Contributions
1,438 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsWe inherited a system in chaos and a series of asylum contracts worth billions of pounds that were 10 years long, with a break clause in 2026, so we are looking seriously at what…25 Mar 2025HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsI will not take any lessons from the shadow Minister. In his last three months as Immigration Minister, nearly 10,000 people crossed the channel in small boats, but he is…25 Mar 2025HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsI want to get out of hotels as quickly as is feasible. I will not name particular dates, because that is a pointless thing to do. We have to get through the appeals system and the…25 Mar 2025HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsI thank the hon. Gentleman for his belief in my ability to get on top of my brief. The National Crime Agency recently arrested three men in the UK who were wanted in Belgium after…25 Mar 2025HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsI do not think that safe routes would stop people trying to get into this country clandestinely. It is important that we can assert control at the border so that we decide who…25 Mar 2025HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsI do not apologise for deporting people who have no right to be here or who have been through the system and are discovered neither to be asylum seekers nor to have any right to…25 Mar 2025HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsWe do not believe that it is sustainable to keep hotel use indefinitely, and we are working to close hotels.25 Mar 2025HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsWe are doing that work day in, day out. If the Conservatives had not allowed smuggling gangs to take hold across the channel for six years, we would not be experiencing the…25 Mar 2025HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsIt is important, in order to deal with the chaos that we inherited, to create a system that is faster, fairer and much easier to get through than the one we inherited. Unless the…25 Mar 2025HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsI suggest that the right hon. Gentleman raises that issue with the Chancellor.25 Mar 2025HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsWe have restarted asylum processing, and we are looking into what we can do to speed up the appeals backlog that we inherited. We will create a system that is faster, firmer and…25 Mar 2025HANSARDAsylum Hotels and Illegal Channel CrossingsWe have put more resource into Europol to co-operate with European partners across borders. Operationally, we are working across Europe; we have a new agreement with the German…25 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting)I start by endorsing what my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East said about Dolores, Thomas Roberts’s mum, whom I met last night. She has gone through a searingly awful…18 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting)It is at this occasion, traditionally, that those who have shouldered the burdens under your expert guidance of the Committee, Dr Murrison, thank all the officials—both the House…18 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting)I compliment the Father of the House on his ingenious approach to the slightly different signals, as the hon. Lady set out, that the international conventions, with their…18 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting)New clause 41 would require the revocation of protection status or leave, or discontinuation of asylum claims, where an applicant returns to their country of origin. The…18 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting)The hon. Lady will have noticed that I have not dismissed the idea completely, but I do not think the idea is anywhere near a position where one could talk about how it might be…18 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting)We inherited a system that was very siloed, where work was not really cross-departmental at all. One example that occurs to me is that the system dealing with all the legacy…18 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting)New clause 37 would give the Secretary of State regulation-making powers to set out arrangements for asylum seekers to receive loans towards their maintenance and…18 Mar 2025HANSARDBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting)I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. I was trying to help the shadow Minister, because I thought he might be trying to talk about accommodation generally. If that is the case, we…18 Mar 2025