Calais Jungle camp clearout will cost Britons £36million – adding to the massive security bill we are footing in France
Over the next three years the total cost to the British taxpayer will be £118million
CLEARING out the Jungle camp in Calais will cost British taxpayers £36MILLION.
And this is on top of the £80million to pay for private security guards to patrol ports in northern France for three years.
Yesterday more than 2,000 migrants were bussed out of the camp and sent to accommodation centres across France.
But there are fears not everyone will leave so willingly.
The Government is also funding a wall in Calais to stop people sneaking across the Channel – at a cost of £2million.
This puts the total cost to the British taxpayer of £118million over the next three years.
In a statement to the House of Commons yesterday the Home Secretary Amber Rudd said: “The UK Government will be contributing up to £36m to maintain the security of these controls, to support the camp clearance and to ensure in the long term that the camp is kept closed.
“This funding will also be used to help keep children safe in France.
“This contribution is not made unconditionally, and we will continue to work with the French Government to ensure that the clearance operation is full and lasting.”
Responding to criticism that officials had not gone into the camp quickly enough she said staff were only given access to the Jungle to begin interviewing children last week.
And she said they were working in very difficult circumstances.
As the buses began taking migrants to temporary centres across France, some in the camp vowed they would build a new Jungle.
reports some migrants said they would “rather die” than give up on their dreams of reaching the UK.
Imran Ali, 20, from Afghanistan, said: “We must get to the UK. If I die it’s no problem. I would rather die than stay here. In France they don’t like refugees. They treat refugees like dogs.”
Another man fleeing Afghanistan admitted several of his friends in their 20s had tried to register as children in a bid to reach Britain.
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Christian Salome, president of the French charity Auberge des Migrants, said he expected 2,000 people in the Jungle to refuse to leave.
He told French newspaper La Voix du Nord: “They still want to get to England.
“If the evacuations have been calm on Monday, you have to be far more careful in the coming days when the only ones left are the ones who don’t want to leave, and are adamant that they are going to keep trying to get to England.”
And yesterday the operation to clear the camp came to a grinding halt after authorities “ran out of buses” to carry migrants away.
The news came after the camp saw sporadic fighting, with fires being lit and tear gas being used to quell the disturbances.
As a spotter helicopter flew overhead yesterday morning, scores of CRS riot squad vans surrounded the perimeter of the camp, where between 6,000 and 10,000 migrants have been living.
The Home Office said it had temporarily suspended transferring child refugees from the camp to Britain at the request of the French.
Labour MP Luciana Berger said social workers inside the camp had said it was “bureaucratic shambles”.
According to her the wrong names and addresses were given and the wrong forms submitted.
And Stella Creasy said she had details of 49 children under the age of 13 who today could not register at the warehouse to be processed before the Jungle camp is closed.
The Labour MP wanted assurances the children would not be placed in a detention centre when they arrive here.
Addressing the House the Home Secretary said there were 36 British officials working at the Jungle and their priority was to find the youngest and most vulnerable children.
She said they have transferred more than 200 children to the UK – including approximately 60 girls.
And she said Britain will take 200 more unaccompanied child migrants.
Children who are accepted as unaccompanied refugees will not be allowed to “sponsor” their parents to come and join them in the UK.
Tories have called for an increase in border security to prevent migrants from trying to make it across the Channel.
Dover MP Charlie Elphicke said: “As the Jungle is cleared, the people there will be more desperate than ever to reach our shores.
“So Britain and France need to make border security at Dover and Calais as tight as possible.”
