Small Boats Incident in the Channel

The Government’s new plan for immigration, which will be put into law through the Nationality and Borders Bill, is a long-term solution to deterring illegal migration and addressing underlying pull factors in the UK’s asylum system. It will bring in a range of new measures, including: a one-stop appeals process; the ability to process claims outside the country; the ability to declare inadmissible to our asylum system those who arrive in the UK having passed through safe countries; and life sentences for people smugglers. People should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. No one needs to flee France in order to be safe.

However, we are not waiting until the Nationality and Borders Bill passes. We are undertaking a wide range of operational and diplomatic work. I have approved maritime tactics, including boat turnarounds, for Border Force to deploy. The Government, the police and the National Crime Agency are taking action at every level to take down the people-smuggling gangs. Once again, however, we cannot do it alone. We continue to work closely with the French to prevent these crossings. More than 20,000 have been stopped so far this year. We have dismantled 17 organised criminal groups and secured over 400 arrests and 65 convictions, but this crisis continues and we need to do more—together. This is very complicated and there is no simple fix. It means a Herculean effort and will be impossible without close co-operation between all international partners. I also urge colleagues to reconsider their opposition to the Nationality and Borders Bill. It is an essential element in finding a long-term solution to a problem that successive Home Secretaries have faced.

As we mourn those who have died in the most horrendous circumstances, I hope that the whole House can come together and send a message that crossing the channel in a small boat is not the way to come to our country. It is unnecessary, illegal and, above all, desperately unsafe. I commend this Statement to the House.”

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

As I say, there is a reference to boat turnarounds. I presume that means turning around boats in the channel and sending them back to France, but perhaps the Minister could indicate precisely what that means and whether there are other maritime tactics, as the Statement implies, apart from those boat turnarounds.

I also picked up in the Statement that the Minister repeated the Government’s position, which they have stated on numerous other occasions, that people should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, and that nobody needs to flee France to be safe. Presumably, if our Government’s stance is that you should claim asylum in the first safe country you reach, they would have to accept that for most people who have come through France and then across the channel on small boats, unless there is evidence to the contrary, France was not the first safe country that they reached. Presumably, most went through other safe countries before they got to France. Do the Government accept that, on the basis of their own statement that you should claim asylum in the first safe country you reach, France’s situation is, in that sense, no different from ours, because France would probably not have been the first safe country that they reached? Some clarification on that issue might be helpful in the reply that I hope the Minister will give to my comments.

On diplomatic work, Ministers have talked about processing asylum claims in places such as Albania and Ascension Island. Meanwhile, Albania angrily denies any discussion on the issue and says that it would never agree, even if there had been discussions. Are the Government just making it up, and have they not got beyond the letter A in the list of fictitious partners?

The Home Secretary talked about the Government not being able to do it alone and it being impossible without close co-operation between international partners. Has leaving the European Union made such co-operation easier or more difficult? Is it not the case that, rather than pointing the finger at the French, who take more asylum seekers per head of population than the UK, or at the people traffickers, whom Clare Moseley of Care4Calais described as a symptom of the problem and not its cause, the Government should look in the mirror? The problem is not taking climate change seriously enough. The problem is reducing the UK foreign aid budget. The problem is UK foreign policy failures. All make it more difficult for people to remain where they are. The problem with channel crossings is that this Government refuse to allow people to claim asylum unless their feet are on British soil.

The noble Lord asked about Dubs and the 3,000—3,000 was never agreed in Parliament and therefore was never pledged. We met our obligations under Dubs, and I outlined some of the other schemes under which people have come to this country since 2015, such as the Syrian resettlement scheme, family reunion visas and the BNO scheme. We now have the global resettlement scheme, the mandate scheme, the children’s resettlement scheme and the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme. There are many routes under which people have come and will still be able to come here.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about law enforcement co-operation. That has been offered. We want to work with our French counterparts and we do through the joint intelligence cell, as I have said. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary spoke to Minister Darmanin this morning and again reiterated returns offers. As I said in the Statement, the Prime Minister spoke to President Macron last night. The Home Secretary was exploring the various gaps in our mutual capabilities and how we could solve what is now a mutual problem.