Rwanda Plan Cost and Asylum System

Debate between Tom Pursglove and Florence Eshalomi

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Legal Migration and the Border (Tom Pursglove)]

The Opposition may not believe this, but I am grateful to them for giving us the opportunity to debate this important issue that undoubtedly matters to people across the country. I am grateful because this debate provides me with the opportunity to highlight the fact that this Government have a credible plan to tackle illegal migration.

Some things never change. When I moved to the Department for Work and Pensions in October 2022, the Labour party had no credible plan on illegal migration. And when I returned to the Home Office 14 months later, guess what? There is still no credible plan. Some things never change, and it is the same old Labour ignoring the British people’s priorities and trying to glide to power under the radar without saying anything credible about these issues. By contrast, we have a credible plan, we are working through that plan and it is delivering results.

We should not see one aspect—one plank—of that plan in isolation; it needs to be seen in a joined-up way. Small boat arrivals to the UK were down by a third last year. Opposition Members may not want to hear that, but it reflects the fact that the plan and the earlier steps that were taken are working. It also bucked the trend across Europe, where illegal migration had risen. Our European partners are following our lead, with Italy, Germany, Austria and others all exploring models similar to ours.

The Government met their target of eliminating the legacy asylum backlog and there is improved efficiency across the system. We will take forward that learning as we set about dealing with the outstanding cases. The use of hotels to accommodate asylum seekers is costing the taxpayer more than £8 million each day and one thing is for sure: if we were to take the do-nothing approach about the flow of cases into the system, which is precisely what the shadow Home Secretary’s policy would result in, all we would see is ballooning costs. That would be unfair and unsustainable, which is why we have taken concrete steps to return hotels to their rightful uses, with 50 due to be handed back to the community this month.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I hope the Minister has had an opportunity to visit some of these hotels. This is about not just the costs, which are increasing, but the situation and dire conditions for people waiting for their claims to be assessed. We are talking about families living in rooms with no access to food and no space for their children to learn—it is not a nice environment for people who just want their claims to be assessed. Will the Minister please get to grips with that?

[Tom Pursglove]

It is absolutely right that the Government prioritise closing hotels. That is a policy we have set and are delivering against. [Interruption.] Labour Members keep saying it is going up, but what we are seeing is hotels being closed. That is happening week on week, and we will continue to sustain that process.

Health and Disability White Paper

Debate between Tom Pursglove and Florence Eshalomi

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head about what we are trying to achieve with these reforms. He is a passionate campaigner for employment opportunities in Workington, and has had considerable success in that regard during his time in this House. I appreciate his welcoming the reforms, which are about helping people to achieve their aspirations. If work is something that people want to do, Government ought not to put barriers in place to prevent that. That is precisely what we are determined to do away with.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for asking this important urgent question.

The sanctions do not work. Measures to tackle disability employment gaps are way overdue, and I pay tribute to many groups across Vauxhall, including Autism Voice in Clapham, which I recently visited. They do a lot of work to try to help disabled people back into the work market but, sadly, the employment gap is still there. Many employers discriminate and are not prepared to give disabled people an opportunity, because of the widespread perception that disabled people are less capable, regardless of whether they are the best candidate. What are the Government are doing to tackle negative attitudes about disabled people, which are preventing many of them from fulfilling the opportunities that they should be taking?

[Tom Pursglove]

The hon. Lady is right to raise this issue. We all have a duty and a responsibility to be brilliant advocates and allies of disabled people, promoting opportunities for them at every turn. I expect that we will be in a position to say more about autism specifically over the coming weeks—something that I feel very passionately about as Minister for Disabled People. We are doing work on perceptions, and there is more work to be done over the coming months. We have a campaign that I expect to come to fruition in the not-too-distant future. I want to see more employers sign up to schemes such as Disability Confident. There is more to do, although we have seen real strides forward, with 1 million more disabled people in employment achieved five years early, but we must take the next steps forward. There is so much untapped potential from people who can contribute and offer so much to their workplaces.