Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Pochin Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Honestly, what absolute piffle from the hon. Gentleman. He will know that the Prime Minister has been discussing having an open debate; that is not the same as settled policy, as the hon. Gentleman is well aware. The Prime Minister has also observed that there were very significant issues with freedom of movement when we were in the EU. Having an honest debate means actually being honest about all aspects of the issue, not cherry-picking, as the Liberal Democrats so often do.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

3. What steps she is taking to expedite the deportation of foreign national offenders.

[The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Anna Turley)]

Anyone coming to the United Kingdom knows that doing so is a privilege, not a right. Any foreign national who breaks our laws is not welcome. All foreign national offenders who receive a prison sentence or suspended sentence are now eligible for deportation. Since this Government came to power, we have removed over 11,700 foreign national offenders; that is up 41% on the two years before then. We are determined to ensure that more foreign criminals are removed from our shores.

[Sarah Pochin]

Gift Oladele successfully appealed his deportation, after sexually assaulting a woman in Manchester. He then went on to rape a 19-year-old young woman in Wrexham. Can the Minister explain exactly what changes her Government have made to article 8 of the European convention on human rights to make sure that this does not happen again, and when they will take effect?

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate the hon. Lady raising this case, and look forward to her supporting our Immigration and Asylum Bill, which is going through Parliament. We are determined to build on the progress we have made, and which I have just outlined. Our asylum Bill will fix the broken appeals system and close the human rights loopholes, so that they cannot be exploited. From early next year, we will be able to remove offenders immediately after sentencing, allowing us to scale up deportations even further. We will be relentless in ensuring that all who break our laws are removed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo White]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this case. As she will know, we received over 200,000 responses, and we are now in the process of carefully considering the feedback received. The proposals set out a fundamental reform of the settlement system, and it is right that we take the time needed to consider the impacts. The House will be updated in due course.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

T10. Many of my communities in Runcorn and Helsby are plagued by antisocial and threatening gangs of youths on illegal e-motorbikes. Will the Minister please give the police the powers and the training to stop them? Most importantly, will the Government back officers when they do stop them, as incidents can happen and injury might occur?

[Sarah Jones]

We support the police with the powers that they need. I am looking at training to make sure that enough people are being trained in what we need.

Dover and Portsmouth: Protests

Sarah Pochin Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Lady for the question, but I just disagree with her analysis. I think I have been very clear in calling out the racism we have seen. I have been very clear and straightforward in saying that, where criminal activity has occurred, the police should use the full force of the law. We have named far-right actors in this place today. If others do not do so, that is a matter for them, but thank goodness they are not in government currently. We will do everything we can. We can call out racism and call out the thuggery we have seen, while also accepting the anger that individuals feel about our borders, and the two are not incompatible.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

While we condemn any violence against the police, we cannot ignore the deep public anger, frustration and outrage over the illegal migration now seen across Britain. No one voted for this, yet the boats keep coming and they are no longer small. Will the Government finally declare a state of emergency in the English channel?

[Sarah Jones]

No one voted for it multiple times, when they elected a Conservative Government promising to stop the boats, which did not happen. The number of people coming over this year is down 43% on last year so far. That is real progress. Is it enough? No. Will we go further? Yes.

Illegal Immigrants: Offshore Detention and Deportation

Sarah Pochin Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg.

For three decades, successive Governments have promised to get tough on illegal immigration, yet according to Home Office figures, in the last seven years alone around half a million people have claimed asylum in the UK; of those, 200,000 came in on small boats and most of the others were visa overstayers. In that time, around 60% of all asylum claimants have been granted refugee status, including those granted after appeal, and it is estimated that 66% of adults with refugee status are now claiming universal credit. That means that since 2019 up to 300,000 people who illegally entered or remained in the United Kingdom have been granted refugee status, and most could now be claiming benefits, including housing benefit. By 2030, that number could be over 400,000—a city the size of Coventry, composed almost entirely of people who should have never been allowed to stay in the United Kingdom.

What is frightening about these numbers, going back decades, is that we have no real idea of just how many illegal immigrants and visa overstayers are in this country, living under the radar in our communities. Poor record keeping by the Home Office means that the population of people with no right to remain in the United Kingdom is highly likely to be over 1 million. Thousands go missing every year, and the Government still fail to monitor properly whether migrants leave the UK after their visas expire. Labour says it is tackling the problem, but it is simply increasing the speed at which illegal immigrants are granted asylum. The Government have increased legal aid for appeals by 30%, to over £60 million a year, and a record 80,000 appeals are under way. Since the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has been Prime Minister, there have been more than 72,000 small boat arrivals, with no serious attempt made to stop them.

Why is all this such a problem? It is a problem because their presence corrodes the rule of law, costs billions in accommodation and welfare, distorts low-wage labour markets, and signals to the world that Britain’s borders are open. Illegal immigrants from some countries have a medieval attitude to women and girls. Sexual assault and rape by migrants from certain countries is far higher than among our indigenous population, and it is 20 times higher for those from Afghanistan. There are documented examples of illegal immigrants loitering outside schools, filming children, following girls and trying to engage with them for sex. Let me give hon. Members some specific, harrowing examples.

Sheraz Malik, an illegal immigrant of Pakistani origin who had been in the UK less than 12 months, raped a vulnerable young girl in a park in Sutton-in-Ashfield. Deng Majek, an illegal immigrant of Sudanese origin, arrived in the UK in July 2024; by October 2024, he had stalked and murdered 27-year-old Rhiannon Whyte. Abdulla Ahmadi, Ibrahim Alshafe and Karin Al-Danasurt, illegal migrants of Iranian and Egyptian origin, arrived in the UK in June 2025; by October 2025, they had targeted a young vulnerable woman on a night out in Brighton, beaten her, choked her and gang-raped her. I could go on—there are pages of examples. The safety of women and girls in this country is at risk because of our immigration policy.

Furthermore, we know that criminals are entering our country on small boats, bringing with them contacts into ruthless organised crime gangs that operate on our high streets, laundering money, dealing drugs, and selling illegal vapes and cigarettes to children, yet no DNA is taken on arrival. Why not? What about our homeless veterans, or British citizens on housing lists who find themselves being pushed aside and left behind in favour of illegal migrants who are housed instead of them?

The total annual cost of the asylum system is over £8 billion and rising. We cannot sustain this; we are not a food bank or a hotel for the world. Illegal immigration is helping to bankrupt this country. Our high streets are being overrun by crime, our women and girls are under attack, and our culture is under threat. Why does anyone think that that is okay?

We need to detain and deport every illegal immigrant who lands on our shores, and we need to put the Navy in the channel to stop illegal immigrants from landing on our shores. Those who are here illegally need to be moved offshore, processed and returned to their country of origin. We need to leave the European convention on human rights to put an end to the years of appeals that result in hardly any illegal immigrants ever being deported. We need to stop the invasion of our country by those who have no right to be here, and who come because they know they will get a free house, free food, benefits and medical treatment ahead of our own citizens. And no one who has come here illegally or remained here illegally should ever be granted British citizenship.

To summarise, we need to detain, we need to deport and we need a zero-tolerance policy. It is about a Government having the will to do so. Other countries have secured their borders; if we are to survive, we must do the same.

Rochdale Grooming Gang: Offender Deportation

Sarah Pochin Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

In this case, the sentence that this heinous individual received had an auto release at two thirds, which means that legally he cannot be detained any more. But, as I say, the licence conditions are exceptionally strong, and therefore there is a route to recall if they are not properly followed. I point to the changes that this Parliament has made in recent months with the Sentencing Act 2026: we have made grooming an aggravating factor, so that vile criminals face being locked up for longer for this type of offence, in exactly the spirit in which my hon. Friend speaks.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

Will the Minister commit to reviewing every case where an individual has been stripped of his British citizenship on public protection grounds but remains in Britain because deportation has failed, and will he tell the House how many such people there are?

[Alex Norris]

In this situation, there are no other people. I say to the hon. Lady that we are resolute in pursuing the removal of foreign offenders. Where there are hurdles, either legally or with the country of return, we work every day to overcome them, so of course we will work in that spirit.

Knife Crime

Sarah Pochin Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I assure my hon. Friend that every part of the country, including Bournemouth, will be part of our action plan. We are making interventions across the whole country, as well as very targeted interventions where knife crime is particularly acute. I have already outlined our interventions in schools, whether that is support for the schools where the problem is most acute, or the overall interventions to make sure schools are fulfilling new guidance on violence prevention. Lots of brilliant people—my hon. Friend spoke about Tracy—are going into our schools and sending really powerful messages to our young people. I absolutely support that work, and a lot of our violence reduction units provide funding for those kinds of interventions.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

While I of course welcome the statement and any attempt to reduce and tackle knife crime, does the Minister not agree that without saturation stop and search, and without immediate custody of anyone found in possession of a knife without a valid reason, the rest is just white noise?

[Sarah Jones]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s welcoming of the statement—it is appreciated.

Stop and search is a really important tool. I am not entirely sure what “saturation stop and search” is, but if we stopped and searched everybody, all our police would spend all their time stopping and searching people to no particular end. Stop and search has to be evidence-based and targeted, and that is what the police are doing. We support that. We want more intelligence-led stop and search. It is a good thing, but anyone who thinks that it is the only answer misunderstands the problem. We have to prevent crime from happening in the first place, as well as to tackle the perpetrators who are already involved and make sure we address reoffending. Doing one intervention without all the rest is not going to work, which is why our action plan involves multiple Government Departments, lots of funding, and lots of support from the Prime Minister down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Pochin Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

This Government fund violence reduction units. Where we do not have them, our police and crime commissioners make sure that we are funding a raft of organisations that know what is happening on the ground, what the right interventions are, and how we can drag children out of crime and into making better choices. I see that in my constituency, and I know my hon. Friend sees it in hers. As she knows, those community leaders are the bedrock, and we must support them as much as we can.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

T10.   Is the Home Secretary comfortable with the reality that, as a woman, she could not stand and pray alongside the Mayor of London at last week’s event in Trafalgar Square?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am, and will always be, a very proud British Muslim.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Pochin Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I intend for this work to be a shared endeavour right across the House. Members and their teams should remain vigilant about the threats to our democracy, particularly in the run-up to the elections in May. I again encourage take-up of the personal and online security guidance available to all Members and staff. Any malicious activity should be reported through the appropriate channels, including the Parliamentary Security Department.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

Does the Home Secretary agree that British citizens should be prioritised over asylum seekers in the allocation of publicly funded housing under the £100 million pilot scheme?

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Member may have heard me say earlier that we have started the process of hotel exit, which means we have reduced the amount of money we are spending on that. We want all British citizens to be adequately housed, which is why we released the homelessness strategy at the end of last year. Beyond that, we want order and control in our asylum system, so that the British people’s proud record of providing shelter can continue, and so that people can have confidence in that order and control.

Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry

Sarah Pochin Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I believe my hon. Friend has already met the Minister for Safeguarding, but she has just told me that she is happy to meet him again. I am sure that that meeting will take place as quickly as possible. He will know that we are pressing ahead with implementation of the IICSA recommendations, as well as with the Casey audit recommendations. If there are any gaps, we will seek to fill them. The first thing is to meet the test of the recommendations that have already been made, but I look forward to discussing those further with him in due course.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

We at Reform UK welcome the progress announced today by the Home Secretary into this long-overdue inquiry and welcome the reassurance she has given that the victims of predominantly British Pakistani rape gangs will be properly consulted and involved in the inquiry. Will she confirm that her Safeguarding Minister will be called as a witness in the inquiry, as someone who voted against an inquiry earlier this year and in whom victims lost all confidence?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)]

I would be happy to give evidence.

Asylum Policy

Sarah Pochin Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

We are moving to a system of age verification, based on artificial intelligence modelling, which we believe is effective in verifying someone’s true age. Let me assure my hon. Friend that we will move to consult and legislate on these measures as quickly as possible. I am seized of the need to move quickly to restore public confidence. As we get order and control into the system, we will start opening up the safe and legal routes. They will be modest to begin with, but they will grow and be more generous over time, as we restore order and control.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

The Daresbury asylum hotel in Runcorn has been emptied, thanks to my by-election campaign. What assurances can the Secretary of State give my constituents that the many houses in multiple occupation in Runcorn will be emptied of illegal migrants and criminals under her Government, and that they will be deported without delay, never to be allowed legal entry into the UK?

[Shabana Mahmood]

It is this Government who are exiting hotels. We will do so—it is a manifesto commitment —by the end of the Parliament, and I intend to bring that forward as much as possible. Let me say to the hon. Member that we will always fulfil our international obligations, but I make no apology for wanting to privilege safe and legal routes over illegal entry into the country.

Police Reform

Sarah Pochin Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

In 2017, new powers were introduced to enable police and crime commissioners to have a fire-related role. We have the Minister responsible for fire, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), on the Front Bench right now. The transition to the new structures will relate to fire as well as policing; the role will move to the new police boards.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

While we Reform Members welcome the abolition of police and crime commissioners, will the Minister explain how these reforms will deliver clearer accountability for policing, particularly in areas like my constituency, where a strategic policing board is likely to be necessary, given that the PCC in Cheshire has proved to be one of the starkest examples of failure? He has achieved no meaningful improvement when it comes to crime or policing, and devotes his time to political campaigning.

[Sarah Jones]

I repeat that I am not here today to criticise the PCCs; I think that they have done a really good job. It is the role and the elected function that is not working. The hon. Member is right to ask about accountability. It is incredibly important we have the right accountability for our police, who have very significant powers and do an incredibly important job keeping people safe. Our expectation is that in the mayoral model, accountability will lie with the mayor; in the board model, the leaders of the council will provide the accountability. We are also looking at how accountability is delivered at national level—this will be in a White Paper that will come out—so that we know exactly what our police are doing and how they are doing it, and so that the inspection regime is beefed up.