29 July 2024
Home Office Questions: Topical Questions

Shadow Home Secretary James Cleverly asks the Home Secretary where she plans to repatriate failed asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Syria and Iran.

Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)

The scrutiny of Government can work properly only when Ministers are open, honest and transparent. It is therefore disappointing that the Home Secretary has still failed to respond to my letter of 10 July—[Interruption.] Well, if Ministers on the Treasury Bench do not believe that responding to letters from the Opposition Front Bench matters, that is probably something that they might like to take up with you, Mr Speaker.

On the right hon. Lady’s first outing at the Dispatch Box, her statement was late and, in that statement, she used unpublished figures—almost a week later, she has still not provided any published evidence for the figures she used. My question today is simple. I have raised it with her previously but she has still not given me an answer. Where is she going to send failed asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Syria and Iran?

Mr Speaker 

Order. We are on topical questions, which are meant to be short and quick. Members on both sides of the House will be unable to get in, so please, look to those on the Front Bench and others who have held us up.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)

For the former Home Secretary to talk about scrutiny and transparency, given that he failed to tell the House that he was spending £700 million over two and a half years on sending four volunteers to Rwanda, is just shocking. The problem with his policies is that he was not sending failed asylum seekers or asylum seekers anywhere. In fact, his Government sent more Home Secretaries to Rwanda than they did asylum seekers.

Hansard