Immigration is one of the top issues raised with me on doorsteps across West Cumbria week in, week out. I want to take this opportunity to update you on the approach we’re taking to fix our broken immigration system.
Let me start, however, by saying that rules-based immigration is important for our community and our country. You only need to look at West Cumbria’s health and care system where nurses and care workers from Nigeria and many other countries are keeping our NHS running. I put on record my thanks to them for coming here, looking after local people and making West Cumbria their home. You are welcome.
Let’s not forget too the international expertise we need for our world-leading nuclear work. I recently met an American playing a vital role in our nuclear supply chain who has made his home in Frizington and is very happy to call our area home! We need these people too.
It is not those coming here legally, playing by the rules and filling vital roles that local people tell me they have a problem with. It’s those entering the UK illegally, mostly in small boats, who are ‘skipping the queue’.
Our immigration system must be rules based, fair and balanced. While we have so many people arriving illegally, the fairness and balance isn’t there and the system fails. Until July this year, we had a government that spent hundreds of millions of pounds on unworkable gimmicks while failing to take action against the people smugglers. People are right to be angry with the consequences.
We saw those consequences when the new government took over and revealed a £6 billion in-year overspend on asylum costs, and £8 million a day spent on hotels. They left a system in total chaos.
We’re now starting to get a grip and fix the mess the last lot left behind. It’s early days, but the results so far speak for themselves. We’re now making 10,000 asylum decisions per month instead of the 1,000 that were made under the Conservatives. Nearly 10,000 people with no right to be here have been removed in the first few months, a significant increase on the same period last year under the Conservatives.
The government is also taking tough action to reduce the numbers coming here illegally in the first place. Criminal smuggling gangs have been making millions out of small boat crossings, undermining our border security and putting lives at risk. Labour’s new Border Security Command is co-ordinating intelligence and enforcement agencies in the UK and working with partners overseas to disrupt the smuggling gangs’ supply chains, and dismantle their criminal networks. The government has signed new agreements with several countries and arrests are already being made to disrupt this vile trade.
There is a lot more work to do but we’ve got a government committed to doing the serious, grown up work that is required. Our approach will save taxpayers £7 billion over the next ten years and finally restore the fairness and balance to our immigration system that people expect.
Josh MacAlister MP 