Asylum Policies: Danish Model

I will later today be sharing the full details of my plans for far-reaching reforms to the UK asylum system to restore order and control to our borders. We have learned lessons from our international partners, including Denmark; fundamental reform to its system has seen asylum claims at a 40-year low. The impact of this Government’s plans will be to restore order and control to the border, so we can be the open, tolerant and generous country that we know ourselves to be.

The Denmark-style policies briefed in the last couple of days are dystopian. It is shameful that a Labour Government are ripping up the rights and protections of people who have endured unimaginable trauma. Is this how we would want to be treated if we were fleeing for our lives? Of course not. How can we be adopting such obviously cruel policies? Is the Home Secretary proud that the Government have sunk to such depths that they are now being praised by Tommy Robinson?

I am disappointed at the nature of my hon. Friend’s question. I hope she will look at the detail of the reforms. As I have already said on these matters, we have a proper problem and it is our moral duty to fix it. Our asylum system is broken. The breaking of that asylum system is causing huge division across our whole country, and it is a moral mission for me to resolve that division across our country. I know that the reforms I will be setting out later today can fix the system and, in doing so, unite what is today a divided country.

The Home Secretary likes to talk tough, while the numbers continue to rise. As part of the statement that she will bring to the House later, will she confirm that detailed modelling will be published and whether she has shared that modelling with No. 10?

The right hon. Gentleman’s question would have had a bit more force if he had apologised for being part of a Government who fundamentally broke our migration system and presided over the crisis inherited by this Government. Of course we will model the impact of our policies. This is a sweeping set of reforms—the most significant in modern times. They will bring down the number of arrivals and increase the number of removals of those who have no right to be in this country. We will build on our track record in government, which has seen removals increase. The totality of the reforms will, I believe, unlock the generosity of this country in creating new safe and legal routes, which will grow more generous over time.

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

Well, it is good to see the Home Secretary here, taking some time off from her leadership campaign. She is quite clearly preparing a one in, one out policy for No. 10 Downing Street!

The Home Secretary has announced that she wants to replace the Government’s entire immigration policy with Denmark’s. Is that because the Government have failed so badly in the year and a half since the election? Since the election, illegal channel crossings have surged 55%, up to 62,000; new asylum claims have reached record levels; and the numbers in asylum hotels have gone up. In just 75 days, since the right hon. Lady became Home Secretary, 10,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the English channel, but the Home Secretary—

Order. You have to at least try to get to a question. Don’t forget that we are having a big statement on this topic shortly.

Okay, I will ask a question. Will the Home Secretary agree with us that in order to control our borders we must come out of the European convention on human rights, enabling us to deport all illegal immigrants within a week of their arrival?

Well, I think we can all agree that the right hon. Gentleman’s leadership campaign is going absolutely nowhere. Once again his party reverts to an unworkable solution that is a total gimmick, just like their failed Rwanda plan, which saw £700 million spent and a total of four volunteers returned. What we always get from the Conservatives are gimmicks and solutions that would never ever work. What we get from this Government is a track record of increasing removals, following the situation we inherited from the Conservative Government, and a proper plan that will fix this broken system.

Our leader is not going anywhere, but the right hon. Lady’s leader most certainly is—out of No. 10!

The Home Secretary talks about the Rwanda scheme. That scheme never even started. It worked in Australia and it would have worked here. After her Government cancelled it with no replacement, numbers have surged. The truth is that under this Government, illegal immigration has gone up, and there is a crime wave going up with it, including rape and murder. Her ideas are not radical enough. She wants to give illegal immigrants a 20-year path to citizenship—

Order. I’m not being funny. The idea is to ask a question. The statement will be coming later, and we are going to go through all this then. This really does not help. You can pick which colleagues from your side of the Chamber you do not want to ask a question, because they are the ones you are taking time away from.

The Home Secretary wants to give illegal immigrants a 20-year path to citizenship. We want to deport them. Will she accept our proposal to come out of the ECHR so that we can actually control our borders?

I am sure that all Conservative Members will be delighted to hear that the Leader of the Opposition is going absolutely nowhere—and we are very happy to see her remain in place.

This Government will not come out of the European convention on human rights. We are going to reform the way that article 8 in particular is applied to immigration rules within our country. This Government are rolling up our sleeves and doing the hard work of governing—unlike his party, which just gave up altogether.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

On the point of asylum policy, the Liberal Democrats recently defeated an attempt by the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), backed vociferously by the Conservatives, who he is trying to kill, to rip this country out of the ECHR.

Metaphorically.

Metaphorically trying to kill, yes.

Leaving the ECHR would do nothing to halt small boat crossings but it would deny British people hard-won rights: free speech, the Hillsborough inquiry and protections for older people. The Government have announced that they are reviewing certain articles of the ECHR—the Home Secretary has just referenced it. Can she give us a cast-iron guarantee that when she is working on these changes, she will do so in partnership with other signatories to the convention and will not follow the Conservatives and Reform in seeking to isolate this country on the international stage?

The Prime Minister and I could not be clearer. We are not coming out of the European convention on human rights. We are going to pursue reform—in particular of article 8, which is a qualified right under the convention—and I will set out those plans later today. There is a conversation happening with our partners at the Council of Europe in relation to the application of article 3. A conversation is already happening on reform of the European convention—both here at home with the domestic legislation that we will pursue and at the Council of Europe itself. That is the approach with which this Government will continue.