Jack 'Boot' Straw, Home Secretary.

 

The Crime and Disorder Bill will include the early release of 6,000 inmates (4th December 1997). [top]
Overall the package will cost an estimated £120 million a year, though the Home Office predicts that it will save £180 million on prison costs through the early release of some 6,000 inmates. The Bill, which is to begin its parliamentary progress in the Lords, should become law next spring.

 

Lorry immigrant fines 'unjust' (7th December 1998). [top]
Plans to fine lorry drivers £2,000 for carrying illegal immigrants into Britain were condemned by road hauliers yesterday.

They said it would deter drivers from reporting stowaways to the police and instead encourage them to release their cargoes.

The row broke out after Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, decided to press ahead with new penalties for smuggling immigrants into Britain. He said drivers could stop the problem overnight if employers insisted that they carried out checks on doors and seals of their lorries before leaving Europe. Almost 5,000 were discovered hiding in cross-Channel freight vehicles this year.

The Government plans to extend to lorry firms the existing system of fines under which airlines and ferries are forced to pay £2,000 for every illegal immigrant they carry into Britain. The Road Haulage Association said the proposal was "outrageous and unworkable" and is demanding a meeting with the Home Office.

A spokesman for the lorry firms said: "You don't need to be a genius to work out that, if hauliers are about to be fined every time they voluntarily disclose the presence of illegal immigrants, they will simply release them without informing the police."

 

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