After the small boats crisis dominated headlines over the summer, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will take the issue head on as she outlines significant reforms to Britain’s asylum system
A record 347 disruptions of criminal networks of people smuggling gangs took place last year – the highest level on record and a 40% increase on the previous year.
After the small boats crisis dominated headlines over the summer, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will today take the issue head on as she outlines significant reforms to Britain’s border security and asylum system. The Cabinet minister will aim to reset the narrative as she shows the British way is offering sanctuary for people who have faced persecution, war and conflict, while also getting a grip on securing the system.
It comes after Nigel Farage’s Reform UK last week unveiled hard-line and draconian plans for mass deportations without any details on the practicalities or costs. In a thinly veiled swipe, Ms Cooper said: “These are complex challenges and they require sustainable and workable solutions, not fantasy promises which can’t be delivered.”
READ MORE: Nigel Farage condemned over ‘toxic’ deportation plans – ‘This is not who we are’
NCA-supported disruptions across Europe have helped to squeeze supplies of boats and engines reaching the French coast, the Home Office said, which has helped produce the lowest August for boats crossing the Channel since 2019.
In a statement in the Commons today, Ms Cooper is expected to address the success of European partnerships under the Labour government, which have led to the seizure of 600 boats and engines, 96 live operations, 190 arrests, 347 criminal group disruptions, and the takedown of 23,000 smuggling-linked social media accounts.
Ms Cooper will also give an update on the UK’s landmark returns deal with France, under which the first deportations are due to take place in the coming weeks, as well as setting out further significant reforms to the asylum system.
Among them, she will set out planned changes to refugee family reunions, to bring the UK’s approach more in line with other countries in Europe and bring “greater fairness and balance” into the system. She will also provide an update to MPs on medical evacuations from Gaza and Palestinian students, and the Ukraine schemes.
The Home Office has faced a testing summer, with a crime and migration-focused agenda from Mr Farage and protests outside asylum hotels. A controversial court case last week saw senior judges overturn an imminent ban on housing asylum seekers at a hotel in Epping, Essex, which risked plunging the asylum system into chaos. The government has vowed to shut asylum hotels by 2029 but says it must be done in a managed way.
In her statement today, Ms Cooper will say: “We inherited an asylum and immigration system in complete chaos and disarray. Our action to strengthen border security, increase returns and overhaul the broken asylum system are putting much stronger foundations in place so we can fix the chaos we inherited and end costly asylum hotels.
“That means ensuring we have the powers we need to pursue the criminal smuggling gangs profiting from small boat crossings that other parties have voted against, but also new firm rules in place to manage the asylum system so we can close hotels. These are complex challenges and they require sustainable and workable solutions, not fantasy promises which can’t be delivered.”
She said Britain “has a proud record of giving sanctuary to those fleeing persecution”, adding: “But the whole system needs to be properly controlled and managed, so the rules are respected and enforced, and so governments not criminal gangs decide who comes to the UK.”
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson added yesterday(SUN) that Ms Cooper was “committed” to looking at article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) specifically – which protects the right to privacy and family life, as well as home and correspondence. Opposition parties have pledged to take the UK out of the convention, which critics say would put the UK in the same standing as Russia and Belarus.
Ms Phillipson told Sky News: “We do believe there needs to be reform of the ECHR and that’s what the Home Secretary is looking at.”But she added: “But we also believe as a Government that our responsibilities under international law matter too, and our standing in the world matters as well.
Our standing in the world matters if we want to strike trade deals with countries, and we’ve had great success in recent years in striking those trade deals. Then we need to be a country that’s taken seriously. We need to be a country that honours our obligations and honours the rule of law.”
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