‘We are stopping the boats, Labour is paying for them’: Rishi Sunak jibes at Keir Starmer over Welsh Labour Government’s plans to give asylum seekers £1,600 a month in taxpayers’ cash
- PM hits out at proposals by Welsh Government to offer migrants a basic income
Rishi Sunak today jibed at Sir Keir Starmer over Welsh Government plans to pay young asylum seekers £1,600 a month.
The Prime Minister claimed he was ‘stopping the boats’ while ‘Labour is paying for them’ as he highlighted his pledge to end the Channel migrant crisis.
He hit out at proposals by the Welsh Government, a Labour minority administration, to offer migrants a basic income and suggested it would ‘incentivise’ people smugglers.
Ministers in Cardiff have prompted a row with plans to allow young asylum seekers who settle in Wales access to a two-year basic income pilot designed for care leavers.
Mr Sunak addressed the issue during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons after he was asked whether his own Government would consider ‘such a daft idea’.
The Prime Minister claimed he was ‘stopping the boats’ while ‘Labour is paying for them’
Rishi Sunak jibed at Sir Keir Starmer over Welsh Government plans to pay young asylum seekers £1,600 a month
Tory backbencher Chris Clarkson said: ‘It has been reported that the Welsh Labour Government is going to incentivise people smugglers by offering £1,600 of taxpayers’ money every month to asylum seekers.
‘Can I ask him for an assurance that he will never contemplate such a daft idea?’
The PM replied that justice minister Lord Bellamy and Welsh Secretary David Davies yesterday wrote to the Welsh Government ‘confirming that we would not be undertaking their request’.
In a dig at Sir Keir, Mr Sunak added: ‘I note that the Labour leader has said that the Welsh Labour Government is his blueprint.
‘Labour in Wales are trying to pay illegal migrants £1,600. We are stopping the boats, Labour is paying for them.’
Mr Davies had earlier told the Commons, during Welsh Questions, it was ‘extraordinary’ to offer universal basic income to asylum seekers.
‘The humanitarian response is to disincentivise people from risking their lives by crossing the Channel illegally and arriving here in small boats,’ he told MPs.
‘And that’s why last night I jointly signed a letter which rejected what the Welsh Labour Government are asking for.
‘We’re not prepared to see the Welsh Labour Government handing out universal basic incomes to people who shouldn’t be in this country in the first place.
‘And then on top of that to provide them with legal funding and lawyers so that they can challenge the decision being made by the Government.
‘These are not the priorities that the Welsh people have.’
UK Government ministers yesterday wrote to Jane Hutt, Wales’s social justice minister, yesterday to state that those enrolled in the pilot scheme would not be entitled to free legal aid
Mr Davies and Lord Bellamy wrote to Jane Hutt, the Welsh Government’s social justice minister, yesterday to state that those enrolled in the pilot scheme would not be entitled to free legal aid.
It came after Welsh ministers had requested legal aid be granted to young people with active asylum claims who might be taking part in the pilot after leaving care.
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: ‘The basic income pilot scheme is about giving the most vulnerable people in our society a start in life.
‘It is disappointing that inaccurate and misleading claims are being used to trivialise these sensitive issues.’
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