LABOUR’S shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock says the new deal signed with the French government is “too little, too late”.

Asked about the Conservatives’ plan, Labour’s shadow immigration minister Mr Kinnock told GB News: “Well, it’s too little too late. The Conservatives have had 12 years to get a grip on our asylum system. The Home Secretary herself has said the asylum system is broken. And we agree with her. The Conservatives have broken it.

“We’ve got 37,000 asylum seekers in hotels, costing the taxpayer £6 million a day. We’ve got under-resourcing of the National Crime Agency. We’ve had a breakdown in the relationship with France. Of course, it’s good to see that there’s some more constructive conversations going on now, but this is the sort of thing that should have been happening years ago.

“The fact that the processing system is broken means that if someone wants to pay a people smuggler £10,000, to get on one of those small boats, they know that when they get to the UK, they will be left in the system for years waiting for their case to be reviewed. So it’s a safe bet.”

In an interview during Breakfast with Stephen Dixon and Isabel Webster on GB News, he added: “Let’s get the mechanics of government working, do the hard yards rather than chasing headlines and all the kind of gimmicks that this government has been trying for far too long.”

“We really do hope that we’ll see an increase in the number of interceptions. I’m not convinced enough is being done upstream to break the model of the business smugglers through using intelligence resourcing the National Crime Agency properly.

“But really, one of the big gimmicks we’ve seen that simply isn’t working is this Rwanda scheme. Since the Rwanda plan was announced, we’ve seen the numbers of people trying to cross the channel going through the roof.

“So scrap that, stop all the gimmicks, stop all that headline chasing around that, and do the hard yards, the mechanics of getting the asylum processing system sorted and resourcing the NCA properly, and have a proper deal with France, which also includes, of course, a returns agreement.

Earlier, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told GB News: “Well, we have seen the money that we have given to the French authorities to support their actions on the French coast.

“And the close working relationship between the French and the UK authorities has this year prevented 29,000 people who attempted to cross the Channel, it’s helped bring about 500 arrests of people traffickers, it’s helped to break over 50 criminal gangs. So the money is making a difference.

“But what we have got to recognise is that the people smugglers are changing their tactics, we need to evolve our tactics as well. Having British border officials in the French control rooms gives us greater coordination and greater effectiveness.

“And together, we will crack down on these illegal criminal gangs because it’s in both the French interests and the British interest to do so.”

He added: “If someone wants to come and make their life here in the UK, and I can completely understand why people want to do so, there are safe and legal routes to do so.

“So that’s the route that people should take. But what we are seeing is people who are using illegal routes, illicit routes, using people smugglers, to try and come here. And that is never going to be unacceptable, or an appropriate route to become a member of our society.