PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Border Security: Collaboration - 11 December 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the new border security agreements we have reached with Germany and with the Calais group of Interior Ministers from the UK, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, which met in London yesterday with Europol, Frontex and the European Commission to discuss strengthening action against small boat crossings and organised immigration crime.

In the light of fast-moving events in the middle east, we also discussed the situation in Syria at the Calais group yesterday, and I will briefly address that issue first. As the Foreign Secretary told the House, we welcome the fall of the Assad regime, but continue to closely monitor this fast-moving situation, where there is significant risk of instability. Considering that, I have taken the decision to temporarily pause decisions on Syrian asylum claims. All five Calais group countries have taken the same decision. We will, of course, continue to keep all guidance relating to these asylum claims under constant review, and we will keep the House updated in the normal way.

Last week, I updated the House on the new agreement the Government have reached with the Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan regional authorities to tackle organised immigration crime. This week, we have reached new strengthened agreements closer to home. Smuggler and trafficking gangs have been allowed to get away with their vile trade in people for far too long. Britain needs strong borders and a properly controlled and managed asylum and immigration system, but, for the past five years, we have had the opposite. That is why we are prepared to do the hard graft to get the system back under control and tackle the gangs long before they reach our shores.

Immediately after the election, we began to strengthen our international collaboration to go after those criminal gangs, including by increasing the number of National Crime Agency officers in Europol, setting up the new Border Security Command and making the new agreement with the G7. Already, that strengthened collaboration is delivering results. In the last few weeks alone, we have seen the arrest of a major suspect in the supply of boats and engines to the channel, which involved co-operation between Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. A major operation last week against a Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish gang operating through Germany and France was led by French police, but was supported by intelligence from the NCA and involved 500 German police officers. It delivered not just a series of arrests of suspected gang members, but the seizure of multiple boats and engines destined for the channel—boats that could have led to thousands of people making dangerous journeys.

Criminals need to know that there will be no hiding place. The gangs who undermine our border security by facilitating small boats crossing the channel are also facilitating dangerous and illegal journeys into other European countries and committing wider crimes, including serious violence, exploitation, money laundering and drug trafficking. These gangs operate across borders. Therefore, we need law enforcement co-operation across borders to bring them down, and new systems to work across different prosecutorial and legal systems. We need to rebuild basic intelligence sharing and co-operation that was damaged under the last Government’s post-Brexit arrangements, and new expertise is needed to deal with evolving threats.

This week, I signed a landmark agreement with my German counterpart, Minister Nancy Faeser, to tackle irregular migration. The new joint action plan is the first of its kind between the UK and Germany. It includes much stronger operational co-operation, such as information and intelligence sharing, including very practical basic measures such as increasing the use of the SIENA—Secure Information Exchange Network Application—Europol system by the NCA to share information with German police to swiftly pursue investigations; stronger partnerships to deliver prosecutions; new work to take down social media content that is being used as advertising by organised smuggler gangs; joint working and co-ordination with transit and source countries; supporting each other on returns; and establishing the first German international liaison officer in the Border Security Command.

Importantly, the joint action plan means strengthening the law in Germany to tackle people smugglers. We know that gangs are routing many supply chains through Germany, including using warehouses to store boats and engines that are destined for the channel. Clarification of the law in Germany will mean that activities facilitating migrant smuggling to the UK in Germany will be a criminal offence. This is a major change which will make it easier for German prosecutors to dismantle supply chains and prosecute the smugglers involved. It means that in Germany and across Europe, we are sending a clear message to the smugglers: “Activity to smuggle people into the UK is a criminal offence and you will be prosecuted and brought to justice.” Germany and the UK will also work together through Europol to investigate the end-to-end criminal activity of Kurdish gang networks that are operating in both our countries, in co-operation with the Iraqi Government and Kurdish authorities following the agreements I reached in Iraq.

The joint action plan embodies our shared determination to pursue organised immigration crime, but it also reflects the same determination and commitment shared across other near neighbours, embodied in our meeting with the Calais group in London yesterday. I strongly welcome the new announcements from the French Interior Minister on increasing the police presence and enforcement along the French coast through the winter, alongside the appointment of a new coastal préfet. The increased violence we have seen on the beaches towards French police is a total disgrace.

The Calais group also agreed a new plan to strengthen action across our five countries, including a range of actions backed by an end-to-end approach to tackling migrant smuggling networks, from the French coast through to source and transit countries, including Vietnam and central Africa. This includes stronger enforcement capability through Europol, targeting the illicit finance model of migrant smuggling networks, taking down social media advertising, and co-ordinated preventive communications to deter people from paying gangs to arrange dangerous, irregular journeys. We also discussed at the Calais group the major escalation of enforcement activity we are undertaking here in the UK. Immigration and asylum rules need to be respected and enforced, and for too long they have not been.

Over the summer we moved 1,000 more staff into returns and enforcement activity, which has already led to nearly 10,000 returns since the election, with enforced returns up by 19% and voluntary returns by 14%. Also during the summer, enforcement officers completed more than 3,000 visits to employers and more than 2,000 arrests, a substantial increase on the figures in the previous year. We discussed the need to scale up all these operations drastically over the next 12 months, to ensure that words turn into decisive action against the gangs. Yesterday, as part of these efforts, we published a mission statement for the Border Security Command, setting out the approach that we are adopting to increase enforcement capacity in the UK and Europe, drawing on the best intelligence and enforcement practice in the police, the National Crime Agency, Border Force and our intelligence agencies.

In the years before this Government came to office, criminal gangs were allowed to take hold all along our borders, establishing a criminal industry profiting from misery and exploitation and putting lives at risk. The terrible consequences of this phenomenon have been clear for too many years: fatalities in the channel as people risk their lives making dangerous journeys, border security undermined and public trust in the immigration system eroded, while criminal gangs make millions in profits. They cannot be allowed to get away with it. In place of the failures of the past, this Government have a serious and sensible plan to strengthen our border security and fix our broken asylum system—a plan that is based on grip, not gimmicks, and on serious international partnership. I commend this statement to the House.

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

I thank the Home Secretary for the timely sight of her statement, and I thank her for her comments on Syria. We certainly support the efforts of this Government and others around the world to secure a transition to a stable Government in Syria that can ensure the return of peace. We also support the suspension of asylum processing; I am glad that the Government made that decision a few hours after I called for it yesterday.

Does the Home Secretary agree that, given that most if not all the asylum claims are predicated on the threat posed to the individual by former President Assad, now that that threat has gone and the basis for the asylum claims has therefore gone, it would be reasonable to ask Syrians who are claiming or have recently been granted asylum on that basis to return once they are safe? Earlier today, the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister if he would ensure that no former UK residents who are in Syria and who supported the murderous Daesh regime that killed and raped innocent women and children, persecuted minorities and severely persecuted its opponents return to the UK. In government, the Conservatives ensured that those people did not return—the Shamima Begum case was an example—so will the Home Secretary take similarly robust action to ensure that people who supported Daesh do not return to the United Kingdom? I think the House would appreciate such an assurance.

Let me now turn to the question of small boats and border security. The Home Secretary asserted, I must say rather boldly, that her approach was “delivering results” , but I am afraid the facts do not bear that out. Let us have a look at the results that are actually being delivered. In the 150 days since the election, more than 20,000 people dangerously and illegally crossed the English channel, 18% more than did so in the same 150 days in the previous year. I do not call an 18% year-on-year increase “delivering results”; that is a failure. Why are these figures up year on year? The National Crime Agency told us that we needed a deterrent but that law enforcement alone would not be enough, yet the Government cancelled the Rwanda deterrent before it had even started. The first flight was due to take off on 24 July, and they cancelled it before it even took off. Of course we welcome the law enforcement that continues the work done by the last Government, but according to the NCA that alone will not be enough, so we need a deterrent. When will the Home Secretary introduce one?

In the spirit of examining the right hon. Lady’s claim that she is delivering results, let us look at the Government’s record on asylum hotels. In their manifesto, they promised to close down and end the use of asylum hotels. According to figures that we obtained recently, in the three months following the election, far from reducing asylum hotel use they increased it, by 6,066 people. In places such as Peterborough and Altrincham, which are now represented by Labour MPs, asylum hotels were opened up in express contradiction of their own manifesto commitment.

Let me say a word about removals. It is welcome that overall removals have gone up, continuing the trend under the previous Government, although I observe that almost all those removals were to European and North American countries. The Home Secretary did not break out the numbers on small boat returns, and I wonder why that was. I have looked into the figures, and it turns out that in the three months after the election, less than 5% of people crossing by small boat were returned. More than that, the number of people returned, having crossed by small boat, in the three months after the election was, in fact, lower than the number returned in the three months prior to it. So the number of people returned after crossing by small boat has gone down under this Government.

The Home Secretary mentioned criminal gangs, and I am glad that the work started under the last Government, including by my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Cleverly), is being continued. That includes the international co-operation that he pursued both as Foreign Secretary and as Home Secretary. But I ask the Home Secretary this: why, in opposition, did she vote against life sentences for people smugglers?

We heard a bit about the Calais group’s discussion yesterday. Of course, co-operation is important—we, too, co-operated when in government—but I wonder whether the Home Secretary had the chance to ask her French opposite number one or two questions. First, will the French accept returns of people crossing the channel? That would provide a very powerful deterrent. As she will know, the post-EU exit documentation—the political declaration—expressly allows individual member states to engage in bilateral arrangements on borders. Did she raise that with her French counterpart, and what did they say?

Secondly, was the Home Secretary able to ask her French counterpart whether France will intercept small boats close to the French shore, as the Belgians safely do? In Belgium, it has resulted in a 93% reduction in crossings. If the French would do the same and intercept near the shore, it would have a dramatic effect.

The Home Secretary said that she is delivering results, but these are the results: crossings are up by 18%, asylum hotel places are up by 6,066 and small boat returns are down under the new Government. She is delivering results—I am afraid they are worse.

I gently point out to the shadow Home Secretary that his party left us with the highest ever level of small boat crossings in the first half of a year—the highest level on record. If we had carried on with small boat crossings at the same level as in the first half of the year, when he was in the Home Office, we would have had to deal with thousands more arrivals over the last few months. When he was the Immigration Minister, small boat crossings increased about tenfold because he let criminal gangs take hold along the channel. They built an entire criminal industry on his watch that he did nothing to stop, which is why we now have to deal with those criminal gangs.

On returns, I gently point out to the shadow Home Secretary that by the time the Conservatives left office, returns were down by more than a quarter compared with under the last Labour Government because of the Conservatives’ continued failure to even get the system working. That is why we have put substantial additional resources into returns and into making sure that the rules are enforced, which they simply have not been for far too long.

On the asylum backlog, perhaps the shadow Home Secretary will take responsibility for the total crashing of the asylum system in the last few months before the general election, when the Conservative party and the Home Office of which he was a part ended up cutting asylum decisions by more than 70% compared with the beginning of the year. That shocking dereliction of duty means that we have had to deal with the increased backlog that his party left behind over the summer, and we are getting it back under control.

There are some important issues on asylum decisions involving Syrians. Let us be clear: many claims for asylum relate to the Assad regime, which is clearly not in place now. It would therefore not be appropriate to grant asylum decisions on those cases in the current circumstances. We need to monitor the evolving situation so that we can get new country guidance in place and take those decisions, but we will do that in a sensible and serious way, which is about getting the asylum and immigration systems back under control. By contrast, the shadow Home Secretary and the Conservative party seem simply to want to go back to the Rwanda scheme. Once again, I point out to them that it cost the taxpayer £700 million and sent just four volunteers to Kigali—the most shocking waste of public money, over two years, on a failing scheme. All they delivered were gimmicks, instead of ever getting a grip, and all the shadow Home Secretary wants to do is turn the clock back to failure again.

It is so refreshing to have a Home Secretary who is actually targeting those who exploit refugees. I understand what she says about the evolving situation in Syria, and I welcome what she has just said about new country guidance. May I press her a little bit more, though? She will understand and recognise that the Syrian community in this country, which many of us have been proud to welcome and support, is unsettled. There are 6,500 claims in process. When does she expect to have a refreshed assessment? We know that the situation in Syria is very uncertain at the moment. Can she please give our Syrian community some comfort about the direction of travel?

We are obviously reviewing the situation as swiftly as possible. We have withdrawn the previous Syria country guidance, because it would not have been appropriate to take decisions on that basis, and we are monitoring the situation closely to look at how and when new country guidance can be drawn up. My hon. Friend will understand that there is considerable uncertainty about what is happening in Syria. We have welcomed the removal of the Assad regime. However, much is still unknown about what will happen in Syria next, which is why we have to be serious about this matter and monitor the situation closely. Other countries are doing the same.

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, and for advance sight of it. On Syria, this is a fast-moving situation, and it is absolutely right that the temporary pause on decisions on Syrian asylum claims is kept under constant review. The UK should be doing all it can to help secure an orderly transition of power in Syria in accordance with international law, and the Government should move to offer asylum seekers and others certainty about their claims as soon as possible.

We welcome the Government’s attempts to tackle people smuggling gangs, who send vulnerable people on perilous journeys across the channel. We also appreciate their working closely with our European neighbours on this issue, instead of blaming them, as the previous Conservative Government did all too often. Does the Home Secretary agree that in addition to bilateral agreements with states and the Calais group, such as the one she signed yesterday, we need to work even more closely with inter-state agencies such as Europol, which she mentioned, and Eurojust to restore the UK police’s real-time access to the EU-wide data sharing systems that lead to the identifying and arrest of criminals? Shamefully, that co-operation and access was lost under the Conservatives.

We should not forget how we ended up in this mess. The asylum backlog ballooned thanks to the last Conservative Government, and thousands of people are currently waiting for their claims to be processed. Can the Home Secretary update the House on what progress she and colleagues are making in tackling the backlog? Will she commit to establishing a dedicated unit to improve the speed and quality of asylum decision making, and introduce a service standard of three months for all but the most complex asylum claims to be processed? Many of the people we are talking about are incredibly vulnerable; they are fleeing war, persecution and famine. Does the Home Secretary agree that we have to tackle this problem at source, and what conversations has she had with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office about boosting international development spending and co-operation to tackle the root causes of the numerous refugee crises?

The hon. Member raised asylum claims from Syria. This is something we discussed in the Calais group, and all five countries are taking the same approach of recognising that we cannot currently take decisions. We clearly want to be able to do so as swiftly as possible, but we need to monitor the situation in Syria in the meantime.

The hon. Member raised the importance of other partnership working, including with Europol and Eurojust, and I agree with her on the importance of that. One of the things we agreed, first with Germany and then as part of the Calais group discussions at which Europol was also present, is that we were keen either to establish a new Europol taskforce or to expand one of the existing taskforces to look at the end-to-end smuggler route and its supply chains, and particularly to work with the Kurdish authorities and the Iraqi Government on the end-to-end route involving the Iraqi Kurdish criminal smuggler gangs. All those involved, including the Iraqi Government, are keen to work with us on that, but we need that Europol taskforce in place in order to be able to do that.

On asylum decision making, we are increasing the caseworkers in post and we have substantially increased the pace of decisions. Decision making had plummeted by about 70% just before the election, but we now have the extra caseworkers in place and we have got decisions back up to where they were. That allows us to clear the backlog on initial decisions. Finally, I agree with the hon. Member that we need to continue to work on the source issues, and we are working closely with the Foreign Office on that.

I spent 15 years working on migration before I came into this House, including three years as the home affairs attaché in Paris, where I saw at first hand how the kind of instruments and data sharing the Home Secretary is describing can make a concrete difference in the fight against immigration crime. I also saw that, as the previous Government pulled the UK out of these instruments, it made our job as officials harder. I could not welcome the Home Secretary’s statement more. Immigration is an international phenomenon and, by definition, tackling immigration crime requires international co-operation. Can she tell us a bit more about the steps she has taken to build the relationships with these key European allies? Will she also commit to keeping her foot to the floor on this issue? In my experience, these relationships can so easily be cut, and but to bear fruit they take time and political will.

My hon. Friend has considerable experience in these issues, and I thank him for all his work on this. He is right to say that, with something as basic as the right kind of information and intelligence sharing, if the systems are removed and no new systems are put in place, basic operational actions simply do not happen, whether they involve going after the criminal gangs or preventing dangerous boat crossings and criminal activities. This is as basic as making sure that we now have much stronger systems, including using the Europol secure information exchange network application—SIENA—system, so that when the German police get information from the National Crime Agency, it is in a form that they can swiftly use to pursue investigations and prosecutions. My hon. Friend is right. We have to make sure that the detail works, which has often not been taken seriously for far too long.

I welcome the Home Secretary’s commitment to maintaining the relationships with the Calais group interior Ministers that I was developing when I was in her role, and to building on the UK Frontex agreement that I signed with Commissioner Johansson in February of this year. However, I want her to explain this to the House: if the role of the Border Security Command is so clear, if the division of labour between it and the small boats operational command is so clear, and if this issue is so pressing, why has it taken five months to give them a mission?

I recognise the points that the former Home Secretary has made. To be fair to him, he had to do a lot of work to try to repair the relationship with the Calais group and with some of the European partners, after some of his predecessors had been rather more careless, shall we say, and rather more destructive in that relationship. But we now have these further agreements in place, and they are crucial, practical arrangements about strengthening law enforcement co-operation to go after the criminal gangs.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the Border Security Command, I know this has been a bugbear of his, in that he wants to see it as the same as the small boats operational command, but they are very different. The small boats operational command is rightly focused on the operations in the channel and it does some excellent work to ensure that we can have order around the system in the channel. The Border Security Command is a much broader programme of work. For example, Martin Hewitt travelled with me to Iraq and Kurdistan in order to build those operational relationships so that we can work upstream. He was also part of the Calais group meetings yesterday in order to build those co-operation arrangements as well. We have provided continual updates on the work of the Border Security Command and we will continue to do so, but we are already getting on with work that I am afraid his party, and he as Home Secretary, never did.

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the frankly grown-up approach she is taking to tackling this problem. Does she recognise the fury that is felt by constituents in Hartlepool and elsewhere that, as this system collapsed over the past five years, with all the costs associated with that, simultaneously our public services were eviscerated? Does she understand that that is why people in Hartlepool want the system fixed, and fixed quickly?

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. What we saw was the loss of control of our border security, the loss of control along the channel where the criminal gangs were allowed to take hold, and the chaos that was allowed to develop in the asylum system. At the same time, we saw the loss of control of legal migration, where the new policies that were brought in meant that the figures quadrupled in the space of just four years. Most people across the country want us to have strong border security and properly controlled and managed migration and asylum systems, so that the system is properly fair and works for this country. We have not had that for too long, and of course that has left people deeply frustrated and wanting change.

I welcome this joint action plan. It is in our national security interest that it works, and I hope it does so. I am also grateful for the Home Secretary’s points on Syrian asylum seekers, and we look forward to hearing more details as that story unfolds. She mentioned working upstream. May I encourage her to meet the interior Ministers of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia and also interior Ministers in the Sahel, because she will know that a lot of the migration through the Mediterranean is coming out of north Africa, and particularly Libya?

The right hon. Gentleman makes a really important point about the work upstream. We did include interior Ministers from north Africa as part of the G7 discussions in Italy in October. That was important and it reflects a lot of the work with north African countries which Italy, for example, has been leading. I also agree with him about the importance of the Sahel. Some of the issues that we discussed in the Calais group yesterday included looking at areas of instability and areas from which people have been making dangerous journeys. We need to engage with those countries. We talked about the Sahel and about central Africa, and we talked about Iraq and some of the middle east areas. We also talked about Vietnam, from where we saw a significant increase in the number of people arriving in small boats at the beginning of the year.

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement today and congratulate her team on the work that they are undertaking in this very difficult area. Back in 2021, the previous Government committed to £62 million as part of an agreement with France that included strengthening law enforcement deployments, more wide-area surveillance technology and vehicles, and enhanced physical measures at transport interchanges. Then in 2023, they committed to a further £500 million and to continuing these agreements. My constituents see these agreements, and the financial commitments being made with our neighbours, and yet, over the past few years, they have just seen increasing problems with small boat crossings and backlogs. What reassurance can my right hon. Friend give my constituents that these agreements will make a difference, and—because this goes to the heart of fairness—that these funding agreements will bring about the change that people want to see?

People clearly want to see practical changes on the ground, which is why the partnership working we have been taking forward—not just with France but with Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and other countries—is so important. This has been about the prevention work along the French coast, and the work with the French authorities. However, the reality is that we have to be taking action long before the boats, the engines, the people and the gangs reach the French coast in the first place. That is the fundamental difference between the approach we are now taking and the previous Government’s work. It is about how we work with other European countries to tackle the gangs before they reach the French coast. That is where we need much stronger partnerships, and that is where many of our efforts have been focused.

The applications of the 6,500 Syrian asylum seekers have already been mentioned, but when the Department looks at these claims, will the Home Secretary keep in mind that Syria’s new leader is a committed jihadist who has voiced support for the 9/11 attacks? There are, therefore, very serious questions, particularly for women and minorities, and all paused asylum claims should be processed with that firmly in mind.

In a similar vein, although I fully support the increased efforts to shut down illegal and dangerous trafficking routes, it is important that we have safe asylum routes for those who are still at significant risk.

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the continuing instability. There is a lot that we simply do not know about how events will play out in Syria. Those who have taken over, and who were involved in the initial overthrow of the Assad regime, initially said they would pursue an approach supporting minorities within Syria, but the developments we have seen in recent days raise questions about that. We have also seen huge instability, with various organisations and groups operating across the country. That is why we need to monitor this closely. I think everybody wants to see greater stability. We have also seen the initial signs of people wanting to return from Turkey to Syria, for example, in the first few days, but the situation is very unstable, which is why we need to approach this with care and with detailed monitoring of what is happening.

The Conservatives should be absolutely ashamed of their asylum and immigration policy, of their inactivity and of the complete mess in which they left Britain and our borders. [Interruption.] The anger and frustration they are showing is shared by my constituents in Portsmouth North on the small boat arrivals—their frustration continues to fill my inboxes.

When the Home Secretary came to power, she promised a relentless focus on these boats. We have already heard today about co-operation with other countries on raids, arrests, seizures and stronger enforcement. Will she assure my constituents in Portsmouth North that this is not a gimmick and that the focus will continue through the winter?

My hon. Friend is right that the only way to deal with this issue is not through gimmicks—we have seen those fail time and again—or through the kind of posturing that the Conservative party continues with. It will be dealt with only through partnership, hard work and graft.

We have set up the Border Security Command, put in place new agreements with countries not only in Europe but beyond, such as Iraq, and strengthened our law enforcement capabilities—£150 million is going into the Border Security Command over the next two years. We are also getting on with returns and enforcement, which substantially increased this summer as a result of the actions we have taken to get them back on track after the system’s previous failings.

People are fed up with gimmicks, and we need to take a serious approach to get a grip on this issue.

The Home Secretary has not answered very many questions today, so can she answer this very clear question: which metric should we use, and by which date, to allow us to judge whether the Government have succeeded in smashing the gangs?

I think everyone will be clear that no one should be making these dangerous boat crossings that undermine our border security and put lives at risk. We need to pursue the criminal gang networks that spread across Europe and beyond, which is why we welcome last week’s arrests in Germany as a result of the French-led operation supported by the National Crime Agency. We will continue to support and accelerate this work so that we can take stronger action against the criminal gangs.

This week has seen the result of the Home Secretary’s work, which has led to the agreement with Germany. It is hard work and grip that gets results. It is incredible that, under German law, the stockpiling of the boats and engines used to cross the channel was not prohibited. Can the Home Secretary assure us now that this agreement will lead to a path to closing this loophole and disrupting the work of the small boat gangs?

My hon. Friend is right that this is a practical issue. To disrupt the criminal gangs operating along the French coast, we need to disrupt their supply chains and to be able to go after them wherever they operate. One of the most basic issues, on which the previous Government took no action at all, is the fact these flimsy and incredibly dangerous boats were being shipped across Europe, often being stored in German warehouses. However, the legal framework in Germany made it very hard for the German police and prosecutors to take action against those smuggling gangs.

The basic thing we have done is to reach agreement with Germany that it will strengthen its law to make it clear that storing these boats facilitates dangerous and illegal boat crossings out of the EU and into the UK, which is a crime. Strengthening the law in that way helps us to take action against the criminal gangs, but the previous Government just never chose to do it. It required diplomacy, hard work and shared commitment, and that is what we have shown.

We all welcome the fall of Assad and look forward to him, and his accomplices, being dragged before the criminal courts to face justice for crimes against humanity. However, the Home Secretary will know that the current situation in Syria is very complex, with a number of proscribed organisations involved. We understand that the Government are considering de-listing some of these organisations. At the same time, we are hearing that money being sent to Syria, to help and assist the Syrians, could fall into the hands of these proscribed organisations. What action will the Home Secretary take to make sure that does not happen? As this is a moving situation, will she undertake to update the House on any moves to de-proscribe these organisations?

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. As he will know, we do not routinely comment on either proscription or de-proscription, or on any of those processes, but I make it clear that proscription decisions are taken with care, based on evidence over time. They are not rushed or based on inadequate evidence. These are always important issues, but the most important thing is the safety and national security of the UK, and any decisions we take will always be taken in that light.

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and all the action her Department is taking to tackle migrant smuggling gangs and to reduce the asylum backlog. Frankly, I am quite surprised by the reaction I have heard from Conservative Members because, either through inaction or through incompetence, the last Government left us with an inheritance of 400 asylum hotels, at a cost to the taxpayer of £9 million a day. They did not seem very bothered about targets then.

Constituents in Bournemouth West and across the country are rightly furious about this. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if Conservative Members were really serious about tackling illegal migration, they would take responsibility for their legacy and welcome our measures, rather than complaining about them?

My hon. Friend is right. We inherited a situation where the Conservatives let the entire system get way out of control. They let criminal gangs take hold along the channel and left us with total chaos in the asylum system and extortionate costs, as she rightly pointed out, with nearly £9 million a day being spent this time last year on asylum hotels. The result of our action since the election to get asylum decision making, which they had frozen, going and to get the system working again is already saving hundreds of millions of pounds for the taxpayer, which Conservative Members were happy to spend rather than getting a grip of the system.

I am pleased to hear from the Home Secretary that she is making progress with our neighbouring countries in Europe in stopping what I now call a national emergency. As she probably knows, however, that is only a third of the issue. Another is that boat crossings have increased. Will she consider securely detaining the people who arrive here? If we are to solve the problem, we have to remove the incentive to come to Britain. The questions I am asking are uncovering quite how much the cost of those illegal migrants is to the country, and this is now, as I say, a matter of national emergency.

The third part of the equation is the illegal migrants who are here. I had a case in my constituency of Great Yarmouth only this week, where one Alius Ambulta was convicted of drug dealing—a 17th offence that received a very light sentence. Will the Home Secretary commit to deporting those illegal migrants here who are damaging the interests of the British electorate?

We need to clear the backlog and the chaos in the asylum system that we have inherited. There is already a detention system as part of both the immigration and asylum systems. However, the core issue over a long period of time has been around the lack of proper enforcement and a proper system to ensure that the rules in both the asylum and the immigration systems are properly respected and enforced. We have seen returns, for example, drop substantially compared with under the last Labour Government. We have put additional staff into the returns and enforcement system, but also making sure those returns increase. That is why we have seen nearly 10,000 returns since the general election and a significant increase in returns of both foreign national offenders and failed asylum cases to make sure the system is properly respected.

When I was elected to Parliament, I promised my constituents in Bassetlaw that this Government would have a relentless focus on stopping the boats. However, I want to clarify this important point: when this Government came to office, the number of small boat arrivals for 2024 was running at around 700 higher than the previous record year of 2022. Will the Home Secretary confirm that the number of arrivals since the Government came to office is 11,000 lower than in that equivalent period in 2022, when the Conservative party was in charge and when the Rwanda deal was in place?

My hon. Friend is right that the previous record year was 2022 and that in the first half of this year, when the previous Government were still in office, the arrivals were higher for that season—we all know that arrivals are affected by the season—than they were in 2022. Since the election, those arrivals have been significantly lower than they were in 2022, and had they continued at the record-high levels that the previous Government left us with, we would have had thousands more arrivals over the course of this year than we have, in fact, seen.

That is no comfort when lives are still being lost and when criminal gangs still take hold. However, it is important to recognise that we have not continued with the record-high levels we inherited from the previous Government. We should have a comprehensive programme across the Government and across the whole country to make sure we can tackle those dangerous gangs.

Until small boats are either stopped on French shores or intercepted in French waters, some will clearly continue to get through. If, in the next few weeks, identified individuals from Syria, whether they be Assad’s torturers or released Islamist fanatics, manage to come to Britain, what will be done to them? Will they be detained or will they be allowed to walk free?

The right hon. Member will know that the Home Office has the power to deny entry to those who are not conducive to the public good. Those are important powers that we continue to support. He will know that we also have other security powers and measures that we can use where there are individuals who pose a threat to the safety of the UK and we will continue to take those extremely seriously.

While the Conservative party wasted £700 million of taxpayer money on an unworkable gimmick, this Government are rolling up our sleeves and putting in place the agreements that we need to tackle the gangs. That is the change that the British public voted for in July and that is the change we are delivering. What message does my right hon. Friend believe the new agreement sends to the vile people smugglers putting lives at risk in the channel? What message does that send to those criminals?

My hon. Friend asks an important question. The criminal gangs operate across borders and, frankly, they have been able to get away with it because of lack of co-ordination between law enforcement across borders and between Governments across borders. That is what we have been working to change since the election and why we have in place not just the Calais group agreements and the agreement on the joint action plan with Germany, but the progress we made at the G7 and the discussions, just after the election, at the European Political Community meetings. We need that collaboration because the message has to be extremely clear to the criminal gangs: there will be no place to hide. They cannot just hide across borders, because Governments and law enforcement will work together to go after them.

This is a multiheaded hydra of a problem; there is no doubt about that. One of the ways in which we could begin to tackle it is by using the proper language. Can we please stop talking about irregular arrivals and irregular journeys? That sounds like a coach tour that has taken a wrong turn. It is illegal immigration that we are dealing with here.

We have heard much about international co-operation and that, obviously, is critical. Will the Home Secretary undertake to strike a series of agreements with a range of countries to ensure that people can be returned to those countries should they be deemed safe?

We have been clear that we need to reduce both legal and illegal migration because we have seen significant increases in both over the past five years. That is why we are setting out the policies that we have been introducing since the election. The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the multiple different aspects and why we need to take action comprehensively, across the board. That also means that the response has to be across the board and has to include not just the prevention work and going after the criminal gangs, but increasing returns. It is possible to do that through new agreements; it is also possible to do that, frankly, by just making the existing system work considerably better. That is what we have been doing throughout the summer and we have already seen a significant increase in returns, with nearly 10,000 people who did not have the right to be in the UK returned.

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement today. We all agree in this House and across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that the issue of immigration needs to be realistically prevented. To give the right hon. Lady credit, she has shown that determination and commitment through the statement today and we look forward to seeing the action on the ground.

Let me gently take the Secretary of State on another journey, across to Northern Ireland. What discussions have taken place with the Republic of Ireland to secure the border with Northern Ireland? The Irish Government have implemented checks for their security. I believe that the time has come for the Government here to do likewise, and to prevent immigration through the back door.

The hon. Member will be aware that we have long had a common travel area across the UK and Ireland, which of course has meant close security co-operation and information-sharing in recognition of that unique situation. That common travel area will continue, and we will also continue to work with the Irish Government to ensure that the system works effectively. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland also takes these matters seriously.