Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and I explicitly chose not to pursue the blanket amnesty approach that the previous Labour Government pursued. Instead, we put in the hard yards to improve productivity by streamlining processes, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy, ensuring that, where appropriate, interviews were conducted in a timely fashion, and recruiting more decision makers. Since my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary appeared before the Committee, I am pleased to say that the data coming out of our caseworking team is very strong. We are seeing significant progress. As I just said, early indication suggests that last week was the best for over four years.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I am a bit mystified. Given that 95% of these applications are successful, is it not the case that, if we speed up the process and make it easier and easier, more and more people will come? Is not the only solution to detain people and to deport them—offshore them? Those who suggest anything else are living in cloud cuckoo land and every single county will face what we face in Lincolnshire with thousands of illegal migrants having to be housed in unsuitable places. Let us have an answer for once.

[Robert Jenrick]

The approach that the Home Secretary and I have taken has been both to ensure that, where there are high grant rate nationalities, cases are pursued swiftly, and where there are low grant rate nationalities, such as Albanians—individuals from a safe European country—who can and should be returned as quickly as possible, we do just that. At this point last year, 30% of those arriving on small boats were coming from Albania; today, it is less than 2%. That arrangement is clearly making good progress. None the less, my right hon. Friend makes an important point: those who suggest that we can simply grant our way out of this problem are, I am afraid, hopelessly naive. The idea that the individuals coming across on small boats will, in most cases, make a significant net contribution to our economy is wrong. The costs to the taxpayer are very significant. The ongoing costs of education, access to welfare and community cohesion are very significant, which is why we need to stop the boats in the first place.