AN MP will today (Thursday, June 18) accuse the Government of “hushing up” dangerous cuts to the Border Force at Teesport, despite a growing problem of smuggled illegal immigrants.

Around one quarter of the officers at Teesport – nine employees – are set to made redundant, Tom Blenkinsop has been told.

Yet, only last week, staff had to be sent to the Port of Killingholme, in Lincolnshire, to help out after about 50 illegal immigrants were found in the back of a lorry.

Now Mr Blenkinsop, the Middlesbrough South and Cleveland East MP, will warn of the risk of a similar incident at Teesport and attack the plans for further job losses.

He told The Northern Echo: “It’s clear that if these incidents are happening at Killingholme, then they must also be happening at Teesport.

“People are being smuggled into these ports and, if they’re smuggling people, they will also being smuggling drugs, other contraband and even weapons.

“We should be reinforcing the number of border staff - as Labour promised at the election - because there clearly aren’t enough in place to deal with these problems.

“Instead, I’ve been told that nine staff at Teesport are being redundant and that is being hushed up.”

According to the MP’s source, all Border Force staff at Teesport have been threatened with redundancy, with nine of about 34 posts expected to go.

Mr Blenkinsop was told that staff feared such a dramatic reduction in the workforce would make policing the port “impossible to manage”.

In the incident at Killingholme, on the Humber, police swooped on a Hungarian-registered truck and found the 50-odd Albanians, including one pregnant woman.

A week earlier, 68 suspected illegal immigrants, including two pregnant women and 15 children, were found inside four lorries at a port in Essex.

Similar incidents have ended in tragedy, most notably 15 years ago, when 58 Chinese people were found dead in a lorry searched at Dover.

Increasingly, migrants seeking a better life are paying criminals to help them reach Britain, travelling through northern Africa and southern Europe, or from Eastern Europe.

According to the MP’s source, Border Force staff are also being made redundant at ports on the Humber, where an enforcement office will close.

Mr Blenkinsop plans to raise the issue during business questions in the Commons today, an opportunity for MPs to discuss any matter of concern.