Major Incident in Essex

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for her very considered remarks in the light of what has happened in her constituency today. We should reflect upon the fact that this is not the first example of such a horrific incident in her constituency. This incident was in an industrial park, but there have been equally horrific examples at the ports in her constituency.

My hon. Friend was right to reflect, as she did earlier with the Prime Minister, on the work of the emergency workers on the scene, who will have witnessed horrors that will live with them probably for the rest of their lives. We owe it to them to provide the support that they need post this event.

There is a fundamental issue here: we as a Government are naturally always committed to working with our law enforcement partners and multinational agencies to prevent all sorts of things of this nature from ever materialising and happening. We are committed to breaking up criminal gangs. We do, of course, work upstream and with our international partners. Perhaps I could highlight a few examples. Previous Governments have committed to legislation such as the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which, in fact, our previous Prime Minister very much campaigned for and secured. I have myself worked in the international sphere through my work in the Department for International Development, and DFID itself is obviously doing a great deal now when it comes to upstream work, working through the multinational agencies, the United Nations and other organisations.

There is so much more we can do internationally, because the fact of the matter is that where there is instability globally and a great deal of displacement, we see such awful events like this happening.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, and I think we all share the same sense of shock and horror at this unspeakable tragedy and terrible crime. The thoughts and prayers of my party are certainly with the victims and their families. We wish Essex police and their partners every success in bringing to justice those who are culpable.

As a spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Freight Transport Association has pointed out, the route that this vehicle took in this case appears “unorthodox”, and he raised the prospect that it had been designed to avoid increased security at Dover and Calais. As she ponders a response to this horrific event, will the Home Secretary accept the general point that focusing security and checks on one route is not going to work if security and checks elsewhere are weaker? Most importantly of all, does she accept that a sole focus—an obsession almost—on border securitisation will never stop desperate people using desperate means and routes to try to get here? In fact, such a focus simply means desperate people taking even more desperate and dangerous routes.

Finally, does the Home Secretary accept that it is crucial that we are also generous in responding to this tragedy in the way that we provide safe legal routes for those with strong connections and ties to the UK—the very people who are most likely to risk their lives? Does she accept that there is much more this country can do to provide such safe legal routes through schemes such as Dublin, family reunion, relocation and resettlement?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks and for the questions he has posed. I am sure he will recognise, as will the whole House, that the United Kingdom is very proud of its record when it comes to a lot of the work on national resettlement schemes. He has alluded to principles such as Dublin, under which we do support resettlement. Those are absolutely the right principles that we as a nation stand by, and nobody would doubt or question that at all.

On the potential route that the lorry took and the hon. Gentleman’s specific remarks, it is important to reflect on the fact that across all avenues and all entries—through our ports, and our airports in fact—the UK operates intelligence-led controls, and we obviously have Border Force doing checks at every single level. However, the fundamental principle we cannot ignore is that the fact of the matter is that we are dealing with those who are using people for the most appalling purposes. What we have seen and are witnessing today is one of the most horrendous crimes against humanity and crimes against individuals. That is why, because we do not know the full facts or have the full details behind what is going on, we must give the police and other agencies the space to investigate what has happened, and then we can obviously look at what more we can do to prevent instances such as this from happening again.