Immigration Update

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

There has been no change to the way that the various family visa requirements can be met, through savings and the like. We had a good debate last week in Westminster Hall on the important safeguard of article 8 rights. As part of the consideration of any application, all those factors are given proper and due consideration to ensure we get the right decisions on individual cases. We think it is right to introduce these salary changes—they are being increased incrementally and not applied retrospectively—but as I say, there is an important safeguard around article 8 rights.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

We have supported this policy, albeit with some reservations, because we believe it is important to break the criminal gang model and ensure the stability of the United Kingdom. However, I am not convinced today by the Minister’s argument given that we are sending one person to Rwanda with £3,000 in their pocket and we are still looking for half the people who are meant to be sent there.

This week, the Irish Government, in an attempt to divert attention from their own domestic failures on housing and immigration, have started a row about immigrants coming from the United Kingdom into the Irish Republic and have refused to publish the deal—it is the usual Brit-bashing exercise that they engage in. The Minister has been asked twice today but has not given an answer, so will he tell us what specific measures he will put in place to ensure that the cynical Irish Government do not simply bus immigrants to the border and dump them in Northern Ireland?

[Tom Pursglove]

The situation he describes would not be appropriate. That is a matter for the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration, who leads on that work within the Home Office. We have been clear that if there is a desire for a returns deal, that needs to be done with the EU in the way the British people would rightly expect.

On the right hon. Member’s earlier point about Rwanda, the voluntary return we saw is part of an established approach to voluntary returns that was in place even when the last Labour Government were in office. We are now getting on and delivering a wider scheme. The Prime Minister has been clear that we will operationalise that over the course of the next 10 to 12 weeks. We are determined to send individuals with no right to be here to Rwanda and to put out of business the evil criminal gangs responsible for the misery in the channel.