Member

The example is given at paragraph 22 of a teenage boy in northern France who sends his mother in the UK a screenshot of a weather report showing that the channel will be relatively clear, and he crosses to the UK the following day in a dinghy. She has committed an offence because she read the message, as has her son. Well, yes, he should have committed an offence: he was in a safe country, and he has just crossed into the United Kingdom, facilitated by people traffickers, via a journey we are trying to stop him taking. I think it is the Government’s intention that he is committing an offence. They want him to think he would be committing an offence and are trying to deter the action that is currently happening, because we are trying to stop people coming to this country. That is the point of this legislation.