Angela Eagle MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 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.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister has made it clear that the answer will not be to ignore international law, so we have to ensure that we create a system that is fast and fair and does the job much more effectively than the one we inherited. We are looking into how we can make changes to ensure that that happens.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman says that Wethersfield is now getting more people, but it is still not holding the numbers that his Government planned for it to hold when it was opened, so that is rather an odd argument for him to make. If he was serious about reducing the problems at our borders, I would have thought that he would want to support the counter-terrorism-style powers in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, but it seems that he is not.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is correct that the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which has been through Committee and is awaiting its Report stage, will create counter-terror-style powers that will help us prevent some of these crossings and disrupt the sophisticated criminal smuggling gangs that were allowed to take hold across the channel, unabated by the Conservative party. It will enable us to tackle this problem at source by working across borders with colleagues in other countries, tackling the people-smuggling routes as well as the gangs.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  I want to get out of hotels as quickly as is feasible. I will not name particular dates, because that is a pointless thing to do. We have to get through the appeals system and the first asylum processing system so that we can move people through the system much more quickly. We also need to continue our work on ramping up returns, which have seen a huge increase—the highest figures for the last five years—and we intend to continue with that process.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  I am more than happy to meet with the right hon. Gentleman to talk about his experience on the ground with respect to both Stay Belvedere Hotels Ltd and Clearsprings Ready Homes.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his belief in my ability to get on top of my brief. The National Crime Agency recently arrested three men in the UK who were wanted in Belgium after being convicted of being members of an Afghan organised crime group. It has arrested a Turkish national suspected of being one of the most significant suppliers of boats and engines to gangs, who was detained in Amsterdam following a joint operation involving the NCA and Belgian and Dutch police. There have been convictions of two men based in south Wales who ran a people-smuggling ring that involved moving thousands of migrants through Iran, Iraq and Syria and across Europe. As a result of a major international operation involving the NCA targeting a Syrian organised crime group considered to be one of Europe’s most significant people-smuggling gangs, at least 20 people were arrested in a series of raids across the continent, including one in the United Kingdom. That is just what has been happening recently. A great deal more work is going on involving many, many investigations, the fruit of which will be borne—and we will talk about it—when it is delivered.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman raises that issue with the Chancellor.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  I certainly agree with the Father of the House on that subject. We had a small but perfectly formed debate, albeit in his absence, on his new clause, and I look forward to debating it with him on Report of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.

• 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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  Those asylum seekers who have not had their claims processed within a year through no fault of their own are allowed access to work. I am unconvinced that allowing access to work earlier would do anything other than create more demand for people to come here.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  Yes. Illegal working arrests and visits have increased by 38%. More people have been arrested. More people have been fined. We are seeking to ban those who abuse illegal workers—often underpaying them and treating them like modern slaves—from running companies. The fines are now £60,000 per illegal worker. There is no reason why legitimate small businesses should be undermined by illegal working and illegal practices.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  I believe that people need to think about the language they use and the impressions of human beings they give when they talk about this very emotive issue. It raises huge concern, I know. As a Government, we have certainly got to do all we can to try to reassure people that we can get this system back under control, after finding a chaotic mess when we came into Government.