Yvette Cooper Illegal Migration Bill statement and Labour's five-point plan to reform the asylum system

Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, response to today’s statement from Suella Braverman on the Illegal Migration Bill:

·         Below is Labour’s comprehensive five-point plan to reform the asylum system, announced in July 2022:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-will-scrap-rwanda-policy-and-target-gangs-says-yvette-cooper-v2bkl5std

·         Attached is a dossier on the Conservatives’ recycled rhetoric on immigration.

·         Below is also Yvette Cooper’s House of Commons statement text – ***CHECKED AGAINST DELIVERY***.

LABOUR’S FIVE-POINT PLAN TO REFORM THE ASYLUM SYSTEM:

1.  Crackdown on criminal smuggler gangs, through new cross-border police unit

A Labour Government would redirect spending from the unworkable Rwanda scheme, which the government has admitted is subject to a very high risk of fraud, to set up a new cross-border police unit to crack down on smuggling gangs. This would include millions of pounds of new investment in the National Crime Agency.

Officers would be based in the UK and throughout Europe to tackle the gangs upstream. This would be supported with an urgent review to identify the gaps in enforcement against smuggling gangs, with the findings used to lay out an Action Plan to be delivered by the NCA and Border Force, in collaboration with international allies and Europol.

2. Clear the backlog and end hotel use

The Home Office is taking 10,000 fewer asylum decisions a year than they were in 2015, leaving people waiting in limbo for much longer and pushing up accommodation costs. Fast tracking cases for Albania and other safe countries, introducing triage and restoring proper casework standards and targets will mean quicker support for those who are refugees, much quicker returns for those who are not, and stopping costly hotel use.

3. Reform legal routes for refugees to stop people being exploited by gangs

Labour would redesign the existing resettlement schemes which are not currently working properly so that they include a clearer process for refugees with family connections in the UK to be considered for resettlement, preventing them being exploited by criminal gangs or making dangerous journeys.  

4. New agreement with France and other countries on returns and family reunion

Labour would negotiate a new agreement which includes safe returns and safe family reunions.  

5. Tackle humanitarian crises at source helping refugees in their region

Labour would work in partnership internationally to address some of the humanitarian crises that are leading people to flee their homes including restoring the 0.7% aid commitment when the fiscal situation allows and strengthening support for the people of Afghanistan, currently the largest group trying to cross the Channel.

YVETTE COOPER STATEMENT TEXT - ***CHECKED AGAINST DELIVERY***

Mr Speaker, a record 45,000 people crossed the channel on dangerous small boats last year, up from 280 just four years ago.

The Government has allowed criminal gangs to take hold along the Channel and along our border.

At the same time - convictions of people smugglers have halved, Home Office asylum decisions have collapsed – down 40%; the backlog and costly, inappropriate hotel use have soared; removals of unsuccessful asylum seekers are down 80% on the last Labour government; and legal family reunion visas for refugees are down 40%.

This is deeply damaging chaos – and there is no point in Ministers trying to blame anyone else. They’ve been in power 13 years. The asylum system is broken – and they broke it.  

We need serious action to stop dangerous boat crossings which are putting lives at risk and undermining border security.

That’s why Labour has put forward plans for a cross border police unit, fast-track decisions and returns, to clear the backlog and end hotel use, and a new agreement with France and other countries.

Instead today’s statement is Groundhog Day.

The Home Secretary has said: “anyone who arrives illegally will be deemed inadmissible and either returned to the country they arrived from or a safe third country”.

Only that wasn’t this Home Secretary it was the last one.

And it wasn’t this Bill, it was the last one. Passed only a year ago. Which did not work.

As part of last year’s Bill, the Home Office considered 18,000 people as inadmissible for the asylum system because they had travelled through safe third countries.

But because they had no return agreements just 21 of them were returned. That is 0.1%

The other 99.9% just carried on – often in hotels – at an extra cost of £500 million, and it didn’t deter anyone. Even more boats arrived.

So what is different this time?

They still don’t have any return agreements in place.

The Home Secretary herself has admitted Rwanda is “failing” and even if it gets going it will only take a few hundred people. What will happen to the other 99% of people under this Bill?

She says she is going to detain them all for 28 days.

Can she tell us how many detention centres they will need and how much they will cost?

And even if she does, what will happen when people leave 28 day detention?

Will she make people destitute? So they just wander the streets? In total chaos.

Torture victims. Afghan interpreters. Families with children.

Or is she in fact going to put them into indefinite taxpayer funded accommodation.

Never returned anywhere because there are no agreements with Europa in place?

Never having their case resolved. Never returned if they are from a safe country? Never given sanctuary if they are refugees.

Just forever in asylum accommodation and hotels. She may not call it the asylum system, but thousands of people are still going to be in it nevertheless.

And what does it mean for the promises we made, to the Afghan interpreters who served our country but who were too late to make the last flight from Kabul as the tyranny was closing in on them.

The Government told us to tell them to flee and find another way here and they told us to tell people that as well. The resettlement scheme isn’t helping them.

If they arrive in this country finally this afternoon – perhaps travelling through Ireland to get here – they will only ever be illegal in the eyes of a government who relied on the sacrifices they made for us.

If the Government was serious it would be working internationally to get a proper new agreement in place with France and other European countries including return agreements and properly controlled and managed legal routes such as family reunion, and reform of resettlement.

Instead this Bill makes it harder, unilaterally choosing to decide no asylum cases at all, but expecting every other country to carry on.

And they would work with Labour on our plan for a major new cross border police unit to go after the criminal gangs.

But instead yesterday the Deputy Chair of the Tory Party said we shouldn’t go after the gangs because they’ve existed for thousands of years.

That is the disgraceful Tory attitude that is letting criminals off the hook and has let the gangs take hold.

One smuggler told Sky News yesterday that three quarters of the smugglers live in Britain.

Yet barely any of them are being prosecuted and they still haven’t found the hundreds of children missing from asylum hotels who have been picked up by criminal gangs.

They could be setting out a serious plan today – and we would work with them and so would everyone across the country.

Instead. It’s just more chaos. She says no ifs no buts – and all of us know she’s going to spend the next year iffing and butting and looking for someone else to blame.

Enough is enough. We cannot afford this Slogans not solutions. Just government by gimmick.  Ramping up the rhetoric on refugees. Picking fights simply so they have someone else to blame when it all goes wrong again.

This Bill isn’t a solution. It is a con that risks making the chaos even worse.

Britain deserves better than this chaos, Britain is better than this.