Dame Angela Eagle

There was one iota of reality and truth in the middle of that farrago of rubbish that we have just heard from the Conservative party, and I will quote it because I pricked up my ears. The hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) said that there are “no easy solutions” to this problem. You could have fooled me, Madam Deputy Speaker! Conservative Members spent most of their last few years in office telling us that there were easy solutions and passing legislation that was so unusable and useless that they never commenced it, yet they now complain about our taking it off the statue book. Conservative Members need to explain to the people of this country why they do not want counter-terrorism-style powers to deal with organised immigration, and why they are voting against sensible extensions of powers, which have been asked for by the National Crime Agency, our Border Security Commander and the police, to help deal with this challenge on our borders. Why are they against the Bill? Almost all of them are still trying to claim that somehow their fantasy of the Rwanda scheme actually was a deterrent, when we know that it did not work—[Interruption.] The shadow Home Secretary can chunter all he likes, but 84,000 people crossed the channel in small boats when the Rwanda scheme was in operation and on the statute book. Conservative Members started off by saying that all they had to do was talk about the Rwanda scheme and it would be a deterrent. Then it was, “Once we’ve put it on the statue book it will be a deterrent”, and now all of a sudden it is, “Oh well, it never worked because not a plane took off.”