Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook has launched a scathing attack on the Reform Party and its immigration policies.

He said Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage were guilty of having policies to handle migrants that were “written on the back of a fag packet”.

And he told Sky News the Government had “practical, hard-headed” plans that will see many migrants sent back to France “within the next few weeks”.

Migrants returned

Pennycook was speaking on the same day Farage announced his proposal to return every migrant who arrives by small boat across the English Channel to their country of origin.

He said a Reform government would offer financial incentives to countries such as Afghanistan to accept migrants back.

It strikes me as something that’s put together on the back of a fag packet.”

But Pennycook rubbished the idea saying “it is not a serious plan”, and “it strikes me as something that’s put together on the back of a fag packet”.

“The idea that Nigel Farage and the circus that is Reform can come in and secure these agreements [with other countries], I think is for the birds”, he said.

“We will get on with the practical, hard-headed, unglamorous, step-by-step [approach] we are taking to bear down on this problem, rather than the gimmicks being put forward by Reform and other parties.”

New homes

The minister also said 100,000 homes would be fast-tracked under the Government’s ‘New Homes Accelerator’, as it ramped up efforts to build more houses.

And he reiterated Labour’s target to create 1.5 million more homes within five years.