Illegal Migration Update

David Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the co-operation that we have had over the summer. I appreciate his position with respect to the barge, although we believe it is important that we move away from expensive hotels to more rudimentary forms of accommodation such as barges. It was very unfortunate that migrants had to be moved off the barge over the summer. We deeply regret that. We did take a very precautionary approach. Tests have subsequently been carried out and the definitive answers to those tests will be received very shortly. Assuming that they show no signs of legionella, or indeed any other bacteria or cause of concern, we will move people back on to the boat as soon as possible and I think we can expect that within weeks.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), the European convention on human rights was negotiated some 70 years ago, long before international criminal gangs engaged in trafficking people across Europe and, indeed, more widely. Does not my right hon. Friend agree that now is the time for the Government to make an approach to the Council of Europe with a view to renegotiating the terms of the European convention, because clearly it is not protecting our borders or those of many other countries across Europe?

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend is correct to say that the framework of international treaties, many of which were forged in the years after the second world war, now appear out of date given the challenges that we face today, and that is a sentiment shared by other European countries we have been working closely with. We have sought to put illegal migration and reform of the international framework on the table for all of the international fora that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary or I are represented at, and we will seek to make the UK a leading force in reform on that issue. Other countries are looking intently at the work we are doing, particularly the Rwanda partnership and, once we are able to establish it, I think it is very likely that other countries will follow suit.