Smuggling gangs have taken hold, Cooper says during border debate

People smuggling gangs "have been allowed to take hold", Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the Commons during a debate on border security.

She accused the last Conservative government of failing to strengthen border enforcement as fast as European countries and focussing on "failed gimmicks".

MPs are debating Labour's Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which unpicks the Tory Rwanda plan and gives greater powers to police and border enforcement to crack down on smuggling gangs.

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp described the new plans as a "border surrender Bill" and claimed it creates a path to citizenship for illegal migrants.

MPs will vote on the plans later on Monday.

The bill sets out Labour's plan to treat people smugglers like terrorists, a promise they made repeatedly in the general election campaign.

Mirroring powers in the Terrorism Act 2000, the proposed new law would criminalise "precursor" offences - allowing officials to punish people for legal acts linked to illegal migration, like selling dinghies or outboard motors.

The bill also creates a new crime of endangering another person during an illegal crossing in the Channel. This is to stop those aboard a dinghy refusing assistance.

Immigration enforcement teams would also get new powers to seize mobile phones.

Some migrant rights groups criticise measures they say criminalise vulnerable people rather than people smugglers.

Labour argues this will be a more effective way of clamping down on small boat crossings than the previous government's plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

The bill also repeals most of the Conservative's Illegal Migration Act 2023, which laid the legal groundwork for the Rwanda policy.

Under Labour's plans, a new Border Security Command will gain more powers and a new head, who will oversee closer links between intelligence, police, and border agents.

Cooper framed the bill as a decisive step to restoring "credibility" to the UK's immigration and asylum system.

"The gangs have been allowed to take hold for six years," Cooper said.

The Conservative government "failed to act fast with France and other countries to increase enforcement or to prevent the gangs taking hold and instead criminals were let off".

She told MPs: "It will take time to loosen that grip and to smash the networks that lie behind them, but there's no alternative to the hard graft of those going after those gang networks who have been getting away with it for far too long.

"And there's no alternative to working with international partners on this international crime, building new alliances against organised criminals - not just standing on the shoreline shouting at the sea."

The debate came at the end of a heavily choreographed media push by the Home Office in an effort to highlight what it says is a change in approach to immigration.

Earlier on Monday, the Home Office published photos of illegal immigrants being deported for the first time.

The video was published alongside footage of enforcement teams raiding 828 premises, including nail bars, car washes, and restaurants. They made 609 arrests - a 73% increase on the previous January.

Some Labour MPs, particularly on the left of the party, have argued the government should focus on talking about the benefits of immigration and push for creating safer immigration routes.

Veteran Labour MP Dianne Abbott, the shadow home secretary under Jeremy Corbyn, warned the new approach left Cooper in "danger of sounding like she's trying to stigmatise desperate migrants rather than building a fair system".

Home Office Minister Dame Angela Eagle told the BBC the government's approach was compassionate", and it had only released arrest footage to send a message about the realities of working illegally.

As the Commons debate began, the Home Office released new figures showing, since Labour took power in July, the UK has removed 18,987 people, including criminals and failed asylum seekers.

According to the Home Office, 5,074 were forced returns of people with no legal right to remain in the UK - nearly a quarter more than the previous government had achieved in the entire previous year.

Officials used 39 charter flights, four more than last year - and foreign criminal deportations hit 2,925, up 21%.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage described the new figures released by the government as feeble when compared with the numbers that had entered the country.

Speaking in the Commons, Philp called the plans "a weak bill from a weak government".

He criticised Labour for unpicking much of the Illegal Migration Act 2023, including the Rwanda Plan and the section which prevented people who entered the UK illegally from gaining citizenship.

"I think a bill which creates a path to citizenship for illegal migrants and cancels the obligation on the government to remove people who arrive illegally is a shocking piece of legislation," he said

Philp revived the Tory pledge for a cap on immigration - pledged by several previous Conservative PMs but never delivered.

"What is needed is a binding cap which Parliament can vote on, so Parliament can decide how many visas are issued each year," he added.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokeswoman Lisa Smart said the current system "is not working for anyone" and argued Labour's bill fails to provide a "humane, legally sound and effective framework" for immigration and asylum.

She said the government needed to expand safe and legal routes for asylum seekers, as well as application decision "so that those with the right to be here can integrate and contribute and those without the right to be here can be returned swiftly," she argued".