Migrant Crossings

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, the whole House will applaud the measured, calm and professional way in which my noble friend has moved seamlessly from conducting a Bill through its Second Reading to dealing with this issue. Of course, everyone will agree that it is undesirable for individuals to seek to cross the channel in this way and that we should all be concerned about it. However, she makes the point, and it is clear, that the scale of this problem is tiny compared to the flows of migration and refugees in other parts of the world. Will my noble friend comment on whether it was appropriate to take two cutters from the Mediterranean, where they were part of a collaborative effort in helping to address a much bigger problem, to bring them into the channel for these purposes?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I understand my noble friend’s point, but of course it was not so much the quantum of the number of people who arrived but the sudden upsurge of arrivals, and my right honourable friend the Home Secretary made the correct decision to deal with that swiftly both to protect our border and lives at sea.