Vulnerable paying price for illegal immigration, says Rishi Sunak

The global system to tackle illegal immigration is "not working" and the most vulnerable are "paying the price", Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said.

He made the comments ahead of a meeting in Iceland of the Council of Europe, a gathering of European nations, the EU and the European Court of Human Rights.

The PM has pledged to detain and remove those who come to the UK illegally.

Labour have argued Mr Sunak's plans to tackle illegal immigration will make things easier for people traffickers.

Yvette Cooper, Labour's shadow home secretary, said Mr Sunak's comments were "pure hypocrisy".

Mr Sunak has made stopping small boats from crossing the channel one of his priorities, and earlier this year the UK agreed to give France £500m to fund more patrol officers and a new migrant detention centre.

Last year, a record 45,000 migrants made the journey across the English Channel. So far this year, nearly 7,000 people have made the crossing.

Downing Street says Mr Sunak is seeking international co-operation to end illegal migration and establish a "functioning" global asylum framework.

He will also hold talks with president of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Síofra O'Leary about changing the court's rule 39 - the process that enabled the court to block a flight deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda last year.

The summit in Reykjavik will be the fourth in the council's history since it was set up in 1949 to protect democracy in Europe after the Second World War.

Speaking ahead of the summit, Mr Sunak said: "Every single point on each route used by people traffickers to smuggle people across our continent represents another community struggling to deal with the human cost of this barbaric enterprise.

"It is very clear that our current international system is not working, and our communities and the world's most vulnerable people are paying the price.

"We need to do more to cooperate across borders and across jurisdictions to end illegal migration and stop the boats. I am clear that as an active European nation with a proud history helping those in need, the UK will be at the heart of this."

Last week, Mr Sunak's Illegal Migration Bill was fiercely attacked by the Archbishop of Canterbury who argued it would not stop small boat crossings and would do "great harm" to the UK's reputation.

Labour have previously labelled the bill a traffickers' charter, which they say will make victims of people smuggling less likely to come forward, as they risk being deported and banned from the country.

"If he really believes countries should tackle trafficking he should stop pushing through legislation at home which will make it even harder to prosecute traffickers," Ms Cooper said.

The council's meeting, which Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is due to join virtually, will also focus on the situation in Ukraine and how international allies can hold Russia to account for breaches of international law since the invasion of Kyiv.