A former home secretary has said it is “unacceptable” that 50,000 migrants are set to have crossed the Channel since Labour came to power last year, as she blamed the previous Conservative government for allowing gangs to become entrenched.
Baroness Jacqui Smith of Malvern, who is an education minister, admitted it is a challenge for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, but she believes initiatives in place will bring numbers down.
Official figures from Monday suggested 49,797 had crossed in small boats from northern France. However the figure is expected to pass 50,000 when official data is released on Tuesday.
Lady Smith returned to Government last year, having served as home secretary for two years during Gordon Brown’s premiership.
“It’s a very big challenge,” she told Nick Ferrari on LBC, citing Government action such as “doubling” asylum cases being determined and “increased numbers of people being returned overseas”.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, she added: “It is an unacceptable number of people. It sort of demonstrates the way over the last six or seven years that the criminal gangs have got an absolute foothold in the tragic trafficking of people across the Channel.”
Before entering Government, Labour had promised to “smash the gangs” to bring numbers down. The problem had plagued Rishi Sunak’s government, which had struck an agreement with Rwanda to send asylums seekers there to have their claims processed.
However it was cancelled under the incoming Labour Government, after only a handful of migrants had gone to the central African country, voluntarily. Ms Cooper claimed the Tories had spent £700 million on it.
The issue has remained a thorn in the Government’s side. The 50,000 milestone has been hit earlier under Sir Keir than compared to Mr Sunak. Sky News reported the number would be hit in under 401 days under Labour, if it was reached on Tuesday, compared to 603 under Mr Sunak.
Earlier on Tuesday, Lady Smith told Sky News that Ms Cooper has a tough job to tackle the gangs as she placed responsibility on Mr Sunak and his former ministers.
“I think it’s tough because the last government enabled this hideous criminal activity to really get its roots into across Europe,” Lady Smith said.
“There’s really important action that’s being taken to tackle it, the way in which there’s a much stronger focus on getting decisions made more quickly, returning more people who come here and don’t have the right to stay, and in the last few months, the new deal that we have with the French, we’ve already detained people who’ve come here illegally, they’ll be returned directly to France.”
She added: “There was also a lengthy period, at the time, in which the criminal gangs, the criminal masterminds, the organised crime, who are behind this, had the opportunity to have this operation set up and really embedded, and that’s the task that this Government now has, to deconstruct that, to build on the arrests that we’ve already made of people who are responsible for this, and to cut the numbers.”
Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch said she would be able to reduce the number of migrants crossing the Channel to zero “quickly”, if she was in power.
Asked directly, she told reporters in the Isle of Wight: “I think that we can … it wouldn’t happen straight away, but it would happen quickly.
“My team are now looking at what we can do in terms of detention centres, but stopping people from coming here in the first place – if they think they’re going to be sent to Rwanda and not get here, get a free hotel, get benefits, then they won’t come here.”
