Mark Ferguson
Main Page: Mark Ferguson (Labour - Gateshead Central and Whickham)Department Debates - View all Mark Ferguson's debates with the Home Office
(2 days, 3 hours ago)
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Dame Angela Eagle
I do not believe that safe routes would stop people from attempting to come over the channel in small boats. I have some sympathy with the idea of safe routes, but I do not think they would stop this trade. For example, 1,500 Indians came across, and we have a visa regime with the Indians. The highest nationality for small boat arrivals this year is the Vietnamese. Again, it is not always about people who are asylum seekers coming over; it is people who do not have a right to be here but are paying to come here. Safe routes would not solve that problem.
Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)
The shadow Home Secretary referred to the lives lost in the channel—every single one of them is a tragedy —but does the Minister agree that his trying to make a political point about those deaths, as he appeared to do, is beneath the Conservative party, as were gimmicks such as the Rwanda scheme?
Dame Angela Eagle
Yes, I agree. The loss of life in the channel this year has been the highest on record, and that is because more pressure is being put on the gangs, the boats are being overloaded and there is more anarchy on the beaches in France. Those are all things that we have to try to deal with in co-operation with our French colleagues.