Dover and Portsmouth: Protests

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

If the centre does not take action, nasty extremes will take over. The fact is that we are in acute danger. These people can now launch from anywhere on the north French coast and are escorted to our shores. Frankly, we are being invaded, and the public are completely fed up. There is only one solution, and that was put to the Minister by the shadow Home Secretary. There is no deterrent. They know they will not be deported. We have to get out of these outdated conventions, detain immediately and deport immediately. Will the Government take action?

[Sarah Jones]

With the greatest respect, I do not know if the right hon. Member was saying, “Frankly, we are being invaded” when his Government were in charge, when the number of people coming into this country was at an all-time high. When the shadow Home Secretary, my neighbour from Croydon, was in the Home Office, net migration was at an all-time high. The boats are down by 43% from last year to this year. [Interruption.] The Father of the House shakes his head, but that is just a fact.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

They are still coming!

[Sarah Jones]

They are still coming, but they are coming at a 43% lower rate than they were, and the action we are taking is ensuring that we will keep going and keep building on the success we have had. We have the increased police resource in France, the changes to the asylum system and the way we are getting through the case backlog so that we can remove people from this country who have no right to be here or are foreign national offenders. All those things add up so that when the criminal gangs are looking at where they can make the most money, they think, “No, the UK is not somewhere where we can easily make money. We will not do this crime, and we will move on to something else, somewhere else.” We are pulling every single lever that we can. With the greatest respect, we are having a lot more success than the right hon. Gentleman’s Government.