Migrant crossings: 'Can you stop the small boats?'

Are you going to be able to stop the small boats? Well, that's our objective. We couldn't have been clearer in putting it as one of the five central promises of this government to stop the boats, secure our borders and bring fairness back to our asylum system. We're going to do everything in our power to achieve that, and ultimately, it will be for the public to decide at the next general election whether we've succeeded or not. But be in no doubt that the Prime Minister of the Home Section and I will do everything we can to achieve that goal. I'm just interested in listening to some of the language you're using there. It's your objective. You're going to do everything you can to achieve it, not saying, yeah, we are going to stop the small boats.

We are going to stop the small boats, and we will do everything that we can. It is a complex challenge. It would be wrong of me to pretend otherwise. That's why we're going to pull every lever at our disposal from the legislation that we've presented to Parliament this week to the diplomatic front that the Prime Minister is continuing tomorrow or Friday in Paris with President Macron, to the work that I'm doing with the security services and the police to toughen up our approach upstream to the criminal gangs. We're going to do everything possible to resolve this. Are we going to be paying the French more? Well, we've already given them further funding in the arrangement that we reached at the end of last year, and that was for work that is now happening. Are we going to get the more money than we've got in the next two years? You'll have to wait and see what the Prime Minister agrees with President Macron at the end of the week.

Not really, get out. What we're seeking to achieve is a number of things, one of which is more police officers, French officers on the beaches and the hinterland of them in northern France, so that we intercept as many of these boats as possible. And at the moment, the French are actually intercepting 50% of them, so that's meaningful to us. The more we can do on that front, the better. And we also want our intelligence services to be cooperating and working together in real time, so that when we learn about what the criminal gangs are doing, we get that information to our French counterparts and they take action. We're very clear-eyed about how tough this is. We need to be robust against these criminal gangs, because they're amongst the most organised and evil people in society today.

I just want to have a look at some of the practicalities of this as well. So, you're saying that if you enter the UK illegally, not through legal routes, then you will not be able to claim asylum. So, what then happens to those people? Like, you could understand, we've got return agreements with certain countries like Albania, but there's lots of other countries where many, many people come from that we don't. Like, Syria, for example, 4,500 people arriving from Syria last year, you're not going to just pick up the phone to Assad, are you? Well, that's the reason why we need safe third countries like Rwanda, and we want to get that arrangement up and running as soon as possible. I was very pleased to see at the end of last year that the High Court upheld it as a legal policy. It's being appealed at the moment, so it'll be before the Court of Appeal next month. Assuming that that has a similar positive judgement for the government, then we'll operationalise that as quickly as we can.

Let's get real on Rwanda, right? 45,000 people, your figures, crossing the channel last year in small boats. Rwanda initially agrees to take 200 people, that to 1,000 during the trial period. That's not correct. I mean, not the only journalist who has said that, but the scheme with the round is uncapped. So, the Rwandan government, and we've spoken to them again this week, Rishi, she spoke to Paul Kagami, his opposite number. They're willing to take as many people as is required. Completely unlimited.

So, they'll take 45,000 people to Rwanda, if that's what you decide. It's an unlimited arrangement. We don't think it's going to take anything like that. What's your estimate, then, of the number of people you're expecting to send to Rwanda? Well, we'll take as many people as is required. You must have estimate. You must have done so. No, because what we expect will happen is that this will break, once and for all, the people smugglers.

Have you done that since? We've worked through scenarios, and what the Australian experience shows is that, within weeks, once it's clear that you will not spend time in the UK or in Australia in that case, people will stop making the journey. So, what I expect to see is that we will operationalise this policy and a very large number of people will need to go there in the initial weeks, a month. So, what does that mean, a very large. Well, it depends how many people are crossing the channel at that time, but if it requires thousands of people to be sent to Rwanda, then we will send thousands of people to Rwanda. How many have been sent so far since that you launched the scheme in April? Well, none, because it's been caught in our. Well, that's my point, right? You know, that makes the point pretty well, doesn't it? You said that there are complex issues. Well, I don't think it does, because.

The legal ramifications of this, which are going to be extensive. Well, the good news is, to look on the bright side, OV, is that the Court of Appeal is hearing the case and we expect that it will come to a similar judgment to the High Court, which said that the policy was lawful. If that's the case, then we should be able to get this policy up and running quite quickly and we will remove as many people as is required to have the deterrent effect. And then I think you'll start to see the numbers crossing the channel fall very rapidly. And that's the key thing here. What are you. Because we want deterrents to be suffused throughout our approach, so that we break the model of the people smuggling gangs.

We don't want people to be risking their lives, spending their life savings at the best of these evil criminals. We want to bring order and fairness back to the asylum system. What are you going to do with children? Well, what we've said is that if you come with your family, then you will be part of the scheme. So you'll be detained as a family group and you will then be removed either to your home country, if it's safe to do so, or to Rwanda where you'll be cared for. So you could send families with young children to Rwanda. That is Rwanda. We could do.

And let me just explain why that matters, because there's a difficult decision at the heart of this, which you're right to pick up on. But if we didn't do that, then what we would see is people smuggling gangs, preying upon families, or people purporting to be families, and specialising in bringing those people across the Channel in small boats. And I don't want to see that. I don't want children to be at the behest of people smugglers. I've met children and families who have just arrived on our shores, where we've literally saved their lives at sea. And as a parent, that is a shocking and horrible thing to see. And so by removing families, I think we'll have the deterrent effect that's required.

So they stay in France, which is obviously a safe place. And is where a family seeking protection should remain. But could also be sent, as you say, to third countries under the scheme. How about unaccompanied children? Unaccompanied children will be given a short bridging leave. So they'll remain in the UK until they turn 18. And then at that point, they will be removed either back home if their home country is a safe place, or to a safe third country like Rwanda. Again, what we don't want to see is the UK being exploited by people smuggling gangs who prey upon children or those people who are purporting to be children.

I think that would be wrong. What happens to them in this bridging period then? Well, they would remain in the UK and they'd be cared for by local authorities in the way that they are today for a short period. Remember that most of the miners that we receive as a country today who are unaccompanied are 16 or 17-year-old males who are here mainly for work in the black economy. What we would do is look after them for that short period, appropriately and decently and compassionately, but then we would remove them afterwards. Because I think the alternative would be that the people smugglers would bring over children and also adults would be purporting to be children, which creates all sorts of safeguarding risks that we just don't want as a country. I just want to talk a little bit about the fact that many people would say there are no safe and legal routes or few safe and legal routes for people who are not from Ukraine, from Afghanistan, from Hong Kong, where we have this established process to get into the country. They're desperate.

This is why they're making the journey in the first place. Many from countries where they clearly have human rights issues, they're not all economic migrants, as you say. Now, I just want to play what Chris Heaton-Harris told me on the programme on Sunday about safe and legal routes. I'm quite sure there'll be more safe and legal routes, and that's why we have them, and you're quite right, they've been proven to work. So, he told me there will be more safe and legal routes. Is that right? Are you looking at opening up more? It is. The bill says that we will create a new safe and legal route as a country, and that will be one which has a set quota.

We will consult, annually, local authorities to see what capacity they have in terms of housing and school places to support those people appropriately, and then the Home Secretary of the day will come to Parliament and seek parliamentary approval for that. And I think that's quite a grown-up, mature way of handling this situation, where we do have a safe and legal route, but it's one which is rooted in the true capacity of local authorities so that we don't have people in hotels or clearly inappropriate accommodation, and we can set that number at a level that means we can look after people in the way that your eye on the British public would expect. I would, just having said that, take issue with the premise of the question, which is that the UK is somehow ungenerous. That's not what I'm saying. Well, actually, last year. I didn't say that at all. What I'm saying is that there are safe and legal routes for people coming from some countries, and no safe and legal routes from other countries, which means you have no.

Well, that's not quite true. For some countries, you're right to say the UK has been incredibly generous, like Ukraine, Hong Kong, Syria, Afghanistan, and quite rightly so, to the point that last year we issued more humanitarian visas than any year since the end of the Second World War, almost half a million since 2015. But there are already safe and legal routes from other countries. We have a resettlement scheme where we work with the UNHCR, which is operating in those countries where there are conflicts or serious human rights abuses, which people can apply to. But I also don't think the UK can just offer support to anyone in any part of the world. It's right that we focus our finite resources on those places and people to whom we've got geographical, moral, historical obligations. Yeah, that's the point that I'm talking about.

I think that's completely understandable. I just want to get your action to tweet by Gary Lindke, the footballer who's taken issue with the scheme on moral grounds. He's said, There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, an eye-mout of order. Well, firstly, on the language that he uses, I think that is inflammatory and wrong. You shouldn't throw around comparisons with the Nazis and 1930s Germany.

He should choose his language carefully, just as politicians should do. And I suspect he's been in the public eye long enough to know exactly the kind of reaction that he was going to provoke. But on the policy, he's also wrong, because unlike Gary Lindke, I see every day in my job what the evil people smuggling gangs are actually doing. He is right, though. What they do is cruel and heartless. But what he's talking about. People are dying as a result of their activities.

And the only way to break their business model is to implement a policy like this. What he's also talking about, though, is that we take fewer refugees than other major European countries. And actually, if you look at applications made in 2021, per head, per 100,000 population, you know, we are quite a long way down at the list, aren't we? Germany, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Spain. Well, it depends how you look at the figures. I mean, if you look at the Homes for Ukraine scheme, that is twice the size of the French equivalent. You're just using one example of just people on the Ukraine, which is the overall refugee. It's a pretty significant scheme.

You're talking about, you know, 150,000 people. I'm talking about overall refugee, but that's it. You're completely deciding to ask for a complete different fashion. Let me answer it a different way, then. If you look at the countries who take people on safe and legal routes, organised by the UNHCR, we are the fourth largest recipient of those individuals of any developed country. He gained most land and slice in the figures, not looking at that overall figure. You're looking at.

Well, I'm looking at countries. In terms of how would you measure a country's willingness to embrace those people who are in greatest need in the world? But he's talking. He's taking it. You only have to look at the schemes that we've created. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. Well, I don't think that's correct. I mean, obviously, there are countries like Poland, whose borders, you know, their position within Europe means that inevitably very large numbers of people have crossed and they've welcomed them in a compassionate manner.

OK. But the schemes that we have put forward in recent years are incredibly generous and compassionate, and that will always continue. You're still going to watch much of the day? Yeah, of course I will. I like watching Gary Linnaker. I just don't always enjoy his tweets and think he should choose his language more carefully. OK, thank you very much. Thank you.

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