Illegal Migration: Pull Factors

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that we need to reduce the anxiety and toxicity around this issue. I reassure him that, first and foremost, the Government are committed to meeting their international obligations, which include asylum claims legitimately put before the United Kingdom. He may have noticed that an immigration White Paper was produced recently by the Government, which raises a number of issues. We need to look at pull factors, certainly, but the Government are also taking very strong action on cross-border, cross-channel issues, including the removal of people who have failed their asylum claims, the removal of foreign national criminals and the removal of individuals who are illegally working in the United Kingdom, as well increasing prosecutions. There is a range of measures, and we discuss this internally in government every day of the week.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

Immigration is a global crisis, with every wealthy country in the world suffering social and political pressures from unsustainable levels of immigration from poorer countries. Do the Government therefore agree that there needs to be international co-operation involving the British Government before this can ever be solved? Are the Government engaging with the 15 or so European countries and the European Commission in the discussions that they are having about trying to close the southern European border? A policy on that subject would greatly reduce the number of people reaching the camps in Calais. Are the Government involved in that?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. In April and May this year, the Government were involved, along with 50 nations across the European Union and elsewhere, in examining the drive factors—rather than the pull factors that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, mentioned—that are pushing people away from areas of conflict, hunger or starvation into the Mediterranean and beyond, into Europe. The Government are looking very strongly, with European partners, at how we can work internationally in Europe and in the United Kingdom to ensure that we tackle those drive factors as well. That is why we have had the Calais Group of Belgium, Holland, France and the United Kingdom, and the recent discussions with the Germans last week and with the President of France only a couple of weeks ago. That international action is absolutely essential.