Essex: Major Incident

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made earlier in the House of Commons. I endorse what it said about the professionalism of our overstretched and understaffed emergency services. It is almost too awful to imagine the hell that the 39 people who died must have been through or the grief that families the other side of the world and fearing the worst are now experiencing. Our thoughts are very much with them.

The callous, criminal people traffickers must be caught and brought to justice. I have two points to make. First, can the Government give a categorical assurance that departure from the EU will not lead to any weakening of our links with or our partnership and co-operation arrangements with the EU and any of its agencies which we now use and work with to combat people trafficking? Secondly, why do we apparently not have control of our borders at our recognised ports against illegal entry, whether trafficked or otherwise, as the Government have previously maintained is the case? How was a container with such a large number of people inside able to get into this country, apparently on a recognised shipping route through a recognised British port of entry, without being detected and stopped? Surely one way of putting pressure on the traffickers using recognised shipping routes would be the near certainty of detection. I note that the Government are now—belatedly, it seems—increasing the stretched Border Force presence in Purfleet. How many people do the Government think may have been trafficked into this country through a recognised British port of entry in the last 12 months for which figures are available, and how many people have been prevented from entering this country at the port of entry through which they were being trafficked over the same 12-month period?

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches, I, too, thank the Minister. This is a tragedy for so many people. In putting on record our thanks to the emergency services, we need to recognise how difficult it is for them to respond to such a situation. I trust that this—I do not like to use the word “incident”, because it seems to trivialise it—will not be a catalyst for statements about having tougher immigration arrangements. We want to see fair, compassionate and effective immigration rules.

The Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner—I acknowledge that we do not know that these people were trafficked—has recently published her strategy. Her priorities are:

“Focusing on prevention, working with the private sector, encouraging the role of the public sector, raising public awareness”—


sadly, that has certainly been done—and “preventing victimisation”. Can the Minister assure the House that all her priorities will better than adequately funded?

My other point takes up in a little more detail that made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. The political declaration regarding our leaving the EU sets out a “framework” for our future relationship and deals with issues that are not in the withdrawal agreement, one of which is security. They are dealt with in the political declaration in language such as:

“The Parties should consider further arrangements …. The Parties … will … work together to identify the terms for … cooperation via Europol and Eurojust … The Parties should consider further arrangements appropriate to the United Kingdom’s future status for practical cooperation … with the view to delivering capabilities that, in as far as is technically and legally possible, and considered necessary and in both Parties’ interests, approximate those enabled by relevant Union mechanisms”.


I am sure noble Lords will understand my emphasis on the rather conditional wording. Do the Government recognise that replicating all our current law enforcement arrangements without any hiatus, which I have heard suggested, is of immense importance, and that will be helped if we make it clear that we regard the EU and its member states as our friends, colleagues and partners?