Following concerns expressed last year, since denied by the Government
after being contacted by Michael Fabricant, that Whittington Barracks may
be used for asylum seekers, Michael Fabricant is now calling for radical
changes to the asylum system to deliver a safer and fairer system in the
interests of the genuine refugee and of the British public.

As a former member of the Home Office Committee which investigated the
integrity of Britain’s ports of entry, Michael says "The Government must
take action to secure the country’s borders at this time of heightened
tension and set out a series of proposals to improve the asylum system over
the long term. Too many people are still getting through.

"It must be the first duty of any Government to protect the public. Some
estimates suggest that over 1 million illegal immigrants are now walking
Britain’s streets. While I have no wish to be alarmist, there is growing
evidence that a few may pose a risk to the safety of the public. I believe
that the Government must finally take action – and take it immediately –
to introduce 24 hour a day monitoring of all ports of entry. The Government
must ensure that no more asylum seekers are allowed to walk the streets of
Birmingham and elsewhere until they have been properly vetted by the
security services.

"But we also need a safer and fairer asylum system in the long term, where
the genuine refugee is helped and the impostor is not. We should introduce
small ‘one-stop’ accommodation centres for all new arrivals so that their
applications can be processed quickly and efficiently. I believe in the
principle that Britain should always be ‘a safe haven, but not a soft
touch’. It is the large number of impostors who delay our accepting
genuine asylum seekers into our society.

"We will also look again at the international conventions relating to
asylum, as it is clearly absurd that Britain should have to grant refugee
status to people such as Taleban fighters who have recently been trying to
kill our own troops".