Have 12,000 people been prevented from crossing the Channel in small boats?published at 10:43 British Summer Time
10:43 BST
Tamara Kovacevic
BBC Verify senior journalist
Image source, PA Media
Defending the government’s cooperation with France on small boats, government minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said on Today on BBC Radio 4: “Preventing 12,000 people from crossing is most definitely something that is in the right direction.”
The figure is an estimate by the French authorities, published weekly by the Home office since May 2024, external. This year, from 5 January to 29 June, a total of 12,321 people were prevented, according to those estimates, which include:
- Individuals prevented from leaving France or those who return to France
- Finds of small boat equipment
- Arrests of people linked to small boats crossings.
But how reliable are those figures and are people not just trying again another day?
Madeleine Sumption from the Migration Observatory, based at the University of Oxford, says there is evidence that migrants make multiple attempts to cross the Channel.
As a result, she says: “It is not possible to say, based on current data, how many people have been prevented from crossing.”