Question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the number of illegal crossings of the English Channel are reduced.
Answer
I refer the Honourable Gentleman to the answer my colleague gave to the Member for Ipswich on 26 April. Since that time, we have continued in our determination to end these dangerous and unnecessary crossings, and to tackle the criminality behind them.
These crossings are inherently dangerous; those embarking upon them are endangering themselves and others. The Home Office has developed techniques to physically oppose these crossings, and these are designed to discourage attempts. The aim in deploying these tactics is to reduce risk to life at sea. These techniques will only be deployed where it is safe to do so, and only after an individual assessment of circumstances and conditions has been made.
We are engaging with France at the highest levels to stop these crossings. So far this year, the French have stopped more than twice as many crossing attempts compared to 2020, and the proportion of crossings prevented is higher. Nevertheless, there is more to do to build on these efforts.
On 21 July, the Home Secretary agreed a further package of support with France, significantly increasing the equipped French police resource to patrol a wider area of coastline. The package will also enable more wide-area surveillance technology to be deployed to prevent crossing attempts.
The Nationality and Borders Bill will increase the maximum sentence for people smuggling to life, and will make changes so that how someone arrives in the country will impact their asylum claim. This legislation will break the business model of people smugglers, and I hope its passage will continue to receive the Honourable Gentleman’s support.