Tony Vaughan
MP for Folkestone and Hythe · Labour · United Kingdom
“With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a personal statement. Following a complaint to Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme by a former member of my constituency staff, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Independent Expert Panel have found that, on three occasions in February 2025,…”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She immediately challenged me and took the phone back. It was not mine to take. The next day, two calls between my former colleague and me were ended abruptly while I was trying to find the venue for a constituency appointment—one of them deliberately by me, after I entered a live church service.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I also recognise that behaviour like this could well impact on somebody who is vulnerable, whether or not it is known that they are vulnerable. That is why respect and courtesy must come first in every interaction I have with others. Since these events, my approach has changed.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My constituent Joe Bennett, who is in the Public Gallery, has not seen his parents Craig and Lindsay Foreman since January 2025, when they were arrested and detained by Iran, and presented with fake charges of espionage.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have heard of three different businesses that are in quite different environments but tell the same story: these post-Brexit trading arrangements have added cost, delay and uncertainty to British businesses that should be focusing on investment and growing.”
House of Commons12 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our future economic model should be to combine all those strengths and be the best place in Europe to invent, make, finance and export, but we will not achieve that by keeping rules that make it difficult for manufacturers to access their nearest market, for exporters to sell their goods or for companies to operate across borders.”
House of Commons12 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Not at the moment. Six per cent of the population do not have access to smartphones. Pensioners, the disabled and the homeless could be particularly affected. I believe it is vital that the Minister and the Government listen carefully to those concerns and that they be heard during the public consultation, which will begin in the new year. I will be making my representations; I urge my constituents to do so too. I want to make two points about why, in principle, I support the idea of digital identification. First, I believe that a digital credential has the potential to make an individual citizen’s day-to-day life easier and more convenient.”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If it is possible for the police to verify, in that moment, whether a person has a right to work, that will assist. The details are not there, but I am making the point that it is open to consultation. I am not here to defend the position of the Government; I am here to say that, in principle, the position has not been set out, because they are consulting on it. Let me come back to the point, because it is really important, and the Conservative party is not engaging with it at all. If the police do not have access to right-to-work data in the moment, it makes it harder to close down these entities. No one is explaining that there is a power, because there simply is not.”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am afraid that that is not the scenario I was setting out. I was trying to be helpful by identifying the fact that, if a vape shop is selling £5 cigarettes, they are obviously unlawful, so there is reason to probe further, but the police do not have the ability to verify right to work. Obviously the state should, in that scenario, where there is already a basis to look further—but I am not trying to say that this scheme is entirely fine. I started my speech by identifying the legitimate concerns of my constituents and many other people. It is vital that we look at the details of everything that is proposed and ultimately have a consultation that listens to the concerns expressed, so that the policy ends up reflecting the positive benefits that I think we can get from such a system—if we get the details right.”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My specific example was about where an individual has a £5 packet of cigarettes that is obviously unlawful. The police have no power at all to demand right-to-work checks in that situation. Why do the Opposition oppose that principle?”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that this policy framework distinguishes between immigration control on the one hand and, on the other hand, how we treat lawfully present migrants? Does he agree that we must restore order and control to the system for those coming into the UK, but that once people are here, we need to encourage integration and value non-monetary contributions as well, so that we do not skew the system away from the integration that we ultimately need to see for those who are lawfully here?”
House of Commons25 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given the ICJ ruled last year that there is a “plausible” case of genocide in Gaza, and given that the humanitarian situation has drastically deteriorated since then, does my hon. Friend agree that the UK must actively support efforts to ensure that every rejection of aid and refusal to allow trucks in for spurious reasons is documented, so that it can be put before the ICJ in the South Africa case to hold Israel accountable for breaches of international humanitarian law?”
House of Commons24 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I acknowledge the gargantuan task that the Home Secretary has to regain public confidence in our asylum system. We must ensure that reflected in our asylum system is not only fairness and contribution, but compassion, which is also a quintessentially British value and is reflected in the work of charities like Napier Friends in my constituency, which supports those staying at Napier barracks. My question is about the appeal reforms. What is the rationale for the professionally trained adjudicators when we already have a specialist judiciary with expertise to decide these cases? What is it about the adjudicator model that will mean that adjudicators are in a better position to decide these cases than those under the current system?”
House of Commons17 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Littlestone and Dymchurch are two popular beaches in my constituency, but they are subject to no swim advisories, which are seriously harming local tourism, residents and businesses. What urgent measures will the Minister take to ensure clear accountability for water companies, rapid infrastructure upgrades and a transparent timetable for lifting no swim advisories, and will she meet me to discuss how we can create safer seas for my constituents—and possibly join me for a swim when it is safe to do so?”
House of Commons13 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My team is inundated with accounts of heartbreak, of children’s needs dismissed and of families abandoned. Another local child with complex SEND has been on a sharply reduced timetable since February 2025. The school was forced by a lack of resources to push forward a plan at pace and in a fashion entirely unsuited to him. He was failed not by his teachers but by the absent leadership of the council. A child in my constituency was for an entire year denied any placement, simply due to the delays in drawing up an EHCP, which were a direct result of council paralysis. A further example, which is perhaps the most shocking and saddening, is a family whose child has been driven to despair by the failed system and has voiced the wish not to go on living. That should horrify all of us, and it is happening under the council’s watch.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To compound this, the education, health and care plan, which is meant to be a living document, mostly referred to his infant years. He is 11 now. Disgracefully, his future is being locked to outdated paperwork. When his parents challenged the decision at tribunal, KCC brazenly admitted that its sole reason for choosing an inappropriate school was money. Let us call that what it is: institutional neglect, sanctioned from the very top of the council. KCC is gaming the tribunal system as a delaying tactic, to push back the date when it must pay for SEND children’s needs. KCC spends far more on SEND tribunals than any other local authority in this country, amounting to millions of pounds every year, despite losing almost all of them. That is a failure of leadership of epic proportions.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My inbox is full of emails from desperate parents. This is not a bureaucratic failure alone: it is a moral failure. In 2025, children in Kent with SEND are still denied the basic dignity, respect and support that any civilised society should provide. The stories from my constituency are not just troubling; they are harrowing indictments of a local authority that has lost its moral compass. Let us take the case of one boy who was diagnosed with autism and pathological demand avoidance. He is now in year 6 at a specialist SEND school. His parents, supported by professionals, identified the secondary school that could best meet his complex needs, but instead, Reform UK’s Kent county council named a different school, which itself had admitted that it could not meet his needs.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House has considered SEND provision in Kent. It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Sir John. Many dedicated people are working to support children with special educational needs and disabilities in my constituency—in schools, doctors’ surgeries and social services, alongside many other professionals—but I am afraid to say that children in Folkestone and Hythe are being failed every day by the broken SEND system in Kent, which is presided over by Reform UK-run Kent county council. This is not an entirely negative speech, but I do need to start by describing what we are seeing on the ground every day, before I move on to the way forwards. The reality in Kent is that, under Reform’s stewardship, the situation for SEND support has deteriorated to crisis point.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is county-wide neglect, shrouded in excuses. I am not blind to the scale of the challenges, but I will not excuse the years of inaction and mismanagement, first under the Tories and now under Reform UK.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend’s experience is similar to mine. My postbag reflects a kind of ongoing unresponsiveness, which results in people feeling that they are just lost in the system. That is entirely unacceptable. On a slightly different theme, for SEND children who wish to access a grammar school education in Kent, KCC seems to be refusing requests for extra time for the 11-plus test, in breach of the Equality Act 2010, and without giving any reasons. It is the law that extra time must be granted if a reasonable adjustment is required under that Act, yet Kent’s special access panel unfairly puts roadblocks in the way, stifling opportunities for our young people. The failures stretch beyond Folkestone and Hythe; they blight every corner of Kent, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna) said.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The 2021 deal between the Department for Education and KCC was supposed to plug deficits, but in practice it has often made it even harder for families to access vital support. In areas like Kent with safety valve deals, EHCPs have become harder to obtain and parents are forced to jump over ever-higher hurdles. The priorities of the safety valve programme mean that financial savings are trumping the needs of children in Kent.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. That is precisely why we need wholesale change in the system, which is what the Government are preparing to consult on. We will of course listen carefully to the proposals when they come forward. Let me talk briefly about the system in Kent. Nationally, the demand for SEND support has grown, and EHCP requests have surged by 140% since 2015, as per the National Audit Office. In 2022, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission handed down an improvement notice for nine glaring SEND failings in Kent. KCC scrambled to implement an accelerated progress plan and, after Government scrutiny in 2024, the notice was lifted. But still: where are the real improvements? My postbag tells a starkly different story. I must raise concerns about the safety valve programme.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To every teacher, support worker and professional working with children with special educational needs across all Folkstone and Hythe schools, and in Kent, I say a huge thank you. They hold the system up. I will make sure that the system backs them and the children whose lives they change every day. We must ensure that every child gets the support they need to thrive and achieve their potential in life. That is the mission of this Labour Government. Despite the scale of the challenge, we will and must make this hope a reality.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is right that the Government are carefully considering how SEND should be reformed, and I support the Education Secretary’s commitment to real co-creation and to reform that is designed with—not for—children, families and practitioners. I want to end on a positive note. I recently visited the Beacon school in my constituency, which supports children and young people with profound, severe and complex needs. I was blown away by the dedication of the staff, who were not just educating children but setting them up for life. I enjoyed meeting the children and young people, who were learning, creating, building and thriving. The school’s work to prepare children and young people for the world of work was cutting edge.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am glad to say that Kent has started to pilot the same approach. I support the Government’s work to ensure that Ofsted now grades down any school that excludes or off-rolls SEND students. The additional investment from the Labour Government, including the real-terms increase to the core schools budget, is crucial for SEND children, as well as for recruitment and retention. Frontline staff deserve security, reward and respect. Last year’s autumn Budget pledged an additional £11.2 billion in education spending by 2025-26, with £1 billion ringfenced for SEND. The new funding will enable more children with SEND to thrive, and not simply survive, in our schools.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“At one school, some students have a time-out pass to leave class for a few minutes when they need a quiet space, a reset, or a short break to run up and down the stairs. Tinted plastic overlays can help children with dyslexic symptoms. Teachers use an empathetic approach to things such as missing a uniform tie: a friendly greeting before asking nicely about the tie’s whereabouts prevents the build-up of tension, which causes problems. The approach ensures that help for children with additional needs does not depend on a formal medical diagnosis or referral, and creates a culture where everybody can receive timely assistance through flexible, graduated support. Portsmouth’s commitment to shared best practice and ongoing collaboration makes SEND support a normal part of mainstream education, which benefits everybody.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I recently read an article in The Economist about how Portsmouth is providing an inclusive approach to supporting children with SEND. In Portsmouth, students with behavioural and learning difficulties are no longer automatically referred to the NHS for a medical diagnosis. Instead, each school’s SEND co-ordinator, or a designated teacher, sits down with parents to draw up the child’s neurodiversity profile, which allows teachers and parents to identify how best to accommodate the children’s needs and to identify stressors that make it harder to learn. This helps to identify specific things that could help the child. Only if that approach does not work are medical professionals brought in. The adaptions that are needed are often quite simple.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Genuine, practical, long-term change is needed, and long overdue. As Folkestone and Hythe’s first Labour MP, and as part of a Labour Government determined to repair what has been broken, I am committed to forging solutions, not division. I therefore welcome the Government’s drive to build a fairer and truly inclusive SEND system, and agree with the Government’s position that inclusivity for SEND students must be embedded in mainstream schools and accountability moved to the heart of the Department for Education’s schools group, led by the Minister for School Standards. Reform has to have inclusivity at its core. I fully support the Government programme, which covers one in six primary schools, to train teachers in understanding neurodiversity.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I demand from Kent county council urgent, transparent and measurable actions to improve SEND support in our communities. I will say a few words about those who have been running Kent county council since May. Reform UK recently accused SEND parents of “abusing the system”—a view that shames that party and this country. Reform UK was elected in Kent because it said it would cut waste and abuse, yet when its baseball cap-wearing smart young guys turned up, they found what everyone else already knew: after 14 years of Tory austerity, there is nothing left to cut. They promised millions in savings, but delivered only empty rhetoric and more hurt for those in need. According to Reform, the reason for our SEND crisis is waste and abuse, but that grotesquely misreads the reality faced by the children and parents who are battling for support.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When we are looking at how to change the system overall, we have to avoid a situation in which we have postcode lotteries and inconsistency, because a child who lives on one side of a border should not take any blame for the failures of the two local authorities. The safety valve system has created financial targets that have led to perverse incentives to withhold help, suppress demand and punish aspiration. That is not reform: it is rationing. The result is that we see inappropriate placement, adversarial council relationships and broken trust. Kent’s families have had enough. The safety valve programme was policymaking for short-termism, not for real change. It was exactly the kind of sticking-plaster politics that we saw in recent years under the Tories, and Kent’s children are paying the price.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are several examples of good practice in my constituency that avoid the need to travel long distances and that integrate children with special educational needs into mainstream schools, making it easier to go between the two units. I thank the Government for their collaborative approach to formulating proposals for change in the upcoming White paper. We need to get to the point where mainstream schools can meet the needs of the vast majority of children with special educational needs, although I appreciate that they will not be suitable for all. Equally, where a child has a need, the currently available legal protections that enable that child to access the necessary support must be there. That is ultimately the route for children to achieve their potential. Question put and agreed to.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friends the Members for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) and for Gravesham, and from the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), about the importance of maintaining existing legal protections in the upcoming changes to the SEND system. They are absolutely right about that. Several Members mentioned home-to-school transport. As the hon. Member for South Devon said, it is a huge source of expenditure for Kent county council. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford mentioned that specialist hubs could be a way of reducing travel time. I would add that creating and expanding specialist units within mainstream schools is another way of doing that.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank all Members for their contributions, which echoed the same problems that I identified in my constituency. Kent MPs highlighted similar experiences with Kent county council. My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan), with her huge experience in this area, questioned the correctness of taking KCC out of the special measures regime, as did the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) through his colleague, the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden). I am grateful to the Minister for undertaking to write to us about the nature of the ongoing scrutiny of Kent county council. The testimonies that we have heard today and that come into our inbox put pressure on those of us who are in the field, so to speak, to ask whether we are moving forward or backwards. We heard from my hon.”
House of Commons12 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Under the system that has been in force for many years, the Government cannot initiate deportation action until after minimum custodial terms have been served. Can the Deputy Prime Minister commit to ensuring that measures removing all minimum custodial requirements will be implemented, so that eligible foreign offenders can be removed as soon as possible after sentencing and victims can be spared the distress we have seen recently?”
House of Commons11 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The ECHR did not stop the UK from removing 34,000 people with no right to be here in 2024, which was the highest number since 2017. Under 1% of foreign national offenders successfully appeal deportation on human rights grounds; since 1980, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge said, the Strasbourg Court found against the UK on deportation cases just a handful of times, only four of which concerned family life. The Reform and Tory policy of ECHR withdrawal is simply Brexit 2.0 and isolationism. It will not secure our borders. It will not solve anything.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place, paint the ECHR as our enemy and as a barrier to border control. They could not be more wrong. The truth is that we need the ECHR to manage our borders. A common rights framework means that our European partners will work with us to tackle organised people smuggling and to protect our national security. We had the UK-France deal this summer, Bulgaria is intercepting smuggling boats at the EU border, and Germany is reforming its criminal laws to confront these shared challenges. Even Rwanda said that it will not work with us unless we observe human rights. Let us not forget that it was the failed Brexit project that destroyed the Dublin regulation, leaving us without any EU returns agreement. We then saw the number of dangerous crossings soar.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) for securing this important debate. The ECHR has delivered extraordinary victories for British people. When Jeanette Smith and Graeme Grady were discharged from the armed forces simply for being gay, the English courts rejected their challenge, but the Strasbourg Court unanimously upheld their rights. Today the armed forces welcome all people regardless of sexual orientation. The ECHR has protected children wrongfully taken into care; workers have won the right to express their faith and mental health patients have gained proper legal safeguards. Those are not abstract legal victories—they are real, and have changed people’s lives for the better. Yet many voices, including that of the hon.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will conclude by saying that, on this 75th anniversary, 300 organisations—from Liberty to Mind, Shelter to Amnesty—rightly defend the convention. It is up to this Government to demonstrate to the public that we can have both border control and compassion. Let us celebrate 75 years of freedom, and 75 more.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When it comes to the UK’s relations with China, it is not a simple binary choice between national security and growth—national security must always be our non-negotiable red line—but subject to that, does the Foreign Secretary agree that when there are specific sectors where economic engagement with China promotes growth, we should be open to that?”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As far as I can remember, the Attorney General told the House of Lords yesterday that 3 September was when he was informed that there were evidential difficulties with the case. The key point is that he had no power to intervene, because of the memorandum between the Attorney General’s Office and the CPS. The Attorney General does not get involved in evidential sufficiency.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The key question the petitions ask is simple: how should we treat people while they wait for their asylum decision from the UK Government? It is that waiting time that costs the state money, because asylum applicants cannot work for the first 12 months. There is a strong argument for shortening that period to around six months, as France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain have done, to ease pressure on the accommodation system. Mr Barnes told me that he does not want to throw asylum applicants out on to the street. He wants to end hotel use. He wants to speed up asylum processing. He wants us to be quicker at removing people with no right to stay.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Some 250,000 Belgian refugees found sanctuary across Britain during world war one, which reflected the instinctive human compassion for others’ desperation—a compassion built into our British sense of fairness. We see those values enduring in my constituency today, in the activities of the local charity Napier Friends, which supports residents at Napier barracks. The charity has achieved incredible things, running English classes and creating volunteer opportunities to help our local community, including litter picking and organising gleaning, which is essentially collecting extra local produce to donate to food banks for people who need that extra food. My recent Napier visit showed outstanding work both by Napier Friends and current staff, and I thank them for all their work and for the compassion they show in doing it.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Mr Barnes, whom I spoke with last week, does not oppose asylum. He believes that we should grant sanctuary to those fleeing persecution at home. He is absolutely right about that fundamental truth. It is who we are. Our British values of fairness and decency explain why, across generations, we have welcomed refugees from the across the globe—those escaping Hitler’s tyranny, Idi Amin’s brutality or Soviet oppression. Each time, some voices demanded closed borders, and each time, Britain chose humanity over heartlessness. Those values were in action when, on 14 October 1914, 16,000 Belgian refugees reached Folkestone harbour in my constituency in one day, fleeing Germany’s invasion. Those arrivals instantly doubled the town’s population, yet locals immediately organised food, clothing, shelter and medical care.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House has considered e-petitions 705383 and 718406 relating to support and accommodation for asylum seekers. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I lead this debate for the Petitions Committee, and I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for the support I receive from the Refugee, Asylum, Migration and Policy Project. I start by thanking the petition creators, Robert Barnes and Bob Clements, and all those who have signed the two petitions. Mr Barnes’s petition calls on the Government to “Shut the migrant hotels down now and deport illegal migrants housed there”, and was signed by more than 256,000 people. Mr Clements’s petition calls on the Government to “Stop financial and other support for asylum seekers”, and has more than 427,000 signatures.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with the hon. Member that we absolutely must ensure that those seeking asylum have proper access to legal aid. It is much quicker and cheaper in the long run if we can flush out all the claims at the outset, so that we do not have them raised at the last minute, when perhaps costs are higher. I am absolutely behind the hon. Member on that. On the points that Mr Barnes made to me, I agree with him, and I imagine that the Government do too. Labour’s manifesto promised to end hotel use by the end of this Parliament, and we are already well ahead of schedule. Hotel use peaked in August 2023 at £9 million spent every day across 400 facilities; since taking power, Labour has already cut hotel numbers in half and slashed £500 million yearly from asylum hotel costs, closing 23 asylum hotels.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Any option that redirects even some of this accommodation expenditure into publicly owned housing assets, while supporting the asylum accommodation even temporarily, deserves serious attention.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Mr Barnes supports the use of larger sites such as Napier barracks in Folkestone and former RAF Wethersfield. I visited Napier recently; while it has historically had poor conditions, they have improved in recent years. Napier costs the state around £106 per night, which is less than hotels, albeit not drastically so, and we should not forget that the set-up costs for large sites are huge—in the case of Wethersfield they were around £49 million. The real alternative to hotels could be social housing. We must push for a better way than paying billions of pounds to private companies that make millions in profit, when that money could be spent on buying up assets and replenishing our national housing stock for the future. The BBC reports that the Home Office is looking into pilot schemes on that front.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not know what is going to happen; I cannot predict the future. The point I am making is that the measures that are being taken are moving us faster in the right direction than even we had intended at the outset of the Parliament. Labour also promised to clear the asylum backlog created by the last Government’s effective pausing of asylum decision making. This Labour Government have recruited more decision makers and sped up processing. In the first six months of this year, the Government processed about 60,000 asylum claims—around 70% more than the same period last year. On removing those with no right to stay, enforced returns have been increased by 25%, compared with the Conservatives’ final years in office. There is of course still much more to do to win back public confidence in our asylum system.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It would clearly be unlawful. It would also be inhumane, financially ruinous and completely useless. There are about 102,000 people in UK asylum accommodation, but our immigration detention capacity is only 2,200, so we would need a massive new detention facility expansion for immediate mass detention. What would that expansion cost? Based on Ministry of Justice prison expansion plans, the National Audit Office estimates that a single new prison place would cost at least £470,000, excluding land and other costs. That is £47 billion for 100,000 detention places, which is about a third of the entire NHS budget. On top of that, immigration detention costs are about £122 per day, adding up to around £4.5 billion per year for that number of people. Clearly, detention on that scale would mean massive cuts to public services and huge tax rises.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Evidence also shows that family, community and cultural connections matter far more than the benefits system. Picture this, Dr Murrison: imagine that tomorrow we cut all asylum seeker financial support and closed all asylum hotels. What would happen next? Without alternatives, it would increase rough sleeping by over 500%, with over 30,000 more destitute people on our streets. That approach would clearly be immoral, as I trust hon. Members would agree. It would also pile massive pressure on social services, local authorities, NHS emergency services and the police. The petitioners’ alternative to state support in the community is mass detention. Migration Watch also calls for the detention of all asylum claimants, as its director told me in a conversation last week as I prepared for this debate. Let us think that through.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I will turn now to the issue of asylum support, and make two key points. First, people claiming asylum cannot access the UK’s mainstream benefits system. They receive initial full-board accommodation for 90 days, plus about £10 weekly. After that they move to longer-term housing and get around £49.18 a week for food, clothing and toiletries, which is much less than universal credit rates. Secondly, the UK’s asylum support system is not a pull factor, as some, including Migration Watch, have claimed. The UK rate of £49.18 weekly barely beats France’s €47.60. Once we add in the costs of making an illegal crossing from France, the UK benefits system does not leave an adult male asylum seeker in a better position than in France.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We did have a returns agreement with Europe before we withdrew from the European Union—the Dublin regulation. It was this Government that negotiated a new agreement with France in the UK-France deal. That deal, which is compliant with all the international obligations we have, is the potential way forward to solving the problem.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“During my recent visit to Napier barracks, I met an Iranian teacher who said simply, “I just want to live safely.” I believe that we can show the compassion to give him that chance, while keeping order and control in our asylum system. The Government’s current path of clearing the backlog, cutting hotel use, and increasing removals where claims have been refused deserves our full support. Most people simply want a fair, competent asylum system that commands both our conscience and our confidence.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It would not make it easier to carry out removals, because detention is already used for people who are ready for removal. Somebody with an outstanding asylum claim or who has no travel documents cannot be removed anyway. Would mass detentions stop people from coming? That is highly doubtful. It is easy to underestimate how incredibly desperate many of the people who are arriving on small boats are. We assume that deterrents will defeat desperation, but both the Rwanda gimmick and other populist plans assume too much about the psychology of the people making these dangerous journeys. Mass detention is easy to say, but it is just another gimmick—inhumane, extortionate and, I am afraid, completely pointless.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The reality is that, if we do not have a mechanism in place—and it was essentially jettisoned by the Conservative party—there is no way of creating either a deterrent or a way of working with our colleagues in Europe to address these problems upstream. If we took the position of the Conservative party, which is to withdraw from the European convention and other international instruments, who would work with us upstream? France would not have signed that UK-France deal—signed in the summer by the Prime Minister—if we had been outside of the European convention on human rights. It is Brexit 2.0 from the Opposition. The Government are offering serious alternatives that simply are not being offered by anyone else. What would mass detention actually achieve? The answer is nothing at all.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The logic of that is that every country neighbouring a conflict zone should take all the refugees. That is an absurd proposition. We have to take our fair share of refugees. We take fewer than other European countries, and a responsible approach to this issue accepts that there is not an obligation to claim asylum in any particular country. The question is whether we are taking our fair share and complying with our international obligations—which, as I have said, the UK-France deal will achieve if it can be scaled up. Most people want a fair, competent asylum system that processes claims in months rather than years, with a sustainable asylum support system that ultimately upholds the values that make us who we are as a nation.”
House of Commons20 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗