Portsmouth MP Penny Mordaunt says government is 'steady' in light of leadership battles and upheaval

Portsmouth North MP Penny Mordaunt claims the Conservatives are still delivering for people and the economic outlook is steady. This year, Ms Mordaunt has entered two leadership races and backed previous prime minister Liz Truss, before she resigned after public vitriol and a financial downturn sparked by the mini-budget.

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Speaking while seeing the works ongoing at Portsmouth International Port, she told The News: ‘We’ve been through immense change in our country. We’ve transitioned to a new monarch and have had lots of new ministers coming through, but everything has remained steady.

‘That is testimony to what a strong country we are. I know the prime minister and the whole government are focused on delivering for people.

‘We’re working very hard and want to make sure we’re getting growth back into the economy and delivering on that Brexit dividend, so we’re modernising our economy to make use of the newfound freedoms we’ve got.’

The government has recently received criticism over its handling of asylum seekers. More than 140,000 asylum seekers are waiting for a decision on their claim. The backlog of applications soared by over 20,000 in three months.

Home Office figures for the year to September 2022 show there were 143,377 asylum applications yet to be determined, with 97,717 people waiting for over six months.

Separate figures show decisions have been made on just 139 (two per cent) of applications from more than 35,000 migrants who crossed the Channel between October 2021 and August this year. Since October 1, 9,125 crossings were made. Provisional figures stand at 42,154.

Suella Braverman, Fareham MP and home secretary set a target for caseworkers to make three decisions per week by May.

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Ms Mordaunt said illegal migration drains funds from those seeking asylum.

She added: ‘Portsmouth has a huge proud heritage of being a sanctuary city and we do an awful lot here to help those fleeing persecution.

‘What the public want us to do, and need us to do, is to crack down on illegal migration. I’ll be working with the home secretary to put through the right laws which still protects vulnerable people – which is our heritage – but we’ve got to crackdown on illegal migration and people trafficking.’