Migration and Border Security

Samantha Niblett Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree about the importance of supporting our armed forces, including housing for armed forces families. That will always be important. The number of asylum decisions had dropped by 70% in the space of just six months—a massive drop. That crashing of asylum decisions increased the backlog over the summer. We have now managed to get asylum decisions back up to where they were, and the asylum caseworkers back in place and taking those decisions rapidly. That puts us in a position to be able to get the backlog down so that we can take action on asylum hotels, and we are already saving hundreds of millions of pounds this year compared with the previous Government.

[Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)]

In the run-up to the summer general election, my constituents were hugely concerned about the number of small boats crossing the channel; and little wonder, because the Conservative party left office in the middle of the worst year ever for small boat arrivals—18% higher than in 2023, 5% higher than in 2022 and more than double the level in 2021. The Labour Government came into office just under five months ago, and the number of arrivals is now lower than in 2021, more than a third lower than in 2022, and only 15% higher than 2023, rather than the 19% that we inherited. Does the Home Secretary agree that that all sounds like pretty decent progress?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. The first six months of the year saw a record high for that season; of course, we know that crossings are seasonal, but it was a record high for the first half of the year. If we had carried on at that record high level—higher than 2023, 2022 and 2021—we would have thousands more people in the asylum system right now, and we would have had to deal with thousands more dangerous boat crossings. When we took office in the middle of the year, some independent projections said that there could have been as many as 50,000 crossings this year, and that has not happened. That is no real consolation, though, because so many lives are still being lost, and so many gangs are still making huge profits, which is why we have to take action on the gangs. We have to strengthen border security and prevent so many lives being put at risk.