- 1 day ago
Catch up on all the latest political news from across Kent with Rob Bailey, joined by Green Kent County Councillor Stuart Heaver and Robbie Lammas of Reform UK.
They discussed Labour's tighter restrictions on immigration and local government reorganisation.
They discussed Labour's tighter restrictions on immigration and local government reorganisation.
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TVTranscript
00:00Welcome to the Kent Politics Show on KMTV. I'm Rob Bailey.
00:25And this week, Labour unveiled its new plan to stop the boats arriving on Kent's coast.
00:30Home Secretary Shibana Mahmood wants to make the UK less attractive to illegal migrants.
00:35She'll deport people whose asylum claims fail, those given leave to stay will have their
00:39status reviewed more regularly and will receive less financial support. But her plans, which
00:45could see children forced out of the country, have been described as performative cruelty
00:49by opponents. Here's the Home Secretary and Folkestone and Hyde MP Tony Vaughan this week.
00:55Half of refugees remain on benefits eight years after they have arrived. To the British
01:01public who foot the bill, the system feels out of control and unfair. It feels that way
01:08because it is. The pace and scale of change has destabilised communities. It is making
01:14our country a more divided place.
01:16the other stakeholders as well as we design the new community sponsorship models, which
01:21will in the future bear the load of helping to bring refugees into this country and to
01:26settle them and to ultimately integrate them successfully into this country.
01:29Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I draw attention to my register of interest. I acknowledge the
01:34gargantuan task the Home Secretary has to regain public confidence in our asylum system. We must
01:39ensure that as well as fairness and contribution that compassion is also reflected in our asylum
01:45system, which is also a quintessentially British value and is reflected in the work of
01:49charities like Napier Friends and my constituency who support those staying at Napier Barracks.
01:53My question is about the appeal reforms in relation to professionally trained adjudicators. What
01:58is the rationale for this when we already have a specialist judiciary with expertise to decide
02:02these cases and what is it about the adjudicator model that will mean they are in a better
02:07position to decide these cases and under the current system?
02:10Well firstly, he does mention compassion and I would say to him that the compassion of our reforms
02:18are...
02:19Here with me is Robbie Lammas, the Deputy Leader of Reform in Medway, and Stuart Heaver, who
02:24represents Whitstable, Canterbury City Council and Kent County Council. Thanks very much for
02:29joining me. Robbie, Labour's announced this policy. It's been condemned by an awful lot of
02:33people, but there must be elements of this policy that you approve of, Sean.
02:36I mean, if there ever was an award given to a politician for what they call the rhetoric
02:39gap, the difference between the presentation and the substance of the policy, I think Mahmood
02:44deserves the Academy Award. I really, really do. The problem with the proposals is actually
02:50an amnesty through the back door. What she's proposing as part of her package of measures
02:54and reforms is two things. One, a work and study route available to asylum seekers, who in a sense
03:02that will reclassify those waiting for permission to stay and give them permission to work. So
03:07essentially she's just going to say, it doesn't matter about the processes we have, we're going
03:10to set up an alternative form of economic immigration and we just have them all in permanently.
03:15Reform would send asylum seekers who are fouled back home and anyone who crossed the channel
03:20illegally back home, no ifs, no buts. The second thing that she said was that, and I give her credit,
03:26that the problem is with the European Convention of Human Rights, the ECHR, which is controlled by a
03:33court in Europe and only reform will leave the ECHR. And therein lies the problem for Labour. They
03:39won't be able to actually deliver any meaningful change and deport anyone because they'll still be
03:44blocked by the court. Green Party's response was performative cruelty. That's one of the things
03:49that they've said. And the no ifs, no buts will send them home is part of the rhetoric that we've
03:54been hearing. Children as well? I mean, I guess that's, is that where the concern lies?
03:59I think the concern lies across a much broader area than that. I mean, the concern to some extent is
04:05why on earth are we discussing this on the Kent Politics Show with no disrespect to you and your
04:09great team here because we've got lots of really pressing problems on a local level, a national level
04:14in this country, but we're discussing refugees, boat people. I think there were 108,100 asylum
04:21applications last year, according to the Office of National Statistics, not Green Party propaganda.
04:28And of those, that puts the UK, I think the 17th in Europe in terms of the number of asylum claims
04:35that are being handled by a European nation. And in terms of per capita, that's 6 per 10,000 people
04:40in the UK. So forget for the moment that we think immigration is a positive thing for our country.
04:46You know, we can't run the NHS without immigrants, without people who come to this country, hardworking
04:51people, family-oriented people who want to contribute to their communities. But actually
04:55the scale of the problem is completely disproportionate, even if you call it a problem, to the amount
05:00of airtime it gets. And congratulations to Robbie, Robbie's party, because, you know, what a
05:06brilliant public relations exercise. Are we talking about homelessness? Are we talking about
05:09sewage pollution? Are we talking about veterans living in tents in my division? Are we talking
05:14about fly-tipping? Are we talking about inequality? Are we talking about how we're going to raise
05:19money to bridge the £60 million funding hole at KCC? No, let's talk about refugees, vulnerable
05:25people arriving on the beaches of Kent. It's all their problem.
05:27But some people would say that the unaccompanied miners' responsibility that Kent has as a result
05:32of our geographical location is a serious issue for Kent. It's a financial pressure for Kent County.
05:36No, it's not. Absolutely incorrect, if you don't mind me saying so, Rob. It's funded by central government.
05:39So you may say it's a financial pressure for the country as a whole, but, you know, we
05:44gave £25 billion to fossil fuel companies, thanks to this Labour government, for something
05:48called carbon capture, which doesn't actually work. So we've got £25 billion to splash around
05:52on nonsense. We've got a few hundred thousand to look after vulnerable refugees.
05:56It's the number one issue, and people are rightly concerned about it. To dismiss concerns
06:00about immigration as nonsense, I think, is not a very good idea to do whatsoever. It's
06:06about fairness is what it's about. No one objects to genuine asylum seekers. We have
06:10a welcoming culture in the United Kingdom based on our history and our foundations. The problem
06:16is the system is being abused, and I would have thought the Green Party would be all about
06:20trying to protect the system so it allows for the right kind of people to come in fairly.
06:24So long as the system is open to abuse on a systematic scale, as it currently is, we can't
06:29meaningfully function as a country in control of our own borders.
06:31It's rhetoric. It's nonsense, Robby. I'm sorry. This plays very well to the crowds of people
06:36that have a kind of anti-immigration feeling, anti-immigration fear, and I respect those
06:40fears. You know, I do have family connections in Dover and Deal, and I understand people...
06:44You just said it was nonsense.
06:45I said the narrative, the priority that's given to it, I think is nonsensical compared
06:49to the pressing, urgent problems that are facing people in my ward and in my division
06:54in Whitstable. This doesn't get into the top ten. I'm sorry, it doesn't. I'm not belittling
07:00people's concerns, but what I'm saying is, if you're talking about legitimate and illegitimate
07:04immigration, there are no safe routes for these people. Other than getting in a rubber
07:08boat and risking your family or kids' lives to arrive on a beach in Dover and hope for
07:12the best, what else are they going to do? How else are they going to get here, Robby?
07:14Where do they fill in the form and go through the safe legal channel and have their applications
07:19processed, and then in due course they're accepted or sent back or whatever the law says?
07:24How do they do that? You tell me how they do it.
07:25People are supposed to go to the nearest, safest country. If you're in genuine need
07:30of fleeing persecution or war-torn damage, you go to the nearest, safest country, you
07:35don't get on the phone to a dealer and choose which country you can afford to pay to go to
07:40and know that the benefits package is best in England, so they're like, right, that's
07:43where I want to go. That's what's happening here. It's not genuine to say that. We have
07:47100,000 unprocessed asylum seekers in hotels at the moment in the UK. The Labour government's
07:53bright idea to solve this problem is to move them in homes for multiple occupation, including
07:58in the Medway towns, which is a big problem because we're disproportionately exposed to
08:02that influx in Medway because the Labour leadership locally have not got on and made the necessary
08:06changes that their own MPs are calling for to make the system tougher, to stop family
08:10homes being converted into these welcome homes of multiple occupation for asylum seekers.
08:15I'm interested, Robby, Kent has actually taken more Ukrainian refugees than any other county
08:19in the country. We're not the nearest, safest country for Ukraine. Do you think that we
08:24were wrong to do that?
08:25That's a really, really good point and that actually goes back to answering your question
08:28too about how do we do it. That was a specific government bill which mandated a certain set
08:34number of people to come with certain provisions and, crucially, it was time limited. That is
08:39an example of how we should do it.
08:40So are you advocating that for Syrians and Afghans then? Exactly the same system that we could,
08:44or a comparable system than what we've done for Ukraine or indeed BNO Hong Kongers, many
08:47of whom are my friends and work very hard in the community.
08:49Hong Kongers are another example of how we did it in the right way. There is an argument
08:53to say about numbers overall in our capacity. That is a very valid argument to say we should
08:58have a, you know, a look at the overall capacity for our ability to welcome people so that we can do
09:03it properly. But in terms of Hong Kongers and people from Ukraine, here is an example of
09:08how we should do it. We should have a sovereign parliament where our MPs get together and decide
09:13what generosity we should afford to others on behalf of the British people.
09:17Well, if Reform UK are advocating safe channels for refugee seekers from Syria, from Afghanistan,
09:24from Sudan, then the Greens completely agree with them because that is part of the problem.
09:27There is no legal way for vulnerable people to get here, so they are demonised and then this
09:31whole narrative started. I would just like to say one other thing with regards to something
09:35Robbie said about, if you like, shopping for your place to have your claim assessed because
09:41my brother was a retired senior immigration officer. He despairs in this debate and he has
09:46no particular political colours, but he knows a lot about immigration and immigration law.
09:51And he points out to me and anybody else who wants to listen about something called the Dublin
09:55Convention, or Dublin 3 as it is sometimes called, which was an EU law which gave countries the
10:00legal power to assess people's asylum claims and if they come from another safe country,
10:05to then prevent exactly what Robbie is talking about, this, if you like, asylum seeker shopping.
10:10That's an awful phrase, but let's use that phrase. So this prevented that because you could
10:13legally send an asylum seeker back to Germany or France and say, look, I'm very sorry mate,
10:17but you came from, you know, you came from Germany. That's not an unsafe place, neither is France.
10:21You're going to have to go back there. And there was a legal, it wasn't perfect, but there was a legal
10:24mechanism to send people back to have it to a safe country to have their asylum process there.
10:30That facility stopped on January 2020 when we left the EU. So part of the hypocrisy of this for me
10:38is to raise immigration and refugees, the number one problem impacting on Kent in the country,
10:43which in my view is not. But also if it is a problem, the reason it is a problem is because of Brexit.
10:48The architects of Brexit were Mr Farage and his team, and now they're the people blaming immigration for the problems of the country.
10:54I want to give you a chance to come back on that, Robbie, before we talk about it.
10:56The Dublin Two Conventions didn't actually work in practice. The number of people who were returned
11:00under that voluntary scheme that was an arrangement that took place before we left the European Union
11:04was very, very small. The scheme was actually flawed, and actually the European Union was looking at
11:08reforming the scheme themselves. So you can't sit there and say it was a perfect system that we left.
11:13I didn't.
11:14Nice try, though. That wasn't a good try, I must admit.
11:18We've got a problem with people coming over the sea dangerously.
11:23You say you don't think it's a serious issue, but very quickly, you want to see that stop, don't you?
11:27I did not say it wasn't a serious issue. I think the issue is being magnified,
11:31and what it's doing, unfortunately, is two things that are really dangerous.
11:34One, it's completely masking and disguising the real economic issues of economics
11:39and inequality in our communities, which are causing big problems.
11:42And the second thing it's doing is causing division and discord in our communities.
11:45We need to stop just there. We'll be back after the break with talk about revamping local government.
11:49Stay with us.
19:41should be on addressing affordability, on national sovereignty, on controlling our borders and making
19:47our country one that people can be proud of and feel they can get on and strive in.
19:51You know what? I mean, what this is about, we talk about this high level politics, but actually
19:54this is about who runs your library, who runs your leisure centre, who operates your local
19:59recreation park, who fixes your roads. These are the things that people really do worry about.
20:05I mean, you've talked several times about what people worry about. These are the things that
20:08people get up in the morning moaning about and go to bed at night moaning about. Have
20:13reform got a plan in place for Kent for the future that will actually get that stuff done?
20:19Yes. So the leader of Kent County Council, Reform's leader, has put forward a plan which deliberately
20:25is designed to be the cheapest. She's forced to engage in the process because she's the
20:28leader of the council. And her plan, in contrast to Labour's plan, will be repaid and come to
20:35savings five times quicker. All plans cost millions to implement. The government themselves
20:40can't point to any cost saving. The whole thing is rather ridiculous. But as all the
20:45plans go, Reform's plan is the most affordable and does it for less.
20:49Is cheap what we're looking for, Stuart, for something like this?
20:54Well, it's one of the things we're looking for, of course. I mean, democratic accountability,
20:57transparency and things like that would be nice as well, wouldn't they? It's supposed
21:00to be a democracy. I do agree with Robbie, I hesitate to say, on the ridiculous factor
21:06because, you know, where is this taking us? You know, it is about emptying bins. In Canterbury,
21:13I think they did a, it's not called a consultation, but asking for public feedback about the options,
21:18you know, the 1As, 4Bs, 3Cs, etc. I think 153 or 157 people out of 100,000 plus responded. So,
21:26of course people are, you know, I get emails every single day, you know, bins, potholes,
21:30you know, public rights away, congestion, what are you going to do about it? What are KCC going
21:34to do about it? What are Canterbury City Council going to do about it? But fiddling around and
21:37spending so much time and effort on a top-down, you know, if this was coming from the bottom-up,
21:42saying, look, we've got some great ideas, and in Whitstable specifically, we don't have a town
21:46council. So when this eventually becomes whichever pattern is adopted by government and then
21:50shoved down the throats of everybody in Whitstable, we get an East Kent unitary
21:55authority, then we've just lost Canterbury City Council, which in real parochial terms,
22:00a lot of people think wasn't very responsive to the people of Whitstable in the first place,
22:03that's gone into local, local politics, is now move one step away, and they're completely
22:07vulnerable. We've got nothing. We've got no forum even to voice concerns and voice priorities,
22:13lobby for funding, prevent unpopular planning or infrastructure in positions on our community.
22:18So it's really dangerous and really unpopular, and I agree with Robbie, ridiculous.
22:24Under KCC's plan, there's no mayor. The executive power would sit with cabinet at Kent County
22:29Council the way that it does currently. A leader that's chosen by a party, not by the people of
22:33Kent, would wield a lot more power under this system than they do currently. Is that democratic?
22:39Well, the leader comes from the party that won almost all of the seats available in the last
22:43election. I mean, that's how it works. Whether or not there's a separate mayor is actually a matter
22:48for the Labour government, not actually for KCC to consider. As I said, in terms of engaging with
22:53the process they're forced to engage, they've put forward the most affordable option for the people
22:58of Kent by a factor of five.
23:00Can I just say something? Because, you know, the reform plan that was explained in some detail in
23:06Maidstone last Thursday takes a ridiculous top-down diktat and then puts another label of ridiculous
23:12nonsense on top of it. Simply because, Robbie, the one upside, you know, even if you're a
23:17sceptic of the local government reorganisation, is you get this mayor's office and the promise,
23:21if that's we can believe it, and perhaps we can't, is there'll be more funding. And the big
23:25problem we've got with local government is we don't have enough money. We've got a £60 million
23:28hole at KCC for really important stuff, like adult social care. And the Reform UK plan doesn't
23:34have a mayor's office, so we won't get the money. We won't even be in the race. So even if you
23:38hate LGR and you're sceptical about it, the worst possible thing you can do is reluctantly
23:42go for it, but not have a mayor's office, because then you've got no money.
23:45There's no guarantee that funding will follow. What is true, though, is that Reform at KCC
23:49inherited a £750 million debt, and already this financial year they've already paid down
23:55and found cost savings of £40 million. They've refinanced some of the debt interest arrangements,
24:01which are saving taxpayers across Kent £1,820 per day. That's already in the first few months.
24:07We can get into a separate debate about the efficiency and skill of Reform UK running
24:14KCC and costs and cost savings, because you're playing into my strong suit. But from all I've
24:20seen, the evidence is they're absolutely clueless and have not got a clue what they're doing
24:24about running the finances of a local authority in terms of transparency, in terms of management,
24:29in terms of just running the biggest county council in England. There's no evidence that
24:35I've seen to suggest they know what they're doing financially. So it's a separate argument,
24:39but I've got to come back to Robbie on that, because I sit there listening to this
24:41on a regular basis, and there's no evidence there that's true.
24:45Can we just take a step back from the restructuring stuff for a minute? People out there
24:49won't be necessarily all that familiar with the process. Kent County Council has said it wants
24:53this single unitary council. District councils around the county want something different.
24:58How does this get all resolved? I mean, what one of these is most likely to happen?
25:01I can tell you how it's going to get resolved.
25:02Please do.
25:03So this is the big secret that no one's talking about. All this is going to get resolved behind
25:09closed doors, in a room in Whitehall, with the Secretary of State and their special advisers.
25:14That's how it's going to get resolved. And it's also why the Labour plan came out at the
25:18last minute, which no one saw coming. It's the only plan to redraw parish boundaries and play
25:23games with boundaries. We don't actually know on the record officially why Labour have done that,
25:28but I wouldn't be surprised if that is the plan that gets adopted, because it may be more
25:31favourable to Labour.
25:33I'm with Robbie on this. I think it'll get done behind closed doors. I even have a private
25:38conspiracy theory based on very circumstantial evidence already been decided, because if
25:43you look at who's gone for what options, and I know it's completely confusing to people
25:46watching this, you know, the 4Ds and the 4Cs, but the Labour-run authorities seem to be
25:50very, very warmly disposed towards 4D, even though it's the most expensive and has the
25:56longest payback period. So, you know.
25:58I just suspect, Stuart, the Labour will look at this and say, we don't want to adopt something
26:01that gives reform more power and care. Do you think it gets as cynical as that, essentially?
26:05I think it is very cynical. I think they're very paranoid about reform. We come back to
26:10our original conversation where we kicked off about immigration policy. Now, it's pandering
26:14to reform, frightened of reform, rather than standing up and saying, I respect you, I understand
26:19what your views are, this is why I strongly disagree with you. They don't do that.
26:23So, I think we're right to be cynical. I agree with Robbie. Whether we're cynical or
26:27not, this will get, it's not democratic. It'll be decided between closed doors.
26:29Talking about, on the point about being cynical, Medway Labour have got form in this, whereby
26:35they've changed the rules on Medway Council to clip reform's wings and prevent us from
26:39tabling motions.
26:40I have to stop you there. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you to both of my guests
26:43coming in. Kentonite's coming up next, and we'll be back next week.
26:46We'll be back next, and we'll be back next week.
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