Immigration Policy

Order. Before we come to the urgent question on immigration rules, I should say that time is tight today as there is an important Bill to be discussed as well as the three statements that the Government have chosen to make. However, I must put on record in the strongest terms my disappointment that the Home Secretary did not come to the House last week to make a statement on immigration. This follows a week of drip feeding announcements to the media and a major speech outside this place. It is simply not good enough. If that is the impact of the reported changes to the Government’s comms grid, it needs a rethink. It is unacceptable for important policy announcements to be made to the media before the House is informed.

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement on her recently announced immigration policy.

The British public expect and deserve an immigration system with order and control. In November, the Home Secretary announced the most sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration since the second world war, and last week the Government took concrete steps to implement those necessary changes. I hear clearly the strong message from the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and of course we would never mean any discourtesy to you or to your colleagues.

Features of the steps taken last week include that refugee status will now be reviewed every 30 months. At a 30-month review, refugees with a continuing need for protection will have that protection renewed, while those who no longer have a protection need will be expected to return home.

Further, we are introducing targeted measures known as a visa brake to help protect the integrity of the UK immigration system. As such, from 26 March we will refuse applications for specific visa routes from nationals of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, where evidence shows a consistently high number and proportion of visa-linked asylum claims. This is the beginning; other nationalities may face similar measures in the future.

Due to the number of asylum claims from nationals of Nicaragua and St Lucia, we have also introduced visit visa requirements and direct airside transit visa requirements on those countries to prevent visitor visa misuse. Those came into force on 5 March.

We have tabled further legislative changes to revoke the current legal duty to provide support to asylum seekers, instead restoring it to a power to provide support so that those who can support themselves do so. We are also amending existing conditions of support legislation to enable the suspension or discontinuation of asylum support when an asylum seeker is working illegally.

We have started a consultation on our approach to family returns, exploring reforms to the support available to families with no legal basis to remain in the UK and the approach used when enforcing the returns of families who have not departed voluntarily.

It is disappointing the Government did not come here voluntarily to announce their policies, and I notice that there was no apology, but given the scale of their failure, this is not surprising. Since the election, 67,000 people have entered the UK illegally, a 45% increase compared with the same period before the election. Many of those 67,000 have since committed serious crimes, including murder and rape. In the last six days alone, 900 illegal immigrants have crossed the English channel. The Government’s promises lie in tatters: the gangs are not smashed; the French are not intercepting boats near the shores, as we were promised last year; and the so-called one in, one out deal saw 41,000 illegal immigrants come in across the channel last year and only 300 go out.

The Government are now resorting to bribing illegal immigrants with £40,000 per family to leave—that is more than most working people here earn in a year. British workers should not have to pay record high taxes for this Government to give their money away to illegal immigrants. It is frankly disgraceful. Instead, the Government should now agree to our plan to leave the European convention on human rights, which would enable them to rapidly deport all illegal immigrants. The crossings would then quickly stop and there would be no need to bribe illegal immigrants to leave.

Let me turn now to indefinite leave to remain. When we proposed a 10-year path, the Government voted against it, but I am delighted that they have now done yet another U-turn and adopted our policy. We do not agree with every detail in their plans, but we agree with the substance. However, I am sorry to hear that some of the Minister’s own MPs are apparently unconvinced, so let me help him. Given that the Government appear to need our votes to pass these ILR changes, we will support them. Will the Minister confirm whether the ILR changes will be made in primary legislation or via the rules? If the Government use primary legislation, that will take some time to pass, by which time the 2021 and 2022 arrivals will have ILR, so we would also support him to pass emergency legislation if he will accept that offer—

Order. I call the Minister.

It is a challenge to be lectured on the need for apologies from the architects of the Trussonomics that mean my constituents are paying more on their mortgages month on month. However, we have seen more of that mathematics from the right hon. Gentleman, because he says that spending an average of £158,000 on families in hotel accommodation who now have no right to be here because they have finished making their way through the asylum system is better value than spending £40,000 in order for them to return home and to build their lives again. I am not surprised.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about gangs, but he will know that there has been a record level of interventions—more than 4,000. He talked about our work with the French, but he will know that 40,000 crossings have been prevented. He also mentioned returns. He will know that 60,000 people have been returned under this Government, a 31% increase on his time in the Home Department. He offers criticism, but the only answer that he offers in lieu is to tear up international agreements with no sense of what change that would drive. It would merely set back that returns work and lead us back to years of debate and no action. I will not do that.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned ILR, but of course that was not the nature of the announcement last week. That related to the closing of an important consultation on earned settlement in this country. We will be having those conversations with Parliament, and measures will be laid in the usual way in the weeks and months ahead.

Could the Minister update us on the discussions about people who arrived in this country pursuing leave for five years, or whatever period their visa stated, to get status in the UK, and who are approaching the end of that period? I have a number of constituents who will reach that point in April, and they are concerned that they will have to start all over again under a new process. Could he update the House on their position?

I believe that my hon. Friend is referring to earned settlement. It has always been the case that the immigration rules in force at the point of application, rather than at the point of entry to the country, are the ones that are germane to the conditions an individual has to meet. Nevertheless, she will know that we consulted on what transition protections there could be, and that consultation closed last month. There is an important reality for all colleagues to wrestle with here. In the first five years of this decade we saw unprecedented levels of migration through legal means as a result of the Conservatives’ open borders experiment, which means that one in 30 people in this country came in during that window. That means that those people will become eligible for social housing and other benefits at the same time, which represents a significant challenge to the taxpayer and to public services. Nevertheless, that consultation took place and we will be coming back to respond in the usual way.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

It is deeply disappointing that these changes were pushed through without an explanation in this Chamber. The same Home Secretary who emphasised the importance of scrutiny from MPs at the Institute for Public Policy Research has denied this House the chance to question her reforms. That is not good enough. Does the Minister think that reviewing each refugee’s status every two and a half years for 20 years will really fix the asylum system? That is estimated to cost £725 million over the next decade, so what plans do the Government have to fund this, and can they give a cast-iron guarantee that it will not cause the asylum backlog to further increase? Taxpayers are paying £6 million a day for asylum hotels—a legacy of the Conservative Government. Will the Minister back Liberal Democrat plans to end the processing through faster claims, such as Nightingale processing centres, or set out their own plan? Finally, will the Government confirm their plan for lifting the ban on asylum seekers working? Why have they chosen a year, not six months?

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not remember the statement in November on these very issues. I can assure him that one of his Front-Bench colleagues remembers it well and thinks about it quite a bit.

On the 30 months, let me be clear about how the system will work. We do not want people to come to the country and get that good news of their claim for refuge being accepted, and then be at home and not take part in British life. We are saying that if people do that, their claims will be assessed every 30 months. However, they will be offered the chance to move to a protected work and study route, which means that if they are taking part in work or study, learning the language and not committing crimes, they are outwith that. I do not recognise the points on how many decisions would have to be made or the spend—that is not accurate.

The hon. Gentleman talks about quicker decisions. Last year was the best year since records began on initial decisions, so we are operating that system effectively. Nevertheless, significant demand issues mean that applications are down significantly across the EU and up significantly in the UK. Until and unless those issues are addressed, any process changes would simply be overwhelmed.

As other colleagues have said, some people came here under one system, but now the system is changing, so have the Government done any assessment of where those people are working? In my constituency, a large number of people are now in their fourth year before their cases were about to conclude, hopefully, to secure status. They work in the care sector and without them, to be frank, the care sector in my constituency would collapse.

We know where these people are working because they came to this country on work visas, so we are clear on where they are. On the assessment, that was the point of the consultation that ended last month. We got more than 200,000 responses—that shows the strength of feeling. We are looking at that in the usual way, and we will come back with our plans after that in the usual way.

I call the Father of the House.

May I quote approvingly the remarks of my constituency neighbour and Labour MP, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White)? She said that if Labour is to win its battle against Reform, it has to do much more on illegal boats. I am sorry that she is not here, but I have warned her that I was going to ask this question. Specifically, she makes the good point that people should only be allowed to claim asylum abroad. If that were the case, surely there is an argument that if people arrived here illegally, they would not be able to claim asylum and would not be covered by the convention, and they could be detained and deported.

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman in that I always agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White). I have known her for a very long time, and have found that being disagreeable to her is a bad idea. The third chapter of our November statement is about safe and legal routes. The Home Secretary has talked about our first foray in that endeavour being a study route, to provide options for people to seek sanctuary in this country—to the degree to which our communities can sustain that—from outside the country, so that they do not make dangerous journeys and we do not see people crossing the channel. I think that is in everybody’s interests, and I am glad to see it drawing consensus.

My constituent came to this country after leaving a very good job and uprooting his whole family, including young children, on the promise that he would be allowed to work and contribute to our NHS, which he has done for the past four years. However, because of the Government’s harsh and hostile policies, not only is his future now uncertain, but his children may not even be able to go to university. Does the Minister not understand the hostility and unfairness of this?

I think we all recognise the absolutely important role that people from outside the UK have played in the NHS for decades. My hon. Friend will know that our proposals set out that working in the NHS and other public services was one proposed way in which people could earn that route to settlement. As I have said to other colleagues, we are looking at the consultation closely. We must understand that there is a real challenge beneath this, and that the immigration rules have always been applied at the point of application, rather than at the point of entry. Nevertheless, I have heard the point that he and other hon. Members have made with vigour.