Fall in small boats down to law enforcement, agency says

**Fall in small boats down to law enforcement, agency says**

The number of small boat crossings is down more than 40% this year

Law enforcement action has been a "key factor" in cutting the number of small boat Channel crossings, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Government figures show that the number of people arriving in the UK in the first half of 2026 was 41% lower than in the same period a year earlier.

The NCA said the decline came after a "significant increase in arrests and seizures", but added that "fluctuating demand" for crossings and French authorities stopping boat launches had also contributed.

Mihnea Cuibus, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford University's Migration Observatory, said it was "impossible" to separate the effects of government policy from other influences on small boat arrivals.

He said recent policy changes may have prompted smugglers and migrants to change their behaviour, but fewer unauthorised arrivals into the EU and changes in major origin countries - including improved security in Syria - may also be partly responsible for the fall.

"It is hard to know how much restrictive measures contributed to reducing [arrivals] in 2026," he continued.

He added that restrictions on refugee family reunion and a lower asylum grant rate may also have played a part.

The Conservatives have previously argued that weather was a major reason for the changing numbers of crossings from France and Belgium.

NCA director general of operations Rob Jones said the agency was "devoting more resources to tackling organised immigration crime than ever before".

"That is bringing results.

"However, we are not complacent, and the job is by no means done," he continued.

"We must continue to keep up the pressure on these criminal gangs, as they continue to put lives at risk in the Channel."

The NCA said organised crime groups had been hit by "supply constraints" affecting essential equipment used in crossings.

It said more than 1,600 boats or engines have been seized by the authorities since late 2023.

According to an NCA spokesperson, the wholesale cost of these items has risen as a result.

The agency said a "number of key suppliers" had also been targeted, including the imprisonment of Adem Savas, who reportedly supplied equipment used in about half of all crossings in 2023.

But the NCA also acknowledged that the war in the Middle East had made it harder for criminals to obtain dinghies.

It said it could not release its small boats report in full because it contained sensitive intelligence.

Between 1 January and 7 September 2026, 17,281 people crossed the English Channel by small boat from France. That was 43% lower than in the same period the previous year.

Since 2020, these crossings have become the most common way people are detected entering the UK illegally.

Almost everyone who arrives by small boat claims asylum. Under international law, that means they are permitted to remain in the country while their asylum claim is assessed.

Small boat arrivals accounted for 40% of asylum applications between July 2025 and June 2026.

Boats arriving in the UK from 8 September 2025 to 7 September 2026 carried an average of 68 people. That figure has more than doubled since 2021.

Experts say overcrowding makes the crossings more dangerous.

At least 84 people died while trying to cross the Channel in 2024, according to the United Nations (UN).

In terms of scale, small boat arrivals were about 5% of total immigration into the UK from January 2025 to December 2025.

The government has promised to “smash the gangs” behind the crossings to bring the numbers down.

People from Eritrea made up 18% of all arrivals from July 2025 to June 2026.

In the latest figures for January 2025 to December 2025, at least 2,335 people who arrived by small boat were identified by the Home Office as potential victims of human trafficking or other forms of modern slavery.

A further 4,712 people were found entering the UK without permission by other means, including hiding in vehicles, travelling on ferries or passing through airports from July 2025 to June 2026. That was 17% lower than in the same period the previous year.

There are also people who enter legally, such as on a work or study visa, and then remain after their permission expires.

The total number of people living illegally in the UK after arriving legally is unknown.

The NCA also said action against people smugglers had helped reduce small boat crossings.

In the year to April 2026, arrests linked to organised immigration crime involving the NCA rose by more than 55%, it said.

The agency added that it had also worked with social media networks to remove more than 40,000 posts, pages or accounts linked to immigration crime.

"We are making it more difficult and costlier for people smuggling networks to source equipment, more difficult to get it to the beaches and in the water, more difficult to communicate with potential customers, and more likely smugglers will be confronted by law enforcement," said Jones.

"Our message to the gangs is clear – moving people in small boats and supplying equipment gets riskier for you by the day," he continued.

However, the Migration Observatory said "most notably" there had been a sharp fall in detected unauthorised border crossings into the EU.

It said arrivals dropped 26% in 2025, before falling another 37% in the first half of 2026.

"This is likely to lead, with a lag, to fewer unauthorised crossings to the UK, since most small boat migrants travel through the EU before reaching beaches in northern France," it added.

Adem Savas is thought to have supplied equipment used in about half of all small boat crossings in 2023

In August, the Home Office credited police in France with intercepting 185 potential crossings involving 4,300 migrants this summer over four separate weeks, as well as stopping 12 boats at sea using new techniques.

Many migrants come from some of the poorest parts of the world and almost all ask to claim asylum once they are picked up by the UK authorities.

Home Office figures show that 41,472 migrants crossed the Channel in small boats in 2025.

In 2025, there were 24 confirmed deaths linked to Channel crossings, down from 73 the year before, according to the University of Oxford's Migration Observatory.

It adds that 162 people died in the Channel between 2018 and 2025.