Ben Obese-Jecty
Main Page: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)Department Debates - View all Ben Obese-Jecty's debates with the Home Office
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Pinkerton
I give way to the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans).
Dr Pinkerton
We need safe and legal routes in order to allow people an alternative to putting their life at risk to cross the channel. That work needs to be done on a continental basis with our European partners.
Sally Jameson (Doncaster Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Immigration is a part of Britain’s history and we have a proud record of supporting those seeking refuge from across the world. British life has been enriched by people who have come from across the globe and made their lives here contributing to the NHS, the business sector, local communities and our economy. However, the immigration and asylum system we have inherited is, after years of neglect, not fit for purpose.
Today, due to time constraints I will particularly focus on border security and asylum, because it goes without saying that border security is national security and our asylum system can only work if it is well managed and well regulated. Indeed, over the last six years criminal smuggling gangs have been allowed to take hold along all our borders, making millions of pounds out of small boat crossings and exploiting some of the most vulnerable people while going virtually unchallenged. We have had expensive rhetoric from the Tories, and I am sorry to say that they practically collapsed the asylum decision-making system and relied on the Rwanda scheme, which was simply a gimmick. They haemorrhaged an eye-watering £700 million of taxpayers’ money on a system that we all knew would not work and, indeed, did not.
It is important to shine a light on what this Government are doing with the legislation they have introduced—the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill—which will put national security back at the heart of our border system. It will give law enforcement agencies counter-terror-style powers and actually deal with the criminal smuggling gangs, and Opposition parties voted against it.
Sally Jameson
I am not taking interventions—you had 14 years to intervene.
We will have tougher border security measures for foreign national sex offenders, who will be excluded from refugee protections. We will have new powers on seizing electronic devices, new offences against gangs selling and handling small boat parts and new and modernised biometric checks overseas to build a clear picture of individuals coming to the UK and to prevent those with a criminal history from entering. We have new agreements with France, Germany, Italy and Iraq on tackling those gangs, and our agreement with France will mean that policing units will have the authority to intercept boats in shallow waters. We have announced a £150 million funding package for the Border Security Command, unlocking new surveillance technology and new additional funding for the National Crime Agency.
Whether it is through the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill or the workings of the immigration White Paper we announced recently, we are finally getting to grips with the system after many years, making it fair and humane but also putting in the graft to ensure that laws and safeguards are in place, so that we do not find ourselves in this mess ever again and that our national security is not put at risk. There is no more rhetoric or gimmicks, but meaningful action and a Government who are actually governing, facing up to the problem and getting it sorted. That is what my constituents and people across the country expect.
Seema Malhotra
That is indeed an issue that the Minister for Border Security and Asylum is working on with local authorities, so that there are caps and we have a well-managed process.
Seema Malhotra
I will make some progress first.
There is also the issue that the UK has come to be seen as an easy target by criminal smuggling gangs, who relentlessly undermine our border security and put lives at risk in the channel and elsewhere, the consequences of which, tragically, we have seen again today. That cannot go on, and under this Government it will not.
We have restarted asylum decision making on the horrendous backlog that was left by the previous Government. Returns are up by 21% to more than 24,000. The hon. Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden) raised the question of those who have been subject to enforced returns. The number is up significantly on the previous year. He may want to engage with those figures and his Government’s record on that.
We have taken action through the new Border Security Command, the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill and the immigration White Paper.
Seema Malhotra
I want to make some more progress. We are acting to restore order and control to the immigration system and to give law enforcement the powers they need—powers the parties on the Opposition Benches voted against.
We have laid out a set of robust measures in the immigration White Paper, including reversing the long-term trend of increasing international recruitment at the expense of skills and training. We want to see net migration come down by investing in training. Also, for the first time, a labour market evidence group will be established, drawing on the best data available to make informed decisions about the state of the labour market and the role that different policies should play, rather than always relying on migration. Immigration must also work for the whole of the UK. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) and I have been in a number of debates on the needs of Scotland. Departments across Government, along with the devolved Governments and sector bodies, will engage in the new labour market evidence group as part of the new approach.
We will tackle the overly complex family and private life immigration arrangements, where too many cases are treated as exceptional in the absence of a clear framework. That is why legislation will be brought forward to make clear that Government and Parliament decide who should have the right to remain in the UK. That will address cases where legal arguments based on article 8 and the right to family life are being used to frustrate deportation when removal is clearly in the national interest.