Is Rishi turning the tide on small boats?
Arrivals down 20% as French stop more boats Two new super-barges will help slash hotel costs
riSHi Sunak insisted his illegal immigration plan ‘is starting to work’ yesterday after a dip in small-boat arrivals across the Channel.
the Prime Minister voiced cautious optimism after the overall number of migrants slumped 20 per cent in the first five months of this year compared with the same period in 2022.
in a crucial landmark, the French authorities are intercepting more than 50 per cent of small boats in the Channel for the first time, compared with 42 per cent last year.
But new data published yesterday uncovered other developments which could stymie the government’s efforts.
Home office figures showed the number of turkish migrants reaching Britain by small boat has tripled in the wake of February’s devastating earthquake, and the numbers are expected to increase. in addition, the backlog of asylum cases remains stubbornly high.
Speaking at the port of Dover yesterday, Mr Sunak announced two new ‘super-barges’ to accommodate asylum seekers in an effort to slash the £6 million-a-day cost of migrant hotels. He stressed there remained a ‘long way to go’, but he insisted the numbers showed the government was ‘making progress on gripping’ the small-boats ‘phenomenon’ – one of his five key pledges as Prime Minister.
Just over 7,600 have crossed the Channel illegally so far this year, down from just under 10,000 in the same period last year.
the Prime Minister said: ‘that’s the main message for people to take away from today – our plan is working. We’re not complacent. there’s more work to do, but people should have confidence that when i said i was going to stop the boats, i meant it. and that’s what we’re delivering.’
He defended measures to house asylum seekers on barges, with the first one set to be moored off Portland in Dorset within a fortnight.
Up to 1,000 people will be placed on two further temporary vessels, but Mr Sunak declined to say where they will be berthed. yester
day’s Home office data showed the backlog of ‘legacy’ asylum claims has fallen by 17,000 cases since December to 74,410.
But the overall asylum backlog – including claims lodged since June last year – is still at a near record high of 137,583, down 1,200 from its peak in February.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman told MPs yesterday that the government was ‘ on track’ to meet its commitment to ‘abolishing’ the legacy backlog by the end of the year.
She added: ‘ So far, more smallboat migrants have been intercepted by France than have reached the UK’s shores.
‘French interceptions this year
are more than double what they were two years ago.’
Mr Sunak spent part of yesterday morning a mile out to sea aboard a UK Border agency cutter, seeing at first-hand the conditions some migrants face when crossing the Channel.
Duncan Capps, senior director of the small-boats operational command set up by the Prime Minister to gather intelligence on the traffickers and intercept vessels, said the sea was ‘lumpy’, with swells of up to 5ft, but Mr Sunak suffered no side-effects.
He said: ‘He was really appreciative of the people that manage this operation, appreciating how difficult it has been. i think he knows
there is no substitute for getting out there and seeing it for himself.’
the Prime Minister said his conversations on board with staff ‘really brings home how awful and tragic this situation is’, particularly for children travelling on the inflatable boats, which are often packed with up to 60 people.
Mr Sunak said: ‘Just the other week, [they were] picking up toddlers who were suffering from hypothermia in a makeshift dinghy that was not remotely seaworthy.
‘that’s why the moral thing to do, the compassionate thing to do, is to stop these criminal gangs from being able to exploit people like that.’
‘Our plan is working’