Theresa May has insisted that new security measures are starting to take effect at Calais, but admits the migrant crisis could shift to other ports.
The Home Secretary disclosed that talks have begun with authorities in The Netherlands and Belgium as she toured a barbed-wire-fence “ring of steel” – part of a £7 m investment by the UK – surrounding the Eurotunnel terminal at Coquelles, Calais.
On her first visit to the port since the emergency escalated, Mrs May signed a new agreement with her French counterpart, Bernard Cazeneuve.
It includes an unprecedented deployment of British police to work in a joint “command and control” centre to target trafficking gangs.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May address the media at the Eurotunnel Terminal on August 20, 2015 (Getty)
Mrs May disclosed that Britain has had dialogue with Belgium and Holland amid suggestions that traffickers may try to smuggle migrants to the UK through different ports now that security has been strengthened at Calais.
Immigration Minister James Brokenshire has spoken to officials in the two countries and is expected to travel for further discussions. In pictures: Calais crisis intensifies
Mrs May also said that other northern French ports such as Dunkirk are being scrutinised. She said: “We are also looking at the security of other ports. We are very well aware of the possibility of displacement.”
Zeebrugge in Belgium and the Hook of Holland are seen as potentially vulnerable.
Mrs May also said that the governments of both countries have been working together with an “excellent level of collaboration”, and she claimed that the measures announced in recent weeks have had an effect.
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The Home Secretary added that: “We have already taken a number of steps that have started to improve the situation here in terms of numbers of people trying to access the tunnel and get through to the UK. But the work must continue.”
French police officers walk on an overpass above the boarding platforms for Eurotunnel trains, neat the tunnel entrance in Calais (EPA)
She said that the problems seen in Calais actually begin elsewhere in the world.
