The Home Office has a procurement policy of competition by default, actively engaging with suppliers via the Government “find a tender” service to generate interest and promote competition for immigration removal centre contracts. Bids are evaluated on both technical and price aspects to ensure the contracts we sign are effective and value for money.
My constituents are very concerned about the Home Office’s race to reopen the Campsfield House immigration removal centre. The first contract for opening the centre was announced in June 2024, when this House was not sitting. The then Home Secretary announced that she intended to expand the facility in August 2024, when again the House was not sitting. I believe that contract has not yet been tendered. Will the Minister please provide my constituents with some reassurance that Ministers are not just racing to make announcements about this ahead of real need and in order to catch a headline, but are actually serious about using taxpayers’ money in an appropriate manner to look after and contain these issues?
“Real need” is a very important phrase. The reality is that over this Government’s time in office, we have deported over 50,000 people who have no right to be here—the best period of time in 10 years in this regard. We do need that detention capacity. Things are moving at Campsfield, so perhaps I should meet the hon. Gentleman to give him a full brief on our plans there.
I thank the Minister for his previous answer. Does he agree that the main cause for the asylum backlog was the fact that, under the previous Government, decisions fell by 70%? What reassurance can he give my constituents in Harlow that this Government will tackle the issue we have inherited?
I totally agree. The original sin in respect of what we are dealing with today—hotel use across the country and our pivot to military sites—was the choice of the previous Government to simply stop assessing applications. We are of course reversing that, but it is taking time to turn around their failure.
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.
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—
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—