Asylum Seeker Employment and the Cost of Living

I beg to move,

That this House has considered asylum seeker employment and the cost of living.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. My constituent Mary had to flee her home country of Kenya because of fear of persecution and sought asylum in the UK in 2017. I met Mary in August of this year and learned about her story and the barriers that she has faced since coming to the UK, one of which is the barrier to being able to work. Back in August, she told me:

“I was made to understand that I did not have the right to work as a person seeking asylum. This was…devastating for me as I knew I had some transferrable skills that I could use here to build my life and contribute to society.

Not being able to work really affected my mental health. It felt…demeaning for me especially being a parent and not being able to fully provide for my child. Most days, I was confined in the house, dealing with devastation and a lot of stress. There were days my daughter had to miss school when it was non-uniform…days”.

Mahmoud came to the UK in 2020, fearing for his life. He was forced to leave behind his wife and young son. Mahmoud was a civil servant and campaigner in Sierra Leone. He loved his job, but more importantly, he loved the fact that he was advocating for others. His life was sent into a spiral when the authorities began persecuting him. He said:

“Going hungry brings me some comfort. The money that could pay for my food has paid for the food my family is eating. My little son”—

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing the debate. While inflation has pushed the cost of energy and food to a 40-year high, the asylum support allowance has risen by just 13p from last year. Does he share my concern that the Home Office has not adequately considered the harm done when refugees cannot afford the very basics, such as three meals a day?

I thank the hon. Lady for the intervention. I was just coming on to that point, but I completely and wholeheartedly agree.

As Mahmoud said, going hungry brings him some comfort. The money that could pay for his food has meant that his little son will not go to bed hungry. That is the only comfort that it brings him. He used to spend £10 on his weekly grocery shop, but now, increasing costs are making that impossible. These are not one-off instances; this is the life of an asylum seeker in a cost of living crisis.

Close to 18 months ago, I was in a debate on the Nationality and Borders Bill. In that debate, I said that asylum seekers travel through many safe countries, and that they essentially have a shopping trolley as to what they want as economic migrants. I want to go on record here and say that it is important to admit when you are wrong. My meetings with Mary and others have shown me that I was wrong, and I am sorry for that. Every week, the Government use scapegoats, and as we continued to see even yesterday in the Prime Minister’s statement, asylum seekers have been one for this Government for far too long. I am sorry for playing my part in that narrative as well.

These people are not arbitrary numbers for newspaper editors to froth at the mouth about, or to stoke the fire of intolerance. They are human beings, and we all need to remember that. They have had their hopes and dreams for themselves and their children dashed, but they still have hope. They want a good education; they want to live life without fear of persecution; and more importantly, they need our help and assistance. The persecution may be for a religious or political belief, due to war or because of the sexuality of the person they love, but when I have met asylum seekers, one thing has always been constant: the need for dignity after all they have been through. I am sure that we can all agree that having a purpose through work brings dignity.

People seeking asylum in the UK are in effect prohibited from working, and are forced to rely on just £5.84 a day while they wait for a decision to be reached on their asylum claim. During the cost of living crisis, that small sum makes it impossible to cover what is needed. As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) said, an increase of just 13p in a year seems miserly in the crisis that we face as a nation.

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called to speak in the debate.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) on securing this debate, and on making such a powerful speech. It took a lot of honesty and courage, and I believe it truly honours his constituents.

When we see people through the lens of how they were created, we do not see the labels that people have adhered to them. We find our brothers and sisters, our colleagues and friends. For that reason, it is so important to seek the very best for people who are at their very worst. I have serious concern about people who are not in education, employment or training. We know the impact that has on our constituents, no matter where they come from or their circumstances. We know about the impact on their mental health, their self-esteem and their dignity. We know about the impact on wider society, the local economy and the Treasury. The desire to work is instinctive in all of us. We want to contribute and make a difference to our society, and people who have come far want to make their contribution, too.

Not allowing asylum seekers to work means that the public perceive them as living off the state. Much of the public do not know about the work restrictions and the lack of access to welfare. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Government’s approach to refugees contributes to misconceptions, and may lead to racism?

I thank the hon. Lady for that point. There is a risk that that approach can be used to fuel a debate. That is why it is important to ensure that people who come to live in our communities are integrated into them, become part of our streets, families and society, and play a strong role by contributing and receiving, as we all do. That makes stronger societies. She makes a pertinent point.

People’s desire to work should be honoured, but as we know, across society, some of those people will be picked off by traffickers. Many people are trafficked to our country, and their securing good employment is one way to mitigate that. We know about the rise of modern slavery and exploitation. A black market is operating, and it would be far better for people to have the opportunity to contribute through legal employment than to be taken to darker places. When people are in employment, additional safety and accountability is placed around them. We hearing too many stories of people disappearing. That is not safe for them, or for wider society.

Let me look at another aspect of the argument. I hear constantly from employers in my constituency and across North Yorkshire that there is a serious labour shortage. I am thinking about the NHS and social care, where services are unsafe because they cannot be properly staffed. We have an NHS crisis; it needs to secure more and more people in work. I am thinking about our wider public services and the contribution that so many people could make to the UK, just as they contributed in the countries from which they fled. I am thinking about the opportunities in agriculture; we need to increase our food security. I am also thinking about logistics, in which, again, there are serious labour shortages.

So many of the people coming to our country could be part of the future economy. We have a climate crisis and are talking, at this very cold time, about the need to retrofit homes, yet we do not have the skills or the workforce to do that. We could train a new generation of workers to be part of the army that will be needed to address those issues. Construction and engineering are other examples. There are so many such areas.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) on securing the debate. Its timing is particularly good, given that we are about to go into the Christmas recess. Many of us will enjoy time with our families, and at the same time we are asking people not just to exist on £5.84 per day but live in cold and often damp housing. It is not a time of cheer for those people.

Earlier this year, I presented my Asylum Seekers (Permission to Work) Bill for First Reading. I discussed many of the issues that hon. Members have raised this morning. Ultimately, if we strip all this back and look at what the actual issue is, it is the Home Office; that is the bottom line. It is not making decisions and people are kept in limbo. Yes, we might hear about people kept in limbo for months, but for many of them—including a lot of my constituents—it is year after year of living hell. They cannot move on with their lives and they cannot do anything; they are literally just stuck there.

If the hon. Member’s inbox is anything like mine, she will have people who are waiting two or perhaps even three years. They come to my office literally every single day just to see if we have had any news whatsoever. Unfortunately, all that we can say is, “No, but we will chase it again.” It is not being able to actually get on with life; they do not have a life, because they are not able to. They are stuck in limbo, as she said. She is absolutely right; this is fundamentally a failure of the Home Office, and it needs to be corrected now.

Absolutely. One of my constituents has been waiting seven years for a decision. Are they an asylum seeker? Well, they are an asylum seeker—but are they a refugee or not? Surely we can come to a decision on that faster than seven years. We have a duty. If these people are not genuinely refugees, let us allow them to move on with their lives, because they cannot do that.

This is also economically stupid. We hear about the cost of housing these poor individuals. What we should be looking at instead is this: if they are working, what tax revenues can we gain? In fact, if only half of those currently awaiting a decision from the Home Office were able to work, it would generate nearly £200 million a year in tax revenues. We do not hear that; that is never put on the front of the Daily Mail. While there has recently been an increase in the shortage occupations where people can seek employment, there are still glaring gaps. Members have already talked about hospitality; I also have businesses in my constituency that are having to close because they cannot get staff. Meanwhile, literally upstairs from the café that is having to close, we have housed asylum seekers who are desperate to work. It makes no sense; when that café works, it closes. People—native Glaswegians, in my case—are also losing out, and money for the local economy is being lost. Simply by not allowing the neighbours upstairs to work, we are causing businesses to fail. It is economically stupid, but it is what we have come to expect.

Teachers are allowed to work if they teach maths, physics, computing or Gaelic, which is useful in Scotland, but there are huge shortages of teaching staff across the UK and we should be able to allow those people to come in and help. We have also seen shortages of HGV drivers, yet those people are not allowed to do such work.

In the rhetoric that we hear it is interesting that these individuals are coming here to steal all our jobs, at the same time as claiming all our benefits. That is the paradox that neither the Daily Mail nor this Tory Government seem to be able to solve. In fact, the reality is that these people do neither of those things. The majority of people are simply looking for somewhere safe to get on with their lives, where they can contribute.

It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I offer huge congratulations to the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) on securing this important debate and on making a brave and moving speech. I thank him for what he said.

The right to work is a frustrating issue. I find myself unable to get into the Government’s head on many parts of the discourse in this place about migration and how we treat refugees and asylum seekers, but the right to work is one area where the Government may be able to be pragmatic. I will make the case for that more fully if I have time at the end of my contribution, but to put it very bluntly and crudely, there are great left-wing and right-wing arguments for giving asylum seekers the right to work.

There are good bleeding-heart liberal reasons why we should care for people who are asylum seekers, as giving them dignity and the ability to integrate is a kind thing to do, but if the Conservatives, and the newspapers to which they tend to bow down, are really bothered about the cost of the asylum system, the answer is to allow people to pay their own way. There it is—I have solved the problem in one fell swoop: allow them to work, pay taxes and contribute to our society. That would be such an easy thing to do and I have a slight sense of hope from the Minister for Immigration, who was in Westminster Hall the other week responding to a debate on a related issue, that there may now be a little strain of pragmatism in the Home Office. I will continue to push for that, and I hope and pray that it might come to the fore.

Allowing refugees to work lets them integrate into their new communities faster. It could help tackle modern slavery. According to the campaign, Lift the Ban, it could hugely benefit the economy to the tune of £97.8 million per year in net gains for the Government. Does the hon. Member agree that allowing asylum seekers to work is beneficial for both them and the UK?

It really is, and I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. She is absolutely right, and I completely agree with her. It is worth bearing in mind the fact that some of the Government’s tough posturing on asylum seekers contributes towards modern slavery. For instance, the nonsense about deporting people to Rwanda—what will that do? Will that stop people coming to the UK? Nope—it will stop people claiming asylum when they get to the UK, and then they will end up in the black economy, involved in modern slavery, forced labour and exploitation.

The objections to giving asylum seekers the right to work, or allowing the UK to make use of their talents—let us put it that way—are bogus. Fundamentally, they focus on the nonsense of the pull factor. Let us deal with that, first and foremost. The idea that the UK is being swamped by asylum seekers is nonsense. The massive majority—up to 90% of refugees—remain in a country neighbouring the place they have fled. Of those who find their way to Europe, four times more asylum seekers are in Germany than are in the UK, and there are three times more in France than the UK. If we were briefly to put the UK back in the EU for league-table purposes, we are 17th out of 28 when it comes to the refugees we take per capita. We are neither overwhelmed nor swamped.

The extent to which we are is because of a broken asylum system, where we fail to triage people’s claims, and leave them rotting for months, even years, without an answer. That is absolutely outrageous. Yes, the cost of having people in hotels is huge, and it is entirely down to Government incompetence, not down to us being swamped by people seeking to invade and exploit us—and all that nonsense.

I have been to Calais, I have been to Paris to talk to displaced people from Calais, and out to some of the Greek islands where refugees first arrive in Europe. I talked to those who are seeking to come to the United Kingdom. First, they are a small minority. Secondly, when I dug down and asked why they wanted to come to the United Kingdom, their answer was family ties, and cultural reasons—particularly if people come from a country that was once part of the British Empire, and for whom this is the mother country. If that is the case, this is a place that people will seek to come to—but they are a relatively small minority.

It is also because Britain may well have had a colonial footprint in the country that they are coming from, so they have a feeling of affinity with Britain.

That is absolutely right. They probably speak English, or have been taught it, so there is a sense of Britain being the mother country. The reputation of Britain as a place of religious and political liberty—a place of freedom—where people can live a quiet life is the pull factor. No amount of ridiculous legislation from this Government or any other will scrub out several centuries of having that reputation—a reputation we should be proud of.

I spent a little time in the constituency of my neighbour and friend the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), who is a Conservative MP—I will not say “but a decent human being”—and a decent human being. I went to one of the places where asylum seekers are being kept, and the people supporting them spoke highly of the hon. Member and his work supporting asylum seekers in their casework applications to have their cases heard. I came across people who had obviously gone through enormous trauma in the places they had fled, particularly those who fled through Libya, which is a place of terrible persecution and awful deprivation for those who have to pass through it to get to the Mediterranean. Many of them have post-traumatic stress disorder, and the mental health impact on them of having to wait for months on end is utterly intolerable. Many were not there because they were on antidepressants and simply could not get out of bed. My experience of meeting those people and seeing the talent they had made me think, “What a waste it is that that talent is not allowed to be deployed.”

Let us consider: why should the Government give asylum seekers the right to work? Why should the Government give the UK the right to benefit from asylum seekers’ talent? It is simply because they will pay their way. If we are worried about the cost of asylum seekers to the taxpayer, we can stop worrying about it by giving them the opportunity to work, so they will be less of a burden and, by paying tax, will actually be contributors. We should think what it would mean for their mental health and dignity, which is important, and for their ability to develop their English and fit in more. As others have said, over three quarters of asylum seekers will be granted refugee status or granted asylum in this country.

I rise to intervene because while we have been speaking, there has been an incident in the channel. Forty-seven people have been in the water and unfortunately several have died. That shows the dangerous lengths people go to to come here. It is not just for economic benefit and migration; people are taking a serious risk for cultural and familial reasons, and all the reasons we are talking about in this debate. We are a proud, tolerant country that should be accepting and trying to abide by that. Unfortunately, I feel that in the rhetoric we are hearing if someone said, “Build a wall”, I would not be surprised, so we need to overcome that and show compassion now more than ever.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. I know I have gone on for longer than I should, and I will wrap up in a minute. What he said was obviously heartbreaking, and it is a reminder that the reason why all the channel crossings happen is the lack of safe routes. If we allow people to apply when they are on dry land, they will not make ridiculous journeys like that. It is a minority of people who are fleeing who come to this country and, because we are protected by that body of water, people have to do dangerous things to get here. That is not a decision people take lightly. They take it because they are desperate and they see the United Kingdom as a place of safety for them. Giving asylum seekers the right to work will absolutely lessen the financial burden on the taxpayer. It will give the Government a defence for the many people encouraging them to be even more beastly because they are allowing them to share the cost of the system. It will help with integration, mental health and, as the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) rightly pointed out, workforce issues. One of the major reasons why our economy is in recession is that there are parts of the economy where there is more demand than we can meet—that is an outrage.

It is really disheartening to hear about those deaths from the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford). While the moral and economic justifications are obvious, allowing asylum seekers to work would, conversely, deprive the Government of propaganda that says, “Asylum seekers are a drain on the country and a detriment to our society”. We all know how much the right-wing mainstream media love to fall back on finger-pointing and othering the poor, the vulnerable and especially refugees. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) will agree that allowing asylum seekers to work would give them the opportunity to provide a better standard of living for themselves and their families and improve their participation, engagement and contribution in UK society.

I completely agree with everything the hon. Lady has said.

In conclusion, I want quickly to make a point about workforce in my community. There is a stat I often reel out—I did it yesterday in the main Chamber—that comes from a survey of Cumbria Tourism members. The lakes is the second biggest visitor destination in the country outside London. We have 20 million visitors a year and a relatively low population, so workforce is an issue. Some 63% of tourism businesses in the lakes report operating below capacity because they cannot find the staff. I am not saying that giving asylum seekers the right to work is the only answer, but it would contribute and help us economically. There are good self-interested reasons for the country to do this, but it is also the right thing to do morally.

This is about leadership. The rhetoric and discourse from the Government on asylum in particular—how we treat those who come to us for sanctuary—are a failure of moral leadership and show a lack of courage. They say there are two forms of leadership: one is where the leader sees the direction the crowd is travelling in and goes down to the front and says, “I agree”, which is not leadership, by the way; the other is where the leader has the courage to make the case. Leaders should lead and make the case. There is a strong, hard-nosed conservative argument for doing this, as well as a bleeding-heart liberal reason. Would the Minister agree to look into the mechanisms that would need to be employed to give asylum seekers the right to work or, to flip it the other way round, to allow the United Kingdom to make use of the talents of those who come to us for sanctuary?

From Tim to Jim—I call Jim Shannon.

It is an absolute pleasure to speak in this debate on a subject that is very close to my heart. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who captured the exact reasons why we are here. It is because we believe there is a good case to be made, and I am going to make my case for my constituency, as he did for his.

All of the hon. Gentleman’s speech captured my attention, but the one particular point that I took out of it was the fact that many asylum seekers may have a connection with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. They are well aware of what the country that they may see as their mother nation has to offer them. The hon. Gentleman captured the emotion of the occasion very well, as well as the importance of the case we are trying to put forward. It is because of issues relating to human rights and freedom of religious belief that many asylum seekers have fled from where they came from, whether that is Afghanistan, Syria or Ukraine, as is topical at this moment in time and very fresh and real in our memories.

I want to put forward the case for Strangford. I am going to name some of the firms in my constituency that have offered jobs. Their offers are on the record and I have made those companies’ names available to Ministers. I do not understand why people who are here have not been offered those jobs when they are available, but I will speak more on that in a minute.

The rise in the cost of living is having a severe impact on many across the United Kingdom. People in full-time employment with possible savings are still struggling to make ends meet. I say this respectfully to Government: I believe that there must be some element of compassion for those who are awaiting asylum decisions and living on incredibly low amounts of money. I have always had the belief that we must help those who do not have the capacity to help themselves. We are fortunate and privileged to be Members of Parliament. Our job is to speak up for those who do not have anyone to speak for them. We may never meet them, but that does not mean we will speak up for them any less. Each and every Member who has spoken so far in this debate has reiterated that point. I know that the shadow Ministers who will follow will also confirm the stance that we all share on this matter.

As usual, the hon. Gentleman is giving a well-considered speech. Does he agree that it is the most natural thing in the world for human beings to have purpose and meaning in their day? Going out and earning a living gives them that purpose. Without that, asylum seekers are vulnerable to exploitation from those who would take advantage of the very vulnerable in our society.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right and I could not put it any better, because that is exactly how I feel. We should give them dignity and a purpose in life—I genuinely do not think that is too much to ask. That is why this debate is so important.

I will give another indication of the jobs that are available. The owner of a bar in Belfast revealed that they were crying out for staff. As we come up to Christmas, there are literally hundreds of jobs that could be taken advantage of in the hospitality industry in particular. Again, I just do not understand why those jobs are not being offered to people. If they cannot fill the jobs from the society we live in—whatever the reasons may be—there are plenty of people in hotels not too far away who would love that opportunity. There are people from Afghanistan sitting in a hotel in Bangor, which is a city in North Down. They have been there for over 15 months. My goodness. I am going to challenge everybody in this room: would anyone like to be sitting like that in a hotel? Bangor is nice, by the way, but that is not the point. It is not in my constituency, but I say that with honesty. Could anyone’s mind take that? Could anyone physically take that? I do not think so.

On the hotel issue, this is portrayed as some sort of luxury. Can anyone imagine being in a hotel room? I stay in hotels here in London. It is bad enough doing two or three nights a week, but imagine that being your only place, with no cooking facilities, no place for the children to sleep, no separation of family members and no privacy. It would be hell.

I agree with the hon. Lady. I am not sure it would be hell. As a Christian, I think hell is a place you never want to be and worse than anything in this world.

It would not be pleasant.

I understand the hon. Lady’s point. I did not say that to be judgmental, by the way. I just wanted to make that point.

Although I appreciate and respect the Government decisions on not permitting asylum seekers to work, I believe that schemes could be put in place by our Government—my Government—to allow them to get back to society. They want to get back to society. They want to do something. They want to be purposeful with their lives here in our country. For example, they could take part in community service and assistance by means of cleaning streets or doing local gardening—for those who just want to be physically active. It does not mean the job is demeaning. It is important. It helps us out.

I want to mention two companies. Willowbrook Foods has a number of jobs and I met the chief executive officer, John McCann. He told me to tell Government that he has jobs available. He has been trying to fill those jobs within our own constituency but has not been able to do so, so there are jobs and opportunities. The CEO of Mash Direct is Martin Hamilton. I heard the same thing from him. I think Willowbrook Foods employs about 260 to 270 people, and Mash Direct employs about 230 to 240. They have jobs available and they have specifically said that they want to help the Afghans, the Ukrainians and the Syrians get the jobs and make their lives better. I believe this allows for an improvement of local standards and improvement in the mental and physical health of asylum seekers. It would give them a way to give back to our community and a chance to make some money in order to get the essential items that they need and want.

Amid the cost of living crisis, the Government are taking steps to assist all aspects of our society. I ask that that includes those awaiting asylum decisions. To be asked to live on as little as £8 a week is shocking. Yes, accommodation and essential bills, such as for heating and electricity, are covered, but many of these families have young children. What about their schooling? What about the help for young children? They are just wee children, who look to their mum and dad for support, succour and help. But, at the end of the day, they also need to have active minds and bodies. Is that too much to ask? Some even have babies who require nappies, formula and baby food, which come at extortionate prices. In the last month I have become a grandfather again—it is the sixth time around. Rachael and Luke tell me that the price of baby stuff—they already have a child so they can compare it—is getting extortionate.

Thank you so much for that. There has been a fantastic array of Back-Bench speeches. I now invite the Front Benchers to speak, starting with Alison Thewliss of the SNP.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) for securing this debate and being honest and courageous enough to say that he has changed his mind. Many people get stuck in the position of thinking, “I’ve said something once so I have to stick to it forever,” so it can be difficult to do that. I thank him very much for doing that; it is incredibly powerful.

I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) and for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), who fulfilled this portfolio role with great ability over the past couple of years. I am honoured to take it up following them; I have large shoes to fill.

I thank Refugee Action for its action on this issue and its campaigning over many years as part of the Lift the Ban coalition. More locally in Glasgow, I thank the Maryhill Integration Network and the Red Cross VOICES Network, which have done so much to bring this issue to light.

We all agree that, regardless of our constituency, political party and ideological position, there is a case to be made for allowing asylum seekers the right to work. The Migration Advisory Committee is giving the Government the same advice, so they really ought to be listening to it. I am desperately sad to hear the news that some people may have died in the wee small hours trying to cross the channel this morning in perishingly cold conditions. It highlights that we urgently need safe and legal routes to come to this country. People need to be able to apply for asylum from abroad. The only reason that people are crossing the channel in that way is that there is no safe way to do it, and I urge the Minister to give great consideration to that.

Article 23 of the universal declaration of human rights recognises that the right to work is a fundamental right, yet the UK Government’s restrictive approach to asylum seekers leaves people in limbo while the UK labour market suffers chronic shortages. All Members have spoken about the need for people to fill jobs in their constituencies and the frustration that many of us feel. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), who had a private Member’s Bill on that very issue, said that people could be living above the shop that is closing and not be able to work in it. The situation is absolutely ludicrous.

I call the Labour spokesperson, my good neighbour Stephen Kinnock.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) for calling this important debate, and I commend him for his brave, powerful and honest speech. I thank all hon. Members who have made such excellent contributions —in particular my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who always speaks with such passion and commitment on these matters.

I echo the comments about the terrible incident in the channel today. It is just appalling to think of those poor people suffering. It shows that the issues that we are discussing today are matters of life and death in the most literal sense.

The debate about whether asylum seekers should have the right to work has come to the fore largely because of slow asylum claim processing by this Government. After 12 years, a series of Conservative Home Secretaries have openly admitted that their asylum system is “broken”—and they should know, because they broke it. The backlog of asylum seekers awaiting decisions stands at 143,000. An enormous 97,700 of those have been waiting more than six months. The root cause is that the Government have failed to process asylum claims with anything like the efficiency required. In 2012, Home Office decision makers were making an average of 14 asylum decisions a month; now, they are making just five.

Tory Ministers try to blame covid, but the truth is that this is a mess of their own making. They chose to downgrade asylum decision makers from higher executive officer grade to lower executive officer grade, leading to a less experienced workforce on lower wages and with lower morale, lower retention rates and a collapsing process. The inevitable consequences were slower decisions, more decisions overturned at appeal, an increasing backlog, and ballooning costs for the taxpayer.

As a result, the British taxpayer is now forking out almost £7 million every single day on emergency accommodation in hotels—with private contractors, by the way, making a killing. It is worth noting that the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 has made the whole situation worse by adding an extra layer of bureaucracy through its so-called inadmissibility provisions. Make no mistake: the system is a shambles.

Does the hon. Member not agree that the immigration system is based on the hostile environment and that we are going to have difficulties unless we do something about that? The Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016 effectively introduced internal borders. That means that every aspect of someone’s life, including going to a bank and accessing any type of service, is being policed by immigration control internally, as opposed to at the border. That is the problem of the hostile environment, and it would be much easier simply to allow asylum seekers to work.

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is absolutely right that the hostile environment is profoundly counterproductive. Much of the thinking around the asylum system is based on a hostile environment for assessing applications, which has led to the system becoming completely blocked, and that has become a magnet in itself. The backlog is a magnet for many people, who pay people smugglers knowing that when they arrive in the UK it will take up to 450 days for their claim to be processed, so it is counterproductive in terms of the efficiency of the system. Of course, the hostile environment to which she refers is also the root cause of the appalling Windrush scandal, which has had such a damaging impact on communities across our country.

Having set out our approach to the right to work and how Labour will deliver on that in government, I look forward to the Minister’s response to these vital questions. We need to get away from empty rhetoric and towards something that resembles the efficiency, speed, compassion and control that we need, so that we can have an asylum system that works for our country, we can start to get control of our borders again, and we can ensure that people who come here fleeing war and persecution are able to make a valued contribution to our society and, indeed, our economy.

I call the Minister to respond. Perhaps she will leave a minute or so for Christian Wakeford to wind up at the end.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Before I move on to substantive matters, I want to say that we are all now aware of possibly tragic news—certainly a major incident—in the channel. The authorities have been responding to the incident and full details will be forthcoming in due course. I understand that the Home Secretary is coming to the House to make a statement, so we will have more information then. It is of course a tragic situation that is evidence of what is happening in relation to the present system, which is why the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister are very keen to resolve the issues that we have in relation to asylum applications and economic migrants.

I thank the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) for securing this debate and all who have contributed today; there have been heartfelt contributions. The UK has a proud history of welcoming and supporting those in need of our protection. We take our responsibilities very seriously and are committed to ensuring that we act in accordance with our international obligations.

Let me touch first on the eloquent points made by the hon. Member for Bury South. I am looking forward to even more eloquent apologies; there were a lot of policy issues on which he was flagrant and boisterous—I think that is the way of describing it—in the Chamber when he sat on the Conservative Benches, and there need to be various apologies to his constituents. It was interesting to read about his speech in The Guardian at 9.17 am, before he had been able to make his apologies, but I am grateful for his explanations today.

I turn to the cost of living. There has been a series of economic shocks. Cost of living issues, which people have raised today, are very much in the mind of the Government. The pandemic has contributed to them, and Russia’s unacceptable invasion of Ukraine has led to global pressures on the rising cost of living. The Government understand that people are worried about the cost of living challenges ahead. That is why decisive action has been taken to support households across the UK. We continue to keep the situation under review and will focus support on the most vulnerable while ensuring that we act in a fiscally responsible way.

We are of course alive to the potential impact of rises in costs in the asylum system. It is important to remember that a full package of support is in place for asylum seekers while their claims are assessed. The Government have a legal obligation to provide support to those asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute, through accommodation and allowances to meet their essential living costs. The pressures exerted on the asylum accommodation system in recent weeks and months have been well documented. Nevertheless, despite those acute challenges, we have managed to continue to provide support where needed.

The Minister is reeling off the Government’s current policy, which clearly is failing catastrophically, and then highlighting shortages in the labour market. We know that there is so much need in the labour market because of the lack of supply of skills, so will she admit that what she is reading out is simply failing? It is time that the Government got a grip of this and had a real reform of their policy, to enable asylum seekers to work.

It is certainly not phoney, but it is time that the Government got a grip. We cannot go back to the situation alluded to by the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), when the Home Affairs Committee reported—I think in 2011— that over half a million legacy cases had been left by the Labour Government. We certainly should not get anywhere near that, so the Government are indeed getting a grip.

Will the Minister give way?

If it is a point of clarification, I will gladly take it.

When Labour left Government in 2010, 6,000 asylum cases had been outstanding for more than six months. It is really important to correct the record on that.

I was referring to the findings of the Home Affairs Committee, which heard the evidence at the time. However, I will make some progress.

Relaxing our policy could enable people to access the very same jobs for which we, with very good reason, require a visa application process. That would make a mockery of the whole system and would simply not be right. I should be clear that, where reasons for coming to the UK include family or economic considerations, applications should be made via the relevant route, not by undercutting the system, which is simply not fair to everybody else. Either the new points-based immigration system or our various family reunion routes should be used. We must guard against creating an environment that encourages individuals to come to the UK to claim asylum inappropriately in order to circumvent economic controls. Equally, the Government have a firm position that individuals should claim asylum in the first safe place they come to.

Let me finish this point. I remember the hon. Member for Bury South talking about the shopping trolley. He explained that economic migrants were using their shopping trolley to go through various safe countries. We must remember, as the tragedy today shows us, that France, for example, is a safe country.

The Minister is talking about people coming through the established routes, but there are hardly any. Unless someone is from Ukraine, or among the tiny number of people from Syria or the tinier number of people from Afghanistan, there is no way of getting to this country safely without doing what the Government now decide is—but what, under international law, most definitely is not—illegal. What will the Minister do to establish safe routes from the region? What about working in north Africa, or indeed with our partners elsewhere in Europe, so that we do not have tragedies such as the one that we learned of today?

To answer that point, there are many safe routes—countries where, internationally, there are agreements for taking various people—to come to this country to claim sanctuary. I am proud of the Government’s history of welcoming and supporting those in need. We need to focus protection on those who need it most, not on illegal migrants.

Will the Minister give way?

I must make a bit of progress to allow for closing comments.

We cannot readily dismiss the risk that removing restrictions would actually increase asylum intake, reducing our capacity to take decisions and support refugees. Let me take this opportunity to make it clear that I acknowledge the hon. Members’ concerns. In particular, I am aware of the debate about the best way to look at the right to work.

The comments made by the Opposition spokesperson about productivity were on point. The Prime Minister has committed to triple the productivity of case workers to abolish the backlog of asylum decisions by the end of next year. The Government are committed to ensuring that asylum claims are considered without unnecessary delay, to ensure that individuals who need protection are granted asylum as soon as possible. We are pursuing a programme of transformation and business improvement initiatives that will speed up the decision-making process.

I will briefly mention one or two comments made by hon. Members in interventions. The mental health of people is extremely important to the Government; indeed, as the Minister for Safeguarding I find that some important and cogent arguments have been made. There is, of course, voluntary work. It is important that people get out of the unfortunate situations they are living in and that they live, breathe fresh air and do voluntary work. They do not necessarily have to be paid financially. We must protect the integrity of the whole system.

On the points about Manston, as of yesterday, there were five people staying there. The figures are not quite the same as those given by the Opposition spokesperson.

Many points were made about the Lift the Ban campaign. The Government’s view is that, as with its early reports, its most recent report was unduly and overly optimistic about the amount that might be saved by changes in the system. When cases such as the seven-year-old case mentioned by the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) are raised, it is important to recognise that they are likely to have an extremely complicated legal history. After 12 months, people can work, so there is no reason not to be working for seven years and blaming the system for that.

I will conclude to give the hon. Member for Bury South a few moments to sum up, if he pleases. I am sorry that it is only a minute.

I thank all Members for their poignant comments, including on economic illiteracy. In that respect, correcting this policy would boost productivity, growth, revenue and the economy.

We are a compassionate nation, and we need to show that, but language is also important. The Minister mentioned figures, not people, but what we have seen today is a tragedy of people, not figures. She also highlighted opportunities for volunteering. I would like to know how someone could accept voluntary work on £5.84 a day when they probably will not be able to travel the necessary distance.

I am disappointed with the Minister’s response, and there are still many questions left to be answered on this policy, but I am sure we will keep asking them.

That this House has considered asylum seeker employment and the cost of living.