THERE is huge public frustration about the rising number of migrants crossing the Channel, Shadow Treasury Minister James Wild has said.

His comments followed an announcement from the government that it is committing an additional £100 million to combat people-smuggling gangs.

Speaking to GB News, Wild said: “This just feels like it’s a gimmick to distract from the figures last week showing 25,000 people have already arrived illegally, a record number, and over the last year, it’s 48,000 and the reason for that, and the numbers going up, is because Labour scrapped the deterrent that we had in place.

“We hadn’t operationalised it. I accept, but the scheme to remove people if they arrived illegally is key to breaking this business model of the gangs. And I fear this is just an announcement that we’re trying to distract from that, and it was the NCA, National Crime Agency itself that said you need to have a deterrent, a removals policy, otherwise you’re not going to succeed on this topic.

“And it’s clear from the last year we haven’t seen the numbers coming down. Indeed, they’re going up.”

He added: “There’s huge frustration. That’s a big part of why we had such a bad result at the last election. But we did have that deterrence scheme ready to go.

“If you look at what happened in Australia, they had a deterrent scheme that worked. If you look at what President Trump’s done in America, he’s come in with a no nonsense approach to protecting the border, and he’s basically stopped illegal immigration.

“So it’s really about political will here, and Labour have not shown that. And just hiring more people – how long is that going to take? They’ve had a year already.

“They’ve now decided they need to have more people in place. It’s just tinkering at the sides when it needs to be clear that if you come here illegally, you’ll be detained and sent home or sent to a safe third country, and if you have that linkage, then no one’s going to be spending £5-10,000 to get on a dinghy leaving France if they know they’re going to end up somewhere that isn’t the UK.”

On hotels being used to house migrants, he said: “People are concerned about that. I’ve had it in my own area of Norfolk, where people are concerned that families are being moved out and young males are being moved into a hotel instead, and we’ve got to respect the local communities and put them in appropriate places.

“That’s not likely to be hotels in areas like this and that’s another failing. Labour said that they would reduce the number of hotels being used, but actually, the number of people in hotels is going up.

“People are sick and tired of these promises that are made and not kept and not delivered. And even the one in one out [deal], the government announced this a month or so ago, and nothing’s happened to actually put it into action.

“They need to get back to having an effective deterrent policy. Otherwise, all of these things, technology, more NCA officers, they might make some difference at the margin, but the fundamental premise, you can still get to the UK, and you’ve got a good chance of getting asylum and staying here with all the benefits that comes with that, will remain. That’s what we’ve got to break.”