Suspected people smugglers could face mobile phone ban under new laws
The government announced that suspected people smugglers would face travel bans, social media blocks and phone restrictions under the new laws.
Ministers plan to introduce “temporary” Serious Crime Prevention Orders (SCPOs), which would immediately restrict suspects’ movements while the courts consider issuing full orders.
It comes after figures showed the number of migrants arriving across the Channel in small boats last year rose by a quarter compared to 2023, to more than 7,000.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said stronger powers were needed to tackle “evil gang networks”, but shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the measures were “ridiculous” and would not act as a deterrent.
Under the proposals announced by the Interior Ministry, suspects could be banned from using laptops or mobile phones, accessing social media networks, associating with certain people or accessing their financial information.
SCPOs can already be used to curb the movement of people involved in organized immigration crime. However, the government says these measures are not yet fully effective and plans to introduce new “temporary” orders.
The Home Office said police, the National Crime Agency and other law enforcement agencies would be able to apply directly to the High Court for these orders, rather than going through the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Breaching an interim order could result in a prison sentence of up to five years.
The changes will be included in the government’s border security, asylum and immigration bill, which is expected to be tabled in Parliament in the coming weeks.
“Dangerous human smuggling criminals profit from undermining our border security and putting lives at risk,” Cooper said.
“They cannot be allowed to get away with it.
“We will give law enforcement greater powers to track down and disrupt more of these evil gang networks.”
Philp called the measures “ridiculous” and said the government should revive the abandoned Rwanda scheme, which originated with the Conservatives and planned to send some British asylum seekers to Rwanda.
“Labour shamelessly claims to be tough on smuggling gangs – they voted against higher penalties for these smuggling gangs in the last parliament,” he said.
He added that “stopping the boats was meant to be a deterrent – but Labor called off the operation in Rwanda before it even started”.
Meanwhile, former Conservative cabinet minister Sir David Davis called the measures announced by the Labor government “unnecessarily harsh”.
This happened after seeing it in the English Channel Last year was the deadliest on record. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency that tracks deaths crossing the English Channel, said 77 people died en route.
The latest event on December 29th is Three people die trying to cross English Channel on a small boat, the French coast guard said.
The Refugee Council said the small boats used to cross the English Channel were “increasingly unseaworthy” with more and more people on each boat.
The charity said: “This change is almost certainly the result of the British and French governments trying to disrupt the criminal gangs that profit from the dangerous journey, with a focus on law enforcement as the main approach.”
Temporary Home Office Number Published on New Year’s Day It shows that 36,816 people arrived in the UK by small boats in 2024, a quarter more than in 2023 (29,437).
In the first nine months of 2024, the largest number of arrivals was from Afghanistan, accounting for 17% of total arrivals at the end of September. Iranians are the second largest group (13%), followed by Vietnamese and Syrians (12%).
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously said his government “inherited a very bad situation”, with record immigration numbers in the first half of last year, “because in the run-up to our election the whole focus was on Rwanda’s stunt” on, and not enough “attention is focused on cracking down on the gangs that carry out this dastardly trade.”
