Home Office gives extra £100m for plans to smash people-smuggling gangs

The Home Office is giving £100 million of extra funding to support the pilot of the new “one in, one out” returns agreement between the UK and France and other efforts to crack down on small boat crossings.

The cash will also pay for up to 300 more National Crime Agency (NCA) officers and new technology and equipment to step up intelligence-gathering on smuggling gangs.

There will be more overtime for immigration compliance and enforcement teams as well as funding for interventions in transit countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Labour is seeking to deter smuggling gangs in a bid to bring down small boat crossings, which have topped 25,000 for the year so far – a record for this point in the year.

The “one in, one out” deal agreed last month means the UK will for the first time be able to send migrants back to France in exchange for asylum seekers with links to Britain.

Fake passports

Anyone who advertises small boat crossings or fake passports on social media could be face up to five years in prison under a new offence to be introduced under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Labour had set the foundations for a “new and much stronger law enforcement approach” over the last year.

She said: “Now this additional funding will strengthen every aspect of our plan and will turbo-charge the ability of our law enforcement agencies to track the gangs and bring them down, working with our partners overseas, and using state-of-the-art technology and equipment.

“Alongside our new agreements with France, this will help us drive forward our plan for change commitments to protect the UK’s border security and restore order to our immigration system.”

The NCA has 91 ongoing investigations into people-smuggling networks affecting the UK, the agency’s director general of operations Rob Jones said.

Desperate

The Conservatives criticised the funding announcement as a “desperate grab for headlines which will make no real difference”.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “Labour has failed and their laughable claim to smash the gangs lies in tatters. They have no serious plan, just excuses, while ruthless criminal gangs flood our borders with illegal immigrants.

“The British public deserves real action, not empty slogans and tinkering at the edges. The Conservative Deportation Bill is the only real solution. Immediate detention, rapid removal and shutting down these illegal networks for good.”