Peter Bone
Main Page: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)Department Debates - View all Peter Bone's debates with the Cabinet Office
(2 years ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I can tell the hon. Lady that our £96 billion integrated rail plan will make Northern Powerhouse Rail a reality. We are committed to the project; the precise details will be set out in due course.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
If migrants who crossed the channel from France illegally were immediately returned to France, it would stop illegal migration to this country, break the economic model of the people smugglers and, perhaps more importantly, stop thousands of people descending on northern French cities, which would benefit the French. When the Prime Minister spoke to the French President, was a returns policy discussed? If so, what was the President’s response?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue. I cannot tell him the precise read-out from the meeting—I have not seen it yet—but I can tell him that the Home Secretary’s deal and agreement with her French opposite number means a 40% increase in officers patrolling beaches in northern France; UK officers embedded with their French counterparts for the first time; investment in port security infrastructure; more technology; and more wider European co-operation. We have taken all those measures in the teeth of the opposition from the Labour Front Bench, who have opposed every single measure that we have taken to stop illegal immigration, including things where I would have thought there would be cross-party consensus, such as life sentences for traffickers who play on human misery.