Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

I shall follow your exhortation, Madam Deputy Speaker. Suffice to say that a confrere of the hon. Gentleman made a stupid and ignorant statement in the general election—““Which part of ‘Send them back’ don’t you understand, Mr. Blair?”” In the context of the Bill and more generally, that shows a profound lack of understanding of the individual. Let me make it clear: it was not the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker); it was the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink). We need to understand each individual’s case, assess their level of documentation and establish that there is agreement with the country that they are going to about whether they can go or not, and that they are who they say they are. If the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) makes that comment in the context of the five-year plan, regardless of what is in the Bill, with a modicum of satisfaction about the level of removals between 1979 and 1997, I wager him that the figures were not very good then, compared with now. In the context of the Bill and generally, one must understand that these are difficult matters. We have gone from a position where, at best, those who had unfounded claims in the end were being removed at a rate of 200 a month at a time when applications for asylum were pushing 10,000 a month, to a position now where, roughly speaking—we are always about three months behind in these matters—1,400 or 1,500 are being removed at a time when new applications are about 2,000 a month. That is huge progress. Prior to that, the position was even worse. Elements of the Bill will assist us in reaching a stage where there is a robust asylum system that defends the rights of those who secure refugee status, and put us right back where we have always been collectively and across parties. The UK has a proud history, in the main, as regards refugee status. The second key element—