UK-France Migration: Co-operation

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful, as ever, to the noble Lord for his questions. I reassure him that the taxpayer is at the forefront of this Government’s thinking about the costs of this illegal migration and the criminal gangs that drive it. It is for those very reasons that we are taking action, not just to secure our borders but also to secure taxpayers’ resource. That is why, this time last year when we inherited the positions we proudly hold now, we were paying roughly £8 million a day in hotel fees: because the then Government were not processing asylum seekers and were not taking the actions we have taken in the last year to have a deterrent effect, in our view, against the criminal gangs. We have managed to reduce those hotel costs to around £6 million a day, saving the taxpayer £2 million a day so far, and we intend to drive it down further.

So I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that border control, dealing with asylum and dealing with the impact of people being returned have a cost to the taxpayer. That is why, as I said—without repeating the figures—we are upping returns, upping processing and making sure that we are taking foreign national prisoners out. We are doing that to reduce the illegal pressure on the United Kingdom’s borders.

The noble Lord asked a very fair question about consultation with local authorities. It is the Government’s intent that we consult with local authorities and, if possible, with elected representatives outside those local authorities—Members of Parliament and others—to ensure that they have an understanding of where that dispersal accommodation goes. If he wants to supply any examples of where that is not working, I will certainly look at them with my ministerial colleagues. It is important that we get that right so that there is consent.

On the international agreements the noble Lord mentioned, as I said, it is the Government’s intention to support our international agreements. Any change from that will be done on an international co-operation basis. We keep everything under review. As the noble Lord knows, in the immigration White Paper we have said we want to redefine Article 8 and how that is interpreted by the judges. We will keep things under review, but this Government will not move from our international obligations. Also, it is not a foreign court; it was established with UK support after the Second World War.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on reaching an agreement with Germany. My understanding is that the German law has to change before Germany can prosecute smuggling gangs operating on German soil. How confident is the noble Lord that the agreement to change German law will be reached this year?

The noble Lord mentioned the importance of the EU agreement. The EU normally operates by reaching an agreement among the 27. We have reached an agreement with France and now Germany, but surely, he would wish to reach an agreement with the whole EU to make sure that the smuggling gangs can be tackled at source: Greece and Italy, where most of the people are entering the EU.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. It is extremely important that we reach out to our European partners—they are still partners, although we are not members of the community—to ensure that we tackle this issue across the board. That means the flow through the Mediterranean into Italy and Greece in particular, the flow from eastern Europe into Poland, and the flow from France across the channel, accordingly. As I have said, the Calais group operates with Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, looking at the particular pressures there.

On the agreement with Germany announced today, I say again that Germany remains an independent nation, so it is responsible for its law change. But we have an agreement in the treaty that says that the German Government are

“introducing a clarification in German legislation concerning the facilitation of irregular migration to the UK (to be brought to Cabinet with a view to be adopted by Parliament as soon as possible, within 2025)”.

The Germans are responsible for the Germans, but in the treaty we have signed today, they indicate that they are hoping to make that change and—as any UK Government would—going back to their parliament and securing parliamentary support by the end of 2025. But it is entirely right that we deal with this issue on a cross-Europe basis because it is a cross-Europe challenge.