Labour refuses to rule out sending prisoners to Estonia as jail population hits record high – UK politics live

The government will announce the head of its new border security command “very shortly”, the border security minister has said.

Asked why the head of the new command had not already been named, Dame Angela Eagle told Sky News: “We are very close to making that appointment.

“You have to go through certain processes to make sure you get the right person, give people time to apply. You can’t wave a magic wand. There’ll be announcements about that very shortly.”

Asked whether it would be within the next week, Dame Angela said: “I’m not going to say in the next week, but there’ll be announcements, they are coming along very shortly.”

The prison population of England and Wales has hit another record high, Ministry of Justice figures show.

A total of 88,521 people were in prison as of September 6, up 171 from 88,350 a week ago – the previous record – and a jump of 1,025 from 87,496 four weeks ago.

The sharp rise is likely to have been driven by the number of people remanded in custody or given jail sentences following the recent disorder across parts of the country.

The prison population in England and Wales has been increasing for much of the past three years, having dropped as low as 77,727 in April 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Before the pandemic, the figure had been above 80,000 since December 2006.

In the aftermath of the summer 2011 riots, the number climbed as high as 88,179 on December 2 2011, before falling back in subsequent months.

A fisherman on the French coast has said boats carrying migrants across the Channel “are getting bigger”, with some carrying 80 people.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is chairing a summit today aimed at destroying the criminal gangs involved in smuggling people over the English Channel.

The fisherman told the BBC: “They are getting bigger, the boats are carrying 60, 70, even 80 people and they’re large – 10-metre dinghies now as opposed to before, the last few years they were a bit smaller.

“On Monday when we were out it was quite a windy, rough day and I was very surprised to even hear one was coming across, and then when it got within around two miles of us we could see it in the distance.

“I heard a mayday put out on the radio from the Border Force vessel saying that the dinghy had broke up and there was over 50 people in the water.”

The former head of the British Border Force has said stopping smuggling gangs bringing migrants across the Channel is “like Whac-A-Mole”.

Tony Smith, director-general of the UK Border Force until 2013, told BBC Today: “This is a very lucrative business for the smugglers – putting a smuggling gang out of business, there’s usually another one waiting in the wings because the money is there – it’s a bit like Whac-A-Mole, really.

“So you do need a very concerted international attempt, both in Europe and beyond.”

The government is not considering expanding safe and legal routes for asylum seekers to come to the UK, the border security minister has said.

Dame Angela Eagle told Times Radio: “There are safe, legal routes. They are very small at the moment and we have had other safe routes in for particular people such as Ukrainians and some Afghans.

“I think the important thing is, whether there would be safe, legal routes or not in any future development, we cannot allow people-smuggling gangs to decide who comes into this country.”

Asked whether the Government would expand safe, legal routes to the UK, Dame Angela said: “That’s not under consideration. We have to get control of our borders.

“We cannot look the other way while people-smuggling gangs are trading in human misery, putting people’s lives at risk, all to make colossal profits.”

A Labour minister has not denied reports there are plans for prisoners in the UK to serve their sentences at prisons in Estonia.

Dame Angela Eagle, a minister in the Home Office, said the Ministry of Justice is “considering anything” to alleviate prison overcrowding.

She did not comment directly when asked on Sky News whether the government was considering renting cells for British prisoners in Estonia as it was “not directly my ministerial responsibility”.

Dame Angela said: “The last government closed loads of prison places and didn’t replace any of them, so I think that colleagues in the MoJ will be considering anything that they can to alleviate the problem.

“What we cannot have is people who are convicted of perhaps violent or serious crimes not being able to be in jail.”

She added: “I’m sure that colleagues are considering all sorts of actions to deal with the crisis that we’ve been left by the previous government in prison places and the prison service, and the criminal justice system generally.”

Dame Angela Eagle has called the Tory government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda a “gimmick” and “not workable”.

She told Sky News: “The last government spent £700million to get four people to voluntarily go to Rwanda and they were gearing up to spend literally billions more. I think if that plan was going to work it would have worked. We had to abandon it, it simply wasn’t working.”

Germany could use asylum facilities in Rwanda originally intended for the UK’s aborted migration scheme, reports from Berlin have suggested.

The country’s migration commissioner, Joachim Stamp, has suggested the EU could utilise existing asylum accommodation in the east African country, originally destined for migrants deported from Britain under the now-scrapped scheme.

Downing Street said it would not comment on the discussions between two foreign governments.

The Government has “surrendered to the smuggling gangs”, former immigration minister and Tory leadership frontrunner Robert Jenrick has said.

Mr Jenrick told Sky News: “We have seen thousands of people crossing the Channel illegally since Labour came to power.

“They got rid of the one credible deterrent, which was the Rwanda policy.

“Yvette Cooper will meet the National Crime Agency and police chiefs today, and they’ll tell her what they told me when I was the minister, which is that although it’s important that we do that work, it is not sufficient. You have to have a deterrent.”

Saying the decision to scrap the Rwanda policy meant it was “open season” for people smugglers, he added: “Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have surrendered to the smuggling gangs.”