The home secretary was being questioned by MPs on immigration but could not say how asylum seekers could enter the UK legally, did not know how many judicial reviews have been launched against the Manston migrant centre and did not know if migrants could be forced to go to Rwanda.
Alix Culbertson
Political reporter @alixculbertson
Wednesday 23 November 2022
Suella Braverman has failed to explain the safe and legal routes to the UK for asylum seekers escaping war.
The home secretary, appearing at the Home Affairs Select Committee, was asked by Tory MP Tim Loughton how a 16-year-old orphan from an "East African country" escaping a war zone with a sibling in the UK could get to the UK safely and legally.
Mrs Braverman said people can "put in applications for asylum" but when pressed on how she said there are "safe and legal routes".
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Mr Loughton pressed her and asked how this hypothetical orphan could get to the UK if they are not from Syria, Afghanistan or Ukraine, which have official programmes for asylum with the UK.
"If you're able to get to the UK you're able to put in an application for asylum," the home secretary admitted.
"If you put in an application for asylum upon arrival that would be the process you would enter."
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But Mr Loughton pointed out that they could not get to the UK legally in the first place so said they would be forced to come illegally across the Channel.
Mrs Braverman could not answer how that asylum seeker could come over legally and instead called on her permanent secretary or the clandestine Channel threat commander, both sitting next to her, to answer.
Home Office permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft then said they could talk to the UN's refugee agency "depending which country you're from" to get leave to enter the UK to put in an asylum claim.
He admitted: "But I accept there are some countries where that would not be possible."
The incident was just one of a series of notable moments during Wednesday's committee meeting.
Mrs Braverman and Mr Rycroft were also ticked off for not knowing how many judicial reviews have been launched over the Manston migrant processing centre.
The centre was severely overcrowded earlier this month and there were a series of judicial reviews launched against the treatment of migrants there, with the committee's chair Dame Diana Johnson saying she had heard four reviews had been launched.
When the pair could not answer how many, Dame Diana said: "I'm rather surprised you didn't think I might ask that question."
Just as the session was ending Mrs Braverman revealed no judicial reviews have been launched over Manston, but five pre-action protocol letters have been received. These are legal letters to try to resolve a dispute before court proceedings begin - an essential part of the process leading to a judicial review.
Quizzed about whether the government can send migrants to Rwanda if they are unwilling to go, Mrs Braverman said: "Let's wait to see what the court says."
The policy to send people arriving on small boats to Rwanda has so far not taken place as each flight has been halted by last minute judicial reviews.
Mrs Braverman's response is likely to irk those on the right of the Conservative Party who have been strong advocates of the policy.
The home secretary was told by Tory MP Lee Anderson the Home Office has "failed to control our borders and it's not fit for purpose at the moment" as he said more asylum seekers are being placed in hotels.
Mrs Braverman said: "We have failed to control our borders, yes.
"That's why the prime minister and myself are absolutely determined to fix this problem."
Braverman on protests again
The new (again) Home Secretary Suella Braverman has returned to the subject of policing protest at length in a speech to the the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) and National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) Partnership Summit 2022.
She urged ‘common-sense policing’, speaking just after an Essex Police officer was injured on the M25 while responding to what Ms Barverman called ‘the guerrilla tactics of Just Stop Oil protesters’. She said: “Although most police officers do an excellent job, sadly, in recent months and years we have seen an erosion of confidence in the police to take action against the radicals, the road-blockers, the vandals, the militants and the extremists. But we have also seen the police appear to lose confidence in themselves; in yourselves. In your authority, in your power. An institutional reluctance. This has to change.
“Criminal damage, obstructing the highway, public nuisance – none of it should be humoured. It is not a human right to vandalise a work of art. It is not a civil liberty to stop ambulances getting to the sick and injured. Such disruption is a threat to our way of life. It does not ‘further a cause’. It is not ‘freedom of expression’ and I want to reassure you that you have my – and this government’s – full backing in taking a firmer line to safeguard public order. Indeed, that is your duty.
“Scenes of members of the public taking the law into their own hands are a sign of a loss of confidence and I urge you all to step up to your public duties in policing protests. The law-abiding patriotic majority is on your side.”
On fraud (the UK’s number one volume crime, although previously Ms Braverman has appeared to discount it, stating that crime was falling, except for fraud) she said that the Government would ‘replace the current Action Fraud system with a new and improved service’. As featured in the August print edition of Professional Security Magazine, the annual conference of the Midlands Fraud Forum heard that due to following procurement a replacement for Action Fraud (mentioned in passing in a Boris Johnson era strategy document) will not come in before 2024. Action Fraud has been widely reviled as not actually providing any help or outcome to nearly all those who report crimes to it; Scotland has pulled out of the service.
Also promised by her was ‘new public order legislation will improve your ability to pre-emptively tackle unlawful protests and tackle repeat offenders’, although a previous Home Secretary, Priti Patel, brought in the similar Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, that was supposed to provide police ‘with the necessary powers’ to ‘stop disruptive protests’.
Protesters were not mentioned in APCC chair Marc Jones’ opening speech to the event.
In his opening speech, NPCC chair Martin Hewitt said that police continued ‘to demonstrate professionalism, tenacity and resilience when responding to increasingly challenging protest activity’. As for recent protests on main roads, he said: “A combination of proactivity and preparedness meant we have been able to reopen the busy motorways quickly. Working with government and other agencies we continue to use civil injunctions as well as our criminal powers to minimise disruption. Policing is not anti-protest, but it is pro-responsibility and for having due regard for the rights of others. We will continue to take all appropriate action against anyone who deliberately chooses to protest outside of the law.”
Photo by Mark Rowe; Just Stop Oil posters, Bloomsbury, central London.
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