Border Security: Collaboration

Peter Swallow Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

While the Conservative party wasted £700 million of taxpayer money on an unworkable gimmick, this Government are rolling up our sleeves and putting in place the agreements that we need to tackle the gangs. That is the change that the British public voted for in July and that is the change we are delivering. What message does my right hon. Friend believe the new agreement sends to the vile people smugglers putting lives at risk in the channel? What message does that send to those criminals?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend asks an important question. The criminal gangs operate across borders and, frankly, they have been able to get away with it because of lack of co-ordination between law enforcement across borders and between Governments across borders. That is what we have been working to change since the election and why we have in place not just the Calais group agreements and the agreement on the joint action plan with Germany, but the progress we made at the G7 and the discussions, just after the election, at the European Political Community meetings. We need that collaboration because the message has to be extremely clear to the criminal gangs: there will be no place to hide. They cannot just hide across borders, because Governments and law enforcement will work together to go after them.