Katie Lam
MP for Weald of Kent · Conservative · United Kingdom
“The Government confirmed that twice in November 2025, yet the very next month announced that elections in some parts of the country would be pushed back as far as 2028. Two weeks later, again in the run-up to Christmas, the then local government Minister invited another wave of postponements.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The real-world results of this endless delay are plain to see. People across the country are left without any sense of which council will be providing services in the year and years to come, while councillors and council officials have spent millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money planning and preparing for new authorities that might never…”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In September, following updated and privileged legal advice, the current Secretary of State withdrew decisions for Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, and paused plans in most of the rest of the country. What a complete joke!”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister talks of allowing the process to “run its course” and of giving “full and proper consideration” to each decision, but can he set out what will be taken into consideration? What role have party political objectives played in determining new local government boundaries?”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to say that from start to finish, this Government’s approach to local government reorganisation has been nothing short of a farce. The Government first promised to publish their English devolution White Paper in November 2024.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In March, there was another set of announcements and another set of legal challenges. In June, it was revealed in a pre-action letter issued by the Department that Ministers had ignored official advice over reorganisation plans. In July, just days before the right hon.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“The new clause maintains the Home Secretary’s ability to judge whether or not a country is being unco-operative. If it is unable to help, that is different from being unco-operative in the way that we would define it here.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will happily come to the second question in a second, but I am a little confused. Is the hon Gentleman suggesting that I did not write my speech myself?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is harder than it might sound, particularly when individuals are determined to lose their documents and obfuscate their identity and origin in every way they can. What we propose here will align other countries’ incentives with our own. It will create substantial pressure on other nations to co-operate with us to secure our border, and we strongly hope that the Government will consider adding it to the Bill.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In that case, I am happy to reassure him that I wrote every word. The short answer to the question about Albania is yes. We think that would be completely appropriate. Why would Albania refuse to accept one of its own citizens that should, by our rules and our laws, be returned to that country? If it refuses to do so, we would absolutely consider that to an appropriate trigger for that response. To continue what I was saying, new clause 40 amends section 70 of the Nationality and Borders Act, and it expands the Act to cover both nationals as well as citizens. We consider that it should be a basic and fundamental principle that we should be able to remove from this country those who break our rules.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is over 2.5 dependants per health and social care worker—dependants who will access public services in their own right, including our already overstretched NHS. The dependant route for health and social care visa holders has since been restricted, but I mention it because it indicates the huge level of demand and desire there is for family members to come to Britain.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are few things in life and in human nature more powerful than the desire to be with those we love. To be separated from a husband or wife by a national border is no small thing. Indeed, for those it is happening to, it can feel like everything. But the role of Government is to determine what is right for the country, not for any one person, couple or family. We must place this discussion in its national context. For too long immigration has been too high, and the spousal visa route is increasingly being used by those who would otherwise not be able to come to Britain. Over the past few years we have seen the number of dependent visas balloon. As of December 2024, 51,000 migrants, bringing 130,000 dependants with them, had come to Britain via the health and social care route over the previous year.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think and hope that it has been clear from everything I have said that I make no defence of the previous Government’s activity. It is incredibly important that Conservative Members are able—as is our duty and our responsibility to the public—to talk about the many things that went wrong and, I hope, to help this Government to avoid making the same mistakes.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Put simply, a hard numerical cap on the number of visas issued each year would force Government and Parliament to have accountability for their immigration decisions. If we believe that the overall level of immigration is too high, we should set the cap accordingly, to ensure that technical mistakes do not produce the kind of migration wave that we have seen over the past few years. If we believe that the overall level of immigration is too low, we should be willing to say that publicly, to explain our reasons and to defend our record. Either way, we must be transparent. That will not rebuild public trust in our political system overnight, but it will represent a significant step in the right direction.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As I have set out already, there was never what we are talking about here, which is a formal cap set by Parliament in legislation. However, a number of aims and promises were given to the electorate over the years, and those promises were not kept. Selective, limited and tailored to our needs—that is the immigration system that the British public have voted for time and again. If we are serious about delivering it, we must take steps to ensure that future Governments do not renege on their promises as previous Governments have. But this is not just about delivering the immigration system that the British people have voted for repeatedly; fundamentally, it is about public trust and accountability.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I worked primarily on national security, not on legal migration, but it was very clear to me from what I could see of the problems that all my colleagues were facing that most of Government—most Departments, and the Minister may be experiencing this now—are geared for higher levels of migration. For example, it is helpful for the Department of Health and Social Care to have high volumes of health and social care visas issued, or for the Treasury, which issues gilts based on our overall GDP, to have as many people here as possible. The purpose of the cap would be to bring those conversations out into the open. If those Departments and Ministers wished to justify to the public, to the British people, why those numbers needed to be higher, that conversation should be had where the British people can hear it.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As the hon. Gentleman can read in the new clause, the wording does not state that the caps have to be set and cannot be revised; it is more than possible to come back to Parliament to change them. If such a situation arises—he is totally right to say that many of them are emergencies and may have been unforeseeable—there is no reason why that case should not be made to the British public and the cap changed. We are talking here about the need for that case to be made to the British public and for there to be transparency. Some Labour Members have mentioned my time at the Home Office, where I was a special adviser.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member asks a good question. I am not sure whether that would be explicitly decided on the face of the Bill; that could be something that the Home Office decided subsequently—whether it wished to set out future years or just the following one. In my initial response to the hon. Member, the point that I was trying to clarify was that that cap can, of course, be changed. Once it is set, it does not need to be set in stone for ever, but it is important that it exists and that the conversation about what it should be is had in front of the British public.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Immigration decisions are made elsewhere, but this is the criterion set out in current legislation. In our view, this is a quirk of the current system, and not how one would design it if starting from a blank page. These sorts of accommodation centres did not exist when our rules were written, and we think that this corrects that quirk. I echo the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West: does the Minister think that this would be of operational benefit to immigration enforcement officers? If so, will she include it, and if not, why not?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“New clause 36 would give access to asylum accommodation centres to our immigration enforcement officers. Members of the public may be surprised to learn that this power does not already exist. It seems to me common sense that when a person has come here illegally and is being housed by the state, immigration enforcement—an arm of that state—should be able to enter that accommodation to carry out their work. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West rightly set out, these accommodation centres exist because the volume of those coming here illegally is such that it is not possible to hold everyone in immigration detention. There are therefore substantial numbers of people on immigration bail, and a reasonable number of those are held in accommodation centres.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We consider that new clause 37, which would introduce the asylum support repayment scheme, is a totally fair way of proposing that people who come to this country are responsible for contributing for the services that they receive. That includes the accommodation that they live in. We do not see any reason why that should be viewed as a negative change, and we really hope that the Government include it in their Bill.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have spoken many times today, and over the course of this Bill Committee’s proceedings, about the fundamental principles of fairness upon which we believe that our immigration system should be built. We have also spoken extensively about the generosity of the British state, and how much it costs to support those who, according to our rules, cannot support themselves. But that generosity, while admirable in what it says about our approach to our fellow man, costs the British taxpayer dearly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West set out, it costs many billions of pounds a year. It also causes additional pressure on infrastructure and public services, which is not covered by what we suggest here.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the Minister’s response. Might she please commit today to a date by which the Home Office at least aims for all migrant hotels to be closed, as per her party’s manifesto commitments? I also welcome what she had to say about bringing down costs. She is right to say that the best way to minimise the Home Office’s bill for asylum accommodation is to process applications as quickly as possible. Where asylum applications are approved, though, most of those costs transfer to the welfare system, so I would be interested to hear her response on who in Government is currently responsible for tracking and understanding that cost.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Again, rightly and reasonably, the Minister talks about lowering costs, but might she say a few words about fairness and the principle that this new clause seeks to speak to: should those who have lived in that accommodation, who have benefited from that provision by the state, ultimately pay it back, if they can afford to?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am a little confused by the Minister’s stating that several of our amendments should not be debated with this Bill. I fully concede that she is more experienced than I am, but my understanding is that any amendment considered in scope can be tabled, debated and voted on. Given the fact that these amendments were considered in scope, I am interested in why she thinks it is not appropriate for us to discuss them today.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Might the Minister, for clarity, lay out what the Government consider the purpose of the Bill to be and, by implication, what its purpose is not?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for responding to me earlier. The Opposition’s view is that the various ways by which people come here illegally and stay is fundamentally important to smashing the gangs, and that leave outside the rules and the ways it may be abused are a big part of that. That seems to us to be part of the fundamental point that we are discussing. Will the Minister comment on that?”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That kind of scenario is clearly wrong and contributes to the persistent feeling that so many ordinary British people have that our asylum system is broken and unfair.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Government Members are right to say that the new clause might cause difficult and, in some instances, heartrending situations, but that in and of itself does not make it the wrong thing to do. Last December, as I mentioned earlier when discussing our human rights legislation, a Turkish heroin dealer was allowed to stay in the UK after first seeking asylum here in 1988. Despite claiming that he would be persecuted in his home country, the man had returned to Turkey at least eight times since arriving in Britain. On one of those trips, he even got married to a woman with whom he had been having an affair, despite already being married with children in the UK. Nevertheless, he escaped deportation, as it was ruled that deporting him would interfere with his right to a family life.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are, of course, people who come to these shores legitimately seeking asylum, but we must also be honest about the fact that not everyone who comes to this country and applies for asylum has a legitimate case for doing so. We can see that evidenced in the fact that not all claims are approved. Too often, asylum is used as an immigration route for those who otherwise would not be able to come here. Our compassion is therefore exploited by those who are in no real danger at all, a sad truth made clear by the fact that many would-be asylum seekers regularly return home without issue. The bar to claiming asylum should rightly be high. People should be in serious danger in their home country to qualify.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“After years imprisoned and various daring prison escapes, the family first made it over the border to Czechoslovakia, where they set up a resistance radio station broadcasting back into Germany. One night, that was raided by the SS and one of the operators was shot dead. They then fled to England and to freedom. We should be proud of our history. There are so many Brits like me who would not be here and would never have been born without the past generosity of this great country. But as I said earlier, we must also be realistic about the very many ways in which our system can be exploited by the cynical and the sinister.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Throughout our long history, Britain has been an unusually compassionate place. From time to time, people have come to this country to seek sanctuary from tyranny and authoritarianism elsewhere in the world. My county of Kent became home to many of the Huguenots who fled religious persecution in France in the 16th century. Indeed, Canterbury cathedral still hosts a French-language service every Sunday, in honour of those who came to this country in search of tolerance and religious freedom. My grandmother came to Britain in 1937 at the age of 13, as a refugee from Germany. Her grandfather was a state senator and a fierce critic of the Nazis. When Hitler came to power, the whole family were stripped of their citizenship and several were arrested.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Even were we to lose in such efforts to be reasonable, he feels that the new clause would allow the Government still to decide to comply with the flawed jurisprudence from the Strasbourg court; however, it would require that, were they to do so, they must be transparent with the British public and publish a report telling us who the criminals are whom we could have deported under the refugee convention, had the Strasbourg court’s flawed interpretation of the ECHR not prevented us from so doing. I will not press the new clause to a vote, and I repeat that I did not table it, but I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Were Strasbourg to apply the principle of lex specialis properly, it should conclude that it cannot be unlawful for states to rely on articles 1F and 33(2) of the refugee convention in order to deport criminals. The Father of the House would be interested to hear from the Minister whether the Government would be interested in running such an argument before the Strasbourg court.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is to ensure that the Secretary of State can proceed to deport such people, and if they want to challenge their deportation, their recourse will be to bring a case to Strasbourg. I know that the Father of the House would be comfortable with putting a duty on Ministers to still deport such individuals even the face of a Strasbourg judgment or rule 39, but he knows that the firm commitment that the Government have to international law mean that they will refuse to do so—although he also said that we should ask why they would privilege the ECHR over the refugee convention. Instead, the new clause would allow the Government to comply with Strasbourg, while requiring them to argue with Strasbourg that it is wrong to interpret article 3 in a way that negates the provisions of articles 1F and 33(2) of the refugee convention.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The interpretation that Strasbourg has given has, in the view of the Father of the House—at least, he would like us to debate this—weakened the legitimacy of the international humanitarian protection system. The new clause, tabled by the Father of the House, seeks to find a solution to the problem—one that he says will restore common sense. The first step of the new clause would put a duty on the Secretary of State through careful litigation before our courts to identify cases of individuals who could be deported under the refugee convention and torture convention but would be blocked under the ECHR. He sees cases such as KM, which I discussed, as exemplars of that. The new clause would disapply the duty on the Secretary of State to comply with the Human Rights Act in such cases.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Italy, two Strasbourg judges wrote that they would not be surprised if some citizens of Europe “find it difficult to understand that the Court by emphasising the absolute nature of Article 3 seems to afford more protection to the non-national applicant who has been found guilty of terrorist-related crimes than to the protection of the community as a whole from terrorist violence.” Indeed, the Father of the House, were he here, would say that he suspects that the vast majority of Britons and Europeans would be baffled by that conclusion. That is also precisely the reason why the drafters of the refugee convention saw fit to include exceptions for criminals and terrorists: they knew that with rights come responsibilities, and that those who act in this way completely violate the social contract and cannot properly claim its protection.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, because of article 3 of the ECHR, as interpreted by the Strasbourg court, he could not be removed. There are many more cases of serious criminals and terrorists—people who are a threat to those who live in the UK—who could be deported under article 33(2) of the refugee convention but cannot due to article 3 of the ECHR. In Saadi v.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That interpretation by the Strasbourg court completely negated the careful balance struck by the international community with the refugee convention and torture convention. The new clause posits that that interpretation threatens the legitimacy of international human rights law and that the conclusion by Strasbourg is the means by which that happens. The KM case provides a good illustration. KM was a police officer in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He entered the UK illegally in 2012 and applied for asylum. His application was refused by the Home Secretary on the grounds that he had been involved in torture. The upper tribunal upheld that finding and held that he should be excluded from protection under article 1F of the refugee convention.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is not surprising, as the ECHR was drafted at the same time as the refugee convention, and arguably it was felt that those issues were best addressed by the refugee convention. None the less, in the late 1980s, the Strasbourg court interpreted article 3 as prohibiting refoulement. It did so not just for torture, but for all forms of treatment contrary to article 3, and it held that the rule was absolute. As the court put it: “The conduct of the person concerned, however undesirable or dangerous, cannot be taken into account.” The consequence is that the protection afforded by article 3 is broader than that provided for in articles 32 and 33 of the 1951 United Nations convention relating to the status of refugees.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Although the convention also dealt with cruel, inhumane and degrading treatments, states were careful to limit the absolute non-refoulement rule to torture. The result is that even if an individual falls in the scope of article 1F or article 33(2) of the refugee convention but would face a real danger of torture, they cannot be removed. It was felt by states that torture was such an absolute evil that the credibility of the international protection system would be undermined by preventing the removal of such individuals if they faced torture. While the refugee convention and the torture convention both explicitly addressed non-refoulement, the ECHR did not. It prohibits states from engaging in torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, but it says nothing about refoulement.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Court of Justice of the European Union has said that its purpose is to maintain the credibility of the protection system, and as Professors Hathaway and Foster have noted, the realpolitik reason was that the drafters of the refugee convention were persuaded that if states parties were expected to admit serious criminals as refugees, they would simply not be willing to be bound by the convention. The same is presumably true of the article 33(2) exceptions. It would be surprising if states would have been willing to sign up to a duty not to refoul if there were not that exception for those who were a threat to their countries. In 1987, the UN convention against torture came into force. It now has 173 states parties. Article 3 of the torture convention provided for an absolute non-refoulement rule in cases of torture.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That exclusion applies to those who have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, serious non-political crimes abroad and acts contrary to the purposes of the United Nations. The second exception is provided for in article 33(2), which concerns those who pose serious risk to the security of the host country and those who have been convicted of particularly serious crimes, and therefore pose a danger to the community of the host country. As the UNHCR said in respect of article 1F exclusions, the rationale is that certain acts are so grave as to render their perpetrators undeserving of international protection as refugees.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, not all non-refoulement obligations are the same, and there are important differences. The new clause seeks to tease out the differences between the ECHR on the one hand, and the refugee convention and torture convention on the other. One key difference is whether there are any exceptions to the principle of non-refoulement, which is to say: are there any circumstances in which someone can be sent back to a country where they would face a real risk of relevant harm? Under the refugee convention, the obligation not to refoul is not absolute; it is subject broadly to two exceptions. The first of those is the article 1F exclusion from protection of the refugee convention.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. This is a probing amendment tabled by the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), to tease out what he feels are important issues to discuss in the context of the Bill. I would like to make it very clear that the Opposition are neither supporting nor opposing this new clause. Ideally, my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire would have spoken to this new clause, but she has Parliament-related business elsewhere today, so I am standing in. The background to the new clause is that various international treaties impose, or have been interpreted as imposing, an obligation on states not to send people back to a country where they would face harm. This is known as non-refoulement.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.”
House of Commons18 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As I read it, in Scotland, there are 1,421 asylum seekers in hotels, compared with 36,658 in the rest of the country, and 4,262 asylum seekers in dispersed accommodation, compared with 61,445 across the rest of Britain. I appreciate that that is challenging mental maths, so I will tell hon. Members that that means that Scotland houses only 5% of the asylum seekers currently accommodated by the state in this country. Scotland is underweight relative to population and dramatically underweight relative to size. Given everything that the hon. Gentleman has said that he and his party stand for, would we not expect the opposite to be true—that Scotland would be pulling its weight more, rather than less?”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Immigration, as we are all well aware, was at well over 1 million people a year in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and net migration was at, or is expected to be, at least 850,000 people for each of those years. If we accept that the immigration policy of the past few years was a mistake, we should make every effort to reverse the long-term consequences. That is why the Conservative party is advocating that the qualifying period for ILR should be extended to 10 years, rather than the five years in the new clause. Finally, I return to my earlier point about Scotland, the Scottish National party and the proof of its compassion as compared with its words. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire shook his head when I was speaking about the number of asylum seekers and where they are located. The latest data released on that is for December 2024.”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National party are proposing that we ignore that fact. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Northampton- shire just said, how can we possibly say that lawbreaking should not be considered when assessing whether someone is of good character? It seems to me outrageous, unfair and completely against what we understand to be the wishes of the public to turn a blind eye to the fact that someone has broken the law when it comes to determining their character and thus whether they should become a fellow citizen of this great country. Separately, the Conservatives feel that the timeframe the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire suggests in new clause 5 is far too short. In line with our party’s wider policy, we feel that five years is not enough time to qualify a person for indefinite leave to remain.”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To quote my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), British citizenship is—or at least should be— “a privilege to be earned not an automatic right.” Citizenship should be available only to those who have made both a commitment and a contribution to the United Kingdom. For example, it should be a fundamental principle of our system that people who come to this country do not cost the public purse more than they contribute to it. It should also be a fundamental principle of our system that those who seek to harm this country, to break its laws and to undermine what we hold to be fair and right should never be able to become British citizens. To state something so obvious that it sounds almost silly, those who have come to this country illegally have broken the law.”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the light of the comments that Government Members have made on other provisions in the Bill, these new clauses seem to us completely unnecessary. Exactly as my hon. Friend just said, they do not seem to us appropriate for primary legislation and seem more likely to constrain rather than empower the Home Secretary and Ministers in their difficult job of securing the border.”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Allowing asylum seekers to work before their claims are approved would make it easier for people to come here illegally and make money, and so it would increase the economic incentive for people to come, which we have heard is a pull—perhaps the primary pull—for people making those life-threatening journeys across the channel in the hands of organised criminal gangs. We consider it to be deeply wrong and counter to the aim of everything we are trying to achieve in securing the border against illegal migration. It is unfair and immoral.”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If you have a buoyant economy relative to your neighbour, at least in the labour market, that is an incentive.” –– [ Official Report, Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 27 February 2025; c. 58, Q89.] He went on to say that there are some things that we could do that might help, such as better enforcement of our labour laws, making it more difficult for people to work illegally. What the hon. Member for Woking and the Liberal Democrat party are proposing is exactly the opposite of what Professor Bell was saying that we should do.”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In evidence for the Bill, Professor Brian Bell, who chairs the Migration Advisory Committee, spoke about what he sees as the incentives for people to come over here from France, which is of course a safe country. He spoke of the strong economic incentives to come to the UK and the challenge that poses for any Government because it would not necessarily benefit us to remove those incentives. He said: “the unemployment rate is 7.8% in France and 4.4% in the UK. The gap is slightly larger for young people than for the population as a whole. I am sure the Government would not want to change that incentive, although the French probably would.”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My figures are from the Government release of the data for December 2024. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has those figures or can break them down, but they state very clearly: 1,421 asylum seekers in hotels in Scotland; 4,262 asylum seekers in dispersed accommodation in Scotland; and then 36,658 and 61,445 in the rest of the country.”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The next, related issue with the visa is the degree to which it is abused. The MAC describes its misuse as “a significant problem and greater than in other immigration routes”. That raises massive concerns about the safety of the patients and vulnerable people whom the system is charged with caring for. The rules around the health and care visa need to be further tightened, not loosened through an exemption from the immigration skills charge, and they need to be enforced. That is for the good of healthcare workers and, as should be the Committee’s primary concern, for the good of their patients and the country. Exempting NHS workers from the immigration skills charge, or indeed doing anything that makes it relatively cheaper still to hire migrant workers, will make the fundamental problem in the health sector’s labour market even worse.”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗