I beg to move, That this House has considered e-petition 737105 relating to offshore detention and deportation of illegal immigrants. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Twigg, and to open this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. I will speak today in my role as a member of the Committee; in doing so, I am obliged to give not only my own views on the issue, but those of the petitioners and the campaigners who have sought this debate. I will set out what the petition seeks, its merits and some points worth considering further. Of course, I have my own views, which I will share throughout the debate. I congratulate the petitioner on setting up the petition. Unusually, he is one of our colleagues: the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe). The petition calls on the Government to “establish offshore detention facilities for individuals who enter the UK illegally, to process them and arrange their deportation.” It closed in March with over 720,000 signatures from every part of the United Kingdom, including from a great many of my constituents in Galashiels, Hawick, Kelso, Jedburgh and across the Scottish Borders. The number of signatures that the petition attracted reflects the strength of feeling on immigration. Let me set out the scale of the problem that has prompted the petition. Each year, tens of thousands of people are entering the United Kingdom illegally, mainly travelling by small boat across the English channel. There is a process for those fleeing war and persecution to seek asylum in this country. The people coming here illegally are not following that process. They are not doing the right thing. They are breaking the law. When they get to this country, it becomes incredibly difficult for them to be removed. Nearly everyone who arrives here goes on to claim asylum, even if their claim is dubious. Even in circumstances in which it is clear that they should not be here, perhaps because of a criminal record, it is challenging to remove those who hide behind the process. Those abusing the process benefit from the fact that our asylum system is broken. Resolution of asylum claims takes far too long—often years for the initial case, and then potentially far longer on appeal. As of March this year, over 10,000 people were waiting more than a year, and nearly 100,000 people were in asylum accommodation, including more than 20,000 in hotels. As these claims go on, people are housed by the state. The policy of housing asylum seekers in hotels is one of the signatories’ main objections to UK asylum policy. They are correct in their assessment of the moral flaws of the policy. A system has been created that seems to encourage and reward those who make an asylum claim even if they have no real chance of success or fair basis for doing so. This is not about those who fairly claim asylum, but about those who abuse the system. The practice of using hotels for these people has led to justified public anger. At a time when normal British citizens are struggling to make ends meet and working hard only to pay huge sums in taxes to fund services that are declining, it is grossly unfair that people illegally entering this country are being put up in hotels at the public’s expense. The Government have started to use dedicated sites larger than hotels, on the basis that concentrating provision is more manageable than dispersing tens of thousands of people across hundreds of hotels the length and breadth of the country. In further information that the petitioner submitted ahead of today’s debate, he argues that if consolidation into larger mainline sites is already accepted as an improvement on hotels, the logical next step is to consolidate provision entirely. Offshoring at a single location with one integrated set of services, including accommodation, healthcare, legal support, translation and case management, would replace the costly current patchwork of provision. It would provide clearer entry and exit controls. Crucially, it is argued that it would have a genuine deterrent effect that dispersed mainland accommodation cannot deliver.

Does my hon. Friend agree that this issue is ultimately about fairness for our constituents, who are paying their taxes and are seeing someone who has come here illegally benefiting from services more than they may be able to, as residents who pay tax? Does he agree that we must absolutely consider offshore detention and consider offshore processing? We must say, “If you come here illegally, you will be deported.”

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is about a sense of fairness. The system is not working in the best interests of our constituents, and I am sure that his 1,138 constituents who signed the petition feel that unfairness. With the incentive of guaranteed mainland accommodation removed, the numbers requiring processing at any one time would fall to the low thousands, rather than the tens of thousands currently housed. The petitioner has based his argument on evidence such as that gathered by the Public Accounts Committee, which reported last month that the asylum system in the UK is “under severe pressure, with high costs and persistent backlogs.” The same inquiry found that repeated attempts at reform had failed to fix long-standing problems, and that short-term fixes had tended to push pressure from one part of the system to another rather than resolve it. More strikingly, the Committee recorded that the Home Office could only say that it knew where “the vast majority” of failed asylum seekers were. The Committee called that “shocking and unacceptable”. The vast majority of British people agree. The Committee’s conclusion was that the current accommodation model is “poor value for money”. The Government response to the petition says that offshore detention would be “costly and impractical”. On that point, the Government seem to be grasping at straws and to be woefully underprepared. Two words that undoubtedly apply to the current system are “costly” and “impractical”. Offshore detention may well be costly and impractical, but the Government have not proven that point. What is worse, they have not come close to proving that it would be more costly or impractical than the current system, which was found by a cross-party Committee of this place not to provide value for money. The signatories to the petition would be well within their rights to ask the Government to publish all the relevant figures for the current system, break that system down on a cost basis and let people see how broken it is at every stage. Have the Government assessed the cost to every individual community of providing services to those claiming asylum? The answer is no. They certainly have not come close to doing so—nor do they want to, because the cost to local services is not a simple number. It includes the ongoing cost for already strained local services and the breakdown in community cohesion. Some of it cannot be captured on a simple ledger, but is nevertheless very expensive for our country. Many in the SNP, Labour and the Greens wish to portray an effective immigration system and a strong deterrent as somehow morally wrong. They regard any policy designed to protect our borders as outrageous. Yet internationally, offshore detention and similar measures have been effective and are increasingly being considered by Governments of all political persuasions. Australia’s move to offshore processing coincided with a sharp fall in boat arrivals from 2001, and the Australian Government maintain that offshore processing is very effective. Other countries, including Italy and Denmark, have brought in similar measures to those that the petitioner seeks. Many others, including Germany, Austria, Denmark and Greece, have considered return hub facilities outside the European Union. No matter what some politicians think, those policies are not far right. It is right that they be properly considered. This Government have not done so appropriately. They have not seriously considered an approach that other countries have implemented successfully and that others are now looking at. They dismiss the views of the signatories to the petition and the huge number of people across the country who support it. Their analysis is short on detail and long on assumptions about costs that do not seem credible. The truth of the matter is that our immigration system is broken beyond belief, and the British people know all about it. I represent a rural constituency in Scotland, but this issue fills my postbag and comes up time and again on doorsteps and in my advice surgeries. It comes up because my constituents, far from the English channel, can see that they are paying and that our country is suffering for this broken system. They see that we struggle to deport even serial criminals. That is why more than 700,000 people have signed the petition. They deserve to be heard, and they deserve to hear from this Government that all the substantive and reasonable options must be put on the table to fix this broken immigration system. This is not the time to dismiss, for political or ideological reasons, proposals that are grounded in evidence and that seek to provide a real solution to one of our country’s biggest ongoing issues. The Government should take the petition seriously. They should consider a new approach to immigration. They must consider establishing offshore detention facilities for people who enter the United Kingdom illegally.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate, and I am grateful to the 1,744 people in Hartlepool who signed the petition. That is a significant number of my constituents, and their concerns deserve to be heard and taken seriously. Let me begin by saying something very clearly. The people of Hartlepool are entitled to be angry about immigration. They are entitled to expect secure borders. They are entitled to expect that those with no right to be in this country are removed. They are entitled to expect fairness in the asylum system and fairness for the communities that feel they have carried more than their fair share, and I share in those expectations. I have supported the Home Secretary’s measures to reduce illegal immigration, strengthen border security and increase returns, and I will continue to support this Home Secretary, including on the measures that will be laid before the House later today, which I hope this House will pass in full. The truth is that progress is being made. Net migration has fallen dramatically from the peak under the previous Government’s Boris wave: it is down 82%, delivering the reduction that was promised for years but never achieved. Indeed, the figures are now entering the tens of thousands that Conservative Administrations promised for so long. Small boat crossings are down 41% this year, while deportations of those arriving by small boat are up 16%. In Hartlepool, the number of asylum seekers living in dispersed accommodation has fallen by 14% since the general election. The new immigration and asylum legislation will further strengthen the powers available to remove those with no right to be here and deter those attempting to enter illegally. That is the serious work of Government. It requires law enforcement, international co-operation, proper returns agreements, faster decisions and a system that can distinguish between genuine asylum claimants and those who have no right to remain. I fully understand why people sign a petition like this. They see boat crossings in the channel. They see asylum accommodation in their communities. They see the pressure on housing, schools, public services and community cohesion. They feel that for far too long the broken system—broken by the Conservative party—has not worked, and they want action. They are right to expect it, but we also have a responsibility in this place to be honest. Offshore detention is something that I support in principle, but it is not a magic answer. It is expensive, it is legally complex and it does not remove the need for returns agreements, effective administration and tackling the criminal gangs who profit from human misery—but I reiterate that if we can make it work, in principle I support it. More importantly, the language we use matters. It affects how people view their neighbours, it affects how communities feel and it affects people’s lives. That brings me to a point that I want to make very clearly. A constituent, Jasvir Singh, came to see me a couple of weeks ago after experiencing repeated racial abuse in the community where he has lived and served for almost 30 years. He owns a local business and has paid his taxes; he has contributed to Hartlepool and built a life there. He has done exactly what we say we value, yet he came to see me because the rhetoric around immigration has made his life harder. Jasvir is not an illegal immigrant, and he is not a criminal; he has every right to be here and he is part of our community, yet a small minority accuse him of being an illegal immigrant, of having arrived on a small boat and of having no right to be here, and they do so for one reason alone: the colour of his skin. When politicians blur the line between voicing legitimate concern about illegal immigration and using language that encourages suspicion of people because of their background or their skin colour, it is people like Jasvir who pay the price. That is why the rhetoric we use matters. There is a line between wanting secure borders and stirring up hostility; there is a line between removing those with no right to remain and portraying whole communities as a threat; there is a line between legitimate concern and racist dog-whistle politics, and it is my view that that line has been crossed repeatedly by the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe). When that happens, the consequences are not confined to Westminster Hall. They are felt by people like Jasvir. They are felt by families in Hartlepool. They are felt by children who hear abuse on their way to school. Words spoken in this place do not stay here. They travel into communities and workplaces and on to social media. That does not mean that we should avoid the issue—quite the opposite. We must continue to reduce illegal immigration, we must continue to strengthen our borders, we must remove those with no right to remain and we must dismantle criminal gangs and restore public confidence, but we must do so in a way that is serious, lawful and above all decent. Hartlepool understands the pressure that the issue creates. One of my first actions on being elected as MP for Hartlepool was to meet Mears, the company responsible for asylum accommodation locally, because Hartlepool carries more than its fair share compared with neighbouring areas. I made clear that the system had to be fair, that responsibility could not simply fall on communities already facing significant challenges, and that local people deserved answers. Following those conversations, new asylum accommodation in Hartlepool was halted and numbers fell. I will continue to raise this issue with Ministers because fairness matters. Hartlepool is a proud and welcoming town that believes in fairness. Fairness means secure borders and removing those who have no right to be here, but it also means standing up for the people who belong here and ensuring they are not made to feel like strangers because of the colour of their skin or the sound of their name. That is the balance we need: strong borders, faster removals, proper enforcement, serious government and politics that does not make innocent people pay the price for failures in the immigration system. The people who signed this petition deserve answers, and my answer is this: I will continue to support firm action to reduce illegal immigration, I will support strengthening our borders and I will support practical measures that work, but I will not support rhetoric that puts my constituents at risk, I will not support language that turns legitimate concern into racial hostility, and I will not stay silent when people who have lived in, worked in and contributed to Hartlepool for decades are made to feel that they no longer belong. We can have secure borders without losing that most fundamental of British values: common decency. We can have firm immigration controls without attacking decent people based on their skin colour, and we can tell the truth about illegal immigration without turning on our neighbours. We will not import Trumpian politics into our country. That is not the British way.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. For three decades, successive Governments have promised to get tough on illegal immigration, yet according to Home Office figures, in the last seven years alone around half a million people have claimed asylum in the UK; of those, 200,000 came in on small boats and most of the others were visa overstayers. In that time, around 60% of all asylum claimants have been granted refugee status, including those granted after appeal, and it is estimated that 66% of adults with refugee status are now claiming universal credit. That means that since 2019 up to 300,000 people who illegally entered or remained in the United Kingdom have been granted refugee status, and most could now be claiming benefits, including housing benefit. By 2030, that number could be over 400,000—a city the size of Coventry, composed almost entirely of people who should have never been allowed to stay in the United Kingdom. What is frightening about these numbers, going back decades, is that we have no real idea of just how many illegal immigrants and visa overstayers are in this country, living under the radar in our communities. Poor record keeping by the Home Office means that the population of people with no right to remain in the United Kingdom is highly likely to be over 1 million. Thousands go missing every year, and the Government still fail to monitor properly whether migrants leave the UK after their visas expire. Labour says it is tackling the problem, but it is simply increasing the speed at which illegal immigrants are granted asylum. The Government have increased legal aid for appeals by 30%, to over £60 million a year, and a record 80,000 appeals are under way. Since the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has been Prime Minister, there have been more than 72,000 small boat arrivals, with no serious attempt made to stop them. Why is all this such a problem? It is a problem because their presence corrodes the rule of law, costs billions in accommodation and welfare, distorts low-wage labour markets, and signals to the world that Britain’s borders are open. Illegal immigrants from some countries have a medieval attitude to women and girls. Sexual assault and rape by migrants from certain countries is far higher than among our indigenous population, and it is 20 times higher for those from Afghanistan. There are documented examples of illegal immigrants loitering outside schools, filming children, following girls and trying to engage with them for sex. Let me give hon. Members some specific, harrowing examples. Sheraz Malik, an illegal immigrant of Pakistani origin who had been in the UK less than 12 months, raped a vulnerable young girl in a park in Sutton-in-Ashfield. Deng Majek, an illegal immigrant of Sudanese origin, arrived in the UK in July 2024; by October 2024, he had stalked and murdered 27-year-old Rhiannon Whyte. Abdulla Ahmadi, Ibrahim Alshafe and Karin Al-Danasurt, illegal migrants of Iranian and Egyptian origin, arrived in the UK in June 2025; by October 2025, they had targeted a young vulnerable woman on a night out in Brighton, beaten her, choked her and gang-raped her. I could go on—there are pages of examples. The safety of women and girls in this country is at risk because of our immigration policy. Furthermore, we know that criminals are entering our country on small boats, bringing with them contacts into ruthless organised crime gangs that operate on our high streets, laundering money, dealing drugs, and selling illegal vapes and cigarettes to children, yet no DNA is taken on arrival. Why not? What about our homeless veterans, or British citizens on housing lists who find themselves being pushed aside and left behind in favour of illegal migrants who are housed instead of them? The total annual cost of the asylum system is over £8 billion and rising. We cannot sustain this; we are not a food bank or a hotel for the world. Illegal immigration is helping to bankrupt this country. Our high streets are being overrun by crime, our women and girls are under attack, and our culture is under threat. Why does anyone think that that is okay? We need to detain and deport every illegal immigrant who lands on our shores, and we need to put the Navy in the channel to stop illegal immigrants from landing on our shores. Those who are here illegally need to be moved offshore, processed and returned to their country of origin. We need to leave the European convention on human rights to put an end to the years of appeals that result in hardly any illegal immigrants ever being deported. We need to stop the invasion of our country by those who have no right to be here, and who come because they know they will get a free house, free food, benefits and medical treatment ahead of our own citizens. And no one who has come here illegally or remained here illegally should ever be granted British citizenship. To summarise, we need to detain, we need to deport and we need a zero-tolerance policy. It is about a Government having the will to do so. Other countries have secured their borders; if we are to survive, we must do the same.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. First, I will acknowledge that although I disagree with the premise of this petition, I recognise the strength of feeling among the hundreds of thousands of people who signed it. However, I cannot support calls for offshore detention or processing centres, and nor will I support calls to immediately deport those who enter this country through irregular routes, because seeking refuge and safety is not illegal, and many safe and legal routes do not actually exist. I strongly believe that Members who support what this petition calls for are not being honest with the wider public about what it would cost, how it is a risk and what the true problems are. Of the people who enter the UK via an irregular route, 95% submit an asylum application. That means that we, as a signatory to the 1951 refugee convention, have a legal duty to assess their claim and place them under the care of the state while that process is ongoing. If their application is rejected, the state’s duty to them persists until the appeals process is exhausted. If that takes too long, it is inefficient, which is on us. Human Rights Watch and a number of other organisations have confirmed what most of us believe to be true, namely that holding asylum seekers in offshore detention is in contravention of our obligations under international human rights and refugee law. Regardless of whether a person’s application is deemed to be legitimate, they cannot be held in an offshore site until their asylum claim and subsequent appeals have been denied. The petition that we are debating today raises the issue of asylum seekers being held in hotels and temporary accommodation. I certainly agree that that is unacceptable; I have seen for myself the diabolical conditions in such accommodation. The Home Office is paying millions each day to house asylum seekers, but that is not the fault of the asylum seekers themselves. It is the fault of the Home Office and the private contractors who seek to make a profit off the backs of vulnerable people. I do not dismiss the views of those who support the petition, but the public debate does not provide accurate information. It regularly conflates the number of legal migrants and so-called illegal migrants. Indeed, migration and asylum are among the most misrepresented issues in public debate. The UK receives far fewer asylum claims per capita than countries such as Germany, France and Cyprus. Also, in most cases asylum seekers are barred from working here, so claims that they are taking jobs or living off benefits do not actually recognise the fact that asylum seekers are desperate for the right to contribute but are trapped in the system. In addition, the language of “swarms” and “invasions” is just inflammatory, racist and dehumanising, and it continues to cause problems throughout the discourse and debate on this subject. While we are discussing how much things cost, which again is a huge concern, we must realise that offshore detention can never be a cheaper alternative than the current system. It is far more costly—as was proved by the last Government, with their failed Rwanda scheme that cost £700 million but under which only four people were voluntarily transferred. Other examples of offshore processing centres operated by Australia, Italy and Denmark show how costly they can be. They are not meeting those countries’ aims, but are causing huge problems and perpetuating those countries’ engagement in really awful rhetoric about migrants—just as we are, while the costs increase again and again. I want us to be able to talk about asylum seekers with some humanity and not to cast off those in our communities who have come here to seek support from us. As I have said again and again, we have a duty to them under the refugee convention and a moral duty to them. The conversation about funding that we keep on having is completely missing the point: it misses the Home Office backlog and the continuing engagement in negative rhetoric of politicians here. When we look at the issue of offshore detention, we have to be realistic with the country about how much it is going to cost and about the fact that it will not solve the issue at hand.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for moving the motion and to the vast number of people—720,000, including 1,093 from my constituency of Tatton—who signed this important petition and prompted this debate calling for offshore detention and deportation of illegal immigrants. According to Home Office data, just under 77,000 illegal immigrants have arrived by small boat since Labour took charge in July 2024. The average number of daily arrivals under Labour has been about 104, some 94% higher than under the previous Conservative Government—an extraordinary increase. On Friday just gone, 10 July, another shameful record was set: the highest number of illegal immigrants on a single dinghy, 128, arrived in the UK. A total of 225 arrived in three dinghies on that day. That has happened under a Government who pledged to reduce illegal migration, promising to “smash the gangs”—but those promises turned out to be smoke and mirrors. I say it was just to secure a general election victory, because reducing immigration is just not in Labour’s DNA. A fleeting search online is enough to reveal images of Cabinet members clutching “Refugees Welcome” signs. Without doubt, one of the biggest mistakes that the Prime Minister made, in a strong field, was to cancel the Rwanda scheme—an offshore processing centre and permanent resettlement programme. We know that deterrence is an important component in tackling organised immigration crime. As Steve Rodhouse, director general of operations at the National Crime Agency, told the Home Affairs Committee in 2019, the “people willing to make the journey” across the channel know “that there is a very low risk that they will be returned.” I am sure that that is more true today than it was even then. The Rwanda agreement would have tackled the issue head on. It would have allowed for the forceful relocation of asylum seekers, people who had already been refused asylum, and those who made unauthorised illegal journeys to the UK. Rwanda would then have granted them asylum or permanent residence. The National Crime Agency described the scheme as a deterrent; in fact, we were starting to see dinghies from France heading to Ireland and other countries. There was a drop in illegal channel crossings in 2023, after the plan was announced: they went from 45,000 in 2022 to 29,000 in 2023—a 35% decrease. Without the Rwanda plan or deportation to another country, we have been left with no way to remove illegal immigrants—those who destroy their documents to hide their country of origin. Like much of this Government’s foreign policy, the weaknesses of this Labour Government have become opportunities for other countries. The United States has signed agreements with 34 countries to allow for third-country deportations, and, according to the Migration Policy Institute, the US Government have plans to contact at least another 50 countries about similar agreements, including—you guessed it—Rwanda. The model has expanded across Europe, too. The EU is now in the process of adopting legislation permitting EU member states to reach agreements with non-EU member states for the establishment of return hubs. Those are logical decisions and policies. But the Government failed to see that; as a result, illegal immigration has soared. As the petition rightly points out, the “current use of hotels and temporary accommodation is unsustainable, costly and dangerous.” We simply cannot have people breaking into our country and being rewarded for their criminality with hotel accommodation, healthcare, travel, translation services, recreational facilities and more, costing British taxpayers billions of pounds a year. We have seen just how dangerous that can be, as horrific case after horrific case has shown: the brutal and frenzied murder of Walsall hotel worker Rhiannon Whyte by a Sudanese illegal immigrant who had just arrived by small boat three months previously; Haybe Nur, a Somali national, walked into a bank and stabbed a father of three dead; Hadush Kebatu arrived by boat and was then convicted of multiple sexual assaults; and Ahmad Mulakhil was found guilty of raping a 12-year-old. That is the reality of not knowing who is coming into our country. These policy failures are not only putting communities in danger; it is downright unfair on society to prioritise illegal immigrants in this way. Look at the plan for Stoke Heath in Shropshire, where the Home Office was all set to move immigrants into brand-new housing. That was a kick in the teeth for local families, who were told that that estate would offer affordable or social housing for them—many had been waiting on the housing list for years. What about veterans? Where is their brand-new housing? Where are we housing them? Thankfully, the Stoke Heath community seems to have stopped the plan in its tracks, having put up fierce opposition to the Government. The Home Secretary now tells us that new-build estates like that will “never be considered again”; we can only hope that that is true. Labour has not “smashed the gangs” as it promised, but it is certainly succeeding in smashing our local communities, which are forced to play host to a sudden influx of illegal immigrants. This Government talk tough, but that is all they do: talk tough without action. The reality is that until the Government develop a spine, reinstate the Rwanda scheme, take the UK out of the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act 1998, we have no chance of deporting those who come here illegally.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. First, I want to thank the 720,772 British men and women who signed our petition demanding the mass deportation of illegal migrants—a policy position that has moved from the so-called mad fringe to the acceptable mainstream in less than two years. The question is no longer whether Britain has a problem. We know the problem; it has been well documented. Now we need solutions. Restore Britain is the first and only political party to publish a comprehensive plan not just to stop future illegal immigration but to remove those who have no legal right to remain in this country. All of them—every man, woman and child—must be deported. A Restore Britain Government will do exactly that. I am not going to stand here and outline the problem; we all know what is wrong. I will tell this Parliament exactly how we can remove millions of illegal migrants. As we have seen time and again, deportation is routinely frustrated by a carefully designed maze of legislation, international treaties and legal challenges. A Restore Britain Government would repeal or amend the domestic legislation that prevents swift deportation; repeal the Human Rights Act; withdraw from the European convention on human rights; and remove the refugee convention from domestic immigration law. We would also introduce what we call the great clarification Act, reaffirming that we in these buildings have the final say on immigration policy and allowing Parliament to overturn court rulings that obstruct the democratic will on immigration—not activist judges, but elected politicians held to account by the British electorate. Legal reform would just be the start, setting the scene for the most ambitious set of deportations ever seen. The real question is this: how can we remove all those with no legal right to be in Britain? The answer is making illegal residence impossible to sustain—as we call it, the “hostile environment”: no legal employment, no legal tenancy, no access to public services and no banking facilities. That single reform would become the backbone of our immigration enforcement, making life so incredibly uncomfortable and unsustainable that many would simply deport themselves. Employers must face real-time right-to-work checks. The gig economy, construction, hospitality and other sectors with persistent illegal working would face regular audits. If Uber Eats, Deliveroo and the rest were found to be employing illegal migrants, they would be fined, prosecuted or even shut down. The farce of young Sudanese illegal migrant men on mopeds delivering spring rolls and pepperoni pizzas in every British suburb would end. The Government must lead by example. Every company bidding for public contracts would have to demonstrate strict compliance with immigration law before receiving any taxpayer money—environmental, social and governance regulations, but for mass deportations. Housing enforcement would change completely. Every landlord would be required to carry out right-to-rent checks at the beginning of every tenancy. Those who knowingly rented properties to illegal migrants would face severe financial penalties, and persistent offenders could face asset seizure and prosecution. Owners of houses in multiple occupation who imposed gangs of feral illegal men on quiet British villages would be prosecuted. Public officials who knowingly placed dangerous and unvetted migrants near schools and nurseries would be sent to prison. Homelessness legislation must also be amended so that illegal migrants are no longer recycled through local authority housing systems but instead enter the immigration enforcement process. We would not house illegal migrant tramps; we would deport them. It is really that simple. Healthcare would no longer operate as a loophole. So-called “safe surgeries” must end. Proof of lawful status must become a requirement for routine NHS access. Illegal migrants in hospitals would be reported to immigration enforcement, as they should be now. We are not evil: emergency care would be provided, but they would be deported as soon as it was medically safe for that to happen. Government Departments would finally begin sharing data across the Home Office, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the NHS, local councils, the Department for Work and Pensions and banks. Instead of operating in silos, the Government would work as one system to identify those with no legal right to remain. The full power of the British state would be directed to implement this one policy: mass deportation. Financial enforcement would become another powerful tool. Banks would verify immigration status before accounts were opened.

I would like to understand the point about detention centres. How many places would be required, and over what period? How does the hon. Gentleman think that this is even feasible, given that the previous Government managed to build only one new prison in 14 years?

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. I am not going to go into detail; it is all in this policy document. I will give her one to take away. Specialist detention facilities would be constructed near airfields to hasten the process. Britain would negotiate far stronger bilateral return agreements while working with allies to create a deportation NATO—a coalition of like-minded countries applying co-ordinated diplomatic and economic pressure on Governments that refused to accept back their own citizens. That would include harmonised visa sanctions, co-ordinated suspension of visa issuance, foreign aid suspension, targeted trade measures and tariffs, remittance and dividend controls and taxation, and a rapid response returns taskforce. Pakistan would be the first country to feel the full force of those measures. Sanctions from a single country are easier to absorb, but a unified bloc of economies and travel markets creates systematic and severe pressure. Co-ordinated restrictions would also close loopholes whereby nationals bypass one state’s measures by moving to another jurisdiction. All that would be delivered alongside the credible and proven threat of action. Do it once, hard enough, and it would not be required again. We must also revoke all asylum grants awarded following illegal entry and retrospectively revoke protection so that those individuals are also removed. If someone arrived in Britain illegally on a small boat, they would be deported, regardless of what their current status may claim. People ask whether this is achievable. Restore Britain says yes, but only if the Government finally demonstrate the robust political will required. What about cost? Britain is already paying billions: billions every year on accommodation, billions on asylum, billions on public services for illegal migrants, billions supporting people who have no legal entitlement to remain here. In the short term, ending those long-term costs would offset the expenditure required to carry out removals, with estimated annual savings of more than £12 billion once the programme was complete. Put simply, mass deportation pays for itself. This policy is popular, cost-effective and possible. I have just one question for my fellow MPs: what are we all waiting for? This is a costed, comprehensive and legally sound plan that would, as those 720,772 British patriots demand, remove the illegal migrant population. We have outlined exactly what needs to happen, in excruciating detail. It can be done. It must be done. It will be done. I invite Members to help themselves to a “Mass Deportations” policy document on their way out. It makes glorious reading.

It is a pleasure and an honour to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank the 1,673 South Basildon and East Thurrock constituents who took the time to sign the petition. When discussing illegal migration, we must begin with a simple truth: a nation that cannot control its borders cannot fully control its future. Offshore detention and processing centres are not a perfect solution, but they can be an effective one. Their primary benefit is that they function as a deterrent. If individuals know that arriving illegally will not guarantee entry into the country, the incentive to make dangerous journeys is significantly reduced. That matters not only for border security, but for saving lives. Every year, criminal gangs profit from putting vulnerable people into overcrowded boats and sending them across some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. We should be focusing on that. I thank the hon. Members who have leaned into the importance of being considerate to all people. On top of the need for gentle language, I might advise them that we should really be protecting those people and keeping them safe by enforcing laws properly so that they do not risk their lives at sea. Offshore processing could also restore confidence in the immigration system. Most people are compassionate and willing to support those with genuine claims for asylum. However, public confidence is undermined when the distinction between legal and illegal routes becomes blurred. A system that is firm, fair and consistently enforced is ultimately in the interests of both citizens and legitimate refugees. Critics raise a number of concerns, which deserve to be taken seriously. The first is cost. Offshore facilities can be expensive. However, the answer is not to abandon the policy, but to ensure that it is designed efficiently, with clear agreements, streamlined processing and a strong focus on rapid decisions rather than prolonged detention. The second concern is humanitarian welfare. Nobody should be subjected to poor conditions or indefinite detention, and offshore centres should be subject to independent inspection, proper healthcare provision, legal oversight, and strict maximum time limits on processing. The objective should be swift assessment and resolution, not warehousing people for years, as they effectively are when they are in this country and unable to work. Of course, we cannot allow them to work, because that creates a further incentive and pull for more illegal migration. The choice facing policymakers is not between offshore processing and an ideal world, but between policies that deter illegal migration and those that leave criminal gangs and smuggling networks free to operate. If implemented properly, offshore detention and processing could strengthen border security, reduce dangerous crossings, restore public confidence and save lives while maintaining high standards of humanity and the rule of law. This is a balanced approach: firm on illegal migration, fair to genuine refugees and responsible to the taxpayers who expect their Government to control their nation’s borders.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. The Liberal Democrats believe in a fair and controlled approach to immigration and asylum and a system that treats people with fairness and compassion. My constituency of Woking has a proud and long history of supporting those fleeing persecution. It was home to the Ockenden Venture, a trailblazing charity founded in the 1950s that helped to resettle refugees from post-war Europe, Vietnam and beyond. Humfrey Malins, the former Conservative MP for Woking, even set up a national immigration service. More recently, Woking has seen how life-changing a functioning immigration system can be. Since 2015, my town has welcomed hundreds of refugees from Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine. Those people arrived fleeing conflict and persecution. They have been welcomed by my town and added to our economy and cultural vitality. I am pleased that we have helped them to rebuild their lives in Surrey. In 2026, it is right that we uphold Britain’s humanitarian traditions while having control of our borders. That starts by bringing an end to asylum hotels, stopping unsafe channel crossings and ensuring that criminal gangs cannot profit and that they face justice. We need safe and legal routes for asylum seekers and refugees. Ukrainians did not cross the channel in dangerous small boats, because this Government provided a safe and legal route for them. We know that safe and legal routes work. We need more of them, not fewer, yet safe and legal routes are not in the Immigration and Asylum Bill that will be debated in the House later today. Arrivals via safe and legal routes are at their lowest level since 2023 as a result. Before the Brexit referendum, there were almost no recorded small boat crossings, but since we left the European Union, more than 190,000 people have come here in small boats. The fact that we are not in the EU has been a pull factor causing that crisis. People who have arrived on small boats have literally said the word “Dublin”. They are playing the system against us. Asylum seekers are coming to the UK, having failed the first time in Europe. By not being in the EU or working with neighbouring countries, we are creating more work at great expense to the British taxpayer. Following Brexit, the Conservatives implemented disastrous immigration policies that have led to a huge rise in net migration. Past Governments have introduced five immigration Acts since 2020. We need a watertight arrangement with the EU that would mean everyone arriving by small boat is at risk of being returned. That is how we ensure that the gangs do not have a viable business model, and that there is a proper deterrent to stop people making money in the first place. A key requirement for tackling this issue is ensuring that the Home Office improves. At the moment, it makes slow and bad decisions. We need to process claims quickly. We need to open Nightingale-style processing centres and double the number of asylum caseworkers to clear the backlog. The Refugee Council estimates that, because of bad decisions made by the Home Office, we are spending at least £974 million—maybe up to £1.2 billion—supporting people currently in the appeals backlog who will have their initial refusal overturned. Is the Minister looking into that in order to improve decision making? I believe that the people who signed the petition would welcome a swift and humane return for anyone with no right to be here, but would want us to welcome genuine refugees. The Liberal Democrats have consistently set out changes required to restore control and compassion to the immigration and asylum system. We did that during the passage of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 with the previous Ministers, we are doing it with the current Ministers, and we will continue to do it as the Government change next week.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank Members for their contributions and the more than 700,000 people who signed the petition, including more than 1,000 in my constituency of Bexhill and Battle. This is a very real issue in my part of East Sussex. The Government forced on us the Crowborough asylum camp, just over the border in the constituency of Madam Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Sussex Weald (Ms Ghani), but very close to my own. We met the Minister just last week, alongside local residents and councillors, and heard at first hand about groups of young men gathering in this small rural town to drink on the streets, smuggling alcohol back into the detention centre and working illegally, and all the distress that that is causing. I am not surprised that the Government targeted Wealden for a camp, considering that it is run by Lib Dems and Greens, with their refugee asylum safe haven policy. At the heart of this debate is a question of control: whether the state and the people on whose behalf it operates have control of our borders or not. For the nation state to have meaning, a country must be able to remove people from within its borders who have no right to be there—whether to send them to offshore processing or detention, or to deport them entirely—and at scale. I welcome the opportunity to set out the overwhelming rational and moral argument for ending small boat crossings and the illegal people-smuggling trade, which is at the forefront of the petition. Whatever opponents of strong border controls say, and however much they attempt to demonise and caricature those of us who want to see control returned, I know not only that is this what the vast majority of the British public want, but that it is the right thing to do. We have to be clear-eyed about the status quo. Right now, not only is our asylum policy effectively determined by people’s ability to pay to get here, but the trade itself is putting money directly into the pockets of criminal gangs that are also involved in other crimes, such as drug dealing and violence. Whether someone makes the crossing is not a measure of their need, their comparative level of desperation or fear, or their vulnerability. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Small boat crossings favour the able-bodied, those with sufficient money to pay for the journey and those closest to Europe. They are not based on anything that Parliament or the Government have decided, nor are they a reflection of humanitarian crises. We know for a fact that every single person making the crossing from France—because they are coming from France—is not fleeing directly from a war-torn country where they are at risk of persecution. Decent, caring and compassionate constituents of mine say to me all the time, “They are safe; they’re in France.” People may have a preference—a desire—to be here instead of in France, but that is not what the asylum system was set up for. That is not what the laws and protections were intended to enshrine and make sacrosanct. However much defenders of those laws and regulations choose to ignore that, the British public can see through it. The first retort to those criticisms of the status quo is to say, “Well, that’s our fault. That’s our responsibility for forcing them to cross the channel”—as the spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster), said. But proponents of that argument entirely fail to play through the consequences of the safe and legal routes that they advocate for. I will do so now, in the hope that people might actually consider the matter. If we set up places whereby people can apply in third countries easily, what would happen? First, those places would themselves become a focal point for potentially large numbers of people seeking asylum, as there are quite literally millions of people living under conditions that would qualify them to seek asylum here in the UK. However much people pretend otherwise, we clearly would have to refuse some of those applications. Of course, the Green party advocates open borders and no restrictions, so maybe it would not refuse any, but let us assume we would not take everybody who applied by a safe and legal route. What would happen then? Would those people simply turn around and say, “Oh well, I tried to get in. I tried to use the safe and legal route; I’ll leave it there”? Of course they would not. Those people would then turn to exactly the same people-smuggling gangs and illegal crossings, and we would be right back to square one, only then they would be coming on top of the ones granted asylum through safe and legal routes. Even the most humanitarian-minded person would have to accept that there would be limits. If there are limits, we have to say no, and for “no” to mean anything, it has to be enforceable, or the whole thing collapses. Those opposed to deportation for those coming here illegally have no answer to that moral and logical question, so what must we do? We must make it absolutely clear that if someone comes here illegally, they do not get to stay—no ifs, ands or buts. Everything else, in terms of control and having a system that works, is underpinned by that. If we do not have meaningful control—because taking years to deport people will achieve nothing—then all the rest of the policies collapse. To stand any chance of actually delivering that, we have to come out of the European Court of Human Rights. Anyone who has studied the expansion of the powers of that Court cannot reasonably argue that it is fulfilling the same function intended for it. Some may argue that they are happy with that and welcome it, but it impossible to say that it is operating as envisioned by its creators. Let us take one example: article 3 of the European convention on human rights, which gives the right to be protected from “torture or…inhuman or degrading treatment”. That right was constructed in the wake of world war two, in which, as well as being murdered, Jews, political prisoners, homosexuals and other minorities were subject to the most horrendous treatment imaginable: medical experimentation, starvation, death-inducing slave labour. How is that article 3 right now interpreted? It is now used by potential deportees to successfully oppose their deportation if the standard of healthcare in the country they would be returned to is not sufficient to meet their medical needs—the same standard of healthcare that is all that is available to millions of their fellow citizens in the countries that we would seek to deport them to. When did a right to be protected from torture or inhumane or degrading treatment become a right to access a particular standard of healthcare? We know that the convention has now gone as far as to be applied to questions of whether a particular Government is doing enough to tackle climate change. That is why even some of our most senior and respected jurists, such as former UK Supreme Court Justice Lord Sumption, are clear about the need to leave. I recommend anyone sincerely interested in this topic to listen to his 2019 BBC Reith lectures on it. He explains clearly how human rights laws are increasingly used in place of the practice of politics, democracy and elections. They have increasingly become questions of balancing. They always were, of course, but the balancing has become finer and more nuanced, and at their heart, those questions are societal and political, not legal. We should ask how it has come to this situation. It has come about because, at its core, in its willingness to expand its remit and take expansionist interpretations of the law, the European Court of Human Rights is fundamentally misconceived. The law does not exist in isolation. In the nation state, there is an interplay between the courts and judges, the parliaments, the executives, and the people. They balance each other out. Courts are, of course, operationally independent, but if they act intolerably, and if they consistently and gravely make rulings out of keeping with the views of the public they serve, Parliament can step in, as the body accountable to the public. However much in very many ways we want our courts to be independent, it is vital that in the end, ultimately, they are not independent of the people. This delicate interplay secures legitimacy for each actor in the system, and there is no such interplay in the European Court. That is how it has found itself so clearly removed from the expectations and views of the millions of people of the member states it seeks to advocate for. We can see, over many years, member states seeking to oppose the Court’s expansionist rulings; it has ignored them to its own detriment. We also see other countries—Canada, Australia and New Zealand—that are able to manage fair and balanced rules of law with rights for individuals without the need to be part of any supranational body. Anyone who argues against these ideas must be careful what they wish for, because the patience and generosity of the majority of the public is at its thinnest, if not exhausted entirely. If we do not respond to that, others with views that we are more widely unhappy with will take control, and the Government who have failed to secure it will be as much to blame as anybody else. As our current Prime Minister completes two years of his premiership, I hope that Members can reflect honestly. The promises of the Government to take control of our borders and to smash the gangs have undoubtedly been a failure. They gave the impression that tweaks could be made to significantly alter the number of crossings, but that has proven simply not to be the case, and they now have very little time left. The only country with a proven track record is Australia, and it implemented a policy of not allowing people to stay. Tweaking will not help. One in, one out with France will not help. The sooner the Government realise that, the better for the taxpayer, the better for those who want to be compassionate but do not want to be exploited, and the better for the crime agencies fighting the people-smuggling gangs. Virtue signalling will not achieve anything. Doing whatever it takes to actually regain control of our borders is the only thing that will, and the Government must get on and deliver it.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for clearly and comprehensively articulating the key facets of the petition that has resulted in us all being here on this sunny afternoon. I am grateful to him, to the petitioners and to all other Members who have spoken. We have heard a wide range of views. I have listened with interest to the arguments advanced and the various points raised, and I will seek to respond to as many as possible in the time available. Before I get into the detail, I must do two things. First, I assert again this Government’s unshakeable commitment to tackling illegal immigration. I am sorry to have to remind Members of the situation we inherited, but it was so dire that, two years on, the legacy of past failures remains. When we took office, smuggling gangs saw this country’s borders as a soft target. The enforcement of basic rules had ground to a halt. The system was in disarray. We have worked hard since July 2024 to turn things around, and our efforts are having an impact. Over 44,000 channel crossings have been stopped in partnership with the French. Under our landmark returns agreement with France, those arriving can face immediate detention and removal. Removals and deportations of illegal migrants and foreign criminals have gone up, as have illegal working visits. We have more officers tackling organised immigration crime, and disruption of OIC is at record highs. Asylum costs, meanwhile, are down, as is the number of hotels being used to accommodate asylum seekers. We are reducing the pull factors, and we will do whatever it takes to secure effective returns co-operation with our international partners. We will use every lever available to return those with no right to be in the UK. In November, we threatened visa penalties against Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Within weeks, my Department had successfully negotiated new arrangements and it is now conducting returns on that basis. My message is clear: if foreign Governments refuse to accept the return of their citizens, they will face the consequences. That is just the start of our action. Countries that do not co-operate on returns cannot expect a normal visa relationship with the UK. We do all of that and more, because the Home Secretary has said from day one that we must do whatever it takes to restore order and control to our borders, but we also know that there is much more to do.

Let us say that in a year from now, all this stuff has not worked and the Home Secretary has committed to doing whatever it takes. Does “whatever it takes” include withdrawing from the ECHR?

We must remember that the ECHR, which I will say more about later in my speech, underpins many of the exact returns agreements that we rely upon to deport and remove people.

Does the Minister really think that Canada or Australia do not get to deport people? Those countries are not in the ECHR, but they have deportation agreements with third countries, so in no way is it a necessity to be in the ECHR to have deportation agreements.

It is an absolute fact that many of our returns agreements are underpinned by our membership of the ECHR. I will now make some progress. That is why we are embarking on the most significant set of asylum reforms in a generation. Under our plans, the UK will continue to play its part in helping the world’s most vulnerable people. However, to meet the challenges of today, we must address the fact that this country is more attractive to asylum seekers than other countries in Europe, so we are acting, including through the introduction of new legislation, to build a new fair but firm asylum model, based on contribution, integration and respect for UK laws. Of course, the reason I mention all that is that it goes to the heart of the problem that this petition seeks to answer, which is the arrival of illegal migrants and their continued presence in this country. We understand why people are frustrated after years of chaos and crisis. That is why we are taking concerted and decisive action to restore order and control. I will now move on to my second point, which is to address the specific thrust of this petition, namely that the Government should seek to establish offshore detention facilities for individuals who enter the UK illegally. We have been clear that we will continue to work with international partners to tackle the global challenge of irregular migration. However, interventions must work in practice, they must offer value for money and they must comply with the UK’s international obligations. The Government are doing whatever it takes to secure our borders, including the introduction of the most sweeping asylum reforms in a generation. The petition also refers to deportation, to which I would reply that more people with no right to be here are being removed from British soil under this Government than at any time in years. Since the election, we have removed or deported nearly 70,000 people who were here illegally. I turn now to some of the specific points made by Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) made an absolutely fantastic contribution. I agree with him wholeheartedly that it is important that we get the rhetoric right and that it is our responsibility—the responsibility of all of us in this Chamber—to ensure that we do not pitch neighbour against neighbour. Unity is British; division is not. I turn to the contribution of the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin). She made a good point about visa overstayers; they do make up a large proportion of those who are here illegally. We have paused the health and social care route and we have also paused automatic family reunion. We are imposing stricter measures on universities to ensure that that route is not abused, and we have already seen the number of those who are seeking to claim asylum after signing up to a university drop significantly. But of course, we are looking to go further across the board on legal migration and overstayers. The hon. Member also talked about rapists and paedophiles. Everyone here agrees that if a rapist, a paedophile or a criminal has come to this country, they should not be here, and it is important that we make changes to the ECHR—a process that is ongoing at this time—to deport and remove those people.

But we do not deport all rapists and paedophiles, because some of them make successful ECHR claims and get to stay in the country. Again, unless the Government are willing to tackle that, they will not get to do the things that the Minister has so much rhetoric about.

The hon. Member’s party had 14 years to make changes, but they absolutely failed. We inherited their open borders and their broken system, but we are working hard behind the scenes, as we speak, to make the ECHR more fit for purpose. Let me move on to the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), who made very good points about the cost of some of these proposals. Everything that we do in the Home Office must be costed and must be affordable to the British taxpayer, and of course we have a duty to protect those who are fleeing war and persecution, which is one of the things that makes Britain so great.