Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Rehman Chishti

2nd reading
Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Well, £400 million for a failing plan is a hell of a lot of money. What we need to do is clear the backlog, and Labour has set out a proposal for 1,000 new caseworkers to clear the backlog and for a new returns unit to make sure that, instead of this 50% collapse in returns, we actually return people who have no right to be here. Do that—clear the asylum backlog and end the asylum hotels—and that will save the taxpayer £2 billion. Instead of throwing away hundreds of millions of pounds, it will save the taxpayer billions of pounds.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to my former colleague on the Home Affairs Committee.

[Rehman Chishti]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, and we did indeed work together on the Home Affairs Committee. I am a Kent Member of Parliament, and we need to make sure that we take firm and decisive action to deal with illegal migration. I am open-minded in looking at this Bill to see whether it delivers that. Does she agree—I tried to intervene on the Home Secretary on this point—that there are a number of people in the UK who have lost their asylum claims, yet are still in the UK? What are we going to do, and what is the Opposition’s plan to ensure that those people are removed, which would be a deterrent? I have not been given the numbers of how many of those who have lost all their claims have been removed in the last year, over the last two years or over the last three years, but if we want a deterrent, we need to look at that as well as at this Bill.

[Yvette Cooper]

I totally agree with the hon. Member. That is why I hope there will be cross-party support for a plan to have a major new returns unit to turn that around. We have 40,000 people here who have had their claim rejected and should be returned, and they are not being returned. There has been a 50% drop in returns under the Conservatives over the 13 years of the Conservative Government, and a further 17,000 people have just disappeared into the system altogether, where there should be proper enforcement. However, the Government are not taking action on any of those things. There is no grip on the system, so Labour would set up a major new returns unit, with 1,000 staff, to make sure that we have proper enforcement in place. The combination of that and the caseworkers will save the taxpayer £2 billion.