Immigration
Debate between Mark Ferguson and Angela Eagle(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Dame Angela Eagle
No.
There are two main factors that make today’s challenges different from the past. The first is technology. The physical distances between nations and continents may not have changed, but the near universality of smartphones and internet access has made the world feel a lot smaller. The gangs can organise journeys more quickly and easily than ever before. For the people they prey on, the promise of a different future is right there on the screen of a mobile device.
The second factor is the emergence of a ruthless criminal industry worth billions of pounds, stretching across borders and continents. On illegal migration and border security, we are acting to get a grip on issues that have gone unchecked for far too long. For years, the ringleaders and facilitators of this trade have been able to evade justice by ensuring that they are not present when money changes hands or the boats set off. To shift the dial, we need action to be taken earlier and faster. We need a response that fits the scale and urgency of the threat, and to mount such a response we need to legislate.
Having intensified activity across policy, operational and international arenas since the general election, we have moved to strengthen the law by bringing forward the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. The House is well acquainted with the Bill, but its core aims and measures bear repeating. The Bill puts an end to the failed gimmicks of the past. It furnishes law enforcement with counter-terrorism-style tactics to strike against smuggling gangs earlier and faster—long before they get within striking distance of our shores. The National Crime Agency and its associates who help us with this work asked us to change the law to provide them with those tactics.
The Bill introduces new powers to seize electronic devices, and new offences covering the sale and handling of small boat parts for use in illegal activities. It upgrades serious crime prevention orders to target individuals involved in organised immigration crime. It creates a new offence of endangering life at sea to act as a deterrent against small boat overcrowding. It also sends an unambiguous message that we are ready to take action against those who are complicit in fatalities in the channel. [Interruption.] I talk about fatalities in the channel; Opposition Members laugh and joke among themselves.
Mark Ferguson
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way—that roar from Opposition Members is no doubt enthusiasm for what I am about to ask.
This week, the Government signed a deal with the European Union that includes, among other things, the ability to find out if someone has been arrested in another European country for people smuggling and the ability to use facial recognition technology. Does she agree that those are exactly the tactics one would need if one wanted to smash the gangs, and yet the Conservative party opposed the deal?
Dame Angela Eagle
I agree. Of course, the Conservative party also oppose all of the Bill, despite—[Interruption.] Well, Conservative Members say it is not true, but they voted against it. I do not know why the Opposition should have voted against a Bill that provides more powers to deal with organised immigration crime internationally.
Small Boat Crossings
Debate between Mark Ferguson and Angela Eagle(7 months 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.