Bob Stewart
Main Page: Bob Stewart (Conservative - Beckenham)Department Debates - View all Bob Stewart's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
As I said in answer to earlier questions, we expect numbers to reduce. We are taking further steps this week, which we think will make a material difference. If we need to do more, we will, because net migration is far too high. I hope the hon. Gentleman, by his question, agrees with me in that regard, and that he will support the measures we take to bring numbers down.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
If it were possible for everyone who crosses the channel illegally in a small boat to be returned to France, that would be not only in our interests but in the interests of France, because we would stop people buffering on its north-east coast to try to get into this country. I know it is very difficult, but what are the chances that that could happen, because it would solve the problem?
Robert Jenrick
We are making considerable efforts to deepen our relationship with the French Government. In fact, next week I will be in Paris to meet our counterparts in the French Interior Ministry. The Prime Minister achieved, in short succession, two significant deals that are leading to an increase in activity on the beaches, increased joint working on counter-organised immigration crime, and a new joint working centre in Lille that I will be visiting shortly. If there was a possibility of a readmissions agreement with France, that is certainly something the Government would welcome and we have made that clear. In our conversations with both President Macron and the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, we offered a range of solutions that could lead to that.
I would just say, however, that the previous readmissions agreement—Dublin—which operated during our time in the European Union, was not successful. In the last years of its operation, more people were being brought from France to the United Kingdom than were sent from the UK to France, so this is not a panacea. But if there are ways in which we can take this forward, we will.