Border Security: UK-Ireland Co-operation
House of Commons · Westminster Hall · 23 Jun 2026 · 15 speeches · Official Report
I beg to move, That this House has considered UK-Ireland co-operation on border security. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. Ten years ago today, the citizens of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. That historic decision should have ushered in a new era. People voted to strengthen our borders, reclaim our sovereignty and put the safety of our citizens first. During the negotiations that followed, Northern Ireland was repeatedly assured that our place in the United Kingdom would be respected and protected, but what has followed has been nothing short of betrayal. Post-Brexit settlements were largely negotiated by politicians who voted to remain-people whose hearts were never in the democratic mandate with which they were entrusted. The result: a border system so broken that only one asylum seeker has been returned to the Republic of Ireland since 2020-I repeat, that is only one asylum seeker over a five-year period-even as illegal entrants exploit the border day after day. That is simply unacceptable.
I commend my hon. Friend for securing this debate. The party that she and I belong to has been highlighting this back-door approach for a number of years, but the Government have refused to act. The people recently took to the streets in their thousands to tell their Government peacefully that action was needed. Does she agree that the Government must listen and begin to act today? We look forward to what the Minister will say to reassure us.
I will address just that as I go on with my speech. We are the only part of the UK with a soft land border with the EU. That reality has been downplayed by politicians in London and Dublin alike when it comes to illegal immigration. Northern Ireland has been left uniquely exposed-the weak link in the UK’s border security chain-and our people have been put at risk. In the case of the Sudanese attacker, they were quite literally at risk of life and limb. The attempted beheading in Belfast has served as a brutal reminder to us all. That is what happens when Northern Ireland’s security is treated as an afterthought. The attacker came here illegally. He travelled from Sudan to Paris, flew to Dublin and took a bus to Belfast. That is all public knowledge. He was granted asylum with astonishing haste. He passed through two other safe countries first. He completed a 10-page application to gain access-really? It is simply not acceptable that our UK border with the Republic of Ireland has been left so porous.
I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate. Given the clear and present danger posed by terrorism across the world, organised crime, and the trafficking of drugs, people and illegal weapons across the border, does she agree that it is incumbent on both Governments to deepen real-time intelligence and data sharing, and to tighten the legal and procedural frameworks to streamline extradition? I also point out that our border is totally open; thousands of people could be entering the UK through Northern Ireland. We do not have any numbers, we do not know who is coming, and we do not know how good or bad those individuals could be.
The hon. Member is absolutely right. The first duty of Government is to protect its citizens. When violent offenders can simply walk or drive across the border, that duty is not being met. The Government have taken strenuous efforts to check goods moving from GB to Northern Ireland, including plants, agricultural machinery and seeds, yet illegal migrants can simply hop on a bus from the Republic of Ireland and cross the border, no questions asked and no vetting required. When functioning properly, the common travel area is a practical arrangement that works well for people living right across these islands. It ensures that UK and Irish citizens can travel relatively freely within the zone, at least in principle. That is a sensible system and we should keep it that way.
Is the hon. Lady surprised by the misrepresentation from the Secretary of State about what the common travel area means? It means simply that there is common travel for those who are legally in the country, not those who are illegally in the country. Is she also surprised that, for all the Government’s talk, they have taken no steps to deal with the pull factors that bring these illegal immigrants to the United Kingdom? They get free accommodation immediately when they apply for asylum, a weekly amount of money and they are registered with a GP and a dentist, and we are then surprised that they pass through many safe countries to come to the United Kingdom.
I think the hon. and learned Gentleman is reading my speech-I agree totally. For the CTA to work, it cannot be abused. It was built on trust between two sovereign nations. It is not a back door for illegal migration. In theory, the CTA is not intended for asylum seekers, but, in practice, the open land border is being shamelessly exploited by people who want to dodge UK immigration controls. The attack in Belfast is clear evidence that this loophole is wide open to abuse by dangerous individuals. The problems do not stop there. Abuse of the CTA is happening right across the board, not only on our roads but at our airports and seaports. In the past year alone, more than 900 individuals have been detected abusing CTA routes. Northern Ireland is being used as a soft point of access into the United Kingdom. While London and Dublin trade warm words about co-operation, our ports, airports and communities are carrying the burden of a system that is simply not working.
On the issue of the porous border, no one expects a hard border constituting installations and so on, but I have been trying to get the Government to release the figures about how many electronic travel authorisations there have been, and I never get an answer. We do not even know the numbers for people who are coming in legally to tour, visit or holiday.
My hon. Friend is correct. The fact that there is a lack of information that the Government are willing to provide on all manner of things regarding the border and movements back and forward is frustrating. We need bus and rail checks like those in the Republic. The Republic of Ireland already carries out immigration checks without damaging the CTA. It has shown that it is perfectly possible to balance two things: maintaining the ease of movement while implementing targeted enforcement to protect public safety. We must remember that nothing in the Belfast agreement prevents proper immigration checks. The agreement requires the removal of military infrastructure. It did not, and never could, prevent the UK from protecting the integrity of its own borders. When migrants began fleeing to Northern Ireland to avoid the Rwanda scheme, the Republic of Ireland responded by intensifying immigration checks on vehicles travelling south. Buses and other vehicles regularly get pulled over on roads south of the border in order to verify people’s identity documents. If the Republic can use that kind of targeted enforcement to protect its citizens, why can we not do the same in Northern Ireland? When people see weak border controls and a Government unwilling to grip the issue, frustrations grow. Upper Bann is home to people from many different backgrounds who make an enormous contribution to our community every day. They run businesses, work in our hospitals and care homes, contribute to...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) on securing this debate on a topic of great significance. We have had a number of contributions, and I am grateful for them all. I respect the valid concerns and absolutely agree that having those concerns is not racist. Perhaps it would be helpful if I began my remarks by making the very simple, but important, point that the security of the UK border depends to a very large extent on co-operation. The nature of the threats we face demands that we work relentlessly across services, sectors and borders to ensure that we have the clearest possible picture of what and who is coming into our country. In that effort, Ireland is without question one of our most crucial partners. It is a deep and long-standing partnership underpinned by a shared determination to uphold the first duty of any Government: ensuring the safety and security of our nations. It is also an active partnership. The CTA is at the centre of the active partnership. Having been in operation for over a century, it is an enduring arrangement between the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Crown dependencies. It is unique and invaluable, allowing British and Irish citizens to move freely, live and work across our jurisdictions and maintain the close links that underpin our shared history. However, the success of the CTA depends above all on us preserving its security and integrity. That means...
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) on securing this debate. Does the Minister understand that when he speaks of co-operation between the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach, it rings hollow when immigration officials in Dublin airport indicate where the bus to Belfast is? They proactively indicate to individuals how they can access the United Kingdom. Does the Minister understand that I could give him a litany of cases of individuals who have been removed from the United Kingdom and returned to Dublin-the country in which they arrived-only for them to return on the Ulsterbus? One individual flouted the system in that way on three separate occasions. Does the Minister understand that any agreement around data sharing rings hollow when the Home Office will not tell us how many people enter the UK from the Republic of Ireland, how many apply in Drumkeen House in Belfast or how many are removed not just from Northern Ireland, but the United Kingdom as a whole, and even more so when the Home Secretary says that is because of the Belfast agreement? That is not right and there needs to be some openness.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his well-made points. I disagree that those important diplomatic relations and agreements are hollow, but I will take away the point about the Irish border and feed it back to officials. That is disturbing, and of course I absolutely disagree with it. I turn briefly to our work on immigration enforcement. We have removed nearly 70,000 individuals since the end of March, which is a 41% increase on the number of returns recorded in the previous 21-month period. The Government will step up and intensify immigration enforcement to track down, detain, arrest and remove illegal migrants in Northern Ireland. The Home Secretary is investing more than £3 billion in immigration enforcement activity over the next three years, including in Northern Ireland, where we will see a 20% increase in officers compared with 2023. I cannot ignore the extremely important points made about the incident in Belfast, which disturbed us all. I agree that action needs to be taken to ensure that those in our country do not commit offences. Foreign national offender removals have increased significantly under this Government, but we do not hide behind that. We understand that there is more to do, and we will continue to pursue, deport and remove those who should not be here. I will not go into any more detail about that specific individual than we have already given. We have confirmed that he is Sudanese, and we know how he entered the country. An important point was...
I thank the Minister for his response, but my constituents will be listening, and they will say that they have learned absolutely nothing and know nothing more about illegal immigration than is already in the public domain. They will have heard the word “disturbing” in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), who referenced the case of an individual returning three times. We are living with this in Northern Ireland. We are living in communities that feel unsafe because of illegal immigration, yet they see a Government who are not even willing to take the full time to debate this issue, and are unwilling to give us evidence that they are taking it seriously. The Minister talks about data sharing-really? We need action. We need buses. We need real checks. We need action, not data sharing.
I thank the hon. Member for her contribution. I absolutely disagree with the framing that we are not taking this issue seriously. We are here today having a debate, and on top of that we are working day in, day out to fix the immigration system that we inherited. Deportations, removals and asylum processing are up, and hotel use is down. That is not by accident; it is through commitment and hard work from the Home Office. I am the Member of Parliament for Dover and Deal, and I, too, am at the front of the illegal migration problem, so I understand the frustration and the passion. I agree that it is not racist to have those views against illegal migration. We are working so hard to fix it, but it does not happen overnight. Members have an absolute commitment from the Home Secretary and all Home Office Ministers that we are dealing with it, and we are looking at the CTA, too. As I have set out, a close and active partnership is already in place, and it will undoubtedly remain an integral part of our efforts to detect, disrupt and deter the threats we face to secure our border and ultimately to keep our country safe. Question put and agreed to.
Sitting suspended.