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Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

No. Across Britain, taxpayers are footing the bill for the Government’s failure. When they came to power, the budget for the immigration and nationality directorate was £212 million a year. It is now more than £1.7 billion. That money could pay for 80,000 extra nurses, 70,000 extra teachers, and 60,000 extra police. Ordinary people are literally paying the price for this Government’s asylum failure. I can understand why Ministers wanted to cover up the extent of the problem during the election campaign. However, I cannot understand why they let the problem get so bad in the first place. There has been no shortage of activity, but there has been a shortage of results. Six years ago, the House debated phase 1 of the Government’s asylum policy—the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. It abolished the so-called white list, and the number of applications shot up to more than 100,000 a year—the highest in Europe. So three years ago, phase 2 of the Government’s policy reintroduced the white list. By that time, the UK was well on the way to receiving the second highest number of asylum applications in the world. Last year, we passed what the then Home Secretary described as the final phase of asylum reform—the plan to bring speed and finality to the appeals and removals process. The result is that the number of removals has fallen in five of the last six quarters. If that was the final phase, this Bill appears to be an afterthought.