Major Incident in Essex

Damian Green Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks and for the questions he has posed. I am sure he will recognise, as will the whole House, that the United Kingdom is very proud of its record when it comes to a lot of the work on national resettlement schemes. He has alluded to principles such as Dublin, under which we do support resettlement. Those are absolutely the right principles that we as a nation stand by, and nobody would doubt or question that at all.

On the potential route that the lorry took and the hon. Gentleman’s specific remarks, it is important to reflect on the fact that across all avenues and all entries—through our ports, and our airports in fact—the UK operates intelligence-led controls, and we obviously have Border Force doing checks at every single level. However, the fundamental principle we cannot ignore is that the fact of the matter is that we are dealing with those who are using people for the most appalling purposes. What we have seen and are witnessing today is one of the most horrendous crimes against humanity and crimes against individuals. That is why, because we do not know the full facts or have the full details behind what is going on, we must give the police and other agencies the space to investigate what has happened, and then we can obviously look at what more we can do to prevent instances such as this from happening again.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that there are barely words available to cover the full horror of this, but she will also be aware, to pick up one of the points just made, that most of the efforts of Border Force in combating the disgusting and murderous crime of people trafficking have been concentrated on the channel ports and on unorthodox, non-official transport across the channel. Can she reassure the House that Border Force will be able to spread its efforts to cover not just Holyhead, as in this case, but other ports around the country where, if lorries are coming in regularly, this disgusting trade could clearly take place? It is going to require the defence of the whole United Kingdom if we are to be successful in saving lives in the future.

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have seen today just one example or incident—a horrible, horrific incident in Essex—but my right hon. Friend has alluded to other examples, such as small boats coming to Kent or to Dover, and a great deal of work has taken place in preventing people trafficking through those particular routes. He is right and, in answer to his question, we are absolutely committed not just with Border Force but with our other agencies and through our intelligence network to work far more collaboratively to ensure, yes, that all ports are prepared— our staff are looking out for some of the most appalling behaviours and some of the examples we are speaking about in the House today—but, importantly, that we do more collectively as a Government to work with our international partners to stop this happening in the first place.