Migration and Border Security

Linsey Farnsworth Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

What we have found in our discussions with both the Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan regional authority is that they want to tackle organised immigration crime in their country. They are concerned about not just people trafficking and people smuggling, but drug trafficking, to which the same gangs are sometimes linked, and money laundering. We found a strong willingness to work with us; the most important thing will be to get the co-ordination, co-operation, information sharing, standards and intelligence in place. That will be the start. This is the beginning of a partnership, and the funding that we have set out will be for the first step in that partnership, to get better biometrics, better training capabilities and better border security in place. We see it as an important partnership that needs to grow.

[Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)]

As an international liaison prosecutor, my job was to facilitate international co-operation, working with the NCA and overseas authorities. Does the Home Secretary agree that that is the key to smashing the criminal people smuggling gangs, not gimmicks such as the Rwanda scheme?

[Yvette Cooper]

I completely agree. Spending £700 million just to send back four volunteers was the most astonishing, shocking waste of money. My hon. Friend is right. The criminal gangs operate across borders, but law enforcement across borders is far too weak. It has been far too much a case of each country looking inwards rather than getting co-operation in place, so the gangs are able to run rings around law enforcement in far too many places across the world. We have to strengthen the co-operation across borders in order to tackle the gangs.