Border Security: UK-Ireland Co-operation

As politicians, we must stop talking around this issue and start addressing it. The public deserve honesty about long-standing failures to tackle immigration and secure our borders. Tensions do not appear out of thin air, and if politicians simply offer warm words while dodging the root cause, those tensions will only deepen. Legitimate concerns must not be dismissed.

We must also be honest about another uncomfortable truth. It is not racist to be concerned about illegal immigration. It is not racist to expect secure borders. It is not racist to ask who is entering our country, how they have arrived here and whether the system is operating fairly or correctly. The overwhelming majority of people raising these concerns are decent, law-abiding citizens who care deeply about their communities and their country. They have every right to express their concerns through peaceful and lawful protests.

Too often, however, those asking legitimate questions have been dismissed, smeared or ignored. Some of the language used by sections of the media and weak politicians has been disgraceful. Rather than engaging with genuine public concerns, they have chosen to caricature, lecture or label people. That approach does not solve the problem; it only deepens public frustration and further erodes trust in our institutions. As politicians, our responsibility is not to silence concerns or pretend that they do not exist. Our responsibility is to listen, speak honestly and take action when action is needed.

Let me be clear: I condemn violence. I have repeatedly called for calm, for respect for the law, and for the space to address the real issues that lie beneath the anger. There is no justification for attacking innocent people, destroying property or attacking the police. That being said, we must not be distracted from the legitimate concerns about illegal immigration. The root cause of the problem can no longer be ignored. We need people to see that the Government in Westminster are on their side. That starts with being honest about why so many people are coming to the United Kingdom and exploiting the soft border.

Britain is seen as an attractive destination. Those who arrive know they will receive taxpayer-funded accommodation, weekly financial support payments, free access to NHS healthcare, school places for their children, interpretation services, legal aid and other forms of support. They also know that enforcement is weak and removals are rare, which is a powerful pull factor.

The cost for asylum hotel accommodation in 2023, at the height of the crisis, was around £9 million per day, every day. Even now, it is estimated that the cost of housing asylum seekers will rocket to £15.3 billion, as opposed to the £4.5 billion that had been forecast. That is more than three times the original estimate. These are not abstract figures; this is taxpayers’ money that could otherwise be spent on the NHS, our schools, our roads and our police.

The British people are generous and compassionate; they will always support those who are genuinely fleeing persecution. But every Government have a first duty to look after their own citizens. Let us be honest: the boats that people see coming in have single males on them, and if I or you were fleeing a war-torn country, what is the first thing you would seek to protect? It would be your wife and your family. While the extra emergency funding for the PSNI is welcome, the damage has already been done. We need action that prevents the violence in the first place.

In closing, I have three requests of the Minister. First, what steps will he take to ensure that there is an operational plan that includes the rapid removal of those with no right to be here and a joint approach that stops violent offenders exploiting the differences between the two jurisdictions? Secondly, what steps will he take to review CTA safeguards and press for action regarding better checks in Northern Ireland? Lastly, how does he intend to restore public trust in the UK’s broken, exploited immigration system?

If we truly want to realise the promise of Brexit, Northern Ireland’s place in the Union must mean something. Protecting citizens is a basic duty of any sovereign state, and that includes consistent border control across all four nations of the UK. If we take the tough decisions now, we can forge a future where security is guaranteed and sovereignty is upheld, and we have a UK that stands strong, tall and united once again.

However, the success of the CTA depends above all on us preserving its security and integrity. That means working closely with our Irish counterparts to identify emerging risks and trends. Our co-operation is comprehensive, spanning operational activity, intelligence sharing and joint strategic planning. When patterns of abuse are detected, we co-ordinate action to disrupt them, ensuring a consistent and effective response on both sides. We are taking that co-operation further. At the UK-Ireland summit in March, the Prime Minister and Taoiseach agreed to expand our immigration data sharing arrangements. That work is aimed squarely at preventing those who are not entitled to CTA rights from exploiting the free movement provisions. That is an important step forward in further strengthening the security architecture that underpins the CTA.

It is also important to recognise that although the CTA enables close co-operation, it does not require fully harmonised immigration systems. Each country retains control of its own borders and decision making. While there are no routine immigration controls within the CTA and no controls on the Northern Ireland-Ireland land border, the UK operates intelligence-led enforcement activity on CTA routes to identify those attempting to abuse the CTA arrangement. Those targeted risk-based interventions also operate away from the land border in Northern Ireland. Let me be clear: everyone entering the United Kingdom must meet our immigration requirements, regardless of where they arrive from. Where individuals attempt to evade those requirements, they are liable to be detained and, if appropriate, removed and deported.

In Northern Ireland, the absence of a hard border remains fundamental, supporting peace, stability and the commitment of the Good Friday agreement. However, the openness must be matched by robust modern enforcement of our border security through our joint work with Ireland and the Crown dependencies, to further secure the external border of the CTA, and in-country through our intelligence-led operational activity on intra-CTA routes.

An important point was made about pull factors. We inherited a situation in which illegal and legal migration was too high. Illegal migration is still too high. We see that on small boat crossings and other clandestine entry points. We have reformed and are reforming the immigration system to remove the pull factors, making it less attractive to come to the country. We are aligning our asylum system with the rest of Europe to reduce the asylum shopping that we have seen over the last four or five years. We are also making it easier to remove and deport people, which is why that number is up 41% to nearly 70,000, but we will go further, and there will be more announcements on that in due course.

Illegal migration is costly, which is another reason to bring it down. Asylum accommodation costs the taxpayer far too much, so we are moving individuals out of hotels and into larger sites. In Northern Ireland, asylum accommodation has reduced by about 10%.

I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann for securing this debate. I am grateful to her and all Members who contributed. They raised important points, and I am pleased to have had this opportunity to reaffirm the UK Government’s steadfast commitment.