Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of their arrangements with the government of France in preventing illegal crossings of asylum seekers in small boats via the English Channel.

So far this year, the UK’s joint work with France has prevented over 20,000 of these dangerous and unnecessary crossing attempts of the Channel by migrants in small boats. The UK has been working with France over a number of years to stop these crossings, and we have provided funding to enable French Authorities to field more law enforcement officers than ever before against the criminal gangs who organise these crossings and who profit from the jeopardy into which they place others.

Around half of all crossing attempts are stopped, but we know that more is required. That is why we have set up the Border Security Command, to smash the gangs responsible for this trade. We have recently announced investment of up to £75 million into border security, which includes funding new technology to support specialist operations being run across Europe and beyond.