The shadow justice secretary says Labour is committed to "reducing the enormous backlog" of asylum claims to end the use of hotels and barges as migrant accommodation. Instead, Louise Haigh says the party would "revert back to long-standing asylum accommodation" seen when they were last in power more than 13 years ago. Report by Brooksl. 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 Labour are absolutely committed to reverting back to long-standing asylum accommodation,
00:05 the like of which we used when we were last in government over 13 years ago, and ending the use
00:10 of hotels, which is costing the taxpayer an inordinate amount of money on a daily basis,
00:16 and also obviously the use of schemes like barges and anything else that the Conservatives
00:20 dream up having over the next period until the general election. The way we have said we will
00:27 do this is by reducing the enormous backlog that has been created over the last few years,
00:33 and indeed the government are processing 9,000 fewer cases every year than they were just in
00:40 2015. So we've set out firm plans to demonstrate how we would do this and move away as quickly as
00:46 possible from the use of hotels or any other type of alternative accommodation. Well look, I think
00:52 this came from the story that was broken a few days ago about these lawyers that were advising
00:57 their clients to lie and to exploit potential loopholes or to navigate the system in an
01:02 unscrupulous way. That was obviously completely disgraceful and our shadow Attorney General
01:07 called for those solicitors to be referred to the solicitors regulatory authority,
01:11 but I think it's absolutely fair to say that they represent a tiny minority in their profession, and
01:18 when the current Home Secretary says that the asylum system is broken, she's right, and there's
01:23 only one party to blame for that, and it's the Conservative Party. And what we've seen over the
01:28 last few days, weeks, and months is desperate attempts to deflect and to pass responsibility
01:34 and the buck onto anybody but themselves when they've been in power for over 13 years.
01:40 Well, it's been very welcome that many unions have accepted pay deals and have got back to work,
01:49 and that we've avoided further strike action, but it's really important that any further strike
01:55 action is avoided in the NHS because it is having a profound impact on patients and on patient
02:02 delivery. But look, what consultants and nurses and junior doctors tell me all the time is that
02:09 a big part of the reason that they're taking industrial action is because they're unable to
02:12 deliver the service that they really want to, and that's not because of industrial action,
02:17 that's because of a lack of funding into the NHS and serious recruitment and retention problems
02:23 that have really impeded their ability to deliver the service that patients deserve.
02:27 So I think until the Conservatives come forward with a proper plan that demonstrates that they
02:32 can tackle this, then we're going to continue to see a disruption like this.
02:38 We don't ever want to see strike action take place and we always want to see
02:41 all steps, measures and action taken to avoid it happening, and that's why we would want to
02:47 see politicians, the ministers responsible and the unions around the negotiating table
02:52 until the very last possible minute to avoid any possible strike action.