Small Boat Crossings
Rupert Lowe Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Reform)
In the Home Office annual report, it is confirmed that in 2022-23 £3 billion was spent on hotel costs for illegal migrants, averaging £8 million a day. The cruel inheritance tax assault on British family farms and businesses is estimated eventually to raise £520 million a year. Do the Labour Government need to rethink their spending priorities urgently?
Dame Angela Eagle
No. We have just had a Budget, which we are in the middle of debating and will be voting on, and I expect that that will be the way we go forwards.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupert Lowe Excerpts(1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point about how employers have exploited illegal migration. As a result, we set up a major programme through the summer, including raids, pursuing illegal working in different places across the country. We have also substantially increased our work on returns, including redeploying 1,000 additional staff to work on returns and enforcement, to make sure the rules are being properly respected and enforced. That has led to an increase of more than 20% in enforced returns this summer.
Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Reform)
Given that dangerous foreign criminals have been using the European convention on human rights as a loophole to remain in the UK, does the Home Secretary agree that it is time to leave the ECHR and restore the sovereignty of our own borders?
Yvette Cooper
The purpose of setting up a border security command is to strengthen the security of our borders. We will do that by working with other countries. It is crucial that we do so to tackle the gangs and the boats before they reach the French coast in the first place. We have increased our co-operation, with new agreements in place with the G7, Europol and Italy, and we are working on new agreements with France, Germany and Belgium. Those agreements would not be possible if we were somehow abandoning international law.
Illegal Immigration
Rupert Lowe Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Reform)
It is a pleasure to serve under you, Sir Mark. I hope to stay within five minutes, just about.
When we see pictures of boats entering Dover packed full of supposedly desperate asylum seekers, I want to ask, “Where are the women? Where are the children?” The craft are filled almost exclusively with men—young men. How did they secure the rumoured £5,000 to pay for the cost of their crossing? Even according to the Home Office’s own 2022 figures, 87% of these people were men. We must be abundantly clear and honest with the British people: these are foreign males looking to take advantage of our soft borders and our incompetent establishment. They are not, in the vast majority of cases, people genuinely fleeing war and persecution.
Now we are told we should refer to these people as “irregular migrants”. Language matters. The vast majority of these men are not “irregular”, or asylum seekers; they are illegal immigrants and should be labelled as such.
What have we done with these males who have illegally entered our country—unchecked, undocumented, unknown individuals? We have spread them across the UK, often putting them up in luxury accommodation—all at our expense—and damaging the fabric of our country, particularly in my constituency. They are free to come and go as they please. Why? If any reach our shores, they should be securely detained until rapid deportation can be arranged. Allowing thousands and thousands of foreign young men free rein across our country is pure, unadulterated insanity.
The public are furious. In no way does that justify any violence, but we must accept the reasons behind so much of the anger. Starmer has misread the room badly, and the fury will not dissipate until the crisis is taken seriously by the Government. The boats could be stopped virtually overnight with the correct will. Put the Navy in the channel, send the boats back to France, and ensure that no one setting foot here illegally stays. That means deportations, and lots of them.
The Australians deployed a zero-tolerance approach. It worked. We must do the same, and urgently. The first step to delivering that is to declare a national emergency. Send a clear message to the illegal migrants and the smugglers: if you come here illegally, you are not welcome. Until that happens, more and more will come.
Does the Prime Minister have the political will to tackle this crisis? The British public will not forgive him and his colleagues for failure to deliver now. Tony Blair opened the floodgates in 1997 via the Human Rights Act, and the Tories accelerated the process. The Prime Minister must now close them as a matter of urgency. Illegal migration is mortally damaging our sovereign nation. Given that the Department is having trouble maintaining its staff, as are most Government Departments of which I have experience, none of us believes that smashing the gangs has any hope of getting any traction.