Angela Eagle MP: speeches

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Speeches

12 May 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill · Hansard source
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I agree that we in this place have to always think about the humanity involved and not try to label everybody who comes into our country when they are claiming asylum as some kind of threat or, even worse, as a terrorist or something, as was done by the hon. Member for Ashfield. We have to treat every case on its merits, and we have to treat every person as an individual human being, but we also have to recognise—the right hon. Member for Islington North needs to recognise this too—that not everybody who comes across on a boat is the kind of person he describes; some are the people running the people-smuggling gangs. A variety of humanity comes across on the boats, just as one can discover a variety of humanity if one comes across a pool of human beings anywhere.
12 May 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill · Hansard source
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I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. This Bill restores order to an asylum system that was left in chaos by the Conservatives. It puts an end to the failed gimmicks and unworkable mess that they bequeathed us. It repeals in full the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, and it repeals most of the unworkable Illegal Migration Act 2023, which trapped asylum seekers in limbo as asylum backlogs soared and the taxpayer picked up a spiralling bill. This Government are clearing up the mess that the Conservative party left us, and the Bill before the House will help us to succeed. It will assist in securing our borders by dealing with the soaring backlogs. It gives counter-terror style powers to law enforcement agencies, equipping them to go after the people-smuggling gangs that are making millions of pounds out of exploiting people’s misery. The Bill introduces new powers to seize electronic devices and disrupt the activities of people smugglers; new offences against gangs selling or handling small boat parts for use in the channel; new powers on serious crime prevention orders to target individuals involved in organised immigration crime; a new law to protect lives at sea by making it an offence to endanger another life during small boat crossings; a new statutory footing for the Border Security Commander; and new and improved data sharing between Government agencies, such as HMRC and DVLA, and law enforcement to detect organised immigration crime. The Bill introduces a statutory timeline for appeals decisions and a major modernisation of the powers of the Immigration Services Commissioner. It ensures that those who commit certain sexual offences will be denied protection under the refugee convention, and contains a long-overdue extension of the right-to-work checks for casual and temporary workers in the gig economy, so why on earth is the Conservative party going to vote against it tonight? People smuggling is a complex and multifaceted problem, and there are no quick or easy solutions to prevent it. Anyone who claims that there are easy answers is a snake oil salesman, but it is possible to identify, disrupt and dismantle the criminal gangs and strengthen the security of our borders through international diplomacy and operational co-operation. This Bill will help us do just that, and I commend it to the House.
12 May 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill · Hansard source
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I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
12 May 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is right. We inherited a system in total chaos; asylum decision making had all but ground to a halt. Many, many tens of thousands of people were left having claimed asylum, as the law allowed them to, but unable to be processed because the previous Government passed a law that made it illegal for them to be processed. They were left in limbo. The cases were just piling up and costing the taxpayer a fortune. We have had to untangle the situation.
12 May 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill · Hansard source
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I think they probably call that campaigning, but it is up to them to justify how long they spend in the pub, or indeed in this Chamber. Moving to serious crime prevention orders and interim serious crime prevention orders, Government amendments 14 to 19 will remove Scotland and Northern Ireland from clause 48, which allows electronic monitoring as a condition of serious crime prevention orders and interim serious crime prevention orders in terrorism-related cases. The amendments will ensure that the devolved Governments retain full legislative competence over their existing electronic monitoring regimes. For now, I commend all the Government amendments to the House and look forward to contributions from other right hon. and hon. Members on the gargantuan group of amendments we are dealing with tonight.
12 May 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill · Hansard source
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Certainly we will come into the detail of how this works once it is on the statute book, in the guidance that is issued, but I am making it very clear to the House tonight that the Government wish those few people—the very small number of asylum seekers and refugees who have been convicted of serious sexual offences such that they have been put on the sex offenders register—to be denied refugee status. We will also deny refugee status where we are able to show that an individual has been convicted in a foreign court for a crime that would have fallen under schedule 3 to the 2003 Act if they had been convicted in the UK. Those convicted and made subject to the notification requirements have committed the most serious of sexual offences, which should be included in the definition of a particularly serious crime.
12 May 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill · Hansard source
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We will come to these debates when we get on to debating the new clauses to which the hon. Gentleman is referring. We have been clear from the Government Benches about the balance between respecting work visas, which people have to apply for if they are coming to work here, and allowing asylum seekers who have not applied for work to come and work at that sort of length. The change that he suggests would risk undermining the system. We have a disagreement about timing. The answer to his question is that at the moment an asylum seeker can work if their case has not been heard after 12 months, if that is through no fault of their own. We are talking about time here, and the balance between not undermining our work visa system and having a pull factor for more people to come across illegally.
31 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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Hard, tough cross-border policing takes time. [Interruption.] Conservative Members may laugh, but on a recent joint action day led by German and Belgian authorities, 500 German officers arrested targets and seized dozens of boats and engines, including some in warehouses targeted by the National Crime Agency. On a joint action day led by German police earlier this month, there were seven arrests in eight raided locations, and 90 dangerous life jackets were seized. That demonstrates a momentum in joint working that will put pressure on the criminal gangs.
31 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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As I said earlier, we are keeping under close review the pause in Syrian asylum applications. We cannot decide asylum applications against a country policy that is no longer relevant because of the rapid change in that country. We will resume those decisions as soon as we can.
31 Mar 2025 · Syrian Asylum Claims · Hansard source
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We wish Mr Speaker all the best on his extremely important visit to our parliamentary colleagues in Ukraine. Following the fall of the Assad regime, the Home Office withdrew the country policy and information note and guidance on Syria and temporarily paused interviews and decisions on Syrian asylum claims. This was, and remains, a necessary step that several other European countries have also taken. The pause is under constant review, and when there is a clear basis on which to make decisions, we will start processing claims again.
31 Mar 2025 · Syrian Asylum Claims · Hansard source
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We do not comment on where hotels are, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that there are 216 hotels across the whole country. We will be getting those numbers down as quickly as we can.
31 Mar 2025 · Syrian Asylum Claims · Hansard source
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I understand the heightened anxiety among Syrian asylum seekers, but the Home Office relies on the country information in order to make decisions on whether particular people need protection, and that information is currently in the middle of quite profound change. When we are in a position to make decisions against new, more up-to-date information, we will certainly do so. I hope the Syrian community will be patient and not too anxious about the pause currently in place.
31 Mar 2025 · Syrian Asylum Claims · Hansard source
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Some 84,000 people crossed the channel from the day the Rwandan deal was signed to the day it was scrapped. The Conservatives failed to deter a single boat or deport a single person. Instead, they spent £700 million and sent four people—four failed asylum seekers—to start a new life in Kigali with free housing, free private healthcare and free university education, at a cost of £150,000 each. If the right hon. Gentleman really thinks that paying £150,000 per removed asylum seeker was an adequate answer to the challenge of small boat crossings, then I do not know what planet he is living on.
31 Mar 2025 · People Smuggling · Hansard source
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I agree strongly with my hon. Friend and that is why today’s immigration summit, where 40 countries will be co-operating and attending, is such an important event. Today we also announced that, since we came into government, we have returned more than 24,000 people who have no right to be here. We have also tightened up the illegal working regulations to make certain that they apply across the board to the gig economy and to casual workers, too.
31 Mar 2025 · People Smuggling · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is exactly right. These criminals are cross-national, very sophisticated and operate across borders. In order to respond properly, we have to do the same, and that is what today’s summit is helping us to co-ordinate.
31 Mar 2025 · People Smuggling · Hansard source
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We have a duty to ensure that those arriving on our shores who claim asylum are properly processed. The Conservatives prevented themselves from doing that by becoming obsessed with the Rwanda scheme and they left us with a huge backlog. We will speed up immigration processing so that we can deal with those people, protect those who have a right to be here and send back those who have failed. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will welcome the steep increase in returns and removals that I have just announced.
31 Mar 2025 · People Smuggling · Hansard source
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The Government are today playing host to law enforcement counterparts from across the globe to discuss our joint response to organised immigration crime. The UK is not only hosting that summit but leading the way in its response to this appalling, evil trade, including through new powers introduced in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which I note the Conservative party voted against.
31 Mar 2025 · People Smuggling · Hansard source
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The summit is dealing with source countries. We are looking at how we can co-operate with countries all the way along the routes used by smuggling gangs to ensure that the right messages, rather than very slick organised immigration gang advertising, are conveyed.
25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source
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Our aim is to close asylum hotels and get out of what we feel is an unsustainable situation as quickly as practicable.
25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source
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We 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 fairer so that we can get people out of asylum hotels, which are not a sustainable model for the future.
25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source
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I 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 comes into our country, not the people-smuggling gangs.
25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source
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I am not going to comment on leaks.
25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source
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That certainly should not be happening. If my hon. Friend wants to talk to me about it, I will try to see what happened in that instance.
25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source
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I agree with my hon. Friend.
25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source
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No.

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