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.
The Borders Bill sets out Labour’s plan to treat people smugglers like terrorists, a promise they made repeatedly in the general election campaign.
It creates a new crime of endangering another person during an illegal crossing in the Channel, aimed at stopping 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.
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.
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.
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