Borders and Asylum

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree that all asylum hotels need to be closed as swiftly as possible, including the Bell hotel. That needs to be done in an orderly and sustainable manner so that they are closed for good. The hon. Gentleman is not right in the characterisation of the Government’s case, because we are clear that all asylum hotels need to close. We need to ensure that that is done in an ordered way that does not simply make the problem worse in other neighbouring areas or cause the kind of disordered chaos that led to the opening of so many hotels in the first place. We also need to strengthen the security and the co-operation with policing, and we want to strengthen the law on asylum seekers who commit offences and can be banned from the system. That will be part of our Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill as well.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It was Orwell who urged us to be proud of our countries and to call out the nationalists trying to demand that we express our pride or be called traitors accordingly. Let us be proud of this country and the work it has done to support people fleeing persecution; let us be proud of what we have done to help families from Ukraine and Hong Kong. I know the Home Secretary recognises that safe and legal routes for refugee children to be reunited with their parents are something that we should be proud of. In that vein, if there is to be a delay in providing those safe and legal routes, will it apply to all children, including Ukrainian children, or will we recognise that helping children so that they do not face penalties is our best and proudest action?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes important points. The new arrangements that we set out will include both stronger border security and reforms to the asylum system to make it more controlled and managed and to reduce its size, as well as to have the controlled and managed legal routes. That needs to include arrangements for family and dedicated arrangements around unaccompanied children. My hon. Friend is right to raise that as a serious issue. Obviously we have a separate dedicated scheme for Ukraine, and we are continuing with that scheme.

On my hon. Friend’s point about what we should recognise, I think that people across the country continue to support that. Having spoken to Ukrainian mums who described how they fled in the first few weeks of Putin’s invasion, knowing that their home villages had been overrun by Russian troops and not knowing whether other family members were safe or whether they would ever be able to return again, let me say that we should always remember what people can be fleeing from and the importance of countries working together to support them.