A CONSERVATIVE MP has called for Royal Navy boats to remove people who “illegally” seek to enter the UK from France.

In the Commons, MPs were discussing the recent court ruling that the Home Office decision to house asylum seekers in the "squalid" Napier Barracks, Folkestone, was unlawful.

Asylum seekers brought the case against the body, saying the barracks were “unsafe” and dorm use led to a Covid-19 outbreak. Nearly 200 people contracted the virus at the camp.

The judge decided: “I do not accept that the accommodation there ensured a standard of living which was adequate for the health of the claimants.

“Insofar as the defendant considered that the accommodation was adequate for their needs, that view was irrational.”

READ MORE: Priti Patel told to resign by SNP after Napier Barracks ruling

The Home Office says use of the barracks will continue and will consider what its “next steps” are, but the judgement may lead to further cases.

Speaking during a discussion on the judgement today, Conservative MP Peter Bone (Wellingborough) told the Commons: “The problem isn’t Napier Barracks, it’s the problem of people crossing the Channel illegally from France.

“Isn’t a simple solution that when these people arrive in England, we put them on a Royal Navy boat, take them back to France because France is a safe country and that is where asylum should be claimed – and if we did it, it’d stop the problem.”

Home Office minister Chris Philp said Channel crossings are “running at extremely unacceptably high levels”, adding France is a “safe country”.

Conservative Marco Longhi (Dudley North) said professors had given evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee about how buildings “could be something akin to aggressive or threatening”, adding in apparent jokey comments: “So I think the illegal immigrants at Napier may have acted perhaps in self-defence when trashing and torching the barracks.

“We should all be aware of their vulnerabilities and sensibilities. So will the minister agree to perhaps send a delegation from the equalities committee to assess this building aggression – particularly (Conservative MP Lee Anderson), whose sensibilities make him ideally suited to the job.”

The National:

Tory MPs also pressed for asylum seeker applications to be processed overseas and compared conditions at Napier Barracks favourably to those encountered by relatives in the period after the Second World War.

Scott Benton said his Blackpool South constituents were “appalled” by the High Court judgment, adding: “Many of them have been questioning why accommodation previously fit for our brave troops is somehow inadequate for those supposedly fleeing persecution around the globe. Some have asked if the accommodation is so bad, why so many people want to remain in the UK at all.”

He touched on planned reforms, adding: “We now need to look at processing asylum seekers outside of the UK.”

Philp replied: “Yes, all options are being considered.”

READ MORE: Napier barracks: High Court says Home Office's migrant housing decision unlawful

Tory Lee Anderson (Ashfield) said: “After five years living in a back of a lorry fighting for king and country during the Second World War, my grandad Charlie returned to these shores to live in poor housing with no heating, no hot water and he made do with an outside toilet and no access to free yoga lessons.

“He then went to work for 40 years down the pit and not once did he ever complain about his life. So does the minister agree with me that if illegal immigrants entering this country do not like the housing – which has much better facilities than my grandad’s day – then one solution would be to return to France, taking the lefty lawyers and opposition with them?”