I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this important debate. Like others, I would like to wish Eid Mubarak to the Muslim communities in Newport West and across the UK.
I have also heard from a number of my constituents in Newport West about the Bill and their concerns with it. Like me, they think the Bill is fundamentally flawed, and I shall be opposing it. Its content means that this Conservative Government will turn their backs on some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, and it risks breaching international law. The reasoned amendment in the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), the Leader of the Opposition, rightly calls out the Government for their failures and calls for a more humane and decent asylum system, and it has my full support.
In 2021, we need to demonstrate our compassion and our global leadership. That means getting things right. This Government’s approach is weak on taking action against criminal gangs, but brutal when it comes to orphaned children from war zones. Surely this is a case of misplaced priorities. The Bill also risks criminalising the RNLI for saving people at sea. Had the Bill been in place when Sir Nicholas Winton was rescuing hundreds of children from the holocaust on the Kindertransport, it would have risked him being criminalised for his life-saving actions.
Rather than offering genuine proposals to fix the broken asylum system, for which Conservatives have been responsible for over 11 years, this dangerous Bill will make a damaging and indefensible situation even worse. It seeks to allow the Government to deliver on plans to process people’s cases in so-called third countries. In the lead-up to the Bill, Conservative party briefers have told the media that this could include taking people to west Africa or oil rigs to have their cases heard. Those plans are immoral, wildly impractical and simply not fit for purpose.
From the discussions I have had with local people in Newport West and the many other emails I have received, I know they want to see more done to tackle the appalling crime of people smuggling—as do I. However, key to that is having a workable deal in place with France to stop the gangs operating so frequently there exploiting desperate people for money. Yet the Bill contains nothing that will help to address those vital failings. It would be helpful to hear what discussions Ministers have had with the French Government on that matter.
Newport West has a strong moral compass and our city has welcomed refugees and asylum seekers with open arms, and with the respect and decency they deserve. Because Newport is a resettlement centre for refugees and asylum seekers, I have had the privilege of meeting just some of those awaiting decisions on their applications, courtesy of the British Red Cross, in Newport West. I met a doctor from Nigeria desperate to work in his specialism of cardiology, but prevented by Home Office rules. I met a Syrian woman who showed me photos of her beautiful home, now bombed to smithereens. I have met others fleeing religious persecution and seeking sanctuary here in the UK. These are not scroungers or spongers. They have skills and abilities to bring to us, and we can benefit as a society by them living and working with us here.
This Tory Government have refused to reopen many safe routes with little explanation and certainly zero humanity. The new UK resettlement scheme, in its first month in 2021, resettled just 25 refugees—25. The Government also closed the Dubs scheme, having settled just a fraction of the 3,000 children initially envisaged. That is not my idea of global Britain.
It is very hot in Newport West and across the British Isles today, and it feels like the temperature has been raised through the empty promises and hot air radiating from the ministerial suite of offices on Marsham Street and in No. 10. Those most in need of peace and safety deserve better. The people of Newport West deserve better, and I will do my best to fight for it.
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