Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 9
9
Accepted
Paragraph: 55
Albania not the sole cause of migration concerns, but contributed to asylum system strain
Conclusion
We have focused on Albania because of its unexpected emergence as the source of most people trying to cross the English Channel on small boats and the subsequent interest in why that should have happened so suddenly and unpredictably. Albania is not the cause of the UK’s current migration concerns. It should not be singled out as such or scapegoated for home-grown failure to process asylum applications quickly and to return to their own or other countries those who do not have a right to be in the UK. That said, the substantial number of Albanians arriving across the Channel last year unquestionably contributed to the overwhelming of the asylum system, and particularly to the overcrowding seen at Manston in October. A new focus on faster decision-making for Albanian and all other applicants is welcome, but we need clear evidence soon that the Home Office is getting a grip on a complex, expensive system.
Government Response Summary
The government committed to implementing the Illegal Migration Act to detain and remove illegal entrants, establishing a new Small Boats Operational Command with 700 staff, doubling funding for the Organised Immigration Crime taskforce, creating a Joint Migration Task Force in Tirana, and using new migrant accommodation sites.
Paragraph Reference:
55
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
We have set out how we are aiming to increase asylum decision making and the Committee will recognise that many of the issues we have about returning people from the United Kingdom, including raising last-minute unsubstantiated claims and abusing the Modern Slavery system, are why we have passed the Illegal Migration Act. But we are going further to implement the Prime Minister’s 10 point immigration plan to tackle illegal migration and transform the end-to-end system, reducing its complexity and bringing down the cost to the taxpayer. The Illegal Migration Act changes the law so that people who come to the UK illegally will not be able to stay. Instead, they will be detained and then promptly removed, either to their home country or a safe third country like Rwanda. People who enter the UK illegally will not have access to our asylum system, and they will never be able to make a life here. If they cannot be returned to their home country, their asylum claim will be considered by a safe third country, such as Rwanda. We have committed to tackling illegal migration with its strategic plan to stop the boats. Before we launched our plan to stop the boats, the number of people entering the UK illegally in small boats had quadrupled in two years. Since we launched our plan forced returns are up and the backlog is falling – although there is still more we can do. We are working across the migration system, end to end, to tackle illegal migration. We have: • Provided significant investment of support for French counter migration operations, law enforcement personnel, facilities and technology (€540m over 3 years – 2023–25). • Issued a joint communique on enhancing bilateral cooperation in areas of common interest, including security and migration. • Established a new permanent Small Boats Operational Command with 700 new staff; • Increased illegal working raids by over 50% and increasing arrests by 130% since last year; • Doubled funding for the next two financial years for the Organised Immigration Crime (OIC) taskforce (Op Invigor) . The funding package includes: Ȥ increases in NCA investigative and intelligence resources on OIC Ȥ Establishing Joint Migration Task Force in Tirana Ȥ Establishing an Illegal Migration Online Centre Ȥ Providing Home Office Intelligence with £3m+ of specialist Open Source intelligence tools • Made significant progress on moving migrants out of expensive hotels, introducing a migrant barge at Portland and making progress on large sites at Wethersfield and Scampton.