Extracts from Urgent question on Asylum Seekers: Removal to Rwanda - June 13

Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab):...The Home Office is failing to do the practical things we need: instead of strengthening the National Crime Agency work with France to crack down on criminal gangs, the Home Office has asked the agency to draw up plans for 20% cuts. Can the Minister confirm that that is the case? Instead of speeding up asylum decisions, it is only making half as many decisions as five years ago and, because it is failing to take decisions, offloading responsibility...

Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab): The National Crime Agency has principal responsibility for prosecuting people traffickers. Is it right that there will be a 20% cut in staffing at the National Crime Agency  Is that consistent with the policy of taking back control of our borders?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove): I am confident that we will have the resources that we need in place to deliver on our policies. What I find slightly frustrating about the hon. Gentleman’s question is that he had the opportunity through the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 to vote for measures that will allow us to take tougher action on the evil people smugglers, and he repeatedly refused to do so. He ought to be asking himself why he did that.

To read all the exchanges, CLICK HERE