Chris Philp
Main Page: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)Department Debates - View all Chris Philp's debates with the Home Office
(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Pete Wishart
No one in this world is illegal—[Interruption.] I hear chuntering from the Conservative Front Bench as usual. People are fleeing for their lives from situations across the world. They are fleeing from oppression—
Pete Wishart
The right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) says they are fleeing from France, but where does he think they have come from? They come from some of the worst war-torn countries. I challenge him to go there and live for six months just to see how he would get on—[Interruption.]
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
No case more powerfully illustrates the gravity of this matter than that of Rhiannon Whyte. I met Rhiannon’s mum Siobhan a few weeks ago and heard her story. Rhiannon was 27 years old. She worked in an asylum hotel, and one night after leaving work, she was followed by a Sudanese illegal immigrant who entered the country by small boat in late July 2024. This man murdered Rhiannon by stabbing her 23 times. He left her for dead on a station platform, and was later filmed laughing about it.
This terrible crime is by no means isolated. Many other illegal small boat migrants living in asylum accommodation have committed terrible offences against women and girls. A 31-year-old woman on a Brighton beach was gang-raped by two Iranians and an Egyptian who entered the country by small boat. A 12-year-old girl was abducted and raped by an Afghan illegal immigrant. A woman was abducted and raped by an Egyptian asylum seeker—again, an illegal immigrant—in Hyde Park, barely a mile from where we now stand. It turns out that that man also had criminal convictions for Islamist terrorism in Egypt. An Ethiopian illegal immigrant sexually assaulted a young teenage girl in Epping. Two Iranian nationals—again, illegal immigrants who entered the country by small boat—have now been charged with preparing terror attacks against Manchester’s Jewish community.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. We do not talk about cases where people have just been charged or have not been sentenced, because it is sub judice. I ask the shadow Home Secretary to be incredibly careful with the words he uses in his closing speech.
Chris Philp
Of course, Madam Deputy Speaker. The fact that they have been charged is a matter of public record; I will not say anything beyond that.
In another case, an illegal small boat migrant who entered the country is fighting extradition back to Germany, where he is wanted for rape. He is also linked to ISIS. In case after case—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. If somebody is fighting a case, it is still a live case. Can I ask the shadow Home Secretary to revisit his words before he speaks them out loud in the Chamber?
Chris Philp
I am repeating what has been publicly reported today, but I will of course take account of your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker.
In case after case, we have seen women and girls attacked by illegal small boat migrants. The data, I am afraid, is very clear: two of the three most predominant nationalities are Afghan and Eritrean. The data that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) referred to—data produced using freedom of information requests to the Ministry of Justice—shows that Afghan males are 22 times more likely than average to commit sex assaults, and for Eritrean men, the number is similar. That, of course, is why just a few weeks ago, the Government felt it necessary to produce a leaflet asking these illegal migrants to kindly not rape women and girls. The Government themselves know it is a problem, which is why they produced those leaflets. It is why mothers and grandmothers in Piddington are so concerned about the safety of their daughters and granddaughters. It is why parents in Crowborough are so concerned as well, because these threats are real, these crimes have happened, and these convictions have taken place.
The data is clear. What my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings says is true: these men come from cultures that are alien to ours, where women are not respected. This is an immigration crisis, a border security crisis, a public safety crisis, and a crisis for women and girls. The Government are allowing 92% of small boat migrants to stay; only 8% have been deported. Yes, there are slightly fewer asylum hotels, but only because the Government are moving the illegal immigrants into flats instead—they are up by 12% since the election.
To save places such as Piddington, Crowborough, Linton-on-Ouse and Wethersfield and towns and villages up and down the country, the solution is not, as the Prime Minister said, to distribute illegal immigrants equitably across the country. It is instead to deport people who enter our country illegally, and to do so within a week of their arrival. If we did so, we would need no accommodation anywhere, whether in flats, hotels or military sites, because we would not be accommodating illegal immigrants at all. It would also deter the crossings. If the people who are leaving France—which, by the way, is a safe country; nobody needs to flee war in France—knew that they would be rapidly deported, either to their country of origin or to a safe third country such as Rwanda, the crossings would soon stop. When Australia did something similar in September 2013, its illegal maritime crossings, which had been running at levels similar to ours, stopped within about three months. It is a solution, if only the Government would grasp it.
To do that, though, it is necessary to leave the ECHR. What started in 1950 as a very well-intentioned piece of human rights legislation has subsequently been stretched and distorted beyond all recognition. Clauses that were originally intended to prevent the horrors of the second world war are now expansively interpreted to mean that rapists cannot be sent back to their country of origin because of their supposed family rights. Under article 3, which is unqualified and cannot be amended in domestic legislation, a Zimbabwean rapist was not sent back to Zimbabwe because he might face hostility there. An Iraqi drug dealer was not sent back to Iraq because he had apparently become too westernised. What started off as a sensible set of protections has been stretched beyond recognition—beyond anything common sense would recognise—and it is preventing successive Governments, the last Government as much as this one, from deporting people who cannot be here. That is why there are 21,000 serious foreign criminals still in this country. It is why the Home Office knows of 412,000 people with no right to be here who cannot be deported.
Leaving the ECHR is a necessary, but not sufficient, step. We need to do it in order to control our borders, but on its own, it is not enough. We would also have to amend domestic legislation—for example, to ban asylum claims by illegal immigrants, abolish the immigration tribunal and immigration legal aid, restrict judicial review of immigration matters to all but the narrowest grounds, and end modern slavery claims being used as a basis to oppose deportation. All of these measures would need to be taken as well as leaving the ECHR, but without leaving the ECHR none of those measures is possible.
Chris Philp
I am just going to just finish. I know that Ministers are trying hard with their Bill, but they are essentially tinkering at the edges. That was tried by the last Government and to be honest it did not work, because these legal structures prevent robust action to defend our borders.
Before concluding, I will just say that were we to leave the ECHR, which I fervently believe we must do to save places like Piddington, to protect our women and girls and to protect our borders, we would not be returning to the dark ages. Rights existed in this country long before the 1998 Human Rights Act and long before the 1950 convention was entered into. Common-law jurisdictions such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada have perfectly respectable human rights records without needing to rely on the ECHR. Indeed, this Parliament can legislate to protect human rights in whatever manner it sees fit.
What is true is that we cannot protect our borders and we cannot deport illegal immigrants and foreign criminals while we are inside the ECHR. If we are serious about border protection and protecting Piddington, Crowborough and other similar places up and down this country, we need to take that necessary step. We must leave the ECHR, reform our domestic laws and restore border control to this country.
Jo White
No, I will not give way.
Winston Churchill proposed the establishment of the European convention on human rights at the 1948 Congress of Europe, and the UK was the first country to ratify it in 1951. It came from Churchill’s experience of dealing with the Nazis before and during the second world war. Some 13 million people were murdered, unprotected. The European convention on human rights defines what we mean by never again. How those rights are interpreted and applied is important, and that is why the Home Secretary committed last year to oversee reforms to bring the ECHR into the modern age.
The ECHR includes freedom of assembly, freedom to a fair trial, the prohibition of torture, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and the right to life, including the right not to be murdered in your own state. That is what the Nazis did and that is where the ECHR comes from. These principles remain essential. Which two countries have chosen to stay out? Russia and Belarus. Perhaps we should ask opposition leaders in Russia and Belarus about that. They have been falsely imprisoned, tortured and murdered by the state. That is what we are talking about. By leaving the ECHR, we would throw away protections against show trials and political persecution. We will not hand over our freedoms to the whims of tyrants and dictators.
Jo White
No, I will not. Sit down.
Instead, we stand with Churchill. We will build a fair, controlled immigration system that is free from abuse. We will focus on matters abut which people are rightly concerned.
The issue is not the existence of the convention, but the way in which it has been applied over time. We do not fix a fault by walking away; we sort it out by restoring the right balance and ensuring that the system works as intended. That is why all 46 members of the ECHR adopted the Chiinău political declaration in May, creating solid foundations for reform. The Government are now translating that into practical change, and we will see reform of the domestic application of article 8, restoring the proper balance between maintaining individual rights and protecting the public interest. This is a binary choice: reform the ECHR and have greater control over our borders, or leave and lose our ability to return illegal migrants or foreign criminals. I choose the powers that the ECHR gives us, which protects all our individual rights and freedoms. It also provides us with responsibilities, and when people have been subjected to torture or the risk of torture, we have rightly provided them with a place of security and safety.
I now come to some of the points made by hon. Members. [Interruption.] I respond appropriately to Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Connor Naismith) wanted a timeline for the closing down of hotels in places such as Falkirk which were approved by the Tories when they were in power. The ambition is to end hotel use by the end of this parliamentary term. The number has fallen from 400 when we came into power to fewer than 160, and I will celebrate with my hon. Friend when we are in a position to close down the remaining hotel in his constituency.
In response to the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), the introduction of electronic travel authorisations at the borders and ports and the use of visa penalties have given us much greater control over our borders. Disincentivising crossings through the introduction of new, strong control methods, including those employed by Border Security Command, cracking down on illegal working and introducing safe and legal routes for genuine asylum cases from some of the most dangerous countries in the world has also given us more power over our borders. The change in the way in which the ECHR is applied is critical to bringing back order and control.
This Government share the concern on women’s safety, and I acknowledge the concerns of the women who are here today. No woman should live a smaller life, and this Government are committed to halving violence against women and girls within this decade. Ours is a cross-Government response, and we will work as hard as we can to achieve that aim. Home Office representatives have met the chief executive and the leader of Cherwell district council to discuss cohesion challenges linked to people’s concerns about the site, and they are listening to the concerns raised by women.