Labour minister says small boat Channel crossings 'unacceptable' as milestone passed
More than 50,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel since Labour won the 2024 general election.
In Home figures described as "unacceptable" by Labour former home secretary Baroness Smith, it also emerged 474 migrants arrived by small boat on Monday alone. Earlier this month, the Government began detaining migrants under a new "one in, one out" deal with France.
UK officials aim to make referrals for returns to France within three days of a migrant's arrival by small boat, while French authorities will respond within 14 days. An approved asylum seeker in France will be brought to the UK under a safe route as part of the exchange. It comes after The Mirror's Kevin Maguire wrote: 'Labour must find engaging story for the UK - or face election wipeout'.
Baroness Smith, who is now an education and women and equalities minister, told BBC Breakfast: "Criminal gangs have got an absolute foothold in the tragic trafficking of people across the Channel. It is an unacceptable number of people."
Earlier this month, the Government began detaining migrants under a new "one in, one out" deal with France. UK officials aim to make referrals for returns to France within three days of a migrant's arrival by small boat, while French authorities will respond within 14 days.
An approved asylum seeker in France will be brought to the UK under a safe route as part of the exchange. Last week the government announced it is introducing powers for immediate deportation from prison for all foreign nationals who .
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Press and Journal
25 minutes ago
- Press and Journal
Nicola Sturgeon admits in new book she got it wrong on oil and gas - as Aberdeen paid the price
Nicola Sturgeon has admitted the SNP over-inflated promises about oil and gas in the independence campaign, just before a collapse hit Aberdeen and the north-east hard. The former first minister looks back at policies and pledges central to the regional economy in an extract from her new memoirs, called Frankly. The much anticipated book relives the events running up to the crucial vote on Scotland's future in September 2014. In it, she reflects: The publication of the book comes just as government figures were forced again to respond to falling North Sea revenue and a widening financial deficit. In her book, Ms Sturgeon looks back more than 10 years when prices were riding high. 'The numbers we had used in the referendum White Paper to illustrate an independent Scotland's fiscal position had been heavily dependent on oil revenues,' she writes. 'And, of course, we had based these on the optimistic estimates that Alex had insisted on. 'I didn't know then that a total collapse in the oil price was just around the corner. 'In early 2015, this caused significant political and practical problems. The practical came from the impact on the economy of Aberdeen and the north-east, which is heavily reliant on the oil and gas supply chain. 'As the major companies started to shed jobs and curtail activity, the effects were quickly felt across the region.' As first minister, Ms Sturgeon set up a taskforce but powers were limited and political opponents sensed opportunity. 'To have the price of a barrel of crude fall to around 40 US dollars when we had relied on a figure of well over 100 US dollars in the referendum blew a massive hole in the credibility of our argument,' she added. 'I resolved then that in any future referendum, we must not allow the strength of the independence prospectus to stand or fall on the volatile value of oil, especially as it is a finite commodity. 'We needed to show how Scotland's economy would be sustainable in the long term without it.' On Wednesday morning, the volatility of North Sea revenue and government policies were again under scrutiny with the publication of annual revenue and spending. It coincides with another push for independence under First Minister John Swinney. The difference between revenue and public sector spending, including capital investment, was a deficit of 11.7% of gross domestic product in Scotland. When excluding the North Sea, there was a deficit of 14.4% of GDP – equal to £30.6 billion. The Scottish Government has faced criticism for delays to an energy strategy and lack of vocal support for oil and gas. Much of the crucial policy power rests at Westminster where the Labour government is under pressure to address a windfall tax on profits. Russell Borthwick, chief executive at Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, said: 'If the UK Government continues to tax the industry at 78%, then we face an accelerated industrial decline, we will lose our world class supply chain to other parts of the word, and our oil and gas imports will continue to soar, syphoning tens of billions of pounds out of the UK economy. 'However, there is another future, one where we commit to sourcing the oil and gas we require as a nation from the North Sea, supporting jobs, public services and – crucially – creating the bridge required to a just transition while we build out renewable energy projects.' Responding to the new figures, Scottish Government Finance Secretary Shona Robison said: 'Falling oil prices and a decrease in extraction present challenges going forward, but we are clear in our support for a just transition for Scotland's valued oil and gas sector, which recognises the maturity of the North Sea basin and is in line with our climate change commitments and energy security.'
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Rachel Reeves risk repeating a mistake if she changes inheritance tax
Whenever a government is desperate to raise funds, there is a good chance it will revisit mad and bad ideas before trying something that is proven to work. As Rachel Reeves stares at the prospect of a black hole in the public finances — ranging from £20 billion to £70 billion, according to various estimates — it is clear that the chancellor cannot dig down the back of the sofa to plug the gap at the next budget. If these estimates are to be believed, dramatic spending cuts or big tax rises will be required to keep within her fiscal rules. Some Labour figures have duly called for a wealth tax, to squeeze the pips out of the country's richest who are already fleeing in rising numbers. Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, is said to have privately urged Ms Reeves to clamp down on the rich; Lord Kinnock, the former party leader, has done so publicly. Thankfully this unwise idea has been dismissed as 'daft' by Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, which hopefully means it has been discarded. Yet another such bad idea has floated into the public domain: reworking inheritance tax. Reports suggest that Treasury officials have been tasked with examining how assets are being given away before death to reduce liabilities. Under current rules, gifts made seven years or more before someone's death are not captured by inheritance tax. Any gifts handed over after that are taxed at varying rates. The Treasury is said to be examining whether a lifetime cap should be introduced and whether the so-called 'taper rates' on gifts given up to seven years beforehand need to be reworked. It is unclear whether these ideas have yet to reach the chancellor's desk. • Angela Rayner gives Labour a 12-month mission to save itself Were Ms Reeves to pursue changes to inheritance tax, it would represent the apotheosis of the Starmer government's all-pain, no-gain approach to governing. First, changing the rules on inheritance tax would not raise the projected £40 billion required to plug the gap in the public finances. Families would simply find workarounds to avoid strenuous new levies, just as they have done under the present regime. There is a risk that the government would go to great effort to craft new inheritance tax rules, only to find that it fails to deliver what was hoped for and it is back to square one. Second, it is political suicide. There are few issues more likely to incite fury among the electorate than a stricter inheritance tax regime. Swathes of middle England who have carefully accrued capital will punish any party that seeks to take it away. Gordon Brown realised this when mulling over calling an election in 2007, taking fright from the Conservative's plans to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million. And finally, it is morally wrong. Inheritance tax is a levy on those who have worked hard throughout their lives to earn something to pass onto the next generation. The chancellor must draw a line under this speculation, which will prove damaging to her personally the longer it continues. There are better options available, such as tackling the ballooning welfare bill, with spending on disability benefits set to reach £100 billion by the end of the decade. There is also the dire state of productivity in the public sector, which is costing the economy £80 billion a year, as this newspaper reported yesterday. After £40 billion of tax rises in her first budget suffocated economic growth, Ms Reeves would be wise to learn and not repeat the same error.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
UK benefits bill will hit £100bn with one million more on Universal Credit under Labour – I know how to fix it
CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves is walking Britain into an alligator pit of maxed-out borrowing, higher taxes and stuttering growth. But there is something else now snapping at her high-tax heels — the soaring number of people on out-of-work benefits. 2 2 New figures this week showed that, since Labour took office, there are now over one million MORE people on Universal Credit — that's the size of the population of Birmingham. By 2030, the cost of sickness benefits alone will reach £100billion — more than the entire defence budget. Thousands of people are being written off, their potential wasted. And with hardworking families set to be clobbered by further tax hikes this autumn, Sun readers will rightly ask, 'What is going on?'. As the Work and Pensions Secretary responsible for getting Britain to record employment levels in the 2010s, I know that unless they get welfare under control, taxpayers face a tax bomb overwhelming them this autumn. 'Work instilled pride' To recap, before Covid, my reforms put a hard cap on unemployment benefits and combined them so that jobseekers were always better off in work. We brought in tough new rules and a contract for claimants to sign in return for their benefits, ensuring they looked for a job and took one, with a work coach's help. With this approach, we got 1,600 people into jobs every single day. Workless households fell to their lowest level ever. And half a million more children grew up seeing a parent going out to earn a living — changing their life chances forever. I took the view that work was more than just a paycheck but, importantly, it instilled purpose and pride in your life. Sadly, in 2020, Covid lockdowns saw benefit assessments massively relaxed and sanctions suspended. Meetings were shunted online and never held in person again — a terrible error. Meanwhile, perverse incentives crept into the system, allowing more and more people on to (significantly more generous) sickness benefits. Since then, long-term sickness claims have exploded, rising to almost 3,000 per day. The number of people receiving Personal Independent Payments for anxiety and depression has trebled. Meanwhile, the number of households where no one has ever worked has also risen. Analysis by the think tank I set up, The Centre For Social Justice, found that once all benefits are totted up, you can now receive £2,500 a year more on benefits than someone would receive on the national living wage after tax. In other cases, such as a single parent claiming for anxiety and a child with ADHD, total annual support can reach nearly £37,000 — over £14,000 more than the same person would earn through wages alone. A system designed to protect disabled people in genuine need has morphed into one that too often disincentivises work, traps people in long-term dependency and leaves them without meaningful support to recover. This isn't the whole story. There are, at the extremes, young and old at both edges of the welfare crisis. With almost one million youngsters not in education, employment or training (NEET), the epidemic of school absences could yet see an extra 180,000 pupils join their ranks. And we are leaking talent and experience out of the workforce at an alarming rate, with record numbers of people aged 50-64 on out-of-work benefits. The government must start by addressing the surge in claims since the pandemic, particularly for mental health. But the government has got off to a bad start. The Treasury's push to get quick savings in time for the spring resulted in a rebellion by Labour backbenchers and a U-turn costing £3billion. Yet this ballooning welfare bill has to be tackled, and the CSJ has shown there is a way. First, tighten eligibility for benefits to people with more severe mental health conditions while reinvesting the savings in the support we know genuinely helps people to recover. In-person assessments and benefit sanctions for those failing to seek work must be restored in full. The CSJ shows that this would save over £7billion, a large portion of which should be spent radically expanding NHS therapy and back-to-work help. Second, we need to stop people falling out of work in the first place. 'Young hardest hit' Medicalising the ups and downs of life has resulted in 93 per cent of consultations with a GP ending up with someone signed off altogether rather than keeping them in their job. A proper work and health system should take 'sick notes' provision off GPs, allowing them to devote their time to people, particularly those aged 50–64, needing workplace adjustments. Third, I worry more each day about Britain's young people. The government's National Insurance rises have put up wage costs, making businesses less likely to give them a chance. Young people are the hardest hit by the £25billion jobs tax. Instead, the Chancellor should cut taxes on jobs and introduce a new tax credit for businesses hiring young British NEETS, a CSJ proposal backed by many employers who have called for this. Our post-Covid ballooning welfare bill has to be tackled urgently. But as employment numbers fall in response to higher taxes, Reeves has made it harder to do this. Getting people back to work is critical for us all.
