Speeches by Eagle.

“Yes in some circumstances, but no in others, because some people who come over are genuine asylum seekers. Even under the right hon. Gentleman’s Government—when he, too, was in the Home Office—such people were granted asylum. As always, there are many different circumstances and each case has to be looked at and judged…”

“I wish to get on with discussing the amendments, but because I served with him on the Intelligence and Security Committee, I will give way to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) .”

“I agree that we in this place have to always think about the humanity involved and not try to label everybody who comes into our country when they are claiming asylum as some kind of threat or, even worse, as a terrorist or something, as was done by the hon. Member for Ashfield. We have to treat every case on its merit…”

“We will come to these debates when we get on to debating the new clauses to which the hon. Gentleman is referring. We have been clear from the Government Benches about the balance between respecting work visas, which people have to apply for if they are coming to work here, and allowing asylum seekers who have not appl…”

“I certainly hope that that kind of comment might be a joke. I wonder whether that kind of arbitrary treatment of people who are in this country would become the norm for Reform, if we came out of the European convention on human rights, as the hon. Member wants. We are a law-abiding Government. The right hon. Member fo…”

“My hon. Friend is right. We inherited a system in total chaos; asylum decision making had all but ground to a halt. Many, many tens of thousands of people were left having claimed asylum, as the law allowed them to, but unable to be processed because the previous Government passed a law that made it illegal for them to…”

“As I have before, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the border security force in this country works very closely with the PSNI and the Garda Síochána to deal with all potential threats in the common travel area. I assure him that we keep a very close eye on what is going on there to ensure that the hon. Gentleman’s …”

“Before I speak about the key Government amendments tabled on Report, I would like to recall why the Government have brought forward the Bill. We are working to take the necessary actions to secure our borders, bring order to the chaotic immigration and asylum system we inherited, and go after the dangerous criminal gan…”

“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.”

“Very quickly, because I have a lot of points and not much time.”

“Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise after what has been a very full debate, with people having to fit in quite complex points in short amounts of time. I congratulate everybody on the points they made. I will try, as much as possible, to deal with some of them in the time I have left. I …”

“My hon. Friend is exactly right. These criminals are cross-national, very sophisticated and operate across borders. In order to respond properly, we have to do the same, and that is what today’s summit is helping us to co-ordinate.”

“We have a duty to ensure that those arriving on our shores who claim asylum are properly processed. The Conservatives prevented themselves from doing that by becoming obsessed with the Rwanda scheme and they left us with a huge backlog. We will speed up immigration processing so that we can deal with those people, prot…”

“I agree strongly with my hon. Friend and that is why today’s immigration summit, where 40 countries will be co-operating and attending, is such an important event. Today we also announced that, since we came into government, we have returned more than 24,000 people who have no right to be here. We have also tightened u…”

“The summit is dealing with source countries. We are looking at how we can co-operate with countries all the way along the routes used by smuggling gangs to ensure that the right messages, rather than very slick organised immigration gang advertising, are conveyed.”

“The Government are today playing host to law enforcement counterparts from across the globe to discuss our joint response to organised immigration crime. The UK is not only hosting that summit but leading the way in its response to this appalling, evil trade, including through new powers introduced in the Border Securi…”

“We wish Mr Speaker all the best on his extremely important visit to our parliamentary colleagues in Ukraine. Following the fall of the Assad regime, the Home Office withdrew the country policy and information note and guidance on Syria and temporarily paused interviews and decisions on Syrian asylum claims. This was, a…”

“Some 84,000 people crossed the channel from the day the Rwandan deal was signed to the day it was scrapped. The Conservatives failed to deter a single boat or deport a single person. Instead, they spent £700 million and sent four people—four failed asylum seekers—to start a new life in Kigali with free housing, free pr…”

“We do not comment on where hotels are, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that there are 216 hotels across the whole country. We will be getting those numbers down as quickly as we can.”

“I understand the heightened anxiety among Syrian asylum seekers, but the Home Office relies on the country information in order to make decisions on whether particular people need protection, and that information is currently in the middle of quite profound change. When we are in a position to make decisions against ne…”