Immigration

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 321862 relating to immigration.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the second time today, Sir David. I want to start by paying tribute to the more than 125,000 people—including 202 from my constituency—who signed the petition to stop illegal immigration and secured this important debate in Parliament. I am glad to be able to introduce this petition to Parliament as a member of the Petitions Committee. Well over four years ago, more people voted to take back control of our money, our laws and, crucially, our borders than voted for anything in the history of this country. This petition is another powerful democratic reminder of our responsibility to deliver borders in which the people in this country can have confidence.

Before I get into the petition’s substance, I want to head off arguments often made on the left that seek to stifle meaningful debate such as this on illegal immigration. Contrary to what they may say, wanting to have a fair system of rules to govern who enters our country is not about being anti-immigrant or anti-refugee. The vast majority of my constituents who write to me about the issue are not anti-immigrant and they are not racist. Like me, they are immensely proud to be part of the diverse town of Ipswich, which has benefited enormously from immigration and shown its spirit of generosity to some of the most needy refugees coming directly from war-torn countries. Last month, I visited the Suffolk refugee centre in Ipswich to hear some of those people’s stories, including from people who have become successful entrepreneurs in our town.

Our asylum system should be based on compassion, but for that to work, it must also be based on rules that people can have trust in. That is the thrust of the petition, along with a poll by YouGov in August, which found that 73% consider illegal channel crossings to be a serious issue. I know from talking to people in my constituency and elsewhere that the overwhelming mood among the public is one of frustration at the lawlessness we so often see in our seas. Added to that is the vexation that a great country such as ours, which has voted to take back its sovereignty, seems to have its hands tied when it comes to controlling who comes into our island home and removing people who are here illegally. The vast majority of people in this country know that, without borders, we do not have a country and that while we should welcome the world’s best and brightest and those genuinely seeking refuge, who want to come here legally, our hospitality must not be taken for granted.

Perhaps the most important word in the petition, though, is the word “action”. The public’s patience is hanging by a thread, and we have reached the point where words will no longer suffice. Today, I want to underline how action is urgently needed in two key areas if we are to mend the public’s broken trust in the integrity of our borders. The first is stemming the flow of people entering this country illegally, and the second is ending the abuse of our broken asylum system.

I will start with the issue of illegal entry and the unprecedented number of illegal migrants we have seen crossing the channel this year. So far in 2020, more than 7,000 people have entered our country that way, which is more than five times the number who arrived via that route in 2019. It has been particularly difficult in recent months for the law-abiding majority in the UK to see these boats flouting our laws with near impunity on almost a daily basis when we are being asked to follow some of the greatest restrictions on our freedoms that this country has ever had to impose.

The images we have seen on our TV screens of these illegal boats arriving at our shores are a stark reminder that, more than four years on from the 2016 Brexit vote, we still have not taken back control of our borders in a meaningful sense. The only way to prevent these illegal crossings is by sending a clear message to everyone thinking of coming here illegally that all attempts will be futile. We must look at what the Australians did with Operation Sovereign Borders, where they blocked all boats from landing in Australia. After the policy was introduced, the number of people trying to enter Australia illegally by boat dropped from over 2,600 a month to just over 200.

We must be prepared to deploy similar safe-return tactics. I welcome the fact that the Government are looking at a range of options, including learning from the Australian approach. The shadow Home Secretary, the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), has said that that approach lacks compassion. I would like to hear today from the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) exactly how the status quo is compassionate when it fuels the evil trafficking of human beings and dangerous sea crossings that we currently see. What exactly is Labour’s position on this matter, and what would it do?

It is good that the Government are working with the French to prevent these crossings, but we must be clear that our ability to protect our borders should not be contingent on the French or any other third country being willing to play ball. We must have the capacity to act in our own national interest, and after the EU transition period has ended we must extricate ourselves from all EU and international rules that prevent us from towing these boats all the way back to France, if necessary.

Sending out the message that illegally crossing the channel just will not work is also a humanitarian necessity. When the leadership of the Labour party and others in the liberal left establishment are content to turn a blind eye to crossings, it plays into the hands of the ruthless people smugglers who exploit these vulnerable migrants, often taking their money only to push them out to sea in unseaworthy boats and without lifejackets but with instructions to threaten to throw themselves overboard to prevent them from being picked up by the French authorities.

The tragic case of a 16-year-old Sudanese boy who washed up on a French beach in August, having drowned while trying to reach the UK, should never have been allowed to happen. I understand that another death may have happened this weekend in the channel. Those who refuse to act to stop these crossings or who even encourage them out of an ideological attachment to open borders are putting the people they claim to want to help in immense danger. By way of contrast, in the five years before Australia implemented its zero-tolerance approach to illegal boats in 2013, 877 migrants drowned trying to make the journey. Since then, I understand that none has.

Let us move on to our asylum system. Coupled with stopping illegal entry, we must also diminish the pull factors that cause migrants to attempt these dangerous crossings in the first place. At the heart of that must be overhauling our broken asylum system, as these migrants know that, if they can reach our shores and claim asylum, the overwhelming chances are that they will be able to stay for good. Of about 9,000 people who have crossed the channel illegally since the start of 2019, less than 3% have been returned, despite about 80% of those this year being found to have no credible asylum claim here in the UK.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has rightly pointed out, the exploitation of our asylum system is abetted by certain liberal sections of our legal establishment who exploit our human rights law and submit multiple bogus claims on behalf of migrants who have already had their claims rejected to stop deportations. The spectacle we saw earlier this month when 29 out of 30 failed asylum seekers were taken off a deportation flight at the last moment following the intervention of human rights lawyers is a clear demonstration of how the law as it stands is not on the side of the people it is meant to serve.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has her finger on the pulse, especially compared to the Labour party, which last year voted at its party conference to make the problem much more difficult by closing all immigration detention centres. By contrast, the actions the Government have set out in their response to the petition, including withdrawing from the Dublin regulation and the EU’s common asylum system at the end of the transition period, will help us end the situation where the UK takes three times as many asylum seekers from the whole of the EU as we send back.

However, I urge the Minister to go further today than the Home Office’s written response to this petition, which says that

“if a migrant has chosen to evade immigration control or enter the UK illegally, then they can have no expectation of remaining in the absence of a genuine claim for UK protection”.

The expectation should be that anyone who has deliberately chosen to enter this country through an illegal route— those who do so have often travelled through many safe European countries to get here—should have no expectation that they will be able to stay.

To the public, it is unjustifiable that if they break the law, they will be punished, but if someone breaks our immigration rules, they stand a chance of being rewarded by getting to stay here. Tackling that is an essential part of building an ever more compassionate asylum system. Ideally, all asylum claims would be processed in centres that are outside the UK and close to the most needy. It is completely unfair to those who want to come here legally and directly from war-torn countries—it is also unfair to the taxpayers who fund our asylum system—if economic migrants from safe countries such as France can jump the queue ahead of them.

There is an important debate to be had about whether the country can accept more asylum seekers legally, but that is an entirely separate debate and one that will be difficult to have until members of the public have confidence that our laws are being followed consistently. What the public will not accept is the notion pushed by some on the left that because, in their eyes, we do not take enough refugees legally, we are somehow deserving of illegal attempts to breach our borders.

I know that the Home Secretary appreciates the urgency of this issue. I recognise the need for a robust dual approach to tackle illegal entry and our broken asylum system, if we are to get a grip on illegal immigration. That is the only approach that delivers for the millions of people who voted in the 2016 referendum, and that is both fair to the law-abiding people in this country and compassionate towards those who need our help the most.

However, I ask the Minister to be completely clear with the public that we will not leave the job almost done. Everyone who breaks our laws to come here must be removed, and we must take matters into our own hands when it comes to acting with autonomy in the English channel to protect our sovereignty. This is a test of the country’s political will, and I trust that the Minister will ensure that we seize all opportunities to take back control and ensure that our country is no longer a passive actor.

Over the past few months, I have received significant amounts of correspondence on this issue, and I am sure that all right hon. and hon. Members are in the same position. There is a desire for us to be pro-immigration for people who want to contribute and integrate, and for us to have a rules-based process that is driven by compassion for those who are most needy and vulnerable. However, most of those who have written to me do not want a situation that looks like lawlessness, in which people can jump the queue. We need a rules-based system that has compassion at its heart, but we need to deal with illegal immigration as a matter of absolute priority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Hunt]

I want to thank all hon. Members who have contributed to this debate and the Minister for his statement. I have had the benefit of discussing this matter before with the Minister. I am confident that this is not a simple thing to deal with. It is complex. It is not straightforward.

I appreciate that, as much the petitioners would like us to snap our fingers and sort the problem out, in many respects, the Government’s hands have been tied. Clearly, after 31 December, the Government will be in a much better position to take the kind of action we need to take to deal with this issue.

I may not have been quite clear, but I tried to say in my speech that I think there should be an expectation that someone who arrives in this country illegally will be sent back. Ultimately, there is a legal process to go through. If someone rejects that process by not following it, we must ask the question whether they are that different from anybody else who knowingly breaks the law. In my view, the answer to that question is “no”.

Many hon. Friends have made the point that there is a fact here. However good an individual may think their grounds are for claiming asylum and moving to Britain, at the end of the day they have come from a safe European country. My understanding is that an asylum seeker is someone fleeing from an unsafe country. If they are leaving a safe country, by definition, I struggle to see how they are a refugee. I am broadly comfortable with the Government’s position.

I know that the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) is pretty moderate and balanced. He spoke after my maiden speech. He seems like a nice guy. On the point of being under new management, we will see. Ultimately, I think that to deal with this issue effectively the Government will have to take some robust action. Legislation, such as an asylum Bill, will come through this House, and it will be interesting to see how Her Majesty’s Opposition react to that kind of legislation.

In terms of new management, it is an interesting tactic when the manager does not even send his players out on the pitch. Frankly, it sometimes feels like that is the case with the Leader of the Opposition. At some point, those players will have to be sent out on the pitch and will have to vote one way or another. Abstaining is not a long-term strategy. It is a long Parliament and time will tell. I do not mean to be too political, but clearly I have been.

I thank all the petitioners. This is a very important issue that matters to millions of people up and down the country. I thank all the hon. Members who contributed. I thank you for your wonderful chairmanship, Sir David, which I have had the pleasure of twice this afternoon—I have been spoilt. I thank the Minister, in particular, for a robust statement, which was reassuring and will reassure many of the people who signed this petition.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 321862 relating to immigration.