No pressure, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak in support of new clauses 10 and 11 and amendment 8 in my name. I do not say this lightly, but there is a deep wickedness at the heart of this Bill, matched only by its stupidity, because of its reliance on a bogus narrative that we are being—whatever the language used—“swamped” by asylum seekers.
Let us have some facts that might help Back Benchers on the Government Benches. First, 2% of the world’s population lives in the United Kingdom, and 0.65% of the world’s refugees are in the United Kingdom. We are not taking our fair share; we are not overwhelmed. We take fewer the half the number of asylum seekers we did 20 years ago. We are 17th in the league table—lower mid-table—of countries in Europe when it comes to taking asylum seekers per head of population. Germany takes three times more and France takes two and a half times more than we do.
We hear from the Minister that our asylum system is broken. Yes, it is, but not because it is deluged by too many asylum seekers, because evidentially that is not true; it is broken because of incompetence on the part of the Home Office. The Government’s argument is the equivalent of blaming patients for NHS waiting lists. It is unacceptable and it is wrong.
The numbers crossing the channel are tragic and awful, and it is obvious why it is the case. It is because we have seen a clampdown, because of covid and security, on people crossing the channel through other unsafe routes, such as the channel tunnel and ferries. As the narrower routes across the channel have been more heavily policed, what have we seen people doing? We have seen people taking more dangerous routes. The evidence shows us that when a route is closed off, people find further, more unsafe routes, so the Government’s policy will see more people dead in the channel. That is clearly what will happen unless they introduce safe routes. [Interruption.] There is a whole lot of rhetoric about safe routes and no action whatever.