A record 45,756 migrants crossed the Channel to Britain last year, according to official figures.
Two boats carrying 90 people made the journey on Christmas Day — the last recorded crossing of the year — before worsening weather prevented further landings. Overall recorded crossings for the year were 60 per cent higher than for 2021.
The number recorded as crossing the Channel in small boats has increased dramatically since 299 people were detected in 2018. The totals rose to 1,843 in 2019 and 8,466 in 2020, the Home Office said. Last August was the month with the highest number of crossings, 8,631. On August 22, a record 1,295 arrived in 27 boats.
However, the number of arrivals per month began to fall towards the end of last year, possibly due to changing weather conditions. In December 1,745 people made the journey, a fraction down on the 1,770 in December 2021.
Despite pressure to stem the arrivals the government has struggled to find an effective solution. Suella Braverman, the home secretary, told the Conservative Party conference of her “dream” of seeing the plan to send migrants to Rwanda succeed. The policy, which the High Court has ruled is lawful, has been stalled by legal action.
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Since the Rwanda deal was signed by Priti Patel, Braverman’s predecessor, in Kigali in April, 40,460 migrants have crossed the 22-mile strait.
Rishi Sunak has promised to bring in legislation this year making it “unambiguously clear that if you enter the UK illegally, you should not be able to remain here”.
Among measures to tackle the backlog of asylum claims, the prime minister vowed to stop housing asylum seekers in hotels, with the government instead seeking to use empty holiday parks and former student halls and military sites.
Braverman has confirmed that plans to house migrants on disused cruise ships are also being considered and revealed that £3.5 billion was being spent on the asylum system in this financial year. Most of that, £2.3 billion, went on hotels, she told MPs.
Last week Theresa May, the former prime minister, warned that efforts to reform modern slavery laws risked creating other loopholes that could be exploited by traffickers after Braverman said people were “gaming the system” to stay in the UK when they would otherwise have been deported.
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Ministers are also looking to curb the number of people coming into the country legally with plans that could reportedly make it harder for foreign students to bring spouses to the UK and raise the salaries people would need to be paid to obtain an entry visa.
A government spokesman said: “The global migration crisis is causing an unprecedented strain on our asylum system.”
“Nobody should put their lives at risk by taking dangerous and illegal journeys. We will go further to tackle the gangs driving this, using every tool at our disposal to deter illegal migration and disrupt the business model of people smugglers.”
