Before I call Suella Braverman to make her personal statement, I remind the House that such statements are heard in silence and without interruption. If anybody feels that they cannot abide by that, they are welcome to leave now. I repeat—in silence and without interruption.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to make this statement. I would like put on the record my wishes to Mr Speaker and hope that he makes a speedy recovery.

Serving in Cabinet for just under four years has been a true honour. I am thankful for the opportunity and grateful to the many civil servants and Ministers with whom I worked. We achieved a great deal in the last 12 months: landmark legislation in the Public Order Act 2023 and the National Security Act 2023; 20,000 new police officers, more than England and Wales have ever seen before; one of the largest ever pay rises for the police; greater powers to dismiss rogue officers; and a review of the legal protections to empower our brave firearms officers.

But I want to talk about the crisis on which I spent more time working than any other: mass, uncontrolled, illegal immigration. All of us here are familiar with the problem: tens of thousands of mostly young men, many with values and social mores at odds with our own, pouring into our country day after day, month after month, year after year. Many come from safe countries. Many are not refugees, but are economic migrants. All have paid thousands of pounds to criminal gangs to break into Britain. All have come from a safe country, France, which—let us face it—should be doing so much more to stop them.

That is putting unsustainable pressure on our public finances and our public services. It is straining community cohesion, jeopardising national security and harming public safety. The British people all understand this. The question is, do the Government, and will they now finally act to stop it? The Prime Minister rightly committed to doing whatever it takes to stop the boats. He should be commended for dedicating more time and toil than any of his predecessors to that endeavour. Unlike the Leader of the Opposition, who would rather bury his head in the sand, he has actually advanced a plan.

We made some progress during my tenure as Home Secretary: the overall crossings have fallen by 30%; the number of illegal Albanian arrivals is down by 90%; and we were starting to close down asylum hotels. But “crossings are down” is not the same as “stopping the boats”. As Home Secretary, I consistently advocated legislative measures that would have secured the delivery of our Rwanda partnership as soon as a Bill became law. Last summer, following defeat in the Court of Appeal, I advised that we should scrap rather than continue passage of the Illegal Migration Bill, in favour of a more robust alternative that excluded international and human rights Laws. When that was rejected, I urged that we needed to work up a credible plan B in the event of a Supreme Court loss.

Following defeat in the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister has finally agreed to introduce emergency legislation. I welcome his decision, but it is now three weeks on from the judgment and we are yet to see a Bill. I am told that its publication is imminent, but we are running out of time. This is an emergency, and we need to see the Bill now.

My deeper concern, however, relates to the substance of what may be in that Bill. Previous attempts have failed because they did not address the root cause of the problem: expansive human rights laws, flowing from the European convention on human rights and replicated in Labour’s Human Rights Act 1998, are being interpreted elastically by courts domestic and foreign to literally prevent our Rwanda plan from getting off the ground.

This problem relates to so much more than just illegal arrivals. From my time as Home Secretary, I can say that the same human rights framework is producing insanities that the public would scarcely believe: foreign terrorists we cannot deport because of their human rights; terrorists we have to let back in because of their human rights; foreign rapists and paedophiles who should have been removed but are released back into the community only to reoffend—yes, because of their human rights; violent criminals pulled off deportation flights at the last minute thanks to the help of Labour MPs, free to wander the streets and commit further horrific crimes including murder; protestors let off the hook for tearing down statues and gluing themselves to roads; and our brave military veterans harassed through the courts some 40 years after their service.

It is no secret that I support leaving the European convention on human rights and replacing the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights that protects the vulnerable and our national security, and finishes the job of Brexit by extricating us from the foreign court and restoring real parliamentary supremacy, but I accept that the Government will not do that and that it is a debate for another day. Crucially, when it comes to stopping the boats now, leaving the ECHR is not the only way to cut the Gordian knot. Emergency legislation would enable this only if it meets the following tests.

First, the Bill must address the Supreme Court’s concerns about the safety of Rwanda. Secondly, the Bill must enable flights before the next election by blocking off all routes of challenge. The powers to detain and remove must be exercisable notwithstanding the Human Rights Act, the European convention on human rights, the refugee convention and all other international law. Thirdly, the Bill must remedy deficiencies in the Illegal Migration Act 2023 to ensure that removals can take place within days, rather than allowing individual claims and challenges that drag on for months. Fourthly, the Bill must enable the administrative detention of illegal arrivals until they are removed. And just as we rapidly built Nightingale hospitals to deal with covid, so we must build Nightingale-style detention facilities to deliver the necessary capacity. Greece and Turkey have done so. The only way to do this, as I advocated for in government, is with the support of the Ministry of Defence. Fifthly, Parliament must be prepared to sit over Christmas to get the Bill done.

All of this comes down to a simple question: who governs Britain? Where does ultimate authority for the UK lie? Is it with the British people and their elected representatives, or is it in the vague, shifting and unaccountable concept of international law? On Monday, the Prime Minister announced measures that start to better reflect public frustration on legal migration. He can now follow that up with a Bill that reflects public fury on illegal migration and actually stop the boats.

It is now or never. The Conservative party faces electoral oblivion in a matter of months if we introduce yet another Bill destined to fail. Do we fight for sovereignty, or do we let our party die? Now, I may not have always found the right words in the past, but I refuse to sit by and allow us to fail. The trust that millions of people placed in us cannot be discarded as an inconvenient detail. If we summon the political courage to do what is truly necessary, difficult though it may be—to fight for the British people—we will regain their trust. If the Prime Minister leads that fight, he has my total support.