Migrants will still 'breach our borders' unless legislation tightened up – Sir Bill Cash MP

The veteran Stone MP said he was "very much in favour" of Rishi Sunak's plans to crack down on illegal migration.

But he warned that in its current form legislation put forward in the Illegal Migration Bill was at risk of being scuppered by the courts.

The Bill, which is currently going through the Commons, aims to stop people claiming asylum in the UK if they arrive through unauthorised means, including by crossing the Channel in small boats.

Conservative MP Sir Bill is heading a group of MPs who are in talks with ministers over tightening up the legislation. Some fear it could meet the same fate as Boris Johnson's Rwanda plan, which remains bogged down in red tape after it was ruled illegal in the High Court.

Sir Bill told the Express & Star: "There is no doubt in my mind that there needs to be significant improvements for it to work effectively.

"We are in very constructive discussions with the Government as to how to do that.

"The law that relates to these matters is about parliamentary sovereignty, and about the extent to which the current rules have been allowing illegal migrants to come into the country and to breach our borders by claiming they are refugees when many of them are patently not.

"The courts have 160,000 asylum cases still on the books. These need to be dealt with as quickly as possible. In the meantime, hotels are being taken up at a cost of £6 million a day, which is completely unacceptable.

"It is disrupting local services such as housing. The Government wants to sort all this out and we are helping them to do it in the most effective way possible."

The Government this week announced plans to temporarily house asylum seekers at military bases in a bid to free up hotels.

The move has been backed by Dudley North Conservative MP Marco Longhi, who said: "If armed forces bases are suitable for our brave, they are certainly suitable for illegal immigrants."