France must do more to stop small boat migrants clambering into dinghies off the Calais coast, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has insisted. She welcomed co-operation with the French authorities to control illegal migration, but complained that police sometimes just stood and watched as migrants headed into the Channel.
Ms Cooper said she hoped France would change its own rules “as swiftly as possible” to allow French police officers to intervene in French waters. She told Sky News: “We’ve seen these just appalling scenes of people just standing in the water, climbing into the boats, French police unable to do anything about it.
“So (that is) one of the things I’ve been working very closely with the French interior minister on, and he and I agree those French rules need to change.”
Ms Cooper said Ministers are “looking at a range of different issues” for cutting small boat crossings, as she declined to confirm reports the Government was considering a “one in, one out” policy for asylum seekers.
Asked whether the Government was looking at such a scheme with European nations, she said: “We’ve been looking at a range of different issues, different ways of working – not just with France but with other European countries, other countries like Iraq, countries where we’ve seen these networks of criminal gangs operating.”
She added that the Government was “looking at different ways of doing returns”.
Every migrant who arrives on a small boat where someone has died should face prosecution, the Home Secretary said.
Yvette Cooper told the BBC’s Today programme that increased overcrowding of boats was part of the reason that the number of arrivals had increased this year.
She said: “I think it’s just totally appalling that you see boats where children are being crushed to death on these overcrowded boats, and yet the boat still continues to the UK.
“So we want to strengthen the law to have endangerment of life at sea be part of our laws, so we can prosecute.
“Frankly, I want to see everybody who is arriving on a boat where a child’s life has been lost, frankly, should be facing prosecution, either in the UK or in France.”
She added: “If you’ve got a boat where we’ve seen all of those people all climb on board that boat, they are putting everybody else’s lives at risk.
“If you get onto a boat which is so crowded that a child is crushed to death in the middle of that boat, and if you then refuse rescue from the French authorities who come to the rescue, who end up taking a child’s body and small family members off that boat, and you refuse rescue, I think, frankly, you should face some responsibility and accountability for that.”
More than 20,000 small boat migrants have arrived in the UK this so far this year.