Charlotte Hawkins delivered a scathing assessment of the government's one-in, one-out scheme during a heated debate with Steve Reed. The Housing Secretary appearance on Good Morning Britain came after a group of MPs claimed billions of pounds have been wasted because of a "rushed and chaotic" approach to asylum hotels imposed by the Home Office.
It comes after the government sparked fresh outrage after Hadush Kebatu, an immigrant who was jailed for 12 months for sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Epping, was mistakenly released from Chelmsford Prison instead of being handed over to officials for deportation. The politician argued that the asylum system is broken, claiming it was inherited that way by Labour from the previous Conservative government.
Explaining the government's plans to overhaul the system, Reed said: "The number of hotels is now half but we want to eliminate it entirely. The Home Secretary is working across government to identify places like disused military bases where you can put modular buildings rapidly and house people there to get them out of hotels.
"We've also increased, by hundreds, the number of case workers that are dealing with applications. That means that we can remove people faster who have no right to be here. 35,000 have been removed. That's a record and of course we've signed the one-in, one-out deal with France. All of that will help. But it's a work in progress, it's not job done."
When the Labour MP brought up the one-in, one-out scheme again, Charlotte couldn't resist delivering a scathing jab.
The presenter declared: "One-in, one-out, one back again."
She added: "It's not looking great for that system at the moment."
The ITV host was referring to the migrant who returned to the UK by small boat, despite having been sent back to France under the one-in, one-out scheme.
The politician pushed back: "I'm glad you raised that point because that's a side of the system working because the individual was removed from the country, paid a people smuggler to get him back in again, was apprehended and now will be deported. That's what will keep happening to people who try to get back in.
"It shows the system is working. That individual has wasted their money but it shows that we're apprehending people and removing them when they have no right to be here."
Charlotte retorted: "It is a drop in the ocean when we look at the figures of people that are coming over and how we're dealing with them and the cost of that."
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