Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of people crossing the English Channel in small boats were found to be children in each of the last three years.

The Home Office publishes statistics on small boat arrivals to the UK in the ‘Irregular Migration to the UK statistics’ report. Data on small boat arrivals by age are published in table Irr_02c of the ‘Irregular migration to the UK data tables’ with the latest data up to the end of September 2022.

Data up to the end of December 2022 will be published on 23 February 2023. Future irregular migration publication release dates can be found on the research and statistics calendar.