Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con) (Urgent Question): To ask the
Minister for Immigration if he will make a statement about what
steps he is taking to reduce overcrowding at the Manston asylum
processing facility and about the safeguarding of minors, both at
Manston and in hotels. The Minister for Immigration (Robert
Jenrick) We have set out on multiple occasions that the global
migration crisis is placing unprecedented strain on our asylum
system. Despite what they...Request free
trial
(North Thanet) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister for Immigration if he will
make a statement about what steps he is taking to reduce
overcrowding at the Manston asylum processing facility and about
the safeguarding of minors, both at Manston and in hotels.
The Minister for Immigration ()
We have set out on multiple occasions that the global migration
crisis is placing unprecedented strain on our asylum system.
Despite what they may have been told by many, migrants who travel
through safe countries should not put their lives at risk by
making the dangerous and illegal journey to the United Kingdom.
We are steadfast in our determination to tackle those gaming the
system and will use every tool at our disposal to deter illegal
migration and disrupt the business model of people smugglers.
So far this year, our French colleagues have prevented over
29,000 crossings and destroyed over 1,000 boats. Furthermore, my
right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be speaking with
President Macron this week about how, together, we can achieve
our shared ambition to prevent further crossings.
Some 40,000 people have crossed the channel on small boats so far
this year, and the Government continue to have a statutory
responsibility to provide safe and secure accommodation for
asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute. To meet that
responsibility, we have had to keep people for longer than we
would have liked at our processing facility at Manston, but we
have been sourcing more bed spaces with local authorities and in
contingency accommodation such as hotels.
I can tell the House that, as of 8 o’clock this morning, the
population at the Manston facility was back below 1,600. That is
a significant reduction from this point last week, with over
2,300 people having been placed in onward accommodation. I thank
my Border Force officers, members of the armed forces, our
contractors and Home Office staff, who have worked tirelessly to
help achieve that reduction.
Before the high number of arrivals in September, Manston had
proven to be a streamlined and efficient asylum processing
centre, where biographic and biometric details are taken and
assessed against our databases, asylum claims registered and the
vulnerable assessed. We are determined to ensure that Manston is
back to that position as soon as possible, and I am encouraged by
the progress now being made. We must not be complacent. We remain
absolutely focused on addressing these complex issues so that we
can deliver a fair and effective asylum system that works in the
interests of the British people.
First, may I thank my right hon. Friend for the endeavours that
he has made since his appointment to reduce the numbers of people
overcrowding the Manston facility? I believe that this problem
was wholly avoidable. He has worked tireless, with the staff at
Manston—I thank them too—who have done a superb job under very
difficult circumstances.
We are now nearly back to where we need to be, with the Manston
processing centre operating efficiently. Will my right hon.
Friend confirm his understanding, shared with the Home Secretary
and with me last Thursday when she visited the site, that Manston
is a processing centre, not an accommodation centre? Does he
therefore agree that the temporary facilities that were erected
while he and I were both present there a week ago on Sunday will
be demolished, and can he confirm that additional accommodation
will be provided so that the spike in November that is
anticipated—which will happen, as it happened last year—will be
catered for so that we will not have a repetition of the
clogging-up of the facilities at Manston?
First, may I praise my right hon. Friend, who is an exemplary
Member of Parliament? It has been my privilege to work alongside
him over the past 10 days. He has consistently raised concerns
expressed by his constituents, and also our joint desire that
Manston should operate as a humane and decent facility that
provides compassionate care to those who arrive at the United
Kingdom’s borders. The population is now back at an acceptable
level, which is a considerable achievement. It is essential that
it remains so, and he is right to say that the challenge is far
from over. Last year, for various reasons, November proved to be
the largest month of the year for arrivals in the UK, so we have
to be aware of that and plan appropriately. We are doing just
that, and we are ensuring that there is now further accommodation
so that we can build up a sufficient buffer, so that those
arriving at Manston stay there for the legal period of 24 hours
or thereabouts, and are then swiftly moved to better and more
appropriate accommodation elsewhere in the country.
I support my right hon. Friend’s view that Manston should always
be a processing centre, not a permanent home for migrants
arriving in the UK. I have taken note of his comment that he
would like the temporary facilities there to be dismantled. I do
not think that is possible right now, because the prudent thing
is to ensure that we maintain the level of infrastructure that we
have in case there is a significant increase in the number of
migrants arriving in the weeks ahead, but it is certainly not my
intention, or the Home Secretary’s intention, that Manston is
turned into a permanent site for housing immigrants.
Mr Speaker
I call the shadow Minister, .
(Aberavon) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister to his place. The Home Secretary has
stated that after 12 years of Conservative government the asylum
system is “broken”. We agree, and it is the Conservative party
that has broken it. The Government are processing just half the
number of asylum claims that they were processing in 2015, and as
a result the British taxpayer is footing a £7 million hotel bill
every single day. Their failure to replace the Dublin agreement
on returning failed asylum seekers, their failure to crack down
on the criminal gangs, and their failure to get agreement with
France have also increased the backlog.
This catalogue of chaos has led to the overcrowding in Manston,
for which the right hon. Member for North Thanet ( ) has directly blamed the Home
Secretary. The previous Home Secretary revealed today that on 20
October he received legal advice that Manston was
“being used, or in danger of being used, as a detention
centre”,
and he took emergency measures to work within the law. However,
the current Home Secretary met officials on 19 October, just
before she was forced to resign for breaching the ministerial
code. Can the Minister please confirm that the Home Secretary
refused to take those same emergency measures, and can he explain
why she ignored the advice that she was repeatedly given over a
period of several weeks? The Home Secretary told the House just a
week ago that she did not ignore legal advice. Can the Minister
tell the House now whether he believes that statement to be
correct? The key question on Manston is whether legal advice was
followed or not. Given the Minister’s unlawful approval of a Tory
donor’s housing project in his previous brief, is he really best
placed to make that judgment?
We know that 222 children have gone missing from asylum
accommodation. What are the Government doing to find those
missing children, to prevent more children from going missing,
and to meet their legal obligations to vulnerable children?
For a few moments I thought that the hon. Gentleman was going to
approach this in an intelligent and constructive manner, but
sadly that was the triumph of optimism over experience. In fact,
the Labour party is trying to politicise this, and we can of
course say the same. The Labour party has no plan to tackle
illegal immigration. It does not want to tackle illegal
immigration. The Labour party left a system in ruins in 2010, as
my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford () would attest, as he had to
help to pick up the pieces. We believe in a system of secure
borders and a fair and robust asylum system in which all members
of the public can have confidence.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the Home Secretary’s conduct. Let
me tell him that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home
Secretary has consistently approved hotel accommodation. More
than 30 hotels have been brought on line in the time for which my
right hon. and learned Friend has been in office, which has
ensured that thousands of asylum seekers have been able to move
on from the Manston site and into better and more sustainable
accommodation. And look at her record over the course of the last
week! The population at Manston has fallen from 4,000 to 1,600 in
a matter of seven days. That is a very considerable achievement
on the part of the Home Secretary and her officials in the Home
Office, and I am proud of it.
(South Thanet) (Con)
The Minister will be well aware that previous student
accommodation at Canterbury Christchurch University—86 rooms—has
been taken up by a company called Clearsprings, one of many
outsourced companies around the country that have been trying to
find accommodation. He may also be aware that Thanet District
Council had been in correspondence with the Home Office in
August, saying how unsuitable the site would be because of its
close proximity to both primary and secondary schools that were a
few hundred yards away, and because it was in a residential
area.
Is it not the case that outsourced companies such as Clearsprings
and Serco are simply running roughshod over planning consents,
local authorities and local consultation? I am very concerned
about this example. The Home Office must get involved when these
large sites are selected, rather than big outsourced companies
just doing as they please.
My hon. Friend and I were in contact about this issue over the
weekend, and I know how strongly he feels. My first duty has been
to ensure that Manston can operate in a legal and decent manner,
and we are well on the way to achieving that. The second task is
ensuring that the Home Office and its contractors procure
accommodation—whether it be hotels, spot bookings or other forms
of accommodation—in a sensible manner, taking into account many
of the factors that my hon. Friend has just described, such as
safeguarding, the impact on the local community and the
likelihood of disorder, whether there is already significant
pressure on that community, and whether it is a tourist hotspot.
Those criteria need to be followed carefully.
My third priority, beyond that, is our exit from this hotel
strategy altogether. It is not sustainable for the country to be
spending billions of pounds a year on hotels. We now need to move
rapidly to a point at which individuals are processed swiftly so
that the backlog in cases falls and we disperse people fairly
around the UK to local authority and private rented sector
accommodation where appropriate. We also need to look into
whether other, larger sites that provide decent but not luxurious
accommodation might be available, so that we do not create a
further pull factor for people to come to the UK.
Mr Speaker
I call the SNP Spokesperson,
(Cumbernauld, Kilsyth
and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I, too, congratulate the right hon. Member for North Thanet
( ) on securing this urgent
question and on his persistent scrutiny of these issues. Surely
we have now reached the point where the Home Office can no longer
be left responsible for the safety of those children. Hundreds
are missing and thousands more are stuck in hotels outside the
child protection system. Children are reportedly pressurised to
claim to be adults and are increasingly misidentified as adults.
There have been harrowing accounts of assault and rape; there is
general evidence of fear and depression; and adults are not even
being properly disclosure checked. Can we have a cross-Government
taskforce, headed by the Prime Minister, to get children into
local authority care instead of into more hotels?
Progress in moving people out of Manston is welcome, but it
massively begs the question why that was not possible last month.
To help the Minister to free up accommodation, will he prioritise
the outstanding claims of the 15,000 or so Syrians and Afghans,
who should be comparatively easy to identify as refugees and to
award their status? Will he suspend the pointless process that
saw staff identify just 83 inadmissible claims out of 16,000
cases? For goodness’ sake, instead of wasting their time on that,
they should be looking at asylum claims and the backlog.
The hon. Gentleman is wrong to suggest that the UK Government
pressurise any individual to falsely identify as a child. It is
the people smugglers who do that; we are doing everything we can
to clamp down on it. I have been to Western Jet Foil at Dover to
meet the Border Force staff who try to make those assessments. At
times, up to 20% of the adult males who arrive at Western Jet
Foil claim to be under 18, when clearly the number is
substantially less than that. We have already changed the law,
which I think the SNP voted against, to change the way in which
those tests are administered, and if we need to make further
legal changes, we will.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it is wrong that many
children, in particular unaccompanied children, are in hotel
accommodation. I want to change that. The way to do that is to
encourage more local authorities throughout the United Kingdom to
accept those individuals and to help them into private or state
foster parenting arrangements. We have put in place a significant
financial package of about £52,000 a year per foster carer per
child to ensure that can happen, plus a £6,000 up-front payment
to the local authority to help to accommodate that. The financing
is available, so I want to ensure that more local authorities
step up. If he can encourage those run by his SNP colleagues in
Scotland to do so, I would be happy to support him.
(Bury North) (Con)
The question for my right hon. Friend is not how many hotels we
can book, but how we can stop the increasing number of migrants
coming across the channel this year. We have seen more than
10,000 adult males from Albania aged 18 to 40—that is between 1%
and 2% of the population—coming to the United Kingdom. We will
not have enough hotels in the country if they continue at that
rate. What is his view on the agreement that was entered into on
18 November 2002 between the German and Albanian Governments,
which allowed Germany to deport Albanians who did not arrive in
the country with a valid residence permit? That would allow us to
take quick action to take people out of the country who should
not be here.
My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. We want our
asylum system to be available to those who truly need it—those
who are fleeing persecution, war and human rights abuses around
the world. We should not be a harbour for those who are
essentially economic migrants coming from safe countries such as
Albania. We need to change that. We have now negotiated a return
agreement with Albania and 1,000 Albanians have already been
returned home under that. I now want to see—I know my right hon.
Friend the Home Secretary shares my view—a fast track whereby
Albanians who do not meet our asylum criteria have their cases
processed quickly and are swiftly returned home. It cannot be
right that we are seeing thousands of Albanians making this
crossing and essentially taking advantage of the welcome and
hospitality afforded to them here in the UK.
Mr Speaker
I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, .
(Kingston upon Hull North)
(Lab)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Thanet ( ) on securing this urgent
question. Tomorrow, the Home Affairs Committee will visit Manston
on its second visit, as we first visited in June. Alongside
looking at the overcrowding, the safety issues and the lack of
basic facilities, there is a concern about the legality of the
Home Secretary’s actions in authorising individuals to be
detained at Manston for more than 24 hours. Weekend media reports
suggested that she was repeatedly provided with the advice that
detaining individuals at Manston for more than 24 hours was
illegal. The Sunday Times reported that she had received papers
on 4 October stating that the Home Office had no power to detain
people solely for welfare reasons or for arranging onward
accommodation. Can the Minister explain to the House the legal
basis for detaining individuals at Manston for longer than 24
hours?
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who chairs the Select
Committee, for that question. The law is clear that we should not
detain individuals at sites such as Manston for longer than 24
hours, and that is exactly the position that we want to return to
as fast as we can.
There are competing legal duties on Ministers. Another legal duty
that we need to pay heed to is our duty not to leave individuals
destitute. It would be wrong for the Home Office to allow
individuals who had only recently arrived in the United
Kingdom—the vast majority of those at Manston had been saved at
sea by Border Force, the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and
the Royal Navy—and who had been brought to the site in a
condition of some destitution, to be released on to the rural
lanes of Kent without great care. That is why the Home Secretary
has balanced her duties and taken the required steps to procure
more hotel accommodation as swiftly as we can. The right hon.
Member for Kingston upon Hull North ( ) can see the work that we
have already done.
In answer to the first part of the right hon. Lady’s question,
the conditions at Manston were poor because there were too many
people there, but a wide range of facilities are provided:
individuals are clothed, they are fed three times a day, and
there is an excellent medical facility. I have seen those things
with my own eyes, and I hope that she sees them as well. We need
to keep a sense of proportion about the state of Manston.
(Ashfield) (Con)
Now then. When I hear talk of sourcing housing and getting extra
hotel spaces for illegal immigrants, it leaves a bitter taste in
my throat. Five thousand people in Ashfield want to secure
council housing but cannot get it, yet we are debating this
nonsense once again. When are we going to stop blaming the
French, the European convention on human rights and the lefty
lawyers? The blame lies in this place right now. When are we
going to grow a backbone and do the right thing by sending them
straight back the same day?
My hon. Friend is right that in sourcing accommodation for
migrants, we should be guided both by our common desire for
decency, because those are our values, and by hard-headed common
sense. It is not right that migrants are put up in three or
four-star hotels at exorbitant cost to the United Kingdom
taxpayer, or that migrants who come here illegally are given
preference of any sort over British citizens. That is the kind of
approach that we will take going forward.
We will now work closely with our allies in France to ensure that
more crossings are stopped in northern France. The Prime Minister
will speak with President Macron this week while they are in
Egypt, and we hope to take forward that partnership productively
and constructively in the months ahead.
(Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The second half of this urgent question was explicitly about the
safeguarding of accompanied minors in the hotels. That matters
because there are thousands of children—verified children—in
those hotels. Last week, we learned that two of them—one a child
under the age of 13—were sexually assaulted in a hotel in
Walthamstow, and more cases of sexual assaults on children in
these hotels have since come to light. We are all clear that
those who committed those crimes must be held responsible. We all
have duties to those children, just as we have to any other child
under state protection.
When I asked the Home Secretary about this, she made a cheap jibe
about hotels. The Minister did not even mention those children in
his response. He has not yet given us a straight answer. Surely
all of us in the House will be concerned about the sexual assault
of children of any background. Will the Minister publish the
details of all these cases, including how many incidents of
violence or sexual assault against children in these hotels have
occurred in the past year, what action has been taken, and
crucially, what safeguarding the private companies that run these
hotels must undertake? If he will not publish those details, that
tells us what he thinks about those children and the
responsibility that we all have to them.
It is a pity the hon. Lady takes that approach because I take my
responsibilities to children, whether accompanied or otherwise,
very seriously. We have put in place a wide range of support
mechanisms. I mentioned earlier the work we are doing for
unaccompanied children. The hotels, most of which are in Kent,
have extremely sophisticated support. It is costing the taxpayer
up to £500 a night for that accommodation, which gives her a
sense of the degree of the support we are making available. The
best thing she could do is to support her local authority and
encourage others to take more unaccompanied children and families
into good-quality local authority accommodation, or to find them
foster care in the community. That is the task because we need to
disperse these individuals as fast as we can across the country.
She may shake her head, but I am afraid that suggests she does
not understand that the way to resolve this issue is to help the
children out of hotels and into the community as fast as we
can.
(Barrow and Furness) (Con)
I am looking forward to my second visit to Manston tomorrow with
the Home Affairs Committee. I am glad that the Minister has
managed to get the numbers down at Manston. That is really
important, but it strikes me that all we are doing is moving a
problem from Manston into our communities. To solve this issue,
we need to get through the backlogs, allow our communities to
rest, and stop creating an environment where the far right can
take root in constituencies such as mine and those of colleagues
around the House. With that in mind, what measures is my right
hon. Friend taking to surge Home Office processing capacity, so
we can actually deal with the problem at the heart of this
issue?
It is essential that we accelerate decision making now within the
Home Office. Over the summer, we piloted an approach that would
very substantially increase decision making. That has been done
in our Leeds office and we now intend to roll it out across the
country as quickly as we can. That would take us from an average
of around 1.5 decisions per caseworker per week to as many as
four per week. We also want, in slightly longer time, to review
all the red tape and bureaucracy that surround the process, so we
can ensure our system is more streamlined, and to look at why, in
the UK, we have a much higher approval rate for asylum than many
comparable countries, such as France and Germany. That, at the
heart of the issue, is why so many people choose to come here.
They shop around for asylum and choose the UK when they are, in
fact, economic migrants.
(Hackney North and Stoke
Newington) (Lab)
The House welcomes the fact that the numbers at Manston have gone
down, but the Minister will be aware that the concerns, notably
of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration,
David Neal, were about not just the numbers but the conditions.
When he came to give evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, he
told us that he thought there was a risk of fire, disorder and
infection. Is the Minister confident that those risks no longer
exist? On unaccompanied children, how many are there in Manston?
What effort is being made to safeguard them? For instance, are
they having to sleep next to males they do not know? When it
comes to unaccompanied children in hotels, can he tell the House
specifically how they are being safeguarded?
There should be no unaccompanied children at Manston.
Unaccompanied children are taken directly from Western Jet Foil.
In some cases when they immediately arrive at Manston, they are
taken to specialist hotels, where they are looked after with a
range of support provided for them. As I said in answer to a
previous question, that in itself is not a desirable outcome. We
want to ensure that those young people are quickly taken to
better accommodation, particularly foster carers. That relies on
us being able to find more. There is a national shortage of
foster carers, which is why we put in place a financial package
to try to stimulate the market and encourage more people and
councils to step up and provide that service.
The right hon. Lady makes an important point about conditions at
the site. Conditions were poor when I last visited, but the
primary reason for that was the sheer number of individuals
there. The staff I met were providing a very good quality of care
in difficult circumstances. The food was acceptable, and the
health and medical facility was good. The clothing and other
support that was provided was something I thought was acceptable
and is certainly far in excess of that which would be provided in
other European countries.
We have to remember that the individuals who arrive at Manston
have literally been hooked out of the sea. We saved their lives
just hours previously and many of them have come from
significantly worse accommodation such as, for example, the camp
at Dunkirk. I am not saying the UK should compare itself with
that—we want to be better—but I think the right hon. Lady will
find that the facility at Manston is now in a significantly
better state and I would be interested in hearing her reflections
when she returns.
(Erewash) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend is aware, his Department is housing 400
asylum seekers in two hotels in my constituency, sited 50 metres
apart on a busy motorway junction. With no basic amenities nearby
or extra resources for local services such as healthcare and
policing, their location is wholly unsuitable and I fear could
lead to significant safeguarding issues. Ahead of our meeting
tomorrow, which I thank him for, will he put together a timetable
for their closure and in the meantime ensure that Erewash gets
extra support to manage the situation on the ground?
My hon. Friend was swift to raise this matter with me as soon as
it was brought to her attention. She has raised the issues she
has mentioned on the Floor of the House today with me and my
officials, and I look forward to meeting her tomorrow to take
that forward. As I said in answer to an earlier question, the
hotels are not a sustainable answer. We want to ensure that we
exit the hotels as quickly as possible and to do that we will
need to disperse individuals to other forms of accommodation. We
may need to take some larger sites to provide decent but basic
accommodation. Of course, we will need to get through the
backlog, so that we can get more people out of the system either
by returning them to their home country, or granting them asylum
so they can begin to make a contribution to the UK.
(Edinburgh West) (LD)
We welcome the Minister’s assurances that decisions will be made
more quickly, particularly since 89,000 people in the system have
been waiting more than six months for a decision, but can he
assure us that these will not just be box-ticking exercises, that
not speed but efficiency will be the determining factor and that
people will get a fair decision? We all want to see an end to
this problem and everything the Government have done so far has
just made it worse.
The hon. Member has my assurance that the standards of decision
making will be upheld, but we believe we can do it in a far more
productive manner than has been done in the past, and if we can
make more decisions every week than we do today, we will get
through the backlog as quickly as we can.
(Wokingham) (Con)
Will the Government legislate urgently to deal with the obvious
loopholes in the law that are exploited by people smugglers and
economic migrants? And I share the concerns of my colleagues
about the use of hotels in my area.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and I are
reviewing whether further changes to the law are required. One
area we are particularly interested in is the modern slavery
framework. That is important and well-meant legislation, but
unfortunately it is being abused by a very large number of
migrants today, and if we need to make changes to it so that we
can ensure that it is not exploited, we will do so.
(Vauxhall)
(Lab/Co-op)
Like many other Members, I have hotels in my constituency where a
number of families are living in really bad conditions. The
Minister outlined that he wants to look at moving people away
from those hotels. One of the key problems is the fact that
asylum claims are not being processed enough. Has there been any
additional recruitment within the Home Office to look at the
backlog of cases?
Yes, there has. We have now recruited 1,000 caseworkers and we
have a plan to recruit a further 500. Those individuals will be
trained by the very best decision makers, such as those who have
been through the pilot, which I mentioned earlier, in Leeds.
Together, this new workforce hopefully will be able to power
through the backlog and ensure that decisions are made
swiftly.
(North Devon) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend assure me that steps are being taken to
rapidly address the speed at which asylum claims are being
processed before we run out of hotels? The economies of remote
coastal towns such as Ilfracombe and Newquay rely on their
tourists. Can he assure me that those hotels will welcome
visitors in next spring’s vital tourism season?
I certainly hope that is the case. As I said, my first priority
was to ensure that Manston was operating in a legally compliant
and decent manner. The second priority is to ensure that, where
we are using hotels, we are doing so judiciously and that
officials or our contractors are applying the criteria that I and
other Ministers have set down, one of which is to ensure that we
avoid tourist hotspots such as that which my hon. Friend
represents. Thirdly, it is essential that we exit the hotels
altogether and move forward with a more sustainable strategy that
ensures best value for money for the taxpayer and a fair and
robust asylum system.
(Islington North) (Ind)
Will the Minister confirm that to seek asylum is a perfectly
legal thing within international law and, therefore, UK law and
that loose use of the words “illegal asylum seekers” is dangerous
for the individuals concerned?
Has the Minister’s attention been drawn to the Council of Europe
report on pushbacks across Europe of people seeking a place of
safety in a number of countries, including this one? They have
been pushed back and left in places of enormous danger. Will he
confirm that Britain will not be involved in sea-bound pushbacks
towards France that leave people in enormous danger? Instead,
will he recognise the humanitarian needs of, frankly, deeply
desperate people to whom we should be holding out the hand of
friendship, not condemnation?
The UK is not involved in pushbacks at sea; we uphold our
international obligations in that respect. It is a right for an
individual to claim asylum. We want a system whereby those who
are fleeing genuine persecution, war or human rights abuses can
find refuge in the United Kingdom. The issue that we are
grappling with is the sheer quantity of individuals who are
choosing to come here, leaving other safe countries such as
France. That places an intolerable strain on our system and means
that those individuals to whom we want to offer support find
themselves in difficult circumstances.
A fair and robust system would not encourage people to come
across the channel illegally in small boats. It would be
predominantly based on resettlement schemes such as the ones that
we have engineered in recent years for people from Syria, Ukraine
and Afghanistan. That is the system that I want to build in the
years ahead.
(Warrington South) (Con)
On Thursday, I was notified by the Home Office that the Fir Grove
Hotel in Grappenhall would become an asylum centre the following
day. There was no discussion with the borough council and no
notification to local residents. It is in the middle of a
residential area, fewer than 200 yards from a primary school. I
am sure that my right hon. Friend would agree that it is simply
not acceptable for the Home Office to steamroll ahead with such a
decision without the necessary consultation with local residents.
I would be grateful if he would meet me to discuss that situation
and how we can review and reverse that decision.
I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend so we can discuss
the issue and he can represent the views of his constituents. I
can inform the House that I have agreed with my officials at the
Home Office that, as a matter of course, all Members of
Parliament should be informed of new facilities being opened in
their constituency ahead of time. All local authorities should be
informed and proper engagement undertaken with them so that we
can better understand the specific issues and provide the support
that might be needed. It is not right that MPs and councils find
out on social media or third hand and I intend to bring that to
an end.
(Luton North) (Lab)
Some are heralding the horrors at Manston as the death of
compassionate conservatism. The rest of us knew it never existed,
or at least not for a very long time. Since the last Prime
Minister took office just weeks ago, we have seen the Home
Secretary describe people fleeing war as invading our country.
Lethal levels of overcrowding at the Manston camp, traumatised
people dumped at Victoria station with nowhere to sleep and child
refugees sexually assaulted—is that the compassion that the Prime
Minister speaks of? If not, how will those shameful examples be
rectified?
The hon. Lady should pay closer attention to what is actually
happening. I have visited Manston and met members of staff who
are supporting those individuals at Western Jet Foil. I spent
Saturday night at our immigration removal centre in west London,
and in every one of those situations Border Force, Home Office,
military and other personnel are providing decent, compassionate
care to individuals who are coming to this country. But humanity
and decency does not mean naivety, and that is where we take a
different approach from the hon. Lady. Some 30% of those who have
crossed the channel this year alone have come from Albania, which
is a demonstrably safe country. We have to draw a distinction, or
else we simply will not be able to help people who do deserve our
care and support.
(Cities of London and
Westminster) (Con)
I was concerned to learn from media reports last week that not
once but twice, asylum seekers from the Manston centre were
dropped off at Victoria coach station in my constituency. Does my
right hon. Friend agree that we must deal with asylum seekers
responsibly, firmly and compassionately, and can he assure me
that we will not see a repeat of what we saw last week?
I thank my hon. Friend, who raised this issue with me immediately
when it came to her attention, just as I did with officials when
I learned of it. We have in recent times occasionally used a
procedure whereby asylum seekers are asked whether they have a
home of a friend or relative where they could stay, and if that
is the case, they are bailed to that address. On balance that is
the right approach, because it ensures that the taxpayer does not
have to pay for them to stay in hotels, but we must get it right.
In this case it appears that a small number of individuals were
left at Victoria station due to a miscommunication. They were
later taken to hotels, in Norfolk I believe, and are being cared
for appropriately.
(Streatham) (Lab)
My constituency hosts some of the hotels that are currently
housing refugees and asylum seekers, and I have dealt with a
number of cases specifically regarding the conditions there.
Earlier, the Minister described such hotels as “luxurious”, and I
have to ask whether he has ever been to one and seen what I have
seen, which is whole families living in cramped conditions, given
food so bad that it makes them sick, and having to deal with
infestations of bedbugs and other things that are making them
ill. These hotels are dire. They are not secure or safe, and they
are certainly not suitable for vulnerable children. Will the
Minister admit that the Home Office has received a number of
complaints about that, and agree to review and assess conditions
in those hotels?
If the hon. Lady has specific allegations, I suggest she brings
those to me and I will happily look into them. I have visited
hotels, and in general I have been reassured that they meet the
right standard of decency. As I said earlier, it is not
appropriate that we are putting up asylum seekers in luxurious
hotels, and numerous examples in the press of accommodation that
is not appropriate have been brought to my attention since I took
this role. We have to respect the taxpayer and ensure that we put
up asylum seekers in sensible accommodation. Decency is important
and will be a watchword for us, but deterrence must also be
suffused through our approach. We do not want to create a further
pull factor for individuals to make that perilous crossing across
the channel, and we must make the UK significantly less
attractive to illegal immigration than our EU neighbours.
(South Dorset) (Con)
Much has been made of the safeguarding of illegal migrants, which
I think all Members of the House would agree with, but we are not
talking about the safeguarding of our citizens. Thousands of
people are coming here and we do not know their backgrounds. My
right hon. Friend is being forced to put them into hotels because
there is nowhere else for them to go. What guarantee can he give
to all our citizens who live near those hotels that they will be
safe, particularly when we hear what is going on in those
hotels?
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and for that reason I
went with my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) to
meet her constituents on Friday morning. They have been at the
sharp end of illegal migration, and it is important that we think
not just of the migrants but of our own citizens who are facing
pressures from this situation. I reassure my hon. Friend that on
arrival we screen individuals coming into the UK.
Counter-terrorism police are present at all our facilities in
Dover and Manston, and they take action against those about whom
they might have suspicions. When we choose hotels or
accommodation, it is important that we do so judiciously, so that
we do not place people in situations that might have safeguarding
or other risks. Again, that is another reason why we need to move
away from the hotel model altogether.
(Dulwich and West Norwood)
(Lab)
My recent written parliamentary question revealed that 220
children have gone missing from Home Office-procured
accommodation. We hear reports from across the country of the
difficulty in securing school places for children in Home Office
accommodation. Now we hear reports of the most grave
matter—sexual assaults against children living in Home Office
accommodation, at least one of whom I believe to be in Home
Office accommodation in my constituency. I have previously raised
safeguarding concerns about that accommodation and received a
response from the Home Office that can be described only as
dismissive and disinterested. When will the Minister accept that
the Home Office is failing in the duty of the British state to
vulnerable children on these shores, and when will he take steps
to address this terrible situation?
If the hon. Lady has specific and, what sound like, serious
allegations, I would be very happy to look into them for her. As
I said in answer to the question of the hon. Member for
Walthamstow (), the key thing is for each
and every one of us who cares about this issue to go back to our
local authorities and to encourage them to take more children
into their care, otherwise those children will remain in hotels
for far too long.
(Ashford) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will know of my deep unease about the use of
a hotel in Ashford, which has been opened recently, as part of
the dispersal from Manston, so I was pleased to hear him say that
he wants to exit from hotel use altogether. That would be a
welcome step forward. In the transition period before he can
achieve that, will he ensure that the Home Office takes more
account in the future than it has in the past of the relative
level of pressure on public services, such as health and
education, in different parts of the country of coping with extra
demand from asylum seekers? In particular, the pressure has been
greater in Kent than in other parts of the country, and I hope
that the Home Office system can recognise that, so that we get a
proper and fair dispersal around the country.
My right hon. Friend makes a number of important points. Part of
our plan to exit the hotels is to ensure a fair dispersal around
the country. That means every local authority in all parts of the
United Kingdom stepping up and playing its part. If we do that
then no area should be disproportionately affected. My right hon.
Friend represents an area that has borne the greatest burden, and
it is absolutely right that we work together to find ways to
alleviate the pressure on Kent wherever we can. He and I are
meeting Kent local authority leaders later in the week to hear
their concerns. If there are ways in which we can support them, I
will certainly do everything I can to achieve that.
(South Shields) (Lab)
Can the Minister explain what discussions have been held with the
Children’s Commissioner regarding this Government’s staggering
levels of child neglect? Can he also say why the commissioner has
not been encouraged to use her statutory powers to visit Manston
and the hotels concerned to speak directly with the children
there?
It is up to the Children’s Commissioner to determine her own
schedule. As far as I am aware, she has not requested to visit
Manston. I have no objection to her doing so, but that is
entirely a matter for her.
I object to the suggestion that the UK Government are being
inhumane towards children. These are children who are coming
across the channel against our best wishes. They are coming
either with their families who are choosing to put them through
this uniquely perilous journey, or, in some cases, unaccompanied.
We are doing everything we can to support them when they arrive
here. Of course it is a difficult challenge—how could it be easy
for the Government to help hundreds of unaccompanied children who
arrive by sea and who then require foster care and support? It
was always going to be a difficult challenge. We see that in our
own constituencies when we hear of the shortage of foster care,
or concerns about local authority accommodation for young people.
This is a national issue that is exacerbated by the sheer
quantity of young people who are coming across in this way.
(Blackpool North and
Cleveleys) (Con)
The Home Office is accommodating 400 asylum seekers in the
Metropole Hotel in the centre of Blackpool in my constituency. It
lies in Claremont, the fourth most deprived ward in the
country—an area with a host of social problems and a difficult
history of child sexual exploitation. Those problems were pointed
out by me and the council when the hotel was first commissioned
by the Home Office. Those issues have not changed, and dispersal
from the hotel has been slow. I welcome the fact that the
Minister is going to exit the strategy of using hotels, but will
he make sure that the Metropole is the first hotel that he
exits?
Having worked with my hon. Friend on a range of issues, I know
how deeply and thoughtfully he addresses the issues in Blackpool.
I appreciate that Blackpool is one of the areas that has borne a
disproportionate burden from this issue for a long time, so if
there is a way to ensure that individuals are dispersed from
Blackpool more swiftly than from other parts of the country, I am
happy to look into that. As I said, my objective is that we exit
the hotels and get people into more sustainable accommodation.
That requires, in part, other local authorities to step up and
play a greater role in accommodating people rather than relying
time and again on our largest cities, Kent and a small number of
other local authorities, such as Blackpool.
(Battersea) (Lab)
The unsafe conditions and overcrowding at Manston have been
totally unacceptable, but the serious allegations of assault on
our children are beyond unacceptable. We also learned last week
that people seeking asylum were dropped off in Victoria, London.
We know that the Home Secretary is out of her depth and failing
on this, but will the Minister say how many children were left
unaccompanied last week? More importantly, given the scale of the
crisis, is it not time that we had an independent investigation
that can look into this serious issue and robustly report back on
the ongoing challenges that face the Home Office?
As far as I am aware, the small group of individuals who were
left at Victoria station were all adults. There were no children,
but I will happily stand corrected and write to the hon. Lady if
I am mistaken. Unaccompanied children are coming to the country
and we are doing everything that we can to support them. Again, I
take issue with what has been said, because the accommodation,
medical care and support that we are providing to these
individuals is decent, humane and far surpasses that provided by
comparable European countries. We have to ensure that deterrence
is suffused through our system or we will only encourage more
people to make the perilous journey across to the UK and continue
to make the UK a magnet for illegal immigration. That is not what
we Government Members would want to see.
(Gainsborough) (Con)
This whole situation is a farce. There were recent reports that
illegal migrants were being put up in a luxury rural hotel—a
former stately home near Grantham—that normally charges £400 a
night. Surely the easier and quicker that we make this whole
process, the more people will come, especially since it is a
complete pushover, with a large number of young Albanian men
claiming modern slavery, which is ridiculous. Will the Minister
confirm that the solution is to repeal the Human Rights Act, get
out of the European refugee convention and repeal the Modern
Slavery Act 2015, so that people can be detained when they arrive
for being involved in an illegal activity and then deported?
I, too, was disturbed to see images of the Stoke Rochford Hall
Hotel, which is a luxurious setting and not the kind of hotel in
which we want to see individuals being accommodated. We want to
see decent but commonsensical treatment that does not create a
further pull factor to the UK. The Home Secretary and I will
review whether further changes are required. We start from the
basic principle that treaties that the UK Government have entered
into must work in the best interests of the British people.
(Aberdeen South) (SNP)
Contrary to some of the dangerous, disgusting, dog-whistle,
right-wing rhetoric emanating from some members of the
Conservative party, asylum seekers are people and we should judge
ourselves on how we treat our fellow man. In that regard, the
Minister will be aware that many people in hotels in Aberdeen
have been in that situation for well in excess of a year, waiting
for their asylum applications to be processed. When can we expect
that particular issue to be resolved?
As I said in answer to an earlier question, we are working hard
now to accelerate decision making so that individuals can either
be granted asylum or be removed from the country. I would say,
however, that there is a marked trend in the data showing that
some Scottish local authorities are taking a disproportionately
low number of asylum seekers in every respect, so the first
useful thing that the hon. Gentleman could do would be to go back
to the local authorities that are controlled by the Scottish
National party in Scotland and ask them to step up.
(Penistone and Stocksbridge)
(Con)
The town of Stocksbridge in my constituency is awaiting final
confirmation of £24 million of Government funding through our
town deal. That £24 million will be a transformational sum for
Stocksbridge, but it equates to just four days of taxpayer
expenditure on hotel accommodation for people who have arrived
illegally in the UK. Does my right hon. Friend agree that as well
as being a complex security and humanitarian issue both for the
public and for genuine asylum seekers, the small boats crisis
also represents a serious financial issue in these difficult
economic times? Can he expand on his previous answer about how
the Government will move away from the expensive hotel model?
My hon. Friend and I have spent many happy hours in Stocksbridge
and I want to see the Government investing even more in her
community. She is right to say that it is an unconscionable waste
of taxpayers’ money to be spending over £2 billion per year on
hotel accommodation. That money could be put to better use,
whether helping her constituents or fulfilling our broader
mission as a country to support those in distress who truly need
it at home or abroad. The approach that the Home Secretary and I
are going to take is to speed up decision making so that we can
get people out of hotels because their application has been
decided, to disperse people more fairly and evenly across the
country, to see whether better value sites are available to us,
and of course to do everything we can to dissuade people from
making the journey in the first place.
(Cardiff West) (Lab)
I was not quite clear what the Minister meant in his response
earlier to the Chair of the Select Committee, my right hon.
Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North ( ). Is it his position that the
Government acted legally in detaining migrants at Manston for
more than 24 hours?
The Government’s objective is to ensure that nobody stays at
Manston for more than 24 hours, but we have to balance up
competing legal duties. We also have to be cognisant of the fact
that not everything is within our control when we deal with this
situation. It was clearly not within the control of the Home
Office that thousands of individuals chose to get into small
boats and cross the channel in a very short series of days, and
it was certainly not within our control that an individual chose
to attack the Western Jet Foil on Saturday, ensuring that 700 to
800 people were brought swiftly to the Manston site as a result.
These are the difficult choices that we have to balance. There
are no simple choices or solutions in the Home Office, but we
have to act in the public interest.
(New Forest East) (Con)
Our former Labour colleague is one of the most thoughtful
left-wingers I know. Would the Minister take a moment or two to
have a look at his article in the press today and commend it to
people on both sides of the House, given that even he feels it
necessary to conclude that
“uncontrolled migration risks bringing down our fragile social
systems. It is also driving politics across Europe into the hands
of the extremist Right”?
Surely we have to recognise when the asylum system is being
abused. If can recognise it, so should
people on both sides of this House.
I read the former Member’s article in The Daily Telegraph, and he
made a number of important points. Above all, he made the point
that public concern about the level of migration to this
country—in particular, illegal immigration—is very high and has
continued to be high in recent years. If we are to be democrats,
we have to listen to that and take action accordingly. We on this
side of the House believe in secure borders and controlled
migration, and we are concerned about the straining of community
tensions and the fabric of communities if we do not take action
accordingly. The wise words from are ones that the Home
Secretary and I will certainly heed.
(Hayes and Harlington)
(Lab)
I wish to raise the situation in Harmondsworth detention centre
in my constituency after the events at the weekend. I am grateful
to the Minister for the call that we had over the weekend. My
understanding from what he told me yesterday is that
Harmondsworth has now been decanted. My fear is that once the
renovations have taken place it will soon be filled again,
because in this country we detain too many people who have
engaged in no criminal activity. We detain too many for too
long—unjustly, I believe, and often brutally. May I suggest that,
as well as sorting out the processing situation, one way of
tackling this issue would be to ensure that we have an
enforceable limit on how long people are trapped in the process
of assessment and on how long people can be detained in our
detention centres?
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for those suggestions; I will
bear them in mind. I respectfully disagree about whether those
individuals who are destined to be removed from the UK,
particularly foreign national offenders, should be in
institutions such as the immigration removal centre in his
constituency. I appreciate that that that is not all of them.
May I take the opportunity that the right hon. Gentleman’s
question gives me to thank his constituents, the immigration
enforcement officers, the prison officers and all those who
responded heroically to the disturbance over the weekend? I am
pleased to say that it has now been brought under control, that
all the inmates at the site have been decanted to other IRCs, and
that the contractor will be making the necessary improvements to
the site as quickly as possible so that it can get back up and
running and we can ensure that the situation does not happen
again.
(Blackpool South) (Con)
My constituents are becoming sick and tired of this ridiculous
narrative of economic migrants somehow being mistreated at
Manston. The fact of the matter is that after a short time at the
processing centre, these economic migrants will receive free food
and free accommodation in hotels—something that my constituents,
who are paying for all this, can only dream of. How does the
Minister think my constituents who cannot get an NHS dentist, a
GP appointment or a council house feel about the fact that we are
spending £2 billion a year on hotel bills because we cannot be
bothered to solve this issue?
It is important that we recognise what the United Kingdom is
actually doing. The vast majority of those who arrive at Manston
have literally had their life saved by the UK. The Royal National
Lifeboat Institution, Border Force and the Royal Navy have
ensured that as many as 95% of those individuals are saved at
sea, brought to land, given clothes, food and medical support and
then processed at Manston until they can be accommodated
elsewhere. We should be clear about how we are meeting our
obligations as a country—in fact, we are going far beyond our
neighbours. My hon. Friend is right, though, that those standards
of decency and humanity must be matched by hard-headed common
sense. We should not be accommodating individuals for long
periods in expensive hotels.
(Eltham) (Lab)
In an exchange last week relating to the situation at Manston,
the Home Secretary told the House:
“I have never ignored legal advice.”—[Official Report, 31 October
2022; Vol. 721, c. 639.]
Has the Minister been briefed, seen any information in his
Department or been told by any colleagues any information that
would show that that was not a correct statement to this
House?
I have no reason to believe that the Home Secretary has misled
the House. The Home Secretary was advised that we needed to
procure more hotels, and we have procured more hotels—dozens of
further hotels, so that thousands of migrants were able to leave
Manston over the course of this week alone. That is exactly the
right approach.
(Guildford) (Con)
This issue is important to my Guildford constituents and
important to me. Does my right hon. Friend agree that by
controlling illegal immigration we can ensure that we have the
capacity and the facilities to offer safe and legal routes for
vulnerable people across the world, as we have done for people in
Ukraine, Hong Kong, Syria and Afghanistan?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The work that has been done
over the past year by this Government, supported by local
authorities and tens of thousands of our fellow citizens, to help
people from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Hong Kong and elsewhere to find
safety and, in some cases, a new life in the UK is something of
which we should all be proud. Our system should be based on safe
resettlement schemes, rather than individuals crossing the
channel illegally in small boats.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his answers to the questions, which are
difficult and complex. Tensions are rising as the temperatures
are dropping in the United Kingdom, and the Government are
intending to pay out large amounts of money for heating, but I am
concerned that ill feeling towards migrants is growing as people
mistake legal asylum-seeking for illegal immigration. Will the
Minister outline how his Department intends to ensure that those
who have no right to be in this country are treated with respect
and care, but will not be allowed to overstay beyond that which
is fair, equitable and enshrined in law?
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the UK wants to be a
big-hearted country that welcomes those in need to our shores,
but we must ensure that those who come here illegally for
economic migration or other purposes are removed as swiftly as
possible, because it brings the whole system into disrepute and
makes it impossible for us to treat people who deserve our care
in the way that we would want to see. At the moment, the system
is frankly overwhelmed by the sheer number of individuals coming
here, a very large proportion of whom should not come here,
because they are economic migrants.
(Worcester) (Con)
One of the locations hosting migrants in my constituency is the
Fownes Hotel, and notwithstanding the fact that I expressed
concerns about its suitability, I was particularly concerned to
hear from my council about a number of children being taken into
care from that location. My right hon. Friend mentioned an
incentive package for councils. I was told that such practice is
putting an additional burden on an already overburdened
children’s care system. Will he discuss with officials how to
ensure that even when the children were not supposed to be at a
particular location, support flows through to councils? The
impression I have been left with by Worcestershire is that it is
trying to do the right thing, but either was not aware of or was
not receiving that support.
I will certainly ensure that local authorities are better
communicated with about the location of children to their area
and the support that the Government are making available. I am
holding a teleconference later this week with all local authority
chief executives and leaders to listen to their views and to
advise them of our steps. On the back of that, if we need to make
changes to our processes, I will certainly try my best to do
so.
(York Central)
(Lab/Co-op)
Inhumane centres and overcrowded, let alone unsafe hotels are no
place to put these very vulnerable families. In light of the
success of the Homes for Ukraine scheme, why will the Home Office
Minister not undertake to have a homes for refugees and asylum
seekers scheme, so that people can be settled in communities,
supported and kept safe?
There is already a community sponsorship scheme available for
community groups that want to bring refugees to the United
Kingdom and care for them appropriately. I would like to see more
community groups take part in that, and if there are ways in
which we can simplify it and ensure its success, I would be happy
to do so. The hon. Lady mentions the Homes for Ukraine scheme,
which I personally feel passionately about. That is now facing
some challenges, because a number of individuals are coming up to
the end of their six-month process, and we need to encourage more
families to come forward and take them in. I am working with my
right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up,
Housing and Communities to establish a rematching service, so
that we can ensure that those families are properly looked
after.
(South Basildon and East
Thurrock) (Con)
I appreciate the challenge that my right hon. Friend and the
Department are facing, but we can solve the problem of
accommodation by stopping illegal entry into this country in the
first place. Therefore, will he please, on behalf of my very
frustrated constituents, leave no stone unturned in finding a
solution to this problem and stopping illegal entry?
My hon. Friend is right that we have been debating the symptoms
of the problem today, rather than the cause, which is the sheer
quantity of individuals crossing the channel illegally. We will
tackle that on multiple fronts, whether through the National
Crime Agency and our security and policing resources ensuring
that we bear down on the criminal gangs, by gathering the best
possible intelligence on the continent diplomatically with
France, Albania and other partner countries, or ensuring that how
we treat people in this country, while decent and appropriate,
does not produce a further draw to the UK. Ensuring that
deterrence suffuses our approach is extremely important.
(Glasgow North) (Ind)
It is worth reiterating that seeking asylum is not illegal, but
if the Government really want to save a little bit of money, why
do they not extend the right to work to people who are seeking
asylum? If they did so, those people would become more
self-sufficient, and could find and pay for their own
accommodation. They could ease the massive labour shortages
facing the country and they could pay tax to the Exchequer.
I have listened carefully to the arguments on both sides of that
issue. I appreciate that colleagues will respectfully disagree
with me, but it is extremely important that we do not create
further pull factors to the UK, which is arguably a more
attractive destination for illegal migration than our European
neighbours. There is a wide range of reasons for that, but I do
not want to create any further pull factors that will only make
this situation worse.
(Redditch) (Con)
My Redditch constituents are generous and compassionate, and have
opened their hearts and homes to refugees from countries around
the world. However, they find it deeply illogical, infuriating
and completely unfair to see these small boats arriving on our
southern shores. Every sovereign nation should have the right to
control its borders, but we are seeing that it is possible for an
Albanian male, under our modern slavery legislation, to become a
confirmed victim of modern slavery. That is not what this
world-leading and compassionate legislative framework was set up
to achieve. It has rescued many vulnerable people from awful
situations, so when will the Minister introduce a review of that
legislation to make sure that it is fit for purpose and can do
what it is intended to do, rather than being a fast-track route
for Albanian males?
My hon. Friend has spoken on this on a number of occasions, and
she draws on her own experience at the Home Office and elsewhere.
She is right that modern slavery laws, while important and well
meant, are now being abused, particularly by males who are here
for economic migration purposes. We have seen many cases in which
young males from countries such as Albania, as she says, have
their asylum claims processed. Those claims are rejected, quite
rightly, so then they immediately make a claim under modern
slavery laws. That is wrong, and we intend to review it, as she
says, and make any changes that we need to make.
(Hammersmith) (Lab)
What the Minister said to my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select
Committee on Home Affairs, and what the Home Secretary told the
House last week balanced breaking the law by leaving asylum
seekers in Manston for weeks against breaking the law by
abandoning them on the streets without means, and then—Victoria
station aside—they decided to commit the first piece of law
breaking. Will the Minister publish the advice that led him to
that unusual legal opinion?
It is not the convention for the Government to publish legal
advice, but I have made it clear today and in other public
appearances that it is absolutely essential that Manston, like
other sites, operates within the law. In this case, that means
ensuring that individuals are treated decently and humanely there
and stay for 24 hours unless there are exceptional reasons to the
contrary. In this case, it was right that the Home Secretary
balanced that among wider concerns to leave individuals
destitute. It was also the case that this is a site that took at
short notice large numbers of migrants who crossed the channel
illegally, which put huge pressure on our facilities there. We
also had to deal with the aftermath of what is now being treated
as a terrorist incident, which led to 700 individuals being
evacuated to the site. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we
have made huge progress over the course of the week. We are now
at the right level of capacity and we are working to ensure that
individuals do not stay there any longer than 24 hours.
(Stoke-on-Trent South)
(Con)
It is extremely disappointing that we continue to see the Home
Office pursuing hotels in Stoke-on-Trent, particularly given the
concerns that we have raised about the risks associated with
doing so and the fact that more than 800 refugees have already
been resettled in Stoke-on-Trent. Will my right hon. Friend look
at measures to ensure that other parts of the country that have
done little to nothing to help to provide accommodation are told
to do so?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the burden of migrants in
hotel and other accommodation has historically been borne by our
cities, and that Stoke has disproportionately borne a significant
quantity of migrants. We have now tried to disperse individuals
more broadly, and some of the issues that we have heard about
today are a result of migrants being placed in hotels in
locations where that would not previously have happened, so it is
a new issue for those local authorities to cope with. We need to
ensure that we provide the right support to those local
authorities. We now have a dispersal strategy to encourage
individuals to be placed more fairly across the country, which we
hope should in time provide a fairer settlement for places such
as Stoke-on-Trent.
(Inverclyde) (SNP)
If the dispersal strategy is to be successful, local authorities
must be engaged in a conversation before they are told what is
happening in their own local authority. That way, we can ensure
that the correct support, services and funding are in place.
Otherwise, does the Minister not just risk fuelling the
increasing intolerance and bigotry?
The hon. Gentleman is right. My first priority was to ensure that
the Manston site was operating legally and appropriately, which
meant that the Home Office had to procure accommodation at pace.
We are now moving into the next phase, which will involve
ensuring that we have better communication and engagement with
local authorities, so that we can hear their concerns; that we
provide them with the support that they might need; and that we
choose locations together that meet sensible criteria in terms of
safeguarding, community cohesion and the availability of public
services. It is also extremely important that we work closely
with local authorities on issues such as child protection and the
appropriate dispersal of children and families across the
country.
(Dudley North) (Con)
We have heard about international law and how we cannot break it,
and about the European convention on human rights, but in 2005
and ever since, we chose to ignore the ECHR and an EU diktat
requiring us to give people in prison the vote. In other words,
we ignored international law because we respected our people’s
wishes. Why can Italy and other EU nations do the same today, and
we do not, when it comes to foreign criminal gangs and people
smugglers arising from illegal immigration? Why do we not protect
our borders and our people?
We will do everything in our power to protect our borders. I have
already set out that we will do that on a number of fronts,
including through law enforcement and robustly tackling the
criminal gangs on the continent. We will also do it through
better diplomatic relations with our nearest allies, such as
France; my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is having one of
those conversations this week with President Macron. We will work
with countries such as Albania that are demonstrably safe and
where economic migrants in particular should be returned swiftly.
If further legal changes are required, we will consider making
them, because treaties to which the UK is a signatory should work
in the best interests of the British people.
(Bassetlaw) (Con)
Many people will have tuned into their TVs yesterday to see
people living in tents and eating food that many would find
vomit-inducing—not in Australia, but elsewhere in mainland
Europe. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is therefore
insulting to hear the Opposition say that the accommodation and
hospitality offered by this country is not good enough? Many of
my constituents would be grateful to be afforded such luxury.
We should treat individuals coming to the UK with decency; those
are our values. My hon. Friend is right to say that the standard
to which we look after those arriving on our shores, in almost
every case, easily surpasses that of other countries. We only
have to compare the standards of Manston, which I have seen in
the last week, with those of the camp in Dunkirk to see the
difference. We should be proud of the way we support individuals
coming to the UK—that is the British way—but we should do so in a
common-sensical way that looks after the best interests and value
for money of the British taxpayer.
(Ipswich) (Con)
It was not too long ago that the Opposition brought forward a
motion to oppose the use of Napier barracks for illegal
immigrants, but I would much rather have that than the use of the
Novotel in the centre of Ipswich, where 20 constituents’ jobs
have been lost as a result. Ultimately, however, does the
Minister agree that the Rwanda policy is the right policy that
will create one of the most powerful deterrent effects? Can he
give me some clarity about when that is likely to be implemented
and how the new Bill of Rights could help to bring it to
fruition?
As I have said in answer to many questions this afternoon,
deterrence has to be suffused through our entire approach so that
we do not make the UK a draw for illegal migration. The Rwanda
policy is one element of that, and it would produce a significant
deterrent effect. It is currently subject to legal action—we
expect to hear more on that shortly—but as soon as we are able to
proceed with it, my hon. Friend can be assured that we will do
so.
(Devizes) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that in order to stop the flow of
people across the channel, we need to do two things? First, we
need proper legitimate routes for people to claim asylum before
they arrive in the UK, and we should also prioritise those who
come here with community sponsors who can help them, as the hon.
Member for York Central () has suggested, which we
have already done for 100,000 Ukrainians. Secondly, we need to
ensure that if people break into this country, they are not able
to live here or to work, but will be detained and deported, and
if we need to change our laws or, indeed, the terms of our
membership of the ECHR, we should do that.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the good work he did at the
Department for Levelling Up in helping to establish the Homes for
Ukraine scheme. That scheme established the principles that he
has set out, which I think would be a better way forward for our
asylum system, whereby asylum to this country would be
predominantly through resettlement schemes like those for Syria,
Afghanistan and Ukraine. Individuals came here through safe and
legal routes, enabling the UK to prioritise those truly
endangered, and ensure that those who come here illegally—for
example, in small boats—find it more difficult to find safe
harbour here and are returned to their home country.
(Clwyd South) (Con)
During my brief tenure this summer as the Minister for tackling
illegal migration, I visited Manston. Does my right hon. Friend
agree that the staff working at Manston deserve our praise for
the excellent care and attention they give in their work,
particularly as it often takes place in very challenging
circumstances?
I thank my hon. Friend for his important short service commission
this summer. We are very grateful for the work he did. He is
right to say that the staff at Manston have behaved heroically. I
was hugely impressed by the Border Force officers I met, the
contractors, the cooks, the armed forces personnel and my Home
Office officials. They have moved heaven and earth over the
course of the past week to ensure that that site is returned to a
safe and legal method of operation. They have always treated
people with great care and courtesy, and we should all be proud
of that.
Mr Deputy Speaker ( )
I thank the Minister for responding to the urgent question and
answering questions for one hour and 20 minutes.
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