'It isn’t fit for purpose’: Shelagh Fogarty comments on the ‘broken’ asylum system
2 November 2022, 15:42
'That's a system barely functioning'
"That isn't just a system under pressure, that's a system barely functioning", says Shelagh Fogarty after hearing the Prime Minister echo "the same old" answers on immigration during PMQs.
Following PMQs, Shelagh revealed: “To say that Rishi Sunak’s responses to Keir Starmer’s questions left me disappointed would be a severe understatement.
“They left me rather disturbed actually.”
During PMQs, Labour leader Keir Starmer pressed Rishi Sunak for answers on the “broken” asylum system, to which the Prime Minister responded with jibes about ex-Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
Shelagh said: “I can barely believe that our new Prime Minister is taking time, maybe this is all he has, to trot out the same old, kick-in-the-teeth nonsense across the dispatch box about something quite this serious - but that’s what he did today.”
She continued: “We learnt that Rishi Sunak agrees with Suella Braverman that migration should be in the tens of thousands.
“They both know, and David Cameron knew when he said it as well - A, that’s not gonna happen and B, it’s not what we need.
“They won’t address what we actually need from migration in this country.”
Acknowledging that illegal immigration “has to be addressed”, Shelagh continued: “But that’s not the same as asylum and we know that the asylum system is more than creaking, it’s on it's knees, it’s broken.”
“It’s almost useless - if, in the space of a year, only 4% of asylum cases of those coming across in boats have been processed”, she added.
“That isn’t just a system under pressure, that’s a system barely functioning.”
Shelagh asked: “In the Home Office, I think it’s pretty clear it’s not functioning isn’t it?
“It’s pretty clear it isn’t, to use John Reid’s famous words, fit for purpose.”
