[ad_1]
The opposition Labour party has accused the UK government of “incompetence” and claimed its new policy aimed at halting small-boat crossings of the Channel is not working after official data showed that more than a fifth of all clandestine crossings this year were made in the past week.
A month after ministers promised that some of the measures in the new Illegal Migration Bill would take effect immediately and act as a deterrent, more than 1,000 people were recorded as making the crossing in the seven days to April 9 — the highest weekly figure so far in 2023.
The bill, which is making its way through parliament, would bar nearly everyone who arrives in the UK by small boat and other illegal routes from seeking asylum and refugee protection in the UK. It obliges the government in nearly all circumstances to remove them from the UK to a “safe” third country. The UK has struck a deal with Rwanda to house migrants.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak has made stopping clandestine small-boat migration one of this five priorities for the year.
The official data showed 1,057 people were detected crossing the Channel in small boats from France last week, bringing the total for the year to 4,850. No day-by-day figures for 2022 are available but, on a quarterly basis, the 3,793 arrivals detected in the first three months of 2023 is 16 per cent down on the same period last year.
Referring to government estimates of the costs of keeping people in hotels while their asylum claims are processed, shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said: “Nothing they do is working and their incompetence is costing the taxpayer £6mn a day in emergency hotels.”
Kinnock said Labour would tackle the issue of clandestine migration by striking a deal to return to the EU migrants who had passed through safe European countries en route to the UK. The UK had such a deal under the Dublin Regulation while it was a member of the EU but lost it after Brexit.
In 2022, a record 45,755 people were detected arriving clandestinely in the UK by small boat, more than 60 per cent up on the previous year.
Asked about Kinnock’s comments, the UK government described the number of people making the crossing as “unacceptable”, saying it had put an “unprecedented” strain on the UK’s asylum system.
“Our priority is to stop this illegal trade,” it said. “The government has gone further by introducing legislation which will ensure that those people arriving in the UK illegally are detained and promptly removed to their country of origin or a safe third country.”
A leading immigration barrister, Colin Yeo, said the figures suggested the new measures were not having a deterrent effect.
“Whether those arriving since March 7 know they will never be granted asylum and that the [government] will be under a duty to remove them to Rwanda is unclear,” Yeo said. “Either way, it clearly isn’t deterring them from coming.”
[ad_2]
Source link