Isle of Wight East MP Joe Robertson made his debut appearance on BBC Question Time last night (Thursday).
The Tory MP appeared in the political debate – held in the East Midlands town of Loughborough – together with Care Minister Stephen Kinnock, President of the Liberal Democrats Josh Babarinde, comedian Zoe Lyons and journalist Ella Whelan.
Possible Labour leadership challenger – Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham – had been booked to appear but pulled out of the show.
Topics discussed on the programme included immigration, the Covid-19 Inquiry and whether Government policies were working for the nation.
Question Time kicked off with the question: will new immigration rules stop the small boats? Joe replied:
“I would like them to. There is a consensus that illegal migration needs to be stopped as quickly as possible. I think the Home Secretary has been bought in to deal with this – she wasn’t the Home Secretary at the beginning of the Government. The Government has finally realised that this is far more challenging than they thought it was in opposition.
“Conservatives will support the Government where plans are put in place to reduce small boat crossings and illegal migration. I do have concerns about some of the things that haven’t been said. There is a cohort of people who have come here, applied for asylum, and their applications are rejected, but they can’t be returned to their country of origin. 3 of the 4 countries of origin – Afghanistan, Iran and Eritrea – they can’t be returned home. The Home Secretary still does not have a plan for what to do.
“She said she’s exploring return hubs with third party countries. She wouldn’t say who or whether a deal could be done or when it could be done. I said to her there is a third country who will do a deal on return hubs. It’s called Rwanda. It’s the one country she’s ruled out talking to. It’s the one country we know who are open to doing that.
Article continues below this advertisement “The biggest country of origin for those who apply for asylum is Pakistan. Over 10,000 applied for asylum last year. Just over a hundred came in small boats. The vast majority came via other routes or were here already.
“She does need to be honest with the British people. The British people have had enough of being sold short gimmick policies on immigration. I wish the Home Secretary well, but she’s got to do more than what she announced this week.”
The debate then moved on to the Covid-19 Inquiry. A member of the audience asked whether Boris had done “too little too late”. Joe responded:
“The Government made the decisions it thought were right at the time. I ask people respect that the Government did what it thought was right.
“There was undoubtedly some things at Number 10 that went on that should not have gone on. I’m not going to defend some of those things. The report finds in some of those cases there was no good, no right decision to make. What we must do is to learn the lessons that this Covid Inquiry is providing for us, so God forbid should this ever happen again, whoever is in government is fully prepared, and those mistakes are not repeated.
“I accept the results of the inquiry, but this should not be used for political point scoring.”
When asked to ‘say sorry’ for all the lives lost in the pandemic, Joe replied:
“I’m not defending some of the things that went on in Number 10. But I wasn’t part of it – I wasn’t part of the Johnson Government.”
In response to the question as to whether Government policies were helping the nation, Joe responded:
“What people are telling me up and down the country, particularly on the Isle of Wight, is they are terrified if they are running a small business if it’s going to be more expensive to employ people. We’ve seen in the last year that 180,000 people have come off payroll. If you make it more expensive to employ people, fewer people will be employed, and you will get more pressure for people to go on welfare benefits.
“There is a different way of doing this, and that is to reduce spending on things like welfare. If the Chancellor can take that back to pre-pandemic levels, she will save 23billion pounds. If she can cut the Civil Service back to where it was in 2016, she’ll save another 8billion pounds.
There is another route. It’s on her. These are her choices.”
Very good responses from Mr Robertson.
We on the island are used to hearing him, abd now, seeing him on the national stage, both in the House of Commons, and on TV, he speaks with clarity and his responses are thought provoking .
No matter what people think of the Tories they are
well educated and know how to present themselves
unlike Labour politicians, not to mention Reformers.
Joe is a great MP the island is lucky to have him.
And what is Richard Quigley’s view on the Home Secretary’s proposals on illegal immigration/ asylum. It would be good to know it. Further knowing a little more of his views on free speech laws would be helpful, especially as he attended some of the recent parliamentary hearings