OVER the last few years, the Government has gone the extra mile to reflect the typical generosity of the British public. Since we voted to leave the EU and take back control our borders, we have ended the open-borders policy with the EU and instead moved to a policy where we decide who comes to the UK based on an Australian-style points-based immigration system for economic migrants.

In addition, we have also offered bespoke schemes to target help to those who need it the most around the world, as our policy is all about helping genuine refugees.

I am proud of the support we’ve given including to 100,000 people threatened by draconian security laws and persecution in Hong Kong; 20,000 Syrians who’d otherwise be in the clutches of ISIS; 15,000 people who worked with us in Afghanistan and more than 150,000 Ukrainians who have fled Putin’s illegal war.

That said, public support for this form of migration is being undermined by the increase in illegal migration via Channel crossings in small boats. This issue has become particularly acute in recent years, going from around 300 crossings in 2018 to more than 65,000 people expected this year.

This especially concerning because of two groups of people who are trying to illegally cross the Channel.

The first, including many from Albania, are illegal economic migrants. By attempting to cross the Channel they are skipping the queue of the legal migration routes – from students at our universities to chefs to IT professionals from around the world – that many thousands of people go through every year.

It is abhorrent to see this widescale lawlessness.

If we are to have a fair and functioning system then those who attempt to illegally bypass it need to be swiftly detained and deported – which is the purpose of the Government’s new Illegal Migration legislation.

The second group making the perilous Channel crossings are those seeking asylum in the UK. These people are trying to enter the UK from safe countries – Belgium or France. Given we’re now seeing deaths in the Channel like we used to see on lorries before that route was made more difficult, it seems macabre to provide any encouragement to these people to risk their lives when they could seek safe residence in any number of countries before that reach the Channel.

I don’t want to see any more tragic cases of people drowning in the freezing cold waters of the Channel.

Doing nothing will just make these issues worse. The crossings undermine our generous approach to genuine refugees. They undermine our fair but robust economic migration policy and they put people’s lives needlessly at risk.

Seeing some MPs from our region vote against our new legislation in Parliament this week, not on specific details but at second reading – which is the point where the general principle of tackling illegal immigration is discussed – was shocking. In County Durham, like in the rest of the country, I know how fed up my constituents are of seeing people coming to the UK illegally, none more so than both genuine refugees and those economic migrants to our country who have gone through the legal channels to come here.