Joy Morrissey
Main Page: Joy Morrissey (Conservative - Beaconsfield)Department Debates - View all Joy Morrissey's debates with the Home Office
(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House condemns the Government’s plan to place illegal migrants in MoD Bicester; and calls on the Government to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights in order to deport illegal migrants.
Those on the Government Benches would not go and meet the women of Piddington and hear their concerns, so today the Opposition have brought the women of Piddington to them. They are in the Gallery today. The Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), and her colleagues on the Government Benches have nowhere to hide. The women of Piddington have written to all female Labour MPs and are still awaiting a response. How those Members vote today will be seen by the women of Piddington and by the women in towns, cities and villages across the country, so let me start with a simple question to Labour MPs: today, will they put the interests of women before those of the Labour party?
I have been to Piddington twice. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and our shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), have also been there to speak to the women at first hand. We all could see clearly that the safety of women and girls in that small village is at risk. That village of 350 people is shortly to have 1,300 migrants imposed on it—men who have already broken the law by coming here illegally.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this motion to the House and for opening this debate in her customarily powerful way. Piddington has the headlines, but it is not just about Piddington; it is also about the women in Oakley, in Marsh Gibbon, in Ludgershall, in Brill, in Boarstall, in Long Crendon and in many other villages just over the Buckinghamshire border that are within walking distance of MOD Bicester site A.
Joy Morrissey
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This issue is not just in that area, either, but across the country. It is affecting women and girls in constituencies everywhere across the UK.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
To reiterate the point that the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) has just made in his intervention, illegal immigration and illegal migration are a massive issue in my constituency. My constituents tell me that every day that I am on the doors. Illegal migrants are a problem not just on the UK mainland but in Strangford and across Northern Ireland. My concern is that illegal migrants use the European convention on human rights system to bypass the system and to be an obstacle. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is time for the ECHR to be abolished and for those illegal migrants to be sent back home?
Joy Morrissey
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and when we are back in government, we Conservatives will vote to leave the ECHR. We believe that we should deport illegal immigrants the moment that they arrive.
The village of Piddington has a population of only 350, and the 1,300 migrant men will be a blight on their small village—men from cultures where women are treated worse than animals; men who the Government have decided need a leaflet asking them not to rape women and girls.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I commend the hon. Lady’s efforts to raise the voices of all people across the country. Under the Conservatives, about 1,400 migrants were living and dispersed in my city, but that number has fallen significantly under this Government. Can the hon. Lady tell me which Conservative Ministers visited Stoke-on-Trent in their Government time—perhaps she did so herself—to listen to the voices of that community? Or is it only now that she cares about those voices, when it is politically expedient?
Joy Morrissey
Actually, I went as the Prime Minister’s parliamentary private secretary. We held a Cabinet meeting in Stoke-on-Trent. I was therefore able to see at first hand the developments that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. It is good to remember that, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising it.
I raised the issue of the safety of women and girls a few weeks ago, during my first oral questions to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones). I asked two questions, very directly: did the Government agree that men entering this country illegally from countries such as Eritrea, Afghanistan and Sudan pose a direct threat to the safety of women and girls, and did the Government agree that men who enter Britain illegally and need a leaflet telling them not to rape women and girls should instead be deported immediately?
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
My hon. Friend has listed some of the countries involved. Pakistan, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and Afghanistan are the top five. Of course it is right to talk about national security, and we have heard a lot about that over the last few days, but today we are talking about personal security: the personal security of women, young girls and indeed young boys. Not everyone who comes here illegally would seek to attack, but too many do, and even when they go to prison we are not able to deport them because of the European convention on human rights. We need to leave the ECHR, we need to secure our borders, and we need to have a deterrent. We are a fair-minded country, but enough is enough.
Joy Morrissey
I agree with everything that my right hon. Friend has said, and I will echo his comments later in my speech. When we asked legitimate questions about women and girls being under threat, the Minister at the time could not find the answer. Perhaps this Minister can do so today.
The women of Piddington deserve our thanks in this House because they have made their voices heard, but they are far from alone. The women of Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire are worried about the 1,200 men who are about to descend on their community. The women of Barnham in Suffolk are facing 1,250 illegal migrant men in their midst. The women of Crowborough in Sussex have been working closely with their excellent local Member of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Sussex Weald (Ms Ghani), to deal with illegal migrant men who are already in their community. I pay tribute to their very hard-working local MP, who has been battling a coalition of Greens, Liberal Democrats and Labour. The Home Office, interestingly, made an application for housing for 540 asylum seekers, who moved in last January, and has now extended that application to 2030. My hon. Friend the Member for Sussex Weald has been single-handedly battling against the council and the Home Office. She is on the frontline of this issue, and I thank her for raising the voices of women and girls.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech in defence of right and decency, and in defence of my constituents and hers. The problem that we face, to which she has just alluded, is that the whole of the liberal establishment either cannot see this or will not see it. The root of the problem is their failure to recognise that cultural equivalence does not exist. Some of these people are coming from countries whose values are entirely different from ours, where people regard as acceptable things that we see as either unpalatable or frankly horrendous, and the failure to accept that fact underpins the unwillingness to do anything about what my hon. Friend has just described.
Joy Morrissey
My right hon. Friend has made an excellent point, but it is not just a case of their values being different from ours; it is a case of their taking advantage of our nature, our culture and our values.
Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)
The hon. Lady talks about values and culture. She has already mentioned that she served in the last Government. I wonder what the culture of that Government was when boat crossings were at a record high, when the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) was opening hotels as though they were going out of season. What was the culture in that Government when it came to attempting to combat this issue?
Joy Morrissey
Luckily we are under a new leadership. I am waiting to hear—and I would love to hear from the hon. Gentleman—why not one member of the Labour party has responded to the women of Piddington who have written to them about this issue. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. There is one person speaking at this moment, and that is the only voice I wish to hear.
Joy Morrissey
The Government have said that middle-class areas need to bear their share, using class as a new weapon to silence concerns. It is a dangerous, lazy approach from a Government who are supposed to unite our country. This is not about class, or race, or anything else that the Labour party wants to use to silence those who are speaking up. That technique was used to silence rape gang victims in our cities and towns, and it is appalling that Labour has not learnt from that scandal. This is about women speaking up about fears for their safety and that of their children. The Prime Minister should listen, and Labour Members should listen. They know that these women and their communities will suffer: they know that because we already have the proof. Communities across this land have seen the lives of their women and girls ruined—ruined by the fundamental failure of this Government to protect them from the threat posed by men who come here illegally.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
Will the hon. Lady join me in congratulating this Labour Government on shutting down the Brook asylum hotel—which is just 200 yards over my constituency border, and was opened on 28 September 2022 by the Conservative Government—thus ensuring that the constituencies of South Norfolk and Norwich South took into account the concerns of women, girls and all other constituents within our area?
Joy Morrissey
I would ask the hon. Gentleman why the use of houses in multiple occupation for asylum accommodation has increased by 12% since this Government took over, why there has been this movement from hotels to HMOs, and what the long-term solution is.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
The fact is that the hotels have been closed down because HMOs have been opened up, and the Government will not even specify how many HMOs are involved because they conglomerate the data, so we cannot even obtain transparent answers for my community. That puts my community at risk, and it puts at risk the people who are housed in the HMOs. Does my hon. Friend not agree with that?
Joy Morrissey
I do agree. You have made an excellent point, which I will bring up later in my speech.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Because this is going to be a long debate, I must say that we should be hearing no “you” or “yours”.
Joy Morrissey
In respect of this issue of asylum accommodation, let me give a few examples of men who have raped and assaulted women and girls. Muhammad Sheikhi, a Syrian asylum seeker, came here illegally by boat. He was placed in asylum accommodation, and then sexually assaulted two women in Falkirk. He told police that he was just roaming around. The judge sentenced him to four years, saying that he had
“treated these women as though their autonomy, dignity, and bodily integrity counted for nothing.”
Three asylum seekers from Iran and Egypt were convicted in April of raping a woman in Brighton. They travelled from their asylum accommodation in Horsham. They kicked her, grabbed her throat, raped her and filmed it.
Mohammed Abbas, an illegal migrant claiming to be Palestinian, was put up in a taxpayer-funded house in Cardiff. He broke into a nearby property and exposed himself to two girls, aged 16 and 13, in their bedroom.
An Afghan illegal migrant raped a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton just four months after he arrived here by boat. He abducted her, raped her and filmed her. These are just a few examples.
Dr Luke Evans
That happened in my neighbouring constituency. Does my hon. Friend understand why my community is so upset when we see people moving into HMOs, given the risk posed and the evidence base that she has just announced?
Joy Morrissey
Indeed, and my hon. Friend makes that point very eloquently. It is very important that we stand up for our local communities to protect them from illegal migrant men.
I have mentioned just a few of the horrific crimes committed by illegal migrant men—men who should have been deported before they could roam our streets and forever change the lives of young women and girls, and who will pay no notice to a gently worded leaflet that encourages them to understand our cultural values. These men do not care about our values. They are here to take advantage of our welcoming culture.
Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
The proposal from the Government is to open large sites far from town centres, where there can be resources, such as Home Office officials, and where the police can be informed. Before I was elected, I worked in asylum accommodation. The hon. Lady’s Government would open hotels in city centres without telling local authorities, and without even telling the police. Why is she proposing that her system is safer for local communities than this alternative?
Joy Morrissey
I encourage the hon. Gentleman to come to Piddington to see that there is a very small village right up against what is going to be a very large asylum camp, which has no additional police protection and no additional provision. The men will be allowed to roam free through the village. It will create a safeguarding issue for young children, for girls, and there is no reason why this community should have to suffer just like communities in York and across the country. They are suffering because we are not deporting illegal migrants, and that is why we need to leave the ECHR.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Is it not the case that those on the Labour Benches have entirely missed the point? Dealing with the problem once it has arrived in our communities will not do. We need something fundamental that deals with the problem, which, admittedly, did not arrive in 2024—it is of relatively long standing. We need a solution, just like the Rwanda solution, which was on the cusp of being implemented at the general election. The first thing that the Labour party did on coming into office was to can that.
Joy Morrissey
My right hon. friend makes an excellent point: we did suggest Rwanda. We Conservatives are committed to leaving the ECHR, so that we can deport foreign nationals who come here illegally within a week. That is why we want to leave the ECHR.
Joy Morrissey
I will give way after I make some progress.
I have mentioned just a few of the horrific crimes committed by illegal migrant men—men who should have been deported before they could roam our streets. These cases show that the women of Piddington, Linton-on-Ouse and Barnham are right to be concerned. Let me be clear to those on the Labour Benches: when their only political response to hearing of these crimes, and to the legitimate fears raised by women and girls, is to shout “weaponisation”, it says more about them and their priorities than it does about their political opponents. When their only policy response is to launch a talking shop on misogyny, they should recognise how weak that makes them look. When they refuse to meet concerned women, it speaks volumes about their commitment to women and girls.
It is not hard to see why such a commitment is lacking. I wrote to the Minister for Women and Equalities to offer to work cross-party and to facilitate a meeting with the women of Piddington. I have not had a response, but I heard in the media that it was a no. She is chair of the Labour party first and Women’s Minister second.
Pete Wishart
The hon. Lady has mentioned the ECHR a couple of times, and her motion refers to the UK’s exit from the convention. I know that she is all over her brief, so can she tell me what that exit would mean for the devolved settlement? What implications would it have for the Scottish Parliament?
Joy Morrissey
None at all, but I do not want to go into that. I have talked about the asylum seeker in Falkirk; it is not just women in England, but those in Scotland and Wales, who have raised concerns about illegal migrants in their midst who are roaming the streets. There is a problem. There is a difference in how these men are treating our women and girls, and people are genuinely afraid.
I am sure that lurking somewhere in the Whips-briefed speeches for Labour Members are some of the tired old tunes, so let me save Labour Members some time by engaging with the substance of those points. When they trot out, “14 years!”, I say that they have had two years, and the British people are already desperate for them to stop there. When they say, “Illegal migrant men are not a threat to women and girls; men known to them are”, I say that both things can be true, and I want to tackle both. Why don’t they? Why will they not give us the data on crimes committed against women and girls by men with active asylum claims?
The truth is that this Government have a “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” approach to this issue. Labour Members do not want to hear the women of Piddington, Linton-on-Ouse or Barnham because of the uncomfortable truth that they will speak. Labour Members do not want to see the data on how significant the problem of illegal migrant men committing crimes against women and children is, for fear of a Pandora’s box being opened. They do not want to speak about this issue because of the ideological capture of their party. It has been captured by people who have placed an obsession with multiculturalism above a cohesive British society. This is about the choices we make as a country.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The hon. Lady is giving a powerful speech, and it is a reminder of why there are no Conservative MPs or councils led by the Conservatives in Oxfordshire anymore. I absolutely commend the women of Piddington for speaking up, and I commend the young women in Oxford who have come to me to say that their voice has not been heard. However, there are women in all parts of this country, and in all sorts of circumstances, for whom that is true. The violence against women and girls strategy was criticised by the National Audit Office in January 2025. It was written by the Leader of the Opposition when she was the Minister for Women and Equalities, and she should have tackled this issue. Will the Leader of the Opposition apologise to the women of Piddington, and those across this country?
Joy Morrissey
There may be some buyer’s remorse across Oxfordshire; I could not possibly say. I will say that we Conservatives have a very different view from the Liberal Democrats on open borders, immigration and welcoming migrants. That is perhaps coming home to roost across the country, but it is not for me to comment on that; it is for the voters to decide.
We have let in men, and we have lost control of them. They have roamed around our streets to rape and assault women and girls, and we have placed them in British jails at our expense. Enough! It is time to be clear that if you come here illegally, you have already broken the law, and you will be deported. The ECHR should no longer be a weapon that left-wing lawyers can use to keep you here, if you arrive illegally. The Government are placing British women and girls in harm’s way. They refuse women even the common courtesy of listening to them when they speak up about their concerns. They just want to be heard. Can the Government please take the time to listen to these women?
The Conservatives have listened to the women who are concerned about their safety, and to the British people. They want action on illegal immigration, not gimmicks and TikTok videos. Our border plan will deliver the control needed and the protections that British women and girls deserve. Our plan is built on clear values and the detailed hard work needed to make it work. If people come here illegally, they cannot claim asylum, and they will be deported within a week. We will take Britain out of the ECHR, and we will establish a removal force to remove illegal immigrants.
The choice for the Government and Members across the House is clear: do they believe that thousands of illegal migrant men from cultures that treat women so badly pose a direct threat to the safety of British women and girls, and if not, how many more appalling stories of crimes against women and girls do they need? The Conservatives have heard about enough of these crimes to know that it is time to act. We must not house immigrants who come here illegally. The ECHR has stood in our way for far too long for common sense and for the good of the British people. It is time to leave the ECHR. It is time to put the rights of British people first.
Dr Murrison
Lord Wolfson has put that beyond fear of peradventure in his report—we have to leave the ECHR—but does my hon. Friend agree with me that that is not enough? Some of the countries to which we want to send people back will not take them, particularly Pakistan. Do we not need to get real with the Government of Pakistan and say, “If you refuse to co-operate with this, you can forget about visas and foreign aid”?
Joy Morrissey
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The shadow Home Secretary has already made the point that we need sanctions and proper ways of enforcement for countries that refuse to take back those claiming asylum here, and he will speak about that later.
Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Reform)
Four years ago, I was the first Conservative Minister to say publicly that, to stop the boats and protect women and girls, we needed to leave the European convention on human rights. My hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) has been advocating for departure from the ECHR for many years. Will the shadow Minister take this opportunity to apologise to the nation, on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, for refusing to support my policy proposal when her party had the opportunity, power and, indeed, duty to stop the boats and deal with the invasion?
Joy Morrissey
I would point out that when the right hon. and learned Lady was Home Secretary, in charge of all of these things and making these key decisions, immigration was at record levels. I commend her for calling out many of these issues, but she had the opportunity, while at the helm, to do something. I leave that there; enough said.
Finally, let me say this to the women in the Public Gallery, those I met in Piddington and elsewhere, the women who have written to me, and women and girls across Britain who are worried about their safety: I hear you; my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary hears you; the Leader of the Opposition hears you; and the Conservative party hears you. We are here for you, and we will act.