Channel Crossings in Small Boats

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on those crossing the English channel in small boats.

In recent months, the UK has seen a completely unacceptable increase in illegal migration through small-boat crossings from France to the UK. This Government and the Home Secretary are working relentlessly to stop these crossings. Illegal migration is not a new phenomenon. Every Government over the last 20 years and more have experienced migrants—often economic migrants—attempting to reach the UK through illegal means. The majority of these crossings are facilitated by ruthless criminal gangs that make money from exploiting migrants who are desperate to come here.

We are working with the National Crime Agency to go after those who profit from such misery. Already this year, 24 people have been convicted and jailed for facilitating illegal immigration. In July, I joined a dawn raid on addresses across London, which saw a further 11 people arrested for facilitating illegal immigration, and £150,000 in cash and some luxury cars were seized. Just this morning, we arrested a man under section 25 of the Immigration Act 1971 who had yesterday illegally piloted a boat into this country. Further such arrests are expected.

These crossings are highly dangerous. Tragically, last month a 28-year-old Sudanese man, Abdulfatah Hamdallah, died in the water near Calais attempting this crossing. This morning, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution has been out in the English channel and has had to rescue at least 34 people, and possibly more, who were attempting this dangerous journey.

These criminally facilitated journeys are not just dangerous; they are unnecessary as well. France, where these boats are launched, and other EU countries through which these migrants have travelled on their way to the channel, are manifestly safe countries with fully functioning asylum systems. Genuine refugees seeking only safety can and should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. There is no excuse to refuse to do so and instead travel illegally and dangerously to the UK. Those fleeing persecution have had many opportunities to claim asylum in the European countries they have passed through long before attempting this crossing.

We are working closely with our French colleagues to prevent these crossings. That includes patrols of the beaches by French officers, some of whom we fund, surveillance and intelligence sharing. Over 3,000 crossing attempts were stopped this year alone by the French authorities, and approaching 50% of all crossing attempts are stopped on or near French beaches. This morning alone, French authorities prevented at least 84 people from attempting this crossing, thanks in significant part to the daily intelligence briefings provided by the National Crime Agency here in the United Kingdom.

It serves both French and UK interests to work together to cut this route. If this route is completely ended, migrants wishing to come to the UK will no longer need to travel to northern France in the first place. We are therefore urgently discussing with the French Government how our current plans can be strengthened and made truly comprehensive. We have already in the last two months established a joint intelligence cell to ensure that intelligence about crossings is rapidly acted upon, and this morning’s interceptions on French soil are evidence of the success of that approach.

Order. Advisers should know that it is three minutes; we are now nearly on five. I do not understand how the mistake has come about.

Mr Speaker, I sincerely apologise. In that case, let me conclude by saying that these crossings are dangerous, illegal and unnecessary. They should simply not be happening, and this Government will not rest until we have taken the necessary steps to completely end these crossings.

I am grateful to you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker, and for the Minister’s response. I would first like to send my thoughts to the family of Abdulfatah Hamdallah, who died in the English channel—a powerful reminder of the gravity of this issue.

Over a year ago, the Home Secretary said:

“We’ve been working extremely closely with our French colleagues to tackle the use of small boats but we both agreed more needs to be done.”

Why does the Minister think that that work last year has proved so inadequate? The Minister himself scrambled to France on 11 August and announced the joint action plan, but can he outline when that will be available for scrutiny? We all agree on the need to tackle criminal gangs, but does he also accept the importance of safe routes for those seeking asylum? The Government were warned, including by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, that the collapse of safe routes would lead to growing numbers of people taking to the sea.

The expectation around the Dubs amendment across the House was that 3,000 children would be accepted under the scheme. Does the Minister now agree that it was a profound error and, frankly, lacking in compassion to close down that scheme when only a 10th of that number had been accepted? What provisions have been put in place for the welfare of any children who have been intercepted on the crossing? What safeguards are being put in place to ensure that all accommodation is kept safe and covid-secure, as well as protected from far-right attacks, which have unfortunately been reported in recent days?

What we need now are solutions, not empty headlines trying to sound tough. I have deep concerns that in recent weeks the Government, through talking up the deployment of the Navy and the RAF, have tried to militarise the solution when lives are at risk. Ultimately, the sad truth is that people are fleeing their homes as a result of poverty, war and persecution. Does the Minister accept that abolishing the Department for International Development is a great mistake? Is it not the truth that the Government’s approach to this whole issue has, frankly, been defined by a lack of compassion and a lack of competence?

I shall try to be brief in my reply, Mr Speaker.

The shadow Home Secretary asks why numbers are so high. Global migration has been growing strongly, and he will be aware that 40,000 people—a far larger number than have crossed the channel—have crossed the Mediterranean. Moreover, during the coronavirus pandemic we have seen displacement from other illegal entry routes, such as lorries and the use of fake documents on aeroplanes, into the maritime route, and we have been successful at preventing illegal immigration through the juxtaposed controls. The situation has been compounded by unusually benign weather conditions in the English channel over the summer.

The shadow Home Secretary asks about safe routes. Since 2015, the Government have provided almost 20,000 resettlement places—a number that dwarfs the 3,000 that he mentions. Since 2010, some 44,000 children have been offered protection of one form or another by the United Kingdom. He says our approach lacks compassion, but I direct him to those figures. I also remind him that last year, 2019, this country received more applications from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children than any other European country, and all of them have been generously looked after while their claims are processed.

The shadow Home Secretary asks about children. When children arrive, they go straight into social care and are extremely carefully looked after while their claims are processed. This Government certainly need no lessons in compassion. Our asylum system is extremely compassionate and extremely generous, and the numbers speak for themselves.

I thank the Minister for his statement. May I impress upon him the strength of feeling on this issue in Newcastle-under-Lyme and elsewhere? It is not because my constituents lack compassion or humanity; it is because they recognise that what is going on is not only illegal but represents unfair queue jumping. I spoke to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) about this issue earlier; she has been working all summer to bring this issue to the Minister’s attention. Does he agree that what is currently happening is in essence a form of asylum shopping, wherein people claim asylum in the first country they reach and then move to another and claim asylum again? They keep claiming asylum—instead of securing asylum in the first safe country, they keep coming to the UK, where they believe we have a more favourable asylum system. Does he agree that asylum shopping needs to end?

I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) for her tireless campaigning on this issue. She has done a huge amount of work in this policy area. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) is absolutely right: people who are genuinely seeking a safe refuge could and should claim that refuge in the first country they reach. The people arriving in Dover yesterday and today have left from France, which is a safe country with a well-functioning asylum system. If their principal objective was to seek refuge from persecution, they could easily have done that in France or, indeed, any of the other countries through which they passed before they arrived in Calais.

Five years on from the day the world was shocked by little Alan Kurdi’s death, perhaps the Minister could just agree that the response to the channel crossings should be informed by empathy and evidence and not driven by Farage and friction. Will he confirm that, despite what he has said, there is nothing in international law that requires refugees to apply for asylum in the first safe state that they come to, even though the overwhelming majority do? Will he acknowledge that there will be good reasons, such as family ties, for many of the people attempting crossings to make their claims here instead of in France? Will he recognise that by failing to provide safe legal routes, the Government force people to use ever more dangerous alternatives and drive them into the arms of people smugglers, as at least two parliamentary Committees have previously pointed out?

Instead of bashing our brilliant human rights lawyers, will the Minister now put those safe routes in place; ensure a successor to the Dublin family unity rules; restart resettlement and commit to it for the long term; and reopen Dubs and other safe routes from Europe? That would be a response rooted in empathy and evidence.

Safe routes from Europe are not the answer to this problem because, by definition, people in Europe are already in a safe country. Transporting people from one safe country in Europe to the United Kingdom does nothing to add to their protection. There are, of course, routes for family reunion—at the moment under Dublin and in the future under the United Kingdom’s own immigration rules. In relation to a safe legal route for people fleeing persecution, the hon. Member has already referenced the resettlement programme, which between 2015 and the onset of coronavirus saw just a shade under 20,000 people being resettled directly from dangerous conflict zones, mainly in the vicinity of Syria. Those routes have existed for the last five years, yet I am sad to say that illegal migration continued none the less.

French authorities have a serious and significant role to play in preventing small boats from crossing the channel and putting so many lives at risk. Does my hon. Friend accept that the more that the French authorities negate their responsibilities, the more lives are put at risk and the further encouragement is given to traffickers?

My right hon. Friend is correct. I should pick up on the point made a moment ago; the way to ensure that lives are protected is to ensure that no one attempts these crossings at all. As he says, that means working with the French to prevent these crossings from taking place. That is the way to protect lives and stop the ruthless criminal gangs exploiting migrants, and that is the Government’s objective.

A report last year by the Foreign Affairs Committee, of which the Home Secretary was a member at the time, said:

“In the absence of robust and accessible legal routes for seeking asylum in the UK, those with a claim are left with little choice but to make dangerous journeys by land and sea.”

How many more people like Abdulfatah Hamdallah have to die before the Home Secretary creates those safe and legal routes?

I have already pointed out that there are safe and legal routes into the United Kingdom. In addition to the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme that I have referenced already, which ran very successfully from 2015, there was also the vulnerable children’s resettlement scheme, the gateway scheme and, of course, the Dubs scheme—a commitment that we met in full. Many people claim asylum having arrived in this country on a visa as well, so the safe routes that the hon. Member describes do exist already.

Let me emphasise once again that the people making these crossings on small boats are leaving a safe European country—France—having often travelled previously through countries such as Germany and Italy, which are also safe countries with an asylum system. If these people’s principal concern is to secure protection from persecution, they have had ample opportunity to do so long before getting on one of these dangerous boats.

Having had some responsibility in the past for the immigration system, I know how complex this particular subject is, so may I press the Minister on two points? First, I urge him to discourage economic migrants. If we were to improve our asylum decision-making speed, that would discourage them. Secondly, I urge him to use our development assistance, which the shadow Home Secretary mentioned, to focus on the source countries to ensure that people are not leaving for economic reasons and have more reason to stay at home. In that way, our 0.7% development assistance can help our national security as well.

My right hon. Friend has a long track record of distinguished service in this area. I completely agree with his point about overseas aid. This country is the only G7 country meeting the 0.7% of GNI commitment, and that is part of our efforts to help source countries to develop economically. As he clearly laid out, that will reduce the economic incentive to migrate.

Given the recent very violent assault on a young man who had just landed on a Kent beach and the planned protests by far-right groups in Kent reported in several broadsheet newspapers, what extra support is the Secretary of State offering police in Kent to ensure the safety of all those who seek asylum in our country? Will the Minister join me in telling the hate-driven, violent groups that make their way to Kent to go back to where they come from?