Cross-Channel Migrants: Manston Facility

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The Home Secretary and her predecessors have been putting in place a number of measures over the course of the summer, including hiring more individuals to process the claims at the Home Office. As I said earlier, we now have a team of 1,000, which seems to be the right number given the scale of the backlog. We are working through how they can process those claims as quickly as possible. We do process claims in slower order in the UK than some other comparable countries, and there is reason to believe that we can make the process more productive than it is today.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

Manston is a disaster for migrants who find themselves there, and it is a black mark against the bureaucratic competence of the Home Office. The processing regime more generally is a disaster for standards of humanity. More broadly, the dynamic that saw the Royal Navy dragged into this space to compensate for failures of Border Force—principally, a lack of resource—is deeply unwelcome for defence. Against all that, can the Minister advise what this information rule-breaking, retread Home Secretary will do to fix the problem?

[Robert Jenrick]

I suspect that she would do a great deal more than the SNP if they were in government.