskine, which the Park Inn incident in Glasgow proved to be entirely unsuitable for vulnerable people. Why are the UK Government encouraging rapacious companies to profit from misery, rather than investing in community-based alternatives and more effective decision making?

[Robert Jenrick]

If the hon. Lady has specific allegations, will she please bring them to me and I will be happy to investigate them?

The answer to this issue, in Scotland as across the country, is for local authorities to step up and make more accommodation available. As I have said many times at the Dispatch Box, including to the hon. Lady, the Scottish Government are taking fewer asylum seekers and refugees than any other comparable part of the United Kingdom. The SNP’s record on this issue is frankly shameful. It was, after all, the Scottish Government whose failed Ukrainian scheme meant that they had to house Ukrainian refugees in cruise ships.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

4. What steps her Department is taking to help prevent crime in Lancashire.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

We have committed to clearing the backlog of asylum applications over this year and to introducing a faster, more productive system. Since making that commitment at the end of 2022, we have made excellent progress: recruiting more caseworkers, working towards a doubling in their number, establishing dedicated caseworkers per nationality and designing a more streamlined process, which is already raising productivity substantially.

[Rachel Hopkins]

Luton is a compassionate town and is always proud to support those seeking sanctuary, but the backlog and delays in the Home Office’s asylum system have led to Luton receiving a disproportionate number of dispersal placements in comparison with the rest of the east of England. Luton Borough Council’s services are already stretched beyond their means, following a decade of Government cuts, so how is the Minister working with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ensure that councils receive clear funding settlements to cover the costs of the increased impact on local services?

[Robert Jenrick]

We provide funding for every asylum seeker who is in a local authority’s care of about £3,500, and we work closely with local authorities through the mandatory dispersal system to make sure that each one plays a fair and equitable part. However, the answer to this problem is not more accommodation; it is stopping the boats and ensuring that we have some of the most robust laws in the world, so that those who come here illegally do not find a way to a life in the UK. I hope that the hon. Lady will support us when we introduce our legislation.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

My constituent arrived here from Syria and claimed asylum in July 2021. He is a doctor and applied to volunteer with the covid vaccination programme, but was turned down because he had no documentation. After more than a year and many interventions by my office, he finally had his asylum interview and was given a job as a healthcare assistant, but that was delayed because he had to wait for his national insurance number. The NHS is crying out for staff. When will the Government sort this out?

[Robert Jenrick]

We are working to bring down the backlog of cases. Let me gently point out that the last Labour Government left a backlog of cases of not 450,000, as I said during the last session of Home Office questions, but 500,000, as has been shown by further research. So bad was the backlog that there was even a room colloquially known as the “room of doom” into which cases were put. We will get the backlog down, and create a streamlined and efficient asylum system.

[Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

Tensions in the community are rising in my constituency owing to the use of hotels to house asylum seekers in and around Cannock Chase and, in particular, in Bridgtown. There were protests in Cannock at the weekend. Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking the local police, who are doing everything they can to respond to issues as they arise, and will he meet me to discuss the situation and ways in which we can alleviate the concerns of my constituents?

[Robert Jenrick]

I should be pleased to meet my right hon. Friend and work with her to ensure that that hotel, like others, is cleared as quickly as possible. I hope she will see from the work we are doing that we are straining every sinew to tackle this issue. For example, following the communiqué that was signed with Albania at the end of last year and is now being implemented, we are seeing weekly return flights of illegal migrants to Albania and a faster process, involving 400 caseworkers dedicated to those Albanian cases.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

One group with a strong claim to be here are the former interpreters in Afghanistan and other locally employed civilians who helped our armed forces. Will the Minister explain to the House whether such applications are caught up in the general collection of applications made by people who have come here illegally, or whether any form of priority and extra attention is given to those very deserving Afghan refugees?

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend has raised an important issue. We take our moral commitment to those who supported our troops and our efforts in Afghanistan extremely seriously. We have helped more than 20,000 individuals to come to the UK, some before Operation Pitting, some during that operation and some since, under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and subsequently the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. The Foreign Office is drawing up a further list of individuals for the ACRS. The people to whom my right hon. Friend has referred should be applying to that scheme, and we hope we will be able to bring them to the United Kingdom as soon as possible, if they are not here already.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

In 2019, the then Conservative Home Secretary said that she would end small boat crossings in a matter of months. Since then, the number of crossings has increased from 1,000 to 45,000, with the criminal gangs laughing all the way to the bank. Last year, Ministers promised that the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 would deal with the crisis, but in fact it has caused the asylum backlog to spiral out of control, forcing the British taxpayer to foot the bill for an extra £480 million in six-monthly accommodation costs. Now, Ministers are making all the same empty promises again. The Refugee Council says that the latest Government proposals will cost the taxpayer an extra £1 billion every six months, without anyone being returned anywhere. Does the Minister agree with Albert Einstein that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a definition of madness?

[Robert Jenrick]

The problem with the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues is that they vote against every step that we bring forward. In an age of mass migration in which millions of people are on the move and want to come to our country, either as economic migrants or asylum shoppers, we have to take the most robust action we can. The system we are building is a simple one in which those who want to come here illegally in small boats will find no way to a life in this country. They will be returned home, or to a safe third country such as Rwanda.

We will fulfil our commitment to those fleeing genuine persecution, war and human rights abuses, such as through the schemes that we have created for Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine, but we on the Government Benches are capable of seeing the difference between genuine asylum seekers and economic migrants. I hope the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will join us in voting for that further legislation when we bring it forward shortly.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Delays even when decisions have been made are all too common. To give an example, a constituent had his appeal allowed but is still waiting for the tribunal’s decision to be implemented nine months later. He cannot get on with his life. In a written answer to me, the Minister for Immigration was unable to provide my constituent with a timescale, or to establish the longest time that people have been waiting, or even how many appeals are still in Home Office limbo. Can he tell me what is the longest time that people like my constituent will have to wait, or is Home Office bureaucracy now completely out of his control?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady does not want us to tackle this issue because she believes in open borders. We want to take action to ensure that this country is not somewhere where economic migrants and asylum shoppers seek to come. That means suffusing deterrents throughout the system. She should support plans such as Rwanda and our efforts to bear down on illegal migrants. We will bear down on the backlog of cases. As I said in answer to an earlier question, we will clear it over the course of this year. We are ensuing that productivity rises every week.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

10. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that police officers protect communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

T10. I have been contacted by a number of medical professionals working for us in the NHS who are trying to get extensions to their skilled worker visas. They have waited for months, but emails and telephone calls to the Home Office are going completely unacknowledged and unanswered. Surely people who are doing a service to this country should at least have a dedicated hotline, so that they know where they stand.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

We introduced the health and social care visa to make it easier for the NHS to recruit internationally. A benefit is that there is an enhanced service standard of 15 working days for extensions to those visas. That is being met at present. If my hon. Friend has concerns, I would be happy to look into them.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Will the Minister meet me to discuss the continued pressures arising from the use of hotel accommodation in my constituency and others across the Liverpool city region?

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support our legislation in due course, which will tackle the root cause of the issue.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

Over Christmas, a 17-year-old boy in Leigh-on-Sea was able to buy a terrifying 2-foot “zombie knife” machete online and have it delivered directly to his door. Does the Minister agree that we need to close the loophole regarding the definition of zombie knives, and get them out of circulation once and for all?

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

South Caernarfon Creameries is Wales’s oldest and largest dairy co-operative. It is investing in Project Dragon, an ambitious expansion programme that involves investing £8 million in a factory plant from Turkish technology leaders, Gemak. Contractual deadlines are at risk as a result of delays at the British consulate in issuing visas for key staff who are essential to installing and handing over the equipment. Will someone from the Secretary of State’s Department meet me at their earliest convenience to resolve this situation?

[Robert Jenrick]

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

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

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

[Robert Jenrick]

The published figures to September last year show that 3,400 Albanians claimed to be modern slaves. Of course, some within this number will prove to be so, but many will not, which is why it is right that we tackle abuse of the system. We have already taken substantial action by increasing the reasonable grounds threshold and reducing the minimum recovery period. If we need to take further action, we will.

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

Around 40,000 people seeking asylum are stuck in hotels. However, Home Office policy allows decisions on refugee status to be communicated only to those who have been dispersed. Surely that is absurd and counterproductive. When will the policy change?

[Robert Jenrick]

We are considering this issue. The policy was put in place some time ago, for good reason: so that those local authorities that were bearing a disproportionate number of the individuals in hotels and temporary accommodation did not take a corresponding number of people were they to be granted asylum. We are looking into that at the moment.

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

The skilled worker visa system simply is not working for many businesses in Milton Keynes North. Despite having a licence, small businesses find that it takes ages to get a decision, and then either the visa is denied, or they pay extortionate fees for a service that does not materialise. Can we get on this immediately, because our businesses are crying out for skills? Will my right hon. Friend commit to resolving these issues?

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to look into any specific cases, but overall, the skilled worker system is operating well. We have more than 48,000 registered sponsors, mostly small and medium-sized businesses. In the year to September last year, almost a quarter of a million work-related visas were granted, and the standard processing time is three weeks for those applications.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

The graduate visa route enables international students to work in the UK for up to two years after their study. Curtailing or removing this route would deter international students from studying in the UK, but their net contribution to the UK economy is more than £25 billion per year. Does the Minister recognise that international student fees cross-subsidise teaching fees for British students?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

My constituents remain concerned about the victims of people-smuggling gangs. Can my right hon. Friend advise how many people smugglers have been caught and arrested under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, and confirm that the Government will continue to act with vigour against people smuggling and illegal immigration?

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. We are implementing the Nationality and Borders Act as swiftly as possible, and it is already having a real impact, with more than 190 people having been arrested since it became law.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Aviation is hugely important to the UK economy, but the Government have neglected to recognise the worker shortage in the sector. Does the Home Secretary plan to include aviation in the skilled worker visa shortage occupations list?

[Robert Jenrick]

We work with the Migration Advisory Committee to keep the skilled worker list under review. We work closely with the Department for Transport on issues such as wet licensing, which was raised recently. It is important to make sure that we have the correct workforce, but we also have to crack down on abuse where we see it.

[Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

Is it not obvious from today’s exchanges that many of those who oppose the UK-Rwanda migration and economic development partnership have no idea about Rwanda, have probably never been there, and are wholly wrong to condescend to and disparage Rwanda? Above all, they have not the ghost of an idea how to solve the problem of cross-channel gangs putting people at risk at sea. The difference between the Government side and the Opposition is that we have a plan and they do not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

East Devon’s farmers rely on a skilled domestic and foreign workforce to put their fantastic produce on our tables all year round. What reassurances can my right hon. Friend give that he will work with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ensure that the seasonal agricultural worker scheme will be extended beyond 2024?

[Robert Jenrick]

We review the seasonal agricultural worker scheme every year, working closely with DEFRA. We have extended it for this year, as my hon. Friend knows, and increased the numbers permitted under that scheme. That is quite right, but it is important to balance that against the need to ensure that British workers find their way into the workplace and are trained, and the need to invest in British farming, so that we do not need to reach in the first instance for foreign labour.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

It is quite right that police forces are under significant scrutiny at the moment, but I commend Humberside police force, which has recently been assessed as “outstanding”, and, in particular, its Grimsby-born chief constable, Lee Freeman, who was recently awarded the King’s Police Medal. Will my right hon. Friend outline the steps that excellent police forces such as Humberside can take to share good practice so that every police force across the UK can become outstanding?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

It was worth waiting for, Mr Speaker.

I have recently written to the Minister about the Great Northern hotel in my constituency, which is being stood up to accommodate migrants who have crossed the channel on small boats. I asked him if he would give a timeframe for when the hotel will be stood down. I do not expect him to give me that timeframe from the Dispatch Box today, but can he at least guarantee that when he responds in writing, there will be a timeframe so that we can give certainty to the police, support services and the people of Peterborough?

[Robert Jenrick]

The Great Northern hotel in Peterborough is ingrained in my mind as a result of my hon. Friend’s assiduous lobbying. That is quite right, because we share his frustration; we want to see such hotels returned to use by the local community and for the benefit of the economy. I will write back to him to set out our plans—as far as I can at this stage. I know that he will support us in all our efforts to stop the boats.