Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and Andrew Gwynne

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s intervention, but if she really wanted to achieve that, she would support safe and legal routes. That is the way to tackle those problems. The simple fact is that we are dealing with a political issue. Why? Because the Government have failed to retain control of the asylum process. They do not trust their own process. I believe in assessing people to establish whether they are genuine asylum seekers or not, and then returning them if they are not. I want a system that is fair and tough, but the Government are proposing a system that is unfair and weak.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point, but we also need a system that is timely and does not leave people hanging on for years and years. The Government say that they have cut the backlog by 50%, whereas the UK Statistics Authority says that it has increased by 777% on the Government’s watch. We cannot have an honest debate when the statistics are so badly skewed.

[Tim Farron]

Exactly. It is very easy to make the case that the Government are making when these are all faceless people, but a couple of months ago, I met an Afghan citizen in the constituency of my friend and neighbour the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell). This guy had been waiting 13 months to have his case heard. He had been an interpreter for the British forces in Afghanistan, and we had left him behind. His wife and two children were hiding back in Afghanistan, waiting and rotting. That is not due to the fact that we do not yet have the Bill; it is due to the fact that we have a Government who are incompetent and uncaring when it comes to people who have served our country and whom they have let down badly.