Angela Eagle MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 20 Nov 2024 · Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation · Hansard source

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  No, I do not. I noticed the revelations at the weekend about why the Conservatives decided to call the election earlier than some of us had perhaps thought. One reason set out in Tim Shipman’s book “Out” was that illegal migration was a problem, “with a new armada of small boats predicted and the issue of whether they would be able to get a repatriation flight to Rwanda in the air before polling day.” They evidently decided that they could not. We are now hearing this complete fiction from Conservative Members that somehow the Rwanda scheme was just about to work before we scrapped it, when they had spent £700 million on an increasingly futile and ridiculous attempt to get the scheme off the ground.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation · Hansard source

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  That was quite a rant. It made certain assumptions that are completely untrue, including that the Rwanda scheme would have worked. We already know that it cost £700 million to send four volunteers to Rwanda. The Conservative party was planning to spend £175,000 per person sent to Rwanda, and it had not managed to send anyone to Rwanda. Had the Conservatives put aside the money, going into billions of pounds, to pay this £175,000 per person sent to Rwanda? No, they had not. No money was set aside. What we inherited was a system where no processing was going on—well, fewer than 1,000 asylum cases a month were being processed. We are now processing up to 10,000 asylum cases a month. The right hon. Gentleman knows, because he was a Home Office Minister, that there are backlogs and lags between the first decision in processing and all the potential appeals. We cannot exit people from the asylum estate until they have a final decision. We inherited backlogs of more than two years in the tribunal system because the Conservatives did not fund it properly. In the last period, we have returned nearly 10,000 people, which is nearly a 20% increase on the numbers returned last year. We are working on making the asylum system fit for purpose. We inherited an unholy mess from the Conservatives.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation · Hansard source

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  We are working on it, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we have inherited a huge mess with large backlogs that are not easy to clear.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation · Hansard source

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  I am happy to check out the report, and I will write to my hon. Friend.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation · Hansard source

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  As a senior member of the last few Administrations, the right hon. Gentleman will know that we inherited an asylum system that had been ground to a standstill by the previous Government’s pursuit of the Rwanda policy, which was doomed to failure. They spent £700 million over two years to send four volunteers to Rwanda. Conservative Members claim that the Rwanda scheme was somehow a deterrent, but from the day that it was announced to the day that it was scrapped 83,500 people crossed the channel in small boats. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that that is the definition of a deterrent, I think he needs to look it up in a dictionary. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member talks about a 19% increase in channel boat crossings since Labour came to power, but in the first six months of this year when the Rwanda scheme was up and running and apparently about to start at any minute, there was an 18% increase in channel crossings. Again, the Rwanda scheme was an expensive distraction, not a deterrent. The right hon. Gentleman asks whether we will produce a list of hotels that are currently in use. He will know that, when he was in government, hotel use peaked at more than 400. I can tell him that, currently, there are 220 hotels in use. At the time of the election, there were 213 hotels in use, but since July seven hotels have shut and 14 have opened, which has created a net increase of seven.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation · Hansard source

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  We have a relatively new Government in France just bedding in. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that we are working closely with them to see how we can strengthen and deepen our co-operation and partnership.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  That is certainly the balance that this Government are aiming to achieve.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  Yes, I agree. The loss of life in the channel this year has been the highest on record, and that is because more pressure is being put on the gangs, the boats are being overloaded and there is more anarchy on the beaches in France. Those are all things that we have to try to deal with in co-operation with our French colleagues.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  Yes, but the House has to have patience. There are no magic wands to wave in this policy area, and there are no fantasy policies now that we have got rid of the Rwanda scheme. There is hard, day-to-day operational work to try to get the system that we inherited—which is in complete chaos, with huge backlogs—back into some kind of order, so that we can run it properly, fairly and efficiently. That is what we are focusing on.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  I said in an earlier answer that there are no magic wands in this area. Tough operational processing and international co-operation will begin to bear down on this, and work by the National Crime Agency and by prosecutorial authorities, often cross-border in different jurisdictions. The fact that we have made such a good start with international co-operation and the significant shift in attention here will bear down on this, but I will not stand at this Dispatch Box and pretend that there is an easy timeframe or answer for when that will have the effect that we all want it to have. We will bear down on it and we will make progress.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  I said earlier that safe routes would not stop all the channel crossings. There is now an industrialised system run by organised immigration criminals. The Vietnamese would never have a safe route into the UK—there is no visa system—yet they now comprise 20% of the people crossing on small boats. With all due respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I do not think that safe routes would solve the problem.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  Well, getting to that level of withdrawal would be a fantastic development that would put incredible pressure on many of the supply lines currently being used; if we could get to that stage, we would have already made significant progress. The answer to what the right hon. Gentleman is talking about is international co-operation to put the maximum pressure on this terrible international trade in human lives and exploitation. I am glad that he is giving me a little bit of time to prove that we can make a difference.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  Yes, I agree profoundly with my hon. Friend, which is why the new Government have changed tack in this area. I am sure that we will see the results in due course.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an intriguing point, given that Conservative Members have said repeatedly that they were about to start the Rwanda scheme the week after the election, and that all of a sudden it would work and be perfect—after 83,500 people crossed in small boats knowing that the scheme was legislated for and in place. I suspect, somehow, that the date of the election might have had a bit to do with the fact that they realised the Rwanda scheme would fail.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  First, the border security command is operationally completely different from the command on the channel, which is deliberately there to try to save life and find out what is going on on the water. Operationally, the border security command will co-operate across borders in a very different way. If I were the right hon. and learned Lady, I would not be boasting about the colossal morass of wasted expenditure that the Rwanda scheme represented—£700 million down the drain, with plans to spend nearly £10 billion on the plan over the next few years. It was a gross waste of money that did not deter a single boat crossing.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  Given that the Conservative party processed virtually nobody who came over in a small boat, they are still in the asylum backlog that we are attempting to deal with.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  I agree that the first six months of this year were the worst on record. There were then a quiet three months, and now there has been a huge increase, not least because of benign weather conditions. I do not want to get into monthly figures. We need to bear down on the organised criminality that is perpetrating the trade, to disrupt it and deal with it that way.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  I am not going to get into a competition with the hon. Gentleman about compassion. We have a duty to ensure that asylum seekers who come to our shores are properly processed and dealt with, and integrated in our society if asylum is granted. [ Interruption. ] Despite the hon. Gentleman chuntering away, I am not going to stand here and say that we will let people smugglers, who exploit people for money, decide who comes to our country. We have to stop this trade; that is not at odds with treating those who arrive here with compassion.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  I welcome the right hon. Gentleman —the shadow Home Secretary—to his new Front-Bench position. What a pleasure it is to be opposite him; I am going to look forward to jousting with him over the years. On the Rwanda scheme, during the period from when it began to when we scrapped it, 83,500 people crossed in small boats. If that is a deterrent, the right hon. Gentleman has a peculiar view of the meaning of “deterrence” in the English language. When I realised that we were doing this urgent question, I took the opportunity to look at the right hon. Gentleman’s record as a Home Office Minister. During his first stint at the Home Office—from September 2019 to 2021—23,849 people crossed the channel on small boats. During his second ministerial sojourn at the Home Office, 50,637 people crossed the channel in small boats, so his overall total is 74,486. In September 2020, the shadow Home Secretary answered an urgent question. He said that the last Government would “not rest until we have taken the necessary steps to completely end these crossings.” —[ Official Report , 2 September 2020; Vol. 679, c. 168.] How did that go?

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  The way to deter the small boat crossings is to deal with those who are organising and profiting from that immoral trade. That is what we are doing.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  Those countries are not considering a Rwanda scheme; they are all saying that they will stay within the confines of international law. The Rwanda scheme definitely tore up international law, and it was planned to spend nearly £10 billion up until 2027 on trying to remove 250 people a week from this country, and to spend nearly £3 billion on extra detention camps for them in this country. I do not think that represents British values or good value for money.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  They are indeed, and perhaps they should also be reminded that returns collapsed on their watch as well.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  The shadow Home Secretary’s record in office is a matter that we may well keep coming back to. I agree with the observations that my hon. Friend makes.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  Yes, and the repurposing of some of that money and resource that has not been lost is funding the new approach.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  I agree very much with my hon. Friend’s observations, and so do the figures. Between the date of the announcement of the Rwanda scheme and the date of the last general election, 83,500 people came across in small boats. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) says that it had not started then. The Conservatives began by saying that Rwanda would be a deterrent when their Bill was published, and then every time it made no difference, they took it back and said, “It will work, it will work.” It would never have worked. It cost £700 million, and they had budgeted—but not budgeted—for nearly £10 billion of expenditure by the end of that scheme.