Illegal Migration Bill

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call the shadow Minister, who has indicated that he wishes to come in early.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who spoke so powerfully about the issues at the heart of the Bill. I pay tribute to her outstanding work in the area of modern slavery and trafficking.

Here we are again, back for a second day of debate. Across the Committee, I think we all agree that we need to stop the dangerous small boat crossings and destroy the criminal industry at the heart of them, yet each of us knows, though perhaps not all of us admit it, that the Bill is a con and a sham that will only make a bad situation worse. The Government have no returns agreements with the EU to replace the one we were part of before Brexit, nor do they have a working deal with Rwanda. The Home Secretary failed last weekend in her mission to persuade Rwandan officials to state specifically that Rwanda can take thousands rather than hundreds of asylum seekers sent from the UK every year, although at least she got a photo op outside some houses being built for Rwandan citizens.

For a deterrent to be effective, it has to be credible. There is next to nothing in the Bill that is remotely credible, because it is about chasing headlines and government by gimmick when what we need is common sense, hard graft and quiet diplomacy so that we can really go after the people smugglers upstream and do a deal on returns and on family reunion. What we need is Labour’s five-point plan, which will stop the small boat crossings, clear the Tory asylum backlog and re-establish a firm, fair and well-managed asylum system.

I said yesterday that the Bill was being rushed through Committee at such a speed as to make detailed consideration and debate almost impossible. That applies perhaps even more to today’s sitting.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I note what the shadow Minister says about quiet diplomacy. Actually, it seems to me that the Prime Minister has a very good, cordial relationship with the President of France, but it is quite clear that that alone will not be enough to sort this problem out.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Well, the Conservative party has spent the past five or six years completely destroying our relationships with our European neighbours and partners, so any improvement on that is very welcome, but I feel that the Prime Minister has an uphill struggle on his hands, given the very low base from which he is starting.

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman says that we have spent the past five or six years destroying our relationship with France. Perhaps he might like to reduce that by—I think—two.

[Stephen Kinnock]

May I say to the right hon. Lady that that is one of the best interventions I have ever taken? I am more than happy to stand corrected, and I hope that Hansard will correct the record accordingly. That has completely knocked me off my stride, but I was about to say that as a result of the Bill being rushed through, I will have to limit my remarks to the amendments and new clauses tabled on behalf of the Opposition.

Clauses 2 to 5 establish legal duties, which are sure to be unworkable, for the Secretary of State to ensure that every single person who arrives in the UK without prior authorisation is held in detention and then removed from the UK. I use the word “unworkable” advisedly, because the questions that I put to the Minister on Second Reading about where these people will be detained and where they will be removed to are still unanswered.

Likewise, we have no idea how much these proposals, if implemented, are likely to cost. We assume that impact assessments modelling the potential costs have been carried out, but since the Government have failed to publish those assessments, thus denying the House its democratic right to hold a fully informed debate on these matters, we have only the various leaks and briefings to the pro-Tory media to go on. We know from those briefings, along with independent third-party analysis, that the Bill’s price tag is likely to be at least £3 billion a year—possibly more—but the fact that the impact assessments have not been made public suggests a deliberate attempt on the Government’s part to limit the scope for parliamentary scrutiny and obfuscate their own calculations of what the British taxpayer will have to pay. What is the Minister afraid of? Why will he not publish this vital information? Not to do so is simply not good enough, either for Members of this House or for the constituents we represent.

As a result, the Opposition have had to table new clauses that would force the Government to publish within tight timescales the impact assessments that Ministers are clearly sitting on. All that our amendments 286 and 287 and new clause 28 ask is for Ministers to publish detailed assessments on the likely implications of the Bill on cost to the public purse, availability of adequate accommodation and detention capacity, so that we can have a fully informed debate.

Looking beyond detention capacity, we know that the asylum backlog alone means that for some time there will continue to be a need for accommodation to be provided to families who would otherwise face destitution. In recognition of that, new clause 27 would make it a legal requirement that local authorities be consulted as part of the process of accommodation being provided in their area. I know that there are strong feelings about this issue on both sides of the Committee, and on that basis I look forward to cross-party support for new clause 27 as we go through the Division Lobbies this evening.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Bradley]

I fully take on my hon. Friend’s earlier point about who holds the responsibility for applying those duties and how they mix together. That is a complex issue and one that I cannot answer today, but he is right that we need to ensure that we safeguard children and offer them all the support we can, recognising that we have a duty to British citizens and British children to supply school places. It cannot be right, as I said to the hon. Member for Walthamstow, to suggest that all of a sudden schools, school places and opportunities will just appear, because they will not.

[Stephen Kinnock]

rose—

[Ben Bradley]

I have given way twice already and I am very conscious of time, but I will give way one last time.

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Gentleman is making a valid point about the important role that local authorities play. Will he therefore be supporting our new clause 27 when we put it to the vote this evening, stating that it should be a legal requirement for the Home Office to consult with local authorities before making any arrangements on accommodation for asylum seekers?

[Ben Bradley]

That is a challenge that I raised in the House myself last year, but I have since had many conversations with the Department and feel reassured that that communication has been far better recently. I feel more confident now that that relationship is better, but it certainly was a challenge at the start, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for having dealt with that.

I will make some progress, because I know you are keen to crack on, Dame Rosie. I want to touch on a couple of the amendments and demonstrate some of the challenges in the system. There are several amendments that would effectively prevent deportation or removal at all costs, blocking the entire premise of our being able to control our borders. In preventing us from controlling our borders or removing people with no right to be here, the amendments would dissolve our national self-determination and national identity and degrade our ability to decide for ourselves, taking away some of the significant powers that we should have and hold in this country. As Ronald Reagan said, if you cannot control your borders, you are not a nation state.

For example, under amendment 138 someone could not be removed unless there was a safe and legal route, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow mentioned. To me, that says that, if there is not a safe and legal route, people have carte blanche to arrive here through whatever means they like. There cannot be a safe and legal route for everybody around the world who could be eligible to come here. There are 100 million displaced people around the world; we have to draw a line somewhere to say what is reasonable for us as a country to be able to resource. Local authorities are tasked with looking after many of the people who come, with limited resources and limited capacity. To be fair both to asylum seekers in genuine need and to UK citizens who rely on public services, we must draw a line. It cannot possibly be right to implement an amendment that would prevent us from removing anyone.

Under amendment 121, a person cannot be removed until we have exhausted a million appeals, through every court in the land, forever and ever. That will actively encourage the kinds of scenes that we have seen in recent years, with late appeals being lodged and people being dragged off flights. We will not be able to enact any of the Bill if hon. Members try to implement such amendments, which defeat its entire object. Perhaps that is what Opposition Members are trying to achieve in tabling them.

We need to stop the exploitation of children, and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) is right to say that age verification is important in that. Important as it is to ensure that we implement a system that is tough on the rules for adults, if we want to implement a system that also has a duty to safeguard children and young people, we must be able effectively to decide who children are and to show that the system is not being exploited in that way.

If, under the Bill, all children have the same rights as British children and will not be removed at 18 years old, we are effectively saying, “You will be able to come and live here as a British citizen with a right to stay for ever.” Inevitably, more and more children will arrive on small boats. We would be actively encouraging people traffickers to exploit more vulnerable, unaccompanied children, put them on boats and push them off into the sea—a horrendous outcome.

My constituents voted by 71%—one of the highest proportions in the country—to leave the EU. They voted for self-determination; they voted to remove the control and overriding decision making of European institutions. Amendments 131 and 132 in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) would ensure that the rules are decided, implemented and applied here in the UK, regardless of the views of those in Strasbourg on removal flights or of provisions in the ECHR that might overreach or be open to exploitation. While we get to a place where we can work out a functioning asylum system, most of my constituents will expect us at the very least to be able to make our own rules and decisions, and determine compliance with those rules, here in the United Kingdom. That played a huge part in people’s choosing to leave the European institutions.

My Mansfield constituents absolutely expect to see a dramatic fall in the number of people crossing the channel illegally, people moved out of hotels and into secure accommodation, and removal flights taking people with no legal right to be in this country somewhere else. I again ask the Minister and the Home Secretary to do everything in their power to ensure that we keep that promise to the British people.