Illegal Migration Update

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement about illegal migration.

Tackling illegal migration is one of the Government’s central priorities because it is the British public’s priority. People can see that illegal migration is one of the great injustices of our time. It harms communities in the UK, it denies the most vulnerable refugees a chance of resettlement, and it leaves behind a trail of human misery. Indeed, the perilous nature of the small boat crossings was underscored once again last month when six fatalities occurred in a tragic incident off the French coast. My thoughts are with all those affected, and I pay tribute to the first responders in both the UK and France who worked in difficult circumstances to save as many lives as possible.

That reminds us all why we need to do whatever it takes to stop the boats, which is exactly what the Government have been doing throughout the summer. We started by redoubling our efforts to smash the criminal gangs upstream, well before those gangs are in striking distance of the United Kingdom. We have agreed a new partnership with Turkey to target the supply chain of small boats, which establishes the UK as Turkey’s partner of choice in tackling the shared challenge of illegal migration. Two weeks ago I visited my counterparts in Egypt, as the Security Minister visited Iraq, to deepen our law enforcement co-operation with two more strategically important countries in that regard.

In the UK, we have been ratcheting up our activity to break the business model of the gangs. Unscrupulous employers and landlords who offer illegal migrants the ability to live and work in the UK are an integral part of the business model of the evil people-smuggling gangs. We are clamping down on them; we announced over the summer the biggest overhaul of our civil penalty regime in a decade, trebling illegal working fines and initiating a tenfold increase in right to rent fines for repeat offenders.

As we do so, more rogue employers and landlords are getting knocks on the door. Illegal working visits in the first half of this year increased by more than 50% compared with the same period last year. So far in 2023 we have more than trebled the number of right to rent civil penalties issued compared with last year, resulting in a sixfold increase in the number of penalties levied. Following the resumption of the immigration banking measures in April, banks and building societies are now closing the accounts of more than 6,000 illegal migrants.

As we surge our enforcement activity, we are driving up the returns of those with no right to remain in the United Kingdom. Last month we announced the professional enablers taskforce, which will increase enforcement action against lawyers and legal representatives who help migrants to abuse the immigration system. Lawyers found to be coaching migrants on how to remain in the country by fraudulent means will face a sentence of up to life imprisonment.

Since our deal with Albania in December last year, we have returned more than 3,500 immigration offenders, on weekly flights. As we have done so, we have seen a more than 90% reduction in the number of Albanians arriving illegally. So far there have been more than 12,600 returns this year, with returns in the first half of this year 75% higher than in the same period last year. Of course, those changes follow the landmark Illegal Migration Act 2023, which, coupled with our partnership with Rwanda, will deliver the truly decisive changes necessary to take away all the incentives for people to make illegal crossings from the safety of France.

As we adopt a zero-tolerance approach to illegal migration, the Government have extended a generous offer to those most in need of settlement. The latest statistics published over the summer show that, between 2015 and June 2023, 533,000 people were offered a safe and legal route into the United Kingdom. Last month the Home Office resettled the thousandth refugee through the community sponsorship scheme.

While this Government’s focus is on tackling the source of the problem, we have none the less worked to manage the symptoms of illegal migration as best as is practicable. We have made significant improvements at Manston since last year, and it continues to operate as an effective site for security, health and initial asylum checks, despite the pressure of the summer months.

We have worked to ensure that when migrants depart Manston they are now heading to cheaper and more appropriate accommodation, by rolling out room sharing and delivering our large accommodation sites. Those sites are undoubtedly in the national interest, but the Government continue to listen to the concerns of local communities and Members of this House, and throughout the summer further engagement has taken place to ensure that those sites are delivered in the most orderly way possible. We have successfully ended the use of Afghan bridging hotels, with Afghan families now able to move on with the next stage of their lives in settled accommodation, and the hotels are now returning to use by the public.

Reducing the backlog in asylum cases and establishing a more efficient and robust decision-making system is not in and of itself a strategy to stop illegal migration, but it is important for taxpayer value and we have prioritised it. We have transformed the productivity of asylum decision making by streamlining processes, creating focused interviews and instilling true accountability for performance. As of 1 September, we have met our commitment to have 2,500 decision makers, an increase of 174% from the same point last year. As a result, I am pleased to report to the House that we are on track to clear the legacy backlog by the end of the year, and that recently published provisional figures for July show that the overall backlog fell.

Tackling illegal migration is not easy; more people are on the move, and more are mobile, than ever before. Countries around the world are struggling to control it. But our 10-point plan is one of the most comprehensive strategies to tackle this problem in Europe, and that is showing. As of today, arrivals are down by 20% compared with last year, and for the month of August the reduction was more than a third. That is against the reasonable worst-case scenario of 85,000 arrivals that we were presented with when taking office last year.

In contrast, irregular migration into the EU has significantly increased, with Italy alone seeing a doubling in small boat arrivals. In Italy, a 100% increase; in the UK, a 20% decrease. Our plan is working. There is of course much more to do, but it is clear that we are making progress. I commend this statement to the House.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, thin though it is, and I echo his sentiments in sending condolences to the families of those six people who died tragically in the accident in the channel earlier this summer. We simply must stop these dangerous crossings.

I am absolutely bewildered that, after the summer we have had, yesterday the Prime Minister claimed victory in his broken pledge to stop the boats. This Saturday we saw the year’s record number of channel crossings, with more than 870 people making that dangerous journey in a single day, and the total number has now soared to a whopping 21,000 for the year. The only reason the number is not breaking last year’s record is the poor weather in July and August—and a strategy that depends on the weather is probably not a very sustainable strategy at all.

What has that left us with? A Government flailing around, chasing headlines with gimmicks and stunts rather than doing the hard graft of actually stopping the boats, clearing the backlog and getting people out of the hotels. Take their much celebrated small boats week last month, which turned out to be an absolute omnishambles, with taxpayers paying the price. No wonder the Home Secretary did not want to do a single interview, and no wonder she is not in the Chamber today.

Do not take my word for it: that well-known pro-Labour publication the Daily Mail did a day-by-day review. On the Monday, just 39 migrants were brought into the 500-capacity Bibby Stockholm barge. On the Tuesday, the Conservative deputy chairman admitted that his party has “failed” on immigration. On the Wednesday, the Immigration Minister sparked fresh Tory infighting over whether Britain should leave the European convention on human rights. On the Thursday, channel crossings hit their highest daily number for the year. Then, to cap it all, on the Friday, all the asylum seekers were removed from the Bibby Stockholm because of the presence of legionella in the water supply. You could not make it up.

The Bibby Stockholm was supposed to be a symbol of the Conservatives’ cutting asylum costs, but the Minister has not even mentioned those costs today. Instead, it stands alongside the boats and the hotels as a floating symbol of Conservative failure and incompetence that is costing the taxpayer half a million pounds a month. On top of that, new Home Office data in August showed us that the asylum seeker backlog has grown ninefold to an enormous 175,000 under the Conservatives at a cost of £4 billion a year to the taxpayer—incredibly, eight times higher than it was when Labour left office in 2010. That waste is the cost of 13 years of Conservative neglect.

Today, we debate the cost of the spiralling asylum backlog, driven by cutting the costs of asylum decision making in 2013. Yesterday, the Chancellor was promising to spend “whatever it takes” to fix crumbling classrooms caused by the Prime Minister’s cuts to the schools budget as Chancellor. Tomorrow, we will no doubt be back to the economy and the financial costs of low growth and spiralling mortgages. Everywhere we look, we see the costs of Conservative incompetence.

The Minister speaks now of this new deal with Turkey. Well, I am glad that the Government have started to listen to Labour—we have been calling for tough action to disrupt the gangs upstream for well over a year—but this looks pitifully weak. This announcement comes with no new funding or staff, meaning that officers could be taken off existing functions. That stands in contrast to Labour’s fully funded plan to hire hundreds of specialists specifically to work on that challenge. Meanwhile, Turkish nationals have become one of the largest groups crossing the channel this year.

The Minister boasts about returns of failed asylum seekers going up, but they are actually down 70% compared with when Labour left office in 2010. Forty thousand are awaiting removal, and, at the current rate, it will take the Government more than 10 years to achieve their target. Two thousand fewer foreign national offenders are being removed per year compared with when Labour left office in 2010.

The Minister brags about the legacy backlog—a figment of the Prime Minister’s imagination—going down, but he knows full well that the only backlog that matters is that of the 175,000 people, and that number is still going up. We know that the Government are cooking the books in that regard, marking large numbers of asylum seekers as “withdrawn” because they have missed a single appointment or failed to fill in a form correctly. A Conservative Back-Bench MP described that as an amnesty in all but name.

The Minister has decided to make illegal working even more illegal. The problem is that there has been a lack of Government enforcement. Employers who are exploiting and illegally employing migrant workers should face the full force of the law, but in reality, the number of penalties issued to firms has fallen by two thirds since 2016.

There are so many questions that it is difficult to know where to start, but let us start with these: when did the Minister know about legionella on Bibby Stockholm? How much is the barge currently costing? How many people are currently in hotels? Does he actually intend to implement the much-vaunted Illegal Migration Act 2023? The Prime Minister keeps declaring victory, but the reality is that nothing is working and everything the Government do just makes everything worse, so when will they get out of the way so that we on the Labour Benches can take over, implement our plan and retake control of our broken asylum system?

[Robert Jenrick]

That was a desperately thin response. We can deduce from it that the Labour party has absolutely no plan to tackle this issue. Of course the hon. Gentleman has had a quieter summer than me, but that is because the Labour party is completely uninterested in tackling illegal migration.

The hon. Gentleman talks about small boats week. Well, let us see how it went for the Labour party. On Monday, the Government announced the biggest increase in fines for illegal working and renting for a decade, while Labour MPs called for illegal migrants to have the right to work immediately, which would act as a massive magnet for even more crossings. On Tuesday, we announced our professional enablers taskforce to clamp down on lawyers who abuse the system, while Labour MPs were awfully quiet, weren’t they? They did nothing to distance themselves from the litany of councillors and advisers exposed as being implicated in efforts to stop the removal of criminals and failed asylum seekers. On Wednesday, we announced a partnership with Turkey to smash the gangs, while the shadow Home Secretary claimed that morning that what we really needed was a return to the Dublin convention—something that even the EU described as “prehistoric”.

The truth is that the Labour party has no plan to tackle this issue, and does not even want to tackle it. We on the Conservative Benches are getting on with the job, and we are making progress: while the rest of Europe sees significant increases in migrants, we are seeing significant falls. Our plan is the most comprehensive of any country in Europe and it is starting to work.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. Of course, he is more than aware of the various reports over the summer regarding the Wethersfield site in Braintree district in my area. Could he explain how long the Government will be using that site? Is the five-year period that has been publicly reported correct? What planning processes will be used beyond the 12 months permitted under the class Q regulations? Are the Government considering increasing the £3,500 per bed space given to councils if the site remains open for more than a year?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the co-operation that we have had in respect of that site. I know that she supports the use of large sites, such as disused military bases, for that purpose—it was her policy when she was Home Secretary. We want to use that site for the shortest possible period. We have not put an end date on our use. We have taken advantage of the emergency planning powers that are available in these circumstances; she knows that that has a limited timeframe, after which further action needs to be taken. It is important that we provide the local community with the resources necessary to manage such sites appropriately. That is why we have provided the £3,500 payment. If the site is used for a sustained period, it is correct that we should look again at that and see whether a further payment is appropriate. We have also provided funding for Essex police and for her local NHS services so that the pressure on her constituents, and those of her neighbouring MPs, is as minimal as possible while we deliver this service in their area.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The Minister comes here again with another statement, but the problem is not the boats; it is the backlogs. He comes here fiddling figures with legacy backlogs, but the flow backlog of people coming into the country continues to increase, and the hidden backlog—those granted asylum by the courts but left waiting for his party to complete the paperwork—grows and grows. In reality, we have a backlog of 175,000 people waiting for a decision from his Department—the highest number since records began— and we local MPs get only boilerplate replies that give no reassurance to our constituents left in limbo by his incompetent Department.

We all want to see an end to the small boats and to people risking and losing their lives in the channel, but that requires safe and legal routes, which do not exist. They certainly do not exist for Iraqis, Iranians, Eritreans or Sudanese people. For Afghans, the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, which they should be able to access, are not fit for purpose, either. Fewer than 50 people have been settled through pathway 3 this year, but just shy of 2,000 have come on small boats in the past two quarters because the system is broken and the Government are not interested in fixing it.

Has the Minister met the Fire Brigades Union regarding his expensive plague ship moored off Dorset? Has he given any thought to how his Illegal Migration Act will actually work? Many in the sector do not understand and have not had any guidance from the Minister on what will happen to the people left in immigration limbo by his Department.

Finally, Scotland has sought an alternative to this broken system, and in the summer we launched our “Citizenship in an independent Scotland” paper. The Government are more interested in pulling up the drawbridge and courting the Daily Mail, so will the Minister devolve immigration to Scotland and let us get on with the job of being a welcoming country and playing a role in the world?

[Robert Jenrick]

When I last called out the hon. Lady’s humanitarian nimbyism, the statistics were stark—in fact, they have continued to be so. The SNP Government still accommodate only 4.5% of the total asylum population in the UK, while Scotland makes up 8.1% of the overall UK population. In Scottish local authorities where the SNP are the largest party, including in Clackmannanshire, Dundee, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, Midlothian, North Ayrshire and Falkirk—I could go on—no asylum seekers are being accommodated. In fact, there were only 59 more asylum seekers in SNP-controlled councils in the two months that have passed since we last debated this issue.

The reason I say that is that I do not believe that Members should come to this place and write cheques for which other people have to pay. The costs of SNP Members’ fake humanitarianism are borne by everyone but themselves. If they do not want illegal migrants in their own constituencies, then they should support our effort to stop the boats.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

When the Prime Minister announced that he was imperilling £300 million- worth of levelling-up investment on RAF Scampton, he said he was going to lead by example by accepting migrants into Catterick camp in his constituency. Home Office officials have now informed us that that is not happening, so where is the leadership in that?

It gets worse. I was informed by West Lindsey District Council that, despite being told that the scheme was value for money and will have to be available for three years not two, the value for money is infinitesimal compared with hotels—it will not even save money for a few days on hotels. Will the Minister now drop this ridiculous scheme, which is derisory and will do nothing for deterrence, and sit down with me and West Lindsey District Council to work out a discreet location for illegal migrants in West Lindsey?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question and our continued co-operation. We believe that this policy is in the national interest. It is right that those coming to this country are accommodated in decent but never luxurious accommodation, so that we do not create a pull factor to the UK. It is through delivering sites such as Scampton—which I appreciate have a serious impact on his constituents—that later this year I hope we will begin to close hotels in earnest and return those facilities to the general public for tourism, business and leisure, which I know is supported by Members across the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

On behalf of the Home Affairs Committee, may I send our thoughts and prayers to all those affected by the loss of life in the channel last month?

The Home Affairs Committee has long urged the Government to clear the asylum backlog, and I am pleased that the legacy backlog is starting to shrink. However, there are important questions about the quality and quantity of decisions. On quality, it was reported in The Sunday Times last week that interviews have been slashed from seven hours to 45 minutes. Could the Minister explain how the Home Office is evaluating and guaranteeing the quality of those decisions?

On quantity, the Home Office has reportedly doubled the rate of decision making on the legacy backlog since the end of June. What resources and support will be offered to local authorities when they start having to deal with the dramatic increase in the number of positive asylum claim decisions?

[Robert Jenrick]

On the first of those two important questions, the right hon. Lady is right to say that the work we have done to transform the decision-making process is bearing fruit. There will be an increase in the number of decisions—a very sharp one—in the weeks ahead. That will mean some more people being granted but also some more people being refused who then need to be removed swiftly from the country. In respect of those people being granted, I am working with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to provide the support and guidance to local authorities that they will need. However, those people who have been granted—particularly young adult males—need to get on with their lives, get a job and contribute to British society, which is what I think they want to do.

We have achieved this transformation through better management, performance targets, working overtime and having shorter, more focused interviews. I do not believe that we need to have a seven-hour interview to identify the salient points and decide a case, and that has been borne out by the good work we have done in recent months. I think Members will see, as data is published in the weeks and months ahead, an absolute transformation in the service.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

The Minister is absolutely right to be doing everything to tackle the small boats issue and illegal migration. Over the summer months, nearly 500 asylum seekers have arrived in destinations in Chelmsford, and I am grateful for the time he has spent speaking to me about it. Local people are really worried about extra pressure on local health services, local housing lists and other local services. Will he work with me to ensure that areas that take larger numbers of asylum seekers get financial support, so that this cost is shared fairly across the whole country?

[Robert Jenrick]

Yes, I would be happy to continue to work with my right hon. Friend, as we have done in recent months. We have provided £3,500 per bed space to local authorities that house dispersal accommodation, which goes to meet the costs to them of looking after these individuals, but she is right to say that the wider costs of housing asylum seekers are very high—there is no escaping that. That is one of the reasons we need to reduce the number of people coming into the country in the first place.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Over the past few years, the Government have allowed the backlog of asylum claims to rise and rise to over 170,000. For all the Minister’s warm words, progress in tackling it has been disgracefully slow. What additional measures will the Minister now implement to get that backlog down and reduce the need for his Department to scrabble around for additional accommodation, which often proves to be unsuitable and impractical, such as the Stradey Park Hotel in my constituency?

[Robert Jenrick]

I hope I have already described in previous answers the work that we have done. I can assure the hon. Lady that it is bearing fruit and that the backlog of legacy decisions will be cleared by the end of the year, and we will swiftly move thereafter to other decisions. Order and efficiency have been restored to the asylum decision-making process, but just waving more people in and processing their claims faster is not a strategy to stop the boats in and of itself. That is why we need the full deterrent and the comprehensive plan that we have.

One of the issues that is putting pressure on asylum accommodation is the very poor performance in Labour-run Wales, which has taken only 2.9% of the total asylum population, yet Wales accounts for 5.2% of the UK’s population. In some areas of Wales—such as the constituency of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock)—there are no asylum seekers whatsoever. I would strongly encourage the hon. Lady to speak with the Welsh Government and get them to step up and help us provide more accommodation.

[Sir Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

I very much agree with what my right hon. Friend said about the importance of effective processing, but he is right about the underlying importance of having a clear plan to deter people from coming to this country illegally, which leads us to Rwanda and the upcoming Supreme Court judgment anticipated later this year. Does he recognise the very strong sentiment among many of us in the House—and, indeed, among many of my constituents—that if the Supreme Court rules against the Government’s policy on this vital question, we should withdraw from the European convention on human rights?

[Robert Jenrick]

Parliament’s support for our Rwanda plan was made clear with the passage of the Illegal Migration Act 2023. That is a statutory scheme to underpin the Rwanda partnership, so the will of Parliament to get on and deliver the policy is clear for all to see. I am confident that we will secure the result that we seek in the Supreme Court when it hears the case in October, and that is the Government’s focus right now, but like my right hon. Friend I do not think we should take anything off the table. If we are truly committed to stopping the boats, we will have to consider all options, including with regard to the European convention on human rights.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

If the Government’s attention is so strongly focused on crossings in the channel, can the Minister explain to me why one of the four Border Force cutters spent so much time this summer tied up at a pier in Orkney? We have a history of people coming in small boats to Orkney, but the Vikings have been quiet for quite a while now. Is that not a curious use of that scarce resource?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am happy to look into that issue, and I am delighted to see the right hon. Gentleman’s Damascene conversion to stopping the boats. I can assure him that the UK has a very robust and efficient operation in the channel. We have been commended by international organisations—including when I spoke to the director general of the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees—for the work that we do to save lives at sea in the channel. I commend the Border Force officers who are part of that. At the end of the day, though, we have to put in place a deterrent if we want to stop people crossing the channel, and that is why we need policies such as Rwanda, which the right hon. Gentleman and his party have vigorously opposed.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I echo the comments of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), about the tragedies in the channel. It is a miracle that more lives have not been lost.

The Minister has committed to subsidising the French police force to the tune of £480 million, and yet, as at the end of August, the number of successful interceptions on French beaches was 45.2%, which was down from 45.8% in the previous corresponding period. Over the same time, the Belgians have managed to increase the number of successful interceptions by 90%. Will the Minister have a word with his French counterparts to suggest that they have a word with their Belgian counterparts, to see what they are doing differently? Are we paying the wrong country?

[Robert Jenrick]

First, I would say that the number of small boat arrivals coming to the UK has fallen by 20%. That is a very significant achievement, bearing in mind the context of a 100% increase in Italy and corresponding amounts in other border states of the European Union.

However, my hon. Friend is right to say that, despite elevating relations with France to their highest level for many years and doing a great deal of work, there is clearly more that we need the French to do for us. He is particularly right to focus on Belgium: I visited there recently and met with the Belgian Interior Minister, and the approach that that country has taken has been extremely helpful. It has worked very closely with the National Crime Agency, Border Force and policing in the UK, and has been willing to intercept in the water small boats leaving its shores. That has proven decisive: small boats from Belgian waters are now extremely rare, so that is an approach that we encourage the French to follow.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware that the cases in my constituency are being processed. From what I have seen, the vast majority are being given leave to remain. The Minister advised me that those people would then be given 28 days’ notice to leave the hotel but, last week, I sent him examples of cases where they have been given five, seven or nine days’ notice. That is creating a homelessness problem in my constituency, because the time is not available to set up the arrangements to house them. The local Christian centre workers have been housing them in their own homes as well, which is wonderful, but we cannot go on like this. I was to meet the Minister next week, but that meeting has been postponed. I would be very happy to meet with his officials, Hillingdon Council and the local Christian centre to talk through how we can resolve this problem, but it is a matter of urgency.

[Robert Jenrick]

I was not aware that our meeting had been postponed—I will look into that immediately after the statement. In one sense, the issue that the right hon. Gentleman has brought to the House is a sign of progress: it means that the work we have done to clear the backlog and create an efficient service is now bearing fruit, and more decisions are being granted. In fact, in the last week in August, over 2,000 decisions were granted in a single week, which is the highest for several years. That will mean that there will be increased pressure on some local authorities, such as the right hon. Gentleman’s, which houses a very large number of asylum seekers. Particularly with respect to families, local authorities will have duties and responsibilities that will be challenging for them. I am very keen to work with him and other Members across the House who are affected by that.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I greatly commend the Minister for the progress he has made with respect to procedure and to the disreputable lawyers who have been exploiting the system, and for the procedures that he has announced today, but could I say something on the question of the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court is going to make a judgment. Could it possibly be encouraged to go more quickly? It really is important: the perception in the country is that nothing is being done, which is not true. The Government have behaved extremely well in relation to the Act of Parliament that has just been passed.

On the question of the ECHR, it is not necessary to abolish the entire convention in these circumstances regarding the issue of illegal immigration. If the Supreme Court case were to go the wrong way, we can tailor legislation: we can use the “notwithstanding” formula and tailor it to the specific requirements that are needed, which would be limited but extremely effective. Will the Minister please bear that in mind?

[Robert Jenrick]

I have always taken and valued the advice of my hon. Friend in this regard. We will, of course, consider what action we need to take if there is a negative judgment from the Supreme Court, but that is not our expectation: we are going to vigorously contest that case and expect a positive outcome. The Supreme Court is going to hear the case in the middle of October and I hope that those justices will come forward with their decision expeditiously because—as my hon. Friend has rightly said—the country is waiting for action and the good work we have done thus far is not enough. We have to go further and, at the end of the day, that will only happen by putting a decisive intervention such as the Rwanda policy in place.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

All this just confirms that the hostile environment is still alive and well. The Minister talks about reducing the backlog; how are cases within that backlog being prioritised? I have a constituent who was caught up in the tragedy at the Park Inn hotel in Glasgow in 2020—a city, incidentally, that takes more of its share of asylum seekers than any other local authority area in the country. He was the roommate of one of the attackers. He was told that he would have a decision by 25 October 2022, so nearly a year later, what is his place in the backlog queue?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am happy to look into the case that the hon. Gentleman raises but, as I have said in answer to numerous questions, we are now making very strong progress with the backlog. We are making decisions at a rate that has not been seen for several years and that is escalating rapidly, but the fundamental difference of opinion between him and his party and ourselves is that we do not see clearing the backlog as a strategy for stopping the boats. It is an important thing that we need to do as a country, in order to operate an efficient system in the interests of British taxpayers, but it is not enough. We have to put in place a deterrent that fundamentally breaks the business model of the people smugglers so that people will not want to come here in the first place.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement regarding the Professional Enablers Taskforce, and encourage him to make sure that that taskforce looks at the entirety of lawyers’ interventions in the immigration system. I for one am sick and tired of having people come to my surgeries who have spent years in the immigration system, with application after application that have no chance of ever succeeding, but are making lots of money for the solicitors advising them.

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right—I speak as a former solicitor, so I mean no harm to the profession, but the abuse that I have seen in my role over the past nine months is truly shocking and has to end. I am pleased that the Solicitors Regulation Authority has taken swift action against the lawyers and legal representatives who were identified by the Daily Mail over the summer, but that is the tip of the iceberg. There is much more work to be done by the profession and I hope this taskforce will root out that abuse as quickly as possible.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I envy the Minister’s apparently limitless capacity for self-congratulation, but it does not bear much relationship to what people are experiencing on the ground. I went to visit migrants in a hotel in Chesterfield; there were 81 people there, not a single one of whom had had their case heard. The Minister is apparently congratulating himself on the most basic improvements that any competent Home Office should have been making over the past 18 months. How does he explain the fact that, under this Government, more migrants are arriving, yet 70% fewer are being returned than in 2010?

[Robert Jenrick]

I can tell the House what would happen if the Labour party was in charge of returns. [Interruption.] No, this is an important point to make. The right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), during his campaign to be leader of the Labour party, campaigned to close detention centres. Dozens of Labour MPs have campaigned against immigration removal centres, and numerous Labour MPs have sided with dangerous foreign criminals versus the British public, opposing their removal from this country. The Labour party, including the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), opposed our reforms to modern slavery legislation—reforms that were essential in order to remove people from this country expeditiously. While we are getting returns up—as I said in my statement, they have already risen substantially—I worry what would happen under the Labour party, because it has absolutely no strategy to tackle that issue.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I re-emphasise the importance of answering on responsibilities that the Minister has.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the very helpful telephone calls I have had during the summer concerning the Bibby Stockholm barge, which is in Portland port in my constituency—something that the majority of us oppose, as he knows. We do not have any migrants on board due to the legionella problem, and I understand that the Government are facing various legal actions, not least from the Fire Brigades Union. Could he kindly update me and my constituents on the situation concerning that barge, and when and if the migrants will return?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the co-operation that we have had over the summer. I appreciate his position with respect to the barge, although we believe it is important that we move away from expensive hotels to more rudimentary forms of accommodation such as barges. It was very unfortunate that migrants had to be moved off the barge over the summer. We deeply regret that. We did take a very precautionary approach. Tests have subsequently been carried out and the definitive answers to those tests will be received very shortly. Assuming that they show no signs of legionella, or indeed any other bacteria or cause of concern, we will move people back on to the boat as soon as possible and I think we can expect that within weeks.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), the European convention on human rights was negotiated some 70 years ago, long before international criminal gangs engaged in trafficking people across Europe and, indeed, more widely. Does not my right hon. Friend agree that now is the time for the Government to make an approach to the Council of Europe with a view to renegotiating the terms of the European convention, because clearly it is not protecting our borders or those of many other countries across Europe?

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend is correct to say that the framework of international treaties, many of which were forged in the years after the second world war, now appear out of date given the challenges that we face today, and that is a sentiment shared by other European countries we have been working closely with. We have sought to put illegal migration and reform of the international framework on the table for all of the international fora that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary or I are represented at, and we will seek to make the UK a leading force in reform on that issue. Other countries are looking intently at the work we are doing, particularly the Rwanda partnership and, once we are able to establish it, I think it is very likely that other countries will follow suit.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

It is nearly a year now since the Home Office first requisitioned two hotels on Bostock Lane in my constituency and, despite numerous commitments from the Dispatch Box, hundreds of migrants are still housed at that location. I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s good intentions and the hard work he has put in, but my constituents really want to know when the sites will be closed and when the hotels will be returned to their originally intended purpose.

[Robert Jenrick]

Three things have changed decisively over the summer. First, it is increasingly clear that the numbers coming over are lower than last year as a result of the plan that the Government have put in place, particularly the deal we struck with Albania that has been so successful. Secondly, the backlog clearance work that we have done is bearing fruit, as we have already heard today. Thirdly, we have doubled the number of asylum seekers living in each room, whether that be in hotels or in dispersal accommodation, saving the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds. Those three things lead to the ability to exit hotels in the near future and we are working very closely on plans to do so. I know how strongly my hon. Friend feels, so when we are able to do so, her hotels should rightly, because of some of the issues that have been experienced by her community, be top of the list.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just a quick reminder that we must have succinct questions because we have a lot to get through later.

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be very happy to take a look at that, and I completely understand and appreciate the unique pressures that Kent faces.

[Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)]

In my last communication with Doncaster Council, there were 6,710 people on the housing waiting list and we have hotels that are full, too. So will my right hon. Friend continue his great work, and make sure that we stop these illegal boats and reduce immigration to a sizeable level?

[Robert Jenrick]

I strongly support the view of my hon. Friend. He is right to say that illegal migration places immense pressures on public services, housing supply and community cohesion. That is what we on this side of the House understand and that is why we are taking the action that we are to stop the boats.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

When will the Old Palace Lodge in Dunstable be available for the people of Dunstable again, given its particular role in providing a social community for marking life events for the whole town?

[Robert Jenrick]

I have had numerous conversations with my hon. Friend about that hotel. I hope that we will be in a position to exit hotels shortly, as a result of the work we have done to restore order to the asylum decision-making system and the reduced numbers of illegal migrants crossing the channel.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I was pleased to see the reduction by 20% in the year to date and, of course, the work that has been happening with Albania, but residents in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke are concerned about the increased numbers coming from Turkey and India. What assurances from the Prime Minister has my right hon. Friend and the Home Secretary had about a returns agreement being included in any free trade deal that we sign with India?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that there have been significant numbers of illegal migrants from both those countries. I visited Turkey earlier in the summer, and one of my objectives is to create an enhanced arrangement for returns with Turkey, with which we are working very closely in that regard. For India, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I have been meeting Indian counterparts regularly to increase the return of illegal migrants there. That is absolutely essential, because the number is very substantial.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I very much agree with the Minister that we must increase deterrence if we are to reduce the numbers of people coming here illegally. A key part of that is increased deportation, so what is the Minister doing to ensure that we increase the number of deportation facilities and increase the speed of those deportations?

[Robert Jenrick]

We have one of the largest detained estates of any major European country, and we are increasing it. We are investing in two new ones that will come on line next year, and we are looking for further opportunities as well. That is quite right, because under the Illegal Migration Act individuals who come to this country illegally will be detained and then swiftly removed.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I welcome the progress in processing applications. Will my right hon. Friend commit that the extra resources will be maintained and the focus on productivity improved to deal with the legacy events and then other cases, while doing the important work of stopping the flow?

[Robert Jenrick]

Yes, I was very pleased that we met our pledge to increase the number of decision makers to 2,500 from 1 September. That is coupled with management changes so that there are financial incentives and proper accountability for the civil servants involved. We are seeing now the fruits of that labour, with a much more productive service than we have seen for many years.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

The one-year anniversary of the Novotel in Ipswich being taken over by the Home Office is about to be met. My right hon. Friend knows how strongly I feel about this. Anger in Ipswich has not abated. Looking at that hotel—a blaze of light—and knowing that those people, who broke our immigration rules, are getting three meals a day during a cost of living squeeze has caused immense anger. Will my right hon. Friend outline a timescale to get the Novotel back to its proper use, which would be good for the economy. It would also be good for fairness, and a sense of fairness is vitally important.

[Robert Jenrick]

I hope that I have given my hon. Friend some reassurance that we are now at a point where we can move forward with exiting hotels—we will come back to the House in due course to set out those arrangements—but he is right that this is a fundamental question of fairness. It is not appropriate for people who have broken our laws and come into our country illegally to be accessing luxurious accommodation that is way beyond the means of millions of our fellow citizens.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The Royal Hotel in Kettering and the Rothwell House Hotel in Rothwell are unsuitable as asylum hotel locations, not least because of their heart-of-town-centre sites. The Minister already knows the strength of local feeling about those two hotels. Local people want them back as normal hotels. I believe they are on 12-month contracts. Will he ensure that those contracts are not renewed when they come to an end?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend has made very strong representations on behalf of his community, and he and I met earlier in the year to discuss that further. When we are in a position to close hotels, it will be ones like his—small hotels in market towns that take away very important community assets—that will be top of the list.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Ind)]

Reducing the asylum backlog is important, but we absolutely must not fall into the trap of having a de facto amnesty to try to achieve that. In the past year we approved the claims of 73% of applicants, including many from undisputed safe countries, while France approved just 25%. Why are we approving nearly three times the proportion of claims approved by France, given that this is clearly one of the pull factors that draws people across the channel?

[Robert Jenrick]

That is a very important question. We have not done an amnesty—that is what the last Labour Government did when they had a backlog of asylum decisions. We have chosen to do good, old-fashioned management reforms to make this service more productive and deliver for the taxpayer. We have also taken on this issue in respect both of countries with high grant rates, such as Afghanistan, and of those with low grant rates, such as Albania, and we have rapidly got through those cases. There are a number of nationalities—Egypt, Turkey, India—where grant rates should be very low indeed because there are very few circumstances in which somebody should be successfully claiming asylum in this country. We want to ensure that our asylum grant rates are no higher than those of comparable European countries.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I welcome the near end to illegal Albanian immigration, the crackdown on immigration lawyer abuses, and UK Visas and Immigration caseworkers helping MPs. However, as more asylum seekers become refugees, has my right hon. Friend considered creating a homes for refugees programme, building on the successful Homes for Ukraine scheme?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is worth remembering that those individuals granted asylum are predominantly young men of working age, and I would hope that they will integrate into society, get a job and start contributing to the UK—that is certainly our intention. I do understand that there will be some pressures on local authorities, and we are working through those with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. That Department is considering the possibility of a homes for Afghans scheme, but that is in respect of the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, which cover a different cohort of individuals where that kind of intervention is more appropriate.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

Although I am pleased to see the 20% fall in channel arrivals this year, I do not believe we will see a more meaningful fall until we get the Illegal Migration Act 2023 operational. I know that we are waiting for the Supreme Court and I urge it to hurry up, but given that the Government lost only on a very narrow point that was specific to Rwanda, can my right hon. Friend reassure the House that, should they lose in the Supreme Court, the Government have alternatives planned so we can get removals going as soon as possible?

[Robert Jenrick]

Of course, we consider all eventualities, but my hon. Friend is right to make the point that we won in the High Court and the Court of Appeal on the fundamental question: can a country such as ours enter into a partnership with another whereby asylum claims are heard there? Despite the many individuals who offered contrary opinions, that was deemed to be legal and in compliance with our obligations under the refugee convention. That was a huge step forward. There is a narrow point to resolve and we hope we will be successful in that regard in the Supreme Court in October, but my hon. Friend knows of our determination to tackle this issue one way or another.

Electronic Travel Authorisation: Northern Ireland

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) on securing the debate, and I thank his colleagues from Northern Ireland—the hon. Members for Belfast South (Claire Hanna), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson)—for attending. I thank him for the opportunity to further discuss what is, as he said, an important issue for Northern Ireland.

I intend to cover as many of the specific points that have been made as possible, although the purpose of the debate is not to relitigate the UK Government’s decision to introduce an electronic travel authorisation, or ETA, scheme. It is worth explaining that decision. The ETA scheme will enhance the Government’s ability to screen visitors and prevent the travel of those who pose a risk to the UK.

The introduction of an ETA scheme is in line with the approach that many of our international partners already take to border security. The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have similar schemes, and the European Union is preparing to introduce the comparable European travel information authorisation scheme, or ETIAS. That scheme is due to be implemented later this year, although we hear from the Commission that it may be somewhat delayed. In that sense, the UK is not an outlier; it is moving in lockstep with international partners. However, I appreciate that the Republic of Ireland has not chosen thus far to create its own scheme, and there may be reasons why it is particularly difficult for it to do so.

Overall, we believe that the UK will be a safer place as a result of the ETA scheme, but that is not to deny the fact that the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland pose a series of challenges, which is the purpose of this debate. The Government have tried to take a pragmatic approach, which is seen most vividly in the exemption for non-visa national residents of Ireland. In response to concerns raised by Members of this House and the Government of the Republic of Ireland, as well as other stakeholders, about the possible impact of ETAs on residents of Ireland who frequently cross the Northern Ireland-Ireland border, the Government have agreed to exempt non-visa nationals who are legally resident in Ireland from the requirement to obtain an ETA when travelling to the UK on a journey within the common travel area. In order to benefit from that exemption if required by a UK immigration official, those who are legally resident in Ireland may instead present physical evidence to demonstrate that they are legally resident in Ireland. That seems to be a satisfactory solution to most parties involved.

The next issue is whether the Government could agree some form of exemption for tourists. As the hon. Member for North Down said, I am grateful for opportunities to engage with him and others, including some of the tourism organisations who are in the Public Gallery. My officials have also done extensive engagement work behind the scenes.

We have carefully considered the request to exempt those tourists visiting Northern Ireland from Ireland from the ETA requirement due to concerns that the requirement to obtain an ETA will be considered a bureaucratic barrier for international visitors visiting Northern Ireland from Ireland. We appreciate that the Northern Irish economy depends to an extent on those visitors and that a number of businesses and sectors benefit significantly from tourists who primarily come to, or at least fly into, the Republic, but want to take advantage of the many great attributes of Northern Ireland, whether that is golfing or visiting the coastline or historic cities and towns. We appreciate the concern that those people may view this modest barrier as sufficient to deter them from making day trips to or overnight stays in Northern Ireland.

In the Government’s view, ETAs will for the first time allow us to have a comprehensive understanding of those seeking to come to the UK via the common travel area and to refuse them permission in the very judicious circumstances where that would be appropriate. Exempting tourists visiting Northern Ireland from Ireland from the requirement to obtain an ETA would, to our mind, result in an unacceptable gap in UK border security, which would allow persons of interest or risk who would be refused an ETA to enter the UK legally, undermining the very purpose of the ETA scheme, which is to prevent those who pose a risk to the UK from entering it.

[Stephen Farry]

Will the Minister respond directly to the point that the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and I made? While the Government’s justification for the ETA is to collect that data and have an understanding of who is coming in, the Government do not have the means to collect that data from people crossing the land border, because there is no routine immigration control on the border. As such, those tourists entering Northern Ireland will not be in the system, but none the less they still carry the legal jeopardy of having that legal requirement. That is the nub of the issue: they do not go through immigration control, but they still bear all the risks associated with it. That is the essence of the plea for pragmatism.

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand the point the hon. Gentleman makes. This is not a perfect solution. A perfect solution is unavailable as long as we want to respect the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland and the common travel area, but we consider that it would be even more complex, or suboptimal, to have a situation where Northern Ireland was hived off from the scheme altogether. That would be a greater loophole in the ETA scheme and one that, having given this considerable thought, we are not willing to countenance.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

I will come back to the hon. Lady in a few moments time. I would like to answer the questions posed by the hon. Member for North Down around non-compliance and the legal jeopardy of individuals, because those are important points. As now, the UK will not operate routine immigration controls on journeys from within the common travel area, with no immigration controls whatsoever on the Ireland-Northern Ireland land border. However, as is currently the case, individuals arriving in the EU, including those crossing the land border will need to continue to enter in line with the UK’s immigration framework, including the requirement now to obtain an ETA. For example, visa nationals are required to obtain a visa for the UK when travelling via Ireland to lawfully enter the United Kingdom. That is a well-established requirement, and we are simply extending the same principle to individuals requiring an ETA.

The Government will launch a clear communications strategy to tackle any misunderstandings about the requirement on travel to Northern Ireland. That is something we are preparing, and we will work extensively with Northern Irish, Irish and island of Ireland tourism organisations to ensure that we get this right. For individuals who accidentally travel to Northern Ireland without an ETA under the illegal entry offence, we want to take a sensible and pragmatic approach. We have made it clear that prosecutions under illegal entry will focus on the most egregious cases and not on accidental errors.

We will take a very careful approach when examining the individual circumstances of each case before deciding whether or not it should be pursued for prosecution, and the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales and the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland will ultimately determine whether a prosecution is proportionate and in the public interest. We hope and expect that they will take that responsibility very seriously, so those individuals who are simply going about their daily lives or who are tourists who inadvertently forget to obtain an ETA will not be put in an unnecessarily difficult situation.

[Claire Hanna]

As the Minister can see from the debate, this is an issue that has a very broad consensus—he will know that that is no mean feat—due to the very serious impact on tourism businesses. He will be aware of that impact and the fact that many decisions to come north are ad hoc ones to visit, for example, the Ulster Museum, the Lyric Theatre or the Let’s Go Hydro water park, or for destination shopping on the Lisburn Road. Has his Department conducted any economic analysis of the loss to Northern Irish businesses of those ad hoc decisions to come north for just one day in a trip to the island?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to note all of the many reasons why it is great to visit Northern Ireland; I have visited Northern Ireland myself on several occasions and always enjoyed it. The Department has conducted an impact analysis, which shows that there is an impact on tourism in Northern Ireland. However, we still consider that the overall value to the security of the United Kingdom outweighs concerns about that impact.

That does not mean that we do not take mitigating steps, one of which is to work with the Northern Irish tourism bodies on communications. I have mentioned that and my officials met representatives from the Northern Ireland Tourism Alliance, Tourism Ireland and Tourism Northern Ireland last month to begin discussions about how we can collectively work together on communications, both within the UK and abroad. Clearly, there is more work to be done in that regard with travel agents and some of the ancillary services to which the hon. Member for North Down referred, such as insurance companies and car rental companies, to ensure that this message is properly communicated to all involved.

We have deliberately chosen to keep the cost of the ETA as low as possible. We have now announced that it will have a maximum fee of £10, which compares favourably with the fees for the versions of the ETA in the EU and the United States, so we do not think that that level of fee is likely to deter visitors, particularly some of the higher-income and higher-spend tourists whom Members present are particularly concerned about.

We have also said that we will work very closely to keep this matter under review and of course we want to ensure that we learn from the initial experience once the system is created. If there are things that we need to do to change the system over time, we will do so. We want to work pragmatically with Northern Ireland and its MPs, because we care about the success of the Northern Irish economy.

In closing, I thank the hon. Member for North Down for securing this debate and for raising this issue today. I commit that we will continue to discuss this issue and will continue to work well with the organisations that I know he is in contact with, and we will try to find sensible, pragmatic solutions to make this system as successful as possible, while understanding that this is not the solution that he wanted. Nevertheless, we all share a common desire both to protect security for the people of Northern Ireland and of the wider United Kingdom and, of course, to ensure growth and prosperity in the years ahead, particularly for the critical sector of tourism.

Question put and agreed to.

Illegal Migration Bill

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 1B, 7B and 90D.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss:

Lords amendment 9B, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 23B, and Government motion to disagree.

Amendments 36A and 36B, and Government motions to insist, and Lords amendments 36C and 36D, and Government motions to disagree.

Lords amendment 33B, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 56B, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 102B, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 103B, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 107B and 107C, and Government motions to disagree.

[Robert Jenrick]

Last Tuesday, this House voted 18 times —more times than on any other day on any other piece of legislation—and 18 times it voted to support this Bill.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will first make a few opening remarks.

This House sent back to the House of Lords its 20 amendments to the Bill, many of which simply drove a coach and horses through the fabric of the legislation. We brought forward reasonable amendments where it was sensible to do so and it is disappointing, to say the least, the some of those have been rejected. I welcome the fact that the 20 issues that we debated last week have now been whittled down to nine, but the issue now before us is whether the clearly expressed views of this House, the elected Chamber—not just in the votes last week, but throughout the earlier passage of the Bill—should prevail.

We believe that inaction is not an option, that we must stop the boats and that the Bill is a key part of our plan to do just that. The message and the means must be absolutely clear and unambiguous: if people come to the UK illegally, they will not be able to stay here. Instead, they will be detained and returned to their home country or removed to a safe third country. There is simply no point in passing legislation that does not deliver a credible deterrent or provide the means to back it up with effective and swift enforcement powers.

We cannot accept amendments that provide for exceptions, qualifications and loopholes that would simply perpetuate the current cycle of delays and endless late and repeated legal challenges to removal. I listened carefully to the debate in the other place, but no new arguments were forthcoming and certainly no credible alternatives were provided.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I thoroughly endorse what my right hon. Friend says. This is a matter of extreme national interest, as is reflected in the votes of constituents throughout the country. They feel very strongly about these matters. Does he not agree that it is time for their lordships to take note of the fact that the British people want this legislation to go through? They want progress, given the extreme difficulties this is presenting to the British people.

[Robert Jenrick]

I strongly endorse my hon. Friend’s comments. This is an issue of the highest importance to the people we serve in this place. Of course there is a legitimate role for the other place in scrutinising legislation, but now is the time to move forward and pass this law to enable us to stop the boats.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I wonder whether my right hon. Friend has noted the remarks of Lord Clarke, who is not a particularly vicious right-wing creature. He said this Bill is entirely necessary and that we have to get on with it.

I also wonder whether my right hon. Friend has looked at today’s remarks by Lord Heseltine.

Lord Clarke and Lord Heseltine seem to have come up with a sensible option. We should go ahead with this Bill. We have to have much better European co-operation and, really, we have to build a wall around Europe. [Interruption.] And we have to do much more—this is what the Opposition might like—in terms of a Marshall plan to try to remove the conditions of sheer misery that cause people to want to leave these countries in the first place.

[Robert Jenrick]

I read the remarks of the noble Lord Clarke, and I entirely agree with his point, which is that, having listened to the totality of the debate in the House of Lords, he had not heard a single credible alternative to the Government’s plan. For that reason alone, it is important to support the Government.

I also agree with Lord Clarke’s broader point that this policy should not be the totality of our response to this challenge. Deterrence is an essential part of the plan, but we also need to work closely with our partners in Europe and further upstream. One initiative that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I have sought to pursue in recent months is to ensure that the United Kingdom is a strategic partner to each and every country that shares our determination to tackle this issue, from Turkey and Tunisia to France and Belgium.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. I believe that the Bill should go through, as we have to do something about the deaths in the channel, which is an important moral purpose.

I bring my right hon. Friend back to Lord Randall’s amendment on modern slavery. We agree quite a lot on this issue, and the Government have said that they will do stuff in guidance, so Lord Randall has taken the words spoken by my right hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box and put them on the face of the Bill—this amendment does exactly what my right hon. Friend promised the Government would do in guidance. The Government have not issued the guidance in detail, which is why the amendment was made. Why would we vote against the amendment today when my right hon. Friend’s words and prescriptions are now on the face of the Bill?

[Robert Jenrick]

First, the Lords amendment on modern slavery goes further by making the scheme, as we see it, much more difficult to establish. There are a number of reasons but, in particular, we think the complexity of the issue requires it to be provided for in statutory guidance rather than on the face of the Bill, in line with my assurances made on the Floor of the House. One of those assurances is particularly challenging to put in statutory guidance—where an incident has taken place in the United Kingdom, rather than an individual being trafficked here—and that is the point Lord Randall helpfully tried to bring forward.

We are clear that the process I have set out should be set out in statutory guidance, because the wording of the amendment is open to abuse by those looking to exploit loopholes. Those arriving in small boats would seek to argue that they have been trafficked into the UK and that the 30-day grace period should apply to them, on the basis that they qualify as soon as they reach UK territorial waters. The proposed provision is, for that reason, operationally impossible and serves only to create another loophole that would render the swift removal we seek impossible or impractical. The statutory guidance can better describe and qualify this commitment, by making it clear that the exploitation must have occurred once the person had spent a period of time within the UK and not immediately they get off the small boat in Kent. For that reason, we consider it better to place this on a statutory footing as guidance rather than putting it in the Bill.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Democratic Unionist party is concerned about the trafficking of children and young people. My question is a simple one. We see economic migrants who are fit and healthy but none the less make that journey, and we see those who have had to leave their country because they have been persecuted, discriminated against or been subjected to brutal violence, or because their family members have been murdered. My party and I want to be assured that those who flee persecution have protection within this law, because we do not see that they do.

[Robert Jenrick]

We believe that they do, because at the heart of this scheme is the principle that if an individual comes to the UK illegally on a small boat, they will be removed back home if it is safe to do that—if they are going to a safe home country such as Albania. In determining that the country is safe, for example, as in the case of Albania, we would have sought specific assurances from it, if required. Alternatively, they will be removed to a safe third country, such as Rwanda, where, again we would have sought sufficient assurances that an individual would be well-treated there. As the hon. Gentleman can see in the courts at the moment, those assurances will be tested. So it is not the intention of the UK Government to expose any genuine victim of persecution to difficulties by removing them either back home and, in the process, enabling their refoulement, or to a country in which they would be unsafe. We want to establish a significant deterrent to stop people coming here in the first place, bearing in mind that the overwhelming majority of the individuals we are talking about who would be caught by the Bill were already in a place of safety. They were in France, which is clearly a safe country that has a fully functioning asylum system.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Let me take the right hon. Gentleman back to the criticism he was making of the other place, because if the elected House is about to break international law, it is entirely fitting that the other place should try to prevent that from happening. The Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box telling us that this Bill is about deterrence, whereas the Home Office’s own impact assessment has said:

“The Bill is a novel and untested scheme, and it is therefore uncertain what level of deterrence impact it will have.”

As a raft of children’s charities have pointed out, once routine child detention was ended in 2011 there was no proportional increase in children claiming asylum. So will he come clean and accept that this Bill absolutely will have the effect, even if it does not have the intention, of meaning that people trying to escape persecution will not be able to come here, because there are not sufficient safe and legal routes?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am not sure exactly what the hon. Lady’s question was. If it was about access to safe and legal routes, let me be clear, as I have in numerous debates on this topic, that since 2015 the UK has welcomed more than 500,000 individuals here—it is nearer to 550,000 now—for humanitarian purposes. That is a very large number. The last statistics I saw showed that we were behind only the United States, Canada and Sweden on our global United Nations-managed safe and legal routes, and we were one of the world’s biggest countries for resettlement schemes. That is a very proud record. The greatest inhibitor today to the UK doing more on safe and legal routes is the number of people coming across the channel illegally on small boats, taking up capacity in our asylum and immigration system. She knows that only too well, because we have discussed on a number of occasions one of the most concerning symptoms of this issue, which is unaccompanied children who are having to stay in a Home Office-procured hotel near to her constituency because local authorities do not have capacity to flow those individuals into safe and loving foster care as quickly as we would wish. That issue is exactly emblematic of the problem that we are trying to fix. If we can stop the small boats, we can do more, as a country, and be an even greater force for good in the world.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister set out how my constituent will be protected? He is Albanian and has been subjected to modern slavery by gangs from Albania. He has three bullet holes in his body and, if he returns, perhaps those gangs will give him more. How will he be protected?

[Robert Jenrick]

The existing arrangement that we have secured with Albania—incidentally, Albania is a signatory to the European convention against trafficking— enables us to safely return somebody home to Albania, with specific assurances to prevent them being retrafficked to the United Kingdom and to enable them to be supported appropriately upon arrival.

On the broader issue of modern slavery, the Bill makes a number of important protections when we establish the scheme. If they are party to a law enforcement investigation, their removal from the country will be stayed. We have said that we will bring forward statutory guidance, giving them a 30-day period, allied to the period set out in ECAT, to come forward and work with law enforcement, which is extendable if that enforcement activity goes on for some time. We would then only remove that person either back home to a safe country, such as Albania, or to a country, such as Rwanda, where we have put in place appropriate procedures to ensure that that Government, in turn, looks after them.

I point the hon. Lady to the judgment in the Court of Appeal that made some criticisms of the Government’s approach, but did not say that the arrangements in Rwanda with respect to modern slaves were inappropriate; it supported the Government in that regard. We will clearly put in place appropriate procedures to ensure that victims, such as the one she refers to, are properly supported.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Many opponents of the Bill seem to support uncapped safe and legal routes. The reality of that would be that potentially over 1 million people could get the ability to come here. Does the Minister agree that those proposing that should be open and honest about it, and explain what the dramatic consequences would be for public services and community cohesion in this country?

[Robert Jenrick]

I completely agree. Anyone who feels that this country has sufficient resource to welcome significant further numbers of individuals at the present time, should look at the inbox of the Minister for Immigration. It is full of emails and letters from members of the public, local authorities and Members of Parliament, on both sides of the House, complaining that they do not want to see further dispersal accommodation and worrying about GP surgery appointments, pressure on local public services and further hotels. I understand all those concerns, which is why we need an honest debate about the issue.

That is why, at the heart of the Bill, there is not only a tough deterrent position for new illegal entrants, but a consultation on safe and legal routes, where we specifically ask local authorities, “What is your true capacity?” If we bring forward further safe and legal routes, they will be rooted in capacity in local authorities, so that those individuals are not destined to be in hotels for months or years, but go straight to housing and support in local authorities. That must be the right way for us to live up to our international obligations, rather than the present situation that, all too often, is performative here, and then there are major problems down the road.

Let me reply to issues other than modern slavery in the amendments before us. On the issue of detention, we believe that a necessary part of the scheme, provided for in the Bill, is that there are strong powers. Where those subject to removal are not detained, the prospects of being able to effect removal are significantly reduced, given the likelihood of a person absconding, especially towards the end of the process.

We have made changes to the provision for pregnant women, which I am pleased have been accepted by the Lords, and unaccompanied children, but it is necessary for the powers to cover family groups, as to do otherwise would introduce a gaping hole in the scheme, as adult migrants and the most disgusting people smugglers would seek to profit from migrants and look to co-opt unaccompanied children to bogus family groups to avoid detention. That not only prevents the removal of the adults, but presents a very real safeguarding risk to children.

On unaccompanied children, we stand by the amendments agreed by the House last week. They provided a clear differentiation between the arrangements for the detention of adults and those for the detention of unaccompanied children. The amendments agreed by this House provide for judicial oversight after eight days’ detention where that detention is for the purpose of removal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making it clear that, if there is any doubt about the age of an unaccompanied child, they will be treated as a child. I also thank him for saying that, if a child is detained, it will be in an age-appropriate centre. However, on the issue of what is age-appropriate, I will just say that I have looked at the operating standards to which he referred. It is an 82-page document. It has no mention of unaccompanied children. It talks about who looks after the locks and hinges and where the tools and the ladders are to be stored, but there is nothing about how we keep these children happy, healthy and safe from harm. I point him instead to the guidance for children’s care homes and ask him gently if we could update the rules on detention centres to make sure that they look more like the rules we have for safeguarding children in care homes.

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend makes a number of important points. The guidance is very detailed, but I am sure that it would benefit from updating. Therefore, the points that she has made and that other right hon. and hon. Members have made in the past will be noted by Home Office officials. As we operationalise this policy, we will be careful to take those into consideration. We are all united in our belief that those young people who are in our care need to be treated appropriately.

Let me turn now to the Lords amendment on modern slavery—I hope that I have answered the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). This seeks to enshrine in the Bill some of the assurances that I provided in my remarks last week in respect of people who are exploited in the UK. However, for the reason that I have just described, we think that that is better done through statutory guidance. In fact, it would be impractical, if not impossible, to do it through the Bill.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The point that my right hon. Friend made earlier is that, somehow, those people will be able to get into the UK and make a false claim. However, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 already provides for that, so anyone found to have made a false claim will be disqualified, and disqualified quite quickly. The critical thing is to prosecute the traffickers. That way, we can stop them trafficking more people on the boats. My worry is that this provision will put off many people from giving evidence and co-operating with the police for fear that they may still be overridden and sent abroad while they are doing it and then be picked up by the traffickers. Does he give any credence to the fear that this may end up reducing the number of prosecutions of traffickers as a result?

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s position, and it is right that he is vocalising it, but we do not believe that what he says is likely. The provision that we have made in the statutory guidance that I have announced will give an individual 30 days from the positive reasonable grounds decision to confirm that they will co-operate with an investigation in relation to their exploitation. That should give them a period of time to recover, to come forward and to work with law-enforcement. That is a period of time aligned with the provisions of ECAT, so we rely on the decision of the drafters of ECAT to choose 30 days rather than another, potentially longer, period. That is an extendable period, so where a person continues to co-operate with such an investigation, they will continue to be entitled to the support and the protections of the national referral mechanism for a longer period.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I just want to make it clear that under the new regulations, the Secretary of State can still feasibly decide that, even if someone is co-operating, they do not need to remain in the UK for that. That is the critical bit: they live under the fear that they can be moved somewhere else to give that evidence. Does the Minister not agree that that will put a lot of people off giving evidence?

[Robert Jenrick]

I hope that that is not borne out. It is worth remembering that we will not remove anyone to a country in which they would be endangered. We would be removing that person either back to their home country, if we consider it safe to do so, usually because the country is an ECAT signatory and has provisions in place, or to a safe third country such as Rwanda, where once again we will have put in place significant provisions to support the individual. I hope that that provides those individuals with the confidence to come forward and work with law enforcement to bring the traffickers to book.

[Vicky Ford]

I am particularly interested in the arrival of unaccompanied children in this country, because obviously the Minister has tightened up the eight-day period for them on exit. I believe that he just agreed with me that the standards for age-appropriate accommodation in detention centres need to be updated to look more like those for children’s homes. Is he prepared to concede that no unaccompanied child should be put in such a detention centre until that update of the rules has been undertaken?

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand the point that my right hon. Friend makes, but I am not sure that that is necessary, because the Detention Centre Rules 2001 are very explicit in the high standards expected. They set the overall standard, and underlying them will no doubt be further guidance and support for individuals who are working within the system. If there is work to be done on the latter point, we should do that and take account of her views and those of others who are expert in this field, but the Detention Centre Rules are very explicit in setting high overarching standards for this form of accommodation. That is exactly what we would seek to live up to; in fact, it would be unlawful if the Government did not.

[Vicky Ford]

In a children’s home, we would expect there to be the right to access a social worker and advocacy, and for the child to have the care that they particularly need. We would expect Ofsted to oversee that, not prison inspectors.

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful for those points. Social workers will clearly be at the heart of all this work, as they are today. Every setting in which young people are housed by the Home Office, whether it be an unaccompanied asylum-seeking children hotel, which we mentioned earlier, or another facility, has a strong contingent of qualified social workers who support those young people. I am certain that social workers will be at the heart of developing the policy and then, in time, operationalising it.

Their lordships have attempted but failed to smooth the rough edges of their wrecking amendments on legal proceedings, but we need be in no doubt that they are still wrecking amendments. They would tie every removal up in knots and never-ending legal proceedings. It is still the case that Lords amendment 1B would incorporate the various conventions listed in the amendment into our domestic law. An amendment shoehorned into the Bill is not the right place to make such a significant constitutional change. It is therefore right that we continue to reject it.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not, because I need to close my remarks; this is a short debate.

Lords amendment 9B continues to undermine a core component of the Bill: that asylum and relevant human rights claims are declared inadmissible. The Lords amendment would simply encourage illegal migrants to game the system and drag things out for as long as possible, in the hope that they would become eligible for asylum here.

Lords amendment 23B brings us back to the issue of the removal of LGBT people to certain countries. The Government are a strong defender of LGBT rights across the globe. There is no question of sending a national of one of the countries listed in the amendment back to their home country if they fear persecution based on their sexuality. The Bill is equally clear that if an LGBT person were to be issued with a removal notice to a country where they fear persecution on such grounds, or indeed on any other grounds, they could make a serious harm suspensive claim and they would not be removed—

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not, because I need to bring my remarks to a close now. They would not be removed until that claim and any appeal had been determined. As I said previously, the concerns underpinning the amendments are misplaced and the protections needed are already in the Bill.

On safe and legal routes, Lords amendment 102B brings us to the question of when new such routes come into operation. The amendment again seeks to enshrine a date in the Bill itself. I have now said at the Dispatch Box on two occasions that we aim to implement any proposed new routes as soon as is practical, and in any event by the end of 2024. I have made that commitment on behalf of the Government and, that being the case, there is simply no need for the amendment. We should not delay the enactment of this Bill over such a non-issue.

Lords amendment 103B, tabled by the Opposition, relates to the National Crime Agency. Again, it is a non-issue and the amendment is either performative or born out of ignorance and a lack of grasp of the detail. The NCA’s functions already cover tackling organised immigration crime, and men and women in that service work day in, day out to do just that. There is no need to change the statute underlying the organisation.

Finally, we have Lords amendment 107B, which was put forward by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This country’s proud record of providing a safe haven for more than half a million people since 2015 is the greatest evidence that we need that the UK is already taking a leading international role in tackling the refugee crisis. This Government are working tirelessly with international and domestic partners to tackle human trafficking, and continue to support overseas programmes. We will work with international partners and bring forward proposals for additional safe and legal routes where necessary.

However well-intentioned, this amendment remains unnecessary. As I said to his grace the Archbishop, if the Church wishes to play a further role in resettlement, it could join our community sponsorship scheme—an ongoing and global safe and legal route that, as far as I am aware, the Church of England is not currently engaged with.

This elected House voted to give the Bill a Second and Third Reading. Last Tuesday, it voted no fewer than 17 times in succession to reject the Lords amendments and an 18th time to endorse the Government’s amendments in lieu relating to the detention of unaccompanied children. It is time for the clear view of the elected House to prevail. I invite all right hon. and hon. Members to stand with the Government in upholding the will of the democratically elected Commons, to support the Government motions and to get on with securing our borders and stopping the boats.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the only people who benefit from the small boat crossings are the people smugglers and human traffickers—that has to be brought to an end. Where we fundamentally disagree is about the means. Labour believes that the deterrence of the Rwanda scheme simply will not work, for the reasons I have already set out, and that the solution lies far more in pragmatism and quiet diplomacy, working with international partners to get the returns deal that I talked about, than in all the performative cruelty that is at the heart of this Bill.

Likewise, the Government should show some humility and support Lords amendment 33B, which states that accompanied children should be liable for detention only for up to 96 hours. This is a fair and reasonable compromise, given that Lords amendment 33 initially set the limit at 72 hours.

While we are on the subject of children, how utterly astonishing and deeply depressing it was to hear the Minister standing at the Dispatch Box last week and justifying the erasure of Disney cartoons on the basis of their not being age-appropriate. Quite apart from the fact that his nasty, bullying, performative cruelty will have absolutely no effect whatsoever in stopping the boats, it has since emerged that more than 9,000 of the children who passed through that building in the year to March 2023 were under the age of 14. Given that a significant proportion of those 9,000 would have been younger still, I just wonder whether the Minister would like to take this opportunity to withdraw his comments about the age-appropriateness of those cartoons.

[Robert Jenrick]

indicated dissent.

[Stephen Kinnock]

No. Well, there we have it. This whole sorry episode really was a new low for this Minister and for the shameful, callous Government he represents.

We also support Lords amendment 23B, a compromise in lieu of Lords amendment 23, which seeks to protect LGBT asylum seekers from being removed to a country that persecutes them for their sexuality or gender. The Minister last week claimed that that was unnecessary because there is an appeals process, but why on earth would he put asylum seekers and the British taxpayer through an expensive and time-consuming appeals process when he could just rule out this scenario from the outset?

Nothing illustrates more clearly the indifference of this Government towards the most vulnerable people in society than their treatment of women being trafficked into our country for prostitution. I have already described this Bill as a traffickers charter—a gift to the slave drivers and the pimps—because it makes it harder for victims to come forward and therefore more difficult for the police to prosecute criminals. The Immigration Minister last week repeated the false claim that the UK Statistics Authority recently rebuked him for. It was his second rebuke this year by our national statistics watchdog for inaccurate claims made to this House. Thankfully, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who is not in her place today, called him out on it. She correctly pointed out that the proportion of small boats migrants claiming to be victims of modern slavery stands at just 7%. This was a profoundly embarrassing moment for the Minister, but I do hope he will now swallow his pride, listen to the wise counsel he is receiving from those on the Benches behind him and accept Lords amendment 56B in the name of Lord Randall.

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Member is right that I misspoke when citing those statistics on an earlier occasion, but in fact the statistics were worse than I said to the House. What I said was that, of foreign national offenders who are in the detained estate on the eve of their departure, over 70% made use of modern slavery legislation to put in a last-minute claim and delay their removal. However, it was not just FNOs; it was also small boat arrivals. So the point I was making was even more pertinent, and it is one that he should try to answer. What would he do to stop 70% of people in the detained estate, who we are trying to get out of the country, putting in a frivolous claim at the last minute?

[Stephen Kinnock]

Sir Robert Chote of the UK Statistics Authority said clearly that the figure is only 20%, not 70%. I do not know whether we want to invite Sir Robert to clarify those points himself, but the rebuke the Minister received from the UK Statistics Authority was pretty clear.

It is vitally important that the Minister’s position on this is not used as the basis for a policy that could cause profound harm to vulnerable women while feeding criminality in the United Kingdom. I therefore urge him to reflect on what he is trying to achieve, the proportionality of his actions and the unintended consequences he may be facilitating. Lords amendment 56B states that victims of trafficking who have been unlawfully exploited in the UK should be protected from the automatic duty to remove and should continue to be able to access the support currently available to them, but only for the duration of the statutory recovery period, which was set by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 at 30 days.

On Second Reading, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead argued that the Bill as drafted would

“drive a coach and horses through the Modern Slavery Act, denying support to those who have been exploited and enslaved and, in doing so, making it much harder to catch and stop the traffickers and slave drivers.”—[Official Report, 28 March 2023; Vol. 730, c. 886.]

We strongly agree with her concerns and wholeheartedly support Lords amendment 56B, which I remind the Minister goes no further than to maintain the status quo of the basic protections and support currently available to all victims of trafficking and exportation.

I will now turn to the amendments that are underpinned by Labour’s five-point plan: end the dangerous small-boat crossings, defeat the criminal gangs, clear the backlog, end extortionate hotel use, and fix the asylum system that the Conservatives have spent 13 years destroying.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kinnock]

I suppose the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck, and the Rwanda plan is so clearly and utterly misconceived, misconstrued and counter-productive. Labour Members like to vote for things that are actually going to work, which is why we simply cannot support that hare-brained scheme.

With the Minister last week reiterating a deadline of December 2024—18 months from now—to lay out what safe and legal routes might look like, and by stating that those routes will not deal with the challenges facing Europe directly, he appears to be reducing the chances of getting the returns deal with the EU that we so urgently need. Let us not forget that this Government sent Britain tumbling out of the Dublin regulations during their botched Brexit negotiations, and it is no surprise that small boat crossings have skyrocketed since then. This Government must prioritise getting that returns deal. We therefore support Lords amendment 102B, which demands that the Government get on with setting out what these safe and legal routes might look like, not only to provide controlled and capped pathways to sanctuary for genuine refugees, but to break that deadlock in the negotiations with the EU over returns.

I note that the Minister loves to trot out his lines about the Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghan resettlement schemes, but he neglects to mention that there are now thousands of homeless Ukrainian families, and we have the travesty of thousands of loyal-to-Britain Afghans who are set to be thrown on the streets at the end of August. More than 2,000 Afghans are stuck in Pakistan with the right to come here, but they are not being allowed to do so. He simply must fix those resettlement schemes.

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because this is an important point that all Members of the House should appreciate. The No. 1 reason why we are struggling to bring to the UK those people in Pakistan—we would like to bring them here, because we have a moral and historical obligation to them—is that illegal immigrants on small boats have taken all the capacity of local authorities to house them. If the hon. Gentleman truly wanted to support those people, he would back this Bill, he would stop the boats, and then he would help us to bring those much-needed people into the United Kingdom.

[Stephen Kinnock]

It beggars belief that the Immigration Minister says that, when he speaks for a party that has allowed our backlog to get to 180,000, costing £7 million a day in hotels. He should just get the processing system sorted out. The Conservatives downgraded the seniority of caseworkers and decision makers in 2013 and 2014. Surprise, surprise, productivity fell off a cliff, as did the quality of decisions. That is the fundamental problem, but we have to recognise that these Afghans have stood shoulder to shoulder with our defence, diplomacy and development effort in Afghanistan, and we owe them a debt of honour and gratitude.

[Robert Jenrick]

Does the hon. Gentleman know how many asylum seekers are housed in his constituency, or would he like me to tell him? It is none. There are no asylum seekers accommodated in Aberavon. If he would like us to bring in more people, whether on safe and legal routes, or on schemes such as the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, he should get on the phone to his local council and the Welsh Government this afternoon.

[Stephen Kinnock]

The Minister is talking absolute nonsense. I am proud of the fact we have many Syrians in our constituency. We have Ukrainians in our welcome centre. Discussions are ongoing between the Home Office and the Welsh Government. The incompetence of his Government means that they are not managing to house them. Wales is ready to have that dialogue with the Home Office.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want to apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I do not think I indicated clearly enough that I wanted to speak. Thank you for your generous dexterity in finding time for me.

I want to say one simple thing about the assurances given so far on the detention of children: they are not sufficient. There are large numbers of children who will be detained. The definition of age-appropriate and child-appropriate accommodation is not clear enough.

I remind the House of my experience with Harmondsworth detention centre in my constituency before 2014, when we legislated to prevent children being detained in detention centres. That detention centre was also meant to be age and child-appropriate, but what happened? It simply had a wing with a school and so on, and children were locked up in there for months on end. We saw the reports of individual civil society organisations that assessed the mental health implications of the detention of children at that stage.

So far, the Minister has told me that there is no Government intention to detain children in detention centres again, but, as I said to him before, intention is not good enough. We need legislation to prevent that from happening again. My fear is that, under pressure, Government Ministers will decide that there will be some appropriate decoration of some sections of Harmondsworth and it will be opened up for children again.

I was a house father at a children’s home in Hillingdon. It was one of the traditional children’s homes, run effectively as a family unit. I pursued my own career, and my wife was the house mother in charge and I was the house father. It was like a large fostering unit, basically, and we took in children who had been detained in Harmondsworth. Even before it was of the prison style that it is now, those children were, I believe, scarred for life. I did not think that we would ever return to locking children up in that way. The children we looked after often came to us after they had been lost within the system while their cases were being processed over a long time. They were often separated from their families, who came through other routes. I think the damage was a scandal of this country’s treatment of human beings.

That was why, from 2010 until 2012, we ran a campaign—across all religious groups, and with civil society organisations such as the Children’s Society—and published report after report. David Cameron came forward heroically and said, “We will never detain children again,” and we legislated for that in 2014. We are now going back to detaining children almost indefinitely for some categories. We have not got the assurances that we need about where they will be detained or about the care, comfort and succour that they will have to support them. As a result, if we allow this legislation to go through, it will be a stain upon this House and upon society overall for a long time to come.

I ask Members to think again. We now go back into ping-pong with the other House, which is calling simply for a realistic time limit on the detention of children so that they are not damaged beyond repair in the way they were 10 years ago. I do not think that a simple amendment to set a time limit on children suffering in detention when they arrive in this country is an awful lot to ask of the Government. They often come from countries where they have suffered enough; we should not impose even more suffering on them.

[Robert Jenrick]

With the leave of the House, let me say a few words to close this short debate.

As I said at the outset, when we met and voted 18 times last week, we supported the Bill time and again. In each of those 18 votes, we in this democratically elected Chamber voted to stop the boats, secure our borders and enable this important Bill to move forward. Now is the time for the other place, which is, at its heart, as a number of colleagues have said—

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not—we have heard from the hon. Gentleman a number of times.

The other place is ultimately a revising Chamber, and it is now time for it to support the Bill. Today’s debate has, like some of the others, been short on new arguments and completely short of any credible alternative. I go back to the arguments made in the other place by many distinguished Members of that House and former Members of this House, most notably the noble Lord Clarke, who said clearly that he was not able, having listened to the debate for hour after hour, to discern a single credible alternative to the Government’s plan. It is incumbent on those who want to vote against the Bill to bring forward alternatives, but we have not heard a single one.

I used to say that Labour Members do not have a plan to stop the boats, but that is not true. They do have a plan, but it is one that is so dangerously naive that it is a recipe for even more crossings and even greater misery. They would create a massive pull factor by giving economic migrants crossing the channel from a safe place such as France the ability to work sooner. They would attempt to grant their way out of the problem and sacrifice the remaining integrity of the system. They would create bespoke country-specific routes for every instance of instability in the world, which would impose more and more pressures on local communities.

Is it not the most telling fact in this debate that today, in the shadow Immigration Minister’s own town of Aberavon, there is not a single asylum seeker? If Members want more asylum seekers, they should have the honesty to have them in their own constituency. From the letters I receive from Labour MPs, I assume that they would house asylum seekers even more expensively than we do today, with no regard to the taxpayer. I am not clear how they would remove illegal migrants when their own leader, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), campaigned to close an immigration removal centre, tens of Labour MPs have opposed the reopening of two other centres, and the Labour party’s own membership recently voted to abolish them altogether.

The fact is that as its Members vote against the Bill today, Labour’s message to the law-abiding people of this country—from Stoke to Blackpool to Peterborough—when it comes to illegal migration is quite simply “Put up with it.” Its message to the British families who have to wait longer for social housing or GP appointments is “Tough luck”, and its message to the hard-working taxpayer faced with the ever-rising costs of the system is “Cough up.” It is only the Conservative party that can see the fundamental injustice of illegal migration—that it ultimately affects the poorest people in society the most—and has the determination to fix it. That is why the Bill is so important, and it is why the Lords now need to back it.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 1B, 7B and 90D.

Biometric Registration Non-compliance: Code of Practice

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Written Statements

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

In 2018 the Home Office began issuing eVisas, which are an electronic record of immigration status and can be accessed via gov.uk. They were initially issued to individuals granted status under the EU settlement scheme and have since been extended to other schemes such as the Hong Kong (British National Overseas) route to citizenship. By the end of 2024, we will have completed the transition from physical biometric immigration documents (BIDs) in the form of the biometric residence permits, to digitised BIDs, known as eVisas. From this point the vast majority of individuals will receive digital status.

Holders of eVisas are able to evidence their status by creating a share-code which they can share with a third-party checkers, such as employers. We also enable system-to-system checks to directly confirm immigration status, for example the Department for Health and Social Care being able to check a person’s immigration status when accessing NHS treatment.

There will be times where key information shown on a customer’s record may change and they need to update their details (for example when they get married and change their name). Ensuring that this information is kept up to date is a requirement which is set out in the Immigration (Biometric Registration) Regulations 2008. Failure to comply with one of the requirements in the regulations may result in the Secretary of State imposing one or more sanctions on the individual. These are outlined in the “Code of Practice about the sanctions for non-compliance with the biometric registration regulations”, which was last updated in 2015.

However, since the introduction of biometric immigration documents in the form of eVisas, the code of practice needs to be updated to fully reflect the specific elements and approach to eVisas. This includes updating the requirements and sanctions associated with holders of these accounts.

To ensure they are effective and proportionate, I am launching a consultation on these changes. The consultation will explore how these sanctions would potentially be understood and effect individuals, including those who are vulnerable. It would also explore how the sanctions may impact groups linked to the holders of eVisas (employers, landlords and financial institutions).

The consultation will be available on gov.uk.

[HCWS955]

Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Written Statements

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is today laying before the House a statement of changes in Immigration Rules.

Changes to the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) and EUSS Family Permit

We are making certain changes to the EUSS, which enables EU, other European economic area (EEA) and Swiss citizens living in the UK by the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020, and their family members, to obtain immigration status. In particular, meeting the deadline for the application (or, in line with the citizens’ rights agreements, having reasonable grounds for the delay in making an application) will become a requirement for making a valid application. Consistent with the agreements, this will enable us to consider whether there are reasonable grounds for a late application as a preliminary issue, before going on to consider whether a valid application meets the relevant eligibility and suitability requirements. We will also prevent a valid application as a joining family member being made by an illegal entrant to the UK, thereby reinforcing our approach to tackling illegal migration.

We are closing the EUSS on 8 August 2023 to new applications under two routes not covered by the agreements: family member of a qualifying British citizen (on their return to the UK having exercised free movement rights in the EEA or Switzerland, known as “Surinder Singh” cases) and primary carer of a British citizen (known as “Zambrano” cases). The UK made generous transitional provisions enabling such persons to access the EUSS for more than four years. It is now appropriate, as a matter of fairness to other British citizens wishing to sponsor foreign national family members to settle in the UK, that any new applications should have to meet the family immigration rules applicable to others. The routes will remain open to those who are already on them (or with a pending application, administrative review or appeal) or who have pending access to them via a relevant EUSS family permit.

The EUSS family permit will also close on 8 August 2023 to new applications by a family member of a qualifying British citizen. Those granted an EUSS family permit as such a family member via an application made by this date will still be able to come to the UK and apply to the EUSS.

Extension of the Ukraine Extension Scheme

We are extending the application deadline for the Ukraine extension scheme for a further six months to 16 May 2024.

This change extends the scheme to allow Ukrainian nationals and their family members who obtain permission to enter or stay in the UK for any period between 18 March 2022 and 16 November 2023 to apply to the Ukraine extension scheme and obtain 36 months’ permission to stay in the UK. All applications must now to be made by 16 May 2024.

The extension to the application deadline is intended to encourage people to apply for leave under the Ukraine extension scheme to ensure they maintain a lawful immigration status. This will provide greater certainty and clarity for the individual, the Home Office and other Government Departments and organisations which require evidence of immigration status to confirm entitlement to services.

Student Route (dependants and switching)

As announced by the Home Secretary on the 23 May 2023, and following the Government commitment to reduce net migration, we are removing the right for international students to bring dependants unless they are on postgraduate courses currently designated as research programmes. We are also removing the ability for international students to switch out of the student route into work routes before their studies have been completed.

These changes preserve the ability for dependants already in the UK to extend their stay, and for international students on taught postgraduate courses beginning before 1 January 2024 to bring dependants. They also preserve existing exemptions for dependants of Government-sponsored students and for dependent children who are born in the UK.

The switching restrictions will ensure that students are generally not switching in-country to another route until they have completed their course. Students on courses at degree level or above will be able to apply before course completion to switch to sponsored work routes, as long as their employment start date is not before course completion. Those studying towards PhDs will be able to switch after 24 months’ study.

Asylum—pausing the differentiation policy

Provisions within the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (NABA), which came into force on 28 June 2022, set out the framework to differentiate between two groups of refugees who ultimately remain in the UK: “group 1” and “group 2".

The primary way in which the groups are differentiated is the grant of permission to stay: group 1 refugees are normally granted refugee permission to stay for five years, after which they can apply for settlement, whereas group 2 refugees are normally granted temporary refugee permission to stay for 30 months on a 10-year route to settlement.

The differentiation policy was intended to disincentivise migrants from using criminal smugglers to facilitate illegal journeys to the UK. This was the right approach. Since then, the scale of the challenge facing the UK, like other countries, has grown—and that is why the Government introduced the Illegal Migration Bill. The Bill goes further than ever before in seeking to deter illegal entry to the UK, so that the only humanitarian route into the UK is a safe and legal one. The Bill will radically overhaul how we deal with people who arrive in the UK illegally via safe countries, rendering their asylum and human rights claims (in respect of their home country) inadmissible and imposing a duty on the Home Secretary to remove them. This approach represents a considerably stronger means of tackling the same issue that the differentiation policy sought to address, people making dangerous and unnecessary journeys through safe countries to claim asylum in the UK.

We will therefore pause the differentiation policy in the next package of immigration rules changes in July 2023. This means we will stop taking grouping decisions under the differentiated asylum system after these rules changes and those individuals who are successful in their asylum application, including those who are granted humanitarian protection, will receive the same conditions. Our ability to remove failed asylum applicant remains unchanged.

Individuals who have already received a group 2 or humanitarian protection decision under post-28 June 2022 policies will be contacted and will have their conditions aligned to those afforded to group 1 refugees. This includes length of permission to stay, route to settlement, and eligibility for family reunion.

On 23 February 2023 the Home Office announced the streamlined asylum processing model for a small number of cases of nationalities with high asylum grant rates: Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Because this model focuses on manifestly well-founded cases, positive decisions can be taken without the need for an additional interview. No one will have their asylum application refused without the opportunity of an additional interview.

Those claims made between 28 June 2022 and the date of introduction of the Illegal Migration Bill (7 March 2023) will be processed according to this model. This, will also include claimants from Sudan. Sudanese legacy claimants are already being processed in line with established policies and processes and will be decided in line with the Prime Minister’s commitment to clear the backlog of legacy asylum claims by the end of 2023.

Improving Clarity Regarding Withdrawing Asylum Claims

The updated paragraph 333C provides clarity on the circumstances in which an asylum application will be withdrawn, whilst strengthening our ability to promptly withdraw asylum applications from individuals who do not comply with established processes.

It clarifies that there will be no substantive consideration of asylum claims that have been withdrawn and provides greater flexibility to accept explicit withdrawals where a claimant requests to withdraw their claim in writing but fails to do so on a specified form, in doing so preventing duplicative correspondence with the claimant.

In addition, the updates will support the efficient progression of applications by helping to prevent absconder scenarios by making it clear that the burden is on the claimant to keep the Home Office up to date with their contact details, and that failure to do so may result in a withdrawal of their asylum claim.

Furthermore, it is now made clear that failure to attend a reporting event may result in an asylum application being treated as implicitly withdrawn, ensuring efficiency with application progression through preventing potential absconder scenarios.

These changes will enable decision-making resources to be concentrated on those who genuinely wish to continue with their asylum claims in the United Kingdom.

The changes to the Immigration Rules are being laid on 17 July 2023.

The changes relating to asylum, pausing the differentiation policy and the changes relating to students will come into force at 3 pm today.

The changes relating to the EUSS will come into effect on 9 August 2023.

All other changes will come into effect on 7 August 2023.

[HCWS954]

Draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2023

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 General Committees

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2023.

It feels like only yesterday that we were talking about immigration. This draft fees order sets out the immigration and nationality functions for which a fee is to be charged, and the maximum amount that can be charged for each such function. Within the order, we propose a number of changes that will facilitate major Government policy, play an important part in the simplification of our fees structure and allow the Home Office to make vital decisions to ensure that the migration and borders system functions properly and is adequately funded.

I will go into more detail on each of the changes that we propose. To summarise, however, the draft order will: set a power to charge a fee for an electronic travel authorisation, or ETA, and set the maximum fee that can be charged for an application; increase the maximum fee that can be set for visa visits, certain applications for entry clearance and leave-to-remain visas, certain nationality products and services, and priority services; introduce a power to charge a fee for a contact-point meeting with endorsing bodies on the innovator founder route, and set the maximum fee that can be charged; introduce a power to charge a fee for the new “sponsor a worker” function; and remove certain fees relating to biometric enrolment, transfer of conditions, and the replacement and amendment of biometric documents in certain circumstances.

At the outset, it is important to be clear that the fees charged by the Home Office for immigration and nationality applications are an essential part of the Home Office’s funding settlement. Our aim is to reduce the burden of operating the system on the taxpayer and the draft order plays a key role in that, by providing flexibility to adjust fee levels across all immigration and nationality routes through separate legislation. Without that flexibility, it is not possible for the Home Office to take a balanced approach to setting fees. It is therefore vital that the maximum amounts set out in the fees order allow appropriate choices to be made on individual routes to support a balanced approach overall, avoiding the potential for increases to fall disproportionately on routes where there is flexibility to adjust fee levels.

Turning to the changes we propose to the fee maxima, the figures set in the draft order act as a ceiling beneath which the Home Office is able to make changes to fee levels, by separate legislation and seeking agreement across Government. In the majority of cases, we have not made changes to fee maxima since this order was last laid in 2016. I am sure Members will agree that it is prudent to keep those maxima under review to ensure that the order continues to support our fees and funding objectives. The changes we propose, which are accompanied by an economic impact assessment, will provide the necessary flexibility to make changes to fee levels where they are required to ensure the sustainability of our migration and borders system.

The actual fee levels charged to those seeking to enter or remain in the United Kingdom are not changing under the draft order; any changes to the fee levels will be made through separate legislation and will again be accompanied by a full economic impact assessment.

Members will be aware that the UK is launching an ETA scheme that will strengthen the security of our border and support our wider ambition to digitise the UK border. Such a scheme will be a familiar concept for the majority of international travellers and is in line with the approach taken by many of our international partners, such as the EU and the United States.

In the written ministerial statement I made on 6 June, I outlined our intention to set a fee of £10 for each application on initial roll-out of the scheme. The draft order plays a key role in that process by providing a power to charge a fee for the scheme and setting the maximum fee that can be set by the Home Office for each application. To be clear, although we have announced our intended fee level of £10, the fee cannot be set through this order. We will set the fee formally in regulations that will be subject to approval by Parliament later this year.

We are continuing with the simplification of our fee structure, which includes those fees that have become increasingly redundant as part of the wider transition to digital evidence of immigration status or are no longer required to support wider policy objectives. As such, we will remove the chargeable function for biometric enrolment for all remaining instances of the £19.20 fee in the fees regulations, reducing the number of fees that customers are required to pay in relation to an application.

With all new customers applying in-country now issued with a biometric residence permit or a digital status, the £161 fee charged in-country for a transfer of conditions for those with limited leave to remain is largely obsolete. The removal of this fee reflects that this application is made by those seeking to upgrade legacy documents to a biometric residence permit.

We are removing the fee to amend details on physical documents such as name, sex marker, nationality and photograph, and for those with limited leave to remain. That will bring these customers in line with those who are issued digital status and those with indefinite leave to remain, who are not charged a fee to make this sort of amendment.

We will no longer charge a fee for a like-for-like replacement of a biometric residence permit where the document has expired. That will primarily benefit those with indefinite leave to remain, whose cards have a maximum 10-year validity, with most due to expire in 2024.

The final changes we propose in this order will ensure that the subsequent fees regulations are aligned with wider policy changes being made within the migration and borders landscape. Under new arrangements being rolled out as part of broader reform to the innovator route, checkpoint meetings will be required between an endorsing body and the individual applicant to assess progress against their business plan. The maximum fee for these meetings is being set at £500. The fee for each assessment will be £500 and will be set in regulations in the next year, ahead of these meetings being chargeable in April 2024.

The current sponsorship scheme is being reformed, with the existing system of certificates of sponsorship being phased out and replaced with the “sponsor a worker” scheme. That will happen in stages, with a limited test in 2024, during which both the certificates of sponsorship and “sponsor a worker” scheme will operate side by side. The amendment we are making in this order will facilitate that change, providing a maximum fee to be set at the same level as the certificate of sponsorship, which is £300.

The changes we propose through this order are vital to provide enough flexibility to amend fee levels with the approval of Parliament, to ensure that the system is sustainable. I am grateful for Members’ support. The changes we are making will ensure the sustainability of our immigration and border system, while setting appropriate levels of fees for those entering or choosing to remain in the United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his support for many of the measures in this package—in particular, the ETA, which is an important long-term project for the United Kingdom that will go a significant way to improving our border security and bring us in line with many other developed countries. I said in my opening remarks that all of us who travel to the United States, for example, will have long been familiar with its equivalent. It is right that the UK now produces its own version. We are not alone in this. The European Union is in the process of developing its version of the ETA, which was due to be rolled out this year. It is likely to be delayed, but we await news from the European Commission. All of us are united in our shared view that it is right that sovereign countries—such as the United Kingdom—should know as much as possible about individuals prior to their arrival on the soil of those countries, and the ETA is the key way in which we do that.

We have chosen to begin later this year with Qatar, which is a small but important partner of the United Kingdom and will enable us to pilot the scheme. After that, a small group of other countries will be included before a wider roll-out next year. As the shadow Minister may be aware, we have chosen to adopt a modest delay to the broader roll-out to ensure that the technology is right, because it is important to the United Kingdom, reputationally and economically, that we get this right and that there are not issues with technology when it is launched.

With regard to the maximum fee of £10, we have considered it very carefully. We want to ensure that that fee meets the true cost of the scheme, which is significant because of the new technology that we are standing up, but also that we are competitive and that we do not put people off, whether they be well-paid business travellers, students or those coming on visit visas or school trips to the United Kingdom, whose income and pockets may not be so deep. We think that £10 is an appropriate level that compares favourably with other countries around the world.

The hon. Gentleman asked an important question about the interface between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in that regard. That is one of the complexities of launching the ETA, because, as he suggests, it does interface with the common travel area. We have had extensive conversations with the Republic of Ireland and with stakeholders in Northern Ireland. I myself have met with the tourist board to discuss its concerns.

As the hon. Gentleman suggests, those concerns are that international visitors coming in on international flights to the Republic, but looking to do short trips to Northern Ireland—either a day trip or a couple of nights for sightseeing, for golf holidays, or for the various other sources of income from tourism in Northern Ireland—might be deterred as a result of the ETA fee. We conclude that the deterrence is limited, bearing in mind the £10 fee and the simple process. In most cases, it can be done by the individual themselves on a smartphone, or with the help of their travel agent or tour-booking company.

However, we do take those concerns seriously and have worked to try to alleviate them. We will be working on the roll-out to ensure that there is a smooth communication plan with all international tour operators that bring travellers to the island of Ireland. We are also working with some of the other important stakeholders, such as insurance companies, so that they understand the scheme and so that someone who unwittingly crosses the border in a car hired in the Republic does not find themselves in a difficult position should they get into an accident in Northern Ireland without having completed the ETA. I can therefore provide the hon. Gentleman with some assurances that we have given the matter a great deal of thought.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the Minister, and I am reassured to hear that a great deal of thought has been given. I have also met with members of the Northern Ireland tourist board, and they have expressed extreme concern about this issue. They feel that their marketing strategy is very much based on an all-of-Ireland approach, and the communication of that to potential customers is, they feel, significantly undermined just by this additional measure. It is almost the symbolic nature of it that impacts on their overall marketing strategy. I want to underline that point and urge the Minister to continue that dialogue with the key stakeholders.

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for meeting with stakeholders. I do not want to represent their views, because they remain deeply concerned about this.

However, my point was that we have gone to a lot of trouble both to engage with them and to seek mitigations. The alternatives are not ones that we would consider palatable: not continuing with the roll-out of the ETA; rolling out the ETA only for Great Britain and not for Northern Ireland, which would create a significant security loophole in the ETA and undermine the Union; or, linked to that, imposing some checks at the border between GB and Northern Ireland, and asking individuals who choose to cross from NI to GB to have an ETA and to be willing to show it at that point—again, that is not something that the Government are willing to consider. I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman, perhaps with a full explanation of our work with the Republic and stakeholders in this regard.

Lastly, the hon. Gentleman asked about student visa fees. The first point to make is that the fees charged with respect to all these visa and immigration matters are not linked directly to the individual cost of the visas, but to the sustainability of the wider system. We seek to raise sufficient funds that general taxpayers do not fund, or fund to a lesser extent than they would otherwise, our visa and immigration system. There is not a direct link between the cost of any one visa and the fee charged for those reasons.

Furthermore, the policy has been agreed across Government. We worked with the Department for Education, and it supports our proposals. The international education strategy to which the hon. Gentleman referred has been a huge success. It set out a 10-year plan to attract 600,000 students to the United Kingdom, and we met that many years early. Demand for student visas is high, and from the operating data that I have seen—as yet unpublished—it continues to be high. It is not unreasonable to ask international students to pay a higher fee in support the general funding of our immigration and visa system and reduce the cost to the taxpayer of managing the system more generally.

[Stephen Kinnock]

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted that the actual cost to the Home Office of processing the visas is less than half of what applicants have to pay. So that we can have some transparency on how the increased costs were calculated, does the Minister agree with that analysis

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not have those exact costs to hand, but my point is that it is not right for the taxpayers of this country—with taxes at their current level—to pay yet more to fund our immigration and borders system. It is right that we recover as much of that cost as possible from visitors to the United Kingdom. Of course that is a careful balance, because we want to support the UK being an open country that attracts businesses, tourists and indeed students, but wherever possible, and where it is reasonable, we should try to get that money from international visitors to the UK, rather than leaning yet more on domestic taxpayers.

With that, I thank the members of the Committee for their support this morning. I commend the draft order to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Illegal Migration Bill

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving me advance notice that he planned to raise the interaction of clause 12 and clause 10. If I may answer his point briefly, the amendment in lieu relates to the powers to grant immigration bail, so amending clause 12, which is the power to grant immigration bail, is the correct place to set out the eight days. The detention powers themselves remain the same. That provides additional judicial oversight of unaccompanied children. The reason for amending clause 12 is that it is the clause that prohibits the first-tier tribunal from granting bail until 28 days have elapsed from the first day of detention. There is no need to amend clause 10 to give effect to that policy change. Clause 10 deals with the powers of detention and says nothing on bail. I hope that that answers his concerns, but I am happy to follow up with him later if he would like.

[Tim Loughton]

I think we may have to, because that is certainly not my understanding. There are Henry VIII paragraphs in clause 10 that still give ultimate discretion to the Secretary of State, with or without what is going to happen to clause 12. I am afraid that is symptomatic of the continuing problems with the Bill. It has become so complicated, there are many double negatives within it and only last night, at about 7.45 pm, did the Government publish their amendments, which we had just a few hours to scrutinise before today’s debate.

This matter needs proper explanation and it has not been properly explained. The assurances that we were promised have not materialised—or, if they have, I am afraid no one understands them. On that basis I am afraid that we, and I hope I speak here for many on the Government Benches, cannot take these amendments in lieu at face value. More work needs to be done. I hope this House will make sure that this matter goes back to the Lords in order for further concessions to be given. Clause 10 certainly needs to be overhauled.

If we go back to the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, there was a clear duty on the Secretary of State. Section 55(3) states:

“A person exercising any of those functions must, in exercising the function, have regard to any guidance given to the person by the Secretary of State”

for that purpose. There is no such undertaking in this Bill about having to observe and abide by guidance. Why not? Perhaps the Minister will come back to that in his response later.

The Minister keeps referring to the Detention Centre Rules 2001. They certainly need an overhaul, but I repeat my earlier point: they are all about things such as clean clothing, access to nutritious food, respect for religion, family visits and so on. Where are the special provisions for support services specifically for children, the child psychologists, access to social workers and other child support? That is what age-appropriate accommodation and support means—not just a suitable house that, without wishing to labour the point again, may or may not have cartoons on the walls.

Also, the Government have to admit that although those detention laws have been in place since 2001, that did not stop young children, and young children with families, being detained, for upwards of two weeks in some cases, at Manston, and certainly not in age-appropriate accommodation. Frankly, I am afraid that the system is not working now, yet we are looking to dilute the age-appropriateness of what is now on offer. That is where we on the Conservative Benches have serious concerns, and it is not just us: many children’s charities are concerned, and the Children’s Commissioner said:

“The Home Office has still not been able to provide me with vital information I have requested about the safeguarding of children in their accommodation. I am therefore unclear about how they can make informed assessments about the impact of the Home Office accommodating children without having this data.”

We were led to believe that there would be clear distinctions for children who are clearly and genuinely children: they would be detained for no more than eight days on the way in as well as, potentially for a few, on the way out; they would have age-appropriate accommodation; and there would be some form of foster care, children’s homes or whatever it may be. There would then be differential accommodation for those for whom there is an age-verification question mark. We do not know if that accommodation exists, what sort of accommodation it will actually be, or how we will separate adults from those who turn out to be children.

The Minister assured us that if age-appropriate accommodation was not available for that subset, they would be treated as children and subject then to the lesser restrictions on genuine children. That is not in the amendment and it is still not in the Bill. What and where is the available accommodation for children and for disputed children? What is the legal status of detained unaccompanied children during that eight-day period, where it applies to them? What local authority duties apply on arrival and for the eight days, and what is the Home Office responsible for in those eight days? Do the children retain looked-after status while detained, or does the Home Office propose that that status ceases, as with a custodial sentence?

Those are, I am afraid, all the questions to which we needed answers, but we are still in the dark with the amendments tabled in lieu, which is why we just cannot support them. This is a far cry from the undertakings in the Immigration Act 2014, which states:

“An unaccompanied child may be detained under paragraph 16(2) in a short-term holding facility for a maximum period of 24 hours”.

In the absence of a suitable amendment in lieu covering all those considerations, as promised, I am afraid that we must oppose the amendment in lieu. Although it would revert to Baroness Mobarik’s amendment to return to the 24-hour status quo, which is not practical, I agree—we will have to come up with something more—that is all that is on offer at the moment.

I will be very brief, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I have broken my pledge. I was pleased that we got safe and legal routes on to the face of the Bill, and that some concessions were made in this place on the understanding that they could be beefed up in the House of Lords. That is what the noble Baroness Stroud’s amendment would do. Clause 59 only accepts a duty to produce a report—a work that requires consultation with local authorities. That should be happening now; it should have started months ago, so saying, “Oh it is going to take several months; we need to do the consulting” is nonsense. That work should already have started.

All the clause amounts to is a loose assurance that something will come in by the end of next year, and it is not in the Bill. The Baroness Stroud amendment seeks to make regulations come in within two months of the report. As she said on Report, her amendment

“is designed purely to place a duty on the Government to do what they say they intend to do anyway—introduce safe and legal routes”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 July 2023; Vol. 831, c. 1248.]

That goes beyond just reproducing a report on how they might do it.

That is what we need to see, and it is why I will vote against the amendment in lieu of the child detention. I will vote in favour of the Baroness Stroud amendment on safe and legal routes. I will certainly not repeat everything that was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), but she made a strong case, and I am tempted to follow her into the Division Lobby on the Randall amendment as well. Those are the three main areas. There is still much more work to be done on the Bill, so that is how I will vote, and I urge hon. Friends to do the same.

Illegal Migration Bill

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

1.37 pm

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendments 2, 6 to 9, 12, 20 and 22, Government motions to disagree and Government amendments (a) to (o) in lieu of Lords amendments 2, 12, 20 and 22.

Lords amendments 23 and 30, and Government motions to disagree.

Lords amendments 31 to 36, Government motions to disagree and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu of Lords amendments 31, 35 and 36.

Lords amendments 37 and 38, Government motions to disagree and Government amendments (a) to (e) in lieu of Lords amendments 37 and 38.

Lords amendments 39 to 67, and Government motions to disagree.

Lords amendments 73 and 74, Government motions to disagree and Government amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendments 73 and 74.

Lords amendment 90, Government motion to disagree and Government amendments (a) to (c) to the words so restored to the Bill.

Lords amendment 93, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 95, Government motion to disagree and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendments 102 to 104 and 107, and Government motions to disagree.

Lords amendments 3 to 5, 10, 11, 13 to 19, 21, 24 to 29, 68 to 72, 75 to 89, 91, 92, 94, 96 to 101, 105, 106 and 108 to 114.

[Robert Jenrick]

This Bill is vital to stopping the boats and preventing the dangerous, illegal and unnecessary journeys across the channel. The Bill as passed by this House made it unambiguously clear to illegal migrants and people smugglers alike that, if they come to this country by unlawful means, they will not be able to stay. Instead, they will be detained and swiftly removed either to their home country or to a safe third country.

The Government brought forward a number of amendments in the Lords to enhance the Bill. These are largely of a technical nature, so I will not detain the House by setting these out now. Instead, I will confine my remarks to the non-Government amendments passed by the other place. I am grateful to the House of Lords for undertaking its proper role as a revising Chamber. Some of the changes made by the other place are, however, little short of wrecking amendments, and are not ones that the Government can support. There are a few honourable exceptions and I will deal with those first.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

As the Minister says, most of the amendments we are going to be debating and voting on later are wrecking amendments. Does he agree that none of these amendments addresses the fundamental need to address the actual incentives for people to cross the channel? That is what the Bill does and these amendments take that away.

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I would direct Members to the speech made in the other place by Lord Clarke. He said, very powerfully, that, as a former Home Secretary and long-standing Member of this House, and as someone who is interested in and knowledgeable about this issue, he sat through many hours of debate and did not hear, from any of the critics of the Bill, a single credible alternative to the Government’s approach. If hon. Members follow that logic, they need to get behind the Government and support them in delivering this approach.

Another point that Lord Clarke made, which I agree with, was that, if we fail to tackle this issue—if we dismiss the concerns of members of the public—we will see very serious consequences in the years ahead, with a fragmentation of community cohesion and a weakening of the successful multi-ethnic democracy that all of us, on both sides of the House, are proud of and want to see sustained for future generations.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

The Minister says that the other place put forward wrecking amendments, but is it not true that the other place proposed amendments that ensure that we honour treaties, respect our judiciary and ensure that the Home Office is acting within the law?

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not agree with that. There are a few important exceptions, which I will come on to. I hope that, in my remarks and in answering any questions, I will reassure the hon. Lady that, on the points of substance made by those who want to see the Bill proceed and the issue tackled, the Government are making the right changes to the Bill.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The Minister says that no one has proposed a credible alternative, but four Lords amendments do. Lords amendment 102 proposes a

“Duty to establish safe and legal routes”.

Lords amendment 103 would amend the Crime and Courts Act 2013 to confer on the National Crime Agency specific functions to tackle cross-channel organised crime. And under Lords amendments 104 and 107, the Government would set up a 10-year strategy on refugees and human trafficking, working with foreign Governments. Do those four amendments not constitute a credible alternative?

[Robert Jenrick]

As it happens, I will come to each of those points later in my speech, if the hon. and learned Lady does not mind, but in each case, we are already doing what she asks us to do. The Bill has a specific provision in respect of safe and legal routes and, when we had this debate in this House previously, we agreed further to set out the details of that. As for the National Crime Agency, its officers who work on organised immigration crime—I met them in recent weeks in Belgium, France, Italy, Tunisia and Libya—would be very surprised to hear that the agency does not have the authority to act on organised immigration crime because those in some cases very brave men and women are doing that work every single day on our behalf already.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Robert Jenrick]

Let me make a small amount of progress and then I will give way to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams).

I turn to the first issue of substance, which is Lords amendment 2. That would provide that the duty to make arrangements for removal applied to persons who entered illegally from the date of commencement of clause 2, rather than on or after 7 March 2023, as originally provided for in the Bill.

We acknowledge the position advanced by some in the other place and in this House about the retrospective effect of the Bill, but these Lords amendments go too far in resetting the clock. The closer we get to commencement of the Bill, the greater the risk that organised criminals and people smugglers will seek to exploit that, and we will see an increase in crossings as the deadline looms, which would only put more people at risk.

To guard against that, we have brought forward amendments in lieu to move the application of the duty from 7 March to the date of Royal Assent. The date of 7 March, however, would continue to apply for the purpose of the Secretary of State’s power to provide accommodation for unaccompanied children and for the purposes of the bans on re-entry, settlement and citizenship. That Government amendment in lieu has a particular advantage with respect to the concerns about modern slavery expressed by my right hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), but I will come to that in a moment.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Can the Minister tell me how many Afghan women have been able to avail themselves of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme phase 3 programme? That is the Government’s position on a safe and legal route. As we have understood from various Westminster Hall debates, we are looking at a handful in phase 3. Everything else refers to what has happened in 2021. I also draw his attention to the recent horrific drownings off Greece. This included a number of Afghan nationals and people from Pakistan-administered Kashmir. What really is the point of these ineffective, supposed safe routes?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady and I share the same objective: to ensure that the schemes that the Government have established are operationalised as quickly as possible, so that people who are eligible—perhaps including the women she is in contact with—can come to the United Kingdom, settle here and find sanctuary. It is incredibly important that the UK is a beacon in the world for resettlement schemes. We have already supported more than 20,000 people under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and the ACRS to come to the United Kingdom. I appreciate her point that the numbers in recent months have been lower than she or we would like. One reason is that there is so little capacity in the UK today to properly house individuals, and one explanation for that is that the sheer number of individuals entering the country illegally on small boats has placed an intolerable pressure on our social housing and the contingency accommodation that we have available. If we are to bring further individuals to the UK—as we want to do and are continuing to do—they risk being housed in hotels, which is an unacceptable way to house vulnerable people and, in particular, families.

[Debbie Abrahams]

The Minister is being generous with his time. We in the all-party parliamentary group on Afghan women and girls have hundreds of civilians who would like a “homes for Afghans” scheme. These people are waiting and have already volunteered. This scheme is ready and it is equivalent to the Homes for Ukraine scheme, so I urge the Government to take us up on it and make sure that the supposed safe routes are actual safe routes.

[Robert Jenrick]

I strongly endorse the hon. Lady’s comments. The Homes for Ukraine scheme has been superb and we should all be proud of it—I took part in it at one point. If it is possible to create a comparable scheme for Afghans, we should consider that. I know that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, who has responsibility for that issue, is considering it.

On the broader point about resettlement, the UK has a strong record in this regard. Of course, we would all like to go further, but since 2015 we have welcomed 550,000 people to this country on humanitarian grounds, mostly on resettlement schemes. We are one of the world’s leading countries for such schemes.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

While we are on the question of dates, does the Minister have any idea when the Supreme Court may consider and conclude its judgment? That is relevant not only to the question of the Bill’s progress, but to the question of the Parliament Act, in case that were to be needed.

[Robert Jenrick]

It is for the Court to determine, in the first instance, whether it intends to take up the appeal and at what time it will be heard. I can only point my hon. Friend to the final paragraph in the summary judgment from the Court of Appeal, which expressed the view of the three judges that this is a matter of great urgency and that it needs to be handled expeditiously. I hope that the Supreme Court, if it chooses to hear our appeal, does so swiftly, but that is a matter for the Supreme Court.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will, and then I should make some progress.

[Gavin Robinson]

The Minister will know that, from his perspective, I had a difficult approach to the Bill on Second Reading. When he embarked on addressing Lords amendment 2, he said he would now address the first Lords amendment of substance, yet Lords amendment 1 deals with our international obligations. We had the curious start to this Bill that it could not have a full declaration on the front of it about compatibility with some of those international obligations. Perhaps it was just a turn of phrase, but it would be incredibly helpful if the Minister not only addressed Lords amendment 1 and the Government’s approach to international legal obligations but outlined exactly what is contained within Lords amendment 1 that the Government take issue with.

[Robert Jenrick]

I will come back to that issue later in my remarks, but let me be clear, if further reassurance is required, that the Government take our international law obligations extremely seriously. We believe that all the matters outlined in the Bill are within our international legal obligations, and should the Bill or any aspect of it be legally challenged, we will contest that vigorously to defend the position we have set out.

I point the hon. Gentleman to one important element of the recent judgment in the Court of Appeal, which was on this question: if a state such as the United Kingdom used another state and entered into a partnership, such as we have with Rwanda, for the purposes of asylum, would that be compatible with the refugee convention? I point out that all three judges agreed that that was compatible with the refugee convention. On arguably the central international law issue at stake, the Court of Appeal was clear that the Government’s approach is compatible with international law.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

The Minister has made that commitment about the refugee convention, but Lords amendment 1 says that the Bill should be read so as not to conflict with the European convention on human rights, the refugee convention and the conventions on statelessness, the rights of the child and anti-trafficking. Why are the Government so opposed to that clarification and that clear statement on the face of the Bill, if we are the beacon and an adherent to international obligations and law?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is not normal practice to state that on the face of the Bill. It goes without saying that the Government obey our international obligations, as we do with all pieces of legislation.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will make some progress, because I appreciate that this is a relatively short debate. If the hon. and learned Lady does not mind, there are other questions I need to address.

Detention has attracted a great deal of interest from Members from all parts of the House, as indeed it did in the other place. Detention is a necessary part of the scheme provided for in the Bill. The duty on the Home Secretary to make arrangements for removal is accompanied by strong detention powers. We know from experience that once a person is released from detention, the prospects of being able to effect removal are significantly reduced, because they typically abscond. That is why the Bill restricts, but does not exclude, judicial challenges within the first 28 days of detention. That is so that illegal migrants can be processed and removed, rather than simply absconding on arrival. The powers cover family groups the same as others, so as to not provide a perverse incentive for people smugglers and migrants to co-opt unaccompanied children into bogus family groups to avoid detention, putting children at risk in the process.

Lords amendments 31 and 35 to 38 seek to restore the existing 24-hour limit on the detention of unaccompanied children and the 72-hour limit on the detention of pregnant women. I recognise that there are particular sensitivities around the detention of those cohorts, and we debated those at some length in earlier proceedings in this House. Recognising the health concerns around the detention of pregnant women and the particular vulnerability of unaccompanied children, we have brought forward amendments in lieu that maintain the existing 72-hour limit, extendable up to a week with ministerial authorisation, on the detention of pregnant women, and that enable the first-tier tribunal to consider granting immigration bail after eight days for unaccompanied children, rather than the 28 days provided for in the Bill. A number of Members of this House spoke out on the issue of pregnant women, but I pay particular tribute to my noble Friend Baroness Sugg for campaigning in the other place.

[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend knows at first hand the impact this issue has on Dover and Kent—on our schools and other important local services. Given the proposed continuation of special measures for unaccompanied young people and now pregnant women, will he confirm that he will meet me and Kent colleagues to discuss the impact of these proposals, particularly bearing in mind the poor state of our local maternity services and the incredible pressure already being placed on our communities?

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be pleased to meet my hon. Friend, as I have in the past. She knows that I have met local authority leaders in Kent on a number of occasions. I want to do everything I can to support them. Historically, they have borne a high burden as a result of their location adjacent to the points of entry, and that has placed some public services in Kent under a great deal of pressure. In the past 12 months, we have created the national scheme to ensure that unaccompanied children are moved across the country and that all local authorities play an equitable part in supporting them. We have also provided substantial financial incentives to local authorities to help them play their fair part.

I appreciate that nothing is ever as simple as that. Developing further capacity with local authority children’s homes or foster carers takes time, but I hope that the measures we have put in place will make a noticeable difference. Prior to the recent seasonal increase in individuals crossing the channel, we had successfully managed to clear all the UASC—unaccompanied asylum-seeking children—hotels that the Home Office had utilised, and I hope we can keep reliance upon them to an absolute minimum this summer and autumn.

In the case of unaccompanied children, the change I have just described will apply where an unaccompanied child is detained for the purpose of removal, and it aligns with the eight-day period for making a suspensive claim. That approach will ensure that we can continue to detain a person whom we suspect to be an adult, but who claims to be a child, pending the outcome of an age assessment.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

It is important for the Chamber to note that this is not really a concession; it is not even a time limit on the detention of children. It is the ability to apply for bail, as I understand it, after eight days. The person has to be aware of their rights and have access to the ability to challenge detention. It also applies only to a small cohort of children; the vast majority of children detained under the Bill will not have access to this process at all.

[Robert Jenrick]

Respectfully, the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood what we are proposing. If a child who is a genuine child and not subject to age assessment arrives unaccompanied in the United Kingdom, they will be swiftly processed. They will then be sent out into the local authority care system as quickly as possible, until they turn 18. We will seek to remove unaccompanied children in two circumstances, as I set out when we last debated this in the House. The first is where we, the Home Office, manage to reunite them with parents in other countries, as we do in a small number of cases today. The second is where we, the Home Office, manage to return them to their home country, which is a safe country, and in most cases into the care of social services immediately upon arrival. Again, that happens already in a small number of cases. There is no intention to change present practice. We are taking the power to detain, if required, a young person in that situation for up to eight days, housed in age-appropriate accommodation to enable us to make that removal effective.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

If I may, I will give way in the first instance to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford.

[Vicky Ford]

I am listening closely to what my right hon. Friend is saying, and I am thinking in particular about arrivals as well as leavers. Can he confirm that children who are clearly children will be placed in child-appropriate accommodation? Will all those who may or may not be children have appropriate safeguarding? If that is the case, when will we see that in writing?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s interest in the Bill. She and I come at this with exactly the same concern: to protect unaccompanied children. Any genuine child who comes into the United Kingdom will be swiftly taken into the local authority care system, which she is familiar with thanks to her former work as children’s Minister. To the extent that that child is in the detained estate, they will be housed only in age-appropriate accommodation.

[Vicky Ford]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

I will set out in a moment how that age-appropriate accommodation is determined in law today. I give way to my right hon. Friend one more time.

[Vicky Ford]

To dig deeper into that, the Minister has suggested that a child may be detained on arrival, which is not currently the case, but that if that happened, that would be in child-appropriate accommodation.

[Robert Jenrick]

That is correct. The law today is that a child can be detained for eight days for the purpose of examination—that is not routinely done by the Home Office. Today, a child is detained for 24 hours or less and, whether for 24 hours or, if the Home Office chose to make use of the power, for eight days, they are detained only in age-appropriate accommodation. It would be unlawful to house an under-18 in accommodation that did not meet the standard set out in law. I will come on in a moment to describe that standard.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am immensely grateful to my right hon. Friend for all the work he has done on the Bill and these amendments. He will understand that the matters he is discussing bring age verification into sharp focus. As he knows, I tabled an amendment on that, which the Government ultimately re-presented as an amendment of their own. Will he confirm that age verification measures will be obligatory and comprehensive so that we do not any longer get the nonsense of people pretending to be children in order to game the system?

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend is right. We take age assessment extremely seriously. As he knows, there are some young adults and individuals who abuse the system. Indeed, some are not so young—as I understand it, the oldest individual we have encountered who posed as a child was subsequently found to be 41 years of age. That is wrong as a matter of principle, and it is also a serious safeguarding risk to genuine children and all the caring people who are involved in supporting them, whether they be foster carers, teachers or members of the general public. We therefore have to take the issue seriously. That is why the Bill retains the power to detain an individual who is subject to age assessment for up to 28 days. During that period, the Home Office or local authorities would conduct age assessment. Today, that is done through the Merton system, which is proving to take longer than we would like, but which we want to be conducted within 28 days.

We are now taking advantage of the powers taken through the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 to begin to roll out scientific forms of age assessment. That will happen over the course of this year. Initially, it will happen concurrently with the Merton assessment. We want to ensure that that system is demonstrated to be robust and as swift as possible. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will unite in common agreement that it is important that we weed out cases of abuse, because they pose such a risk. I am afraid that we have seen some very tragic instances such as the murder that occurred in Bournemouth at the behest of somebody who had posed as a child. The state has to do everything in its power to prevent that from happening again.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

If I may make some more progress, I will happily come to the hon. Gentleman later. I want to conclude the point that I was making to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) on the detention periods and standard of accommodation, because that is important. I assure her, and indeed my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has also taken an interest in the issue, that we will seek to detain unaccompanied children for the shortest possible period. Where there is no dispute that someone is under 18, they will be transferred to the local authority accommodation estate as quickly as possible. Where there is doubt about whether a person is indeed under 18 as they claim to be, they will be treated as a child while an age assessment is undertaken. Such a person will be detained in age-appropriate accommodation, as the law already provides. That is set out in the Detention Centre Rules 2001 made under section 153 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Rule 11 provides that:

“Detained persons aged under 18 and families will be provided with accommodation suitable to their needs.”

If no such accommodation is available, they will not be detained and instead will be transferred to a local authority as soon as possible. I hope that provides my right hon. Friend with the assurance she seeks.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The Minister quoted the Detention Centre Rules 2001, which are of course 22 years old. Rule 11 says:

“Detained persons aged under 18 and families will be provided with accommodation suitable to their needs.”

Although there is a checklist of about 65 things, virtually all of them are about fabric, freedom to practise religion and access to personal hygiene. Which of the rules contains support services that are relevant and age-appropriate to children?

[Robert Jenrick]

The rules are related to 2001, as my hon. Friend says, but as I understand it they have been updated since then. They have also been tested on a number of occasions in the courts, and the Home Office takes seriously its responsibility to live up to them. It would be unlawful if we were to accommodate an under-18 inappropriately. If I may, I will read out the other limbs of rule 11, entitled “Families and minors”. They are, first:

“Detained family members shall be entitled to enjoy family life at the detention centre save to the extent necessary in the interests of security and safety.

Secondly:

“Detained persons aged under 18 and families will be provided with accommodation suitable to their needs.”

Thirdly:

“Everything reasonably necessary for detained persons’ protection, safety and well-being and the maintenance and care of infants and children shall be provided.”

That, I think, is a comprehensive set of principles. It is one that has stood the test of time over the last 22 years. If it needed to be strengthened, of course we will do so, but I hope that my hon. Friend will take my strong assurance from the Dispatch Box that that is the standard of accommodation in which we intend to house anyone who is a minor. If that accommodation were not available, we would not house those individuals in detained accommodation at all.

[Tim Loughton]

Will the Minister give way again?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will give way one last time.

[Tim Loughton]

The Minister is being generous. I will elaborate on this point if I am lucky enough to catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker. Where in those 65 rules are relevant child-appropriate support services such as social workers, child psychologists and others that would be necessary mentioned? Nothing that he has described guarantees that children will be in age-appropriate accommodation that has age-appropriate care. That is the point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I am happy to write to my hon. Friend detailing all the support that would be available. The point that I am making is that this is the existing law, and it has existed for more than 20 years. Nothing in the Bill changes that framework. The Home Office will rely on the existing framework that has been in place throughout the years, including when he was the children’s Minister, and it was considered satisfactory throughout that period.

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on everything he is doing on this issue, especially in relation to unaccompanied minors. Is he convinced that everything he is doing will not create a perverse incentive for evil people smugglers to push unaccompanied minors on to boats to cross the English channel? Of course, once they are here, they can bring over their family and so on. Is he convinced that we will do everything we can to stop that perverse incentive?

[Robert Jenrick]

The changes that we are proposing in the Government amendments in lieu strike the right balance, whereby we preserve the intention of the scheme that lies at the heart of the Bill but provide some further protections for minors. My hon. Friend is right to make the broader point that more substantial changes to the Bill, such as those envisaged by some Members of the other place, would undermine its very purpose.

In considering each and every one of the Lords amendments, we must ensure that we do not drive a coach and horses through the core deterrent effect that we are trying to achieve. Why do we want that deterrent effect? Because we do not want anyone, whether an adult or a child, crossing the channel in small boats, placing themselves in danger and being under the support and control of people smugglers and human traffickers. We must keep in mind the original purpose of the Bill, and ensure that we do not do anything to undermine that.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

On age-appropriate accommodation and family life, could the Minister explain why he felt that the murals on the wall at the Kent intake unit damaged the deterrent effect of which he has just spoken? In that context, if parents are to continue to have family life with their children for the time that they are detained, will there be any chance of them having access to picture books to enable them to read to their children?

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not know whether the right hon. Member has been to any of the facilities, but we provide very high-quality facilities for families and children upon immediate arrival in the UK. I have made it a particular focus to ensure that we support those individuals appropriately, ensuring that conditions in those places are decent and compassionate at all times. The cohort of unaccompanied children who passed through the location that he describes last year was largely teenagers. We did not feel that the site was age-appropriate, but it contains a range of support for children and infants, including all the things that he has described. Nothing about the decoration of sites changes the fundamentals: if someone comes to the United Kingdom, we will treat them with decency and compassion at all times.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want the Minister to be explicit about the type of detention centre that we are talking about. For example, will children, whether unaccompanied or with their parents, be detained in detention centres such as Harmondsworth and Colnbrook? We agreed on a cross-party basis that they should never again be detained in those centres.

[Robert Jenrick]

The right hon. Gentleman is particularly knowledgeable on this issue, because he represents immigration removal centres. It is not the Government’s intention that families or minors will be housed in those settings. Minors and families will be housed in age-appropriate accommodation, which is entirely separate and different in nature from the immigration removal centres that he represents. There are facilities such as those today, though not a large number of them. As part of the operationalisation of the Bill, we will need to invest in further facilities and ensure that they meet the standards set out in the detention rules as I have just described. I hope that gives him some reassurance.

[Vicky Ford]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

I will give way, but then I really must make progress, or else other Members will not have an opportunity to speak.

[Vicky Ford]

I thank my right hon. Friend. There is a huge amount of concern about how the Bill will be implemented. We thought that hotels would be only temporary, yet they seem to have carried on. The Minister has said that when a child comes in, they will be moved into local authority care as soon as possible. Under the Bill, what is the maximum amount of time that a child could wait before they are in that local authority care?

[Robert Jenrick]

The position today is that a child arrives in the United Kingdom and is immediately processed in an age-appropriate setting. We then seek to place them with local authorities. Only if local authority care is not immediately available do we deploy the Home Office UASC hotels. There have been incidences, such as last year, when young people were waiting in those hotels for a period of days. That is not our intention. The only limiting factor is the availability of local authority care to support them. If more local authorities were able to come forward—as I said, that is not simple because they have their own capacity constraints—we would not use those hotels at all. It is not our intention to detain minors for a long period for examination. We want them to flow straight out into local authority care, as is the right thing to do.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Minister is being pressed on the nature of accommodation or detention that children and young people will be held in. The spirit behind the Minister’s intention matters. Therefore, will he tell us if is it true that he gave orders to the asylum reception centre to paint over children’s cartoons? If so, why? Nobody believes that Mickey Mouse cartoons encourage or deter boats from arriving; they simply think that the Minister is not showing common decency towards vulnerable children.

[Robert Jenrick]

I have been clear in answer to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) that we provide very high quality care at all the centres in which we support unaccompanied children. We did not think that the set-up in that particular unit was age-appropriate, because the majority of the individuals who passed through it unaccompanied last year were teenagers. That does not change the fundamentals that we support with decency and compassion anyone who comes to this country.

The right hon. Lady is missing the point: this Bill seeks to reduce the number of unaccompanied minors coming to the United Kingdom, precisely because we want to protect them and ensure that they are not victims of people smugglers and human traffickers. I take at face value her support for those individuals, but if she wanted to reduce that trade, she would support the Bill or come forward with a credible alternative. She has not done so. Her compassion is, to a degree, performative, because she does not come forward with alternatives that would genuinely support individuals.

Let me move on to modern slavery. The provisions in the Bill relating to that have been of particular concern to my right hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead and for Chingford and Woodford Green. I welcome the opportunity in recent days to discuss with them the Lords amendments on this issue. It remains our view that there are clear opportunities to misuse modern slavery protections, and it is therefore essential that we take steps in the Bill to prevent misuse. The national referral mechanism rate for people arriving in the UK on small boats and being detained for return has risen from 6% for detentions ending in 2019 to 73% in 2021. The referral rate has since fallen slightly to 65% for detentions ending between January and September. The 33% increase in NRM referrals from 2021 to 2022 has put the NRM under serious strain, which is only getting worse as the trends increase in one direction. There is significant and increasing pressure on public services, which is why we want to take action.

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the discussions we have had recently. He knows that I have a problem with the statistics: he has, yet again, quoted the statistics that the Minister in the other place quoted as well, which imply that the percentage of people coming on small boats and claiming modern slavery has risen from 6% to 73%. It did not. He is talking about people who are subsequently detained for removal. Will he now confirm that the average percentage of people coming on small boats and claiming modern slavery has not changed over the last three years, and is around 7%?

[Robert Jenrick]

I think that my right hon. Friend and I agree that the point at which individuals misuse the NRM is the point at which the state tries to remove them from the country. Our concern is that there is a significant increase in the number of people misusing the NRM—and the good work that my right hon. Friend has done on this issue—to bring about a spurious, frivolous, last-minute way of frustrating their removal from the country. So the statistics I referred to are the most relevant statistics, because that is the point at which individuals are in the detained estate for the purpose of removal. Their removal from the United Kingdom is imminent and we are seeing a very high proportion of them using the NRM to try to delay that removal. Delay, as she knows from her great experience, is particularly relevant, because once someone has delayed their removal, they are liable to be bailed and to go back out into the community. Some will be very difficult to bring back into the detained estate, or may abscond and never be seen again. Even under the current system, that makes it extremely difficult to remove people.

Under the scheme envisaged by the Bill, we will seek to remove many of those people to a safer country such as Rwanda, while today we predominantly remove people back home to their own countries, such as Albania and Romania, so the incentive to misuse the NRM will be significantly higher. It is reasonable to assume that a very large number of individuals will make use of that as a route to frustrate the scheme. As I said earlier, that risks driving a coach and horses through the purpose of the Bill, which is a swift and speedy form of removal to act as a deterrent to prevent people making the crossing in the first place.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

There are two elements here. First, the whole system can be massively speeded up, which is a fact of the NRM, straightaway. That was an obligation I was meant to have been given in the previous Bill, but it was never brought into the guidance. But the main point here is that nothing that happens outside the UK can be evidenced on this particular point. We are talking about the Minister’s fear that people are departing to within the UK and then subsequently making a claim. The real problem with the Bill right now—he knows I have concerns about this—is that much of the prosecution process against the traffickers can take place only because of the evidence given by those who have been trafficked. On Report, the presumption in the Bill suddenly changed dramatically—it was done without any notice. There is now a presumption that they do not need to be here at all, other than if there is some evidence that somehow they do, whereas before it was that in order to get that evidence, they do need to be here. Why are we knocking out the amendment, rather than amending it and specifying which categories are exempt? He runs the risk of people not giving evidence and not co-operating with the police, and us not getting prosecutions. If they are going to be cleared out of the UK while giving evidence—this is the point—the reality is that they will stop doing so, because they will be in danger of being picked up by the traffickers again outside the UK. Will he therefore rethink this and put something on the face of the Bill to define those who are exempt?

[Robert Jenrick]

First, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead for their advice and wise counsel. We have sought to make changes and to listen to their point of view. That is why we brought forward two significant changes. One, as I have outlined, with respect to retrospection, means that the cohort of individuals who entered the United Kingdom from 7 March to Royal Assent who have not been in the detained estate and are then, if you like, in the community at large—in many cases they are living in supported accommodation and in some cases are liable to exploitation by human traffickers and other criminals—will now not be included in the full extent of the Bill’s provisions and so can be supported in the ways that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodgreen wishes. That has significantly reduced the pool of individuals he has concerns about. We are also—I will come on to this in a moment—committing to bringing forward statutory guidance, which I hope will provide further reassurance on the question of how law enforcement authorities would interact with victims of modern slavery to ensure that they can be appropriately supported, and have the time they need to recover and bring forward their claims so that we can all achieve our shared objective, which is the prosecution of human traffickers.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I recognise that the Minister has moved in some measure on these issues and I am grateful for that, but may I return to the point about the statutory guidance? Surely, given that we all accept that we will only deal with the organised criminals who run modern slavery with the co-operation of their victims, we cannot proceed with the clause as it currently stands without knowing what the statutory guidance will be? It was well known that this was going to be an issue, so I am surprised, frankly, that the draft statutory guidance has not been available to us today. That might well have reassured us sufficiently to support the Minister in his contention. As it is, that is still left hanging in the air. When will we see that statutory guidance?

[Robert Jenrick]

Let me answer my hon. Friend’s questions by setting out what will be contained in the statutory guidance. The operation of the exception for potential victims of modern slavery to remain in the United Kingdom for the purpose of co-operating with law enforcement agencies in connection with the investigation of a trafficking offence will be subject to statutory guidance. The guidance will provide that an individual who has arrived in the UK illegally and has a positive reasonable grounds decision based on an incident that has taken place in the UK, will be afforded 30 days from that positive decision to confirm that they will co-operate with an investigation relating to their exploitation. They will not be removed within that period, which accords them with protections that are equivalent to those set out in the European convention on action against trafficking in human beings. Should they continue to co-operate with such an investigation, they will continue to be entitled to the support and protections of the NRM. Should further time be required in addition to the 30 days, that period is extendable so that the police and the victim have the time necessary to ensure that traffickers are brought to justice. I hope that that answers his question. I appreciate his desire to see the letter of the statutory guidance, and I will take that away, but that is the essence of it—the position that mirrors the ECAT provisions.

[Sir Robert Neill]

When will that come into force? Surely, we have to have that in force before the provisions in the Bill come into force. Can he give us that assurance and confirmation?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is our intention that the statutory guidance will be provided and in place for the commencement of the Bill. I hope that that also answers the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green about the fact that he feels that previous assurances in prior legislation were not fully delivered.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I welcome some of the moves the Government have made and I support the principles of what the Bill is trying to do. However, this is a really significant problem of the Government cutting off their nose to spite their face. The positive we have is that when victims give evidence and a prosecution takes place, it cuts down the likelihood that traffickers will be allowed to traffic boats across. When that is turned around, it contradicts the purpose of the Bill. The point I made to the Minister earlier was that the sudden change to the presumption power of the Secretary of State is really where the problem arises. Surely the way to deal with that is not through the guidance mechanism, but to ensure, on the face of the Bill, that that presumption is restricted, and clearly restricted. He talks about the intention of the guidance. I was given that assurance on the other Bill in December. No guidance emerged subsequently so he will forgive me, having sat in Government myself, if I do not always take the word of the Government absolutely as a categorical assurance. The only way we can get this is by doing something on the face of the Bill. The amendment, as amended, would really help enormously to reassure people and achieve the Government’s objective, which is more prosecutions and fewer boats.

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s position, but I hope he will accept that we intend to bring forward the statutory guidance and that it will set out the points I have just described. They do accord with ECAT. I appreciate that there are those who would like a longer period than 30 days, but that seems a reasonable place to settle, given that that is what the framers of ECAT themselves chose as the period for recovery and for bringing forward claims.

[Mrs May]

I am just a little confused and I hope my right hon. Friend can help me. He says that the Government want to bring forward the guidance, yet they oppose Lords amendment 57. Lords amendment 57, as I read it, would confer a power on the Secretary of State

“by regulations to make provision about the circumstances in which it is necessary for a person present in the UK to provide cooperation of the kind mentioned”

earlier in the clause. That is precisely the guidance he is now saying he will bring in, so why is he opposing Lords amendment 57?

[Robert Jenrick]

We do not need that power, so the amendment is superfluous; we already have the power to bring forward statutory guidance. It was our intention to do that. The guidance is being drafted, and it will set out what I have detailed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not, if the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me. I feel that I have to make progress now.

Lords amendments 1, 7, 90 and 93 are all the more unnecessary as the Bill already affords adequate protections against removal to a country that is unsafe for a particular person. That brings me to Lords amendment 23, about the removal of LGBT people to certain countries. Let me say unambiguously that we treat the safety of LGBT people with the utmost seriousness, and do not want to do anything that would in any way compromise their safety and security. I regret to say that Lords amendment 23, though clearly well intentioned, misunderstands the approach taken in the Bill. With the exception of EU and European economic area nationals and those of Switzerland and Albania, people will not be returned to their home country if they make a protection claim. If a person is issued with a third-country removal notice, they can challenge their removal to the specified country on the basis that they would face a real risk of serious and irreversible harm there, including persecution. If a serious harm suspensive claim is refused, the person has an avenue of appeal to the upper tribunal. The amendment is well meant, but the concerns that underpin it are unfounded. We take pride in the UK’s support for LGBT communities globally, and our commitment to this cause remains unwavering.

[Joanna Cherry]

Rwanda has no laws prohibiting discrimination against same-sex attracted people, and people whose gender identity is different from their sex at birth. Can the Minister not understand why an LGBT person might rather come to the UK for asylum, where we have such anti-discrimination laws, than be sent somewhere like Rwanda, which does not?

[Robert Jenrick]

I understand the hon. and learned Lady’s point. I say two things in response. First, the premise of asylum claims being handled in safe third countries is that those countries must be safe. Through our partnership with the Government of Rwanda, we have done work to ensure that appropriate safeguards are put in place. That has been tested by the courts, and remains an ongoing matter for the courts. Secondly, we placed a safeguard in the scheme: a person can claim that their removal to that country would put them at real risk of serious and irreversible harm, which includes persecution. I completely understand why the hon. and learned Lady says what she does, and the legitimate concern that she voices, but I do not think that the instance that she raises is founded in reality. If it were, we would take that very seriously indeed, because the Government do not want to do anything to compromise the safety and security of LGBT people.

In response to Lords amendments 73 and 74 about the power to amend the meaning of “serious and irreversible harm”, we have sought to provide further assurance by bringing forward an amendment in lieu to ensure that the power cannot be used to remove the provisions in clause 38(4) that set out what constitutes serious and irreversible harm.

Lords amendments 8 and 9 undermine a key plank of the Bill, which is the provision under which asylum and relevant human rights claims can be declared inadmissible. Lords amendment 8 would incentivise people smugglers to prioritise unaccompanied children, which would put more young lives at risk and split more families. Amendment 9 would simply afford illegal entrants yet another opportunity of playing the system and dragging things out as long as possible, in the hope that they would become eligible for asylum.

Lords amendment 50 seeks to limit the Secretary of State’s power to transfer a child out of local authority accommodation and into accommodation provided or arranged by the Secretary of State, by providing that the Secretary of State may do so only where that is necessary to safeguard and promote the welfare of the child. Again, the amendment is unnecessary and duplicates existing law. Under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, the Home Secretary is already required to have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of the child when making a decision to exercise the “vice versa” power.

Moving on to safe and legal routes, Lords amendment 102 relates to clause 59, which requires the Home Secretary, within six months of Royal Assent, to prepare and publish a report on the safe and legal routes by which persons may enter the UK, including any proposed additional safe and legal routes. Lords amendment 102 would in effect mandate that such additional safe and legal routes be brought into being within two months of the publication of the clause 59 report. Again, the amendment is unnecessary. As I set out on Report in April, we will implement any proposed new routes as soon as practicable, and in any event by the end of 2024.

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I have listened very carefully to everything that the Minister has said on this subject, and I know that he is sincere in his intentions. We agree on the need for a quota when it comes to safe and legal routes, but will he accept that 18 months hence is an inordinately long time, bearing in mind that the Bill will have come into force? While we might not be able to have complete synchronicity of new routes with the coming into force of this important Bill, can we at least have a much greater sense of urgency, and bring forward proposals for safe and legal routes much sooner than the end of next year?

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. and learned Friend and I share a concern on this issue. We want to bring forward any new routes as soon as is practical; he has my assurance, and that of the Government, that we will move as quickly as we can. I do not think it is practicable for new routes to be brought into being within two months of the publication of the report provided for in clause 59. It inevitably takes time to work with partners such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on developing a credible scheme, and to implement it. It is important that we give the Home Office the necessary time. However, I have been very clear that we will move as quickly as possible. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) says that we have had 13 years; more humanitarian visas were issued last year by this Conservative Government than probably any Government since the second world war. Since 2015, under a majority Conservative Government, 550,000 people have entered the UK on humanitarian grounds. That compares extremely favourably with the record of the Government of which she was a member.

[Hilary Benn]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will; then I will need to bring my remarks to a close.

[Hilary Benn]

The Government have said that they are committed to bringing forward safe, legal routes, but that they will not do that until they have stopped the boats. Does the Minister not recognise that one thing that the Government could do that would help stop the boats is bring forward safe, legal routes?

[Robert Jenrick]

No, I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I think there is a role for safe, legal routes, and I want the UK to be respected internationally for the way in which we support those seeking sanctuary. That is what we have ensured in recent years by creating world-leading schemes, such as those for Ukraine, Syria and Hong Kong, and indeed there is also the global scheme, which is operated by the UNHCR. I do not accept the argument that I think he is advancing, which is that if we produce a larger safe and legal route to the United Kingdom, it will lead to a reduction in the number of individuals crossing illegally in small boats. The individuals we would likely bring to the United Kingdom under a safe and legal route are quite different, in the main, from those coming across in small boats. Most of our small boat arrivals are young men in their 20s and 30s who are already in a place of safety—France—with a fully functioning asylum system. The kind of scheme the Government envisage for safe and legal routes is one where we take families and vulnerable people directly from conflict zones or refugee camps elsewhere in the world. That is a very different system from offering a safe and legal route to predominantly young men in a place of safety to come to the United Kingdom. That does not denude the value of having safe and legal routes, but the purpose is different.

Lords amendment 103 relates to the functions of the National Crime Agency, and I am afraid that it just amounts to legislative grandstanding. The NCA’s statutory functions already cover tackling organised immigration crime. As such, the amendment simply risks undermining the operational independence of the director general by tying his hands as to how to organise the NCA to best deliver its objectives. As I said in answer to an earlier question, our colleagues at the NCA who work every day on organised immigration crime would be very surprised to hear the contention that they are not focused on this work, because they certainly are.

Finally, Lords amendment 104, which was tabled by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is well-meaning but unnecessary. It is a distraction from the immediate priority of stopping the boats and tackling the threat to life arising from dangerous, illegal and unnecessary channel crossings. That is the aim of the Bill, and the Lords amendment does not reflect the actions that we have already taken through cross-Government initiatives to tackle the refugee crisis and through the ongoing work to deliver our strategic approach to tackling human trafficking. Moreover, it does not recognise how this country has responded to the result of crises, offering sanctuary to over 550,000 people through safe and legal routes since 2015.

By getting a grip on illegal migration, we aim to reduce the pressure that it places on our public services and on community cohesion and to increase the capacity to support those who seek sanctuary here in the UK. The stop-the-boats Bill is designed to ensure that the UK can be an even greater force for good in the world by using our finite resources on those who truly need it.

In conclusion, it is vital that this Bill reaches the statute book quickly and in a form that will stop the boats. It is riddled with exceptions and get-out clauses placed in it by the other place. If they remain, it will simply not work. We have to send a clear message back to the other place that it is now their turn to think again and to respect the will of the elected House. The public expect us to tackle this issue, to secure our borders and to stop the boats.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

21. What recent progress her Department has made on reducing the backlog of asylum applications.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

We are making good progress, and the latest Home Office statistics show that asylum decisions are up, with a 35% increase since last year in the number made. Productivity has increased, and we are on track to have 2,500 decision makers by September, which represents a quadrupling of the number of case workers.

[Chi Onwurah]

Like many Members from all parties, I am constantly contacted by refugees who are desperate to know what is happening to their asylum claim after years of waiting, so I asked the Home Office how many refugees in Newcastle had been waiting for one, two, three, four and five years. The answer came back that the Home Office does not know—it does not even record the data. Instead of indulging in unworkable, unethical, illegal and unaffordable flights of Rwandan fantasy, why does the Home Secretary not focus on her day job and fix the asylum backlog?

[Robert Jenrick]

As I just said, we are making good progress on reducing the asylum backlog. Important though the reducing the backlog is, however, it cannot be the totality of a plan. This is the point that the Labour party does not seem to understand: we have to stop the boats coming in the first place. That is the only sustainable way to tackle the issue. Even if we grant our way out of this problem, as the shadow Home Secretary seems to propose, the pressures on the state still remain; they are simply transferred to local authorities and the benefits system, and the British taxpayer continues to pick up the bill.

[Kevin Brennan]

The Minister has an interesting definition of being “on track”; did the number of decision makers not fall between January and May this year, from 1,333 to 1,280?

A constituent recently passed on to me a letter from a firm of local solicitors that said:

“All possible avenues have been considered to avoid this situation but regrettably, the Home Office’s long term failure to progress asylum claims, and current Government immigration policy, has made it financially unsustainable for”

these solicitors

“to continue Legally Aided work.”

How does it help us as MPs on both sides of the House in our constituency offices, and how does it help with the backlog that the Home Office says it wants to reduce, to make sure that people do not have the legal representation they need to unblock the system and allow progress in asylum cases?

[Robert Jenrick]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the problem with our asylum system is not a lack of lawyers; there are plenty of legal representatives around. We have had strong overall progress on the backlog, and I am pleased to say that the early data that I have received suggests that last week saw the best performance in four years.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I know how seriously the Minister takes dealing with the legacy backlog, but, as the Home Secretary showed at the recent Home Affairs Committee, in order to deal with that backlog in the timeframe that the Government have set themselves it would require at least a quadrupling of the number of cases being dealt with as from 1 June. Even with the extra 500 staff appointed at Stoke, that will be challenging. Will the Minister give me an assurance that, if we have not managed to clear the backlog before the end of the year, it will not be done by a blanket amnesty?

[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.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

The Government’s destruction of their own asylum system can best be described as an act of arson and their plans to fix it are utterly farcical. They have sent more Home Secretaries than asylum seekers to Rwanda. They sent the Prime Minister on a victory lap in Dover, apparently failing to notice that the weather improves over the summer and the boat numbers increase. And they were in such a flap about losing votes on their bigger backlog Bill that they resorted to dragging Lord Lebedev of Siberia into the Division Lobby. Now the Court of Appeal ruling has revealed that Rwanda is able to process only 100 claims per year—around 0.3% of those who arrived on small boats last year. Can the Minister tell me what he is planning to do with the remaining 99.7%, and does he therefore agree that the prospect of the Rwanda plan actually deterring any migrant from crossing the channel is close to zero?

[Robert Jenrick]

I used to say that the Labour party does not have a plan, but the truth is that it does have a plan, but it is a plan that would make things significantly worse. It is a plan that would ensure more granting of cases; more safe and legal routes, so even more individuals would come here; more hotels; and more cost to the British taxpayer. What is so disgraceful is the level of hypocrisy. We only have to look at the record of Welsh Labour to see that. In Wales, the Welsh Minister for Social Justice declared on 15 occasions in the Senedd that Labour-run Wales was “a nation of sanctuary”, but across the same period, Labour-run Wales accommodated 176 fewer asylum seekers. In fact, the latest published data shows that Labour-run Wales has taken just half the number of people that it should per capita.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

5. Whether she has had recent discussions with the devolved Administrations on the Illegal Migration Bill.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

I have engaged regularly with the devolved Administrations on the Illegal Migration Bill since its introduction in March, in addition to my periodic meetings with my ministerial counterparts on a variety of immigration issues. Most recently, I met the Scottish Minister for Equalities, Migration and Refugees in May. Looking ahead, the Bill is on the agenda for the inter-ministerial group for safety, security and migration, which my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary will chair later this month.

[Chris Stephens]

The Bill will place restrictions on the powers of Scottish Ministers, removing the entitlement for victims of human trafficking and exploitation to access Scottish Government-funded support services, and will undermine the Scottish Government’s ability to deliver on their trafficking and exploitation strategy. We know what route the Government’s damaging ideology is dragging them down, but why should Scotland’s elected Parliament and the devolved Administrations be dragged down the same route, when it is abundantly clear that we want no part of the hostile environment ideology?

[Robert Jenrick]

If the Scottish Government cared so deeply about this issue, they would accommodate more asylum seekers. The SNP Government are accommodating just 4.5% of the total asylum population being accommodated in the UK, when Scotland makes up 8.1% of the UK population. I took the time to look at some of the statistics for those local authorities in Scotland where the SNP is the largest party: Clackmannanshire, zero asylum seekers; Dundee, zero asylum seekers; East Ayrshire, zero; East Dunbartonshire, zero; Midlothian, zero; North Ayrshire—want to take a guess, Mr Speaker? —zero; North Lanarkshire, six—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. No, no, no—you are going to get my drift. We cannot read out phone numbers. This is not the “Yellow Pages” advert. One or two statistics are fine, but when we get to five I really do worry. Let us have the SNP spokesperson.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Minister clearly thinks that that is a very clever line, but he knows well that Glasgow takes more refugees per head of population than any other local authority in the United Kingdom. The line he is trotting out is simply wrong and it is insulting to all those in Scotland who have opened their homes to Ukrainians, the communities across the country who have welcomed Syrians and the volunteers in the big cities who work with asylum seekers every day, helping them to overcome trauma. If he wants Scotland to do more to welcome refugees, when is he going to devolve the power and the financial levers that would allow us to do so?

[Robert Jenrick]

For good reason, immigration is a reserved matter, but the statistics I have just read out make the point as clear as can be. The SNP tries its very best to undermine the Government’s work to stop the boats, but it refuses to accommodate these people when they arrive, and the costs of its fake humanitarianism are borne by everyone but itself. That is not just hypocrisy; it is deeply irresponsible, and the public have had enough.

[Patrick Grady]

It is not the Scottish Government’s policy towards immigration, refugees and asylum seekers that has been ruled unlawful by the Court of Appeal. If the Minister wants the system to work and he wants the Scottish Government to do their part, he must take more action to clear the backlog, as we have heard; there must be proper safe and legal rights for people to arrive; and they must be given the right to work when they get here, because then they can pay for their own accommodation and they will not cost the taxpayer money.

[Robert Jenrick]

Just the other day, the Home Office suggested to the Scottish Government that a vessel that had been used to house Ukrainian refugees in Leith could be used for others who are asylum seekers—the same vessel, the same port, the same provider, the same package. What did the SNP say? No.

[Ms Anum Qaisar (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

6. What recent assessment she has made of the compatibility of the Illegal Migration Bill with the 1951 UN refugee convention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

15. What recent progress her Department has made on reducing the use of hotels as contingency asylum accommodation.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

The Home Office seeks to end the use of hotels and to move asylum seekers to less expensive, more suitable accommodation. To support that, we are bringing into use large, disused military sites and vessels, which will provide adequate, safe, secure, non-detained accommodation for asylum seekers and also reduce the pull factor to the United Kingdom.

[Mrs Hamilton]

I recently received an email from the Home Office that said that the use of hotels to house asylum seekers is “inappropriate”, and that reliance on them must be reduced. In the same email, the Home Office informed me that it planned to increase the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers in my constituency of Erdington by 159%—the single biggest increase in the whole of Birmingham. How on earth can the Minister expect the country to trust him when he cannot even keep his policies consistent within the same email?

[Robert Jenrick]

The policy that we have adopted is one of maximising the capacity of the hotels that we have for as long as we have them. That is saving the taxpayer at least a quarter of a billion pounds and reducing reliance on hotels elsewhere in the country. I do appreciate that there are pressures on the hon. Lady’s local authority, and I also appreciate that some Labour local authorities, such as Westminster City Council, say that asylum seekers must be housed in individual, ensuite bedrooms. We do not agree with that: it is a gross waste of taxpayers’ money that would make the UK a soft touch.

[Jeff Smith]

In my constituency, I have had the same experience as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton), but the question I want to ask is about unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The Home Office still has not explained how it is going to find the children missing from asylum accommodation, so will it set out the plans to do that and find these vulnerable people?

[Robert Jenrick]

We have been very clear that we and the police take extremely seriously any young person who goes missing from a hotel or any other form of accommodation. Local police forces and Home Office personnel treat that exactly as they would any other child going missing and they conduct a full missing person inquiry. However, the only sustainable answer to young people living in hotels is to stop the boats in the first place. Doing nothing is not an option. Doing nothing will lead to more young people living in those hotels and being exposed to human traffickers.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

While I do very much welcome the Minister’s determination to move away from hotels and towards other accommodation, will he give particular attention to the Wiltshire hotel and golf club in my constituency? The number there has gone up: there are now 120 people there, and they are all crammed into very small accommodation. It is not only bad from the point of view of the golf club members and neighbouring long-term residents with them in housing next door, but it is an extremely bad place from the point of view of the asylum seekers. They have nowhere to go and nothing to do. They have no education facilities and no religious facilities. They are stuck in the middle of the countryside with no transport, and it is quite the wrong place for them to be. Will the Minister please give particular attention to the Wiltshire hotel?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am familiar with the hotel in my hon. Friend’s constituency and the concerns he has raised. I will take a look at that, but as I have said previously, the answer to this challenge is to stop the boats coming in the first place. That is why we all need to support the Illegal Migration Bill. Those who want more hotels would oppose it. The Labour party’s policy will see more hotels, and the shadow Home Secretary will end up with more hotels to her name than Paris Hilton.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I do not know how to follow that, Mr Speaker.

All Members would like to see a reduction in the number of hotels used for asylum accommodation—I am sure that is true—but will the Minister spend a moment to congratulate the community of Sharnbrook, and in particular Rev. Paolo Di Leo and Councillor Doug McMurdo, on providing a welcoming environment for people who are put in such accommodation? I think there are signs across the country that communities do come together in these difficult circumstances to achieve an outcome that is beneficial for everyone.

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be very happy to put on record my view of the good work being done by my hon. Friend’s constituents. He is right to say that there are voluntary and community groups, charities and churches right across the country that support asylum seekers while they are in this form of accommodation, and we and our providers facilitate that wherever possible.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

T3.   May I assure my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that the majority of my constituents in Sittingbourne and Sheppey understand that sending illegal migrants to Rwanda for processing is key to stopping small-boat crossings in the channel? Will she assure them that despite concerted opposition from the Labour party, she will deliver her plan?

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. We are disappointed by the judgment of the Court of Appeal, but we are determined to follow through. He is right to say that we have to add deterrence to the system, as it is only by breaking the business model of the people smugglers that we will stop the boats.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

T7. My constituents want community policing. Kim McGuinness, the police and crime commissioner for Northumbria, has put in place a redeployment programme to get an extra 134 officers into neighbourhoods, but that will not make up for the 1,100 officers and the £148 million that we have lost due to budget cuts. And before the Minister mentions “plans”, that will still leave us 400 officers short. Why have the Tories failed so badly to get police officers on to the beat?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

T9. Given the exchanges earlier, I am obliged to ask the Home Secretary whether she understands the difference between using a cruise ship for the temporary accommodation of Ukrainian refugees, with a shared language and experience, and who have the right to work and are being actively relocated in the community, and using it essentially as a prison ship for the indefinite long-term detention of asylum seekers, who have no right to leave, no right to work, no right to benefits and no recourse to public funds. Does the Department appreciate the difference?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am disappointed by the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. He knows perfectly well that the proposition was not a prison ship. This is a ship that will be used in exactly the same way as the SNP Government did in Scotland, and in exactly the same way as the Belgian and the Dutch Governments are doing in their respective areas. If I may say, in Edinburgh today, there are 37 asylum seekers. That is disgraceful. If the SNP cared about this issue, it would step up, support asylum seekers and back our Bill.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

People in Southend West want to see a tough, but just policy on illegal immigration that stops people unfairly jumping the queue, that stops evil people smugglers and above all stops vulnerable people drowning in the channel. Will my right hon. Friend therefore agree that we must continue to send a strong signal that it is this Government —not unelected lawyers or criminal gangs—who will decide who comes to this country?

[Robert Jenrick]

At the core of this question is: who decides who comes to this country? Is it for the Government and Parliament, or is it for people smugglers and human traffickers? Those of us on the Government Benches know exactly which side of the debate we are on; we want to stop the boats, and we want to secure our borders.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The family of my constituent who fled Sudan have been stuck in Egypt for more than two months awaiting a spousal visa. Four of the group of five have UK passports. Can the Minister tell us how long he would expect people to be waiting in this kind of situation when they have suffered such distress and anxiety?

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to look into the case for the hon. Gentleman, but I can say to him that we are processing applications in third countries within service standards. We have closed the visa application centre in Khartoum for obvious reasons to protect the security of our staff and contractors, but we have teams in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and in other close countries who are there to support applicants, such as his constituents.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Given this morning’s U-turn by the Mayor of London on selling off Uxbridge police station, does the Minister believe that the Mayor should also act to save Barnet police station? If he does not, the Mayor’s decision on Uxbridge looks like cynical political gameplaying and interference in a by-election.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

In the chief inspector of borders and immigration’s latest report on the Home Office system to remove foreign national offenders, he said

“the Home Office does not have a firm grip on its caseworking operations”,

and

“This is no way to run a government department.”

He also said

“I found the Home Office’s inability to provide reliable or consistent data and management information of particular concern.”

Given that, will the Minister explain how the Department will cope with the increase in casework, detention and removals planned under the Illegal Immigration (Offences) Bill?

[Robert Jenrick]

We take that report, as we do all others, very seriously. The right hon. Lady is right to say that there are lessons to be learned. However, returns are increasing as a result of deals such as the one we have done with Albania, as a result of reforms such as those we have made to the national referral mechanism and as a result of the 50% increase in illegal working visits that we have secured this year alone.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

Despite repeated assurances from the Dispatch Box and it being nearly eight months since I first raised the issue with the Minister, the Home Office continues to operate two wholly inappropriate accommodation centres in my constituency, putting an unbearable strain on public services. Will my right hon. Friend expedite a clear timetable to close the centres permanently and restore the hotels to their intended purposes?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend and I have discussed this on many occasions. She has doggedly campaigned for the closure of these centres as well as supported the steps that we are taking as a Government to stop the boats in the first place. I will be happy to have further conversations with her, but she has my assurance that we are working as fast as possible to clear all hotels, including those in her constituency.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last week, the Government rejected a number of recommendations from the inquest into the tragic mass shooting in Plymouth in 2021, which has caused serious concern among some of the families of the victims. Will the Minister explain why he rejected the coroner’s recommendations and whether all those on which he is consulting will be implemented by the end of this calendar year?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

My constituent Sarah has been waiting more than six months for a biometric resident’s permit, during which time she cannot work, access free healthcare or leave the country. Will someone do something to get her the status she deserves, so that she can go on with her life?

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to look into the case for the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The number of foreign national offenders eligible for deportation has now reached a record almost 12,000. Almost 4,000 of those left prison more than five years ago and even those volunteering for deportation are still here. Will the Minister get a grip on the deportation department within the Home Office and make sure those people are chucked out of our country?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We want those individuals to leave the country as swiftly as possible. The published figures show that FNO returns increased following the pandemic—by 14% in the latest 12-month period ending December 2022 compared with the previous 12-month period—but, quite clearly, there is more work to be done.

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)]

Liverpool is a city of sanctuary. Currently, we have 237 Afghan families who have been languishing in a hotel for two years. The council must rehouse the families by 11 August. Can the Minister say what will happen if we are unable to find suitable accommodation? Will they be made homeless and thrown out on the street?

[Robert Jenrick]

The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) and I launched a programme that provides significant support to councils like Liverpool to help individuals find alternative accommodation. That might be in the private rental sector or it might be in social housing, but I think we can all agree on the principle that it is not right for individuals or families to live in hotel accommodation for over two years. We need to help those people out of the hotels this summer.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

The Immigration Minister’s earlier claim will come as news to the Labour and Conservative coalition which runs North Lanarkshire Council and a surprise to a director of Mears who confirmed to me that North Lanarkshire Council houses not just asylum seekers but refugees. The Immigration Minister has now given factually wrong information to this House three times. When will he apologise to the House, and will he come back to it to give proper information?

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not think I have given factually wrong information. They may not be the facts the hon. Gentleman wants to hear, but they are the facts. I did not mention North Lanarkshire, but there are six asylum seekers there. I think the hon. Gentleman would agree that there is more to be done.

Population Growth: Impact of Immigration

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

Thank you, Mr Paisley. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for securing the debate and for his kind words—flattery, of course, will get you everywhere.

There are few more important decisions for this Parliament to make than who gets to come to our country, which is why the debate is so critical. My right hon. Friend is right to say that, over the decades, immigration has generally occurred in this country in an ad hoc manner, without the careful thought and planning that it warrants. Sometimes it has been successful, and sometimes less so, but it has rarely been planned in the way that it should be. As has been said, the levels of immigration that we are currently seeing, and have seen for most of my adult lifetime, are significantly higher than throughout the history of this country. The level of net migration that we have seen in the past 25 years is not normal by historical standards, and it is right that we consider the consequences of that and whether we should take action to change it.

My right hon. Friend said that Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts proposed to create an organisation to consider more deeply the demographic changes that the country is experiencing. In fact, I met Lord Hodgson to discuss just that. I know him well, having grown up not far from Astley Abbotts, where his mother created the most northerly lavender farm in Europe in her 80s—that is by the by. His proposal is very important and worthy of consideration. The issue is something that the Migration Advisory Committee could play a greater part in considering when it advises the Government on changes to our immigration system, but, if not, I think there is a good argument for having a separate organisation. I committed to Lord Hodgson to give further thought to the topic.

My right hon. Friend and a number of others raised the profound consequences that large quantities of migration have on the population of this country as regards housing, access to public services and integration, cohesion and unity. We should consider each of those points very seriously. I have paid particular interest to housing throughout my time as a Minister. It is undoubtedly true that if 600,000 additional people come to this country every year, that has profound consequences for house prices and, in particular, for the poorest in society, who want either to get on to the housing ladder or to access social housing. We have to take that seriously.

I made a speech recently at Policy Exchange about the impact of illegal migration. Although that is a different subject, many of the same arguments apply. We have to make sure we are representing our constituents’ true opinions correctly, as my right hon. Friend said, and we must be cognisant of the consequences, including the pressure on public services, housing and integration.

Secondly, my right hon. Friend argued—again, the Government would agree—that companies should not reach in the first instance for the easy lever of foreign labour. That is not the route to productivity enhancement and prosperity. If it was, this country would be even more prosperous than it is today, given the large amounts of legal migration that we have seen in the past 25 years. We have to encourage companies to embrace technology and automation, train their staff and invest in their skills.

The Government are doing that in a number of ways through our skills reforms, such as those for apprenticeships. My right hon. Friend started that process when he was the apprentices Minister many years ago. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has made it one of the central missions of his tenure to ensure we get more of the economically inactive in our country back into the workplace, and to ensure businesses support them in the first instance rather than reach for those overseas.

The Government’s most crucial reform in this Parliament was taking back control. It is as a result of leaving the European Union that, for the first time in my lifetime, Governments of this country can control the levers that dictate the numbers of people coming into our country. That is an absolutely essential change. It is now in our hands, but there has been a lazy assumption that control alone was sufficient and that people were not concerned about numbers. I disagree with that, and the Government do too. We believe that net migration is far too high, and we need to take action to bring it down over the medium term.

It is correct that, as others have said, the levels of net migration we have seen in the past two years have included some exceptional factors. The kaleidoscope was shaken as a result of covid, and we have subsequently seen very large numbers of people return to the UK, such as students. We have made important commitments, such as creating the Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan schemes—all of which we should be proud of and which should command high levels of public support. In fact, the UK, contrary to the view we sometimes hear expressed on the left, is one of the world’s leading countries for humanitarian protection schemes. Since 2015, under a Conservative Government, we have enabled half a million people to come into this country for humanitarian purposes. But we need to do more.

We have recently taken a significant step, which my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings mentioned, to ensure that dependants of students cannot come with a student unless they are coming for longer research degrees, such as PhDs. That will make a tangible difference to numbers in the years ahead. Most importantly, it reaffirms the principle that universities should be in the education business, not the migration business. No one should be coming to this country to study merely as a back door to a life in the UK. They are entirely separate things.

If there are further steps we need to take, we can and should do so. My right hon. Friend raised a number of important points to which I will give further consideration. He knows that I have sympathy about the salary threshold. There is a question as to whether the immigration health surcharge is at a fair place or whether there is more that can be done. There is also a question about whether family visas and such are being issued appropriately. Those are all things that the Home Office keeps under review. If we need to take further action there, we obviously will do.

I am conscious that my right hon. Friend is keen to speak at the end of the debate, so I will—

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I only have a few seconds. I don’t want to deprive my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings—

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

The debate will finish at 5.55 on the dot.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Can the Minister set out what the Government believe the right target is for the population of this country?

[Robert Jenrick]

That is a big question to answer in 30 seconds. What we have said is that we remain true to our manifesto commitment that we will seek to bring down net migration in the medium term. My hon. Friend can see from the first step that the Home Secretary and I have made on student dependants the seriousness with which we take this challenge. I hope I have said in my remarks that I am very alive to the issue. I take seriously the profound consequences of net migration on community cohesion and access to public services and housing. If there are further things we can do, such as some of the ideas raised by Conservative Members today, the Home Secretary and I will do everything we can to implement them.