Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and Ben Bradley

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman has made his feelings clear, even if he has taken the Shelley’s grandmother approach to communicating any sense about them. What matters now is that this Government speak up for every single child, because, if they do not, I promise that there are people in this House who will continue to do it no matter how much barracking we get, because every child matters.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dame Rosie. I would like to echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) said earlier about how strongly people feel about this issue. He provided the statistics to back that up. Some 35% of all policy inquiries to my office last week related to this issue of illegal migration and small boats. People often say to me, “You are in the middle of the country in Mansfield, so why do people care?” It is a simple matter of fairness. It is a massive Government commitment. One of the Prime Minister’s key pledges to the people of this country was to tackle the issue of small boats.

The people of Mansfield are generous, but they believe in the rules and they believe in law and order. They are happy to help those people who follow the rules, but when they are struggling and when they see people facing genuine safeguarding and personal safety issues, they feel the unfairness when they see others coming from the safe country of France and jumping the queue. When they are sat on housing waiting lists and unable to get a home, but someone who has no legal right to be here is able to get accommodation, they feel that unfairness. It is very easy for us in this Chamber, none of whom, I would imagine, rely heavily on our public services, to say that there is no negative impact to all of this. In reality, though, if a person is on that housing waiting list and unable to get a permanent home for themselves or their family, if they are struggling to access primary care, if they are told that they cannot get the help that they need, if they are sacked from their job at a hotel because it has become a migrant accommodation, or if they are seeing public funds intended to support people in this country being diverted to support people who have no legal right to be here, then, of course, they feel the unfairness. To suggest that that is not a problem is to deny the experience of many of my constituents, and of many people around the country, who feel that very strongly.