Tim Loughton
Main Page: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I shall speak to the main motion. I listened to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), and I am not entirely sure that she made the case for reducing resources to the Home Office. I will agree with much, but try not to repeat much, of what the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee said.
It has been a long labour of love to try to get relevant information out of Home Office officials. Anything approaching financial figures is always met with a degree of reluctance and opaqueness. Even the Home Affairs Committee—described only yesterday as “Westminster’s best committee” in a leading newspaper by a leading journalist—has been frustrated by the problems we have had when interrogating officials from the Home Office. I in no way direct that criticism at the Minister on the Front Bench and his colleagues, who have been something of a breath of fresh air.
Having been a member of the Committee for 10 years, I can say that our relations with officials and our ability to get information out of them have never been worse. That is a great shame, because we have an important job to do. We are the scrutinisers of the Home Office, not least because it does not have one in the form of a chief inspector of borders and immigration—this debate is on that area—after the recent unfortunate demise of the excellent David Neal, who has yet to be replaced. The Home Affairs Committee’s work is even more important at the moment to try to fill part of that vacuum as best we can.
This is an estimates day debate about figures, and it is a complex area. The whole budget figure that we are looking at is £23.6 billion for the Home Office in 2024-25. The largest increase of £3.9 billion is for asylum support and accommodation. That figure has risen by 733% over the past five years. Net legal migration hit a record 745,000 in the last year, but most of the spend in this area of the Department, and certainly most of the increased spend, is on illegal—or shall we call it irregular—immigration. Those are people arriving without prior permission who are subsequently able to stay, either because they are permitted to stay or because they can for all practical purposes not be deported for various reasons.
The Home Office accounts are split between four areas of spending: day-to-day spending, investment spending, resource day-to-day spend and capital. I want to strip that down into five main areas under irregular immigration headlines. First, there is the money we are spending largely in France on trying to prevent people from coming here in irregular ways in the first place. Secondly, there is the cost of processing irregular migrants when they arrive in our territorial waters and then on our shores, and then the cost of accommodation and policing secure accommodation or hotels, as well as the cost of delays and the backlog—or queues, as the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee said we now have to call it. Thirdly, there is the cost of returning people when we can do so because agreements are in place. Fourthly, there is the cost of those we cannot return or those who do return to countries we could not otherwise return them to because they take a voluntary payment. That includes the cost of the Rwanda scheme.
At the heart of this, the vital question that the Opposition have failed to answer every time they have been challenged on it is: what do we do with people who have come here irregularly—be it through little boats and paying people smugglers, on lorries or through other means—and had their asylum claims firmly rejected, but who come from countries to which it is practically impossible to return them, such as Iran and Eritrea? The purpose of the Rwanda scheme and much of the irregular migration spend is to try to come up with a solution to that particular problem.
Fifthly—this is slightly related—there is the cost of the big net increases in legal migration to infrastructure and services in the UK. Much of the impact of that falls on other Departments. Added to all those areas is the question of who is overseeing whether that substantial investment is achieving what is intended, in the absence of a chief inspector of borders and immigration.
It is important to put in context the whole spend and the whole activity of the Home Office on migration. Too often, we hear, “What a waste of money on the Rwanda scheme.” Much of that is up-front costs, but it must be seen in the context of what we are spending on hotel accommodation in this country while those people who should not have come here are here, and while we cannot send them to their original country or a third country.
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is making an important point. It is also imperative that we recognise that some of the spending is based on forecasts. We constantly hear from the Home Office its forecasts on expected irregular migrants, small boat arrivals and so on. A methodology can be applied to be much more transparent about the funding that is allocated and the deterrence measures that can be put in place, along with all the additional costs. The Home Office should be really transparent about all of that.
Tim Loughton
I am sure that my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that a methodology is being used and that the figures could be available, but the opaqueness that is applied to prevent the Home Affairs Committee and anyone else who wants to get to the bottom of the figures from seeing whether we are getting value for money, let alone cost-effectiveness, is really frustrating. The Home Office must have those calculations—I am sure she saw them in her time at the head of the Home Office—and they should be available to Parliament and those who scrutinise the Department’s activities.
Let me look at the first area, which is effectively the £480 million subsidy that we give to the French police force to police its beaches to try to stop these people getting to the boats in the first place. We know that the number of interceptions has gone up; the trouble is that, by and large, the police do not arrest those people, so they are free to try again the following night and so on with a new boat or dinghy from China, Turkey or one of the other sources.
We have seen all the fantastic kit that the French police have—the drones, the rigid inflatable boats and the dune buggies that the Home Affairs Committee has been on—but the trouble is that people are still getting through. We have this problem because of the absence of French co-operation in detaining and processing people in France to determine their status, as is done in Belgium, where we do not have the problem, as the Committee saw at first hand when we went there.
There is also the whole question of what the French are doing with that kit. There are stories that some of the night drone capability that we provided to them is being used in the south of the country, policing the Mediterranean rather than the channel, with the money having gone on microwaves and such things as well. Are we getting value for money from the £480 million that we are giving to the French police force?
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The hon. Member is making a valuable point about money. If I heard him correctly, he suggested that we are spending £480 million on protection along the French coast that is not effective. When we add that to the hundreds of millions spent on the Rwanda scheme—which so far has done nothing—does he agree that if we had been less obsessed with solving the problem at the endpoint, and had instead invested the money in improving the conditions in other countries through international development to make it viable for people to stay in them, as well as in safe and legal routes, we would not have this problem now?
Tim Loughton
The hon. Lady makes a number of rather conflicting arguments. The point that I made right at the top of my speech—I am not sure if she was here—was that we need to see the spend in the whole context. If we are spending money here, it is because the alternative would be spending even more there, not having solved the problem at source.
As someone who defended the 0.7% overseas spending commitment, I agree that this is a global problem on which international co-operation is needed if we are to ensure that people have more incentive, and it is more viable and sustainable, to stay in the countries that they are departing from, not necessarily because of civil war and danger but because of economic conditions linked to climate change. That is why we have such large migration from equatorial and sub-Saharan countries. I completely agree with the hon. Lady. She knows my position on safe and legal routes; I tabled amendments on the subject to the Illegal Migration Act 2023.
The Government need to do more—and will do more —on safe and legal routes, but that should be coupled with being much tougher on those who do not use them because they have no legitimate case for applying for asylum in the United Kingdom. We need to come down on those people hard, to prevent them coming here in the first place. If they do come here, we need to do everything we can to remove them from the country as soon as possible.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend’s authoritative speech. There is a paradox that always strikes me about giving money to the French to stop the small boats coming: if they ever succeeded in stopping the small boats coming, that would mean that France would be the end of the line for those illegal immigrants. That would mean that the French would have to start imposing their own borders, which have largely been dismantled in the context of the EU, to stop the illegal migration into their country. Can we ever really expect the French to co-operate in sealing off the illegal route across the channel?
Tim Loughton
The response is, “To an extent, Lord Copper.” The authorities around Calais who are trying to deal with the crossings said that the year before last, when the Government announced the Rwanda scheme, they saw a big surge in migrants around Calais approaching the French authorities to try to regularise their position in France, because they did not want to risk being put on a plane to Rwanda. Why are so many migrants in the north of France around Calais? They have come to France because they think that there is a chance that they can get to the UK. They would not necessarily go to France if it were clear that they could not get to the UK because they would be stopped by whatever means—hopefully by the French intercepting them in the water or on the beach and bringing them back—and they would be paying money for a round trip. There are different aspects to this.
Tim Loughton
If my right hon. Friend will allow me, I will continue. I know that other Members want to speak, and I have a few more points to make.
My second point is on the whole cost of processing. There are self-inflicted costs, because the Home Office took too long to increase the number of caseworkers to speed up processing time. It has now done that, but it needs to go still further. As of last September, the asylum backlog or queue was 165,411, which was up 11% on the previous year, but up 372% over five years. We have now seen a fourfold increase in the number of decisions.
The Home Affairs Committee was particularly concerned that last year 17,316 asylum seekers withdrew their asylum applications. The permanent secretary and his No. 2 at the Home Office were singularly incapable of telling us what had happened to those 17,316 people and why they withdrew their applications, and of assuring us that they were leaving the UK. It turned out that an awful lot of them had not left the UK, and the whereabouts of rather a lot of them—about a third—are unknown to the Home Office. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister what the backlog/queue is now, and what audit has been done on the cost effectiveness of recruiting additional caseworkers, how that feeds through to quicker processing times, how that has benefited us financially, and what the efficiencies are from faster processing.
We also need to know the breakdown of the cost of accommodation and assistance for asylum claims that are in limbo. The former Immigration Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), stated that the Home Office was spending £8.3 million a day, or about £140 per person per night, on hotel accommodation. That was last year, since when some hotels have been taken out of circulation. That is good progress, and hopefully the £8.3 million a day cost is reducing, but how much is spent on accommodating those awaiting initial decisions, especially in the last six months in which they have been waiting?
Secondly, how much is spent on accommodating those who have had their claims rejected but are going through additional appeals processes, or those whom we still cannot deport to their country of origin, although they have gone through appeals processes? Thirdly, how much are we spending on those whose claims have been accepted and have leave to remain, but for whom there is a shortage of long-term and appropriate accommodation to transfer them to? That is the problem we have with Afghan families who, airlifted from Kabul airport, are here legitimately. They are still staying in hotels after many years, largely because it is difficult to find larger houses to accommodate larger families. It is completely unsuitable to have children in hotels for years at a time, when they have to go to school and try to socialise with other children.
As of the end of last year, there were 111,132 individuals in receipt of asylum support. That was down 10% on the figure for September, the previous quarter, but still included about 45,500 people in hotel accommodation. Will the Minister tell us at what rate hotel accommodation is decreasing, and by how much costs are reducing?
I want to touch on the cost of those we can return. An article in the Financial Times earlier this week, in which I was quoted, raised concerns about the shortage of detention spaces. The problem is the growing number of people who have come here since the Illegal Migration Act 2023, and who have no status to be here. They are not in jail; presumably, they are on bail, and some might disappear into the ether. The Home Affairs Committee will visit Brook House next week. Many people have been there a long time because of continuous appeals. How much is that costing? What is the cost of the returns agreements with countries such as Albania? All those are costs on the immigration and asylum budget.
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. There is an important point to make about returns agreements and removing individuals. Costs aside, section 40 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 amended section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971 to cover re-entry bans. I do not know whether the Government have implemented that, but unless it is enforced, it will lead to the very problems that he is alluding to: further costs, pressures on accommodation, and entire processes restarted all over again.
Tim Loughton
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are stories—they are not apocryphal; I have heard them on good authority—of people who, under an agreement, have been returned from the UK to Albania, accompanied by an officer. That officer has then returned to Heathrow or Gatwick airport, only to see the person they just returned to Albania in the queue ahead of them, coming back into the country. There are ways and means of getting back into the country. Enforcement is absolutely crucial; otherwise the system is a complete joke—and a very expensive joke. We are returning people on a temporary basis when it should be a permanent arrangement, until and unless they apply legitimately, and are accepted as having a reason to come to the UK legitimately.
All sorts of figures have been bandied around for the cost of the Rwanda scheme; the Home Office has disclosed only the £140 million to Rwanda in the first year of the deal. I absolutely accept that there are all sorts of start-up costs, so I am not troubled by the fact that we are paying money up front. The Rwandans have said that if the scheme does not take off, literally, they will return at least part, if not most, of the money, so there are some assurances there. However, even if the amount we are spending on the Rwanda scheme turns out to be, say, £500 million, given that it costs £8.3 million a day to house people in hotels, the cost of the scheme will be just two months-worth of hotels. There is an economic case for investing in the scheme, because the alternative is people staying in hotels at an expensive rate unless we can find cheaper accommodation for them, so it will not be long before the scheme has paid for itself. We must look at it holistically, in the round.
I have a few questions to leave in the lap of the Minister. First, there is the overall question of why we are accepting so many asylum claimants in the UK. France receives more applications, but rejects twice as many as we do. We must also take account of the fact that some of the returns figures have been slightly distorted. In its rush to clear some of the backlog, the Home Office has invariably gone for low-hanging fruit—some of the easier cases to accept, such as children and women—so the acceptance rates are artificially higher, as it has not dealt with the more problematic cases that are more likely to be rejected. In 2023, the number of people granted refugee status was the highest on record, at more than 62,000. Why is the threshold apparently so much lower in this country than in many other European countries, and what calculations has the Home Office made about the financial savings that would result if we toughened up that arrangement and raised the threshold, so that we rejected more claims in the future?
I asked what would happen to those who have been in limbo since the Illegal Migration Act 2023 came into force. Does the Minister think that we may have to issue some sort of amnesty, as we did previously, to enable people to qualify for assessment of their claims?
I welcome the changes to immigration rules that have been heralded by the Minister. Certain people coming here are dependants who do not need to come with the primary visa applicant, and are likely to be a cost, rather than a contributor, to the Exchequer. There are reasons for us to allow that in certain cases, but according to the 2021 census, the size of the population had risen by 7.4% since the previous census, and the volume of resources and infrastructure have not risen comparatively. Over those 10 years, the number of GP surgeries increased by only 4%, and the number of secondary schools by only 4.9%. The population is rising, and it is forecast that there will be 6.1 million more migrants by 2036. Working people aged between 20 and 64 who were born in the UK have a much higher rate of employment than people who have migrated to the UK.
I agree that immigration is good, but not all types of immigration are necessarily adding to the UK economy rather than drawing on it, so we need to be more discriminating in deciding whom we allow into the country. Genuine refugees fleeing danger certainly have a case for safe haven here, but when it comes to dependants who will not necessarily be contributing to the UK, we need to clamp down on that more, which indeed is what was announced today.
A large part of this policy is about addressing illegal, irregular migration. It is incumbent on anyone who disagrees with it to come up with their own solution to the problem of how we should deal with people who enter the country with no legitimate, credible case for claiming asylum and being granted safe haven, because that is where an awful lot of the money is going. It is absolutely right for us to be able to scrutinise that money properly, and it is absolutely right to expect the Government to give answers about whether it is being used effectively. However, I give credit to the Government for trying to come up with proper, sustainable solutions such as the Rwanda scheme to deal with all the costs of a very inefficient migration system that treats us unfairly, given that people with absolutely no credible case for safe haven from us are choosing to pay people smugglers to cross the channel in the most dangerous and inappropriate way. Frankly, those people are jumping the queue, and the biggest victims are genuine asylum seekers, to whom we have always had a good and generous tradition of giving safe haven. They are the ones who we absolutely need to focus on, and we are spending far too much money on people who are, frankly, gaming our system.