Lord Balfe
Main Page: Lord Balfe (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Balfe's debates with the Home Office
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, from 1 July it will be incumbent upon people who enter this country to do so through a legal route, and the immigration system will be operating from then. It is right that we provide inadmissibility for people who do not come through those safe and legal routes.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, while I support many aspects of the new policy, in particular for asylum seekers, will the Minister look at the scandal of people landing on the beaches of this country, seemingly at the end of a system of abuse of the system, and make it an offence, with suitable penalties, to enter the country illegally?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My noble friend has illustrated the abuse on so many levels of people coming to this country through non-legal routes. People landing on the beaches is a scandal for all sorts of reasons, mainly because criminality has brought them there. They are not necessarily criminals, but criminality has brought them there and criminality does not care at all for the safety and security of those people.