Asylum Reforms: Protected Characteristics

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I remind Members to bob if they wish to speak, so we can calculate the time limit on speeches. I call John McDonnell, with no time limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. I am obliged to call the Front Benchers at 10.28, so if Members keep their remarks to seven minutes, everyone will get in.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

It is nice to be buttered up, but that usually means that the Minister is ignoring me. On safer routes, the Government have put forward sponsored routes. Those are different from some of the proposals put forward by the PCS and others for specific visa routes, but we can debate the detail of that.

One issue that I did not raise, because I got an answer from the Secretary of State, was the detention of children. I gave the example of how I used to visit Harmondsworth to see children there, which was distressing, and the Secretary of State gave an assurance that there would be no detention of children. There needs to be more clarity on the removal of families in particular and on how that process will be dealt with. That was happening under the previous Government, and at one point it drifted into the detention of children for long periods.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the Minister that Kirsty Blackman needs time to conclude the debate.

[Alex Norris]

Thank you, Dr Huq. I have a lot of things to say today, but I am basically not going to say any of them. I will try to respond instead to what colleagues have said, because I think it makes for a more interesting debate.

There are no children in detention. We have no intention to detain children. I take pelters in the main Chamber when I say what I am about to say, which is that the best level for voluntary returns is 100%. I would happily have every return be voluntary, and that is particularly true in the case of families—that is why we are seeking to improve the support for that—but detention is not in our plans. I hope that that gives my right hon. Friend a degree of assurance.

What I am most surprised not to have heard in this debate is that the people who have the most agency in our system at the moment are human traffickers. The worst people on the planet—the people who have the most callous indifference to harm, the people who will exploit any pain to monetise it—have the most agency over who comes to this country. We should be really angry about that, and we should be resolute in changing it. Of course our important work around organised crime and the provisions in the Act will help us in that regard, but we have to change the demand. That is at the root of the changes to the protection model, which I will come to momentarily.

The hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) made a point about the 20-year period. I will come back to that point, because my carriage is going to turn into a pumpkin shortly.

The hon. Member for Strangford made an interesting contribution about the experience of people in Newtownards. I know only a little about Newtownards, mostly from our conversations about it, but I know that it is not that dissimilar to my community, and that it can therefore be at the crunchy end of the immigration conversation. What he points out is exactly the same for my community. When the schemes were ordered and controlled—be that the Syria scheme, as in his example; Afghan resettlement, which other colleagues have mentioned; Homes for Ukraine, as the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) said; or the Hong Kong BNO scheme—my community leaned into them because they were confident that we knew which people were coming and that they needed our protection. They stepped up.

We want to capture that spirit outside individual country circumstances, because there are other people around the world who would benefit from such protection. I think my community will step up to that, but they will not do that while they feel that the people with the greatest agency are human traffickers and there is a lack of control over who comes and crosses our borders. I think that that is right, which is why I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington and to colleagues that we cannot have one without the other.

We cannot have a new, orderly, humane, dignified system with safe and legal routes and maintain public confidence if we are not willing to say that we have zero acceptance of people coming through trafficking routes and across the channel on dangerous journeys, and that the right number for that is nil. That informs our point around protection in “Restoring Order and Control”.

The 20-year route is for a person who comes to this country illegally and then chooses not to learn the language and not to work or contribute. We want everybody to switch out of that core offer and on to a protected work and study route. If people learn the language, work or contribute, they will be able to earn a reduction in that period to 11 years. Moreover, if they enter the system through safe and legal means, their starting point is 10 years, and they can earn a reduction to five years. Those numbers are not coincidental. At all points, the goal is to dissuade people from making dangerous irregular journeys and instead ensure that doing the right thing—whether that is contributing in-country or coming via regular means—is always in their best interests.