Fraction of small boat migrants charged under Priti Patel’s law to criminalise Channel crossings

Exclusive: Home Office figures show 60 prosecutions for illegally arriving in British waters while almost 30,000 made journey

A fraction of the people arriving in the UK on small boats have been prosecuted under laws Priti Patel claimed would deter Channel crossings.

Crossing the English Channel in a dinghy became illegal on 28 June, in a move the UN Refugee Agency said “criminalises seeking asylum”, but only 60 people – 0.2 per cent or one in 500 – arriving have been charged over their journey.

The former home secretary told parliament the wide-ranging Nationality and Borders Act was necessary to “break the business model of the smuggling gangs” but a record of almost 30,000 people have crossed the Channel since the new criminal offences came into force.