Stopping the boats is one of the biggest challenges facing the Government (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
People who come to the UK illegally on small boats will face tougher penalties if proposals put before Parliament this week are made law. Migrants would face a 14-year prison sentence if amendments to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill are adopted.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp is pushing the Government to toughen-up the legislation.
He wants anyone who arrives in the UK illegally in a small boat to be found guilty of the new offence of endangering lives at sea – and he wants the penalty increased to 14 years.
Mr Philp argues this would stop people from claiming asylum because they have have committed a criminal offence and would not be eligible. He says such a “deterrent” is needed because Labour scrapped the plan to send people who come to the UK illegally to Rwanda for processing.
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He said: “Labour talk the talk on tackling immigration, yet one of their first acts in Government was to remove a deterrent to people coming here illegally. The are calling on Labour to back our plans to acknowledge that everyone who boards a boat from a safe third country to cross to the United Kingdom has acted in a way that endangers lives at sea.
“Under new leadership, the have put forward clear and deliverable plans to cut the high levels of immigration and we call on Labour to back them.”
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A Labour source said Mr Philp has “clearly not thought this through,” arguing that a “one-size-fits-all sentencing method” would result in 12-year-old girls being treated more harshly than the traffickers exploiting them.”
The source said it would require a “totally warped sense of right and wrong” to think this is the right policy.