British Nationality (Regularisation of Past Practice) Bill

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 6th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

I echo everything that the Minister has just said and add our thanks to his officials and all the key organisations that have played a role in shaping the Bill. I also want to say to the Minister that this is very much a one-off—this sort of outbreak of violent agreement is a bug, not a feature. As I have said, we on the Labour Benches are very happy to support the rapid facilitation of the Bill through Parliament.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

British Nationality (Regularisation of Past Practice) Bill

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that introduction and overview of the Bill. It is not often that I find myself in full agreement with him but, in this case, I am very pleased to say that we are on the same page. I am used to sparring with him—verbally, of course—on a range of topics on which we have not always seen eye to eye, but the Opposition welcome the Bill and the Government’s commitment to its expedited passage.

This is a narrow piece of legislation that addresses a specific issue. Its purpose is not to implement any changes in legal entitlements to British citizenship but, rather, to codify in primary legislation what has been the established position of successive Governments of both parties. As such, we have not seen any reason to table amendments and we are happy to work with the Government to facilitate the Bill’s swift passage and implementation.

The Bill covers individuals born in the UK to parents from EU countries between 1983 and 2000. It codifies their right to citizenship, in line with successive Governments’ understanding of the British Nationality Act 1981. Many of these people will have held a British passport for many years. However, recent litigation in the Roehrig case raised potential problems for those applying for a passport for the first time. The explanatory notes suggest that only a small number of first-time applications have been made, which the Home Office placed on hold in October 2022, as a result of the Roehrig case. The Government’s position is that the Passport Office will be able to move forward with those applications once this Bill takes effect. Beyond that, the total number of people who may be covered by this legislation remains unclear. According to the equality impact assessment:

“no official figures exist to highlight the scale of the cohort impacted. However, we have combined data from two sources to reach the conclusion that there were in the region of 167,000 children born to EEA mothers between 1983 and 2000”.

So I want to ask the Minister a few questions. I totally understand if he cannot answer all of them now, but it would be useful for the House to have some clarification. I reiterate that we are ready to support the Government in moving this Bill through Parliament as quickly as possible. My questions are primarily on issues of implementation, on which further detail of the Government’s plans would be helpful to the House. Given the substantial gaps in the official data available, does the Home Office have any plans to work with the Office for National Statistics to carry out further research on the number of people who may be affected, particularly in terms of first-time applicants for a British passport?

Secondly, the explanatory notes state that once the Bill is enacted, the Home Office will be in a position to resume the processing of passport applications placed on hold in October last year. Will the Minister confirm that that means the Passport Office will restart the decision-making process immediately upon the Bill’s entry into force? Thirdly, what steps does the Home Office plan to take to ensure that the individuals affected are provided with access to advice and support on their rights and, where relevant, on what action they may need to take to obtain confirmation of their citizenship status and whether and how they may need to apply for a passport? Fourthly, for those who have already applied for their passport and others who may wish to do so, will the Minister confirm whether there will be any expedited procedures to process such applications without any further delays? Finally, will he clarify the Government’s position on any fees that may be payable and whether there are any plans to waive fees for the applicants in question? I feel that in the coming months Members from both sides of the House may well come across some of those issues in their constituencies, and I am sure everyone would find it helpful to have that information on those points. As I say, the Opposition support this Bill and are happy to facilitate its rapid passage through Parliament.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

Inshore Industry Fishing Crews: Visas

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing the debate, and for his determined and relentless advocacy on an issue that is of the utmost importance to his fishing community and to fishing communities across the whole of the United Kingdom. He has explained that some 600 jobs could be at risk across these areas as a result of problems caused by the end of the transitional arrangements. He has also clearly set out that persistent efforts to reach some accommodation with Ministers to soften the blow of those changes appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

I also thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), and the hon. Members for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) and for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) for making excellent contributions.

I have a couple of brief points on the principles that underpin the Opposition’s approach to the points-based system. First, we support it; it was, in fact, created by a Labour Government in 2008. We believe, however, that it is being mismanaged, and there are real opportunities for improvement. Secondly, migrant workers play a vital role in our economy, but it is clear that the reason employers are having to go abroad is that for 13 years we have seen Governments failing to train Britain’s home-grown talent to fill the 1 million vacancies we have. We have 7 million people on NHS waiting lists in England alone. Thirdly, the Labour party wants the net migration number to come down. We want to see our public and private sectors recruit and train more home-grown talent to fill vacancies before looking overseas. That is why we have set out practical plans to deliver a skills agenda that gets people back into the labour market and workforce and brings down NHS waiting times. Those are the three principles that underpin our approach to the issue.

I will now turn to the specific focus of this debate. I was particularly struck by an industry overview published by the Sea Fish Industry Authority last year, which noted:

“Across the supply chain, businesses raised issues with the Skilled Worker Visa route as a solution to labour shortages. This option was seen as prohibitively expensive, especially for small businesses. Businesses also reported that the application system was slow and difficult to use. The high English language requirement for the visa was seen as prohibitive by many businesses. As a result, some industry groups began exploring avenues to recruiting workers from countries where English is an official language, such as Belize.”.

The Government’s position, as set out in section 43 of Nationality and Borders Act 2022, is that foreign nationals require sponsored visas under the points-based system. However, in recognition of the fact that many crews have been incorrectly relying on transit visas rather than work visas, the Government agreed to delay implementation of section 43. Then, on 20 April this year, in response to an urgent question from the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, the Home Office confirmed that the six-month delay would not be extended.

We are now in a situation where a number of really important questions need to be answered. I would like to hear from the Minister on the following points. The Government have said that the rules in effect from last month are intended to encourage employers in the fishing industry to recruit locally if possible. Can the Minister tell us what recent assessment he has made of the extent to which the current workforce requirements of the fishing industry have been met by recruiting domestic workers? Secondly, what specific steps are the Government taking to provide the necessary training opportunities for UK nationals to take on skilled jobs on fishing vessels?

Thirdly, during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), who was Immigration Minister at the time, said that the codification of Government policy on visa requirements for fishing vessels in section 43 was likely to have a “negligible” impact. Based on the information now available to the Government, was that a reasonable assumption?

Fourthly, what measures have the Government put in place to monitor the effects of the transition to the new system? Specifically, will Ministers commit to ensuring that there is robust, ongoing analysis of the impact on workforce supply and the UK’s food security more broadly?

Fifthly, since the relevant changes came into force last month, how many applications has the Home Office received from employers in the fishing sector for sponsor licences and skilled workers visas? How many of those applications have already been granted and how many are still outstanding?

Sixthly, what does the initial evidence tell us about the degree to which meeting the English language requirements continues to pose particular challenges to would-be visa sponsors?

Seventhly, will the Minister update us on what progress the Government and/or their contractors working overseas have made towards ensuring adequate provision of the requisite English language training for prospective workers in countries such as the Philippines, Sri Lanka and others that Members have highlighted?

A major part of the Government’s justification for refusing to extend the transition period is the argument that the English language requirements under the skilled worker route are an important means of protecting migrant workers against abuses in the workplace. Will the Minister therefore explain why his party’s manifesto commitment to establish a single enforcement body for labour market abuses remains unfulfilled? Will he also give an unambiguous commitment to fulfilling that manifesto pledge before the next general election?

The fishing industry is a vital part of our economy, our food security and our broader national story. The current system simply is not working, and the Government should get on and fix it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful for that. The point is registered. I will make inquiries and revert to all hon. Members present who are interested.

I turn to the point raised by the hon. Member for Strangford about English language requirements. In our 2019 manifesto, we committed to prioritising people who have a good grasp of English in our visa system. The English language requirement is fundamental to successful integration into British society, helping visa holders to participate in community life and work. As the hon. Member noted, the level we set is B1, or lower intermediate English, from the common European framework of reference for languages. That level of English is applied for skilled worker visas without exception, unless the applicant can prove that they are from a majority English-speaking country, of which there are some that provide fishermen and women to UK businesses.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes said that workers from Belize, which is an English-speaking country, come to the UK in some numbers. That level is not fluency, but it is the ability to understand and deal with the main points likely to arise in conversation on matters relating to work, school, leisure and so on. Without that level, applicants may struggle to support themselves and their families in the UK.

A good grasp of English can also be important in the workplace, particularly in busy or potentially dangerous environments, and to fulfil health and safety requirements. Workers who do not have a good command of English are more likely to be vulnerable to exploitation and less able to understand their rights. That is vital in a sector that, as we have just noted, has had some issues with labour market abuses.

[Stephen Kinnock]

On labour market abuses, will the Minister set out the timeline for his Government’s implementation of their manifesto pledge to create a single integrated labour market enforcement authority?

[Robert Jenrick]

We do not have a timetable at present, but we are working with the relevant stakeholders, such as the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, which deals with abuses onshore, rather than offshore, to find the right approach to protect workers in all settings. I am happy to update the hon. Gentleman further on the likely timescales for that.

I would be happy to consider the proposal of the hon. Member for Strangford, which he set out well, although I do not want to give false hope that we are certain to take it forward. For the reasons I set out, we have principled arguments for maintaining a good degree of English. All of us, including the hon. Gentleman, care about preventing exploitation. We want the people who come to this country to speak a good degree of English, and we want to ensure that we have a well-integrated and cohesive country. As a matter of principle, we have taken the view that all those coming on skilled worker visas should have that level of English.

I appreciate that, in this instance, a high number of those coming for such purposes will ultimately return to their own countries, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan said. None the less, it is a route to settlement, and we have to be very careful about enabling people to live in the UK for sustained periods or settle here permanently if they cannot participate fully in life in this country.

Student Visas

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

International students are much-valued contributors to our world-class higher education system, which is a great asset to our country. We and Universities UK recognise that a tenfold increase in the number of dependants joining students in the UK since 2018 creates significant challenges and that enforcement measures are long overdue. Therefore, as the Leader of the Opposition has made clear, our entire Front-Bench team does not oppose these changes for masters students.

However, as usual, the Government have failed to deliver an impact assessment for the new rules and have left many of the details vague. How many people will this change affect, in terms of both students and dependants? What will the actual impact be on the numbers? The Office for National Statistics defines an immigrant as somebody who has been here for more than a year or who is coming for more than a year, yet masters students are typically here for less than a year.

What is clear is that dependants of students are only a fraction of the story. In their 2019 manifesto, the Conservatives acknowledged that the Brexit vote was a bid to take back control of immigration, but since then net migration has skyrocketed from 226,000 to 500,000, which is a record high even if we exclude Ukrainians and Hongkongers. The number of work visas has increased by a staggering 95%. We are clear that that has happened because for 13 years, the Conservatives have failed to train up Britain’s home-grown talent to fill the vacancies we have and because there are 6 million people on NHS waiting lists in England alone, most of whom wish to return to the workforce.

We want and expect net immigration to reduce, and we have set out plans for how we will get more of Britain’s workers trained up and back to work. Today, the Leader of the Opposition has announced that we will ditch the flawed Government policy that allows businesses to undercut British workers by paying migrant workers 20% less in sectors assigned to the shortage occupation list. Will the Minister commit to scrapping the 20% wage discount on the going rate for shortage occupations? Nothing could be clearer: the Conservatives have lost control of immigration. We are committed on the Opposition Benches to maximising opportunities for Britain’s home-grown talent.

[Robert Jenrick]

I am delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman has had a damascene conversion to tighter border controls. Unfortunately, I do not think the British public will believe that. It is the same old Labour party—the party that has always believed in open borders. Its own leader campaigned for the leadership of the Labour party saying that he wanted to defend free movement. Only the other day, the chairwoman of the Labour party, the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), said that she expected migration to rise under a future Labour Government. It is the same flip-flopping approach—and the same open door policy.

We want to ensure that we bring net migration down. We consider that to be a solemn promise to the British public, and an important manifesto commitment. This is a significant policy, which I am glad to hear the hon. Gentleman support, that will make a tangible difference on this issue. It will reduce very substantially the number of people coming into the country as dependants, but there might be more that needs to be done. We are determined to tackle this issue and to ensure that we bring net migration down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Ending the small boat crossings is one way of reducing immigration, and Labour has a five point plan to do just that, but asylum seekers are only a fraction of the net migration total. The reason net migration is so high in Scotland and across the UK, and the reason businesses are over-reliant on migrant labour, is that, for 13 years, the Conservative party has failed to train up our home-grown talent. It has slashed the skills budget, and failed to get people off record-high NHS waiting lists and back to work. Labour has set out plans to do each of those things, because we want and expect immigration to come down, and yet the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are clearly at loggerheads on the issue—it appears that the right hand does not know what the far-right hand is doing. Is the Home Secretary still committed to the 2019 Conservative manifesto pledge of bringing net migration below 226,000? If so, does she think that the Prime Minister agrees with her?

[Robert Jenrick]

Let us be absolutely clear: this party wants to bring net migration down. I have no idea what Labour wants to do. In the last few days we have heard a succession of shadow Ministers confused on this issue. The Conservative Government believe in controlled migration. We only have to look back to the legacy of the last Labour Government to see that, under Labour, there is always an open-door approach to migration. We will control migration; the Labour party leaves an open-door migration policy.

Illegal Migration Bill

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I start by associating myself with the comments of the Immigration Minister about the outstanding work that our armed forces have done in Sudan. I wish all who are there a speedy return home.

I want to make one thing absolutely clear, and it is a point with which I am sure every Member of this House agrees: the dangerous channel crossings must be stopped. Those extremely perilous journeys have tragically led to lives being lost, and the only people who benefit from that trade in human misery are the criminal smuggler gangs and people traffickers, who are laughing all the way to the bank at this Government’s failure to arrest and prosecute them. Labour has a comprehensive and workable five-point plan that will defeat the people smugglers and fix our broken asylum system. Our plan is expressed through the amendments and new clauses to this Bill that we have tabled, which I will speak to in due course.

Government Members repeatedly state that they wish to stop the dangerous channel crossings, but the fact is that they are completely and utterly failing to do so. Every single measure that Ministers announce turns out to be either an expensive and unworkable headline-chasing gimmick or a policy that succeeds only in making things worse, or indeed both. In the case of this legislative sham that we are debating today—this bigger backlog Bill—it is definitely both. Under the Conservatives, channel crossings have skyrocketed from 299 in 2018 to 46,000 in 2022. Throughout that period, Ministers have subjected the country to a seemingly endless stream of nonsensical proposals that have all been given pride of place on the front pages of the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph, only to be swiftly consigned to the dustbin of history where they belong.

For a deterrent to be effective, it has to be credible, and of course, our credibility is severely diminished every time we fail to follow through on a commitment that we have made. Let us take a quick canter through some of the posturing and empty threats that this shambles of a Government have engaged in over the past few years. They told us that the British coastguard would be instructed to push back dinghies in the channel, which would have breached the law of the sea and potentially led to further deaths of refugees and innocent children. Then they said they were going to build a giant wave machine in the English channel—I do not know where they would find a wave machine around here, given that the Conservatives have closed down most of England’s swimming pools, although I suppose it is possible that the Prime Minister might have a spare one back at his place.

The Government then said that they were going to fly asylum seekers to Ascension Island, 4,000 miles away, and they even fantasised about sending them to Papua New Guinea, which is literally on the other side of the planet. That brings us to the Government’s latest cunning plan: they went to Kigali and paid £140 million for a press release, and 12 months later they have managed to send more Home Secretaries to Rwanda than they have asylum seekers. One could be forgiven for finding all of this quite comical, but the fact is that it is deadly serious, because a vast amount of taxpayers’ money is being squandered on a profoundly unethical policy that is designed to fail on its own terms.

Even if the Rwanda scheme does get up and running, which the Government admit is unlikely to happen until at least March 2024, the Rwandan Government have refused to commit to taking more than around 1% or 2% of those who arrive here on small boats. We are talking hundreds of removals, rather than the thousands per year that might have a chance of deterring asylum seekers from crossing the channel. It will fail to stop the small boat channel crossings, because if a person has experienced personal tragedy, fought their way across continents and handed their life savings to a people smuggler so that they can endanger their own life crossing the channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is simply not going to represent a level of risk that they might be averse to.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

On the Rwanda scheme, apart from paying £150 million to deport maybe 200 people, under the agreement we have to take people back from Rwanda as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, which I will use as a prompt to also talk about the Israel scheme. Of course, Israel and Rwanda did a deal. What happened with that scheme? Every single one of the people who was sent from Israel to Rwanda had left Rwanda within a matter of weeks and was on their way back to Europe, so it is a very expensive way of giving people a round trip, and I would not recommend it as a deterrent.

Then, just to add to the general sense that the Government have lost the plot, we had the bizarre and frankly appalling spectacle of the Home Secretary jetting down to Rwanda with a carefully vetted gaggle of journalists to indulge in a photo shoot that was akin to a “Visit Rwanda” tourist promo. I may have missed something, but I thought the idea was to deter the channel crossings by using Rwanda as a threat. I am not quite sure how that tallies with the Home Secretary likening Kigali to the garden of Eden. One minute, Rwanda is the perfect place imaginable for a person to rebuild their life; the next, the threat of getting sent there is being deployed as a deterrent.

It is a truly farcical state of affairs, but it is also of central importance to what we are debating today, because the entire Bill is predicated on the Government being able to remove those who arrive here on small boats to a safe third country, and right now Rwanda is the only safe third country they have. As such, the fact that the Rwanda plan is unworkable, unaffordable and unethical renders this entire Bill unworkable, unaffordable and unethical.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

This is an issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised before. As I said during the Bill’s earlier stages, when the Home Affairs Committee went to Calais in January and we met all the people involved in patrolling the beaches and the local officials, they told us that when the Rwanda scheme was announced, there was a surge in migrants approaching the French authorities about staying in France, because they did not want to end up on a plane to Rwanda. There was a deterrent effect; the trouble is that it has not actually started yet, but if it did, it would have an impact. That is the point.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I am not sure I follow the logic of it. He said that there was a deterrent effect, but it has not started yet, which suggests to me that there has not been a deterrent effect. If we look at the numbers, channel crossings continue to skyrocket, so I think what matters to this House is results and outcomes. As things stand, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Rwanda scheme has acted as a deterrent.

This bigger backlog Bill is rotten to its very core, because it prevents the Home Secretary from considering those who arrive here on small boats as asylum seekers, and instead obliges her to detain and remove them. However, there is nowhere to detain them, and there is nowhere to remove them to either. We already have 50,000 asylum seekers in around 400 hotels, costing the taxpayer an eye-watering £6 million every single day, and on average, each asylum seeker is waiting a staggering 450 days for a decision. The backlog now stands at 166,000, more than eight times larger than when Labour left office in 2010, when it stood at just under 19,000. Incidentally, I am still waiting for the Prime Minister and the Minister for Immigration to apologise to the House and correct the record on that point.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentioned detention, and a number of amendments have been tabled today on that topic. I listened carefully to what the Minister said about detaining unaccompanied children, but I also wanted to ask my hon. Friend for his views on detaining children, families with children and pregnant women. This House has made very clear in the past its view about safeguards being required for the detention of the vulnerable groups I have just described. Does he think that we now need to think again about the detention of pregnant women and families with children?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. She is absolutely right to highlight this issue, and she has tabled a compelling amendment to deal with it. Members on both sides of the House fought very hard for these legal limits, as she rightly pointed out, and when we are talking about the detention of pregnant women, removing those limits and paving the way for vulnerable individuals to be detained individually is morally wrong, wrong-headed and deeply counterproductive. I have not heard any argument from Ministers to justify it.

New figures reveal that this bigger backlog Bill could end up putting an extra 50,000 people into permanent taxpayer-funded accommodation this year, with hotel costs rising to more than £13 million a day, which is more than £4 billion a year during a cost of living crisis. That is because, according to the Government’s own forecasts, 53,000 who cross on small boats will be classed as inadmissible, without any prospect of being removed. What is particularly astonishing is that the Government made this same mistake last year by including similar inadmissibility provisions in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. The result is a cost of £400 million to the taxpayer in just six months, with only 21 people returned to their country of origin.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

I understand why the Minister did not want to give way on this issue, despite saying that he would, but my hon. Friend raises the question of people being in hotels. Does he agree that the Government need to be honest with their own Back Benchers about the statutory instrument that they tried to slip out at the end of the previous Session that will remove the licensing laws from houses of multiple occupancy for asylum seekers? That will presumably prevent local authorities from refusing to license those places, and it will also have the consequence of meaning that we no longer require places where we are expecting families, pregnant women and small children to live to have fire alarms, smoke alarms or running water. Does he agree that the Government need to be honest about how awfully they wish to treat asylum seekers and how they will avoid local authorities being part of that conversation?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my hon. Friend for that powerful intervention. She is absolutely right. We are talking about basic standards of decency and humanity. Houses of multiple occupancy need to be properly regulated. They need a basic floor of certification and registration and of health and safety, particularly when we are talking about families. The Government should consider being more transparent and straightforward on that point.

Fortunately, we on the Opposition Benches care about secure borders, and we will clear up the mess by delivering a firm, fair and well-managed system that will stop the dangerous channel crossings, because we know that good government is not about chasing headlines; it is about common sense, hard graft and quiet diplomacy. Those are the qualities that underpin our new clauses and amendments to the Bill.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I intervened on the shadow Minister in Committee, and I found out that apparently the Labour party supports a cap for safe and legal routes, which was news to me at the time. Has he had any time to think about what that cap level would be? Bearing in mind how many people would like to try to get to our country, what would the approach be to those who failed in their application, but had still travelled here illegally and got here? Would any potential future Labour Government be open to deporting those individuals?

[Stephen Kinnock]

The cap has to be determined in consultation with local authorities and Parliament—that is absolutely right. In terms of removals, what we need is a processing system that actually works, so that we can get to a decision. People from safe countries who should be removed need to be swiftly removed from our country, and those who are genuine asylum seekers should be granted leave to remain, so that they can get on with their lives and we can start to clear up the abject mess that this Government have made of our asylum system.

The first part of our five-point plan is to repurpose and redirect the funds currently being wasted on the money-for-nothing Rwanda plan into a new, elite, cross-border, 100-strong police force that will relentlessly pursue the ruthless criminal smuggling gangs upstream. The latest £500 million payment that the British Government have made to the French Government will be having some effect on reducing the crossings, but the reality is that we will not succeed if we focus all our efforts on the hundreds of kilometres of French coastline, where resources are bound to be spread thin. We also need sophisticated operations with the British authorities working with EU member states, Europol, Interpol and Frontex to tackle the gangs upstream. New clause 16 instructs the Government to lay before Parliament a framework for a 12-month pilot co-operation agreement with those Governments and agencies to do just that and secure the prosecution and conviction of persons involved in facilitating illegal entry to the United Kingdom from neighbouring countries.

New clause 16 also incorporates the second part of our plan: securing a returns agreement with the European Union, which is essential. Since the Conservatives botched the Brexit negotiations and Britain left the Dublin convention, which had provided agreements on returns, the number of channel crossings has gone up by an astonishing 2,400%. For every one person crossing the channel in a small boat in 2019, 24 are crossing now.

There are three vital points to make on getting a returns deals. First, international challenges require international solutions. Secondly, we need an agreement with our nearest neighbours that must include returns. Thirdly, we will only strike a returns deal with the European Union if we bring something to the negotiation, and that should include a proper plan for capped safe and legal routes for bona fide asylum seekers located in mainland Europe. We suggest that Britain prioritises unaccompanied children with family in the UK, and new clause 14 reflects that.

[Sir William Cash]

I would like the hon. Gentleman to reflect on the fact that when President Macron made his assertions about returns to France, the following day the European Union said it would countenance no such proposals; the EU simply does not agree about returns. Furthermore, France is not a place that people associate with persecution or threats of irreversible harm. What is his argument all about?

[Stephen Kinnock]

My argument is about a negotiation. We clearly have to do a returns deal; it is an important part of the deterrent effect. We do not get a returns deal unless we have something on the table. There is a clear link between policies on safe and legal routes and getting a clear position in terms of negotiations with the European Union. The reality is that it is the only deterrent effect that will work. We are dealing with people who have risked their lives, fought their way across Europe and are prepared to spend their life savings to pay people smugglers to cross the channel. We will not deter them unless they know there is a returns deal in place, and one reason that the Dublin convention worked is that it acted as a deterrent. How else can we explain that the numbers have gone through the roof since we left the Dublin convention?

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because this is just nonsense. In the last year that we were covered by the Dublin convention, before the pandemic struck, we applied to the EU for 8,500 returns under that returns agreement and only 105 were granted—that is 1.2%—so what he says is complete nonsense. It did not work when we were in the EU, and he is now expecting to magic up some agreement that the EU will not give us anyway. Stop misleading the House about those figures.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I find the hon. Gentleman’s response bizarre, because there are some simple facts, which are that we left the Dublin convention, and since then the number of small boat crossings has gone through the roof. It is not rocket science; it is a simple fact of mathematics. The point is that we cannot solve an international problem without international co-operation. We have to recognise the flow of asylum seekers coming across the European Union. The idea that we just say to the EU, “You can take them all; we are not going to take any” is for the birds. It is fantasy politics, and I am stunned that Government Members do not seem to understand that simple political fact.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

If the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) does not mind me mentioning her, I remember that when she was Prime Minister the first letter that she wrote to the European Union in trying to trigger article 50 said that we wanted a security treaty with the EU. That is what I would dearly love us to have. One of the great flaws of how we have left the European Union is that we have not ended up with that. Surely this measure should be part of that security treaty, so that we have better relations with Interpol, Europol and Frontex and proper sharing of information, so that we know all the details of anyone arriving in the UK. Is that not where we need to go?

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We know from our long period of being in the European Union that, in order to get a deal with the EU, there has to be a quid pro quo. There has to be a negotiation based on a grown-up conversation about how to tackle the challenge we face, and an all-encompassing security agreement could be a very good way of opening that door, because of course the EU knows that the United Kingdom is a very important security partner for all sorts of reasons. I agree with my hon. Friend entirely on the very strategic point he has made. Although we support the Government’s new clause 8 on safe and legal routes, we believe it should be linked to securing a returns deal with the European Union. As I said, our approach is based on hard graft, common sense and quiet diplomacy, and we urge the Government to start thinking and acting in the same vein.

Our third commitment is that Labour will fix the problems with current resettlement programmes. This includes the broken Afghan schemes, and our new clause 21 instructs the Government to report every three months on progress—or lack thereof—in meeting their own targets in supporting those loyal-to-Britain Afghans who sacrificed so much to protect our servicepeople and to stand up for our liberal values in Afghanistan. All resettlement routes need to be properly controlled and managed, of course, and they therefore cannot be unlimited, but they do also need to work.

Fourthly, Labour’s long-term international development strategy will include tackling the root causes of migration upstream through increased humanitarian assistance and greater emphasis on conflict prevention and resolution programmes. This is slightly beyond the focus of the Bill, but an important aspect of migration policy—and a lesson that needs to be learned from Afghanistan in relation to Sudan, of course, which was mentioned earlier—is that if we cut aid and cut the right kind of aid, we will end up increasing the challenges around the dangerous channel crossings and hurt British values and interests.

Our comprehensive plan will also fix what is perhaps the Conservatives’ most astonishing failure of basic governance: the failure to clear the backlog. It is truly staggering that just 13% of small boat asylum claims are being processed within five years, and it is deeply troubling that, while around half of the huge 166,000 backlog is down to small boat crossings, another 80,000 has built up organically under the Conservatives since 2010.

This is no coincidence. Home Office decision making has collapsed. In 2013 the Conservatives downgraded asylum decision makers to junior staff, hired by literally going from a Saturday job one minute to making life or death decisions the next. No wonder this resulted in worse decisions, often overturned on appeal, and it is deeply troubling that the staff attrition rate in 2022 in these teams stood at an astonishing 46%. There is little prospect of improvement, given that Home Office statistics published on Monday show that this year the number of decision makers has decreased.

So let us be clear: the incompetence and indifference of consecutive Home Secretaries since 2010 have brought the basic functions of government to a grinding halt, and during this cost of living crisis the British taxpayer is paying the price. Our new clause 10 therefore sets out how the Government should get on with expediting asylum processing for the countries listed in the schedule to this Bill. If an applicant has no right to asylum in the UK, they should be removed, safely and swiftly, to the safe country from which they have come, such as Albania.

Further to new clause 10, our new clause 13 instructs the Home Secretary to publish a report every three months on the progress she is making on clearing the backlog.

[John McDonnell]

I am sorry to interrupt the shadow Minister’s flow, and I wholeheartedly support him, as we have time and again, with regard to the criticisms of the Government’s lack of processing of cases, including the lack of staffing resources. On new clause 10 and the proposal for an expedited asylum process, can my hon. Friend reassure me that there will be no lessening of the legal rights of asylum seekers, of access to legal representation and of the application of international human rights treaties and conventions?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. Absolutely, the proposal is that there are a number of countries with very low grant rates and that must therefore be where we triage, and put them into a category where the processing can be expedited. However, all the processing must be done on an individual, case-by-case basis, in line with our treaty obligations; we cannot have block definitions of any particular category of asylum seeker, which of course is one of the main issues concerning the legality of the Bill, and that includes access to legal aid. So I can absolutely reassure my right hon. Friend on that point. We have to get the balance right: we must focus on the efficiency and effectiveness of dealing with the backlog—which must be based on triaging, giving much more support and upgrading the staff in the Home Office—but that must be underpinned by the provisions to which my right hon. Friend refers. Of course, the return on investment for improving the quality of decision making would be rapid and substantial, because quicker processing means fewer asylum seekers in hotels.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Hunt]

If this quiet diplomacy was not as successful as the shadow Minister hopes and a lot of these return agreements did not materialise, and all these people who arrived here illegally were green-lighted if a Labour Government were ever in charge, would there ever at any point be any policy whatsoever to deport to a safe third country?

[Stephen Kinnock]

As I have just pointed out, we are proposing, for example, a fast track for people from safe countries. We absolutely are of the view that people whose asylum claims are not successful or legitimate should be rapidly and safely sent back to their country of origin. I hope I have understood the hon. Gentleman’s point; I am not quite sure what it was.

Members on both sides of the House have raised concerns about the way in which this Bill will undermine our ability to crack down on modern slavery, and we do have to ask why it is that the Prime Minister has taken the attitude he has towards trafficked women and young girls being sold as sex slaves and is so accommodating to terrorists and other criminals on the other hand. We just need to look at his tweet of 7 March, threatening victims of modern slavery with deportation; it was disgraceful, and now his Government’s amendments 114 to 116 have made it even harder for victims to come forward. It will be held up, I am afraid, by the pimps and traffickers to threaten their victims. Two former Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioners, Sara Thornton and Kevin Hyland, recently warned that this Bill will devastate modern slavery protections and is a gift to criminals. All of us in this House know that this Bill is a traffickers’ charter.

Then we should look at the Prime Minister’s shocking record on deporting foreign criminals. Astonishingly, 19 terror suspects are currently living in taxpayer-funded British hotels because the Government have failed to remove them. Labour’s new clause 15 places a duty on the Secretary of State to remove suspected terrorists who have entered the country illegally or to consider the imposition of terrorism prevention and investigation measures upon them.

Deportations of criminals have fallen off a cliff since the Conservatives came to power in 2010. They plummeted by 66% to 5,000 a year before the pandemic and to just 2,100 in 2021. This is an insult to victims, and it again proves what we all know: Labour is tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, but under the Conservatives criminals have never had it so good.

The Minister for Immigration was appointed to his position as the moderate voice who would curb the more fanatical tendencies of his boss, but that simply has not happened. Instead, it appears that he has either been kidnapped by the hard right of his party, or he has willingly hitched his wagon to it because he thinks that is the way the wind is blowing. However, the Minister is not alone, because his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister also appears to have caved in to the Home Secretary and the Trumpian faction she leads. He has caved in by adding Government new clauses 22 and 26 to the Bill, thereby completely torpedoing his own negotiations with the European Court of Human Rights. It really is quite extraordinary that Conservative Prime Ministers never seem to learn from the fate of their predecessors: the more they appease the extremists, the more they demand. The Prime Minister is weak, and he is being played. This weakness did for his predecessors, and ultimately it will also do for him.

Arguably the most shocking part of this whole sorry tale is this Conservative Government’s contempt for taxpayer cash. Aside from losing billions to fraudsters during the pandemic, dishing out overpriced contracts to their mates for unusable personal protective equipment and crashing the economy to the tune of £30 billion, the Government’s asylum policy stands out as a prime example of Ministers scattering taxpayer money to the four winds and receiving absolutely nothing in return—chasing headlines while buying failure.

There are so many vital questions to be answered. Why, for instance, have the Government failed to publish an impact assessment? For example, do Ministers have any idea of the increase in detention capacity that will be required because of this Bill? The Home Secretary was completely unable to answer this simple question during her car crash of an interview on the radio this morning. How much will these additional detention places cost? How much will the Government pay Rwanda per asylum seeker, and how much will each flight cost? We still do not know the answer to that question one year after the £140 million was given. Our constituents deserve to know, as these decisions impact directly on their communities and on the state of our public finances. It is outrageous that the Government are not providing an iota of information about the impact of a Bill with such huge financial and community impact implications.

So we are bound to ask: what are Ministers afraid of? If they truly believe that this Bill will succeed in achieving its objectives, surely they would happily have published the impact assessment well before Second Reading, and they would have been delighted to stand at the Dispatch Box to defend it. However, there is of course another possibility, which is that Ministers have not even attempted to assess the impact of this bigger backlog Bill because they are utterly terrified of what they would reveal if they did. They are terrified of seeing the cost of their own incompetence. They are horrified by the thought of being transparent because transparency reveals the truth, and the truth is that this Bill will just make everything worse. It will boost the profits of the people smugglers. It will add tens of thousands to the backlog. It will add hundreds of millions to the hotel bills. It will tarnish Britain’s reputation as a country that upholds the international rules-based order. It will further inflame community frustration and tension, and it will add to the desperate misery of those who are seeking sanctuary from persecution and violence.

Many Conservative Members agree with every word of what I have just said, and I urge them to support our new clauses and to join us in the No Lobby when we vote against this deeply damaging and counterproductive Bill this evening.

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.

Illegal Migration Bill

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I hope that colleagues will bear in mind the fact that I cannot put time limits on speeches during Committee stage. I will prioritise those Members who have amendments on the Order Paper. I call the shadow Minister.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I start by reiterating the point that I made in closing the debate on Second Reading: we on the Labour Benches are absolutely clear that we must bring the dangerous channel crossings to an end, and that we must destroy the criminal activity of the people smugglers. Indeed, Labour has a five-point plan to do just that. It is a plan based on common sense, hard graft and quiet diplomacy, as opposed to the headline-chasing gimmicks that are the stock in trade of those on the Government Benches.

Our opposition to the Bill—and our introduction of the amendments on which I am about to speak—is based on the fact that it will serve only to make it harder for the Government to achieve their stated aims. The central premise of the Bill is that it will act as a deterrent by banning the right to asylum and replacing it with blanket detention and removals policies. For a deterrent to be effective, it must be credible, and the Bill fails the credibility test because there is nowhere near enough capacity to detain asylum seekers in the UK, there is no returns agreement with the EU, and the Rwandan Government are agreeing to commit to take only thousands at some unspecified future date. That means the boats will keep on coming, the backlog will keep on growing, and the hotels will keep on filling, all of which leaves the House in the somewhat surreal position of debating a Bill that everyone knows is not really worth the paper on which it is written, and yet we must all go through the motions and pretend that we are participating in a meaningful process.

Nevertheless, I assure you, Dame Rosie, and the entire House that Labour Members will do all that we can to amend and improve the Bill in a concerted effort to limit the damage that it will inflict on the international reputation of our country, on the cohesion of our communities, and on the health and wellbeing of those who have come to our country in the hope of sanctuary from the violence and persecution from which they are fleeing.

[Sir William Cash]

Is the hon. Gentleman implying that Labour Members will not oppose the Bill any further on these matters, because they want to improve and enact it, but no more?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I think I was crystal clear that we oppose the Bill. It will be entirely counterproductive and make all the challenges that we face worse. Labour Members believe in supporting legislation that addresses the substance of an issue rather than one that chases tabloid headlines.

The competition for the most absurd aspect of this entire process is pretty stiff, but the programme motion is a strong contender. Ministers in their infinite wisdom decided that we should debate the second half of the Bill on the first day, and the first half on the second day. Whatever the rationale for that, I suppose that there is something strangely appropriate about the idea that we should consider the Bill back to front given that so many of its provisions put the cart before the horse.

The other point that I wish to make at the outset is that the refusal of the Home Office to publish a full set of impact assessments ahead of Second Reading—and they still have not been published—is completely unacceptable. Surely, as a matter of basic respect for this House and for our constituents, Members should be entitled to expect to be given the opportunity to have an informed debate, based on comprehensive assessments of the impact that the Government expect their proposals to have.

The fact is that the Government’s entire handling of this shambles of a Bill has been utterly chaotic, while Ministers’ statements have generally been incoherent, inconsistent or simply incomprehensible. I spoke earlier in my point of order about the Government’s conjuring up statistics to suit their needs that have now been rubbished by the statistics watchdog. However, we are where we are, and on that basis I will move on to consider some of the substantive issues.

It is with regret that, given the time available, I will have to limit my remarks to our own Front-Bench amendments tabled on behalf of the Opposition. I begin with our new clause 25, which sets out how Labour would approach these matters if we were in government, in order to deliver meaningful progress on a range of issues, from border security, to authorised safe routes, as part of a comprehensive strategy to stop the crossings and keep people safe, in line with our international commitments. In particular, new clause 25 calls for a multifaceted overarching strategy for securing the agreements with international partners that our country urgently needs.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

We have already come to agreements with international partners and we are signing more all the time—a new deal with the French, a new deal with the Albanians—but we have had 480,000 asylum places granted here since 2015. How many hundreds of thousands more people does the hon. Gentleman want coming to the country?

[Stephen Kinnock]

It may have escaped the hon. Gentleman’s notice that when the botched Brexit negotiations took place we left the Dublin convention, which is crucial for returns. We have to find a deal that replaces it. That is about protecting our borders, because it is about returning people when their asylum claims are not successful.

A strategy for securing Britain’s borders must begin with a clear and honest recognition that we cannot solve these problems unilaterally. This is a collective international issue that requires a collective international solution, so closer co-operation with our nearest friends and neighbours must be our starting point and our No. 1 priority. That means urgent action, which will be taken forward from day 1 of a Labour Government, to negotiate a returns agreement with the EU to replace our previous participation in the Dublin system.

That is just the start, however. We also need to restore access for our law enforcement agencies to the treasure trove of information—from biometrics to travel history—that Eurodac and other databases provide in support of efforts to ensure that the removal of asylum seekers from the UK to safe EU countries is possible.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Out of interest, the Labour party talks about safe and legal routes, so does it support a cap on the numbers coming through those routes? If so, how would it prioritise refugees, bearing in mind that there are hundreds of millions of people across the world who would like to move here and could conceivably get refugee status?

[Stephen Kinnock]

Yes, we do support a capped scheme for safe and legal routes, and it has to be based on prioritisation according to, for example, high grant rate countries and family reunions.

The hon. Gentleman’s intervention is all very well, but the reality is that those on the Government Benches have completely burned every relationship with our partners and allies across continental Europe and, as a result, we have left the Dublin convention. There is a direct connection between the massive surge in numbers coming on small boats and the Government’s botched Brexit negotiations.

Solving these problems also means establishing formal working arrangements to put the UK at the heart of international efforts to crack down on our real enemies here, the people smugglers, by relentlessly hunting them down and ensuring that they are brought to justice. The Labour party has set out a more targeted approach than the Government are currently undertaking; we would recruit a cross-border specialist unit in the National Crime Agency to go after the criminal gangs upstream, working with French experts and Europol. Finally, it means working closely with our European friends and allies to develop new safe and authorised routes from EU countries to the UK for those who are most in need of our help.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about making more safe and legal routes available and has suggested he would be supportive of a cap. At what level would he support such a cap, and what would he do to manage those people who continue to arrive once that cap was exceeded?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I do not know how many negotiations the hon. Lady has been in, but people do not generally go into negotiations by putting all their cards face up on the table. It is absolutely clear that a deal has to be done with the European Union. We do not do that deal from the Dispatch Box; we do it with hard graft, common sense and quiet diplomacy, none of which the Conservatives are capable of. That is why they need to get out of the way so that a Labour Government can fix the problem.

Clause 51 stands as evidence that vague promises from Ministers are not to be taken seriously. I find it particularly telling that, in drafting the clause, the Government were not even able to come up with a definition of a “safe and legal route” or how one should work. Nor do they appear to have any idea of who such routes should apply to, when the measures might be introduced, how many people would be included or exempted from the cap, or who—other than local authorities —the Government may consult. The Opposition’s amendments would address those challenges.

On Second Reading, I said that under this Government, Ministers had done

“little more than pay lip service”—[Official Report, 13 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 640]

to the principle of authorised safe routes for refugees and others in protection. I stand by that assessment.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the shadow Minister agree that, when it comes to honouring statements that we have made, we have an obligation towards those from Afghanistan who served alongside British soldiers? Some are in the system but are yet to be processed. Would the shadow Minister ensure that those from Afghanistan who are stuck in Pakistan and in Syria get here as asylum seekers, which is very much what they are?

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. The performance on the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme has been abject. Under pathway 2 of that scheme, 22 Afghans have come over in the last year. They are being told that they can come only once they have accommodation, and they are being treated with a total lack of respect when we owe them a debt of honour and gratitude.

[Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Opposition amendment to which he has referred gives the lie to the argument put forward by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and, more recently, the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) that we on the Labour Benches support open borders in all circumstances?

[Stephen Kinnock]

That is one of the many myths that the Conservatives peddle—my right hon. Friend is absolutely right—and those myths need to be debunked. It is absolutely clear that the small boat crossings have to be stopped, but the key point is that the Bill will not achieve that objective. Our new clause 25 would actually put some flesh on the bones of something that might work, rather than chasing headlines and doing government by gimmick.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

The hon. Gentleman must give up on his ridiculous argument that this Government have not taken safe and legal routes seriously. As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) said, almost half a million humanitarian visas have been issued since 2015. In Europe, we are second only to Sweden for resettlement; in the world, we are fourth only to Canada, the United States and another for UNHCR-sponsored humanitarian schemes. Some 45,000 people have come across on family reunion visas. We need no lectures on playing our part as a generous and compassionate country.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Of course, the Ukraine scheme, the British national overseas scheme and the Afghan scheme—when it used to work—are very welcome; there is no debate about that. But I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman keeps making that point. That is not the point of this debate; the point of this debate is how to address the challenge that we currently face. As hon. Members have pointed out, many people are fleeing war and persecution in the world, and this Government have utterly failed to offer them safe and legal routes. As a result, they come by unauthorised routes—that is a simple fact of life. The other point, of course, is that the Government have allowed the backlog to get completely out of control. The idea that they are making life better and easier for people fleeing war and persecution is for the birds.

I also want to mention areas in which Members on both sides of the House are broadly in agreement, not least because the list is quite short. The Opposition support the principle of Parliament’s having a say each year on the quota or cap for safe and legal routes, as envisaged by clause 51. Every country has a responsibility to do its bit, alongside other countries, to help those fleeing persecution and conflict. However, we also believe that the Government’s policy on safe routes cannot begin and end with caps alone.

The Bill presents us with a rare opportunity to have a serious debate about how best to live up to our international commitments to offer protection to those most in need, especially those fleeing persecution and war. The fact that so many detailed, well thought through proposals have been put forward by hon. Members in amendments and new clauses speaks to the depth of cross-party support for making safe routes work and providing genuine alternatives to dangerous crossings.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely scathing about the Bill, but he will be aware that, as recently as last summer, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change was writing about a solution to the small boats crisis that involved annual quotas, new safe and legal routes, an absolute prohibition on any arrival by a small boat, and only out-of-country rights of appeal. That is identical to what effectively appears in this Bill. It was written by somebody called Harvey Redgrave, who cites himself as the Labour party’s home affairs policy adviser between 2011 and 2015.

[Stephen Kinnock]

As I have just said, we support clause 51; I do not know whether the hon. Lady was listening. We support the idea of safe and legal routes that are capped. What she needs to understand is that for people escaping war and conflict, the idea of being detained in a deterrence centre that does not exist or of being removed to other countries when no removal agreements are in place is not a deterrent. For a deterrent to be effective, it has to be credible. The Bill has zero credibility because it is impossible to operationalise. That is the key point that the hon. Lady seems to fail to understand.

[Bob Seely]

rose—

[Stephen Kinnock]

I am going to make some progress.

A range of proposals have been put forward, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), who has a record of huge commitment to addressing these matters. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) also have a long history of working diligently on these issues.

The number of new clauses, including one of my own, that seek to build on and expand access to family reunion visas for refugees clearly reflects the high level of support for such schemes among Members on both sides of the House. In speaking to new clause 24 on behalf of the Opposition, I make it clear that providing better safe routes for unaccompanied children with family in the UK is not just right from a moral point of view; it will also demonstrate to our European neighbours, whose support on issues from returns to tackling people smuggling is so fundamentally important to this country, that we are serious about making progress in negotiations on the range of issues that I outlined in relation to new clause 25.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that so far the Bill comes with no children’s rights impact assessment? We are desperately concerned about the plight of children.

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely valid point about the lack of an impact assessment for children, but there is a broader point about the lack of impact assessment full stop. It is completely and utterly unacceptable that we in this House should now be debating a Bill with no impact assessment having been published in advance. That shows a sort of disrespect to the House that really needs to be put on the record.

I am having to limit my time to discussion of the Opposition Front Benchers’ amendments, so I will not be able to raise my many questions and concerns about some of the provisions on legal proceedings in clauses 37 to 49. Some clearly appear to pose a real threat to due process and to our respect as a country that upholds the rule of law. The entire Bill is shot through with inconsistencies, unresolved questions and bizarre contortions of logic that can only have the effect of worsening the very problems the Government say they are trying to solve.

Just one example of that is highlighted by amendment 41, which I tabled as a means of probing the Government’s thinking on a measure that simply does not appear to have been properly thought through. Clause 45 states that where an appeal against a removal notice is upheld, the duty to remove that person no longer applies—so far, so sensible. The problem is that nothing in the Bill says that any asylum claim made by a person in such a situation would then be considered: those claims would continue to be inadmissible. That means we will end up with situations where there are people who cannot be removed, because a court has ruled that doing so would pose unacceptable risks to their safety, but who also cannot lawfully remain in the UK because of the Government’s refusal to accept their claim for asylum. The law would effectively be saying that a person can neither leave nor remain in this country. If the Minister has an answer to the question of what then happens to a person in that situation, I would love to hear it.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the points he is making. I want to return to the point about detaining children, however, because we know that under this Government, hundreds of children have gone missing, and for some of them—hundreds, in fact—we still do not know where they are. Is it not right for children who come to this country to be placed immediately under the care of local authorities, which can then put proper safeguarding in place to protect those most vulnerable people?

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She points to a broader failing, and to a clear indication of the shambles and chaos that we have within the broader asylum system. The backlog in the system is out of control, there are massive safeguarding issues, and really it is just more grist to the mill for the people smugglers and the traffickers. That is why this issue has to be addressed.

To sum up, this is a dog’s breakfast of a Bill, and this debate feels like something of a charade, because everyone knows that not only is the Bill unworkable, but it is not even intended to work. Nevertheless, we hope that colleagues across the House will support our amendments and new clauses in the Division Lobby this evening, because let us be clear, Madam Deputy Speaker: Ministers know full well that this Bill is an entirely counterproductive piece of legislation, but they do not really care. In fact, they will be more than happy to see it failing, because then they can blame our civil servants, the EU, the lawyers, the judges, the Labour party, the football pundits, or whoever they can think of.

Why are the Government doing this? Well, the answer is staring us in the face: they know that come the general election, they cannot stand on their record of 13 years of failure, so instead they will whip up division, stoke anxiety and fire up the culture wars. Our constituents know where the buck stops, though. They want solutions, not soundbites; they want the Labour party’s common sense, hard graft and quiet diplomacy, not government by gimmick; and when this Bill fails, they will know that only a Labour Government’s five-point plan for asylum will stop the dangerous crossings, fix our broken asylum system, and get our country back on track after 13 years of Tory failure.

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Forgive me: I should have reminded Members at the beginning of the debate that when we are in Committee, it is customary to either call me by name or address me as Madam Chair, rather than Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a very common mistake, don’t worry; I should have reminded Members at the beginning of the debate.

I call Tim Loughton.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

This has been an excellent debate covering the provisions of the Bill relating to legal proceedings, the cap on the number of refugees to be admitted through new safe and legal routes, and safe countries of origin.

Let me deal briefly with the substantive Government amendments in this group. First, new clause 11 enables the Senior President of Tribunals to request first-tier tribunal judges, including employment tribunal judges, to sit as judges of the upper tribunal. This amendment extends existing deployment powers, which are an important tool for the judiciary to manage the fluctuations in demand in our courts and make best use of their time.

We have also brought forward new clause 12, which enables appeals under the Bill to be heard by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission rather than the upper tribunal in appropriate cases. That is necessary to safeguard the sensitive material that would cause harm to the public or individuals if it were revealed in open court. The test for certifying suspensive claims will require that the Home Secretary certify that the decision being taken relies partly or wholly on information that in her opinion should not be made public. I hope that those Government amendments will receive the support of the Committee of the whole House.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the Minister very much for giving way. He will recall that, at the beginning of the debate, I raised a point of order about the fact that he, on 19 December, said that when Labour left office in 2010, the asylum “backlog…was 450,000”—his words. I have received a letter from the UK Statistics Authority completely debunking that claim. It says that in fact the backlog was 19,000, and the backlog now is 166,000. As he is at the Dispatch Box, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for him to apologise to the House and to correct the record, as per his duties under the ministerial code.

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for looking out for me. It is understandable that there would be confusion on this point because, as I think the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), said on Second Reading, the situation that we inherited in 2010 was a complete shambles. Indeed, a former Labour Home Secretary described the Department as “not fit for purpose”. What we were referring to was John Vine, who was the chief inspector of borders and immigration. He conducted a report into the shambolic handling of immigration by the last Labour Government, and he said:

“In 2007, the UK Border Agency created the”—

euphemistically titled—

“Case Resolution Directorate…to conclude approximately 400,000-450,000 unresolved legacy records.”

He said:

“Such was the inefficiency of this operation that at one point over 150 boxes of post, including correspondence from applicants, MPs and their legal representatives, lay unopened in a room in Liverpool.”

That room, I am told, was colloquially known as the “room of doom”. Well, we are fixing the system, and I am pleased to say—

[Stephen Kinnock]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

No, I am not going to give way again. The hon. Member has had his moment. I am pleased to say that, as a result of the work that the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and I have already done, the legacy backlog is falling rapidly, and we intend to meet our commitment to clear it over the course of the year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Let me speak briefly about the point raised by a number of colleagues about rule 39 and the events of last summer. The Government share the frustration, certainly of Conservative Members, about what happened with the Rwanda flight in June. A case was conducted late at night at the last minute, with no chance for us to make our case or appeal its decision. That was deeply flawed. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) was right when she said, in a thoughtful contribution, that that raises concerning issues. I think it raises issues of natural justice that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General and others in Government are taking up with the European Court of Human Rights. We want to find a more satisfactory way for the Court to behave in such circumstances in future.

Let me turn briefly to the swathe of amendments tabled by the Scottish National party. At this rate, there will be more SNP amendments to the Bill than there are refugees whom they accommodate in Scotland. Instead of pruning the already excessive forest of legal challenges that we find, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) proposes a Kafkaesque array of new ones. She wants to turn the robust scheme in the Bill into a sieve, and we cannot allow that to happen. The mandate of the British public is clear: they want us to stop the boats. That is what the Bill does, and that is what we intend to achieve.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for his contribution. We have listened carefully to his arguments. As the Prime Minister said, it is precisely because we want to help genuine refugees that we need to take full control of our borders. Safe and legal routes, such as those we have brought forward in recent years, which have enabled almost half a million people to come to our country for humanitarian purposes since 2015, are exactly how we will achieve that. I commit to engage with my hon. Friend and other colleagues ahead of Report on setting up safe and legal routes, if necessary by bringing forward further amendments to ensure that there are new routes in addition to the existing schemes, and accelerating the point at which they become operational, with our intention being to open them next year. I also confirm that we will accelerate the process of launching the local authority consultation on safe and legal routes at the same time as the commencement of the Bill. I hope that satisfies my hon. Friend.

As a former Secretary of State for local government, one provision in the Bill—it was mentioned by a number of colleagues on the Conservative Benches but curiously not by those on the Opposition Benches—is extremely important to me. Government Members will not make promises in this place at the expense of local authorities and our constituents. For the first time, not only will we bring forward more safe and legal routes, but we will first consult with local communities and local authorities, so that those routes are not virtue signalling, but are wedded to the genuine capacity and ability of our communities to house people, to find GP surgery appointments and school places, and to bring those individuals into the country while ensuring that community tensions are not raised unnecessarily. That is a critical distinction.

[Stephen Kinnock]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] Well, I will give way, because at one point in his remarks he said that he was for the cap, and then he said he was against it. Perhaps he can explain.

[Stephen Kinnock]

The right hon. Gentleman is making good points about local authority consultation. Will he therefore support new clause 27 tomorrow, which would make it a legal requirement for the Home Office to consult local authorities before deciding on hotels?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman should read the Bill. We have been debating it for the past five and a half hours, but he does not seem to have read it. The Bill says, for the very first time, that before we create a safe and legal route we will consult with local authorities. We should all see that as a good step forward. The public are sick of hotels being filled with illegal immigrants and they do not want the wellbeing of illegal immigrants put above that of the British public. That is a crucial change we are making.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

The Government’s new asylum legislation is a sham that is set to worsen the backlog, because they do not have the facilities to detain tens of thousands of asylum seekers, or a returns agreement in place with the EU to send back those deemed inadmissible. For all her taxpayer funded photo ops this weekend, the Home Secretary has seemingly failed to bung the Rwandan Government enough money for them to increase the number of asylum seekers they are ready to take this year. For a deterrent to be effective, it has to be credible, yet these plans are just empty threats. Will she tell us where she expects to detain the tens of thousands of asylum seekers forecast to arrive this year, where she expects to remove them to, when Rwanda clearly has no intention of taking more than a very small proportion of those who she expects to arrive this year, and when this Government will get out of the way, so that Labour can deliver its five-point plan to stop the boat crossings?

[Suella Braverman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his approach to entertaining the House today, but let us compare what the Labour party has done over the last 10 days with what the Government have done.

In the last 10 days, the Prime Minister and I have secured a big deal with the French to increase cross-channel co-operation. I have presented and we have voted on measures to detain and swiftly remove illegal migrants. This weekend, I met refugees who have successfully been resettled in Rwanda and saw the accommodation that people will be using.

What has the Labour party done? Well, the shadow Home Secretary has been on Twitter. She is very good on Twitter. She has tweeted, in the last 10 days, Labour’s paltry excuse for a plan. Half of it is stuff we are already doing; the other half is its plan for open borders and unlimited migration. What I suggest Labour Members do is get off Twitter and get to Rwanda, and I will show them how to stop the boats.

Illegal Migration Bill

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Because this has been such an incredibly well-subscribed debate, in the time available to me I will not be able to thank all my hon. Friends individually for their excellent contributions, so I hope they will forgive me for thanking them all collectively. I also want to thank some Conservative Members for their excellent and insightful contributions, particularly, of course, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May).

I am old enough to remember a Conservative Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), standing at that Dispatch Box and promising the House that her new Nationality and Borders Bill would

“deter illegal entry to the UK…break the business model of the smuggling gangs and protect the lives of those whom they are endangering.”—[Official Report, 19 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 706.]

Fast-forward two years, and scroll your way through a few more Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries, and here we are again having to listen to the same old reheated rhetoric and empty promises. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Conservative party likes to claim that it stands for secure borders, but when the last Labour Government left office in 2010, fewer than 10,000 people were waiting for a decision for a claim for asylum. The number now stands at more than 160,000, the highest since records began. Conservative Members will also recognise that the number of failed asylum seekers being returned has decreased by an astonishing 80% since 2010. The reality is that, since 2010, successive Conservative Governments have lost control of our borders, and the people smugglers are laughing all the way to the bank.

Another bit of nonsense being peddled on the Conservative Benches is that this Bill will stop the boats. Everyone agrees that the small boat crossings must be stopped. Thousands of people are risking life and limb, and it is utterly appalling that the people smugglers are making millions from this trade in human misery. The fundamental question is whether the measures in the Bill can reasonably be expected to solve the problem, and the answer to that question is a clear and resounding no. In fact, if the Bill were passed, it would actively make matters worse by adding further to the enormous asylum backlog, and by piling further cost on to the staggering £7 million-a-day hotel bill that is currently being picked up by the British taxpayer.

The Government can label channel crossers “inadmissible” or “illegal” all they want, and they can promise that they will be detained and swiftly removed until the cows come home, but the fact is that Ministers are completely unable to answer two obvious and vitally important questions: “Detained where?” and “Removed to where?” Rwanda is a non-starter because the Rwandan Government can only take 200—and how on earth are the Government planning to send asylum seekers back across the channel unless we have a formal returns agreement with the EU to replace the Dublin convention? Ministers tried all this last year: under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, they made 18,000 people inadmissible, and how many did they remove or return? Twenty-one. Let me therefore encourage Ministers to drop their obsession with chasing tabloid headlines, and to focus instead on prioritising measures which will actually work.

That brings me to the final myth that needs busting: the idea that we on these Benches have somehow not been putting forward our own proposals. Every single time the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Home Secretary and I have come to this Dispatch Box, we have set out exactly how Labour in government will tackle the small boat crossings and fix an asylum system that has been utterly broken by 13 years of Tory incompetence and indifference, but it appears Conservative Members have not been paying attention, so let me remind them of our plan.

First, we will scrap the unaffordable, unworkable and unethical Rwanda scheme, and redirect all that wasted taxpayer money into resourcing a 100-strong elite cross- border police unit to relentlessly pursue the real enemy—the ruthless criminal gangs and traffickers—and ensure that we tackle this upstream, working with the French and across Europe to defeat the gangs.

Secondly, we will negotiate a returns agreement with the EU as a matter of urgency. Successive Conservative Governments since 2016 have focused on trashing relations with our European partners and allies, so the Prime Minister has a mountain to climb in rebuilding the trust that will be required as the basis of securing a returns deal. We wish him well, but the reality is that it is going to take a Labour Government to pick up the pieces and succeed where this Government have so badly failed.

Thirdly, we will introduce long overdue measures to get a grip on the decision-making process for asylum claims. We will clear the backlog once and for all by establishing an effective triage system and by reversing the absurd and incomprehensible decision to downgrade the seniority of key Home Office officials. Fourthly, while the Government do little more than pay lip service to the idea of safe and legal routes, we will act to fix the current resettlement programmes, including the broken Afghanistan pathways.

It is time to let the grown-ups back into the room. Three years ago, many people who had never voted Tory before put their trust in this Government because they wanted secure borders, controlled migration and competent governance, but absolutely none of those things has been delivered. So it is little wonder that the country has had enough of a Government who cynically bring forward Bills that are far more about scapegoating and slogans than they are about solutions, and it is little wonder that it has had enough of a Government who know that they cannot stand on their record and who are instead planning to fight the general election on a platform that is all about stoking anxiety, fear and division.

The good news is that the British people are not stupid. They watch as Conservative Ministers blame everyone else for their own failures: they blame the civil servants; they blame the lawyers; they blame the European Union and the ECHR; and they even blame the football pundits. But our constituents know exactly where the buck stops. They know that the day is approaching when they will be able to vote for a Labour Government who will tackle the small boats crisis and deal with the myriad other challenges and crises that our country is facing after 13 years of Tory failure, and they know that that day cannot come soon enough.