James Grundy MP: Backing Prime Minister on Rwanda plan for illegal immigrants

​We are making progress with the number of arrivals being reduced by a third, while in other European countries illegal immigration has increased by up to 80 per cent.

The backlog of asylum claimants has been reduced from 92,000 to less than 20,000 and we have removed over 22,000 illegal immigrants this year.

We are closing hotels used to house asylum seekers who will instead be housed in secure centres like the Bibby Stockholm barge and on large former Ministry of Defence sites.

We must go further. To fully solve this problem we need a strong deterrent. As our deal with Albania shows, deterrents work.

The number of Albanian illegal immigrants has been reduced by more than 90 per cent this year. Only by removing the prospect of illegal immigrants settling in the UK can we control our borders, save lives at sea and break the criminal gangs running the people smuggling racket.

The Government is introducing emergency legislation supported by a legally binding treaty, backed up by evidence, that Rwanda is safe, to respond to the concerns of the Supreme Court and end the ‘merry-go-round’ of legal challenges to our plans to stop this modern day slave trade.

The legislation will make it clear and unambiguous that Parliament confirms Rwanda to be safe, notwithstanding any other interpretation of international law by any court or tribunal preventing the courts from second-guessing Parliaments intention.

Furthermore the Bill will reassert that Parliament is sovereign and that the validity of any act of Parliament is unaffected by international law.

I am aware that some colleagues have expressed concerns that despite the welcome and robust nature of this legislation, loopholes may remain that could be exploited by unscrupulous lawyers or criminal smuggling gangs.

I will carefully consider any amendment brought forward that would propose to strengthen the legislation further.

Finally, I welcome the clear statement from the Prime Minister that he will not allow a foreign court to block this policy and that if the European Court of Human Rights chooses to intervene, against the express wishes of Parliament, he is prepared to do whatever is necessary to get flights off the ground.

The Prime Minister will have my full backing to deliver that commitment, even if we must strengthen the Bill to deliver it. We must do whatever it takes to tackle illegal Channel crossings.

When people know that, if they come here illegally, they won’t get to stay, we will break the smuggling gangs and modern slavers running this criminal and cruel syndicate.