Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP: speeches

Speeches

• 13 Jul 2026 · Illegal Immigrants: Offshore Detention and Deportation · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. First, I will acknowledge that although I disagree with the premise of this petition, I recognise the strength of feeling among the hundreds of thousands of people who signed it. However, I cannot support calls for offshore detention or processing centres, and nor will I support calls to immediately deport those who enter this country through irregular routes, because seeking refuge and safety is not illegal, and many safe and legal routes do not actually exist. I strongly believe that Members who support what this petition calls for are not being honest with the wider public about what it would cost, how it is a risk and what the true problems are. Of the people who enter the UK via an irregular route, 95% submit an asylum application. That means that we, as a signatory to the 1951 refugee convention, have a legal duty to assess their claim and place them under the care of the state while that process is ongoing. If their application is rejected, the state’s duty to them persists until the appeals process is exhausted. If that takes too long, it is inefficient, which is on us. Human Rights Watch and a number of other organisations have confirmed what most of us believe to be true, namely that holding asylum seekers in offshore detention is in contravention of our obligations under international human rights and refugee law. Regardless of whether a person’s application is deemed to be legitimate, they cannot be held in an offshore site until their asylum claim and subsequent appeals have been denied. The petition that we are debating today raises the issue of asylum seekers being held in hotels and temporary accommodation. I certainly agree that that is unacceptable; I have seen for myself the diabolical conditions in such accommodation. The Home Office is paying millions each day to house asylum seekers, but that is not the fault of the asylum seekers themselves. It is the fault of the Home Office and the private contractors who seek to make a profit off the backs of vulnerable people. I do not dismiss the views of those who support the petition, but the public debate does not provide accurate information. It regularly conflates the number of legal migrants and so-called illegal migrants. Indeed, migration and asylum are among the most misrepresented issues in public debate. The UK receives far fewer asylum claims per capita than countries such as Germany, France and Cyprus. Also, in most cases asylum seekers are barred from working here, so claims that they are taking jobs or living off benefits do not actually recognise the fact that asylum seekers are desperate for the right to contribute but are trapped in the system. In addition, the language of “swarms” and “invasions” is just inflammatory, racist and dehumanising, and it continues to cause problems throughout the discourse and debate on this subject. While we are discussing how much things cost, which again is a huge concern, we must realise that offshore detention can never be a cheaper alternative than the current system. It is far more costly—as was proved by the last Government, with their failed Rwanda scheme that cost £700 million but under which only four people were voluntarily transferred. Other examples of offshore processing centres operated by Australia, Italy and Denmark show how costly they can be. They are not meeting those countries’ aims, but are causing huge problems and perpetuating those countries’ engagement in really awful rhetoric about migrants—just as we are, while the costs increase again and again. I want us to be able to talk about asylum seekers with some humanity and not to cast off those in our communities who have come here to seek support from us. As I have said again and again, we have a duty to them under the refugee convention and a moral duty to them. The conversation about funding that we keep on having is completely missing the point: it misses the Home Office backlog and the continuing engagement in negative rhetoric of politicians here. When we look at the issue of offshore detention, we have to be realistic with the country about how much it is going to cost and about the fact that it will not solve the issue at hand.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill · Hansard source

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  This Bill seems inspired by the belief that hostility towards asylum seekers will deter them, whereas hostility towards migrants will not deter those we need economically, but we cannot have it both ways. There is a deeper problem with the Bill’s logic on citizenship provisions. The only way to make this approach work is by creating a second class of citizen, but what do we do with those whom we cannot deport? What happens when the person who has done the harm was born here, with no claim to another citizenship? The Bill has no answer, because citizenship deprivation was never really about safety; it is about who this Government treat as fully British, and the proposed amendment on citizenship deprivation confirms that. To be absolutely clear, I am not arguing against deporting foreign national criminals, which we too often fail at. My concern is that the Home Office, with its full arsenal, cannot think of any other way to ensure that we are safe from all groomers and abusers, regardless of where they or their grandparents were born. The Home Office seems able to resolve difficult cases only by creating citizens with fewer rights, which should trouble every single Member, whatever their view on deportation. Press briefings have suggested that the Bill hands Ministers sweeping powers to strip British citizenship. Rather, it moves deprivation appeals out of the independent courts and into an immigration appeals authority that is largely controlled by the Home Secretary. That is a serious change to who judges these decisions, but it is a change of process, not of who can be deprived of citizenship or why. This appears to be blurred with a separate Bill that stops citizenship being restored after the first successful appeal, letting this Government sound tougher than they are while avoiding scrutiny of a power that is already used disproportionately against black, Asian and migrant-heritage citizens. Forcing asylum seekers to pay £10,000 for their own shelter is purely punitive and ignores the legal right to asylum. Denying the right to work and rent, and then demanding repayment, is designed to punish, not uphold human rights. The Bill also deliberately ignores article 8, the right to family life, potentially tearing people away from loved ones, including British citizens. The Bill contravenes the spirit of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 by imposing arbitrary disclosure deadlines and removing leave to remain for trafficking survivors. Automatic deportation for custodial sentences introduces double jeopardy; a wrongful sentence can now also mean unjust deportation. The deportation system is already a mess and is run by the Home Office, which is now asking for sole control of it, without oversight. If the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs oversaw food shortages, would we accept a bid from it to take over all our farms? Finally, this Government have yet again missed the chance to fix child citizenship fees. It costs £1,214 for a child who was born here, and who has lived here their whole life, to register as a citizen in the country that they call home—a fee that the Court of Appeal found unlawful. Between 85,000 and 215,000 such children remain undocumented because their families cannot pay. These children are not migrants, and they are not asking for anything that is not already theirs. If it was not clear, I do not support this Bill.