Angela Eagle MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Immigration centres are not used for indefinite detention. We can only keep anyone in detention in an immigration centre if there is a reasonable prospect of their removal. If there is not, they have to be released.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Anyone who is in a hotel is someone who has claimed asylum, and whose asylum claim is pending. They are not necessarily illegal immigrants at all, and the hon. Lady should make that position clear.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  To tackle illegal migration, we must work across borders in co-operation with other jurisdictions. Were we to leave the European convention on human rights, we could not work with those that sign up to it.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  There is an amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill that extends the requirement to check illegal working to the gig economy, the zero-hours economy and all those areas that have non-traditional employer-employee relationships. I look forward to being able to operationalise that when the Bill becomes law.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  When people arrive and claim to be children, there are tests at the border to check whether we think they are children. If they are accepted as children, they are put into local authority care, so they should not be in asylum accommodation at all. If they are seen to be adults and end up in asylum accommodation, they can always make an appeal to the local authority that they are in and undergo what is known as a Merton age assessment test, which will decide on their age once and for all.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Illegal Working · Hansard source

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  We are shortening the time that it takes to process asylum claims by getting the system that we inherited from the Conservatives working again. That is why there has been a 63% increase in the number of initial claims processed. That follows a 70% fall in the period before the last election.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Illegal Working · Hansard source

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  We are tackling illegal working by significantly increasing enforcement. That is why we have had a 40% increase in visits and a 42% increase in the number of arrests for illegal working. There are fines of £60,000 per illegal worker discovered, and those who are discovered working illegally can be arrested and put on the route to deportation.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Illegal Working · Hansard source

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  I am reeling at the New Labour point that the Father of the House has made. E-visas basically give us the capacity to do a similar thing, and they are easily checked, which is why, in the border security Bill, we are extending those checks to the gig and zero-hours economy.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Illegal Working · Hansard source

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  Clamping down on illegal working is a crucial element of our strategy to tackle immigration crime. Since coming to office, this Government have increased raids, arrests and civil penalties to their highest levels in years. Our Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will introduce tougher provisions in this area, particularly to bolster our enforcement action against illegal working in the gig economy.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Illegal Working · Hansard source

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  Enforcement of the law is the best way to deal with this issue, which is why there has been a 40% increase in visits to check whether illegal working is going on, and a 42% increase in arrests since this Government came to office.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  The Conservatives—who conveniently called an early election so that the Rwanda scheme would never start, after spending years saying that even perpetrating the idea of a Rwanda scheme would stop the boats—know as well as I do that over 84,000 people crossed the channel in small boats in the years from the Rwanda scheme being put into law to its being abolished. They can sit there and say that—

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that when we came into government, there were more than 18,000 foreign national offenders living in our communities who should have been deported and had not been? When we left office in 2010, that number was 4,000.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  I think it is perfectly reasonable to point out the chaos that there was in 14 years of Conservative government and the shadow Home Secretary’s record in these areas—

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  Let me finish the sentence. No, I will not give way. I think it is perfectly reasonable to point out what the Conservatives’ record is, when they have come to the Chamber to try to lecture the Government about what to do with our immigration and migration policies, even though we are clearing up their mess. This Government inherited a system in total chaos from the Conservatives, which was partially because of the chaos I have just mentioned—those 20 weeks between the Pincher visit to the Carlton Club and the Budget that was needed to clear up Liz Truss’s mess, when we had three Prime Ministers and four Home Secretaries. Can the Conservatives seriously pretend to the British people that while they were busy doing all that, they had a coherent migration policy that they can lecture us about? I do not think so.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  No. As this Government have made clear consistently, this is just the start. We need to go further, and we will.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  No. Turning to legal migration, through the plans in our immigration White Paper, we will deliver a system that supports our efforts to reduce net migration and backs British talent. As the Home Secretary set out in the House last week, our approach is founded on five core principles: first, that net migration must come down; secondly, that the migration system should be linked to skills and training domestically, so that no industry or sector can rely solely on overseas recruitment—a major failure of the last Government’s 14 years in office; thirdly, that the system must be fair and effective, with clearer rules in areas such as respect for family life and stronger safeguards against perverse outcomes that undermine public confidence; fourthly, that this country’s laws must be respected and enforced, from cracking down on illegal working to deporting foreign criminals; and fifthly, that the system must support integration and community cohesion. This is not a task that can be completed overnight. Clearing up the Opposition’s legacy will not be easy because of the chaos that we inherited from the Conservative party. We saw record net migration, record small boat arrivals and record numbers of asylum hotels, criminal smugglers left to run amok for years, and public confidence shaken by past failures, expensive gimmicks and broken promises. It has been left to this Government to clear up the mess and turn the page on the chaos and failures of the past. That work has begun.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  Collective responsibility apparently never used to matter to the Conservative party, but if we remember some of the history we will know that that was actually true. I want Members to cast their minds back to the summer of 2022, and the 20-week period from Chris Pincher having his night at the Carlton Club all the way through to when the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) had to write an emergency Budget. The Conservative Government descended into utter chaos, with three different Prime Ministers and four different Home Secretaries taking turns in office. What was happening with small boats in the channel during those particular 20 weeks? We had not 12,000 or 13,000 arrivals, but 30,000 arrivals.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  I do not think that the two quotes are incompatible with each other. Our White Paper sets out the route forward. Net migration is coming down. The legacy that we inherited from the Conservative party was the quadrupling of it in four short years. It is also important to remember that when we are talking about legal migration and net migration, we must have integration and the capacity to absorb the people we allow into our country. Crucially, when it comes to small boats, we have to have the capacity to decide who comes into our country. I do not see that those two statements from the Prime Minister, which were years apart, are incompatible.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  No, I have given way enough. I will carry on and make my points, because we do not have much time. Since the general election, we have established the Border Security Command to draw together the work of all relevant agencies, supported by at least an extra £150 million this financial year. We have backed UK law enforcement to play a leading role in major international operations to take out the gangs and their supply chains further up the smuggling route. We have deepened co-operation with key allies, including France. We have struck new agreements with Germany, Iraq, Italy, the Calais Group and the G7. We have hosted a major international summit on border security—the first of its kind, with over 40 countries in attendance. We have also transferred the staff and resources from the failed Rwanda scheme and used them to return more than 24,000 individuals with no right to be in the UK. We increased asylum decision making by 52% in the last three months of 2024, and we have ramped up illegal working enforcement visits and arrests by 40%.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  No. There were 30,000 arrivals in the space of 20 weeks— not 220 or even 500 boats, but 670 boats. How did that happen? The Conservatives were all too busy fighting among themselves and crashing the economy to bother about protecting our borders. Let us not forget the role that the shadow Home Secretary played in that little bit of Conservative party history. In the space of 20 weeks, he went from tech Minister to no ministerial role, to Chief Secretary to the Treasury, to Paymaster General, to police Minister, but none of that was his most important role. We should remember—

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  I am talking about 20-week periods, which feature in the Opposition’s motion. I am talking about what happened in a 20-week period, when—just to go back over it—the shadow Home Secretary went from tech Minister to not having a job, to being Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Paymaster General, and then police Minister. The Conservatives brought the same chaos to government as they did to their immigration policy, over which they had control for 14 years.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  No. There are two main factors that make today’s challenges different from the past. The first is technology. The physical distances between nations and continents may not have changed, but the near universality of smartphones and internet access has made the world feel a lot smaller. The gangs can organise journeys more quickly and easily than ever before. For the people they prey on, the promise of a different future is right there on the screen of a mobile device. The second factor is the emergence of a ruthless criminal industry worth billions of pounds, stretching across borders and continents. On illegal migration and border security, we are acting to get a grip on issues that have gone unchecked for far too long. For years, the ringleaders and facilitators of this trade have been able to evade justice by ensuring that they are not present when money changes hands or the boats set off. To shift the dial, we need action to be taken earlier and faster. We need a response that fits the scale and urgency of the threat, and to mount such a response we need to legislate. Having intensified activity across policy, operational and international arenas since the general election, we have moved to strengthen the law by bringing forward the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. The House is well acquainted with the Bill, but its core aims and measures bear repeating. The Bill puts an end to the failed gimmicks of the past. It furnishes law enforcement with counter-terrorism-style tactics to strike against smuggling gangs earlier and faster—long before they get within striking distance of our shores. The National Crime Agency and its associates who help us with this work asked us to change the law to provide them with those tactics. The Bill introduces new powers to seize electronic devices, and new offences covering the sale and handling of small boat parts for use in illegal activities. It upgrades serious crime prevention orders to target individuals involved in organised immigration crime. It creates a new offence of endangering life at sea to act as a deterrent against small boat overcrowding. It also sends an unambiguous message that we are ready to take action against those who are complicit in fatalities in the channel. [ Interruption. ] I talk about fatalities in the channel; Opposition Members laugh and joke among themselves.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman. It is very important to remember that we thrive—as we always have in our history—with a tolerant, multicultural society in which we strive to understand each other and get on with each other, rather than to divide and seek to cause resentments, which some people with their own political narratives do, and that is regrettable.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  I give way to my hon. Friend.

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  When we came into office, we ended the Rwanda scheme. The scheme was about deporting people, processing their asylum in another country and never letting them back here. [ Interruption. ] But it did not work— [ Interruption. ]