Yvette Cooper has blamed the record number of Channel crossings this year on the weather.
The Home Secretary said smuggling gangs have been “taking advantage of the much higher number of calm weather days” with over 10,000 feared to have been detected.
Asked whether she thought she was doing a good job of stopping crossings, Yvette Cooper told Times Radio: “The boats are high and this is undermining border security, it’s putting lives at risk. It’s why it’s so essential to take action on the criminal gangs that are underpinning this vile trade in people. They have been taking advantage of the much higher number of calm weather days,” she said.
Ms Cooper later said the situation “cannot continue” where “the impact on our border security of the weather is so significant”.
Yvette Cooper denies changes banning sex offenders from claiming asylum will not have impact
Ms Cooper told LBC’s Nick Ferrari: “We know that there are cases where, for example, the Abdullah Ezedi case, for example, the time when he was granted asylum, there was a return agreement in place with his home country.
“I believe that was a case that could have been deported, and it wasn’t, and it wasn’t because he was granted asylum, and I think it was wrong he was granted asylum.
“So we know that there are cases where you can deport people and you can remove people in these circumstances, and then in terms of dealing with the further challenges, we’re doing a couple of other things as well.
“First of all, we are speeding up the appeals because they’re currently 50 weeks that they’re taking.
“We’re speeding those up with a new statutory timetable for appeals for 24 weeks so we can speed those cases up.
“And secondly, what we’re doing is making sure we’re also reviewing the way in which people talk about as being Article 8, the way in which the family rules, for example, are taken into account and interpreted as part of the court system.
“We’re reviewing that at the moment, we do think there are ways to change the framework in the UK, because we have had a series of cases where really the Home Office, the government, disagrees with the Court’s interpretation, but we need to make sure we can reform that framework properly.”
Yvette Cooper: Immigration judges are going too far
Immigration judges are going too far in their interpretations of human rights laws, Yvette Cooper has admitted.
The Home Secretary – who is carrying out a review into Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – said “too much has been left to ad-hoc decisions by the courts”.
Ms Cooper conceded she believes “it is possible to change the way” in which rules around the right to a family life are being interpreted.
The comments come amid fears new plans to ban foreign sex offenders from claiming asylum will fail because the criminals can still fight to stay in the UK using the ECHR.
