Surrey MP pledges to hold Government accountable over immigration in new role
Woking MP Will Forster spoke to us after being appointed 'Spokesperson for Immigration for the Liberal Democrats'
Last week, Will Forster was appointed 'Spokesperson for Immigration for the Liberal Democrats'. He told us that it was an honour to have been given this role.
"I'm Delighted to have been appointed by a Davey, the leader of the Lib Dems, as our party's immigration and asylum spokesperson.
Obviously it's a hugely challenging issue, but it's one of the key issues facing the country that the public care about.
So it's it's an honour to have been trusted with that role and to I'm going to ensure that the government is held to account to ensure that."
"An absolute mess"
He says that he sympathises with Labour over the situation they inherited, which he describes as 'a mess'.
"I'll be nice briefly to the Labour government that they've inherited an absolute mess from the Conservatives. They've inherited a mess of an asylum system that's completely broken.
We've still got a huge backlog that has resulted in asylum hotel costs going through the roof.
That's the Conservative legacy, and I don't think that's acceptable. Labour must fix that urgently"
He described to us what the immigration system should look like in his eyes
"I use the three words. I think it's incredibly important, fair, compassionate and effective. At the moment we don't have any of them. Something that I think is so important is for the UK to get back in to the Dublin Convention."
The Dublin Regulation was a European Union law that determines which country is responsible for examining an asylum application. Its main principle is that the first EU country an asylum seeker enters is responsible for their application.
Forster emphasised the scale of the issue and what he believes part of the solution to be
"At the moment we've got a huge backlog of 90,000 people. That's what the government inherited from the Conservatives and they've barely scratched the service in getting that number down.
I think we need Nightingale style processing centres to do an invest to save to really tackle this issue to get that backlog down."
"I think it's appalling for both taxpayers but also those asylum seekers"
He added that the current situation was appalling for all those involved.
"I think it's appalling for both taxpayers but also those asylum seekers. They are banned from working whilst their asylum application is being processed, the Liberal Democrats and I have proposed that they should be allowed to work after three months to ensure that they can contribute to the cost of their accommodation.
If we allowed them to work after three months, that then puts an incentive on the Home Office to process their application within three months as well.
Yet the other parties don't want to do that. I think that's outrageous for taxpayers, but it's not fair on the asylum seekers themselves"
Forster added that the issue of immigration is one that spreads across multiple sectors
"Any opinion poll will tell you immigration's one of the top few issues, but concerns about immigration do go beyond.
One of the frustrations that I've had constituents raise with me, whether it's on asylum hotels or other form of move on accommodation, is there's a complete lack of genuine affordable housing and if they see some people being moved on from asylum hotel, they then frustrate.
This is part of a wider neglect that we've had in public services."