THE UK needs "more than dockyard traffic wardens" if it is to get to grips with the problems of "porous borders", according to a Kent MP.

Challenging the Home Secretary after a ministerial statement on asylum and immigration, Roger Gale, MP for North Thanet, said: "Those of us representing Kent coastal constituencies regard ourselves as in the front line of the effect of porous borders.

"If the Home Secretary is going to convince not just the public but the professionals that he is going to create something rather more substantial that a team of dockyard traffic wardens then he is going to have to ensure that it is properly co-ordinated."

Mr Gale questioned if the Government had considered "the possibility that the British Transport Police will co-ordinate the policing of our frontiers and if not who is going to do it".

He added: "We are not just concerned about illegal immigration, but about contraband, drugs, slave trading and people trafficking, plus the obvious threat from terrorism.

"We don’t just want a few new uniforms issued to a few people: this is a job that must be done immediately and it must be done properly by fully trained frontier police officers with the right and adequate resources."