Suella Braverman admitted that a new deal with France to curb the number of small boat crossings will not be a “silver bullet”.
The Home Secretary said there were “real wins” for both Britain and France in the agreement signed on Monday that includes a 40 per cent increase in patrols along the French coastline and more use of drones to detect migrants preparing to set off.
British specialist police officers will also be stationed in France for the first time to work in control rooms alongside their French counterparts and a joint intelligence cell targeting gangs behind the smuggling trade will be expanded.
The number of French officers deployed on coastal patrols will rise from 200 to 300, while Britain will increase payments to Paris to £63 million for the current financial year, up from £54.8m for the previous 12 months.
The deal was announced hours after ministers confirmed that the number of migrants crossing to Britain in small boats this year has risen above 40,000 — far ahead of the record total of 28,526 recorded in 2021.
The record tally, and the accompanying growing backlog of asylum cases in this country, has placed huge political pressure on the government with Ms Braverman today saying that she and her colleagues were determined to do “everything we can to stop people making these dangerous journeys and crack down on the criminal gangs.”
The Home Secretary added that there “some significant gains for both the French and the UK authorities” in the deal signed today in France with the French interior minister Gerald Darmanin, but conceded that it would not bring an end to the problem. “It’s not going to fix it overnight. It’s not a silver bullet,” she said.
“There are no quick fixes, but this new arrangement will mean we can significantly increase the number of French gendarmes patrolling the beaches in northern France and ensure UK and French officers are working hand in hand to stop the people smugglers.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also admitted that “we can’t fix it overnight” as he insisted that “the absolute priority that British people have right now, as do I, is to grip illegal migration.”
But Lucy Moreton, the head of the Immigration Services Union, said the lack of any agreement with Paris to process migrants for the UK in France and to take back those with no valid asylum claim were “missing elements” in today’s agreement and that problems would continue unless the French authorities began arresting those caught trying to cross.
“The thing that would help most would be if the French would deal with the issues within their own country, encountering them and letting them go to try again is not helping,” she said.
Labour’s shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock also responded sceptically, saying it was “too little, too late” and that it failed to address the “pull factor” of the asylum backlog in this country which was encouraging people to come because they knew would be able to remain here for years before their claim was processed.
He said more investment was also needed in the National Crime Agency to tackle people smuggling gangs “upstream” and that that could be paid for by scrapping the scheme to send illegal migrants to Rwanda.
