Former Home Secretary James Cleverly criticises the Government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill as a missed opportunity that fails to deliver bold, game-changing solutions. While the new Border Security Command appears strong in name, it lacks the necessary powers to be effective. Additionally, the Bill offers no viable solution for failed asylum seekers from countries deemed too unsafe to return them to.
Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
I cannot help but think that the Home Secretary thought that border control, reducing illegal migration and stopping the boats was going to be considerably easier than it has turned out to be. She spoke with great authority and confidence ahead of the election, and yet, as the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), has highlighted, since taking office the Labour Government have seen almost every key metric go in the wrong direction. I therefore think it is right for us to look at what is actually in the Bill—not just the tone and the rhetoric, but the detail.
What the Home Secretary says in general terms is quite welcome, but let us look at the example of the new Border Security Command. At the Dispatch Box and in the media studios, she has spoken about this new, powerful organisation that will bring a step change in the co-ordination of our national response to illegal migration, so when the Bill was published, I looked with great interest at the specific provisions for this new, powerful organisation headed by a senior former police officer and a senior former Royal Artillery officer—a wise choice of regiment—and I found myself saying, “Is that it?” Looking at the detail, we see, as my right hon. Friend set out, that this powerful new organisation will be able to write a plan, to present an annual set of accounts and then to ask nicely, but not compel, any other organisation to do its bidding. The headlines might sound great, but the detail is frankly underpowered.
This Bill removes more power from the Government than it puts on the table—as my right hon. Friend said, the ability to seize and search mobile phones already exists—so when we come to the Division later this evening, we will be making our decisions on what is actually in the Bill, not on the rhetorical cloud that surrounds it. The simple truth is that the Government had an opportunity to make something different and to be courageous, but they missed the target. This Bill is massively underpowered. It does not have the kind of game-changing clauses that the current situation demands. People on both sides of the House may disagree with the detail of the Rwanda scheme, which this Bill repeals, but it was at least an attempt to do something significant in response to a significant situation.
Ultimately, the Home Secretary will have to explain, or perhaps the Minister for Border Security and Asylum will do so in her summing up, where she envisages people being returned to if they fail in their asylum application here in the UK but their home nation is deemed unsafe to return them to—the Afghans, the Syrians and people from other parts of the world. If the Home Secretary is saying that they cannot go to their home country or to a third country, she is by definition saying that they can stay here, and that is a blank cheque for hundreds of millions of people around the world. She can be as critical of me and the Conservatives as she likes, but until she comes up with a credible alternative, her criticism is massively undermined, and this is not a credible alternative.
This is a missed opportunity. This is words but not action. This is headlines but no substance. When this Bill is passed, as it inevitably will be because the Home Secretary has a majority, but then fails to achieve what she has promised, she will find that her party is punished at the ballot box.