Tony Baldry
Main Page: Tony Baldry (Conservative - Banbury)Department Debates - View all Tony Baldry's debates with the Home Office
(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Harper
Having gone through the report very carefully, I think that it is probably fair to say that not all the national newspapers over-egged the pudding in how they reported the report. I thought that the report was very balanced. The interviews that the National Audit Office did this morning were very balanced. It made the point that Border Force is doing lots of things very well, but it recognises that there are still challenges. I think that I echoed that tone in my remarks. We have made significant improvements, but there is still more work to be done. That, in a nutshell, is what the NAO said in its report, and we are grateful for the work that it does.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
My hon. Friend said that last year Border Force detained some 6,000 people at Calais trying to enter the UK. Presumably, all of them were already illegal immigrants in France. Following on from the comments of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), can my hon. Friend tell the House what the French are doing to remove from their jurisdiction illegal immigrants who are intent upon entering our jurisdiction?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend asks a two-part question. The first part was whether everyone trying to enter the UK illegally is necessarily in France illegally. That is not necessarily the case. France is in Schengen, of course, and there are people who are entitled to be in France but who do not have the right to enter Britain illegally in the back of a lorry, so we stop them entering. Some of them are, of course, in France illegally, however, and we work with our French colleagues by doing what we can to help them to make sure they are removed from France. Not all of them will be in France illegally, however, and I reiterate what I said in response to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee: partnership-working with our colleagues in France is very important and works very well, and we want to make sure that that strong relationship continues because it is how we keep our border secure.