Speeches by Eagle.

“As I said earlier, we are keeping under close review the pause in Syrian asylum applications. We cannot decide asylum applications against a country policy that is no longer relevant because of the rapid change in that country. We will resume those decisions as soon as we can.”

“Hard, tough cross-border policing takes time. [Interruption.] Conservative Members may laugh, but on a recent joint action day led by German and Belgian authorities, 500 German officers arrested targets and seized dozens of boats and engines, including some in warehouses targeted by the National Crime Agency. On a join…”

“It is important, in order to deal with the chaos that we inherited, to create a system that is faster, fairer and much easier to get through than the one we inherited. Unless the hon. Lady wants people to be destitute on the streets, we have to look after them while we are processing their asylum claims. Speed is impor…”

“I am more than happy to meet with the right hon. Gentleman to talk about his experience on the ground with respect to both Stay Belvedere Hotels Ltd and Clearsprings Ready Homes.”

“I certainly agree with the Father of the House on that subject. We had a small but perfectly formed debate, albeit in his absence, on his new clause, and I look forward to debating it with him on Report of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.”

“We are doing all that we can with the existing contracts to drive value for money, and we are also looking to pilot some other potential alternatives to supply.”

“The right hon. Lady is talking about the prime contractor, which in this case is Clearsprings Ready Homes. As with the other two contractors, the break clauses are with it. We have approval or not of sub-prime contractors. Stay Belvedere Hotels Ltd is a sub-prime contractor, and as the Home Office we have withdrawn our…”

“My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister made some announcements recently about the capacity to increase house building in this country in order to deal with some of the pressure on demand. It is important from an asylum seeker point of view that we make the system work end to end much faster so that we can get p…”

“We have restarted asylum processing, and we are looking into what we can do to speed up the appeals backlog that we inherited. We will create a system that is faster, firmer and fairer so that we can get people out of asylum hotels, which are not a sustainable model for the future.”

“I do not think that safe routes would stop people trying to get into this country clandestinely. It is important that we can assert control at the border so that we decide who comes into our country, not the people-smuggling gangs.”

“The Prime Minister has made it clear that the answer will not be to ignore international law, so we have to ensure that we create a system that is fast and fair and does the job much more effectively than the one we inherited. We are looking into how we can make changes to ensure that that happens.”

“We are doing that work day in, day out. If the Conservatives had not allowed smuggling gangs to take hold across the channel for six years, we would not be experiencing the difficulties that we are experiencing now in dealing with them. [Interruption.] This takes time, there is no simple, easy solution, and chuntering …”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his belief in my ability to get on top of my brief. The National Crime Agency recently arrested three men in the UK who were wanted in Belgium after being convicted of being members of an Afghan organised crime group. It has arrested a Turkish national suspected of being one of the most s…”

“Yes, that is our aim.”

“I understand that, ahead of the reductions that were announced, 20% is currently spent on housing asylum seekers in this country. Clearly, if we can get the system running faster from start to finish and we can get people through it faster, we can reduce those costs.”

“I agree with my hon. Friend. Between the announcement of the Rwanda scheme and its ending, 85,000 people came across in small boats.”

“I am not going to comment on leaks.”

“Yes. Illegal working arrests and visits have increased by 38%. More people have been arrested. More people have been fined. We are seeking to ban those who abuse illegal workers—often underpaying them and treating them like modern slaves—from running companies. The fines are now £60,000 per illegal worker. There is no …”

“I do not apologise for deporting people who have no right to be here or who have been through the system and are discovered neither to be asylum seekers nor to have any right to stay in the country. I accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the desperate situation that people are in. They could claim asylum in th…”

“Asylum seekers who wait longer than a year are allowed to work, so long as that wait has not been caused by them—that is, a wait through no fault of their own. We have that system now, and I am not considering shortening the length of time that must elapse before work is allowed.”