Political reporter
People smuggling gangs “have been allowed to take hold”, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the Commons during a debate on border security.
She accused the last Conservative government of failing to strengthen border enforcement as fast as European countries and focussing on “failed gimmicks”.
Her comments come as Labour’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which scraps the Tory Rwanda plan and boosts police powers against smugglers, cleared its first vote in the House of Commons.
Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp described the new plans as a “border surrender Bill” and claimed it creates a path to citizenship for illegal migrants.
The debate came at the end of a heavily choreographed media push by the Home Office, which saw the department publish photos of illegal immigrants being deported for the first time.
Earlier on Monday, the Home Office also published footage of enforcement teams raiding 828 premises, including nail bars, car washes, and restaurants. They made 609 arrests – a 73% increase on the previous January.
Some Labour MPs, particularly on the left of the party, have argued the government should focus on talking about the benefits of immigration and push for creating safer immigration routes.
Veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary under Jeremy Corbyn, warned the new approach left Cooper in “danger of sounding like she’s trying to stigmatise desperate migrants rather than building a fair system”.
Home Office Minister Dame Angela Eagle told the BBC the government’s approach was compassionate, and it had only released arrest footage to send a message about the realities of working illegally.
Labour has been pushing its immigration crackdown to the forefront at the same time as Reform UK has been rising in the polls.
Reform MP Richard Tice, said immigration is “the number one issue because it’s out of control”.
He argued reducing immigration numbers “is of critical concern to the majority of British people”.
As the Commons debate began, the Home Office released new figures showing, since Labour took power in July, the UK has removed 18,987 people, including criminals and failed asylum seekers.
We know that of these returns, only 5,074 were classed as enforced returns. This would suggest the remaining returns were voluntary.
The new returns figure is higher than in the same period the previous year but lower than seven-month periods in 2010 to 2016, when returns topped 20,000.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage described the new figures as feeble when compared with the numbers that had entered the country.
The Borders Bill sets out Labour’s plan to treat people smugglers like terrorists, a promise they made repeatedly in the general election campaign.
Mirroring powers in the Terrorism Act 2000, the proposed new law would criminalise “precursor” offences – allowing officials to punish people for legal acts linked to illegal migration, like selling dinghies or outboard motors.
The bill also creates a new crime of endangering another person during an illegal crossing in the Channel. This is to stop those aboard a dinghy refusing assistance.
Immigration enforcement teams would also get new powers to seize mobile phones.
Some migrant rights groups criticise measures they say criminalise vulnerable people rather than people smugglers.
Labour argues this will be a more effective way of clamping down on small boat crossings than the previous government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The bill also repeals most of the Conservative’s Illegal Migration Act 2023, which laid the legal groundwork for the Rwanda policy.
Under Labour’s plans, a new Border Security Command will gain more powers and a new head, who will oversee closer links between intelligence, police, and border agents.
The bill passed its first vote in the House of Commons by 333 to 109 but still faces months of debate and obstacles before it can become law.
Labour’s large Commons majority all but guarantees the bulk of the measures will pass.
MPs also rejected an attempt by the Conservatives to kill the bill, voting down their amendment by 354 to 115.
Cooper framed the bill as a decisive step to restoring “credibility” to the UK’s immigration and asylum system.
“The gangs have been allowed to take hold for six years,” Cooper said.
The Conservative government “failed to act fast with France and other countries to increase enforcement or to prevent the gangs taking hold and instead criminals were let off”.
She told MPs: “It will take time to loosen that grip and to smash the networks that lie behind them, but there’s no alternative to the hard graft of those going after those gang networks who have been getting away with it for far too long.
“And there’s no alternative to working with international partners on this international crime, building new alliances against organised criminals – not just standing on the shoreline shouting at the sea.”
Speaking in the Commons, Philp called the plans “a weak bill from a weak government”.
He criticised Labour for unpicking much of the Illegal Migration Act 2023, including the Rwanda Plan and the section which prevented people who entered the UK illegally from gaining citizenship.
“I think a bill which creates a path to citizenship for illegal migrants and cancels the obligation on the government to remove people who arrive illegally is a shocking piece of legislation,” he said
Philp revived the Tory pledge for a cap on immigration – pledged by several previous Conservative PMs but never delivered.
“What is needed is a binding cap which Parliament can vote on, so Parliament can decide how many visas are issued each year,” he added.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokeswoman Lisa Smart said the current system “is not working for anyone” and argued Labour’s bill fails to provide a “humane, legally sound and effective framework” for immigration and asylum.
She said the government needed to expand safe and legal routes for asylum seekers, as well as application decision “so that those with the right to be here can integrate and contribute and those without the right to be here can be returned swiftly,” she argued.
