More than 100 migrants in one vessel thought to have bumped crossings to 27,799

A vessel carrying more than 100 migrants is thought to have helped bring the number of small boat arrivals to 27,799 this year.

Home Office figures show 325 migrants crossed the English Channel by small boat on Wednesday, in the same week that the number of arrivals since Labour won the election hit 50,000.

The PA news agency understands that 106 people attempted the crossing between France and the Kent coast on a single boat.

A total of 51,041 migrants have been detected crossing the Channel since Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer entered No 10 on July 5 last year.

A former home secretary has said that the figure “demonstrates the way over the last six or seven years that the criminal gangs have got an absolute foothold in the tragic trafficking of people across the Channel”.

Baroness Jacqui Smith of Malvern, who is now an education and women and equalities minister, told BBC Breakfast on Monday: “It is an unacceptable number of people.”

Speaking on the Isle of Wight this week, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said: “My team are now looking at what we can do in terms of detention centres, but stopping people from coming here in the first place – if they think they’re going to be sent to Rwanda and not get here, get a free hotel, get benefits, then they won’t come here.”

Asked if her party could reduce the five-figure numbers to zero if it was in power, Mrs Badenoch said she thought “it wouldn’t happen straight away, but it would happen quickly”.