Suella Braverman tells MPs children will not be detained or removed under illegal migration bill – live | Politics

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas criticised the “immoral, deeply cruel and divisive” proposed law, and ripped up a copy of the bill at the end of her speech.

The MP for Brighton Pavilion said: “The home secretary on the face of this bill invites Parliament to rip up international law. The only act of a Parliament that has some kind of moral integrity is to rip up her illegal and immoral bill, which has no place on our statute book.”

Independent MP Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) said “many would argue that this is racist legislation” and criticised the powers to detain people for 28 days, claiming: “This is state-sanctioned fascism.”

Meanwhile back in London the debate over the illegal migration bill goes on, with a Tory MP warning that “hundreds of millions” of people want to come to the UK.

Scott Benton, MP for Blackpool South, told the Commons: “Our public services are already creaking under enormous pressure and we simply can’t accept hundreds of millions of people who would no doubt look to come here for a better life. I’m afraid this country is nearly full.”

He said the Aukus vessel would be “one of the most advanced nuclear-powered subs the world has ever known”.

He said the plans could “not happen without cutting-edge American technology and expertise” while also heralding the “world-leading” British design.

Sunak said the deal would “create thousands of good, well-paid jobs in places like Barrow and Derby”.

Sunak quoted former US president John F Kennedy, saying the leaders gathered in San Diego were “United by that same purpose” of freedom, peace and security.

He warned China, Russia, Iran and North Korea threatened to create “a world defined by danger, disorder, and division”.

Praising Biden’s leadership and Albanese’s vision, Sunak said the UK would offer “over sixty years’ experience of running our own fleet” and the “world-leading design” for the Aukus class of submarines.

“For the first time ever, it will mean three fleets of submarines working together across both the Atlantic and Pacific, keeping our oceans free, open, and prosperous for decades to come,” he said.

Meanwhile as MPs in London debate the illegal migration bill Rishi Sunak is 8,000 miles away in San Diego unveiling details of the Aukus nuclear submarine pact.

The press conference where Sunak would appear beside the US and Australian leaders, Joe Biden and Anthony Albanese, was supposed to be an hour ago but is just getting started now. You can read my colleague Aubrey Allegretti’s curtain raiser here

Some Tory MPs are only able to support the illegal migration bill “because of the safeguards that are written into it”, the Conservative chairman of the justice select committee has said.

Sir Bob Neill told the Commons:

It is not unlawful or illegitimate, faced with new and novel developments in the means of entry into the United Kingdom unlawfully, to test the legal position. That’s what the bill does no more at this stage. It’s legitimate to do that.

He went on:

That said, some of us are only able to support this bill tonight because of the safeguards that are in written into it, for example habeas corpus, and others.

Sir Bob noted that as the bill makes its way through the Commons and the Lords “some of us will be looking to improve the protections in relation to children, in relation to families, in relation to some of the tests”.

He also insisted that “left on its own this bill, or any other bill, will not achieve anything”, adding:

The real need is to operationalise the situation and to improve the lamentable performance our asylum system and immigration system has had for a number of years.

The situation for asylum seekers in Knowsley has “deteriorated” since a protest outside their hotel – and some have been assaulted, the Labour MP for the area says.

A protest last month outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Knowsley, Merseyside, saw a police van vandalised and fireworks thrown.

The MP for the area, Labour former minister Sir George Howarth, says “we should all be ashamed” of the situation, while hitting out at the government’s illegal migration bill in the Commons.

He says:

I want to agree with the home secretary on one thing. And that is when she said we should choose our words carefully. It’s just a pity she didn’t do so herself.

He adds:

There is a hotel in Knowsley with 180-plus asylum seekers. I won’t talk about that in detail because I had an urgent question on it a few weeks ago.

But what I will say is since then the situation has deteriorated to the extent that some of the refugees have been verbally abused in the street, and others have been assaulted.

And they have fled because the countries they come from were unsafe, only to find themselves in an unsafe position in this country. And I think we should all be ashamed.

It’s not just happening in Knowsley, it’s happening all over the country.

The home secretary has said children will be exempt from detention and removal from UK under the illegal migration bill.

Suella Braverman said the duty to remove “will not be applied to detain and remove unaccompanied asylum-seeking children”.

She said:

Consistent with current policy, only in limited circumstances, such as for the purposes of family reunion, we will remove unaccompanied asylum-seeking children from the UK.

Otherwise, they will be provided with the necessary support in the UK until they reach 18.

 

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called the government’s migration policy “a disgraceful piece of legislation” at a protest in Parliament Square this evening.

The former Labour leader, who now sits as an independent MP, spoke at the ‘stop the bill’ protest, saying he believed the Illegal Migration Bill would lead to the UK’s removal from the European convention on human rights (ECHR).

He said:

I just heard the home secretary say they were going to shut down the people traffickers.

The people traffickers exist because this policy creates a market for them and creates an opportunity for them to exploit people.

Corbyn added that the bill contained “vile language” used to “dehumanise desperate groups of people”.

Claudia Webbe, the independent MP for Leicester East, says it is “frankly frightening” to be at the second stage of a bill that begins with an admission from the home secretary “that the proposed legislation is not compatible with international law and our human rights obligations”.

The former Labour MP tells the House of Commons that the European court of human rights was drafted by the UK and protects the rights of “every one of us”, despite “misrepresentation”.

She adds:

Not even children are safe under this bill. Whilst the bill does not instruct the deportation of unaccompanied children, it does give permission for their deportation if the government or home secretary so wishes.

This is monstrous legislation and no assurances from the party opposite can make it less so.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat Alistair Carmichael has said the bill would deprive entitled people to the right of asylum.

He says:

And what will be the consequence of that? They will be sent away and many of them will die.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, adds that he wants to see the government succeed in stopping the boats due to the “danger that dies for all those that try to make that route”.

Labour MP Khalid Mahmood accuses home secretary Suella Braverman’s politics of being “xenophobic” and “racist”.

He tells MPs in the Commons:

The home secretary, in her opening statement, said that she can’t be xenophobic or racist just because of her colour and her origins.

Well, I say to her, of the same colour and same origin, that that is exactly what her politics are about.

Her politics are about dividing our society, our community, based on that. That is what she is doing and that is what she continues to do.

The people of the United Kingdom are not so naive as to take this huge nonsense of xenophobia and racism from this party to be put forward.

Elsewhere in the debate, Conservative former minister Sir John Hayes says:

The plain fact is that our kingdom’s borders are being breached day after day with impunity.

Of course Britain should provide a safe haven for people in need, in genuine need. But it is a deceit to pretend the asylum system is not being gamed and the British people taken for a ride.

He adds that “economic migrants with no legal right to be here” are being “enabled by fat cat law firms, aided and abetted by militant interest groups who are determined to subvert the will of the people, and cheered on by vacuous self-indulgent celebrities leading millionaire lifestyles”.

Aspana Begum, the Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, describes the bill as “abhorrent and unlawful”.

She continues:

Human rights and legal organisations are calling this one of the most damaging bills pushed forward by a British government in living memory.

This is because the illegal migration bill amounts to a refugee ban. It breaches fundamental and internationally recognised human rights, it attacks our way of life and it attacks our communities all over the UK.

Let us be clear; persecuting refugees and anti-migrant scaremongering does not benefit the majority of people.

The cynical and dangerous use of scapegoating to divide people by an unpopular government, which has overseen a horrifying death toll during the pandemic and continues to inflict hardship and suffering across the UK, does damage our communities.

Dame Diana Johnson, chair of the home affairs committee, has said the illegal migration bill “potentially leaves the Home Office in a legal quagmire”.

She repeats the assertions from Labour and the SNP that it will result in a situation whereby tens of thousands of people are detained and “bailed into a permanent state of limbo”.

She says:

There is nothing specifically in this bill about tackling criminal gangs, people smugglers and traffickers.

She concludes:

We all want action on small boats. But what we want is effective action that will deal with the problem.