Speeches by Murray.

“The way to deal with any asylum seeker—or, indeed, any migrant—who commits a crime, is to remove them from the country. That is why it is good to see that removals of foreign national offenders have gone up 40% from what was left under the previous Government. The way we deal with crime in communities is by reinvigorat…”

“Craigmillar is a brilliant area, but it is blighted by fly-tipping. One site just off the high street beside Craigmillar library, owned by Keyworkers Living Ltd, lies waste to litter and abandoned cars, and is a fly-tipping hotspot. In England, the Labour Government are cracking down on fly-tipping, but the SNP Scottis…”

“So women in London can have confidence in you—confidence that you are checking the allegations of sexual assault against police officers, before they have to phone 999? That is taking place across all police—”

“The officers at Charing Cross who were in the “Panorama” programme should never have been police officers, and there is clear evidence of people who passed vetting who should never have been police officers. What are you doing to properly check people with allegations of sexual assault or complaints about inappropriate…”

“Of all the things you had to cut as a result of that prioritisation, if you had to pick one that was a mistake—or the closest to a mistake, if you are not willing to admit that—or that you wish you had not had to do, or that has had negative externalities that you have had to deal with in other ways, which would it be?”

“As you have alluded to, you have a challenging financial backdrop that forces prioritisation. How does “A New Met for London” guide your prioritisation? You have already alluded to prioritisation being forced upon you by the demands of being a capital city and by the ringfencing of counter-terrorism responsibilities. I…”

“You will obviously have seen Baroness Casey’s report, in which she described the Met as having severe institutional failings and talked about “systemic and fundamental problems”. She also described the Met as having “initiative-itis”, in that new initiatives are pushed out from the centre but do not quite cut through o…”

“While we are on the issue of immigration statistics, when the previous Conservative Government signed the contracts that led to those hotels opening, the average cost per asylum seeker was £17,000 a year. By the time of the election, that cost had risen to almost £50,000 per asylum seeker per year. This Government have…”

“I strongly welcome the Minister’s statement, which I found quite emotional. I know that many of her friends are pleased to see her making it today. She said that cancer mortality is higher and survival is lower in Britain compared with other European countries. What that means is that cancer patients such as Charlotte …”

“We are here to discuss genocide. As my hon. Friend says, 20,000 children have been killed, 95% of hospitals have been destroyed, and food has been blocked to the point of famine. Does she agree that the House of Commons—and, indeed, the world—cannot stand by and let that happen?”

“I absolutely agree with you that dysfunctionality in the asylum system is what saps public support for refugee protection overall, but I am just curious about your assessment of Home Office operations overall. It does not centre around the asylum process, including decisions and appeals but instead around the idea that…”

“You have announced the creation of new safe routes, which many people have called for over a very period. Can you tell us what kind of number of people you would like to see coming through on safe routes? What impact, if any at all, will that have on the small boat crossings?”

“I want to move on to the asylum system and pick up the point about the Home Office administering such a huge and complex system. You are introducing really significant reforms to the refugee and asylum system. People will be refugees, but normally, at the point at which they become a refugee, the Home Office does not n…”

“Obviously illegal immigration is an international phenomenon, and France is the country people are coming from. How has your working relationship been with the French? How impactful is the money we are giving them? What is the increased enforcement in France doing to the number of crossings?”

“I can understand your argument about the public cost and the uncontrolled numbers, but I want to ask about your attitude to the immigration system overall. Settlement is a really important step, but it is a prerequisite to citizenship. When someone becomes a citizen of this country they get a letter from you welcoming …”

“So on citizenship generally, Home Secretary.”

“Thank you for that. I would like to move on to now talk about asylum accommodation. This Committee has heard a lot of evidence, which is blood-boiling, of billions of pounds being wasted, in a way that is terrible for communities where hotels pop up and terrible for the asylum seekers themselves—we heard about really s…”

“I will come on to that in a second.”

“You are coming to the theme of my next question: the alternative to hotels. Obviously you have started setting up some large sites in military barracks, but we are all aware of the Home Office’s track record on converting military sites. I think of the Northeye scandal, where I think £350 million of public money was ju…”

“That’s an understatement.”