Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and John Hayes

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes]

It is conventional in this place to say that it is a delight and a joy to follow the preceding speaker, and generally one does so as a matter of convention, but I am always pleased to follow the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), even though I disagreed with almost everything he said. I know that he speaks with integrity and that he believes in his heart what he has said today, but I have to tell him that his purity—if I may put it in those terms—and his absolute Christian dignity have got the better of his reason in respect of this issue.

The hon. Gentleman’s constituents, like mine, expect this House to be where power lies, for it is this House that is answerable to them. He owes his political legitimacy to his relationship with the people he described in his constituency, as I do to those in mine. When other powers in other places supersede the authority of this House, in the way the European judges did when they held up the planes for those being sent to Rwanda, our constituents feel not only frustrated but let down. They feel let down because they see the will of this House and the will of our Government being impeded, and indeed frustrated, by those overseas powers.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I will happily give way to the hon. Lady, who is deeply confused about the difference between treaty law and statute. Perhaps she will explain that.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I draw the right hon. Gentleman’s mind to the 1970s when, in this country, a Conservative Government passed legislation saying that a married woman, or any woman, coming to this country had to go through a virginity test, and it was the European Court of Human Rights that overturned that British legislation. Are you really telling me that you think that legislation was correct?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Is the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) really telling me that he thinks that decision by the European Court of Human Rights was wrong?

[Sir John Hayes]

I never knowingly defend the Heath Government, so I will not accept any connection with their measures. Indeed, it was Edward Heath who, against the interests of the British people, took us into the European Union in the first place, but I will not go down that road as it is not relevant to the amendments before us.

In the spirit I have just outlined, I will address the significance of the Bill and the amendments before us, in the context of the Government’s determination not only to tackle the issue of immigration per se, but to deal, in particular, with illegal immigration in the form of boats arriving in Dover. Just as we won the referendum campaign with the simple slogan “Take back control,” so it seems to me we will win this argument with a similar slogan: “Stop the boats.”