Priti Patel has insisted the UK Government is not “heartless” in the migrant crisis following the deaths of 27 people trying to cross the English Channel.
The Conservative Home Secretary told MPs she had spoken to her French counterpart and had called for joint patrols of the Channel and to put UK officers on the ground in France.
In response to an urgent question in the Commons she said Wednesday’s incident was a dreadful shock but not a surprise, adding: “It is also a reminder of how vulnerable people are put at peril when in the hands of criminal gangs.”
MPs debated the migration crisis as boats continued to be launched across the Channel despite the tragic drownings on Wednesday.
Those who drowned included 17 men, seven women, one of whom was pregnant, and three children, France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin said.
It was earlier reported 31 people had died, but the total was revised down overnight. Five people have been arrested in connection with the fatal crossing.
Patel blamed traffickers engaging in “modern day slavery” for exploiting people said the UK had a “humane approach” to asylum seekers despite figures showing the government has not fulfilled its own targets safe entry.
But the Home Secretary dialled down her anti-migrant rhetoric and told the Commons she is working the French government on solutions.
She told the Commons: “We are not working just to end these crossings because we don’t care and we’re heartless."
“The United Kingdom has a clear and a generous humane approach to asylum seekers and refugees."
“Yes, people should come here legally and the system must be fair. But the main issue is this: crossing the Channel in small boats is extremely dangerous and yesterday was a moment that many of us had feared for many years.”
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the government should concentrate on the causes of mass migration rather than on stopping people from arriving in the UK and the SNP’s Martyn Day said the Home Secretary should abandon the turn back policy in the Channel and open safer routes
Patel batted away the demands and told the SNP MP he did not understand the complexity of the situation.
She said: “There is no simple solution, schemes that have existed previously are not the answer.”
She called on the SNP to back the Nationality and Borders bill "so that our asylum system actually becomes fit for purpose, so it meets the needs of people that are claiming asylum and that we have a differentiated approach to economic migrants who are elbowing women and children out of the way.”
Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds highlighted the woeful record of the government on allowing migrants in by “properly managed safe and legal routes”.
He said: “The Dubs Scheme was closed down having helped only 480 unaccompanied children rather than the 3,000 that it expected to help. Will that scheme be urgently reinstated?”
He added: “Then there is the UK Resettlement Scheme that was announced in February of this year, and today the Government has released the statistics on this."
“It shows that in its first year only 770 people have been helped by that scheme, and taken with other schemes, it is only 1,171 people who have been helped to the end of September, when the promise from the Home Office was to help 5,000 people in its first year."
“What will be done to make good on that promise?”
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