Rishi Sunak signs new deals with Serbia, Belgium and Bulgaria to tackle people smuggling
Rishi Sunak has signed new deals with Serbia, Belgium and Bulgaria to help target the criminal gangs who smuggle people across the Channel in small boats.
The prime minister made the announcement at the European political community summit in Spain after a whirlwind week at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester.
Mr Sunak urged European leaders to “unite” over migration.
Speaking to reporters, he said it had been a “very successful summit here working with other European countries to stop the boats”.
“This is a shared European challenge that’s very clear,” he said.
“What I was able to do here for the British people is sign new deals with Serbia, Belgium and Bulgaria that will help combat the criminal gangs upstream.”
While details of the deals are light, Downing Street said the deal with Belgium involved a “commitment to increase our bilateral exchange of expertise” as well using advanced detection technology to “identify and disrupt people smuggling through Belgium and onwards to the UK”.
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Meanwhile the deals with Serbia and Bulgaria will focus on prosecuting and disrupting the criminal gangs and sharing intelligence.
It comes following reports in The Daily Telegraph that the UK is set to sign a deal with the EU’s border agency to obtain access to the bloc’s intelligence on migration.
The Telegraph reported officials in London and Brussels have concluded the substance of the agreement, which sources said is in the “final stages” and could be announced this week.
Under the deal, domestic agencies would be able to monitor the entirety of the EU’s external borders rather than just shared frontiers.
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PM’s speech: Three key takeaways
Elsewhere in the interview with reporters, the prime minister addressed questions over his party conference speech, in which he touched on a range of issues including trans rights and HS2.
Mr Sunak was asked when he made the decision to scrap the northern leg to Manchester after the transport secretary, Mark Harper, said it had been made on Tuesday – despite a video emerging suggesting it was made days earlier.
He replied: “There was a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning and the transport secretary legally is the person who makes that decision.
“But of course, this is something that we’ve been working on for a while. It’s right – because this is a very big decision involving tens of billions of pounds – it’s not something that you do very quickly.
“The decision formally was made right at the end.
“There was that cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning, but taking a step back from the process here, what’s important is the decision and I’ve decided that the right thing to do is to take that £36bn that would have been spent on the rest of this project and instead spend that on hundreds of projects across the entire country, which will deliver more benefit for people quicker.”
During his speech Mr Sunak also drew on the issue of trans rights.
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He told the conference hall: “We shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t; a man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.”
His comments attracted some criticism, including from Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, who accused Mr Sunak of using “more nasty divisiveness from the hard right playbook”.
Home Office data published today shows that transgender identity hate crimes rose by 11% from 4,262 offences to 4,732 in the year ending March 2023.
Asked whether he regretted his remarks, Mr Sunak said: “I think most people watching this programme will think that that’s common sense and it’s just a simple fact of biology.
“Now, of course, this is always going to be a compassionate, tolerant country – but we can’t ignore fundamental facts of biology and saying those things shouldn’t be controversial.”
MP Mike Amesbury has been jailed for 10 weeks after punching a man in the street – and has been kicked out of the Labour Party.
The Runcorn and Helsby MP pleaded guilty in January to assault by beating of 45-year-old Paul Fellows in Main Street, Frodsham, Cheshire, in the early hours of 26 October.
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As well as a 10-week jail sentence, Amesbury, 55, must pay £200 compensation to Mr Fellows.
Amesbury had been drinking in the town in his constituency where he lives before arriving at a taxi rank, where Mr Fellows approached him to complain about the closure of the Sutton Weaver swing bridge.
The court heard how, after punching Mr Fellows in the head and knocking him to the ground, Amesbury punched him a further five times on the ground before members of the public intervened.
As he was being held back, he told Mr Fellows: “You won’t threaten your MP again, will you?”
The victim suffered a lump on his head and a graze on his elbow in what the Crown Prosecution Service said was a “persistent assault”.
MP Mike Amesbury outside Chester Ellesmere Port and Neston Magistrates’ Court. Pic: PA
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Amesbury’s future as an MP remains under question as his lawyer indicated he will appeal the sentence.
Otherwise, MPs who receive a custodial sentence, even if it is suspended, automatically trigger a recall petition which could result in a by-election if 10% of constituents sign it.
This will have to wait until the appeal period is over.
Labour suspended Amesbury from the party shortly after the incident, so he has been sitting as an independent.
They have said he will not be admitted back in and called for a by-election, saying his constituents “deserved better” after his “completely unacceptable actions”.
Reform UK also called for Amesbury “to do the honourable thing and resign immediately”.
‘Alarm bells will be ringing’ for PM
Sky News chief political correspondent Jon Craig said while Labour won the seat at last year’s election with a “fairly healthy majority” of more than 14,000, there will be “real nervousness” within the party about holding it.
Reform came second in Runcorn and Helsby at the general election and – given their lead in the national polls – Craig said “alarm bells will be ringing” for Sir Keir Starmer.
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Mike Amesbury was captured punching a man on CCTV
‘A necessary punishment’
Sentencing Amesbury, deputy senior district judge Tan Ikram said an immediate custodial sentence was “necessary as a punishment and a deterrent”.
The judge added Amesbury, who has been an MP since 2017, would serve 40% of his sentence in custody and will remain on licence for 12 months after his release.
Amesbury’s lawyer requested the judge return to the court moments after he was taken to the cells by two security guards, as he wanted to make a bail application while they appeal his sentence.
The judge returned to court, sat down, paused briefly and said: “Application refused.”
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Amesbury will be taken to HMP Altcourse in Liverpool. Unlike many defendants, he did not appear to have a bag of belongings with him.
After pleading guilty, he described the incident as “highly regrettable” and apologised to Mr Fellows and his family outside the court.
Alison Storey, senior specialist prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service’s special crime division, said Amesbury’s victim did not react aggressively and was alone at the time of the assault.
The net zero sector has grown by 10% over the past year – adding £83bn to the UK economy, a new study suggests.
Employment in green businesses and industry has also climbed 10%, supporting the equivalent of 951,000 full-time jobs (2.9% of total UK employment).
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The study – commissioned by thinktank the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) – found for every £1 of value generated by the net zero economy, an additional £1.89 was created in the wider economy.
It report was published as the government increases efforts to meet a legally binding goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero overall (that’s net zero) by 2050.
Some Conservative and Reform MPs have criticised net zero, electric cars and renewables, suggesting efforts to curb climate change are to blame for higher energy bills and the deindustrialisation of Britain.
But the report, with analysis from CBI Economics and the Data City, suggests the UK’s net zero economy is a significant driver of growth, innovation, and productivity.
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Where is the growth happening?
Renewables, electric vehicles, low carbon heating, recycling and green finance are all part of the net zero sector.
Small and medium businesses with fewer than 250 employees are the main drivers of growth, and salaries are 15% higher than the UK average (£43,100, compared with £37,430).
Regions beyond London and the South East are where the net zero economy is growing significantly, the report found, boosting some of the country’s most deprived areas.
The West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, and southwest England were the largest contributors, each more than 5% of the national total, while Scotland’s net zero economy has grown by 21.3% since 2022 – now worth £9.1bn.
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RWE’s Gwynt y Mor, off the coast of North Wales, is the world’s fifth largest offshore wind farm. Pic: Ben Birchall/PA
Tyne and Teesside was also highlighted as a hotspot thanks to a £1bn Nissan electric vehicle project, which includes a gigafactory for next-gen batteries. It is creating 6,200 jobs.
London and the South East are still leading the way, with £16.2bn and £13.1bn of green investment respectively.
Overall, the sector attracted £23bn of public, private and foreign direct investment – and each full-time job generated £105,000 in economic value, well above the UK average, the report found.
‘You can’t have growth without green’
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the findings showed “net zero is essential to growth, a strong economy, and money in working people’s pockets”.
Making Britain “a clean energy superpower” will provide “energy security, good jobs, and investment in our communities”, he added.
Louise Hellem, chief economist at the CBI, said “there are huge emerging markets for green technologies that the UK must capitalise on”.
“It is clear, you can’t have growth without green,” she said.
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