Speeches by Eagle.

“The Border Security Command co-ordinates and leads across Government; the right hon. Gentleman will want to serve on the Committee so that we can discuss this in detail. [Interruption.] I can tell the right hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] I can tell him that the Border Security Commander is already leading across Govern…”

“No. If they were so convinced that the Rwanda scheme was going to work, why did they hold a general election a week before the first plane was due to take off? This crucial Bill will give law enforcement new powers to combat threats to border security and evolve our response as those threats change. Before I respond, i…”

“There was one iota of reality and truth in the middle of that farrago of rubbish that we have just heard from the Conservative party, and I will quote it because I pricked up my ears. The hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) said that there are “no easy solutions” to this problem. You could have fooled me, Mada…”

“To reassure my hon. Friend, these items certainly will not include children’s toys, and nor will we be doing anything to introduce widespread powers that just apply to everybody. These are intelligence-led powers that will focus on those in the gangs doing the organising.”

“I just want to point out that, contrary to some of the reporting when the Bill was published, the vast majority of the clauses in the Illegal Migration Act that prevented children and others from having access to the national referral mechanism have, in fact, been repealed.”

“Yes, it is certainly true that we promise to get more than four volunteers out of the country. The Bill is not about posturing or pretending that there are easy answers to complex questions. The Bill is not about expensive gimmicks and an abject failure to deliver. The Bill is about restoring order to the chaos that we…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. Having sat in the Westminster Hall Chair many a time, I can report that in this Parliament it seems to be much warmer in this room. It used to be freezing, but perhaps my complaints about the heating when I was in the Chair have had a positive effect in this …”

“I am happy to go on to what we are doing, but the legacy that one inherits is important and has to be taken into account when thinking about how we deliver for the future. We said that the Rwanda scheme was not going to work and that we would restart asylum processing. We also said we were going to set up the Border Se…”

“I will be happy to, but let me finish apologising. I apologised to the hon. Member for Windsor in my response to the letter he sent me. It was not an ideal situation and it is not one we want to get into again.”

“It is a pleasure to respond to this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin) on securing it and thank all Members who have contributed. I remind hon. Members of the strained asylum system that this Government inherited. Listening to all the contributions, I had to pinch myself and think about th…”

“We do not want to get into that situation, because we want to go down rather than up, but I would want notice of significant changes to be “as much as possible” because, sometimes, operational things occur. A hotel site can be lost—for example, we lost one in Manchester during the floods. Unexpected things can happen t…”

“Yes, as much as possible and, I hope, more in advance than we managed during the openings that I talked about. Since the general election, nine hotels have closed. There were 15 opened temporarily—which is what this debate is really about—and nine are scheduled for closure by the end of March 2025. I certainly hope tha…”

“I will take no lessons from the Conservative party, which spent £700 million to send four volunteers to Rwanda and left huge backlogs of more than 90,000 stopped asylum claims—people in hotels, unable to leave because the Conservatives were trying to get their fantasy Rwanda programme off the ground.”

“We inherited a system where very few decisions were being made. We have ramped up decision making to over 11,000 decisions a month and we are dealing with the backlog, but backlogs cannot be abolished overnight, and there are also appeals backlogs. We inherited a huge mess, but we are methodically getting through it.”

“It is our intention to close all asylum hotels as soon as possible, once we deal with the backlog that we inherited from the Conservative party.”

“I certainly will. We should also remember the £60 million the Conservative party wasted on RAF Scampton and the £15 million on a derelict, asbestos-ridden former prison in Bexhill. We will not take any lessons from Conservative Members about value for money in Government expenditure.”

“They do not.”

“Yes. Foreign nationals who commit offences and are sentenced to 12 months in prison have no right to be here, and I can assure my hon. Friend that we will work tirelessly to ensure that they can be removed. The 23% increase in six months is a good start, but we will not take our foot off the gas.”

“The Government are committed to reducing hotel use through reform of the asylum system, including through streamlining asylum processing and establishing the Border Security Command to tackle people smuggling gangs at source. Since the general election, there has been a net increase of six hotels in use, but nine are s…”

“I agree that this is an important area and that much more work needs to be done to consider effective contaminants and risks from the dangers that firefighters put themselves in every day to protect life.”