Sir Julian Lewis: Past waves of refugees who came to this country quite rightly had to identify themselves and come here legally. What percentage, does the Home Secretary think, of people who arrive illegally by small boats do so having torn up their identification documents, and should such people ever be granted asylum?

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department: (Yvette Cooper): The right hon. Member will know that there are different identity checks as part of the asylum system. Those are tested through the courts. One of the reasons asylum claims can be turned down is if there is a lack of credibility in the application. That can be a lack of credibility because of concerns about deliberately lost documents, for example, or not having proper identity information. It is important that we do that. It is why we are also increasing the digital ID and biometric checks as part of the ways to prevent illegal working, and linking that back to the biometric asylum system.]