Immigration minister dismisses Reform deportation plans as ‘gimmicks’
Immigration minister Seema Malhotra has dismissed Reform’s plans to tackle immigration numbers as “gimmicks” that have “unravelled on basic facts and figures”.
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The MP for Feltham and Heston said that she would not comment on Nigel Farage’s proposed deal with Afghanistan’s Taliban or “individual countries”.
Reform announced on Tuesday a plan to deport 600,000 people from the country, which would be enabled by striking deals with the Taliban and Iran.
But the party appeared later to backtrack on proposals for women and children to be removed under its plans for “mass deportations”.
Speaking in Portsmouth, Ms Malhotra said: “What I will say is that we have a policy of returning people to their countries where they are safe or, as we’ve seen in the agreement with France, to safe third countries.
“What’s also the case is that we’ve seen Reform’s plan unravel after just two days, and if that’s their specialist subject to see their plans unravel on the basic facts and figures, one has to ask the question about what other plans they might have."
Read more: Half of Reform voters say paying Taliban to take back Afghan migrants is 'unacceptable'
She added: “Whether it’s for our NHS or any other areas of our public services, what we are committed to is taking the serious action that we need and not gimmicks."
When asked if the Government had alternative plans to hotels for housing asylum-seekers, Ms Maholtra said they are reducing the need for the hotels.
She said: “That’s the critical bit of this and we’ve got to do that by working with communities across the country, making sure that what we’re doing is processing asylum cases much more quickly, making sure that we’re returning those with no right to be here, and making sure that we are delivering on our commitment that we made in our manifesto to see a closure to all asylum hotels in this Parliament."
When asked if the Government was reliant on hotels, she said: “Well, we’re also reliant on making sure that we’re clearing the backlog, because the number of people in hotels is as a result of the asylum cases that are open."
