Speeches by Murray.

“There has been a lot of discussion around the French changing their maritime law in response to the taxi boats phenomenon and the appalling fact that last year 14 people drowned in the channel, including in November a one-month-old child. What have your discussions been like with the French, and what is the progress on…”

“I absolutely agree with you that dysfunctionality in the asylum system is what saps public support for refugee protection overall, but I am just curious about your assessment of Home Office operations overall. It does not centre around the asylum process, including decisions and appeals but instead around the idea that…”

“That’s an understatement.”

“Are you working with the Foreign Office and other Government Departments to ensure that that is joined up in all our relations with France?”

“Thank you for that. I would like to move on to now talk about asylum accommodation. This Committee has heard a lot of evidence, which is blood-boiling, of billions of pounds being wasted, in a way that is terrible for communities where hotels pop up and terrible for the asylum seekers themselves—we heard about really s…”

“You are coming to the theme of my next question: the alternative to hotels. Obviously you have started setting up some large sites in military barracks, but we are all aware of the Home Office’s track record on converting military sites. I think of the Northeye scandal, where I think £350 million of public money was ju…”

“The one in, one out deal is the other big component of the work with France. It has been going for about six months now and it has six more months to run. You said that we have sent 281 people to France and 350 have come back to the UK. What is the cost-benefit analysis of the success of this scheme? Are those the numb…”

“That was going to be exactly my question back to you, which is what adjustments would you want to see made for the system to work like that?”

“That brings me on to my next question, which is I accept your argument that if you only look at income to speed you up through the settlement process then that would be very crude but from what I understand in the consultation it is just adding that in as another element, so it is multiple things you could do to speed …”

“It is not banning people who do not meet the fiscal cost from getting it; it is just extending the time period.”

“What about the argument that this is about basically fiscal cost, so some people come into the country to do jobs and do it perfectly legally and that is great but there is a point at which you pay in more than you have taken out to the Exchequer and if you are at that level then that is great, you can apply for settle…”

“The consultation does involve other metrics as well such as volunteerism but I am asking specifically about the salary thresholds and working in the public sector.”

“I understand the logic of your point there but do you think that it is within the wit of the Home Office or any Government Department to design a system that could be that tailored or what do you think would be a good proxy to use? If not your salary, if not the employer, unless you go out and do a job analysis of ever…”

“I want to broaden out a bit to look at the routes to settlement not in the care sector but across the whole local economy. One of the proposals in the consultation is for deductions and the time it takes to get to the route to settlement based on whether your salary is above a threshold, to a threshold, that would spee…”

“We get that a lot.”

“I will follow up on the social care conversation. First, I see in my own constituency and in my personal life the massive contribution of social care workers both UK nationals and foreign nationals and it just cannot be understated. On the topic of why the sector has struggled to recruit domestically, can I put to you …”

“That picks up on Jo White’s point earlier, that the advantage of a labour market being very flexible and informal is that you can fill spaces quite easily, and that the labour market can adapt within hours to find pickers. The downside is the vulnerability of it. It is a trade-off between those two. Do you accept that …”

“To open it out to the rest of the panel, what problems do you think employers encounter in fulfilling their legal obligations? Also, what do you think of the argument that the system is focusing on the wrong set of people? A lot of people are following the law and employing people legally, and they put in a lot of effo…”

“Finally, what is your view on the use of paper documents? Obviously, quite a lot of smaller businesses and legacy employees will still be using paper. In 2026, does that have a big impact?”

“Thank you very much. We have heard that employers often make mistakes or struggle to navigate the system. According to the Home Office, 80% of employers got one compliance question wrong, 81% incorrectly thought that recruitment agencies checked the status of agency workers, and 70% of employers in the construction ind…”