Calais

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and for advance sight of it this morning.

When order breaks down, a difficult situation can become desperate. That is what is happening in Calais. Today, there are reports that three people were injured after they broke into the French channel tunnel terminal. That comes just a week after a young man from Eritrea died, attempting to board a freight train headed to Britain. We do not know the circumstances of his death, what made him travel more than 3,600 miles to try to enter Britain, nor how much he paid to criminals who may have profited from his death.

The Home Secretary talked about the serious and growing challenge for hauliers, who are worried continually about the security of their load, whether people will try to break in and whether someone might be caught under their wheels, and about the holidaymakers who see people walking between the queuing cars and worry about the security of their boot, but this is a terrible crisis at our border in which lives are being lost and people are being injured.

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement today, but it is not the first one that we have had and there have been urgent questions too. The situation has been exacerbated by the huge problems caused by the strike action, but the underlying problem has been getting worse as well. I welcome the additional measures, such as the lorry zone that she announced. I thank Kent police, Border Force and all the authorities for the difficult job that they are having to do. Will she confirm whether the lorry zone is additional capacity? Eurotunnel has already talked about there being additional capacity in place, but has warned that that is just making more people try to get into the tunnel and enter the trains directly. Will she clarify that point? Will she tell us how many additional staff the UK has deployed to Calais since last year and how many additional enforcement staff the French authorities have deployed?

Will the Home Secretary explain what is happening when people are found attempting to cross illegally? She referred to 8,000 people. Is it true that many of them are simply being returned to the streets of Calais to try again? What action has she taken to get a proper process in place in France to assess whether they have an asylum claim and are fleeing persecution or to assess their immigration status and whether they need to return home? Will she say whether the British authorities are fingerprinting those whom they find, which I have raised with her before?

The Home Secretary and I will agree that the French authorities need to do much more. Under the Dublin convention, it is their responsibility to assess those who may be vulnerable or who have asylum claims, and who should not be further victim to people traffickers or the despair that comes from being a vulnerable refugee travelling over large distances. Such people need an assessment early on, either in France or in the other countries that they have come from. What is she doing to ensure that the French authorities are assessing those who are living in camps or on the streets in Calais before they make an attempt to reach the border? Can she tell us how many people have been assessed in Calais by the French authorities, and what is being done to increase the number being assessed, rather than simply leaving people in the camps and leaving the problem to get worse?

The Home Secretary will know the importance of diplomatic action and partnership working with France. The former Home Secretary and Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough had to do exactly that when he negotiated the closure of Sangatte many years ago. It would be helpful to hear from her what progress is being made, because at the moment it looks as though the problem is still getting worse.

The Home Secretary talked about the work that is being done to tackle people smuggling more widely, but what is being done to make sure that immigration control and asylum process assessments take place in the southern Mediterranean countries too?

Finally, while it is crucial for us to strengthen border security to ensure that action is being taken in France to address this serious problem, we have a responsibility across Europe to deal with the humanitarian crisis that has been increasing the problem. A significant part of the problem is caused by the war in Syria, which is the worst humanitarian crisis of our generation. We all know of the pressure on families that are fleeing that situation.

The Prime Minister said that the UK Government would accept a “modest expansion” of the programme to accept Syrian refugees. I have urged the Home Secretary many times in the House to accept far more UN refugees from Syria. How many does she now expect to accept? I urge her to work with local authorities across the country, including on reviewing the support processes, to get them to offer places for those who are fleeing persecution. This country has a long tradition of providing humanitarian support and sanctuary for those who need it.

We have had a series of urgent questions and statements, but the problem is getting worse. Can the Secretary of State really put her hand on her heart and say that she thinks that as a result of her statement, things will be better in six months’ time than they are today? It does not feel like they will be. What else can she do to prevent the crisis from simply escalating, and to prevent us from simply being in the same situation in a few months, having the same discussions and asking the same questions, with her being able to give only the same answers?

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her response and for her gratitude for my coming to the House and making a statement.

The right hon. Lady referred to the work of the police and Border Force officials, as I have done. We should recognise the professionalism with which Border Force officers deal with circumstances such as the current ones. They had contingency plans in place for the possibility of a strike related to MyFerryLink, and those plans were put into action. From the Border Force’s point of view, what it did operated smoothly. We should recognise the professionalism with which its officers approach their job. A number of resources have been deployed over time around the Border Force ports, and it operates a flexible system to ensure that it can move resources around.

The right hon. Lady asked whether the lorry park or buffer zone that I described was additional capacity. It is a new secure area that is being set aside, because if lorries are queuing it is easier for illegal migrants to try to get on to them. Putting lorries separately in a secure zone means that we can remove people’s ability to access them. The French have also put in extra staff, and in particular they have increased the number of police in the area, including riot police.

As the right hon. Lady said, and as I recognised in my statement, previous Governments have worked with the French authorities on this issue for many years. The juxtaposed controls at Calais and Coquelles are important to us and work well, but they have come under increasing pressure. She asked about the progress that has been made, and I point out to her that in 2014-15, the Border Force, its contractors and the French authorities prevented about 40,000 attempts to enter the UK illegally at the juxtaposed controls in France, compared with 18,000 in the previous year and 11,000 the year before that. There is increasing pressure, but also increasing ability to make identifications. As I indicated, we have put in some more technology to help that process.

In 2014 the number of organised criminal networks dismantled in the Calais region increased by 30% compared with the previous year, so the increasing joint working and collaboration with the French authorities is having an impact on the ground.

The right hon. Lady asked how asylum seekers are being dealt with. That is being addressed in a number of ways, but I return to a point that I have made in the House before. The number of asylum claims in France has increased—she referred to that point—and the French authorities have encouraged people to make asylum claims in France. There is a further upstream issue for both us and the French Government, which is what action the Italian authorities can take when people arrive across the Mediterranean on Italian shores. We have offered and given the Italian authorities increased support in fingerprinting and registering people properly at that point.

We have said before that we expect several hundred Syrian refugees to be relocated to the UK over a period of years as part of our vulnerable persons relocation scheme, and we are increasing that number by a few hundred. I remind the House that we have not set a target number, but those are people in particular need. We work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which identifies such people. Some of them require long-term medical treatment, which we will provide in the United Kingdom. We are trying to focus support on those who are most in need.