Failure to act will be a betrayal of Britain
IT hardly needs explanation. But spending £8million a day on hotels for illegal migrants is a disgrace. Forking out almost £4billion of public money each year on the asylum system is unsustainable.
The housing of more than 100,000 illegal arrivals across the country – in hotels and other accommodation – is placing untold pressure on our communities. It is a crisis and must be treated as such.
As Home Secretary, I proposed a plan more than a year ago to stop the boats once and for all. It included blocking off domestic human rights claims and rule 39 indications – so-called ‘pyjama injunctions’ –from the European Court in Strasbourg.
Throughout the year, I continued to seek to persuade the Prime Minister to adopt that plan. He has finally now brought forward a piece of legislation which is closer to that original proposal. But there is little merit in introducing another law which gets closer to solving the problem, only to see it fail on contact with reality.
As drafted, this Bill will not stop the boats. The Government’s own lawyers have also reportedly advised that the scheme, as currently laid out, is fundamentally flawed. They rightly conclude that it will be bogged down with individual legal challenges from migrants.
I worked on more than 150 immigration cases as a barrister defending the Home office so I know how this works.
It will also inevitably see Strasbourg judges block flights with pyjama injunctions. As it stands, we are hurtling towards a re-run of the scene of the grounded rwanda flight in June 2022.
Nothing in this Bill will stop that happening again. We also read that the Government’s lawyers agree with this conclusion.
once an injunction is imposed, those European judges will then pass judgment on those individual claims, but at a time of their choosing.
This could take months, if not years. That’s why several amendments to the new rwanda Bill have been brought forward by my colleagues including robert
Jenrick to help the Government and ensure we finally deliver on our pledge to stop the boats. These amendments, if adopted, mean ministers will ignore Strasbourg’s pyjama injunctions as a default position.
Migrants will not be allowed to simply stop their removal by going to court.
Instead there will be a few exceptions to removal, such as for those suffering medical conditions which mean they can’t fly.
And we will block off the routes to legal challenge under the European Convention on Human rights, enshrined in our domestic law through Labour’s Human rights Act. To not adopt these amendments, and introduce another failing Bill, will be a betrayal of the British people.
As Home Secretary I oversaw a landmark deal with Albania, a cut in the number of small boat arrivals by around a third and the closure of the first migrant hotels.
But I was clear throughout that this was nowhere near enough and I wouldn’t countenance any complacency.
I wanted us to go much further and wanted us to actually stop the boats. That was the pledge. And that’s what we owe the British people. Nothing less will do.