Burnham to be ‘relentless’ in tackling small boats, and says changes needed for asylum housingpublished at 09:17 BST
09:17 BST
Image source, PA Media
We don’t know much yet about Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s intended policies on migration – he became PM just over a month ago.
However, during his campaigning and since taking up office, he has voiced some ideas that give us an inclination of what he might look to tackle.
Earlier this month, in an interview with GB News, Burnham said he believed the poorest areas should not house all asylum seekers.
The comments came in response to a question about protests over plans to provide accommodation for asylum seekers on a former military base near Piddington, Oxfordshire.
Under Keir Starmer’s government, Labour pledged to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers after the process became a focal point for anti-migrant protests.
The most recent set of statistics showed this had dropped by a third on the year before, as the Home Office has sought to use military sites as an alternative.
At the beginning of August, he pledged that his government will be “relentless” in curbing the number of people arriving in the UK on small boats.
He said they were “changing the whole approach”, with enforcement officers tackling people-smuggling gangs doubled on both sides of the Channel.
Meanwhile, while campaigning for the Makerfield by-election in May, Burnham said net migration “needs to fall further”.