Tom Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Yes, actually.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will speak briefly. I welcome the hon. Member for Weald of Kent’s clarification of the Conservative party’s position on the amendment, but that clarification also raises further questions; I wonder whether the hon. Lady could respond on the spot. If there is no requirement every 30 months in the 10-year period for an individual to pay fees of £2,608—or, for a child, £2,223—to the Home Office, how will the Home Office fund much of its work? The fees paid by adults and children contribute significantly to the Home Office’s budget. The point is particularly important because the Home Office has had to borrow from the official development assistance budget in order to fund asylum hotels. I worry that there is going to be a significant financial gap here, and I wonder if the hon. Lady could clarify what her costings are?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am reading from the Home Office website, which says: “Comparisons of arrivals between the same months in different years may also be affected by differences in conditions. As a result, we do not make comparisons between shorter periods where arrival numbers…may fluctuate considerably.” The Home Office also comments: “Financial, social, physical and geographical factors may influence the method of entry individuals use and the types of individuals detected arriving… These factors may also change over time.” Therefore, is it not the case that looking at just two quarters, and trying to make a comparison, is not really the most robust way of doing this? Is it not better to reflect on the Bill and the changes it is seeking to introduce, and to realise that it will make a significant difference in the medium to long term?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am happy to accept that clarification. If that is correct, I look forward to seeing more information about the particular policy, what financial costs would be involved and what the financial benefits would be. Finally, I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh about the importance of settling. We talk here about the financial costs: it is going to be more costly to our country and public services if somebody is having to go through many years of unsettled status. It is going to be harder for them to have all the infrastructure and anchors that they need within society. As a consequence, I would love to know whether the Conservatives have done any modelling of the impact of increasing the period of limbo, including—as mentioned in the IPPR report that I referenced earlier—the cost to public services when people find themselves homeless, with difficult mental health conditions or unable to take their child to the school that they want and have to travel significant mileage. The hon. Lady and I share a desire for the integrity of data and its greater availability. In proposing the amendment, does she have access to any of that information?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Sorry, I coughed and laughed at the same time, partly because I think the hon. Member anticipated the point I was about to make. I will put this on the record again, as I have consistently. She may have more information to come back to me with and I will come back to her. The Centre for Policy Studies report is flawed. It has skewed information; it uses assumptions that are unreasonable and the financial modelling that ensues is therefore unreasonable. As a consequence, it feels like the Centre for Policy Studies and the hon. Member are reaching for a very large number to create the impression that there will be a very significant financial burden. I make two additional points. First, even if that report relied on reasonable assumptions and therefore the modelling was correct, the Boris wave was caused by her party’s Government. She is nodding her head; she affirms that. I welcome that, in her speech, she has so far acknowledged the failings of that Government. Secondly, the report makes some very big assumptions about the future behaviour of the people currently in the migration system in our country. That is not a wise move, particularly when she is extrapolating £235 billion to £240 billion across a very long timeline. In fact, if we were to break it down on an annualised basis, even using the report’s flawed assumptions and flawed modelling, the figure would be far smaller. We need to have some integrity in the data that we use. Does she agree?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his patience in allowing me to intervene again. Is it not fair of the Government to accept only those amendments whose details are actually known and worked up; and is it not, therefore, unfair of the hon. Member to press a new clause when he has not worked out the details of what its implementation would look like?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Can he give me the name of the report?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  In which case, I will close by saying that the Home Office data shows there is not that drop-off of people—people do not leave the country because they have to wait longer for their status. In fact, those people try to get that status by serving within our country and economy. The Home Office data, which is publicly available on gov.uk, records what the stay and departure rates are each year. I am not sure that the amendment and the policy within it are going to achieve the goal that the hon. Lady is seeking.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  This proposal has emerged before the Leader of the Opposition sets in train her new policy commissions, including one on immigration, so it is good to get a teaser today. Under this proposal, will a person who would seek to apply for indefinite leave to remain after 10 years be required to apply for limited leave to remain every 30 months?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I might be able to help the hon. Gentleman. The IPPR, which listens to the voices of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees navigating that 10-year process—people who look to settle here legally—and which looks at the data, published a report, “A Punishing Process”, which talks about some of the administrative costs and difficulties of the process. As part of the Leader of the Opposition’s new commission on immigration, will the hon. Gentleman be able to provide an assessment of the true cost to the Home Office of an individual applying for LLR every 30 months? Will he would maintain the requirement that people have to pay £2,608 as an adult and £2,223 for a child in visa fees? One of the concerns of the IPPR report is that poorer people often get pushed into greater poverty by having to apply every 30 months.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The very last point I will make is that I understand what the hon. Lady is saying, but that is not what my point was about. This would not be a deterrent or an incentive for people to leave the country. People would still remain in the country. The health impacts and the limbo that people would experience through their inability to settle would still create a fiscal drag.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The rest of Europe is doing free trade, but the shadow Minister does not want to do that. We should reflect on Europe and what we want to import into our country. On the bone age assessment, can the hon. Gentleman tell us with confidence grounded in science that it would be able to determine the range of relevant ages? Can he tell me what the margin of error would be for someone aged 18 or 19, and what an assessment of bone density and bone age would tell us if they posed as 15 or 16?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s desire for our frontline staff to have all the tools they need. The Bill will expand the number of tools, but those are the tools that frontline staff are requesting. We could have scientific age assessments, and the Government are certainly not ruling them out entirely; there is work going on in the Home Office to consider their efficacy. Does he agree that we need tools that will help our frontline staff achieve the goals that we set them? The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health says that age determination is an inexact science, and that the margin of error can sometimes be as much as five years either side. I myself am not a scientist or a member of the royal college—I assume that the same is true of the hon. Member—so is it not better that we listen to such expert bodies, and develop policy in line with them, rather than just saying, “Because Europe is doing it, we ought to do it”?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  indicated assent.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Dr Murrison. I agree that there is a lack of trust in our immigration and asylum system, but does the hon. Member agree that the cause of that is not the conduct of courts in public or private, but the backlogs that have been created and the inability of the Conservatives to tackle the problems in our immigration and asylum system? Will he also reflect on the fact that the Conservatives in government had the opportunity to introduce this change but chose not to? Is he perhaps playing a bit of politics?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Can the hon. Gentleman tell me which evidence base supports that assertion?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Weald of Kent for raising the absolutely horrific and awful circumstances involving Thomas Roberts, who would have been my constituent and whose mother, Dolores, is my constituent. She is racked by grief and unable to sleep at night. Her health has worsened because, as she said to the Minister and me last night in the Minister’s office, with her son being murdered, she feels that half of her whole life has completely disappeared. I do not want to name the murderer in this debate; I name Thomas Roberts, the victim. I want to talk briefly, with your permission, Dr Murrison, about Thomas Roberts, because it is important for the Committee to know who he was. It is important for Dolores, so racked with grief, to know that her MP and the Committee are focused on what happened. Thomas was 21 years of age when he died on 12 March 2022 in Bournemouth town centre, the victim of a stabbing by an asylum seeker. His mum has told me several times, and she told me again with the Minister last night, that Thomas was known by everyone and, when his mother wanted to go into town, to Littledown or to other parts of the constituency, he would say no, because he was so well known and he did not want to be seen by his friends out with his mum. Thomas was an aspiring Royal Marine and, in order to become one, he was in the Sea Scouts. He was physically fit—so fit, in fact, that he would actually bench press his mum and his brother. Dolores told me that the passing of his driving test on the first go was one of her proudest moments. It is one of the things that she remembers so fondly and so closely now, as she comes to terms with her grief. Thomas was also an aspiring drum and bass DJ, and by all accounts a very good one, who was up and coming on the south coast. If he had not made it as a Royal Marine—there was every certainty that he would—he could easily have taken up a drum and bass DJ career. He was a member of the Christchurch boxing club. He was active in his community, and deeply loving and caring about his family. Thomas lost his life—or rather, his life was taken from him—because an asylum seeker was in our country. That begs the question: why was that person in our country? Why were they able to wield the knife that cut short Thomas Roberts’s life, and that took away all the hopes and ambitions that his mother had for him? It is because we did not have access to the necessary database to track criminality and find out more about who the asylum seeker actually was. I am deeply sad that Thomas is not with his mum, in his community, or with his friends who loved him so much, because the last Government broke our asylum and immigration system, and created the conditions for that tragic killing and other tragic killings that have happened in our country. Scientific age assessment, as the hon. Member for Weald of Kent said, is not a magic wand; it is imprecise, as we heard from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. We know what works, and that having a functioning asylum and immigration system will make all the difference. I just wish we had had that on 12 March 2022 when Thomas was denied his life opportunities because of the breakages in that system. I thank the Minister for meeting Dolores yesterday—I know that that provided her with much-needed comfort and clarity. I am absolutely confident that the Bill and its measures will make the difference that is so needed to protect our society. I also note the contribution of Councillor Joe Salmon of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council, who has been such a support to Dolores and her wider community, because she will be grieving for a very long time. It is incumbent on all of us in public service to speak the truth, look at the facts and bring forward the measures that will make the biggest difference. If I may, I will return to the question of scientific age assessments. I referred to the concerns of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and of experts, but I now refer to the House of Lords debate on 27 November 2023, which is worth a read if Opposition Members have not had a chance. It goes into significant detail and depth about the concerns that I had about that as a possible policy at that stage of its development. The Minister has been clear that scientific age assessments are not off the table; there just needs to be certainty that they are an effective tool. To avoid any further deaths and injustices, we need to have the right tools to protect the people of this country, secure and protect our borders, and make sure that we are truly able to restore confidence and trust in this system and in our ability to manage who comes into our country and who stays here.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  With regard to migrants’ diet before they come to the UK, can the hon. Member tell us whether he expects them to have or to lack normal calcium?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  This is my last intervention on this matter. I take the hon. Lady’s point entirely, but will she not acknowledge that the modelling has deep, fundamental flaws? Although it may be the only modelling and therefore the best, on the strength of what is in that report it is still not worth considering or using in parliamentary debate.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is making a very powerful point about the importance of restoring trust and, to be fair to him, he has been making that point for many years. On 20 July 2021, he said in debate on the Nationality and Borders Bill: “Our asylum and immigration system is not fit for purpose. It lines the pockets of criminal gangs and people smugglers, and it is not fair on genuinely vulnerable people who need protection. It is also not fair on the British public, who pick up the tab.” —[ Official Report , 20 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 902.] I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman about what happened in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and, in fact, the years before that. Does he agree with the 2021 hon. Member for Stockton South, as he then was, that in fact the cause of the mistrust in our asylum system is the management of it, not what he is trying to address here?

• 17 Mar 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is making a powerful point about the importance of accessing coherent and organised records. However, does she agree that one of the reasons for those records being disorganised is the churn of social workers, and one of the causes of that churn is our care system’s extensive reliance on the excessive profiteering of external companies? This Bill provides for retention of care workers by ruling out excessive profiteering. Does she welcome that?

• 13 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I was listening carefully and had a lightbulb moment. Perhaps the Conservatives figured out what a deterrent was—it was crashing the economy and putting our country into such difficulty that it obliterated the pull factor. That might be a cruel thing to say. Does the hon. Member agree that we heard in evidence that there are pull factors in the UK in terms of our language, our diaspora and quality of life, and other countries may not have those same factors? If we agree to the new clause and make it easier for people who cross the channel illegally to work here, people may be even more incentivised to come here compared with other countries.

• 13 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I wonder whether the SNP and the Liberal Democrats are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, and I mean that in two senses. First, they query whether this Government are committed to international human rights, when they have shown time and again that they are, although I understand that concern, given what has gone before. With this situation—where they are trying to prescribe, in primary legislation, the foreign affairs of this Government and the regularity with which they meet international organisations—I wonder too whether they are experiencing some post-traumatic stress disorder, because they know that the previous Conservative Government resorted to sticking two fingers up at our international partners and international agencies. I hope they will withdraw the new clause because they should feel reassured that this Government have a respect for human rights, international law and working with our international partners and agencies.

• 13 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Is it not the case that the Government do not think that primary legislation is the way to secure international negotiation about safe and legal routes? Actually, those conversations will be happening with the Government and partners. In fact, one of the highlights of having a new Government is a reset of our relationship with the European Union, which—in time, once it matures and restores—can help in negotiations for better routes for humanitarian assistance and support. Primary legislation is not needed for everything.