Kate Garraway challenged Labour minister Angela Eagle in a heated on-air row after the government pledged a further £100million to smashing the gangs
Good Morning Britain host Kate Garraway certainly didn’t mince her words as she grilled a Labour minister in a heated row about the migrant crisis. During Monday’s visit to the ITV studios, the 58-year-old broadcaster woke up the nation alongside her co-host Ed Balls as they discussed the latest news hitting the headlines. It didn’t take long before the conversation turned to the small boats crisis after the government announced they are pledging a further £100miilion to a new scheme to “smash the gangs”.
To get a better perspective on this new development, the presenting duo welcomed Home Office Minister Dame Angela Eagle onto the programme to explain how the extra funding will help tackle people smuggling gangs. Kate began: “I think a lot of people had sympathy for you when you first came into power and said the whole system’s a mess, I think people on all sides agree.
Kate Garraway sparked a fiery debate on Good Morning Britain (Image: ITV)
“The trouble is, here we are a year and a bit in and it feels like the situation’s getting worse. [There are] more crossings, more people at risk, more people coming in, gangs not being smashed. Have you any evidence at all that what you’ve put into place so far is working even a little bit?”
The stuttering politician replied: “Well, yes, but there’s no easy fix to this” to which Kate pushed: “Well, give us the evidence first before you get into the fact that it’s going to be slow because that, I think, people would like to hear.”
Angela went on: “Well, we inherited a terrible situation with huge backlogs in the system which we’re getting down.” Kate pressed again: “What backlogs are going down?”
She explained: “When we came into government, the previous government had a 70 per cent fall in asylum decision making so there was just hundreds of thousands of people backed up in the system not having decisions at all.
“We’ve got it down to 78,000 for first initial decisions and we’ve have 100 per cent increase in asylum decision making which is getting the system moving again.”
The Labour minister went on to outline the various ways in which the government has made an effort to put an end to people smuggling gangs and the rising number of migrants illegally crossing the UK border.
This includes their plans to get the border security bill on the statute book and the new deal Sir Keir Starmer made with France for the new one-in-one-out return scheme.
Angela insisted: “We are doing a lot, but there’s no one quick easy fix to this. These gangs are allowed to develop and industrialise their processes along our borders and it takes this kind of detailed, diplomatic and police work to ensure that we can begin to crack down on it. And we will and we are.”
