It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hollobone. I thank all hon. Members for their excellent contributions, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) on securing this vital debate. Colleagues have set out, far more eloquently and powerfully than I could, the deeply troubling situation in which we find ourselves. Rather than repeating that, I will set out Labour’s plans for addressing some of the challenges that we face because of the broader chaos and shambles of the asylum system across the board, which is the root cause, context and backdrop for the appalling issues that we are discussing. I will then ask the Minister some more specific questions.
Labour has spent the past nine months urging the Conservative Government to adopt our five-point plan to end the dangerous channel crossings, defeat the criminal gangs and reduce the asylum backlog, based on hard graft, common sense and quiet diplomacy. First, we would scrap the unworkable, unaffordable and unethical Rwanda scheme and redirect the money put aside into an elite cross-border 100-strong police unit to relentlessly pursue the real enemy, the ruthless criminal smuggling gangs, upstream where they are operating away from the French coastline. Secondly, we would negotiate an agreement with France and the EU that would enable us to return asylum seekers who have crossed on small boats back to mainland Europe in exchange for a more generous but strictly capped offer from Britain on resettling genuine refugees with family connections in the UK. Thirdly, we would clear the backlog by fast-tracking the processing and returns for low grant rate countries, and we would address the incomprehensible decision to downgrade the seniority and expertise of Home Office decision makers. Fourthly, Labour would fix the broken resettlement pathways, particularly the Afghan schemes. Finally, we would develop an international development strategy that would include tackling the root causes of migration.
We need to look at the issues surrounding unaccompanied children, and Labour would look very carefully at how they are treated within the system. We are deeply concerned about the changes that were introduced in January this year with regard to short-term holding facilities. Ahead of the changes coming in, I wrote to the Minister privately to raise my concerns, particularly on the scope for women and children—some of whom will be fleeing sexual violence—to be held in small rooms together with men they do not know. Unfortunately, I have not received a reply to that letter. I know that the Minister is a very busy man, but perhaps he could comment on why I did not receive a reply within the expected three-month window. Perhaps he will also make clear what action he is taking to ensure that women, girls and unaccompanied children are safeguarded.
Meanwhile, the Illegal Migration Bill has raised real concerns. Clause 14 will disapply the safeguard duty to consult the independent family returns panel when a child will be removed or detained. Clauses 15 to 20 deal with issues relating to the rights of separated children, with the provisions likely to undermine the key principles of the child protection framework, including by giving the Home Secretary the power to terminate a child’s looked-after status when they are in the care of a local authority.
For the past 18 months, the Home Office has been providing accommodation to vulnerable children, yet provision of accommodation and support to children sits outside the Home Office’s competence and knowledge base, raising serious concerns over safeguarding. It was therefore shocking but not surprising that the Minister announced on 24 January that as many as 200 unaccompanied children had gone missing from hotels. What progress has he made on finding those children? What additional safeguards are in place?
Charity workers have said that children are being picked up by gangs from outside their accommodation. What action is the Minister taking to prevent that? We have heard heartbreaking stories from my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) about children who have been sexually assaulted. On 7 November, she asked the Minister to publish the details of all those cases and the number of incidents. Does the Minister have the latest data on that to share with the House?
I will end with some additional questions on wider asylum system failures, which have led to vulnerable children being placed in dangerous conditions. Last December, the Prime Minister said that the Home Office would recruit 700 new staff to the new small boats operational command. How many are in post? Last year, the Home Office announced plans to increase the number of asylum caseworkers from 1,277 to 1,500 by the end of March this year, and then to 2,500 by the end of August. Will the Minister tell us whether he has met the first target and what progress he has made towards the second? Less than 10 years ago, almost 90% of asylum claims were decided in six months. Last year, that figure stood at barely 10%. Can that possibly be explained by anything other than incompetence? Is there perhaps another agenda that explains why the backlog is so large?
The asylum system is a mess. Vulnerable children are victims of this failing system, a system that has failed because of 13 years of sleeping at the wheel and the Government taking their eye off the ball. We need a Labour Government to sort this out—and we need that as rapidly as possible.
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