Borders and Asylum Debate

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Department: Home Office

Borders and Asylum

Steff Aquarone Excerpts
Monday 1st September 2025

(1 day, 15 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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I welcome my hon. Friend’s points. We need the consistent, practical plans that will close hotels right across the country, clear the appeals backlog, which would otherwise grow, and prevent the increase in asylum claims in the first place. We also need the restarting of decisions, because had we carried on with the freeze on asylum decisions that the previous Government left us with, there would be tens of thousands more people in hotels across the country right now. That would have been deeply wrong.

Steff Aquarone Portrait Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
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People with a wide range of views about how to tackle immigration spoke to me over the summer, and none of them is happy with how things are. They are furious about how the Conservatives trashed our border security, and they certainly do not want the hare-brained schemes of Reform—they want action that fixes the system fast. After years of failure, will the Home Secretary finally ensure that our immigration system keeps out people who would come here for the wrong reasons, while properly supporting those who need our help?