Craig Mackinlay
Main Page: Craig Mackinlay (Conservative - South Thanet)Department Debates - View all Craig Mackinlay's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I totally agree. Deterrence must be the test to which we hold all aspects of our immigration policy. We will implement the Rwanda plan as soon as it has passed through the courts, and I think it will make a significant impact on deterring people from making this dangerous crossing.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend share my grave concerns about the radio chatter recorded just this week by one of my constituents? It records a high level of co-operation between the French navy and UK Border Force as the French navy escorts migrants through French waters to be picked up on our side of the median line. The new French deal is trying to stop beach launchings. Welcome as that deal is, does it include a requirement for the French navy to stop and pick up migrant dinghies while they are still in French waters?
Robert Jenrick
We do not support the chaperoning of crafts to the median line to be picked up by British vessels and brought to Ramsgate, Dover or other British ports. Ultimately, that is counterproductive: it creates yet another pull factor to the UK. These are exactly the things that closer co-operation with France should enable us to resolve.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
On 23 September, when I was crossing the channel—quite legally—I spotted the French warship Athos behaving very strangely. I have here a screenshot of the warship, which I took on a navigational device. It was circling a small open boat full of people.
Giles Watling
The warship made no attempt to pick those people up, as it should have. As a yachtsman, I can tell the House that they were in danger and should have been taken off the boat, but the warship was, as my hon. Friend says, escorting that boat to our shores.
I am pleased with the deal that the Home Secretary made, and it is, as my right hon. Friend said, a good first step, but in my view it does not go far enough. Should we not push to get British boots on the ground and on the beaches alongside their French counterparts, in joint operations, to keep people on the shores of France, or on the shores of the continent?