Jeremy Corbyn – 2022 Question on the Use of “Illegal Asylum Seeker” Phrase

Will the Minister confirm that to seek asylum is a perfectly legal thing within international law and, therefore, UK law and that loose use of the words “illegal asylum seekers” is dangerous for the individuals concerned?

Has the Minister’s attention been drawn to the Council of Europe report on pushbacks across Europe of people seeking a place of safety in a number of countries, including this one? They have been pushed back and left in places of enormous danger. Will he confirm that Britain will not be involved in sea-bound pushbacks towards France that leave people in enormous danger? Instead, will he recognise the humanitarian needs of, frankly, deeply desperate people to whom we should be holding out the hand of friendship, not condemnation?

The UK is not involved in pushbacks at sea; we uphold our international obligations in that respect. It is a right for an individual to claim asylum. We want a system whereby those who are fleeing genuine persecution, war or human rights abuses can find refuge in the United Kingdom. The issue that we are grappling with is the sheer quantity of individuals who are choosing to come here, leaving other safe countries such as France. That places an intolerable strain on our system and means that those individuals to whom we want to offer support find themselves in difficult circumstances.

A fair and robust system would not encourage people to come across the channel illegally in small boats. It would be predominantly based on resettlement schemes such as the ones that we have engineered in recent years for people from Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan. That is the system that I want to build in the years ahead.