Richard Holden
Main Page: Richard Holden (Conservative - North West Durham)Department Debates - View all Richard Holden's debates with the Home Office
(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
In 2019 my constituents rejected Labour’s open door immigration policy. Since then we have been getting on with delivering our new Australian-style points- based immigration system in the teeth of opposition from the Labour party. Will the Home Secretary listen to my constituents in Consett, Crook and across North West Durham, rather than to the Labour party, and agree that we must now adopt an Australian approach to stopping the small boats in the channel? Offshore processing, turning them back—whatever it takes to secure our borders and stop the awful human traffickers.
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He speaks with passion and conviction on this issue for a very good reason, which of course is that the British public are sick to death of this. They are absolutely, heartily sick of what they are seeing, and that speaks to many of the abuses that take place in our asylum system and the fact that the system is broken. Yes, processing takes too long, and yes, we have had the pandemic; there is a range of reasons why this is the case, but we want to address it and fix it and tackle it long term. There are no simple solutions, which is why the legislation is so important.