Illegal Migration Bill

Tom Hunt Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Member if he will now support our proposals for a cross-border police unit to go after the criminal gangs.

[Tom Hunt]

I actually have another question. Would the right hon. Member explain why the Leader of the Opposition, when he was a human rights lawyer, once said that there was an undertone of racism in all immigration law? Does he continue to believe that?

[Yvette Cooper]

Immigration law is important, but the problem is that, at the moment, a huge amount of immigration law is not even enforced. There has been an 80% drop in the number of people who have been unsuccessful in the asylum system and been returned—an 80% drop since the Conservatives came to office. At the same time, our asylum system, under the Tories, is in total chaos. Only 1% of last year’s cases have had even an initial decision. Home Office decision making has been cut by 40%, the backlog has trebled in the space of just a few years, and thousands of people are in costly and inappropriate hotels.

Illegal Migration Bill

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

All the Scottish National party can point to is a track record of failure when it comes to discharging its humanitarian duties to asylum seekers. It totally failed to support Ukrainians and had to hand over responsibility to the UK Government. It totally failed to take its fair share of refugees in comparison to other parts of the UK. It is failure, failure, failure from the SNP.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend think it is fair to deduce from today’s debate that the Labour party thinks it is totally fine to turn up here illegally and stay here for as long as you want? Does she think it is fair to assume that it opposes any kind of cap on refugee numbers? Does she agree that that is hardly surprising, bearing in mind that the leader of the Labour party, in a different guise, said that there is a

“racist undercurrent which permeates all immigration law”?

That was the Leader of the Opposition when he was a human rights lawyer. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree with me that the Labour party should just be honest about what it is: pro open borders, anti any control on immigration and completely out of step with the majority of people of this country? It will be exposed.

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend puts it very powerfully. That is what Labour’s policy is: uncontrolled immigration, open borders, an amnesty for asylum seekers and a total disregard for what the British people want.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

We very much welcome the best and the brightest students from all over the world to our world-leading universities. Our points-based system was designed to enable graduates and undergraduates to come and study at UK universities. We are always looking at our visa routes to make sure the right balance is struck between the resources we can provide for people coming here and the numbers coming here. That is the same across the board, whichever visa route we look at.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I welcome the extra funding from the safer streets fund and the shared prosperity fund, but does the Home Secretary agree that we also need a zero-tolerance approach to tackling antisocial behaviour? Many of my constituents—long-term residents—are concerned about going into our town centre because they do not feel safe. Does she agree that it is time for a hands-on, and not a hands-off, approach, so that where there are groups of men in the town centre blighting the experience of most of my residents, we clear them out?

[Chris Philp]

Yes, we agree entirely. That is why my hon. Friend’s county and his town have had safer streets funding, and why they are getting extra police officers. The Government completely agree that zero tolerance to ASB is exactly what we need.

Crime and Neighbourhood Policing

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Clearly, increasing numbers is very important, but does the right hon. Lady agree that, in addition, we need to give police officers the power they need to take a zero-tolerance approach where they need to, in being robust in tackling people who blight our town centres and make life a misery for so many?

[Yvette Cooper]

I do agree that the police need to have the powers to tackle serious abuse, antisocial behaviour and problems in our town centres. At the moment, there are not police officers there; too often, they are not on patrol and they are not there. I would just gently remind the hon. Member that it was his Government and Conservative MPs who all voted to cut antisocial behaviour powers, leaving powers that just are not being used at all. Nobody is using even the antisocial behaviour powers they have, and it was Ministers and Tory MPs who voted to cut those powers in the first place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak for the first time under your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Let me begin by saying, as many other Members have done, that crime is currently a huge issue in my constituency. Only a few weeks ago there was a tragic incident in which an 18-year-old man was stabbed and killed in Westgate Street at 3.55 pm. My prayers go out to him and to his family and friends, but also to all the Ipswich residents who will have experienced that. As is so often the case, this incident appears to have involved violence from members of one gang towards those attached to another gang, which so often erupts in broad daylight and is witnessed by unsuspecting members of the public. That has a chilling effect on our communities and is an issue of great concern to me.

It is important to acknowledge that since 2019 Suffolk has had 137 more police officers. We have made successful bids to the safer streets fund, and we recently made a successful bid to the shared prosperity fund, resulting in three new officers dedicated to patrolling the town centre during daylight hours. That is to be welcomed, although I should add that the national police funding formula needs to be looked at. If Suffolk were funded in a fair way, we would have more than 137 extra officers. I have been campaigning for that ever since I became a Member of Parliament, and Suffolk’s police and crime commissioner has been campaigning for it for about 10 years.

Fundamentally, my constituents want to see a high police presence in the town centre, and they also want to see it in their communities. More often than not, the police I talk to say they want to be out in the communities—there is an alignment between what they want to do as professionals and what their constituents want to see. Of course funding is part of this, but bureaucracy can also stand in the way of police officers getting out on the street. I recently met members of the Suffolk Police Federation to discuss their DG6 campaign, which I think also needs to be looked at.

When I talk to my constituents, one of the most common things I hear is that they no longer go to the town centre, the principal reason being that they do not feel safe. I say that cautiously, because I would never want to be accused of talking down the wonderful town that I represent. Indeed, I want to push back and say, “No, you should go and spend money and support our brilliant independent businesses in the town centre.” I would always encourage people to go into our town centre, but I think I would be doing a disservice to the—probably—thousands of constituents who have told me, in emails or directly, that they will not go into the town centre because they do not feel safe.

I think that part of the answer is a permanent increase in the police presence in the town centre, particularly at certain times of day, but another part is a zero-tolerance approach to crime and antisocial behaviour. If it is the case that groups of young men are hanging around, drinking alcohol and behaving in a way that puts people off and makes them feel uncomfortable, I would have no problem with a much more hands-on approach to moving those people on, and being less apologetic about doing so. We have no-drinking zones, but I do not think they are always enforced. When I look at the Labour approach locally to tackling these problems, I have spoken quite frankly about some of these issues.

I have also said that, if it is the case that certain crimes in the town are disproportionately committed by members of certain communities, we should be open and honest about that and not ignore it. We are a diverse town, and we should not seek to brand anyone as being more predisposed to committing certain crimes because they come from a certain community, but if there is an issue with one group acting in a way that is having a detrimental effect on the wider community, we should be open and honest about it.

Labour’s contribution to my comment, which reflects what thousands of my constituents have said, was to report me for—get this—a non-crime hate incident. I was reported on the database for having committed a non-crime hate incident because I made the comment that, if it is the case that certain crimes are disproportionately committed by certain communities, we should be open and honest about that. I do not think it is that controversial a view. It is also a view that is shared by millions of people in this country. We need to be careful and sensitive with the comments we make, but frankly if the stats and facts are there in front of us, we are not helping anyone by ignoring that data. This is an incredibly important point.

I do not think I would get the support of the local Labour party for having that zero-tolerance approach to tackling antisocial behaviour. I simply do not think I would get it. This is of course the Labour party that voted against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which I thought was the wrong thing to do. Whenever we talk about giving the police more powers—often the powers they have asked for, for example in the Public Order Bill—the Labour party votes against them. We also had the situation in which Labour actively tried to make a man Prime Minister who wanted to get rid of all prison sentences below six months. This is clearly not a party that is serious about being tough on crime. I think it would be hard to find somebody who is more likely to be calling for robust measures.

I guess my plea to the Government is that, although I welcome the increased investment and the fact that we are getting that increased police presence, at the end of the day, despite the increase in numbers, many of my constituents do not feel the police presence is high enough in their communities and their town centre. We have seen a significant increase following the tragic murder, but that needs to be made permanent. We have to support Suffolk constabulary in going after the gangs who are blighting the lives of thousands of my constituents. Yes, we believe in policing by consent, but I believe in a zero-tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour.

We have a situation where we have groups of young men hanging around the town centre, and thousands of my constituents are telling me that that is why they do not go in, because they do not feel safe. We have women going about their business, often in the evening, who will not go into the town because they would be made to feel uncomfortable. Recently, a constituent was stalked by a group of young men who followed her. Fortunately, she was supported by some other women and she got away safely, but these stories are common; they are not unique. We have to stop this. If I had £5 for every time a constituent said to me, “I don’t go into the town centre any more because I don’t feel safe because of the groups of young men hanging around”, I would be a billionaire. I can tell them they are wrong and that they have to go in, but that is what they think. Yes, I will push back when I think they are being over the top, but at the end of the day we have a problem. We have to get fairer funding for Suffolk police and a permanent high-profile policing presence in the town centre and in our communities, and we have to carry on to break the back of these gangs that are exploiting young, vulnerable people and committing acts that are having a chilling effect on the wider community, as happened in Westgate Street only a few weeks ago.

Migration and Economic Development

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I welcome today’s judgment, but I find it deeply frustrating that one isolated judge can delay this process for six or seven months. Will the Home Secretary give me some sense of the timescales following the judgment? When will the first flights take off? That is what we all want to see happening, and my constituents will begin to rest easy when they can see those flights taking off.

We will probably have to strike agreements with other countries. Can the Home Secretary assure me that when we do strike such agreements, they will not be delayed in the way in which this has been delayed, and we will not go through exactly the same motions, which take oh, so long?

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is right. We have always maintained that this policy is lawful, and today the court has upheld that. We know that further legal challenges are possible, and we will continue to defend this policy vigorously in the courts. However, once the litigation process has come to an end, we will move swiftly in order to be in a position to operationalise the policy and deliver on our promise.

Manston Update

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I was not aware of that, but if the hon. and learned Lady gives me a copy of the letter—I think she has it in her hand—I will ensure that there is a swift and full response to it.

On the conditions at Manston, I have said this before and will say it again—this is not in any sense to diminish the concerns that the hon. and learned Lady may have set out in the letter. The greatest service that she and her colleagues in Scotland could do on this issue would be to encourage more Scottish local authorities to take asylum seekers into their care. Scotland takes a disproportionately lower share of the burden of this issue in each of our resettlement and asylum schemes.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend knows that it is unlikely that I would ever call this country a villain on this matter—actually, I think we have been too soft. We need to be much more robust. Does he agree that the way to tackle the problem is to make these tens of thousands of illegal journeys a year unviable? That would deal with overcrowding and all the other issues.

I have promised my constituents that at every opportunity—even every week—I will raise the Ipswich Novotel, which my right hon. Friend knows about. Is he closer to giving us a time scale so that we can move away from the use of four-star hotels to basic and cheap accommodation and, potentially, deport a large number of the individuals who have broken our law and illegally entered our country?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is right. My approach from the start has been, first, to ensure that Manston is a legal and decent site; that has involved taking on other accommodation elsewhere in the country to meet our legal obligations. Secondly, it has been to ensure that we begin to exit those hotels and move asylum seekers to better accommodation, which would be simple and decent but not luxurious, and that we never find ourselves again in the position of using three and four-star hotels, stately homes and so, on for this purpose—

Migration

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

We have put further staff into the processing centres, and there will shortly be 1,500 decision makers working through the claims. As I have said in answer to earlier questions, we are determined to ensure that we return to sensible levels of productivity so that we can bust the backlog. However, that is not the sole problem here. Ensuring swift approvals of applications will only create a further pull factor, so we have to take other action as well.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Along with a number of colleagues, I have studied the Australian approach to dealing with illegal immigration. It is often derided by those on the left who say that it was not successful, but it was successful. My colleagues and I met a number of officials to see what was being done. That is why we welcome the Rwanda scheme. Will my right hon. Friend give us some sense of the timescale for the scheme, and also reassure us that he is engaging with Australian officials? The Australians had a huge problem of illegal immigration, but they embraced offshore processing and no longer have a huge problem. It is very clear what works and what does not.

[Robert Jenrick]

We are determined to bring the Rwanda proposals into force as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the matter is currently being heard by the British courts, but we are optimistic that our case will be successful, and once it is, we will of course bring those proposals into effect as quickly as we can for all the reasons that my hon. Friend has given, to ensure that there is a proper deterrence factor for those making an illegal crossing.

I suspect that that was the last question, Mr Speaker, so may I thank you for the work that we have done together? I know that you too have been very concerned about hotel accommodation in Chorley. My officials are in conversation with your local authority, and hopefully we can improve the position as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman. The extension was reviewed by the Government and, on the basis of the representations made to us by the industry, we extended it to April 2023. If he has heard other representations, I would be pleased to hear about them.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

On Friday, we found out that Ipswich Borough Council’s temporary injunction to prevent the Novotel being used for up to 200 economic migrants was unsuccessful. More to the point, the owners are now saying they might have them for 12 months not six months. I heard in the media that the Government might move away from hotels to temporary accommodation such as Pontins. Can the Minister give me an update on the plan for moving away from hotels to much more basic and cheaper accommodation?

[Robert Jenrick]

We want to exit hotels as soon as possible, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and move to simple but decent accommodation that does not provide an additional pull factor to the UK. The challenge is considerable, however, as 40,000 people are making that perilous crossing every year, which places immense pressure on our asylum system and prevents us from providing the kind of humane and compassionate response that we want to provide to people coming here in genuine peril.

Asylum Accommodation: Novotel Ipswich

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the use of Novotel Ipswich as asylum accommodation.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Hollobone.

It is difficult for me to stress how big an issue this is in my constituency. It is something I have been aware of for some time. Before it became public, I was made aware of it as the local Member of Parliament, so that is not my complaint—I was aware of it. There is a paper trail that shows me strongly opposing the use of the Novotel for the purposes in question, and I have worked with Ipswich Borough Council on it. There are many issues on which the Labour-run council and I do not see eye to eye, but on this matter we have been on the same side.

In keeping with what many other local authorities have done, the council has, on planning grounds, secured a temporary injunction, and there will be a court hearing later today—it was meant to be yesterday. What the outcome will be I do not know. What I am saying today is less of a legal point and more of a political point on the ins and outs of whether this is the right thing to do, and I will give my views as the as the local Member of Parliament representing my constituents.

The Novotel is a town centre hotel in Ipswich. It is a good quality hotel in an incredibly important location, linking the waterfront to the Saints, which leads up to the town centre. It is an area of the town that has been at the heart of our regeneration efforts. My right hon. Friend the Minister might remember his visit to Ipswich to talk about the town deal. A significant part of the town deal is about regenerating the part of the town where the Novotel sits, and that is one of my concerns. I am already hearing stories about the way in which the building and the upkeep of it has deteriorated since it was acquired by the Home Office for this six-month period.

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an important point. Does he agree that often we are talking not about budget accommodation, but about accommodating those who come over here illegally on small boat crossings in smart hotels in city and town centre locations? What sort of message does he think that sends to those living on modest incomes in the middle of a global cost of living crisis?

[Tom Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. In answer to his question, I think it sends all the wrong messages. The cost to the taxpayer at a national level of putting up many illegal immigrants in hotel accommodation is huge. To say that it grates with a large number of my constituents would be an understatement. The Novotel is a nice hotel. I have been there before and my family have stayed there. I have spent time there. The issue is not in keeping with what we should be doing. My personal view is that if someone has entered this country illegally, they are not welcome and virtually all of them should be deported. But if we are going to have them staying here for a short term, it should be in basic, safe and secure accommodation, not hotels.

In addition to the Novotel with its 200 spaces in the town centre of Ipswich, there is a Best Western hotel in Copdock, which is not technically within the boundaries of Ipswich borough or my constituency, but for all intents and purposes it is within the urban area of Ipswich, so this is already causing concern for my constituents and having an impact on local public services. We are looking not just at the 200 in the Novotel, but the 150 in Copdock, so we are talking about 350 individuals who are overwhelmingly young men and who have all entered this country illegally.

Why is the Novotel the wrong location? Why is the decision to acquire the use of the Novotel for 200 individuals the wrong thing to do? Why has it united virtually everyone in the community against it? It has united the Conservative Member of Parliament, the Labour-run borough council, and the local business improvement district. It has united all sorts of people whom I do not often agree with, but we are all of one view: this is not the right location to be accommodating these individuals.

Something that I also find desperately concerning is the way in which 20 constituents of mine who worked at the hotel have been treated by Fairview Hotels (Ipswich). They were given five and a half days’ notice that their jobs were on the line, and many of them felt pressured into resigning under the vague promise that they might get their jobs back after the six-month period. I have one constituent whose daughter came home and broke down in tears because of the way she had been treated by those who manage the hotel. My responsibility is to her. My responsibility is to those 20 constituents. My responsibility is not to think about the welfare of those who have entered our country illegally, and I make no apology for that.

In terms of the economic impact of using this Novotel, a huge amount of effort is going into promoting Ipswich as a visitor destination. Ipswich is surrounded by beautiful countryside. It is the oldest town in the country—I thought it was older than Colchester anyway, but now that Colchester has city status, Ipswich is definitely the oldest town in the country. It was home to Cardinal Wolsey, and soon we will be celebrating the 550th anniversary of his birth. Only a stone’s throw away from the Novotel is Wolsey’s Gate, which was built by Cardinal Wolsey, and there is a whole operation to try to enhance the area.

What we are talking about is a 200-room, good-quality hotel in the centre of Ipswich that is lost to us and our local economy. It has been described by a business lady who runs a successful shop a stone’s throw away from the hotel as being an economic bomb that has landed on the town, and there is consensus within the business community that that is the case.

There is also the other angle: the nature of the hotel means that it is often used by successful businesses in Ipswich to host clients. If they have clients visiting or there are conferences, the Novotel is more often than not the hotel that is used, so losing those 200 beds is a further negative economic impact.

I also want to talk about community tension, which is an important point and I plan to address it directly. Ipswich is a welcoming town. It is a multicultural town and it has benefitted from that diversity. It is an integrated town. We have a history of welcoming genuine refugees—some of them are Conservative councillors, and some are from Albania—but they came here in a proper way. They came here legally, they were welcomed, and they have thrived in Ipswich. They have been welcomed in Ipswich and have made a positive contribution. The people of Ipswich are welcoming people but, quite frankly, there is a limit. When they see that people who deliberately enter our country illegally from another safe European country are being accommodated at vast expense in a good quality local hotel in an important location, which is costing local jobs and having a spill-over negative impact on the local economy, they are quite rightly furious. It is not surprising—I make no exaggeration in saying this—that at a time of cost of living strain, when many constituents are desperately concerned about getting by, I am hearing more about this than any other local issue in my postbag. I need to make the point that we are a welcoming and compassionate town.

I move on now to the general point. My right hon. Friend the Minister will know that I have been a consistent voice on the issue of illegal immigration since I was elected to this place. I support the Home Secretary fully in her efforts, and I support my right hon. Friend the Minister’s efforts fully. I was behind him in the main Chamber yesterday, supporting him. I was proud to do that, and he knows he has my support.

My view is that the situation would be even worse under Labour—there is no one from the party present. I find it somewhat ironic that the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), visited Ipswich last week and commented on this matter, even though about a year ago, when she was Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, she called an urgent question to oppose the use of Napier barracks for those who have entered our country illegally. All I would say is that I would much prefer the use of disused Army barracks for these individuals, rather than good quality hotels in the centre of Ipswich. I also note that the Labour candidate for Ipswich has made multiple visits to Calais. Quite what he was doing there, I do not know, but that is by the by; I will not get distracted by that.

I will finish simply by saying that I acknowledge the fact that, in tackling illegal immigration, there is no silver bullet. I am encouraged by the Prime Minister’s meeting with President Macron yesterday, and I look forward to hearing what came out of it. I have confidence in the Prime Minister on the issue. I spoke to him, and supported him. He is a great man. But, ultimately, we have to put turbochargers under the Rwanda policy. That needs to be part of it. Sections of the left deride what happened in Australia; they say that Australia’s offshore processing approach was not successful. Everything that I have seen indicates that it was successful. The fact of the matter is that Australia had a big problem with illegal immigration, it started offshore processing, and it now no longer has a big problem. I understand that Australia had two different locations and is not using one of them, and that there might be differences between Australia and ourselves, but ultimately the principle holds. I strongly encourage my right hon. Friend the Minister not just to support the concept in principle but to stress the urgency of delivering it and of doing what is required to deliver it. He has huge support on our Benches to get this done.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) for coming to support me today. He is also a strong voice on this matter. We do not know what will happen in court later today with the temporary injunction; I hope that it is successful. But if it is not, we must separate it from the bigger issue of how we tackle the crossings. In the short term, we are where we are now. We must look again at the use of Novotel, take on board the view of the local business community and work with and support those 20 employees. They are my constituents, and have been treated very poorly. That is all I have to say on the matter.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. Given your duties as Chair you will not be able to say so, but I know that you also feel strongly about the issue, which affects your constituents in Kettering. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for raising the matter, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) for supporting him. The issue clearly concerns many Members across the House and millions of people across the country. Resolving it is a first-order priority for the Government.

The ongoing legal action means it is difficult for me to comment on the specific case of the hotel in Ipswich, but I will speak about it in more general terms, and about the wider issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich. I know Ipswich well, and met my hon. Friend for the first time when he was standing for Parliament there, when we toured Ipswich and visited the harbour, where the hotel is. I have seen the good work that he is doing with the council and others on the town deal board to regenerate Ipswich and help it achieve its potential. It is concerning to hear that the actions of the Home Office might, in a small way, be damaging his and the community’s wider efforts to boost opportunities and prosperity in Ipswich.

Since we came into office, the initial task for me and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has been to resolve the very urgent situation that we found in Manston in Kent, where a large number of migrants who crossed the channel illegally in small boats were being accommodated in a temporary processing facility that was meant for a smaller number of individuals. That was not within the control of the Government. It was the result of thousands of people choosing to make that perilous journey—over 40,000 this year alone, and rising. We had to ensure that the site was operating legally and decently. As a result, we had to procure further hotels and other types of accommodation across the country at some pace. I am pleased to say that that hard work is bearing fruit, and the situation at Manston has significantly improved. The number of people being accommodated there is now back down to the level for which it was designed.

That leads to the second priority, which is to stabilise the situation more broadly, and ensure that we procure hotels in a sensible, common-sense way. The case that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich raises prompts some important questions. First, when we choose hotels, other than in emergency situations such as the one we have been in with Manston, we need to ensure there is proper engagement with local Members of Parliament and local authorities, so that we choose hotels that might not be desirable but are none the less broadly suitable and can command a degree of public support. In some cases, we have seen hotels chosen that simply do not meet that barrier.

We need to ensure hotels are chosen against sensible, objective criteria. Those criteria might mean ensuring that towns such as Ipswich can continue to carry out their day-to-day business, and ensuring that tourists can be accommodated and that business and leisure travellers can find hotel accommodation in the centre. They will include ensuring that we take into account safeguarding concerns, for example by not choosing hotels that are next to children’s homes, schools or places where young people congregate. The criteria will certainly include taking into account community cohesion and the likelihood for disruption, and they should, obviously, include value for money for the taxpayer. On that point, I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend that we should be choosing decent but not luxurious accommodation. People coming here seeking refuge should be accommodated in simple but humane accommodation. He referenced the situation in Calais. The way this country accommodates asylum seekers vastly outweighs the way some neighbouring countries choose to do so, and I am afraid that creates an additional pull factor to the UK.

Deterrence needs to be suffused throughout our entire approach. We can be decent and humane, but we also need to apply hard-headed common sense. Once we have stabilised the present situation, and applied those criteria and better engagement methods, the third strand of our strategy is to exit from hotels altogether. Accommodating thousands of individuals in hotels costs the UK over £2 billion a year. In a time of fiscal constraints, that is an unconscionable sum of money and we need to ensure we move away from that as swiftly as we can.

The strategy that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and I are establishing to do that has a number of fronts. One will be ensuring fairer dispersal across the country, so that cities and larger towns do not bear a disproportionate impact of the asylum seeker issue. Secondly, it will involve looking for other sites, away from hotels, that provide better value for money for the taxpayer, which might mean more simple forms of accommodation; we hope to say more on that soon. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, we will accelerate the processing of asylum claims altogether, so that those individuals whose claims are rejected can be removed from the country swiftly and those whose claims are upheld can start working, create a new life in the UK and make an economic and broader contribution to the country.

[Tom Hunt]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for giving way. There are a great number of Members on our Benches who think that the very act of coming here illegally should prohibit people from making an application at all. Frankly, those people have already broken the law of the land by entering illegally. There is also an issue with the definition of “refugee” and I understand our rates of granting refugee status are much higher than those of comparable European countries. Will he expand further on any work that may be done by Government to make a narrower definition of what a refugee actually is? My concern is that some people are being given refugee status who may not be refugees, if we stick to the sense of the word.

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend raises two important points. First, we are very concerned that a large number of individuals, certainly all those coming across in small boats, have transited through multiple safe countries before choosing to make the crossing to the UK. We do not want to be a country that attracts asylum shoppers. We want people to be seeking asylum in the first safe country that they enter. That may necessitate further changes to the law. We want to have a legal framework that is broadly based on individuals who are fleeing genuine persecution, such as war or serious human rights abuses, finding refuge in the UK through safe and legal routes, such as the highly effective resettlement schemes that we have established in recent years for, for example, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Hong Kong. My hon. Friend was right to say that his constituents in Ipswich, like millions of people across the country, broadly support that approach and have played an important role in recent months, for example by taking in refugees under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. We do not want people to be encouraged by people smugglers to cross the channel illegally and then find refuge in the UK.

The second point that my hon. Friend raises, which is equally perceptive, is that the UK’s asylum system grants asylum to a higher proportion of applicants than those of some comparable countries, such as France and Germany. The Home Secretary and I are looking at that issue in some detail to see whether we can make changes to the way we manage the process and the criteria we adopt, not so that we become a country that is unwelcoming or ungenerous—that is not the British way—but so that we do not create an additional pull factor to the UK over and above other countries that are signatories to exactly the same conventions and treaties to which the UK is party.

[Tom Hunt]

To be perfectly honest, I am quite keen for us to be unwelcoming towards those who have illegally entered our country. What is the difference between breaking our immigration law and breaking any other domestic law? From what I see, if someone breaks a law in the country, they get punished. Surely breaking our immigration law is breaking our law, and the people who do so should be treated as such.

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not want to get into a detailed conversation about our exact treaty obligations and the legal framework, but the issue is that any individual can claim asylum regardless of the means by which they came to the UK, regardless of whether they have transited through safe countries, and even regardless of whether they came from a safe country in the first place. That balance is not currently right, so we need to look carefully at how we can change it.

The most striking issue is the individuals coming from demonstrably safe countries. Today, about 30% of the individuals crossing the channel have come from Albania. That is a first-order priority for the Home Secretary and I to address, because it cannot be right that the UK provides safety and support for those individuals—mostly young men who are healthy and sufficiently prosperous to pay people traffickers, and who come from a country as safe as Albania. We need to change that. We have already returned 1,000 Albanians under the return agreement signed by the previous Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). The present Home Secretary and I want to take that significantly further.

The longer-term trajectory obviously has to be moving away from tackling merely the symptoms of the problem—the processing of applications and the accommodation of individuals in expensive hotels—to tackling the root cause itself. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich is correct that a significant element of that will be to make further legal changes to our framework. Another element will be ensuring that deterrence is suffused through our approach so that we do not become a magnet for illegal migrants. We need the UK to be a country that supports those in genuine need, but we must not create a framework that is significantly more attractive than those of our EU neighbours.

That will also require work on the diplomatic front. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has just returned from Sharm el-Sheikh, where he had further positive conversations with President Macron and other world leaders who are dealing with the symptoms of a global migration crisis. It will require tougher action by the security services to address the criminal gangs and gain greater intelligence on their work overseas. It will include tougher action at home on employers who illegally employ migrants who do not have the right to work here.

On all those fronts, the Home Secretary and I are absolutely committed to tackling this issue. I know it is extremely important to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich, who is one of the leading voices in Parliament on it, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough. They are both simply representing the strong views of their constituents, who, like millions of people across the country, want secure borders and a fair and robust immigration and asylum system. That is exactly what the Home Secretary and I intend to deliver.

Question put and agreed to.

Asylum Seekers Accommodation and Safeguarding

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

We should treat individuals coming to the UK with decency; those are our values. My hon. Friend is right to say that the standard to which we look after those arriving on our shores, in almost every case, easily surpasses that of other countries. We only have to compare the standards of Manston, which I have seen in the last week, with those of the camp in Dunkirk to see the difference. We should be proud of the way we support individuals coming to the UK—that is the British way—but we should do so in a common-sensical way that looks after the best interests and value for money of the British taxpayer.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

It was not too long ago that the Opposition brought forward a motion to oppose the use of Napier barracks for illegal immigrants, but I would much rather have that than the use of the Novotel in the centre of Ipswich, where 20 constituents’ jobs have been lost as a result. Ultimately, however, does the Minister agree that the Rwanda policy is the right policy that will create one of the most powerful deterrent effects? Can he give me some clarity about when that is likely to be implemented and how the new Bill of Rights could help to bring it to fruition?

[Robert Jenrick]

As I have said in answer to many questions this afternoon, deterrence has to be suffused through our entire approach so that we do not make the UK a draw for illegal migration. The Rwanda policy is one element of that, and it would produce a significant deterrent effect. It is currently subject to legal action—we expect to hear more on that shortly—but as soon as we are able to proceed with it, my hon. Friend can be assured that we will do so.