Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation

Debate between Lincoln Jopp and Tony Vaughan
Monday 20th October 2025

(3 days, 8 hours ago)

Westminster Hall
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Tony Vaughan Portrait Tony Vaughan
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The reality is that, if we do not have a mechanism in place—and it was essentially jettisoned by the Conservative party—there is no way of creating either a deterrent or a way of working with our colleagues in Europe to address these problems upstream. If we took the position of the Conservative party, which is to withdraw from the European convention and other international instruments, who would work with us upstream? France would not have signed that UK-France deal—signed in the summer by the Prime Minister—if we had been outside of the European convention on human rights. It is Brexit 2.0 from the Opposition. The Government are offering serious alternatives that simply are not being offered by anyone else.

What would mass detention actually achieve? The answer is nothing at all. It would not make it easier to carry out removals, because detention is already used for people who are ready for removal. Somebody with an outstanding asylum claim or who has no travel documents cannot be removed anyway. Would mass detentions stop people from coming? That is highly doubtful.

It is easy to underestimate how incredibly desperate many of the people who are arriving on small boats are. We assume that deterrents will defeat desperation, but both the Rwanda gimmick and other populist plans assume too much about the psychology of the people making these dangerous journeys. Mass detention is easy to say, but it is just another gimmick—inhumane, extortionate and, I am afraid, completely pointless.

During my recent visit to Napier barracks, I met an Iranian teacher who said simply, “I just want to live safely.” I believe that we can show the compassion to give him that chance, while keeping order and control in our asylum system. The Government’s current path of clearing the backlog, cutting hotel use, and increasing removals where claims have been refused deserves our full support. Most people simply want a fair, competent asylum system that commands both our conscience and our confidence.

Lincoln Jopp Portrait Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
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The hon. and learned Member said he met an asylum seeker at Napier barracks who said that they just wanted to be safe. Assuming that they had come from France, did he investigate with that person why they were unsafe in France?

Tony Vaughan Portrait Tony Vaughan
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The logic of that is that every country neighbouring a conflict zone should take all the refugees. That is an absurd proposition. We have to take our fair share of refugees. We take fewer than other European countries, and a responsible approach to this issue accepts that there is not an obligation to claim asylum in any particular country. The question is whether we are taking our fair share and complying with our international obligations—which, as I have said, the UK-France deal will achieve if it can be scaled up.

Most people want a fair, competent asylum system that processes claims in months rather than years, with a sustainable asylum support system that ultimately upholds the values that make us who we are as a nation.

--- Later in debate ---
Lincoln Jopp Portrait Lincoln Jopp
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When President Macron visited earlier this year, he said part of the problem was that there were far too many pull factors in Britain. Giving people the right to work would, to my mind, be another pull factor. The Government would quite rightly say, “Well, you didn’t manage to do it either,” but I would much rather we were able to control our borders ab initio, so that we did not have to face the problem of asylum hotels.

Tony Vaughan Portrait Tony Vaughan
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I want to underline the point I made in my speech, which is that France has a six-month period before work is permitted, so there is not that pull factor, or certainly not at that point.

Lincoln Jopp Portrait Lincoln Jopp
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I thank the hon. and learned Member for his intervention.

I am going to be a bit “beggar thy neighbour”-ish, I am afraid, but my reason for highlighting the Stanwell hotel is that I believe a number of the other contracts run to two or three years longer than the one there. Given that it is Government policy to close all asylum hotels within this Parliament, I encourage the Minister to place the Stanwell hotel at the top of the list. Not only is it not good to renegotiate a contract when we do not have to, but if the Government are going to do all this in the space of this Parliament, they need to start somewhere, and I recommend that they start with the Stanwell hotel in my Spelthorne constituency.