Home Office gives extra £100m for plans to smash people-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.
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.
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.'
Nigel Farage said it was an effort to 'throw taxpayer money at the illegal immigration crisis and hope it will go away'.
'Another £100 million here or there won't move the needle. It won't stop the boats or the gangs,' the Reform UK leader wrote in The Daily Express.
A Reform UK spokesperson said: 'Until the Government gets serious about deporting every migrant that crosses the Channel, nothing will change. Only Reform will ensure the boats stop and every illegal that enters the country is sent home.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Record
2 hours ago
- Daily Record
British couple accused of spying in Iran 'holding strong' after making first call home
Lindsay and Craig Foreman were detained in January while on a motorcycle tour around the world and later charged with espionage The family of a British couple detained in Iran's 'worst' prisons have confirmed that they are "holding strong", following their first direct conversation with them in seven months. Lindsay and Craig Foreman, from East Sussex, were arrested in January while on a global motorcycle tour that took them to Iran while travelling through the Middle East. They were subsequently charged with espionage, which they vehemently deny. The tourists' son, Joe Bennett, from Folkestone, Kent, shared details of an eight-minute call he had with his mother, during which they experienced a range of emotions. He said: "We laughed, we cried, and for a few brief moments, it felt like the weight of the past seven months lifted. He expressed his belief that his parents are "holding strong", noting their resilience, positivity, and noted "somehow, they're still smiling". Mr Bennett revealed that his parents are being held separately in different prisons and have access only to basic resources. He also shared with BBC Radio Kent that British officials reported his father appeared "dishevelled and had lost a lot of weight". His mother's mobility has been affected due to the conditions in the prison. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has advised British and British-Iranian nationals, who are at significant risk of detention, against travelling to Iran. A spokesperson stated: "We are deeply concerned by reports that two British nationals have been charged with espionage in Iran. We continue to raise this case directly with the Iranian authorities. "We are providing them with consular assistance and remain in close contact with their family members."
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Is this the summer the British left comes back?
Last month, the suspended Labour MP Zarah Sultana announced she was leaving the party to join forces with Jeremy Corbyn and start up a new leftwing party. Although it was a chaotic start – the announcement seemed to take Corbyn by surprise – the pair seemed to strike a nerve at least. Despite not yet having a name, the new party claims to have had 600,000 people sign up as supporters already. Guardian columnist Owen Jones recently sat down with Corbyn to discuss his plans, and explains to Nosheen Iqbal why the Labour government may have a new threat to fear. Political correspondent Aletha Adu, meanwhile, discusses whether there will be any more defections to come, and what Corbyn and Sultana may hope to achieve.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Jim Chalmers refuses to rule out drastic change for property owners - what you need to know
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has left the door open to reforming tax breaks for investor landlords after trade unions called for a restriction on negative gearing. ACTU secretary Sally McManus, a participant in the government's Economic Reform Roundtable, has called for negative gearing and the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount to be restricted to one investment property. Under her proposal, arrangements for existing investors would be grandfathered for five years before new restrictions were introduced. 'You can have as many investment properties as you want but in terms of the tax benefit, limit that to one,' she told ABC Insiders on Sunday. 'Unless we change it, working people can't live where they work, they can't live where they grew up, and it is causing an enormous amount of pressure for people.' Chalmers on Wednesday declined to rule out restricting negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, despite Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ruling out changes in Opposition after Labor had lost the 2019 election. 'What I've tried to do, and not just in relation to the ACTU and others who've made these suggestions, is I don't want to get in the habit of knocking off ideas before we get in the room,' he told reporters in Canberra. 'I want people to feel like their contributions are valued because they are. 'Firstly, when it comes to those areas, the government hasn't changed its policies or its positions on those areas.' Ms McManus rebuffed a suggestion reforming negative gearing and the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount would amount to a broken promise, given Albanese won the 2022 election by scrapping his Labor predecessor's policies. 'I just say that we've got to bite the bullet, like, otherwise we're just saying "too bad young people, you're not going to be able to ever own a home, forget even thinking about it",' she said. 'Since 2019, the problem's just got worse, it's going to continue to get worse unless the government's brave enough to do something about it. 'We are just abandoning those generations and we think that's fundamentally wrong.' Australia's median capital city house price of $1.045million is so expensive that someone with a 20 per cent mortgage deposit would now have to earn $161,000 a year just to get a mortgage. That is significantly more than the average, full-time salary of $102,742, which means only high-income earners or a dual-income couple can afford a house in a big city. Labor under former leader Bill Shorten lost the 2016 and 2019 elections with a plan to restrict negative gearing to just future purchases of brand new properties and halve the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount to 25 per cent. Since September 1999, an investor who made a $100,000 capital gain on a property would only have to add $50,000 to their taxable income for that financial year. The Greens have a similar position to the ACTU, in that they want negative gearing and the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount restricted to one investment property. Since July 2024, the federal government and the states have had a plan to build 1.2million homes over five years, hoping that will boost housing supply and address affordability issues. Real estate data group Cotality, however, noted Australia hadn't built more than a million homes over a similar time frame since the five years to 2019. Cotality Australia's head of research Eliza Owen said that period coincided with quality issues in new apartments, especially in Sydney. 'While a lot of new dwellings were completed, this did not necessarily lead to good housing outcomes - capital growth outcomes for investors have generally been very poor for 2010s apartments and defects were so rife that some new dwellings could not even be lived in,' she said. She added that building companies would be unlikely to be able to build more homes, even with government targets. 'While state and local governments focus on approvals and improving the feasibility of new projects, building companies continue to be stretched thin across an already swollen pipeline and reduced margins,' she said.
