Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gordon Henderson and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and join her in expressing condolences to the family and friends of the two boys; I also read about it and it is an awful tragedy. She rightly asks what we are doing to make our streets safer and stamp out the scourge of knife crime. We are boosting the number of police officers; as she will know, with 15,000, on our way to 20,000. We are also giving them the powers they need to get knives off our streets, including by lifting restrictions on stop and search, and introducing new court orders to target known knife offenders. I agree with her that this is something we need to do more on, and she should know that the Government will be fully committed to tackling it.

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

Q11. When will my right hon. Friend’s Government bring forward any emergency legislation that is needed to deport those migrants who came across the channel illegally in small boats and are now being put up in hotels paid for by hard-pressed British taxpayers?

[The Prime Minister]

We are determined to do whatever it takes to break the business model of the people smugglers, who are causing the needless loss of life of people in the channel and putting unsustainable pressure on our asylum system. Our Nationality and Borders Act 2022, opposed by the Labour party, gives us new powers, which we fully intend to use. We will take further measures as required to properly control our borders and reduce the number of illegal crossings.