The Home Secretary has called for the prosecution of all individuals arriving in the UK on a small boat if a child has died.
Labour’s Yvette Cooper told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it was “totally appalling” that children were being “crushed to death on these overcrowded boats, and yet the boat still continues to the UK”.
Ms Cooper further insisted: “Everybody who is arriving on a boat where a child’s life has been lost, frankly, should be facing prosecution, either in the UK or in France.”
This comes as the government is already introducing a new offence of “endangering life at sea” within the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, currently making its way through Parliament.
Ms Cooper has previously said this would allow the authorities to act against people “involved in behaviour that puts others at risk of serious injury or death, such as physical aggression, intimidation, or rejecting rescue attempts”.
But on Friday, she appeared to go further by suggesting even getting on an overcrowded boat could result in prosecution.
She said: “If you’ve got a boat where we’ve seen all of those people all climb on board that boat, they are putting everybody else’s lives at risk.”
Crossings have increased in the past year, reaching 20,600 by July 2, a rise of 52% compared with the same period in 2024.
Some 15 children died trying to cross the Channel last year, prompting charity Project Play to warn that conditions were becoming “more dangerous” for young people.
Advocacy co-ordinator Kate O’Neill, based in northern France, blamed policies aimed at preventing crossings for the increasing risk.
She told the PA news agency: “Ultimately the children we’re meeting every day are not safe.
“They’re exposed to a level of violence, whether it’s they are directly victims of it or the witness.
“We’re ultimately at all times putting out fires… the underlying issue is these policies of border securitisation… that are creating more and more barriers to child safety and child protection.”
She said there was hope when the Labour Government took office a year ago that there would be some improvement, adding: “This is not at all what we’ve seen.
“They continued to make conditions more difficult and more dangerous.”
She said: “The smash-the-gangs narrative is not effective and it’s harmful because ultimately the only way to put the gangs out of business is to cut the need for them.”
Meanwhile, Ms O’Neill said French police were already intervening in crossing attempts in shallow waters despite the changes to the rules to allow this having not yet come into force.
She said: “This is not a new tactic… it’s something that has been happening for a long time in Calais and surrounding areas.
“My feeling is that this is increasing based on the number of testimonies we’re receiving from children and their families recently.
“It’s really dangerous because the children often are in the middle of the boats.”
On Friday, the Home Secretary welcomed reports that French police were intervening in French waters to prevent crossings, and said she had been “working very closely with the French interior minister” to ensure the rules were changed “as swiftly a possible”.
Ms Cooper also declined to confirm reports the UK was looking at a “one in, one out” policy that would see people who had crossed the Channel returned to Europe in exchange for asylum seekers with connections to Britain.
Asked about the policy, she would only tell Sky News that ministers were “looking at a range of different issues” and “different ways of doing returns”.
