A Tory frontbencher has said there is "no specific evidence" to support Suella Braverman's inflammatory claim that churches are helping bogus asylum claims.
Tom Pursglove told MPs he didn't know how Ms Braverman reached her conclusion about systemic abuse in the asylum process. She claimed she had become aware of churches "facilitating industrial-scale bogus asylum claims" before she was sacked as Home Secretary.
Asked by MPs what this evidence was and whether he'd seen it, Mr Pursglove, the Legal Migration Minister, floundered: "I can't give a specific definitive answer as to what it is that Mrs Braverman has in mind. She would need to explain that to the committee in her own terms and in her own way.
"What I can say is... we do not have evidence of systemic abuse of the asylum process in the way that some perhaps are suggesting." It came after a clergyman hit out at church bosses and claimed that asylum seekers often see baptism as a "ticket to something".
Rev Matthew Firth said he had concerns about the number of asylum seekers seeking to be baptisedIt comes after it emerged Clapham acid attacker Abdul Ezedi had successfully challenged his asylum refusal after converting to Christianity. He is understood to have been supported by a person from a Baptist church.
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Tory backbencher Marco Longhi accused the Church of England of "aiding and abetting" illegal immigration. Asked if he agreed, Mr Pursglove said: "I think the church does have to think very carefully, like all of us do, about the work that we do, how that work can be portrayed by those that are facilitating these terrible crossings."
Reverend Matthew Firth, a former parish priest in Darlington, told the Home Affairs Select Committee he'd been worried about dozens of people wanting to be baptised after their asylum claims were rejected. But a senior Bishop hit back, saying his numbers "don't add up" and rejected allegations that the Church of England is a "conveyor belt".
Rev Firth claimed he would regularly get groups of "six or seven" men, mostly from Syria and Iran, who wanted to be baptised. The clergyman, who was parish priest at St Cuthbert's from 2018 to 2020, claimed all of them were appealing rejected asylum claims. He said many see baptism as a "ticket to something".
He told MPs that when he insisted they take an active role in church life, their desire to be baptised would "melt away". He claimed: "You spot a pattern and then you think, 'hang on, there's something going on here'. And then you try to press a pause button, which is to make sure that people are requested to come to church and start getting involved and attending church regularly events and so on. And that was the thing that kind of made the numbers fall off a cliff in a sense, because those people kind of melted away really."
He also claimed there was an "unwillingness" to address this within the church, claiming there had been "some naivety". Rev Firth, who is now a vicar for the Free Church of England, said he hadn't raised his concerns to church leaders because he didn't believe it would be acted on. The committee heard that over 10 years, there were 15 baptisms at St Cuthbert's which may have been of asylum seekers.
The Bishop of Chelmsford, Rev Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, hit back, saying Rev Firth's claims "don't add up". She said: "I think he's absolutely right to say that clergy should be very vigilant. We take baptism incredibly seriously, it is a sacrament.
"It is not something to be played with. And we also expect our clergy to act honestly and truthfully and within the bounds of the law. But the figures don't quite add up for me."
She said she'd queried Ms Braverman's claims. Questioned about Mr Ezedi and Enzo Almeni - who died after setting off a bomb outside Liverpool Women's Hospital in 2021. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 2015.
The Bishop said processes were constantly under review, stating: "The church is not infallible we're a human institution." She went on: "I don't think that we can make policy and formal wide opinions on the basis of a couple of negative cases. I think we have to be very careful about that."
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