Another day, another spot of myth-busting.

I’m often told that this Government is ‘dragging its heels’ on tackling illegal immigration.

In reality, Labour has deported more than 16,000 illegal immigrants since being elected in July.

We organised the three biggest returns flights of migrants in UK history - with 629 people removed on these flights alone. Since July 5, we have deployed more than 25 bespoke returns flights, returning individuals to a range of countries including Albania, Poland, Romania and Vietnam, plus the first ever charter to Timor-Leste, and the biggest ever returns flight to Nigeria and Ghana.

Government has achieved this level of removals within six months - by restarting asylum processing and redeploying 1,000 staff to help clear the backlog of applications which had stacked up under the Conservatives - they were too busy spending £700-million on the Rwanda programme, which failed to deport a single person. They also spent £22-million on the Bibby Stockholm floating barge - which became a home for legionella, with inhuman conditions said to be worse than a prison, as well as fire concerns. And they also paid for thousands of migrants to stay in hotels.

Since the Labour government came to office, enforced returns are up 24 per cent compared to the same 12 months prior and Britain’s streets have been made safer with the removal of 2,580 foreign criminals – a 23 per cent increase on last year.

I am not pretending for a second that we don’t still have an awful lot of work to do to repair the appalling, neglectful legacy of the previous government on illegal migration.

But unlike them, we’re tackling the roots of this problem. This includes launching world-first sanctions regime designed to prevent, combat, deter and disrupt irregular migration – holding accountable those making money by putting lives at risk in the channel.

This will enable us to target individuals and entities enabling dangerous journeys and disrupt the gangs’ finances to make it harder for them to operate.

The aim is to starve them of illicit finance fuelling their operations. We brought forward legislation for this regime, which will target irregular migration, and organised immigration crime, to secure UK borders in a decade of national renewal.

Longer term, we need to have a mature conversation about how skilled immigrants can help us in the areas most needed, but only after concerted efforts to invest in home-grown skills, particularly in the next generation of workers who can begin their careers in our most promising industries in Cornwall, like critical minerals, clean energy, home retrofitting and construction.

Right now, having that mature conversation’s very challenging – amid the juvenile rantings of so-called ‘revolutionary’ thinkers involved with our opposition, who seem hell-bent on fuelling hatred and division. It’s time they grew up.

Noah Law

Labour MP for St Austell and Newquay