Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help ensure that people in or around Afghanistan who have had to flee because of threats or torture from the Taliban are provided access other than under the ACRS scheme to claim asylum in the UK.

These dangerous concealments are facilitated by vile people smugglers, who place profits above the lives of vulnerable people. The Government is determined to prevent further loss of life by breaking the business model.

The Home Office has invested significant amounts since 2014 to secure feeder ports, including increasing the use of body detection dogs and strengthening the vehicle screening regimes with the latest technology. The department is currently in the process of significantly strengthening the clandestine entrant civil penalty regime in order further drive improvements in vehicle security.

Unfortunately, there have been fatalities, including the Purfleet incident in 2019 when 39 Vietnamese nationals sadly lost their lives, and all such incidents are a reminder that attempts to clandestinely cross the border are inherently dangerous.