No further concessions on Illegal Migration Bill, Jenrick signals

The immigration minister said the Government will not be making further compromises, amid a tussle with the Lords.

Robert Jenrick signalled there would be no further concessions on the Illegal Migration Bill (Aaron Chown/PA) (PA Wire)

The Government is not planning further compromises on its plans to tackle the small boats crisis, the immigration minister has said, as the stand-off with the House of Lords continues.

Robert Jenrick told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that ministers were not planning to make further compromises, after peers pressed for further changes to the Illegal Migration Bill.

Members of the Lords want further concessions on limits to the detention of children, modern slavery protections and the provision of safe and legal routes for refugees to the UK.

The Lords inflicted a string of fresh defeats on the Government this week over the much-criticised Bill, which ministers insist is integral to efforts to tackle small boats crossings in the Channel.

It means the continuation of the parliamentary tussle over the Bill, known as ping-pong, where the legislation is batted between the Lords and Commons, until agreement is reached.

It's incumbent on those who choose to criticise our approach to provide an alternative

Robert Jenrick, immigration minister

The Commons had overturned a raft of earlier revisions by the unelected chamber, despite rebellions by Tory MPs concerned about the flagship reforms.

But Mr Jenrick told the BBC that critics of the Bill had not put forward any “credible alternative”.

“It’s incumbent on those who choose to criticise our approach to provide an alternative.

You don't measure compassion by the decoration of a site. You measure compassion by your determination to stop the boats in the first place

Robert Jenrick

“It’s not a serious or grown-up way to conduct a debate to say, ‘well we have concerns about Rwanda’, ‘we don’t like the compliant environment’ – ‘We don’t want this, we don’t want to’, but not to come up with an alternative.”

The Bill now heads back to the Commons where MPs will consider the latest changes made by peers.

At Business Questions, Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt confirmed there would be time set aside to debate the Bill on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week before Parliament’s summer recess begins on Thursday.

Appearing on the same programme, Mr Jenrick insisted the decision to paint over murals of cartoon characters at an asylum seeker reception centre in Kent was made because the decoration was not “age appropriate”.

Ministers have faced criticism over the decision to paint over cartoons including Mickey Mouse and Baloo from The Jungle Book.

Mr Jenrick sought to play down the matter when pressed on whether it was ministers who made the decision.

“We did believe that it wasn’t age appropriate to that location. The overwhelming majority of the minors who are passing through that centre unaccompanied last year were older teenagers.

“The debate over the decoration of a particular site is missing the point. You don’t measure compassion by the decoration of a site. You measure compassion by your determination to stop the boats in the first place.”

He stressed the need to work with other European countries to tackle the arrival of migrants “further upstream”.

“We have to try to stop people getting anywhere near the United Kingdom. And that means using the assets that we have as a country, and we do have particular strengths that make us an important and useful partner.

“We have to deploy those in addition to the work we’re doing in France and our near borders upstream.”

More than 13,000 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after making the journey across the Channel.

Crossings resumed on Friday despite windy conditions at sea and the threat of heavy rain.