I rise to speak to amendment 132, which appears in my name. Together with amendments 131, 133 and 134, it has been drawn up with the express purpose of ensuring that our legislation does what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has rightly said should be our priority: stopping small boats and the evil trade that sustains them.
We are fortunate to live in one of the greatest countries on earth. Unless we believe in a literally unlimited right of immigration, in any sane legal order, we in the United Kingdom must have the ability to effectively control our borders. It is only by having such control that we can maintain democratic consent for both legal migration and our system for allowing asylum to those in need, as we have done rightly and generously for those fleeing the repression of the Chinese state in
Hong Kong, the bestiality of the Taliban in Afghanistan or the cruelty of Putin’s war in Ukraine. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration said from the Dispatch Box, almost half a million humanitarian visas have been granted by this country since 2015, of which 50,000 came from existing global safe and legal routes.
At the moment, we do not exercise the control to which I alluded a moment ago. Contrary to what Opposition Members may pretend, no amount of operation with the French or investment in our infrastructure at the border—welcome though those things are—can deter people attempting the crossing in the tens of thousands each year.