Speeches by Murray.

“No, it is not. It is because the right hon. and learned Lady passed the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, which allowed the backlog to soar. It is because the right hon. and learned Lady signed off on putting asylum seekers in hotels, which cost £34,000 per asylum seeker, as opposed to £14,000 per asy…”

“What does “actively considering” mean? Is there anything active about it? Can the Minister refer to meetings, instructions or deadlines that would manifest as active consideration?”

“I completely agree with the hon. Lady. It is not just in the UK that people are recognising that Israel is crossing multiple lines; it is across the world, so we must act. As others have said, countries such as Ireland and Spain are taking the decision to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements. We must too, and now…”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing today’s debate, and thank Members from all parties for the powerful speeches we have heard. There is clearly cross-party support for the proposition we are debating. I recognise the work that the Government have done, supporting the …”

“The best solution to managing those challenges this summer is sustained engagement with the French, at leader level, Cabinet level, ministerial level, and working official level, so that the police aux frontières have a delegated responsibility to let flows through. What discussion will we be having at every level with…”

“Last week I visited the port of Dover with the Home Affairs Committee, to see those operations in action. Given that this is an EU entry-exit system, we must face the fact that this is an inevitable consequence of Brexit, and we have to make it work. The best solution to the challenges facing our constituents this summ…”

“And European arrest warrants, exactly. How is the lack of access to those European instruments an impediment to securing the common travel area?”

“You seem to be describing that as a sort of pan-UK challenge, rather than specifically saying that Northern Ireland is a particularly attractive part of the UK because it can be accessed via a land border from the common travel area. That is how I interpret what you are saying. Moving to my next question, the common tr…”

“But the taxpayer does contract Mears to do this, to the tune of billions of pounds, so could you undertake to write to the Committee with those four specific answers? I am happy to remind you what the questions were later on, if that is helpful. I want to move on to try to understand how the common travel area fits int…”

“My final question is on exactly how we analyse data and take it in. Obviously, one of the risks is that a third country national comes into the EU, moves from mainland EU to Ireland and then travels into the common travel area from there. Do we share a watchlist with Ireland so that people will be on the same watchlist…”

“What does intelligence-led checks mean? What is the difference between intelligence-led checks for non-EU nationals and those for EU nationals?”

“Okay, so it is EU nationals that are the challenge?”

“Thank you. I get that, but what I am trying to drive at is whether an intelligence-led model of that will differ if those organised crime groups, or the people who you are trying to target, are from an EU background or a non-EU background, or a non-British background.”

“Their exit from the European Union would not be checked, but if they re-entered, they would still be checked. I wanted to make that clear because I want to ask what the challenges are for enforcement bodies in relation to the common travel area and the land border, particularly in relation to the land border. Obviously…”

“Thank you, I just wanted to make sure I had understood the clarification.”

“Have they been checked coming into the common travel area already?”

“To go back to my earlier point—apologies if this is confusing—non-EU nationals are all checked when they enter the common travel area and EU nationals are not, but what you are saying to me is that it does not actually make that big a difference that non-EU nationals are checked and EU nationals are not checked when th…”

“Yes.”

“So anyone within the common travel area, unless they entered irregularly, has been checked?”

“In many ways, the common travel area feels a unique part of the UK-Ireland set-up, but when you think about it, it is very similar to the Schengen area in Europe, where countries share their border controls and intelligence. I am trying to get my head around the challenges you face. Picking up on Mr Robinson’s point, a…”