UK politics live: Home Secretary to chair migration summit after Channel deaths | Politics

The prison population has hit a new record, PA Media reports. Official figures showed 88,521 people were being held on Friday, 171 more than the previous record set late last week.

The number of prisoners has increased by 1,025 in the past four weeks, reaching its highest level since weekly population figures were first published in 2011.

The latest figures come days before the government’s temporary early release scheme comes into effect on September 10.

Jessica Elgot

Our deputy political editor Jessica Elgot published the following piece today suggesting that the left faction of the Labour Party will have a smaller presence at this year’s conference:

Leading left-wing figures within the Labour Party have indicated that the left will be much less represented at this year’s party conference.

The conference in Liverpool is likely to be dominated by delegates from the party’s centrist wing, although there will be attempts to force votes on issues such as the two-child allowance cap and the winter fuel surcharge.

Momentum and other left grassroots groups are also fighting to retain their last remaining seats on the party’s executive, which now has a large majority for its centrist faction, organised by Labour to Win.

A Corbyn-era shadow cabinet minister said members unhappy with Keir Starmer’s leadership – particularly his policies on parliamentary selections and party discipline – were likely to stay away this year. “I think there will be more scope for pressure from the left in the years ahead,” they said.

Seven prominent left-wing MPs, including former shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell and former shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon, have been suspended as Labour party leaders after they rebelled against an amendment to abolish the two-child benefit threshold.

A Momentum spokesperson said there are still areas where left-wing members will be active:

Although the balance of delegates at conference is likely to be in Starmer’s favour, the Labour Party faces major internal divisions between the majority of its membership and trade unionists – who support common-sense, progressive policies such as abolishing the child benefit cap and want to see an end to austerity after 14 years of Tory misrule – and a small group around the leadership who remain obsessively focused on control freaks and happy to have economic policy dictated by the Treasury.

The World Transformed, the left-wing political festival that has served as a fringe event at the conference for the past eight years, will not return to the Liverpool conference this year.

Read more from Jessica Elgot here: Left-wing attendance at Labour conference set to decline, say left-wing figures

Robert Jenrick, the former Conservative immigration minister and party leadership candidate, has accused the new Labour government of having “surrendered to the smuggling gangs”.

Jenrick, whose party oversaw record numbers of people crossing the English Channel to claim asylum while in government, told Sky News: “We’ve seen thousands of people crossing the Channel illegally since Labour came to power. They’ve abolished the only credible deterrent, the Rwanda policy.”

Rishi Sunak’s flagship deportation policy in Rwanda never made it onto the statute books and no asylum seeker has been forcibly deported to that country.

Jenrick said the following about Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s planned meeting today on small boat crossings across the Channel:

Yvette Cooper is going to meet the National Crime Agency and police chiefs today and they are going to tell her what they told me when I was a minister, which is that it is important that we do that work but it is not enough. You have to have a deterrent. Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have surrendered to the smuggling gangs.

Jenrick claimed the scrapping of the failed Rwanda plan had made it “open season” for people smugglers to smuggle asylum seekers across the English Channel.

The Prime Minister spoke in Parliament on Wednesday Keir Starmer told MPs:

Unlike the Conservative Party, we will not waste money on gimmicks. That is why, within days, we ended the Rwanda programme and announced the launch of the Border Protection Force. We have also prepared legislation to introduce counter-terrorism powers to tackle gangs. In the first two months, we have flown out more than 400 people who did not belong here. Compare that with the four volunteers sent to Rwanda at a cost of £700 million. This is a government of service, not a government of gimmicks.

Angela Eagle has said the government will announce the appointment of the head of the new Border Protection Command “very shortly”.

The much-touted policy of limiting the number of people crossing the Channel to claim asylum in the UK is central to the new Labour government’s pledge to tackle people-smuggling gangs.

Eagle said in an interview with Sky News:

We are very close to making that appointment. You have to go through certain processes to make sure you get the right person, give people time to apply. You can’t wave a magic wand. Announcements will be made about that soon.

The Minister of Border Security would not say whether this would happen next week.

Border Security Minister Angela Eagle has said tackling criminal people smuggling gangs will be “difficult” and “complex” but that this should not deter the Government from tackling it.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said: “I think every state needs to ensure that criminal gangs who profit from human suffering are tackled, disrupted, dealt with and taken out of business. And if you have to take one out of business and another one springs up, you should spend your time tackling that one gang.”

She continued: “Just because something is very, very difficult to do, complex to do – something that you have to do through collaboration across borders, through a lot of communication along these supply chains of misery and exploitation – doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, and that’s really what today’s summit is about.”

Rajeev Scarf

Here is an excerpt from Rajeev Syal’s report on today’s upcoming summit on the Channel crossing:

Yvette Cooper will chair a summit aimed at cracking down on criminal gangs smuggling people across the Channel in small boats. The Home Office announced that MI5 officers have been given a key role in the operations.

Intelligence officers, Border Force personnel and representatives from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will attend Friday’s meeting at the National Crime Agency’s headquarters.

Cooper, the Home Secretary, will be accompanied by David Lammythe Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shabana Mahmoodthe Minister of Justice, and Richard Hermerthe attorney general.

Twelve people died Tuesday attempting the perilous journey across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, while another 257 people crossed the Channel in small boats on Wednesday.

Cooper said: “Women and children were crammed into an unsafe boat that literally collapsed into the water this week. At least 12 people were killed as part of this evil trade.”

Read more here: Yvette Cooper leads summit on tackling smuggling gangs in Channel Islands

Good morning and welcome to our live UK politics broadcast for Friday. Newly appointed Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will chair a summit of senior ministers and members of the intelligence services and the National Crime Agency, aimed at tackling criminal gangs involved in smuggling people across the English Channel in small boats. More on that in a moment, but here are your headlines…

What else is on the agenda for today? Not much. The Lords are sitting but the Commons is not, and there is nothing planned in Holyrood, Stormont or the Senedd. Martin Belam is here with you. You can contact me at [email protected]. I find it helpful if you kindly point out any typos, errors or omissions you see.