NATO and European Political Community Meetings

Debate between Keir Starmer and Caroline Johnson

Monday 22nd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I can confirm that and emphasise just how important it is. We had the honour of hosting President Zelensky at Downing Street on Friday, where I was able to make that clear, and again to take the opportunity to say that we are building on the work of the previous Government, not departing from that work. I think the support of the UK in particular to Ukraine has been leading, important and provided at difficult times, which has often led to others moving in accordance with the moves we have made as a country. President Zelensky is grateful for the role we have played in the past and that we continue to play now.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

My constituents in Sleaford and North Hykeham are very concerned about levels of illegal migration, particularly people crossing the channel. I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister say that he wants to tackle it. He mentioned two measures: £84 million to tackle root causes and the focus, which is arguably already present, from law enforcement. In the last seven days, 1,500 people crossed the channel. How many of them would he expect to have been deterred by the measures he describes?

[The Prime Minister]

This is a real problem that we have inherited because not enough attention has been paid to border control in my view. Record numbers have come this year. The measures taken by the last Government were patently not working, so we need to address that. That is why we have taken early steps to set up the border security command. It is also why we have already moved more staff into the returns unit, so it can get on with the job of actually returning those who have no right to be here. One hundred staff have moved already in the early days of this Government, but we have to recognise that we also need to address the reasons that people move in the first place, which are very much to do with conflict, poverty and climate change. If we ignore those upstream causes, we will never fully get to grips with the problem that is so obvious to so many people in this country.