Yvette Cooper will use new laws to prosecute migrants who dangerously overcrowd small boats and put women and children at risk.
The Home Secretary has ordered officials to expand the ‘endangering lives at sea’ offence, currently going through Parliament, to specifically include cases where up to 100 passengers can pack on to a single dinghy.
It comes as the number of people per small boat has reached record levels this year, with insiders warning it is ‘a matter of time’ before one sinks from overcrowding.
Ms Cooper is worried about women and children being ‘crushed at sea’ and told this newspaper: ‘If you storm a boat, trampling over the bodies of tiny children, you are complicit in putting other people in danger.’
She wants to use the new powers in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to tackle migrants who overcrowd the dinghies.
But critics suggested the plan was ‘pathetic tinkering’ that will not make a difference in stemming the flow of illegal migrants to Britain. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘The only way we’re going to stop the boats is to do what America are doing. Deport every single illegal immigrant upon arrival – either to their home country or a third country like Rwanda.’
And The Mail on Sunday can reveal the second-most overcrowded boat crossed the Channel on July 18 – with 97 on board, including 22 women and 17 children. The dinghy spent around ten hours limping towards the Channel’s midpoint before eventually being rescued by a Border Force catamaran.
Yvette Cooper will use new laws to prosecute migrants who dangerously overcrowd small boats and put women and children at risk
The Home Secretary has ordered officials to expand the ‘endangering lives at sea’ offence, currently going through Parliament, to specifically include cases where up to 100 passengers can pack on to a single dinghy
The number of boats carrying 80 or more people has spiked in the past six months, helped by French officials doing nothing to stop smugglers bringing ‘taxi boats’ close to shore.
By contrast, five years ago the dinghies typically had about 15 on board, sources said, and smugglers have been driven by greed to cram more people on amid helpful calmer seas.
In the six years since the small-boat crossings began, up to the end of April 2024, only 20 boats crossed with 80 or more people on board.
There have been 50 such dinghies after that point, and more than a third of those have arrived in the past two months.
Ms Cooper’s proposals would allow the Government to prosecute anyone found to be enabling boat overcrowding, or endangering passengers’ lives by refusing help from French lifeguards (which would involve them not crossing the Channel).
A Home Office official said: ‘If the smuggling gangs carry on cramming 80, 90 or even 100 people on to these flimsy dinghies, it is simply a matter of time before the bottom falls out of one of them, and we will see a mass casualty event in the Channel.
‘We should not have to wait for that to happen before we take action, which is why we need to get this endangerment law on the statute books and start enforcing it against anyone responsible for putting the lives of women and children at risk.’
Tony Smith, former director general of the Border Force, said that anything combatting the ‘vile’ people-smuggling trade was welcome.
But he added the ‘devil would be in the detail’ of Ms Cooper’s powers, warning that pilots of small boats try to conceal themselves among other migrants as their dinghies approach the authorities.
All migrants who come to the UK on small boats breach the law of illegal arrival, but usually seek asylum immediately – which makes prosecution harder as they wait for their applications to be processed.
Only 1 per cent of all those who entered illegally since Labour came to power have been charged.
Ms Cooper is also pushing for French police to start targeting such boats at the moment when smugglers bring them to shore, and force migrants wading through water before boarding to turn back.
The Home Secretary said: ‘We won’t stand by as lives are put at risk and our border security is so badly undermined. That is why we are making it much easier to prosecute those who act in this callous and dangerous way.’
The number of boats carrying 80 or more people has spiked in the past six months, helped by French officials doing nothing to stop smugglers bringing ‘taxi boats’ close to shore
She added: ‘Vile people smugglers are increasingly cramming more and more people into these flimsy boats to inflate their profits with no regard for the lives they put at risk. Women and children are put into the centre of the boats where we have even seen people crushed to death.’
But Opposition frontbenchers claimed the plan would not be enough to tackle overcrowding.
Mr Philp said: ‘It’s pathetic. A piece of tinkering that will make absolutely no difference whatsoever. The Government promised to smash the gangs but has totally failed to do that. The gangs are using bigger boats and cramming more in just so they can make more money.
‘It is already a criminal offence to facilitate illegal immigration with a long prison sentence. They need to start enforcing that, not replicating existing legislation.’
