Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood says first migrant returns will begin 'imminently' under French deal

Some 1,097 migrants crossed the Channel in 17 boats on Saturday, bringing the total in 2025 so far to 30,100, Home Office figures show.

This is up 37 per cent on this point last year (22,028) and 37 per cent higher than at this stage in 2023 (21,918).

The former justice secretary is expected to unveil plans to move asylum seekers from hotels into military barracks as the Government seeks to harden its immigration policy amid rising numbers of crossings.

The new Home Secretary and MP for Birmingham Ladywood Ms Mahmood said: "These small boats crossings are utterly unacceptable and the vile people smugglers behind them are wreaking havoc on our borders.

"Thanks to our deal with France, people crossing in small boats can now be detained and removed to France and I expect the first returns to take place imminently.

"Protecting the UK border is my priority as Home Secretary and I will explore all options to restore order to our immigration system."

Before the Cabinet shake-up, former home secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans to change the rules for family reunion for refugees, and suspended new applications to the existing route earlier this week.

Meanwhile, the migrants returns deal with France, which took effect in August, is yet to begin the first removals of people back to the continent.

The latest arrivals signal the scale of the challenge for the new Home Secretary, after discontent over the summer with how the Government has addressed small boat crossings and housed asylum seekers in hotels, which has led to a wave of protests and criticism from Labour’s political opponents.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he wants to speed up efforts to empty asylum hotels before the next election, but has not committed to a date.

Speaking about the return deal this morning was Defence Secretary John Healey, who told GB News there was "a lot more work to do."

He told The Camilla Tominey Show: "We've seen in this last year some important progress, 35,000 people have been deported from this country higher than before because they've got no right to be here.

"More than 300 raids on criminal networks by the National Crime Agency. And now, for the first time, illegal immigrants held, detained and ready to return to France because of what Yvette Cooper has been able to negotiate with the French government for the first time.

"So Shabana Mahmood has a lot more to do, and this will become a whole of Government effort, not just something for the Home Office."

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The shake-up comes as Labour faces pressure in the polls from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, who pledged at their party conference to "stop the boats" within two weeks of entering government.

He rowed back on the claim within 24 hours, telling broadcasters in a series of interviews that the party would instead stop the boats within two weeks of immigration legislation being passed to enable it to do so.

Reform’s head of policy Zia Yusuf defended his party’s stance on deportations on Sunday after Mr Farage suggested women could be deported back to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

He said: "Why were the Tories OK with thousands of military-age men from Afghanistan? That’s why mothers were protesting in Epping, because it was British women that were subjected to that very culture...You just laid out the Afghanistan culture that British people are being subjected to."

Campaigners criticised the move to expand the use of military sites, saying the policy had been a failure.