Speeches by Eagle.

“I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman now, because he stood up when I got to the end of a sentence.”

“Let me finish the sentence. No, I will not give way. I think it is perfectly reasonable to point out what the Conservatives’ record is, when they have come to the Chamber to try to lecture the Government about what to do with our immigration and migration policies, even though we are clearing up their mess. This Govern…”

“I think it is perfectly reasonable to point out the chaos that there was in 14 years of Conservative government and the shadow Home Secretary’s record in these areas—”

“No; I am going to make some of these points. We should all remember that the shadow Home Secretary was once credited as being the economic guru behind Liz Truss’s premiership. This is the man who helped Liz Truss to write her catastrophic mini-Budget, drive the country off a cliff and scupper her own premiership.”

“I am talking about 20-week periods, which feature in the Opposition’s motion. I am talking about what happened in a 20-week period, when—just to go back over it—the shadow Home Secretary went from tech Minister to not having a job, to being Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Paymaster General, and then police Minister. T…”

“No. [Interruption.]”

“No. There were 30,000 arrivals in the space of 20 weeks— not 220 or even 500 boats, but 670 boats. How did that happen? The Conservatives were all too busy fighting among themselves and crashing the economy to bother about protecting our borders. Let us not forget the role that the shadow Home Secretary played in that …”

“I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to en and insert “notes that 127,896 people crossed the Channel while the previous Government was in office, as a criminal smuggling industry took hold on the French coast; further notes that 84,151 of those people arrived while the previous Government’s £700 millio…”

“Would the right hon. Member take a moment just to reflect on and remember the woman and small child who lost their lives today in an incident in French territorial waters?”

“The National Crime Agency has not said that about the Bill. In fact, if the right hon. Gentleman had listened to the evidence sessions at the beginning of our consideration of the Bill, he would have heard good evidence from the NCA supporting the parts of the Bill that provide counter-terrorism and prevention powers, …”

“I agree. Of course, the Conservative party also oppose all of the Bill, despite—[Interruption.] Well, Conservative Members say it is not true, but they voted against it. I do not know why the Opposition should have voted against a Bill that provides more powers to deal with organised immigration crime internationally.”

“Before I speak about the key Government amendments tabled on Report, I would like to recall why the Government have brought forward the Bill. We are working to take the necessary actions to secure our borders, bring order to the chaotic immigration and asylum system we inherited, and go after the dangerous criminal gan…”

“We missed the right hon. Gentleman in the Committee. Given the sophistication of the organised immigration crime threat to the country, will he explain why he plans on voting against the Bill tonight when it provides counter-terrorism style powers that the National Crime Agency and our security services have told us th…”

“I agree that we in this place have to always think about the humanity involved and not try to label everybody who comes into our country when they are claiming asylum as some kind of threat or, even worse, as a terrorist or something, as was done by the hon. Member for Ashfield. We have to treat every case on its merit…”

“We will come to these debates when we get on to debating the new clauses to which the hon. Gentleman is referring. We have been clear from the Government Benches about the balance between respecting work visas, which people have to apply for if they are coming to work here, and allowing asylum seekers who have not appl…”

“I certainly hope that that kind of comment might be a joke. I wonder whether that kind of arbitrary treatment of people who are in this country would become the norm for Reform, if we came out of the European convention on human rights, as the hon. Member wants. We are a law-abiding Government. The right hon. Member fo…”

“Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise after what has been a very full debate, with people having to fit in quite complex points in short amounts of time. I congratulate everybody on the points they made. I will try, as much as possible, to deal with some of them in the time I have left. I …”

“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.”

“My hon. Friend is right. We inherited a system in total chaos; asylum decision making had all but ground to a halt. Many, many tens of thousands of people were left having claimed asylum, as the law allowed them to, but unable to be processed because the previous Government passed a law that made it illegal for them to…”

“As I have before, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the border security force in this country works very closely with the PSNI and the Garda Síochána to deal with all potential threats in the common travel area. I assure him that we keep a very close eye on what is going on there to ensure that the hon. Gentleman’s …”