Robert Jenrick
MP for Newark · Reform UK · United Kingdom
“Robert Steele was a beautiful four-year-old boy who died three weeks ago in Newark when he was thrown from an off-road bike that was being driven by a 24-year-old man. This is the culmination of a number of incidents in my town, and many others across the country, involving off-road bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters.”
“The Minister said that Governments are elected to lead. Most people would assume that means that Ministers are elected to lead, because they are accountable to Parliament and to the people.”
“There is an air of total unreality hanging over this debate. Successive Governments have run down our Royal Navy to its present enfeebled state, they have conspired to surrender other British sovereign territory and we have a Government who procrastinate about signing off a new oil field in the North sea—let alone about one in the south A…”
“I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his position. I have known him for a long time—I wish him well. He has a huge task ahead of him. Earlier in the summer, the Prime Minister said that walking the streets of Makerfield lodged in his mind that so many working people want to see the personal allowance raised.”
“Imagine that you are a worker at JLR worried about your future, and you have the misfortune of watching the Chancellor’s speech, which contains searing economic insights like, “I want to see businesses make a profit.” There was nothing about scrapping electric vehicle mandates, bringing down energy costs by getting rid of net zero targets…”
“The sight of the Government escorting illegal migrants into Portsmouth harbour, the home of the Royal Navy, was a national humiliation. Sometimes I wonder whether Members of this House have no appreciation of the level of anger there is in the country at the rapes, the murders and the billions being wasted that should be being spent on th…”
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“Friend’s premise that if we pursue a policy like Rwanda, we will see people escaping into the broader community, although I understand where she is coming from. In fact, almost 99% of people crossing the channel in small boats are apprehended by British law enforcement authorities—mostly when we save them at sea and bring them to Western Jet Foil and Manston—so we do meet people who arrive on our shores. The key thing is to stop them arriving in the first place.”
“I agree that we need to ensure that the operational side of the Home Office performs, but there is no easy way to build our way out of this problem; we have to stop people crossing the channel illegally in the first place, because the numbers crossing the channel today are of an order that will always place our asylum and immigration system under enormous strain. We are working very closely with the police and the National Crime Agency to bear down on organised immigration crime. We have doubled the budget of the NCA in that regard, and are working with it across Europe and beyond to tackle the gangs upstream in every respect. Here in the UK, we are increasing the number of immigration enforcement visits, including raids on illegal employers, by 50%. That activity started at the beginning of the year. I do not agree with my hon.”
“We are working closely with the social media companies, and in fact are stepping up that activity. We supported a recent proposal to amend the Online Safety Bill by putting extra duties on the social media companies in respect of tackling organised immigration crime and abuse of this kind. We monitor social media content closely and the police will raise that with the social media companies through the appropriate channels. I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s accusation that the Home Office has stoked far right activities is both wrong and deeply offensive; the issue here is the number of people crossing the channel illegally.”
“It is not the backlog; that is a fantasy. The way to tackle this issue is not by making the UK a more attractive destination, but by tackling the illegal gangs and changing the incentives. We will only do that through having the most robust approach to illegal migration, including by ensuring those who come here in this manner are removed to a safe third country.”
“I know my hon. Friend’s constituents are frustrated by the use of hotels in Skegness—as are we in Government—and want to see action to tackle the small boats issue. They want to see our laws enforced and those coming here illegally apprehended and removed to other safe countries, but I know also that they will not want to join with more pernicious elements such as far-right groups and to stoke disorder or community tensions in his town. I applaud him for the work he is doing with his community; he held an important public meeting recently to listen to community concerns and raise them with me and the Home Secretary as we formulate policy.”
“Where protests are planned, and we have extensive intelligence about that, we work closely with police forces so that they can make sensible preparations to keep the local community safe.”
“The backlog is a contributing factor; it was a contributing factor when we came to power in 2010 and found a backlog of 500,000 cases, three times more than the level today. Simply processing those claims faster and making claiming asylum swifter and easier will not solve the problem, however; the problem will be solved by preventing people from reaching our shores in the first place. On the situation in Merseyside, we are working closely with Merseyside police; we are in regular contact with them and with local authorities. We hold multi-agency meetings, which include the police, prior to standing up any new forms of accommodation so that these issues can be discussed.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We passed that Act, which was opposed by the Labour party, and we are implementing every measure in it as swiftly as possible. Many of those measures are already making a difference, as seen in the number of arrests now being made of those people with their hand on the tiller of small boats when apprehended by Border Force and our partners in the English channel. That is important, but we will follow that up in due course with further, even more robust legislation, which I am sure my hon. Friend will support and hope the Labour party will too.”
“Shortly after taking up this role, I changed the Home Office’s engagement procedures to ensure that when accommodation is stood up, unless it is a grave emergency or we are ordered to stand it up by a court, we will provide at least 24 hours’ notice to a local authority, and that there will be extensive consultation with such a local authority. I am pleased to say that today that level of consultation happens around three to four weeks in advance of standing up a site. There are usually multi-agency meetings prior to doing so and opportunities for Members of Parliament to meet either me or senior officials, but of course if any right hon. or hon. Member feels we are falling short of those standards, I encourage them to bring that to my attention.”
“That is why we are going to bring forward further legislation.”
“My hon. Friend has been an assiduous champion of his community and he wants his hotels back and to be put to good use, for the benefit of the local economy, for tourists and for visitors to Stoke-on-Trent. We agree, which is why we have set out our plans, including mandatory dispersal, working with local authorities throughout the country in a constructive and productive manner to find suitable accommodation that is not hotels. That is why we are also exploring a small number of larger sites that will provide decent but not luxurious accommodation at good value for money for the taxpayer. I reiterate that this challenge will be resolved only by reducing the flow of individuals coming across unnecessarily on those dangerous boats. Without that happening, we will be living with issues such as hotels for some time.”
“We are monitoring the activities, as it so happens, of a small number of legal practitioners, but it is not appropriate for me to discuss that here. The wider point I was making stands, which is that the British public are looking on askance at the fact that individuals, mostly young males, are setting off from a demonstrably safe country, France, and soliciting human traffickers to ferry them across the channel, and they are invariably throwing their documents into the sea, so that they can exploit our human rights laws. That needs to change. The British public are angry and frustrated at that situation. We understand that and that is why we are taking action.”
“It is absolutely right that, as a deterrent, we increase the number of illegal migrants removed from this country, so that it is clear that anyone who comes here in breach of our laws in this manner will not get to stay in the UK. We have taken a number of steps recently. One has been our communiqué with Albania, a safe European country from which it should be extremely unusual for anyone to come here and successfully gain asylum. That communiqué is now in force, with updated country guidance, and individuals are now being removed from the United Kingdom on weekly flights to Albania. We are working very well with the Albanian Government. That is one example of how we can tackle this issue.”
“No, I do not. William Shawcross conducted a very rigorous review over a long period of time which looked at the facts, and the facts are that there is extremism and violence in this country from both the far right and the far left, or Islamist extremists. We need to take action against both, but we need to apportion our resources in a manner that is proportionate to the challenge. That is the point that William Shawcross was making. I fully support what he suggested. The Home Secretary, in her statement to the House, made clear that we will be implementing that as soon as possible.”
“It is disappointing that the hon. Lady attempts to draw conclusions from these events with respect to Prevent. The Government have been very clear: extremism of any kind, whether from the far right or from Islamist extremism, is unacceptable and we will bear down on it with the full force of the law. With respect to the groups that were involved in Knowsley, as I said in answer to previous questions, we are monitoring them closely and we will take action, with the police, wherever we need to do so.”
“In general, the standards of these places are high, and the staff who are working in them are doing a good job on behalf of all of us, but if there are ways in which we can improve those services and ensure that we continue to meet our legal obligations, we can and should do so.”
“We take our responsibilities to those in our care extremely seriously. While there will of course be occasions when we fall below the standards that we would expect, and we should learn from and correct those errors as quickly as possible, in general we care for asylum seekers well in this country, and we should be proud of that. I have had the opportunity in this role to visit a range of facilities—difficult places such as Western Jet Foil, where we meet those people whom we have saved at sea; Manston, where we house them while we conduct security and health checks; and the child hotels where we house unaccompanied minors while we find local authority care for them.”
“I think the right hon. Gentleman has answered his own question, in that some of this content is vile and quite probably criminal, and in those instances the police should take action using the laws that are available to them. When we at the Home Office find such content we raise it with the police, and the police then raise it with the social media companies; but if the police feel that it meets the threshold for prosecution, they can and should be prosecuting. The right hon. Gentleman is also right in saying that there are a small number of cases of so-called citizen journalists visiting hotels. Of course we all respect the right to protest and the right to free speech, but these individuals need to be careful to ensure that their actions do not stir up community tensions or spread disinformation, as is often the case.”
“I am proud that the United Kingdom is one of the most generous and welcoming countries in the world. Since 2015, 440,000 people have come to our country on humanitarian grounds, and last year more humanitarian visas were issued than at any time since the end of the second world war. That is exactly the right approach, and we see it with great schemes such as Homes for Ukraine and the schemes applying to Afghanistan and Syria. It is true that the British public can see the difference between that and those people who are coming here illegally, abusing our generosity and our laws, and it is for that reason that we must take action to ensure that the illegal channel crossings end as swiftly as possible.”
“I hope that when the history books are written about this Government, people will point to some of the fantastic schemes that we have created and that have commanded such broad support, including Homes for Ukraine and the Syria and Afghan schemes, all of which collectively have brought hundreds of thousands of people to our shores, where they have been welcomed into the homes of British citizens. But it is right that we make the distinction between those people—many of whom we have geographical, moral and historical obligations to—and the young men in safe countries such as France soliciting human traffickers to ferry them across the channel and to exploit our laws. This is an important distinction that we can see and that I think the British public more broadly can see, and the British public want us to address it.”
“The Home Secretary was very clear that the violence we saw in Knowsley on 10 February was completely unacceptable, and she stands squarely with the brave officers from Merseyside police who responded to that incident. I pay tribute to them again today and to all those who work in our asylum system more broadly who do such a good job, often in very difficult circumstances.”
“I am confident that we will meet our objective of eliminating the legacy backlog of initial decisions over the course of this year.”
“We have safeguarding procedures in place to support people going into the hotels and the staff who work in them. The hon. Lady’s broader point was about the backlog. As I said earlier, the backlog was three times higher when we came to power in 2010, but that does not mean that we should not take action to get it down and return to a position where we are processing claims in a sensible and swift manner. I have put in place, with the Home Secretary, new measures, and we are in the process of recruiting a significant number of further decision makers. We are already seeing significant progress in bringing down the legacy backlog, and the hon. Lady will start to see that flowing through in the numbers that are publicly reported and in the cases that come to her surgery.”
“As I have said, we are pursuing a strategy of replacing hotels with dispersal accommodation, which is agreed constructively between the Home Office, providers and local authorities and provides better value for taxpayers’ money. That is the way to avoid this situation, other than addressing the root cause by preventing people from coming across the channel in the first place. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to support our further steps over the coming months to bear down on individuals crossing the channel and to create a system whereby people who come here illegally will not find a route to remain in the UK, because that is the enduring solution to this problem.”
“I have spoken on a number of occasions in recent days to Home Office officials, the national police co-ordination centre and operational policing colleagues. They are monitoring this activity very closely, and they are keeping a close eye on these groups. Where they believe content requires further action, they will take it, but it is for the police to take that action rather than the Home Office.”
“I usually have great respect for the hon. Lady, but it is wrong to equate the actions of far-right groups with the comments of the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary has condemned the violence we saw in Knowsley, and she is working with the police to ensure it is properly investigated and that the police have the resources and the support they need for that investigation. We will bear down on far-right extremism, just as we care about Islamist extremism. There is no place in this country for any form of extremism, and we will ensure the police have the resources they need.”
“We have reviewed the security at these hotels and other asylum accommodation centres. The national police co-ordination centre will be issuing updated guidance to our providers and local partners on how they should ensure correct levels of security at each site. Security is based on risk, so procedures will vary depending on intelligence. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we take this issue very seriously.”
“I am aware of the site in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and the protests around it. I spoke to officials earlier today regarding it and they gave me an update. I would be happy to connect him with those officials so that he can raise his concerns and they can support him in any way.”
“The Prime Minister set out a plan at the end of last year and I am working every day to implement it. We are already seeing significant progress on the asylum backlog, with cases falling significantly with every passing week, and we are recruiting more decision makers into the Home Office to do this. We are working intensively with local authorities to find better and greater value for money accommodation through the national dispersal scheme, rather than hotels. If the hon. Lady, as a valued Member of this House, has suggestions as to ways in which we can improve the quality of service, I would be happy to meet her to discuss them.”
“Many of the people who arrive on our shores in small boats have spent a sustained period in camps such as those in Calais; the way in which we treat people in this country is far superior.”
“It is, just as a matter of fact, a criminal offence to cross the channel in a small boat, so those who enter the UK in that manner are in breach of our laws. The broader point that the right hon. Gentleman makes is, of course, absolutely right: irrespective of that, those people who come here should be treated compassionately and we should abide by our broader legal obligations. The hotels and accommodation we provide are of a good quality. They will vary and if there are poor instances, I will take action against the providers. However, generally speaking, they are of a good quality and they are significantly better than what we find in comparable European countries.”
“I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman, and I apologise if there has been any delay. He raises a broader point of concern to us, which is the leafleting by far-right groups of the communities surrounding hotels. There have been examples of leaflets with faces of Members of Parliament and local councillors on them. Whenever I have seen those, I have raised them with local police and the Home Office’s dedicated counter-terrorism support. That kind of intimidatory leaflet is completely unacceptable on the streets of our country.”
“I will take the hon. Gentleman’s question away and ask the Security Minister to write to him with a fuller reply. I have always taken extremism seriously. For example, I worked with Sara Khan in her work on tackling the victims of extremism. Extremism, whether from the far right or Islamism, is pernicious and needs to be tackled. We will do everything we can to address it.”
“The Home Office works very closely with non-governmental organisations, including the Refugee Council, and takes their views into consideration. I have been clear that no one in Government wants to see the hotel accommodation continue for one day more than is absolutely necessary. There are only two ways in which we will resolve this: first, and most importantly, by stopping the boats coming in the first place; and secondly, for as long as we have illegal migration, by working with local authorities, such as those in Scotland, to find better dispersal accommodation. If the hon. Gentleman can support us in that effort with respect to the Scottish Government and local authorities, I would be grateful.”
“Friend said, a big-hearted country that seeks to protect genuine asylum seekers and offer them a new life in this country, but we will clamp down with the full force of the law on those who choose to abuse our generosity. We will build a new asylum and immigration system that secures our borders and delivers our obligations in a way that the British public would expect. Question put and agreed to.”
“We have presented a comprehensive plan for tackling illegal migration and stopping the boats, with deterrence suffused throughout our approach. A critical element of that is the Rwanda plan, which my right hon. Friend has always supported and which we hope to implement at the earliest opportunity. Putting that plan into action is a first-order priority for this Government. I finish by repeating my thanks to my right hon. Friend for securing this debate. He is right to raise these issues, and I hope I have given some reassurance about how seriously the Government take them. On the case he highlighted, of a life tragically cut short, my thoughts are with the victim’s loved ones. Protecting the public is the Home Office’s No. 1 priority, and this Government will do all we can to deliver it. We are, as my right hon.”
“In the coming weeks, we will bring forward new legislation to restore deterrence and to stop the small boats crossing the channel, which I know will have the support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West. It will be based on the simple principle that people who come here illegally should have no right to remain here, and that we will fulfil our historic duty as a country to support those genuinely fleeing persecution and human rights abuses around the world, not by enabling people to abuse our system and jump the queue but by working with those in greatest need to pursue targeted resettlement schemes of the kind we have recently done so well as a country with respect to Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria and Hong Kong.”
“We are also looking at a small number of larger accommodation sites, the purpose of which will be to ensure that there is decent, but never luxurious, and good value-for-money accommodation, of the kind the public would expect. I hope we will be able to set out more on that in due course. In the long term, as my right hon. Friend rightly said, the enduring solution to this problem is not procuring more hotels or more sites such as dispersal accommodation but stopping the illegal small boat crossings. It is for that reason that the Prime Minister has made this one of the five priorities by which he wishes this Government to be judged, and it is why the Home Secretary and I are firmly focused on implementing the reforms needed to grip this problem once and for all.”
“This should ensure that claims can be dealt with quickly, whether because the individual has a high chance of being granted asylum or because they have a very low chance of it, including those from safe countries such as Albania who can be removed forthwith. We will reduce the number of asylum seekers in contingency accommodation as a result. I am pleased to say that that work is not only under way but is already bearing fruit. The legacy backlog is falling as a result of the work now undertaken. We are also trying to increase the supply of dispersal accommodation, which is a cheaper, less visible and more appropriate way to house these individuals, by working with local authorities across the country to ensure a fair and equitable spread.”
“I hope he has seen, in the statement that the Prime Minister set out in December and in subsequent ones that the Home Secretary and I have made, that we are absolutely clear that the mission of this Government in this respect is to end the use of these hotels and to return them to local communities and businesses for their rightful purpose. They are not right for local communities. They are expensive and a waste of money for the taxpayer. We have committed to clear the backlog of legacy outstanding initial decisions in the asylum system by the end of 2023. To this end, we are doubling the number of asylum caseworkers this year and streamlining and modernising the end-to-end decision-making process.”
“My officials are now running regular engagement sessions with local authorities to try to improve this process. We take steps to try to minimise the impact of any hotels on the local community. Our service providers have a model to ensure that many on-site facilities and amenities, such as recreation, food and laundry, are provided and that specialist support and security guards are provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week. None the less, it is absolutely right that my right hon. Friend has raised this on behalf of his constituents.”
“Taking account of the overall population in Bournemouth, supported asylum seekers account for 0.16% of the local population. There are more than 110 local authorities that have a higher concentration of supported asylum seekers. This is not to diminish the burdens; it is merely to contextualise them and to show the scale of the challenge that now confronts us, to which we as a Government must find answers. We need to ensure that there is proper engagement with the local community when we stand up this new accommodation, and I have made that point on numerous occasions. We must ensure that the Home Office now implements better procedures to let local authorities, and indeed Members of Parliament, know in good time that we intend to take up this form of accommodation.”
“Friend’s constituency, we currently accommodate around 650 supported asylum seekers in Bournemouth, mostly in temporary hotel accommodation. There are 10 supported asylum seekers in longer-term dispersal accommodation, and there are no bridging hotels currently housing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Let me perfectly clear that I share my right hon. Friend’s deep frustration, and I acknowledge the impact that this is having on his local community and on the business community in his constituency. It is a vibrant and beautiful tourist destination that wants to make use of its hotels for better purposes. By national standards, those numbers are low. There are more than 150 local authorities that support larger populations of dispersed asylum seekers and 50 local authorities with larger overall total supported asylum seekers.”
“Given the difficult task of accurately assessing someone’s age and the serious risks when we fail to do so, the Home Secretary and I are considering introducing scientific age assessment methods at the earliest opportunity. This is being done in fellow western democracies such as Norway, Denmark and Sweden. It is essential to widen the evidence available to decision makers and improve the accuracy of their decisions. It will also act as a deterrent to those who flagrantly abuse the system and put others at risk by posing as children. The report from the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee was published by the Home Office on 10 January, and we will now consider the recommendations. We will bring forward proposals at the earliest opportunity. Turning to the wider issue of hotel accommodation in my right hon.”
“Under the current process, when an individual claims to be a child without documentary evidence, and when there is reason to doubt their claimed age, immigration officers are required to make an initial age assessment to determine whether the individual should be treated as a child or an adult. If doubt remains about whether the claimant is an adult or a child, they are referred to a local authority, such as that of my right hon. Friend, for further consideration of their age and treated as a child for immigration purposes until that further assessment has been completed. Clearly this case illustrates why we need a more consistent and robust approach.”
“It is unacceptable that we place foster carers, schools and others who support individuals in intolerable and dangerous positions because we do not have access to sufficient data. Another issue on which we should reflect, which my right hon. Friend rightly raised, is the need for robust age assessment measures. The age of a person arriving in the UK is normally established from the documents with which they have travelled, but that has proved challenging because so many arrivals who claim to be children do not have any definitive documentary evidence to support their age claims.”
“Friend will understand if I refrain from going too far into the detail while that investigation is ongoing, but I can provide some immediate reflections on the circumstances surrounding the case. All asylum claimants should be subject to robust mandatory security checks against their claimed identity, including criminality checks on UK databases. This happens when we intercept individuals such as those who arrive on small boats at Western Jet Foil in Kent and are subject to checks at the Manston centre. However, we need to strengthen ties with international partners to make vital intelligence- sharing more seamless, for instance through the sharing of criminal conviction data. Individuals attempting to cheat our immigration system using multiple names—or aliases—and ages must face decisive action.”
“As my right hon. Friend said, that individual abused the generosity of our country, and exploited our asylum and immigration system with terrible consequences. However, when a crime as abhorrent as this occurs, we must also confront the difficult questions posed by the case and ensure that our systems and processes are as effective and robust as they can be. That is what my right hon. Friend and his constituents would expect and what the broader British public would expect, and I can also assure my right hon. Friend, and indeed all Members, that the Government recognise the need for this case to be comprehensively examined. I have already asked the Home Office to conduct an investigation of the circumstances surrounding it. While I completely understand the desire for immediate answers, I hope that my right hon.”
“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) for securing the debate and for speaking so powerfully on behalf of his constituents. First and foremost, I want to pay tribute to Thomas Roberts, a young man with a bright future ahead of him whose life was cut short, and to extend my sympathies and those of the Government to his family and friends for their profound loss. This was an horrific crime which has robbed a young man of his future and caused intolerable suffering to his loved ones. In any such case, justice must be delivered and the perpetrator punished. I welcome the life sentence that has been handed down by the Crown court, and I can assure my right hon. Friend that Mr Abdulrahimzai will be considered for deportation so that removal coincides with the end of his custodial sentence.”
“Our first duty is to break the business model of the people-smuggling gangs, stop the boats and reduce the number of those coming to this country illegally. Alongside that, we are working to ensure that decent but not luxurious accommodation is available while asylum claims are being processed. We are working with local councils and providers to develop regional dispersal plans and are pursuing a range of options to increase supply.”