Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Suella Braverman and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It used to take 100 days to consider a modern slavery claim. It now takes more than 500 days, because there has been a massive influx of people claiming to be victims of modern slavery, which impedes our ability to help genuine victims of modern slavery, which is not good for anyone.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the Home Secretary recognise that it is positively Orwellian, as well as morally repugnant, to seek to ban people from seeking asylum unless they use safe and legal routes, as those routes barely exist and, where they do exist, they do not function? One of the very few legal routes is the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme pathway 3, which is a total shambles. As of January this year, according to the House of Commons Library, not one person has arrived in the UK via that pathway. Instead of this shameful, divisive, dog-whistle legislation, will she urgently open and make work safe and legal routes as the only way to stop the small boats?

[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Lady’s faux outrage is commendable, but the reality is that that is not borne out by the facts. We have accepted nearly 500,000 people through safe and legal routes for humanitarian reasons. That is a track record of which I am proud—I wish she would be, too.

Migration and Economic Development

Debate between Suella Braverman and Caroline Lucas

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Processing asylum claims is one core element of meeting the challenge more broadly. That is why it is right that we are increasing the number of caseworkers, increasing their specialism and streamlining the process. Ultimately, we want to bear down on the number of people waiting for a decision from the Home Office.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Home Secretary says that she is taking a deterrent approach, but it is plain that today’s judgment cannot and will not function as a so-called deterrent. The whole point of this vile policy of expelling asylum seekers to Rwanda is that expulsion was supposed to happen automatically and rapidly for anyone without a prior permission to come here via a refugee scheme. However, today’s High Court judgment found that each and every individual case must be assessed first, so there will be nothing automatic about it, and under this Government there will be nothing rapid about it either. Will the Home Secretary therefore put a permanent end to this useless cruelty, provide safe and legal routes, and ensure that such routes actually function? The one from Afghanistan currently does not.

Will the Home Secretary also stop saying that this policy has the support of the British people? According to a recent YouGov poll, just 10% of them support it. The British people are better than this vile British Government.

[Suella Braverman]

I think the reality is that we are supported in taking control of our borders. That was reflected in both the 2016 referendum and the 2019 general election. We have made it clear that we will do whatever it takes to ensure that we make progress on stopping illegal migration, bring an end to this lethal journey, and, ultimately, restore integrity to our immigration system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Suella Braverman and Caroline Lucas

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

5. What steps she is taking to improve the asylum system.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Suella Braverman)]

We are taking immediate action to accelerate decision making and improve our asylum system by streamlining and modernising it, including by shortening interviews, removing unnecessary interviews, making the guidance more accessible, and dealing with cases more swiftly when they can be certified as manifestly unfounded.

[Caroline Lucas]

The Home Office is placing vulnerable, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in hotels in local authority areas. It is directly commissioning those hotels and other services, because it knows that local authorities do not have the funding or capacity required. Will the Home Secretary finally admit that these vulnerable children are legally the Home Office’s responsibility, so that they are not left in legal limbo? Will she ensure that her Department takes a strategic approach that addresses the placement shortage, rather than its current ad hoc approach, and will she ensure that the police do all that they can to keep searching for those children who have gone missing and have yet to be relocated?

[Suella Braverman]

We take very seriously the position of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children—and indeed of children, full stop. Safeguarding them is of the utmost importance to all authorities, and to the Home Office, when it comes to decision making. We will shortly look at the funding arrangement for local authorities’ support of these children, so that their needs are properly met.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Suella Braverman and Caroline Lucas

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I will make progress, I am afraid.

No Government should fail in their duty to protect their citizens from such abuse, and this Government will always put the law-abiding majority first. In a democracy, we make policy through civilised debate and at the ballot box, not through mob rule and not by visiting chaos and misery on our fellow citizens.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Suella Braverman]

I am afraid I do not have much time.

When I was the Attorney General, I went to court to establish that it is not a human right to commit criminal damage. The Court of Appeal agreed with me in the Colston statue case that serious and violent disorder crosses a line when it comes to freedom of expression. That is common sense to the law-abiding majority.

Since 1 October alone, the Metropolitan police have made over 450 arrests linked to Just Stop Oil, and I welcome this, but more must be done. That is why I welcome the fact that, today, Transport for London has succeeded in securing an injunction to protect key parts of the London roads network. That is an important step forward in the fight against extremists. However, these resources are vital and precious, and this has drained approximately 2,000 officer days at the Met already. Those are resources that are not dealing with knife crime and are not dealing with violence against women and girls.

I am afraid to say—and I will come to a close soon—that that is why it was a central purpose of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, now an Act, to properly empower the police in face of the protests, yet Opposition Members voted against it. Had Opposition Members in the other place not blocked these measures when they were in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the police would have already had many of the powers in this Bill and the British people would not have been put through this grief. Yes, I am afraid that it is the Labour party, the Lib Dems, the coalition of chaos, the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati and, dare I say, the anti-growth coalition that we have to thank for the disruption we are seeing on our roads today. I urge Opposition MPs and Members of the other place to take this second chance, do the right thing, respect the rights of the law-abiding majority and support this Bill.