As I did not have time to deliver my speech in full, you can see the full speech I would have delivered below:
This country, including the people in my constituency of Hyndburn and Haslingden, have amazing capacity for kindness. In the last year, it has been truly heart-warming to see how people have responded to the Homes for Ukraine scheme, providing safe and secure refuge against a backdrop of war in Ukraine.
I say this because I think people in this country are genuinely supportive of immigration and refugees where they perceive the legislative system to be fair.
And it is that feeling of fairness that has been so strained in recent times, with number of channel crossings totalling forty-five thousand people in 2022, up 60% from the year before.
Stopping channel crossings is not just vital for the UK, but it is the humanitarian policy option too. Every moment we flounder and stagger around this debate, people smugglers are praying on people in Calais and Dunkirk, convincing them to make an unsafe journey in often perilous conditions. It is a lamentable profiteering from human trade, and it must be stopped.
To do that, we need to address the pull factor. The feeling that if you just get to the UK, then that is that and someone is settled for life. While I welcome the Prime Minister’s new agreement with France, we cannot alone rely on this policy to reduce numbers.
The opposition have repeatedly set out that new agreements with France are their priority - splashing it all over social media - but the Prime Minister has already achieved this and delivered the largest ever small boats deal with France. It is important to note, that since 2014, we have had rafts of UK-French policy, from ministerial declarations, the Sandhurst Treaty, signed agreements, a declaration of intent – and all while providing hundreds of millions of pounds to the French.
That is not to say that agreements with the French are not worth pursuing, indeed they are, but we need to address all aspects of the policy challenges on this issue, and we must not pretend there is one silver bullet. That is why I support this bill, as it provides the basis for a much swifter system of removals for those who did not come here directly from a country where they were classed as under threat.
In my inbox, and when I am out and about on the doorstep in Hyndburn and Haslingden, this issue is one of the most frequently raised. I often think, when I see SW1-centric commentators and politicians debate this subject, that the voice of people in northern communities like mine is completely ignored. This should come as no surprise, the modern Labour Party is far more interested in telling voters in traditional working-class areas like Hyndburn and Haslingden what they should think, rather than listening to what they actually think. That is why those on the benches opposite are the party of open borders.
The fact of the matter is that in my part of the world, Hyndburn is supporting the second highest number of people receiving asylum support in Lancashire. The North West as a region has more people in receipt of asylum support than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined. The Home Offices acknowledges that these numbers fluctuate quite regularly, and that leads me on to my second point.
The current system prioritises moving asylum seekers out of the South East. They are often then housed in dispersal accommodation, or offered support, in traditionally less well-off, working-class areas. It may shock the north London dwelling Labour Party, but this is not a land of racists and rampant xenophobia, people in Hyndburn and Haslingden just want a fair deal. They cannot understand, for example, why Hyndburn – a traditionally working-class area, recovering from decades of Labour neglect on our council and in this place - is supporting over double the amount of asylum seekers than the Leader of the Opposition’s affluent north London seat.
The problem created by this inequitable system, is that transient communities become common place, which tears at social fabric, as working-class areas have more demands placed on them than affluent areas.
That is why it is so important that we tackle this issue, because alongside the humanitarian need to starve people smugglers of their deplorable trade, we need to ensure our immigration policy is based on fairness, both for asylum seekers and for the communities in which they are placed. A failure to recognise this, and the concerns of people in Hyndburn and Haslingden, will only lead to more resentment of politicians and Westminster, a plague on all our houses.
I commend the Home Secretary and the Government for bringing this bill forward.
It is vital that we speed up the system, speed up removals for those who arrive here illegally with spurious claims, and in doing so create a system where communities like mine are placed under less pressure to bare the brunt of a broken asylum system.
