Illegal Immigration Debate

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Department: Home Office

Illegal Immigration

Simon Clarke Excerpts
Wednesday 15th November 2023

(5 months, 3 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Rosie Winterton Portrait Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
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Order. I urge colleagues to be brief in their questions so that the Home Secretary can be brief in return. We have a very packed agenda today and I want to make every effort to get everyone in.

Simon Clarke Portrait Sir Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)
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I add my congratulations to the Home Secretary on his new role. It seems to me that the key word is “time”. We cannot keep relitigating this question to achieve what seems an ever-moving target in what the courts want us to achieve. Our constituents sent us here with a very clear message: sort the small boats issue. Parliament has passed legislation to sort the issue. Can my right hon. Friend be specific about the point at which the attempts by the Government to recondition the agreement with Rwanda into treaty form will have elapsed, and a “notwithstanding” clause, of the kind that my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) has set out, will become the only tool by which we can ensure that the will of this House takes effect? We cannot allow this cycle to continue indefinitely.

Rosie Winterton Portrait Madam Deputy Speaker
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Order. I remind the House that I did just say “be brief.”