Residents of Mid Sussex have rightly deplored the illegal crossings of over 45,000 people in small boats last year, with many of those originating from or travelling through safe countries – that is unfair on those who come here legally and unfair on the British people who foot the bill.
That is why I am pleased to announce we have now passed the Illegal Migration Act. I am confident this Act will deliver a tough but fair approach, so that if someone enters the UK illegally they will be detained immediately and removed to a safe country within weeks – with no ability to make spurious and late claims to frustrate removal.
Labour want unlimited and uncontrolled immigration and have opposed our legislation at every turn. Only the Conservatives are delivering on the priority of the British people to stop the boats.
We have passed the Illegal Migration Act, removing any incentive for someone to come to the UK illegally by:
Placing a legal duty on the Home Secretary to remove illegal migrants. For the first time, if you come here illegally, the Government will have no choice but to remove you to your home country if it is safe, or a safe third country.
Increasing our powers to detain and swiftly remove illegal migrants. If you come here illegally, we will be able to detain you for 28 days without recourse to bail from the Immigration Tribunal or judicial review, and we will be able to detain you for as long as there is a reasonable prospect of removal.
Ending illegal entry as a route to modern slavery protection. If you come here via a small boat or any other illegal way from a safe country, you will have no recourse to our modern slavery system. An exception to delay removal will be if law enforcement requests a stay on removal to allow someone to support an investigation or prosecution against a trafficker. This will mean that our world-leading modern slavery regime will no longer be open to abuse by illegal entrants seeking to stay here indefinitely.
Mandating that all claimants must make their claims immediately. The current system allows people to frustrate removal. Under this legislation, for the first time you will have to make your entire claim within days of your arrival. That means you will not be able to make repeated claims solely with the aim of frustrating your removal. We will process claims much faster, ensuring a claimants’ case is heard, adjudicated upon and closed within weeks.
Making sure the only route to asylum in the UK is a safe and legal route, with an annual cap on the number of refugees. Since 2015, we have offered sanctuary to over 450,000 people through our global safe and legal routes. We will introduce an annual cap for the number of refugees. This cap will be set by Parliament, in consultation with local authorities, when illegal migration is under control.
We are already delivering on the Prime Minister’s pledge to stop small boat crossings with:
A new, permanent, unified Small Boats Operational Command. Our policing of the Channel has been too fragmented – the new Small Boats Operational Command, with 700 new permanent staff will bring together military and civilian capabilities – supported by our National Crime Agency and greater use of technology such as drones – in order to intercept all boats in the Channel.
Tougher immigration enforcement with 200 new staff and better data sharing with banks. New staff and a doubling of NCA funding to tackle organised gangs will free up immigration officers to go back to enforcement and increase illegal working raids by 50 per cent. And to stop illegal migrants being able to open bank accounts, we are restarting data sharing with banks and other financial institutions.
Cheaper accommodation sites so we can move migrants out of expensive hotels. It is unfair that we are spending £6 million every day on hotels for asylum seekers. We are identifying a range of alternative sites such as former student halls and surplus military land to use instead, including Bibby Stockholm that arrived this week. We will also work with local authorities to ensure everyone takes their fair share.
A doubling in the number of caseworkers and streamlining the process to clear the initial asylum backlog by the end of 2023. We are doubling the number of asylum caseworkers to 2,500 and radically simplifying the casework process. We have also reduced the cooling off period for modern slavery referrals and increased the threshold for being considered a victim of modern slavery to require evidence.
Stronger return agreements. Last year a handful of countries accounted for more than 10,000 people awaiting removal. That is why we are stepping up our efforts to return failed asylum seekers by strengthening return agreements, making migration a core part of our diplomatic activity, and applying visa sanctions if needed.
We already have a number of returns agreements. We have agreements with Albania, Algeria, China, Georgia, India, Kuwait, Nigeria, Pakistan, Serbia, Somalia, Somaliland, South Korea, South Sudan, Switzerland, and Vietnam.
A working partnership with Rwanda. The High Court has ruled that Rwanda is a safe country. We are confident of securing a similar ruling in the Supreme Court, and we are making plans for flights to commence as soon as possible. The UNHCR already has its own partnership with Rwanda to voluntarily relocate vulnerable migrants from Libya temporarily in Rwanda.
Closer co-operation with our allies. This is a shared problem: the number of illegal arrivals across Europe is up over 50 per cent. Our co-operation with France led to 33,000 small boats being stopped in 2022 – more than 40 per cent of the total. We put the Calais Group of Northern European Nations on a permanent footing, and started negotiations with Frontex, the EU’s border control agency. We will build on our landmark deal with France at a joint-UK French summit in early March.