PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Illegal Migration Bill: Asylum Seekers - 20 March 2023 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

We must stop the misuse of our asylum system so that we can focus our resources upon those who really need our help, not those who can afford to pay people smugglers to transport them from safe countries.

The Illegal Migration Bill is yet another example of the Tories scapegoating asylum seekers to distract from their incompetence. It will not be compatible with our legal obligations under the Equality and Human Rights Commission and it will leave asylum seekers, such as those from Iran, in limbo so that they will be deemed permanently inadmissible to our asylum system. We need more safe and legal routes now, not after the boat crossings have stopped, as we know that the Bill will never achieve that. Why will the Home Secretary not seek to provide safe and legal routes for everybody now?

We always place a high priority on the wellbeing of asylum seekers, which is why we are also committing to rolling out safe and legal routes as part of our plan.

While I have the attention of the hon. Lady, may I take this chance to invite her to apologise to the nation? She campaigned in 2020 to stop the Government from deporting a serious foreign criminal. Thanks to her efforts, together with those of 70 Labour MPs, the Government were subsequently stopped from removing Ernesto Elliott, who went on to murder in the UK. Mr Speaker, will—

Order. The Home Secretary should know better. This is sub judice.

He has been convicted—it is not sub judice.

He has appealed his sentence, and I do not need any lectures from the Front Bench either. I look forward to an apology. Am I going to get an apology?

Thank you. Home Secretary, will you take the advice that I have been given? I know you do not like it, but I am only working on the facts of the case.

Well, I will still say that what Labour MPs have done is outrageous, and I encourage them to apologise.

Last week, the Italian Defence Minister made a direct link between the rise in asylum seekers coming to Europe by small boats and the activities of the Wagner Group in Africa. Given the atrocious activities of the Wagner Group in Ukraine and elsewhere, will the Home Secretary proscribe it?

We keep the list of proscribed organisations under review. We do not routinely comment on security and intelligence matters, but where a group meets a test of being a terrorism concern and where it meets our legal criteria, then a group can be proscribed, if it is necessary and proportionate to do so.

What is more frightening than this toxic Bill that locks up the most vulnerable people who walk this planet, imprisons innocent children and pushes trafficked women back into the hands of their perpetrators, is that this Tory Government are peddling their divisive rhetoric because the Home Secretary has failed to govern or to provide communities with the support they need. Before she others the innocent, will she not admit that she is blaming the destitute to mask her own failures?

The only people who have failed here are Labour and Opposition Members who have failed to stand up for the British people and failed to support our measures to stop the boats. All they want is open borders and unlimited migration.

The Government have identified 57 countries deemed safe for the removal of asylum seekers, but there are no actual agreements in place to facilitate that legally. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on when those legal agreements will be in place? They will be good for the welfare of the asylum seekers and very good for the welfare of my constituents, because we can have our hotels back.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that this is about enabling the Government to properly help the most genuine and vulnerable asylum seekers and refugees who come to this country. Currently, because of the influx of illegal migrants, and because our modern slavery and asylum system has been overwhelmed thanks to the efforts of the people smuggling gangs, we are unable to help those genuine victims to whom we owe a clear duty.

I call the shadow Minister.

The Government’s new asylum legislation is a sham that is set to worsen the backlog, because they do not have the facilities to detain tens of thousands of asylum seekers, or a returns agreement in place with the EU to send back those deemed inadmissible. For all her taxpayer funded photo ops this weekend, the Home Secretary has seemingly failed to bung the Rwandan Government enough money for them to increase the number of asylum seekers they are ready to take this year. For a deterrent to be effective, it has to be credible, yet these plans are just empty threats. Will she tell us where she expects to detain the tens of thousands of asylum seekers forecast to arrive this year, where she expects to remove them to, when Rwanda clearly has no intention of taking more than a very small proportion of those who she expects to arrive this year, and when this Government will get out of the way, so that Labour can deliver its five-point plan to stop the boat crossings?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his approach to entertaining the House today, but let us compare what the Labour party has done over the last 10 days with what the Government have done.

In the last 10 days, the Prime Minister and I have secured a big deal with the French to increase cross-channel co-operation. I have presented and we have voted on measures to detain and swiftly remove illegal migrants. This weekend, I met refugees who have successfully been resettled in Rwanda and saw the accommodation that people will be using.

What has the Labour party done? Well, the shadow Home Secretary has been on Twitter. She is very good on Twitter. She has tweeted, in the last 10 days, Labour’s paltry excuse for a plan. Half of it is stuff we are already doing; the other half is its plan for open borders and unlimited migration. What I suggest Labour Members do is get off Twitter and get to Rwanda, and I will show them how to stop the boats.

I call the SNP spokesperson.

Freedom from Torture has talked about the impact on torture survivors of the anti-asylum Bill, calling it

“a betrayal of the commitments made following the Shaw Review”.

Seven babies born to mothers in Home Office accommodation since 2020 have died, so it is no surprise that Women for Refugee Women and the Royal College of Midwives have opposed the Home Office’s plans. Scotland’s Children and Young People’s Commissioner has warned that the plans to detain and remove children breach this Government’s obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child. There is nothing about protecting asylum seekers’ welfare that the Bill will fix, so does the Home Secretary accept the harm that she is causing?

We take very seriously our duties to everybody who is within our care. Our measures will always, of course, ensure that proper wellbeing and welfare provision is available to those who are vulnerable, but let me say this: the hon. Lady has absolutely no right to lecture this Government on how to support asylum seekers when her own nation royally fails to take any or sufficient numbers into Scotland.

That is simply not correct. The Bill is not about helping asylum seekers; it is about banning asylum seekers. What does it say about the Home Secretary’s morals that she believes that Rwanda would be “a blessing” for asylum seekers, but when they come here she calls them a swarm and an invasion?

The problem that the hon. Lady is labouring under is that in opposing our plans, she sides with the people-smuggling gangs. She actively encourages, in effect, co-operation with the evil practice of exploitation of vulnerable people coming into this country. Vote for our measures, stop the people-smuggling gangs and stop the boats!