Almost every one of these people has had their life saved by British authorities such as the Border Force and the Royal Navy or groups such as the RNLI, and all have been clothed, fed and given medical treatment. Staff continue to work steadily to keep people moving through the system as quickly as possible and to ensure that appropriate preparations remain in place to manage periods where we expect extra pressures. Meeting these record numbers is extremely difficult and the chronic shortage of acceptable accommodation has forced the government to procure expensive and often unsuitable hotels at an unacceptable cost to the taxpayer. Human decency must be accompanied by hard common sense: illegal immigrants are not entitled to luxury hotels. Conditions in the UK are almost always better than in neighboring countries, which explains why the UK is a destination of choice for economic migrants on the ‘asylum shopping’ continent. ‘Hotel Britain’ needs to be finished and replaced with simple, functional accommodation that does not create an added attraction factor. Ultimately, the focus of the debate must shift from managing the symptoms of the problems – hotel supply – to the cure: stopping economic migrants from making the perilous journey at every opportunity. Strong deterrence to those who attempt to cheat the process, and compassion to those who need our help most, must be the criteria by which our immigration system is judged. That starts with continuing to invest in our relationship with France – and the Prime Minister has made this a key priority in his first talks with Emmanuel Macron, the French president. Our joint work with France currently results in almost half the boats being intercepted, but now we need to leverage our collective expertise and raise our ambitions. With greater coordination between the respective security and law enforcement agencies, we can dismantle the vicious criminal gangs that plague these crossings and bring greater order to both our shores and Northern France.
