Small Boat Crossings

Steve Yemm Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I said in an earlier answer that there are no magic wands in this area. Tough operational processing and international co-operation will begin to bear down on this, and work by the National Crime Agency and by prosecutorial authorities, often cross-border in different jurisdictions. The fact that we have made such a good start with international co-operation and the significant shift in attention here will bear down on this, but I will not stand at this Dispatch Box and pretend that there is an easy timeframe or answer for when that will have the effect that we all want it to have. We will bear down on it and we will make progress.

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

At a time of highly stretched resources right across Government, thanks to the mess in the public finances left by the Conservative party, my constituents will be pleased that £75 million has been secured for further investment in the Border Security Command. Does the Minister agree that it is a far better use of taxpayers’ money than paying people to go to Rwanda or housing them in hotels at great expense?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes, it is advisable to try to deal with the immediate causes of the problem—organised immigration criminality—as well as bearing down on the longer-term causes, which often are about political stability in other areas of the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Yemm Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Seema Malhotra)]

The Government are committed to bringing down legal migration. We will do so by making sure that British workers are upskilled in key sectors, with new requirements for employers to address skills shortages, and by introducing new training and workforce plans so that overseas recruitment does not remain the default for filling skills shortages in the UK.

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

T9.   I have listened in absolute amazement to the outrage from Opposition Members about the careful consideration of security for Taylor Swift’s concerts in London, a week after her Vienna tour was cancelled due to a terror plot. Does the Home Secretary think that is cynical opportunism from Conservative Members, or have they lost all sense of reason?

[Yvette Cooper]

I think it is a matter for us all to take the security of people immensely seriously, and to ensure that terrorist, extremist and criminal threats do not win in their attempt to pose threats not just to life, but to our way of life.