Asylum Seekers: Recorded Crime

1. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the number of asylum seekers on levels of recorded crime.

As the right hon. Gentleman may know, data on immigration status and crime was not recorded under the last Government. We have a new programme that will improve data collection, and we have strong local relationships with police and local authorities to ensure that the full force of the law will apply to anyone breaking our laws.

The Home Secretary knows perfectly well how much it worries and infuriates people that people can enter this country illegally and commit crimes, and that there is no proper vetting procedure before they are unloosed on society. To reassure our own citizens, will she ensure that everybody who enters this country illegally is detained and fully vetted, and, as most of their asylum claims are bogus anyway, perhaps deal with their asylum claims while they are in detention and then deport them to protect our own people?

I recognise the public concern around criminality. That is why this Government are working closely with all our partners to improve data collection and have a risk-based approach so that we can manage those individuals who pose the highest risk on our immigration estate. I gently say that the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestions for how we deal with those who seek to come to our country illegally, primarily through channel crossings, would have had more force if his Government had succeeded in stopping those boats, as they often claimed that they would but utterly failed to do so. This Government are using a number of approaches to try to get to grips with illegal migration and will be bringing forward further changes to the House in due course.

The way to deal with any asylum seeker—or, indeed, any migrant—who commits a crime, is to remove them from the country. That is why it is good to see that removals of foreign national offenders have gone up 40% from what was left under the previous Government. The way we deal with crime in communities is by reinvigorating neighbourhood policing and supporting our police. Does the Home Secretary agree that those are two areas where this Home Office is clearing up the mess left behind by the previous Government?

My hon. Friend is right. It is one of many areas where we are cleaning up the multiple messes left by the previous Conservative Government. He is right to note that the removal of foreign national offenders has increased hugely under this Government and will continue to do so. Removals from this country are at nearly 60,000 since we have been in office. They will continue to rise.

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

I recently met Siobhan Whyte, the mother of Rhiannon. Rhiannon was brutally murdered by Sudanese illegal immigrant Deng Majek, who stabbed Rhiannon 23 times. Majek arrived by small boat in late July 2024. As the Home Secretary will know, small boat crossings since the election have gone up by 45%. Majek would have been among the first eligible for removal to Rwanda, so Siobhan wants me to ask the Home Secretary this: why did the Government cancel the Rwanda scheme just before it was due to start? If Majek had been removed to Rwanda, Rhiannon would still be alive today.

Let me say, first and foremost, that the murder of Rhiannon Whyte was an abhorrent, horrifying crime and our thoughts, and I know those of the whole House, are with her loved ones. The vile criminal responsible for her murder is behind bars where he belongs, and he has rightly received the strictest punishment of a life sentence. I do not wish to play politics with personal tragedy and Government policy, but the right hon. Gentleman will know that, as we have discussed across the Dispatch Box on a number of occasions, the Rwanda policy was a gimmick. Hundreds of millions of pounds were spent, with only four removals made from this country. His Government knew that they were already running into problems with that scheme. This Government have focused on measures that we believe will deal with the problems we are facing. It is taking some time, but they are the right measures and they will get to grips with the problem that he left behind.