Minister blames Labour for Rwanda bill delay
Responding to the record numbers of migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the English Channel, Gillian Keegan blames Labour for slowing the progress of the government’s Rwanda Bill. The education secretary says, "It is now stuck in the House of Lords and the House of Commons, held up by Labour MPs and Labour peers.” Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 Obviously we have to have a plan to stop the boats, that's why the Prime Minister has made it a priority.
00:05 If you look at the last 12 months overall, the figures are down to the previous 12 months.
00:10 But of course we've got new deals with Albania, we've got new deals with France,
00:14 we're working all the time to try and make sure that we catch up with the asylum system.
00:18 We've now got, I think, the lowest backlog that we've had for 20 years,
00:22 so we've been really putting a lot of focus on this.
00:24 But of course the most important part of it, or a big part of it, is the deterrent factor.
00:29 And the deterrent factor has been stuck in the courts, which is the Rwanda bill.
00:32 Rwanda is now stuck in the House of Lords and the House of Commons,
00:36 held up by Labour MPs and Labour peers.
00:39 And really we do need to get on with that deterrent,
00:41 because unless we have all the pieces of the strategy,
00:44 which not only include working with partners, getting to the source with the national crime agencies,
00:50 trying to find the boats and make sure we remove them from the source,
00:53 making sure that we have an asylum system that's processing the backlogs clearly.
00:57 But the deterrent is another important factor,
01:00 and that at the moment is held up by the Labour Lords and the Labour peers,
01:04 and we need to get on with it.