Illegal Migration Update

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement about illegal migration.

Tackling illegal migration is one of the Government’s central priorities because it is the British public’s priority. People can see that illegal migration is one of the great injustices of our time. It harms communities in the UK, it denies the most vulnerable refugees a chance of resettlement, and it leaves behind a trail of human misery. Indeed, the perilous nature of the small boat crossings was underscored once again last month when six fatalities occurred in a tragic incident off the French coast. My thoughts are with all those affected, and I pay tribute to the first responders in both the UK and France who worked in difficult circumstances to save as many lives as possible.

That reminds us all why we need to do whatever it takes to stop the boats, which is exactly what the Government have been doing throughout the summer. We started by redoubling our efforts to smash the criminal gangs upstream, well before those gangs are in striking distance of the United Kingdom. We have agreed a new partnership with Turkey to target the supply chain of small boats, which establishes the UK as Turkey’s partner of choice in tackling the shared challenge of illegal migration. Two weeks ago I visited my counterparts in Egypt, as the Security Minister visited Iraq, to deepen our law enforcement co-operation with two more strategically important countries in that regard.

In the UK, we have been ratcheting up our activity to break the business model of the gangs. Unscrupulous employers and landlords who offer illegal migrants the ability to live and work in the UK are an integral part of the business model of the evil people-smuggling gangs. We are clamping down on them; we announced over the summer the biggest overhaul of our civil penalty regime in a decade, trebling illegal working fines and initiating a tenfold increase in right to rent fines for repeat offenders.

As we do so, more rogue employers and landlords are getting knocks on the door. Illegal working visits in the first half of this year increased by more than 50% compared with the same period last year. So far in 2023 we have more than trebled the number of right to rent civil penalties issued compared with last year, resulting in a sixfold increase in the number of penalties levied. Following the resumption of the immigration banking measures in April, banks and building societies are now closing the accounts of more than 6,000 illegal migrants.

As we surge our enforcement activity, we are driving up the returns of those with no right to remain in the United Kingdom. Last month we announced the professional enablers taskforce, which will increase enforcement action against lawyers and legal representatives who help migrants to abuse the immigration system. Lawyers found to be coaching migrants on how to remain in the country by fraudulent means will face a sentence of up to life imprisonment.

Since our deal with Albania in December last year, we have returned more than 3,500 immigration offenders, on weekly flights. As we have done so, we have seen a more than 90% reduction in the number of Albanians arriving illegally. So far there have been more than 12,600 returns this year, with returns in the first half of this year 75% higher than in the same period last year. Of course, those changes follow the landmark Illegal Migration Act 2023, which, coupled with our partnership with Rwanda, will deliver the truly decisive changes necessary to take away all the incentives for people to make illegal crossings from the safety of France.

As we adopt a zero-tolerance approach to illegal migration, the Government have extended a generous offer to those most in need of settlement. The latest statistics published over the summer show that, between 2015 and June 2023, 533,000 people were offered a safe and legal route into the United Kingdom. Last month the Home Office resettled the thousandth refugee through the community sponsorship scheme.

While this Government’s focus is on tackling the source of the problem, we have none the less worked to manage the symptoms of illegal migration as best as is practicable. We have made significant improvements at Manston since last year, and it continues to operate as an effective site for security, health and initial asylum checks, despite the pressure of the summer months.

We have worked to ensure that when migrants depart Manston they are now heading to cheaper and more appropriate accommodation, by rolling out room sharing and delivering our large accommodation sites. Those sites are undoubtedly in the national interest, but the Government continue to listen to the concerns of local communities and Members of this House, and throughout the summer further engagement has taken place to ensure that those sites are delivered in the most orderly way possible. We have successfully ended the use of Afghan bridging hotels, with Afghan families now able to move on with the next stage of their lives in settled accommodation, and the hotels are now returning to use by the public.

Reducing the backlog in asylum cases and establishing a more efficient and robust decision-making system is not in and of itself a strategy to stop illegal migration, but it is important for taxpayer value and we have prioritised it. We have transformed the productivity of asylum decision making by streamlining processes, creating focused interviews and instilling true accountability for performance. As of 1 September, we have met our commitment to have 2,500 decision makers, an increase of 174% from the same point last year. As a result, I am pleased to report to the House that we are on track to clear the legacy backlog by the end of the year, and that recently published provisional figures for July show that the overall backlog fell.

Tackling illegal migration is not easy; more people are on the move, and more are mobile, than ever before. Countries around the world are struggling to control it. But our 10-point plan is one of the most comprehensive strategies to tackle this problem in Europe, and that is showing. As of today, arrivals are down by 20% compared with last year, and for the month of August the reduction was more than a third. That is against the reasonable worst-case scenario of 85,000 arrivals that we were presented with when taking office last year.

In contrast, irregular migration into the EU has significantly increased, with Italy alone seeing a doubling in small boat arrivals. In Italy, a 100% increase; in the UK, a 20% decrease. Our plan is working. There is of course much more to do, but it is clear that we are making progress. I commend this statement to the House.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, thin though it is, and I echo his sentiments in sending condolences to the families of those six people who died tragically in the accident in the channel earlier this summer. We simply must stop these dangerous crossings.

I am absolutely bewildered that, after the summer we have had, yesterday the Prime Minister claimed victory in his broken pledge to stop the boats. This Saturday we saw the year’s record number of channel crossings, with more than 870 people making that dangerous journey in a single day, and the total number has now soared to a whopping 21,000 for the year. The only reason the number is not breaking last year’s record is the poor weather in July and August—and a strategy that depends on the weather is probably not a very sustainable strategy at all.

What has that left us with? A Government flailing around, chasing headlines with gimmicks and stunts rather than doing the hard graft of actually stopping the boats, clearing the backlog and getting people out of the hotels. Take their much celebrated small boats week last month, which turned out to be an absolute omnishambles, with taxpayers paying the price. No wonder the Home Secretary did not want to do a single interview, and no wonder she is not in the Chamber today.

Do not take my word for it: that well-known pro-Labour publication the Daily Mail did a day-by-day review. On the Monday, just 39 migrants were brought into the 500-capacity Bibby Stockholm barge. On the Tuesday, the Conservative deputy chairman admitted that his party has “failed” on immigration. On the Wednesday, the Immigration Minister sparked fresh Tory infighting over whether Britain should leave the European convention on human rights. On the Thursday, channel crossings hit their highest daily number for the year. Then, to cap it all, on the Friday, all the asylum seekers were removed from the Bibby Stockholm because of the presence of legionella in the water supply. You could not make it up.

That was a desperately thin response. We can deduce from it that the Labour party has absolutely no plan to tackle this issue. Of course the hon. Gentleman has had a quieter summer than me, but that is because the Labour party is completely uninterested in tackling illegal migration.

The hon. Gentleman talks about small boats week. Well, let us see how it went for the Labour party. On Monday, the Government announced the biggest increase in fines for illegal working and renting for a decade, while Labour MPs called for illegal migrants to have the right to work immediately, which would act as a massive magnet for even more crossings. On Tuesday, we announced our professional enablers taskforce to clamp down on lawyers who abuse the system, while Labour MPs were awfully quiet, weren’t they? They did nothing to distance themselves from the litany of councillors and advisers exposed as being implicated in efforts to stop the removal of criminals and failed asylum seekers. On Wednesday, we announced a partnership with Turkey to smash the gangs, while the shadow Home Secretary claimed that morning that what we really needed was a return to the Dublin convention—something that even the EU described as “prehistoric”.

The truth is that the Labour party has no plan to tackle this issue, and does not even want to tackle it. We on the Conservative Benches are getting on with the job, and we are making progress: while the rest of Europe sees significant increases in migrants, we are seeing significant falls. Our plan is the most comprehensive of any country in Europe and it is starting to work.

I thank the Minister for his statement. Of course, he is more than aware of the various reports over the summer regarding the Wethersfield site in Braintree district in my area. Could he explain how long the Government will be using that site? Is the five-year period that has been publicly reported correct? What planning processes will be used beyond the 12 months permitted under the class Q regulations? Are the Government considering increasing the £3,500 per bed space given to councils if the site remains open for more than a year?

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the co-operation that we have had in respect of that site. I know that she supports the use of large sites, such as disused military bases, for that purpose—it was her policy when she was Home Secretary. We want to use that site for the shortest possible period. We have not put an end date on our use. We have taken advantage of the emergency planning powers that are available in these circumstances; she knows that that has a limited timeframe, after which further action needs to be taken. It is important that we provide the local community with the resources necessary to manage such sites appropriately. That is why we have provided the £3,500 payment. If the site is used for a sustained period, it is correct that we should look again at that and see whether a further payment is appropriate. We have also provided funding for Essex police and for her local NHS services so that the pressure on her constituents, and those of her neighbouring MPs, is as minimal as possible while we deliver this service in their area.

I call the SNP spokesperson.

The Minister comes here again with another statement, but the problem is not the boats; it is the backlogs. He comes here fiddling figures with legacy backlogs, but the flow backlog of people coming into the country continues to increase, and the hidden backlog—those granted asylum by the courts but left waiting for his party to complete the paperwork—grows and grows. In reality, we have a backlog of 175,000 people waiting for a decision from his Department—the highest number since records began— and we local MPs get only boilerplate replies that give no reassurance to our constituents left in limbo by his incompetent Department.

We all want to see an end to the small boats and to people risking and losing their lives in the channel, but that requires safe and legal routes, which do not exist. They certainly do not exist for Iraqis, Iranians, Eritreans or Sudanese people. For Afghans, the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, which they should be able to access, are not fit for purpose, either. Fewer than 50 people have been settled through pathway 3 this year, but just shy of 2,000 have come on small boats in the past two quarters because the system is broken and the Government are not interested in fixing it.

Has the Minister met the Fire Brigades Union regarding his expensive plague ship moored off Dorset? Has he given any thought to how his Illegal Migration Act will actually work? Many in the sector do not understand and have not had any guidance from the Minister on what will happen to the people left in immigration limbo by his Department.

Finally, Scotland has sought an alternative to this broken system, and in the summer we launched our “Citizenship in an independent Scotland” paper. The Government are more interested in pulling up the drawbridge and courting the Daily Mail, so will the Minister devolve immigration to Scotland and let us get on with the job of being a welcoming country and playing a role in the world?

When I last called out the hon. Lady’s humanitarian nimbyism, the statistics were stark—in fact, they have continued to be so. The SNP Government still accommodate only 4.5% of the total asylum population in the UK, while Scotland makes up 8.1% of the overall UK population. In Scottish local authorities where the SNP are the largest party, including in Clackmannanshire, Dundee, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, Midlothian, North Ayrshire and Falkirk—I could go on—no asylum seekers are being accommodated. In fact, there were only 59 more asylum seekers in SNP-controlled councils in the two months that have passed since we last debated this issue.

The reason I say that is that I do not believe that Members should come to this place and write cheques for which other people have to pay. The costs of SNP Members’ fake humanitarianism are borne by everyone but themselves. If they do not want illegal migrants in their own constituencies, then they should support our effort to stop the boats.

Order. This is a very important statement, but we have the remaining stages of the Energy Bill later, which is not protected time. Many people wish to speak, so I urge colleagues to ask one short question of the Minister on matters for which he has responsibility, as opposed to matters for which he might not, so that he is able to give quick answers. Leading the way will be Sir Edward Leigh.

When the Prime Minister announced that he was imperilling £300 million- worth of levelling-up investment on RAF Scampton, he said he was going to lead by example by accepting migrants into Catterick camp in his constituency. Home Office officials have now informed us that that is not happening, so where is the leadership in that?

It gets worse. I was informed by West Lindsey District Council that, despite being told that the scheme was value for money and will have to be available for three years not two, the value for money is infinitesimal compared with hotels—it will not even save money for a few days on hotels. Will the Minister now drop this ridiculous scheme, which is derisory and will do nothing for deterrence, and sit down with me and West Lindsey District Council to work out a discreet location for illegal migrants in West Lindsey?

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question and our continued co-operation. We believe that this policy is in the national interest. It is right that those coming to this country are accommodated in decent but never luxurious accommodation, so that we do not create a pull factor to the UK. It is through delivering sites such as Scampton—which I appreciate have a serious impact on his constituents—that later this year I hope we will begin to close hotels in earnest and return those facilities to the general public for tourism, business and leisure, which I know is supported by Members across the House.

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

On behalf of the Home Affairs Committee, may I send our thoughts and prayers to all those affected by the loss of life in the channel last month?

The Home Affairs Committee has long urged the Government to clear the asylum backlog, and I am pleased that the legacy backlog is starting to shrink. However, there are important questions about the quality and quantity of decisions. On quality, it was reported in The Sunday Times last week that interviews have been slashed from seven hours to 45 minutes. Could the Minister explain how the Home Office is evaluating and guaranteeing the quality of those decisions?

On quantity, the Home Office has reportedly doubled the rate of decision making on the legacy backlog since the end of June. What resources and support will be offered to local authorities when they start having to deal with the dramatic increase in the number of positive asylum claim decisions?

On the first of those two important questions, the right hon. Lady is right to say that the work we have done to transform the decision-making process is bearing fruit. There will be an increase in the number of decisions—a very sharp one—in the weeks ahead. That will mean some more people being granted but also some more people being refused who then need to be removed swiftly from the country. In respect of those people being granted, I am working with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to provide the support and guidance to local authorities that they will need. However, those people who have been granted—particularly young adult males—need to get on with their lives, get a job and contribute to British society, which is what I think they want to do.

We have achieved this transformation through better management, performance targets, working overtime and having shorter, more focused interviews. I do not believe that we need to have a seven-hour interview to identify the salient points and decide a case, and that has been borne out by the good work we have done in recent months. I think Members will see, as data is published in the weeks and months ahead, an absolute transformation in the service.

The Minister is absolutely right to be doing everything to tackle the small boats issue and illegal migration. Over the summer months, nearly 500 asylum seekers have arrived in destinations in Chelmsford, and I am grateful for the time he has spent speaking to me about it. Local people are really worried about extra pressure on local health services, local housing lists and other local services. Will he work with me to ensure that areas that take larger numbers of asylum seekers get financial support, so that this cost is shared fairly across the whole country?

Yes, I would be happy to continue to work with my right hon. Friend, as we have done in recent months. We have provided £3,500 per bed space to local authorities that house dispersal accommodation, which goes to meet the costs to them of looking after these individuals, but she is right to say that the wider costs of housing asylum seekers are very high—there is no escaping that. That is one of the reasons we need to reduce the number of people coming into the country in the first place.