Olivia Blake
MP for Sheffield Hallam · Labour · United Kingdom
“Mr Evans applied for early release of his civil service pension on health grounds because of terminal illness in November 2025, but sadly passed away this May. His case is still not resolved, despite repeated urgent representations from my office. Capita has failed inexcusably.”
“In my constituency, the consequences of the system are painfully clear, as has been mentioned by my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed).”
“Under this system, people who have bought homes find themselves paying escalating service charges, opaque administration fees and arbitrary costs imposed by freeholders.”
“At present, leaseholders of houses do not have this right, while leaseholders of flats do. If a freeholder decides to sell the freehold of a house, the leaseholder has no guaranteed opportunity to buy it. They may learn of the sale only once it has occurred, several months later.”
“I declare an interest as a leasehold homeowner, which is very common in Sheffield. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) for securing this important debate. I agree wholeheartedly with the recommendations of her Committee, and of Lord Best, about a regulator.”
“A two-bedroom flat on that estate was advertised for sale with an annual service charge of £5,067, or £422 a month, which in Sheffield is a staggering amount of money, given our relatively low housing costs.”
The complete record
Every one of 601 lines we hold for Olivia Blake, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 13.
“Despite the lessons we should have learned from section 28 and the damage that it did, we are still haunted by the premise that some people do not have the inalienable right to be who they are. That has consequences. As has been mentioned, hate crimes against trans people went up by 11% last year, nearly double those committed in 2010-11. It also has consequences for the wider community. In the previous year, we have seen far-right and fascist pickets outside LGBTQ+ events, and while there has been a reduction in hate crime directed at LGBTQ+ people in the last year, I think that probably has more to do with reporting. If we look back over the past two years, there has been an overall increase of 37.5%, and anecdotally, I know that people are feeling much less safe. Britain is part of a pattern.”
“Where once, 64% of people thought that same-sex relationships were always wrong, now 67% of people believe that they are never wrong. That is why now is a frightening time for people like me. I grew up under progress, and now for the first time since I have been alive that progress is not only stalling but feels like it is going backwards—and backwards quickly. It was only in 2018 that the then Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) told the House that, “trans women are women and trans men are men.” —[ Official Report , 3 July 2018; Vol. 644, c. 184.] Obviously, things have changed since then, and not for the better. Now we are more likely to hear a joke at the expense of trans people from the Dispatch Box than an affirmation of their identity.”
“The shift in opinion did not fall out of the sky; it was driven by the debate on section 28 and a Prime Minister who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey already mentioned, said that no one had an “inalienable right to be gay”. In the years that followed my entry into the world, things began to change. While I attended secondary school, when I was 13, section 28 was repealed, and new rights for trans people had been enshrined in law, as has been mentioned. As I grew up in the decade that followed that, I saw a wave of legislation affirming the rights of LGBTQ+ people. I am so proud to be a Member of Parliament for the party that brought in so much of that legislation. It is the accumulation of those things that led me to the firm belief that we absolutely do have an inalienable right to be gay. I am not alone.”
“Instead, I will focus on my short life instead. I was born in March 1990, three years after the parliamentary debate on section 28. In the decade before I was born, attitudes to LGBT+ people had shifted dramatically. In 1983, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) mentioned, 50% of those questioned by the British social attitudes survey believed that sexual relations between two adults of the same sex were always wrong. However, by 1987, that proportion had risen to 64%. The horrifying truth is that, in the years immediately before I was born, society became less tolerant of LGBTQ+ people. That is frightening, because it shows that attitudes do not automatically become more progressive over time.”
“I thank my glass ceiling-smashing hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for calling this important debate, and for being visible and an inspiration to young LGBT+ people across the UK. I was happy to support it when it was proposed as a Backbench Business debate, and I thank the Committee for allowing us time to discuss this important issue. It is important that we continue to make LGBTQ+ people and the issues that affect us visible, and that we continue trying to build a world where we are not only tolerated but celebrated for who we are. That seems truer now than it has in a long time. I am married to a Roman historian, so I could bore everyone senseless on the LGBTQ+ history going back to Roman times and much further, but I will not.”
“13. When she plans to respond to the Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill’s report entitled “Draft Mental Health Bill 2022”, published on 19 January 2023.”
“It is now over a year since the Joint Committee report on the draft Mental Health Bill was published. Despite repeated promises of reform, the Government have failed to act. More than 50,000 people are held under the Mental Health Act 1983. It is an outrage to them and to campaigners that reform has been de-prioritised. Will the Minister confirm when the Government plan to bring a formal Bill to Parliament and what conversations they have had with the Chancellor in the run-up to the Budget to ensure the reforms are properly resourced?”
“Too often, misconceptions about picky or fussy eating trivialise this serious condition. The stigma and fear of judgment means that those with ARFID and their carers often suffer in silence. The charity, Beat, has reported an increase in calls to its helpline from people affected by ARFID. In 2018, it received 295 inquiries about the disorder. By 2023, that had ballooned to 2,054 calls.”
“We also need much more training in eating disorders for all frontline staff so that they understand how to treat patients in their care. We know that eating disorder services are at breaking point. Demand is going up, cases are becoming more critical, training and resources are scarce, and the availability of support is a postcode lottery. This means that unacceptable cases such as this are inevitably becoming more and more common. The current system is failing. As I said last year, we face a crisis with terrible human consequences. The specific theme of this year’s Eating Disorders Awareness Week is avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder. Anyone can have ARFID; it can affect children, teenagers and adults. Although it is a little known and often misunderstood condition, it can have serious consequences for health if left untreated.”
“During my constituent’s ordeal, she was not provided with any support at mealtimes and, eventually, staff stopped asking if she wanted any food or drink. That resulted in her being transferred to another hospital in a critical condition and requiring emergency medical treatment in the ambulance on the way. As my constituent rightly told me, “no one should ever be left to the point of medical emergency before needing help.” It is right that we acknowledge the hard work of eating disorder specialist NHS workers and campaigners in my constituency and across the country, such as Hope Virgo, whom we have heard about, and many others. Specialist frontline workers continue to provide vital life-saving care in increasingly difficult circumstances and with increasingly scarce resources.”
“Although younger women are especially at risk of suffering from eating disorders, it is vital to remember that eating disorders can and do affect all people regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or background. So the general topic of today’s debate—Eating Disorders Awareness Week—is an important one, and it is especially important to one of my constituents. I want to talk about someone I have been supporting for the past two years, who has shared her deeply distressing experience as an in-patient on a mental health ward. She spoke about the way in which she was “reduced to numbers before receiving help.” Despite not being able to eat, drink or take medication for five full days on the ward, and after asking for medical help, she was told she would only be referred once she had reached a specific blood pressure and blood sugar reading.”
“I thank hon. Members across the House for their support in this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing it. All the work that the APPG on eating disorders does is very much appreciated, and it rightly puts this issue back in front of us to discuss during each and every Eating Disorders Awareness Week. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting us time to debate this issue. Like many serious mental illnesses, eating disorders are often endured in silence. That means symptoms can go unnoticed, resulting in devastating consequences. Without diagnosis and treatment, eating disorders can be deadly. They have the biggest mortality rate of any mental health condition. Around 1.25 million people in the UK live with disordered eating—a number that has inevitably been made worse by the pandemic.”
“It concluded that patients had been failed by NHS eating disorder services. It is shameful that we cannot point to more progress in this area and that, since then, the ombudsman has felt the need to reiterate the findings of that report to try to get more action. This crisis should be an opportunity to rethink our approach to how we support and treat people in the UK who suffer from an eating disorder. I urge the Minister to look at the transformative work that groups such as South Yorkshire Eating Disorder Association are doing to help build an alternative framework for care nationally. It is time that we acknowledged the crisis and committed the training and resources necessary to fix it.”
“Due to the delays in identification, referral and waiting times, those able to access treatment are waiting on average three and a half years between onset and start of treatment. That is far too long, when we know that the earlier we get to people, the better their chances. The delay is potentially fatal to many, with recovery being far more likely for patients who receive medical intervention early, when behaviour can be adapted before it becomes too ingrained. For ARFID, we need an NHS-commissioned treatment pathway and trained NHS staff so that people do not go undiagnosed or untreated, or sit in treatment pathways that are not suitable for their needs. It is seven years since the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report, which has been mentioned. That report was damning.”
“As a bare minimum, there should be an action plan to address the backlog, and a similar target must be put in place for adults seeking help. That was part of a previous plan, but it has clearly been dropped in the major conditions strategy, which the hon. Member for Bath mentioned. Without a clear plan in place to meet those targets, it is really important that we make sure that care is available to people. All children and adults with an eating disorder should be able to get access to the care that they need. It is not good enough to address the in-patient figures alone. We know that early intervention is the right treatment. The devastating consequences of eating disorders can be prevented, yet the Government have done very little to move us in the right direction towards preventive care.”
“Since 2011, hospital admissions for eating disorders have nearly doubled in England, going from 2,287 to 4,462 last year, after peaking at 5,559 cases in the year 2021-22. Currently, 12.5% of 17 to 19-year-olds are estimated to suffer from disordered eating. Shockingly, an NHS England survey found that 59.4% of 17 to 19-year-olds exhibited behaviours that suggested it was possible that they had an eating disorder. Among girls, the figure rises to just over three quarters, at 77%. While Ministers promised more funding, the scale of response simply is not matching the alarming level of demand. The waiting time targets for specialist eating disorder services for children and young people are consistently not met, even though they have only recently been put in place, while the lists have simply been growing longer and longer.”
“I absolutely agree. I have had carers contacting me to ask where they can find guidance because of the limits locally, which I will go on to in a bit. That is probably why we have seen the increase in calls for support for carers. Carers are hearing time and again that people are struggling to get the help that they desperately need. That is partly due to limited awareness, limited research on the condition and a lack of standardised treatment pathways. Today’s debate plays an important role in tackling the misconceptions in the system and raises awareness of a serious condition that can have fatal consequences if left untreated, due to malnutrition and other issues. Another part of the problem is under-resourcing in the system.”
“Recent tragic events demonstrate that even those who are at risk of suicide are ignored after repeatedly raising concerns about their mental health in asylum accommodation. Why have Ministers changed the allocation of asylum accommodation policy to make it harder for people to prove that they are at risk of harm at a particular site? Will they learn the lessons from December’s tragic incident?”
“No Ukrainian should have to enter our asylum and refugee system as a result of the failure to increase the length of stay that people are allowed here.”
“We are a proud country with a proud history of welcoming refugees, and I am proud to say that many people have decided to open their homes to support refugees fleeing Ukraine, but Ministers are not doing their part in continuing that tradition if they do not extend the scheme. Through the introduction of a lot of new legislation recently, they have made it their mission to openly attack that principle, and we need to be prouder of what we can do with this scheme. We must make sure that the Ukrainian people know we are on their side and will continue to be on their side while it is needed. We need to step up and assure Ukrainians that they will have long-term protection in the UK. We need an urgent recommitment to introduce more safe and legal routes, so that refugees fleeing war and persecution can reach the UK safely.”
“Despite its title, I was dismayed to find that the 37 pages of the report did not offer a single new safe or legal route for refugees to reach the UK, nor any real suggestions about how to improve the few resettlement schemes we have in place, including this one. While we discuss the merits of the Ukraine scheme, I would like the Minister to explain why such schemes have not been made available to other people, why we are not learning the good lessons from it and why we are still struggling with family reunion and resettlement, which has massively declined in recent years and is at the lowest level that it has been in the UK for a decade.”
“One of the key lessons from the Homes for Ukraine scheme is that, when given the opportunity, communities up and down the land open their arms, because we are a very welcoming country. However, as we sit here discussing the future of the scheme, I am dismayed by the continued lack of safe routes available for the majority of refugees fleeing war and persecution around the world. There are more lessons to be learned from the benefits of the scheme. Last month, the Government released their “Safe and Legal Routes” report as part of their commitment under the Illegal Migration Act 2023.”
“According to the Local Government Association, 8,900 Ukrainian households have presented themselves as homeless across England, and recent research by the British Red Cross found that Ukrainians are around four times more likely than the general population to face homelessness—a staggering figure. With cost of living pressures continuing, it is imperative that the “thank you” payments to new or rematched sponsors are increased in order to widen the pool of new sponsors and to prevent the further escalation of homelessness. As the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire rightly highlighted, the importance of home status and student loans for those who need them should not be forgotten in this debate.”
“Two years on, sadly, it is clear that the war is not coming to an end anytime soon, so why is there still so much uncertainty about the future of the scheme we are debating? That uncertainty needs to be addressed urgently, and the Government must act swiftly to provide longer-term leave to remain and to ensure that lasting protection of Homes for Ukraine is accompanied by free access to family reunification. Without longer-term plans to protect the scheme or a route to settlement, Ukrainians face integration challenges and mental health problems. The risk of homelessness for Ukrainian refugees, which has been discussed in the debate already, remains particularly concerning.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on securing this important debate on the schemes the UK introduced in response to the war in Ukraine. I point Members to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for the help I receive from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project on this issue. I am also co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on migration. It has been almost two years since the war in Ukraine broke out, and since then thousands of households across the UK, including many in my constituency, have opened their homes and welcomed Ukrainian refugees who have sought sanctuary here.”
“The immediate impact on air quality is obvious, but the burning also undermines our ability to address the twin climate and nature crises facing us by damaging the precious blanket peat bog habitats that would otherwise exist.”
“The reason for the smoke was heather burning on the moorlands to the west of Sheffield. Natural England, which is investigating the burns, tells me that “the moorland estates located within SSSIs close to Sheffield usually have Agri-Environment Higher Level Stewardship agreements that contain burning plans.” I will not comment on the specifics of last year’s burn, because we do not know whether it was legal, but it is entirely possible that it was legal, despite the rocketing pollution levels and the damaging effects on my community. I started with that anecdote because the fact is that this could be perfectly lawful behaviour, which highlights some of the problems with the current regulations. Burns such as these are a regular occurrence in my constituency, often with similar, if not quite so dramatic, effects.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the regulation of heather burning on peatlands. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. On 9 October last year, smoke, ash and air pollution engulfed the Sheffield, Hallam constituency and beyond. A great many people contacted me on that day and afterwards to complain about the air quality, which was four times over the legal limit for air pollution. It was a relatively still day, so the smoke took a while to dissipate, and the unique topography of my constituency meant that constituents were very much affected. Constituents contacted me to say that they had trouble breathing and that it caused coughing and eye irritation. It was particularly distressing for members of my community with respiratory conditions.”
“We have been trying to contact certain landowners about this practice, to ensure we have a way to deal with the needs of peatland owners while balancing them against those of local communities. Where air pollution levels are breached, it is important that local authorities have the powers to stop that happening, to protect people’s health and the environment in the uplands, which is so important for those who live downstream.”
“It was very difficult to find some in good condition, to show what I was talking about. That shows a wider issue than in my own constituency, where we do have a lot of burning. We know that the degradation of peatlands is of great importance to communities up and down the country. Heather burning is bad for the environment, bad for the climate crisis and, as the recent burns in my constituency have graphically illustrated, bad for the health of people in Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam in particular. I hope the Minister will consider a complete ban on burns and offer a comprehensive, joined-up plan to restore these habitats. I am proud to say that I have the support of our Mayor, Oliver Coppard, and the leader of Sheffield City Council, Tom Hunt, who have both been outspoken on their wish to see a further ban.”
“I know the Minister will point me to the Government’s England peat action plan, but the truth is we are not meeting the targets that we need to. We see a failure of delivery of Government policy on peatlands and, even worse, a failure of ambition. That needs to change, and change urgently. It is has been a pleasure to go out on the moors in my constituency and elsewhere in the country to see projects dedicated to rewetting and restoring peatlands. Instead of burning, we need more projects such as those, and for other degraded habitats, supported by concerted Government-led strategy to reverse the decline in nature. The Minister lives very close to where I grew up. I recently went for a walk with the family and I tried to show them some healthy sphagnum moss on the moorlands in his constituency.”
“I hope that new leadership in the Department will produce a less disappointing and dismissive response, because it is important to get this issue right. Unfortunately, the Government are not getting it right or rising to the level of ambition required. The latest Climate Change Committee progress report on reducing UK emissions says that restoration of peatlands is already significantly off track compared with the CCC’s balanced pathway. In 2022-23, the overall amount of UK peatlands restored was a measly 12,700 hectares. Although that is an increase on the previous year, to meet next year’s target of 29,000 hectares will require more than a doubling of the current rate. Even if the Government match that target, the CCC recommends a UK-wide rate of 67,000 hectares per year by 2025.”
“In 2023, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs successfully prosecuted two estate owners and issued a warning to a third, but that is only three cases. The level of enforcement action is not anywhere near the level of potential law breaking. The figures show that the new system is clearly not working and that the law needs to go much further to stop this damaging practice, rather than continue the partial prohibition we have seen. It is high time that there is an outright ban. I raised this issue in the Chamber with the previous Secretary of State for Environment and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). I am sorry to say that she told me not only that she was not considering a ban, but that my constituents should be happy with the air quality they have.”
“The RSPB believes that 72, or 28%, of the 260 burns reported to itmay have breached the regulations by taking place on protected areas of peat over 40 cm in depth. The year before, the RSPB received 272 reports: one in three burns took place on peat likely to be deeper than 25 cm, and four out of five took place in SSSIs, special protected areas and special areas of conservation. Although the Government issued no licences for burns in 2021, 70 reported burns took place on peat likely to be deeper than 40 cm in protected sites, violating the regulations. In the last two years, without considering the current season, it is therefore likely that at least 142 burns were illegal.”
“Licensing is required only on peatland of a depth of 40 cm or more, and we do not have an agreed national map of that. The Wildlife and Countryside Link estimates that the current law therefore leaves about 60% of UK peatlands without any protection. Three years on, it is useful to take stock of whether the new regulatory regime is working for the peatlands that it does include. Unfortunately, data from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds suggests that it is not. We are halfway through this burning season, so we do not have the full figures for this year, but during 2022-23, 260 records of burning in the English uplands were reported to the RSPB via its dedicated app, of which 87% took place in special areas of conservation and special protected areas.”
“Is it not better to break that cycle by restoring the moorland monoculture back to its former health, rewetting the peat and reintroducing the more vibrant biodiversity that was there before the burns, and, in fact, before the draining of many of our peatlands? That is why I was pleased, in 2020, when the Government announced that they would introduce stronger regulations to control the burns. In fact, the current licensing regime was introduced shortly after a similar debate to this that I was lucky enough to secure, in which the Minister told me that the old system was clearly “not protecting every blanket bog site.” —[ Official Report, 18 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 216WH.] However, the details of the 2021 regulations left a lot to be desired.”
“If we want to slow the flow, a good place to start would be by maintaining the sphagnum moss and making sure that it is in good condition to do the job that it has evolved to do. Global heating means that our winters are getting wetter, and we are already beginning to see the effects in floods up and down the country. Rather than destroying natural flood defences, we need to protect them to ensure that we mitigate the worst effects of the climate emergency. Some say that we need burning to control fuel loads on the moors, and that without it overgrown heather would cause wildfires, but the more heather is burned, the more it grows and the more we are locked into a cycle of burning.”
“Nationally, the damage means that our peatlands emit the equivalent CO 2 of 140,000 cars per year; the burns themselves release 260,000 tonnes of CO 2 annually. The burning also makes the effects of the climate crisis worse, because when the heather is burnt, the fire kills off the spongy sphagnum moss underneath that acts as a natural barrier to rain run-off. One expert described the moss to me as a Persian carpet—it is very absorbent; you can squeeze it, and if you jump up and down on a healthy bog, someone 20 metres away will be able to feel the vibration because of the water held in the moss. It is very rare to find that in the UK now. Losing the moss means that we often see down-valley flooding, which will become more and more likely if that environment is not protected and restored.”
“They are essentially our rainforests, and I am proud to represent a constituency that includes some of that landscape. Unfortunately, as I have seen at first hand, the vast proportion of our peatland is degraded. It is hard to see the difference between a degraded peatland and one in good health, because there is damage to so much of our peatland, and part of that is due to the burning. Burning not only damages the ecosystem that supports an abundance of wildlife, but is bad for the climate. In the natural and rewetted state, peatlands have the potential to store carbon dioxide on a large scale and can be a vital asset for helping us decarbonise our country, but when they are degraded, they do the exact opposite.”
“That is a good point. Yes, I have been out to various moorland owners in my constituency and beyond to see regenerative projects—for example, planting sphagnum moss plugs and other things that people are doing to try to improve the quality of the moors—but I still think that further Government intervention is needed. The immediate impact of burning is obvious, but the long-term impact should concern us all. As I was about to say, we have to make sure that we take into consideration the climate and nature crises as well as the health implications of burning, which is damaging our precious blanket bogs. The peatlands are so important. We have 13% of the Earth’s blanket peat bogs in the UK, which is the largest proportion in the world.”
“May I ask the Minister how many licences have been granted? If it is truly an act of last resort, it would be interesting to know those figures, given that the number of burns on sites of special scientific interest and protected landscapes continues to be high, to determine whether the regulations are protecting and meeting the needs of those areas.”
“Last year, the TUC found that one in three public sector workers—1.8 million workers—has attempted to leave their profession and get a job in another field. As alluded to earlier, the crisis in health and social care is even worse; there, the proportion rises to 50%. Of all the workers the TUC asked, 52% cited low pay as a cause of their wanting to leave the sector. The pay for our public servants reflects the esteem in which we hold our public services, and the value we place on supporting some of the most vulnerable members of our community. Given the Government’s measures on public services, those have clearly hit rock bottom. We should all reflect on that.”
“It is ironic that we hear a lot about competition in the private sector, and yet do not see competitive pay in the public sector. The link between poor recruitment and pay is also abundantly clear in the health service. Nursing, which has already been mentioned, has a vacancy rate of 10.36%. The number of district nurses has decreased by 44.4%. School nurses are down by 32.6%, learning disability nurses by 46%, and health visitors by 31.1%. Just the other day, I was in the Chamber debating provision and funding for special educational needs and disabilities. All the nursing staff I have listed are critical to delivering that service, so it is no wonder that SEND provision in the UK is broken. Pay is at the core of a lot of these recruitment crises. It is the same story again and again.”
“When they were asked about the conditions in their workplace, they said: “Every day felt like drowning, getting upwards of 60 messages from claimants to deal with, on top of all the other work. I’ve been in my role for several years and this was the worst it has gotten. It worsened my mental health to the point of severe burnout, with constant headaches when I am at work and bad anxiety. At its worst, it pushed me to self–harm and heavy contemplation of suicide.” That worker is not alone in those feelings. PCS recently published first-hand testimony from the workforce in the DWP. The reports in that document are shocking, and they almost all point to low pay as the source of the recruitment crisis in the DWP. No one wants to work for an employer that they feel undervalues them and the skilled job they do.”
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) for securing this debate. It is always brilliant to hear her talking about the important issue of low pay. I echo her comments about Tony Lloyd. He was a very principled public servant, not only as an MP for many years, but as a police and crime commissioner. My thoughts are with his family. He will be sadly missed. The statistics on public sector pay and the associated graphs and figures all starkly outline the dire state of pay for those who dutifully work to serve our communities, but nothing paints a better picture than the experience of frontline workers themselves. I want to read an anonymised quote from a DWP worker.”
“Let me begin by declaring my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which refers to the help that I receive from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project, and my position as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on migration. I agree with much of what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) about the process involved in the Bill and the way in which we are debating it today. This is our third immigration Bill in less than two years, and throughout that time Ministers and Back Benchers alike have engaged in progressively more inflammatory rhetoric about refugees without addressing any of the real problems in our asylum and migration system.”
“This Bill is another example of Ministers’ doubling down on that approach, and the amendments tabled by Conservative Back Benchers—I believe they are amendments 10, 19, 20, 21, 22, 56 and 57—take it even further.”
“I entirely agree. That is an important point, and we are struggling to get much sense out of the Government on it. I have asked repeatedly whether safe and legal routes are available to people trying to flee from parts of the world where genocide has been declared, but unfortunately the answer has always been “The safe and legal routes that exist are all that we will offer.” I do not think that that is good enough, and I think we need to have that conversation about safe and legal routes. The problems that I have listed are the real, human problems. That is the real cost to human life and wellbeing that the Government’s “hostile environment” policy brings.”
“We need the safe and legal routes first. The rates at which people are accepted as having a reasonable claim and are given a form of leave to remain in the UK are very high: in recent years, the rates at which applications are accepted have been as high as 67%. I do not believe that a large number of people are coming here illegally without good claims. Indeed, I think the opposite is true, given the evidence from our own systems.”
“Rather than chasing headlines, it is time they thought again and built an asylum system that puts respect for international law and basic human dignity first.”