Sir Julian Lewis: I know that the Home Secretary is doing her best to cover the waterfront – almost literally – but is not part of the problem that so many of the criminal gang organisers are outside our jurisdiction? How will these new laws apply to people we cannot reach?

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper): The right hon. Member makes an important point, because we have to do this work in co-ordination with other countries. Alongside the UK’s setting up the Border Security Command, France is setting up its new organised immigration crime unit and a new intelligence centre and is strengthening enforcement. Alongside the UK’s strengthening our law to be able to go after the preparatory supply chains used by the people smugglers, Germany is also committed, as part of our new agreement, to strengthen its laws so that it can take action against the warehouses that we know hold huge numbers of the flimsy boats that are then used to transport people across the channel, putting lives at risk. He is absolutely right that this has to be done in co-operation and co-ordination with other countries, because the best way to strengthen border security is to work in co-operation. …]