As Home Secretary, Priti Patel launched our New Plan for Immigration, to deal with the problems that have been allowed to build up over decades. I supported the government in passing the new Nationality and Borders Act and the Illegal Migration Bill in Parliament. The Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats continue to try to block this new legislation, including our Cumbrian Labour members of the House of Lords.
In her speech to Conservative party Conference last year, the Home Secretary Suella Braverman set out some of the challenges we face in addressing illegal migration, and her plan to fix it -
- Working closely with the French to get more out of our partnership. Both on the French coastline and further upstream against the organised criminal gangs.
- Finding a way to make the Rwanda scheme work.
- Doing more to get asylum-seekers out of hotels – currently costing the British taxpayer £5 million per day.
- We cannot allow a foreign court to undermine the sovereignty of our borders, as the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg did a few months ago.
We cannot allow a foreign court to undermine the sovereignty of our borders.
A few months ago, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg did just that,
By a closed process, with an unnamed judge and without any representation by the UK, a European court overrode our Supreme Court.
Rt Hon Suella Braverman MP
She also set out some of the abuses of Modern Slavery legislation. How our modern slavery laws are being abused by people gaming the system, and how we’ve seen a 450% increase in modern slavery claims since 2014.
Today, the largest group of small boats migrants are from Albania – a safe country. Many of them claim to be trafficked as modern slaves. That’s despite them having paid thousands of pounds to come here, or having willingly taken a dangerous journey across the Channel.
Rt Hon Suella Braverman MP
Everyone agrees that we must fight the evil of modern slavery, and the UK is a global leader in protecting genuine victims.
The UK has a proud history of being open to the world. Global Britain will continue in that tradition. Our society is enriched by legal immigration. We are a better country for it.
We recognise the contribution of those who have come to the UK lawfully and helped build our public services, businesses, culture and communities and we always will. We also take pride in fulfilling our moral responsibility to support refugees fleeing peril around the world.
Since 2015, we have resettled almost 25,000 men, women and children seeking refuge from cruel circumstances across the world - more than any other European country.
This year we have extended support to British National (Overseas) status holders and their family members threatened by draconian security laws in Hong Kong, creating a new pathway to citizenship for over 5 million people.
And we continue to play our part as the third highest contributor of overseas development aid in the world.
Behind each statistic lies the story of a person or a family who can look forward to a better future because of the generosity of the British people. We celebrate that. But these humanitarian measures do not stand alone, they are part of our overall approach to asylum and immigration.
And to sustain them, that system – all of it – must be a fair one.
This Government promised to regain sovereignty and we have made immigration and asylum policy a priority. We have taken back control of our legal immigration system by ending free movement and introduced a new points-based immigration system.
The UK now decides who comes to our country based on the skills people have to offer, not where their passport is from. That is how we are addressing the need for clear controls on legal immigration.
But to properly control our borders we must address the challenge of illegal immigration too. This Government will address that challenge for the first time in over two decades through comprehensive reform of our asylum system.
The persistent failure to enforce our immigration laws, with a system that is open to gaming by economic migrants and exploitation by criminals, is eroding public trust, and disadvantaging vulnerable people who need our help.
Rt Hon Priti Patel MP
Illegal immigration is facilitated by serious organised criminals exploiting people and profiting from human misery. It is counter to our national interest because the same criminal gangs and networks are also responsible for other illicit activity ranging from drug and firearms trafficking, to serious violent crimes.
And if left unchecked, illegal immigration puts unsustainable pressures on public services.
It is also counter to our moral interest, as it means people are put in the hands of ruthless criminals who endanger life by facilitating illegal entry via unsafe means like small boats, refrigerated lorries or sealed shipping containers. Families and young children have lost their lives at sea, in lorries and in shipping containers, having put their trust in the hands of criminals.
The way to stop these deaths is to stop the trade in people that causes them.
This is not a challenge unique to the UK, but now we have left the European Union, Global Britain has a responsibility to act and address the problems that have been neglected for too long. At the heart of our New Plan for Immigration is a simple principle: fairness. Access to the UK’s asylum system should be based on need, not on the ability to pay people smugglers.
If you illegally enter the UK via a safe country in which you could have claimed asylum, you are not seeking refuge from imminent peril - as is the intended purpose of the asylum system - but are picking the UK as a preferred destination over others.
We have a generous asylum system that offers protection to the most vulnerable via defined legal routes. But this system is collapsing under the pressures of what are in effect parallel illegal routes to asylum, facilitated by criminals smuggling people into the UK.
The existence of these parallel routes is deeply unfair as it advantages those with the means to pay traffickers over vulnerable people who cannot.
And because the capacity of our asylum system is not unlimited, the presence of economic migrants - which these illegal routes introduce into the asylum system - inhibits our ability to properly support others in genuine need of protection.
This is particularly true in our court system where we are seeing repeated unmeritorious appeals and claims, often made at the very last minute, which can delay the removal of those – including Foreign National Offenders – with no right to reside in the UK. This can waste significant judicial resources, resulting in delays to the assessment of genuine claims which is to the detriment of vulnerable people.
The British people are fair and generous when it comes to helping those in need. But persistent failure to properly enforce our laws and immigration rules, and the reality of a system that is open to gaming and criminal exploitation, risks eroding public support for the asylum system and those that genuinely need access to it.
We are therefore compelled to act and have three major objectives with these reforms:
Firstly, to increase the fairness and efficacy of our system so that we can better protect and support those in genuine need of asylum.
Secondly, to deter illegal entry into the UK, thereby breaking the business model of people smuggling networks and protecting the lives of those they endanger.
Thirdly, to remove more easily from the UK those with no right to be here.
To deliver against these objectives our New Plan for Immigration will make big changes, building a new system that is fair but firm.
We will continue to encourage asylum via safe and legal routes, strengthening our support by offering an enhanced integration package to those arriving in this manner and immediate indefinite leave to remain in the UK for resettled refugees.
At the same time, this plan will mark a step-change in Government’s posture as we toughen our stance against illegal entry and the criminals that endanger life by enabling it. We will take steps to discourage asylum claims via illegal routes, as other countries such as Denmark have recently succeeded in doing.
We will increase the maximum sentence for illegally entering the UK and introduce life sentences for those facilitating illegal entry.
The use of hotels to accommodate arrivals will end and we will bring forward plans to expand the Government’s asylum estate to accommodate and process asylum seekers including for return to a safe country.
For the first time, whether you enter the UK legally or illegally will have an impact on how your asylum claim progresses, and on your status in the UK if that claim is successful. Those who prevail with claims having entered illegally will receive a new temporary protection status rather than an automatic right to settle, will be regularly reassessed for removal from the UK, will have limited family reunion rights and will have no recourse to public funds except in cases of destitution.
To tackle the practice of making multiple and sequential (often last minute and unmeritorious) claims and appeals which frequently frustrate removal from the UK, we will introduce a ‘one-stop’ process to require all rights-based claims to be brought and considered together in a single assessment upfront.
We will also introduce a robust approach to age assessment to ensure we safeguard against adults claiming to be children.
Through these and many other measures in this package, we are determined to bring lasting change to the system so that it is fair to everyone.
An asylum system that helps the most vulnerable and is not openly gamed by economic migrants or exploited by people smugglers.
One that upholds our reputation as a country where criminality is not rewarded, but which is a haven for those in need.
Not all of this will happen quickly. We will need to stick to the course and see this New Plan for Immigration through.
But this Government promised to take a common-sense approach to controlling immigration – both legal and illegal.
