Speeches by Hayes.

“To clarify, if a lady goes back to Hong Kong and is willing to entertain the risk in order to briefly grieve with her family and to bury her mother or father, she would lose her right to safe haven in the United Kingdom. Is that right?”

“What would happen in a scenario in which somebody from Hong Kong went back in order to attend the funeral of their mother or father?”

“This may be our last sitting day; I say this in hopes that it is. Over the last few sittings, having not known the hon. Member for Stockton West, I have grown in admiration for him, because he has had to defend very difficult things from the previous Government. It has felt like he is a goalkeeper standing in front of …”

“Is it the Conservative party’s intention to build these detention centres, or accommodation centres, as part of its new immigration policy?”

“New clause 40 mentions the Secretary of State making “regulations specifying the total maximum number of persons who may enter the United Kingdom annually” within six months of the passing of this Bill. I assume that the hon. Lady is saying that a statement may be made providing for the annual cap per visa category, ov…”

“In a previous sitting, the hon. Lady talked to the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire about humanitarian, and safe and legal routes. She highlighted the difficulty that humanitarian events often happen without warning or anticipation. Our country and others will respond as quickly as possible, and one response mig…”

“Yes, actually.”

“A volume of information seems to be coming at us now, and it feels as though every 20 words, something absolutely absurd is said. It is a marked contrast with what has gone before. I see the hon. Member for Weald of Kent and the hon. Member for Stockton West standing there, but I hear the voices of other people in thei…”

“With the greatest respect, a reading of the Hansard report of what the hon. Member for Stockton West said would be contrary to what the hon. Lady has just asserted. What the hon. Gentleman said could in no way, shape or form be described as complimentary to or supportive of judges. In fact, it was very undermining of j…”

“That is also a helpful clarification, because the hon. Gentleman’s concern is with the judiciary and its behaviours. Can I clarify what he has just said, exactly as I heard it: his concern is purely about the judge’s application of the Human Rights Act, and he himself is absolutely fine with the Act?”

“That was a helpful clarification to my earlier question about whether what the hon. Gentleman is citing represents a snapshot or the totality—he says that they are three of the total number. How many, in total, has he looked at that have caused him such alarm?”

“I am still not very clear—I apologise, maybe I ate too much at lunch. Does the hon. Gentleman have issues with the Human Rights Act such that he believes that we ought not to be applying it generally? Is this the first step towards its disapplication, or is he more concerned that, while the legislation is fine, we have…”

“I did not understand what the hon. Gentleman said. Is he concerned more about the judges’ application of the Human Rights Act or the Act itself?”

“Is the hon. Gentleman concerned more about the Human Rights Act or its application by judges?”

“Briefly, prompted by the Opposition, we are inching towards a more interesting debate, on how to assess the financial benefits and costs of migration, while grounding that in available and high-quality data. In 2021, in Australia, the Treasury undertook a fiscal assessment and has repeated that annually. I know, too, t…”

“It was remiss of me not to say earlier that I admire the hon. Gentleman’s tie—it is very nice. On the point he raises, I have said consistently that that particular report by the Centre for Policy Studies is flawed. As we move towards the Government’s new net migration White Paper, which will specify how we can bring l…”

“The rest of Europe is doing free trade, but the shadow Minister does not want to do that. We should reflect on Europe and what we want to import into our country. On the bone age assessment, can the hon. Gentleman tell us with confidence grounded in science that it would be able to determine the range of relevant ages?…”

“The hon. Lady is making a powerful point about the importance of accessing coherent and organised records. However, does she agree that one of the reasons for those records being disorganised is the churn of social workers, and one of the causes of that churn is our care system’s extensive reliance on the excessive pro…”

“I wonder whether the SNP and the Liberal Democrats are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, and I mean that in two senses. First, they query whether this Government are committed to international human rights, when they have shown time and again that they are, although I understand that concern, given what has …”

“I was listening carefully and had a lightbulb moment. Perhaps the Conservatives figured out what a deterrent was—it was crashing the economy and putting our country into such difficulty that it obliterated the pull factor. That might be a cruel thing to say. Does the hon. Member agree that we heard in evidence that the…”