Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 1 August 2022 (HL1923), whether they have now produced a forecast for 2023 of numbers of small boats crossing the English Channel; and if so, (1) how such a forecast was produced, and (2) when that forecasting started.

The Home Office considers a range of potential arrival volumes for the coming year as part of its planning for these dangerous, illegal and unnecessary crossings. However, these are planning scenarios, not forecasts or predictions, and there are no plans to publish them. In 2022, over 45,000 people arrived in the UK as a result of these crossings.