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Labour’s shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, responded to Suella Braverman’s statement.
She started by saying the deaths of four people in the Channel was “truly tragic” and “deeply distressing”.
Ms Cooper also offers “all of our thoughts and prayers” to those who lost their lives, as well as their families and friends.
She praises those who worked on the rescue overnight, and says such an event was warned of and feared by many people.
Ms Cooper says it was only a “matter of time” before more lives were lost after 27 died in the Channel in November last year.
Criminal gangs are responsible for the lives lost, Ms Cooper says, and then asks the home secretary a series of questions.
She wants clarifications on how much additional funding will be provided to the NCA, how will the new small boats’ operational command run, and whether the boat which got into trouble last night was picked up by surveillance.
Ms Braverman says the new command will be within the Home Office, and will include “new air and maritime capabilities, including drones, land-based radar, fixed-wing aircraft and more and we will be more than doubling our current permanent staffing levels with 100 new staff at HQ and over 600 new operational staff based at Dover.”
She also hails improved intelligence cooperation with the French, saying more than 23,000 journeys were prevented last year, and 31,000 so far this year.
She says the UK has accepted people from countries including Ethiopia, Iraq, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen through UN schemes.
Ms Braverman goes on to say the UK does not have unlimited capacity and cannot take everyone who wants to live here – before saying that Labour believes otherwise.
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