MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

Debate between Kieran Mullan and Anna Turley

Wednesday 14th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Anna Turley]

I do not know how much good money the right hon. Gentleman wants to throw after bad, but £700 million on four volunteers was an incredible waste of money.

The British people have a natural sense of fairness. We are a nation that has benefited from centuries of facing outwards towards the world, both reaching out across the globe and welcoming people in. There can be barely a Member here who does not have some historical migration in their family, or family ties to other nations. The British people will always accept those who are genuinely fleeing peril. They will welcome those who come here legally and who contribute. They know we are a place where people can come to build their life and aspire to do great things. Even this House, its representatives and their stories reflect that; we have seen that in the last week or so.

However, the British people will not accept chaos at our borders. They will not accept a lack of control over who comes in. They will not accept the unfairness of a broken system, in which those who break the rules are the ones who benefit from our welcome. Nor will they tolerate expensive and often iconic hotels across their communities being used to house asylum seekers at vast expense to the taxpayers.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Anna Turley]

I will make a bit of progress, if I may.

The British people will not tolerate illegal migrants placing pressure on our public services, while efforts to remove them are frustrated. There is no quick fix, but the task of ending the chaos and, crucially, of restoring fairness falls to this Government, and we embrace it. It is only a Labour Government who will fix the broken system, restore control at our borders and bring back fairness to our public services. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) is chuntering from the Opposition Benches, but I am coming to the exact subject of our progress so far, which I hope she will see contrasts nicely with what happened in the previous 14 years.

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate my hon. Friend drawing attention to that. It was a privilege—in, I think, 2003—to work for the now Lord David Blunkett to close the Sangatte refugee centre, put juxtaposed controls on French shores and end the situation of people coming through as clandestines in the back of lorries with the Bill that we took through at that time as civil servants. It was a privilege to play that role. Here we are, yet again, fixing the legacy of the previous Government.

As I said, the British people will not tolerate illegal migrants placing pressure on our public services while efforts to remove them are frustrated. It is only the Labour Government who will fix the broken system, restore control and bring back fairness, but we will do so without performative cruelty, without the deliberate fomenting of grievance and without destroying our international reputation. Thanks to the action the Labour Government are taking, the picture today is improving, with crossings down, removals up and the system now finally on a more stable footing.

Over the last two years, this Government have acted to restore fairness and control to our asylum system, first by taking the fight to the criminal gangs and bearing down on illegal crossings. One of the first steps the then Home Secretary took following the general election was to establish Border Security Command. The command has had a significant impact, especially in its efforts, alongside a strengthened National Crime Agency, to ramp up law enforcement action on organised immigration crime.

[Dr Mullan]

Did the Minister reflect on what the National Crime Agency said about the need for a deterrent? What assessment has she made of how effective the Australian approach to third-country processing has been in bringing down its crossings?

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman raising the point about deterrence. It is extremely important but, as I said, the Rwanda deterrent was not effective. [Interruption.] Millions of pounds and a handful of volunteers. It has been disproven and clearly did not have any impact. I will come on to the deterrent that is actually working.

We have also given our agencies counter-terror style powers via the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025. In the last financial year, organised immigration crime was disrupted on over 3,700 occasions, up by 46% over the same period. This includes organised immigration crime arrests, which were up 74%, as we took down the criminals behind this vile trade. For example, just in June, two men became the first to be jailed under the new “endangerment at sea” offence for piloting dangerously overcrowded small boats across the channel—that is a deterrent, that is working. We are also denying gangs the equipment and infrastructure they rely on. In May, an operation involving the National Crime Agency and German, French and other international partners seized more than 30 boats, over 20 engines, 360 pumps and more than 9,000 life jackets. Since entering office, we have seized over a total of 1,100 boats and engines.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Turley]

I am afraid that one moment of consensus has already broken down. I disagree. We are undertaking a range of consultation and engagement on measures with those partners. The Albania agreement was important, but the Home Secretary is making a number of arrangements, and we look forward to announcing them. I hope hon. Members will be patient with us, but I look forward to making more announcements in the weeks and months ahead.

[Dr Mullan]

On that point, will the Minister give way?

[Anna Turley]

I am going to move on. Forgive me.

We have driven up removals to the highest level in a decade—an important point to stop and reflect on—because of the progress we are making, with 80,000 individuals returned since the general election, including immigration offenders, people in the country illegally and foreign criminals. We know, too, that the ability to melt into the illegal economy too often lures people here, so we have raised illegal working enforcement to record levels.

As we rebuild our shattered asylum system, we are also lightening the burden on local communities. The Government committed to ending the use of asylum hotels within this Parliament and we will do so. Two years in, we have already emptied one in three, reducing the hotel population by 50% in the last year and by 71% since the peak under the previous Government. We have cut asylum costs from hotels by £1 billion. That is £1 billion that we can spend on the other priorities of the British people and I think that that should be recognised.

We have made significant progress on the chaos we inherited two years ago, but we know there is more to be done to restore fairness to our asylum system: fairness for genuine refugees, who deserve our sanctuary and wish to contribute to our society; and fairness for British citizens, our constituents, who shoulder the current burden in their taxes and in their communities. That is why we continue to work relentlessly at home and abroad to prevent people from coming here illegally in the first place, dismantle the criminal networks that facilitate dangerous and unnecessary crossings, remove those who break our laws and have no right to be here, and ensure that this country maintains its proud tradition of helping the world’s most vulnerable people where it can, but in a secure and orderly way through new safe and legal routes.

That is why we have introduced the new Immigration and Asylum Bill. It will cut the asylum backlog by making decisions faster and fairer, close loopholes so that those with no right to be here can be rapidly removed, and ask those who have benefited from public support to contribute to their costs where they are able. I thank the Members who are currently scrutinising the Bill in Committee.

I turn now, as the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth) implored, to the issues around MOD Bicester. For too long, the way in which we house asylum seekers has not been fair. Billions of pounds have been spent putting them up in hotels, while communities have seen those hotels, often at the centre of their towns or cities, become a symbol of a broken asylum system. Areas where housing costs were low and that already felt left behind were asked to bear more than their fair share, which has been a source of anger and frustration for many people—and understandably so.

As well as reducing the backlog, we are working with local authorities on a fairer distribution of asylum seekers across the country. That means ending the use of costly hotels, and instead, moving asylum seekers into more appropriate accommodation.