Immigration Update

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

What a quite extraordinary response! The fact is that this is a Government who have a credible plan to bring net migration down by 300,000, and all those measures are now in flight. As I have been able to set out for the House, it is beginning to deliver the results we said it would deliver.

I will take no lectures from the shadow Front Bench about the issue of domestic employment. I was one of the Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions that was proud to bring forward the back to work plan and the comprehensive reforms of the welfare system that we are taking forward as a Government. We are also seeing enormous cross-Government join-up to support more domestic workers into those roles. That is the right thing to do: to support people in this country to take on those roles and fill those vacancies. And let us not forget the record of every single Labour Government: without fail, they leave unemployment higher at the time of leaving office than it was at the start. Under this Government, we have seen record low unemployment benefiting communities across the country.

We have begun the process of delivering the measures in relation to legal migration, and we are also delivering when it comes to illegal migration. We have a plan. We are now getting on and closing hotels—150 asylum hotels have been closed. That is a positive thing. It is the right thing to do to make sure that we accommodate people in appropriate accommodation, but get away from the model of providing hotel accommodation for people. What is Labour’s plan on that? We have seen massive gains when it comes to asylum decision making and productivity around those processes. What is Labour’s policy on that? We have seen crossings down by over a third last year compared with the year before. We have seen Albanian arrivals falling by 90%. Again, what is Labour’s offering to achieve likewise? There isn’t one.

We will continue to sustain the progress that we have made, and we know from everything that has been said in recent days that the Rwanda policy is beginning to have the desired effect: the deterrent is clear. When it comes to the hon. Gentleman’s meagre offering, I would just say that we have already doubled funding for the National Crime Agency for organised immigration crime work, and we already have approximately 5,000 officials working on these matters within migration and borders. That is all that Labour Members are offering; it virtually resembles a blank sheet of paper. The truth is that they offer no deterrent. They have nowhere to send people. They have no plan. They have no solutions. They try to bluff that they do, but they are kidding nobody. They are terrified that our plan is going to work. They are terrified that they will have to scrap it, and they are terrified that they have no alternative. Only we have a plan. It is delivering results and we will see it through.

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

Again, no hint of a plan for how we deal with failed asylum seekers from countries to which they cannot be returned without the Rwanda scheme. I am pleased with the progress that the Minister has made on reducing net migration, but I am worried about the figures that came out yesterday. Of the 5,700 migrants who have been identified for removal, only 2,145 can be located. This reflects the evidence from the second permanent secretary to the Home Affairs Committee earlier in the year, when some 17,000 failed asylum seekers who should have been removed could not be located. Where are these people, and what is the Department doing about tracking them down and making sure that they can be removed, as needs to happen as swiftly as possible?

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot go into the granularity of the operational work that is ongoing to ensure that we can deliver on this policy, but I can say that an initial cohort of suitable cases of around 2,000 people has been identified for removal, and they have been placed on immigration bail with strict reporting conditions.

For those outside that group, there is still a wide range of tools to maintain contact with them. That includes, as I said earlier, face-to-face and digital reporting, and many individuals also reside within Home Office accommodation. The Minister for Countering Illegal Migration, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) leads on this work and he is confident of the whereabouts, once the decision to detain is made, and this is just one of the cohorts of people who may be eligible for removal to Rwanda. The policy is clear and we are getting on and operationalising it. That includes detaining people for the purposes of relocation.