Illegal Migration Bill

Scott Benton Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman knows that the vast majority of people who come over are accepted as asylum seekers and get their refugee status. He also knows that without those safe and legal routes, the question that he asked the Home Secretary at the Home Affairs Committee remains unanswered. Under the Bill, the Home Secretary will not even ask to find out whether these people are genuine; everybody is deemed to be some kind of fake.

Returning to the Afghan scheme, which does not work, I spoke on Friday to my constituent Zakia, who has been trying to reunite with her sister since the fall of Afghanistan. Her sister has had the Taliban enter her home and beat her. She has played by the rules—as the Home Secretary set out and says that people should—and she has made an expression of interest, yet still nothing. If the Home Secretary was in that woman’s shoes, would she really sit tight in Afghanistan and wait for the Taliban to murder her? Because that is what happens to women in Afghanistan. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Capping safe and legal routes—routes that do not even exist right now—would suggest that if you are person x+1, well that is just too bad for you. It is not based on need. A few years ago, I was made aware that the visitor visa scheme for Iranians was essentially being run as a lottery, with the names being drawn of lucky winners. This Government could not run a raffle, and I do not trust them to establish this scheme in a timely or fair manner.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison Thewliss]

If the hon. Gentleman would like to give me some experience from his constituents of how difficult it is to come from Afghanistan, I would be glad to hear it.

[Scott Benton]

The hon. Lady is speaking of safe and legal routes. Given that there are more than 100 million displaced people globally, I wonder whether she will be kind enough to confirm how many of those people an independent Scotland would take, what tax rises she would make to fund their public services, and how many additional people she is willing to accept in central Glasgow.

[Alison Thewliss]

If the hon. Gentleman knew anything at all, he would know that my Glasgow Central constituency has the highest immigration case load of any constituency in Scotland, and we are proud that that is so. I would like to know how many are being housed in his constituency. I will say, too, that Scotland has taken the highest proportion of Ukrainian refugees and the highest proportion of Syrian refugees. We have a proud history in Scotland, and we would do much, much better than this pathetic excuse for a Government.

Let me turn to the practicalities of the Bill. There is no proof that it will work any more than the Nationality and Borders Act or the hostile environment worked. We were told at the time that those things were the solution to the problems that we had, but they have evidently failed, because the Government are back here legislating again.

There is no return agreement with the EU or anywhere else. Ironically for the Brexiteers on the Conservative Benches, leaving the EU has made this much more difficult. The Bill lists European economic area countries and Albania, but a deal does not exist. There are already countries around the world where the UK Government will not return people, and others where there are no flights and no means of return. The Bill will create an underclass of people stuck in immigration limbo indefinitely.

The Bill will detain everybody arriving in a small boat for 28 days. The UK’s current detention capacity is 2,286 beds. The number of people crossing in small boats last year was 45,755. For context, the prison population in England and Wales in 2022 was just over 81,000 people.

Where on earth does the Home Secretary suggest that the number of people she wishes to detain are kept, as well as those who are deemed inadmissible but unreturnable? Will they be in facilities such as Manston, with children sleeping on the floor; in dilapidated and crumbling facilities such as Napier barracks, where covid and scabies were rife; or in hotels, which is lining the pockets of companies such as Serco and Mears but costing the Government a fortune and putting vulnerable asylum seekers at risk, such as those being housed in Erskine in Scotland, where they are being targeted by far-right groups?

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

Both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have made it clear that tackling illegal immigration is an absolute priority for this Government, and I wholeheartedly welcome the firm measures outlined in the Bill. The sad fact is that this country has been a soft touch for far too long. Our asylum policy has been chaotic, granting approvals to questionable claims and leaving people waiting years for decisions, and all at a cost of billions of pounds per year to the taxpayer. It is any wonder that the people of this country are sick and tired of the situation?

My constituency is the most deprived in England. Many residents cannot access housing, struggle to obtain a GP appointment, and have little chance of finding an NHS dentist. They have paid into the system all their lives. Is it any wonder that when they see people entering the country illegally, receiving free accommodation, free food and access to local services, they are incredibly frustrated and angry?

Let us dispel some of the myths surrounding this issue that we hear from the Opposition, from lefty lawyers and from celebrity do-gooders. Many of the people entering this country in small boats are not genuine asylum seekers. If their lives were truly in danger, they would have claimed sanctuary in the first safe country where they had arrived. Instead, these people have travelled through many safe European nations to try to come to the UK. They are invariably single young men, and increasingly from nations such as Albania. They are coming here not for sanctuary, but as illegal economic migrants. Our public services are already creaking under enormous pressure, and we simply cannot accept hundreds of millions of people who would no doubt seek to come here for a better life. I am afraid that this country is nearly full.

The measures in this Bill are ones for which the residents of Blackpool have been crying out for an awfully long time, but they can work only if we fully enact our Rwanda plan. It has been immensely frustrating that this policy has been tied up in the courts, both domestic and foreign. It is outrageous that the policy of the elected Government of the day should be restricted in this manner, and it is clear that the Bill is likely to encounter similar judicial frustrations. However, I urge the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to stop at nothing to tackle this issue. If the Bill requires reform of, or a departure from, elements of the ECHR framework —as seems likely—that is exactly what we must do. We simply have to sort this situation out, and the Government have my full support in doing so.