Almost 1,000 migrants crossed the Channel yesterday.

HousePlantQueen

Lisaangel10

I watched a prog tonight about Dementia. It highlighted a new drug that is available but people here cannot have it as the NHS cannot afford it.

Same applies to drugs for other diseases and illnesses.

Maybe we could afford it if we weren’t paying millions for people crossing the channel in boats.

The costs of dealing with migrants comes from the Overseas Aid budget. Nothing to do with funding research into AD medication.

It's coming - at root - from our "national budget" though. We all know perfectly well that we can swop money from being designated for one type of expense to being swopped to covering another type of expense instead. We do that in our own personal budgets all the time.....and use "our personal spending money" funds for "something urgent that's cropped up - eg a boiler repair" for instance.

Lisaangel10

I watched a prog tonight about Dementia. It highlighted a new drug that is available but people here cannot have it as the NHS cannot afford it.

Same applies to drugs for other diseases and illnesses.

Maybe we could afford it if we weren’t paying millions for people crossing the channel in boats.

The costs of dealing with migrants comes from the Overseas Aid budget. Nothing to do with funding research into AD medication.

mulberry7

The solution is in the boats. Where are all these boats coming from? A census should be taken of all boats and owners, and the whereabouits of the craftts should be checked on regularly. Boats should be licensed no matter what their size, and severe fines imposed for non-licensing. If you make a boat you should have to give a good reason for its existence; finally all boats should be marked with a logo clearly visible from the air, to signify that they are licensed. If you sell a boat or even a rubber dinghywithout establishing the name of the buyer you would be committing an offence. I don't know where these boats leaving France for the UK come from, but it seems extremely lax not to control their ownership, in view of the multiple drownings they are responsible for.

I don't think the solution is in the boats although that's obviously important. The solution imo lies in the govt stopping making this a country that is attractive to illegals ie free healthcare, housing education etc.. While ever we are seen as an easy option for freebies the people will want to come here. Just look at the new camps of people set up in France waiting to see if the LP would form the next govt because they knew that then the threat of Rwanda would go away. Like it or not the Rwana threat was a deterrent to many.

HousePlantQueen

FriedGreenTomatoes2

There’s a notice up in our doctor’s surgery nanna8 it states “no ID necessary to be seen by a doctor”.

Come one come all it seems.
We offer too much. It’s definitely a pull factor in the UK.
France offers very little by comparison and they think we are too generous.

Until the powers that be get a grip we just have to put up with it.

but we don't need ID to be seen by a GP at my surgery. You only get seen if you have a booked appointment, and only get the booked appointment if you are a registered patient at the practice, so I don't understand (a) what your local practice means by the sign and (b) what point you are trying to make.

I wasn’t making ‘a point’. I was just saying what I had seen laminated and pinned to the notice board in our doctor’s surgery.

Frenchgalinspain
You speak my language, migrants like us are human beings!

Babs03

The plans were thwarted because they weren’t workable and cost us, the taxpayer, many millions if not billions over the years.

It's costing us a fortune to house them here

I wonder how many border force officers are spot checking McDonalds after this very sad story was broken.
Fwiw I don’t believe for one second that this is a one off.

www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1891259/modern-slavery-mcdonalds-employers-learn-its-mistakes

I watched a prog tonight about Dementia. It highlighted a new drug that is available but people here cannot have it as the NHS cannot afford it.

Same applies to drugs for other diseases and illnesses.

Maybe we could afford it if we weren’t paying millions for people crossing the channel in boats.

The biggest draw for people wanting to migrate to the UK is that we don’t have identity cards here, unlike the rest of Europe. So they know that once they land here they can get lost in the system and get paid work. It would be SO easy to put that right. I don’t see identity cards as infringing on our liberty - unless we have something to hide,
There should be safe routes for asylum seekers especially from countries where the uk have been instrumental in its destabilisation.

The boats won’t stop until the benefits stop.

Eventually the hope is to return to Afghanistan...
www.sola-afghanistan.org

Sorry. That was a reply for eggplants query. Not quite sure how to use Gransnet yet.

Its a school for 40 girls, originally a school in Afghanistan, run by Afghan women teachers who escaped under the umbrella of the IOM and UK volunteers like these

kentgtd.org/kent-school-couple-teaching-afghan-girls-in-rwanda/

Plans are to transition to USA Schools.

Yes there are staff who just deal with them, advising what they can get.

Why did our Supreme Court rule that Rwanda unsafe and yet the UN flew girls from Afghanistan to Rwanda to finish their education.

Do you believe anything they say now. All the hype they said the would do...but the only thing they have done is getting rid of winter fuel..That was a good idea wasn't it?!

mulberry7

The solution is in the boats. Where are all these boats coming from? A census should be taken of all boats and owners, and the whereabouits of the craftts should be checked on regularly. Boats should be licensed no matter what their size, and severe fines imposed for non-licensing. If you make a boat you should have to give a good reason for its existence; finally all boats should be marked with a logo clearly visible from the air, to signify that they are licensed. If you sell a boat or even a rubber dinghywithout establishing the name of the buyer you would be committing an offence. I don't know where these boats leaving France for the UK come from, but it seems extremely lax not to control their ownership, in view of the multiple drownings they are responsible for.

You forgot the Royal Yachting Association Day skipper certification.
And their radio licence.
And, as some of these ribs are over 80’ they are going into shipping regulations. Whole different ball game.
Other than that I can’t see a problem with your proposal.
Have you thought of submitting your ideas to the relevant authorities.
It could be the answer to this mammoth problem.
Meanwhile, back to the real world.

Mollygo

Me neither HPQ. We get a lot of students wanting to register at the uni surgery. They have to provide proof that they are students, that they are studying at the uni in order to be registered

My French helpx student became sick and had to register with a doctors practice here. She returned to France more than 2 years ago and despite several attempts to get her taken off the list, appointments for vaccines and screening for her still drop through my letter box.
Apparently she has to take herself off the list and can't be contacted.
It makes me realise just how inaccurate the NHS statistics are.

Mcbab

The Rwanda plan was working. Migrants who arrived here in Ireland quoted it as the reason they left or skipped the U.K. to travel to Ireland. Labour moved too quickly to get rid of it without any alternative.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

springishere

Who manufactures the boats, and where in France are they stored? Find these and destroy them.

They are produced in where else ( drum roll ) China 😡
From there to Turkey where the whole train takes off.
Storage places have been found in Germany, Holland and Belgium.
A few hours drive and they’re good to go.

Trueloveways

I don’t want to say the B word but it’s gone much worse since then, I suppose it was one of the benefits of being in the EU. They need to be processed through immigration and allowed to work until safe routes are developed.

It is actually the opposite. We were so desperate for workers, especially in health and social care (and to maintain overseas student numbers) when Europeans returned home following Brexit, that the Government allowed each new migrant worker to bring in their dependents. In fairness, this is what the Brexit campaign actually said about migration - they didn't say they would reduce it but that we would have more choice about who came and from where. We have seen significant increases from Africa and the Indian sub-continent and reductions in Europeans. In 2020 there were approx 29,000 people working in the NHS who were nationals from African countries. By 2023, this figure was 59,000. Sadly, many of these countries cannot afford to loose their health professionals.
researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7783/CBP-7783.pdf

The Rwanda plan was working. Migrants who arrived here in Ireland quoted it as the reason they left or skipped the U.K. to travel to Ireland. Labour moved too quickly to get rid of it without any alternative.

HousePlantQueen

FriedGreenTomatoes2

There’s a notice up in our doctor’s surgery nanna8 it states “no ID necessary to be seen by a doctor”.

Come one come all it seems.
We offer too much. It’s definitely a pull factor in the UK.
France offers very little by comparison and they think we are too generous.

Until the powers that be get a grip we just have to put up with it.

but we don't need ID to be seen by a GP at my surgery. You only get seen if you have a booked appointment, and only get the booked appointment if you are a registered patient at the practice, so I don't understand (a) what your local practice means by the sign and (b) what point you are trying to make.

GP practices can apply to provide an Enhanced Service to refugees and asylum seekers, and/or homeless people. They are paid a separate contract rate if they opt to do this, it is not compulsory.

petra

^there are 745,000 illegal migrants in the uk^ and counting.
People who manage sewage treatment plants dispute this figure.

Probably because this is the number that came legally in one year - 2022.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Can you dispute these official figures though?

“BRITAIN has more illegal migrants than any other European nation, a major study has found.

There are up to 745,000 illegal migrants in the UK, accounting for one in 100 of the population, according to the research led by Oxford University experts. This is more than double the 300,000 in France and ahead of the upper estimate of 700,000 in Germany, which has the second largest population of illegal migrants in Europe.

The figures were disclosed as the Home Office said 973 migrants in 17 small boats crossed the English Channel on Saturday, the biggest daily number so far this year,”

Yes - absolutely can dispute these figures because they are WRONG, WRONG and WRONG again.

This is what the Oxford University website actually says:

"Since the late 1990s, net migration to the UK has been rising and records regularly broken. The high-water mark was 745,000 in 2022 (originally reported by the Office for National Statistics as 606,000)."

745,000 was net migration in 2022 - this is the number of legal migrants arriving in the UK, less the number of people leaving. It is not a 'stock' of migrants and it is certainly not illegal migration.

This the website - it is very useful for people who want accurate information on UK migration.
www.migrationwatchuk.org/

It was set up to draw attention to the scale of legal migration, which is what is really putting pressure on our public services. Legal migration reached the highest levels ever seen in the UK under the previous Government. But that Government chose to distract people by focussing on illegal migration, especially from across the Channel.