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Tag: 2022

  • Rehman Chishti – 2022 Parliamentary Question on the Joint Co-ordination Centre with France

    Rehman Chishti – 2022 Parliamentary Question on the Joint Co-ordination Centre with France

    The parliamentary question asked by Rehman Chishti, the Conservative MP for Gillingham and Rainham, in the House of Commons on 16 November 2022.

    Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)

    On addressing the illegal crossings, the Minister said that the new initiative would cost about £72 million. In 2019, when I was on the Select Committee on Home Affairs, we were told that the joint co-ordination centre with France would help to address individuals illegally crossing. Did that system work? How much did it cost? How will the new system work? My constituents in Kent are at the forefront of the illegal crossings. The Government consistently tell us that they will take tough, firm, decisive action, but instead the numbers have increased. How will the new system work better than the previous system?

    Robert Jenrick

    I do not want to overstate the value of the agreement, but it is an important step forward and might presage further agreements with France in the months and years to come. It contains at least two important steps. First, there will be a 40% increase in French personnel on the beaches of northern France intercepting crafts about to enter the water and making arrests. French officers on the beaches currently intercept about 40% of craft, so increasing personnel by 40% will lead to a significant improvement. Secondly, the joint centre that we will establish with our French counterparts will ensure that the very sophisticated intelligence that the British security services are now drawing up on what is happening in northern France can be delivered to their counterparts in real time.

  • Rachael Maskell – 2022 Parliamentary Question about Asylum Seekers in York

    Rachael Maskell – 2022 Parliamentary Question about Asylum Seekers in York

    The parliamentary question asked by Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, in the House of Commons on 16 November 2022.

    Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)

    York wants to do all it can to support people seeking asylum, but as a result of providing initial accommodation as opposed to contingency accommodation, it is not receiving the funding that it vitally needs. When will the Government provide parity in the funding that local authorities need to support people who are seeking asylum? When will the Government bring forward a homes for refugees scheme so we can ensure that people are settled in our community and are getting the support they need from families?

    Robert Jenrick

    I will happily speak to the hon. Lady separately about the specific concerns of City of York Council. The hotel accommodation is fully funded by the Home Office, but I appreciate that there are knock-on costs for local authorities. I met London Councils earlier today; if not for this urgent question, I would have been meeting representatives of councils across the country to hear their concerns and see how we can improve the situation.

  • John Stevenson – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Placing Asylum Seekers in Hotels

    John Stevenson – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Placing Asylum Seekers in Hotels

    The parliamentary question asked by John Stevenson, the Conservative MP for Carlisle, in the House of Commons on 16 November 2022.

    John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)

    We all agree that putting asylum seekers in hotels is not really a great policy, so we need to process their applications as quickly as possible. Is it possible for each hotel to be given a timeframe for the processing of applications? That would give confidence to the local community that the hotel will be returned to its normal activity sooner rather than later. It might also incentivise Home Office staff to improve their productivity.

    Robert Jenrick

    I will take that suggestion back to the Home Office. Our objective is to ensure that we process claims as quickly as possible; a great deal of work is now going on in the Home Office to achieve that and to bring productivity back to where it should always have been, frankly. We want to bring use of the hotels to a close as quickly as possible. We have already set out some of the steps we will take to achieve that, such as considering larger sites and dispersing individuals in local authority accommodation and the private rented sector elsewhere in the country. The real task, however, is to prevent people from crossing the channel in the first place. We cannot build our way out of the issue; we have to reduce the numbers making the crossings.

  • Andy Carter – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Dealing with Asylum Backlogs

    Andy Carter – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Dealing with Asylum Backlogs

    The parliamentary question asked by Andy Carter, the Conservative MP for Warrington South, in the House of Commons on 16 November 2022.

    Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)

    According to Home Office figures, the 116 asylum seekers who arrived in Warrington last week can expect to spend about 400 days waiting for their cases to be dealt with. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to speed up the process so that those who do not meet the test for asylum can be returned to the safe countries from which they came?

    Robert Jenrick

    My hon. Friend raises an important point. Productivity in the Home Office fell very sharply during the covid period and has yet to recover in its entirety. That is wrong and we need to change it. We need to ensure that caseworkers review and decide on cases at least at the same speed as they did a couple of years ago. A pilot in Leeds on how to do that has more than doubled the productivity of caseworkers. We want to get that still higher and roll it out across the country. The Home Secretary and I will say more shortly.

  • Jonathan Gullis – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Stoke and the Asylum Dispersal Scheme

    Jonathan Gullis – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Stoke and the Asylum Dispersal Scheme

    The parliamentary question asked by Jonathan Gullis, the Conservative MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, in the House of Commons on 16 November 2022.

    Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)

    Stoke-on-Trent, decades ago, voluntarily entered the asylum dispersal scheme, but enough is enough. We have done our bit for this country to protect some of the vulnerable people and illegal economic migrants who come here through safe countries such as France. I am sick to the back teeth of hotels being used in our great city and being dumped on by Serco because we voluntarily entered that scheme. The local authority is against it, as are the police and all three Stoke MPs, and for good reason. Islamic extremists such as Hizb ut-Tahrir are operating around the corner from the hotel. The far right is looking to recruit in our city. There is public anger and outrage about local services being depleted while services elsewhere are reinforced. When will the Minister tell Serco that Stoke-on-Trent has done its bit and to use it no more? If he will not, why not?

    Robert Jenrick

    We have taken further steps during my short tenure in the Department, and while my right hon. and learned Friend has been Home Secretary, to provide a fairer distribution of migrants across the country. The Home Secretary ensured that there was the mandatory dispersal of children, so that all local authorities can play a part in ensuring that children are in safe accommodation, whether that means in children’s homes or with state or private foster carers. We are also attempting to procure accommodation in a much broader range of local authorities. Historically, the issue centred on cities, including Stoke-on-Trent. We are now seeking to procure accommodation more broadly in smaller cities, towns and, in some cases, rural areas. That means, I am afraid, that as long as numbers are so high, more parts of the country will experience this issue, but it will ensure greater fairness in how we tackle it as a country.

  • Joanna Cherry – 2022 Parliamentary Question on “The Crossing” Television Programme

    Joanna Cherry – 2022 Parliamentary Question on “The Crossing” Television Programme

    The parliamentary question asked by Joanna Cherry, the SNP MP for Edinburgh South West, in the House of Commons on 16 November 2022.

    Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)

    As we heard, on 24 November last year at least 27 people drowned while attempting to cross the channel in a dinghy, including a little girl. Five are missing and only two survived. A documentary called “The Crossing” that was shown on ITV on Monday night presented evidence that the tragedy happened in UK waters, notwithstanding multiple distress calls from the people in the dinghy while the French and UK coastguards passed the buck over many crucial hours. I understand that solicitors acting for the families of some of the deceased and one of the survivors passed evidence to that effect to the British Government in March this year. The normal political response to loss of life on that scale would be the prompt announcement of an independent public inquiry. Will the Minister tell me what it is about the people who drowned that means that no independent public inquiry has been announced into the circumstances of their drowning?

    Robert Jenrick

    The events of a year ago were very shocking and deeply tragic, and my sympathies go out to the individuals’ families and friends. As a result of that incident, I assure the hon. and learned Member that very significant further steps have been taken by British authorities to enable those crossing the channel in dangerous crafts to be helped ashore in the UK. We are at the point where, I think, 98% of boats that attempt the crossing and pass the median line are helped ashore by Border Force, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution or the Royal Navy. I pay tribute to those British authorities; I have met them and they do that difficult work superbly. We will not be able to secure the passage of everyone who chooses to get in an unsafe dinghy at the behest of people traffickers and cross the channel. The best advice is, “Do not make that dangerous passage. It is illegal and extremely perilous.” That is key: we should not encourage people to make that crossing in the first place. We cannot assure safe passage to everyone.

  • Ben Bradley – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Removing Homeless from Hotels

    Ben Bradley – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Removing Homeless from Hotels

    The parliamentary question asked by Ben Bradley, the Conservative MP for Mansfield, in the House of Commons on 16 November 2022.

    Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)

    This weekend, a new migrant hotel was set up in my constituency. I was contacted on Sunday and told that it would be happening—future tense. I subsequently found out that it had actually happened already, on Saturday. As yet—it is now Wednesday—we still have no details on who, how long and what is in place around that facility. On Monday morning, several local people presented themselves as homeless, having been kicked out of the same hotel, which was previously used by the local authority as temporary accommodation. My right hon. Friend must surely agree that this is wrong and untenable, and will cause a huge amount of anger locally. The Government need to stop this—he knows that—but can he, at the very least, ensure that, after this urgent question, he is able to investigate in his Department to ensure that local stakeholders and councils are able to get the information they need urgently to put the support in place that they need at local level?

    Robert Jenrick

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I believe my officials have already reached out to his council to provide it with further information. As I said earlier, this is not the situation that any of us would want to be in. It is the product of record numbers of people crossing the channel and a failure to plan in the months prior to this sudden surge. What we need to do now is move forwards and ensure, as our first duty, that Manston is operating legally and correctly. We must then ensure that any further accommodation is procured in a sensible way—simple and decent accommodation, not luxurious hotels—and that we have proper communication with local authorities. That is my objective and I am very happy to work with him to achieve it.

  • Sarah Champion – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Spending Foreign Aid in the UK

    Sarah Champion – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Spending Foreign Aid in the UK

    The parliamentary question asked by Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham, in the House of Commons on 16 November 2022.

    Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)

    Today, my International Development Committee launched an inquiry into how and why the Home Office is spending foreign aid to support refugees in this country. Does the Minister have a budget or a blank cheque? Does he have official development assistance specialists in the Home Office to make sure that that money represents value? Does he think it is morally right to be spending money, which should be going to the poorest in the world, to prop up the Treasury? Other countries are spending their own money to fund refugees in their own countries.

    Robert Jenrick

    First, it is the Home Office’s responsibility to ensure that money is spent wisely and provides taxpayer value. How it is accounted for under overseas development aid or otherwise is a matter for the Treasury, not for me and my officials. But the point at the heart of this is that we need to ensure we stop people crossing the channel illegally. We do not want to be spending billions of pounds addressing this issue. The Opposition, I think, do because they oppose every single measure we take to try to address it. We want to get people out of hotels. We would like to move to a system that is based on resettlement schemes, such as the Ukraine and Syria schemes, whereby we choose people at source, they come to the UK and we are able to prioritise our resources on them, and we do not, frankly, waste hundreds of millions of pounds managing a problem of economic migrants who should not be in the UK.

  • Anne McLaughlin – 2022 Speech on Migration

    Anne McLaughlin – 2022 Speech on Migration

    The speech made by Anne McLaughlin, the SNP MP for Glasgow North East, in the House of Commons on 16 November 2022.

    The £120 million totally wasted on the Rwanda plan could have quadrupled the number of caseworkers and cleared the backlog in asylum cases urgently. Can we have a Department focused on the nuts and bolts of getting the job done, instead of crazy, brutal and counterproductive headline-chasing policies? After all, that is the root of all our problems—that and the lack of safe and legal routes. A number of months ago, I tabled a written question asking for a list of all the safe and legal routes and it would not even have filled half a page. So can we do something about that?

    The revelations in ITV’s “The Crossing”, a documentary about 27 channel deaths last November, were utterly heartbreaking and horrifying. Did the Home Secretary discuss with her counterparts how best to ensure that disputes about precisely where a boat is play a distant second fiddle to saving people’s lives?

    May I end by saying how disappointed I am? The Minister distanced himself from the Home Secretary’s crass comments on migrants, but today we have heard him talk about murderers and foreign offenders. We are talking about asylum seekers, and he brings up murderers as if they are one and the same thing. It is an absolute disgrace, because he knows the impact that that has on not just asylum seekers but all migrants.

    Robert Jenrick

    The hon. Lady needs to face the facts. We on the Government Benches will always behave with decency and compassion, because those are our values. But we will not be naive. We are capable of making the distinction between genuine refugees and genuine asylum seekers fleeing persecution and human rights abuses, and Albanian economic migrants coming to this country for all the wrong reasons. We are also perfectly capable of making the distinction between good people who deserve our protection and support, and bad people who are foreign national offenders who need to be removed from the United Kingdom as soon as possible. I am surprised to see her joining in with the Opposition, who want to close down the very detainment centres where we keep those people while we try to get them out of the country.

    The hon. Lady says she is disappointed that we are pursuing Rwanda. I think Rwanda is an important part of our efforts to tackle illegal migration because deterrence has to be suffused throughout our entire approach. Everything we do to create further pull factors to the UK ensures more people cross the channel in perilous ways and more pressure is put on our public services. It prevents us from helping the people who genuinely deserve our support, such as those who come from Ukraine, Afghanistan or Syria under our resettlement schemes. I will say again—I have said it before: if the SNP wanted to help with this issue, it would address the fact that proportionately Scotland, in particular SNP local authorities, takes fewer people on those resettlement schemes than any other part of the United Kingdom.

  • Mark Jenkinson – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Serco and Migrant Accommodation

    Mark Jenkinson – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Serco and Migrant Accommodation

    The parliamentary question asked by Mark Jenkinson, the Conservative MP for Workington, in the House of Commons on 16 November 2022.

    Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)

    The Minister knows well the problems that I have with Serco’s procurement of accommodation in my constituency and I thank him for his engagement in recent days. Given the woeful communication with MPs and local authorities in recent days and weeks, can he confirm that lessons will be learned and that communication will be stepped up?

    Robert Jenrick

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the productive and constructive conversations that we have had. It is absolutely essential that the Home Office and partners such as Serco treat local authorities and Members of Parliament with respect and engage with them productively. Since my arrival in the Department, I have set in place protocols so that all Members of Parliament and local authorities will be notified in good time before hotel and other accommodation is procured, and so that we move to a better procedure, whereby there is effective and constructive engagement in the days prior to taking the accommodation.

    It is worth saying, however, that those are the symptoms of the problem. The core of the issue is the fact that 40,000 people have chosen to cross the channel this year alone and that places immense strain on our system. That is what we need to tackle, that is what Government Members are committed to doing and that is what the Opposition refuse to address.