Alex Norris
MP for Nottingham North and Kimberley · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“I am grateful for the Liberal Democrat spokesperson’s contribution. As I hope she heard me say, I do accept that the impact of our taking the summer to carve more offences out of this regime in a way that is safe and means we have a resilient prison estate has had an impact on victims and survivors and on their families, as they wait with…”
“Of course, things do come in and out of the estate, including because of fire damage; I would not underestimate the importance of contamination either. Nevertheless, there will of course be significant places added in this Parliament and in our programme to 2031. The hon. Gentleman also asks about the chance to scrutinise the data.”
“To help solve the crisis in adult prisons, I have decided to temporarily hold some 18-year-olds in our youth estate for longer. My job is to balance the sustainability of our prisons with public protection, the rights of victims and public confidence in the justice system.”
“More than 2,000 people are still trapped by indeterminate imprisonment for public protection, or IPP, sentences. They were rightly abolished a decade ago, but offenders are still locked up for far longer than envisaged, often for crimes that, if committed today, would see them spend much less time in jail.”
“I recognise that it has created uncertainty and I apologise to victims, but I hope they understand that it was done with noble purpose. We must now use the time available to make sure that victims get the right support, particularly when it comes to shaping restrictions on offenders if they do come out. The hon. Gentleman mentions plans.”
“We have increased removals by 41% compared with the last two years of the previous Tory Government, and we have changed the law to expand the early removal scheme. Now we will go further.”
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“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those important questions. Let me start where he started; everything is local somewhere, and the impact of our proposals is significant on those local communities. I recognise that, and that is important, but we are developing plans to mitigate the impact. There is a reason that we do not wait until the very end and announce the decision just as it is taken. At some point, we vet sites; we have vetted all sorts of sites around the country ahead of being able to bring these ones forward. There comes a point, however, when we need to get onsite and start peeling back the layers and engaging with the local authority, police and health services, and that point is now. My hon. Friend is right; there needs to be sensitive handling of plans.”
“He knows very well why the appeals backlog has grown—we have had a huge backlog of initial decisions, because the previous Government stopped making them. Of course, that cohort is now in the appeals system. As he will have heard in the King’s Speech, important reforms to appeals are coming, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will support us in that venture. On his point about co-operation abroad, that is of course crucial. We engage all the time with our European and EU neighbours, working together on a shared problem. The fruits of that can be seen in our much-enhanced deal with France. That work is crucial, and it will continue to grow.”
“He cited the per night figure for Crowborough; that figure will of course fall if we stay at Crowborough longer, because some of that is up-front capital investment. Pro-rated over a longer period of time, the nightly rate will come down, but again I say gently that we are doing this because we want less of this activity. We are not merely asking, “We expect to house the same number of people, so where is the cheapest place to put them?” but, “What is the best use of our estate to promote a number of goals, one of which is reducing those numbers?” That is how we get costs down. I might add that we speak with a degree of credibility, given that we have already taken £1 billion out of taxpayer spending in this area. That is progress. The hon. Gentleman mentioned appeals.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his questions. He has heard the plan from me and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary before: co-operation abroad, quicker and better decision making, and more returns. All those things are going much better than they did under our predecessors. It is also about tackling illegal working, but crucially, it is about reducing pull factors too. I sometimes feel that Opposition colleagues have given up on the idea that the numbers might go down. Actually, the numbers are significantly elevated from what we are used to, and with sensible attempts to tackle pull factors—including tackling illegal working, but also this proposal—we can reduce them. The hon. Gentleman talked about costs.”
“Friend’s community, like others, will oppose the Government doing this, which is a perfectly noble endeavour in a democracy. There are also questions about how this can be done best—how do we limit the impact, be it on health services, the police or local amenities? I believe we can pass that test clearly, and I hope communities will also engage with those questions. As for planning, my hon. Friend knows that we have previously used a number of different planning devices for different sites. We have not made final determinations for Barnham or for the other sites—we will be doing that over the course of this work.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his questions. To answer your question from the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will of course be very happy to meet you, as I always am—indeed, I am often summoned to do so. You are in the inimical position of not being able to clearly state on the record just how opposed to Crowborough you are, but I am in no doubt about that, given that you tell me basically every single day via the telephone or face to face, or through whatever tortures in this Chamber you can imagine. I may have more of that to come. The points made by my hon. Friend are very important. I appreciate that local communities will want to do one of two things, and I encourage them to do both of them at the same time. I understand that many if not most people in my hon.”
“What we have been able to do elsewhere is to have ordinary healthcare provided for on-site to ensure that there is not an impact on the local community. Those are the types of models— [ Interruption. ] An hon. Member asks if I will give way. I am trying to answer questions fully. Perhaps I cannot win either way.”
“Nevertheless, by the provision of activities and of transport, we can ensure the lightest local impact possible. That would be our commitment for these sites, too. The right hon. Gentleman mentions electricity and sewage. Those are important parts of the process that we are in now. We are well aware of the history, which transcends this Government—it goes back to the previous Government—but we would not be taking forward this site if we did not think we had viable answers. Nevertheless, it is only when we get on site and start turning over the rocks, as it were, that we can get to a final point on viability. That is the process we are doing here. It is not our intention that the site would impact on the right hon. Gentleman’s local healthcare services, outside emergency services perhaps.”
“I am grateful for that series of questions. I gently say that there is a slight unfairness in the right hon. Gentleman’s saying that he and his community want a greater say in the details, while at the same time saying that we do not have a plan. The whole point is that rather than inviting providers or contractors to tender for services and to be around on sites and our saying, “Nothing to see here”, we are being honest that we are looking seriously at this site. The final decision is not made yet, but we are looking. That is a better way to do it, but I appreciate that there may be differences of view. The right hon. Gentleman talks about roaming. That is in no one’s interest, and what we have managed to do at Wethersfield and Crowborough is to ensure that people do not just come off-site and roam. They are non-detained, as he said.”
“My hon. Friend is right: there was no consultation on those 400 hotels, and there was no sense of the impact on local amenities and local communities. I think we should do much better than that. That hotel will close. As for the question of criteria, we worked that out in the context of a variety of different factors, including suitability of location, size and who could be accommodated, to arrive at a prioritisation. Finally, let me make it clear to my hon. Friend and his community: all those hotels are closing.”
“In my experience of both Crowborough and Cameron, information is put into the public domain; it will not change on a daily basis, and I recognise that that is a source of frustration, but we will give the best that we can, and we will do the impact assessments that we need to do along the way. I appreciate that the burden of proof is on us: it is up to us to demonstrate that we can do these schemes well and do them safely. I believe we can. We have already demonstrated that in respect of two sites—and, indeed, Napier barracks, which has subsequently closed—but I need to pass that with the hon. Member. As for engagement from the Home Office, we will ensure that he receives the right information in the right way in order to have the engagement with his constituents.”
“Let me reiterate that no final decision has been taken. The hon. Member made an important point about the written information that goes into the public domain. As I personally found, getting information to people at the right moment, in the right sequence and in the right form is a challenge. Members may recall—you certainly will, Madam Deputy Speaker—that when we named previous sites, I made a commitment that I would call colleagues so that they would find out from me first, rather than from the media. We have been able to do that much, but there is clearly a gap when it comes to the written fact sheets that go into the public domain.”
“To be clear, we could be out of hotels in three months if we just prioritised the cheapest dispersed accommodation available. I think that would be wrong, and that is what we are not doing.”
“I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for that important question. I agree with her that 28 days is too short, which is why we have extended the time limit to 42 days to give people enough time. We have also put in place move-on liaison officers to support that journey. I do not want people who have received good news about their protection to find that their next journey is on the street. Our engagement with MHCLG is consistent and constant, and we share the goal of reducing homelessness. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) said, MHCLG clearly has a strong view about the impact that we could have on local housing markets. We have those conversations day in, day out in order to tread as lightly as possible.”
“As the hon. Lady says, this is the choice ahead of us. I believe that the change to larger sites is a good one. The Copthorne must close, and it will. I cannot offer her space in the meeting with Madam Deputy Speaker, but I suspect that she would be keen for the hon. Lady to be there too. I apologise to the hon. Lady, because I rang neighbouring MPs who have been affected by Crowborough, but not in her case. I hope I will be able to mitigate that, at a point not too far away, when I ring her about Copthorne.”
“It seems to me that there will always be an element of that in the Home Office, but I think we can pivot to a much better model, certainly through safe and legal means; community sponsorship allows communities to come forward in a positive way. We are not in that place yet, but we are moving to that model. This is an important staging post on that journey.”
“It is important to recognise the cost of that loss of grip. The previous asylum contract was let on the assumption that there would be about 60,000 people. The previous Government let the figure balloon to double that. It continues to come down, but it is still around the 100,000 mark. We have to make difficult decisions, and that is the nature of the accommodation today. We have to pivot the model in this country. We were clear in November’s asylum policy statement that we have to make sure that we reduce the pull factors and remove people who have no right to be here, but we also have to make sure that we provide safe and legal means for people to come to the country—that is better. Nobody should ever transit across continents and across the channel. My hon. Friend’s point about litigation is important.”
“On processing, it seems to me that the issue is not now initial decision making, but that we have a significant portion of people waiting for their appeal to be heard, and there is not a quick way to do that. As I say, we have talked about appeals reform, and Members may see things from us shortly on that—I hope we will have their support. The right hon. Member will have heard what my right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister has said in favour of returns hubs in the past. Scampton is an important part of Lincoln and Lincolnshire’s economic future, and I look forward to the sale of that site and the positive development of it in short order.”
“I absolutely agree with that. This is about quicker processing and quicker removals, but I would say—I hope Members can hold this in their heads—that this is also about reducing pull factors. Last year, the volume of people seeking asylum was in the 90,000s. Between 2011 to 2020, the figure was in the 20,000s. That is part of the challenge. Exactly as my hon. Friend says, getting that down to a more steady state will help take out some of the very difficult choices that are having to be made.”
“I am grateful for that question, and I am very aware of the Scottish Government’s New Scots programme. It is the clear position of the Scottish Government that they want to see people from outside Scotland coming to live there and being part of Scotland’s economic future. I am committed to working with Scottish counterparts to make that a reality. There is a challenge, because that sounds good in a global sense, but down at an individual level, it may sometimes seem less attractive. There are challenges in Scotland, particularly the fact that 60% of asylum seekers in Scotland are housed in Glasgow—that is an equity point in Scotland that I think could change. However, I absolutely will work with my Scottish counterparts. I have met them and will continue to do so.”
“This is about quicker decision making, the commitment we have made to appeals reform and better collaboration with our European neighbours. Those elements are adding up to significant progress, which is why we have seen numbers fall. This is the next step to get us on the final leg of that journey.”
“I will of course meet the hon. Lady. Immigration removal centres are, of course, an entirely separate matter from what we are talking about here. I do not have those numbers at my fingertips, but I will get them to her in short order. There is a point of difference in terms of the engagement, as I can see from the correspondence between us on what has and has not been shared at public meetings about the nature of the site, but let us have that conversation so that we are speaking with one version of the truth.”
“My hon. Friend has doggedly pursued me on this very important issue. It is really important that, as the Home Office, we consider the broader context—such as what he says with regard to Afghan resettlement scheme provision—around a community’s ability to sustain a supported population and that full dispersal model we inherited from our predecessors. What we have put in place, in our attempt to close the gap between local government and national Government, is a postcode check process, so that councils can say, “Well, hang on a minute, there is provision in this area that means it might not be suitable.” We are going through that process in Bracknell at the minute and I will work with him to hopefully get to a satisfactory conclusion.”
“He will have his chance to go in studs up on me, which he never misses, and come in and tell me what we ought to do differently, but it is right that we look at those things in the public interest. That is what we are doing.”
“I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. It is not bragging to say that under the previous Government the number of folks accommodated in hotels was 56,000 at its peak and it is now at 21,000. It is important for the public to understand those changes. He talks about the record in Government. He will know his own Government’s record at Weathersfield and the choices made there, too. On capacity, the right hon. Gentleman knows—because we have spoken about it—that Weathersfield exists normally in a steady state of around 850, with, as he says, the surge ability to operate at 1,250. With the number of years we have had at Weathersfield, it is right to consider how best that provision can operate. Those are conversations we will have.”
“In a general sense, a number of the people we now see in leadership positions in the Reform party were previously in the Tory party and had significant agency over this issue. They pretend now to be concerned bystanders, but actually they are the architects of the situation we are now in. I feel for some of our Conservative colleagues who have been left to tidy up behind them—at least they stand and take on the question, as right hon. and hon. Members have done in this debate. On my hon. Friend’s point about the Sandpiper, I cannot give him a date but I will say, to be clear to him and his community, that it will not be open a day longer than needed. The Sandpiper hotel is a vital community amenity that needs to be returned to its public use. With regard to important reforms to appeals, my hon.”
“Having visited such hotels, I recognise that they are not as advertised—or distorted—by others. The ultimate distorters are the human traffickers, for whom it is a significant upside to say not only that the conditions are good, but that it is easy to work illegally from the hotels. We must change that reality. I am concerned, as all colleagues would be, about the public conversation on this issue, and the risk that vulnerable people and their neighbours often face. We are never far away from challenge in that space, but it is incumbent on us to ensure that we do not play into that rhetoric. On the case that the hon. Member raises, every case will always be heard individually and on its merits. I cannot promise to intercede in that case, but I will ensure that the system handles it properly.”
“I am well aware of York’s status as a city of sanctuary— [ Interruption. ] —or as a human rights city, forgive me. I always want to work with the people of York to ensure that asylum seekers are humanely housed. Nevertheless, the challenge today is that we have around 100,000 people in the supported population and 170 hotels, give or take. We have to change that reality. There are limited options. I believe that this is the best way forward, but I know from what my hon. Friend and others have said that it is incumbent on us to show that we can deliver it in a way that is respectful of the local community. That is what we are seeking to do.”
“I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I am well aware of the matter concerning Stoke Heath, as he has pressed hard both verbally and in writing on that already. I will, of course, have the meeting with him that he asks for. I did not use the word “deterrent”, but I did use “pull factors” in the same context. We have to change the reality of the differential attractiveness that has seen applications for asylum in this country go up while they go down across the EU. This is part of that programme. The right hon. Gentleman mentions an upcoming meeting. Let me speak to the Department and see what we can do to ensure that he can have the fullest discussion possible.”
“I do not think that is our reality at the moment, but I do want a more mixed economy so that it is more sympathetic to communities and there is greater agency in the system, and that is what we are going to do.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his contribution and for his continued lobbying in this space. As he says, I cannot give him a date for the Dragonfly’s closure, but I can tell him that it is uppermost in my mind and that the Dragonfly will close as soon as we physically can do that. On the system, we are trying to close the gap between those who administrate the asylum accommodation contracts and local government. Crucially, through our leadership, the responsibility for that belongs to me and other Ministers, rather than the providers. The contract is not good—let us be clear about that. Again, I do not blame previous Ministers who led on that in 2019. We are seeking to change that model through the process we are now undergoing in renewing the contract in 2029. As always, I say that I would municipalise everything.”
“The right hon. Gentleman knows my enthusiasm for Royal Sutton Coldfield and the strength of its plan for neighbourhoods programme from a previous, much happier engagement I had with him. I did wince when his number came up the other day, because I knew that he would be pressing hard on why it was not his hotel that had been closed. I assure him that we will close it as soon as possible, and I know how important it is that it is returned back to the people of Royal Sutton Coldfield for marking births, marriages, funerals and all sorts of other things that make life what it is.”
“I absolutely can, and I am pleased about the good news for Dudley. Since the election, we have removed 67,000 people who have no right to be here. That is a significant increase—approaching 30%—on the equivalent period under our predecessors, but we must go further. We have secured a number of extra returns agreements. I want us to have returns agreements around the world, because they are the building blocks for safe removal. We also need more detention capacity. Our predecessors left our detention capacity in a much thinner state than it needs to be in order to effect removals at the level we expect to see. I am pleased with the progress that we have made, but there is much more to do.”
“The idea that 90% of cases are granted is for the birds—it is not even half that. It is also not true that people who are accommodated in hotels are living a luxury lifestyle. In reality, that is far from the case. These are not great places to be; they are safe, humane, dignified and legal, but that is it. I just cannot accept the idea that it is a great time for them. It simply is not true. The traffickers exploit the idea of living in a hotel and working illegally. That is the reality we have to change. That is how we get to an ordered and controlled system and reduce demand back to a normal level.”
“The backlog is one of the major sins that explains why the supported population is much larger than we would expect it to be. We have got through the backlog in initial decision making, and the pressure now is in the appeals system. That is why the King’s Speech referred to important reforms that are coming to the appeals system, and colleagues may get to see those shortly.”
“We have had success on other large sites where that has not been the case. Individuals need to register with a GP, but it is our intention that the impact on the local health service will be minimal. There is the question of emergency medicine, because there will not be provision for that on site. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is setting that test; it is one that I very much want to meet.”
“I am grateful for that question. I will mirror the commitment I made to the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and ensure that the hon. Lady gets whatever information she needs on Stoke Heath. On how sites are chosen, there is a mix of factors, which include local amenities, travel and transport. Those are looked at carefully before providers bring ideas forward. If a local authority has a challenge, it can bring that to the Home Office for adjudication, where all those factors are considered together.”
“I can help the hon. Gentleman with that. The whole point on safe and legal routes is that those are not the means by which people are coming into the country. As he will have seen in the commitments we made in the asylum policy statement in November, if people choose to come via irregular means, their route to settlement will be a very long one indeed, with a 30-month renewal of that protection. What we are trying to do is to change those behaviours in exactly the way that I think he and I want.”
“First, on lawfulness, this very minute we are operating two schemes very lawfully. On quality, many of these sites—certainly those we brought forward in the past—were good enough for the resettlement of Afghan families, and indeed they have been good enough for our own soldiers. I therefore contest the idea that they are not good enough. The point about processing is important. As I said, we have functionally got through the backlog; the issue now is the demand in the appeal system, with the statistic being a 58-week wait. Yes, processing is important, but so is the reduction of demand. As I said, we are operating at three times the level we would have been at a decade ago. We have to change that reality, and this announcement is part of doing that.”
“The facts do not bear that out. We have a system that separates those who are travelling economically and those who are seeking protection. I do not want this country to lose its proud history of providing protection for people who need it. That is why we are doing this in the way we are doing it. We have taken significant steps forward in controlling the system, alongside our French counterparts. That is why, for the first time, we are seeing asylum applications coming down, as well as positive progress in the channel, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister has said. Of course, the traffickers had a six-year head start on us, but unless I am mistaken, which I really do not think I am, it cannot have felt like failure when we closed the hotel in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.”
“The hon. and learned Gentleman makes an important point. I cannot wholly agree with what he says, but this is important. As we win the battle in the channel, the common travel area—which is obviously an arrangement of very long standing indeed—will be a point of challenge. I am working closely with, and have spoken to, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister on this point. The work is ongoing to keep the common travel area as protected as possible, and we of course work with the Government of Ireland as well. That collective work is how we make sure that the CTA is not exploited.”
“I think that is slightly unfair. The hon. Gentleman knows that they will all close by 2029, but within that, none of them will be open for a day longer than they need to be. In terms of criteria, a range of factors including size, condition and location goes into the decision making. I appreciate that in a process of reducing the number from a couple of hundred hotels to nil, everybody will want to be the first one, but all of them will close.”
“It is rare that I disagree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman. His incredible work on the persecution of Christians abroad, for example, is something on which I agree with him, and it shows the importance of having managed but humane asylum systems around the world. That is what we must have in this country. I did not take it from what he said that we are actually that far apart. He talks about the cost in financial terms and about the cost in terms of the community. I share those concerns. These types of schemes are part of changing that reality, because they will reduce the pull factors so that people are not tempted to come here or exploited by traffickers to do so. I think that that is the right balance.”
“This Government are taking decisive action to restore order and control at our borders. We have removed nearly 70,000 people who have no right to be here, we are overhauling our asylum system to reduce pull factors and we have funded more officers to disrupt organised immigration crime, with interventions at their highest rates and the number of linked arrests rising by over 55%.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. When I visited her community, I heard in no uncertain terms on the doorstep how important this issue is to people, as it is for my community and the rest of the country. That is why we are stepping up the international action we have taken, including the important new deal with France. Domestically, we will be legislating through our immigration and asylum Bill to create the system that I know her constituents want, which is a fair but firm one.”
“Let me start by saying that I agree that that is a truly awful case. It shows how important it is that we remove people who commit crimes, and we have removed nearly 8,000 foreign offenders since we came into office. But the right hon. Gentleman’s prescription does not match up to a solution: leaving the ECHR would undermine our returns agreements with countries around the world. Instead, our contention is that we can improve it. We have said that we will look at legislating to narrow the domestic interpretation that has sprawled around article 8, and he will have seen the progress we have made internationally on article 3. That is the sensible approach, rather than chasing a sugar high that he knows—because he did not do it when he could have done so—will not work.”
“If we are talking anniversaries, I would like to take this opportunity to wish my fellow class of 2017 intake a happy ninth anniversary today. Our ninth anniversary has been full of Liberal Democrat spokespeople trying to pin every single thing on Brexit. I say to the hon. Gentleman that those conversations, designed just to create division in the country, do not serve the common aim of ensuring we have a robust asylum system. We can do that through ordinary collaboration with our neighbours on the continent. I do that frequently and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary does that frequently. Look at the action that that has delivered with France alone. That is the better way forward.”
“The Government committed to new safe and legal routes in the “Restoring Order and Control” statement, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced that the student refugee route will open this autumn, with arrivals in autumn 2027. We are working with partners to design new routes to ensure they are safe and controlled, and we will provide an update to the House in due course.”
“And I thought the hon. Member was my hon. Friend, Mr Speaker! But what he says speaks to the innate goodness of the Cornish people—it is the same in my own community and across the country. Whether it has been the Syrian scheme, the Afghan scheme, Hong Kong British nationals overseas or Homes for Ukraine, the British people have leant in when schemes have been ordered and controlled. We are working with stakeholders on what that looks like, but getting this right is crucial to the programme’s success, which is why it takes a little bit longer—it will take us time to get it right. I make no apologies for that, but I will say that further details will be set out “in due course”.”
“I cannot speak to that individual case, but I recognise the challenges where no visa centres are open in areas of conflict. We have taken what I think is a quite pragmatic and flexible approach, not just with students but medical evacuations as well. If the hon. Gentleman is able to write me and the Minister for Migration and Citizenship, we will look at that case accordingly.”