France stopping even FEWER small boats since Keir Starmer's return deal

This is in comparison to the 38 per cent of illegal crossings that were intercepted in the equivalent 13-week period before the deal came into play.

According to Home Office data, the French prevented 8,521 crossings in the 13 weeks before the deal, but this fell to 4,635 in the 13 weeks afterwards.

Jim McConalogue, chief executive of the Civitas think tank, who identified the trend, said: "Given the purpose of the deal and its deterrent effect, we should ask questions as to why, in the presence of a small decrease in arrivals following the deal, we are looking at an over 45 per cent drop in migrants being stopped."

One of the pledges in the deal was that specialist forces would intercept boats that were in the Channel within 300 metres of the shore.

This has since been reversed over concerns of migrants' safety, fearing their lives could be at risk on the boats.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has expressed his frustration with the new figures, saying: "Preventing only a quarter of embarkation attempts is pathetic. No wonder migrants are using videos of French police standing around to illustrate how easy it is to cross.

"I saw this myself when I went to the Calais area in the summer with French police ushering illegal immigrants onto a public bus towards embarkation points.

"We have seen 2,000 illegal immigrants cross in a four-day period recently. The Government has lost control of our borders."

Over 2,050 illegal migrants crossed the Channel between Thursday and Sunday last week.

Meanwhile, a Home Office spokesman said: "We are furious at the level of illegal migrants entering the country on small boats.

"Joint operations with the French have intercepted over 20,000 illegal migrants entering the country over the last year.

"However, we must go further with the French to prevent boats entering our waters and scale up the removal of illegal migrants. The Government will do whatever it takes to secure our borders."

The "one in, one out" scheme allows British officials to detain some of those who cross the Channel and send them back to France.

In return for every person removed, the UK will take an asylum seeker living in France if they can show they have family connections in Britain.

When he announced the deal in July, Mr Starmer said migrants who arrived over the Channel would be "detained and returned to France in short order".

"There is no silver bullet here, but with a united effort, new tactics and a new level of intent, we can finally turn the tables," he said at the time.

However, since the implementation of the deal in the second week of August, two of the migrants who had been deported have already returned to the country via a small boat. Both of which have since been removed again.

Just under 100 migrants have been deported so far as part of the deal over the last two months.

Meanwhile, over 39,000 migrants have crossed the Channel so far this year. This figure is up 18 per cent from the same point last year.