Matt Vickers
MP for Stockton West · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Clause 30 allows a court to adjourn proceedings on a slavery and trafficking prevention order at sentencing. If the defendant does not attend the adjourned hearing, the court may adjourn again, issue a warrant for their arrest or, subject to safeguards, proceed in their absence.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Clear information can help with both, but a longer statement is not necessarily a better one, and paying someone to produce a polished document is no substitute for checking what is happening on the ground. Clause 44 and schedule 5 make reporting topics compulsory.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We made the same argument during the passage of the Crime and Policing Bill, to which we tabled amendments that would have put real penalties on registered sex offenders who failed to notify. An obligation with no teeth is no obligation at all. However, collecting information is only half the job.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the fact that those regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure, but before we give the Minister this regulation-making power, the Committee should understand the gap it is meant to close. What can officers not currently find out through the orders, and how would that information help them to prevent exploitation?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In July, the Government announced £25 million to extend the guardian service to the remaining 179 local authorities in England that do not have it yet. We welcome that, but a child in one of those areas needs a guardian now. Can the Minister tell us when the service will be available in every one of them?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Who has asked how the workers are recruited, or whether a subcontractor is using labour supplied on terms that should ring alarm bells? Those questions need asking before a problem becomes a scandal, and the Government should lead by example here.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Clause 1(5) is where the Bill tells the new authority what it is for: the authority must aim to be accessible, fair and independent; it must aim to handle its cases quickly and efficiently; and it must have regard to the public interest. Amendment 48, in the name of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, would remove the words “aim to” from the first paragraph only, so that the authority would be under a firm duty to be “accessible, fair and independent”. I understand the instinct, but that hardens the wrong limb of the measure. If any duty in this subsection needs to be firmer, it is the duty to handle cases “quickly and efficiently”. That is the duty that the authority is being created to discharge, and it is the one that the public will judge it on.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I will speak to Opposition amendment 87 and to two other amendments in the group. As this is the Committee’s first debate on part 1 of the Bill, let me set out the test that the Opposition will apply to it. On Second Reading, the Home Secretary told the House that more than 150,000 people are waiting for an appeal decision and the average wait is well over a year. Every one of those months is a month in which someone whose claim may well fail remains in this country, very often at the taxpayer’s expense. The public have been promised for years that that would be fixed, and we need to see it happen now. Our test for every clause in this part is a simple one: will appeals be decided faster, and will those who lose be removed?”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us consider the journey this Bill still allows. A claim is refused by the Home Office, so the person appeals to the authority and loses. They can then ask the authority to review its decision or for permission to appeal. If that is refused, they can ask the upper tribunal. If permission is granted, there is a hearing, and if that succeeds, the case may be sent to be decided all over again. Each step is measured in months and, at every one, the person remains here—usually at public expense. That expense is considerable—the National Audit Office estimates that the immigration and asylum chamber cost around £79.5 million to run in 2024-25, and that is before the cost of legal aid.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I want to speak about amendments 85 and 65. Clause 1(8) provides that a decision of the authority may be questioned in legal proceedings in only two ways: through the authority’s own review power under clause 6, or through an appeal to the upper tribunal under clause 7. Amendment 85 would remove the latter, ending the onward appeal to the upper tribunal. One of the public’s deepest frustrations with the immigration system is appeal after appeal after appeal. The Home Secretary herself described it on Second Reading. She told the House about a convicted rapist whom it took more than four years to remove from this country after he had served his sentence because of a succession of late claims and legal challenges. We agree with her diagnosis, but we do not understand why the Bill preserves the structure that makes that possible.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Clause 7(3) rightly carries that rule across. Amendment 65 would reopen at the first tier what Parliament closed at the second. Our position is clear; enough is enough. Years of delay and expense must come to an end, and the legal merry-go-round has to stop. We will seek to divide the Committee on amendment 85 and we will oppose clause 7.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He pointed to the more precise model that Parliament used in the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022. If the Government agree that the authority’s decisions should be final, they should draft subsection (8) so that it works, and we would welcome their help in doing so on Report. Amendment 65, in the name of the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion, would take the Bill in the opposite direction. It would delete subsection (8) altogether and reopen the possibility of judicially reviewing every decision the authority makes, adding a third route of challenge to the two already in the Bill. I understand the hon. Lady’s concern for safeguards, but they are already there. Parliament legislated in 2022 to end judicial review of the upper tribunal’s refusals of permission, precisely because that route had become a means of delay.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Government amendment 36 will mean that that review is confined to exactly the kind of point the upper tribunal would consider. Amendment 85 would remove the second external tier, and its two separate applications for permission—the listing queue and the power to send a case back to the start. The Government accept that the onward appeal is only on a point of law and not a rehearing. The question is simply who checks the law and how long it takes. Our answer is a legally qualified senior adjudicator, with the authority, and quickly. There is a further problem with subsection (8) as drafted. Professor Ekins told the Committee that this is not an effective ouster clause, that the courts would read it narrowly and that the Committee should not rest content with it.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government’s case for part 1 is that the new authority will make robust and defensible decisions with trained adjudicators, a chief appeals officer overseeing quality, and a professional standards officer setting standards. If that is right, its decision should be capable of being final. Where a genuine error is made, clause 6 allows it to be corrected and that review should be carried out by a legally qualified senior adjudicator. That is a fair hearing—a check for error and then an end. Let me be clear about what amendment 85 would leave in place, because the Minister will say it removes any check on the authority. It does not. Every appellant would still have a full hearing before the authority on the facts and the law. Every decision could still be reviewed for an error of law under clause 6.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member for North Northumberland made a valid point—this is an appeals process. The case has been considered once but can go to appeal for reconsideration and even that decision can be reviewed again—that is a lengthy process. The entire objective of this Bill is to speed up the process so that it is fair to the taxpayers, as well as to those subject to it. Removing a whole tier of appeal would reduce the burden on the taxpayer, as would other amendments the Opposition have tabled. The time limits in clause 8 will not help, because they bind the authority rather than the upper tribunal. The Bill does not shorten the queue; it moves part of it upstairs.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister publish the staffing, funding and transition plans, including the arrangements for appeals that are already listed for hearing? The Opposition’s own borders plan would go further than the Bill. It would abolish the immigration tribunal altogether, with decisions instead being made in the Home Office through a quick, internal appeal. However, whichever model is chosen, the test is the same: decisions made quickly, and decisions acted on.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The authority will decide applications for immigration bail, appeals against deprivation of British citizenship and appeals under the EEA citizens’ rights regulations. Those are serious decisions about liberty and nationality. Under clause 2, many of them could be taken by adjudicators with no legal qualification. Will deprivation of citizenship appeals and deportation appeals brought by foreign criminals be reserved for senior adjudicators? Also, how will clause 1(8) operate where the complaint is about a procedural decision taken during a case, rather than about the final outcome? Finally, on the practicalities, when will the authority start hearing cases? How many cases will it handle in its first year? Are the staff and money in place?”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Bill does not say. Part 1 comes into force when Ministers decide. The authority opens its doors when Ministers decide. Under clause 15, the first-tier tribunal carries on hearing immigration appeals for as long as Ministers decide. The Committee is being asked to approve the replacement of the tribunal without being told when it will be replaced. I ask the Minister for three dates. When will the first case be transferred to the authority? When will the last? On what date will the first-tier tribunal hear its final immigration appeal? If the Government do not know, they should say so. Turning to the breadth of what the authority will decide, subsection (2) goes well beyond asylum.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What did the respondents say? Where did the Government disagree with them, and why? Will the Minister commit to publishing the response before Report stage? Next, the backlog. More than 150,000 people are waiting for an appeal. Do those cases move to the new authority? Do they stay with the first-tier tribunal until they are finished? The authority is to take over gradually, so both systems will be running side by side for some time. How will the Government stop that creating more delay, or cases being lost between the two? The Government will be aware, from the difficulties of folding NHS England back into the Department of Health and Social Care, how hard it is to move functions, staff and buildings from one body to another while keeping a service running. What lessons have been learned, and when will any of this actually happen?”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Unless something fundamental changes in how quickly cases are decided and in how many people are removed at the end of them, this is rearranging the deckchairs. A new name on the door and a new chief executive will not clear a single case. The public will rightly ask what all that upheaval is for. The Committee has been given very little to go on, and it has not been told what the Government heard before they wrote the Bill. In March, the Home Office opened a call for evidence on how the body should be designed, covering the recruitment and training of adjudicators, timeframes and oversight. It closed on 6 May. The Home Office said the responses would “inform the legislation”. The Bill was introduced seven weeks later and, so far as I can find, no response to that call for evidence has been published, then or since. Why not?”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Government amendments 22, 23 and 24 make further consequential changes to schedule 1 and appear to be technical. We do not oppose them. Is the Minister confident that the list is now complete? On clause 1 itself, the Opposition and the British public have one main question: how will this new appeals body get decisions made more quickly? What will the authority be able to do that the existing tribunal cannot? What reduction in waiting times do Ministers expect it to deliver, and by when? Let me put the question plainly. The Government are taking immigration appeals away from the first-tier tribunal and giving them to a new body, but let us look at what stays the same: the same appeals brought by the same people against the same Home Office decisions, with a right of appeal to the same upper tribunal.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Which categories of case will be reserved to senior adjudicators, and will the time it takes to recruit and train this new workforce add to the backlog in the meantime? Finally, when will the first appointments be made? Can the recruitment process begin before Royal Assent?”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will it be set out in the standards the professional standards officer must publish under clause 3(6), so that Parliament and the public can see it? That matters for speed as much as for fairness. Whoever is recruited, training and assessment must be up to the job. A poor first decision is one that is challenged, set aside and heard again, and every such case is potentially another year in which someone with no right to be here remains. I have several further questions for the Minister. What criteria will the chief executive use to decide whether law-related experience is equivalent to legal practice? How many adjudicators will be recruited at the outset, and will experienced tribunal judges be encouraged to apply?”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Clause 2 states that the Home Secretary is to appoint the chair, the professional standards officer, the first chief executive and the chief appeals officer. After that, the chair will appoint the two chief officers, and the chief executive will appoint the adjudicators who hear cases. On qualifications, the Bill sets out a test for senior adjudicators: they must have spent two years in practice as a legal professional or have law-related experience that the chief executive considers equivalent. On executive adjudicators, the Bill is silent; clause 3(2) says only that adjudicators must receive “adequate training”. The Committee would benefit from knowing more of what the Government have in mind. What standard will an executive adjudicator be expected to meet before deciding a case, and how will it be tested?”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It raises an important question, and the Opposition have our own concerns about qualification, which I will come to. What matters is that every adjudicator is properly equipped to make sound decisions quickly and that the authority can recruit enough of them to make a real difference. Government amendments 25 to 27 provide that where a professional standards officer is appointed on the strength of experience rather than formal qualifications, it will be the chair and not the chief executive who judges whether that experience is sufficient. That seems sensible, since the officer who sets standards for adjudicators should not owe their appointment to the executive they oversee. I would be grateful if the Minister set out the rationale in a little more detail.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will deal first with the amendments and then with the clause. Amendment 66, in the name of the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion, would require every member of the authority, from the chair to each adjudicator, to be appointed by the Judicial Appointments Commission. I understand that that is offered as a guarantee of independence; in practice, it could rebuild the very recruitment pipeline that the Government say they are trying to escape. The case made for part 1 is that reliance on judicial availability has left the system without the capacity or the flexibility to meet demand. Routing every appointment through the commission would import that constraint on to the new body on its first day. We cannot support that. Amendment 67 would require every adjudicator to be legally qualified.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) rightly points out that the funding has been more than consumed by the costs following the incident. To give one example from the north-east, Cleveland serves some of the most deprived communities in the country and faces exceptional levels of demand. In the year ending March 2025, Cleveland had the highest recorded crime rate per head of population of any police force in England and Wales—122.1 crimes per 1,000 people compared with the national average of 87.2. While anecdotes can tell only part of the story, we unfortunately see brazen criminal activity—from off-road bikes to knife crime—taking place without effective intervention.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Funding for our police forces is not an issue that should be taken lightly, as it clearly has a huge impact on their ability to operate effectively. As an MP from the region, representing an area served by a local force facing acute funding challenges, I share the concerns raised passionately by so many Members today. As the Minister will be aware, following the incident in Middlesbrough, I raised the issue of police funding in the north-east, particularly in my own area of Cleveland. I have raised the issue on many occasions, under this Government and the last. While I appreciate the targeted funding announced in September, it is nowhere near enough to make a difference or solve the underlying problem. The hon.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on securing this important debate. I reiterate my condolences to the family and friends of PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough. Their deaths have been a tragedy for the local force, and their loss serves as a constant reminder of the risks our police officers face every day. Alongside other Members, I was privileged to attend their funerals. It was clear from everyone there how deeply they were loved by their families, respected by their colleagues and valued by the communities they served. The incidents that occurred after their deaths were a sad reflection of the problems that we face in the north-east.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I always think these things are better done—and have been better done—when there is one voice fighting for more resources for our areas. I was elected in 2019. In Home Office workforce data shared in September 2019, there were 1,226 police officers in Cleveland. In March 2024, there were 1,514. That is an increase of 288. In the year to March 2026, the number of full-time equivalent police officers in Cleveland fell by 17.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As we approach the forthcoming police funding announcements, I hope that the Government will reflect on the events of a few months ago, the words of north-east MPs and the need for meaningful improvement to police forces in our region. Our brave frontline police officers deserve the resources they need to do their job, and our law-abiding residents deserve safe streets to go about their lives without fear.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That means increasing police numbers, as I have said, but also ensuring that repeat offenders face consequences for their crimes, including prison where appropriate. The early release scheme, which is proving to be an unmitigated failure, undermines that. Offences that should see people behind bars are simply not. Because of the pressures on the criminal justice system, those offenders are not spending the time in prison that they should be. Although that may not fall directly within the Minister’s portfolio, I hope she is pressing her colleagues every day for an end to the early release scheme and for more police capacity. Without effective enforcement, the funding allocated to police forces will not be used as effectively as it should be. Hon. Members in this debate know how easily the north-east’s problems can be overlooked.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The most recent arrests under Operation Artemis, which include individuals connected to the events following the tragic incident on the A66, demonstrate the deep-rooted challenges the area faces. What could we do immediately? The Minister will reject this proposal, but the Conservative party’s costed £800 million plan to recruit 10,000 additional officers across the country would at least go some way in tackling the issue. Although recruiting more officers is not a complete solution, our proposal would help Cleveland police by providing nearly 100 additional officers. The need is clear. Despite all that, the message from people living in our area is that they want to see this as a turning point. Their resilience shows that change is possible, but only if we give our communities the support they need alongside robust enforcement.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That means fewer officers available when someone dials 999, longer waits for victims and less capacity to deal with the exact kind of serious incidents that we have seen in Thornaby this week. Given the scale of the challenges that the force is facing, which have been so clearly demonstrated, it seems preposterous that it is losing officers rather than gaining them. I appreciate that the funding formula is not easily resolved. Hard-working MPs from across the House who represent areas disadvantaged under the existing rules have long pushed for change, including under the previous Government. However, I hope the Minister will accept that this issue requires action now.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The situation has been made worse by the Government’s decision to inflict the cost of national insurance increases on police forces while providing a woefully inadequate funding settlement. The consequences of that decision are clear. While I recognise that areas such as Northumbria have seen an increase in officer numbers, the number of full-time equivalent officers in Cleveland fell by 17 between March 2025 and March 2026. The latest Home Office data shows that there are now fewer officers in place than in March 2024, under the previous Government. Ministers will point to the neighbourhood policing guarantee and, of course, we all want more visible local policing. However, if overall officer numbers are falling while more are badged as neighbourhood officers, they are being moved from somewhere else, often from response teams.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am going to carry on; Stockton is going to have its say, as well as Middlesbrough. This week, police have had to impose section 60 and dispersal orders in Thornaby, in my constituency and the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, after a series of targeted incidents in which vehicles were driven into houses and two men were seriously assaulted with a knife. Yet the funding formula does not adequately recognise those pressures. To be clear, although I speak as a shadow Minister, this is simply not a party political point. The Labour police and crime commissioner, Matt Storey, has warned of a £2.4 million funding shortfall—the equivalent of about 40 police officers. His argument, which the Minister has heard many times, is that a system based too heavily on population fails to take sufficient account of deprivation, crime and demand.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have been promised that new safe and legal routes will open in the new few months, with arrivals next year, but it seems that those numbers will be quite small. If we look at what worked in somewhere like the US under President Biden, it was having two sides to the approach: yes, the enforcement approach, but on the other side of that, quite generous, open, safe and legal routes, so that the people who genuinely need safety are able to get to somewhere like the UK without having to put their lives at risk.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“From the Refugee Council’s point of view, we would argue that the bit that has largely been missing from this is about how you continue to undermine the business model of the people smugglers and the people who take advantage of the people seeking safety. That is where we would talk about the importance of safe and legal routes. The previous Government opened up new routes, and we think that the Afghan and Ukraine schemes are great successes. One of the challenges that we see at the moment is that those safe routes available to people have dropped over the last year; the number of people arriving on safe routes in the last 12 months is down by about 50%. Refugee family reunion has been temporarily suspended for over a year now, and we have seen the closure of the Afghan schemes.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is also part of this important international context that most refugees—most people displaced from their countries—stay in the countries that border the ones they have fled from. Some people move on, and sometimes that can be because the countries neighbouring the place they have fled are no longer safe for them and no longer allow them to try to fulfil their lives, particularly as we see refugee situations becoming increasingly protracted across the globe. That is one of the things that we see lacking in the UK’s response at the moment. It is not just the UK’s response; we have seen the deterrence measures that you mentioned being adopted by successive Governments. We have seen some impact of that, particularly this year in terms of the drop in small boat arrivals.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“By its nature, that means that people have to undertake some of those dangerous journeys to get there. It is important to recognise that the convention talks about somebody being a refugee once they have been forced to leave a country because of war and persecution, and it is then blind to where that person is. There are obviously benefits if those people do not need to undertake dangerous journeys to get somewhere. There are benefits for the individuals who do not need to put their lives at risk—we see the really deadly consequences that has across the world—and benefits for the host countries themselves if people are able to arrive in an orderly manner and do not have to resort to the types of journeys that they have to now.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q Do you believe that someone who deliberately enters the UK illegally from a safe country should face a different immigration consequence from someone who enters using a legal route? If not, what alternative deterrents would the Refugee Council support to discourage people from making those dangerous crossings? Jon Featonby : I am going to focus on the people who enter the UK for the purpose of seeking asylum within the international protection regime. For us, this comes down to how the refugee convention has been interpreted and operationalised since it first came in in 1951. That has been based around countries like the UK requiring somebody to be present in the UK, in their own territory, before they can access the protection systems.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is unfortunately not true for the vast majority of other nationalities coming here. Until that human rights issue is tackled, the rate of returns will always be relatively low.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q In your view, what is the single biggest reason why the UK fails to remove more people who have no right to remain? Does the Bill actually address the issue? Guy Dampier : The fundamental issue that we face, as we do in this entire crisis, is human rights legislation—whether international or domestic. It means that we have the extremely lengthy process of going through the asylum claim. It makes it very difficult to establish some of the facts and very difficult to remove people, even in cases where we have refused to grant them asylum. Tony Smith mentioned earlier that something like 4% of all small-boat migrants who have come since 2018 have been removed. Of those, the largest number have been Albanians because we essentially had a way to send them home without breaching human rights.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q If you could make one amendment to the Bill to increase the distinction between people coming to Britain legally and those entering illegally, what would that be? Guy Dampier : That is a very difficult one, because one of the big problems that the Bill does not tackle is the fact that an increased number of people are coming legally and then claiming asylum. Since 2019, I think, the number of those coming on the study route has gone up by four times and the number of those coming on the work route has gone up by 22 times. A lot of people are abusing the legal way of getting into the country and then claiming asylum, often suspiciously close to the end of their visa. Nothing in the Bill would really tackle that; that area is really missing.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q Is there any evidence that expanding safe and legal routes would reduce the number of small boat crossings, rather than simply increase the overall number of people coming to the UK? Angela Afzal: To reduce small boat crossings, there will be a range of interventions. Our position would be that the safe routes need to be part of that, because if refugees do not have an alternative, they will use people smugglers. Under the Biden Administration in the US, for example, there was a mixture of a change of internal policy on the border and an extensive offer of safe routes for people. The evidence showed that when there was an alternative, people chose it, and it reduced irregular arrivals significantly.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My main point is that I feel, as I have written before, that it is not just article 8, but article 3 that gives asylum seekers an extremely high chance of staying in the country. Although the Government have chosen to toughen, somewhat, the way that article 8 will be treated, the Bill is silent on article 3. That is slightly disappointing, given that the Chişinău declaration, back in May, talked about reforming both and suggested areas where the courts—both domestically and in Strasbourg—could potentially tighten things up. I would see that as the main area.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q The sole test for the Bill is whether it will reduce illegal arrivals and increase removals. What is the single biggest amendment you would put forward to make that difference? Stephen Webb : In a sense, the Bill seems mainly to look at the stock rather than the flow, looking at people already in the country. I know the Government have legislated previously on the actual crossings. I suppose the question is, within the way the Bill is structured at the moment, what would make the biggest difference in deterring people from starting the journey in the first place? That is quite hard to say, because there are lots of changes around making it more difficult to make claims, particularly under article 8.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“At the weekend, I had the pleasure of joining Cleveland scouts and seeing at first hand the fantastic work that scouting does to give young people confidence, practical skills, friendships and opportunities they might not otherwise have. Can the Minister reassure those young people and their families that this Government are not seriously proposing to tax a scout for pitching a tent? Can he confirm that scout camps and other charitable youth residentials will be exempt from his holiday tax?”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It begins when Jews are treated as a sinister collective and ancient prejudices are allowed to spread under new guises. The need to tackle this across communities is unfortunately clear. Polling by Policy Exchange this year found that more than two in five British Muslims believed that Jews had too much power over the media, weapons manufacturing and the banking system. We should be capable of saying two things at once: the overwhelming majority of British Muslims are not responsible for antisemitism and should never be treated as though they are, but when antisemitic attitudes exist within any communities, we do that community and British Jews no favours by being frightened to confront them.”
House of Commons8 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“How can someone feel safe when one fifth of the university campus would not share a house with them and one in four have seen behaviour targeting Jewish students? Can the Minister confirm when the Government will publish the Bell review into antisemitism in schools, and whether they will accept its recommendations in full? There is nothing intellectual about prejudice, there is nothing progressive about excluding Jews and there is nothing enlightened about recycling vile conspiracy theories that are centuries old. The same polling found that 16% thought it was not antisemitic to claim that Jews control the media or government. We need to tackle the ideologies creating this mindset, because antisemitism does not begin with an attack on a synagogue. It begins with ideas and conspiracy theories.”
House of Commons8 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Ultimately, across matters of enforcement, we need to increase police presence, see urgent prosecutions, put a moratorium on hate marches, implement maximum sentencing and deterrence, conduct a comprehensive audit of counter-terrorism cases involving antisemitic motivation, deport foreigners who express antisemitic views supporting violence or terrorism, and better use existing powers to ensure that hatred cannot be targeted at Jewish communities. The question I have is this: is enforcement enough, when the ideas that fester continue to be popular? Many of us across this House were fortunate enough to go to university; yet, as has been said, polling conducted for the Union of Jewish Students earlier this year paints a horrendous picture.”
House of Commons8 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On that population-adjusted measure, the rate of recorded religious hate crime targeting Jewish people was more than 60 times the rate in the overall population—I repeat, more than 60 times the rate. Religious hate crime is concentrated against Britain’s Jewish community, and on an extraordinary and horrifying scale. In modern Britain, that fact should shock every one of us: it is a stinging indictment of where we are and why this debate is so necessary. It also illustrates why the Government were right, in the summer, to allocate further police resources to tackling the issue.”
House of Commons8 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the first half of 2026, the organisation logged more than 200 incidents of anti-Jewish hate in every single month, and more than 300 a month from March to June. Those incidents ranged from threats to life, assaults and arson to damage and desecration of Jewish property and abusive behaviour. But there is another statistic that should stop every Member of this House in their tracks. The latest Home Office figures show that in England and Wales, there were 106 police recorded religious hate crimes targeting Jewish people for every 10,000 Jewish people. Across the population as a whole, the equivalent rate was 1.7 recorded religious hate crimes per 10,000 people. If we put those figures alongside one another, the disparity is extraordinary and horrifying.”
House of Commons8 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When the Golders Green attack occurred, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was right to state clearly: “This is a national emergency”. As with any emergency, there is no single solution. It requires multiple measures, but underpinning those must be a willingness to tackle the underlying ideologies that allow this hatred to fester. Today the facts are stark. Having visited the Community Security Trust’s headquarters, I join hon. Members in recognising the organisation’s incredible professionalism. The CST data released in August showed that between January and June, antisemitic incidents reached the second highest total ever reported to the trust in the first six months of any year. That is a disgrace. Prior to October 2023, the CST had only ever recorded monthly incident totals exceeding 200 on five occasions.”
House of Commons8 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West) for securing this debate on an issue important to so many of her constituents. Despite having been in this role for only a couple of years, I have too often stood opposite Ministers to condemn violence against and, on solemn occasions, mourn the loss of life in the Jewish community—people targeted for no reason other than being Jewish. When those tragedies happen, we seem to find ourselves in the same post-tragedy discourse, with public figures stating that antisemitism has no place in our society, rightly acknowledging that it is an evil that must be vanquished. Yet how hollow must those words ring when British Jews know that another incident could merely be round the corner?”
House of Commons8 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I know that Members across the House want to see the Jewish community safe, but wanting is no longer enough. When the population-adjusted rate of recorded hate crime targeting Jews stands at more than 60 times the overall population rate, when Jewish students are questioning whether they belong on their own campuses and when Jewish families require security simply to practise their faith, we have to recognise the scale of the emergency before us. That is not simply a problem for the British Jewish community; it is a test for Britain, this Government, this House and our country, and it is one we cannot afford to fail.”
House of Commons8 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗