Lord Patten – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Patten on 2015-09-17.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much has been spent since 2010 to deter illegal immigration in Calais and the surrounding region.
Lord Bates
Since 2010 Her Majesty’s Government has spent £196m in Calais and the surrounding locations to secure the border, which includes day to day activity such as carrying out passport checks on all passengers, searching for illicit goods, as well as stopping and deterring illegal migration. Part of this figure includes the recent investment to reinforce security through infrastructure improvements at Border Force’s controls in Northern France. This has included £7 million for fencing at Coquelles, which will help protect Eurotunnel’s freight approach road, a £2 million upgrade of detection technology and boosting our dog searching capability by £1 million.
Her Majesty’s Government is also supporting the Port of Calais to create a secure waiting area for UK-bound lorries and has committed to funding additional security guards at the Eurotunnel site in the area.
The Home Office and its partners, including the National Crime Agency, also fund wider activity to stop and deter illegal migration in Calais; however, it is not possible to attribute a specific amount to spending in the Calais area alone.
