UK to pay France extra cash to stop small boat crossings – but only if it works
UK to pay France extra cash to stop small boat crossings – but only if it works
Holly BancroftWed, April 22, 2026 at 10:43 PM UTC
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The UK will pay France extra cash to stop migrants leaving its shores to cross the Channel in small boats – but only if it works.
The move, part of a £662m deal over the next three years, is yet another attempt to slash the rising numbers of people making the perilous journey to the UK.
Around £160m of this money will be spent on new tactics, such as policing to stop “taxi boats” picking up migrants offshore, and is conditional on the success of the French operation, the Home Office said.
France will be measured on the number of boats stopped, the number of people smugglers arrested and the number of migrants stopped from boarding dinghies, among other things.
The UK will pay around £501m for more officers on the beaches of northern France and more surveillance technology, despite a previous boost in funding failing to bring the number of Channel crossings down.
The Home Office has said that there will be a 40 per cent increase in the number of boots on the ground in northern France, taking the number of law enforcement officers from 700 to nearly 1,100.
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood has pledged the deal would stop migrants making the dangerous journey to the UK, but the charity, Refugee Council, said ministers were “treating the symptom, not the cause”.
Under the previous Conservative government, then-prime minister Rishi Sunak agreed to give France almost £500m over three years to tackle small boat crossings. Despite the surge in funding and policing, crossings in the Channel have soared, with some 41,472 people arriving in the UK by small boat in 2025.
This was up from 36,816 people in 2024, and 29,437 in 2023. The peak number of crossings was in 2022, when around 46,000 made the journey to the UK.
Migrants sit atop a dinghy before attempting to sail into the English Channel on April 01, 2026 in Gravelines, France. (Getty Images)
According to the latest data from 2025, 41 per cent of asylum seekers arrived on a small boat, 11 per cent through other irregular entry routes such as lorries, and 39 per cent had previously entered the UK on a valid visa before going on to claim asylum.
Ms Mahmood, who is under pressure to bring the numbers down, hailed the new deal with France, pledging that it would “stop illegal migrants making the perilous journey and put people smugglers behind bars”.
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Under the agreement, the French will also deploy a new unit of 50 police officers specially trained in riot and crowd control tactics, to better enable them to deal with the dozens of migrants rushing to board flimsy dinghies.
An intelligence police unit, which focuses on tracking down people smugglers, will also be expanded from 18 to 30 specialists.
Sir Keir Starmer said the “historic agreement” would involve “ramping up intelligence, surveillance and boots on the ground to protect Britain’s borders”.
But Imran Hussain, director of external affairs at the Refugee Council, said: “By focusing on policing the Channel, the government is treating the symptom not the cause. Policing alone will not prevent desperate people from turning to dangerous small boats in the first place.
“Without safe routes to reach the UK, men, women and children will be forced into potentially deadly small boat crossings”.
The Independent reported last month that the number of migrants who had died attempting the crossing rose after Mr Sunak signed the UK-France deal.
Seventeen people died or went missing in six fatal incidents in the final four months of 2023 – shortly after Mr Sunak agreed a £460m pact with French president Emmanuel Macron to stop small boat migration.
The following year, 83 people were recorded dead or missing in 22 incidents – the deadliest year on record, figures compiled by Centre for Sociodigital Futures at the University of Bristol and Swiss research agency Border Forensics show. Another 29 died or went missing in 20 fatal incidents in 2025, researchers say.
Charities working in northern France reported a cultural shift within French law enforcement as police became more aggressive and were pushed to act more decisively to justify the UK funds.
Dinghies also became even more overcrowded, with more than 100 people crammed onto boats in some cases, the report from the University of Bristol and Border Forensics found. With a surge in officers, people smugglers have resorted to dangerous tactics, such as picking up people from the water and setting off from points further along the coast.
The figures, from 2019 to 2025, suggest that more people making journeys on small boats across the Channel does not lead to more deaths.
Source: “AOL Breaking”
