Illegal Migration Bill

We in the Home Affairs Committee heard from Dan O’Mahoney, the clandestine channel threat commander, that the number of arrivals on small boats with any identifying documents is almost zero, because the people smugglers encourage them to dispense with all “pocket litter”, as he described it—passports, phones and SIM cards—on the basis that it will confuse those at the Home Office and make it impossible for them to distinguish between asylum seekers who are genuine and those who are not. Is not one of the problems experienced by the Home Office the fact that it is confronted with people who cannot prove who they are? Is not that, and the direction given by the people smugglers, at the root of this issue, rather than Government incompetence?