David Hanson MP, Labour’s Shadow Immigration Minister, responding to the Mayor of Calais’s appearance before the Home Affairs Select Committee, said:

“The situation in Calais is completely untenable. The Mayor claims there are 2,500 migrants at the port hoping to come to Britain. There is no doubt the Government could – and should – be doing more to tackle this illegal route into our country, but Natacha Bouchart needs to acknowledge the role the French authorities should be playing to solve this problem. If, as she claims, the people camped in Calais are not asylum seekers, why is the French Government not seeking to deport them?

“Of course we should be aiming for a European-wide approach to remove the migrant camp at Calais – there are serious questions about how people are able to cross Europe without being apprehended and end up at the border in the first place? But it is not good enough for the Mayor of Calais to seek to wash her hands of this problem and seek to simply move the border to Dover.”

ENDS