14 NOVEMBER 2022 | NEWS
The UK Government has agreed a new deal with France to pay an added £8 million a year to tackle the migrant crisis.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has signed an agreement in Paris to pay up to £63 million every year – up from £55 million last year – in a bid to stop migrants crossing the Channel in record numbers.
It comes as official figures report more than 40,000 migrants have crossed the Channel in the past year.
Of this number, 12,000 Albanians have arrived using small boats.
Ms Braverman tweeted this evening: “Today I signed a new deal with my French counterpart Gérald Darmanin to help tackle the small boats crisis in the Channel.
“It is no quick fix though I hope it will be a stepping stone to a much closer working partnership.”
In a separate tweet, Ms Braverman said the new deal would mean “a 40% increase in French officers patrolling in northern France”.
She told MPs that the deal was “a very good platform” for deeper collaboration in the future.
“I’m not going to overplay this agreement … Is it going to solve the problem on its own?
“It won’t, but I do encourage everybody to support the deal we have secured.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was “confident” that the number of migrant crossings could be brought down.
Whilst he also said there was no “single thing” that could “fix” the current situation, he promised “even greater co-operation” with France in the months ahead.
The extra money will be used to increase surveillance on French beaches and means that British police will be able to observe patrols within France.
It also means funding for detection dogs, which will be used at ports to identify refugees attempting to enter lorries bound for Britain.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the deal is “a small step in the right direction”, but that “we need the National Crime Agency working upstream to tackle the people-smuggling in the first place.”
He also criticised the UK’s asylum system as being “desperate”, whereas the Home Secretary herself has recently said that it is “broken”.
This new deal comes just weeks after a man petrol-bombed an immigration centre in Dover, Kent, before taking his own life.
The police believe the attack was a terrorist incident and a hate crime.
