Border Management (Calais)

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on management of the border in Calais.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

Industrial action by striking French workers yesterday caused significant disruption at the ports of Calais and Coquelles in northern France. This action resulted from a dispute between local trade unions and the owners of the French ferry operator, MyFerryLink. As a result of this disruptive strike, the port of Calais was shut for a period of more than 13 hours and train departures were suspended at the channel tunnel rail port of Coquelles. Sadly, the strikers damaged SNCF railway tracks outside the tunnel, which led to the cancellation of all Eurostar services until 6 o’clock this morning. More generally, the disruption caused backlogs of traffic in the Calais area that presented existing migrants around the town with opportunities to attempt to enter slow-moving lorries.

The French and UK Governments were well prepared for this event and tried and tested contingency plans were quickly put in place. Despite the extra pressure caused by the French strikers, Border Force maintained border security by following plans to put additional staff in place to search freight vehicles passing through the affected ports during the industrial action and thereafter. All freight vehicles passing through the Calais ports undergo searching by both the French authorities and the UK’s Border Force before boarding a ferry or train. During the course of yesterday’s disruption and since, Border Force and the French authorities have successfully identified and intercepted a significant number of would-be migrants.

Last night, I spoke with the French Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve. He was as grateful as I was for the strong co-operation between UK and French authorities during yesterday’s incident, and I thanked him for the French police’s efforts to maintain law and order in the Calais area. Our two Governments have been working closely and constructively in recent months to bolster security at the juxtaposed border at Calais and other French ports. Last September, Her Majesty’s Government committed £12 million to that work. This has led to the installation of fencing around the port of Calais and the approach road and improvements to the layout of the port to speed up flows of traffic and create secure buffer zones for heavy goods vehicles. This is in addition to £3 million spent on the provision of new scanners and detection technology to assist with the searching of freight vehicles and additional dog searching undertaken by contractors. At the port of Coquelles, we have already provided significant investment in upgrading perimeter security and freight-screening technology. We will continue to work with Eurotunnel and the French authorities on installing additional security measures at the site to prevent migrants from making incursions into the port.

More broadly, the ongoing situation in Calais serves as an important reminder of why EU member states need to work together to tackle the causes of illegal immigration in source and transit countries. We are already co-operating closely with the French to tackle the organised criminal gangs that facilitate the movement of migrants into and across Europe. UK and French law enforcement organisations have already had considerable success in dismantling criminal networks behind people trafficking and smuggling on both sides of the channel, resulting in the prosecution of 223 individuals, and Monsieur Cazeneuve and I have agreed to build on this important work. As the Prime Minister and I have repeatedly made clear, the most important step to resolving the situation in the Mediterranean is breaking the link between migrants making this dangerous journey and achieving settlement in Europe.

Traffic on both sides of the channel is moving again. There will, however, continue to be a significant border security operation as the backlogs of traffic are cleared at the affected ports. The inconvenience caused by the French strikers to the travelling public and lorry drivers is deeply regrettable. Though yesterday’s incident was caused by events that were beyond the control of Her Majesty’s Government, our law enforcement organisations reacted to the events extremely well. I am sure the House will want to join me in commending the excellent work done by Border Force, Kent police and others on both sides of the channel who have worked tirelessly to maintain border security and minimise disruption to the travelling public. I commend this statement to the House.

[Mr Hanson]

As the Home Secretary rightly says, the situation in Calais has been caused by a wider humanitarian issue across the whole of the Mediterranean and north Africa, which is in turn caused by hunger, civil war, political instability and the movement of people across the Mediterranean. Alongside the strike and the problems in Calais last night, the situation there has been causing problems for some time, as I saw on a visit in November last year, and it remains a real challenge.

Will the Home Secretary tell us what steps she is taking, following her discussions with the French Interior Minister, to ensure that the French Government assess, process, identify and take action on those at Calais? She has rightly said that they are the victims of people traffickers, but they are also in France and the responsibility of the French Government. Will she resist the calls from some quarters in France to end the UK Border Force presence at Calais, given that it is extremely important in maintaining the integrity of our border?

Will the Home Secretary tell us whether, at the European summit this weekend, the Prime Minister intends to raise the points he made at Prime Minister’s questions about the situation in Italy and southern Europe? As he and the Home Secretary have said, that situation plays a key role in determining the intentions of the people who come to Calais. Will the right hon. Lady also tell us what proportion of the £12 million that she and the Prime Minister have mentioned has been spent to date? She will recall that the £12 million relates to a three-year programme, and we are now in year one. I would like her to stop talking about the £12 million and tell us what has been spent to date, and whether further resources are required to meet the challenges.

Will the Home Secretary and the Transport Secretary advise hauliers, train operators and the public on the assessments that they should be making, and on whether compensation claims could be made in the light of yesterday’s incident? Will she also ask the Transport Secretary to make an assessment in due course of whether Operation Stack operated as an effective response yesterday in southern England?

The Home Secretary has announced a new taskforce today. Will she tell the House more about its remit and resources, and explain how she would measure any success that it might achieve? Will she also make a further commitment to tackle the scourge of people trafficking through working with our European partners and their police forces? I would like her to make a commitment to report regularly to the House on the success of the taskforce in achieving its objectives.

This is a humanitarian crisis and the Home Secretary will have the support of Her Majesty’s Opposition in dealing with it. It is important that we do so not only on behalf of those victims of the crisis, but for the integrity of our borders. The French need to take further action to ensure that they support us in both of those objectives.

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman’s questions raise a number of issues. He referred to the fact that he visited Calais last year. Indeed, at the time he said of the problems of migrants building up at Calais:

“This is not new—we saw problems over ten years ago.”

That is precisely why the previous Labour Government worked with the then French Government to introduce the juxtaposed controls. The Le Touquet agreement was important and I reassure him that we certainly intend to do everything we can to maintain those juxtaposed controls. They are an important part of our border security and we will continue to work with the French authorities, as previous Governments have done, to ensure that they are maintained and operate well.

On the issue of processing people, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister indicated in Prime Minister’s questions when asked about it by the acting Leader of the Opposition, there is a challenge to the Italian authorities. People are due to be processed and fingerprinted when they first arrive on European shores, and for the majority of those people that means Italy. My French opposite number and I have been working with the Italian Government and, indeed, other European member states to encourage Italy to do exactly that. The European Council will be looking at the question of Mediterranean migration, as did the Justice and Home Affairs Council that I attended in Luxembourg last week. One of the key messages the United Kingdom has been giving consistently—and others support it—is that the best means of dealing with the issue is to break the link. This is about ensuring that people see that if they make this dangerous journey, they are not going to achieve settlement in Europe.

We need to work to break the organised criminal gangs and the people traffickers. The new taskforce is bringing together people from the National Crime Agency, Border Force, immigration enforcement and the Crown Prosecution Service. Some of them will be based overseas and some in the UK. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that they will be working not just among those British agencies, but with the French authorities and others, to ensure that there is better intelligence and a better understanding of where the gangs are and what the routes are, so that we can take appropriate action against them. I absolutely agree with that. It was this party, as part of the coalition Government, that introduced the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which makes it easier for law enforcement to deal with human traffickers. Obviously, that is important legislation.

My right hon. Friend the Immigration Minister has had a number of meetings and conversations with representatives of road hauliers about the security aspects. We believe that, overall, Operation Stack worked well. The process has been in place for some time, but the Department for Transport will continue to look at it and about half of the £12 million has already been spent.