Calais: Border Management

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

To answer the first question, the Home Secretary has spoken to Monsieur Cazeneuve about the safety of British and other travellers travelling to the UK. There is a promise to provide extra resources during this time to help secure vehicles. It is a very fast-moving and difficult situation, as has already been mentioned.

As to the effect on the number of people arriving into the UK, the juxtaposed controls, which are at the heart of this and were actually introduced by the previous Labour Government, have worked very well in Calais, Dunkirk and Coquelles. They are staffed by a pool of about 800 Border Force officers based in France. It is estimated that, in the past year, 40,000 people have been stopped travelling into the UK. The message to take from yesterday is very clear: the UK border was not breached. There was significant disruption for travellers and freight vehicles as a result of the action, particularly for those using the tunnel, but we do not anticipate that having a direct effect on the numbers entering the UK.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the problems we saw in Calais yesterday did not begin with the strike; they began with the plight of people many miles away in Africa. Will the Government continue to support spending 0.7% of gross national income on foreign aid, as provided for under the Act that was proposed by the Liberal Democrats as a Private Member’s Bill and passed by this House in the last Session, to ensure that the reasons these people are seeking to move from Africa into Europe are dealt with at source?

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to give that assurance. Reaching 0.7% was one of the great achievements of the previous Government and certainly something that we are committed to maintaining. We are providing the second-largest amount of money, in absolute terms, to Syria—some £800 million. We talk about committing £12 million to the work at the juxtaposed borders, but £800 million is going towards helping the people fleeing the awful situation in Syria. That is absolutely the right balance in trying to move this problem forward and tackle it at source.