Labour MPs piled pressure on the Government over the small boats crisis today as Yvette Cooper announced plans to tighten asylum rules.

The Home Secretary was urged by Labour members for stricter measures concerning the migrant crossings in the Channel during a heated session in the House of Commons this afternoon.

As MPs returned after the summer break – a period marked by ongoing small boat arrivals and demonstrations near asylum hotels nationwide – Ms. Cooper sought to take proactive steps by introducing new actions.

She announced that new applications to the existing refugee family reunion route will be suspended this week.

Ms Cooper highlighted how local councils were under pressure from a ‘sharp increase’ in Channel migrants applying to bring family members to Britain.

She highlighted that some municipalities were ‘experiencing that over a quarter of their family homelessness cases are connected to refugee family reunions’.

The Home Secretary further noted that smuggling networks are exploiting the promise of family reunification in the UK as a ‘motivating factor to draw more individuals onto perilous boats’.

As a result, refugees will now adhere to ‘the same family migration rules and requirements as everyone else’ until new regulations are set in place, the Home Secretary explained.

Further reforms to family reunion routes will be outlined later this year and introduced by spring.

However, veteran Labour MP Graham Stringer expressed to Ms. Cooper that the steps introduced on Monday might not yield the ‘effectiveness she and I hope for them to achieve’.

‘They don’t really deal with the fact that many migrants are not coming from war-torn countries, they’re coming from France which is not persecuting them in any recognisable form,’ he said.

Labour MPs piled pressure on the Government over the small boats crisis today as Yvette Cooper announced plans to tighten asylum rules

But Ms Cooper was told by veteran Labour MP Graham Stringer that the measures she announced on Monday would not be ‘as successful as she and I would wish them to be’.

People swim to try and board a dinghy in the English Channel in Gravelines, northern France

Mr Stringer added that migrants were being ‘pulled’ to Britain by a belief they will have an ‘easier time, and get through the system more easily than they would in France and other European countries’.

The Blackley and Middleton South MP urged Ms Cooper to copy the example of Denmark, which has implemented strict asylum measures.

The Home Secretary replied: ‘He’s right to say small boats are mainly setting off from France, people have travelled through France, but that is exactly why we have negotiated the pilot agreement with France to be able to return people back to France.

‘The first time that this has happened, something previous governments tried and failed to do.’

Ms Cooper had earlier said the Governmment’s ‘one in, one out’ migrant deal with France would see the first return of people back across the Channel ‘later this month’.

The ‘one in, one out’ pilot scheme has been agreed for the UK to send back migrants to France who crossed the Channel, in exchange for those who apply and are approved to come to the UK. 

Ms Cooper added: ‘Applications have also been opened for the reciprocal legal route, with the first cases under consideration subject to strict security checks.

‘We’ve made clear this is a pilot scheme, but the more we prove the concept at the outset, the better we will be able to develop and grow it.’

Jodie Gosling, MP for Nuneaton, was also among Labour backbenchers to challenge Ms Cooper over the Government’s handling of the asylum system on Monday.

She asked how – as Ms Cooper looks to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers – there would be ‘sufficient vetting and transparency in asylum dispersal’.

‘Especially for groups known to be high-risk in order to safeguard our residents, restore faith in our communities and prevent disorder and the threats of disorder as we’ve seen in Nuneaton this summer,’ Ms Gosling added.

The Home Secretary replied: ‘Anyone who comes to our country needs to abide by our laws, the rules need to be enforced.

‘We also believe that new partnerships and stronger measures are needed between policing, immigration enforcement and the Home Office around making sure there are proper public safety plans around the asylum estate.’

Ms Cooper added the Government was ‘drawing up stronger checks at the border, but also stronger arrangements in local communities as well.’

The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex became the focal point of several demonstrations and counter-protests in recent weeks after an asylum seeker housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl last month.

He has denied the charges. There were also protests at other asylum accommodation sites across Britain.

The Government will establish a new independent body to deal with immigration and asylum appeals as tens of thousands of people in asylum accommodation are currently awaiting appeals, the Home Secretary told MPs.

She added the current average waiting time for appeals to be heard is 54 weeks.

Ms Cooper’s suspension of applications to the existing refugee family reunion route prompted a backlash from refugee and human rights groups, with Amnesty International warning it was ‘reckless and wrong’.

Prior to the Home Secretary’s statement in the Commons, Sir Keir Starmer said he ‘completely’ gets peoples’ concerns about migration, and insisted he wanted to speed up efforts to empty asylum hotels before the next election.

The Government has committed to empty all hotels currently housing migrants by the end of the Parliament, which could be as late as 2029, but the Prime Minister suggested he wanted to ‘bring that forward’.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live’s Matt Chorley, Sir Keir said he understood the concerns about migration, describing them as a ‘really serious issue’.

‘We have to have control of our borders, and I completely get it, and I’m determined that whether it’s people crossing in the first place, whether it’s people in asylum hotels, or whether it’s returning people, we absolutely have to deal with this,’ the PM said.

‘When it comes to the asylum hotels, I want them emptied. I’ve been really clear about that. I completely understand why people are so concerned about it.’

Asked to commit to a date to empty asylum hotels, Sir Keir replied: ‘Well, we’ve said we’ll get rid of them by the end of the Parliament. I would like to bring that forward, I think it is a good challenge. I want to bring that forward.’

Prior to the Home Secretary’s statement in the Commons, Sir Keir Starmer said he ‘completely’ gets peoples’ concerns about migration

The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex became the focal point of several demonstrations and counter-protests in recent weeks after an asylum seeker housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl last month. He has denied the charges.

Asked if he would be comfortable with his daughter having to walk past an asylum hotel, Sir Keir insisted again he ‘completely’ understands the concerns of residents, adding: ‘Local people by and large do not want these hotels in their towns, in their place, nor do I. I’m completely at one with them on that.’

Nigel Farage and his party Reform UK ‘feed on grievance’ about migration, the PM also said, adding ‘they’ve got no reason to exist’ if the problem is solved.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Labour ‘do not have the stomach’ to take stronger action on immigration control when asked about the plans.

Speaking to reporters during a visit on Monday, the Conservative Party leader said: ‘Well, what I would actually like to see the Home Secretary talk about is how she’s going to close down the asylum hotels.

‘What they have done with their recent court case is actually shown that they believe that illegal migrants have more rights than our local communities, and we completely disagree with that.

‘We had a deportation Bill, which we asked Labour to support, we talked about disapplying the Human Rights Act so you wouldn’t even get to some of the circumstances that she’s talking about.

‘There’s a lot more that can be done on immigration control. Labour do not have the stomach to do it. We do, and we have the plans as well.’

Downing Street insisted ministers have no plans to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which informs UK human rights law, in order to tackle migration.

Right-leaning think tank Policy Exchange on Monday sought to dispel the argument that leaving ECHR would not jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland, where it underpins the Good Friday Agreement.

Chief executive of the Refugee Council Enver Solomon said until now family reunion has been one of the only safe and legal routes available for refugees and overwhelmingly supports women and children who make up the majority of visas granted.

‘Far from stopping people taking dangerous journeys to cross the Channel, these changes will only push more desperate people into the arms of smugglers in an effort to reunite with loved ones,’ he said.

Amnesty International’s Steve Valdez-Symonds added: ‘The Home Secretary may say she is standing against hate, division and chaos, but yet again she has reacted to precisely these evils by doing more harm to refugees – the very people most targeted by them.’

He also said the ‘clear reason’ for the appeals backlog is that the Government is ‘refusing asylum to people who are refugees’ but cannot meet the ‘flawed’ rules under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.