Small Boat Crossings
Debate between Angela Eagle and Dave Robertson(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Dame Angela Eagle
I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. Some areas have suffered particular pressure from this phenomenon over the years, and Kent is one of them, so I am acutely aware of the pressure that he and the local authorities in that area are under.
Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)
Over the past 14 years, the Conservative party saw this issue become a growing crisis. Conservative Members have spoken much today about how we need a deterrent, but does the Minister agree that, for someone who is willing to get into a vessel of questionable seaworthiness to cross one of the busiest shipping lanes on the planet, a 3% chance of a trip to Kigali is not a deterrent? The only way of getting a handle on this is to go back to where the problem originates. Waiting for people to get to the channel is delaying the response and creating the crisis that the Conservatives oversaw.
Dame Angela Eagle
I agree very much with my hon. Friend’s observations, and so do the figures. Between the date of the announcement of the Rwanda scheme and the date of the last general election, 83,500 people came across in small boats. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) says that it had not started then. The Conservatives began by saying that Rwanda would be a deterrent when their Bill was published, and then every time it made no difference, they took it back and said, “It will work, it will work.” It would never have worked. It cost £700 million, and they had budgeted—but not budgeted—for nearly £10 billion of expenditure by the end of that scheme.