Stephen Kinnock, Shadow Immigration Minister, says the backlog of asylum claims is over a 170 thousand times higher than when Labour left office in 2010, before adding that "our asylum system is completely broken". Mr Kinnock says his party would "scrap the unworkable, unaffordable and unethical Rwanda plan and redirect all that money into a cross border police unit working much more effectively with Europol and Interpol to break the people smugglers". Report by Czubalam. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 There's a huge backlog of pending cases, 172,000,
00:04 nine times higher than when Labour left office in 2010.
00:08 But what we've also discovered is there are 40,000 people
00:12 in the UK whose asylum claims have been rejected,
00:15 so they're not legitimate refugees,
00:18 and they should, therefore, leave the country
00:20 or be removed, but the removal system
00:24 has collapsed under the Conservatives,
00:26 and they aren't being removed.
00:27 So it's yet another example of the neglect and incompetence
00:32 that we've seen over the last 13 years from the Conservatives,
00:35 and as a result, our asylum system is completely broken.
00:38 So we will scrap the unworkable, unaffordable,
00:41 and unethical Rwanda plan, and we will redirect all that money
00:44 into a cross-border police unit working much more effectively
00:48 with Europol and Interpol to break the people smugglers.
00:53 We will clear the backlog by fast-tracking those
00:58 from low-grant-rate countries so they can be removed
01:01 from the country much more rapidly,
01:03 and from high-grant-rate countries
01:05 where the vast majority are legitimate refugees
01:09 so they can be given leave to remain
01:10 and get on with their lives.
01:11 And we would upgrade the decision-makers and case
01:14 workers in the Home Office so they're
01:16 making far more effective and productive decisions,
01:19 and we would get that deal with the European Union
01:22 based on them accepting that people
01:24 who try to cross the Channel illegally
01:26 should be returned to the EU.
01:28 But we're realists.
01:29 We know we'll only get that with a generous offer, bold offer,
01:33 if you like, on the capped and safe legal route
01:38 so that they're very well-managed, tightly managed.
01:41 But that's what you have to have in terms of the quid pro quo
01:45 to do that deal with the European Union
01:47 about accepting the returns of people
01:49 who come across on the Channel.
01:51 So it's that mixture of hard graft, quiet diplomacy,
01:55 and common sense to get that deal done,
01:57 stop the small boat crossings, clear the backlog,
02:00 and break the model of the people smugglers.