Labour secretary Peter Kyle clashed with BBC Breakfast’s Naga Munchetty during an interview about the latest migrant deportation
Naga and Peter Kyle clashed on BBC Breakfast (Image: BBC)
BBC Breakfast presenters Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt were joined by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Peter Kyle, in the wake of the second deportation as part of the UK and France, one-in-one-out scheme. This comes after an Indian national was deported, and then an Eritrean man who initially won a last-minute legal claim to temporarily block his removal to France was flown to out from Heathrow. However, when questioned if he knew “how many”, more flights were scheduled to leave for deportations, Kyle responded: “I don’t know, how many are going to come in the coming days.”
The politician continued: “What you can see is a Home Secretary in Shabana Mahmood, who is straining at the bit to make sure this pilot that we are currently testing with France is delivering to the maximum.” Kyle stated: “We are making sure that we are getting as many people who don’t have the right to be here returned as swiftly as possible.” However, Naga probed: “Why isn’t there an ideal number as part of the pilot scheme, a scheme has aims, has targets?”
Peter Kyle admitted he doesn’t know how many migrants will be deported (Image: Getty)
Kyle responded: “We’re doing something that’s never been done before. You can see the previous government failed in every single way, and all the numbers went up; they were not even processing.
“This is one new pilot, which is one plank of our attempts to get a grip of our asylum system, don’t forget that before there was no processing happening of asylum seekers, there were just parked in hotels.”
However, before he could finish, Naga interjected: “I understand that. If there’s no target for a known number, I’m not going to push it because you have a number.”
Kyle hit back: “Our target Naga is to make sure that everybody who comes to our shore, that doesn’t have the right to stay, is removed from the country. That is our target, we want to make sure we get a full grip on our system … that people don’t come here in the first place, that is the deterrent that we need.”
Peter Kyle MP addressed the deportations on BBC Breakfast (Image: BBC)
As Naga attempted to interrupt, Kyle continued: “What we’re not going to is put a number that would cap our ability to get a full grip on this situation,” to which the presenter remarked: “Or show an ambition.”
