SO,we finally got it done. The Rwanda Bill passed its last hurdles of parliamentary ping pong late on Monday night so now immigrants arriving illegally on boats can be sent to Rwanda for processing.

This bill — soon to be Act, after Royal Assent — has had a troubled birth.

With the Labour and SNP opposition trying to block it at every turn, unelected Labour peers in the House of Lords also did their best to stop it. But in the end they all gave up.

To be clear, the Rwanda Act is not the ultimate solution to the illegal migration problem of small boats.

It is one of many measures the government has brought in to try to make this system fair and to separate those who genuinely seek sanctuary from those who game the system.

Sending illegal migrants to Rwanda for processing with no option of ever returning to the UK is designed as a deterrent.

After all, an illegal migrant paying a people smuggler $10,000 to get them to a UK beach with the offer of three-star hotel accommodation and free legal advice for as long as it takes to get UK residence looks like a bargain.

Suggest that the migrant will end up in Rwanda and the business model takes on a whole different look.

The government also supports Interpol to crack the criminal people smuggling gangs as well as French police on the beaches around Calais.

Treaties such as the Albanian returns agreement has cut Albanian migration by 90 per cent.

But the UK does play its part for those seeking help.

We are still one of the biggest donors to support refugees at their first point of sanctuary and we have stepped up to the plate with Afghan resettlement, HK BNO passport holders and Ukrainian refugees.

But it is right that we help those people first rather than spend our resources on illegal migrants.

All this migration also highlights that the world is an increasingly dangerous place.

War in the Middle East, tension in the Straights of Taiwan, Russia on the offensive all point to greater geopolitical problems.

That is why the government announced this week an increase of our defence budget to 2.5 per cent of GDP.

We are already one of the biggest spenders on defence in the world and this commitment both reinforces and strengthens our commitment to NATO.