Asylum Seekers: MOD Housing
Samantha Niblett Excerpts(1 day, 18 hours ago)
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Alex Norris
The hon. Member has raised a number of important questions. Of course we want to work with the local authority to ensure that the public are giving the information and the reassurance that they need; as I have said, there is always a great deal of misinformation and disinformation, and I can give that commitment to her. She will have heard what I said about the timeliness of engagement with colleagues, and I reiterate my sadness in that regard. We will do better for her and her colleagues in securing the answers that they need as leaders in the community. Let me also reiterate, to her and her community, that we intend this to have the lightest possible impact on them. It has been proven to be done at Wethersfield and at Napier, and I have no doubt that we can do it again.
Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)
The number of boat crossings has risen from 800 in 2018, before we left the European Union, to 40,000 a year because of Brexit. Can the Minister provide some clarity on the measures that he is taking to help solve this immigration crisis at its core, without falling back on yet another fake silver bullet—leaving the European convention on human rights, which some Opposition parties are suggesting—which would get rid of not only the rights of asylum seekers but those of my constituents?
Alex Norris
My hon. Friend has made an important point about the global nature of this challenge—[Interruption.] It is like being at a party you were not invited to at the moment, Madam Deputy Speaker.
My hon. Friend, and other Members, will know of the work that we are doing with France, our most immediate neighbour, and the importance of scaling up our returns pilot. She will also know of our engagement on the continent with regard to organised crime. These are highly sophisticated global networks, and a global response is required to break them.
Migration and Border Security
Samantha Niblett Excerpts(10 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Yvette Cooper
I agree about the importance of supporting our armed forces, including housing for armed forces families. That will always be important. The number of asylum decisions had dropped by 70% in the space of just six months—a massive drop. That crashing of asylum decisions increased the backlog over the summer. We have now managed to get asylum decisions back up to where they were, and the asylum caseworkers back in place and taking those decisions rapidly. That puts us in a position to be able to get the backlog down so that we can take action on asylum hotels, and we are already saving hundreds of millions of pounds this year compared with the previous Government.
Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)
In the run-up to the summer general election, my constituents were hugely concerned about the number of small boats crossing the channel; and little wonder, because the Conservative party left office in the middle of the worst year ever for small boat arrivals—18% higher than in 2023, 5% higher than in 2022 and more than double the level in 2021. The Labour Government came into office just under five months ago, and the number of arrivals is now lower than in 2021, more than a third lower than in 2022, and only 15% higher than 2023, rather than the 19% that we inherited. Does the Home Secretary agree that that all sounds like pretty decent progress?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right. The first six months of the year saw a record high for that season; of course, we know that crossings are seasonal, but it was a record high for the first half of the year. If we had carried on at that record high level—higher than 2023, 2022 and 2021—we would have thousands more people in the asylum system right now, and we would have had to deal with thousands more dangerous boat crossings. When we took office in the middle of the year, some independent projections said that there could have been as many as 50,000 crossings this year, and that has not happened. That is no real consolation, though, because so many lives are still being lost, and so many gangs are still making huge profits, which is why we have to take action on the gangs. We have to strengthen border security and prevent so many lives being put at risk.