07 Aug Labour would pour money into preventing migrants crossing the Channel, says shadow minister
THE Labour Party would divert funds for housing migrants in foreign countries into policing to prevent people crossing the Channel, according to its shadow trade secretary.
Nick Thomas-Symonds explained how on GB News: “Firstly, by using the £140 million the Government’s currently spent on the Rwanda plan, which has sent more Home Secretaries to Rwanda than people, to actually have a cross border policing unit to try and bust the model of the people smuggling gangs, so that fewer people end up in the English Channel on that dangerous crossing in the first place.
“Secondly, deal with the actual backlog where there are, for example, agreements in place with safe countries like Albania, then we should be fast tracking those people through the system.
“And third, we need to get more return agreements in place because when people are found to have no right to be here, the Government just doesn’t have the returns agreements in place to be able to return those people to safe countries.
“So, what we need to see is that driving down of the asylum backlog, it is so unfair on the people in it and it’s unfair on the British taxpayer as well.”
In a discussion during Breakfast with Martin Daubney and Ellie Costello, he denied that Labour would also house migrants on barges.
He said: “No, Stephen Kinnock is talking about the situation we’ll inherit over which we have no control. So if we are privileged enough to come into government next year, we’ll inherit the asylum accommodation position that the Conservatives would have put us in over the next 12 months.
“But we will be moving back to a situation, as I say, where we will be using the long standing asylum accommodation. It’s been used for many, many years before the Conservatives got themselves into a mess where they had to use this barge and hotels.
“It’s that action that we need. And as I say it isn’t just about the people in the system. It’s about the cost of this whole system to the British taxpayer, it is acting in nobody’s interest at the moment, which is why ministers need to act in a far better way than they have been over recent years.”
On increasing fines for people using illegal workers, he said: “We’ve been arguing for the regime to be tougher and for some time. The problem is the government has announced the increasing of the fines today but you have to have attached to that as well proper enforcement action.
“Take the issue of illegal employment, since 2016 the number of penalties that the government has issued has gone down by two thirds.”
