Calais Group

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

Today I, jointly with German Interior Minister Faeser, convened Calais Group partners Belgium, France and the Netherlands in London, in the presence of the European Commission and its agencies, Frontex and Europol, to deliver real and tangible results on the fight against the dangerous people smuggling networks that threaten our collective border security.

At this important forum, all Calais Group partners agreed to jointly deliver the Calais Group priority plan in 2025. This plan is testament to our shared commitment to dismantling the people smuggling networks. It builds on our excellent joint working through existing structures and refocuses shared priorities to bring to justice those who undermine our border security.

The priority plan contains actions which will deliver enhanced co-operation in 2025, taking a whole-of-route approach to tackle the end-to-end criminality of migrant smuggling networks, who continue to deploy more dangerous tactics, putting lives at risk.

The key areas of collaboration include:

Co-ordinating preventative communications to deter irregular migrants from paying organised crime groups to facilitate dangerous journeys.

Strengthening our ability to work together, via Europol, to enhance targeting and disruption of prominent OCGs and their criminal supply chains. We will do so through deepening intelligence and information sharing, and ensuring there are effective and robust legislative frameworks criminalising the small boat supply chain, with a focus on evolving tactics and targeting the end-to-end criminality of the Kurdish-Iraqi OCGs involved in smuggling migrants into and across Europe.

Tackling the use of social media by OCGs to recruit and advertise dangerous journeys across Europe and the channel to migrants.

Targeting the illicit finance models of migrant smuggling networks to better target preventative, investigation and disruption efforts in order to take action on criminal finances and ensure that migrant smuggling is not a viable or profitable business.

Enabling reciprocal exchange of the most pertinent information relating to migration flows and border security issues to better understand and respond to emerging trends and migrant flows.

That demonstrates the commitment of near-neighbour partners to breaking the business model of migrant smuggling networks, and reaffirms our resolve to use every tool available to ensure that these criminals are brought to justice.

Alongside this crucial meeting, the Government are also today publishing a statement on delivering border security, setting out our approach to establishing the border security command, tackling organised immigration crime and improving the UK’s border security. The new border security command will lead and drive forward the required step-change in the UK’s approach to border security, including our international response.

Organised immigration crime is a global threat, with no respect for national boundaries. Tackling it requires working closely with international partners. The border security command is scaling up efforts with key near-neighbour partners and the EU, through the Calais Group, to disrupt the people smuggling trade and the criminal gangs that profit from it.

Copies of the Calais Group priority plan and the delivering border security statement will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and will also be published on www.gov.uk later this afternoon.

[HCWS293]