Essex: Major Incident

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s mention of the co-operation agreement that has been signed; this is obviously very helpful. I also associate myself with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay; the European Union connections are clearly very important and I hope that we can replicate them. In the light of the evidence that has been accumulated so far, does the Minister think that the scale of the smuggling operation—if that is what it was—and the geographical area from which those people likely to be among the deceased come, illustrate the existence of a very large tip of the iceberg in relation to trafficking?

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord will forgive me if I do not speculate on this investigation in the way that he invites me to do. The nationality of the victims has not been confirmed. Although there is widespread press speculation, it is up to the coroner to indicate the nationality for the coroner’s own purposes. We will wait for that to be done formally rather than speculate. However, he is right that international people trafficking is a massive business. It is ingenious, clever, ferocious and reckless. We have seen in this instance its horrible costs and the Government are determined to crack down on it.